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Tue, 08 Aug 2006
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Wo Hoo!!!! Last night at cubs, Sian was awarded her Grey Wolf. She has spent the last couple of months finishing her Gold Boomerang, and making sure that she had completed the other requirements, and on Saturday, she finished her hike, so she made it. Peta also finished everything for her award, and Sian and Peta wanted them to be awarded simultaneously. So it is official, Sian and Peta are the second Grey Wolf holders at Lake Tugg Sea Scouts. I am soooo proud of all of the girls, well done Next, they will be invited to a special presentation from the ACT chief comissioner.
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On Saturday, Sian took the cubs from her pack on a grey wolf hike up Mt Tuggeranong. It was a great walk, and the hill was surprisingly steep in places, but the cubs had a great time. Here are some photos.
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Wo Hoo. Megs now has a new bike - a blue 2006 Kona. It is a nice single track mountain bike, with disk brakes. Possibly, even better than mine. - Though she does not yet have a touring arse shaped seat!! Megs is very excited, as this bike has gears (Which is a first for her). I am very proud of her achievements. We picked the bike up on Tuesday, and on Saturday, she rode with Sian and myself to Tuggers (about 10.2km return). Today, after church (Where I played flute again- cool), we both rode from home back to church for a cell group leaders meeting. (About 15km return.) We are now aware of our legs and various other portions of our anatomy. But it is fun.
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Well, today, we are packing for Suzy's wedding. It will be a great celebration. Being a male of the species, I operate under the simple color rule as mentioned above. "Blue and Green must never be seen". Well, you can imaging my concern when Catie pulled out a green shirt, and a blue tie. Well, the only way of solving the problem is to go to the Internet. There was a helpful page on somebodys blog, but Cate dismissed that as being an unreliable source. Well, we all know that Wikipedia is the one true source for all things on the Internet, so I looked there. Hmmm There was no mention... Hmmm... I can fix that I thought, and within about 60 seconds, Wikipedia was improved to support my argument. Wo Hoo. Here is the proof. Wow, my first Wikipedia article.
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After tons of effort, and making a compass trail over the sleepover weekend, tonight Sian was awarded her Gold Boomerang at Cubs. The next step is for her to complete her Grey Wolf. Well done Sian. I am very proud of you..
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Cate was a member of the Trinity Christian School debating team today when they participated in an ACT wide debate on various aspects of sport and their place in society. The event was run by the Legislative Assembly PR people, as a mechanism to introduce students to the techniques of parliamentary debating, so it was not a traditional cut and thrust debating event. I was soooooo proud of her when she spoke. I thought the entire Trinity team spoke very well. Surprisingly (for me), I was impressed with the Speaker of the Assembly (Wayne Berry), as he spent the entire day with the kids chairing their debates. In fact, when he spoke, he provided usefull insight into the subjects that they debated. Wo Hoo! Here are some pics - Sorry, I didn't take my trusty SLR digital, I had to resort to the phone...
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Years ago, I worked for the Patent office, well actually it wasn't called that, it was called the Australian Industrial Property Organisation (AIPO). But, because nobody could figure out what Industrial Property was (and, no it wasn't real estate for factories.) they decided to change their name to IP Australia. That is clearer, isn't it. But I digress, I was about to talk about digital Cameras.
Anyway, at the Patent Office, I was heavily involved in a document imaging project that used a massive 450Gb disk array to provide copies of abstracts to patent examiners for their day to day examination functions. This disk array was in a 19" rack cabinet and had a StorageTec tape silo attached to it to ensure that the data was backed up, which it was. In fact, there was a team present to ensure that it operated correctly. We stored data as Tiff files to ensure readability later, and all was good in the land of document imaging. Now, we move to the present day . I purchased a Cannon EOS 350 digital camera, and it is amazing. As a suitable replacement to my aging, but still superb Canon AE-1, it is brilliant. For the first time in years, I can take photos with no obvious consequences, just delete the ones you don't want, and all is right with the world. No more paying $30 - $45 to get a roll of film developed, and the pictures are so portable. I can email them, crop then for the web site, email then to the newsletter editor for the local scout group, etc, etc, etc. But some quick math, and a little thought, suggests that there may be a problem looming. Under my bed is an old suitcase that contains all of the photos (and negatives) I have taken in the 20 or so years I have owned a camera. That is relatively secure, and is not subject to loss through a disk failure. So far, I have over 8 Gb of data amassed in the 6 months I have owned the camera. What is about to happen to my storage world? Am I able to ensure that there are no circumstances where the 16Gb / year I am probably going to use gets dropped onto the digital floor? I am confident that the mirroring strategy I have used will help, but I am also sure that Mr and Mrs Joe Average don't run mirrored servers, and have a backup strategy in place. And that's just the tip of the iceberg. What happens when the imaging or data storage standard changes. As an avid CP/M enthusiast from years ago, I have all sorts of storage devices, ranging from 8" floppy disk through to the Amstrad 3" floppy, through to a stringy floppy. Not to mention all of the data I have amassed on cassette tape. (Yes, I know that the data on those mediums is being compromised with age, I am working on digitising everything, but that adds to the digital problem). With storage formats and mediums changing over time, much of the worlds historic data being created today is probably under threat. Returning to Mr and Mrs Joe Average, I am pretty sure that they don't change their storage formats to ensure that their data is secure. At least the media that is my old photos is fairly secure, at least until I die. How shall I protect the new material? Well, I have recently discovered the art of scrap booking. I think that may be a significant part of the answer. But, don't let that plan detract from the long term strategy of purchasing more and more disk storage. Remember the one who dies with the most toys wins ;-) |
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This weekend in Australia, we celebrate the birthday of the Queen of England. In actual reality, we have no clue about when she was born (look it up on Wikipedia...) but don't let that stop you from having a holiday. We went on a pilgrimage to Megan's Mum's House in Numurkah. The drive down was uneventful, staying overnight in Holbrook, and getting there before lunch on Saturday. Double demerits apply during this weekend, so we have a real incentive to not get booked. And the boys in blue were out in force - good on them. Maggie arranged for Megs and me to stay in a very nice Bed And Breakfast on the new highway (As it turned out, the B&B had just been sold, so we were the last customers). In all it was a great weekend, just spending time with family. I have attached a large swathe of photos that Cate and I have taken, showing typical sutff we saw on our trip. Megs really enjoyed the oportunity to catch up on her reporting for school. We also got to speak to Suzy, and her wedding is on 22 July at the registry!!! Wo Hoo!!!
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Cool, Sian just showed me a wonderfull helicopter that she has built using Magmax magnetic pieces. I think that it is the first complex model that she has built since she got her first set in France for Christmas. She just tried to tell me that it was the 'only' thing in the book. I'm sure that we can find other designs.
Wo Ho!
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Sian performed in a duet, in a production at the Canberra School Of Music. |
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Well Done! Yesterday, Sian performed in a production called 'Sacred Journeys' at the ANU School of Music. The work was arranged by Lynette Bone and Judith Clingan, and Sian was one of two artists who sang a wonderful duet. The show was really impressive, with a wide variety of pieces, including dance to poetry. All pieces had a spiritual focus, and were very interesting. There was a great write up in 'Panorama' magazine on Saturday, where the work was described as 'Glimpses of the infinite through poetry, Dance and Music.' All at the wonderful age of nine. I am really proud of her! I didn't get any pictures of her performing, as that is not the right thing to do, but I got a great one of her waiting for the performance to start.
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I was referred to a story by Mikal that puts into words all that we have been seeing here on the news... That the opposition party here (Labor) does not want a nuclear power plant. http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200605/s1646199.htm> (See story Here). The bit that Mikal neglected to bring to the attention of the world in his post was that Our Labor party actually isn't a Labor party in the true sense of the word. They are closer to being conservative, and are probably breaking some Trade Practices law by operating under the Labor party sign. All of those good votes from those sheep who have ALLWAYS voted Labor. Come to think of it, the current ALP here is operating under the same ethos, they are not the true ALP I know of the 1970's who would shut any public health fund without even thinking. They are, of course, happy to sell of any public infrastructure they can, as they believe that a buck in the hand is better than a hydroelectric scheme any day!!! In any case, it is a moot point, because the opposition is so far in opposition, that they have started launching debates in the House of Reps in inappropriate places - such as trying to replace all of the words after 'that' in the phrase "we would like to vote that the bill be read a second time....". OMG! Anything to get airtime in the house. They certainly won't win any votes, because they dont have the numbers. My point.... Well, I'm getting to that... Why do the opposition even bother talking, when it matters not? While they continue to meander down the path of enlightenment they are currently going down, all of the votes directed to them by the sheep who have always voted that way, are being negated by the votes being given to the ALP by the similar sheep. Until they do something that causes the voters who consider each parties issues on their merit to vote for them, then all is lost. All is lost... All is lost! On the whole nuclear front, it is very interesting to note the overall cost of developing a Solar Cell to the planet, is considerably higher than the amount of energy it will ever return. In spite of focused research over 30 years, this hasn't changed. It is about time we looked at alternative technologies. Just don't make it it my back yard!!! How about we start turning off the lights in the kids rooms when they aren't there, and turning off the PC's when they aren't being used. Gosh... |
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Well, I finally gave simplog the flick. PHP is simply not serious enough to use for a web site. I am now using Blosxom, which is a 'do it all yourself' environment. At least there are lots of examples from others, so it isn't hard. It is also statically generated, so the kiddies can finally go and get stuffed. If you agregare from me, you may like to point to index.php20 instead of rss2.php. love Doug |
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After what seems like forever, the mirror has been finished. As with similar projects, a bit of wood rot ended up extending quite a way. Not to worry, it floats again. We took it out to LBG on Saturday, and drifted around for a while. It didn't leak. Last night, I finished installing the various bits and pieces, such as kick straps and a new ratchet block, so the last thing we need to do is to write her name on. Catie has asked that we call her Mariah. Here is a before and after photo.
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A year or so, I was given a mirror dinghy for free. For those who don't know, the Mirror is a single class wooden sailing dingy. About 11 feet long, and a dream to sail (even for kids)
My friend Peter was the last to sail it with me (just after I brought it home), and I vividly remember him bailing out the water that was coming in through the split bottom seam, while we were sailing back to shore.... Well, the boat only had a little wood rot, so I started the process or repairing it. I have so far replaced - 2 pannels, both gunwhales, and all of the fibreglass tape. and last night, I applied the last coat of paint to the outside of the hull. Next task, now that the front deck is back on, is to replace the fiberglass tape on the top of the deck, cut 2 pieces of ply for the curved part of the front (there is probably a sailling term for that...), and paint the inside. Should be on the water in a week or so. Here are some pictures during the restoration:
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Projects - Some of my projects
DRJ-Consulting - A site focused on saving energy. Dougs Word Clocks - I make my own clock that tells the time using words. we Just Dont Talk About That - A site for sharing funny family stories. Megan's weblog Email me at doug@stillhq.com |
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