I also did some updating of the Friends of Huong Phuong Orphanage site. A significant amount of money has already been raised and many milestones have already been reached – enough money to buy the outdoor and indoor play equipment has been raised and almost half of the women listed are now being supported through the scholarship program. The association has decided to keep the momentum up and is now considering things like developing a medical centre. Things have turned out remarkably well so far and I’m excited to see what comes next.

About this time every year groups tend to hold their Annual General Meetings. At Computing Assistance Support & Education we’re no exception, so like every year, here’s the invitation:

Engaging in Democracy with Web 2.0 Initiatives

Guest Speaker – Pia Waugh
3.00pm Wednesday 26 October, 2011 – Pia Waugh started work as an Adviser to Senator Kate Lundy in April 2009. Prior to this she was a consultant at Waugh Partners in Sydney, Australia. She has also worked as a Research Coordinator for the Australian Service for Knowledge on Open Source Software (ASK-OSS), the Open Source strategist for a large systems integrator and still works to develop the Australian FOSS industry and improve Government policies towards Free and Open Source Software.

Weston Creek Community Hub
Main Meeting Room (across from ACTCOSS)
6 Gritten Street
Weston Creek ACT, 2611

Good ol Pia. She’s worth listening to and always steps up to present when we need someone interesting.

Work has given me a paid day off as volunteer leave in order to prepare and participate which I thought was good of them. At first they weren’t too sure about it as it appears that nobody in living memory has applied for it. But after a few emails things were sorted out, so off I go! It should be an interesting afternoon so feel free to come along.

Today I don’t have to worry about any of that on account of it being a public holiday here in the ACT. Solon, Smug and myself organised an early morning tee-off for 18 holes at Magpies gold course today. It would appear that practice really does help. Some youtube training and some carefully considered shots meant that this time around I didn’t suck quite as bad. I wouldn’t call golf my favourite sport but I’ll give it a bit more time, at least until I have the basic skills. Always worth sticking with something – I played through a season of Euro Handball and was probably worse at that.

I’ve also used the time off this weekend to continue to plan for Dad’s 59th. I cooked last year and it came together really quite well. This year I’ve put a bit more thought into what the menu will be and at this stage we’re looking at veg&chicken rosemary skewers with sauces for entree, stuffed chicken rolls with white wine sauce and couscous for mains and a cheesecake for dessert. I did a trial run of the chicken stuffing last night, cooled rice with cheese, sage, garlic in mustard oil, salt and pepper. It came together well. I’ll have to make another attempt sooner rather than later, but I think the idea is a solid one and the tastebuds concur. I wanted to take some photos of the process but I also wanted not to get raw chicken all over my phone. Maybe next time I’ll co-opt some help!

Visitors here and friends know that I’ve spent a some time attempting to support local community here in Australia. Focusing on Canberra was driven by the idea of ‘get your own house in order first’. With homeless and poor, those in need, in significant numbers in my home city the direction of my civic duty is clear enough. Spending the time that I have in the community service sector has taught me a few things about spotting projects that have hope and those that, while well intentioned, are likely not to make it. Some people have a conscious or sub-conscious drive, focus, that can be clear to see. It’s less about commitment and more simply about being configured in a certain way. Sometimes, rarely it seems, a particular configuration of idiosyncrasies of an individual  match with a collective need and social ability is created. Financial, political and social structures, so intertwined, can be massaged at the same time and in a certain way, given the context, to produce a progressive outcome. In this case the status quo is being challenged by a small group of dedicated people in Australia. The view is to improve the living conditions for a group of orphans living with cerebral palsy, deafness, blindness and psychiatric problems in Vietnam. At the same time they will provide scholarships for education to the women that provide the care to the orphans. A remote association driven by immediate and local needs isn’t a new way of operating and in the past impressive outcomes have been the result. The ideas from this group seem clear enough to me, the level of detail and research that has gone into forming the project is sensible and at many levels impressive. Most importantly the goals are achievable!

That’s why I am proud to announce the launch of Friends of Huong Phuong Orphanage Inc’s website: http://hporphanage.asn.au.

What follows is one of the saddest video I’ve ever seen.

But at the same time, through the horror, comes inspiration. There’s no actual physical violence pictured in this video and I suppose that’s part of the point. How my friends would behave in a situation like this I guess I could never say. But I do hope (if you can use that word here) that it would be similar to the following:

Solar Fields - Movements

Meanwhile Jon Hopkins’ album also from 2009 is making an impression here at BuzzMoo HQ. The variety of styles contained in his album Insides is impressively broad. It sits in form something like The Flashbulb’s Soundtrack To A Vacant Life. The first track of Insides ‘The Wider Sun’ will take you far away. You can go as far as space, even, with Light Through the Veins. Brilliant stuff.

In other news Elroy plows ahead. There’s nothing stopping him and his weirdo movie buff friends – and I mean that! There’s absolutely nothing stopping that guy uploading stuff to the Internet. He’s been doing it for ages now. This week among other things the Remote Viewing crew cover Pirates of The Caribbean 4: On Stranger Tides. I saw it on Tuesday in 3D because the stupid cinema was making people pay more to see it in 2D. Socialised with work friends, actually. We weren’t sure it was a good idea but no harm came of it, in the end. The movie is supposed to be based on a book that is very entertaining and is the inspiration for some of the things you love about Monkey Island and the first three Pirates films. On Stranger Tides, written by Tim Powers and published in 1987, is pulp fiction that gives you pirate action mixed with voodoo mystery. Its action is pictured just before Hollywood got the technology to show it on the big screen. Pirates 4 is tenuously connected in the main plot line but you’ll be disappointed if you expect the movie to pick up and use the ideas that made the book entertaining. Darn!

Despite moving towards “getting out of IT” I have of course still had IT related bits and pieces going on. We’ve launched the ACT Chronic Fatigue Society’s new Joomla powered site which turned out to be an easy gig, completed entirely without the input of a designer. They’ve taken to the new tech very well and have started adding content already. Peter Kabaila has been in central Vietnam helping extend an orphanage for poor disabled kids and he’s taken some photos of the work. Apparently they could use help with their limited IT means, too.. He’s also published an amazing new book on Aboriginal life here in this region called ‘Survival Legacies‘. I have a copy and I encourage everyone to get one for themselves. Meanwhile i’ve also been helping Rafe out with his online presence but it’s not ready to go yet. He’s a funny kid. Our meetings generally follow an hour or so of my floundering in the pool, which still happens on a regular basis. But more on that later.

This year’s University of Canberra graphic design students have put on their final exhibition dubbed ‘Taste Test Exhibition‘. I’ve been hosting the site for the event which by all account was a huge success. The site details the student’s style and aspirations and won’t be the last web page you see them featured on.

There was more but this alone is enough to say ‘not a bad week!’ and leave it at that.

“Some people wonder if anything does actually happen here but if you ever make it to our town, you’ll see that there’s bands playing in backyards and parties, electronic music made in bedrooms and improvisors making a racket in gallery spaces.”

Indeed. The evidence is the scattered sounds found on

 

The Sound Of Young Canberra

Lemon In The Way – From The South stands out, Apache by Danger Beach is amusing, it might get a smile from Morricone (I say that just to be nice – I’m lead to believe he’s a very strange man and difficult to get along with), Shoeb’s Out Of Breath is a well realised track, the most mature sound on the disk without a doubt. Assasins 88 – Scanners absolutely tears it up!

Scorpion candy @ Lisa Elsewhere

That’s not really a product you expect from the UK although now i’ve said it I’m not entirely sure why. The point is there are rules and regulations and the import conditions for stuff like this but I haven’t quite worked out what they are just yet. Rest assured I’ve added it to the pile of cases. Lisa’s going to be over there for a while yet and is keeping a visual diary of sorts. I like visual diaries. She’s got some good photos up which you might enjoy, like one of tasty bread or a dodo skeleton! Whatever floats your boat!

There’s something that I’ve been trying to get out for a long time but I’ve been composing on shifting sands. It’s an audio chronicle of The War in Iraq but since it’s taken so damn long to finish all my tracks they all sound quite different. I did want to present something coherent, so it may be time to invite Frez to The Glass Ball Theatre…

Stay tuned.

Semantics matter. Not being in ‘An IT Position’ yet having to deal with complex software means you gain expertise in the subject matter and properly express that knowledge via language that both software and humans should be able to understand. Whether or not being able to elucidate the nuances of quarantine concern relating to meat based flavours, both in terms of flavour and composition, is important in the overall scheme of things is debatable. That said, bovine spongiform encephalopathy is always a risk. Seriously, it’s really not nice.

What comes after this is anyone’s guess, as usual. Until what comes next actually happens though, I’ll be doing my thing ostensibly protecting the national interest through what many, maybe most, would see as a ’9 to 5′. As far as I’m concerned we’re dealing with notions of civic duty here but I happily draw the line before patriotism on this one. This is obviously a can of fogs legs just waiting to be let out, though, so I’ll say I’m happy with the current situation and leave it at that.

Sauce – It’s Hard To Do Well

Your Job – Nobody Will Understand

The Garden – Continues

The Wold - Changes Every Time I Sleep

Wicket – Still Lives

Elroy – Does Podcasts Now

Where I Thought I Would Be – I Am Not

Boards of Canada – New Album Very Soon. Seriously

Where I Am – I Like

When James Blake performs – I Am Impressed

When I Update Next – Will Be Soon.

Christmas was obviously the event that took up a lot of everyone’s time. Over here it came together quite well. This year’s tree was the best ever. I spotted it quickly and it turned out to be the perfect size and shape.

My (usual) plans for a Xmas light extravaganza were sidelined after most of the strings of lights we own turned out not to be working anymore. There’s not really a huge range of home lights and if you poke around they all look like they come from the one place, from the same schematics. I guess you could say Zhejiang is to Christmas lights what Shandong is to kites. I guess. Anyway it made me think there’s probably room in a niche market for high-quality, durable and less tacky lights. I’ll continue the research…

Xmas eve saw the return of an activity thus the establishment of a custom; Lisa and I hit the road to have a look at Canberra’s efforts in friendly competition that is the house/tree lighting. The most impressive display by far this year was a house that was lit brighter than the sun and had lights that were timed to music. What’s more, the owners were transmitting the music via low power radio to the street. This meant we were able to tune the car radio into their soundtrack as we passed by. Impressed! The later part of the evening involved ghosts, good red wine and chocolate. Grand.

This year I took on the cookery aspect head-on, doing the Xmas lunch. I’ve never cooked a turkey before; here in Australia we don’t eat the bird all that often. Save for the occasional turkey baguette pretty much Christmas is where it features. Well, I ended up with a 9kg bird on my hands along with a goodly amount of quality Christmas ham all sold cheerfully by Wes the Irish butcher. Playing it safe I awoke Christmas morning earlier than I ever have have since being a child. Santa made it this year, I’m happy to report. 6:30 saw the fire lit to preheat the Weber…I went back to bed after that.

Taking some good advice I’d prepared things days in advance. A variation on a Jamie gravy was ready to be unthawed, stuffed potatoes and capsicums ready to be cooked and the stuffing the same. Hours later the turkey along with the above, minted peas, River Cottage style roast potatoes/veg, lunch for 14 was served without a hitch! Bizarre. It took a lot of effort but it was worth it. Who knows about next year!

Following on from this, Newyears came and went at the coast. Solon had once again shown the initiative and booked a nice house, this time at Bulli. Due to time commitments I went up independently of everyone else but made it in time for the celebrations. A good mix of people at an excellent location. I stayed up and took some photos of the transition from night to day that everyone deems so important:

I had to come home early because I’ve ended up with a new full time job. If you’ve been following closely you’ll know I’ve struggled to find long term employment with The Man for some reason. Despite another round of entertaining talks with recruitment agencies, the lead for this position once again came through a friend. There’s a simple conclusion to be drawn here, my experience being more than anecdotal evidence; recruitment agencies suck balls. They’re useless and standing back I can’t really see the point of them. They range in levels of professionalism from appalling to quite good. But never came through with the goods. And given the amount of time I spent with them,no jury would convict me for being unreasonably irritated. So, again: network, network, network! If you’ve got interesting friends they’re likely to be working in interesting places that will likely need additional people at some stage. This is the way forward.

So here I am as a content author / ‘rules engineer’ building the content for BICON, AQIS‘s replacement for ICON. It tells you what you can and can’t bring into the country. And lets just say down here at DAFF’s BSG we’re big on acronyms. The team is good, friendly. Emile sits a few desks over. The situation is promising. Despite working a ’9 to 5′ the garden and cooking haven’t suffered as much as I’d feared which is a nice surprise.

I have a large crop of tomatoes on the way which should satisfy all our tomato related requirements for the next few months. Coriander has proven easy to grow as long as you put it in the right spot, the strawberry curse has well and truly been broken with my little terrace producing some impressive berries. Apropos my Sylvanberry, a throwaway experiment, has surged with the rain and warmth almost like a Triffid. The runner made it all the way down the wall and into the next garden before I noticed. Importantly it’s started to bear some small fruits. Spinach, lettuce, basil and some self seeded rocket make up 2011′s first crops of leafy greens. A chili formed on a plant in a pot and was of good size but I’m not sure the plant is entirely happy in its current home. To chop all of the above up into an edible format I may well be using a Wustof Trident knife come my birthday.

That could be the sum of it, at least the essentials. I’d better post this before something else happens!

Welcome to 2011 @ BuzzMoo.com

You can get the whole disk for free at Audio Gourmet.

Damian Valles – In The Shadow Of The Occluding Body

If you like this kind of thing you’d do well to check out Long Desert Cowboy and Beyond Absence. All good material!

The group (a duet from Denmark) have been around for some time now and rarely disappoint. Again, this release is only 15 minutes long so it’s accessible. Definitely give it a shot if you were after something darker, but not sinister, to listen to! You can get the full thing for free from the Audio Gourmet site by following this link. Check out Small Things on Sunday’s official site here.

Small Things on Sundays – Recalling

Tonight at number 10 we have Before I Go by Carl Sagan’s Ghost. A restful two part release with long soft, airy passages. Breezes through pipes that wander to build something more solid in the deeper registers. Light and scattered static that doesn’t irritate, cosmic drones with suggestions of choir that ask questions but then satisfy. Water and soft chimes, you’ll be able to relax to this. Recorded August 2010 in Spokane, Washington. you can pick up the entire release, for free, from Audio Gourmet right here. You can visit the artist’s official site here www.carlsagansghost.com.

Carl Sagan’s Ghost – Before I Go

Well, it’s been raining like that again.

Actually, harder. The trouble started on Monday morning where I woke to soggy socks. I assumed while sitting at my desk they’d slowly dry (sure, It would have made more sense to take them off) but they kept getting wetter and wetter. Right then I knew what had happened and I really did try to just pretend it didn’t happen for ten minutes. After that a brief survey revealed a good amount of water in my room, about a quarter of the carpet wet and my computers in  a puddle! The problem is the leak comes from what is what is essentially an inside wall of my room which I previously saw as the safer, dryer space. Given the amount of electronics in my room I’m lucky nothing short circuited.

StainBusters attended the next day with Big Drying Fans. Twenty four hours later and it looked like things were drying up nicely. I went to bed  just as the rain started to pick up again and for the fist time in my life raindrops on the tin carport roof weren’t a comforting sound. And I was right to be nervous. Because the water had already made a path this second lot managed to make it about halfway into the room. Nothing to be done about it except call StainBusters which isn’t so bad when the lovely Alanna is taking the calls  - she has wonderful phone manner and sense of humor, it could be a disappointment that all we get to talk about was wet carpet.

Last night was Nature’s big push. The radar had a big red dot over North Canberra and for about two hours there was an unreasonable amount of water in the air. Then the water started coming and didn’t stop. Couldn’t be stopped in fact. Dad, Mum and I spent the rest of the evening with buckets, towels and I used a dustpan as a scoop. There was no hope, really. A few hours later and almost the entire room was gone. Moved as much out as I could and everything up off the floor.

It’ll be a good few days until things start to come dry again. So in the meantime I’ve set up a temporary HQ in the dining room upstairs. Not the most comfortable arrangement in the world but I’ll certainly live.

Of course I’m not the only one dealing the the deluge, a lot of the ACT has taken a whack. Dams are at 100%, though! Dazza went out to check out Coppins Crossing but couldn’t get too far. The video below is evidence why.

Stay dry!

Now, I have to go to bed! There are some rare mushrooms growing on the moisture vaparators in the southeast quarter I want to check out tomorrow.

Things kick into gear early in the morning tomorrow, so for now it’s sleep time!

Palate: Tanins, dark fruits and spice. Medium finish.

This has the zing that I think of, when I think of shiraz. But that tannin action doesn’t distract from the other characters of this wine.The bottle says it could be cellared for a while to tame it, but goes well now. True! I’ve been rethinking shiraz since this bottle and a bottle of Ciccone Estate’s 2002 reserve shiraz.. For $45, a local wine (ACT/NSW) this is top quality.

Four and a half BuzzMoo bottles!

& 1/2.

The very next morning instead of sleeping after all that, I was out at Piallago paintballing. It was a lot of fun, a well run day with about 50/50 guys and girls a mix I can recommend and probably prefer for that kind of activity. Took a minor amount of damage, really the killer has been my legs; I’m not usually running through rough terrain for hours on end. Lisa got into it, maybe that’s an understatement. A paintball marker should be the only weaponry she’s ever allowed to touch. It’s Wednesday and I still haven’t recovered from the weekend!

Today has been about the garden. My peas have come on strong and were ready to harvest. Also, three leeks that grew in a wild patch (self seeded, not touched by me) were ready to come up, so I’ve got about 1.5kg of vegetables to work with for tonight’s soup. Which will likely involve peas and leeks. I have a large new garden bed that took weeks to dig (about 3×3, half a metre deep) that will provide a lot of tomatoes and corn, come summer (hopefully).

Away from recreation we’ve had a few good weeks over at CASE; finally took position of a fancy card printer and learned how to use it, now just have to come up with a nice design using relatively limited software. The office is coming together slowly, put on hold for our AGM which turned out to be a great event. The guys from Woden Community Services gave a great presentation detailing how they performed a major IT overhaul for their group, with great results. What’s more, they brought copies of all their high quality documentation to share. Brilliant! Then we surprised Tridge with Kate Lundy dropping by to do a small presentation bestowing to him life-membership and a new Sonic Screwdriver. A heartfelt speech for someone who has helped a lot. The business end of the AGM concluded quickly with me being reelected to the committee for another year. How about that!

Now, I have some peas to shell…

Elroy combined his two loves: not sleeping and zombies and the result was the following video! Comments and feedback welcome, although since its already been submitted to GG there’s nothing we can do about the feedback :p

Good Game, Elroy!