Saturday in St Kilda

The next day it was time for the now-traditional post-ATOMS St Kilda brunch with some Melbourne-based buddies.

I had a terrible nights sleep at the Hotel Victoria in Little Collins Street. It's a friendly but slightly shabby place, with mis-spelled signs and strangely random lifts. The swearing in the street below my window punctuated the night, and slightly overlapped with the roadworks which started at 6.00am. The swearing was pretty much over by seven.

In any case, I got myself to Fitzroy St and had a lovely long chinwag with Michael, John, Carmen, Suparna and Alex, over a good greasy breakfast, at a friendly place called Banff.


I haven't seen John and Carmen since their wedding, so I had commanded that they take me home and show me their world (..er, and take me to the airport after). Carmen has three daughters aged 16, 14 and 11, from her first marriage - Alana, Elise, and Carla. The girls are John and Carmen's life to a large extent - driving them here, driving them there, arranging and encouraging and cajoling. A logistical challenge, at the very least. I admire John for the way he has parachuted straight into the emotional minefield of a houseful of strong-willed women, and has just unpicked his parachute and turned it into a set of curtains and a very serviceable pair of pants. Well done sir! He has a shed which I suspect he would defend to the death if it came to that.

The girls are all lovely - the two older sisters talk a mile a minute. When I said I always remembered their names as "Uh-something", "Uh-something else" and "Not-uh", they didn't throw me out, which was nice.

John drove me to the airport via his workplace, which is in the Tullamarine area. He has a surprisingly nice drive through the country (featuring cows) to get to work. Now I can picture where he is when he gets these confusing and inappropriate emails at work.

I caught up on some sleep on the flight home, but even now 48 hours after the awards I am feeling fuzzy, blurry and ... tired.

Pointy prizes aplenty

Roar Film sent me over to Melbourne on Friday for the ATOM Awards for Australian multimedia. We won four awards from a possible four, so a very heartwarming result for us. Last year we went over in force (about eleven of us), in expectation of picking up a number of awards, as we had seven nominations. We only collected one, and later turned into a surly drunken rabble roaming the streets.

This year only three of us went; Amanda the production manager, Will the creative director, and myself. We had five nominations across four categories, and Will also had been nominated for a student piece he did before he joined us.

Three of our nominations were for Australia and the Vietnam War, a CD-ROM we made for the Department of Veterans' Affairs. This was my baby to some extent - we produced it at a time when our then creative director was overseas and we had no production manager, so I handled a lot of aspects that would normally not be my job. We worked in a fairly clunky collaboration with **** Media of Melbourne, who did not follow our directions as closely or graciously as I would have liked. We were nominated jointly, so I was expecting to run into them on the night.

Although public speaking gives me the hab-dabs, I could see that it was a waste of time having me over there if I wasn't prepared to accept an award and say a few words. We'd only just arrived (late) when I suddenly found myself walking up in the spotlight to accept an award for Vietnam. I was expecting to share the stage and extend some hearty backslaps to the **** guys but they hadn't turned up. I thanked all the right people, apparently didn't come across as nervous as I felt, and got out of there in about 30 seconds. I think I said of **** Media that the project "would not be what it is without their input" which may have been my subconscious protecting me from an telling an outright lie.

I was nearly back to my seat when I recognised Peter Tapp from ATOM (Australian Teachers of Media) who I assumed had jumped up to congratulate me. He looked surprised when I held out my hand and pumped his up and down - he was actually intercepting me to send me over to the other side of the theatre, where the fellow who presented the award to me was waiting forlornly to have his photo taken with me.

While I was being photographed from numerous angles I heard that we had won the very next category as well. By the time I was sitting down we had won another! Then we won the next!! The compere, Alan Brough, commented, "Roar Film are obviously the Titanic of this year's ATOM Awards." Vietnam won Best Secondary Education Resource, and Best Multimodal Production (the CD was packaged with a book and DVD). Celebrating Us won Best Primary Education Resource and Best Multimedia Learning Reference.

The awards were sponsored by Crumpler bags, and all winners were given one (worth about $50- $200) They have a fantastic website by the way. I scored one of these:


The final excitement of the night was when I won us a box of software we thought was worth about $4000. I have just checked it out and it's more like $500, but still a handy bonus. There were ten numbered stickers under random seats - I found number 4 under the vacant seat to my left. Nºs 2 and 3 didn't show up, so I got second pick of the table of goodies.

At the end of the night, Amanda, Will, Will's girlfriend Sarah and I mooched about looking for cake and coffee for a while lugging our armfuls of Crumpler bags, and our pointy trophies. We all had seperate plans for the next day, so it wasn't a particularly late night, but it was very enjoyable to have started the night with such a bang and spent all the rest of it with a lovely glow of victory.

1st Surrealist Expedition to the South Pole, 1912

My Perth correspondent Phillip Vaughan sent this to me. It is from Antarctica, A Different Adventureby Jason Kimberley. I am honoured and delighted that when people read a caption like this they think of me.

Phillip adds that the book is highly recommended. But remember to wrap up warm before reading. And - they are serious scientists, not surrealists. I made that up.

The Bowling Shanes 14 d Wrong Bias 6

Lawn bowls season kicked off with a grand final rematch, on quite a frosty evening. I ate about six sausages to stave off the cold. While applying a bit of Grippo©, it occured to me that a drop of Deep Heat mixed in would have been a good thing. Off the back of this I am thinking of bringing out a range of scented Grippos.

Although, now I look at the tube, it appears Grippo is to put on your bowls, while Wilgrip is the one for your hands. Now I feel like a sham - all those old timers watching me putting it on my hands must have been laughing into their 6oz beers.

Anyway - after a tight beginning, we got four on one end and three on the next to blow away last year's champs. I bowled OK but will be better for the run. The rest of the team clicked like the seasoned unit they are. We have a few years together under our belts now, and our tilt at national representation at the 2014 Commonwealth games in Mozambique are right on track.

The Group

Marcus has been telling us about his new Group. They get together at school at lunchtime and recess, and forage. They make tools from sticks (mostly pliers apparently). They find fossils. They make music by bonking rocks together. They make clothes from leaves (mostly hats apparently). Marcus, Matilda, Lana, Alex and Ebony make up the group. Initially Marcus did the fossils, then we heard Lana was on fossils and Marcus was on music. He said "some days we change our activities".

It took us a while to get the idea that this wasn't a teacher's initiative, this was something the kids just started. I aksed Marcus who thought of it, and was there a Leader. "Well, it was my idea, and I am the leader, but a grade 6 is joining the group soon so then he'll be the leader. He won't want a little kid telling him what to do".

I haven't seen any of the products of the Group's work yet but I'll report full details when I do.

Brp brp BRRRRRRRRP

I borrowed a jackhammer today, and did my first jackhammering. It was quite enjoyable in a wierd kind of way, to slice through concrete. Not as noisy as I was expecting either, but then I had ear protection which the neighbours did not. Tomorrow I will resume the battle and hopefully the old concrete slab (where the shed used to be) will be history by sundown.

I did a bit of manual sledgehammer and pick work as well, and felt very much that I was in Cool Hand Luke or some other old Deep South prison movie. Me and Jimmy Ray never shoulda done robbed all them darn liquor stores.

Knackered 22 d Zidane Headbutts 3

I didn't think ZDs were terrible, but they just didn't get many shots on goal. Whereas we had a shot every forty seconds and half of them went in. One of their goals was a penalty, and one came with about 2 seconds to go when we may have gone a bit soft.
This equals the highest score in any match I have played in, I think. (Burnie High d Penguin High 22-0 in 1982). Not much else to say about this really. Brett and Paul kicked most of the goals, and Cam was excellent in defence.

Wash, wipe and quarter 2 squirrels...

Mum unearthed this excellent book at a jumble sale - Food from the Wild by Jenny Urquhart. It is brutally honest about the tasty treats awaiting you in the English countryside, or possibly found dead on the road. It's amazing how many things are quite tasty as long as you wrap them in bacon before you cook them.

Common Mallow Malva sylvestris
... The young furry leaves if picked and boiled make a wholesome though not particularly delicious vegetable...

Hedgehogs are found in most open country but, as they are a valuable animal, eating slugs and snails and other destructive insects, they should not be taken for food unless absolutely necessary or unless found dead, killed by a passing car.
Grey Squirrel ... casseroled in a good, tasty sauce, even the rankest squirrel is made quite palatable and they are an abundant source of free food.

Rat ... If you ever have the need to eat rat, it is best wrapped in bacon fat and slow roasted.

School Fair

We mostly ignored the accelerating demands in recent weeks to devote ourselves to the annual South Hobart School Fair. We have a long range plan to get more involved in future years - we are going to have kids at the school for at least seven more years after all.

In this spirit we went along on Sunday merely as punters, spending money fairly freely. The highlight was Marcus going on a sort of bungy/trampoline ride. I didn't take my camera unfortunately, but I will always remember the look on his face as he soared in the air. The contraption was set up near the footy goals, and he went about as high as the top of the point post.

Many of the stalls were selling donated pre-loved things. My other highlight for the day was overhearing a mum say "No - we can NOT buy back all your toys".

Michael tells our fortunes

I came inside from mowing the lawn, and Elf said to Michael, "read that for Dad like you did for me". He led me downstairs to a junk pile he had been rooting through. He had found and read aloud unprompted a note from a fortune cookie. He read it again for me -

"You will live to a rip [ripe] age, happy in the love and ress... respect of many children. This in... insert has a pro... protec... protective coating!"

Our gobs are getting sore from repeated gobsmackings.

Knackered 10 d Red Devils 7

Our star striker Brett returned from his extended holiday in Bali, sporting an impressive scar. He had the traditional Bali motorbike accident, and screwed up his ankle for three months.

We had the same lazy referee as last week. He gave about three free kicks for the whole game. Once you realise your game is essentially unsupervised, you can incorporate that into your playing style, but this suits some people more than others.

Red Devils tried a bit of rough stuff. It really gets my goat when you are simply marking someone closely, and they think a fair response to that is a whack in the chops.

They scored first, but we hit back with two beautifully finished goals from Mel. I am coming down with something viral, I felt very heavy in the legs, and I made a a lot of mistakes. We got away to a handy lead of about 6-2 but they pegged us back to about 6-5 at halftime. Again their passing wasn't so hot, but our goalkeeping was average. On the other hand their keeper is the best we have played against. The best teamwork I saw from them was when I was tracking a guy with the ball about to take a shot, and the biggest bloke on their team just stepped into my path as the other guy got a free shot into the corner. The ref plucked a bit of fluff from his navel and it was halftime.

The second half was quite tight but we stayed in front with goals when it mattered. I gave away a penalty when goalkeeping, by throwing the ball over halfway on the full, trying to find Brett. I used to do this all the time, but I had cured myself of it while Brett was away. He had been on court about five minutes and I did it again. Fortunately I saved the penalty (taken by the goose who hit me in the jaw).

We are on top of the ladder now with a percentage of 177. Cam is off to England for 3 weeks after the next match, and I will miss one of our next 3 as well, but we have got the depth to cover now. We are on a 6 match winning streak, with 4 matches left before the finals.

Health check

Very sore right jaw.
Arthritis in left middle finger top joint.
Arthritis in right big toe.
Pain diagonally through right foot.
Bruises on shins taking time to go away.

India was scratchy

I just found this photo of me, the day after falling off a cliff in India. Quite apart from the major bruising all over my back, I was one big abrasion from fighting my way through thick scrub.

Colour Lovers

Knackered 16 d Sohos 6

It's getting monotonous now - a younger, fitter team with reasonable individual soccer skills meet a grey-haired team who know how to pass to each other, and get a flogging. There were only three of us this week, and to be fair to Mel I don't think she has any grey hairs yet. Sohos lent us a player, who was handy but not outstanding. It was about 6-4 to us at half time. Pretty soon in the 2nd half they threw in the towel. One guy was trying to score the most incredible solo goal in history, and one was just trying to break my leg. The other two were not that good. I put away about ten goals.

Geelong 24.19.163 d. Port Adelaide 6.8.44

Although this was the most one-sided Grand Final ever, I really enjoyed it. Geelong had been so good all year, it was very satisfying to see them take it all the way to the last minute of the season, and totally bury Port. They played attractive confident footy right from the the first bounce, after looking a bit nervy last week against Collingwood. Although Port beat Geelong only a few weeks ago, and sailed through their preliminary final almost unopposed, they were outclassed yesterday.

I had tipped Paul Chapman of Geelong to take the Norm Smith Medal for best on ground, and I think he was robbed. He took a memorable mark, kicked 3 goals and pumped the ball inside 50 on countless occasions. Port Adelaide get up peoples' noses, and will be popular losers right across the country. Its a curious phenomenon that despite the club rivalries, there is a certain amount of fellow-feeling among Victorians when one of their own is up against interstate raiders in the Grand Final. Whereas Adelaide Crows fans would be pleased at punch at seeing Port pounded to a pulp.

Rain

It's been Old Testament weather this weekend. Starting on Friday night, with the strongest wind I can remember battering the house. In the old place it would have been whistling right through us, but the new place is pretty "tight". Elf was very worried all night that our solar panel would take flight or at the very least a pipe would rip loose and gush water through the roof. Although I was also awake for hours and feeling pretty nervous, the panel never occurred to me at all, thank God.

Saturday night started to go down the same road as soon as it got dark. It wasn't frightening, but unpleasant. No-one was surprised when the power cut out at about 9pm. During the night I woke a few times to the sound of the 2-way radio on high volume, coming from an Aurora truck somewhere out in the street, where they must have been trying to fix the power. I hope those guys get triple time and half, they certainly deserved it being out there in those conditions at 3am. After a while the lights all came on and the truck drove away.

At times like this I wish I still had a little turntable, so when the power comes on the record slowly winds itself up to speed - that always happens in movies. Ideally it would be something like King of the Road by Roger Miller.

Last week of september

I have not blogged for a week, that's one of my longest gaps ever I think.

As I write I'm listening to a recording of Marcus playing the piano. My $20 MP3 recorder has worked out very well - we sent the first CD of boys' chatter over to Elf's grandparents this week. The recording quality is about the same as an old fashioned tape recorder.

My teaching stint is complete - massive sigh of relief. It took me until the 3rd week to work out the parking arrangements. I did ask, but I got a bum steer from someone who should know, and got a ticket for my trouble. I have been asked to come back at some future stage, so I must have gone OK. The kids' work ranged from semi-competent to truly inspired, and it was kind of fun in a terrifying way... I guess.

The front of our house is still a bombsite. When building the parking space, Greg shortened it by 700mm for reasons not clear to us. He was quite deliberate about it, but we never did get a straight answer as to why. The council have now asked for it to be 700mm longer. Greg is put out, as it means taking down a brick wall with steel reo rods through it. Anyway- it has to happen, hopefully it will happen SOON.

My soccer team is humming along in very good form. We won a tough tussle 16-14 last week. Lawn bowls starts up again soon - I'm intending this to be my last season. At least until I have bi-focals and, lets say, grandchildren.

I will try to get back to frequent short blogs next week. Marcus has just finished his 12 minute opus - at the end he says it is titled "Half a Song".

A bit of Leo

Never mind all that rubbish about a code, just have a look at thedrawings of Leonardo da Vinci.They are amazing enough on their own without introducing albino monk assassins and Tommy Hanks.

Possibly velvet pants

Sally sent me this. I look a bit like Michael here. I think that's a not-Lego© aeroplane at my feet. We had lego-sized blocks that were not as highly engineered as Lego©, and soft enough to be chewed by the dogs, further eroding possibilities for precision constructions. I am vaguely recalling an aircraft building phase. Thanks Sal!

More quotes

The boys and I were talking about the various names of Santa. Marcus started by asking why he is called Santa Claws when he doesn't actually have any claws. I explained the history as best I can recall: Saint Nicholas -> Sinter Klaus -> Santa Claus. Elf calls him Father Christmas, I call him Santa, and I told the boys I didn't really care which name they called him.

Marcus: I call him Present-giving Nice Dead Person.
Me: He's not dead!
Marcus: How can he not be dead if he lived all those years ago?
Me: Hmm....
Michael: I call him... I call him... I call him Starry Balls.

- · - · - · - · - · - · - · - · - · - · - · - · - · - · - · - · - · - · - · - · - ·

We were all thinking of words that start with the letter I. Coinidentally the boys have two aunts, Imogen and Irma. I mentioned Iceland, then the boys staggered me with the number of countries they knew starting with I. Michael said "Italy!!" then while I was boggling at him, followed this up with a two handed "sharing the love" gesture and the statement "Italy is full of history. The world is full of history."

He is fully ready to host Eurovision.

Worldwide foam

I was discussing Michael J. Fox with Marcus - he is best known in the under-sixes as the voice of Stuart Little the animatronic mouse. We told Marcus about MJF's Parkinson's disease. I said that MJF was a top person, who appreciated that he was better off than a lot of people, with all his money and fame. A lot of people wish they had money and fame, etc.

Marcus asked "but why do people want foam?"

Chalk and talk

Last week I finally joined the family business - teaching. My dad is a retired economics and legal studies teacher. My mum is a retired art teacher. My sisters have both taught, Jacki in dance and Sally in I think "image making" at Art School.

Now I too have answered the call to go back to Art School and try to impart something to a room full of young art students. My first lesson went fairly well I think, although I didn't really address the course outline, and I babbled slightly. I am teaching them about Flash, which is software I use every day now, and have been using since 2001.

Tomorrow I am going back for the second of three lessons. I was worried about what to talk about, when I suddenly remembered there was a course I was supposed to teach, so I can use that! Phew. Last week I pretty much just reeled off everything I know in the sequence that I knowed it.

It's quite odd being back there. I enjoyed my 3 years studying there very much, but just haven't felt much need to go back in the ensuing 19 years. It went through a Fort Knox period in the nineties when it was just too hard to even get in, and I think that's probably when I gave up on it.

I haven't worked out yet how much I am going to be paid, but the main reason I am down there is that my brother-in-law Matt (who is on staff) assured me the pay was good. I can see how one could be seduced into a life of art school academé, although I was pretty scathing about them when I was an undergrad.

Knackered 14 d Wilkins 3

Marcus came along to watch as we had an early 6.30 game. Adrian the economist filled in for Adrian the IT guy, and Paul was also away. Luckily Ben the erstwhile goalkeeper was in town, so he guest-starred in goal for us. Cam, Mel and myself made five.

It started pretty tightly, like last time we played them. After about five minutes we broke it open. I kicked 7 goals by Marcus's count. Wilkins had no subs, so for once we had the edge in the fresh legs department.

Particularly in the second half we scored some awesome goals, with sharp passing movements and crisp finishing. We seem to be able to play well, whoever pulls on the green guernsey on the night.

I've got a calf strain that is getting worse each week, and my right foot has chronic artrhitis in the big toe and a persistent pain diagonally through the middle of it. At some point I have to get to my old doctor down in Lower Sandy Bay to get it checked out, but its quite hard to organise.

Large vehicles sound horn

When I am needing a quiet moment of contemplation, I like to check out what is happening around this hairpin bend in Slovenia.

Foorty finals fire up

The Crows v Hawthorn game on Saturday was magnificent. I was going for the Crows by the end, as they had led all day and made the running, playing attacking football which is not always their style. Buddy Franklin kicked a goal just before the bell to win it for the Hawks. He accumulated seven goals with even seeming to dominate - an amazing player.

Whether to play injured champions is always a hot topic in finals. Recent evidence would show that it's a mistake. Mark Ricciuto wasn't able to contribute anything for Adelaide, and took the place of a fit youngster.

Scamps on the weekend

The weather was superb on the weekend. We had a noodling at home day on Saturday, featuring some painting in the backyard. I just couldn't find the kids' paints, so they had a go with my acrylics, but they dry too fast in the sun. Continuing the paint theme, Elf and the boys started painting the timber balustrades with the left over "Tree of Heaven" green.

Sunday was extremely social with visits from Lana, Sharyn and Millie; Mary, Simon and Miranda; and Sally, Mum and Dad. After that we went up to Nick and Anna's. Then exhaustion set in.

Knackered 16 d Old School Muscle 11

We went into this game against an unbeaten side without Cam (gastro), but with the addition of a new keeper, Andy. We started well, getting out to 2-0. After about ten minutes the score as up to 6-6. It was a bit of a shootout after last week's tight 4-goal game. Paul was on fire after being goalless the previous week. He would have finished with about 8 goals this week.

We were down by a goal at half-time, and I thought we were going to be blown away. They were (as usual) younger and fitter than us, so I expected we would tire. Andy was having his first game after a couple of years out with knee injuries, and anything that wasn't aimed right at him was going in.

We managed to stay with them early in the second half. We put away nearly every chance we had, and with about 6 minutes to go we had a 2 goal lead. Suddenly Paul went beserk and we were five goals up. OSM pretty much went to water and we were able to ease through the last three minutes, knocking the ball around and playing it safe for a fantastic win.

Melinda played her second game for us and again was solid as a rock. Her fitness really told in the second half, when her second and third efforts regained lost possession several times. It was a great win and the team is building very nicely.

The Wolf Song

I mentioned finishing this back in May or June, but never embedded it here. Now with properly mastered audio. Find out all about the band here

The Wolf Song.

The Wherever Song

Finished at long last! : The Wherever Song by The Leonard Cohen Brothers

MJR Typography chapter 6

"Bowling Champions" in fact refers to The Bowling Shanes, I am proud to say. We once were champions, and perhaps may be again. The smell of new-mown grass, sausages and Wilgrip© is starting to waft once more.

"Graet Piglet" is inspired by a memory of Charlotte's Web. Michael said if he was a pig he wouldn't want a spider to be his friend as it might bite him.

Michael asked me how to spell "fields", then went away and produced "Cikamy Fields". No idea what/where they are. A bit like Elysian Fields perhaps.

Knackered 4 d Wilkins 0

Knackered welcomed another new player on Friday night: Melinda, a friend of Cam's. It was very satisfying to win a low scoring game for once - it was 1-0 at half time. We had a sub for the first time in ages, and were able to work harder on court with the promise of a short break when we needed it. Melinda is a very fit and capable defender, and she also scored one of the goals, as did Cam, who was best-on-court. Our defence was fantastic all night, and Wilkins had very few chances to shoot from close up.

Stonehenge technology

I dug out three fence posts embedded in concrete on the weekend. One had been sheared off just below ground level, and was starting to protrude in a nasty way. The others had just been deeemd to hard by the fencing guy, and left cut off at shin height. I felt a twinge of kinship with the builders of Stonehenge as I tried to get these massively heavy things up out of their holes, using leverage, ramps and basic physics. Thanks to our slope, once I had dug around the downhill side a bit I could work them out of the ground and roll them away to await eventual disposal. Or we might just bury them in the fill around our parking bay, when that ever gets finished.

Jogging through the brewery

The warm weather last week spurred me to go for a run in the morning. I have now done it seven weekday mornings in a row, so I am calling it a habit. It is a short gradual climb up Cascade Rd, between the brewery and the fruit juice factory, as far as the skinny paddock with two sheep and a truck full of firewood. I pant hello to the sheep then turn around and coast back down. I run through the smell of apples and malt and barley and the sounds of dozens of crows sitting on the apple pallets and swooping from the water tanks and whooshing steam and enormous muffled explosions. On the way up the hill I am looking at Mt Wellington, which has had a few overnight snowfalls this week. If I leave a little late I get to see the sun light up the mountain. It's a great way to wake up.

The Way Out

I was in the bathroom drying off after a shower when the door started opening, very slowly. Michael's nose appeared.

Me: Hello.
Michael: I'm looking for the way out.
Me: The way out of where?
Michael: The way out of Tasmania, to Australia.

Mum and Dad

I forgot to mention my Mum and Dad stayed with us over the weekend, and had their first look at the inside of the house. Dad is looking very bonny and is obviously recovering very well from his major surgery. Sally came up for lunch, and while she was there made this little movie of one of Michael's stranger talents. Sal took these photos of Mum and Dad a few months ago. Aren't they just the cuddliest most photogenic OAP's you've ever seen?

What up

Is there anything happening at our place apart from pre-school sans-serif experiments? Yes. I have been working hard on a film clip for a proper-length tune, The Wherever Song by The Leonard Cohen Brothers. It is "finished" so there's probably only about 6 - 8 hours of tweaking left to do. I will upload it here when I work out again how to do get it looking OK on the www.

Our man Rob is finishing off the back deck with steps to the lawn and a bench running along it. Elf is putting up pictures like there's no tomorrow.

Marcus patted a shark today at the Marine Discovery Centre. He told me this morning that "words are boring - they are only good for reading". I leaped to the defence of words, pointing out that they are great for asking questions, talking to people and for persuading someone of something. He acutely pointed out that that was just what I was trying to do.

Footy jumpers

I love footy jumpers. This site has the full history of AFL/VFL jumpers. I should also give a big plug to Full Points Footy, a fantastic footy history site. Read essays such as Norwood Magarey Medallists Between The Wars. Wacka Scott has not been forgotten.

MJR Typography next instalment

The continuing evolution of the next Erik Spiekermann. I initially put the "apostrophe S" down to Michael's photographic memory. Then I realised the film from which he got this is actually called Mater and the Ghost Light. So I guess he actually understands that "apostrophe S" is possessive. He calls it an "astropoffy". And if you don't think that's adorable, well, you must be a Stalinist.

Suspect stitch

Walking to school on Monday, Marcus was in a bad mood. He is not a lover of walking for the exercise. His complaints culminated in: "Whenever I get halfway there I always get a big pain here". This sounded plausibly like a stitch, but I thought that was unlikely in a fit 5 year old who has been walking downhill for less than ten minutes. I asked "Do you always get this when you walk this far, or only when you are on your way to school?". There was a telling little pause. "Strangely... only when I am going to school". Ah.

A sunny Saturday in August

MJR and MWR Typography

The master at work. "Ramones" refers to the custom car body shop in the movie Cars, not the rock band.


Marcus takes a more active macro approach to type. This was an attempt to help me out with the "Wherever Song" animation but I don't think my idea is going to work.

MJR Typography

"Gimaxey" is an old favourite but no, we don't know what it means. "TIGY" made of Lego is an old favourite too, now upgraded to "TIGY Bees" and beautifully arranged in the centre of a very ornate rug. Well done Michael.

Old drawings

These drawings are from the last exhibition I had in 1998. Hopefully not the last ever. I only sold one piece, so I still have plenty to decorate the new house with. Elf has the job of banging in hooks, as she a) better at it than me and b) much pickier about what goes where.

Look out for the Pobblebonk

The call is a short musical, explosive note producing a resonant "bonk" And hey - sorry to frogs.org.au for pinching one of their pictures. It was bad web etiquette. You and your frogs are the business.

the weekend wrap-up

Last night was Nathan and Rachel's wedding. It went off very well, Rachel looked beautiful, Nathan looked handsome and seemed to have recovered from the "pyromaniac stripper" incident at his bucks night. [I can say no more about it]. The bridesmaids were from Texas and all about 6'2". The speeches were pithy and heartfelt. Nathan declined to speak, with Rachel expressing his thanks etc for him as he sat looking appropriately grateful/misty eyed/blokey depending on who she was talking about.

Memo for future evening functions at Moorilla ( a beautiful winery and cultural centre hemmed in by suburban Claremont) - tee up a taxi/lift before the function ends and all the smart people who brought cars have disappeared as if by magic.

Marcus and Lana had a long discourse over the fence this morning. At one stage I heard "Well, that's what you say Lana, but everyone can think what they want to think".

Marcus and I went up to the reserve just behind the house to kick the footy this afternoon. All Michael wanted to do was run up and down the back deck, pushing his garbage truck. [It had been left languishing in the disgusting stagnant sandpit when we moved away, and has now been hosed off and is once again high in his affections]. After about twenty minutes of football we trotted back down through the hole in the back fence. Michael hailed us: "Hi, fellas!"

Cam, Sarah, Jasmine and Tommy came to see the new place and stayed for lunch. The kids all behaved, we moved a couch across to stop Tommy going down the stairs, and we were able to enjoy a few moments of The Good Life. It was just like a real estate ad - we weren't quite dining Al Fresco but we did get to laugh with freinds while our children gambled on the sun-soked deck.

Knackered 16 d Slim-Hipped Youths 3

That's not quite what they were called, I will have to look them up in the roster. A new season has begun (already), and we have gone up a division. The SHYs are a new team and were a bit at sea with the rules and the general 8-blokes-in-a-cricket-net vibe. My mate Cam made his debut for Knackered and was very happy to set up a goal for Paul with a deft backheel. This game went to a familiar script - young fit blokes with individual skills but no teamwork get clobbered by team of dads who know how to pass.

A great companion

I am extremely proud of this little award Marcus was given on Friday at after school care. He has had his ups and downs there. The play gets rough and rowdy at the end of a long day, and the carers sometimes have their hands full with Marcus and his strong feelings of right and wrong. He's been making a great effort lately to control his anger, and the carers gave him a little bookmark with this written on the back.

Recent works of the Rees Bros.

Michael loves letters. Although he doesn't draw very often, I hope his writing will lead him into it a bit more.


This is Marcus's beautiful diagram of the solar system (Sun on the right). Note the red spot on Jupiter.

What's going on?

I am finding blogging very difficult at present. It's not that too much is happening, or that nothing is happening. It's just too labourious to put it into words. But I'll try.

Rain is falling by the bucketload, making our precarious dirt slopes slip and slide a bit. Our front retaining wall has to wait for red tape. Our rear retaining wall has to wait for funds to be available.

We have bills aplenty, and our bank won't answer the phone. I am finding having debts all over town quite stressful. Although I am good at maths, I am absolutely no good at keeping many different figures in my head. Elf has given up trying to explain to me where the money is coming from and where it needs to go.

Some positive things - our final invoice has come from Greg the builder, and it was within what we are able to pay. We had a friendly real estate agent do a valuation on the new house. We were very happy with the figure he proposed, although he used a bit of artistic license regarding "cedar weatherboards" and rainwater tanks that haven't been bought yet.

There is so much to do around the new house, but I am not finding the extra time [outside of work, meals, clothes, dishes, kids and sleep] to do things. We really need a washing line and/or a working tumbledryer. The tumby is 30 years old, and it freaks out VERY loudly sometimes. The last three times I have turned it on its gone GGGGWWWWWAAAAAAAAH immediately. The spray-on-lubricant that might fix it is somewhere in a box. That box is probably also in a box, in a cupboard. We now have a total of 246 cupboards and drawers.

Notwithstanding the grizzle above about having no time, I am trying to put together a new film clip for The Leonard Cohen Brothers' Wherever Song. And lacking inspiration at the minute. The first song I took on was under 2 minutes, this one is 3-and-a-half. 210 seconds x 25 frames per second, I am feeling under the hammer.

House officially open

Our friends Cameron and Susan came over on Saturday to help us clean up the garden. Well, really we helped them. They are botanically gifted and also have all the right tools. They gave us a Mutsu apple tree as a housewarming gift, and wanted to have creative control over where it was planted. This meant they had to pull out a load of blackberry and waist-high weeds. Cam and Susan are very keen to espalier the apple tree. We just want it to boof out, give us a little privacy and lots of big apples, pronto.

We had our open day at the new house on Sunday morning. About forty friends and neighbours struggled up the bark-strewn slope (including babes in arms). Everyone was very complimentary about the place and no-one fell down the stairs. It was wonderful to see the big space upstairs cater easily for a bunch of people milling around.

Bird Monster by MWR

Marcus drew this a couple of days ago. He has got his own little desk space by the big front window and he loves it there. I saw this and said "Wow, what a great bird". I was informed that it isn't a bird, it's a monster. Hence the teeth I suppose. I like the green spiral on its tummy.

My workplace, his school and home are all within a 20 minute walk now, which is superb. We had run out of butter to make lunches this morning, so I am going to make him a sandwich here in the kitchen at work and trot up the road with it shortly.

Brisk house blog

Negatives
No phone for several days, now connected but with wrong number. No lino in bathroom or laundry. No curtains. No shades on lights. One toilet out of commission. Can't use parking space - surveyor claims our retaining wall is illegal. No washing line and tumbledryer broken. Washing machine wheeled outside every day in case lino man comes. Front yard pure sloping dirt with huge hole. Back yard 50% sloping dirt. Not enough storage. Money seriously low.
Positives
Views are marvellous. Living in South Hobart again is superb. Neighbours are welcoming. Boys are delighted with it. We can watch them noodling about from the kitchen. Kitchen is excellent. Visitors rave. It is lovely and warm. It is a good house, and we are going to be very happy there for a long time.