New Town namaste

A few weeks ago I went for a stroll around a bit of the New Town/Moonah border that was new to me. I am on a non-profit board now (!) and I had to be dropped off for a meeting 40 minutes early for logistics reasons. Its near the New Town High School so I just wandered up through it along what is probably the New Town Rivulet.

I came to a small path and bridge that led from the sports grounds of the school into a back street of industrial Moonah, and there I saw this.

I took some dull photos on my phone and put them on Facebook asking for information. Matt Kirkcaldie piped up to say;

That's the Newtown Cool Store where my friends Laura McCusker and Peter Howard have their furniture workshop. The walls are insulated with human hair clippings!

So I was back there for another meeting today at a more photo-friendly time of day; but the good camera's battery was dying so I just got these two pics. This is some kind of van, and written on the side is  PEANUT BUTTER    MAYONNAISE    SUPER SPREAD.

As I was approaching to take the pics, a tiny man and lady appeared from the other direction, possibly they just crossed the little bridge. Although its a hot day they had a few layers on - the lady trailed a little way behind the man. I said hello to him and he gave me a lovely smile and said 'Good day'. I said 'Good morning' to the smiling little lady and she gave me a perfect 'Namaste' with praying hands. I quickly namaste'd in return. Let me tell you I am not a guy who'll start a namaste on the street but if one breaks out I am quite prepared to join in boots and all.

Anyway, that quite made my day. Here are the phone pics. The strange round rusty thing by the gate, according to Jan Dallas, is a "plough disc adapted for reinforcement of brick wall, re- hinges, I reckon."

Paddle at Taroona High

This is Taroona High School, where both boys are now. As you can see it has a fantastic location on the Derwent River, about 10km downriver from the city. Out of shot to the left is a little beach with about eight boatsheds, which is a great spot to launch the wave ski. I don't know why I haven't set off from here before.

My aim was to paddle upriver to the point on the left, but it was hard going. I was getting pushed by a swell from behind, but the current was going against me. Is that possible? I don't know anything about the water. I know even less than I thought I knew before I started occasionally paddling on it.

Anyway I adjusted my aim to just getting far enough out in the stream that I could see past the point to my old pals the Tasman Bridge and Mt Direction. This is the first time I have taken our camera out on the water rather than just use my crappy phone.

The paddle back was with the current but through the swell; again I don't really understand this. It was really nice to not have the sun in my eyes (forgot my hat), and the paddling was easy at first, the waves were very smooth. Then they started to get little parallel ripples, and paddling became a bit harder. Then the steady pattern broke up and it was hard work then until I got to a patch of smooth water closer inshore.

The wave ski wobbles about a lot, its a very inefficient way of going anywhere compared to the sleek sea kayaks we did the Sullivans Cove paddle in. But it certainly is a good workout. I look half-crazed here but its mostly relief at stopping paddling.

The fascinating world of cancelled monarchs

Its a shame our camera is a not a bit better at this scale. First one to nominate the two who were NOT heads of state wins a soft drink.

Sheep audio

It is a lovely thing to hear a sheep. I don't mind seeing a sheep, especially at a reasonable distance. But a bit of baaaa floating on the breeze can really lift my mood.

There used to be some over at the green house above the Tara Street Gulch. Every now and then I think I can hear them, but this office chair makes some very unusual squeaks and I can't rule out that it is behind the apparently ovine sound effects.

Wasp news

My preferred method of dealing with wasps is to give them a smart smack with an open hand, ideally straight out an open door or window. If they are stunned and lying prone, I will often crunch them dead; they are wasps after all. The less of them the better. But mostly if I can paff one to the outside I feel like I am living in harmony with nature, and quite the Dan Daring at the same time.

For the first time today I started to think that the same individual wasps are returning to the kitchen, and learning from their experience with me. One definitely saw me and turned around, making a beeline waspline for the open window. "This bloke is going to paff me and although unharmed I will lose face" it was thinking. "I shall take myself outside and buzz stupidly around the cat bowl later when he's not here".

A wasp, yesterday.

Two high school students

Michael started high school today. Here the boys are explaining to Winston that they will be out for most of the day; he has become very used to them lying around like he does, all day every day throughout summer. Except with added electronic devices.

To be fair to Marcus he has worked quite hard on his Maths Olympiad problems over the holidays and has spent quite some time on his French - he is jumping into a class of kids who have mostly got one year of it up their sleeves already.

They will be home soon and I hope Michael will fill me in on his day; in recent years I struggled to get more out of him than 'good' as a description of a day at South Hobart Primary.

They were both very keen to head off this morning; I think Marcus was excited for Michael. Marcus is revelling in being the Wise Old Hand who can teach Michael the ropes.

This morning Michael was stowing his combination lock and Marcus said 'OK, do you know the combination?' Without missing a beat Michael said '4 0 5 4 6'. Marcus said keenly 'OK, MEMORISE IT'.

Michael birthday

On Sunday we celebrated Michael's 12th birthday with three of his mates; Elanor, Rohan and Amber, as well as cousin Miah. The five of them and Marcus watched a couple of movies at the 7D cinema, where you are strapped into a crazy jerky tilty thing while watching a 3D movie. They also pump bubbles into the air, but the weirdest thing is a scarfy thing that flaps around your ankles at odd moments.

Elf and I kept an eye on them on a monitor outside - I think I can say most of them enjoyed most of it. Then we had booked an hour on the arcade games. They rode motorbikes, shot rifles and threw basketballs until they were all exhausted, which was somewhat less than an hour.

Michael makes Michael Face 117A while Miah simply smiles

Marcus takes down some ninjas or pirates and/or aliens

Then we relocated to Mures famous fish & chip emporium for fried delights and ice cream. One of the attractive aspects of Mures is their free soda water tap. Another is the plastic owls installed around the outside tables to scare away seagulls and any other oclophobes in the area. Fun fact: rap artist Eminem is afraid of owls.

Come back Eminem, its not real! HEY BUT CAN I HAVE YOUR SQUID RINGS?

Michael Face 83 with Shrug

Michael had a lovely time and we think all his friends did. We had an after-party back at our place where they all tried to get into the hammock at once, before Amber's mum Wendy gathered them all up and took them away.

Old drawings of Warwick St

I always loved this view over to Trinity Hill from up on the Glebe. I drew these in 1998 and they were part of an animation I did then, but I have just re-animated them.

Mt Direction through the Tasman Bridge

Cake news

I have just put a cake in the oven, and have never done so with lower expectations. It is about 15mm deep in a too-big tin. I replaced more or less every ingredient. Realised at the end I had used plain instead of SF flour so I scraped it out of the cake tin, added 2 tsp of baking powder, gave it a rough mix up, back into the tin. Woo-hoo. Seat of the pants stuff.

- - o O o - -

Well it came out about 22mm deep. I went to ice it and found we had no icing sugar. I served it with what I thought was thickened cream that turned out to actually pour very nicely i.e. I should have whipped it. 

So all up that's a 3/10, about standard for my cake-making.

Star Wars VII - space nonsense

Everyone has been waiting to hear what a 40-something guy who has never seen a Star Wars film thinks of the new Star Wars film. Well, it's nonsense.

But maybe they are all nonsense. Granted that the first one was amazing, and turned the film industry on its head. I haven't seen it but its as much a part of modern culture as The Bible. It set out a world galaxy with particular rules that the next six films needed to try to follow. As a newbie I have one dumb question, and I guess this is an age-old Star Wars conundrum but; during a light-sabre battle can't anyone else just shoot those guys with a regular gun? Is it a chivalry thing, while there is a fluoro tube duel happening the unwritten rule is Do Not Disturb?

Also stormtrooper armour - is there anything that it actually stops?

From the start the writing of VII is dross:

Weary old Alec-Guinessy guy to Stalloney pilot dude: "I've seen too much"
[Tie fighters swoop from the clouds]
Pilot dude: "We've got company"

Spoiler warning here but surely anyone who cares deeply has seen the thing already?

From what I have gathered people think the three prequels were bad. This one picks up after the last good one, Revenge Return of the Jedi. The attraction for fans is seeing Old Han Solo and Chewie, Old Leia and Old Luke. As a nonfan this left me watching Leia and Han smouldering at each other as they spoke in expository sentences that attempted to move the story along and help anyone like me feeling left behind. It was very clunky.

Unfortunately I was lagging behind from the start, as the prologue text slanting away into space told me about the Republic, the Empire, the First Order and the Resistance. What a mess. Sounds like they have saved energy on writing by just doing a search and replace, new bad guys and new good guys. The new Death Star is ..... BIGGER. The new Darth Vader takes off his mask and he looks like someone you would rent a DVD from.

There is a black character who comes across as a bit of a coward and a woman character who tells him to stop grabbing her hand, then cleans up baddies with her stick-fightin' skills. This is probably meant to count as progressive. Rey (I thought she was Rae which is a name that suggests social science teachers and lady farmers) has been left out of the whirlwind of new merch, for some devious reason.

Supposedly Lucasfilm thought boys would arc up if any girl characters were included.

I am not into fantasy, books or films. Oh, you have a problem Chief Protagonist? Why don't you just wave your wand/ use the force and solve it? Oh, bad guy has a bigger wand/ stronger force? Yawn. Better enlist a wise elder with a puckish sense of humour to train you up with some new skills/ build you a fancier wand. Actually come to think of it Bond films fit the same mould.

The film ends with Rey finding Luke on a remote cliff by the sea - this is very important as the camerawork and music tell you by their sizzling intensity. Luke has presumably been there a long time and while Rey is very  s-l-o--w----l------y  reaching into her satchel for something it looked like he was hoping for a sandwich.

I did like the mechanicals; the big creatures and Rey's hovertractor that looked like a Massey Ferguson. But overall I was pretty disappointed as the reviews I read said this was a good film anyone would enjoy, not just for fans. Noooooope.  ★★☆☆☆

The solution

Marcus is spending an hour each week with a maths mentor named Michael - a PhD student at the university. The idea is that Marcus needs to develop and practice his problems solving skills - get experience at picking the right approach to get a fast and elegant solution. There are many ways of solving a problem; some are elegant, and some are clunky and laboured, with more chances for simple mathematical errors that will scupper the whole thing.

Here is the solution to the problem they worked on yesterday. Marcus has completed the high school maths curriculum but doesn't yet have the advanced trigonometry to solve a problem like this the way Michael did.

While they were cogitating on that I went for a walk around the neighbourhood of the uni. I was musing that it is 29 years since I moved to Hobart to start uni - and while I studied down at the docks in the then-new art school, I lived around here and walked through the uni a lot. Then I twigged - hey its 2016 now, so that makes it 30 years next month! I might go and have 11 or 12 beers at the Uni Bar to celebrate.

It's out of term time, and so very quiet around the uni, and in the surrounding student-house streets. Alexander St is one block from the university, and it has a stretch of lovely weatherboard bungalows on land that slopes down to a little rivulet behind. A lot of them are empty and overgrown at present but will probably come to life in a month or so.

When I lived near here I don't think I ever realised there was a rivulet. It's a blackberry wonderland, but I noticed yesterday that on the slope beside the Uni Bar there is a soon-to-open mini organic farm and cafe. I will be exploring here a bit more in the next few uni visits.

Under the bridge

I only just got this off my phone, I shot it in May last year on this little paddling expedition.

Social media watershed

I don't actually know what a watershed is, I realise. Apart from the literal meaning of "a shed full of water" and the not-made-up real literal meaning of "rain catchment area of a river or creek".

1. watershed

   ˈwɔːtəʃɛd/

   noun

   1. 1.

      an area or ridge of land that separates waters flowing to different rivers, basins, or seas.
   2. 2.

      an event or period marking a turning point in a situation.

      "these works were a watershed in the history of music"

   
   

Ah, the second one - I am at a watershed in my social media use. Twitter is a terrifically fun time-drain and echo chamber. Facebook is sort of like flipping through a magazine about dogs, cats, holidays and progressive activism while you wait for the doctor, except all the articles are written by your friends and family. Instagram is; well its really for people with smartphones.

I have spent a week or so trying to be an Instagrammer but the camera on my iPad is no good, and you can't upload images from a desktop computer without crappy workarounds.  Yesterday I used my iPad to video stuff off the computer screen to put on Instagram, which had a pleasingly punk production value but you get sick of that pretty quick. On here I can do it this way which is reasonable quality.

My scruffy drawings do not gain any more charm from being lo-res and blurry. And not blurry in that arty Instagram filter way, just badly photographed with a telephone from 2009. I broke all sorts of Instagram etiquette rules by posting my paintings from the 1990s.

So, I will continue to put my non-commercial imagey stuff here on the blog. My criteria for inclusion is not that it's 'good' but more that it is useful for me to have as a reference and you might also find it interesting.