This was a job that almost killed me.

There were 3 existing units made from veneered craft wood that were falling apart.

My job was to make 3 new units using the existing glass and supply a 4th totally new one as well as come up with better lighting units and a few tweaks

It had been 30 years since I made any moulds and I had forgotten how long it took. And in my wisdom I decided to do it differently to how I would have done it 30 years ago, And using a supposed few tricks from different capers I had done over the years I thought I would breeze it in.

Ohhhhhhhh, The pain! (To write any more just lessens it.)

2 months latter I can almost look at the results and almost but not quite feel satisfaction.

The only good thing about them was even though they were 6 weeks late the customer said they were much better than expected.

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As one other learnard Tblogger might recite:  Thought for the year.

Just because we can, doesn’t mean we have to.

Yeah paste that one to the back side of your sun visor in your car so that you don’t forget it. Right?

Learnard,  Learnerd, learn something. Where’s a spell checker when you need it?

Tried pirate girl’s spinach recipe. Great recipe but I messed around with it a bit. The pies looked nice but I think I used way to much spinach. I bought a huge bunch from the lady up the road for a dollar, only used half a bunch. I think I should have used some more eggs. I had some pastry left over so I wacked in some stewed apples. All in all the verdict on dads cooking was stick to stews and soups.

I want a second chance!

(To pirate girl only)

 (Just between you and me and not telling anyone _ _ _ _ _  Pirates oath now.

I’ll let you in on a little secret

 Pirate’s oath now. Shhhh no telling.

Well _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

The pie looked so beautiful, nice and golden brown, but when I went to cut it, It wouldn’t cut. I was saying why is this pastry so tough?

So I eased up the edge of the top of the pie_ _ _ _  I had left the nice shade of blue plastic under the top sheet of pastry and cooked the pie.

The sheets of pastry had plastic separating them and I hadn’t noticed this one sheet still had the plastic under it.   

Please no laughing.

Somehow I eased the plastic out without anyone noticing.

Next time if there is a next time it could be the boxed freezer section of the supermarket

This is a post for all you budding novelists come book writers. 1.write your storey 2. publish it. 3. reap the rewards of fame and glory. simple right? Yeah right. So you gotta take control! Control? I hear you say. You bet ya. 1. Duck over to Lavarock and get him to set you up a domain like ummmm..... Surrogate.com 2. Ask him to do a wordpress installation. 3. Nip on over to theme forest and check out this neat online book template. http://themeforest.net/item/t...

Copy and paste the above url to check out this author theme. If it tickles your fancy. buy it and skin your wordpress installation or Lava may do it for you. :) 4. Showcase your wonderful story by uploading it, or tantalising bits of it. 5. Put a link in to your bookstore. Huh? Bookstore! I hear you say. Yeah bookstore. 6. Check out this link http:// www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/2005 949 or

http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/invited/107 4533/463ba25d51669209a084 37452c05324a" title="http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/invited/107 4533/463ba25d51669209a084 37452c05324a" target="_blank"http://www.blurb.com/bookstor... Bang! You’re good to go. 7. Promote your book. Of course you could bite the bullet and just do number 6. and order 100 copies and sell them as in number 7

I have been dabbling in doing my own website lately and came across this site where you can buy cheap stock website templates which you can modify to suit your needs.  Or you can pick up some web page elements for a few dollars. The site has 5 market places

If you are looking for something in particular click on the links at the bottom of the page or  go to files on the left and search a category.

 At the moment they are giving away one item free from each market place every month. This month there is a free photo gallery, a free web site template. a free customisable video introduction, some buttons and some audio jingles royalty free

I think you may have to create an account to download. They don't send much mail, not even once a month. Some of the templates a so creative, A lot of the developers seem to be uni students that are making some cash by using their creativity.  Also as a point of interest, ( because there are quite a lot of cool flash web sites there and I think not many people know) google can now search flash websites Link to google web blog. 

So if you are interested Click on the link above and take a look around. The free link is on the left of the page.

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Harbour bridge light trails

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Looking across from the passenger terminal

It was a long weekend last weekend. so after working on Saturday I thought it a good idea to take the family out for a Sunday evening. We went down to Sydney to have a look at the new light festival that the city council decided to put on.

It was free so that suited me right down to the ground.

The kids are still young enough that they thought it was a great idea. All in all we had a nice family outing.

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My little princess performing

The curator was Brian Eno of roxy music then his own solo career fame.

Every wanna be photographer was out and about. these are a few i took but if you want to look at some better quality ones just go to fliker or somewhere like that

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Opera house

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There are a few problems with the system. The first one is the unexplained expectation that we expect capitalism to be fair to everyone. It is a bit like communism expecting everyone to pull their weight. It is well intentioned but it just doesn't happen.

A rabbit eats grass an eagle eats meat and either one will die before it changes it habits. Why are we expecting these guys to show repentance or true humility? it is just not inside them.

From a morel or ethical point of view I cannot understand why we let these guys call the shots so much. They are supposed to be some of the so called cleverest of the clever and look at where they put us.

Cleaver they may be, with numbers and stuff but ask them to show a little bit of emotional intelligence or humane compassion for the less well of in society and they will give you 10 reasons why they are so clever and deserve more for themselves. We "take risks they say", We "do things", we "make things happen" This is not really a bad thing it is just the way their personality works. They are bound by their genetic make-up to behave a certain way.

Therefore I cannot see why we reward an individual in our society who is only doing what comes naturally to them. Put any one of these CEOs in charge of a ten man operation and they cant stop themselves from turning it into 5000 man operation in 10 years. Put another type of personality in charge and they will turn it into a 10 man operation in 5years because they have a need inside them to touch their work intimately .

Is it The CEO who never gets his hands dirty, The self promoting so called visionary? that tells everyone they cant do without him? Or the people who actually do the stuff? The stuff that makes the CEO Look like he is achieving "Goals" . I think we both need each other. And I think a good leader does deserve some compensation for leading.

I have problems accepting the reasoning that the CEOs deserve more than 200 to 250 times the reward of the lowest in our society. Just because he or she finds it uninteresting to be hands on making, serving or day to day cleaning, does not mean he is more or less valuable to society. (Their personality type would possibily beg to differ) They are just part of our society.

I think the problems start when they are left in groups by themselves without enough other personalities in the mix to compensate for their narrow mindedness.

The rest of us just want the basics in life. A safe society, a roof over our heads with a warm bed, access to healthy food, basic health and dental care for our families, A bit of money left over to buy reliable transport and a few technological nick nacks. It sounds like heaven on earth.

If you are a CEO you want a lot more! enough is never enough.

Hi guys

I heard this interview the other day.

It is on the Australian broadcasting commission website

It is a fascinating interview with a professor who studies the human brain. The talk ranges from stem cells, nerve cell regeneration to memory. They also discuss real progress of treatments that may in 2 to 10 years time enable us to repair spinal cord trauma, they also discuss intelligence, free will and human consciousness.

If you are interested just Click this link in your browser then click on your preferred media player http://www.abc.net.au/queensland/conversatio ns/stories/s2013874.htm?queensland" title="http://www.abc.net.au/queensland/conversatio ns/stories/s2013874.htm?queensland" target="_blank"http://www.abc.net.au/queensl...

It amazes me how far we have come with medicine. My grandfather was 45 years old when he died in about 1967 of a heart attack; the method of treatment was to send him home as he slowly died over the next two days.

These days unless you have a massive heart attack you would live for at least another 20 years.

I have a mixture of feelings as I consider that I have already lived an extra 2 years longer than him. I think we should never take for granted how lucky we are to be living through these wonderfully enlightened times.

Thought I’d try and throw an entry in.

It’s been a while

About two years ago it was my daughters third birthday. I had just picked her up from childcare and on the way home I noticed a sign saying chickens for sale $3each. So in we went and we chose six. One died in the first week but the other 5 grew up into two males and three females and after a few months we were getting 2 to 3 eggs a day.

We had had chooks before and when the hens went broody we hadn’t had much luck with the hens hatching out the chickens.

This time was no different and when one of the chooks went broody more than three weeks passed and then the crazy chook left the eggs and still no chickens.

I had been telling the kids soon we will have some chicks running around.

So there I was with egg on my face so to speak because of some $3 psychotic chook that hadn’t had her maternal instincts instilled into her properly couldn’t hatch an egg.

More than One hours worth of writing wasted!

This prgram doesent have any safteys on it so that if you are even slightly distacted its gone!

4 (Thats 4 BLOODY times)

Sorry guys I'll post another day.

I know there were thousands,,, just Thousands waiting to read it too!

Finaly I have been able to upload another photo.

This was taken about 12 months ago. On Australia day (26th of Januarry). We were trawling around Sydney watching the parades and Doing the nationalistic thing.