About Me
I live in Western Australia, near the water, in the city. I like to wander about. I love my family and friends. I read when I can, write when I can, take photos and hope for the best.
"When, however, I look over the hints and memorandums I have taken down ... my heart almost fails me at finding how my idle humor has led me aside ..."
Washington Irving
'The Author's Account of Himself'
The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon
Archives
- February 2003
- March 2003
- April 2003
- May 2003
- June 2003
- July 2003
- August 2003
- September 2003
- October 2003
- November 2003
- December 2003
- January 2004
- February 2004
- March 2004
- April 2004
- May 2004
- June 2004
- July 2004
- August 2004
- September 2004
- October 2004
- November 2004
- December 2004
- January 2005
- February 2005
- March 2005
- April 2005
- May 2005
- June 2005
- July 2005
- August 2005
- September 2005
- October 2005
- November 2005
- December 2005
- January 2006
- February 2006
- March 2006
- April 2006
- May 2006
- June 2006
- July 2006
- August 2006
- September 2006
- October 2006
- November 2006
- December 2006
- January 2007
- February 2007
- March 2007
- April 2007
- May 2007
- June 2007
- July 2007
- August 2007
- September 2007
- October 2007
- April 2012
- Temporal Island Home
Weblog Feed
Blogs I Read
- me, my life + infrastructure
- urban creature
- Benjamin Solah's Blog
- Free Beer
- Papertrap.net
- Monday Sunset
- an evening with Andrew
- One Dog Said To The Other
- Ruminations
- Librarians Matter
- Abstract Gourmet
- Tama Leaver dot Net
- The Journey
- enter the goatlady
- Rachel from Minti
- Clique Communications Blog
- Freo Stencils
- Double Half
- The Not So Secret Life of Simone
- RetGen
Whatever takes my fancy...
Reference Section
On Line Activities
In the Age of the Automobile - and nothing has shaped our culture like the motor car - there have been many great drivers but only one great passenger.
Tom Robbins
Even Cowgirls Get The Blues
Sunday, April 29, 2007
Dee and Iris at Blogger Meetup - in December!
Dee and Iris
Iris and Ingo visited from Germany in December and it's taken me all this while to upload a photo that Ingo took of Iris and I. I'm on the right! I like this photo because neither of us is looking directly at the camera, we're probably following different conversations, and we're both smiling. I think I look nervy and relaxed at once, so it's a regular blogger meetup. The lights in the background are in William Street, Northbridge as seen from the balcony of the Brass Monkey Hotel.
Labels: Blogger Meetup, Dee, Iris
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
Didn't Even Say Goodbye
In 1997 I authored my first Web page.
I read up on hexadecimal colours and just started making colours up. More red! A bit of blue... How much green? The first page had blue print on a green background. Agggh. I read about tables and I went full on with the TD this and the TD that and the 'what the...? What's going on? Why isn't this working?' Then I learnt about accessibility and went back and made it all accessible. Then I learnt HTML 4 and dropped all the tables. Then XHTML.
I learnt HTML from Elizabeth Castro's book on Visual Quickstart Guide to HTML 3 and I learnt about accessibility by checking all my pages with CAST's Bobby (now owned by Watchfire).
I could never work out what links to share on my home page - I'm not fickle but then it didn't seem right for just a few hyperlinks to be the final word on my interests. What I really wanted was to update all the time. Hello?
Around the same time I first wrote a Web page, I joined a mailing list for people interested in (but mostly affected by) retinal degeneration. Every time a link came my way, I felt compelled to bookmark it for later reference. In case someone else wanted it, you see.
So I started placing them on my Web site, which somehow kept growing until it had thirty pages, nearly all containing just links and each with little sections and internal page menus.
A couple of day's ago at work I went to show someone what I meant by internal page menus, apologising in advance for the licorice allsorts design of the page.
Only it wasn't there. The page. Or my site!
I've changed ISPs and just pay for an account with my first ISP so that I can keep my first Web site in its place. I paid that account late (and I've received a receipt) but as it turns out, my first ISP doesn't use it's original name/domain name anymore and my site, as a consequence, is gone. Thanks for the e-mail letting me know old ISP!
So, do I buy another domain name just so I can host my former obsession? Or do I let it go?
I could keep it attached to GirlFriand in a separate folder. Or maybe Temporal Island, which sometimes is more disability-focussed, could have it's own domain and the RD-related stuff could hang around it? Do I have time?
I don't know. Maybe it's time to let go. But it's such a big collection of links!
(1) comments |
I read up on hexadecimal colours and just started making colours up. More red! A bit of blue... How much green? The first page had blue print on a green background. Agggh. I read about tables and I went full on with the TD this and the TD that and the 'what the...? What's going on? Why isn't this working?' Then I learnt about accessibility and went back and made it all accessible. Then I learnt HTML 4 and dropped all the tables. Then XHTML.
I learnt HTML from Elizabeth Castro's book on Visual Quickstart Guide to HTML 3 and I learnt about accessibility by checking all my pages with CAST's Bobby (now owned by Watchfire).
I could never work out what links to share on my home page - I'm not fickle but then it didn't seem right for just a few hyperlinks to be the final word on my interests. What I really wanted was to update all the time. Hello?
Around the same time I first wrote a Web page, I joined a mailing list for people interested in (but mostly affected by) retinal degeneration. Every time a link came my way, I felt compelled to bookmark it for later reference. In case someone else wanted it, you see.
So I started placing them on my Web site, which somehow kept growing until it had thirty pages, nearly all containing just links and each with little sections and internal page menus.
A couple of day's ago at work I went to show someone what I meant by internal page menus, apologising in advance for the licorice allsorts design of the page.
Only it wasn't there. The page. Or my site!
I've changed ISPs and just pay for an account with my first ISP so that I can keep my first Web site in its place. I paid that account late (and I've received a receipt) but as it turns out, my first ISP doesn't use it's original name/domain name anymore and my site, as a consequence, is gone. Thanks for the e-mail letting me know old ISP!
So, do I buy another domain name just so I can host my former obsession? Or do I let it go?
I could keep it attached to GirlFriand in a separate folder. Or maybe Temporal Island, which sometimes is more disability-focussed, could have it's own domain and the RD-related stuff could hang around it? Do I have time?
I don't know. Maybe it's time to let go. But it's such a big collection of links!
Monday, April 23, 2007
Broken In
Friday night I swapped white canes so that I had mine back. We each checked to make sure we had the right one, just in case a third cane was involved. I didn't use mine the weekend of the mix up because a different friend borrowed it, having left accidentally hers at home.
I'm feeling dizzy just thinking about it. I hate my cane to be away and I hardly ever use it.
My own cane has a ball tip, rather than a roller tip or, heavens above, no tip. My tip's remained pretty much round over the six years I've had it.
So -
Oh, hang on - my tip's rounder than...
And then I realised. In the short space of a month, someone who walks everywhere and needs a cane to do it can give a round tip a pretty hard edge. My cane's been broken in!
(0) comments |
I'm feeling dizzy just thinking about it. I hate my cane to be away and I hardly ever use it.
My own cane has a ball tip, rather than a roller tip or, heavens above, no tip. My tip's remained pretty much round over the six years I've had it.
So -
Oh, hang on - my tip's rounder than...
And then I realised. In the short space of a month, someone who walks everywhere and needs a cane to do it can give a round tip a pretty hard edge. My cane's been broken in!
Saturday, April 21, 2007
Small Town, Great Views
Like Augusta, only with more taxis. Thanks to a mix up (and not thanks to Telstra and a delayed SMS) I spent a couple of hours wandering Freo last night breathing in the smell of anchovies and cheese. Then I caught a bus home and declared myself too tired, hungry and grumpy to go out. Lucky a friend persuaded me to come out anyway and swung by in a taxi to pick me up because:
From this, you can tell that I like music, chatting and just checking out the view. I'm compelled to look at the view, I feel like I'm wasting chances if I don't. That's why I spent so long in Augusta. Oh look, the ocean, the river, the bush, the paddocks...
So it was kinda funny to have one of those 'so do you know so-and-so?' moments that you have in Perth, where people you know from two unrelated places have their own connection, and after which people remark that Perth is such a small place. Not compared to some, but then as everyone always says next - well, it's not really, but it is.
And it's kinda funny that it didn't occur to me that I've looked out over the Blackwood at night hundreds of times and instead thought 'wow, I'm so lucky to be here right now.' Which is what I thought every time I've looked out from where I lived, or from other people's houses, over the ocean or the river down south.
So I guess I'm just lucky a lot!
(0) comments |
- We went to Legends in Attadale and saw a friend's band play.
- We moved on to a place overlooking the Swan, sat out the front and talked.
- On the way home, I chatted to friends at a place in Freo that overlooks the Passenger Terminal and the harbour.
From this, you can tell that I like music, chatting and just checking out the view. I'm compelled to look at the view, I feel like I'm wasting chances if I don't. That's why I spent so long in Augusta. Oh look, the ocean, the river, the bush, the paddocks...
So it was kinda funny to have one of those 'so do you know so-and-so?' moments that you have in Perth, where people you know from two unrelated places have their own connection, and after which people remark that Perth is such a small place. Not compared to some, but then as everyone always says next - well, it's not really, but it is.
And it's kinda funny that it didn't occur to me that I've looked out over the Blackwood at night hundreds of times and instead thought 'wow, I'm so lucky to be here right now.' Which is what I thought every time I've looked out from where I lived, or from other people's houses, over the ocean or the river down south.
So I guess I'm just lucky a lot!
Thursday, April 19, 2007
Yesterday in Few Words
Yesterday I caught a train from work into the city and from there took a taxi to Point Fraser, on the city side of the causeway, to tag along on a City of Perth Access Working Group site visit. We checked out the new kids playground (cool rope pyramids and big braille signs), the raised walkways, the information booth that's like a mini Australian Parliament House (you can walk up the grass to a lookout above it) and the taxi rank.
By some sweet coincidence, the visit ended at 12 noon and I could walk around the river's edge to the Claisebrook canal in East Perth in time for lunch at the Royal Bar and Cafe for work. Chicken florentine with creamy cointreau sauce for me and coffee overlooking the water on a sunny day.
I worked till six, kinda to make up for my not-at-all work-related visit to Point Fraser and also because I could walk from work into Northbridge for blogger meet up at seven. Lemon meringue pie at Valentinos called on the way - all of my earnings is spent on coffee and cake, it seems. So frivolous after months of cous cous and broccoli.
Perth Weblogger Meetup is morphing into Twitter meetup, so now you can catch up with GirlFriand on Twitter - just so I/she don't/doesn't feel left out! Surely I have time for 140 characters that describe my activity every so often? Great to meet new people, the regular blogger crew and also , who I've met online but have never met in person!
(0) comments |
By some sweet coincidence, the visit ended at 12 noon and I could walk around the river's edge to the Claisebrook canal in East Perth in time for lunch at the Royal Bar and Cafe for work. Chicken florentine with creamy cointreau sauce for me and coffee overlooking the water on a sunny day.
I worked till six, kinda to make up for my not-at-all work-related visit to Point Fraser and also because I could walk from work into Northbridge for blogger meet up at seven. Lemon meringue pie at Valentinos called on the way - all of my earnings is spent on coffee and cake, it seems. So frivolous after months of cous cous and broccoli.
Perth Weblogger Meetup is morphing into Twitter meetup, so now you can catch up with GirlFriand on Twitter - just so I/she don't/doesn't feel left out! Surely I have time for 140 characters that describe my activity every so often? Great to meet new people, the regular blogger crew and also , who I've met online but have never met in person!
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
Dance the Impossible
G (so now we're going for anonymity) and I finished the six week beginners pole dancing course a while back and tonight we took our first regular pole dancing exercise class - Smouler and Spin.
Never have I felt so unco, so unsexy, and so not curvy as when learning to pole dance. Yep, and tonight was no different. One minute I'm a star and kicking my legs straight and high and the next I can't work out how to do a body wave or where to place my hands for a spin. We missed all but the last two spins in the first routine because we couldn't remember how to do them.
And it's so hard to point one's toes when your foot starts to cramp a little!
I can now grab onto the pole with my hands, hoike myself off the ground and hold for a count of four instead of freaking out and tensing my neck and shoulders like that's going to make up for years of lifting not much more than my shopping. And repeat.
What I like about it is that I find myself doing moves I thought impossible for me to learn. I give up and then I find I can do it. I swear, if I could see more I'd chuck a tanty and run away without trying. Instead, I'm not confident I'd find the door if I did attempt to run away and so I have to listen and try again. And it works!
This time round I didn't come away with any bruises either - in fact, I learnt new moves at swish on the weekend and that caused more aches and pains, so one way or another, I'm improving.
(2) comments |
Never have I felt so unco, so unsexy, and so not curvy as when learning to pole dance. Yep, and tonight was no different. One minute I'm a star and kicking my legs straight and high and the next I can't work out how to do a body wave or where to place my hands for a spin. We missed all but the last two spins in the first routine because we couldn't remember how to do them.
And it's so hard to point one's toes when your foot starts to cramp a little!
I can now grab onto the pole with my hands, hoike myself off the ground and hold for a count of four instead of freaking out and tensing my neck and shoulders like that's going to make up for years of lifting not much more than my shopping. And repeat.
What I like about it is that I find myself doing moves I thought impossible for me to learn. I give up and then I find I can do it. I swear, if I could see more I'd chuck a tanty and run away without trying. Instead, I'm not confident I'd find the door if I did attempt to run away and so I have to listen and try again. And it works!
This time round I didn't come away with any bruises either - in fact, I learnt new moves at swish on the weekend and that caused more aches and pains, so one way or another, I'm improving.
Monday, April 16, 2007
Shakin' in the Real World
Monday night, late, and I'm blogging so that I can look people in the eye if I go to blogger meetup on Wednesday night. Where do people find time to blog? Reasons not to blog -
So that doesn't look like a very impressive list and most of my time is spent either at work or on the phone to Gill. But tonight's a start and maybe I'll get back into it. Maybe I just needed a break after four years.
(7) comments |
- Party in Pinjarra, after which I came home with someone else's white cane and at which I woke up to discover that some musicians play best as the sun comes up.
- Cricket trip to Busselton, where Nanna fed me three scones with jam and cream, I took two wickets, I ran around an awful lot because some guy hit every ball to me, and where I got out for a duck.
- The Prestige (hey, such a cool plot), Little Miss Sunshine, and Casino Royale on DVD.
- Swish, which this month left me bruised and sore. I don't think I realised how much guys like a chance to just belt stuff. Bits of bell fly out of the ball. It's so much fun!
So that doesn't look like a very impressive list and most of my time is spent either at work or on the phone to Gill. But tonight's a start and maybe I'll get back into it. Maybe I just needed a break after four years.
