Blerk

I wrote the following into the "about me" box in my facebook profile. It probably does as a bad a job of painting a picture of me as the majority of combinations and permutations of english words.

I like to be a positive, active and happy go lucky person. I am an eternal optimist who loves nothing more than flying by the seat of his pants. Easily distracted and prone to rambling off on strange and unexpected tangents. I'm armed with a quick "out of left field" sense of humour and an open mind.

I love communicating with people who are passionate about the topic at hand.

Verbal wankery I guess.

In other news, my life has wiggled its way around and has settled back into a curiously comfortable and deja vu'y arrangement. I'll be working in an interesting IT job, living a share house with an awesome group of guys and juggling a lot. The big difference between my life now and 6 years ago is the weather. I'm loving Melbourne summer but am a little concerned how I'll deal with my first melbourne winter.

But that is an age away. I just like to run the thought around in my head to ensure I don't take the current wonderful weather for granted.

Taking things for granted is probably my biggest fault. Maybe I should edit in a mention of that on my facebook profile...

Stop. Contemplate For A Moment.

You're an organism that can control the chemical make-up of the environment which your mind is contained in. Simply by the act of thinking, you can alter your biochemistry and feel any emotion. Try happiness. Or joy, joy is damn nice.

359 days till Golf Trip

Place the club face behind the ball. Stand comfortably with feet shoulder width apart. Draw a line that extends from your right foot through your left and all the way to the pin. Set your feet into the ground. Bend your knees. Focus right at the spot on the ball where the club face is going to make contact. Turn your head to trace the trajectory the ball is about to take. Visualise the flight of the ball in reverse. From the hole, rise and swing through the sky, downswoop to its position here on the ground. Head over the ball. Slow, solid, smooth backswing. Watch the ball. Watch the ball. Describe an arc. Transfer weight from right foot to left. Drive with left hip. Watch the ball. Take a mental snap shot as the club head violently slashes across my vision, witnessing the leading edge folding over the very tips of damp grass, the satisfying sound of contact. The ball suddenly receives a large delivery of kenetic energy.

Simple game really. It had been over a decade since I'd last picked up a golf club in anger. Back then it was a fun round with the brother of a girlfriend. I recalled hitting the odd decent shot, but spending a lot of time looking for lost balls and had filed it away as something that I wasn't very good at and low on the enjoyment to hassle ratio. This time around I once again hit the odd decent shot and also spent a bit of time hunting for the mishit ones. But I thoroughly enjoyed it all. Maybe I'm mature enough for golf now?

When I stop and consider it, I keep ticking a heap of boxes and wonder why its taken me so long to get around to realising that golf is something I could/should put some effort into. It is perhaps the socially accepted pinacle of honing a useless skill. Most other sports can, even vaguely, translate into helpful real world skills; but golf is totally pointless. I thrive on teaching myself complex and useless skills!

Plus, I really enjoyed spending a few hours walking around a beautiful setting with a bunch of cool guys. I also found that I can chip like a pro. I've no idea how or why, but chipping balls ~30m up onto the green via a nice high parabolic arc came really naturally to me. The ambrose round where I consistantly delivered the best approach shots was a huge turning point in my fledgling golf addiction.

I'm definately going to require some time at a driving range working on my tee shots though. Oh boy, where they ever inconsistant.

Meredith Music Festival

By my own admission I'm well out of festival form. Prior to the weekend, the last camping festival I attended was a wet Spendour in the Grass which I didn't take much enjoyent from. Combined with the memories of a wet, cold and windy Falls Festival a few years earlier and I had kind of sworn off camping festivals.

With this in mind, along with horror stories of the conditions from the previous year, I woke up at 3:30am last Friday with some trepidation. We were heading via charter bus to the Meredith Music Festival. After exchanging some angst with the bus driver about whether or not he would be waiting in line with us for 2 hours until the gates opened, we finally made our way to Outter Mongolia and claimed an excellent camp site. The weather was looking pretty good all things considered. Patches of sun and blue sky through grey clouds, which let loose nothing but small sprinkles all weekend.

I was determined to have a large one, even knowing that I'd be backing up directly after Meredith to head off for 4 days of heavy golfing and heavier drinking. This lead to Friday afternoon quickly building towards a huge Friday night. I didn't really have any bands on the ticket which were "must sees" so I just hung around the stage and gave everything a shot. I was my usual gregarious self and made a number of new friends.

Sia was impressive, I have a theory that her set alone would have led to about 25% higher rates of curious lesbian encounters. Patrick Wolf's set was probably my musical highlight of the festival, I regret not being up and dancing for the whole 45mins he was exploding all over the stage. Tumbleweed put on an excellent rock show.

We happened to be standing next to the world's biggest Royal Crown Review fan when they took the stage. At first I was chuffed, as his obvious excitement was spilling over onto everyone around him. I surprised even myself with how quickly I grew tired of his incessant annoucing of how amazing this all was, along with the complete backstory of how someone so young was such a fan of such an odd band, combined with the group hugs between each song.

I only caught the earlier bands on Saturday, highlights being; Pharoahe Monch, Combo La Revelacion (seriously, if you like a bit of salsa music you need some Combo) and Heavy Trash.

Paul Kelly's set was good, but seemed a bit out of place with the vibe of the crowd. Animal Collective and Javis Cocker both also left me a little "meh". I think I was just in a different party mode than what they were performing on stage, but I often found myself annoyed that the bands were stopping the DJ's from continuing to spin more cool tracks.

I only heard the Yacht Club DJs set from the campground, but it really sounded like it was pumping. If only they'd been on at 10:30 instead of 1am :)

All in all, I had a total blast. The music was damn good, but really these festivals are 50% about the people you're with (I'm giving 25% to the weather and 25% to the music) and I was lucky enough to spend my 1st Meredith with a crew who've essentially become professionals and also met a bunch of excellent people.

Blerk

For those hardy few who have continued to find their way to my little corner of the internet through my sporadic posting habits, thanks. For those who hassle me to update, thanks even more.

My life in the recent 3 months hasn't exactly contained much that I've felt the need to share. The low bits are fairly obvious to those who know the details and the high bits I haven't felt the need to post about because the majority of people who I'd like to share the details with have been there by my side.

Still, I've been slack. In amongst the trials and tribulations of day to day living, I have continued to have the occassional insight into life the universe and everything. I've just been too lazy to spend time at the keyboard writting about them.

I've found myself looking at the calendar and declaring that I'll get my life back on track in the new year. I have big ideas of rejoining the rat race, meeting a new collection of cubical drones, learning the ins and outs of another business. I am excited.

Until then, my focus remains 100% on enjoying life. This, I've realised, is a simple process; find good people to be in the company of.

I certainly did a bang up job of that over the last week; 1st at the Meredith Music Festival and then at Golf Trip.

Victory!

I managed to win the recently competed round 8 of social networking Pimpwar. Yay for me and my wasted time!

Body Clock

I haven't been able to shake out of this habit of waking up at 7am. I should be thankful, I guess. Not only because I get to see hot air balloons, one of them the shape of a water bomb, firing their flames and gaining altitude over the city in the crisp morning air. But because day light savings has kicked in, we've bent the laws of time and space and artificially granted me an extra hour sleep in. I was waking up at 6am.

Though, it kind of nullifies it when I've also pushed my normal bedtime to 1am rather than midnight.

Xrays

It'd been a while since I'd ventured into the belly of the beast which is the public hospital system. Today I had some happy snaps taken of my femor, where my 10cm osteochondroma resides. That's a bone tumor in laymans terms. I call it Marla.

Long story short, from the xrays things appear to be the same as they were 4 years ago. The main difference is in the higher quality and medium on which I received copies of the xrays. No longer do I get film. I get a cd. I thought that this could foil my plan of simply holding the new xrays up against the old ones and compare by eye.

With some fiddling of the zoom factor I was able to do much the same by holding the old xray up to my monitor. There's a bit that could be larger than last time, but it could also just be that the higher quality machine has shown it up clearer.

I'm now on the wait list for the bone tumor clinic down here, which will lead me towards the MRI machine.

Still, at the end of the day; I haven't had any serious woes with it. Considering I haven't had any serious pain over a healthy number of laps around the AFL field and shuttle sprints, I'm pretty happy with young Marla. Solid, dependable, unchanging.

My rock is actually a tumor.

Quote of the however long its been since the last one

Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well armed lamb contesting the vote

- Benjamin Franklin

A Good Kind of Ache

I packed a fair bit of fun into the weekend. Consumed a healthy portion of delicious Japanese food on Friday night. Interesting conversations over such wonderful yums as pork belly skewers, wagyu beef steak and fried chicken skin, it was difficult to drag myself away. I had to though, as there was a going away party which I wasn't going to miss for the life of me.

By any fair judging, I'd have to say that we successfully drank enough booze and talked enough shit to ensure a safe and enjoyable trip for our guest of honour. Just incase it wasn't, after completing the trip to the aquarium, we played copious amounts of board games until the wee hours.

I slept in until midday to recover. Me, sleeping until midday. Unheard of. But required, as the weather cleared up and provided perfect conditions for an excellent 3v3 game of gridiron down at the park. My team won! I scored a touch down! I also threw a touch down pass! I like using exclaimation marks!!

A big dinner of spag bog and a high definition episode of Band of Brothers completed the weekend in fantastic fashion. This all sets me up for a big monday of poker, watching NFL, updating my CV and kicking off the hunt for a new job.

Wait, what's that? New job? Tune in next time for more details!

Quote of the Whatever Time Frame

Why has elegance found so little following? Elegance has the disadvantage that hard work is needed to achieve it and a good education to appreciate it.

- Edsger Wybe Dijkstra

Juggling, Epiphanies, Processes

The enjoyment I take from juggling stems from the cocktail of emotions you can feel during a good session. From the intense frustration and anger I feel when I'm constantly failing to learn a pattern or, worse still; cocking up a pattern that I know I've mastered long ago. To the unbridled joy gained from successfully completing a new pattern for the first time. Combined with the long tail of the juggling learning curve it means that its a hobby where I can continuously challenge myself to learn new things.

I find that there are two key moments when I'm learning a new pattern or trick. An initial moment of epiphany when I'm first able to complete it successfully and then the moment when I realise that I'm now able to repeat it without any conscious thought. The 1st time you complete something it often feels awkward, rushed or just plain messy, but it is still a very satisfying moment. I then repeat and practice the trick, focusing on being smooth, controlled, precise and flowing. I'm building up muscle memory and finally will be able to hand the trick off to my subconcsious. At that point I take great enjoyment from the sense that I now have that knowledge contained somewhere in my grey matter, able to seemingly automatically recall it at any time.

I've found that my process for learning new patterns or tricks comes in two very different types;

1) concentrated, focused effort to learn a particular pattern
2) from random experimentation during a session when in the zone

The 1st situation really requires me to be in the correct frame of mind before even starting to juggle. Its the process required when I'm learning something from someone face to face, via youtube videos or from a juggling pattern animation program. Usually I've picked up my balls with the specific plan of learning something new. I'll break down the pattern into sections and work out what each hand needs to be doing. While practicing each throw individually, I'll be extremely focused on visualising where each ball will be travelling and try to work out a rhythm. Then its just time, patience, practice and dedication. This process can become very frustrating and I often finish sessions without "getting it", feeling disapointed and unco-ordinated. However, the enjoyment gained when I finally nail something that I've really struggled with is extremely satisfying. Most of my favourite tricks were ones which "put up a fight" when I was learning.

The 2nd situation is far more wonderous and hard to explain. The goal of most juggling sessions is to "get into the zone". That special situation where I feel totally at ease, perfectly confident that between my hands, the balls and gravity, everything is in balance. Patterns flow into each other and the momentum of the balls lead me to string certain patterns together. During these moments of flow, with my brain working so fast that time dilates and gravity seems to fade slightly, occassionally my hands will find a pattern which I had no forethought of.

Early on in my career the chaotic imperfections of my throws lead to this happening quite often. Since youtube wasn't around back then and I didn't have a juggling mentor, it was how I stumbled onto a lot of basic patterns. These days I really enjoy juggling with background music is because I'm able to use changes in the music to trigger changes in my patterns. Its incredible how your body/brain can react to make an unusual catch or throw to stay in time with the beat or to react to a break. The times when those strange chaos throws feel good, I'll try repeating it and attempt to lock it into my subsconcsious.

Anything that is around 110 to 160 bpm works a treat. I match the music to my mood and then the type of balls to the tempo of music. Heavy balls for meaty hip hop, with lots of over hand grabs slapping the catches in time with the backbeat. Lighter balls for dancey tracks (Daft Punk and Kraftwork are amongst the best music of this), the faster tempo leads me towards tight site swaps and Mill's mess style arm crossing.

I've lost access to the video camera, so no footage! D'oh.

District 9

I blame Peter Jackson for making me appear to be a selfish, forgetful and all round useless bastard. Last night at the last minute we decided to go see District 9 at the cinema, completely derailing my plans to call my wonderful older sister on her birthday.

On the upside, the movie was beyond awesome. I was greatly reminded of Peter Jackson's 1st movie, the incredible Bad Taste. Totally over the top gore and effects which bookend around a sci fi storyline crafted wonderfully out in left field. The dash of social commentary and the wonderful South African accents round it out nicely. Basically I agree with these 7 reasons to go see District 9.

In Case You Didn't Know

Hard earned blisters have all but healed
The torn flesh mended, tender yet resealed
Last of the physical reminders retreat
Leaving only memories of things incomplete
Dreams I was fed which took root and grew
Pushed me away and you've taken them with you

Foosball

On the weekend I went to see DrewMoney's housemate and his band rock out. Before and after his set (which was highly entertaining and very very rock) we claimed the pub's Foosball table.

There was some discussion about whether spinning was allowed, those making cases against spinning were easily drowned out by my triumphant outbursts each and every time I spun the shit out of my strikers and rammed another goal home.

Ain't It?

Ain't it strange how life can twist and turn
Isn't it weird how love can sooth or burn
Don't you ponder how things ebb and flow
Doesn't it frustrate you how you can never know?

OMG Comments

I'd been toying with a few different ideas about how to handle comments here on my crappy lifestream page. Twitter is so hot right now that I was really tempted to hax up a system which enabled people to tweet comments to posts, with my site simply doing a twitter search for any tweets tagged with a speical hashtag. This would have the upside of me not needing an authorisation system and also some spam advertising as my friends tweet'd about things on my site.

Never one to rebuild a wheel that already rolls pretty well, I googled around and found Chirrup; supposedly a simple javascripted system which I could drop in pretty damn easily. Only it didn't work. When I went looking for support I noticed that the guy who made Chirrup actually uses a system called Disqusto handle comments on his own blog.

Always check what the people in the know use.

So I've integrated Disqus into the site. Yay! It allows people to log in using facebook, twitter, openid or Disqus' own user authentication system. Or even guests (I'll see how this goes, I hate spam). It also has a very slick moderation / admin system and by being externally hosted it fits into my basic goal here on the lifestream; for it to be as portable to a new webhost as possible.

Slaberific

Exciting times are upon us here in our little corner of the planet. The slab for the house has been poured and we've been spending our weekends banging star pickets into the ground to slice and dice our 18 acres up into paddocks. Who knew making drastic changes to the earth would be so much fun?



I've got next week off work, a stretch of time which will be spent focusing on completing the internal fit out of the stables. This will include a concrete base down the center isle, 3m out the end for the wash bay and a 4m by 4m tackroom.

We'll probably get a chance to layout the framework for the house and perhaps look at stringing the electric braid on the fence lines. We're actually getting closer to getting out of this rental!

Rain, Rain, Go Away

I'd probably get murdered by the local farmers if I said this in public, but all this rain we're getting is really hampering our building progress. Things have stalled once again as we wait for enough sunny days to dry out the soggy earth and allow us to pour the slab for the house.

We're near certain to have missed the end of June deadline to lock in the current first home owners grants and boosters. I'm a little uneasy relying on the liberal party to not get in the way of the governments plans to increase the bonuses from $25k to $36k as proposed in the 2009 - 2010 budget.

I'm glad that Utegate blew up in the lib's faces. Hopefully they won't be too eager to cause a double dissolution election.

We're also waiting on pouring the slab for the center aisle of the stables, after which we can put up the roller doors, build the internal stables and I can finally declare it done.

Then there's fencing.....

I just want to be making progress!

Blue Angels, In Cockpit Video