April 2010
3 posts
February 2010
1 post
A new theme - some new knowledge
Just finished educating myself about XHTML and CSS - thoroughly recommend the book ‘Head First HTML with XHTML and CSS’ for anyone else trying to understand the underpinnings of web design.
In celebration I’ve given this tumble blog a new theme. The old one has been in use since I first signed up, nearly two years ago now. It’s also amazing to see how far tumblr has come -...
January 2010
4 posts
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Walking the Coast Track
I made the most of the fine weather we had this week and got out into the Royal National Park.
Leaving my motor scooter at Wattamolla car park I headed south along the Coast Track to the broken, rocky inlet of Curracurrang. A hidden gem there is the natural waterfall-fed swimming pool about 200m upstream of the cove. Delightfully cold, yet the water cascading down the waterfall is warm from the...
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December 2009
1 post
November 2009
5 posts
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Moving into my first Office
My business, AEA, has grown enough that the time to leave the spare bedroom at home has come!
The spare room has served me well since February 2008 - although of late it has gotten altogether too crowded for comfort! Stock in cartons everywhere, two desks jammed in, several bookcases of files and catalogues and a big rack of hanging stock in the corner. Also, too many customers and deliveries are...
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America's Cup yacht unveils world's largest hard...
The 33rd America’s cup has been bogged down in legal challenges for the last two and half years but both sides have been building ever bigger boats in preparation for the eventual one-on-one showdown that everyone knows is coming.
The American challengers - Oracle billionaire Larry Ellison’s BMW Oracle Racing Team - built a 90 foot long carbon-fibre trimaran only to be outdone by the...
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October 2009
2 posts
1 tag
Software for Small Business
My small business has grown to the point where the processes I started off with are getting annoyingly cumbersome. Manually copying information from our contacts database into our sales and accounts software for each sale, accessing product information from printed materials, supplier catalogues and online websites… the busier we get, the longer it takes.
So the search is on for a good,...
September 2009
1 post
Quick Updates
- Sailing has started again. The opening regatta for the summer season was held last Saturday. A non-pointscore race, with a pursuit start. Our yacht, being known as fast, was given a crippling 54 minute handicap - in a 2 hour race! Needless to say, we didn’t do very well. Serious racing starts in two weeks time, Friday night twilight racing (for all those friends I’ve promised a ride...
July 2009
3 posts
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First Day of Motorcycling for Friends
Saturday dawned clear and bright… which was a good thing too, as I had organised a motorcycling run down through the Royal National Park with two friends who had just gotten their L-plates.
It was a great day, the run through the park was fantastic - Gymea Lillies abounding, birds tweeting and the sun and shade making fantastic patterns on the road. Heaven!
The photos are of myself, Joanne...
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May 2009
3 posts
Sailing - Audi CYCA Winter Series - Race 2
We sailed well. We missed a mark. We were forced to administratively ‘retire’ after the race, just before we would have been disqualified anyway. Grrr.
Ah well, at least it was a nice day on the harbour. Grrr.
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Sailing - Audi CYCA Winter Series - Race 1
The Audi Winter Series run out of the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia has begun. The first race was the 3rd of May, and this last Sunday was the second.
Race 1 proved a less than auspicious start. Tigger sailed very well, placing second out of about 16 boats. A great achievement, sullied only by the 3-boat collision that we were part of about half-way through.
Tigger was hit on the starboard...
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Apple and their build-up of chip design expertise
This is a post I’ve just put up on MacRumors website - it’s long enough to become a blog post as well. Here goes:
I’ve just read through this thread and the related one from a couple of days earlier Apple Personnel Moves: Former AMD Chip Executive Hired, Papermaster Finally Begins Work. It seems to me that we’re all looking for justifications for Apple’s actions...
April 2009
4 posts
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Tyres - what not to buy
It turns out that the Michelin tyres I bought for my bike in the previous post are not that good after all. In fact, they’re awful.
Being a novice I assumed that deep and funky-looking treads were a good thing, giving better grip and tracking. It turns out that I was wrong.
The Michelin Transworld tyres have a deep tread that just loves to scoop up rocks, twigs and pieces of broken beer...
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Reviving a long-ignored bike
There’s no getting away from it. The protuberance above the hips and below the chest is, sadly, not getting smaller. It was - in the second half of last year it shrank considerably. The last three months it’s not changed at all. It has to go.
To that end I put on a dust mask and delved into the far end of my father’s garage yesterday afternoon, trusting to a vague memory I had...
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March 2009
4 posts
4 tags
Audi Regatta 2009
Last weekend was the Sydney Audi Regatta for 2009 - two days of hardcore racing, with several hundred yachts racing across 15 different divisions and courses. Fun!
Tigger was entered into the general sports boat division (our skipper is having an argument with the Flying Tiger 10m class association and declined to enter the special Flying Tiger one-design division) so were up 18 other hot sports...
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February 2009
7 posts
2 tags
Snowy Mountains in Summer
So, instead of the beach, I headed for the Snowy Mountains this January for my summer holiday. It proved a wise choice - Sydney was sweltering in 42 degrees celcius, while the daytime maximums in the mountains were only 25!
Here are a few of my favourite pictures from the trip - you can click-through for larger versions.
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December 2008
9 posts
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We're all going on a summer holiday!
I’m absolutely stoked - about to have my first holiday (of any description) in 3 years, and my first summer holiday since about 1997!
Two and a half weeks of sleeping, eating and swimming. There might be a few bush walks, several different beach visits, and certainly some live music to be enjoyed.
Life! So much better when you don’t sell your soul to a corporate behemoth!
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A Crazy/Fantastic Day Sailing
A fantastic day today on Tigger, the Flying Tiger 10m yacht.
It started in very light winds yet by the end the fleet was battling over 30 knots of breeze. Chaos everywhere - boats snapping their masts off at deck level, others becoming closely acquainted with a new medium. Land.
We were hot. Everyone worked hard, the team work was excellent and we scorched our competition around the course -...
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2nd Place!
Finally, after weeks of trying, we achieved a placing in our Saturday race!
The Super 30 Series is one of the most competitive series on Sydney Harbour, managed by the Sydney Amateur Sailing Club but drawing 30 foot yachts from most clubs on the harbour.
After a string of average results we all turned up early last Saturday for a two hour practice before the race start. After a number of...
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My Favourite Paintings (in Sydney)
Three from the Art Gallery of NSW.
The Canaletto reminds me of Venice as only he can. The Pissaro is just beautiful. And Tom Robert’s painting is the one I’d have on my wall in a flash. He understood a Sydney summer - that heady mix of water, bush and sun - perfectly.
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October 2008
2 posts
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A nice picture today of where we meet before, and drink after, each race. The CYCA (Cruising Yacht Club of Australia) is one of the real big clubs on the global scale of yacht racing importance. They race large boats offshore every Saturday in summer, have hundreds of millions of dollars of yachts hanging off their marina and they put on one of the biggest ocean races of them all - the Sydney to...
September 2008
2 posts
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Going Sailing
I met an old school friend on Facebook last week, turns out he’s a professional sailer now. (Not a bad life, if you can get it!)
Last Saturday I ended up helping crew on a brand new yacht he’s helping sail - a Flying Tiger 10m sports boat called Tigger. It’s been more than 10 years since I last sailed regularly so I was looking forward to getting out there.
Wow! Boats have...