Critters

In an attempt to keep my sanity I decided to drag my self away from work the other day to photograph some critters in Olympic Park. All and All a successful day of critter spotting.

Black-winged Stilts

Royal Spoonbill

Dragonflies

Its that time of year again

Believe it or not its three weeks until Christmas and in an attempt to get into the Christmas spirit Aleisha and I decided to put up our "tree". While it looks nice we still dont feel the Christmas spirit. Either it has something to do with being Secular Humanists or it’s due to our 8yr Kentucky spirit running low.

Bondi - Sculpture by the Sea

The annual Sculpture by the Sea exhibition at Bondi is always an excellent opportunity to do a bit of photography and get a bit of culture. Of course I took more photos than just this one, so if you would like to have a look at the rest then check out the website.

Wine Trip

On Saturday a few of us from work headed up to the Hunter Valley for a wine tour. It was a great day with a lot of wine being consumed, sorry I mean tasted.

Nothing like a few Blue Tongue beers to cleanse the pallet.

All the excitement was a bit too much for Allan.

U2

Well after much anguish (long story and kinda boring) we finally managed to see U2 on Friday night. The opening artist was Kanye West who, to be perfectly honest was pretty shit and thankfully only "performed" for 30min. Why he opened for U2 is anyones guess. Anyway U2 were who we had come to see and they did not let us down. We did get a little wet, and for once it was not due to the fat sweaty man in the mosh pit (it rained). U2 were excellent and played a good mix of old and new stuff with a set that lasted ~2 1/2 hours. All and all an excellent night.

Green Power

I think I may be turning into a tree hugging hippie as we have just converted to "Green Power". After getting pissed off by the Australian governments absolute retardedness when it comes to greenhouse gas emission we decided to do something ourselves. So we have converted 100 % wind generated electricity. How it works is that for every kW hr of power we use Origin Energy (our new supplier) purchases the same amount from an accredited wind farm. The electricity that actually comes into our house hasn't in any way changed but we generate demand for wind power. If demand increases enough more wind farms will be built, competition will increase and prices will come down and more people will use it (well that is the theory at least). It is more expensive at ~15c per kW hr but it worked out to be stuff all each month and if we can afford it (being relatively poor) almost everyone else can. To find out more follow the link. In case you didn't realise over 90% of Australia's power comes from burning fossil fuels and most of that is coal.

Outback photos are up

My Dad and I just got back from a five day trip into the outback, well the start of the outback at least. From Sydney we went to Kanangra Boyd national park, Bathurst, Cobar, Gundabooka national park, Bourke, Mt Oxley, Walgett, Lighting Ridge and finally Warrumbungle national park. In all we thrashed our rental car for 2500km, not a bad effort for 5 days. We managed to see a lot of critters during that time but unfortunately still no Wombats.
I have sifted though the photos and have put up a few on the website.

Sunset from the top of Mt Oxley

I know where you are

Google has made some amazing free software called Google Analytics that allows you to track who visits your website. I installed it on my BLOG a while back and have been tracking where everyone comes from and whos site they used to visit mine. It also gives you lots of other info like what operating system people use or which web browser is used. Does anyone feel violated yet? I was glad to learn that 76% of people viewing my website use firefox and then shocked to see that some dirty Mac user also visited my site.

Canvas Prints on their way.

Aleisha and I decided to get a couple of canvas prints of photos from our Africa trip and I just got the email saying that they have been sent. This is a copy of that email.

Dear Simon Iremonger                                                                 

It is my pleasure to inform you that your brilliant print has begun its journey to you. You will be pleased to know that I personally supervised our production team as they delicately printed your image and hand crafted a fine timber frame from the very best of our timber stocks. 

I watched as they delicately stretched and wrapped your print around the frame, and meticulously inserted Italian made staples to secure your print. I took great delight in witnessing our highly trained hanging expert from Japan insert the hooks and cord that will be used to hang your print for all the world to see. 

Your print was then carried aloft to our packaging temple, where our white-gloved staff checked your work of art to ensure it met our sky high standards. 

I could only smile as your print was collected by six fine horsemen. The roar of 100 drummers drumming was deafening, as your print left our premises. The entire population of Brisbane lined the streets and cheered as your print traveled through our wonderful city to the very competent hands of our delivery fulfillment partners. Please be calm in the knowledge 
that I personally inserted one of our purebred carrier pigeons into your parcel. Should anything go wrong, he will fly immediately back to let us know of the problem. 

We are thoroughly exhausted, but cannot wait to serve you again. In the unlikely event that you are not completely happy with your masterpiece, I have 9 of our finest staff waiting by the phone to resolve your concerns as per our customer guarantee. Thank-you once again, we truly appreciate that it is you, our customer, that puts the food on our table.

Some people have far to much spare time.

Aboriginal Rock Art

Yesterday Aleisha and I decided to try and track down some Aboriginal rock art in the Royal National Park. As expected there were no signs indicating where it was and after asking numerous people for directions and accidentally stumbling upon a nudist beach we finally found the rock art. There were also a surprising number of critters about.

Jacky Lizard

Little Corella

Anyone want a used underwater camera housing?

I have spotted an excellent deal on ebay, a used but excellent condition underwater housing for dSLR cameras.

Nanovehicles

Every now and again a paper appears that really grabs my attention, this was one of them. A new review article about Nanovehicles in Chem. Soc. Rev., it is good to see that scientists are researching areas that can really benefit humanity.

"Nanocars"

Happy Birthday Aleisha

To celebrate Aleisha's birthday we had the traditional Mutton roast (I would have prefered Lamb but its not my birthday). I think we will be eating mutton sandwiches for the next month!

Africa photos are finally up!

Well I know you have all been waiting so I will put you out of your misery, the photos are finally up. Due to the huge number of photos I have had to host them on a new site. I should also point out that your browser will need to have a flash plug-in for the photos to work, you can download it for free here.

http://www.kiwishooter.com/Africa


Sorry for those people who still use dial-up, it may be a little slow. So I have made a low resolution version which wont look great but it will have to do. The link for that one is.

http://www.kiwishooter.com/Africalowres

You can see any comments that Aleisha and I have written by simply moving the mouse over the photos.

Enjoy.

Photos on their way

I am about 80% through sorting out all the photos and rebuilding my old website, hopefully it should be up by early next week.

An article on street photography from the SMH

Every now and again the SMH actually prints an article this isnt a complete load of dingo crap. This is one of them and I found it rather interesting as I was in the same situation in Africa.
The article can be seen here.

On the hunt for the illusive Platypus

Today with the help of Iain and the Bush Mobile, Aleisha and I went out to try and spot the illusive Platypus (Ornithorhynchus anatinus). We had been tipped off just before we left for Africa that they hang out in the secret spot so on our first weekend back we decided to check it out. After seeing the "Big 5" in Africa we figured we should really try and spot the big 5 of Australia. We came to the agreement that they were the Wombat, Kangaroo, Platypus, Koala and Echidna.
While the weather looked bad and the locals were less than optimistic of our chances we still set out to tick off our 3rd of the big 5. Our secret source did not let us down and within 30 minutes we had spotted one.

The famous arched back of a diving Platypus

We also managed to spot a couple of nice birds as well.

Why South Africa is great

Just a few things that make South Africa an enjoyable place to stay.
Take a look at the last item on the menu, everything is cheap in Africa!


When you arrive at Jo'burg airport you are greeted with the following sign. Makes you feel really safe, doesnt it.

ICCC 38 - Guaranteed to be a blast

While the 37th ICCC conference in Cape Town was well worth while I may give the 38th a miss.

Taller people are smarter - The stats prove it

An excellent article out of "Stuff" that indicates what we have all always known.

"While researchers have long shown that tall people earn more than their shorter counterparts, it's not only social discrimination that accounts for this inequality – tall people are just smarter than their height-challenged peers"

And we all know that statistics never lie.