Qantas and Air New Zealand, two 'local' airlines, have introduced a new 'no men near children' policy. If any unaccompanied child is seated next to a man, the man is forced to move seats.

1) Why shouldn't the child be forced to move seats? Hell, the man was there first! Why can't they seat the child somewhere else?

2) Since when was it decided that all men are paedophiles, and untrustworthy sitting next to unaccompanied children? Obviously since now.

3) Can someone tell me the difference between this kind of blatant and disgusting discrimination, and the discrimination once meted out to black people (still is in some places)? "I'm sorry - no, I take that back, I'm not sorry, you scumbag - you're not allowed to sit next to this (white) person. Get to the back of the plane, or we'll throw you off."

This is another example of stupid fracked-up political correctness that has absolutely no place in modern society. As so rightly pointed out in the linked article above: "It's insane. It's political correctness and cautiousness gone mad."

People should be arrested for the crimes they commit. Until they commit a crime, they should not be treated as if they are criminals. This is placing all men in the categories of 'criminal' and 'paedophile'.

I really wish that an unaccompanied child is seated next to me on a plane when I go over to Australia. I'll tell them to go to hell. Their 'policy' is illegal, discriminatory, and unethical. And if they insist, I'll start raising my voice. I'll make it so embarrassing for them, that they'll have to move the child somewhere else.

Frack 'em.

However, I might consider offering them the opportunity of upgrading me to business class and refunding my airfare for the major inconvenience they've caused me. :-)

UPDATE: it seems that this policy has been in place for a number of years now.

Today was my birthday. 29th November. I'm 39 now... Yuk.

What WASN'T yuk was the day. I had the best birth day of my life! You're probably wondering how. It's so good that I'm going to tell you. *grin*

1) I had the day off today so I took Deidre into work this morning at around 8am. Her car was in for repairs, so that's why I drove her into work. I also drove her into work so that I could go to Starbucks.

2) I was at Starbucks from 8:30am through to 4:30pm, with a lunch break with Deidre in between. Now THAT was fantastic! Being there all day, with no real distractions, enjoying the atmosphere and the time to do NOTHING! Well, by 'nothing' I mean 'time to do what I haven't done yet, but have always been meaning to do'. And that's create the photo album to give to my parents for xmas, which I talked about in this post called My life in photos.

3) After meeting up with Deidre again at 4:30pm, she took me to my birthday present. There's no way to do it justice with words, so I'll do it justice with photos instead.















And this is Deidre looking very pleased with herself, and as happy as I was, that she had bought me a gift that I hadn't expected, and loved so much!


Thank you Deidre. You are so the best thing to have come into my life, and I'm so very happy that I'm the best thing to come into yours. *hugs*

Merry christmas everyone! I already have my xmas present under the tree. *smile*

I've started to make use of Flickr for displaying bunches of photos. I've created a 'Best of' album on there, which is the best of the photos since early 2003. I've also found a way of embedding a slideshow of that album in here. Please enjoy.

[UPDATE: Unfortunately, the slideshow didn't work as well as I wanted in here. It screwed up the right-hand column in IE. So please go to the following link to enjoy the slideshow, thanks.]

http://www.flickr.com/photos/nzalan/sets/1469573/show/

The main reason I created this album is because I'm going to get the photos printed out. I'll then put them into a photo album and give it to my parents at xmas as a xmas present - photos of my life.

It'll include photos from prior to 2003, of course, but they'll be prints that I already have. Basically I want to give them something that will show them my life oer the past few years, which they've missed out on.

I've seen things and done things that they have only dreamt about. I'm going to give them something that shows them their dreams haven't been wasted, and that I've been experiencing a small part of what they wanted to.

I hope one day to make enough money to allow them to achieve the same dreams. Until then, I can only show them photos of my own adventures.

It's been over a decade since we've seen each other. As I was compiling this album I got a little teary-eyed, seeing all these amazing photos that they will soon see for themselves. And yet, the emotional bit for me is that I've lived it, whereas they'll only see it in photos. It's not quite enough.

Last week, Friday, I went for the interview for the team leader role. I wasn't too sure about it after I had the interview, as I was left with a bit of a sore throat from all the talking I did, the lack of water I drank, and the inate nervousness that goes with job interviews. I didn't have a good feeling in my stomach, thinking that they might have thought I wasn't up to the requirements they were looking for.

I'm still not sure if they think I am, but at least I've got short-shortlisted to the next step, a second interview, so that's a very good sign. Woohoo!

I've got the day off for my birthday tomorrow, and then I have the 2nd interview on Wednesday morning. Apparently, if I do well on this 2nd interview, I'll have to do a psych test. Interesting. They asked me if I have done one of those before, and I said that I had, but it was when I joined the Army Reserves in Australia. The test included questions like, "Have you killed anyone before? Do you sometimes imagine what it would be like to kill someone? How would you feel if a member of your family was killed? How would you feel if you killed someone in combat?"

They assured me there wouldn't be any questions like that in their psych test. :-)

Please visit this article's new location. Thank you.

According to you, the reader, politics is one of your favourite topics in this blog. Since you comment on political and news posts in here, but you don't (or rarely) comment in my Eyes On The World blog, and since I said I was going to do more posts in here on what you seem to like, I'm cancelling Eyes On The World. Again. But at least I'm not stopping the political commentary. Instead, I'll continue with it in this blog, keeping 'life through my eyes' focused in here, rather than spread across a couple of blogs.

If you don't like reading politics, just ignore those posts. You know the drill. :-)

Back in the beginning of this year, I wrote a timeline to provide a 'history of the future', to be used for a roleplaying game I created that was set in 2030, a combination of the Werewolf and Cyberpunk genres. I created this history based a little bit on how I saw current events developing, and also some of the 'historical facts' that were provided by John Titor, an alleged time traveller. Bringing it all together, and using established Cyberpunk themes (eg. cybernetic developments and early space flight, etc), I created my own history. Interestingly, I had Russia and China supporting Iran in 2006. They beat my 'prediction' by a year.

Anyway, for your entertainment, I present the timeline I created. It's part of the same theme that I like following, where I create timelines in order to provide a foundation for the stories that result from it. I think that with everything you write or plan to write, it's worthwhile creating a timeline leading up to that point, especially if it deviates from historical fact and moves more into alternate realities or the future. If you know the history leading up to where your story starts, you've got more background to draw upon.

Star Trek: Rebellion timeline
Scorpion Fleet timeline
Scorpion Fleet future timeline
Cyberpunk / Werewolf timeline:

2005

• America enacts military draft, and public unrest in America becomes more apparent

2006

• America cleans up Iraqi resistance then attacks Iran, who successfully defends itself, causing incredible losses to American forces
• Unknown assailants, claimed by some commentators to be Israel, explode 3 nuclear bombs on Iranian targets
• Iran fires 4 nuclear missiles at Israel, believing it was responsible for the attacks. Israel and Palestine cease to exist
• Russia and China announce their support of Iran
• America withdraws all of its forces from the Middle East
• Middle Eastern refugees flood Europe and Africa
• The world pulls together to help the refugees and those countries holding them
• America refuses to help

2007

• America cuts off media syndication with the rest of the world
• The Vatican decrees that the Pope, being the voice of God, has immunity to the laws of mankind
• Australia and UK, affected by trade sanctions over their alliance with the US, renounce said alliance in order to continue being competitive on the global stage
• Michael Moore dies in a car accident. Suspecting foul play by the government, armed civilians assault the White House but are all killed
• Various conflicts rage around America, with the National Guard sent in to restore order
• US government declares martial law and cancels upcoming elections. The US Senate is disbanded
• A Second American Civil War becomes obvious, with the rest of the world only hearing about it via the internet and American blog authors

2008

• American anti-government websites are censored by authorities, preventing them from being visible on the internet
• Most countries of the world (excluding America) offer free aid and support to those affected by the Middle Eastern refugees
• The Pope declares that, with the support of host countries, Catholics will now have their own armed force, useful in heathen countries that threaten the safety of missionaries and resident Catholics
• Advanced identification technology becomes active around the world, identifying every citizen (except Americans) as a 'global citizen'
• With increased fears of petrol shortages due to a radioactive Middle East no longer able to supply oil, Shell and BP unveil their new hydrogen fuel cells that are meant to replace fossil fuels

2009

• Cybernetic enhancements become available to the general public
• The first Catholic Special Forces unit is formed and sets up base in Brazil
• An estimated 15 million people died from radiation sickness in the 3 years since the nuclear war
• Most of the Middle East is uninhabitable, with northern Africa affected the most by radiation fallout
• The first mass-produced vehicle to use hydrogen fuel cells is put onto the market by Ford. With power output equivalent to 6-cylinder petrol engines, but much cheaper to run, they are gratefully received. Being cheaper than standard cars and fuel prices, they are grabbed up like hot cakes

2010

• Heavy campaigning by the United Nations results in all airlines around the world announcing free travel to all countries (except America), with the support of the petrochemical industry and advertising companies
• Specialised cyber-hospitals begin to open around the world
• Internet 2.0 goes online, allowing real-time virtual reality interactions with people and places, all in cyberspace
• BMW completes their new models of fuel cell vehicles, and most car manufacturers follow suit with the refined fuel cell technology produced by BMW

2011

• With the success of the free global co-operation initiative, the United Nations, now based in Moscow, announces a new 'Social Reform Act 2011' to unite the world with free trade and free supply of goods and services. Only the European Community, Russia and UK sign into the Reform Act, but without the support of all countries, it's deemed a failure. The signatories to the Act form their own free trade and services agreement
• Holodecks' become popular, allowing people to enter a booth and experience the virtual reality of the internet

2012

• Civil unrest occurs in many places around the world, caused by fear of identity and possession loss. These incidents are suppressed by police
• America opens its doors to the world again, welcoming renewed trade and globalisation efforts with the rest of the world. The civil war is still going on between the Free Militia (on the side of the people) and the Federalists (Federal government and its forces), but news about it continues to be suppressed
• Neural implants, integrated sensory links to computer devices, become popular around the world. They increase response times of interactive electronic devices, as well as with the internet. Many 'holodecks' have them installed

2013

• After the US 'Corporate Riots of 2013', the government is bullied by large corporations into creating laws more favourable to the corporations, including allowing corporate armies and defence forces. These are used to protect corporate assets from damage by civilians and the Free Militia
• The first mass-produced car to fly is created by Audi, using engines that operate similar to the Harrier jump jets, but smaller and quieter due to the fuel cells rather than jet engines. Public reception is minimal at first, until it becomes obvious that the 4-seater vehicle is safer and faster than ground vehicles. With a cruising speed of 280mph and automatically deployed parachutes in case of catastrophic engine failure, public interest improves

2014

• Civil disturbance incidents around the world are discovered to be caused by US-sponsored corporate intervention in various parts of Europe, causing America to receive a warning from the UN
• Anti-capitalism riots in Australia are suppressed by the Australian military
• Ford produces their own 4-seater flying car, with a top speed of 300 mph, as well as a flying van that seats 8, with a top speed of 180mph. It has a range of 1,800 miles on a full fuel cell
• Over 100 cyber-hospitals are in operation around the world
• Cyberdecks' become available, allowing people with neural implants to plug directly into the internet, allowing total sensory immersion into cyberspace

2015

• A US corporate plot to sabotage the European Union's free trade agreements and return power to corporate entities is uncovered by Germany
• Russia launches nuclear strike against major cities on the east coast of America, as well as all major US military bases within America. American nuclear retaliation is prevented by a coup within the military by members sympathetic to the Free Militia, and they assume command of the country. 148 million Americans dead from the missile strikes. The Federal Government was destroyed. The civil war was over

2016

• Martial law is ended in the US, and a new American government is formed, with each of the 5 regional 'states' being led by a Governor in each. Each state is 'protected' by corporate military forces, who replace the old Federal military
• Internet-enabled devices populate many houses built in the past 5 years, allowing electronic technology to use the functionality of the internet. Houses can be remotely accessed from work, and internal features can be externally controlled, etc
• Hermes Space Plane is built, allowing quick and easy takeoff into orbit and back again. The Plane can land at any large runway
• A joint Russian-Chinese project to build an interplanetary vehicle begins, with the goal of allowing space travel to the moon and beyond

2017

• China takes over the International Space Station and begins upgrading it, using a Hermes plane as a shuttle for the station
• Basic anti-gravity devices are built and produced, being mainly for toys and small devices
• Capital cities , or 'MegaCities', were formed in each of the 5 American states: Carson State - San Francisco; New Dakota - Cheyenne; Great Lakes - Chicago; Central State - St Louis; Texas - Houston
• The megacities become the main areas of population within America. Automated agricultural machines built by the corporations begin replacing farming communities.

2018

• The first 'nomad pack' causes havoc in outer suburbs of Chicago. Police response was ineffective, as the nomads had superior weaponry, with some of them apparently enraged by drugs. The police were forced to use military force to disband them
• Werewolves enter the public eye, with people claiming to witness them. Some of the 'nomads' are claimed to be werewolves. Authorities dismiss this as public hysteria
• 'Skyways', the highways for flying cars, are completed between all major cities around the world. Using anti-grav beacon technology linked with vehicle computers, the skyways allow flying cars to safely travel domestic routes at varying altitudes

2019

• China completes initial upgrades to the Space Station and it goes operational for citizens who can apply their skills on it. A section is made available for visitors

2021

• 'NetDB' was launched, a worldwide database that allowed identification of almost every individual in the world

2023

• The first interplanetary vehicle is completed at a 'shipyard' near the International Space Station using nuclear fusion. Testing is successful with manned missions to the moon and back taking only a few hours. The first manned mission to Mars is planned
• The First Corporate War begins and ends in America, with over 700 corporate soldiers dead in the conflict over agricultural territory between 3 corporate entities

2024

• Earth Force is formed, with regional military forces being disbanded. Formed by regional police units and using military hardware, they answer to the UN instead of their regional governors
• Mars 1 leaves earth orbit, planning on reaching Mars in 3 months, but contact is lost with the vehicle less than one week from Mars

2025

• Mars 2 leaves earth orbit, consisting of 2 vehicles and a backup probe following along behind
• The first fully operational Cyborg is announced, comprised of cybernetic parts but with the brain of a human volunteer. Volunteers were those with severe physical disabilities, and therefore their 'quality of life' was improved by being more mobile and of greater use to society. Cyborgs were used in dangerous and high-risk situations, like disaster rescues and space construction

2026

• Mars 2 lands on the moon. No trace of Mars 1 is found en route or on Mars, nor is there any apparent signs of alien life on the planet, disappointing many who believed otherwise
• A cyborg goes on a rampage and destroys 3 suburban blocks. 183 people are killed, with 480 injured. Earth Force's first response unit is destroyed. Three more heavy units are deployed before the cyborg is destroyed. Earth Force realises that cyborgs are extremely effective in combat situations
• General Electric announce commencement of new project to investigate the feasibility of using black holes and singularities as energy sources

2028

• The Second Corporate War between America and South America ends with the detonation of an electro-magnetic pulse weapon in the jungles of the Amazon
• Earth Force Ultra is formed, a highly specialised organisation that is designed to combat the growing threat of renegades, nomads, mercenaries, cyborgs - and corporate wars. A cyborg unit is developed for backup and space operations

2029

• The Trade Agreement of 2029 is ratified, setting out boundaries for corporate land ownership and resource development around the world. A United Trade Group is created to act like the United Nations, to help resolve disputes between corporate entities. Enforcement of the agreement is carried out by Earth Force
• China and Russia announce that a base has been formed on Mars, and is open to relevantly-skilled colonists. With a flight time of 3 weeks, they expect it to be open for public visits within 3 years

2030

• 'Today'

(The story that the players of this game were going to be involved in would have them as werewolves, but they didn't know it. It wasn't until their character was killed during the course of play that they would find out, as instead of dying, they would instead regenerate and turn into a werewolf. The type of character they played up until their death would determine the type of tribe their werewolf was part of, as they would have inadvertently been playing the qualities of the tribe.)

There's always going to be a time when you need a gift idea, and a beautiful picture is often the perfect choice when you're just not sure of what to get. If you would like to purchase any of the photos featured on this blog, contact me to organise it. The pricing is:

15 x 10cm (6 x 4 inch): $12 (US$8)
18 x 13cm (7 x 5 inch): $20 (US$15)
25 x 20cm (10 x 8 inch): $28 (US$20)
30 x 20cm (12 x 8 inch): $40 (US$30)

Postage & handling: $5 (US$4) NZ or international

Please note that any photos taken before mid-November 2005 can only be supplied at a maximum of 15 x 10cm (6 x 4 inch). This is because I wasn't taking the photos at a resolution that would allow for good-quality sizes larger than that.

Contact me to place your order today. Please include the following in your email:

1) The web address of the photo you want. (Click on the photo to enlarge it, and then copy the address of it into the email.)
2) The size that you want.

Please allow 1 - 3 weeks for delivery, depending on your location.

I will be setting up a new website soon to promote the photos that will be available. Until then, anything that is in this blog is available (according to above stipulations).

Note: if you get in quick, you may get your gift in time for Christmas!

I went with Deidre and Rani, a friend of ours, to a place called Castlepoint, which is about a 2 hour drive northeast of Wellington. Today was a great day for photos...

We went to Martinborough first. This was a view over the valley...

Then we had brunch in a cafe, and I had to take this photo of an old piano that was there...

This is the Martinborough Hotel...

After leaving Martinborough we headed to Castlepoint. I saw a winery along the way and got this photo...
Finally, we arrived at Castlepoint! There was a surf up...

The lighthouse is the attraction at Castlepoint. Take notice of the top of the cliff to the left of the lighthouse, as there's a few photos further below taken from that point...

A view of the small harbour from the path heading up to the lighthouse...

Here's the lighthouse, and with Deidre included, just to prove it was me taking the photos ;-)





Some random person, standing on the beach, watching the waves come in...




I met a man in Martinborough today who was selling photos at an indoor fair. I could see that he was good, but I also considered that some of my own photos were as good. I got to talking to him, and found that he had his own business which he does part time, selling his photos.

I'm going to start selling my own. If you want to buy poster sized prints of any of the above, let me know. I'll start work on a website presenting them for sale.

I've been at Starbucks this afternoon, doing some writing, playing around, watching people... A guy sat opposite me on these comfy chairs, who I've seen a few times over the past few weeks when I've come here. We got to talking, turns out he's into IT as well, from Canada, travelling around. We shared some interests in news so I emailed him my Eyes On The World site, and so he emailed me his blog. Funny thing is, he's into growth as well, and is adventuring around for a while, taking a bit of a break from work.

The really cool thing is that he's found a 'backdoor' into one of the wireless providers in NZ, which he rang them about, and they didn't seem particularly interested in it. He shared this backdoor with me, so whenever I can't use Telecom here at Starbucks (which is free for me anyway, as I have a home broadband account with them that allows me free access to their wireless service), I'll be using the backdoor to this other wireless provider and getting something for free.

Friends help each other. Friends talk to each other. Friends share things with each other. It's cool that you can find new friends in the strangest places. Strangers are friends not yet met. Until you start talking to them.

Before I knew it, he'd added me to his blogroll on his own blog, so naturally I did the same.

I love travelling. When I travelled around the north island of NZ last year, staying at backpackers everywhere, I was very pleasantly surprised about how friendly and interesting travellers are. Nearly all of them were foreigners, visiting NZ. I was the only 'local' using the backpackers. It changed my mind about backpackers, as I discovered they were cheaper and often better quality than most hotels, and the people are more accessible and friendlier. I was converted.

Anyway, check out his blog - isystech.net. It's not bad.

This is a story I created in the Star Trek play-by-email game I ran, but which finished early this year. This story began during game play, but never continued beyond April 2383 (see below), when the game ended due to lack of interest. The story was supposed to be for the background story of the galaxy, which the players and games would be part of. The 'Erratan Galactic Republic', or the EGR, was based on the Empire from Star Wars. The following is a timeline I created with my friend Garry's help, and which may one day be turned into a story. (If you want to write it, contact me. As an idea, it's copyrighted by me.)

2383, March
- EGR Task Force (8 destroyers, 2 battleships, 1 factory ship) enters Kaerine space, sends out probes throughout the galaxy
- Federation goes on alert at all the mysterious probes entering their territory

2383, April
- EGR successfully control all of Kaerine space, begin building a military base there. Initial probe results informs them of all the races of the Alpha and Beta Quadrants (Humans, Klingons, Vulcans, Romulans, Cardassians, etc, etc)
- Probes provide the EGR with information about the Delta Quadrant and the Dominion, including the Founders, the Vorta, and the Jem'Hadar
- Federation stands down from their alert status a couple weeks after realising there's no more probes

2383, May
- The Dominion questions the Federation about the probes, but no one is any the wiser for the exchange of information about them
- The EGR gets information about the Borg, but that information is sketchy. All their probes are destroyed on the edges of Borg territory
- The EGR finishes building a shipyard

2383, August
- A plan is implemented where an ERG destroyer is used to lure a Borg cube into Federation space. The Borg chase it in the hope of assimilating it. The destroyer looks like it tries to make a stand against the Borg cube in an area within scanning range of a Federation starbase. Five Starfleet ships attempt to come to its aid, and the Borg cube makes short work of two of them before 2 more ERG destroyers appear. Together the 3 ERG ships and remaining Starfleet ships destroy the Borg cube. First Contact is made between the EGR and Federation and the EGR open diplomatic negotiations with Federation representatives at the starbase. The EGR request information from the Federation about the Borg, claiming to need that to help them defend themselves. The Federation gives all the information it has. The EGR thanks them and leaves 2 destroyers at the Federation starbase in case the Borg return.
- An EGR Ambassador is assigned to the starbase

2383, September
- Two Borg cubes attack the starbase, and the 2 EGR destroyers meet the Borg cubes before they can get close enough to engage Federation forces. One destroyer is destroyed and both Borg cubes damaged before another 3 destroyers jump in and assist just as the Starfleet ships arrive. The Borg cubes are destroyed.
- The EGR asks the starbase if they would like more EGR ships to assist against further Borg attacks, as well as an exchange of technology. The EGR will provide the starbase their advanced shields in exchange for the Federation transporter technology. The Starbase CO agrees to the extra EGR ships as well as the technology exchange.

2383, October
- The starbase's shields are upgraded
- Seven EGR destroyers are based permanently in the same sector as the starbase, with 5 on patrol and 2 permanently assigned to defend the starbase
- EGR ambassador travels to Earth to meet with the Federation Council and discuss a permanent treaty. After a couple of days of talks, the Federation welcomes the EGR's application to join the Federation.
- The Federation Council requests more technology exchange, in particular the EGR's hyperdrive. The EGR Ambassador quotes the Federation's own Prime Directive and states his own race has a similar policy of non-interference. Any major developments really have to be on the Federation's initiative, rather than as gifts from advanced races. The Federation Council is unable to argue against the foundation of their own Prime Directive.

2384, January
- Evidence suggests a Cardassian ship attacked and destroyed a Federation farming colony on the Federation side of the Cardassian border.
- The Cardassians deny their involvement in the attack, but the colony's sensor logs show it was definitely a Cardassian ship
- The EGR Ambassador influences a member of the Federation Council to suggest that the Cardassians may be attempting to take territory that they consider was once theres, and after having rebuilt their military over the past 8 years, feel that they are now in a position to regain what was lost to them. The Council member suggests that the EGR, with their hyperdrive-capable ships, might be in a position to help provide security along the Cardassian border. The EGR Ambassador says he would need to talk to his superiors about involving themselves in the internal security matters of the Federation.
- A week later the EGR Ambassador agrees to the Federation Council's request for providing security along the Cardassian border on the condition that their Federation membership be fast-tracked accordingly. The Ambassador suggests it might be wise to ensure that only Federation members provide internal assistance to the Federation.

2384, February
- The United Federation of Planets welcomes its newest member, the EGR
- Within minutes of the announcement, EGR places a number of destroyers on patrol along the Cardassian border
- The Cardassians protest this action, and reinforce their own border

2384, April
- The EGR finish building a shipyard at Jupiter Station and use it to help increase the production level for Starfleet, being able to turn out an increased production run of ships for Starfleet using EGR industrial technology. Two destroyers are permanently assigned to it, along with other Starfleet ships, and Federation personnel man the shipyard with EGR advisors.
- EGR spies provide the Romulan Tal Shiar with details on technology that might be useful to them, at the 'poorly defended' shipyard at Jupiter Station, along with implications that the EGR would provide further support in the future

2384, July
- EGR ships detect gravitational anomalies approaching the shipyard at Jupiter Station at warp 8 and request Federation assistance in determining what they are. Federation personnel realise they must be cloaked ships and request reinforcements. The 2 EGR destroyers move out to intercept the anomalies and then 28 Romulan ships decloak and attack the destroyers. Four Starfleet ships become involved in the battle. At the end of it, both EGR destroyers were destroyed, along with three of the Starfleet ships. 21 of the Romulan ships were destroyed in the battle, and the remaining 7 ships retreat when Starfleet reinforcements arrive from Mars.
- Public opinion, which up until this point was mildly suspicious at EGR ships in Federation space, and so close to Earth, is instantly turned around at the news of the EGR's sacrifice to protect Jupiter Station.
- The Federation accuses the Romulans of blatant disregard to their alliance
- The Romulans deny involvement, stating it was a rogue organisation that wasn't sanctioned by the Romulan Senate
- The Federation cancels the alliance with the Romulans
- The Federation requests an EGR presence along the Romulan Neutral Zone, which is welcomed by public support

2384, August
- A fleet of 93 Borg cubes attacks Kaerine space, surprising the EGR. 76% of EGR forces are destroyed in the battle, but all Borg cubes are destroyed. All of the EGR battleships remain intact.
- The EGR withdraws non-essential ships from Federation space to reinforce Kaerine space.
- The EGR begins construction of a secret base on the outskirts of the galaxy in an empty resource-rich area of planetary systems. This base is given high priority, in an attempt to create a fallback location should the Kaerine sector fall to the Borg.
- The EGR announce to the Federation that they are at war with the Borg.
- The Federation offers all the assistance to the EGR they can provide.
- The EGR requests that more EGR ships be allowed to help protect Federation resources, as the Federation is likely to be attacked by the Borg for being allied to the EGR.
- The Federation agrees, and EGR destroyers are assigned to all the major systems within the Federation.

2384, September
- Romulans ally with Cardassians and Breen
- EGR uses a Starfleet ship to unsuccessfully attack a Vorta colony in the Delta Quadrant, with it being destroyed from a 'warp core breach' in the battle with Jem'Hadar ships
- The Dominion accuse the Federation of attacking their colony
- The Federation denies all knowledge of the attack, but reinforces DS9 near the Bajoran wormhole
- Skirmishes occur between Klingon and Romulan forces along their borders

2384, November
- The Romulans engage in talks with the Dominion, advising that the Federation and EGR are attempting to subvert the balance of power and take control of all the quadrants. They suggest the Starfleet attack against the Dominion was a test of Dominion reactions, and the Romulans propose a treaty between them and the Dominion.

2384, December
- The Dominion joins the new 'Allies', offering their support to the alliance now comprised of themselves, the Romulans, the Cardassians and the Breen.
- The Federation hears about the 'Allies' and sends diplomatic teams to each of the races to try and resolve things.
- A 'Cardassian ship' intercepts and destroys the ship carrying the Federation delegation to Cardassia, and is then destroyed by the EGR destroyer that was escorting the delegation.
- The EGR expresses their sincere apologies at not protecting the delegation, saying they believed the Cardassian ship's claim that it was there to greet the delegation.
- The Federation declares a state of war with Cardassia.
- The Cardassians denial of involvement is ignored by the Federation

2385, February
- A fleet of 18 Romulan ships attacks a Federation starbase. The closest reinforcements are at DS9, comprised of EGR and Federation ships. They receive the request for reinforcements and the EGR ships jump to help repel the Romulan attack. While they are involved in the defence of the starbase and chase the retreating Romulan ships, it turns out to be a decoy, as a large co-ordinated force of 87 Romulan ships, 35 Cardassian ships, 12 Breen ships, and 76 Dominion ships coming through the wormhole, attack Deep Space Nine. The Federation defences there are overwhelmed, and the Allied fleet takes the station. However, the EGR ships, destroying the fleeing Romulan ships that attacked the nearby starbase, jump back to regain control of DS9. In the battle, approximately 60% of the Allied forces are destroyed before they run for it, seeing that EGR forces are not seriously hampered by the Allied ships defence of DS9. Just before they retreat, another 'Cardassian ship' arrives and fires a missile at DS9. All EGR ships were involved in battle, so the missile gets by them. Deep Space Nine explodes in a huge explosion, destroying 3 of the EGR destroyers in the process. The Allied ships retreat. Over 10,000 people on DS9 were killed.
- The EGR expresses their sorrow to the Federation for the loss and the EGR's inability to defend DS9 with its limited number of ships available in the area, and the Federation requests increased EGR assistance with defence. The EGR agrees to the Federation's request to place more of the EGR's ships in Federation space.

2385, March
- The EGR Ambassador offers a solution to the Cardassian problem, pointing out that the entire history of Federation involvement with the Cardassians has shown that they are completely untrustworthy and interested only in military conflict. The EGR offers to decisively end the war with Cardassia.
- The Federation Council agrees after discussing this for over a day.
- Minutes later, a fleet of 480 EGR destroyers and battleships appear near Cardassia. Twelve minutes later the entire Cardassian defence force is decimated. One hour and twenty eight minutes later, Cardassia Prime has been destroyed by orbital bombardment by the 480 EGR ships. When they leave, there is nothing left of Cardassian civilisation except for the molten surface of a decimated planet.
- EGR announces to the Federation that they will not be bothered by the Cardassians any more. An uproar occurs as a result of the action, but the EGR Ambassador advises that countless numbers of people have been killed in wars with the Cardassians, and were likely to be killed if the Cardassians were allowed to continue their aggressive stances. All the attempts by the Federation to prevent bloodshed have failed. Now there will be no more bloodshed. The Federation Council agrees.
- The Federation President resigns. Ambassador Spock receives unanimous approval and becomes the new President of the Federation.

2385, April
- The EGR sends a fleet of 820 destroyers and battleships into the heart of Borg territory - Unimatrix 01, where the Borg queen lives and where all the Borg throughout the galaxy are controlled from. After a vicious battle with the initial Borg defence force which ends up decimated, the remaining 460 EGR ships attack the Borg unicomplex, which was composed of thousands of connected structures and hubs that housed hundreds of ships and trillions of Borg drones. The weapons employed against it cause a chain reaction throughout the unicomplex, resulting in its complete destruction. With the Central Nexus of the Borg Collective destroyed, the shielding for the Transwarp Hubs and manifolds is gone. The EGR sends in hundreds of droid ships that race throughout the network, dropping powerful mines at each hub and new conduit they find. The Borg transwarp network is destroyed, along with all the cubes that were using it.
- The EGR announce to the Federation that the Borg threat has been dealt with, and all that is required now is the mopping up of remaining Borg cubes that are helpless without central control. The Gamma Quadrant is safe.

2385, July
- A fleet of over 2,000 Dominion ships enters via the wormhole and joins up with other 800 Allied ships that are attacking the EGR force that is defending Bajor. The battle is brutal, but the EGR ships are defeated, at the expense of close to 80% of the Allied ships. However, the main EGR fleet appears just as the Allied ships are celebrating, and the 600 ships are easily destroyed by the 800 EGR ships.
- Half the EGR fleet goes through the wormhole to lay waste to the Dominion
- The EGR requests the Federation Council give them permission to bring peace to the Alpha and Beta Quadrants through attacking the Romulans and Breen.
- The Federation agrees.

2385, August
- The EGR attack the Founders homeworld and, after destroying the Jen'Hadar fleet defending the planet, demand the Founders surrender or be destroyed completely.
- The Founders surrender. The EGR destroys their homeworld anyway, using the weakness the Founders displayed as sign of EGR superiority.
- The Jem'Hadar go into a frenzy and vow to destroy the EGR

2385, September
- The EGR announce to the Federation that the last of the Dominion has fallen and the Delta Quadrant is safe.
- The EGR request that the Federation allow them to bring peace to the Alpha and Beta Quadrants as well. The Federation agrees.
- With the Dominion gone, the remaining Allied powers capitulate and surrender.
- The EGR moves ships over the non-Federation homeworlds and set up EGR military leadership, dismantling current leadership structures.

2386, January
- The EGR has control of the entire galaxy, with approximately 4,000 ships PER QUADRANT, and EGR leadership on all the resource-rich and once-powerful worlds. Allied with the Federation, which is now effectively a puppet government, the galaxy is theirs.

I received this by email from one of my work colleagues yesterday, and loved it. I showed it to Deidre last night, and she loved it. So now I'm sharing it with you. Maybe you'll love it too. (Note: if you're experiencing a slow download, pause it and let it download before you start playing it.)

Title: mimi in NY

Description: 40 countries, 12 boats, 37 flights, 46 assholes and 6 months later... Writing for The Village Voice, avoiding Bill O'Reilly and campaigning for immigrants whilst musing on anal sex and pissing off the religious right.

Mimi, as the author of this blog calls herself, is an illegal immigrant in the US, having come over from the UK. She's been trying to find ways of legalising her stay in America, becoming a citizen. It hasn't been going according to plan. While she's been there and doing this, she's been writing about her 'adventures'. And what adventures they are.

Not just with her beaureacratic adventures around immigration, but also her adventures in life. She's a writer, and so she's done a bit of travelling around; around the world, and around America. She's used her writing skills to relate her experiences concerning travel, immigration, sex, stripping and exotic dancing.

To support herself in America she's been an exotic dancer, dancing on the inside of the seedy underlife that New York City seems to be founded on. This is probably why the site is so popular, as people keep on coming back to read about her sexual and exotic - not to mention erotic - misadventures in various stripper bars.

Lately her writing has been verging on the darker, more depressing side of things, where there is a large hint of desperation and sadness. Not to mention bitterness. She's been fighting a battle, and it looks like the darkness is winning.

Being a writer however, means that the reader is left wondering: is it real, or just a fictional story created for the promotion of the writer? We may never know, but the story is worth coming back to.

Thanks to all my friends who sent me such important emails in 2003 & 2004! It's so wonderful that you included me in your quest to inform!

Because of all of you I stopped drinking Coca-Cola after I found out from you that it's good for removing toilet stains.

I stopped going to the movies for fear of sitting on a needle infected with a disease.

I smell awful, but thank goodness I stopped using deodorant because you said it causes cancer.

I don't leave my car in any parking lot even though I sometimes have to walk about seven blocks, because you said that someone might drug me with a perfume sample and then try to rob me.

I also stopped answering the phone because you said that they will ask me to dial a stupid number and then I get a high phone bill with calls to Uganda, Singapore, Tokyo and maybe the Mars Rover.

I stopped eating chicken and hamburgers because you told me they are nothing more than horrible mutant freaks with no eyes or feathers that are bred in a lab so that places like McDonalds can sell their Big Macs.

I also stopped drinking anything out of a can - you said that I will get sick from the rat faeces and urine.

When I go to parties, I now don't mix with anybody - you said that someone will take my kidneys and leave me taking a nap in a bathtub full of ice.

However, the police are also after me at present because you said not to pull over as they could be fake policemen trying to kidnap me.

I went bankrupt from bounced checks that I wrote, in anticipation of the $15,000 that Microsoft and AOL were supposed to send me when I participated in their special e-mail program.

It's weird, though, that my new free cell phone never arrived, and neither did the passes for my paid vacation to Disneyland.

But I am positive that all this is because of the chain I broke or forgot to follow and I got a curse.

OOPS I ALMOST FORGOT, IMPORTANT NOTE: If you don't send this e-mail to at least 1200 people in the next ten seconds, a bird will crap on you tonight at 7:00 PM.

Here's to an even better informed 2006!

Armed forces personnel are trained to deal with combat, and with death. They're trained to go to war at any moment. They accept the fact that they signed up to be warriors, and warriors fight, and often die fighting. If they didn't want to die, they shouldn't have signed up.

I used to serve in the Australian Army Reserves in my youth. I was a patriotic but part time member of the Australian armed forces. I knew I might go to war. I knew I might get killed, and that I might have to kill someone else just like me. Knowing this didn't stop me from knowing I would fight if I had to.

So why all the fuss about the deaths of soldiers in Iraq? Why are they complaining? And why are others complaining about them dying?

When a person signs up to join the armed forces, they do so knowing they might fight. Invariably, they believe the cause they'll be fighting for will be a just cause, one that is deserving of their noble sacrifice. They will fight in a war and willingly sacrifice their lives for a cause they believe is worthy.

And a country will support them if such a war is a just war. Where the cause is noble, and the sacrifice worth making.

"...we shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender..."
- Winston Churchill, June 4th 1940

World War II was a noble war, a war worth fighting. Millions of people sacrificed their lives in order to support that cause. Battles involving many hundreds of thousands of men, with many tens of thousands killed in single battles, occurred throughout the war. And the sacrifice was worth it.

Everyone supported their country, and their armed forces personnel, because the war was just, it was worth fighting for. Without such sacrifice, the consequences were too horrible to imagine.

The war in Iraq, and against 'terror', is not a war worth fighting. The war is not noble, and is not just. Where Hitler invaded Poland in 1939 and brought about world opinion against it, so has the US invading Iraq brought about world opinion against it. There was no cause for the invasion of Iraq. Everything that the US used to justify their actions has been proven to be, if not outright lies, then at least incorrect. Their actions were wrong, and based on wrong information. There was no clear-cut, noble cause to be fought for.

As a result, armed forces personnel are dying daily in a country they invaded, and that doesn't want them there. They are not only fighting the local resistance movement of that country, but they are also fighting foreigners that are joining the 'noble cause against the US', as they see it. The longer the US stays in Iraq, and the longer they engage in a war against terror - which has no real enemy or target, and is instead a war against an idea - the more resistance the US is going to get from the rest of the world.

The Iraq war and the war on terror are not wars that the rest of the world can stand up and unite with the US on. The soldiers who fight in these wars are killing civilians in their attempts to flush out terrorists. And the terrorists are themselves civilians, acting against the US occupation and oppression. The more the US engages in such acts, the more they distance themselves from nobility and justice.

People are complaining about the deaths of soldiers in Iraq and elsewhere around the world because the war is unjust, and noble ideals are given lip service by an increasingly untrustworthy US government that daily is losing face in the eyes of the people it is supposed to be representing.

The people don't want the war. They don't want their loved ones, those serving in the armed forces, dying for a cause that is unjust. They don't want their loved ones killing or torturing civilians. They don't want their loved ones becoming the kinds of brutal and uncivilised antagonists that the US says it is trying to fight.

"Whoever battles with monsters had better see that it does not turn him into a monster. And if you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you."
- Friedrich Nietzsche

It seems there's a bit of a crackdown occurring around the world on 'Holocaust deniers'...

Ernst Zundel. In the early '80's he published a book called "Did Six Million Really Die?" He was charged in 1985 with 'publishing false news.' In the two attempts to trial him in '85 and '88, he called upon gas chamber experts and cross examined a number of Holocaust survivors, who apparently fell apart under questioning. He was found not guilty. In 2003 he was arrested in America for an alleged immigration violation and deported back to Canada, where he was held in solitary confinement for 2 years until being deported to Germany, where he has been charged with 'Holocaust denial' and faces 5 years in jail. This is after having lived in Canada since 1958.

Germar Rudolph. In 1989 he conducted scientific analysis of the chemicals used to gas people at Auschwitz and Birkenau. He was unable to find evidence to support the claims that 6 million jews were gassed. For his scientific findings, which he tried to use to get further investigation done into the Holocaust, he was charged with Holocaust denial and sentenced to 14 months in jail. He fled the country however, and settled in the US, marrying an American woman and raising a family. In October 2005, he was arrested by US authorities and deported to Germany on 14th November.

David Irving. He has spent many years travelling around the world challenging the official story of the Holocaust, presenting evidence that contradicts the official story. Many countries have banned him from entering. He was arrested on 11th November 2005 in Vienna, Austria for Holocaust denial. Under Austrian law he faces up to 20 years in jail.

Siegfried Verbeke. He publicly questioned the facts of the Anne Frank story, and was arrested in August 2005. In October he was extradited to Germany, where he faces 14 months in prison.

Rene-Louis Berclaz. Currently serving the 11th month of a 17th month sentence for publicly doubting the gas chamber story, a story which has been changed a number of times over the years.

These and so many others are being arrested, deported, charged and imprisoned with Holocaust denial. This year.

Why this year? Why the sudden clampdown on people expressing their findings or thoughts? Why are people arrested and thrown into jail simply for disagreeing with the official version of events?

What are they trying to hide, that's so important to really start hiding this year?

None of the people mentioned above denied the Holocaust occurred. They all agree that a major tragedy occurred. What they don't agree with, however, is the extent of the tragedy, or the facts that have been associated with that tragedy.

In 1948, the Red Cross released a report on their activities during WWII. This report showed that the Germans allowed them unrestricted access to all POW camps, and that the Red Cross was allowed to arrange for supplies and medications to be transported and given to POWs. This was eventually stopped when Allied bombing campaigns targeted the supply convoys. The Red Cross found no evidence of genocide at any of the alleged gas camps, and reported instead on the tragedy of nearly a quarter of a million Jews dying at POW camps from the conditions. They found the German army co-operative, which they couldn't say with the Russian army. They had no access whatsoever to any camps within Russia. This report was from a neutral humanitarian organisation.

On November 1st 2005, the UN unanimously and without a vote, declared January 27th to be “International Day of Commemoration in memory of the victims of the Holocaust.” At the same time, the new resolution for this included an 'absolute rejection for any denial of the Holocaust as a historical event, either in full or part'. What does this mean?

It means that questioning the Holocaust is illegal. Talking about it being different to the official version is illegal. Finding evidence to question it is illegal, and such evidence will be - and has been - destroyed, to 'protect the memory and honour of those who died in the Holocaust.' The very fact I'm writing about it like this is, apparently, now illegal.

When questioning something is considered illegal, a step has been taken into a draconian, dictatorish way of life. "Don't question what we tell you, accept everything we say. It's the truth, because we say it is. If you don't believe us, we'll throw you in jail."

I never used to question it, but now I do, because now they're trying to hide something.

I just got back from a walk during lunch time, where I took a few photos.

I've been playing around a little bit with the new camera. I took this photo yesterday, of a building in Wellington:


And I took this photo this morning, another sunset shot from my window.


Not bad... I'm happy with the quality. :-)

"I dreamed I was a butterfly, flitting around in the sky; then I awoke. Now I wonder: Am I a man who dreamt of being a butterfly, or am I a butterfly dreaming that I am a man?"
- Chuang Tsu

"Have you ever had a dream, Neo, that you were so sure was real? What if you were unable to wake from that dream? How would you know the difference between the dream world and the real world?"
- Morpheus, The Matrix

Where do you go when you dream? Are you really a human dreaming you're a butterfly, or are you a butterfly dreaming you're a human? How do you know you're not actually travelling to, or experiencing realities other than this one? When you dream, the reality you're part of seems real. How do you know that when you wake up from that dream, you're actually waking up? You might be falling asleep in the 'other reality' and dreaming again that you're a human.

It's a philosophical and a spiritual question that has plagued mankind for ages. It's now even a scientific question, as theorised by quantum physics, as it explores alternate realities and multiple universes. At the moment, no one is really sure. We have our feelings after we wake from vivid dreams that seem so real. We create descriptive ideas to make us wonder about reality and what it is. But we don't really know.

There's a lot to reality that we don't understand. Spirituality goes some way towards explaining the mysteries, but many people don't believe in spirituality either, and so the unexplained, to them, remains that way. Most of those who 'don't believe' feel there is a completely legitimate scientific explanation for the unexplained - they just haven't scientifically found that explanation yet.

I agree with those people who say there has to be a scientific explanation for psychic or spiritual events. But in order to find the scientific explanation for it, science will need to disover a way of measuring psychic and spiritual realities beyond the three dimensions that we exist in. There are far more dimensions than just these three, including the dimension of the mind, as well as the dimensions of life after death. Ghosts, for example, exist in some of these extra dimensions, and since all the various dimensions are part of each other, just like the three dimensions that we know about, that's why we can occasionally see or feel them. Parts of their reality are mixing with our own - especially as it really is all the same multidimensional reality.

Many years ago, Estera and I woke up from a dream that we both had, at the same time. We had come back from Adelaide that day, a 13-hour drive, and the dream we shared was brief, but vivid. It was even more interesting because we both had it. There was a long, barren road, at dusk. The trees - what few trees there were in the barren Australian semi-desert that this road passed through - were lit up by the cyclic flashes of red and blue lights. There was an overturned car, remarkably similar to the one that we had rented for the trip, along with miscellaneous debris from the crash strewn about on the road. There were police cars, ambulances and fire engines around, their flashing lights illuminating the darkening landscape around the sight, and emergency workers milling around.

That was it. We woke up from that, and looked at each other.

Her: "Did you...?"
Me: "...have a dream?"
Her: "...about us having an accident?"
Me: "Yep."
Her: "Cool..."

My automatic writing the next day confirmed it. What we had dreamt was actually a glimpse into an alternate reality where the possibility of an accident had become an inevitability. We saw the consequences of actions that we hadn't experienced ourselves, but which were experienced by our alternate selves in another reality.

Spooky stuff.

But there's an interesting lesson with all this. The theories of quantum physics say that for every choice available to you, an alternate reality exists where that choice becomes real. You may have a smooth drive home, but in other realities, other choices play themselves out. Anything you can imagine - anything - is being experienced by you in some other reality. If you can imagine it, it's happening, plus a whole lot more that you can't imagine. There are an infinite number of realities popping up from the infinite number of choices we make on a daily basis. All of us, all the time, are creating realities as we think, and as we act.

Some realities are created just for an instant, replaying over and over again the reality that was created. They're the ones that are least likely to occur as fullblown realities, like the one you're experiencing now. This universe, to us, is a fullblown reality. It goes beyond now, and includes the passage of time. Sometimes realities that are created and replay themselves undergo a transition into this one, and we see the repeated experiences of what we call ghosts.

The consequences of your actions go beyond what you experience here. What you imagine will become real. Not necessarily in this reality, but your imagination has created a reality based on it. You can use this knowledge to help yourself make better choices. Imagining the consequences of your actions and seeing how it plays out in your mind is a great way of determining if you really want to do whatever it is you're imagining doing. If what you imagine has bad results, don't do it. If what you imagine has GOOD results, then do it! Reach out and grasp that reality, make it your own.

You've become a God, in a way, where you have the power to create realities and influence this one. What kind of God do you want to be?

Just for the geographically unaware ;) here is some maps of our travels.

Map 1: Australia
This map shows the general travel paths we're taking. The blue dotted line is the flight between Sydney to Adelaide and back again. The red solid line is the driving that will be done.

Map 2: South Australia
Driving from Adelaide to Berri, and back again. If you look north of Adelaide, you can see Pt Augusta and Quorn, which I talked about here.


Map 3: New South Wales
Driving from Sydney down the coast via Ulladulla (just north of Batemans Bay, where we head inland to Canberra). Ulladulla is where my good friend Kath lives, who we'll be dropping in on. We may be doing that on the way down, or on the way back. That's uncertain at this stage.


Map 4: Global location of Australia and NZ
For the forementioned geographically unaware (hi chance! :)), this shows you where Australia and NZ are in the world. Please note that NZ is not an island of Australia, just like Cuba is not an island of America.

Deidre and I will be travelling around parts of Australia for a month, and this is our itinerary.

2005
Saturday 10 Dec
Wellington 6am - Sydney 7:40am
Sydney 1:45pm - Adelaide 3:20pm
(Notes: while in Adelaide, will be staying with Deidre's dad and catching up with the following people: Phillip and Stephen (my brothers), Simon and Ben (friends I haven't seen for over a decade), and Jocelyn, a friend of Deidre's.)

Sunday 11 Dec
Xmas party at Deidre's dad's

Tuesday 13 Dec
Renting a car and driving to Berri, to visit my parents

Wednesday 14 Dec
Driving back to Adelaide

Friday 16 Dec
Adelaide 12pm - Sydney 2:25pm
Renting a car and driving to Canberra
(Notes: while in Canberra, will be staying with James and Kylie, and catching up with the following friends of mine: Peter C, David G, David O, Nick, Darlene, and Damien. Very disappointed not to be catching up with my friend Mel, but she'll be in Perth at the time.)

Friday 23 Dec
Driving back to Sydney, dropping off car and then staying overnight at Novotel, Darling Harbour.

Saturday 24 Dec
Catching train to Wollongong, to stay with Deidre's mum.

Sunday 25 Dec
Christmas Day. Party of some kind with Deidre's family

Monday 26 Dec
Relaxing

Tuesday 27 Dec
Catching up with my friend Dan, staying overnight.

Wednesday 28 Dec
Deidre returns to Wollongong to stay with her mum, I'm staying with Dan.

Friday 30 Dec
Deidre rejoining me, catching up with my friend Peter H, staying overnight.

Saturday 31 Dec
New Year's Eve. Catching up with Deidre's friends David and Celeste, staying overnight.

2006
Sunday 1 Jan
Relaxing. Return to Wollongong?

Tuesday 3 Jan
I'm leaving Sydney 6:05pm to Wellington 11:15pm. Will be seen off at the airport by Deidre and Dan. Deidre's staying at her mum's.

Saturday 7 Jan
Deidre leaves Sydney 6:05pm to Wellington 11:15pm.

If you click on the Categories 'button' to the right there, you'll see the del.icio.us tag cloud that I have. This is a different way of showing categories, by sorting them as tags. When you click on any of the links in the tag cloud, you'll go to the del.icio.us website where you'll be able to see all my pages that are tagged with whatever you've chosen. Over to the right of this new page you'll see my full tag cloud again. The red tag is the tag you're looking at. The green tags are other tags (and content) associated with the one you're looking at.

Enjoy.

(I was hoping to show my Blink List tag cloud, but del.icio.us came out with it first. One day Blink List might bring it out, and then I'll change the tag cloud to theirs.)

I have an interview this coming Friday for the position of Team Leader. :-D

This was my application, just to share with you...

To whom it may concern

I am applying for the position of Team Leader on the Service Desk, as recently vacated by [...]. I believe I am suited for this position for the following reasons:

• I have been with [the company] for 5 and a half years, having spent 4 of those years on the Service Desk as an analyst and senior analyst.
  
  
• I have been responsible for providing training material for [the company] on the [new intranet], when it was being implemented, using my skills of documentation and implementation.
  
  
• I have spent all of 2005 so far as a Systems Administrator..., maintaining and administrating internal systems. This has given me a detailed familiarity with the processes going on behind the scenes concerning the Service Desk and internal support.
  
  
• In the latter part of the year so far I have learnt and been responsible for [VOIP (Voice Over IP)] administration and support, giving me a detailed familiarity of how this works in relation to the Service Desk's requirements.
  
  
• In the past year I have been involved with client implementations, understanding the processes involved in bringing new clients into the Service Desk, and bringing about successful implementations with the Service Desk and the intranet.
  
  
• I have seen the need for having greater communication with service desk-only clients and taken the initiative to bring about processes to help that happen, showing an ability to see a client relationship problem and try to fix it using service delivery management.
  
  
• I have had management experience previous to my time in [the company], which has helped me understand the value of building successful relationships amongst staff, and performance management to meet company expectations.
  
  
• Throughout my time in [the company] I have been a team player, providing information and documentation where needed, encouraging and assisting those around me to be team players, and mentoring some people to find ways of performing better.

My reason for wanting the position of Team Leader is:

• I know I can be of value as a Team Leader, as the Service Desk staff already know me and seem to respect my skills and authority as a more senior member of the service desk staff.
  
  
• My interest in IT has been more aligned with relationship management around technological requirements, thus my interest in service delivery management and client implementations. I believe that being a Team Leader within the Service Desk would be an ideal next step for my personal and career development in an area of great interest to me. This results in a win-win situation for both myself and [the company].

I have a passion for helping people develop better relationships, with each other, with management and with clients. I believe that if people are happier where and how they work, and able to communicate better and freely, they will perform better. For this and all the above reasons, I feel I am the ideal candidate for this position.

Since all my relevant experience and abilities over the past 5 years within [the company] are already known by my immediate management, I felt a CV may be irrelevant to this application and therefore did not attach it. However, I can provide one if it is required.

Kind regards...

I've got an interview, so it impressed them enough to get me that far. We'll see how things go after that.

This was my old camera. Details here.


This is my new camera, a Canon PowerShot S2 IS:

You can see details here.

I bought it on the weekend via online shopping, and it'll be delivered to me tomorrow. I'm going to use it to start getting into some semi-professional photography. It's an upgrade that'll help me take better photos (higher quality), and which I'll investigate selling, etc. Thanks to you guys (eg. Deborah and co.) for inspiring me. :-)

At least, what if it didn't happen as 'they' say it did?

When investigation of the Holocaust is banned, or done under official monitoring, and when any evidence that fails to support the official story is destroyed, and when anyone that says 'more research needs to be done' is put into jail for many years, you really have to wonder what 'they' are trying to hide by preventing such investigation and research.

If the Holocaust is as true as 'they' say it is, then any research into it should be allowed, to show the truth, to prove the truth, and to convince the world, regardless of the claims of the Holocaust deniers, that the truth will always be the truth - over 6 million Jews died due to German atrocities.

However, when any such research is banned, and when the findings of such banned research contradict official claims, resulting in the destruction of such findings and the imprisonment of the person or people publishing those findings, you have to ask yourself something.

What are they trying to hide?

Are you psychic? I am. Or used to be, over a decade ago. I was able to see a person's past or future, feel the presence of 'lost souls', and channel the words of spirit guides through automatic writing. I even ran a spiritual development group for a while, to help other people develop their own psychic abilities.

There was a spiritual church I went to a couple of times, but I stopped going when I realised that most of the people there were trapped in the past. They were there to talk to their dead loved ones through a medium. These spiritualists, as they called themselves, were so fixated on the past they couldn't move forward.

To me, spirituality is about life. It's about embracing everything that life can offer. It's about understanding yourself, the life you're living, and the life you want to live. Spirituality is about moving forward rather than staying stuck in the past.

My spirit guides talked to me through automatic writing. They talked to me in this way for over 2 years, giving me a lot of useful and informative advice and insights. They also confirmed to me that Estera - my partner at the time - and I would be together for the rest of our lives. However, we were together for less than 2 years before she decided to leave me.

This was particularly traumatic for me, not just because I lost someone I loved very much, but also because it went against what my spirit guides confirmed. Since they were wrong about that, what else could they have been wrong about?

My entire world view was shattered. The faith I had in my spirituality was shattered. I left behind the practice of psychic abilities, while still retaining my beliefs. It had seemed to me that my spirit guides were wrong due to the likelihood of me editing their message as I wrote it down, editing it to tell me what I wanted to hear. I felt that I couldn't trust myself with automatic writing any more. Over a decade later, I felt the same way.

The spiritual and psychic experiences I'd had, however, were real. They had been shared with or confirmed by others, so I knew spiritual reality was real. My life has continued over the past decade with that knowledge being the backbone of my experiences.

Spiritual reality has been the core of my existence, manifesting in how I live my life, the conversations I have with people, and the articles that I write. Last year I started transcribing into my website the automatic writing I'd done a decade earlier. A big project, which I really should finish sometime... I discovered an interesting little fact which I hadn't previously seen.

Q. Is Estera to become my life-partner?
A. So it is planned.

"So it is planned." And plans, as we know, can change. I had only remembered it being a 'yes'. They hadn't confirmed it at all, that her and I would be together forever. They only said it was planned that way, at that time.

I spent a decade believing the wrong thing.

Most of you reading this probably won't be into roleplaying game, never have been, and never will be. Some of you won't even know what roleplaying games (RPGs) are, and some of you will only know them as those activities you get up to in your bedroom. And really, that's where we'd rather you keep them, so please DON'T tell us about it in the comments section. For those of you who have been a little sheltered, let me give you a bit of background into what roleplaying games are.

You've all heard of Lord of the Rings, haven't you. Of course you have. (If you haven't, you must be an African shepherd or something. You won't get much out of this post, so you might want to go somewhere else.) Well, Lord of the Rings, written by J R R Tolkien, inspired roleplaying games. In fact, it inspired the creation of Dungeons & Dragons (D&D), the original roleplaying game.

Roleplaying games, as the name suggests, are games where you play the role of someone (occasionally something). The attraction for most roleplayers is the creative challenge of playing a character in ways that make sense to them (but often make no sense to others who are playing with them!). How many movies have you seen or books have you read where you've groaned in agony and frustration at the stupidity of the characters in those stories? How many times have you thought, "If I was there in that situation, I SO would be doing something better than that!"

Roleplaying games allows you to exercise your creativity and have you playing characters involved in various situations run by a game master (GM) that force you to make decisions for your character that affect its future. Like life, the game only ends for that character when it's dead. During the course of its adventures, it (you) interacts with other characters run by the other players (player characters, or PCs), and also with non-player characters (NPCs) that are played by the GM. The goal, apart from the goals of the scenario its involved in, are to grow, to become more powerful, to be a bigger 'fish in the sea'.

I've been roleplaying ever since 1988. The very first roleplaying game I played in was a James Bond game, being secret agents. I moved from there to Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (2nd Edition), which is a fantasy game with warriors, magic users, clerics, rogues, etc, along with all manner of creatures including orcs up to the most powerful dragons. In my time since then, I've played that game on and off, as well as a number of science fiction games including Cyberpunk (based on the Neuromancer series of books by William Gibson), Star Trek, Vampire: The Masquerade, and Werewolf.

I've even run a few games of my own, creating entire worlds around the creativity in my mind, having the players play their characters within the stories I create for them. My favourite genre was Cyberpunk, but I've also mixed a few genres, with Cyberpunk, Vampire and Werewolf being a very popular mix. Imagine a war between Vampires and Werewolves (the movie Underworld, if you've seen it, was inspired by the roleplaying game of Vampire and Werewolf) that takes place in the near future, around 2020, with advanced technology, etc. The future in Cyberpunk is often dark, dangerous and depressing, which lends well to vampires and werewolves running aroud them.

I was very pleased that Deidre's also a roleplayer. She used to play D&D in college, but never got back into it until she met me. She came with me to the roleplaying group I'm part of (which also includes my friend Garry, whom I've mentioned previously), and took over a character that had been left by a player who'd left the group. Nawen, a fighter.

In the time that she's been playing this fighter, I've had about 4 different characters, each of the first 2 dying for various reasons. The first one was a knight who ended up as a pincushion for about 20 javelins thrown by a horde of lizard men. The second one was a gnome mage who was slightly evil. The party couldn't pin anything on him though, but they ended up voting him out. The third was a Paladin, a holy warrior, who got ripped apart by a tiger. The 4th, the one I'm playing now, is a pacifist priest who abhors violence and tries to promote the philosophy, "Can't we all just... get along?" She's an interesting challenge, as she tries to keep everyone alive - good and bad (except for the pure evil or nonreasoning creatures that just want to eat her and her companions - she doesn't want to keep them alive!) - and that often goes against the party's goals.

This is an example of the type of conversation that happened after she joined the group and she was confronted with:

"Listen up. We're the good guys, and they're the bad guys, and if you start helping them, you and this here sword are going to get real acquainted, real quick."

"Right. And you're the good guys, right?"

"That's right, you better believe it."

"And if I help the 'bad guys', you're going to kill me, right?"

"Hey, now she understands! Yeh, that's right."

"Right. So... you, being the good guys, will kill me if I help people."

"Yeh...."

"You did say you were the good guys, right?"

"Shut up. Just don't help the bad guys."

"I'll help whoever I want to help. If anyone is injured, I'll be helping them. If you don't like it, you're quite welcome to kill me now for wanting to HELP people, Mr 'Good Guy'."

"You better just stay out of my way..."

Getting back to the mechanics of the game....

Interaction, similar to what I just described, is 'acted' by the players using verbal acting only. We sit around a table and discuss our plans, or talk to each other as if 'in character', which is what the above represents. It's roleplaying, remember?

In D&D (and most other genres) If you want to engage in any kind of action, you first have to be skilled in it. If you have the skills, then you have a skill rating of sorts, that shows how good or bad you are at it. If you don't have a particular skill, you may still be able to do it if you have some other skill or attribute that could allow you to do it, but with a penalty. So, if you want to, for example, hit someone with your sword, you would roll a dice to see if you hit. The result of the dice is modified according to any bonuses you might have due to skills or attributes, and this result is then compared with the number you need to hit your opponent, which in itself is a result of their own skills at dodging, or the armour they may or may not be wearing.

If your roll is equal to or greater than what you need, then you have successfully hit them with the sword. You then have to roll another dice that represents the damage, and add any bonuses (or penalties) to that roll. The result of this is then taken from the 'hit points' of the opponent. Hit points are a reflection of the health and stamina of a character. The more they have, the harder they are to kill, and the higher they advance, the more hit points they get.

Magic users are often the weakest characters, getting only 1-4 hit points per character level, not including any bonuses due to a high constitution. Fighters are the strongest, getting 1-10 hit points, and they often have constitution bonuses on top of that. However, where fighters have to be stronger because they're most often engaged in hand to hand physical combat, the magic users are often at the back, avoiding being hit, and casting their spells.

Along with fighters, clerics and magic users, you can also play rangers (specialists with nature and bows), thieves, holy warriors, and others. You can also be human, dwarf, elf, etc. There are many combinations that can be chosen from, with all kinds of character combinations able to be created. The only limit is your imagination.

Roleplaying games are limitless in how they allow exploration into character concepts, ideas, and plans of action. If you think you would just love to play someone like Aragorn, Gandalf, Neo from the Matrix (pure Cyberpunk), or even Buffy the Vampire Slayer, there are roleplaying games out there that allow you to play any kind of character you want, in any kind of genre or setting. The only limit is your imagination.

The adventures of the group I'm playing with are being recorded here: The Group. It's only new, started a few weeks ago, and it doesn't have the many years of history in it that should be there, but everything has to start somewhere, right? The purpose of the website is to record the roleplaying adventures of 'the Group', as they experience various adventures and advance in power and experience.

It's a lot of fun to play, and I've been doing it a long time. I plan on doing it a lot longer. I play it every week (except when it's cancelled due to one or more of the players unable to play for that week), and thought I'd just relate it a little bit in here. Maybe you've learnt something new, maybe you haven't. Maybe I've bored the hell outta you. Sorry about that. Go read something else then. :-)

Roleplaying can also be done on the internet, through online games, or even through email roleplaying games. I used to run a Star Trek email roleplaying game between 2000 - 2005. Go here if you're interested and click on FAQ. I don't run that any more, but I may get back into it again future. The website was all my own design and creation. I'll be keeping it there, for when the game starts back up again. (Hey, let me know in an email to me if you'd like to play on it, and you might convince me to start it up again sooner....)

Very soon I'll be posting a story that I created as a future timeline / adventure within the Star Trek game, that was never played out. I thought I'd post it in here as a possible story, which I might just develop that way.

I better go now... I've been at Starbucks all afternoon, and I now have to go home to pick up Deidre and we're going out to see Serenity tonight. Everyone else has seen it, it's our turn now. I'll review that in a post maybe tonight or tomorrow. I promised my friend Emily. :-)

I've gone through all the posts from the beginning of October 2005 and looked at all those that have had people comment in them. A lot of posts have between 0-3 comments, but these are the most popular ones of 4 or more:

Comments - Name of post

7 - Your feedback is required
7 - Tips on being more creative
6 - 4 November 2005 - New Plymouth, NZ
5 - Disciplining kids
5 - Photos - 20 October
5 - The photographer's dilemma
4 - More changes
4 - What are tags and tagging
4 - I've applied for a new role
4 - Web 2.0
4 - Blog review: Bark / Bite
4 - The end of a chapter
4 - Disaster readiness: US vs Pakistan

If we look at the top 3, some equally scored, we see that #1 are about feedback and creativity tips. # 2 is a photo blog post. #3 is an article on disciplining kids (which also just happens to be the most popularl search term that people are visiting this site for. Just shows that disciplining kids is of great interest to people), another photo blog post and an article on photography. Equal in the 4th position are posts on website development, website technology, life and relationships, blog reviews and politics.

I think it's safe to say that these are the most popular types of posts on this blog:

Creativity
Photo Blog
Photography
Articles on life and relationships
Website development and technology
Politics

Based on the popularity of posts according to your comments, I'll try to do more of such posts. If any of you have any comments about what you would LIKE to see more of, please feel free to let me know now. :-) Feedback is the top-rated post, so you do love to give your feedback - keep it coming!

Thanks to this post I found on The Implications of your Template Colours, I've gone ahead and redone the colours in this blog. I've also redesigned the fonts, and the bordering, to be more comfortable and to make things look like they're buttons that are standing out. Quotes now look like they're 'embedded' in the post, simply by bordering the top and the left sides.

Here's a before and after shot...











I like the new colours. :-)

Today's Daily Tao is:

Experience
Experience is a riverbed,
Its source hidden, forever flowing:
Its entrance, the root of the world,
The Way moves within it:
Draw upon it; it will not run dry.

What does it mean? Well, the riverbed contains the river, channels it as it progresses. The Way moves within the river. However, if experience is the bed that contains both the river (life?) and the Way, then .....

Right, now I'm a little annoyed. I've been doing a bit of research on the net, trying to make sense of this bullshite, and I've discovered 'Tao Te Ching Commentary'. In here, I find that the chapters I've been reading up until now are completely fracked up in their translations! Here's the chapter according to this new site:

The spirit of the valley never dies.
This is called the mysterious female.
The gateway of the mysterious female is called the root of heaven and earth.
Dimly visible, it seems as if it were there, yet use will never drain it.

As you can probably see, as well as I, the translations offer completely different possibilities!

After reading the interpretation on this new site, I'm at a complete loss how they came up with their interpetation.

I've got a lot to learn. I'm going to give up on these Daily Tao chapters. They don't make any sense to me at this stage, and it's particularly discouraging to find that different sites and people have different translations of the Tao Te Ching. Different translations change the meaning entirely. How the frack can you understand Taoism when it seems that everyone that tries to understand it, understands it differently to everyone else!

And where the frack is one single definitive source of the real Tao Te Ching? Frack me!

The End. Of chapters of Taoism in here. If you've come here via a search engine looking for stuff on Taoism, here's something meaningful for you:

Tao is everywhere, and yet it is nowhere. When you look for it, you can't find it. When you try to understand it, you understand nothing. When you stop searching, you find the Way.

Bloody hell, where'd that come from? I started with some bullshite quote I pulled out of my arse and end up with that small gem of wisdom. Or something like that.

I'm going to go meditate about it on the toilet. Back later.

As a result of my post here, I'm going to start clearing out all the crap in my archives that isn't a reflection of what I want this blog to be about. Anything that isn't an example of life through my eyes is going. Anything that's a waste of people's - and my - time to read is going. Anything that bores the hell outta me is going.

And I'm going to link more to posts within this blog from now on, where I can. And I'm going to link more to the blogs of my fans, where I can. I hope that I'll create content in here that will inspire you to link back to it in your own blogs.

The biggest reason for all of this is to create more ways and more content that will bring more people back to this site.

What's this blog about? It's about growth. My personal growth with myself and my interests, and the facilitating of growth in others. And I think it's going to be a portal point, as well, to my other websites, which are also about growth.

I hope you, if you're not a regular visitor, like what you read so much that you'll take the time to read a bit more, to subscribe to the RSS feeds, or to just come back regularly and keep up to date with my growth, and the growth I help you find for yourselves.

Cheers


UPDATE
Well, that was quick. There wasn't actually anything here that I didn't want here... quite surprising, really. But I'm glad!

I was inspired to do my own variation of this. Enjoy. :-)

1. 80% of your posts are meaningless.
80% of what you post is going to be absolutely meaningless. Complete rubbish. But they're still important, 'cause without them, your regular fans go somewhere else. If they're regular, of course. Who'd be regular though if you don't have any posts? Those regular fans you have, they're there for the 20% of your posts that are meaningful to them. And of your fans, 80% of them will link to 20% of those meaningful posts.

2. Life Through My Eyes is a new Web 2.0 resource.
If you can work out why 20% of your posts are linked back by 80% of your fans, you can begin to increase the ratio. Start writing more of what they find interesting and meaningful. And if you can't do this, then you're just not bound for success, so you might want to go start knitting instead. Maybe blog about that? Try to aim for 80% of your posts talked about by 20% of all your visitors, rather than just 20% of your posts by 80% of your fans.

3. Be Unique. Don’t be like everyone else. That is so Web 1.0.
You should be tired of looking at your stats and seeing that 20% of your traffic is return visitors. You want 80% returns! If you want more people coming back, you have to be uniqie. You have to find topics that no one else is talking about, and you have to talk about them yourself. People need to hear things in a new way, and you're going to have to be new if you want them coming back.

4. Become a Google Wunderkind. Delete your archives.
Review all your posts. Clear out the ones that either aren't popular, or are not a good reflection of how you want your blog to be. If you have less content but more of it's linked, guess what? You become an overnight Google wunderkind. Google doesn't want you knowing this, but it works.

5. Drop all the contextual advertising bullcrap. Simplicity is betta.
If you have advertising that's not making you money, get rid of it. Now. If you remove 80% of the advertising that's not making you money and optimise the 20% that is, your readers are going to visit your site more, and make your more money in the process. What better reason to do it, right?

7. Quit feeding at the trough.
Spend more time on your blog and less time reading websites or RSS feeds, and any other feeds you might be accessing. It's wasting your time! Quit feeding at the trough and do some creative writing of your own, instead of using other people's content like what inspired this! That's what people feast on, and that's where the success is.

8. Don't TRY to be one, just BE one!
To be one of the 20% of blogs that 80% of people are going to come back to, you have to be one of those 20% of bloggers that 80% of bloggers wish they were. Do more writing. Care less about the crap, and care more about the quality. I have a saying sticky-taped to the top of my screen: "combine quality with consistency." Don't try to be what you think you should be, just do it and be it.

Over here you'll find out a few things about one of the latest laws to be passed by the US Senate. It forces Americans to be vaccinated, keeps secret the new and experimental drugs being used on Americans, prevents pharmaceutical companies from being investigated or liable for anything going wrong, and puts it all under the label of fighting bioterrorism blah blah blah.

That's my daily outrage for the day. I'm SO glad I'm not an American.

Categories: news, politics

I've been really sick again over the past few days, being stuck in bed for the past 2 of them. I've been getting a little concerned, 'cause I rarely get sick, and now I've been sick almost regularly, for the past few months. I think it's associated with some stress I'm involved in.

Deidre's been having a few complications at work which have been greatly stressing her out. Each night Deidre's been coming home, expressing more and more of her daily stress. She's been exceptionally happy that I've been her 'rock', the person that supports her, that she can lean on when she needs to, that provides stability in her life.

However, it's become obvious to me that the stress she's going through, that I've become part of due to her sharing it with me, has been having an effect on me that's ended up with me getting sick.

So today, after having recovered from my latest illness which had me feverish last night, I've been talking to her about how her experiences have been affecting me. Being the 'rock' for her has meant I've been keeping most of my own frustrations bottled up, feelings that I don't want to bother her with them since she has so much to deal with already.

We're going to start talking to each other more, rather than her just talking to me. I think that'll be quite helpful for me, and maybe to her as well, allowing her to understand how her shared experiences are affecting me too.

It's all a learning process as we go through stress together, understanding each other more as a result, and finding ways of dealling with it together. And maybe I'll get sick less in future.

Thanks to Not PC for inspiring me to show this cute little tool that shows how much your blog is worth. Here's mine:

My blog is worth $7,903.56.
How much is your blog worth?

Not bad... A few weeks ago I checked and it was only about $5,000 worth, so the value, nicely enough, is going up.

Categories: fun

I've discovered something called lifehacks, and decided to create a site for it, as it's a concept I like and feel can be applied to so many things that I'm interested in: personal development, relationship development, spiritual development, and general tips about life. Here's my description of it, as taken from the site I created for it.

What is life hacking exactly?

Life hacking was a term created by Danny O'Brien in 2004, with a seminar entitled 'Life Hacks: Tech Secrets of Overprolific Alpha Geeks'. His focus was for geeks, bringing together the small things that they do to make things easier for themselves, and sharing that knowledge out to others.

I want to take it a little bit further. This site is not just for geeks, even though it's been inspired by geeks. Life hacking is for those that want to 'hack into life', finding the shortcuts and solutions that will make things easier.

That's it. Simple, isn't it. And that's how your life is going to be after you take note of what you find in here.

Lifehacks were originally created for geeks, helping them be more productive with their work and their lives, but I think it's a great name for doing the same thing for anyone, helping them live better lives. So I'm jumping on the bandwagon. :-)

Categories: life, lifehacks

I thought I'd just give an example of a typical week day for me. Just for the fun of it. Maybe it'll help you get to know me a bit more. If you want to, that is. If you don't, then just don't click to read any more. ;-)

My cellphone alarm buzzes quietly at me at 5:50am. I wake up, snooze it and then cuddle Deidre for a while. At 6am it buzzes again, and I kiss Deidre good morning as I get up and leave her to her sleep. I go into the lounge room and read any email that might have come in overnight. This will include any notifications of comments left on my site, which I will try to respond to if anything comes to mind.

Then I access my Bloglines, which you can see on the right there under 'My Blogroll'. This holds all the sites that are of interest to me, including where I get my news from. Going through the latest posts or stories on here usually takes about 30-40 minutes. This is how I wake up, with news and views aroud the world.

Then I turn the iron on and make myself some weet-bix for breakfast. I eat that while I browse www.stuff.co.nz for the latest local news. Once I've finished eating or reading, whichever comes first, I iron my clothes for the day.

By about 7am I'm in the shower, after getting a towel from the heated towel rack in the bedroom and giving Deidre another good morning kiss as she's waking up to her clock radio. While I'm showering she comes in to do her early morning bathroom stuff, like washing her face, etc, and I tell her the latest 'daily outrage' I might have read on the news. This is usually the latest crap that comes to light about George Bush, or some other injustice or outrage around the world.

I get dressed while Deidre does, then I pack up the laptop and prepare to go to work as Deidre is finishing getting dressed. I kiss her goodbye and leave, driving down the hill to park at the local train station, where I leave the car parked for free and catch a bus into the city.

I get to work around 7:45am, and after setting the laptop up, I get myself a drink of water. This is my first drink of the day. If I'm feeling indulgent, I'll get a cup of coffee from the percolator. I log into the network and check the email that's come in overnight. I then see what jobs need doing and do them, or reassign jobs to other people to do.

My role at work, as systems administrator, is to administrate and support the internal systems of the company. If people need to be setup on anything, it comes to the office I'm in, which has 3 of us looking after it. I'm always first in, according to shift rostering, so I try to make sure any jobs overnight have been done by me or assigned accordingly.

This process continues throughout the day. As jobs come in, I'm responsible for assigning them around the 3 of us, or onto other people, trying to balance workload according to who's best suited for the task, or whatever. There's not enough to keep all 3 of us busy, so if we were to do everything in one go that we do during the day, we'd probably only be working about 3 hours each. When I was recently looking after the entire office by myself, doing the work of all 3 of us for about 2 weeks (the other 2 were off on sick leave), it was enough to keep me busy for the whole day, but not overloaded.

In between the times I'm not doing actual work, I browse the web for new information, new blogs, new Web 2.0 stuff. I keep up to date with the news sites, watching breaking news as they come in. I investigate ways of making my blog better, or write posts to my blogs. I write emails to friends or to Deidre, and I generally keep myself busy. Not always on work, but always 'working'..

Between 12-1pm I go to lunch with Deidre, and we catch up on her morning's activities. There's not usually anything interesting of mine for her to catch up on, so she tells me all about her problems and gossip and stuff.

I leave for the day around 4-5pm, depending on how focused I am on whatever I'm doing at that time (which could be work related or not). I walk to the train station in the city, which is a nice 10-15 minute walk, and catch a bus back to the car and then drive home. Once at home I setup the laptop again, plugging it into the local network at home, and catch up on any email or sites I might have missed out on during the previous few hours. I write more blog posts or work on finding better ways of doing things for the blog.

Around 6:30pm Deidre comes home and we spend an hour or so with me listening to her get off her day's frustrations, before we make dinner. We usually spend the evening together either chatting, watching tv, or miscellaneous stuff. She might do her own thing and I'll be relaxing on the computer doing the same kind of thing I did during the day.

Around 11pm we go to bed. Go back to the top of the page and start again...

I'm in a very much ideal job for myself at the moment, where I get to do everything that is expected of me at work, as well as my own stuff. I'm not exactly challenged by my work, but they're aware of that, and they understand that there's not enough to keep all 3 of us busy. They're working on changing that, but only recently have they come to us and said, "Find your own projects. Do what interests you. Keep yourself busy."

I have been....! But on Friday I started investigating and moving forward on the process to start a company blog. I'll keep you updated on how that goes.

So anyway, that's my average day. There's an indistinguishable line at times on my work and my interests: - computers, software, writing and technology. This is why I do it all during the day and then come home and relax by doing exactly the same thing.... I love it!

I got into IT about 9 years ago because it paid me for doing what I was passionate about, and that's been the case ever since. I love my job - and my life.

I wrote out my application letter for the Team Leader position this afternoon, going through all the reasons why I'd be best for the job. I'm sure of it - there's no one else there at the moment that would be as good in that role as me. I've been there long enough, have a solid amount of skills, experience and management qualities to back me up, including a strong familiarity with the way everything works and fits together. But, of course, if I didn't believe I was best for the role, I wouldn't be applying for it, would I. *grin*

I got a very good tip today from one of the new 'lifehack' sites I've discovered (more about that in another post), about providing a strategy agenda of my first 3 months to the interviewers, to show them how committed I am to hitting the ground running. I'll be working on that over the next few days, detailing my plan of attack should I get the position. It's something people just don't do in a job interview, so it'll put me ahead of the pack.


Update: please feel free to write about your own average day on your own blog, and link back to this or tell me about it in the comments here. I'd love to read about your daily life too!

Categories: life

Some people are a little confused by this latest trend, wondering what all the fuss is about and why it's becoming the next best thing since sliced bread... or hyperlinks. So I'll do my best to explain it.

With Web 1.0 if you find a website that you like, you added it to your bookmarks. You may have filed it under any type of bookmark folder categorisation, including news, personal, entertainment, etc etc. From that point on, it required you to remember what the site was about, and to manually go back to it whenever you thought of it.

Tags, however, can be used to specify properties of a link or a website that are not obvious from the link or website themselves. They can then be used to find links or websites with some desired set of properties, or to organize them. Social bookmarking websites use these features to allow for the storing of such tagged links or sites, and allow them to be organised by the tags.

Tags may not necessarily define exactly what the link or site is about, but are often used to relate the concepts which are associated with the link or site. For example, when I've finished writing this article, I'll be submitting it to blinklist with the tags: Web 2.0, social networking, tips. For me, the tags define the concepts of what this article is about. Those that use tags do so for the same reasons.

Social bookmarking sites like blinklist, technorati and del.icio.us allow the bookmarking of links according to the tags associated with these links. You can use these to save more links than you probably would using your browser's Bookmarks folder, and you can save them according to the concepts associated with whatever it is you're saving.

Many people use tagging to create a categorisation list of the content of their site. This way, whenever they tag a page on their site, that page is automatically updated and accessible from within the relevent tags. In this way, using tagging only for the pages of your site, you can create a form of categorisation that will allow visitors to your site to see all the pages that are associated with whatever tags they're interested in.

Tag clouds, as you can see to the right, are the next step beyond hierchical classification. A lot of people don't like them, but then a lot of people do. They allow a cloud of tags to be shown, with the 'heavier' tags, the ones with the most content, being larger and standing out more from the rest of the tags. Tag clouds also form clouds of associated tags. What this means is that when you click on a tag, another smaller cloud will form, showing all the tags that have also been associated with the one you've just clicked on.

Let me show you an example. If you look at the tag cloud to the right there, you'll see the entire cloud. Now, if we clicked on, for example, politics, then you'll see another cloud like the one below.


As you can see, the cloud shows all those other tags that have been associated with the content that's tagged 'politics', thus allowing you to explore the associated content.

Associations such as this, with tagging, allow all kinds of concept-related categorisation and exploring, instead of the old, standard hierarchical lists that allow for difficult searching.

I hope this has explained what tags, tagging and tag clouds are, and how they can be used for your personal bookmarking, or even for website categorisation.

Categories: Web 2.0, social bookmarking, tips

Over at Blink List, I've been working on tagging my site with all kinds of various tags related to all the posts on my blog. As a result of what I've been doing, I now have a tag cloud over there, which looks like this:

What I've found very exciting is the 'weighting' of tags. What this means is that the more stuff you have tagged with a particular word, the larger is the text of that tag. And the 'heavier' it is, the larger it gets, and it becomes more colourful too.

In relation to what I've done, I've tagged all of this year's blog entries on this site, and you can see very easily and quickly what this site is mainly about.

What I've been searching for, dear reader, is the means of showing a tag cloud on this site, to use it as a navigation tool, as well as a categorisation tool. A tidy, colourful and exciting way of organising content to reflect what I find interesting.

Here's where it's even more exciting. I may soon have a means of displaying such a tag cloud!

I'm not going to say any more at this stage, but keep an eye out for it.

I swear that the aliens had their searchlights out this morning, looking for something...


Luckily they didn't find me, or I wouldn't have been able to bring you this scoop. You saw it here, first. Remember that. :-)

Categories: photos, photo blog

I hate watching tv. I never watch it - unless it distracts me when someone else is watching it. Eg. Deidre. Tonight there was a show about a 'supernanny' helping a couple change the habits of their 4 kids. This show is about kids being little demons, completely uncontrollable, absolute little shits. I'm sure you know the type.

One of the things I got from the show - and from past experience throughout my life - is that many people are weak parents. The reason the kids have no discipline is because the parents dont't instill it into them. The parents are weak, and let their kids run wild. Or the parents are inconsistent, not just with their attempts at discipline, but also in their support of each other. They undermine each other, where one parent tells the kids off, and the other parent lets them do what they've just been told off for.

I'm proud of my own past, where for a number of years I was involved with raising kids. They weren't my own, but for a period of time, I was like their father. Michael was 8 and Jamie was 4 when their mother, Estera, moved in to live with me. Michael knew me, as I'd been around in his life ever since he was 1 year old, even living with them for a time when he was 3-4. Jamie, however, was different. When he was born I moved out of the house, and during the following 4 years, I didn't see a lot of them. So for Michael, he was happy to see me again and have me as part of his life again. For Jamie, I was a stranger. He never really got used to me.

During the time I was with them, however, I was consistent with the discipline, and Estera and I supported each other in front of them with the punishments and decisions we handed out to them, even though we might have argued about it later, when they were asleep. Consistency for the kids was always important to me and to her.

During my 2 years in their life in this fashion, they were awesome kids! I'm proud of how I helped raise them, and helped them grow.

Boundaries were set out and stuck to. If they played up, they had to sit in the 'time out chair'. That was the only form of punishment I ever handed out, unless they were super-super bad, in which case they weren't allowed to watch tv.

One of the things I've noticed with people - and the tv show tonight - is that there doesn't seem to be that much of an attempt made to get kids to understand WHY they're being disciplined. What's important to these people who advocate such discipline is the discipline, but not the understanding. Put the kid in the chair, demand an apology after a few minutes, and then let them go their merry way.

I would put them in the chair and tell them that they're going to sit there and think about what they've done and why it's bad. When they can tell me why it was wrong for them to do it, and apologise, I'd give them a big hug and let them go their merry way. If they got the reason wrong, I'd explain the correct reason to them, give them a big hug for thinking about it, and let them go their merry way. If they couldn't work it out, they were free to tell me they didn't know why, in which case I'd explain it, give them a big hug for thinking about it, and let them go their merry way.

There was never any tantrums. Never any attempts to defy the punishment by refusing to sit in the chair. They would always sit there and think about it, and then talk to me when they were ready.

I treated them as people, rather than as ignorant kids. I'd talk with them about spiritual stuff, about psychic abilities, being able to see and talk to spirits, about getting spiritual protection. They'd talk to me about the dreams they had, the conversations they had with their spirit guides, and how happy and comfortable they felt about their lives, and going to sleep.

While Jamie never really accepted me as a parental figure, he trusted and respected me enough to accept the time out chair if I put him there. There were also quite a few times where he'd wake up from a bad dream, crying, feeling alone, and I'd come in and check on him (even at 4 in the morning). He'd be sitting there, cross-legged on the edge of the bed, and as soon as I came around the corner to walk down the hallway to him - he could see me come around the corner - he'd stop crying, climb back into bed, and peacefully settle back to sleep while I tucked the blankets up around him again.

When I was in a parental role with Kylie and her two kids, we were completely and utterly at opposites to how we should raise kids. It was her belief that kids should have absolute freedom, rarely be disciplined, and be allowed to grow and develop naturally, without any undue influences. The result? They were fracking monsters! Jamie, the 5 year old, was a true demon from hell. Joshua, the 3 year old, was fine - he hadn't had the chance to grow up with the same undisciplined issues yet.

Jamie, being the true demon from hell that he was, used to throw chairs into walls. Scream. Take knives and threaten. Oh, he once jumped repeatedly on a kitten until it stopped moving because he didn't like how it meowed. He handed the shattered body to his mum, saying "Kitten's dead," and then went back to play in the sandpit. I wasn't there for that, but I was shocked when I heard about it. He wasn't disciplined for that.

Any time I tried to enforce a sense of discipline in the household by introducing the timeout chair, Kylie invalidated me by telling me I wasn't allowed to do that. I wasn't his father. I had no right. This was in front of the kids.

The relationship died within a matter of weeks, literally. She and the kids moved in, and 4 weeks later the relationship was over. You could say the kids came between us, but in reality, it was her inability to accept that kids need discipline. She used to be abused when she was a child, and she over-compensated by refusing any form of discipline - to her it was 'abuse' - of her kids.

Deidre and I have very similar attitudes about how we want to raise our kids in the future. We agree on the methods of discipline, consistency, supporting each other, helping our kids understand respect, communication, and love within the family. I think we'll be awesome parents. Both her and I come from families where there was very little love shown to the children - us - and we have had our own individual experiences as parental figures of other people's kids. We've learnt of our own capabilities as good parents, and we want to be parents. We want each other to create a family. That's very cool.

We were talking about it tonight, of course, after watching that tv show, reiterating our attitudes, our expectations, our hopes and dreams about it.

It's not going to be overnight. We're being realistic about our relationship and moving forward with each other. We're not these people who meet, a month later they're engaged, a month after that they're married, 9 months later they have a child, a year after that they're divorced. Hell no.

We're going to be with each other for a long time. We both believe that. However, initially, there's a few things we want to do before we get married and have a family. We - I - want to establish a bit more of our careers before we move to Australia at the end of next year. Where we're at right now is a good stepping stone for increasing our chances of getting good jobs in Australia. Once we get to Australia then we'll get married, then have kids and settle down. That's the plan for the next 2-3 years.

In that time I want to ensure my future career prospects are enhanced. Hell, if we're going to have a family, I've got to raise my income to support more than just me, especially if she won't be doing much work for a while.

The past few months, and my plans into the short term future, are based on those plans. It's going to be quite a ride. :-)

Categories: life, relationships

One of the team leaders on the service desk here has just handed in their resignation. I've already stepped up, so to speak, and expressed my interest in taking on the role they're leaving behind.

I've been here almost 5 and a half years, with 4 of them on the service desk, and the rest in a more senior role for internal support (instead of external/client support). I've got enough knowledge about how things work around here, and I've also got management experience from my past.

I'm in a good place to take on the role right now, with it being yet another step up in my progress here. Helpdesk Analyst - Software Trainer - Systems Administrator / Service Delivery Manager - Service Desk Team Leader.

Wish me luck!

Categories: life

How the FRACK can they justify dropping the speed limit that affects the entire city, just because one stupid fracking woman, last year, stepped in front of a bus and got her dumb arse killed.

You see, accidents are relatively few and far between within the CBD. Most people are relatively safe and responsible. I say 'relatively', because obviously there's a few idiots here and there. But generally, we don't get accidents. And then this stupid woman, without looking, steps in front of a bus and gets herself killed.

The justification, of course, is that if the speed limit is lowered, then the vehicle is either likely to stop before hitting the pedestrian, or the pedestrian won't be severely hurt by the accident.

Well, I've got another idea. We could get rid of cars within the CBD altogether, so that we can avoid anyone ever getting hurt by vehicles within the CBD. Surely that's about the same as reducing the speed limit to almost the same speed as if you were fracking walking!

Dumbarses! Not only are dumbarses responsible for being too dumb to look where they're going and avoid moving traffic, but dumbarses are responsible for inconveniencing an entire fracking city because once, some time ago, some dumbarse of a woman was too fracking stupid to look where she was going.

I'm surrounded by dumbarses, and it annoys the hell outta me...


UPDATE 8 Nov 2005:
My sincerest apologies. I forgot to place the link to the news story.

I'm a little disappointed that I didn't even make it to the selection process for jury duty. I lucked out in the pre-selection selection process. There were far more people turning up than could fit into the jury selection room, so they called out the names of 55 people to be selected for the selection process. I wasn't called out, and it looked like I was one of only 3 people to not be called. Why didn't they just call out the names of 3 people who could go home, rather than make us frackin' wait through the calling out of 55 names! Sheesh.

There was only one trial for the next 2 weeks, so now I have no jury duty to experience, and to write about. That's why I'm disapppointed. But life goes on.

I found this on the weekend and thought it was excellent advice for a budding young (or not so young) writer such as myself. I thought I'd share it with you:

1. Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.
   
   
2. Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.
   
   
3. Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.
   
   
4. Every sentence must do one of two things -- reveal character or advance the action.
   
   
5. Start as close to the end as possible.
   
   
6. Be a sadist. No matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them -- in order that the reader may see what they are made of.
   
   
7. Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.
   
   
8. Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To heck with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages.

-- Vonnegut, Kurt Vonnegut, Bagombo Snuff Box: Uncollected Short Fiction (New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons 1999), 9-10.

Categories: writing

Lisa stood there with her back to Alex, looking out the window at Mike, watching him through the glass walls of the various offices, He seemed diligent with his information gathering, that much was certain. Security logs showed he hadn't left his office since yesterday's interview. She wondered if he slept at all. Her musings were interrupted by Alex.

"Why the hell are you recommending this guy?" he asked, sounding frustrated. "He's got no military training at all."

"That's right," she said, turning around, her hair, with its long red ponytail, swinging as she did so. "But not all of the team are required to be grunts. Dean is an accomplished cyber-specialist..."

"He's only 19!" Alex exclaimed.

"They're getting younger each year," she smiled. "Flip over to the next page."

Alex did, and glanced over the information there, before suddenly grimacing. "Arrested for breaking into the NSA's computer system... You want a criminal working for us?"

Lisa sighed. Alex was so difficult sometimes, she thought, preferring to be told everything than reading for himself. "He came to us, wanting a job. He told us about how he'd been wandering throughout our computer systems for a week leading up to when he came and saw us. He had complete access, and flaunted it."

"Exactly, and that's why we shouldn't have him on the team," Alex stated, throwing the file down onto the desk, as if to close the matter.

"You're going to rethink that," she said, still smiling. "Don't you see that it's because he got undetected access to the most secure computer system in the world that we need him?"

Alex looked at her for a moment before picking up the file again. "Since you put it like that...."

"His expertise - yes, even at 19 - is going to be needed," she continued. "We don't know how many companies, governments or military organisations around the world may have been compromised by these things. We'll need someone like him to set up searches throughout computer systems around the world."

"Searches for what?" Alex asked.

"I don't know," she said, turning back around and looking at Mike again. "It was his call. I just agree with him. Having someone on the team who can pull the wool over our own best guys would certainly be to our advantage."

"Ok," Alex nodded. "He's in. Go get him."

"He's already in the building," she replied.

"That was quick."

"Not really... we arrested him, but never handed him over."

"Why not?" Alex asked, curious.

"The kid wanted a job," she said, smiling at him before turning and leaving the office.

Alex chuckled. That's why he liked her, she was always thinking ahead. He stood up and walked over to where she had been standing, and looked thoughtfully at Mike himself. From what he'd heard about the man, he was always thinking ahead too. Alex hoped that it was far enough for what they needed to do.

Categories: story

I'm off to jury duty this morning. Don't know if I'll be selected, but I hope so. I'll be taking a good book and a notepad/pen, just in case I get the urge to write more of my story. Laptop too, just in case I don't get selected and have to work! Darnit...

More later.

Mike rubbed at his tired eyes, standing up from the desk and stretching. Some of his vertebrae cracked as he stretched, and he walked over to the window, looking out at Washington DC. All those people out there, he was thinking. How many of them knew about these aliens? How many were aliens themselves? There were so many stories of UFOs and beams of light, time slowed down or stopped, broken memories and other unexplained experiences. Most of the people involved in such things were met with derision or disbelief by families, friends, workmates and the media. But all of it was true.

He turned and looked back at the paperwork on his desk, and at the 3 monitors, all showing various bits of information to help bring him up to speed. His first task had been to familiarise himself with as much of the data as possible, to understand what Night Watch was all about, how long it had been around, and why. What he discovered had, to say the least, shocked him.

Unidentified alien activity had started with Roswell in 1947, which was the first of many such events. As jets became more prominent in the skies, so did sightings of UFO's, and there were accidental collisions and even shootdowns during the 50's and 60's. However, the UFO's seemed to back off somewhat in the 70's, avoiding military detection and interfering more with the civilians around the planet. From the 80's through to 2001, the US had no contact with any UFOs.

In 2001, however, that changed.

What the people didn't know about the attacks on the World Trade Center was that some of the terrorists had walked away from the crash sites. Many people felt that there was a government conspiracy, and while they were right, they claimed all the wrong reasons. Whole websites sprung up about government involvement in the terrorist attacks, or widespread incompetence leading to failed intelligence analysis, or failed action to prevent the attacks from occuring. All of them were wrong, looking in the wrong places, but the truth could never be revealed.

Project Night Watch sprang up overnight as a result of what the video footage showed; footage which 'disappeared', along with anyone who viewed it and were unauthorised to do so. Night Watch was a project created within the National Security Agency, headed by Alex Morgan, Deputy Director National Security Agency. Lisa Wright, Assistant to the Deputy Director, was also responsible for bringing the project together and ensuring its target goals were met.

The goals? In over 17 years of experience in Special Forces operations around the world, he'd never seen anything like what the goals were meant to combat. Simply, "the investigation of enhanced terrorist activity, and the protection of humanity."

'Enhanced terrorist activity.' It was almost funny, but Mike didn't feel like laughing. The video footage he'd seen showed the interior of the floor that one of the planes had crashed into, with debris and bodies lying everywhere, lit up by the flames from the jet fuel spilled throughout the area. It was obvious that the probability of survivors was extremely low to nonexistent, what with the shattered remnants of the plane, and the fires. A part of the cockpit was visible, and the eyes were immediately attracted to that point when two men stepped out of the cockpit, pushing a large bulkhead out of their way. It must've weighed at least a couple of tons, but they pushed it aside easily. They looked around at their surroundings and then walked over to the edge of the floor, gaping open to the sky. Their clothes burnt away as they walked through the intense flames from burning fuel, but their skin looked unharmed. And then they jumped out.

The next scene in the video was taken from the camera of someone filming the building from the outside, and amongst the falling debris and burning paper could be seen the two men falling, looking like they had been occupants of the building, falling to their deaths. The next scene however, from yet another camera, showed the same two men amongst a group of people gathered to watch the burning buildings. They were wearing business suits which looked like they didn't really fit. The camera continued past them, filming other people and the building.

The meaning behind the edited video was obvious. The two hijackers survived the crash into the building, pushed aside heavy metal bulkheads, jumped out of the building and fell a thousand feet, and then walked away.

The information in front of Mike told him that 7 of the 19 alleged hijackers had apparently walked away, with only 2 of them being filmed during the process. None of them have been retrieved to date. These 'enhanced terrorists' were believed by Night Watch to be aliens, disguising themselves as terrorists. Alternatively, aliens were affecting terrorists in order to engage war on the western world, for reasons as yet unknown.

This information gained credibility when members of Al Qaeda, captured in Afghanistan, spoke of the unusual abilities performed by some of their leaders who spent a great deal of time in the desert, communing with Allah within beams of light. In return for their devoted service, Allah granted them great strength and immortality in return. Unfortunately, some of these highly dubious claims were confirmed by various special operations forces who became engaged in combat with these 'supermen', as they called them, suspecting they were enhanced by drugs.

And so we came to the present, where the information Mike had showed that there was no real confirmation of any of these claims, until that US military patrol in Afghanistan had spotted the two soldiers 'communing with Allah'. And the results were scary. There seemed to be no defence against this light, and luckily - as far as anyone knew - it was also the first time the light had been used against US forces.

The day after Night Watch intercepted the satellite feed from the patrol, Kurt Rollins, their Head of Security, was compromised, either showing his true colours as one of these aliens, or being changed to help them. Mike remembered all too well the fight he'd had with the man, and how lucky he probably was. Whatever enhanced strength the terrorists had in the World Trade Center was missing from Kurt, which Mike was certainly happy about.

He rubbed his eyes again, feeling very tired. Looking at the time, he decided to have a nap. No point burning himself out before he even started, he thought. Laying down on the couch against the wall, he shut his syes, visions of aliens dancing in flames behind his eyelids, before drifting off into sleep.

Categories: story

Chapter 1

The face of a US soldier was on the monitor, in various shades of green showing it was via an infrared camera. Glistening trails of sweat could be seen running down his cheeks, and he was breathing hard. He spoke quietly but intensely into the camera.

"We've been following the targets as ordered and have them under observation. You need to see this..." He gestured with his head to his left, and the picture changed as the cameraman moved the camera to focus on what looked like 2 men kneeling in a clearing, a couple hundred yards away. They were wearing head dress and clothing typical for Arabs, but were also lit up in what looked like a beam of light. The camera zoomed in on them, refocusing, and they could be seen looking up into the light. The cameraman zoomed back out and followed the light up, showing that it disappeared into the clouds. The view came back down to the two kneeling men, who seemed to be looking straight into the camera. The light disappeared, and the men stood up, holding AK47s.

"Get down," whispered someone, presumably the soldier holding the camera. "I think they've seen us."

The view shook as the cameraman crouched down, pulling the zoom back and jerking the camera around, showing four soldiers moving into defensive positions. Suddenly they were all lit up by a light, just like the two Arabs had been, and everything seemed to freeze. The camera was completely still, and the three men in view were all frozen in the position they were in, apparently along with the cameraman. It was quiet. Not even breathing could be heard.

After a couple of minutes with the view looking like a photo instead of a video feed, the sound of boots stepping onto the nearby ground could be heard, getting closer. There was the loud sound of gunfire and bullets could be seen striking the frozen men, blood and flesh splashing from the exit wounds. But the men still seemed to be frozen. The camera jerked again and fell, maybe hit by a bullet, and the screen turned to static for a moment as it hit the ground, before returning to normal. The boots of the two Arabs could be seen walking amongst the frozen US soldiers, applying head shots to each of them, blood streaming from their various wounds onto the ground.

Suddenly the light disappeared, and each of the soldiers who had been shot collapsed to the ground, splashing into their own pools of blood. None of them moved beyond that. One of the Arabs approached the camera and the screen turned to static, presumably as the camera had been shot or trampled by a boot.

"Jesus..." Mike exclaimed, and sat back, watching the static on the screen. There was silence in the room, as the two others watched him. "What was that, some kind of weapon?"

"We have no idea," Alex replied, turning off the monitor annd sitting back down. Mike knew him as Deputy Director of the National Security Agency. "All we know is what you've just seen, which happened only 2 days ago. It seems to physically freeze the muscles of the body but not objects external to the body, like the camera or the bullets, or their blood. It's also the first time something like this has been observed via a recording."

"The light, whatever it is... Evidence of these aliens you were talking about?" Mike asked.

"Evidence of something," Alex replied. "We're only assuming aliens, 'cause the technology is unknown. It's possible that it's tech used by some other country, but...." He shrugged.

"But... you don't really believe that, do you." Mike was making a statement rather than a question, and was answered by the other person in the room, Alex's assistant, Lisa.

"The US has some of the most advanced technology in the world," she said. "We know that many of the UFO sightings around the world are our own experimental aircraft. But then there are the sightings that are unexplained, and from those we know we're not alone. The 'light that freezes' has been mentioned often enough in other UFO sightings, where time seems to have stopped for those caught in the light. It was a UFO sighting in that area of Afghanistan that caused the patrol in that video to be ordered to investigate. It confirms, to an extent, something we've suspected for a while."

"And that is...?" Mike asked.

Alex answered his question, leading Mike to believe that teamwork between Alex and Lisa was one of their strong points. "Some of the leadership of terrorist cells seem to be either answering to the occupants of those UFO's, or... are occupants themselves. We believe some people who come into contact with that light are enhanced in some ways... Stronger and faster... We don't know if the light changes them, or if it just 'awakens' them."

Mike slowly nodded. "You've engaged them in combat then?"

"On occasions, yes," Alex replied. "The reason you've been brought in is because our previous Head of Security turned out to be one of them, and yet you found and neutralised him."

Mike frowned. "What?"

"Yesterday, when you chased down that terrorist suspect," Lisa replied.

"I don't understand," Mike said, looking at her. "Why was I told he was a terrorist suspect?"

"When he betrayed the US, he became one," Alex frowned. "We found out two days ago, only a few hours after he viewed that tape, that he had been in the vicinity of an apparent UFO sighting. We asked him about it, but he first tried to deny it, then he tried to escape... I lost 4 men trying to stop him."

Mike nodded. "So you called me in."

"You were in town, and we needed the best," Alex replied, smiling grimly. "You've successfully replaced him, and now that you know what we're about, I hope you'll be staying."

Mike looked at him and Lisa carefully. "I suspect I don't have much of a choice, now that you've told me all this."

"We all have choices," Alex said. "Some of them are good choices, some are bad." He smiled again, briefly.

"Well, I'd be stupid to pass this up," Mike said, smiling back. "Stupid in more ways than one... I'd be happy to take on the job."

"Welcome to Night Watch," Alex said, opening his briefcase and then passing a card across to Mike.

"Night Watch?" Mike asked, curious about the name.

"We thought it was appropriate," Lisa said, smiling. "We watch the night, staying alert, being protective..."

"Very poetic," Mike said.

"You're in charge of security now," Alex stated, interrupting. "I know you understand the responsibilities. You'll have access to whatever you need to do your job. No questions asked."

Mike nodded, looking at his new security card, but not really seeing it. He was already planning in his head the best way to get started. "Thank you sir," he said, formally addressing his new boss. He stood up. "If you'll show me my office, I'll get started immediately."

Categories: story

When I went to New Plymouth yesterday, this is a photo of Mt Taranaki that I took in the morning:

In the afternoon, I took a couple more. This time there was a bit of cloud hovering around the peak:
And then this is a bit more of a closeup of the peak and the cloud:

In the very late afternoon, under a cloudy sky with the sun trying to break through, was an almost nice view of the New Plymouth beach...

As I said, almost nice. But hey, the mountain was great anyway!

Categories: photos, photo blog

I've had some ideas running through my head for a couple weeks now, about a series of stories I intend writing. Here's an introductory summary. I intend writing a series of short stories, with each story as if it's a separate mission of some kind, or something like that.

Please give me your feedback about how interesting you think it might be, or anything else you think might be interesting. Feedback on whatever I write in the near future would also be very welcome. Thanks!

Mike Hatcher, ex-Special Forces, current 'ghost', working for the US government as a Federal agent engaged in his specialty - covert and black ops. With Ultra Top Secret clearance and access to any resources he needs, there is nowhere he can't go, and nothing he can't get done.

His latest task is the Head of Security for a new government program called Night Watch. Sure, he'd heard the rumours, and thought he might have even encountered 'them' before, but it wasn't until he was assigned to this new role that he discovered 'they' were real, and 'they' were here.

An alien race had arrived. While their purpose was a secret, their presence wasn't. Night Watch was there to investigate the aliens and engage in 'first contact' for peaceful co-operation - if possible. If not possible, then it was there to protect humanity. And Mike Hatcher was good at his job.

I'm sitting here in the New Plymouth airport now, after a full day of doing a bit of client implementation. Now we're (work colleague and I) are sitting here waiting for our flight to board. The plane hasn't even arrived yet, and we're due to board in maybe 20 minutes. The airport here is quite small. Only propellor planes come here. We came here this morning via a direct flight, but there's no direct flights back to Wellington, so we're flying to Auckland where we'll jump into a 737 (yay!) for the flight back to Wellington. If you're in America, for example, that's like flying from Los Angeles to Las Vegas, in order to get to San Francisco. Yes, stupid. But hey, this is New Zealand, where things like this don't make much sense. One of the clients today was saying that it costs them $300 to go to a town to another town here in the North Island (I can't remember which one), but only $140 to go to Australia. Go figure...

I won't have time to write anything else between here and home, 'cause if the flight is on time there will only be 20 mins in Auckland to board the next flight. That's if it's on time. If it's actually late, it's possible I might be in Auckland until I can get on another flight... Oh well. Life is an adventure!

But realistically, I'm sure I'll be home by 9pm, as planned. Damn, I just realised I forgot to have something to eat earlier. My colleague and I, after finishing work, went into New Plymouth itself and hung out at... Starbucks... for a while. For me, a nice change from... Wellington's Starbucks. *grin*

I was very happy this morning, 'cause I got some photos of Mt Taranaki, the Mt Fuji lookalike. Yay! And another couple this afternoon, albeit with some cool looking clouds gathered around the peak. I'll be placing various photos into some more photo blog entries shortly. I hope you enjoy them.

With Mt Taranaki, it's fantastic to finally get to see - and take photos of - something that I so sorely missed out on when Mel and I were here in March last year. I can rest a bit easier now.

Well, not exactly on the road, but more like in the air!

I love airports. I'm sitting in the Wellington airport right now, at almost 8:30am, waiting to jump onto a plane to New Plymouth. I love aiports because of the variety of people you get to see. Some nervous, some relaxed, some excited, happy, sad... all kinds of emotions are playing out on the faces the people around me. Most of them, at this time, are travelling for work purposes, just like me.

I'm going to New Plymouth to do a client implementation process for the same client I went to Christchurch for in December last year, but to implement a new branch.

Some of the people around me are damn sexy! Ahem. Sorry, got a bit distracted there.

One of the highlights of New Plymouth is Mt Taranaki, a Mt Fuji lookalike. When I was there last year with Mel, it was covered in clouds and I was unable to get any decent photos. I'm hoping I can get some photos this time around, but the weather report said it'll be cloudy. Damn. Well, hopefully God will be smiling down today and I might just get some photos.

Would you believe there's no easily accessible wireless here at the airport? Bastards.

Categories: travel, life

Web 2.0 is an 'upgraded version' of the internet that's being driven by people and what they're interested in. Those that cater to this are developing methods of allowing people to find and use information and services that are specific to their needs. Social networking is a concept that many people are rushing into.

So how do you get into social networking with your blog?

1) Be interested in it. And interesting!
You need to be interested in being part of a social network first. And people aren't going to network to you unless you're interesting to them! You need to have a desire to connect to people, and to have them connect with you. This is often driven by shared interests, where you search for blogs that are interesting to you, and others doing the same stumble upon your own blog. Blogs are linked to, even shared, and this only happens if you're interested in it.

There are many blogs out there that don't engage in this, and they stand alone in a small community of themselves. Each to their own, of course. Some people just want to get a message out to others in some way, without any need to cater to the social aspect of blogging and the internet.

2) RSS Feeds.
This is probably the second-most important part of your blog in relation to social networking. (The most important being, of course, your blog itself.) RSS allows people to subscribe to your blog and be notified every time something changes. They're better than simply bookmarking a site in a browser, as updated content is 'pushed' to you rather than you having to manually go back to it, thus saving you a lot of time.

RSS Feeds are being used to push not just blog entries, but also news, stock quotes, weather data, and even photos, to just name a few.

Not only can you use RSS to push content to subscribers, you can also use RSS to pull content from other sources and display them on your website. I've done this with 'My Blogroll' (using Bloglines), and also 'Eyes On The World' to the right there, both of which take the RSS feed of another website and display it as a part of this one.

3) Trackbacks.
Also known as Backlinks. This allows people to link to your blog posts, and at the same time, it shows underneath the posts the blogs that have linked back to it. This allows you to respond with comments on those blogs that have linked back to you, and vice versa.

4) Blogrolls.
These are links to websites that you like, and that you want to share with others. They are a reflection of who you are, by displaying what you're interested in. They're a part of your social network, even if they might not realise it themselves! Of course, if they create reciprocal links back to you, it's not just 'increased exposure', but increased participation in social networking.

5) Bookmarks.
Also known as Tags. Places like Technorati, del.icio.us and BlinkList allow you to to save, categorise and share not only your blog posts, but also pages and websites that you want to do this with. This is called 'folksonomy'.

By accessing the tags or bookmarks on your relevent profile, people can see what you're interested in. They can also use this in a way similar to blogrolls, following the links that you share with them.

Tagging to these sites allows you to not only share links and content, but also to allow other users to voting on the popularity of those links. The more votes a link gets, the more popular and interesting the page obviously is.

Warning: one of the potential drawbacks to social bookmarking is that others can see what your interests are. Others, like... advertisers, who could use it to run advertising targeted specifically to you, thanks to your IP address gained from the social bookmarking site. It's always a good idea to be aware of the possibilities, good and bad.

In conclusion, anything that you can do or be part of that helps you contribute to other people's blogs, or helps them contribute to yours, can be considered social networking.

Categories: Web 2.0, social networking, websites, articles, blogs

Create your own categorisation method by following the instructions here. I did, and think it's great!

Categories: website, hacks

Over the past 100 page loads on this site, these are the most popular pages (with more than 1 visit).

26.25% The bird flu hoax
23.75% Life Through My Eyes
10% British Medical Journal talks about bird flu hoax
8.75% The bird flu and you
6.25% Life Through My Eyes
6.25% Respect
6.25% November 2005
3.75% Blog Review: Corona Red Roses
3.75% Web 2.0
2.5% October 2005
2.5% Tips on being more creative

Also over the past 100 page loads, these are the search terms that brought people to this site. Unfortunately, the display is only with Google searches, and doesn't take into account Blogger searches, MSN searches, and searches via any of the blog directories I'm part of. However, what seems to be popular search terms in Google also seems to be popular search terms with other search engines.

45.45% bird flu hoax
9.09% the bird flu hoax
9.09% tips on being more creative
9.09% tamiflu hoax
9.09% kids whip horse
9.09% libertarianz party
9.09% promises baby its you mp3

What I find heartening is that it shows that people are becoming more aware of the hoax behind the bird flu hysteria and are looking for more information. This is good news indeed.

Categories: Website, news

Continuing my latest interest in Web 2.0 and 'social bookmarking', I've discovered a bookmarking / tagging site called BlinkList. A good pae that describes it and how it can be used is here: What makes Blink List special.

If you like an entry on this blog you can click on the 'Blink It' button at the bottom of the post. This will bring up a page that will allow you to enter a description of the page you're 'blinking', as well any tags you feel are relevent, and you can then submit it. (UPDATE: I just found out you have to be a member to do that. But hey, it's free!)

You could also join Blink List yourself, and as you find content that's worth sharing or saving, you can do so.

So start blinking me, and blink other sites! Let's get into this Web 2.0 craze.

Categories: Web 2.0, social bookmarking, tags

UPDATE: I've changed the date on this entry to keep it up the top of the page until the end of this month, when it will start to drop down as subsequent entries are done after that date. Thanks for your understanding. :-)

I have over 50 people a day coming to this website, with some of them regulars. However, while that's an obvious sign that there's something that is pulling that many people to visit, I'm not retaining all of them. I want to. I want to make this site more attractive to the regulars and to the newcomers.

So please help me do that. Please answer the following questions in the Comments section. Your participation would be most appreciated, and would help me write more of what YOU want.

1. What do you like about this blog?
   
2. What do you NOT like about this blog?
   
3. What would you like to see MORE of?
   
4. What would you like to see LESS of?

If you'd like to add more feedback, please do so - or click on the Feedback link at the top left. Thank you.

Categories: Website