Homework

I am under very strict instructions to share this with “the whole world” so I though that the blog was as good a place than any to access the “whole world” from. The reason and what is below. My son Angus was requested as part of his school work to do a piece on “Should Children Do Homework?”. This is what he wrote:

“Should Children Do Homework?

I don’t like homework. It stops people doing what they want to do. Sometimes it doesn’t make sense how kids are supposed to learn with it. We also do enough at school. Maybe we should go to school for longer to do our homework at school. Homework is a bad thing especially for people to learn.

By Angus Gray”

Personally I don’t think it needs to any more than that Angus. Who I might add has some pretty valid points. I might decide that there is some merit in learning discipline but then I had a hard time accepting that homework was good for me.

Angus; I hope that this was “whole world” enough for you. But just to be sure I’ll post it on facebook and share it on twitter as well!

I also added a poll, I thought that Angus might be interested in the opinion of the world:

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Angus’ Ant Trap

My eldest son built this contraption this morning. After a very long explanation I got out of him that it is in fact an ant trap. After it traps them it kills them. I have labeled the image on Flickr in case you want to know what the components are to build your own.

Beware ants, Angus is onto you… I am pleased to see that he not only has a vivid imagination but also some emerging architectural and building skills.

I am scared looking at it. Dunno what the ants think!

Moving House

So no blogging, I know… But I have a really, really good excuse. We have been moving house! Right now I am still breathing a sigh of relief.

So the blog has been neglected and we have taken a short hiatus from the Podcast to enable myself and attached family to move and settle in. I have enjoyed the break and it is one that was needed. We are currently not working and taking some time for us. It has been good although we really have not stopped. Settling into a new house has it’s teething problems. However, things are starting to get sorted and we are feeling like this is more home than not.

The move was a huge one, we moved from Cairns in Far North Queensland to a small town in Northern New South Wales called Modanville. A distance of 1, 876 km. Interstate and to a much cooler climate, well one that has a winter at any rate! The weather is actually one of the things we are finding that hardest to get used to. To top the whole weather thing off, it is one of the coldest on record! We arrived right in the middle of it. We think it is cold when the temperature gets below 20 degrees Celsius and I think we have one or two days when it has been above.

So as you might imagine pretty big and unsettling. The kids have found it tough but adapted quickly and are now having fun and like the house. Although the 2 year old is asking every now and then when are we going home.

The great thing for us about moving this time is part of a dream realized. That is that we have finally got out of the suburbs and into a semi rural setting. We have come from a block that was 800m² to a block that is over 2000m². The gardens are beautiful and will be better as we work on them as we did at our previous home. The gardens as they are okay but in need of a bit of attention. Pruning and cleaning up mainly. As we start to do that, I will add some features and “interestingness” to the garden.

We are enjoying the wildlife that is attracted to the large native garden. Already I have seen an echidna and today I have spotted a Satin Bower bird. There are heaps of other birds that visit and we are loving it. As we move into warmer weather we hope to see an increase in the visitors as the native trees flower.

The house is great. It has the start of everything that we need and want. One thing that we did not manage was the inclusion of an office to house the computer and a getaway for me. But we have a heap of ideas about how we are going to get this much needed feature added onto our new house. We are hoping to get some advice in the next couple of weeks.

So a lot has been happening and we have been very, very busy. My apologies for the comments that have not been moderated and the lack of posts. But as things settle things will get back to normal. We are hoping to resume the podcast soon and look forward to a great year. We have a great promotion in store and some interesting guests coming up.

Please check out the Flickr page for more photos of the new place!

The Staple Diet of Dragons

I had a very interesting conversation with my four year old last night. He is apparently the resident expert on the diet of dragons. Which he says don’t exist, they used to… but they are dead now. Not sure what that means, but it makes perfect sense to him.

The following dialogue made perfect sense to him also:

Angus: “Yeah Dad, you know about dragons… got big teeth and have fire”

Dad: “Sure yes, I know about dragons. Dude do you know a lot about dragons?”

Angus: “Yup, I know lots about dragons… like what they eat”

Dad: “Cool, what do dragons eat then?”

Angus: “Well, dragons eat muesli Dad…”

Dad: “Oh, they do?”

Angus: “Yeah and rubbish…”

Dad: “Rubbish?”

Angus: “Yes Dad, rubbish. But you have to watch the young dragons they will run off with your rubbish bin and won’t play. The older ones are nice they will play and then eat your rubbish.”

Dad: “Great, I’ll remember that. What do they have for desert?”

Angus: “Shampoo”

So today’s hot tip is to watch out for those young dragons.

Christmas Lights

Evey year I am faced with the same dilemma, to do the whole Christmas light thing or to save myself the pain and agony and give it a miss. This year I should have listened to the inner voice in my head that was saying “no, don’t do it. You are crazy”. Why? Well as a result I have a broken foot and have to spend at least 2 weeks on crutches.

First off I would like to say that lighting in general drives me mad. We can launch a space shuttle 9 times out of 10 and it won’t explode. We can build an international space station and people can live in it. You would think that we could make reliable lighting, nope. My pool light that is a mere 2 foot underwater floods all the time and the $50 globe blows (the last one was 2 years ago and I have not fixed it). Now the Christmas lights are a similar deal.

We bought new lights this year, three times because they were faulty out of the box, the first warning sign. We eventually had two working sets of lights. Great. So I hang the patio lights on Friday night and they are all working, that was a fluke. Then On Saturday afternoon I go to hang the lights out the front. I got about three quarters around when disaster struck.

So there I was standing on a plastic chair in the garden hanging lights just above my head and the front two legs of the chair snap clean off. That was behind me. So the chair collapses backwards and I go one way and my feet the other. I end up on my arse in the garden looking at my foot. I immediately notice that my 4th toe is not where I left it. Now there is a very small window of opportunity when you dislocate something. Before everything swells and it becomes impossible… I grab the toe and reduce the fracture and relocate the toe back into the joint. No it did not hurt, it was sort of “numbish”, uncomfortable yes pain; no.

So my foot is now killing me and I finished putting the lights up. Then we switch the lot on to make sure all is okay. Remember the lights that I put up on Friday… Only half are working! So we go to the shop and replace them. Put the new ones up again (that is light set number four). Don’t get me started on the whole blown globes thing or the fact that they change the design every year so the globes you got last year won’t fit this years.

So I had an Xray on Sunday (pays to know a radiographer) and had a Radiologist look at them and it turns out that I have a spiral fracture of the toe (no kidding) and a proximal fracture of the 4th metatarsal (See Diagram Below), nice one. Now I am laid up for at least two weeks at this stage. Check Xray then and we shall see. So now I can stay amused buy the ever changing colours of my foot, blue, black, red, yellow, purple…

If it ever crosses my mind next year please someone stop me from putting up the damn Christmas lights! But then it is for the kids and they love it, not sure it was worth the injury. Alternatively please someone make some bloody lights that work!

The moral of this story is ignore the urge to get festive and buy a good ladder!