21 April, 2009
This holiday has been all about getting the bathroom renovated. Basically half the house has been stripped out and is in the process of being replaced. So far it is going okay and the builder is great. The solar hot water is in and today, with the first day of sun since it was installed, it was running off the panels alone. If that keeps up things should be good. The bathroom now has walls again and lights went in today along with the bath. I am looking forward to a proper shower as it's been a while.
The garden has had a good work over lately as power has been turned off in the house forcing me out. Things are starting to get established and the veges are going really well this year. We got a pretty good crop of potatoes but we are yet to settle on what we plant on a regular basis there.
I am really looking forward to that shower.
27 March, 2009
Friday ...
Having taken on the education system last year in this blog and being completely wang-holed as a result I figured it was time to go for gold and have a [gentle] go at religion. I had a weird run in a few days ago with some 'person' who was ranting on about Jesus and it set off my little weirdo meter - usually signalled by a question mark over my head. It was a bit American Hollywood for me to take seriously but I had to ask [myself, later], isn't worshipping Jesus a bit like following the Second in Command, the Deputy, the middle management guy? If you're going to go with a dogmatic religion surely the actual God would be the way to go? They have the lightening bolts and Doc Martins right? the final say is all theirs? Worshipping the son seems a bit odd and, dare I say it, somewhat futile if you are gunning for heaven. I might be missing something, I usually am but please don't email me about it. My spirituality comes from my garden, friends, life and freedom with conscience. Whatever gets you through the day I guess.
Friday ...
26 February, 2009
"Dear customer, We are writing to notify you that the cost of delivering [service here] to you has increased. Your monthly amount is now [some bigger number than usual]".
"Dear service provider, I am writing to let you know that we are no longer going to use [service here] as this service is not worth the new cost of [some bigger number than usual]".
The joy of the 21st century, luxury based world.
17 February, 2009
The good folks at the Creative Freedom Foundation have really got something going with the "Internet Blackout" to protest against the "guilt upon accusation" that is inherent in our revised Copyright Act. It's also why I'm running a black theme (which I'm kinda liking to be honest). New Zealand has a thriving artist community and while I think the majority of us appreciate copyright is valuable removing people's internet access based on an accusation is not an appropriate way of protecting copyright. That and if we remove internet access those people can no longer see my art (and I use the term loosely) which is all web based. Let's try and get this country back on track and acting a little more rationally.
Speaking of rational action, my world at the moment is trying to deal with the irrational behaviour around me, specifically in education, and decide if it is a healthy environment for me to carry on in. Not an easy decision but fast becoming an important one.
My desktop now has a new sound card to replace the onboard chip I managed to blow up by grounding it incorrectly. Finding hardware that works in Ubuntu is always a bit unnerving to those of us not blessed with the ability to speak with computers, especially in a world where everything is noted as working with "Windows XP and maybe Vista". Luckily I got one that works with Linux drivers recently released and so far I have noise. It is very reminiscent of the day I got contact lenses to replace glasses. Colours were suddenly brighter, everything was richer and I stopped running into things ... reminiscent I guess but not exactly the same maybe.
The garden is doing very well and with some recent effort starting to really come together. A few more years of this and we will be producing really well.
13 January, 2009
The Trouser Project has taken another step towards production as the camo shorts pattern is with Whitehall Cutting being all CAD'ed up for cutting. Very exciting. A whole new world of technical terms has just opened up for me. I thought IT was bad for acronyms but it turns out the clothing world is as bad. Took me a while to understand what a CMT was - apparently the name for someone who Cuts, Makes and Trims or, in my world, the person who makes the stuff. All going well the shorts should be available as a short run some time in the next few months.
Our little Swatch cordless phone that we use at home has finally given up the ghost. It was one of those late 90s beasties with an answer machine and handset that look a bit like jelly beans. Great colour, easy to use (if you ignore all the 'features'), big yellow talk button and generally very cool. It has been with great disappointment that we have gone shopping for a replacement to find that home phones are all fairly naff looking these days. In fact, so bad with their fake silver plastic looks that we have taken to using our even older corded Swatch phone instead. It would seem phone styles have gone the way of shoes and clothing and quietly gurgled down the toilet.
I have been spending my days beating up our hedge, chipping the remains, planting trees, breaking concrete, moving soil around, stacking firewood and generally getting a lot of exercise, sun and fresh air. In between that I have been enjoying social delinquency brought on by Grand Theft Auto 4. It really is a great time of year.
1 January, 2009
Sitting in my backyard as the sun set with a nice cigar and whisky was a very nice way to finish the first day of the new year. The sky was clear so the stars were visible and the milky way was coming in. I always find these sorts of nights both humbling and clarifying. It is easy to feel content. This year the plan is to work on keeping things simple and positive and focus on a few key things - the house, my clothing production and relationships. The rest is going to be reduced and simplified. It's a plan.
For now it is just nice to sit in the back yard, watch the stars and quietly just be. 2009, I think I'm ready for you.
8 December, 2008
As the teaching year grinds to a halt a couple of notable things have happened: the College of Computing has been shut down for 2009 due to low numbers, and I have been playing with Blender trying to get some interesting activities sorted for next year's ICT classes.
Not going to dwell on the Computing College thing at the moment as I'm not ready to be rational about it. The 3D modelling however is way cool. I have been converting a couple of little cartoon characters I designed for stickers, t-shirts etc into 3D to see if I could. My first major hurdle was figuring out how to apply an image to particular faces and how the whole UV texturing deal-io works in Blender. I just took the faces straight from the Inkscape versions and UV mapped them around the spheres which seems to work. I did notice on some of the earlier attempts that a few had very small cartoon faces on every face of the mesh - cute but not what I wanted. I think I've got it sussed now so will test the theory in front of young students who will happily destroy my self-esteem if I get it wrong. No pressure there :-)
I really want to build these guys into a theme for this web site - holiday work.
26 November, 2008
For some reason I was in a pensive mood recently and started reminiscing about childhood toys. Two in particular stuck in my mind: Jake Rockwell, the land based Centurion Power XTreme fellow with the Detonator accessory; and the M.A.S.K. Condor with pilot Brad Turner (with Hocus Pocus mask). They were great. Jake Rockwell became a one man destroyer with the Detonator pack (effectively a huge gattling gun attached to his exo skeleton) attached and Condor was a motorbike that turned into a helicopter ... and there is nothing cooler than that. Hours of fun was had with them. I'm not sure why my mind turned to those particular toys.
Short of that the garden is looking superb and so far we have managed to get everything planted, tied up and generally managed very effectively. Unheard of in previous years this could be a good year for production. Even our little Granny Smith apple has a few apples on it still.
8 November, 2008
Today has been about setting up a little shop on Cafepress to show off (and hopefully sell) some of my designs for t-shirts etc. The actual store set up was simple and it was an interesting challenge to try and style the tables-based template provided. Still, the basics are done and it seems like a gentle start to getting the clothing stuff rolling without having to deal with production immediately. I like some of the dark hoodies so will likely be my own customer for a little while.
The Movember mo is coming in quite nicely. In honour of seeing how it changes I have set up The Daily Mo to track it. Good fun.
25 October, 2008
I could be described as a bit of a late starter in a number of areas. Took me a while to get into Facebook (great way to stay in touch with friends around the world) and have just recently sorted out using Delicious. The primary reason was so I could access some key bookmarks from the two locations I spend most of my time. I have to say I'm liking it a lot. The tagging is proving a lot more useful than I expected it to be.
Recently I was thinking about content and copyright issues after some interesting discussions with students. As part of my thinking I put the content on this site under a Creative Commons license (more for as an exercise in understanding than because I think the content on this site is worthy of replication and reuse) and settled on a: non commercial, share-alike license which requires attribution. Choosing your publishing license feels like a personality test and I personally like the way I'm headed.
22 October, 2008
Only a few days left until the next release of Ubuntu. I am looking forward to seeing the changes. It has sort of become like a little regular birthday every 6 months.
Enjoying a quiet Wednesday night watching Discovery. The Deadliest Catch sort of puts things in perspective.
21 October, 2008
A recent and unexpected reaction to my personal site has prompted me to make some changes. While an unpleasant episode it has been positive in that I have had a chance to look at offering different types of content for different people. I have also noticed that at the moment I am posting to Word only when I'm feeling a bit rough and dejected which can look somewhat skewed if you don't know me. Writing stuff down is how I deal with frustrations and move on from them. I've always thought it a fairly safe environment and from my stats assumed no-one actually read them. Turns out I was wrong on both counts.
So in the interests of public sanity while retaining my space to scream into the ether I have set up a system of public and private posts. If I don't know you but you insist on reading my posts you will now only get the happy, fluffy bunny posts. The private ones are for me ... although I will still get the happy, fluffy bunny posts as well.
Oddly enough I usually read back over previous posts and get the giggles. Sometimes the funniest posts are the ones that were written in frustration. Such is life.
17 October, 2008
This is a sort of screaming into my pillow kind of post. A sort of You have got to be fucking kidding sort of thing. This year is going to take the cake for the kick in the guts from fuckwits who don't know better episodes. I am not sure whether my students sensed something today or whether they were in Friday mode and responding to something in me but they were freaking awesome, relaxed and easy to work with. I even saw some effort put into things I care about which is always nice.
...but here is the scenario, which I record to look back on later to evaluate and make a decision on. Friday, in general for me is a suck day. I start with Y10s, who are great, playful and often a joy to teach but fucking hard work; duty (of care? ... or guard?) in the library computer room with much the same students and then an afternoon of Year 11s (Fifth formers - 14, 15, 16 year olds) for two hours. Today, fifteen minutes before my Y11 class I was "called" into a meeting to discuss the school web site.
When I first started teaching, 3 years ago, the web site had just been redesigned. It had a Flash splash screen, was a static web site, built in Dreamweaver and we were unable to upload anything due to a useless host. Courses were mashed into single huge HTML pages and the visual style was, quite frankly amateur and pathetic. In short they had been ripped off. Over the last year I have worked to place us into Drupal, hosted with our NZ Open Source in Business award winner, updated the style to match the rest of the brand, XHTML/CSS'd the fucker, set up departments as groups, allowed staff to login and edit content within those departments, provided mechanisms for promoting specific courses and even started working on a way to post daily notices automatically. Google Analytics is showing increased traffic to Courses and About Us and we have a clear path forward. I did all of this in consultation with senior management, marketing, and students (as any good designer would - documenting the lot) and in my ultimate stupidity I did it on a volunteer basis. I should know better. As I am seeing with Open Source in this country, if it doesn't cost anything it isn't of value. Man, I should have learned that one by now. I've been shafted by fucking NZers before on this ... I should know better. Nice guys finish last and all that.
Now, I don't claim to be Mr Wonderful on much but if there is one thing I just "get" it's working with the Web. I don't know why, maybe it's the structure, the communication, the freedom ... who knows, who cares. I just get it. I love it, I want to use it with students. I like the people who work with it. I like the way different age groups, especially kids use it. The olds who are blocking it, jamming it, stopping freedom, restricting the use of social networking etc have got it wrong. I know it, I feel it ... they are just plain wrong. Flash splash screens are a known issue - Hell, Jakob Neilsen has been wanking on about it for years (and he's freaking right). Designing for your target audience is well understood - fuck, schools have a Technology Curriculum dedicated to this, we've had Web2.0 as an idea for long enough it should have filtered through to even the most draconian systems by now ...
I have said nothing specific and probably won't. Between the lines is where it's at here but the frustration is real. Our education system is mostly fiucked - and I work in one of the really flexible schools. Mediocrity is our aim and we very rarely even hit that. What a fucked way to end the week. So much for my detox.
9 September, 2008
Tough few weeks with a lot of effort required. On the positive side I have seen another year out and while I'm not quite in my mid-thirties it's further than I honestly expected to get to so it's all a bonus. I have stopped watching the 6 o'clock news after it became all about the psuedo-political bollocks we call national management, "sex offenders strike again" reporting and those evil terrorists seem have made a come back. Actually I quite like that - Terrorism, back together, live. They can join the other old fart bands inflicting their crap on a whole new generation. Sorry kids, apparently the World isn't nice, friendly and here's some crap music to dance to.
Actually I lied ... yes, LIED! I did watch the news tonight .. on TV and everything. I had mute on and punk music playing the background and something interesting struck me. They all have grey hair and the same suit ... the SAME suit. It's really freaking weird. I'll never know if they all sound the same ... mute.
I like the fact we are finally entering a "recession"... yes, a RECESSION (I'm really into gentle allcaps sarcasm tonight...sorry). I'd say what we're about to enter is a recession in the same way cliff diving is a gentle descent. I wonder when it will upgrade to a "depression" and then to "hang onto your ankles folks and start kissing".
Term 3 is about to end. What does that mean for me: reports and more delicate manipulation of the school system known as PC School (by the developers) or "that piece of useless arse-wiping shit" by frontline teachers, students who drift off, pretending to care with discipline, "catch-up assessment" where I soften enough to let a student wuss through 3 credits worth of work, a mortgage refinance (oooh yay), the countdown to the holidays, more grey hair, low tolerance for dickheads (myself included .. which just gets weird) and alcohol for breakfast (just kidding ... I don't need THAT Campbell Live interview).
My Computing College at school is a finalist in the NZ Open Source awards again this year. For me that really just means I get out of teaching a couple of classes, get to talk to some crazy OSS folks and have a good night away from Christchurch. I am looking forward to it. I hold no illusions but if I win I will probably explode on the spot.
I can not express how tired I am ... if you've ever been drunk and wandering around a strange town at 3pm in the morning wearing gumboots and boxer shorts then you'll get the idea. In some ways I wish that is what had happened. It'd be a lot more interesting than saying "Teacher ... ZZZZZZZZ". Make no mistake, I love teaching, it's just our education system that blows the big hairy goat. The number of people who love complexity for complexity's sake is getting a bit silly. I can't get money for a trip to Auckland to give a presentation but someone in "management" can get the equivalent amount for an 'ergonomic assessment' of office space. That goes into the "you have got to be shitting me" box. On a positive note as all the oldies try to retire we will be left with about 200 teacher nationwide and the system will collapse under the weight. It'll be great ... unless you want kids educated or something and then it might suck a little ... shine your shoes guv'?
Time to disconnect.
2 September, 2008
Arrived home this afternoon just in time to watch a young man grab our mail. After a somewhat "tired teacher" confrontation he put it back although the adult (and I use that word loosely these days) with him gave me a bit of self-righteous lip ... also resulting in a "tired teacher" response. I am not one to be eternally grateful when a thief puts things back after being caught. My theory is that they shouldn't have taken the stuff in the first place. My feeling is that particular adult is not very stable or sane. A fine country we have here ... presumably we will get what's coming to us. If nothing else, it made a pretty good video.
We have daffodils out now, the fruit trees are all putting on blossom and I turn 34 in a few days. I'm thinking I might take this weekend off to celebrate.
15 August, 2008
I am taking a few days out. To be more precise my body has let me know in no uncertain terms that it is taking a few days out and I had better follow suit. Never one to argue with my body I am at home sick.
The upsides of being sick so far are: 1) getting to be in bed and resting, 2) having some time to walk around the garden looking at it progress without feeling the need to do something. I got to thinking about all the things I supposedly need to do in life at the moment and very little of it seems important. Maybe that is what my body was trying to tell me. I have got to a point of so many things rolling around in my head it just sounds like a big room full of people all talking at once - white noise. Is there really any hurry on any of this? I have also been struggling with the fact that very little seems to be exciting me anymore. Life has become one big troubleshoot and the things that should get me smiling, aren't. That seems like a bad sign and needs addressing.
After a little foray into watching the Olympic games I have stopped. Something feels wrong about it all now and I'm not sure what, which just makes it even creepier. It does not feel like a peaceful celebration of competition between nations. It is too hysterical, too ... much. Maybe that reflection of our World in general is simply too close to home to be enjoyable.
My poor bike has had a bit of a hard time lately. I got a puncture last week that I repaired and pulled a large shard of glass from the tire. Discovered at the end of the next day that it was flat again (walked home again) and got a new tube. The next day the gear cable snapped on the way home so replaced it with a new one. Happy with all the repairs I biked to work again and once more at the end of the day had a puncture. At this point my nerves were getting a bit frayed (and my body was demanding a break). Finally found the little bit of wire that was poking through into the tire and removed it. I think we're finally there but it's been a bit rough.
Time to lie down again.
31 July, 2008
Modern technology simply doesn't work ... no, I'll qualify that, modern advertising of modern technology is so far beyond the practical application of modern technology that it appears to not work. I say this after testing a set of ICT courses with a range of young people aged between 13 and 18 years of age on medium level machines in Windows and Linux environments. I also say this after trying to get our super-efficient, clean burning fire to light, using the driest of wood, the most flammable of newspaper and most efficient tripod stacking of kindling. I say this after trying to copy music to a solid state portable player, after trying to take photos with a digital camera and after trying to plan a bus trip using a web site, all without much success. Funnily enough, growing vegetables, fruit trees and walking home worked out pretty much as I expected ... job done, without fuss. I'm thinking the modern World is mostly full of crap.
Teaching seems to have lost its shine for me. Might be the time of year, might be the school I'm in, might be me but it's all feeling a bit futile and an exercise in paying the mortgage. I'm thinking all new course ideas need to go on hold in favour of getting through the basics and moving on. Will have to wait this one out a bit and see where it leads.
I bought some mud guards for my bike today. Good times.
23 July, 2008
While watching the Discovery channel this week we saw the I Love the World advertisement they have running. I like it. Made me smile. Have also found joy watching the online videos Discovery have on their web site.
It's the little things in life that make it worthwhile.
20 July, 2008
Good holiday. The week in Auckland was excellent, if a bit full on a times. Caught up with friends and family, was offered a job, bought some clothes, ate too much food, almost got an Illicit tattoo and covered a lot of ground in the process.
Tried out the bikes that are kicking around central Auckland and booked using a mobile phone. Was pretty cool and reminded us of biking around Japan - same sort of bikes. There's something pretty cool about ripping around, ringing the little bell. We took the cycleway out to Mission Bay so it was all pretty gentle. Had a chance to get out to NextSpace and Right Hemisphere for a look around. Pretty cool stuff and was nice to be offered work there. The cost of moving to and living in Auckland was our biggest block on that one. Saw a really cool tattoo at Illicit. One of the SwitchBlade images drawn by Martin Emonds but had a day of eating too much and was feeling pretty crook when I went in with the eye to getting it. The thought of needles was a bit much so aiming for next time (without the buffalo wings).
Back in Christchurch and getting ready for school again. Had a good few days in the garden between rain and got a few things sorted out. Illicit are closing down here so they are having a mean sale. I guess I'll have to get my clothing started soon with them gone. Got some good clothing though.
4 July, 2008
Last day of term 2 and as always it was really weird. If you're not up with the play, teaching is a tough job. I have never worked in an environment so prone to such random experience and mental exhaustion. Imagine a day that consists of teenage logic and bush-law, colleagues freaking out under the pressure (sometimes it's you so deal with it), parents who are generally understanding but occasionally freak out when they realise their child is "not where they should be" and school management who are generally freaking out because... well they have to manage all of the above.
Today: First period, non-contact. I worked on assessing one of my Year 11's work (ICT - 3D modelling, he's blind. Yes sir. I fucking rock as a teacher). I also videoed one of my Year 10s, while she waited for her first class, playing an amazing instrument. This girl is quiet, shy and absolutely blew me away with her skill. Second period: 10ICT - "can we play games, it's last day of term", "can we take this class again next term?", "Why doe smy computer hate me?" etc etc. I love this class. They are all mad...and one of them plays an amazing instrument. Third period: non-contact. Talking to colleagues about bullying (from other colleagues), having ideas shot down, exhaustion and all sorts of other brilliant things. Each of us was told we were great somewhere along the line. Duty at lunchtime - I learned all about an online tarot reader thing and back in my classroom talked to a student I have put into work/internship with a web development colleague. Fourth/Fifth period: 11ICT - these guys are mad. Key success with a young woman working on a web site about Sid Vicious, students who suddenly got it and produced something resembling a website, I was told I was "a crap teacher", I responded with "yeah, and you're a crap student, we sort of balance each other out", I let them go slightly early. After school: Year 13 student and parent meeting. He's been sick and needs to catch up. My job, get them both up to speed so he can work over the holidays. My illusions...none.
Multiply that by 4 terms and god knows how many years ... we call it public secondary school teaching. Tell me my salary is not worth it and I don't deserve my holidays. I'll invite you, with all courtesy, into my classroom.
... and now I am going to relax for a few weeks and do it all again.