2012 Woodford 1

We are at Woodford again.

 Setting up back stage.  This year we have a tent and a donger.

 A rare photo of Glynn (left) and Joel (Right).

 And Derek at Left.

 Front view of the stage

The Ark (For want of a better word).  Bound to go up in flames on the last night.












These photos taken Friday & Saturday nights 28 & 29 -12-2012.  On Friday night, Megan was in the Audience and on Saturday night, Frank was on stage supervising cable pulling and so brought Megan's DSLR on and took a couple of happy snaps.

Stage and screens

The SS Imagineer passes the video screen.

 Joel

 Marcus and Sarah videoing Kate Miller-Heidke

 Dan.  Cable puller.

Frank's remote controlled Sony TRV6 Sitting on a block of wood at the front of the stage.  The purple thing is a rain shield cut from a plastic folder & stuck on with GAF.

Should make it stick on with Velcro.
Black and slightly stiffer would be good.

Motivation

This talk on ted.com talks about motivation.
http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_pink_on_motivation.html

Traditionally people consider that the best way to incentivise people is to offer a reward (money typically and the better you are the more money)
-> This fellow suggests that for creative or complex tasks this does not work.
Incentivised rewards work best for narrow focus, easy to define goal



In this ted.com talk, Simon Sinek tells us that great leaders inspire action by talking about WHY first then HOW and last of all WHAT.
http://www.ted.com/talks/simon_sinek_how_great_leaders_inspire_action.html


Adrian's uni course suggests that one way to keep staff is to encourage them to take courses and engage in training and practice such that in a way that the person becomes very employable by our compeditors.










I have another blog post called "Your Not Special"
http://thomsoneu.blogspot.com.au/2012/06/you-are-not-special.html

Intrisic Motivati	Incentifised
hello	Money
hello	Money

Mudjimba2

Friday morning 4:45am saw the sky was a bit light got up and walked across the road and down the beach access track with the hope of watching the sun rise.

 I arrived at the beach to discover that the sun operated on daylight saving time.  Remind me to vote for a single issue party at the next election.

Looking up and down the beach I could see the outlines of figures.  Individuals.  As if a bag of North Poles had been shaken out. 

I turned left and began to walk.

Bar a power walking woman who passes me as she heads south, it turns out all these figures are men.  Some standing looking east.  One with binoculars.  The rest just standing. Maybe it is the last socially acceptable location for farting.  Whatever.  It seems to be an activity for individuals.

In the distance I can see some of these figures are fishing.  As I approach I see a seagull inspecting their buckets and bait.  The bait neatly enclosed in a plastic bag sitting unwrapped on a square of butchers paper.  The seagull back warily away I guess feeling the pangs of guilt having been observed engaging in petty thievery.

A couple of surfers standing beside their boards on the sand. 

Around 5:30 I turn and head south.  The island now looks like and island.  It's 3D.  No longer a silhouette or a perhaps a few dead pixels where the celestial dome meets the horizon. 

Some kind person has placed a couple of seats.  I guess not the council as these are wood and not set in concrete.   Perhaps to stay until fear of litigation causes the council to remove them.  I sit and pull out my 'puta.








Now its 5:50am and I observe the couples are out.  young mum or maybe older sister with two kids.  A couple in their 20's and an old couple.

More people with dogs.  All dogs on leashes.  I wonder if in response to a news report we had yesterday where two kids were mauled playing in the surf by a dog off its leash.

Father and son(~14) both carrying surf boards.  A man with a towel.  All stand and look.  More individuals walk North and South.  The man with the towl has put it down and walks South East towad the beach.  I wonder why not just walk straight in.  Ah he is conversting with the father and son surfers.  The father stretches and the son jogs into the water carrying his board. 

Coffee beckons and I walk South.  A quest?

In the sand a blue disc.  A hat and thongs.  Hmm me thinks.  I turn it over "Daniel Thomson".  I add this to my "treasure"

Coffee is purchased and I walk back to the apartment.  Silence save for the regular breathing of sleeping bodies.  It's about 6:45.

Mudjimba1

 WED 3 PM
Dash out of work and drive to the BGS boat shed at South Brisbane.

I help BGS kids with rowing.  Chris does rowing at BGS but this week he is at Mudjimba.  We (the BGS people) had enough kids for 3 Quads That is 4 kids plus a cox per boat.  However we needed one more cox.  So I had my first ever go at coxing.  These kids put in a super human effort.  We had wind and big waves on Milton reach.  And a bloody great dead weight weighing down the stern.  But they rose to the occasion and I managed to avoid hitting the shore, parked boats and waved politely at city cats as they gave us a wide berth.  We were admirably coached by "Terry".

6pm and we are off the water and the boats washed, wiped down with chamois and put away.

HEADING NORTH
I plug the address into my GPS and head North.  It predicts an arrival time around 7:23.  Dinner is on the agenda but what to have.  A phone call to Mudjimba establishes that they are about to have Pizza.  Hmm Pizza sounds nice but cold pizza when I get to Mudjimba - not so nice.

Into the airport link tunnel and out again onto Gympie Rd.  Hmm what to have.  McDonald's whilst quick, clean, consistent and cheap (all positives) just does not do it for me.  Decide to draw on the reserves tucked away around my waist and simply drive.

ARRIVE MUDJIMBA
The unit is empty and locked and when I phone Megan's phone I see it light up through the window.  They are presumably on the beach.  "They"include the Mawhinney's as their car is outside.
Drive down the road.  "The Lizzard" has obviously made too much money and is closed.  But a Chinese and an Indian are both offering Fish and Chips for $10.  I choose the Indian and they confess they have run out of chips so I settle for a beef and rice dish and a can of rum and cola.  Take it back to the unit by which time the family are back and the Mawhinney's have left.

THURSDAY  In random order.


0.  Got up early and went and bought a coffee.  This is the view looking back from my park bench toward the coffee shop which is behind the surf club.

1.  Chris and I went and visited Aunty Margaret today.   Her place is 5 minutes down the road.  Aunty Marg educated us on our family history showing us photos and enlivening them with the stories that surrond the photo.

2. The children are playing Monopoly on the verandah.  Thank God, the Queen and whoever that we don't have guns here in Oz.  I took a photo and that should appear on my blog sometime.  There is no blood yet but the voices are raised and I suspect we will be transitioning to a game of Cleudo soon.  Death by choking on little green houses.

3. Megan is chatting up the home owner.  This holiday unit is actually two units.  The owners are currently living in the other unit.  Great position.  Walk across the road and through the trees and we are on the beach.  A 1 minute walk up the street and I can buy a coffee.  (2 today so far).  Megan wants to buy the place.   Is she just playing Monopoly in real life?

4.  Jemma and I did a surfing lesson.  These lessons come with a guarantee that you stand up or you get a second lesson for free.  I think I stood up but by the end of it I was absolutely stuffed.  Jemma of course stood up many times.

5.  The surfing lesson was so stressful, I decided to sit down.  Turns out I sat in a barbers chair and he cut my hair off.

6.
Anyone wish to take shares in this house.  The negotiations seem to be proceeding.  There have been phone calls to banks.  It's not a bad place. 

7
Marcus is at "Cotton Tree" with a mate and the mates family.  I think we will be visiting them Friday.

8
Walked up to the Chinese and purchased Fish and Chips.  In the half light (7pm ish),  we sat on the sand using our towels as table cloths.  You know you have to keep on the ball with the quality with these chinese.  The fish was really nice but one was like a quarter of the size of the rest.  Sarah ate that.  And the chips had great crunchy texture but so salty.  Very nice pineapple rings in batter.  yum.  After eating we lay there and looked at the clouds and searched for the odd star peaking through while listening to the waves.  The kids wanted to play "Square Tiggie" but on a full stomach?

9. Arrive back at the unit.  There is some difficulty locating the key.  Maybe it's been stolen. Dan insists that some one has stolen his hat and thongs. 

Creation of the world and the story of a big fat red and white man

Learned something interesting in church today.

When do you think Santa first appearted in his current form - big fat guy with a red suit and a white beard ?

I figured several hundred or more years ago based on the Story of St Nicalaus.

Church today included the annual sunday school play.  Normally an excrusiating presentation of badly planned, boring, un rehersed gibberish presented by kids who can't read and that goes on way too long.  How bad can it be?  I just can't describe how much I look forward to this particular sunday each year - not.  Well this year.  A very pleasant change.  Light and funny.  instead of reading from scrappy paper they read from a video projecting on the back wall.  This kept their heads up and I think this helped their voices up.



The sermon (As interpreted by Frank)
Stories shape our lives and our We have several versions of the creatuon story - Gen 1 Genesis 2 for example and 4 versions of Jesus's life in the Gospels.  These stories were passed on verbally before they were written down.  Stories are re told depending on the audience and the teller.  People remember different things depending on what they want to hear.

We think the story we hear today is the same story that has been heard through the generations and actually I suspect that many people think of bible stories as like reading from a scientists note book.

So when do you think the fat red man with a white beard came into being?
Would you believe 1931 coca cola commercial.
Check this out
http://www.coca-colacompany.com/stories/coke-lore-santa-claus
mind you, in the other corner, wikipedia suggest not so cut and dry
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Claus

This video on ted.com is interesting in therms of the way eye witnesses remember crimes.

Helicopter - Limited Power

Today's lesson was titled "Limited Power".  Basically what to do when you have overloaded your helicopter.  (For those not following this, I am indulging my mid life crisis vy learning to fly a helicopter with V2 helicopters at Archerfield)

Well just fly it along the ground with the skids scraping away.

Sort of.

The instructor (Roger) first said to keep the power less than 25MAP.  (Manifold Pressure).  Normally need about 26MAP to take off.  With 25, we just make it to the hover.  It is like the helicopter is sitting on a cushion of air a few inches (or mm) above the ground, but as soon as you push the cyclic forward, you fall off the air bubble and skid along the ground until you reach about 15knts where you get effective translational lift.  Then you start to climb albeit slowly.  Then we would turn round and land into wind.  Again with limited power it was in and down.  No opportunity to fluff around.

A review of resumes and job applications

We (my company - Syndetic) has an add running on seek and I am reading resumes and job applications.

Good Things
Many people send a cover letter and a resume. It is very helpful if the file names of both are the same at the beginning. Then they stay together in the directory.
eg
Bob Smith Cover Letter.doc
Bob Smith Resume.pdf
Personally I would prefer one file.  Say take their resume and stick a cover letter infront of it. and PDF it.

Dot points are great.

Short is good.  So far the longest resume is 3 pages.  This is a vast improvement on a few years ago where sometimes I would receive resumes that seemed to tell their entire life story.  I think I even had some that were 20 pages long.

A few people do not put their name at the beginning.  Its in the file name but not on the screen until the end of the first or sometimes end of the last page.  Pain.  First thing should be their name.

Holiday Breakfast, KPI, Naplan and Wallfle

Chris and Marcus are on holiday.

 Megan is entering music grades into the education department computer. The threat of Naplan hanging over her ensures that she marches to the departmental drum however on this occasion she has hit a wrong note and is late with her assignment. They were due by 3pm Friday and they are still not done. Maybe the little darlings will just have to settle for the love of music.

Obviously her KPI's are down. What grade will she get?.  and even though she was working off and on all week often up well past midnight. Well what can you say.  Work harder or..... I watched a couple and cripes the process is slow and tedious. All in the name of data.

 Jemma made Waffles this morning. The sunbeam recipee from their web site http://www.sunbeam.com.au/recipes/b/basic-waffle-batter/is below.  We only made x1 which gave Megan, Jemma, Dan and I about 3 or 4 triangles each.  Teamed with bacon & eggs and a little maple sirup.

Basic Waffle Batter

Use your imagination to flavour this basic waffle mix- the options are endless.
Preparation Time: 15 min
Cooking Time: 20 min
Serves: MAKES 3 waffles
Ingredients: 
1 cup self raising flour, sifted
1 egg, separated
1/3 cup milk
1/4 cup water
45g butter, melted
1 tablespoon caster sugar
Method: 
1.Pre heat waffle maker.
2.Place flour, egg yolk, milk, water and butter in a large bowl. Using an electric mixer, mix until smooth.
3.Using clean, dry beaters, beat egg whites in a small bowl until soft peaks form. Gradually add sugar and beat until it has dissolved.
4.Gently fold egg white into batter until well combined.
5.Spoon a little mixture into each waffle mould (this will vary depending on size of waffle iron), ensuring mixture fills all grooves; close lid.
6.Cook for 3-4 minutes, or until golden. Use a plastic spatula to transfer waffles to serving plates. Serve warm.