Woodford more

Today the sun came out and we went to the festival.  So wev'e "Done that".  Here is the evidence.  :)

We went and bought "Langos" for lunch and walked back to the main stage.

And here is Dan on Camera 2

Here is Dan operating the remote control cameras.  Well some of them anyway.

If you look at the pictures on the monitor very very carefully you will have to wonder why you looked and then go say a few hail mary's.

Here is Derek's remote controlled camera.  Derek is down at NCYC and kindly loaned varous cameras including this one.

Here is another remote controlled camera.  PD150 with a rain cover.  One of the projectors is visible behind. 

The white tent in the far distance is the "Outpost bar"  Where you can buy a rum and coke in a plastic cup for $6 and watch the show.

Stage by day showing the two video screens and in the forground another remote controlled camera.  This is Derek's 325.  This is where we pulled those cables to the other day.

Chris and the lights lighting up the back of the stage.  If you look very very carefully just to the left of the mving light top centre hanging off the truss is yet another remote controlled camera. 

The view from the outpost.

Woodford 28-DEC-2010

Here is Chris on Camera 2 at around 11pm.  The band was "Arrested Development". 

This is the inside of Glynn's OB van.  You can just see the vision switcher at the left of the picture.

This van is in a 6m x 6m tent. The rest of the tent has pallet floring and for the first time is carpeted. Airconditioned of course.

Woodford Set-up

 Errol (top), Chris, Dan, Zen.
Behind the main stage.  Our objective to pull some cables through a water filled pipe to the camera position half way back through the audience.

Because the conduit was corrugated and full of water, we wrapped the ends of the cable in plastic bags (keep water out), then put the whole bunch in a coke bottle to protect against abrasion from the pipe.

This is said pit.  After we pumped it out.

Chris and Dan under the stage.  They did a great job running cables back to mission control (Video).



Woodford ute saga

Boxing day was a good old fashioned saga.  After loading the ute and holding off packing the cat till the very last minute we tured the key and the engine cranked, fired once and then refused to continue running.  Some of us thought we could smell something burning but that did not persist.  The engine would crank but not fire.  Got a few numbers of mobile mechanics from yellow pages and started maaking phone calls.  Finally one answered but was not able to come until the next day.  Had lunch and then figured I would have another go. 

This time it fired and after a few attempts the engine rattled into life with a huge cloud of blue smoke followed by white smoke that smelt like steam.  So I figured the engine only has hours to go.  With megan planning to go to NCYC, I did not want a back-up plan that involved her.  So without letting the engine stop, we piled in, grabbed the cat and headed for Ian and fay's.  The plan being that the next time we stop the engine will be at their place and we would ask to use Ian's van.

Anyway that is the end of the ute saga.  It has performed perfectly ever since.

Woodford

Frank, Chris & Dan are at the Woodford folk festival. Like pretty much everywhere everywhere it is wet wet wet.

We are sleeping at Ian & Fay's (grandparents). 35 minute drive from Woodford. It well worth it for a dry bed.

They cancelled our stage last night. The first time anyone can recall that happening. Aparantly a little matter of concern over the structural integrity of the roof structure. In previous years the stage roof has been a huge hocker and inside, the lights have been supported on winch ups. Some time this year they pushed some dirt around and so changed the way things are done. Gone is the hocker and in with the new stage. The new stage did have a few limitations. The wings are scaffolding covered with tarps and not particularly well so they would fill with water so the lighting guys in particular spent time pushing it up to dump water. At one stage, I was completely drenched helping to retying the tarps.

Anyway we had gotten some cameras up and running including one of two out the front when were told that due to safety concerns, that is is all off for the night.

Chris and Dan have been great scurrying around under the stage dragging cables. We also had to bundle up a bunch of cables and pull them through a conduit for the camera in the middle of the audience.

Christmas 2010

Christmas 2010 actually started in the shower but there is no photo of that. 

Then off to church.

As I sat in Church observing Verity's 1yo, I mused that we know about the baby Jesus away in a manger a sleep on the hay.  But we do not hear about the 1yo Jesus climbing into the sanctuary and wrestling with the microphone or helping to play the organ.  There is no mention of Mary standing when the rest of the congregation are sitting to check on the location of the saviour of the universe.  Nor is there mention of Mary retrieving Jesusu's ball only to have it immediatly cast asunder so that it can be retrieved again.  Do I hear "do unto others..."  :)

 Nick did a childrens talk about a secret agent.  I forgot the secret though.  It was in an envelope stuck to the lectern at the top right of the photo.

Una pulled together a choir that sang.  Our two German ring in's were press ganged to perform again.  2&3 from the right.

You can see the "Milk Bottle Cross" in the background.

Secret agent Nick took this photo.

Here is Heather our Minister and like the rest of us, face turned to the holy god of the video screen as the floor monitor no longer works and Hymn books are err um.  We don't need those we have ... teknorelorgy.

Some NCYC delegates.
Nick      (Official person)
Jemma   (chief assistant to the assistant chief)
Megan  (Chief organiser)
Marcus  (Directors assistant)
James   (Delegate)

I think we said a prayer for them.

Be ware those without a job !

Please forgive the poor quality of these photos.   I-phone.












At the end of the Service we did not have morning tea.  One may think that this is a casualty of the urgent desire by those under 12 to get home to finally tackle the presents but it seems that the Alcoholics Anonomous group are having a final pep talk before being cast into the depths of family christmas parties where they will be encouraged by &^%%^ to consume enough to enable them to embarass themselves and allow the self righteous to get that warm fussy feeling of "I told you so".

Anyway, back home to tackle the Christmas tree and shake out those presents.  Being faithfully guarded by the cat.

 Then with saliva dripping we all sat in the circle awaiting our due and wondering if the person next to us would get something better, bigger, heavier, more expensive than us.

Christmas eve 2010

Christmas 2010 started at 4:00 on Christmas eve.  When in a rash of enthusiasm, I left work, picked up Megan and headed to DFO to buy her Christmas present.  We quickly establish we have 20 minutes to closing time and so several dresses are tried on.  Unfortunately anything I liked she did'nt and vis versa.  The clock ticked over and the doors closed and we were without Christmas present.

Hmm.  What to do.  On to Mt Omanus.
There some more feverish dress trying but again no success.
Nipped into a jewler and bought a braelet.  Luckilly the 50% off post christmas sale signs were being put up.

Now somewhat more relaxed we proceeded to K-Mart where even more dresses were tried on and this eventually resulted in the purchase of a couple.

Back toward work.  Met Paul at Noodle box and had dinner.  Then we both went back to work and finished packing IUT.  8:30pm drove toward the airport in heavy rain.  As I approached the terminal on the last over pass the traffic ground to a halt.  Reasonably relaxed here as it was 9pm and the freight depot closes at 10pm.  If the worst comes to the worst, I can lug the 27kg cardboard box through the driving rain the final 2km.  Luckilly the traffic was moving at slightly more than walking speed and eventually I was able to establish that the far left lane took me to "General Aviation"  So leaving the queuing cars behind I went to the AAE freight terminal.  There I queued with others but soon discovered that everyone else was queuing to pick up animals.  Finally at 9:50 I was out of there and on my way home.

Arrived home and was put to work wrapping presents.

Christmas Caroling

Singing songs of christmas at Chapel Gardens.

Joel, Vivian and family had brought along a couple of German tourists that were staying with them.
To help them feel at home, I looked up the German words of "silent night" on my phone and so they were able to acompany us singing the German version at the same time.

I am sure there is a technical musical term for such multi lingual singing.  I just thought it was fun.

Early Christmas with the Lauries

Well the Cat is getting right into the Christmas spirit.

Early Christmas dinner with Ian and Fay











Dan and Jemma cooked the tree of biscuits.

Christmas Lights

 Friday evening went and had dinner at the Konings then while Chris and Paul engineered some great construction with Fisher Teckique, the rest of us went looking at Christmas lights.
The rest of us being Frank, Megan, Cybele, Jemma, Ellie and Sam.

You gotta wonder why he couln't get the camera straight.

:)

Chris Auto paper plane launcher

 Andrew and Cathrine brought Chris an early christmas present.

An automatic paper plane launcher.

This is a very slow shot.
Took us lots of attempts.  Usually they flew over my head at a million miles an hour.

Church Serivice - 19-DEC-2010

Turns out Megan and I are organising the AM service on 19-DEC-2010
The roster also notes
Theme / Occasion = Adv 4
Bible readers = Chris & Helen
Childrens message = Paul - Christmas Gifts
Porche = Estelle & Aureole (Sounds better than a porch eh)

So the questions are what should the sermon be on?
Lets look up the lectionary
December 19 [Blue or Purple]
4th Sunday of Advent
Isaiah 7:10-16 ?Putting God to the test.
Psalm 80:1-7, 17-19 (UMH 801) Restore us O God.
Romans 1:1-7 The Gospel Exalted. References to the birth of Christ.
Matthew 1:18-25 The Birth of Jesus Christ

Hey guess what we are only a couple of weeks before Christmas

So the question remains, Whether to use these bible reading and look for a common theme. Or find something else. Not inspired yet. Lets see what happens. Coments invited. WHat songs should we do too. I think we need to pump it up with a bit of a band. Do some oldies and newies but all of them pumping.

Lets have fewer bible readings.
Lets break the sermon into separate bits

PLAN
Part #1 Football analogy. Recognise kids are in the church.
Part #2 Church is the game
Part #3 Jesus is coming What is our response. Re gifting (Paul)

-------------------------
Order of Service
8:30 Rehersal
8:45 Live music
9:00 Sing "Lord I lift your name on high"
9:05 Welcome
Point out kids and adults all in today. Ask kids to concentrate.
Black board out the front.
Draw soccer pitch and grand stand.
Ask the kids "if you were playing soccer or kick the ball, what would you be saying"
Kids: "here pass me the ball", "Ready I'll kick it to you", "man on",

Now a question for the adults. "What are the people in the grandstand saying"?
"Why didn't he do that", "Mr refereeeeee", "Useless", "Yes", "Finally he kicked the ball", "Goal"
"3 nil against us"

Now imagine the soccer match is our church

9:10 Sing - "Angels we have heard on high"
While singing, wipe down black board. Replace soccer with a picture of a church.
Grandstand remains. Remove comments.

9:15 Prayer of confession
9:17 Bibke reading #1 - Isaiah 7:10-16 "Do not put your God to the test - Dan
9:20 SERMON PT2
Ask " imagine the soccer match is our church"
What do the players say -
The players "Sing praise God .....", "O lord forgive me", "Thankyou Jesus"
Ask And the spectators?
" That Hymn is so un tuneful", "About time God", "They don't know how to worship"

9:25 Sing - Away in a manger
While singing, clean black board.
Draw scene with Jesus
Now imagine the playing field is the world and Jesus is on the pitch

9:30 Prayer of adoration & praise.
9:33 Bible reading #2 - Matthew 1:18-25 - The impending birth of Christ - Chris

9:35 SERMON PT3
Now imagine the playing field is the world and Jesus is on the pitch
Are we in the game
or in the stands?

9:40Childrens Address - Paul -
Offering - (Get a couple of kids to help collect under supervision)

9:50 Prayer for others - Marcus
9:55 Sing - Joy to the world
10:00 Benediction
Blessing Song?


HYMN SONG IDEAS
At the start


Toward the end
We have gotten to the idea that Jesus is about to be with us. About to be born.
I've got something that the world can't give
10 9 8

SOT Play at the end as people are going out ?
- Have a little faith in us" John Farnham
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TevIX9Tzk34
------------------------------------------------
Matthew 1:18-25 (Good News)
Joseph Accepts Jesus as His Son18 This was how the birth of Jesus Christ took place. His mother Mary was engaged to Joseph, but before they were married, she found out that she was going to have a baby by the Holy Spirit. 19 Joseph was a man who always did what was right, but he did not want to disgrace Mary publicly; so he made plans to break the engagement privately. 20 While he was thinking about this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, "Joseph, descendant of David, do not be afraid to take Mary to be your wife. For it is by the Holy Spirit that she has conceived. 21 She will have a son, and you will name him Jesus - because he will save his people from their sins." 22 Now all this happened in order to make come true what the Lord had said through the prophet, 23 "A virgin will become pregnant and have a son, and he will be called Immanuel" (which means, "God is with us"). 24 So when Joseph woke up, he married Mary, as the angel of the Lord had told him to. 25 But he had no sexual relations with her before she gave birth to her son. And Joseph named him Jesus.

-----------------------------
Isaiah 7:10-16 (Good News)
10 The Lord sent another message to Ahaz: 11 "Ask the Lord your God to give you a sign. It can be from deep in the world of the dead or from high up in heaven." 12 Ahaz answered, "I will not ask for a sign. I refuse to put the Lord to the test." 13 To that Isaiah replied, "Listen, now, descendants of King David. It's bad enough for you to wear out the patience of people - do you have to wear out God's patience too? 14 Well then, the Lord himself will give you a sign: a young woman who is pregnant will have a son and will name him "Immanuel.' 15 By the time he is old enough to make his own decisions, people will be drinking milk and eating honey. 16 Even before that time comes, the lands of those two kings who terrify you will be deserted.

Cleaning up Toowoomba

The Thomson's and Lauries spent the weekend cleaning up mum's place in Toowoomba.

Dad died in 1976 just before I was to start as a boarder at BGS.  A year later (1977) mum moved to 144 Mackenzie st (Dad's mum's house) and a year later to 4 Sinclair St Toowoomba.  This was on the corner of Sionclair St and Buyce Ct.  Somewhere along the line, the address changed to 2 Boyce Ct.  Much more appropriate as the Boyce court entrance is far easier.

Cleaning up was not without a degree of sadness.  Many memories live on in the context of that house.  I would admit many feelings of incompleteness and un completed business.  As we carted off the junk I guess I could not but feel a degree of disapointment that this Junk that I thought she held so close was effectively the cause of her demise.  The house was so cluttered that she would have to navigate the junk but she would trip and fall and injure hersef.  So began a cycle Fall -> Hospital -> respite -> Home.  Over time the cycle became shorter and shorter until one day she did not come home.

This is but 1 of 5 ute loads that went to the dump and two loads that went to life line.

We started with an empty skip at the dump.  This is that first ute load.  All our stuff and what is it worth.










I had had dreams of the house being a weekender however that was not to be.
So the house is to be sold.  I suspect a developer or such will remove the house and buid a mansion or two and hopefully some other family will be able to make use of that beautiful position.

Daylight Saving

Its 4:30 am and the sky is light.
What a waste
We should be up and making use of the day yet almost everyone is is sound  asleep in bed.

I guess politicians see daylight saving as a battle not worth fighting.  Political suicide I suspect.  Nice to take it up as a cause but an easy target to shoot down so why bother.

Why bother in deed.  On its own indeed not.
But in the context of attempting to develop a better future for us then it shoudl a part of it.  Like a better education system, better job opportunities, better opportunities to run a business and develop a better LIFE.

However I suspect the fear of change, whether it is a change for the better or not will continue to hold us back.
us being us as individuals, us as politicians, us as a society.

The mind boggles

Why are those people smiling?
Are words really necessary?
:)

Oxley SS Carols

Last night was the Oxley sate school Carols.

No photos becase I forgot my camera.

The carols were held in the courtyard Quadrangle (I wonder what they call it these days).  Each class sand a christmas carol and spaced throughout the night were community sung carols where the school band played. 

I did sound.  Used the Sherwood Community Festival PA augmented with some mics and a fold back system that Derek loaned me.  Except for a minor hitch or two related to CD replay it all went well.  I glad that the political correctness did not prevent us singing some Christian carols.  I would much prefer that we have the Christian carols and if appropriate, we could have buddhist or Muslim or whatever songs at an appropriate occasion rather than going to some bland one size fits none approach.

Ideas for next year. 
Put a bar above the choir and put mics on it so as to stop the visual clutter
Move the speakers and lights a little closer to the choir.

Foldback video was great.
Need to rip all the CDs.  Use Screen monkey.

Boys Brigade

Chris and Dan had their Boys Brigade wrap up on Monday night.  They do Boys Brigade at Oxley UC

Dan is on the left.
Chris is second from the right.

Dan got a special award.  A sort of "Best and fairest"

The dirty game

Australia did not win the rights to host the 2022? Soccer world cup.  The recriminations have begun.  Apparantly Frank Lowie said "We will not buy votes" and some observer has commented that that decision to play it clean has cost us the hosting rights.

Maybe.  Maybe not.
But it does cause me to stop and think.

So what if we did not get the rights.  If we lost it because we played it clean that to me that is a good thing.

It seems to me that every organisation has to go through some grief to come out stronger on the other side.
Churches & kids organisations had to deal with the scandals of child abuse.  Make tough decisions and then move on.  And they have.
Cricket is having to deal with the problems of gambling.

The GFC though?  As I understood it, part of the boom - bust cycle of capitalism is that during a recession, the weak companies fail and then as the economy starts to grow, the string survive and the new and dynamic identify opportunities in the market and establish a business.

We were told that some of those companies were too big to fail.  Hmm maybe.  Maybe not.  Obviously if we have our money in one of those banks then we would be varry happy if the Government were to bail them out.  But what has that bail out achieved?  Well it has kept big fat banks with inefficient & dishonest reporting structures.  It has also squeezed out any enteprenur who may wish to operate in that space.  Only it seems those far too inefficient and rotten get bailed out.  Anyone less gets nothing and even worse they get penalised because everyone flocks to the governerment guaranteed institutions.  Those fat inneficient institutions that caused the problem in the first place.

NBN - The government are going to pour $40 000 000 000.00 into broadband provision.  Remember back to the days of the PMG.  One only government telephone provider.  We still had those dial phones and a whooping choice of about 2 models and 5 colours.  What was it Red, Green, bone, black.  Could we even have a blue phone.  You know what got Dick Smith started.  He imported push button phones.  Illegal to connect but legal to sell.  We all bought them and plugged them in.

So I ask myself, why does the government want to PROVIDE the broadband rather than set the playing field rules such that others can play the game and provide the broadband that I want and you want and you and I may want different broadband.  But with them anouncing that they will spend this it means that anyone else basically shelves their plans to roll out broadband backbone and so eventually they will be the only provider and they will say "just as well we did it or we would have nothing because with out us there is nothing".  PMG.

In my view, the government should concentrate on setting the rules such that others can do the things that need to be done.  Education, communications,

Christmas cat

Here kitty kitty kitty.

We have a cat.
We have a christmas tree.
The cat is winning

Naplan - Teaching for the test

It hardly suprises me but Oxley SS seems to have given up on doing school plays. 

A casulaty it seems of Naplan.

In fact it seems like Naplan is the reason these days for everything.  It is the reason to do something and the reason not to do it.

Megan is a music teacher and from what I can gather, Naplan does not have a question on music so music plays second fiddle so to speak.

To me the school plays were one of the stand out features of Oxley.  They showed an edge.  Teachers of course have to put in extra effort as school plays use up class room time and lunch times and after school times.  But now the excuse is "too busy doing Namplan".  Mind you it just confirms my observations about the poor state of public education.  The race to the bottom.  The emphasising of medeocrity.  The other thing that is interesting is that for some reason it is not the school that makes the decision about a school play.  It is simply up to what the class room teacher "wants" to do.  Surely that should be a factor but at the end of the day, the school say "we are going to do ...."  I guess they have done that.  They have said "We are going to do Naplan"

The problem with Naplan and the whole idea of the national curriculum is that it promotes uniformity.  Sameness.  A sort of McDonalds of education.  The problem with this is like genetic engineered crops.  When they work they produce fantastic results but when there is a problem the whole crop is stuffed.

We should promote diversity in education.  Let schools be different.  We keep hearing about how kids are different.  Well let some schools have an academic leaning and others may be more into sport and others into music or art or whatever.  Respond to the local needs rather than some Canberrian beurocrat who would not know a student if they tripped over them.

Emerald

Just sepnt a very fruitful two days in Emerald.  We are doing some work for a company there.  We took the first system and a list of questions.  We installed it and found some errors.  Some we had made but most were errors in the documentation.  I am a bit of a documentation nazi so those errors really bug me.  Anyway it was a very enjoyable and necessary visit.

Our customer organised accomodation for us at "Emeral homestays".  This was very comfortable although being a big house as opposed to a motel it was a different.  Much more personal.  It was a huge wooden house with verandahs almost all the way round.    They don't do dinner so we went to the "tavern" & had a Tbone on Monday night.  Had a beautiful bacon and egg breakfast on tuesday AM.

So now we are back home with a small list of fixes and then we will be able to deliver reliable and consistently built product.