Posting for a friend

Dan Zimmerman, widely held to be a longtime intellectual property thief and, I am given to understand, founder of _Dead Hooker Magazine_, has stolenTamara Keel's "Fun Show Song" and posted the lovely video made as a Christmas present for Tam by Ambulance Driver and Squeaky and posted it over at TTAG, the other sink of iniquity and inequity with which he is associated, utterly without attribution to anyone but himself.

Other than polite reminders (already issued) and the distant possibility of lawyering up -- Tam's a writer and her stock in trade is the unique groupings of words she creates -- there's not a whole lot that can be done.

But there is one thing. Cato famously ended every speech he made in the Roman Senate with "Carthage must be destroyed," even if all he was talking about was proclaiming Junior Vestal Day. The phrase I'd like you to remember and to post all over the Internet is "Dan Zimmerman. Intellectual property thief. Dead Hooker Magazine." And good morning, search engines!

It's that time of year again ...

When school starts to wind up and we have Awards Night.

Miss 14 has had a tough year, she's been sick since May - initial diagnosis was Glandular Fever but they're now in the "don't know" camp.  Anyway it means that she has missed lots of school and really struggled to keep up.

However, she has worked hard (when she could) and kept up with assignments and tests and here she is reaping the rewards:

She got the Learning Area Award for Mathematics; Subject Awards in Japanese and Music Specialist.  Three of these also means that she was one of two recipients for the Principal's List Award for her year (which has a prize of $25), and she also received the Community Service Award (also $25).

Very proud of her.  She has worked hard and deserves this.

It's only been a short time ...

since I last wrote a blog post and things have changed.

My last post started off with the search for a high school for Miss now-12.  We are over the moon to report that she has been accepted into the Specialist Agricultural Program that she had applied for.

Then I mentioned that Miss now-14 had nearly fully recovered from her bout of Glandual Fever - well unfortunately she's had another three attacks since then.  She is however working hard to keep up with her school work, cello and part-time job.

AND I mention that I was going well at work - um, well, I was made redundant at the beginning of October.  As I said, short period of time lots of changes.

I have decided to build up my own business focusing on computer training and work.  So far so good, but I do need a few more clients.

For those without Facebook here are some recent (Halloween) pictures of the girls:

AND here are some other random pictures of them:

Miss 14 on her Birthday

Miss 12 doing what she loves best

Update on Life :)

Just taking a few minutes out to update any of my readers who are still checking in here (thanks guys).

Things are going well, and busy.  Always busy.

I thought they would get less busy as the girls got older, but I was wrong.

The big challenge this year is for Miss Nearly-12 who needs to find a High School for next year.  For the past three years she has had her heart set on the Specialist Agricultural Program and a local (but "out of area") High School  To get into the program she had to submit a A4 page HANDWRITTEN letter as to why she wanted to do the program along with copies of her school reports, references etc. Then on the basis of this, they chose children to interview.  She had her interview yesterday.  I do think it is a big ask for these children to go through and interview like this on their own at this age. (Parents waited outside).  Anyway, by her account, the interview went well. So now we are just waiting for a letter (2-3 weeks) to let us know if she has been accepted or not.

The program itself sounds really good.  The school has a mini-farm on the premise and a larger farm in the vicinity.  In Year 7 they only get out to the big farm twice (apparently they only do this program twice a week in year 7, so they focus on the mini-farm), but as they go up through the years (4 year program) they spend more and more time out on the big one.

We do however, have a back up plan.  The local High School (walking distance), offers a specialist Technical, Engineering and Maths program and she has also been accepted for this.  But it's definitely her second choice (and the school is okay with that and are happy for her to put her offer on hold until she knows about the first program).

Meanwhile, Miss Nearly-14 (WHERE DID THE TIME GO) is almost fully recovered from her bout of Glandular Fever and is back into the swing of things.  This term she has a couple of competition performances with the Band to add into the mix.  Oh should mention that Miss Nearly-12 has a similar competition performance with the Choir she is in coming up soon too.

Other than that, she's focusing on her studies, Cello playing (did I tell you she started playing the Cello last year) and her part-time job (yep, she has one of those too - localish winery / cafe as waitress/general dogsbody).

Meanwhile, I'm still working at the same job (nearly 3.5years there now), although my role is supposed to change to focusing on Office 365 Adoptions rather than general training / consulting.  I'm not sure how this will work out long term, but for now I will just wait and see.

Hubby is going well and working hard.  No major news there to report.

I did manage to get up to the farm last weekend for a shoot.  The first night out wasn't too bad, got a couple of rabbits but didn't see much else and unfortunately a storm came through which meant we didn't get out the second night.  They have had a lot of rain up there over the last couple of weeks (which is good, the crops are loving it), however the ground is very boggy and you really have to be careful driving around.  I am going up with some people from my gun club in a couple of weeks again, so hopefully the goats will be around.

So that's it for now.  Hopefully catch you soon.

Cooking again

Hi All,

I know it's been awhile.  But I wanted to post this here so I could find it again. It's my new favourite recipe.

If you have some lemons laying around and want to impress people I suggest you try this.  Everyone who ate it today (I had a Postie Party) asked for the recipe.

I also did my impossible pie recipe (which I've posted before), along with my new favourite soup recipe (Leek, Potato, Corn & White Beans).  All were hits.

All in all a fun day :)

ANZAC Day 2015

Girls in their volunteer fire cadet uniforms (at 3.30am) getting ready for the ANZAC march.

Dawn service at Armdale.

100 years ... Lest We Forget

Tomorrow marks the 100 year anniversary of the Gallipoli landing.

Like thousands of Australians, or more likely millions, we will be at a Dawn Service to mark the occasion.  The service will not only remember those that fought and died at Gallipoli, but all of those who have served and do serve in the Australian and New Zealand armed forces.

Both the girls' schools held remembrance services today.  I am surprised by the facts about Gallipoli that they have been taught.  I remember the ANZAC services from my school days but I don't remember being taught about what it represented or means in the depth that they have been.  I am very pleased that this is part of their education.

Another photo

Posted a photo of Miss 11 in my last blog so thought I would post one of Miss 13.  She's just been out to a friend's birthday party where they got to ride in a stretched hummer and drink non-al champagne.

Wow, April already

Can't believe how time flies when you're having fun too busy to know if you're having fun or not ;)

No, things are good and yes, I'm having fun.

Nothing stunning but I have been up the farm - saw some animals, even rabbits and managed to get two of them.  (Well I only aimed at two which I got, the others were too fast for me to aim at).  It's good to see rabbits on the farm again (well from my point of view, the farmer might not be too pleased).  Didn't see any foxes this time though, nor goats, which is really sad, as I was looking forward to getting some goat meat.

I finally got to shoot my .22 Ruger at the club on Sunday.  Lovely little gun.  Really nice to fire. And the air pistol got a good work out too.

And I have been reading.  Re-read all of the Monster Hunter series (Larry Correia), discovered a new fun-to-read series by Diane Henders - Never Say Spy and read Cory Doctorow's book Pirate Cinema. This books seems particularly timely given the Federal Court decision this week to force ISPs to provide name and addresses of people who illictly downloaded Dallas Buyers Club (News article here.)

The other thing that is "top of my list" at the moment is Miss 11's application for the Specialist Agricultural Program at a local (but out-of-area) high school.  Applications close on the 24th and she has to do a handwritten letter with supporting information (seriously, who hand writes a whole A4 page these days?!?).

To help with the "supporting information" I have been going through old photos - here's one on probably her first horse ride ever

and this one is from a couple of weeks ago

EEEK, where did that time go?

Anyway, all for now.  Hope you all had a great Easter.

This brings back memories

I've been around computers for a long time - longer than some of you have been born.  And a lot of that time has been spent dealing with (helping?) users.

Today I was reminded that even though computers and technology change, people stay pretty much the same.

I rang a school book company regarding an e-code that wasn't working and which we needed a replacement for.

Here's the conversation:

Lady:  "Can I have your email address so I can send you the code"
Me: "Sure, my email address is Julie underscore "
and I hear her say quietly "J U L I E U N D E R S C O R E "
Me: "no Julie and the little black line in email addresses, the underscore "
Her: "ah the little black line"
and then I finished off my email address.

She then said, "Let me read that back to you to make sure I've got it correctly, Julie the little black line underscore ..."
Me:  "Um, no.  The little black line in email addresses is called an underscore."
Her: "Oh, is it?"
Me: "Yes, it's not part of my name"
She laughed.

Now the reason I found this rather odd is that by now, I would have thought that pretty much anyone who works with customer orders via emails would know what an underscore is.

But it does remind me of a similar experience I had in the dim dark past of DOS.

I was talking a user through doing something in DOS, and as part of the conversation I said type "Star dot Star" (meaning *.*, I had given up calling them asterisks by that stage of helpdesk work).  And again I hear in the back ground "S T A R D O T S T A R").

Ah, memories ...

How to Fix Computers & Phones

Simple really: "Report they're broken" ..

In the last couple of weeks I've had both my work computer play up (half the keyboard stopped working) and my phone (no sounds for a couple of days - even with volume turned up; then it continually making noise even with all sounds turned off; and then the screen going black and staying black making it impossible to hang up on calls or press numbers on automated call systems).

So what did I do?  I FINALLY decided to log a service issue with work's IPT team (finally, as they're on the other side of the country and their normal response to any issue is to do a reinstall or factory reset - neither of which I wanted to do).  BUT there comes a time when the piece of technology is either thrown out the window or you bite the bullet and talk to IPT.

So anyway, I logged a service report on both the phone and the computer and guess what - they're now both working perfectly.

So now I have a dilemma - do I tell IPT they're working perfectly or not????

Resuming blogging

A good friend of mine reminded me recently that I have a blog and was wondering if I was ever going to use it again.

And I decided that I should, but in doing this, I asked myself why I hadn't blogged for over a year and its basically because I have found Facebook easier.

However, Facebook has one serious drawback and that is it's not searchable (well it is, but it's painful to search), where as if I'm looking for something I've blogged (which I do regularly), it's so much easier to find.

SO .. back to blogging.

I last wrote in my blog on the 31 Dec, 2013.  That's 12 months ago.  The last 12 months have been, on the whole, great.  Both girls settled into their new schools well, made lots of friends and did really well academically.

Miss 11 was awarded her class' All Rounder award (and received a $30 gift voucher) and Miss 13 received her year's Japanese, Maths, Woodworking and Music awards, in addition to the Principle's award and the Community Service award, these came with gift cards to the value of $60.  We ended up redeeming the gift cards a couple of days back, Miss 11 bought a very nice Dr Who book and Miss 13 used the cards towards a smartphone.

Miss 11 will be starting her last year of Primary School tomorrow and Miss 13 will be starting her second year of High School on Tuesday.  She is really happy that she now gets to choose her electives and she will be doing Specialist Music, Japanese, Textile Crafts and Woodwork.  She will also be in the Advanced Maths class (which she is REALLY looking forward to).

The challenge this coming year will be to help Miss 11 get into the High School of her choice.  She wants to join the Specialist Agricultural Course at a not-so-local High School.  This involves an application and panel interview.  I'm not sure of the exact dates yet, but will call the school in a few days to find out the process.

In addition to school, Miss 11 is still horse mad and this year will start Pony Club, she also wants to join the Fire Cadets and carry on with her squash and also do music lessons.  (So busy year for her).  Miss 13 will continue with Fire Cadets and the Cello and hopes again to join the school band and choir again.  She will also do Fire Running later in the year.

Over the summer break both girls did swimming lessons and Miss 11 has now finished level 13 and Miss 13 was awarded the Bronze Medallion (level 16).

I'm still working for the same company and enjoying it.  I will have been there three years in March - wow, doesn't seem that long.  Hubby is also still working for the same company, coming up on a three year anniversary too.

One of the highlights of the last year was the SHOT Show.  This is the first time we've had a gun show in Western Australia and it was a great day out (well two days).  As a result of the show we bought two new guns in the last year but not fired them yet L  Unfortunately, the air pistol's front sight was missing when we got it, so I'm waiting for a replacement to arrive before taking it to the range.

Other than that not much has happened over the last year J

Here are some photos:

Miss 11 Class Award

Miss 11 Horse Riding

Miss 13 Maths Award

Miss 13 Fire Running

Girls' Targets from SHOT Show Air Pistol Range

New guns