Train Posting: 7:50am From Emu Plains...

Now that ClayInfinity is now back up and running, I guess I need to a) find time to write and b) have something to write about. Part (b) is the hard bit, and I guess one of the main reasons why I stopped posting over a year ago was because of some form of writers bloc (Bloggers Bloc). Maybe my life really was that boring that I too realised the material was shite!

And whilst this issue hasn’t really been resolved – my life still is pretty much the same as it was in January 2004 – I guess now though I have a solution to the first part of my dilemma. That is when to write.

The answer is of course whilst on the train! One of the features of “the new blogger” (and it may not be all that new) is that I can email posts in. This means I can fire up the laptop on the train and type away (as I am now) and when I log into the office – bing – out goes my posting…

So the “when” is sorted.

** pregnant pause **

What should I write about? Well I guess what has happened since January 2004. Not a lot. I still work the daily grind commuting from my home in the Blue Mountains to the city which is a trip of about 90mins each way. I struggle to be occupied for the 3 hours a day I am sitting in my train carriage, so I guess this is the answer to that. Work is extremely busy at the moment. My work year is cyclical and it culminates on 30 June each year and with 4 weeks to go, things are busy. I don’t want to talk too much about what I do, but I basically am responsible for the purchase of insurance for a large multinational property manager and all of those insurances renew on 30 June. Its an expenditure of approximately US$30 million, so I guess my bosses want to make sure it goes off without a hitch! So the short answer at the moment is that work is all about long hours and stress at the moment (/me wonders when it is not?)

At the home front, my oldest daughter Kate has started school and will be 6 in July. She is handling it very well and I believe she is adapting to the daily routine very well. She has made friends, seems popular amongst her class mates and is handling the work load. Work load you may ask? What sort of work does a kindergarten kid have to do? Well its a lot! Daily reader that needs to be signed off by mum or dad, 2 pages of maths work, story writing and writing down 3 different words a week and using them in a sentence. This bundle of work gets delivered religiously on Monday afternoons and has to be signed off and handed in on Friday mornings. That means only 3 evenings to do it all in. It may not sound like a lot, but when you’re 6, it is and it seems to be a lot more than what I used to get “back in the day”.

Brooke, my 4 year old munchkin, goes to pre-school on Thursdays and Fridays. Again, she seems to be going really well. She has matured greatly IMHO in the last 12 months and is developing a really great personality. She went through the “Terrible Twos” and was probably a lot tougher to handle in that stage than her sister, but she seems to be really settling down now. She is not as clingy to her mum as she was and seems to be more keen on yours truly… which is great.

Work, kids… what else is there?

Well apart from this blog, I am doing a lot of things. I am now running the “Southern Wastes League” online Bloodbowl league via the great fumbbl site. That takes up a great deal of time… It is for all Australian and New Zealand players, so if you are interested in playing, by all means sign up! If you don’t want to be a part of a league, that fine too… fumbbl.com is a great place to play a pick up game as well.

I also play the traditional table top blood bowl (with a board and real dice!) in the Belltower Blood Bowl League. Not doing too well atm, but its all good fun.

Another good thing to happen in the past few months is I have taken up playing Dungeons & Dragons again. We play every 6 weeks or so and it has been great fun. Whilst not everyone’s cup of tea, D&D has been a hobby of mine on and off for about 20 years now. Never tires with me… I reckon it’s a great thing to do. For those that are interested, I am playing a Human Abjurer… and we’re currently at level 5. J

Another thing that has taken over my interests and I guess is another reason behind ClayInfinity’s resurrection is that I have become a bit of a techno geek. All things techie interest me… particularly software tools that make the internet a better experience. Obviously Blogger is one, but I am now a fully converted Mozilla user. I use Firefox at both work and home and Thunderbird at home as an email client. Why? Because IE kept crashing my system and delivering spyware to me and Outlook express became over weight with Spam. Sure the spam doesn’t go, but the filtering is great with Thunderbird.

Another tool, which I hope you may use for yourselves is KlipFolio. This tool is handy and I now keep up to date using RSS feeds of all my favourite sites and Google News. The tool was referred to on one of my fumbbl buddies’ own blog www.gumbi.log and now I take a feed from his site to KlipFolio… perhaps he’ll do the same.

I highly recommend the software Picasa2. The thing is fantastic! We have a huge amount of digital photos at home and this neat package took them all, sorted them and the interface is fantastic. It also interlinks with Blogger as well and I can post pictures from picasa to here with ease… I will give it a test run soon!

In general though I am:

Browsing: group hug // random confessions (weird link of the day – strangely cathartic)

http://slashdot.org/ (tech geek stuff)

The Connex Whiner (given I am a fellow trainite, but in Sydney)

Listening: Classical Chillout, Ministry of Sound

Reading: Nothing! Need a good book!!

Playing: Madden 2005

Ooh, nearly in the city… be soon time to get off and change trains to the office. This post has been long, and I doubt that I will post such slabs in the future (yes Pete, too long!!) but given that it’s the first of my real posts (apart from last nights start up) I think it was warranted.

Clay

Schapelle Corby - My View

Guilty.

Can't see anything else but that point of view. I am of the view that
people dont get caught up in things if they werent doing something
suspect to start with.

Like seriously, do people really get 4kg of marijuana stuffed into their
baggage at random? Do they really go to a foreign country with this
stuff unawares? I dont think so...

And this issue of "baggage handlers" in Brisbane placing 4kg of drugs
'randomly' into a bag so that it can be picked up in Sydney... like come
on! How stupid does that sound?

If a drug dealer wanted to transport marijuana from Brisbane to Sydney,
he'd drive it at the required speed limit. They certainly wouldnt put
it into a random girls luggage and hope that it will make its intended
destination.

Whilst I think all the rumour and inuendo about Schapelle and her family
is not true, I certainly think she isnt the clean living model citizen
that the press make her out to be.

She was trying to make cash, she got caught, now she should do the time...

Blogger has improved!

Wow, since I have been off Blogger, the functionality of Blogger has
improved dramatically!

Email postings, comments, publishing photographs with Picasa... exceptional!

I'm back!

Yes, after a long hiatus, I intend to resurrect the old ClayInfinity blog...

More rubbish!

More diatribe!

More inane commentary!

More me!

Arent you all lucky!!

Johnny's On The Run

It's started... Johnny's calling Mark Latham sloppy with the truth but fails to recall how he in turn has been sloppy with the truth himself...

Anyone recall Iraq? Solomon Islands? Children Overboard? Children in Detention? Weapons of Mass Destruction?

Sloppy with the truth? Surely not!

Labor Launches New Age

Mark Latham, new leader of the Labor Party finally yesterday gave all of those who crave a viable alternative to Johnny "Man of Steel" Howard something to look forward to.

His keynote speech yesterday at the Labor Party conference was strong, gave a clear message of goals and was the first affirmative stance Labor has taken in many years.

The "we are nobody's Deputy" line is right on the money and whilst our alliance with the US is valuable, it should not hold sway over our own opinions.

I wrote yesterday that funding for education needs to be increased and whilst Latham does promise funding on a "needs basis" he does include Private schools in that equation... I hope his "needs analysis" shows that they need 10% of what they're getting now under the Howard regime...

Overall, a good start and for the first time in ages, it appears our Lil'Johnny is on the backfoot...

Read media coverage of the speech here and here

Whilst on Education...

Teachers do get a bum wrap. For a profession that is essentially vital to the technical advancement of the human race and critical for the development of acceptable social behaviour in our children (second behind a child's parents), our governments have really given our teachers hell.

So here is my solution to ensure the teaching profession is reinstated as a meaningful profession.

1. Disband the Teachers Union and replace it with a professional body... say "The Institute of Education Professionals". This body will be more concerned about curricullum's and standards of testing etc rather than salaries and working conditions.

2. Allow teachers free market practices to gain employment. No standardised salaries, no forced placements, no transfer bans etc. If a school needs a teacher, it advertises and the Principal interviews and selects an applicant and a salary is negotiated... just like any other job.

2a) Pay for performance. Good teachers (and there are alot out there) deserve good pay and the opportunity to make a good living. Principals should set targets, review performance against those targets and reward for meeting those targets.

3. Hours. Teachers get criticised by non-teachers for the excessive school holidays and short work day. Teachers counter that by stating they do alot of planning and extra-curricular work. So let it become fact rather than myth. Teachers will get same working conditions as any other person. 20 days a year, sick leave, maternity leave etc. Working hours will be 8:30 to 5:30 like most other jobs. "School" hours will remain the same, but teachers will be employed to do their planning etc rather than have them volunteer their free time after the 3pm school bell. School holidays will be for children, but teachers will have to use their 20 days annual leave in that timeframe to ensure they are present when kids are there. Conversely, teachers should expect higher remuneration.

4) Now the government needs to put some money on the table. Reverse the public/private funding differential. Fund the public system fully. Give Principals proper budgets for them to fund their school and pay their teachers a GOOD wage. Fund school maintenance and redevelopments and ensure that stationary etc is readily available. No need to provide 5 Star schools, just ones that have adequate paper and pens and books and don't leak and have basic air conditioning. Leave Private Schools and the Religious based schools to their own funding networks.

5) Funding will be equal across the board based on school headcounts and not some economically driven socio-economic model that sees rich private schools in Strathfield get funded more than poor schools in Liverpool. Budget equals "x", headcount equals "y" then budget for each school equals x/y multiplied by their headcount. No questions.

Now someone very close and dear to me is a teacher and we disagreed on a number (all?) of these things. I can see that teachers cling to their union as their only lifeline for bargaining a decent living and remuneration.... and yes the government have been dead set pricks about it, but the fact is that it hasn't worked for the last 20+ years. Teachers are derided and under paid and the public system is falling apart.

It's time that both sides think outside the square...