Wednesday, August 30, 2006
Needs To Be Glassed: Mobile Phones on Planes
Risk Adverts
Broken Lives
On an early, 5:50am train this morning as I once again have a teleconference with our Los Angeles office and today is probably the last opportunity for a post until Monday / Tuesday next week. I am off for 2 nights in Bowral / Moss Vale area for a work conference and then from there, driving down with Niki to Shepparton for my mate Joey’s wedding. It will be 2 nights in “Shep” as well and then I am having a belated Fathers Day on Monday and I’ll be having the day off work and we’ll keep Kate home from school.
A small news story that had some airtime yesterday was the arrest of John Lewthwaite on a breach of his parole conditions. For those who don’t know who John Lewthwaite is, he sexually assaulted and then murdered a little girl about 25-30yrs ago and was jailed but released 7yrs ago. The reason this story catches my attention is that the girl who was killed was in the suburb I grew up in and her younger brother was in my year at school. Now not meaning to speak ill of anyone, but this guy and his family were incredibly weird people and the kid was virtually a recluse at school. I cant even remember his first name, but we all knew him as the brother of the murdered girl. In hindsight, it is clear that this kid and his parents were incredibly traumatised and he would have had a horrendous home life. Today I feel very sorry for them and understand now why things were the way they were.
Having had this experience then, every time John Lewthwaite gets a mention, it brings back school day memories and when he was released from prison on parole I can remember the huge public debate and I can remember the family, in particular the mother, being interviewed in which she feared for her life as Lewthaite was going to come back and kill them.
Now yesterday, his name is again front page news. Why? Well Lewthwaite was caught and charged with willfully exposing himself in public. When I heard that, I presumed he was at school or other inappropriate place flashing himself. Instead he was in the sand dunes at Wanda Beach with another man. So what they’re saying is that they caught him having gay sex in a secluded beach sand dunes.
So what is the point of me writing all this… well it just made realise that the press have jumped onto the murder of the Haans girl and have given that story exposure yet again, they again went to the mother of the girl Gwen Haans and interviewed her yet again and they had her holding pictures of her daughter which are now old and faded and you have to ask why? Why drag up these stories for the arrest of a pervert in the sand dunes along way from their house and 7 years after the release of their daughter’s killer. Why? They give that talking dish rag Debnam the opportunity to grandstand and verbal the Labor Government about it but you have to ask for other than political point scoring why does this story need airing once again? In the meantime, they harass now an old lady with her photos and her memories and now I realise how truly awful their life has been.
Monday, August 28, 2006
Message Board Rumblings
Users of the Lime Kettle forums will have noticed ALOT of downtime lately… this is because apparently my provider – www.hostedboards.com has gone belly up. But their friendly email to me this morning says all data and forums of their clients have been shifted over to www.freepowerboards.com and that service will now continue.
Let me know if any users have “issues” with logging in etc etc.
[edit] - the link to the boards has not changed... it is still accessible from the nav bar on your right --->
Weekend Wrap...
Weird feeling this morning… Today is going to my only real day in the office this week (am in for a half day Wednesday) but because of business travel, today will be my only full day until Tuesday next week. Am out on site tomorrow, am traveling to Bowral on Wednesday afternoon for a work conference through to Friday, then a wedding in Shepparton in Victoria on the weekend, followed by a Monday annual leave day. So my motivation for today is not that high!
Weekend was a pretty quiet one. Did a quick tidy up of the lawns on Saturday followed by lunch at my place with Mum & Dad. Saturday night Niki went out for a school trivia night whilst I stayed at home and watched the St George game.
Sunday was a 1yr old birthday party for my mate Mazo’s son at
I did watch a movie which I downloaded – “V For Vendetta” with is it Natalie Portman? Not a bad movie actually… one of those political ideology movies which is set into the future but makes you wonder about your own government of the day. Set in
I am into downloading movies at the moment. After watching
Friday, August 25, 2006
Totally Forgot
Was bored on the train this morning and was dozing in the sun and totally forgot to write my daily post… I have only just remembered now at a bit after 11!
Had a lazy morning this morning and hung back at home with the kids a bit and got the late, late train which didn’t see me into the office until 9:30! Tsk tsk!
Now I am plowing through paperwork and documentation and have no meetings in my diary except for the regular team lunch at the pub. I should also state that next week is going to be a mixed bag work wise with me being on site in Sydney on Tuesday (Penrith to be exact – close to home) and on a conference on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday down in the Southern Highlands. From there, Niki is picking me up and will be heading to Shepparton for Joey &
So in short, my access to a PC and then time available to make posts and do my usual stuff will be rather limited. So for those of you who play with me in Diplomacy, or in my Diplomacy game that I am GMing or on the soccer site XpertEleven or the cricket game site Battrick.org or the Blood Bowl crowd at fummbl.com, you have been warned that I wont be about so much next week / next weekend.
Still, I will have the laptop with me and there is always the work dial up :-)