Best Laid Plans: Part 2

What was I saying about life not going as planned? Last night my brother was rushed into surgery to have his gall bladder (along with a 1.5 cm stone) removed. Well, "rushed" is a strictly figurative term in this case because he was actually kept waiting in pre-op for about 4 hours because of an emergency case. But they had only diagnosed the gallstone the day before and had him into theatre last night at about 8pm. I was there when he was wheeled back up to his ward to see him give his victory point of the finger and smile as best he could through an oxygen mask. I know what it feels like when you're waking up from being under -- those drugs are actually pretty good and you feel very relieved that it's all over. Despite being pretty groggy he was joking around so much we had to struggle not to wake up the other patients.

We've decided that with news of Oma's stready progress we can stick to our initial plan of leaving on January 11. We'll probably just change our side-trip plans to get to Amsterdam earlier and stay a little longer. This will mean we can proably just get everything organised before our departure, although I have to say it's getting pretty tight.

Best Laid Plans

Life doesn't always go as planned. Just when we thought we were getting on top of our plans to leave, we learnt that Lotte's Grandma (Oma) has taken ill after a fall. It's now quite serious -- she was admitted to hospital yesterday and had another fall today. Of course Lotte needs to be there for her Oma and really all we can do at the moment is think about how it would be possible for her to do that. We're now contemplating leaving just after Christmas, and Lotte may even have to go sooner if worst comes to worst. We just hope we get some better news soon.

BSG on iTMS

So my wish has come true. Battlestar Galactica is now available for download on the iTunes Music Store. Now if they only made video content available to countries other than the US, they would have something just as revolutionary as Bittorrent, but completely legitimate. And a whole new way of making money through online distribution without the huge cost. I hope the studios figure that out quickly.

BPPV

Yesterday was I took one of the last steps in my quest for some answers about my dizziness. At least one of the last steps I will take before I leave for the UK. I went and saw a Neurologist. He was very thorough, and gave me a bunch of different tests as well as some I had already done. I gave him my whole history and he spent quite a while going through some other questions. He's diagnosed me with something called BPPV -- Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo. He's pretty definite about it. The way he described it was that one of my ears has got some little crystals in it, almost certainly because of the vestibular neuritis / viral labyrinthitis. I found a more detailed explanation on this page.

The ear that works tends to "push" me towards the ear that doesn't work, resulting in spinning or movement. Anyway he reckons I need to try some home treatment exercises, which are also described on the page above. He also reckons that it works for almost all people within like a week, and that it probably won't come back! I hope he's right.

No Conference For You

I never got a reply to my request to attend ASCILITE this year, so I guess that meant no. The paper that I didn't present went down well, though, I hear! It was presented by the first author. It's sad though -- the first time I haven't been given support to attend this conference. I know it sounds like sour grapes, but it really does make me feel like my decision to find another job was worthwhile. Clearly they don't see professional development as a big priority where I am now, and particularly the academic kind.

Dining Al Fresco

Last night I was feeling like crap, so Lotte decided to cook up a really nice summer meal while I slept, and when I awoke she'd set up a table outside for us to enjoy our meal in the fading sunshine.
Our poor little courtyard is looking a little worse for wear at the moment, but it was very pleasant just to eat in the open air. The house was way too hot. After we'd stared at the overgrown weeds taking over the carefully planted herbs and natives, Lotte decided we really needed to attack them right then and there. We've probably got a good day's work to get the rest done but we did make a start.

Halogen globes are dangerous

Okay, this is beyond a joke. For the THIRD time one of our halogen globes has just burst for no reason, and this time it really hurt. I had just entered the smallest room in the house and about 10 seconds into a leak heard a loud *pop* and felt a sharp pain in the back of my neck. A split second later a shower of hot glass hit the ground all around me. One of the pieces had lodged itself into my neck and I could smell my hair burning. Not happy. I'm going to figure out who makes these globes and write them a letter. Something ain't right.

Flurry of plans

Tonight Lotte and I registered for Goodnight Sweetheart in February and the London Lindy Exchange in March. Places tend to sell out of these things in the UK we've been told, so it was time to commit. Also I found out I've been picked to represent Australia in the 3rd annual World DJ Championships at GNSH, which is going to be huge fun. And just yesterday I got a casual invitation up to the International Centre for Research on Learning at the University of Dundee in Scotland. I might take them up on that offer to do a presentation of some sort. We've also planned our first side-trip to Holland, only 6 days after our arrival in the UK! The air fares are amazing -- for 100 GBP we get there and back, and that's including insurance. Handy.

We got the flat

We found out today that we got the flat we applied for, which is on the ground floor in the newly built West Cambridge university residencies, close to the Cavendish Laboratory. If the university map is to scale, it seems to be around a mile west of the city centre. The floor plan makes it look pretty small, but we actually measured up our current living room/kitchen and it's almost exactly the same size, which put our minds at ease a bit. The big difference will be that we'll have hardly any room for storage, and no spare room for visitors. Still, there are a couple of desk areas and we won't have to store years of stuff with us. It should be pretty good.

Beaming Up

Since getting over the initial shock of our impending trans-hemispheric move, we've started to notice our perspective shift. Before we were here in Melbourne and thinking about what it would be like to be overseas, and all the implications for family, friends, and work. Now, even though we're here in Melbourne in a physical sense, our minds are already on the way to England.

Not only are we dealing with the issues of setting up bank accounts, arranging visas, accommodation, and travel -- we're also slowly beginning to consider all the human connections that are important, both with people in Europe and people here. We're conscious of spending time with family and friends while we're still here. And we're in daily contact with friends and family in England and Holland respectively, talking about everything from airport pick-ups to who has some tea-towels and crockery we can "borrow".

All of this gives us this strange sensation of seeing our lives here as though we've suddenly jumped outside the goldfish bowl. We keep noting how cheap groceries are here (like it didn't occur to us before) and spending time in the sunshine like it's our last chance. Stupid, really, but we just can't escape the feeling that our cognitive epicentre has already started teleporting to the other side of the planet.

The Whole Story

Back in June & July when we visited Europe, Lotte and I started talking seriously about the idea of spending an extended stay there. We'd actually been talking about it since our previous trip when we visited Zurich and thought how fantastic it would be to live there. But this time we were talking about the practicalities rather than the dreams -- if we wanted to make this happen, how would we do it exactly?

We figured out pretty quickly that the biggest hurdle would be for me to get a visa and a job. Lotte has excellent English and holds an EU passport, which makes everything pretty simple for her in many countries in Europe. It turns out that Switzerland is one of the most difficult places to move to in the world, and not even EU people can live and work there easily.

It didn't take long for us to start thinking about the UK. It's close to France, Holland and Sweden, and it has the distinct advantage of being a good place for an Australian to find work. It also happens to have a lot of universities.

When we got home, Lotte just asked me one day about where exactly I would like to live and work if I had my choice. The answer was obvious but I hadn't really given it much thought until then. Cambridge. It's about a year ago now that my supervisor was over in the UK and visited the Centre for Applied Research in Educational Technologies (CARET) at Cambridge. He came back with a lot of good things to say about it. The interesting thing is that they were clearly interested in what we are doing at Melbourne as well, because in some ways our work is complementary as well as overlapping. The background of CARET is as a research unit, whereas CDS (where I work now) is made up mostly of people involved in the production of multimedia.

More recently, apparently, CARET has started to turn its attention more to projects involving the development and delivery of materials for courses -- the sort of thing we do here all the time. At the same time we are attempting to bring more of an applied research model to what we are doing here.

In one of those really fortuitous turns of events I just decided to do a search of jobs in the higher education and see what turned up. The second job ad I looked at was actually from CARET and the Faculty of Education at Cambridge. It was quite bizarre -- these jobs don't come up very often. The job description was a very close match to my background.

I applied in late August, and didn't hear anything for about a month. I actually only found out that I was shortlisted last Monday, and the interview was on Wednesday night. Despite some technical problems (the videoconference didn't go according to plan) I thought it went pretty well. I answered all the questions and seemed to get along well with the interviewers.

After the interview I had a strange deflated feeling -- perhaps because I had hardly slept the night before with nervousness, but also because there was really nothing I could do after that point. I mentally prepared myself for the possibility that I might get the job, but I had also didn't expect too much because I knew the other candidates would be strong.

On Friday night we got home late and got the news by email. It said that they had given the job I applied for to another candidate. Again I had that sinking feeling in my stomach, along with the sort of immediate acceptance that I had tried my best. But then I kept reading.

The next sentence said that they had been impressed with my interview and my background, and wanted to offer me a different, even better, position. I was absolutely stunned. Not only was I going to Cambridge, they were offering me a new position that they were creating just for me, and it would be 100% within CARET, which is exactly where I wanted to work. I had got even more than I'd asked for!

Lotte and I have been so excited since getting the news we have hardly had time to think about anything else. The position is for 12 months in the first instance. We'll move to Cambridge in January. So if anyone knows of some good accommodation in or around Cambridge, let me know!

Cambridge!!

Well, this one is a biggie. We found out late last night that I've been offered a position at CARET at the University of Cambridge, starting in January. I don't have time to tell the whole story right now but needless to say we are both incredibly excited and will be rushing to get everything in order before we leave. Wow!

Poor neglected blog

Okay, okay, so I haven't been updating much lately. Well, at all. It's just that I don't have a lot to talk about. Well, there's news, but for various reasons I'm not able to talk about it here yet. Maybe more soon.

I can say that I've been very busy lately. At the start of October I took over the coordinator role for my group and it's meant quite a bit of extra work behind the scenes, on top of my normal project load. Some of it is boring, but some of it is quite interesting as well.

It's hard to believe that we're almost in November already and that MLX is only just around the corner. It's a strange feeling not to have to worry about how the registrations are going, or to attend volunteer meetings at every spare moment.

The labyrinthitis continues, unfortunately, and on Monday I went in for an MRI, which was actually a much more greuling experience than I had imagined. Nothing at all like a CT Scan, which was pretty easy. The main difference is that the whole machine shudders and makes a huge racket, which makes you feel like you have your head inside a jet engine while it's starting up. It's very offputting.

I also wasn't prepared for the strange feeling of the magnet sort of scanning around... it's a very odd sensation and sort of made me think of weird science fiction brain probing experiments. The stragest feeling was my eyeballs sort of jiggling around as though they were being buffeted by an invisible force (which they probably were). I thought magnets only had an effect on metal! Perhaps it was just the vibrations of the machinery as it clunks around.

Whatever it was, I finished up with a king sized headache and my eyes were watering from movement. The funniest thing was they ask you to bring along a CD of your favourite music, which I did, but you can't hear a bloody thing. First they shove huge earplugs in your ears, and then they turn up the volume so you can just hear it. But as soon as the scanning starts, you can't hear anything else at all. I got up to find the medicos talking about what great dance music I'd chosen and smiling broadly, so at least someone was happy.

Horoscope time

At a meeting at work today one person was talking about horoscopes, and as a result mine was read aloud.

Libra
The prevailing influence brings a strong masculine energy into the day and may increase your sexual appetite. Now that's not a bad thing, so plan a bit of fun tonight. But through the day you shouldn't flirt or that may be taken the wrong way! Keep your energy firmly focussed on achieving your goals.

Now, when they got to the part in bold of course everyone was in hysterics. I started to turn a nice shade of bright pink and everyone wanted to know what starsign Lotte was. Naturally the next thing that was read out was hers:

Virgo
Happy Birthday Virgo: This should be the perfect day to attain a goal, make a dream come true or fulfil an ambition. All things can be realised when you take a stand, be courageous and work for your own benefit. This is not a hostile thing; you just want to know you've done it alone! Plan a hot and sultry romantic night if that's possible!

Of course they had to add that last line just to embarass me in front of my colleages, didn't they?

New MLX Chapter

Well, I haven't been able to post about it until now but it's finally public. We're not going to be coordinating MLX this year. It was a tough decision to make, but we're both relieved too. I think it's going to be really different for both of us to be there as attendees and just enjoy the vibe, and the new team is going to be great. I'm not quite sure if they know what they've gotten themselves into, but that's probably a good thing. Here's our announcement, made yesterday night.

How BSG Killed TV

Further to my previous post, see this article from Mindjack if you need any more convincing or if you just want to know some more details. Download the presentation this article is based on with Bittorrent here. The end of the broadcast age is nigh, I tell ya.

BSG Season 2

So now I will turn my attention to something far more interesting, and certainly more enjoyable. The new Battlestar Galactica. Season 2 is now upon us. At least, if you are in the US or have access to recordings from the US. There is no indication that any of the Australian free to air networks have picked up Season 2, despite (or perhaps due to) Network Ten's botched airing of the first series down under. So local BSG fans have no idea if or when it will arrive here.

Enter peer 2 peer networks like Bittorrent. Newspapers are reporting that Australian TV viewers are increasingly turning to downloading episodes of series like BSG out of frustration. Speaking hypothetically of course, if I was to engage in any bittorrenting, I know I would still be keen to watch a series like BSG on free to air TV. I'm a big enough fan to even go to the expense of purchasing the entire series on DVD. I'm already planning to get the first series on DVD and I've watched that through a couple of times now. Just about all the other BSG fans I know are similarly committed to owning the series on DVD. It might just be a BSG thing, I don't know.

What it says to me is that networks will be increasingly under pressure to air series that enjoy international success more quickly. It just can't be sustainable for Australian networks to withold episodes for 12 months or more when your average 10 year old can download them from the US the day after their release. Sure it's a hassle to download, and it's bandwidth that you pay for, but if the alternative is waiting indefinitely, people will do it.

Anyway, all that being said, I am really enjoying Season 2 of BSG. Not only is the plot in this series more involved than the last one, the characters are being revealed in more detail, which is the most engaging thing of all for me. I heartily recommend it to anyone, even if you have no interest at all in Sci Fi. Suffice to say that the issues explored are very relevant to today's headlines, and also include the sort of timeless themes of a real masterpiece. I just cannot speak highly enough of the writing, the direction and the acting in this show. If you don't know what I'm talking about, track down the New Battlestar Galactica mini series in your local video shop -- it's easy to find and it watches just like a movie. You'll be hooked.

Blogsick

Today I have been thinking about why I haven't been blogging much lately. It's simple really. I'm sick of hearing myself whine about being sick. It seems to be the main topic of conversation everywhere and with everyone, and it seems to affect just about every aspect of life. So I can't be bothered writing about it here any more. I want to be over it. I want to just put it behind me like it was last week's news. So I think I will.

Secret to Bush's success

I've finally found out what Bush's secret is. "When people hear the President speak, frankly they think he's really stupid. But what people don't realize is that there is a genius behind the stupidity". See for yourself.

The 3 Worst Things About Day Surgery

You might think that going into hospital at 6.45am for a 'day procedure' requiring general anaesthetic and swallowing a camera so someone can snip some bits of your stomach and oesophagous out for tests would be bad enough. Indeed you might be right. However I've discovered that the three worst things about day surgery aren't really directly to do with surgery at all.

1. Trying to sleep the night before. For someone who has never been under a general in his life I think I was pretty cool calm and collected about the whole thing. But it was just like going on a big trip -- you just don't want to miss that plane. So even though I got to sleep by about 10.30pm I kept waking up... 4am, 4.30am, 5.00am, 5.15am, 5.35am... etc. etc. The most annoying thing? We got to the hospital ahead of time and were directed by a security guy up to the doctor's suite where we waited for 30 mins. When nobody arrived we finally found out we had been told the wrong thing and had to go to Admissions, one level down. Thanks, security guy.

2. Getting your car towed. Yes, I was sleepy and distracted, and it was dark when we arrived. However, it was still pretty stupid to misread the sign on Victoria Parade. I think I only read the part where it said we could park for 2 hours from 9.30am. Not the part that said TOW AWAY ZONE 7am-9.30am. Our brand new car is now sitting in a pound somewhere in the city.

3. Daytime TV sucks. Man, I always forget just how much. When Oprah Winfrey and Judge Judy are the highlights of the day's viewing, "you got problems". Talk to the hand because the face ain't listening.

Anyway the doc says everything looks normal in my gullet, so that's a positive.

New Video

Check out this amazing new instructional video: How to dance like a white guy.

Back home

Well, we arrived home to a cold and rainy Melbourne yesterday evening and it's been a lazy Sunday doing very little but recovering from the journey home. I'll keep posting pictures from the rest of the trip in the next few days.

Unfortunately I have a lot to do. Last week the server hosting all my sites and my email was hacked badly. Slydog is moving everything over to a new host and hopefully we will have things back up and running soon, but in the meantime SwingTalk is down along with the MLX site and all the others. My email is only accessible through a web client right now and I'm not actually sure if all my mail will be there when it's back up. Slightly scary.

Still, it's good to be home. I didn't actually miss much in Australia while I was away because I was having too much fun, but I did miss my cat, Mr Squiggle. He didn't miss me at all, I'm sure. As long as he's fed, he's happy.

Friesland

We left Zeeland on Saturday morning and took the train to meet up with our friends Daan and Thomas at the house in Utrecht. That afternoon we drove 2 hours north to the province of Friesland, where Friesian cows, and the English language originate from. We stayed overnight at Thomas' sister's place in Leeuwarden. It was funny to think that we'd travelled the entire length of the country in less than a day. One thing I noticed about Leeuwarden was that the architecture was different. The churches did not have much decoration and things were in general very sombre and old fashioned.

[g-280116] [g-280117]

We headed back towards Utrecht on Sunday the 3rd of July along the Afsluitdijk, which is an amazing 30km long construction that keeps the north of Holland from being flooded and battered by the ocean. Below you can see a ship coming through one of the lochs in the dyke, and a couple of workers pushing a small rock into place to build the dyke up.

[g-280118] [g-280119]

Zeeland

Skip forward a few days now to Wednesday the 29th of July -- the day we arrived in Zeeland, Holland. For those who don't know, Zeeland is where New Zealand gets its name (spelt Nieuw Zeeland in Dutch). It's the southernmost province of Holland and is famous for its beaches. We stayed with Lotte's mum and grandma in a very small house (het strandhuisje) right on the sand at Vlissingen. Sort of like a bathing box with mod-cons. I really like this photo of the sunset over the beach. I snapped it from the front of the strandhuisje looking up along the beach just before 10pm. The days are very long right now, with twilight lasting until after 11pm.

[g-280108]

Here's a shot of me right in front of the strandhuisje looking about as relaxed as I can be. I must say it probably looks a tiny bit warmer than it actually was there, but while the wind is bracing, when the sun shines it's very pleasant. I can't say it does much for the temperature of the water though. I went for one swim and it felt about as warm as freshly melted snow.

[g-280110]

One of the really fun things about this beach is that it's actually right at the end of the river that leads to the port at Antwerpe, so about every 2 minutes you see a huge ship only about 1km off the beach. So spotting ships through the binoculars is one of the main passtimes.

[g-280113]

Our other main passtime was playing Yahtzee. Also in the picture are Lotte's mum, dad and grandma (or in Dutch, Oma).

[g-280114]

Hameau du Lac

Here we have a few shots of us nearby the house in Hameau du Lac. On Saturday we decided to head down to the stream behind the house to see if we could have a swim. It was a bit too green for me to swim but Lotte and Dory had fun on the crocodile.

[g-280094] [g-280093]

Sunday was a funny day that sort of started with a minor disaster but finished in style. Just as Bil was taking our rental car around a tight corner he snagged some sharp bricks beside the road and popped a tyre. We had a brief pitstop before heading on to the beach.

[g-280095]

That night we had, I think, one of the best meals of the whole trip at a restaurant just near Sigean that was recommended to us by Lotte's aunt Anna called the Hotel St. Anne. They did a special 3 course menu for us that included the beautiful fish dish below, all for 17 Euros each. We were the only customers in the place that night and I have no idea why because it was truly gourmet stuff. I believe it starts to get a lot busier in July and August though.

[g-280096]

Eus

After Castelnou we headed out for a drive to a lake. The plan was to have a swim, but about 5 minutes into our journey we were in the middle of a deluge that turned into a hailstorm. It was very dramatic. We waited by the side of the road until it cleared and then headed on our way. By the time we got to where we were going it was dry and we swam anyway (well, I didn't, but I wasn't feeling like it). Oh yeah, and we ate icecreams.

[g-280104]

On our way back, we found a tiny tiny village on a hilltop called Eus. You pronounce that "UH". We laughed about that for hours. What would you say if someone asks where you live? "Uh... UH". Anyway it was beautiful.

[g-280092] [g-280091] [g-280105]

Castelnou

These shots are of a beautiful village & chateau called Castelnou, which is about an hour's drive from Sigean. I highly recommend going there. There's a cafe and winery, of course, but the highlights are the views and the buildings dating back to 989AD. The town is now inhabited mostly by artisans who sell to the many visitors. We spent a couple of hours there just taking everything in.

[g-280102] [g-280103] [g-280120] [g-280086]

Just when we started thinking that we were the only non-French tourists there, we ran into this Dutch couple with their dog. Lotte introduced herself and started talking to them before she realised they were Dutch. We all introduced ourselves as "Geoff from Canada, Matt from Australia", etc. until Lotte said "and me and my sister and her boyfriend are from Holland". The Dutch guy smiled and said "We are also from Holland but we are from the REAL Holland!" Then Lotte started to speak to him in Dutch and he realised that she was actually from the real Holland too, so we all laughed.

[g-280087]

And here are some more from Castelnou. The sign was outside a small art/craft marketplace that was deserted. Looks like it belongs in an episode of 'Allo 'Allo.

[g-280088] [g-280089] [g-280090]

The House & Bill at Port La Nouvelle

Here are a couple of shots taken of Doris at the house at Hameau du Lac. The town's name means "hamlet on the lake" and that's exactly what it is. The house was actually quite a bit bigger than I had imagined from the photos, with three floors and an outside balcony and a living area at the back with a very high ceiling. Dory slept in a loft in the living area. The first photo shows Dory and Lotte in the kitchen getting ready for dinner on Thursday night. The second is Dory posing with a beautiful portrait that Justin painted of her using Nutella on a crepe on Friday morning. Crepes are sold in packages everywhere there.

[g-280112] [g-280085]

This last one is very special because it comes with a story. Later on Thursday night we went to Port la Nouvelle, which is the local resort village on the beach. We were standing on the square watching a musical comedy duo play fishing songs and polkas when Bilby grabbed Lotte for a dance and impressed the locals. Immediately after completing one dance a man in his 60s looked over at Bill and suggested gleefully that he take his wife for a spin. Bill manfully accepted the task and the lady looked like her face was about to explode with excitement as they danced around in circles. The moment captured below is when she was completely overcome and decided she should jump onto Bill and wrap her legs around him. The look on Bilby's face says it all.

[g-280115]

Narbonne

Later on Thursday we went to check out Narbonne, a much larger city than Sigean with a beautiful square, a market, canals, and a small loch. In the middle of the city is a cathedral. Of course, I have photos of all those things but there's too much to upload so you'll have to make do with this cheesy selection of us walking around the city. Narbonne was definitely my favourite of the bigger cities close to where we were staying. The couple with us in the pics are Justin and Sara (Lotte's sister). We just found out that Sara will be coming to visit us in Australia soon after we get back!

[g-280109] [g-280111] [g-280099] [g-280100] [g-280101]

We have the luxury of a reliable broadband connection while we're in Utrecht for the next couple of weeks, so it's time to start putting a few photos online. We have about 2,500 to choose from because we pooled all the photos from 7 digital cameras amongst our friends on the France leg of the trip! Needless to say, I've been through and picked only a few from the library.

Starting from the beginning, here are a few shots from Sigean, which is the closest town to Hameau Du Lac where we were staying in France. These were taken on Thursday the 23rd of July -- the day after we arrived in the south of France from Toulouse. Sigean is tiny, with one doglegged main street with tiny alleys leading off it to explore.

[g-280106] [g-280107] [g-280098] [g-280097]

Back in Holland

It was about a 16 hour drive from Sigean, France to Zeeland, The Netherlands. We're so tired! But it's good to be back in Holland. We dropped in to Ko's place for a cuppa before heading to Ans' to drop off our stuff. Next is a short bike ride down to the beach box where we'll spend the next two nights. I'm looking forward to doing absolutely nothing for a while. Justin gave me a DVD with all the photos everyone took in the South of France leg, so I'll get to uploading some of those while I'm in Holland. Not all of them, though -- there are something like 2000.

Bonjour from Narbonne

For those who don't know, I'm currently on holiday in Europe. Today is our last day in France before we head up to Holland by car. So far things have been really great (apart from my health, which remains poor). We spent the first two nights in Paris before meeting Bill, Dory and Geoff and taking the train down to Toulouse. One great night in Toulouse (with lots of dancing and not much sleep) left us tired for the car trip down to Hameau du Lac (near Sigean) but it was worth it. We've spent the last week just relaxing and seeing sights in the Sigean, Narbonne and Perpignan region. Lots of castles and beaches and small villages to explore. We have stacks of photos but I don't have time to upload anything right now apart from this one of Lotte being the Eiffel tower.

[g-274468]

Intel inside

So it's true. Apple is putting Intel chips into Macs from next year. The five stages of Intel Macs has an amusing take on the way it panned out. For the full story, you need to see the Steve Jobs' WWDC Keynote.

I've been mulling it over for a week now and I guess I'm starting to see the sense in it. They're not talking about ditching Apple hardware, just about making it faster and cheaper. They're also not talking about another painful OS9 -> OSX type jump. Anything that runs on PPC will still run courtesy of Rosetta, with a 30-40% speed hit that will be at least partly compensated for by the horsepower of the new boxes. And developers are for the most part very positive, meaning that we shouldn't see a return to the days of Copland when developers started leaving in droves. The proof of the pudding will be how smooth the transition is, of course, and how well Apple is able to ride out the inevitable blip in its sales as people wait for the new boxes to arrive in a year's time.

Digital TV ahoy

Last week I'd pretty much decided that it was time to get a digital set top box to improve our reception at home. Our antenna was blown off the roof soon after I moved in and for various reasons (long story) we've never replaced it. Of course, those little rabbit ears only go so far. Then I learnt that JB Hi Fi was selling set top boxes for $99, so yesterday I went out and got one (a Soniq DVB12). Took 5 minutes to plug in, and it works a treat. Crystal clear TV, with program guides and all. And at that price, you can't go too far wrong.

Thousands hit by train delays

On the front page of the web edition of The Age today was this Odd Spot article:

A 39-year-old Chinese man, Zhang Xinquan, has put his right ear in an iron clamp device, locked with a long bolt, then pulled a 21.8-tonne train 40 metres with it within four minutes.

Directly underneath was the headline: Thousands hit by train delays. These things amuse me.

Natalie & Yuval make the blog time

This entry on Screenhead, the online review of "funny shit" accords New York swing dancers Natalie and Yuval new geekly fame by linking directly to a clip of their "Swing Me Brother Swing" routine at the World Swing Dance Invitational. I wonder if they are wondering exactly what hit their server a day or so ago. Dig those aerials.

To drupe or not to drupe

A few of us are getting peeved again at the amount of time ModBlog has been down lately. I've been toying with the idea of moving my entire blog over to my own drupal installation and offering blog space to friends too.

The positives of Modblog are many. I think the gallery is the most impressive thing about it, but there's also the sense of community generated from the automatic links to other users as they browse your blog. You have a feeling that there is an audience of some sort out there. But I have to say it's a pretty non-vocal one. The only comments that are ever posted here really are from my own IRL friends.

The other features here are nice, but there are mostly equivalents in a drupal world. So really the only major negative of moving to this new blogspace would be the lack of a really good gallery management system. There are drupal-based gallery mods, but they suck by comparison with the one here.

The big upside of moving would be the ability to limit access. No anonymous browsing (unless we want it). This would mean that the audience for the blogs would be limited in size, but the idea would be that it would become a more close and vocal sub-community that we would all feel free to participate in just outside of the public gaze. More of an invitation-only party than a public event.

Slippery Elm

One of the only good things about feeling unwell for a significant period of time is, of course, the feeling of relief when you have a good day. I caught myself saying to Lotte tonight "I feel so happy when I'm not sick". She just laughed. But it's really what I was feeling.

It's all because of Slippery Elm. By last weekend I'd had enough of feeling nauseous all the time and was getting an increasing amount of indigestion too. It turns out that the uneasy stomach associated with this inner ear infection can result in gastric reflux. Great. So I decided to go off to the local Pharmacist and ask him what I should be doing about it. The answer was to take a strange substance called Slippery Elm after meals. It's just the inner bark of a tree ground up. The stuff comes in capsules, which I just break open and mix into tea or aloe vera juice. It's actually not all that bad tasting and man, it works. So if you're ever feeling sick, look out for this stuff.

Finding Your Passion

I seem to be waning on the blog entry side of things. No excuses! Instead I'll give a quick update on as many things as possible. First, the building work on our house continues apace. I can hardly believe that I have failed to document the entire process with pictures, but I'll try to get some tonight. Of course, pretty much all there is to see now is a bunch of freshly painted walls looking extremely nice, but anyone who visited our place prior to the repairs should see the improvement. We're both delighted with the quality of the work. They are clearly using very good quality materials and doing the hard stuff like the details as well as the more obvious stuff. They're even repainting walls that didn't need to be repaired at all so that everything matches exactly.

The weekend was quite relaxing. Lotte has been doing quite a few sleepover shifts lately while we save up for our trip, so Squigs and I had a couple of nights to ourselves towards the end of the week. I decided I needed to get a new game for the Xbox to while away those nights and went with a pre-loved copy of Medal of Honour: The Front Line on the recommendation of Thomas from Holland. Not a bad pick up for only $25 I thought, but I haven't really had a chance to play for long yet. I'd like to try it in multiplayer mode but I doubt it would compare to BF 1942 (which rocks on the new iMac G5, by the way).

We went to lunch at Mum and Dad's on Sunday. It was really great to see the famdamly and as a bonus Gran and Uncle Dave were there. Uncle Dave is the funniest uncle ever, I think, and he never fails to crack me up. It's always fun to see Lotte's reactions to his jokes because I know she's thinking about the our particular family's brand of humour. Anyway Lotte had to go to another sleepover shift and I had some time to kill before going to see the Cairo Club at Mayfields, so I went and saw an early evening showing of Star Wars III. The reviews are right. It sucks slightly less than the other two prequals. That's about all I can say about it though. The lego version of the Star Wars characters are more human than these cardboard cut outs if you ask me. It's just so disappointing. I'd vote for Ron Moore to remake the entire series if I could.

Speaking of which, I am really starting to miss Battlestar Galactica. I've tried to keep myself occupied by reading the Battlestar Blog (minus the spoilers) and watching the series again as it went to air. I even read Philip K. Dick's The Simulacra, which I expected to be a good sci fi novel about human identity. It was not. It was a load of complete and utter drivel that I cannot believe is written by the same guy who came up with Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, which of course was adapted to become Blade Runner. I've read a few works now by Philip K. Dick, and some of them weren't great, but none were as impressively ridiculous as this one. Does anyone out there have recommendations for better stuff by him? I'll be interested to see the film version of A Skanner Darkly. It's a pretty short story so I'm wondering how they'll get a full feature movie out of it actually.

The plot summary of A Scanner Darkly says "Caustically funny, eerily accurate in its depiction of junkies, scam artists, and the walking brain-dead, Philip K. Dick's industrial-grade stress test of identity is as unnerving as it is enthralling." Yeah, maybe it's eerily accurate because apparently one of my favourite sci fi authors was not unknown to illegal substances himself. That helps to explain why an awful lot of the character development in The Simulacra is along those lines. It's not that it's not accurately written, it's just that it doesn't seem to add much to the story. And there are so many little ideas that just don't get followed up in the plot that it feels like a lot of things are happening but there just aren't any real consequences. Even by the end I couldn't really figure out who the main protagonists were let alone start feeling any kind of empathy for them. I've never gotten to the end of a novel before with the feeling like I hadn't gotten to the main story yet. Maybe I'm just missing something. I'm sure I've just offended a lot of hard core sci fi fans, but maybe someone will explain why I'm wrong.

One thing that I must start writing more about here is the theme that seems to link a lot of my interests together: identity. I've noticed that this is the real area that interests me about my thesis, and the related themes about performance, constructing the self, subjectivity, and ontology are really just ways of investigating "the big issue" for me. Gameplay and educational issues like authenticity are definitely of less importance in terms of my interest. That's weird I think because I'm an educational designer who loves games. I've mentioned that Blade Runner (whose main theme is human identity) is my favourite movie, and that BSG gets me for exactly the same reason. The same thing with Total Recall (another Philip K Dick remake as it happens). Clearly I'm not alone in finding this theme of identity compelling, but I do find it interesting to notice that my academic interests have come around to it as well. One of the things that Paul Gruba (co-author of Writing A Better Thesis) says is that you really need to take notice of where your passion lies. Well, I can't write my thesis about Lindy Hop or cricket, so I guess this will have to do.

A challenging week

No blogging for a few days from me. Sorry about that. I seem to have been a bit to preoccupied with being dizzy to blog, and it all just seemed like more of the same, so I didn't bother. Basically the story for the past few days has been the same -- mild nausea and dizziness with occasional bouts where it becomes too difficult to walk/work/do anything. I went home from work on Tuesday and just had to sleep. Last night I didn't have any symptoms until about 9.30pm, when I started to feel bad, and I just went to sleep early. Woke up feeling okay at 8am. The rest of the morning wasn't so great, but I'm feeling mostly better again now.

Meanwhile the builders continue to cause havoc, but are progressing quickly. They've now put ducting under the house and today seemed to be shaping up to paint our newly repaired hallway wall. This is a very good sign because it hopefully means that there will be less dust around the place -- no more sanding back the new plaster. Until they start work on the other walls at any rate. Lotte picked a good time to have two night shifts because yesterday the dust was all the way to the back of the house (including completely covering one of Lotte's red shoes, turning it white).

Yesterday after some relationship troubles Ursi booked herself on a flight home to Zurich. It was sad to hear that she was leaving early, and when I responded to her message we arranged to meet up for a coffee to say goodbye. Unfortunately Lotte couldn't come because she was at work. Anyway she was in reasonable spirits -- quite philosophical really, and we talked about meeting up again in Herrang. She's still deciding whether she'll come back and study here next year. I hope she does.

With one thing and another this has been a challenging week for us and a lot of our friends. The Swede went in for surgery yesterday on her hip. I spoke to her last night though and she was doing really well. Sounds like the surgery was a big success, but only time will tell for sure. I hope next week will be a better one for everyone.

Goddank voor het winkelwagentje

Thank goodness for the shopping trolley. That's what Lotte said as we left the Barkly Square shopping centre car park. Something about that shopping centre sets off my labyrinthitis, I tell ya. That's the third time I've had a dizzy attack there this week, and this one was the worst. I literally had to wheel myself around with the shopping trolley. Then I bailed and just sat it out on a chair outside Coles while Lotte finished shopping. We came home and I took a Stemetil (an anti nausea drug) and slept for an hour. I still feel like crap now. What a crazy party animal I am sitting at home at 7.30pm on a Saturday night in my jammies.

Last night was a different story. Again I didn't notice any real ill effects of dancing when we went to the Fun Pit. I definitely wasn't dancing at my best, but I didn't feel dizzy or nauseous. I did feel tired towards the end of the night though. I have this theory that my brain works overtime trying to keep me in balance and it tires me out.

On a cheery note Dory just called and invited us to breakfast tomorrow morning. Last week we did the same and it was really a lot of fun so I am determined to be right by then. The dizzy spells only ever seem to go for a short while anyway. Maybe an hour or two at the outside. Sometimes they are no more than 15 mins long. Also Ursi textmessaged Lotte to ask after me. Awwww.

Sea Legs

This ear thing is really not a lot of fun. Just when I thought I was feeling really great I had a pretty bad afternoon. This morning I woke up and felt absolutely fine, with no symtoms at all. I got through till around midday before I started feeling bad. I probably had about half an hour of feeling like crap before I cae good again. Then Lotte and I met up for lunch and just before we got there I started feeling bad again. It's really hard to describe the feeling. It's a bit like you've been away on a ship for a week and you're trying to find your land legs again. On top of that every now and then there's a big swell. Only problem is, nothing is actually moving! My stomach feels constantly on the edge while this is happening and I get this sensation of being out of control. If I'm walking, I feel compelled to immediately slow down and have to fight the feeling to continue walking at all.

For the past couple of days I've also felt a dull headache that goes all the way up the back of my neck to the crown and behind my right eye. I decided this was one thing I could try and fix and booked in for a neck massage with our favourite massage therapist, Bernie. He is a true pro, and concentrated entirely on the magic spot in the right side that was sending a shaft of pain along the exact path of my headache. So now at least my head feels a little better.

On a positive note, last night was my first try at dancing since Monday, and I found I was able to dance with absolutely no feeling of dizziness whatsoever. It really seems as though the dizziness is not related to what I'm doing at all. In fact I seem to be more likely (or maybe I notice it more) to suffer a dizzy spell when I'm sitting down for a while. I reckon I'm also more likely to start getting the spells when I'm feeling tired, which makes sense too. Until I start feeling better I am going to try to rest up as much as possible. But I am going to try dancing again tonight.

Permission to dance

I've been doing some reading about labyrinthitis and all the advice I've seen tells me that I should now be getting back on my feet and moving.

For example, the Vestibular Disorders Association website:
If treated promptly, many inner ear infections cause no permanent damage. In some cases, however, permanent loss of hearing, ranging from barely detectable to total, can result. Your doctor will be able to advise you about the usefulness of hearing aids in your individual case. Permanent damage to the vestibular system can also result. Fortunately, the brain can adapt to damage to the vestibular system, particularly when the damage is partial and/or confined to one side. This adaptation may take days to months, depending on how severe the damage is and how quickly the body is able to recover from the infection. Symptoms of dizziness, difficulty with vision, and imbalance may persist as long as the adaptation is incomplete. This adaptation can only occur if the patient makes an effort to keep moving around despite the symptoms of dizziness and imbalance. Sitting or lying with the head still, while more comfortable, can prolong or even prevent the adaptation process, and should be avoided if at all possible once the worst of the infection is over.

I take this as my permission to dance. I'll have a rest night tonight, but tomorrow I'll be teaching again. Unfortunately I am still experiencing the dizziness today and it can be quite offputting, but it sounds like it's not a good idea to just stop alltogether. Suits me. I find it boring to sit at home anyway. And I feel absolutely fine apart from the nausea and dizziness.

Fletcherising in Cairo

I've been thinking a lot about a 20s - early 30s themed dance night at MLX this year. The main reason of course is the continuing evidence that Peter Milley's 10 piece Cairo Club Orchestra is one of the most engaging and talented swing era bands playing in Melbourne. On top of that, we have never actually heard CCO play at MLX, and there is an increasing interest in big band music from an earlier era -- particularly that of the early 1930s. The downsides of such an idea are few, but one of them is that many dancers find the tempos of the hotter stomps and charlestons to be too difficult, and the durges are too slow for some people. So it's this feeling that the night could be frustrating for some dancers.

My first thoughts are to try to talk to Milley about the idea of tailoring a song list for Lindy Hoppers. We usually do that anyway when hiring a band for MLX. But then I got to thinking about the idea of asking if he would consider looking for arrangements of particular tunes that I know the dancers would go for. The trick is that the line up CCO uses is very consistent and almost always includes a banjo, giving the band that very particular Charleston/dixie feel that only a banjo can. I know that they use a guitar sometimes though. And maybe their banjo player can also play guitar, or they can use another guitarist on certain arrangements.

Anyway in my fantasy world they would transcribe or find arrangements for the Fletcher Henderson classics like Big John's Special, Christopher Columbus, Wrappin It Up (The Lindy Glide), The Sugarfoot Stomp, The Henderson Stomp, and The Moten Stomp. These are all particular favourites of mine. I'd also be interested in talking to him about some Chick Webb and Jimmie Lunceford stuff of course, but I don't know if they would go for it. Webb's Strictly Life, Go Harlem and (oh my) Harlem Congo, and Lunceford's Four or Five Times, Lunceford Special, Tain't What You Do, Harlem Shout and For Dancers Only would all be great. Food for thought.

The swizzle

One ingredient turned out to be more important than all of the others in that recipe. The swizzle. Turns out I have viral labyrinthitis, which explains why I was feeling so crap this morning. Basically it's extreme dizziness and nausea caused by a virus getting into your inner ear. It got worse after I posted, and I had a bunch of dizzy spells over the weekend so it all fell into place when the doc peered inside my ear canal. I can't work like this. I have felt ill all day and dizzy for most of it. So it's off home (or somewhere) to rest, a course of antibiotics, and anti-nausea drugs for a couple of days.

Recipe for extreme sleepiness

Ingredients:
1 Friday night dance night (5am or later)
1 Renovation preparation box-moving exercise (start 10am or earlier)
1 Saturday night birthday party (4am or later)
1 Breakfast with friends (start 10 am or earlier)
1 Contact improvisation class (2 hours or more)
1 Mother's Day family meal
1 Host film premier with extremely fast dancing involved (12 am or later)
1 Early morning commencement of renovations (7am start)

Instructions:
Take all of the above and stick them together in one weekend. Garnish with the remains of a cold and swizzle.

That twenties feeling

Tonight was the premiere of the SwingCity DVD. The band was the Cairo Club Orchestra, and we've just arrived home tired and aching and covered in sweat. Cairo Club is an authentic 20s dance band, and there really is nothing quite like it in Melbourne. They play charts you won't hear anywhere else, like 'My Canary Has Circles Under His Eyes' and a really beautiful version of 'The Mooch', which remains one of my favourite songs. The quality of the band is such that every soloist is compelling without dominating the arrangments. I also absolutely love the trumpets in this band, of which the bandleader Peter Milley is the lead. They always amaze me with their precision, and they make a lot of use of mutes, which I always love.

The DVD went down very well, and we finally have our first batch of re-authored DVDs (i.e. without the sound glitch in the first run). It's satisfying to see it on the big screen and hear people laughing and joking in the audience. Naturally we talked all night about what we were planning for this year's event. We're officially excited again. It always takes a long while.

Ursibursi

One of the true delights of being an organiser of a lindy hop event is getting to know people. Not just people in your own lindy hop scene -- that's a delight in itself, but just about anyone should be able to do that if they are persistent. Getting to know people from all over the world who share the same passion that you do. My next trip to Herrang will by my 5th, which means I have probably been there more times than any other Australian I guess. The main reason I go is definitely because of MLX. It's a way to tell people about our exchange, and it's also a way to speak to those particular people you want to invite. It was at Herrang last year that I finally got to catch up with Lorenz and Ursi, and I think they wouldn't have made it down for SwingCity if I hadn't been able to see them in person that second time.

So now Ursi is back in Melbourne visiting her newfound friends (and one in particular). She's even planning to come back on a semi-permanent basis next year. Lotte and I had lunch with her in Lygon Street today and just talked about swing organising the whole time. Apart from being an amazing dancer Ursi is just one of the nicest (and cutest) people I've ever met. She's teaching workshops on May the 21sts and 22nd, by the way, so if you're a lindy hopper in Melbourne I highly recommend that you get there. She's truly a world class dancer.

Basie Centennial Clips

Dachelle just pointed me in the direction of a batch of video clips available by FTP from the Basie Centennial event in New York last year. These are fantastic clips and include some terrific footage from the Hellzapoppin' contest there. See for yourself (but make sure you have broadband). ftp://dans.poy.no/events/y6a/

Life is good

Life is good today. I had been feeling a little sorry for myself this week after having suffered for at least 10 days with the effects of the Hullabaloo 'flu (a cold, really). It's not one of those debilitating colds -- just one that's hard to shake. Anyway yesterday and today I have been feeling decidedly more upbeat, and I put it down to the receding effects of the virus. Last night we invited Ursi from Switzerland to join our troupe training. It was an excellent decision as she inspired us all. Watching a professional dancer of her calibre is intimidating to be sure, but it challenges us, and we are often struggling to find new ways to bring our dancing to a new level. She showed us a very short routine to a slow jazz track from a Starbucks compilation CD. I'm having trouble tracking down the track name, unfortunately. Anyway the routine focussed strong, slow movements combined with fast ones, and it was incredibly difficult to infuse with quite the same feeling as Ursi.

I think I was able to do it all the way through on the correct time, but I was struggling with pretty much all the nuances of movement. For one thing, body rolls are something I just don't seem to be able to do with my computer-stiff back and neck. I fantasise sometimes about the idea of dancing all day every day, and wonder how my body would be transformed. It would be really interesting to find out just how much flexibility and strength someone like me could get with the kind of daily regimen that someone like Ursi uses. She told us on the way home that she has trained 2 hours a day while she's been here, and she has felt like she has been slacking off dramatically. I'm sure that if I trained for an hour a day for one week I would imagine that I was an elite athlete. It's all relative I suppose.

Updates

Yesterday I took delivery of my new iMac G5 (20 inch). It's a heck of an improvement on my 17 inch iMac G4, with a 1.8GHz G5 processor and 1Gb of RAM. Now I don't want to sound like I was disappointed, but I was alarmed to read this article from ThinkSecret while I was browsing the day before I took delivery. It predicted that Apple would be revising the 20-inch iMacG5 up to 2GHz and a dual-layer Superdrive. The extra few GHz isn't such a big deal but I would have loved to get a dual layer DVD burner. Well, the news now is that the predicted hardware announcements didn't include any iMac updates anyway, so I can rest easy in the knowledge that my shiny new machine will not be outdated in its first week of ownership. It may last two.

The two big Apple update stories in Australia this week aren't hardware related, though, they have to do with OSX Tiger being released, and the expansion of the iTunes music store to Australia. Regular readers may know that I have been keenly awaiting both. Apparently there are Australians who are already successfully registering and downloading from iTMS today. However I suspect there will be a release of iTunes 4.8 to coincide with Tiger's release in a few hours when we will be able to see an Australian storefront for the first time. I plan to join, even though songs are likely to be about $US0.45 more expensive in the Australian store. I don't know how the cost difference is justified. There really is no choice if you want to be legal and buy from the store. Why be fair when you can screw people for a few extra million bucks I guess? Multinational companies win again.

It has begun

Well, planning for MLX 2005 has officially begun. I started work on the website for this year by doing a fresh installation of Drupal. I had been putting off doing much on it until the video was out of the way. Today the test DVD arrived from Dream Engine. I've given them the go ahead to duplicate after a small correction to the menu, so I hope we'll have the finished DVDs in our hot little hands by Friday.

Hullabaloo

Hullabaloo was excellent. I returned late last night with Lotte, with very sore muscles and a dose of the traditional exchange virus. We skipped the morning workshops on both days but still had plenty to challenge us. 3 hrs of classes per day really is enough when you're social dancing as well, but that might just be us. We are probably beyond the phase in our learning where we are excited enough to get up in time for an 11am class after having danced til 4am. For me the physical challenge was clearly enough as well.

The workshops were overall extremely valuable, which is something I found last year as well. There were some things that were are a disappointment of course. I was a bit frustrated by being invited to DJ and then being given a 30 minute spot in a non-preferred time. On top of that, invited DJs were expected to pay full price and were not paid. I thought that was pretty poor. Also the only live band I got to see was the Fremantle Jazz Orchestra at the Ball, and it was a really good line up with a fairly poorly chosen set list for the occasion. They played what I would expect to hear at any big band gig at a local fete -- not what I would expect for a bunch of hardcore swingers wishing to relive the swing era. They played what you would call "progressive jazz music" rather than big band swing. All young faces (which is fantastic) using new arrangements, sometimes of tunes that would best be classified as bop or trad jazz rather than swing. They performed a couple of Basie numbers, but only the one they did as an encore had any real Kansas feel about it. The other was a showtune done with a distinctly Sinatra-Basie style (I can't quite remember the number right now).

These things are certainly a matter of taste, and taste is personal. However I noticed that a lot of people were sitting down for a lot of the night, so I started to feel that I wasn't Robinson Crusoe. The rhythm just didn't have that swingin' drive, and there were no themes you could play with. It makes it tough on dancers.

Enough of my minor nitpicks, though. On the positive side of the ledger the Perthies have got to be just about the most welcoming and generous group of swing dancers in the country. Their passion is unsurpassed. This always gives me a great feeling, and it comes through in their events. The weekend opened for me with a riverboat cruise down the Swan. That was really a lot of fun. The boat itself was larger than I had imagined and had two floors where you could dance. There wasn't a lot of room to swing out because everyone tended to congregate on the upper deck floor, but that gave it a really terrific atmosphere. Lotte and I concluded that "enough space" was not an important factor for good atmosphere, and in fact can often detract. The riverboat cruise was probably my favourite event actually, even though it wasn't a full on dance night.

The Saturday night dance was also really good. CRR member Brian Renehan ended up winning the Jack & Jill with Sarah Farrelley, which was a buzz for all the CRR crew because we had been working on competition stuff the previous week. They danced really well and deserved it. I don't think I've ever seen Brian look as relaxed while competing.

CRR performed the Big Apple that night too. That was also a huge buzz because it seemed to go over very well. I personally felt good about my performance, although I was struggling a bit at the beginning with a sore hamstring/groin from the classes. It was funny because I just decided to dance all out anyway and started yelling "RAAAAAAAAHH!" at the top of my voice at various stages to get myself hyped past the pain barrier. It worked. Got to remember that.

Another highlight was our host Wes, who did nothing but wait on us hand and foot all weekend. The best part was when Lotte complained that the only thing they could do to improve the service at "this hotel" was to make up the beds every day. For a nanosecond Wes looked troubled. It was very funny. We thanked him buy making him a breakfast of Dutch pancakes and hid a gift for him in his room.

One more night

Well, I only need to wait one more night before I head over to Hullabaloo for the weekend. There's only one more thing left to do: find someone to feed my cat. That shouldn't be too hard.

It's boring waiting to go. Today was a very busy day though, with 4 project meetings and a couple of other casual intra-office meetings in between. Everyone is trying to get things sorted out before the long weekend. It's strange how the effect of just one day off compresses time. The smart thing to do is leave earlier. Wish I'd thought of it.

Tomorrow I'll work on my research project and then head to the airport. I get into Perth just in time to make it to the jetty where a riverboat will take us on a cruise down Swan river. I'm worried that something will go wrong and I'll miss the boat. That would really suck, because the cruise goes for 4 and a half hours and sounds like fun.

15,000 and counting

A couple of days ago I backed up my blog just for the hell of it. I was amazed to find that I'd written more than 15,000 words in a little over a month here. That sort of workrate would mean I could write a PhD thesis in under 9 months. If only it was as easy as writing in a blog.

I do believe, however, that having a blog builds the habit of writing. My other blog -- the one I use to compile my MA thesis -- has been proof of that. While it's been quiet there lately I found that while I was writing stuff leading up to my progress report, the blog was a huge help.

Today was a really good day for a whole bunch of reasons, particularly after having such a crap day yesterday. The main thing about yesterday was a silly work related issue, and today that issue became resolved in many ways for me. That was a very positive start. Then, when I was having coffee with my boss he brought up the new iMac G5 that I'd put in for. He's approved the purchase, so hopefully I will be getting that some time soon. I also got some other really good news that I will have to report on in a later blog entry. All in all, a brilliant day.

The only downside was that Lotte left tonight for Hullabaloo and I won't be leaving until Friday night. It's going to be pretty boring at work for the next couple of days waiting to get over to Perth myself. But it will be a great weekend.

How to win a contest

Here's a lesson plan I developed for troupe.

Learning Objectives:

1. Enhance competition and performance skills.

2. Improve dancing to fast music.

3. Develop use of phrases.

Activities

Round 1
Two or three couples are partnered up randomly and must dance for 2 phrases each to a medium tempo song.

3 of the dancers act as judges while the others dance the song. Judges use criteria provided under 5 headings: Musicality, Balance, Innovation, Connection, and Entertainment. Each judge must rank each couple.(5 mins)

The 3 judges then swap in and repeat the exercise with 3 new judges. (5 mins)

Feedback
A simulated judge's conference: each judge must justify his/her choice for the top couple based on the criteria. The Facilitator moderates the discussion. (5 mins)

All Skate
Partners rotate. Each dancer attempts to put into practice at least 2 tips they got from the Feedback session. Medium tempo song. (5 mins)

Round 2
Two or three couples are partnered up randomly and must dance for 2 phrases each to a fast tempo song.

3 of the dancers act as judges while the others dance the song. Judges use criteria provided under 5 headings: Musicality, Balance, Innovation, Connection, and Entertainment. Each judge must rank each couple.(5 mins)

The 3 judges then swap in and repeat the exercise with 3 new judges. (5 mins)

Feedback
A simulated judge's conference: each judge must justify his/her choice for the top couple based on the criteria. The Facilitator moderates the discussion. (5 mins)

All Skate
Partners rotate. Each dancer attempts to put into practice at least 2 tips they got from the Feedback session. Medium tempo song. (5 mins)

Drupal 4.6

My content management software of choice, Drupal, just underwent a major update to 4.6. Naturally I wanted to try it out, so when Lotte had an assignment that required the quick set up of a website, I assisted by installing it and giving it a whirl. A fresh install was painless and rewarding. We spent about an hour sitting in the sun on Saturday morning outside A Minor Place (our favourite cafÈ) configuring the website on their wifi network. It's much nicer to set up a website when you are being served French toast and coffee.

So today I decided to upgrade eRoleplay.net to 4.6 (from 4.5.2) and met a few hurdles. Quite a few really. The update documentation is less than complete, it seems, and webmaster Joel was kind enough to help me track down the problems. Turns out we had to manually update the database in several places (making me wonder if the update script is really complete) and remove a couple of blocks that I had set up myself. After that Joel stepped back through the update process (there's a date-selector thingy on the update page) and things started working again. Phew, the database is intact and all my stuff is right where it should be. Now to re-install a few extra modules and we should be away.

If you're reading this as a content-management novice, Modblog is an example of a type of content management system. Drupal is one of a bunch of freely available systems that you can install on your own server (if you have access to a server). The advantage of this is that you have control over the features and the presentation of your stuff. You also have total control over your own data. Let's just say Modblog disappeared tomorrow -- where would your blogs entries be? The disadvantage is that they do take a bit of technical know how.

AJC Reflections

Dozza and The Crinkulator have provided some interesting insights into competing in the AJC last night. I'm still reflecting on my first AJC as Head Judge. I've judged at all 3 AJCs in various events. This was different because I was responsible for the whole judging team. Of course I've done similar things with AHP and last year's Hellz, which is no doubt why I was asked. But it was a different experience to be responsible for the conduct of the judging but not responible for the entire event. In many ways it was a relief. I didn't have to feel like the criteria, the scoring system, or even the judging and adjudicating processes were down to me. They were provided by the organisers. I simply had the job of applying those things to the competition.

I decided that I wanted to have the judge's briefing early, so the night started at 6.30pm for me. It was a good decision I reckon, because there was enough time to get things done without feeling like we were under stress. Stress is definitely one of the enemies of a happy judging team.

The most difficult event to judge, the Jack & Jill heats, was first on the program. This is where you have about 9 couples on the floor in each of 4 heats. There are 3 all skates in each heat, with a total of about 3 mins to assess 9 dancers, meaning you have a total of roughly 20 seconds per dancer to make a decision about whether to call them back for the finals. Needless to say, it's a process of elimination, but you have to spend the greatest time on the toughest decisions. You might take one look at a dancer and realise in the first few seconds that they have no hope of getting through, so you have to move on. All skates are tough to judge, but it's efficient.

Just about all the events were tough to judge, with a lot of places being very difficult to split. The beginner events were judged on all skates alone, and I found myself again having a hard time getting to see everyone for long enough. The rest of the events had shines, which helps so much. You really get a feeling that you have been able to see how they are performing and whether the partnership is working well.

Today I guess I'm thinking about how things could have been better. The night could have been shorter -- two whole beginner events plus an amateur award seems like overkill to me. I'd prefer to see the values of the contest made more explicit so that everyone knows what's expected of AJC winners, including the judges. More emphasis on the raw energy of lindy hop that inspires people would be more comfortable to me. This probably all sounds a bit like the Hellzapoppin' ideals, but there's a good reason for that. A lot of people in the US decided that contests were getting too far away from the ones that were around during the 30s and 40s.

I recognise as much as anyone that AJC should be different from AHP -- for one thing it has a connection to US jitterbug contests which are usually associated with the dance scenes in Washington and California as opposed to the roots that AHP traces from the early Harvest Moon Ball contests in New York. This is definitely going to result in a different feel, and the inclusion of Quirky 30s in AJC is a good example of that I think, and one that I really enjoyed. However I still think the particular values that AJC does embody should be clear to everyone. The best example of where this can create confusion continues to be Showcase event, where there is always a fairly liberal interpretation of "swing styles" -- mostly because the competitors can choose their own music of course. Is this a swing dance contest or not? If it's not, why is it in AJC? If it is, should a couple be marked down for including a significant amount of non-swing content? These are tricky questions, of course, but ones that have to be dealt with if people are going to be kept happy.

Hellz gets around the problem by a) carefully choosing all the music and b) by allowing absolutely anything (avoiding the mess of disqualifcations) while embodying the values that are associated with the most famous lindy clip of all time, from the movie Hellzapoppin'. If anyone ever wanted to know how they should be dancing, they have the prime example right there in the name of the contest. Not having any rules often surpises people, but of all social dances, lindy hop is surely the most permissive of all -- you can quite easily make up a move or a sequence nobody else has ever done and call it lindy hop. What's important is that people realise they are supposed to be doing something that is still identifiably lindy hop. I've never seen anyone winn at a Hellz event after busting out a lengthy jazz routine or doing a cha cha or something. Just imagine.

Filed.

When are taxes fun? Only one time that I can think of -- when you've just finished them, and you've been told that you will be getting a healthy return. Yes, finally I've done my tax returns for 2002 and 2003. And guess what? Last year's one is due next month. Anyway the pain of going through an awful lot of records and receipts was worth it.

Lotte the Radio Superstar

How cool. Lotte was interviewed for SBS Dutch radio last November, and today I found the interview online in MP3 and RealPlayer formats. Dutch-speakers might be particularly interested.

Active Learning

Here's an interesting theory on how to introduce a new element to higher education. Why not have an impromptu Lecture Musical? Oh, and no need to let the lecturer know in advance.

The Wizard of Oz

On Monday night Lotte and I had the pleasure of seeing the kids involved in the Mt Scopus production of The Wizard of Oz perform a number we had choreographed for them while Lotte was on placement as a student-teacher. The kids were really terrific. About 30 of them performed The Jitterbug, which is a song that never appeard in the film. It's a shame because it's actually a really swinging number. We did track down some shaky footage of the cast of the film rehearsing it before it was dropped (it's an extra on one of the DVDs). The challenges in choregraphing it were many: the kids varied greatly in their age and dance experience, and the number was quite long and very high energy. We needed to come up with a way for the stronger students to do some "real LindyHop" stuff without requiring too much of them, and we only had 2 sessions to teach them! Lotte did almost all of the work, of course. I just helped with the planning and choreography. We split them up into smaller groups and gave each group a short sequence. There was a longer sequence that they all did as a chorus, and then the smaller groups trade phrases, stealing the spotlight briefly. The principle actors (pictured) all needed small dance parts of their own that were not too challenging because they were singing at the same time with headmics.

The way it turned out was even better than we'd imagined, dance-wise. The kids completely nailed it, really. Musically it was not so great. Instead of using the recorded track as they had said, they decided to play the music live. That would have been a big ask for an experienced swing band, but for the student band it was a nightmare and they didn't pull it off. To the kids' credit they danced it all as though the music was spot on, and they got away with it. Thankfully there was a reprise at the end and one of the two numbers they did was The Jitterbug. It worked better musically the second time through, and it showed. After the show the kids came up to us and told Lotte that they'd seen her watching and dancing away in her seat. They went back to their friends and said "Lotte's here! Now we really have to dance well!!". It was so cute.

A Very Good Day

All in all I've decided that today was a Very Good Day. For one reason or another I've been very productive at work this week and today was no exception. It's always a good feeling when you know you're really on top of things at work. Sometimes coming to work can be a drudgery, but this week I seem have quite a lot to do and that motivates me. So I've been turning out work by the bucketloads.

Tonight was dedicated as Tax Night, due to the fact that I have an appointment on Friday with my Accountant to put in my (now very overdue) tax returns for the past two years! Whenever I tell people about this I feel really guilty. Accountijng is my least favourite thing to do in the world. But the funny thing is just about everyone says that they get behind on their taxes pretty often too. That always makes me feel a bit better!

Strange that I hate doing accounts but I'm really enjoying the accounting project I'm doing with Business Information Systems. I guess it's just teaching people how to do accounts, not actually doing it myself. Even better I get to try to think up ways to make it more interesting for them, which has got to be a benefit to society, don't you think?

So anyway the other good thing about today was that I got my tax done. At least, all I need to do before seeing the Accountant. Yeehar.

As if that wasn't enough, just an hour or so I got an email from someone who was organising the gradual repayment of a long overdue sum of money -- sponsorship money that fell through -- for an event in 2003! I've been waiting a long time for this to happen and it finally looks like it will. This means we may be able to keep up with uni fees without going a long way into debt after all. Phew.

OK, I have an early start and I should be in bed. I just thought I would post something trivial instead of a huge long super-pretend-seriou s thing about DJing or something. I've noticed nobody comments on the long boring blog entries!

Oz iTMS in June?

The Mac rumour sites have carried plenty of stories about it before, but recently the stories about an Australian iTunes Music Store have been coming from other sources as well. I always wonder how these stories get started, because in my experience even Apple employees are kept in the dark until the last minute these days. The tantalising nugget of info in the most recent story that may give a clue is that Apple has supposedly been booking space in music magazines. I suppose someone might be putting 2 and 2 together, but there's always a chance they are coming up with 5. A mid-June launch would put the Oz iTMS after WWDC, which seems likely to me -- but why not announce it at WWDC? Maybe they'd prefer to time it with some local event for maximum coverage. Don't tell anyone, but I've actually been using iTMS since it was announced, with the help of a friend stateside. I pay him $US20 with PayPal and he lets me buy another 20 songs. I realise I'm going to have a problem when it comes to exercising my right to use these tunes into the future (specifically when I register for iTMS Oz) but I'll cross that bridge when I come to it. This is another reason why DRM generally sucks -- we get told we can't buy things based on geography because that suits companies, not individuals. Why should we not get the right to use something in different countries -- after all even nation-states recognise that people move for legitimate reasons. Multinationals generally don't have to answer to moral questions, however. There's no authority big enough to make them.

More on Adair: creativity

The previous entry rabbiting on about Adair's work on teamwork was getting a bit long and I decided this deserved its own topic. Lately I have been thinking more about the creative process, mostly with respect to CRR. My own thinking on creativity is very much in line with what Adair has to say about creativity as well:

The seven habits of successful creative thinkers are:

1. Thinking outside the apparent confines of the problem/situation
2. Welcoming chance intrusions
3. Listening to your depth mind (the unconscious mind)
4. Suspending judgement
5. Using the stepping stones of analogy
6. Tolerating ambiguity
7. Banking all ideas from all sources

There are number of obstacles which inhibit creativity. The seven main ones are:

1. Negativity
2. Fear of failure
3. Lack of quality thinking time
4. Over-conformance with rules and regulations
5. Making assumptions
6. Applying too much logic
7. Thinking you are not creative

© John Adair

This applies directly to the things we've been talking over in our troupe meetings lately -- for instance that we feel like we want to expose ourself to new influences and open up our ideas. The one about conformance to rules and regulations is a bugbear of mine -- a couple of troupe members insisted recently that we all write up lesson plans prior to our workshops. It resulted in a lot of stress for some people and then after a lot of people reluctantly complied, one of the people who was insisting on written plans didn't even do one themself. It's this kind of thing that really gets in the way of building up teams too I think. But it certainly dampened creativity in many ways.

"Tolerating ambiguity" is a really concise way of saying something I have been thinking about. It's not important to find the right way to do everything. For a dance troupe as much as any other group endeavour, the process is often just as important, if not more important, than the product. Only accepting one way of doing things is tempting fate.

What I've learnt about teamwork

Through my involvement in project management in my job, being involved in organising MLX, and in helping to start a dance troupe, I've given a fair bit of thought to the area of teamwork. Sometime during 2004 I was exposed to the ideas of the British leadership and management expert John Adair. Now, I am normally downright hostile when someone presents me with a model of management doublspeak. Just about everything I see on the topic makes me feel physically ill. So I was surprised when I started reading his stuff and finding practical tips and ways of seeing things that made life simpler for me. So I thought I would write a little bit about it here.


First of all, the most important idea for me that Adair talks about is summarised in his diagram on the right. Adair says that to have successful teamwork, you need to keep three things in focus at all times: task needs, team needs, and individual needs. These things overlap in various ways, of course, but the important thing is that no one element dominates and none should be left out.

When you start to break these categories down into real items for a given situation, the message is really compelling. I'll try to give some examples here.

The first one that springs to mind involves the use of this model in revising the way that the MLX teams were organised. MLX is a national event, but in the early days the organisation of it was fairly ad hoc. I had an idea about how other exchanges were run, and had been to some big Lindy Hop events like Herrang and Lismore, but running one was a different matter. I found a lot of useful stuff from other people who had organised exchanges (notably Lindy Exchanges for Dummies), but almost all of the stuff I found was related to tasks. That is, when to do things, and what to do. But not really how to do them, and certainly nothing much on the successful coordination of teams.

For MLX 2001, I had another obstacle which was that hardly anyone in Australia had ever heard of an exchange, let alone knew how to run one. A very small number of people had run workshops or dances, and most of them had either left the scene entirely or weren't aware of the growing desire in more experienced dancers for an event that had social events as a primary focus.

All of this meant that I needed to recruit a team, explain the idea of an exchange, as well as plan all of the events that went into it. It was, I realise now, an unrealistic expectation. Naturally enough, I had plenty of friends who were keen to encourage me to do it, including lots of people who enthusiastically volunteered to help organise. That first year turned into an amazingly uplifting experience I think for just about everyone involved. The unexpected success in terms of numbers of attendees seemed to galvanise everyone, and we all just ran on the rising energy of the moment.

Once it was all over, we did an evaluation of the attendees and a fairly reasonable postmortem with the volunteers as well. There was a lot of positive feedback and lots of goodwill. Looking back on it now I realise that there was almost nothing in the way of criticism of the way it was run, and I must have had hundreds of people contact me in person or by email to tell me that we needed to do the same thing next year.

I probably should have realised a couple of things at that point. Firstly, being the main organiser with nodbody else involved in actual management, there was really nobody among the group who was able to see the organisation of the whole thing in perspective. I should also have realised that this could not be maintained if the event expanded.

In 2002, it did just that. I estimated that it almost doubled in terms of attendance that year. As a result, we had to put on a second stream of workshop classes, and we had international dancers to organise all of a sudden. It was logistically much more difficult in 2002. The management structure had not changed significantly, except for the fact that I now had Lotte around as a confidant and a huge help, and I had introduced the idea of certain volunteers taking on responsibility for certain areas. As a result, a significant proportion of the volunteer team (around 30 people as I recall) was in crisis mode for much of the time. For me, things hadn't changed all that much, because I am mostly in problem-solving mode when organising MLX anyway, but for about 5 or 6 of the volunteers who did a lot of work, their weekend was not fun. Not all of these people were official "managers" -- they were just the ones who had decided to jump in when things were not working well and sacrificed their time.

A lot of soul-searching resulted. I got sick. A couple of friendships were bruised, which is still a cause of anguish for me today. Lotte and I spent many months talking about how to improve things for the following year. In the end, Lotte's input was invaluable. She decided that she would rather help solve the management problems herself than watch me get stressed out and sick again. Together we came up with the idea that we needed to define the new role of Volunteer Manager, and that Lotte would fill it.

The short story is that MLX 2003 was a much happier experience for the volunteers. The areas that we were able to address, I realise now, were related to the two circles in Adair's diagram that I had neglected to some extent: building and maintaining the team and (moreso) identifying and serving individuals' needs. There was still too much strain on Lotte and myself, and I got sick after MLX again (quite badly this time). But we had learnt an important lesson about how to manage a fairly large team (around 50 volunteers by this stage).

MLX 2004 is when we came really close to getting the formula right. First of all I had now discovered Adair's stuff and begun to make use of it in my work, so I was now able to communicate the ideas we'd been discovering by trial and error with some clarity. For the first time, we conducted a training session for our managers, and we used the Adair principles to do it. We told them about what we'd discovered. We also gave them practical advice on how to run an event -- putting together running sheets and managing small teams.

MLX 2004 was amazing because it was by far the most ambitious timetable of events we had taken on, mainly because we were taking on two major international events along with it: SwingCity and the Hellzapoppin' World Championships. But guess what? I didn't get sick, and I had a really, really, good time. And everyone was happy, including the managers. Friendships were built and strengthened. Volunteers gained valuable experience and skills. It was a very positive endorsement of the model above, I have to say.

DJ Challenge # 489: Charleston stuff

Crinkle wanted me to plumb the depths of my collection to find some songs for her that she could choreograph for. The challenge: "give me some nice Charleston stuff". Now, I have an awful lot of stuff you can do the Charleston to, so I needed to think of some limitations myself. First of all I needed to limit my search to tunes that would possibly work for a performance. That removes a bunch of stuff already. Anything too long, boring, fast or slow is out. The second factor was more important -- it really needs to have that authentic Charleston feel.

But what does that mean, and how do you go about finding it easily -- particularly if you don't have things categorised for different styles? I do, of course, for the purposes of teaching, but often what you use in a class isn't what you'd use for a performance. So let's just pretend there are no playlists helpfully grouping Charleston stuff. The two things I immediately searched on were "stomp" and "rag". A lot of the songs from that Dixieland era were rags, of course. But I guess it wasn't until getting that challenge that I'd really started to think about how you'd go about defining Dixieland jazz. This definition sums it up for me:

Dixieland combos usually have a rhythm section with a combination of drum kit, upright bass, piano, and banjo or guitar. The lead instruments are usually restricted trombone, trumpet, and clarinet. The definitive Dixieland sound is the simultaneous playing of the three lead instruments. [Wikipedia]

Naturally enough a lot of Dixieland tunes were rags, having grown out of ragtime. Of course, a heck of a lot of stuff was also blues, the other main jazz precursor. So what's a stomp? Now, as every good geek knows, Google is always your friend in these circumstances, so I did a search on "definition jazz stomp". The amusing article I turned up from Downbeat magazine is really interesting: check it out. In summary it's a piece written in the name of Jelly Roll Morton claiming responsibility for creating "jazz and stomps". This letter is entirely in keeping with Morton's character if other historical accounts I've seen are right, so I think it may be real (notwithstanding the incorrect date at the top). But even if it's not, it's great reading. The first stomp was King Porter Stomp (1906), so stomps emerged after ragtime. Interesting.

Anyway my list for Crinkle is looking good. It has 4 or 5 of my favourites from Fletcher Henderson, various rags from Louis Armstrong and Sidney Bechet, and another 4 Charleston-style novelty songs from Spike Jones, who I love for his craziness. Fats Waller is in there with his performance of the Henderson Stomp, which for some reason I don't have from Fletcher himself. That should get her started anyway.

Video pirates and pioneers

The whole Napster story is set to repeat itself in the digital video world. With the proliferation of broadband and peer to peer network technology like eMule and Bittorrent, the cat is out of the bag. With digital video services now providing simple, consumer level products that allow video content to be captured instantly, it's not difficult to imagine the revolution that is now taking shape. What is called TV Piracy today is an opportunity for someone to make a killing tomorrow.

Apple Computer was the big winner in the original Napster story, with the development of the iPod and iTunes Music Store. Despite the fact that there are significant questions about the way Apple has introduced its Digital Rights Management system, there's no doubting the successful introduction of ITMS has changed the music industry forever. A profitable music on demand industry was born.

There seems no doubt that the video on demand industry will follow, but what remains to be seen is what shape a really tenable digital video download service will take. Personally, I'd have no problem at all with paying a reasonable fee for the convenience of downloading video on demand. Providing the DRM is not too restrictive, of course. Following the music example, I much prefer the DRM-free subscription service offered by eMusic.com, but Apple certainly has the better range of choice from the main labels on the ITMS. My wish is that someone would come up with a really forward-thinking download service that has minimal DRM (maybe hooked up to a set top box solution like TIVO) that makes it more worthwhile to use the legitimate service than resort to peer to peer networks.