The World Sucks

If you have not picked up in the past posts I am a solid atheist.  Thus it always comes as a surprise to me that when something happens to make me think the world sucks that I feel it should be fairer.

Being an atheist to me is the realization that there is no god(s) or greater purpose.  But it is also the belief that there is no such thing as good and evil.  There are no great forces in the world, there is just perception.  And that is why I get surprised that I always react with a that is not fair attitude to these things.

The thing that makes me happy is to know that I have such a capacity for caring for others.  I don't do it because some religion tells me to, I do it because I genuinely care about these people that bad stuff happens to.  

Just know, that if I had the money, I would be on a plane right now.  If you are scratching your head and wondering WTF is that idiot talking about? go to my major blog and all will be clearer.

Mark

The Other Blog...

I am getting a little disheartened recently with my main blog at www.thepathfinderchronicles.com.  Reason why is I am pouring everything I can into keeping it improving and nothing seems to be working.  I realise that I have some problems with the blog, if they can be called problems, and I am not sure what I can do about them.

The list of problems;

1. Name of the blog is a bit misleading as it is not just Pathfinder that I deal with, I have a broad focus
2. The posts that I think would be very popular (like my encounter series) are just not attracting any interest
3. Organisation of the blog needs to be cleaned up but to do that I will lose a massive amount of metrics.
4. There is nowhere near enough conversation coming in from readers

I really want my blog to be a go to resource.  I read a blog from another site talking about numbers and they were talking about posts reaching 2000 views in a month.  I get NOWHERE near that amount of views.  In fact my highest viewed post has just around 2000 views now and it has been out for around a year and a half to two years.

I just want the blog to show continuous improvement BUT it has really gone absolutely nowhere with numbers etc. since the start of the year.  In all honesty I was working far less hard on it at the end of the year last year as I am now and there seems to be no reward for the work.

Anyone out in internet land able to give me a few ideas to try?

My Way of Handling "Situations"

When conflict comes into my life I have a very reserved way of handling things and I am not sure that it is the best way of handling things.  If I am confronted by a situation that revolves around my ideals and another's beliefs then how do I handle it.

I am a person that wants 100% facts about circumstances.  If I am going to take something or someone to task for their actions I want an argument that is infallible and irrefutable.  If I can not have that type of argument then I do not have the argument.

For example, if someone says to me "Did you see what x wrote about you on the internet?" I ask what exactly did they write?  When they tell me and the writing does not have my name in the text at all and there is no other hard evidence that it was about me then I let it go.  All the circumstantial evidence may point a finger directly at the writing being about me but it does not offer the 100% proof and so I would let this situation go.

It would bother me.  I will dwell on this issue and it will annoy me but the offending party may well get away with this behaviour because I will not approach or reply in any way shape or form to the alleged insult.  It is not so much that I do not like conflict, I just like to be right.

If I approached the said person about the comments and they stated "Wasn't about you." Then where am I at.  I have no resolution and no recourse.  Sure, I could argue about it but as long as they kept saying "I never mentioned you and it was not about you" then the argument gets old and inert.  then I look like an ass for even bringing it up.

I do realise that I am probably in the minority in this regard.  I say that because people I know spend a lot of time accusing me for stuff that I have said or done with little to no proof whatsoever.  I do not say that to make myself appear like a complete nasty toad but it is true.  Most of the people around me tend to shoot their mouth off first without thinking about the situation.  These people probably like me as I am honest all the time unless;

• I am contractually obligated to say nothing such as privacy agreements and the like
• If someone has told me something in confidence then I keep it that way.

So what about it internet land?  Am I a dinosaur?  Should I just open my mouth and accuse without the 100% truth on my side?  What percentage of truth is OK to hit people up with?  There are people telling me I am encouraging such bad behaviour because I do not take the alleged offending parties to task about it.  Should I change my ways?

An Exercise in Futility

Apparently, as I have just applied for my own job (well half of my own job anyway) I am so inept that I do not even rate for short listing for an interview.

Perhaps it is time to leave the stress behind and no longer teach.  Change is as good as a holiday right?

When Life Hands You Lemons...

I find it a little funny the way that life has of teaching me lessons.  In realtiy I am a very easy person to get on with.  I tend not to get angry at other people when they mess up or do something that impinges on me and I find that the only time I get upset is when I let myself down.

On Tuesday I had an early morning meeting secret squirrel style meeting with a woman who handles the strategic direction of the educational material that I am involved in.  She talked to me about essentially a dream trip that the organisation wanted to send me and 5 others on depending on if we could get funding from a fellowship that focuses on providing educators the ability to research and expand their view.

The organisation I work for had identified me as a potential future leader that would use the trip to push technology to the forefront of not only my own classes but help it become synonymous with other fields as well.  They were right in thinking that this interests me because I have already attempted to do some material in this way so it was an honour to be thought of in this manner.

The trip looked much like this;

Week 1

·         Fly to Los Angeles.

·         Visit STEM schools in the southern California region

Week 2

·         Join the ACCE tour to Silicon Valley and San Francisco visiting key high tech industries/corporations (e.g. Google, Facebook, Apple, Oracle etc)

·      Week 3

·         Travel to New York

·         Attend and/ or present at the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) Conference in Philadelphia PA, one of the largest education conferences in the USA: 

Weeks 4 to 6

·      Attend between 1 to 3 weeks of personal professional development (your choice). Part of the study must be university based or receive university credit. Relevant institutions/programs include:
o   Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) including Fab Lab visit: 
o    Museum of Science (MOS), Boston:
o   Smithsonian Institute, Washington: 
o   Exploratorium, San Francisco:
o   Project Lead the Way (PLTW):
select from summer school programs around the country;
o   NASA Field Centers:
o   Meet with Massachusetts officials e.g. governor’s STEM advisory council, Department of Education etc.

So from my perspective this was/is the opportunity of a lifetime.  I mean MIT!  MIT! Wow!  Not to mention all of the other stuff.  This was an exciting opportunity.

But by the end of the day the person had to ring me and tell me that I was not eligible as she was not aware that I was not yet permanent in the organisation (I work from contract until I can finish my study).  I told her that it was fine, and I meant it.  I know that this sort of stuff can happen and I was OK with it.  In fact, I was more than fine.  I was happy that I had been recognised as one of the first choice offers because of my work!  She apologised many times and I find this sort of thing funny.

I am sure that there are people out there that get very upset if they were in the same circumstance but that is just not me.  It was something that was just not clear to me until now that I may be different in this regard.  I realised that in fact the only time that I get upset is when I have a chance to do something that matters and I back down because I become doubtful of my own ability.  I have been doing that for around ten years now and I can see this clearly now.  I am capable in all sorts of ways, all I need to do is try.

Let the small stuff slide.  Sometimes stuff happens that is beyond anyone's ken.  Don't blame them for it and move on.  That is the view from my window today.

Shell Shocked

I have had a bad week.

This week is the first week of my practical placement at another school for three weeks.  That is not a bad thing in itself but it is when you consider the entire three weeks is unpaid and I need to support my family and I on our meager savings (read credit card) and it will affect us for at least 6 - 8 weeks.

Then, on Tuesday (game day for my in person game) I get a call telling me that my best mate  had "taken a turn" and been delivered to hospital.  Yesterday, two days after the event we find out his turn was actually a stroke and in a more serious turn of events he gets air lifted to Hobart (around 350 Km's away) so he can be looked after by specialists.  He is only just above 40 and it has come as a massive shock.

Been a little shell shocked since then.  Worried for him, wondering what it is all about.  Have also had no time really to blog in any form this week so the readership on the main blog is down which is annoying.

Life can be a pain in the ass.  Just saying.  That is the view from my window today.

Zeiken Black, Hypnotism and Me

Last night my wife and I went out to the Civic Centre in Burnie with some friends to see a stage hypnotist called Zeiken Black perform his "adult" (thus this post contains adult content) rated show.  It is the first time that I have ever been to see a hypnotist and I saw it as a fun night out.  We went to a "night spot (read fancy pub) beforehand that was pretty cool and was in high spirits when we arrived.

One of the guys I was with was very adamant that he wanted to be hypnotised prior to the event.  I was thinking that I was not a good candidate as I over think stuff a lot and my mind is always active, so not a great choice for a technique that requires a deep relaxation.

We get in, get seated and the hypnotist arrives.  He tells the audience that he is going to run some tests to see who might be a great addition to the 15 people he was going to hypnotise.  The first test is really a test of do you do what you hear or do you do what you see.  Now I did what I heard, as did my wife but as we looked around there were many, many people more that did what they saw and not what they heard.

Last nights promo poster

The second test was a visualisation test where you closed your eyes and visualised holding a heavy bucket in one hand and having your arm tied to a helium balloon for the other.  If you opened your eyes at the end and found your hands far apart then he said you were a good candidate.  Mine were pretty much the furthest apart of my group there.  He then called for volunteers from the audience.  My friend got up and I thought "What the hell" and went with him.

In short, I was on stage for the entire evening.  My friend that wanted to be hypnotised dipped out in the first comedy routine of playing imaginary instruments and that left me as the only male on stage.  I made a decision at that point to stay, and I became the focus of all the jokes set up for male participants, but that was all a part of the fun wasn't it?

So, here is what I was asked to do.

• Play imaginary instruments to music
• Watch different genre movies and react to them
• Whenever I heard the music for Johnny Cash's Burning Ring of Fire drag my butt around on the floor as if it were burning like a dog does
• Whenever I heard the hypnotist say my name I was to react as if I had an embarrassing erection and try to cover it up
• Pretend I was a karate expert and perform moves that were similar to another person being a karate expert
• Imagine I was driving my fantasy car
• Come up with a porn name ("The Hammer" if you were wondering) and audition for the role with a chair
• Shake hands with the hypnotists assistant and experience the most intense orgasm I have ever had.

I believe in hypnotism wholeheartedly.  I have investigated it when I was younger and watched people like Derren Brown and come to believe that this is a true state.  Do I think last night that I was hypnotised?  No.

I think back on it now and what Zeiken (who ran a good fun show by the way) did was offer us a social contract from the word go.  The first test, do what you hear, not what you see was a test to see if he could get people that would listen to instruction.  Simple and important.  The second test of the bucket and the balloons was a test to see who would best act out what they were told to visualise.  Again, important and simple.

Once we were all on stage he took us into the "hypnotic" state!  There was a lot of soothing music and showmanship, although he claimed that it was all about us, but it was aimed to get us relaxed.  During this time though he furthered his social contract with us.  He told us that if we at any time felt like we were not hypnotised or "under" that we could sit and wait for him to release us from the stage.  This is the out clause and pretty much he is saying "if you think this is going to be too ridiculous you can leave."  He also told us that once we left that we would no longer be under the effect.  Important if you are a believer.  He also gave us some benefits to look forward to or our reward that being hypnotised allowed you to feel like you had a deep sleep and you would feel better.  The relaxation technique he took us through was bound to help with that.  He also told us that we would not believe that we were hypnotised and if asked we would say no.  A good technique to say that there is some control even though you don't feel it.

I was out on the town and I was there to have a bit of fun.  When my friend left (he later stated "I just did not feel hypnotised") I knew I was the last man standing and really nothing the hypnotist asked was having a go at me at my expense, it was just entertainment for a full house that had shown up.  I was fine with it.  Do I believe others there were hypnotised, yes.  There were some people completely out of it.  Some were disoriented afterward and cold not understand the laughter and the applause when we left.

I followed cues and played roles.  Never did I believe for a second that I had an embarrassing erection, and nor did I experience the most intense orgasm of my life whilst shaking his assistants hand.  I was very calm and relaxed though and he did a good job at maintaining that.  The whole sleep routine that he did (and all hypnotists do) is to keep us in that relaxed state.  I never believed for an instant that I was under control doing any of the things that he asked me and I still maintain that I was in full control and just decided to go along for the ride and have a good night.

There were distinct moments of panic in it too.  When asked to come up with a porn name I was so very glad he started at the opposite end of the line as all I could think of was Dirk Diggler who I thought was an actual porn star (turns out it is a character of a porn star in Boogie Nights, apparently I don't know porn).  So when he was nearing me and I was listening to some of the other responses, "The Hammer" came to me.  It was short, powerful and funny but it was my invention.

At the end of the show Zeiken told us all that we would feel energised and he wished us to be happy and confident after coming out of it.  I thought that was a great way to finish it and for the rest of the night as I tried to convince all of my friends that I was not actually hypnotised I felt just that.  Happy, energised and confident.

We went back to the bar for a couple of after show drinks and it was funny to see a few people from the show call out to me about "The Hammer" and one guy even offered to buy me a drink because I had made them laugh so hard.  Perhaps that is where the confidence and happiness comes from.

This morning I had to get up and go to my 12 hour shift at the service station.  I only got around 4 and a half hours sleep but I do still feel energised, happy and confident.  Every Saturday on my way to work I get a coffee from the local bakery and the girl that served me was amazed at how happy I seemed.  I mentioned the show and talked to them a bit.  

I have a sore bottom (from scooting around on the ground all night) and sore legs from the same.  But I am happy and in a better head-space than I have been for a long time.  So was I hypnotised and am I reacting to his suggestion to be happy, confident and energised?  Or is it a case that I am still just on a high from having a great night out with a lot of fun and friends.  I choose the latter.

But, there are other things to consider.  I am firmly in the mind-space that I was not hypnotised and did everything out of choice.  The fact remains though that although everything that was going on around me was good fun and funny, I did not need to laugh until I was told to respond in that manner.  The crowd was something that I did not react to because of this calmness.  Also, when entering the "hypnotic state" he asked us to test the weight of our eyelids and not open them.  I firmly believe that I could not have opened them if I tried at that point.  So I will always have a little doubt (perhaps 5%) that I actually was hypnotised.  Who knows!?

Anyhow, that is the view from my window this morning.  Thanks for reading.

Media Makes Me Sick

I don't mind watching a game of Australian Rules Football (AFL) when it is on the telly and certainly like watching it when my team plays but tonight (and the past few weeks) the coverage has irritated me like nothing else.  Why?  Wayne Carey.

For the American's that watch this blog a little bit of an explanation is required.  Wayne Carey used to be centre half forward (and full forward sometimes) for North Melbourne in the late 90's.  There is no secret that he was a great player in his time and he was known as the King.  Toward the end of his career he was in a massive scandal as he was caught having sex with his best mates wife (I believe he was married at the time also),  he moved to Adelaide but pretty much gave up the game at that time.

He was also arrested and plead guilty to indecent assault for grabbing a girls breast on the street and telling her to "get a bigger set of tits".  He was known to involve himself with known mob bosses and then when holidaying with his wife in Las Vegas he was caught on a misdemeanor for belting up his wife.

After that he then left his wife six weeks before his daughter was born to move in with another woman who then had him charged for domestic abuse.  Later on he then glassed (with a broken glass cut his girlfriend) the same woman and a year later admitted that he had been for a long time addicted to cocaine and alcohol.

So we have a drug addicted alcoholic, woman abuser who the commentary team believe it is OK to have making expert advice.  I am sorry, but this guy should never be given spotlight ever unless of course it is to show what sort of craven loser he is.  It makes me sick every second of air time they give him and the network should immediately cancel his contract and let him go back to whatever gutter he crawled from.

What an asshole.  It is OK to give second chances but this guy has had more chances than a cat that likes to chase tyres.  And what sort of message does this send young men?  It is OK to beat up your girlfriend, take drugs and grope girls whenever you want if you play sports.  You will still be a success. When will the sporting community finally realise how this looks to the community.  This man is forever tainted and should not be given opportunities like this.  Get rid of him.  That is what it looks like from my window anyway.

Thanks! And A New Tattoo?

Well, I was humbled after my last post.  I had received the news from my Doctor that my Type 2 Diabetes was going from diet control to medication and I hate that it came to that but it was my fault because I never changed my ways.  I asked last week for help on how to handle this and change my ways and I was amazed at the response.  Heaps of people gave me advice and one person even drove to my work that day and dropped me off some books for low GI information.  Thank you all.  It meant a great deal to me.

The first tattoo

Just to update on that front before I talk about my new exciting news, I have been eating much better than I have been and over the past two weeks this has meant that I have now dropped 7 Kilograms just from eating better.  Walking is on the cards too but I am scouting for locations as in Winter walking on my road is a messy affair.

O.K.  Good news people!  I waited 40 years to get my first tattoo, largely because my Mum hated them and my wife is (was) not a fan too.  Mum passed away around 4 years ago now and my wife gave me permission to get a tattoo for my 40th.  Got my Dragon tattoo that I am all happy with and my wife also seemed to like.  A lot in fact.  So much so that I asked about my second tattoo on Thursday and before the night was out she had a design she liked for me to look at!

So it looks as though I will be getting a new tattoo in the near future!  I am not releasing any designs just yet but I think it will be a back piece.  And by back piece, I mean it will take up a lot of the real estate across my shoulders and down to the base of my spine.  I have a design in mind and am going to have a go today at getting it down on paper but I am a crap artist so in the long run the tattooist is likely going to have to draw something up.  Hey I can at least try anyway!

I wont give too much away at the moment but I will say that it is going along with a theme.  Anyhow, less typing and more drawing!  See if I can come up with the masterpiece I have in my mind's eye.  Such is the view from my window.

So, how does one go about a lifestyle change?

Diabetes medication my friends.  That is what now sits on top of the freezer and is taken once a day.  Type 2 Diabetes that used to be controlled by diet (bwahahahahahaha) has now advanced to the stage where I need to take medication.

I hate medication.

So, the only way about this is to have a lifestyle change and eat good stuff.  Perhaps even exercise?  Alien words.

That cartoon looks familiar...

I have been trying to do some research on what to be eating and what is low GI etc. but the truth of the matter is that most websites that Google throws at me are very evasive in providing answers.  They love to give me links to pages that will just cost me a little bit of money to find out and all I have to say is screw that!

There appears to be a whole little industry that has arisen around Diabetes that try to screw the victim out of cash and I don't like it.

So what I am asking from people that take a look at this post and who may also be a Diabetes sufferer is where do you go for information?

I have to say that in the past few days I have been eating what I think is low GI (Glycemic Index) foods and they are filling me up so I am not really snacking in between meals.  And because my wife wanted to go for a drive yesterday we got stuck at take out and it made me feel ill so hopefully these are good signs.

Also, are there people out there who have achieved the whole lifestyle change thing?  I am wondering how hard it is to change not only your own lifestyle but your families as well.  My wife almost sneers at me when I say I can't eat something that previously I would gulp down and I want to know how to win her over.

Anyhow, that is what you get for being a lazy couch potato and give up sport or outside activities.  Such is the view from my window this morning!

Getting Organised

I am a terribly organised person.  It is a funny thing because people tend to think I am super organised.  With my blogs, full time work, a part time job,  part time university and gaming everyone seems to get the idea that I am on top of things as a whole.  The truth can not be further from that reality.

Truth is that I work well under pressure and so I tend to leave everything to the last minute.  While I know that this is what I do, sometimes it bites me badly in the bottom.  Like this week when I had to have an assignment due and when it came to the day I was hit by a bout of man flu.  means I have to take a big hit to my score and it is my fault.  No one else to blame, totally my fault.

The true view from my window is guarded by the evil cat Onyx...

I also looked at the things that I have lined up to do and realised that this style of approach (leaving things to the last minute) is unsustainable.  See, I have three reviews to do on products for the other blog.  Each of these is going to actually contain an interview with people at the companies.  I have three more assignments due soonish, a game every week (sometimes three) and also have to fit time in for the family and my part time job.  Not to mention continuously thinking about my teaching role.

So I have to get organised.  I have begun to use my calendar a bit more in an effort to keep me up to date with what I am doing, need to be doing and where I need to be.  One of the things that I am looking at is Google Calendar in line with my Linux distribution.  Problem is that I am having troubles syncing the calendar on to my phone (being an iPhone) and I tend to use my phone a lot to remind me what to do.  Apple in their brilliance decided that Linux was not to get the iTunes application for us.  Apparently they hate us!

So I have two weeks off from my teaching job as we ended Term 1 today.  In that two weeks I intend to get organised.  I will explore my options as it comes to calendars, scheduling and work required.  I will attempt to set up schedules (I shudder at the thought, I hate lists and schedules) and also some form of rewards for me to use to keep me on track!  If anyone out there in reader land has some ideas for me I would love to hear them.

Anyway, that is what the view is like from my window today!

I Wanted to Be A Journalist When I Grew Up

Thank goodness I dodged that bullet.Seriously though, media has become as dirty a word as lawyer or politician these days.  In all honesty I wanted to be an author when I grew up but my ever practical father advised me that I needed a second job to be an author and if writing was my game then I should look at journalism.

Throughout high school my entire life revolved around learning shorthand, studying English, getting work experience with the local paper and radio station so that I could achieve this goal.  Once I had achieved that I was a short jump to an author and I would have it all.

Grumpy Old Man!

Of course it never happened, as so many childhood dreams fail.  But I am glad of this fact.  I sit and watched the news this morning, something I try to avoid doing, and I got so angry at it.  I no longer read papers, watch the news or in any way attempt to catch any sort of update in the world due to the nature of the reporting these days.

When I was focused on becoming a journalist I learnt that it is the role of the reporter to present an unbiased and accurate picture of what was occurring.  It was not the reporters role to offer commentary or pass judgement on any particularly news worthy story that they become involved in.  This morning though I sneered at the TV as the media did what it tries to do all the time.  Make up a story where one should not exist.

Australia is heavily involved in the search for the missing Malaysian Airlines plane.  Strangely enough this costs money to send out search vehicles and people to pilot them.  So the media did this morning what they always do when a story is stalling, try to create controversy.  "It's costing us a million a day!"  "Why should we foot the bill?"  "Malaysia must pay!"

Piss off media.  Pull your head in. Every person in Australia would just love to have this at a resolution.  We would like to help all the people out there find out what has happened to the missing plane.  This is peoples lives.  If their were some cute 18 year old blonde haired, blue eyed surfer girl from Brisbane on that plane this would not even have been an issue.  These stories would never have surfaced.

The media is a money making machine.  It creates news if it has none.  reporters are now largely expected to add their own point of view making it no longer news but opinion.  In the future they will look back to the news agencies and what will they think of us then?

If you want to have an opinion, write a blog or go on a talk show.  If you want to report the news, report what happened.  Not your opinion on what happened.  There is no integrity to being a journalist anymore.  My Aunty, as we walked from the court after hearing the coroners report on my brother said to my mother and I as a woman from the paper came to talk to us "Come on, that scum is a journalist".  That was five or six years ago now but I know now exactly what she meant.

Such is the view from my window today!

New Friends and Old, Reunions and the Social Stuff

Recently I have made a lot of new friends and acquaintances which is thoroughly unlike me.  I don't generally do social, and am mostly happy with the status quo.  It is a strange thing to me though that many of my new friends feel like old friends and many of my old friends seem like strangers to me now.

Confused I am!

It is kind of funny actually that this week I have been twice asked (on consecutive days by unrelated people) if I was going to go to my 25th high school reunion.  I went to my tenth under protest and at my twentieth I walked out about 40 minutes into it because it was an atrocious display of mature people trying to act like they were in high school again.  One of the people that asked was keen to go (he has not been to a reunion yet) and the other felt like me (she saw the antics of the one before).  I was not overly fond of my high school years but most of my old friends fall into this category (high school friends) and I struggle to understand the appeal.

Where as with the new friends that I have made it feels cool just to hang around and talk.  My old friends purport that they are "too busy" or make a mountain out of a molehill of another task just so they don't have to do anything.  Newer friends all have similar tastes and interests to me.  Computer games, board games, Doctor Who, RPG's Monty Python, Music.  Whatever it is we actually connect on these levels and I am finding myself much more drawn to these people now.  It is also these people that notice when I am feeling low and offer a positive comment or a friendly ear whereas others simply live in their own world and ignore these other issues.

I really do feel at times that I am socially inept.  I have limitations and I know it.  I do not do well in large gatherings of people.  I struggle to know what responses are needed when and where but when I am with people that I connect with it all becomes a lot more easier.  I have even been to several "parties" recently and not made too much of an idiot out of myself!

I know I am rambling here.  I am not exactly sure what my point is, or even if there is a point.  All I know is this stuff has been playing on my mind.  I am normally a pretty private guy but I (obviously from this blog) have been wanting to share more recently and I feel I would be more comfortable doing that with my newer friends as I already know what the responses would be from my older friends.  Anyhow, that is the view from my window today!

Back in the heart of Uni

I am now on week 4 of my university semester.  I am struggling and I admit it.  I am actually getting the feeling that it is the study that is bringing me down these days.

I have been doing a one year course part time so i can be qualified at what I already do for a living.  Yup, that is right, I need to get a piece of paper so I can continue to do the job I have more than capably been doing for the past four years.

I get annoyed and then depressed when I do these courses that are in essence teaching me to suck eggs.  Why am I annoyed at them?  Well it has a lot to do with narcissism and I am not talking about my own.  First semester, and now this one, I have been told that I MUST purchase the text to the course so I organise this.  The text also happens to be written by the lecturer so no favouritism there and I have not even opened the book.  Passed the course.  Never looked at it.  How does this happen?

And then there is the pure idiocy of what they are trying to teach me.  They literally teach me 40 escalating ways to express your concern at behaviour.  number 1, ignore it.  Number two, look at them and let them know you have noticed the inappropriate behaviour and then look away.  And the dribble goes on.

I just need to vent.  I am sorry but this effort in creating red tape is actually working to drive me away from my current job (if you have not guessed, I am a teacher) than encouraging me to work harder.  I understand the intent but with the quality of the course I seriously wonder at why they need me to get it.  I have done harder in house vocational courses than this uni degree.

Rant over.  I apologise.  It is just the view from my window is looking particularly bleak today.

Sliding Doors

I am not much of a romantic comedy type of guy.  I prefer horror and action for the main stable of my movie watching but there are two movies I make an exception for.  One of those is because it speaks to me in a major way and the other, just because I find it hell funny.  The hell funny one is Notting Hill and most of this is largely due to Spike (Rhys Iffans).  The one that speaks to me is Sliding Doors.

My favorite rom-com (Image from imdb.com) 

Now, if you have not seen Sliding Doors this post is likely to go over the top of you so I will attempt a synopsis in a few short sentences.  The movie follows the relationship meltdown of Gwyneth Paltrow's character with her cheating boyfriend.  In the movie though it shows two stories in parallel, one where she catches the cheating early and separates very early in the piece and the other where (due to a sliding door on a train) she arrives late and misses catching him in the act.  In other words this movie is really a movie about alternate realities based on choice and chance.

I like this movie because I feel that this is how life works.  I am not sure that I subscribe to the infinite possibility theory where an alternate Universe is spawned every time a choice is made but I do feel that there are crucial moments in life that could have changed everything.  For example, my brother's death that I talk about here could have just as easily left him alive if he were in a slightly different position, or he could have been hit and not killed (in fact a Doctor said that it was 50-50 that he survived but had he survived he would have been a quadriplegic and possibly in a vegetative state).  In each of these scenario's my life would have been drastically different.

But it is not only the bad that I think about, I also am thankful for some of the sliding doors that have lead me to things that I enjoy in my life too.  Friends I have met through serendipitous means and the relationships I have had have all been wonderful things.  Just the fact that I am born and live in a Country like Australia is a complete joy when you look at the suffering that occurs in many other places of the world.

I am not a big believer in fate, and the Sliding Doors movie kind of makes a fated turn at the end which I am not overly fond of.  It is a true Hollywood ending in that regard.  But on the whole that movie represents my views on life as a path or a (my hated word) journey.  I am an atheist and the ideas presented by the Sliding Doors movie subscribes enough to the chaos of life and the randomness of paths that we take but also gives meaning to it.

I hope this gives you all a bit more insight to what the view from Knights' window looks like today!

Quality Focus

I am reminded time and again about a problem that spans nearly all industries these days every time I go to my local Kentucky Fried Chicken.  Both my daughters work there and of the take-away places available I quite like a KFC zinger burger every now and again.  Being a family of five means we have a reasonably lengthy order and because my wife and eldest daughter are a bit fussy with the contents of their meals there is some (minor) custom alterations.  Yet nearly every time we go (always through the drive through) they get the order wrong.

Do you know why this is the case?  Well, it is because with the drive through they have a measure which they want managers to achieve.  If they process cars in under a certain average time or something similar then they achieve an Obsessed ranking which is seen as good.  Speed is good in drive through and the number of complaint calls they get from people when they get home and find they don't have what they ordered does not play any part in it at all.  Screw the quality and go fast is what this says to the workers.  Throw it in the box and throw it out the window.

Now this is not a criticism of KFC's practice as it is standard business practice these days.  Every business wants to achieve time efficiency because it means less handling and less cost.  Time truly is money when it comes to product.  Also in the push to reduce cost the pursuit of quality has also been thrown out the window.  From the mid to late eighties we have been buying product that is reducing in quality but increasing in cost.

How long should a device or product last for?  Well, until a month or so after its warranty runs out.  A warranty is really the business saying to you that they are gambling it will last without defects to that point under regular use but not beyond that point.  They do not pluck these figures out of the air, they test for them.  I have a friend who has had 4 microwaves while I am still using the one my mother got when I was around 8.  That is right, I have a 32 year old microwave and it still goes strong.

Things are not made to last and this is a major problem.  It is not that we do not have the technology to make things last it is just that companies have decided that we would rather just upgrade than fix.  For example, I purchased a large TV and it broke after warranty ran out.  To buy the small part that needed fixing on the TV and have it fitted was going to cost more than the TV did initially.  I do not like living in this disposable way.  I would much rather have durable products and keep someone employed in repair work than buy something new!

Enough to drive me insane...

Then there are the companies that set a date for release and stick to it even if the product does not work.  I am going to talk about the computer game industry here because quite honestly they are bandits.  They release games that they know are not functioning correctly and we are meant to play the poor version until they can patch the problems that should not have been there to start with.  Patching has become a norm but I lived in the days when games came out and they worked like they were meant to.  Now companies just do not care one bit.  I really feel violated when I anticipate a game for a long time and then on release day you become incredibly deflated when the game is crap.  I teach game design to 16 and 17 year old kids and they think I am just grumpy.  "Wait until they patch it." I hear a lot in the classroom and they just take this for granted.

What ever happened to the motto "If a job is worth doing, it is worth doing well."  I think this has changed these days to "If a job is worth doing then the consumer will pay for the same job more than once."  Hang the quality?  Sorry, not the way that I work and it may be the reason that I have always held the principles of doing a good job once so it never needs doing again.  I am a strong believer in a quality job.  If you expect me to do a quick job or a quick fix I will not likely take the job.  I will only give 100% and I teach my students to do the same.

So, there we have it, moan over.  What can we do about it?  Probably nothing.  Why has it happened?  Pursuit of capitalism, so we the majority can fund the minority to become even richer while we struggle with the lessening of quality around us.  Such is the view from my window.

John Cleese and I

On the weekend I went to "A Night With John Cleese".  He sat on a stage and talked about his life, where he came from, who his family was and how Python and other great collaborations came about.  It was an excellent night.  I really enjoyed seeing his skill in manipulating an audience and talking about some personal material.  He talked about the death of his mother and father.  Graham Chapman and David Frost's death as well as his progression from school right through to falling into writing and acting.

I lucked into a great seat about 8 rows back, had a
clear view of him all night!

I have my humour set heavily in the British side of comedy.  Irony, sarcasm, dry humour that is full of silliness.  In fact, I realised during the concert that my humour is not only influenced heavily by Python, it practically is Python humour.  It is then no wonder that I have idolised these old skits and movies to this very day.  If you asked me my favourite comedy movie it would invariably wander from Holy Grail or The Meaning of Life largely dependent on my mood at the time.  If you asked me which skits I liked the best it would probably be The Secret Policeman's Other Ball although Little Britain comes a close second.

I have also been a great fan of the Goodies and I always thought that they kind of grew out of the Python craze.  I was amazed to find out on the night that both Tim Brooke-Taylor and Bill Oddie were both all tightly involved with the group largely before they became Python!  John Cleese showed us the Fish Dance skit which the Monty Python crew voted their most silly skit of all time and I recognised the Goodies quite clearly in it.

My son, Ethan, is also hanging on to the same style of humour.  While he is not into Python as yet (he is a bit young) he is deeply enamoured by the Goodies and much darker humour.  This makes me very happy.  In fact, my whole trip to see John Cleese has made me a lot happier too.  It has gotten me in touch with my inner self again, when I was a lot happier in general.  It made me realise again that life is for living and laughing just as much as it is for working, bill paying and the intrusion of the darker things in life.

So, there you have it.  To the readers of this blog, try to work out what style of humour really works for you and visit it often.  Do not let a chance to catch up with a laugh or two ever as it is just as important to you as it is to those around you to see you laugh and have a good time!  Thanks for reading!

Election Time

So it is election time in our little wilderness state of Tasmania, Australia.  In little under a month the goodly Tasmanian's will be called to enter little booths with pencil and paper to commit our state to another 3-4 years of governing from one of the political parties.  I am a little depressed about this coming election as there is no-one that I clearly want to vote for.

40 Year old me!  I see a wrinkle!

This past 4 years has been governed by an alliance of two minority parties who largely have conflicting goals.  The Premier of the state is the  a  complete nonce who likes to have a photo op rather than have something important to say.  In the past 4 years our finances have been flushed down the toilet and she has the gall to say to the opposition that they can't make promises because there is no money.

But the opposition is just as poor a choice.  Here is a guy who I am fairly certain thinks he already has things won.  He pays too much attention to the polls me thinks.  he has made promises of payments to various sectors but all politicians do that.  Besides, I really don't think that anybody really gets the real issues here in our state anymore.

Finally, there is a new party on the scene.  they don't really say much about anything unless it is derogatory to the other parties.  They say "Hey vote for us because we haven't caused any damage, not like X party" and I think that is largely because they have not made it in to government yet.

I am fairly certain that when I go to vote I will still be as confused then as I am now.  Not one of the parties want to speak about the real issues.  Escalating depression and suicide rates.  Increased mental illness, alcoholism, drug and gambling problems.  Jobs going overseas at the rate of the thousands.  Laws that allow the rich to get richer, the middle to just scrape by and the poor to be forgotten.

We are facing our worst challenges everywhere in Tasmania on a social level but not a single party wants to speak about this.  What they want to do is talk about money and where they can put it for a short term boost in employment or revenue.  This is part of the problem but none of the parties have a holistic view when you need it.  In fact, I cannot think that any party in operation is working for the good of the people any more.  They are simply working for the good of their party.

Everything is about money.  The focus on every minute detail is ridiculously revolving around the planet of the dollar when in reality the money is a symptom of deeper issues.  Ask yourself, do you know your neighbour?  Have you done anything for someone recently and expected, nay WANTED nothing in return.  Why do we turn our back on people in need on our own streets and yet sponsor people in need in other countries.  Look to what you can do to improve the lot of life of people in your community.  Prove to them that you want to help them and that you can be reliable and open.  If we all acted in this way and took a moment away from our own needs and wants, this State of Tasmania (and the world) would be a much better place.

Well, that is what I have been thinking about any way and this is the view from my window after all!  Have a good week everyone.

The Downgrading of Society

So, enough about my personal issues.  I put up the last posts so you can understand me and see where I am coming from and why I am a depressed so and so.  But that is not necessarily what I wanted this blog to be about.  This blog is more about my opinion on certain things in life and what I think we need to do as a society to pick things up and return to a better style of living.  This post I have been dying to do actually and I think it is an important thing to speak out about.

Globalisation.  The internet has pushed the world into a period of never before seen access to other countries.  Even in the early 1990's when the World Wide Web was yet to show its face the other side of the world was what you heard about in the news, and then only when something major had.  But the internet has now created an environment where I spend a good deal of my time discussing things in a live environment with people on the other side of the world.  This is a great thing but there are things that globalisation has destroyed in our society.

Act local, think global

It is a mantra that has become a catch phrase in Tasmania, especially with politicians and it is partially this mantra that has led to the loss of skills and manufacturing in this country as well as the growing financial problems that it seems almost everyone faces.  It started with a thing call de-regulation as the Liberal Federal government called for open trade in the interests of globalisation.  Prior to this the government invested money into industries so that they could be competitive in a global environment.  When this happened it seemed like a great thing.  But at what cost.

This is very pertinent to me at the moment because in the past week a massive chain hardware store known as Bunnings opened here in Burnie, the local city about twenty minutes away from home and everyone thinks this is one of the best things ever.  Except me.  Bunnings is a store that is owned by a company called Wesfarmers.  Wesfarmers also controls Coles Pty Ltd, one of the two largest chain supermarkets in Australia.  Bunnings stores follow the same style of approach as a supermarket but with hardware.  So why would I not be excited?  Let me use Bunnings as an example of how globalisation is ruining our communities but it is not just Bunnings.  It is Spotlight for crafts, all sorts of new car dealerships like China's Great Wall model and the like.

Think of a local hardware.  Your local hardware of ten to twenty years ago.  In all likelihoood the hardware may have been a franchise but it would be a franchise owned and run by a local community member.  Of course it might actually be a completely independent hardware store.  You walked in to the hardware and if you were a little handy it is likely that they would recognise you.  Over time it may even be one of those places that your children get a go at their first job because the guy/girl that ran the store is part of the community and he/she wants to be connected to the community and help it grow.  The prices may be a little more than the big city hardware BUT they don't have the community the same size as the big cities so they have to mark the prices up a little 

Then imagine you hear your local council approves a massive development for one of the largest supermarket giants to put in place a hardware store that prides itself on being the cheapest they can.  They can be cheap because they have the financial clout behind them to buy containers and containers of stock up front.  They can cater to people who look only at cost by buying inferior quality stock from countries where the labour force demands little in the way of pay and conditions.  They can also buy the higher quality stock but know on the whole that the highest sellers will be those that are the cheapest goods.  The proprietor of the local hardware has good reason to be fearful.  You see, they only have a small quantity of poor quality products from inferior producers and they do not sell much of them.  They don't because they give good advice and point people to the products that sell the best.

They look to the other stores of the same company that opened and they see that their own bottom line was hurt at the same time.  They can no longer afford to put little Jimmy through his first job because their profits are reducing all of the time as they try to bring back their customers.  Even the local store opening of the chain store that is two hours travel away it hurts them.  As time begins to tick down fewer and fewer people come through the door and it is all they can do to keep the doors open until three months prior to the opening of the new store.  Then they cross their fingers and hope that they get employed in the new superstore.

So, what is going wrong?  De-regulation has not only allowed free trade with companies that can under sell us because they have nowhere near the overheads that we do in an over-governed society but it has also allowed the sleeping giants like our monopolised supermarkets to start to create monopolies in other industries.  The people that will serve in these stores will have guidance based on the business model of a supermarket as opposed to the skilled testimony of the local store owner who checked the devices before selling them.

This happened in Burnie.  I look at the newspaper and it is all about the celebration of the new store opening.  It closed five local hardware stores and Burnie itself had NO hardware store for over three months.  Now I look at photos of people walking out holding cheap products made in under-developed countries.  I sat at a birthday party and heard them let off what must have been at least $25000 worth of fireworks celebrating this.

Australia is losing its manufacturing industries at an alarming rate because we cannot compete with other countries labour costs and under developed working conditions.  We have come from a position where everything is over regulated and all that Australia has done is taken away the regulation of trade restrictions but now work on modernising our working environment is ignored.

These conditions are not sustainable.  I can see the effects of these problems on a daily basis.  It does not only hurt us at the hip pocket but also as a community.  These stores will argue that they put money back into their community and they do.  But that money is at a superficial level.  The executives of these companies behind the scene is where a lot of the money really ends up, and you can guarantee that these peopl do not live in the community.  Unlike the people that they have displaced, who still live in these communities.

But who is to blame?  Is it the companies?  Is it the government?  No, it is the community.  the world revolves around money now and this is why globally countries are finding themselves in difficulty.  Their economies are beginning to collapse. It truly is looking like a dystopian future if we do not work out these issues.  I do everything I can to buy locally and support stores that are not yet pawns for bigger companies.  I implore you to do the same.  Until we as a community start to reject these stores they will continue to destroy local economies and lives.  

I so want to write a lot more on this issue but I hope that I have gotten my point of view through.  I hope that many of you can see the same thing as I am and that enough of us eventually start to act on this knowledge.  To restore a community, we must first become one.

Weird But True - further into my reasons for depression

I had stated in my previous post that things were a little weirder in my family, particularly on my Mothers side.

My grandparents had three children.  Don, Diane and Marilyn (My mum).  Each of these children got married and had two children of their own.  Don had Angela and Sandra; Diane had Jane and Martin; Marilyn had Michael and myself.

Sandra was born with cerebral palsy and was not expected to live much longer than her teens.  Apart from that everything was pretty straight forward in my generation, at a glance anyway.  My brother Michael and my cousin Martin were born only a couple of days apart in the same hospital.  Martin grew into a strong, strapping guy who played rugby and rowed for his school.  He was healthy like an ox.  But just before he was to turn 18 Martin got hit bad with an illness.  The Doctors flew him from Tasmania to Adelaide when they realised Martin had a hole in his heart and his heart was enlarged!  No one could really believe what was happening.  This strapping kid was very unwell.

They treated Martin and hoped that he would be able to make it home for his eighteenth.  It was never to happen though as Martin made it through all the surgeries he was required to undertake and then was killed by a heart attack caused by a Golden Staphylococcus infection.  The family were literally stunned at this.  It is completely overwhelming and unthinkable that this happened to him.  Something completely out of the blue.

Life continued for us and in time the pain eased and I would think fondly of the times that I had with Martin.  But then another tragedy lurched into being.  My cousin Sandra (Sandy) had survived well past her teens and she was in her thirties.  She was such a funny spirit.  Wild and spirited with a mischievous humour much like her father she was a joy to be around.  She was at home by herself when an electrical fault in her wheelchair caused a fire.  I cannot bear to think of what she went through and I hoped that I would never learn what it would be like to lose someone in such a circumstance.

But of course you may have read my last blog and know that I did.  My brother killed by a one in a million circumstance.  I llok at our family history.  Three children of one generation; each had two children of their own; each lost one child to circumstances so unlikely as to be considered one in a million events.

I look at that and wonder two things.  Firstly, is our family cursed?  Secondly, is it proof of a greater pattern to things?

I cannot say for sure but I can tell you one thing.  It sucks.  I hate even that I have to think like this, or that my mind is conditioned at looking at things this way.  I know there is greater pain and suffering of others out in the world but this is so personal to me and it is part of the complicated relationship of my depression.  I do feel that without this repeated pattern of loss I may have healed from the loss of my brother but with the added losses I feel like I was set up to fall in this hole.

Thanks for reading.

The Cause of My Depression

Thank you for waiting for this.  I realise I had promised it for Sunday last (my fortieth birthday) but circumstances have caused me to postpone this post until now.  I can pin the cause of my depression down to a moment in time because I have reactionary depression.  That is my depression has been caused by an event that I have reacted to.  There is non-reactionary depression also where the minds chemistry is not balanced correctly (I believe that is the case) and people are just depressed and are not sure why.  So in that circumstance I actually feel lucky to have reactionary depression.  I can't think what it would be like to think that feeling like this is a natural thing.

My depression began on Monday the 21st of April 2003.  This was Easter Monday and I was at home playing Mario Party or something similar with my wife and my two kids, Shanise and Courtney.  The phone rang and I let it go as we were in the middle of a round and I decided to use the caller ID function to call them back after the session.  We were living in Emerald Queensland at the time, a long way away from my family in Tasmania.  I walked out to the kitchen and dialled the *10# number that allows you to retrieve the last number that called you.  It was my mother and I dialled it back.

I heard the receiver lift on the other end and as I was in a jovial mood at the time I made a joke that I knew would make my mother laugh and be shocked.  I said "What the f*&% do you want?".  Unfortunately the next voice I heard was not my mother but someone else.  They asked who this was.

That really knocked the wind out of me and I became worried.  My mother lived alone and would never let some random person pick up the phone.  I explained who I was and my mother came on the phone.  She was distraught and had obviously been in tears.  She asked me to sit down, but I couldn't.  I asked what it was and then she said to me;

"Michael has been killed in a mining accident."

Michael was my only sibling.  My big brother.  Growing up it had always just been my parents and him and I had always thought the world of him.  A lot of who I am is due to Michael and it really felt like I had been hit with a physical blow.

I doubled over.  I could not breathe.  I must have made some kind of wild/feral noise as Nikki came running in to find me.  I was inconsolable.  My mother told me that she had left some rather curt messages on my Father's answering machine (they were separated and he had married again) and I knew I could not let him find out in that way.  To hold myself together I just repeatedly dialled his number until I got him and gave him the news.

Michael is one of those people that everyone loved.  he was mischievous, fun, caring and charismatic.  People could not help but like him and he always was surrounded by a massive amount of friends.  He was always chased by the ladies as well as he was considered quite the catch wherever he went.  I always measured myself against him and I always fell well short in every department.  When he died I quietly repeated a mantra to myself for many months.

"It should have been me."

It is funny in a way as I have since heard a lot about my brother.  I had been away for some time and though we spoke infrequently we were never a family that spoke in depth or personally really about anything.  We would keep our emotional selves in check and talk about other things.  But talking to people that knew Michael it seems he was very much envious of me.  He was envious of my stable relationships and of my intelligence and I am sure if it had of been the other way around it may have been him that thought exactly the same things.

It is eleven years almost since Michael passed away.  He died instantly according to the coroners report and the Doctor that called his death advised that it could have gone the other way and made him a quadriplegic with no ability to communicate with the outside world, which he would have hated more.  You may think that it is ludicrous for myself to be still in depression like this, and I agree with you.  But I can't seem to let it go.  Doctors are happy to get you on medication and I have seen counsellors but none of them say "This is the way to stop feeling bad about this".  They tell me that the medication needs to level me out and then slowly come off it and I will be find.

The medication simply stops me being angry.  I struggle to find happiness in my life and when I do find a place to be happy I normally am disapproved of by one faction or another until the thing I find offers me no enjoyment any more.  I want to break the cycle of depression but I feel I am caught.  Each time I think of Michael it fills me with a deep loneliness and I can conjure up that initial pain of first hearing it as though it were seconds ago.

Michael's death was the trigger but there are other, weirder factors that have me in this depression to do with my family.  I hope to talk about those in my next post.  I think I have put myself through enough for one sitting!  I hope that this post will explain a bit about depression to some people and also reach others that have some similar circumstances and see that it is OK to feel this way and I hope that through my writing that can follow my journey of what I am doing to try and get out of this hole I find myself in.

Thankyou for reading.

Who Am I?

I get the irony a little in writing this post.  But before I go into more of what I want to achieve I want you to know who I am and what I have experienced in my life.  Of course doing that this early means that I run the risk of not many people reading it but it is an important to get this out there so you know why I want to share my point of view.  In fact why I need to share my point of view because at this point in my life (I am a week away from turning 40) I look at the world and it makes me sad.  There are parts of my life that are great, but I can no longer look and say nothing about what I find troubling in the world.  What I hope is that this blog will grow and like minded people will join with me and discuss the points that I make and see what we can do, if anything, to change it.

I was born in Hobart, Tasmania on Saturday the 26th of January almost forty years ago.  I had a Mother and a Father and an older Brother.  I was the last child and that is how my family looked for most of my life.  I was born with anaemia and was a very pale child.  My very first photo upset my extended family so much that my Mother could not show it on the mantle when they came around as they said it was hard to work out where I began and the sheets finished!  Soon after birth though the condition went away and I became normal so to speak.  But what is normal?

My mother, my brother and his daughter Indiannah

My family moved to Burnie, Tasmania before I turned one and for my entire childhood I lived in Burnie or near Burnie.  When I was 4 we moved to a 5 acre farm in Elliott which is 20 kilometres away from Burnie and we spent ten years at that farm.  It was a great place to grow up, and it instilled rural values into me.  So what do I think that means because everyone has a different idea?

1. Community is all about knowing each other and helping out each other
2. You get an understanding of the cycle of life and how things interact to create that cycle
3. You build up a "have a go" attitude where you just try to solve things yourself
4. You build an excellent imagination and a sense of exploration

I went to a small school that took us from Kindergarten right through to Grade 10.  I only went to Grade 6 though and moved on to Burnie High School after that as it offered a better curriculum for me. We stayed in Elliott for 10 years before we moved back into Burnie and I stayed there until I moved out of home to my first job, working for the Australian Government.  I met my wife and travelled about various parts of Australia with my work.  At this time my Mother and Father separated and then we returned to Tasmania after a tragedy. 

This caused me to quit my job and finally take a hard look at what I was doing and change direction.  I went to Uni for around ten years and then took on a new job by happenstance teaching (I did not get an education degree at University, it was a Bachelor of Computing) senior secondary students.  My mother then passed away and I have been 4 years in the job teaching.  And it is at this point in my life that has brought me to writing this blog.

So there you have it, the very brief auto-biography.  There are gaping holes there which I am sure you can plainly see but I will explore them in connection with other things in the future.  Next week, for example, I will explore the tragedy I mentioned which is also the point where I gained my depression.  I will talk about this in relation to my depression and how it has been living with it for now over a decade.

I hope you join me next week, on my 40th birthday to take a look at the next post!

The View From My Window

Hi all.  I hope that some of you are interested enough to start reading my new blog.  This is a much more personal view of my life than my other blog (www.thepathfinderchronicles.com) and I will be using it once a week to make personal comment on the things around me and maybe also giving you all a view of my personal history.  It will also cover details of my progress from  depression and hopefully back to a happy healthy self again.  It is a goal that I want to achieve by the end of this year and one that I have started to work on with some effort in the past weeks.

Me trying to be earnest...

Topics likely to be covered will be;

• My personal history
• The effects of loss and grieving
• Politics and religious views
• Depression
• Programming and technology

There will be no coverage of;

• Specific commentary of Role Playing Games
• Videos of games

I am going to post once a week on Sundays to this blog and I hope that some of my regular readers on the other blog join me and I also bring new readers into the fold in the near future.

Thanks

Mark.