Lady Elliot island

The reason for the silence? Holiday. To Lady Elliot Island on the Great Barrier Reef. Snorkelling with Manta Rays, Sharks and Turtles. Too windy though, but that was due to a High Pressure system off the NSW coast. Now that we have come back the island has likely returned to the tropical paradise it usually is. Staff was great and food was yummy. Our cabin was about 10 metres from the shoreline and we had a Red-tailed Tropicbird nesting about a metre from our front balcony. There was a huge amount of birds on the island that were all wild but humanized enough to walk past closely without them worrying. In fact for the first day or two the situation with the birds reminded me of Hitchcock's The Birds since there were huge clumps of waiting and watching birds on rooftops and in trees and on the ground, all making the eerie bird noise that Hitchcock used in the film.

Whilst there I read Truman Capote's In Cold Blood and the first two novels of Jim Butcher's Dresden Files. I attempted to read Richard Werner's New Paradigm in Macroeconomics: Solving the Riddle of Japanese Macroeconomic Performance but I got too enamoured with thinking about the implications of what I was reading more than aiming to finish the text.

The suites on the island have no televisions and the guest television only received satellite TV from an Intelsat and kids tended to hog the Cartoon Network. I purchased some internet time after about 4 days to find out what was happening in the world and discovered that the Australian Dollar was nearing parity with the US.

The official website for the island is here.

I been on holiday

To Tassie!

Wonderful, wonderful holiday. Probably the best I've ever had although my 1990/91 trip to Los Angeles and then Cawdor is high up there too.

I went to Cradle Mountain:

And to Port Arthur:

We stayed a few days in the shadow of Mount Roland:

We visited Mount Wellington in Hobart:

And the Cadbury's Factory at Claremont:

Where we ate lots of this:

Judith Rae Curtis, 1940-2009

Judy, my mother in law, died last Wednesday at the Mater hospice. As many readers know, she had been suffering from various cancers for some time, so her death was, in the end, a relief.

A private cremation service was held yesterday (Monday 26 October) in which Judy's close family members (my wife, myself, our two children, Judy's sister and brother-in-law) and a close friend attended. A public memorial service was held today at our church. I contributed with the opening prayer and with a eulogy, the text of which follows:

Opening Prayer

Lord God,

We gather here today to worship you and praise you for the life of Judith Rae Curtis. We thank you for her, Lord. We thank you that you worked in her to touch the lives of so many, including those of us here today. We thank you for:
- her smile,
- for her insights,
- for her professional skills and knowledge that taught so many to treat others so effectively,
- and for her transparent love of Christ which gave her joy and meaning in life in her youth and in her old age, and in times of joy and in times of trial.

We praise you that she is now in paradise with Christ. We ask this day as we celebrate her life, that we might meditate upon our own lives in the light of eternity, and that you might speak to us and teach us about what it means to be a disciple of Christ.

This we pray in the name of Jesus.

Amen



My memories of Judith

My memories of Judy naturally begin around the time I met Anna, so I don't remember the exact moment I met her, but certainly the feelings of nervousness that accompany a guy who is meeting his girlfriend's parents for the first time. In fact I remember more clearly meeting Anna's dad than meeting Judy – which, as many of you know, is quite understandable.

Anna was the light of Judy's life. Her only child. Naturally Judy had reasonably high expectations of whatever guy would end up marrying her daughter. Did I meet those expectations? Of course not. But Judy was generous nonetheless, and wholeheartedly supported our decision to marry.

I remember one time during our engagement when Judy came up to me and said some very kind words. Like most mothers with adult children, she looked forward to grandchildren, and with tears in her eyes she spoke of this.

Of course it took us a while, but once Aiden and Lillian came along Judy was delighted. One of my favourite pictures of Judy on the montage at the back of the church shows her playing with a 2 year old Anna. Judy's mouth open, the big smile – they were present when Anna was a little girl, and they were present again whenever Lillian or Aiden was around.

I know that Judy achieved much in her life professionally. I never saw any of that. I never saw Judy as teacher or lecturer or tutor or colleague. Instead I saw her in her role as mother and grandmother. The way I look at it is this: As an academic and health professional, she was able to improve the quality of life of many. As a mother and grandmother she gave much to Anna, Lillian, Aiden and myself.

The last few months of Judy's life were tough, but I am glad that we were able to be there for her. She was surrounded by her family at the end of her life. We'll never forget her.

Back to normal - everything is stuffed

For my international readers, you may have noticed a slight drop in the quantity and (let's face it) quality of my blog posts lately. This is because Australia in January is pretty much closed down. Because we live on the upside down part of the Earth, the seasons here are the opposite of that in the Northern Hemisphere. This means that we have Christmas AND summer holidays at the same time. Add to this the fact that our convict forefathers decided to arrive on January 26th 1788 and we basically have a 4-5 week period of nothing but hot weather and holidays.

If anyone wants to invade Australia, do it during early January.

But now that Australia Day is over and done with, the kids are about to go back to school and Australia returns to normal again. My son is about to enter 3rd grade (the equivalent of "the third grade" in America) and my daughter about to go into pre school. This means that I should be able to blog better and more often.

Anyone who has been perusing the economic news lately knows that there have been some massive job cuts announced - not just here in Australia but all over the world, especially in the US. 2008 Q4 GDP will be released this Friday and I am expecting a big drop - at the very least a contraction of 1.0% or more.

I also remain convinced that the US Dollar is ripe for a crash, even though the currency has firmed in recent weeks. As I have pointed out before, there is no real reason why anyone would want to hold US Dollars at the moment - treasury yields are ultra low, the US Property market has popped and the Share Market has crashed. While the rest of the world isn't too wonderful economically either, the US is the centre of the storm and will suffer more and suffer longer than the international community. Although I am not a financial advisor (yet) I would counsel investors to invest in Euro, Yen and precious metals and sell off their US assets before the crash gets underway.

The upcoming dollar crash will be the final "event" that will plunge the US and the world into the second great depression. High oil prices (2004-2008), the bursting of the subprime bubble (2006), the credit crisis (2007-2008), de-leveraging (2007-2008) and the Bear Market (2008) were all previous events that have hit the US in the last few years.

Despite my natural relief that Bush is no longer occupying the White House I have little confidence that President Obama will be able to achieve much in the first 2 years in terms of repairing the economy. Big spending seems to be the only solution and this will frighten the markets further considering the sheer amount of debt the Federal Government has already gotten itself into before the credit crisis hit - and this fear will put downward pressure on the dollar.

Once the dollar has crashed, the only recourse will be to follow the policies outlined in The Washington Consensus, which will inflict upon America harsh austerity measures. A dollar crash will force the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates and force the Federal Government to rein in spending - the very opposite of what is currently being applied (low interest rates and lots of deficits spending).

While a part of me remains Keynesian, the Austrian part of me argues that policies and practices that created the problem in the first place should not be used to solve the problem. in other words, if America's situation was caused by unrestrained spending and injudicious borrowing, then why assume that more spending and more borrowing will solve the problem? Balance needs to be restored - and that means that America needs to save more and borrow less, to produce more and to consume less. It is therefore more important for China and Japan to stimulate domestic spending in their own countries - a process that will increase US exports and reduce imports to the US - than for the US to indulge in more spending.

This is not to say that some deficit spending may be required in the US - just not as huge an amount that is being touted.

But, the dollar will crash and no one listens to me anyway. It'd be nice if I could make money out of being right.

Merry Christmas

It may be December 24th everywhere else in the world but here across the international date line it is Christmas day. It's 8.25am and I've so far consumed a cup of tea and a fruit mince pie. I'm currently consuming a cup of coffee and a croissant with another one to follow. Then it's off to church and then to my Mother-in-law's where we will have the present giving, Christmas lunch and undoubtedly an afternoon of children playing, eating chocolates and looking at our gifts.

Merry Christmas. I'll post again tonight about the meaning of Christmas too.

Nowendoc

That's where I'm taking my sister today for a drive. I'm sure you can all stand not to read anything serious and economic from me today surely?

How to search for things on my blogsite

Just a quick explanation for anyone who is looking to find certain things on my blog.

In the upper left hand corner of your screen you should find a button marked "search blog". Next to that, to its left, is a space for you to type in a keyword.

For example, if you want to find any article pertaining to my wife, just type "wife" and then click the button "search blog". All articles with the word "wife" will appear - some of which will be articles about my own wife, others will be articles where the word appears but has nothing to do with my own wife.

Another way to search for articles here is to use Google Advanced Search. A simple way to do it would be to go to Google and type the following:

wife site:http://one-salient-oversight.blogspot.com/

And then press "search".

This will give you a list of links from my own website where I use the word "wife".

If you want to search for something else, replace "wife" with the word you are looking for when you are typing into google. For example, if you want to search for "cat", type the following:

cat site:http://one-salient-oversight.blogspot.com/

But the great thing about using Google is that Google has what is called Google Cache. If you are searching for something that I have decided to remove from my blog for whatever reason, it is still present in the Google Cache. If I have recently deleted an article, you can still find it by clicking the link marked "cached" on the results when you do the Google search I have outlined above.

There are some really nasty people out there who write horrible things on their blogs and, when they are found out, remove the offending page. You can catch these horrible people out by using the Google Cache. They may have removed content from their blog or website, but the Google Cache can always be used to catch them out.

So, if you're looking for something that I may have deleted, it will still turn up on Google Search, thus proving my dastardly deed of covering up something. But you have to be quick, however, because I think the Google Cache eventually updates itself and removes the "dead" page after about a week.

But, then again, I haven't deleted any articles for ages. The last time I deleted an article was a month or two ago when I accidentally posted something twice. This means, of course, that if you use Google to search my blog, everything you see in your google search will be there.

Besides, I don't write dastardly things. Feel free to read through my website to see for yourself and remember that any absence of evidence pretty much means evidence of absence.

AAAAAAAAA

A blog post with every single category marked (I'm doing this for scribefire)

Bad news, good news

No school called me up for work today, but one school booked me for Wednesday, Thursday, Friday this week.

Spent this morning downloading Ghosts again, this time in FLAC format.

Worked

2 days at Christian school, came home and they rang me up again to work tomorrow. It's been good - both Anna and I are enjoying the return to traditional family mode.

But I'm tired. I'm going to bed early. Good night.

Off to work

I'm working today - my first day back since Anna finished on Friday. I'm looking forward to it!

Update:
Bit rusty, but everything went well. I'm working at the same school tomorrow.

The Birthday Girl and Dad

My Daughter turns 3 on Tuesday

And her party is tomorrow. It's a "Dorothy the Dinosaur" party.

I'm going back to teaching

For all of 2007 I basically functioned as a "house husband" after I returned from teaching in Griffith. It's had its advantages - not least the time to blog a lot - but I've decided to go back to work.

This decision is not so much an emotional one but a practical one. As many of you know my mother in law is ill with cancer. There's a very good chance that she might die this year. My wife, who has been working at Centrelink as a Social Worker, needs to stop work to care more for her mum.

So, Anna will be finishing up work this Friday, and I will begin - again - a period of "casual teaching" whereby High schools in our area who have sick teachers will ring me up and ask me to work that day. This sort of work isn't always reliable, but as Autumn is around the corner, more teachers will catch colds or go on professional development days and need their classes taken care of.

Today I visited four schools - two Christian schools, a private non-Christian school and a small public school near our home that specialises in children with physical disabilities. I handed over my resume, filled in forms, spoke to people in charge, etc etc. My experience is that once you have taught at a school once and "proved" yourself to the right staff members, you tend to become the no. 1 person they call when they need someone. When I was working like this back in 2002/2003, two schools in particular would call me up. Most of my work would come from these two schools, with one or two others thrown in as well.

Will this affect my blogging? I don't know. Usually if a school rings me up it occurs between 6.30am and 8.00pm, which means that I need to be up and showered by at least 6.30am. I may be able to spend a bit of time blogging in the "early hours" as a result. At night, though, with no lessons to prepare or exams to mark, it will be easy to blog.

So anyway, if people could pray that things work out that would be wonderful!

My Brother is in the news

Farmer gives low-cost laptop a proper field test.

The problem is, of course, that he ain't a farmer - he's a programmer who owns a large block of land out in the country.

The article also suggests that bro has a "fear of travel" but all he said was that doesn't like flying. The guy travels all around Australia in a car with his wife when he has time off.

Our Church has a website

If you want to find out what sort of people would ever want me to go to church with them, click here.

Charlestown Presbyterian is part of the Presbyterian Church of Australia and is one of two regional churches that form the parish of Charlestown Eastlakes in Lake Macquarie (Newcastle, NSW).

The other church is Swansea Presbyterian. We are committed to the Bible as our final authority as we seek to serve and honour Jesus.

The Westminster Confession of Faith sets out how we understand the Bible.
It is our desire to provide a context where you will find warm friendship, clear practical Bible teaching and help with what it means to follow Jesus in our daily lives.
We are keen to have others join us as we grow and serve together as God’s people.

Who is Peter Failes?

Last week I had a strange poll about a guy named Peter Failes. You're probably wondering who he is and why I had a poll about him.

When I met my wife way back in the dim, dark ages of the early 1990s, Peter was in a circle of friends from her church in Chatswood. So while we were going out I would occasionally meet Peter.

When we moved out of Sydney to Newcastle, we discovered that a lot of people at our church (Charlestown Presbyterian) also knew Peter. This was because Peter studied here for a while and attended Hunter Bible Church, some members of which ended up attending Charlestown.

Then, in 2006, I went to Griffith. Griffith is in country NSW, quite a few hundred kilometres away. Griffith was also where Pete worked for a few years (he's a town planner) and so when I started going to Griffith Presbyterian Church I suddenly had Pete being prayed for in church. Everyone there knew Pete.

Essentially, the problem was that everywhere I went people seemed to know Peter Failes.

Then, a few Sundays ago, Pete and his family visited our church. I remembered just how ubiquitous he was and commented on it. Zoe (wife) mentioned that one of the people he invited to their wedding turned out to be one of her neighbours when she was a kid.

The poll was a bit of joke therefore - I was testing just how many people know the guy. In the end only one person clicked "yes I know Pete". Now that person was not me (I don't vote on my polls for obvious reasons), but I do know that Tom and Ray read my site and both know Pete, so one of you didn't vote. Let you be anathema.

Pete and Zoe had one of the most memorable weddings I have been to. It was a "Monsoon Wedding" held literally in the middle of nowhere. It was on a farm located in the middle of a circular valley. There was no power, so electricity was from a generator. All the guests had to pass through neighbouring properties. When we got there Pete and Zoe were dressed up in Indian garb (as in subcontinent, not America).

Ex mas

Aiden came up to me after church this morning and said "Dad! I know what the wise men gave Jesus!".

"Okay, what were they?" says me

"Gold, Frankenstein and Myrrh!"

And he was serious too...

Reminds me also of when I was a lad I was in 5th Grade (about 10 years old) and was singing in the school spectacular at the Opera House. We sang this song which included the phrase "Hosanna in excelsis".

Not knowing much about the Bible at the time, and knowing that this was a somewhat religious song, I always wondered who this Hosanna guy was and where this place called Excelsis was that he was in.

Creepy

A two-year-old boy has died of a heart attack, caused by croup, shortly after arriving in Sydney on an international flight from Thailand, police say.

An ambulance spokesman said the boy had croup, a respiratory disease that leads to continued coughing that affects toddlers.

The boy fell ill during a Thai Airways flight from Bangkok, which landed about 9.30pm yesterday.

An ambulance was called at 9.35pm and arrived at 9.41pm, a spokesman said.

The boy was taken to Sydney Children's Hospital at Randwick and later died.

A spokeswoman for the hospital said he was "pretty close to death" when he arrived.

The boy's family are not Australian citizens but are living here, a spokeswoman for the Swedish embassy in Canberra said. - SMH

Aiden has had croup on a number of occasions. It's a very distressing condition. To have your kid die of it would be horrendous.

Why Creepy? Last night Aiden woke us up with croup. We had some steroids so he was okay after a while.

Good customer service

These are three examples of good customer service I have had recently.

On the weekend, my son lost his wallet at K-Mart. He came home very upset because he was going to use the money in it (about $10-$15) to buy some toys or cards or whatever. He had simply put the wallet down and forgot about it (he's only 7). I went to the customer service desk, asked them if they had any missing wallets handed in. They didn't, but asked me to leave my name and number in case they do find it (his details were not in it). A man standing behind me in the queue said "good luck!", meaning there was more chance of the Beatles reforming with cloned and quickly-aged copies of John Lennon and George Harrison than there was of my son's wallet being returned. Well, an hour ago K-Mart called. The wallet's been found. Not only did they keep my slip of paper with my details, but someone remembered. And that was a day when the queue at the customer service counter was longer than the check-out queue.

Cricinfo is nice to me too - especially when I fill out their contact form. Of course there is the obligatory computer generated we-love-you-more-than-anything response. What I am continually amazed about, though, is that I have sent a couple of emails to Steven (of ask Steven) and Peter English, who both have replied personally. Moreover, I had an issue with the site recently (a dead link) and not only was I contacted immediately about it but the problem was solved almost immediately. I've even had a few Cricinfo staff write in response to some of the more crazy cricket ideas that I have sent them.

The final one is the Australian Bureau of Meteorology. Last year when I complained about a non-updated weather station, not only did I get a response straight away but when the page was finally updated I was emailed to let me know it was working again. This sort of service is not unheard of from the BOM - a teacher at Griffith told me last year that he once contacted the BOM about their weather radar page and suggested it would be best if the map of Australia showing the radar sites was at the top of the web page rather than at the bottom. They listened to him.

So remember, if you are dealing with customers - not even paying ones - you can make an impact.