This will hurt me...

After a looooooonnnng time out of action, I've finally spent the time required to fix my PC and turn it back into the sort of sleek web-surfing, game-playing beast that I prefer to be using. In order to celebrate, I have decided to post a picture of a slightly more hirsute Henry browsing the web for naughty pictures of Dora the Explorer.

Here you can see the view up from Salamanca place to Davey Street. This is where the nobs can be found hob nobbing with other nobs day in day out.

The past week I have been snatching moments here and there to revise the old Curriculum Vitae. Revisiting one’s CV and the all important “skills set” is always an experience that I loathe.

I’m not sure whether it is the usual cringe that accompanies blowing one’s own trumpet [fnarr fnarr], or whether it is reflective of a deeper cold hard reality. However impressive the list of positions, tasks, roles, responsibilities, actions, functions, actions or achievements looks on paper, the fact of the matter is that I am unable to reconcile the present situation with the unanswerable question as to how I have managed to drift so far away from something that I would much rather be doing?

Moreover, after drifting this far with the current, how on Earth does one manage to swim back upstream to get to where one might rather be when the weather looks so ominous?

Here he is, Miss America!

By golly he did some shouting last night though. It's still ringing around my head.

I was thinking that I hadn't had a boat for a little while, I must rectify that. This is from a couple of weeks back. As usual, I like the juxtaposition of the ropes of the old timer and the sleeker lines of the modern. I do like the romance of sailing boats, but there is something to be said for the stabilisers of the modern cruise ship!

Here is another one minute poem.

A new kind of thinking?
isn't it interesting?
and
isn't it odd?

like a
psychological melodrama
or

like an empty

...

My god I have been busy this week. Here is Henry and the gang looking suitably solemn.

Yes it is Theme Thusday again, and today we are talking GLASS. I've three possible hooks to hang my [glass] hat on with this theme. First, the photo!

Yes, it is the river again from an odd angle in an interesting light. You can just make out the bottom, which should tell you that I'm right on the shore. In some ways, the distortion of the stones below the surface reminds me of ye olde glass windows, what they call "cylinder blown sheet glass". You can still find some of this around Hobart these days.

Thw second link comes from a trip I took to Venice a few years back. You're probably aware that Venice was (is?) a glass-making centre of excellence. If you have ever been there and taken the tour of the glass factories, you might be familiar with the sheer amount of coloured glass that sits at the bottom of the water there. These fragments of glass have been worn down and had their edges dulled by their time in the water, which makes them ample keepsakes for the cheapskate tourist (raises hand). I've got a few of these bits on top of the fridge here at home, and the play of the light on the surface of the water when I took this photo has me thinking that similar pieces of coloured glass lay lurking below.

The third link is far simpler. It is but a mere invite to raise your glasses and celebrate the fact this this modest little post represents the one thousandth for the blog!

I didn't want to mention it earlier, for fear of generating a Y2K panic amongst readers, and I hope that post number 1,000 does not break all of your computers.

By golly I have been busy today. To ease the strain, here is Ez getting in some early bull riding practice. As is the namby pampy politically correct norm these days, I couldn't find a farmer to let us use their bull.

Insurance costs, they tell me!

No wonder the world is going to hell in a hand basket!

[Anyone who can spot the link between the content and the title will have earned respect!]

Even though they tend to dominate my day to day existance, I have been very good and not overloaded you with images of the silos down here in Salamanca Place. That said, I couldn't resist this one.

I'm in a Galway Kinnell mood today. So here is my favourite short Kinnell poem.

Prayer

Whatever happens. Whatever
what is is is what
I want. Only that. But that.

Having been privy to some rather frank updates on current budget estimates, I think that the low cost option may be more popular in the coming years...

[Thanks, of course, to the good folks at Married to the Sea.]

Here is my question to you, do robots poo?

If you stroll around Battery Point for even just a short while, you will find no shortage of evidence that we are indeed another colonial outpost of Mother Britain. I do wonder what these names mean to most Tasmanians though...

Here's a poem that took me forty five seconds to write on the bus yesterday morning. I'm not sure as to the wisdom of posting it sans reflection, but sometimes I just can't be bothered.

untitled
i loved that time
way back when
way way way back when
when you weren't talking to me.

me.
back then you knew everything
and I knew nothing.
but
the nothing I knew
knew your
everything
meant nothing.

"Must... get... baby..."

Urgghhhh...

"Must... get... baby..."

Arghhhh...

"Just a... little... bit... further..."

It must be very frustrating when you are beginning to understand the fundamentals of crawling, but you're just not quite there.

Even moreso when you finally manage to get your hand on it an an anti-social toddler snatches the prize at the very final second.

One day he shall have his revenge. One day...

Wow-ee, would you just take a look at that shoe polish!

Yes-siree, some mighty fine shoe polish there.

Hey, let me have a look at that again [crosses legs uncomfortably]. Hmmmm, a free shine cloth.

A free shine cloth you say? Hmmmm, I better have another look at that ad...

There is one thing for sure, this advert certainly gets you thinking about shoe polish!

Even beer kegs on the bag of a truck can make for an interesting photograph, if you try hard enough.

There is a quote from Günter Grass' novel The Tin Drum that I like very much, and I think captures the feeling of a kind of nervous energy that I was trying to put words to the other day.

"...At this moment I undertsood the fatal lure of the thirty-foot springboard; little grey kittens began to wriggle in my knee joints, hedgehogs mated under the soles of my feet, swallows took wing in my armpits, and at my feet I saw not only Europe but the whole world."

I really like that. If you've not read the book, give it a go.

Here you can see a pre-haircut Henry in his secret bedroom lair/fort last weekend. He sets himself up safely under cover, only to emerge from his bunker to lob missiles from his vast stores of ammunition at any unsuspecting visitor. Toys, drinks, pillows, books, blankets, sleeping bags and everything in between has been lobbed in my direction (generally at the head).

Thankfully, we don't let him keep his revolver in his room...

When I first moved to Hobart I lived in this house, my bedroom was in the window on the left right. The Tasmanian Premier at the time lived in the same street, but somewhat depressingly, I lived in the worst-maintained house in the whole of Battery Point. I blamed Uni housing. The rent was just $45 a week. They've painted the fence and planted some shrubs. It is a vast improvement.

You used to be able to sit in the loungeroom (at the centre of the house), and see outside through the gaps in the walls. The kitchen featured windows to two of the bedrooms. It smelt. One bloke skipped without paying the rent. Another bloke was insane. Seriously, he moved in straight from the psych ward. His counsellor spoke to me about it. He ate all of my food within two days. He didn't flush the toilet. Number twos too. He left lights on an doors open day and night. I moved out within the week. I don't miss it. Much.