12 Days of my Christmas

Last week I was invited to play percussion music for my friend Craig. It was the fbi-Radio Christmas party. One of the many I've attended this year.

Normally my Christmas time is quiet time and I seldom do anything other than get together with the wife's family and celebrate by having a few drinks, sharing presents and enjoying the evening.

This year has been different. I got to do the family thing, but every day before hand was party time with others.

Between gigging, and attending Christmas parties of every nature. I have been busy ramping up business. My wife and I did a small letterbox drop for my guitar school and I have to say that it has been a small success. With only 500 flyers distributed around my neighbourhood, I have had almost 20 email and phone enquiries. Out of them, almost all of them are sales. That doesn't sound like a lot, but the hit rate is impressive for my first attempt.

I'm planning on attending the local Fete soon with a stall. It's $40 for the day and I imagine it will bring in a great deal more business. So, that stuff is going well.

On another note, Christmas last year made me change a little and Christmas this year made me change a little more again. Last year both my wife and myself were completely shocked at the display we witnessed at a Christmas gathering we use to attend every Christmas Eve. It was at my sister-in-laws family (My brother's wife). Last Christmas was pathetically unreal. Why?

Because the tree had that many presents around it, that it circled the tree with a radius of about 3 metres. Traditionally someone dresses as Santa and hands out the presents. The family hasn't grown much since we started going there. Maybe an additional baby or two, with another on the way, but back over ten years ago when we started going there handing out presents took about 10 minutes. Last time took 3 hours.

When people received their gifts, the didn't actually know who it was from. In other words, they didn't read the cards attached to the box, or stuck to the wrapping.

When I was shown some presents people got, ones which I had bought for them, I said "That's a great gift, who got that for you?" They had no idea.

This disgusted both my wife and myself. And the fact that presents took 3 hours to hand out wasn't adding to the special day. In fact, we both felt sick of the gluttony we witnessed. We went home after midnight and both commented on what we saw. We vowed to never go there again because it just got ridiculous. At one stage we recalled seeing one person get multiple presents from one other person. And it wasn't something like socks, or a nice picture frame at best. It was iPod, PSP, Digital Camera, and so on.

It was disgusting.

This year was much more pleasant. Gifts meant giving, not competing over who could buy the most expensive present, and then double it by adding more expensive presents to the list. It was about giving. It was about family. It was about being together and enjoying the day.

It was also nice to see my rather stern brother-in-law (Wife's brother), loosen up and have a few drinks. However, he turned it into a crazy drinking game, and really REALLY loosened up, drank his heart out, competing with us youngins and saying "Old school will win".

30 minutes later, he was asleep in his chair. Us "new schoolers" kept drinking. We dragged him to the couch and placed a bucket near him just in case. It was great to see him relaxing. Last time we saw him like this was for my wedding.

Continuing with Christmas news, I have been very well behaved this year. I haven't over eaten once. Besides Christmas drinking and the prompting from the bro-in-law, I haven't been drunk. I've been careful and enjoyed the food at Christmas instead of the usual over eating and regret afterwards when I can't move.

My 12 days of Christmas consisted of Christmas parties every day. Business associates, friends, family, and all up, a well behaved silly season.

I hope your Christmas has been just as pleasant and here's looking forward to a great New Years Eve. And a brilliant 2011.

Electric cars

I was recently reading an article on the Nissan Leaf. Being an electric only car, it needs to be plugged in unlike a hybrid, where if the batter power does deplete, the petrol engine kicks in and away you go.

The article I was reading was concentrating around the fact that you only have 100 miles, or 160 kilometres in my language, range from full charge. I would imagine this doesn't take into account aircon, playing music on the stereo, using lights. sitting in traffic, large hills and so on. Much like how fuel economy is derived with a car sitting in a giant conveyor belt and put through various "real" driving experiences. It'll be a stale test of how long the battery will last. And to be honest, I can drive 160 kms in a day quite easily. Sometimes 200 kms, which would require me to a recharging station.

And that's the crux of my post today. Recharging your electric car. The biggest issue is the infrastructure. Manufacturers are investing millions into electric cars, battery performance and life. However, when you mention charging stations, all of a sudden it sounds like a brick wall has been hit. An invisible barrier.

You mean we will have to install these charging stations everywhere? That sounds like too much effort. Yet when you think about it.... and you will once I tell you, it's not really that bad. Well, it kinda still is.... perhaps not as bad as you thought at first.

In Australia, we currently have a big debate over the roll out of a new Internet infrastructure. It's called the NBN, National Broadband Network. What it actually is, is fibre optic cables from the telephone exchange straight to your home. Bumping our currently theoretical maximum speed of 24Mbit (that's Mega bits) per second to a Japan and Korea equalling 100Mbit connection.

Meanwhile Japan is upgrading their infrastructure to go to 1Gbps (that's 1 Giga bit per second). If that means nothing to you, picture yourself doing 100 miles and hour (160 km/h). Now imagine yourself doing 1000 miles and hour (1600 km/h). It's a significant increase. And will aid our country in keeping up with the rest of the planet who are already on this technology because in a sad but honest way, the Internet and connectivity as a whole is where our future is. The world will continue to get smaller.

Now, the debate with the NBN is if our country really needs it. Or do we keep using the old infrastructure, which consists of copper telephone lines which have corroded since their installation back in 1948?

Much in the same way, we keep saying that charging stations are going to cost an arm and a leg to set up in every country, every state of that country, every city of that state, every suburb of that city and every home in that suburb. But it's imperative. It must be done in order to support our future mode of personal transport, the electric car, which sadly still has a dismal range before it needs charging, which means it won't be popular in Australia, because your next door neighbour can be 50 km in that direction, and your battery isn't going to last the drive home unless your neighbour gives you a couple of hours charging time as well as that sugar you drove all the way there for.

And do you seriously see a charging station in the middle of the Stuart Hwy? There are parts of that road that roadkill avoids.

But I'm here to shed a positive light on the charging station.

When countries started to develop, and I'm thinking Industrial Revolution here. They created infrastructure because it was needed. The cost was important, but it took a back seat because it was needed. Rail systems. They were needed. Yet when our government speaks of additional tracks on our current rail system. It costs us as tax payers billions of dollars. Yet, back then, it cost us, the general public nothing, because people found investors. And investors knew, it had to be done.

Power lines are just as new, if not newer than the rail system. Think of how much power lines cover the country. That's a lot of work. A lot of money. But guess what? It had to be done in order for everyone to have affordable power to their homes.

Infrastructure shouldn't have a cost associated with it. It shouldn't have a price tage to help determine if it's worth it or not. It should just be done because it will benefit. Charging stations will benefit electric car owners because they'll have convenient locations to top up their charge. As convenient as a petrol station is now.

If however, you find one every 10 kilometres in built up suburban areas, then there will be issues. Sure you can charge at home, but that's not really convenient when you're already out and about. You want to return home, and not have to head out again.

What happens when there's a black out? Brown out? Electrical storm? Surges?

Sorry, I just thought of that while I was thinking of all the positive aspects.

I really want to see a good electric car. One that will get me from Sydney to Melbourne on one charge just like my diesel car can now, on $45 dollars worth of fuel. That's 1100 kms and 13 hours of driving.

When will this likely happen? Maybe by 2040. The way manufacturers are currently claiming battery life, they're saying that 160 km is normal now. By 2015 they are expecting maybe 190 km per charge.

Maybe I'm asking for too much, I'm being too harsh on the chemists who are playing with the chemicals used to make battery technology improve. Maybe too many people have been nice to them for too long and they're too comfortable in their cushy labs. Maybe someone needs to light a fire under their arses and get things cooking.

I'll let the early adopters buy the first, second and maybe third generation electric cars. I'll wait until I can genuinely replace my diesel with electric power that can last 13 hours of driving. Not one hour.

My theory

Yes, another one.

If you look back, you'll see that I have some good theories and other not so good ones, but I like them anyway because they're mine. :)

Today I'm going to theorise the way we came to living on planet Earth.


We, not as humans, but living creatures have evolved enough to already transport ourselves from one planet to the next. How so? We started out on Mercury but as the sun grew, Mercury got too hot. So we moved to Venus. It was a larger planet that allowed our population to grow. However, it could not sustain us due to the ever increasing size of the sun, getting closer and closer.

Next was Earth. Which is where we are now. However, at the present we are unable to travel to other parts of the solar system due to an accident that shut down the space travel program a long time ago. The entire idea was erased from all history books, and memories of people. Though some people have had relapse and have created space travel ideas from scratch. Maybe their brains weren't wiped entirely.

The space race wasn't about who gets to the moon first, but who could travel in space first. Now Richard Branson is working on the space travel thing for everyday people like you and me. Soon we will be able to travel to other parts of the galaxy, and maybe the solar system.

In the meantime the sun is growing bigger. It is getting hotter on Earth, not only because of global harming. Once the sun is close enough to start kill us, we will have to resurrect the galaxy quest and move on to the next planet. Which planet will it be? Mars of course. The idea that it has polar caps, and signs of water illustrate to me two things. One is that it could harbour life, and two.... it will. You see, once the sun gets close enough to Earth to heat it up enough for life to become unbearable and make us move to the next planet in line, by that stage Mars will have transformed itself due to the ideal proximity of the sun into a planet that miraculously become habitable.

What of the other planets?

Jupiter is a giant. And there's a reason why.

Overpopulation. Currently we are at that turning point on Earth where life is becoming unsustainable. Food is now mass produced, and we will eventually run out of land, and water. If it were not for the sun's appetite to grow and devour planets, we'd stay here, die, but those self sustaining would remain, unless their crops got stolen, which is highly likely, given the fickle nature of humans.

Jupiter is large because it is preparing itself for the advent of us coming over there to live. Once we arrive, the mass of the plant will allow humans to multiply and take over the planet. Keep in mind that at this point in time the planet is inhabitable but what's to say that it too cannot transform like Mars did once the sun reached the appropriate distance to provide a catalystic change in Jupiter that made it ideal for us. And what's to say that at this stage we still resemble our human form as we know it. After all, history shows us to be more ape-like when Earth was still new.

Jupiter allows us to grow as one living race. However, with all that population, something happens. It causes a big riot and at this stage we must move on to the next planet. Saturn, it's slightly smaller. But that's because the events that happened to Jupiter caused a severe decrease in population and we now no longer require a planet the size of Jupiter to support ourselves.

From then on, the planets decrease in size significantly, and that's because our form dies off, we start to mutate into another being. We can survive on smaller planets that have less to offer. Pluto gets put back on the list of planets in our solar system and we end up searching for other planets ofter Pluto because at this stage the sun is still drawing near.

The cycle never ends, until the sun turns to solid rock. Where we might decide that this is the end or at that stage we have discovered a comparable solar system which allows us to habit that environment, and off we go again doing what humans do best, taking over what isn't ours, calling it ours and eradicating the existing life wherever we please.

What if? What if my brain exploded? Read below to see the aftermath

People procrastinate. We all do in one way, shape or form.

There's always "what if's?" Usually it's because of fear.

The "What if's" are usually bad. It's never "What if I enjoy this?" Oh my!

It's usually "What if I die"", "What if I lose?" and so on.

I'm guilty of it. But at this moment in my life, I am least affected by it. The "What if's" have gotten a bit more serious, but I have become more laid back.

Now I have thrown caution to the wind, while still keeping an eye on things so they don't orbit into chaos. But I'm letting whatever happens, happen.

You can only stop the water flow as high as the damn wall. Right now the water is starting to overflow the wall, and I'm enjoying the trickle, and can't wait for the torrent to break through.

I'm going to be busy. But I know it's going to be worth it.

Failure is an option. But success is where I'm heading. I know what I want, and what I don't. My what if's are more like "I can't wait". I have almost no fear, just a few nerves, which are okay. We're allowed to have butterflies in our stomach. We're only human.

What's the point

The prompt to this story has nothing to do with it, per sé. Truth is, yesterday I went to my office of my old IT business. The office is technically a glorified storage unit right now. I'm slowly shifting stuff out of it, but there's still a lot of things to clear out. However, I have until December to get it all out of there as this is where my rent is paid up to.

While at the office, I spoke to the other IT guy next door to me. Somehow the topic of time came up. He said that there are measurements for everything. However, time has always eluded people.

I retorted with "Well, time is made up, perhaps not time itself, but the value it has had put on it was made up based on observations over a long period of.... well... time. Everything is made up. It's all invented."

There was a moment of silence.

Much deep thought over what I just said. There was very little spoken, but a lot to digest.

Instead of 60 seconds in a minute, why not 75 or 80. Then maybe we'd only work 6 hours a day instead of 8. Don't do the maths on that, I could be way off. But that's the point. I could make up any number. The number 8 has that value because it was made up. Much in the same way one minute equals sixty seconds and not sixty one or more. Or less!

Prices are made up. When you decide to sell your house, there's no value on it. The real estate agent comes in and guesses a price based on what other agents guessed around your neighbourhood. A $5 dollar note is printed on the same piece of paper as the $50 note. So why are the two not the same value?

My house is just as nice as the one next door. But theirs might sell for $50,000 more. Why? They're both identical.

Words are made up too. They're all just stupid sounds when you think about it. Yet somehow we make them just right so we all understand each other.

The letter "E" makes an "eh" sound. But why doesn't it make a "joo" sound?

If you think that sounds silly, an "E" can't possibly make a "joo" sound. Then think about how in other languages an "X" has an "heh" sound, or the letter "J" makes a "ye" sound.

And when I later thought about it all, I asked myself, "What IS the point of it all?"

Why is there money when we use to live for hundreds if not thousands of years before hand using a barter system just fine?

Why do we have to "work" for someone else, so we can survive?

Think about that for a minute. Why do you work? To get money.

Why do you need money? To pay bills and buy things.

Why do you need to pay bills? Because you use other peoples things.

Why do you need to buy things? Because we want something or need it but don't have it.

Why do we need it? Because we've been told so.

What if everyone took their money out of the bank tomorrow and kept it under their pillow? All the banks would go broke. But how will you get paid? Well, it worked in the good ol' days when you got an actual pay packet. An envelope with money in it. In fact, I use to get paid like that only 10 years ago when I was a motorcycle mechanic.

Then I could use my money to save or to spend.

I still have to pay my bills. So I get some solar panels, cut myself off the grid and no longer have an electricity bill. Phone? Nah, just allow people to pop in if they're passing by, again, like the good ol' days.

What about land rates? Last time I looked, I bought my land. But I still have to pay someone else rates on my own land. And that someone else is the government. So there's almost no choice there. But what if you didn't pay your land rates? What's the point of the rates? I understand water rates, power, waste disposal. But land tax, on land I already bought and paid tax on when I bought it? Hmm, why?

What's the point?

It's all made up. Someone, one day decided to create land rates. And everyone paid it. And now, hundreds of years later, it has morphed from bully tactics of the chief or king to our dark overlords, otherwise known as Government.

I once read a book that suggested the more money you make, the more expenses you have. At the time I thought it was stupid. Now, I think it's even dumber!

Why? Because as your wages go up, so does the cost of living. I know when I bought my house 10 years ago. Our power bill was $140 per quarter. Now it's up around $320. Our water bill use to be $80 a quarter. Now it's $180. We could fill a grocery cart at the supermarket and not spend over $100. Now I spend $100 bucks and walk out with two plastic bags.

I don't want to make it sound like doom and gloom. But I can't help but think that a group of people, or in fact many groups of people someone pulled the wool over everyones eyes. And the general public is paying for it.

The other day I was listening to the radio and they were talking about the safety signs that go up in school areas to remind motorists to slow down, reducing or preventing the likelihood of children getting killed during the times when school is about to start, and finish. This gives children a safe period of time to walk home, or to the car, or cross the street.

The subject on the radio was about the cost of the signs. These signs are large, have flashing, high brightness LED's. And are also solar powered. A couple of three metre tall poles, and add some labour to erect each sign and according to our latest government information via the budget reports, each sign cost $90,000 to erect.

Ninety Thousand Dollars!!!

I think each sign is worth about $2000, and a lot of the cost would be shared between the labour hire and the solar panels. The rest is a $5 electronics kit from Dick Smith.

$90,000.00

Talk about making up stuff. Someone made that price up, and some other idiot agreed to it, spent millions on a couple of flashing lights and walked away, proud of themselves because they are looking after our community.

But then, my friend would say "But you voted for the government". Which makes it my problem because it was my choice. I voted for these idiots.

Truth is, the people I vote for never end up in power. But I don't even want to vote. Though I have to because it's compulsory.

The real truth is, I'm starting to lose the plot. I can't see the point of working so damn hard to enjoy what little time I have left in the day to enjoy my life.

Maybe that's a really negative way to look at things. Maybe. Or maybe I'm just the same old guy I always was. Realistic. Or I'm talking complete crap and you can tell me to shut up. Either way. I'm done for now.

Busy bee, busy Steve

I've been a busy boy. When aren't I?

Well, more busy than usual. In fact, busy enough to not even be able to get online and blog, read, email, chat, etc.

Craig and myself have been busy with gigs. I've been busy with the music school and general stuff around the house.

Craig and I have been performing for about the last 6 months as a duo act called "The Snakemen".

Here's some video of us performing at our latest gig this past Saturday. It was a charity event put on by a lovely young girl new in town who helped support us. Craig and I just like to play music. We throw in some covers, but it's mostly all Craig's original music. Modern Australian folk music, stories about past and present Australian heros, zeros and complete strangers.





And there's more video coming soon.

The battle within

There's another blog I read of a friendly acquaintance whom I see once in a while. He's a great guy with the same problems we all face every day. Life's course.


He wrote an entry that talked about a guy who went into the mountains and sat with Buddhists. And while he was there for other reasons, he soon started believing in what the Buddhists believed.


In the end, the resistance to change is futile. We are all influenced by our surroundings and as such, I wrote this reply to his blog entry.




The war inside each of us is the greatest battle of all.


Some people keep their battles inside, not bottled up. Just internal. Meditating and medicating themselves through life's course. Learning as we go, until we expire and move on to the next light.


Sadly, there are a whole lot of people who expose their battles for the world to see. Their war is fought on the outside, and unfortunately takes a few casualties with them, the ones they hurt around them as their mace of life turns around in circles. The carnage wrecking everyone else's life in their path.


There are things in life we can choose and there are things we can't avoid. The last 7/8ths of my life have been clobbered my people around me swinging their mace around and taking me with them. I'm on my own ride now. The first time in life where I know where I'm heading but I don't know where I'll end up.


Cheers
pipsqeek

Haven't I met you before?

Déjà vu. It means Already seen in French. is the experience of feeling sure that one has witnessed or experienced a new situation previously (an individual feels as though an event has already happened or has happened in the recent past), although the exact circumstances of the previous encounter are uncertain.

This was taken from wikipedia.

Why bring it up? Because I'm a fellow who experiences this on a daily basis. Sometimes it's subtle. Sometimes it is so profound that I almost know what the next word muttered will be.

I experienced a profound instance of Déjà vu the other day. I was at a Singer/Songwriter competition with my friend Craig. We perform a duo act full of original, modern, Australia, folk music. There were many other performers there that evening. And while I'm quite active in the music scene in Sydney, I'm not as well connected as people are lead to believe. To top things off, the other performers there that night were totally unfamiliar. I had never met them in my life.

Yet, when staring at the lovely Renae, I swear we had met before. I knew her and her face was vividly familiar. But how? She was from a town 300 kms away. A town I've passed through but never stayed in. My circle of friends, even the ones up past her way are not part of her circle of friends. So how can she look so familiar. So familiar in fact that I swear I know her. I'd bet my house on it, I'm as sure as day I know her.

Another performer that got up to play was Ben from Narabeen. I've never met him either. I don't travel to Narabeen. It's just not a place I go to. Ever. Yet there he was, and I'm staring at him too. Trying to figure out why he looks like someone I know too well.

Renae ended up sitting at our table and my wife spoke to her. We still don't know how I know her but we exchanged business cards and got chatting. We still have no idea. But either way, she's a nice, young and pretty girl with a great attitude. It's refreshing to see there are younger people out there that aren't bored, glued to the TV. They're out there performing live music and going out of their own way to do it.

Ben was the best sounding person on the evening. Better than us. Better than the guy who won first place, better than the guys who won second place, and better than the trio that won third. In fact, when Ben got up on stage and started to play and sing, on his own with his guitar, it was as if the stage lit up. He really made the place come alive. With previous performs just playing by numbers, as I like to call it. It's when you go on autopilot. When you just go in there, play your bit and walk off.

Ben and I exchanged business cards also, and I like how he did it too. Japanese style.

This is where he hands you his card with both hands and bows. You bow while you take the card with both hands. Nothing is said, you inspect the card as a sign of respect, place it safely in your wallet and then continue the conversation. I've always loved this greeting, though never stepped foot in Japan, I found it yet another familiar and comforting experience to have taken part in an official exchange of cards.

I see a lot of cool experiences with Ben coming soon. So watch this space.

From all that in one night, the last few days since then has had me wandering around working at the music school, which I'll have photos of soon. Teaching music and talking to people, all the while thinking about Renae and Ben. Two people I connected with and somehow have already met.

Maybe it was a past life. Maybe it's just that they're such cool, laid back easy going, fun loving musicians that I just got along with them so well that everything just clicked.

Or maybe it's what I've read about Déjà vu. It's that you subconciously want to meet people like this that when it happens in real life, you feel as though it has happened before because you've almost or perhaps have dreamt about it.

Either way, I like the idea I once invented about Déjà vu....

... Meeting someone for the first time that you have a familiar feeling about is because you have already met them once before, maybe 100 years ago, maybe 1000 years ago. And in that life, you were both musicians, perhaps you both even met in the same exact spot you met in 100 years ago, when the club use to be a factory making glass jars. Or 1000 years ago in a battle for territory, maybe you were just two kids who met on the field to play.

A lesson in Language - a prompt from Dizzy Dick

Who's Dizzy? This guy.

Dizzy wonders about stuff, much in the same way I do. He asked me to write something up about languages, a topic he covered not long ago because my comment on it was worthy.

I guess it was, so here's a story about languages.

English, being a language was my strongest subject in school. For years I argued my way into the top classes. I enjoyed English because it intrigued me how, when and why things were the way they were. Someone had to have figured it out. Someone had to have written the rule book. Starting with a capitol letter, punctuation and so on.

The least used characters in spoken languages are the colon and semi-colon. Most people don't know where and how to use them.

I knew in school. I also had no issues differentiating between the words "There", "Their" and "They're" and all the other words that sound exactly the same but are spelt differently and mean something different.

Don't confuse me with someone of intelligence. While I know the difference between the three words, I don't know what that difference is called. I also don't know what synonyms, antonyms, nouns, verbs, adjectives, etc are.

Probably because I was never taught it. And there lies the problem. The people that don't know the difference between there, their and they're were never taught it either.

So it's pretty fair, and stupidly obvious of me to say we don't know anything we haven't been taught.

Fair enough.

But why is Wednesday spelt the way it's spelt?

Why is there a silent "K" in knife, know, knee?

These were questions I asked in school. But no teacher had the answer. I was told to be quite and stop disrupting the class. I was also told a host of other words which I won't go into today.

Words are a funny thing. And that's only in English. There are words in other languages that don't exist. But they do in English.

Other languages don't have the problem of having three words sounding exactly the same but meaning different things. However, they do have an issue with the same word having different meanings when used in certain context, different context.

Yep, languages as a whole are pretty poorly designed. And that doesn't even take into account how the young kids of today speak English, using acronyms my generation invented for speaking on the Internet like "WTF, CBF, LOL, ROFL" and so on, now used in real conversation with people face to face.

Some people say that the youth of today are degrading the English language. As someone over 30, who speaks English "properly", I'd be quick to agree. But I don't and I can't.

I'll explain why. It's very simple actually. Think about this next time you shake your head at the illiterate and broken speech of some young hoodlum. Imagine what Shakespeare would think of your "proper" English and how degrading and illegible it is.

Languages change, some new ones can be invented, while there are cases of other languages disappearing, while some languages are based on older ones, they are seldom the same these days, and will be share less commonality in the future.

The truth is, language morphs, it's allowed to. What was spoken as little as 200 years ago is considered "funny". What we speak today will be read in ancient history and spoken of as a "funny" language. And what their ancestors read and hear will be considered "funny".

When you break it down further, and I'm going to hurt your brain for a moment... you'll realise that all language is a series of silly sounds someone invented. How on Earth we comprehend these silly sounds while not being able to understand others (ie: other languages) makes me wonder why there's such a difference at all. Regardless of how different our characters may be from English to Arabic, from Chinese to Armenian, we all have the same sounds. But the German word "Ausfart" to me means "Australian Fart" in German actually means an Entry or Exit point. And while I see humour in "Exit" point. It is furthest away from a fart, considering you'll see a sign displaying this word in Germany at nearly every freeway exit.

But when you break it down, the letter "A" has the same sound in German as it does in English. Following the "U" and the "S" there's nothing unusual there. And the rest of the word "fart". I just wanted to say that word. But seriously, again.... there's nothing unusual there. In fact, each character is pronounced pretty much as it would be in the English language.

Right... Well, I'm going to stop now because my brain is starting to hurt.

Cheerio! :)

Stranger things have happened

I'm sure everyone experiences a point in their lives when you sit up and go "whao!".

I had an experience like that last night. When I told my wife, she just shrugged it off like it happens to her every day. Anyway, I'll get to the story.

Yesterday was Friday, and when I looked at my calendar, I had a ton of stuff to do. But once the working day was over, all I had to do was pack the car with me musical instruments and head over to the studio for rehearsals and also auditions.

Since our singer is in Melbourne and we have had to fly him up for every gig, it has made performing for this project rather expensive. At the same time, our bouzouki player could not longer commit to the project and had to leave.

But the show must go on, and well... it kinda didn't for a few months. Five to be precise. When we got back together, we were all rusty. But that was over a month ago now, and we're back on form.

Being that we're back on top of it all, it was time to start looking for a local singer and maybe another bouzouki player. Bouzouki players all seem to have a similar trait, unorganised, non-committal. So we have put that idea to bed for now, and decided to see if we could find another musician to make up for it, with a different instrument.

No luck, however we did find a young kid who plays African Djembe. He's a whipper snapper. But he plays well. He doesn't get our jokes though. Either that or he doesn't find our immature sense of humour funny. After his first audition with us, he was thinking that perhaps this music was out of his league. So before he left, I told him about how when I first listened to the music, I thought "Oh shit, what have I got myself into?" I told him that my wife said "Well, you wanted a challenge, stop complaining now that one has come along. Get in there and take up the challenge." She was right. Hate that.

So far, the story is pretty ordinary. Nothing unusual there. Big deal.

Last night the kid returned. Glad to see he's going to give it a go.

There was one other thing about last night... a Sydney based singer. Val mentioned it was a female. No problem there. It might make us behave a bit more civilised. So, there we were last night, we got comfortable in our rehearsal room and started to just have a impromptu jam when this crazy girl with big hair bursts into the room announcing herself and asking where Val is.

I stopped her midway through her outburst. Pointing at her, saying "Get lost!!!! I know you!!!! What the hell are you going here?"

I had not seen this woman for about 4 to 5 years. I use to work with her when I was employed in IT. The craziness was overwhelming.

To top things off, I was checking out my Facebook account the other day and one of my friends on Facebook had her as a friend, and her face was on my page telling me she could be my friend. Funny part was, I clicked on the link and asked for her authorisation to be a friend.

Two days later, she's responded to a random advert we posted looking for a female singer and is standing right in front of me. I sense a big catch up happening soon.

We didn't get to hear too much of her last night, because she was still getting her head around the songs. But I have heard her perform before mainly as a singer/actor on stage in theatre productions. This is her main thing and responding to the advert we had online was something she decided to do purely for a change out of her normal cliché roles in theatre.

I was pleased to hear that because what we perform is different and challenging.

Last night turned out to be quite surreal. My bubble burst when I got home and my wife foiled my enthusiasm by saying "whoppedie doo" Not in those exact words, but to something of that extent.

Trash talk

We're all human, and because of this, we like a bit of gossip. Even if you say you don't. There's always that tiny, insignificant part of your life where you do like to hear something about someone or maybe even say something about someone.

The buddhist say if you have only bad things to say about someone, keep them to yourself.

This is fair. While you may still think these thoughts, it's probably best to keep them to yourself. If anything, just to not harm your own self image.

While I have bad mouthed people in the past, and occasionally I'm still guilty of doing so. It is my flaw. It's something I've been working on for years, and I can tell I'm getting better at not doing it. I still find myself occasionally letting out what I think about someone, and letting it out in a bad way.

One of the ways I know I'm getting better is that I don't do it as often, or other peoples flaws effect me less than what they use to. But the most identifiable factor is where I see others do it to me. Don't misunderstand, not at me, but to me.

What I mean is when I may know a group of friends. I like them all. But one might say something bad about the other friend, and the other friend says something bad about them. Though in person, everyone gets along just fine.

Recently I spoke to two people I know. They know of each other, but they're not friends. However, one person told me about how they felt towards this other person. They voiced their opinion about their personality, their practices and their ways. I took this into consideration, as I agreed with some of what was said, though a lot of it was due to their own opinion, which I had no experience with, therefore I could not agree.

The person it was aimed at doesn't know what's being said about him. They don't know that I know this either. However, today, meeting that person, they bad mouthed another person in the same circle.

It would seem that everyone is talking about each other, but no one is actually speaking to one another. What the heck does that mean? Well, I might say something bad about you, but you say something about our other friend, and they might say something about another friend, who said something bad about me, or you.

And the vicious circle continues to spin round and round.

Everyone has an opinion, and that's fine. But when it conflicts or undermines what I think, I am affected too.

Todays talk was about someone who has helped me. The problem is, the person I spoke to today has been bad mouthed about from someone else I know.

It's really funny because when I started to teach music and organise myself, I started to make friends in the music industry more and more. It turns out that competition is almost non-existant. Everyone seems to be helpful with each other.

I started doing drum circles, and rather than other organisations that do that sort of thing contacting me and telling me to piss off, they were there first, I'm on their turf. They have all encouraged me to do more drum circles. If I opened a car yard right next to another one tomorrow, do you think I'd get the same response? Heck no! I'd be in direct competition with the guy and probably start a war.

But my experience with music, everyone seems to support everyone else. As if we're all in it together. And I like that.

Now, today I met up with the guys from the music shop I looked at purchasing a while ago. They called me in to have a meeting due to their heads up on me opening my own school. I knew why they called me to come and see them. I didn't mind. My wife said it's a waste of time. Do your own thing. But I'm friendly and open to opinions and options. So I went to see what they had to say and see if it was different to what my wife and I assumed.

While we were just about spot on with what the nature of the meeting was about. I held my ground. I'm sticking with opening my own music school. Not someone else's. However, I chose to take the meeting as an opportunity to voice my opinion and feelings about opening up the music school.

I think their fear was that I was competition. The word was mentioned. So I brought that up, and mentioned that we're too far apart to be competitors. Amalgamating, well, no, because that requires me to pay you fees, and I'm here on my own, just how I like it. Reduced fees. Yeah, but I've already invested my time and money on my own thing, to start again is going backwards from here. Even if it was cost free.

Either way we looked at it, I had my ball rolling and wasn't planning on stopping it or changing direction. However, despite my assurance that we can still work in the same industry and still be friends didn't seem like it went down well. Again, my gut feeling tells me that this is going to be rocky. I don't want to dwell on it too much, if at all. In fact, my head is down in my own thing now more than ever and I really don't care what other people's intentions are. However much they have rocked the boat for me.

Truth is, we're not competitors, we are friends, so lets just work together and not bad mouth others who are not only in our industry too, but people I still talk to and deal with. If you feel that way, fine, keep it to yourself and we can all be happy.

I thought about how I was going to write this, and as like all my blog entries, it's just another brain explosion, or Kasplosion... KASPLODE!

Today's meeting just confirmed to me that I am glad I didn't end up within that organisation. I'm in control of my own karma.

No matter where you go, you'll always be with you

My mother said those words to me years ago before she died.

It was at a time when I just had my motorcycle accident. I was on the road to recovery. I was getting better. And rather than two steps forward, one step back. At that point in my life it felt as though I was taking two steps forward, three steps back.

Nothing, it seamed worked out for me. Every plan I made was shattered. Every decision I made was negated. Everything I did failed. Everything I touched turned to shit.

I'm not the type who gives up. I may look like I turn my back on things, but that's only because I decide that the direction I'm going in isn't working out, it's time to decide whether to keep going, turn left, turn right or turn around.

The crossroads of life. I've met them a few times now. I'm learning to deal with them a lot better than I use to.

However, what my mother told me came about because I was so sick of trying so hard to make things work out that I started to regret things I had said, done and planned on doing. I started to think of changes I could make.

The first big change was to move. Start fresh.

Moving to a new country. Somewhere I could start all over again. I had the idea in my head for a while. Then one day my mother said to me "What are you going to do when you get there? You'll still suffer from the problems you are experiencing here. You have still had that accident. You still have to look for work. You still have to find a way to live, and a place to live. In fact moving will make matters worse. And to top it off, it doesn't matter where you go. You'll still be with you.

What she said hit me hard. In fact so hard that I was speechless and didn't come back with anything. It took me a while to figure out that it didn't matter where I went. I'd still have to live with myself first. So then the answer hit me. I have to fix myself.

While I know I've started. I'm most definitely a better person than I use to be. I like myself, I like who I am, and I like who and what I'm surrounded by. I also know that I am by no means finished. I know that I still have a few quirks, a few prejudices, a few things still misplaced or loose.

I know I'm on the road to fixing all this, however I am reminded of what my mother said to me. And more so last night when I called up a friend who recently moved interstate.

His life is in complete turmoil. It has been since childhood. I don't blame him. However, after seeing the light, he still walks down the dark path. He makes the same mistakes. He still think that changing his surroundings will change his life, and because of that he continuously tries to make everything around him better.

He always tries to have a girlfriend, because having one is going to make his life better. As I mentioned, he recently moved. It was a bold move for him. But he did it. And I give him kudos for that. But when I spoke to him last night, he mentioned all the usual problems he was having up here living around my area were happening down there. He said "It just follows me around like some curse".

I felt like throwing my phone into traffic. But I held back my anger and said "Like my mother told me, and I told you. Wherever you go, you'll always be around you. Change yourself, and your surroundings will automatically change."

Always look on the bright side of life, as the song goes.

Gandhi said it best, "Be the change you want to see in the world". He wasn't talking about the planet. He was talking about your own universe. The one where you have your friends, and other people you know don't know those people. Others don't travel the roads you travel. Some do, and those are in your world. But a lot of people aren't in your world. A lot of things, possessions, problems, issues aren't in your world. They're someone else's world. Change your world and you may have a chance to make it a happier one. One that you're satisfied with, because no one else has control over what your world looks like.

I just thought I'd share that thought. It seems when I speak it, they fell on deaf ears.

It's that time of the year again

No, not Okoberfest... Though yes, I'll be going to that too... No, not in Germany, sadly. But in Wollongong. I sleepy industrial town where if the steelworks shut down, so would the town.

However, more important matters are that my birthday is in two days. I'll be 32. I can't believe I have made it this far in my life with the upbringing I have had and the past I have had. There were certainly no silver spoons on my dinner table.

However, being poor isn't what I'm afraid of. It's being without that I don't the idea of.

In a world where money is the ruler of all, it's hard to live the life I feel I should have, or did in a past life. I always seem to enjoy a transaction more when it's a trade rather than putting a money value on it.

I once needed a new heater. My friend had a heater he never used anymore. The same friend had bought a new iPod, and he wanted a protective case for it. I had one that fit. Eliminating the money value of the case and the heater, you can see that we both had something we needed.

I needed a heater, he had one. He wanted the iPod case, I had one. We traded. To both of us that was an equal value trade. The importance of the heater to me in Winter was just as equal to him protecting his iPod from scratches and bumps.

Put money into the factor and you can see how all of a sudden the scales automatically lean to one side. Clearly the heater will be worth more than some $10 iPod cover.

The same thing happens everywhere in the world, at least in the developed world. Money seems to put a false value on objects, whether needed or just wanted, and this value is often what we all base our lives on, when we really should be more concerned about whether or not we need something or want something.

Not rich, but maybe famous

Since I have a fair amount of music experience, I often get asked why I've never got a record produced, or a contract signed or something silly like that. The truth is, the music industry is in ruines. Not for the record companies, but certainly for the artists.

The problem is, the way record deals are made these days, the artist thinks they're getting a good deal, when really it's nothing but trouble. With the recent (insert your favourite country name here) Idol television shows that glamourise the whole music industry and inspire people to get up off their arses and try to make an attempt at singing only to be shot into pieces has made me come up with this story.

Let me explain in brief what a record contract works like.

Say you sign a deal worth a million dollars. What up and coming band wouldn't say yes to that? However, the record company then tells you, it's going to cost $300,000 to produce the album, another $500,000 for the marketing campaign and $200,000 to promote your album on all the radio stations that are going to play it to death.

What we discover is that the millions dollars you got was more of a cash advance to pay for all these things to get done.

Lets say that the costs were higher, which has been known to happen in some cases, and in particular, one case of a recent Australian Idol winner who did the whole thing so he could set himself up and provide for his family. Only to have recently sold his family home because he could no longer afford to make the mortgage repayments. This wasn't due to the global financial crisis. It was due to the fact that production costs, marketing and radio play cost more than what the artist received. And because of that, he owes the record company hundreds of thousands of dollars they spent on him to produce the one album.

Never mind that the record sold millions of copies, went platinum in the CD sales and the record company not only made back what they spent on the artist, but made a profit of over $6 Million just from the sales of CD's. Taking out all the costs, if you want to call it that.... I'm not sure how billing yourself is a cost... they ended up making just over $3.3 Million dollars. On an investment of $1 Million to the artist, which he never saw a cent of because it wasn't a paycheck. It was a cash advance to pay for the production of the album.

He know works a regular job, trying to pay off a loan to the record company and is also trying to feed and clothe his wife and child.

I'd rather be famous, you can keep your riches to yourself.

Music School

I haven't heard back from the real estate agent. So I thought I'd put a reminder in my calendar to contact him tomorrow. I have an IT customer who I have to attend to that I had to fix a warranty issue for which was pending long before I decided to stop IT support.

I'm not going to bother putting in council approval with this one. I'm going to just set up the business and go for it. There are no shared, common walls. So there won't be neighbouring businesses or anyone for that matter complaining about noise. Not that there will be noise since it's just mostly acoustic guitar lessons.

There will be a drum kit, but I'll get an electronic one which pretty much makes no noise.

I drew up a plan of how the school will be laid out. This is rough though. I don't have exact measurements, so there are no dimensions to speak of on the plan. However, this drawing gives a rough idea of what it will look like when it's done.

Again, this is rough. But provides ideas. My wife had some say, and what she suggested is what you see above. Previously, I had the drum room on the right, with that room being bigger. But it made the rest of the layout smaller, and hindered the idea of having more than two rooms. Moving the drum room to the left created enough room to add two more rooms.

Going for 2 rooms to 4 gives me double the maximum earning potential.

A concept a musician friend told me about was to have the products caged off when I leave. Leaving the music rooms available for music teachers to teach from as they please. I wondered how this helped me. But he continued with the idea by saying that I don't hire teachers, I rent the rooms out to them. That way I still generate money while I'm not there.

The only thing is, the teaching method is not in my control any more because they just do as they please. Nice idea, but not the direction I'm willing to take.

So much to say, so little to talk about

A lot has been happening around the place lately. If anything, there hasn't been time to rest, or blog for that matter. However, I decided to update my small but significant readership (read: fans) with some updates of what's doin'.

Today I went to a friends son birthday party. His 1st one of his life. The strong little guy was born 3 months premature and my friend and his wife spent just about that period of time waiting for the little guy to reach a certain weight before being allowed to leave the hospital.

My friend sent me update photos every now and then. Images of the little mans hand wrapped around my friends finger nail. He was about as small as the palm of your hand. It was amazing how tiny he was and such a survivor, such a trooper.

In other news, the other day I got a call from a real estate agent who I saw about a place for my music school, and we negotiated a rental agreement. However, he went to the owners of the premises and came back to me with the original offer he gave me. In other words, they aren't interested in negotiating.

The thing is, I want to try and get it as cheap as possible. But at the same time, it's pretty reasonably priced to begin with. So I might try to offer another term on the lease of the place and see if they budge.

Better news; I have two more guitar students who have started lessons with me, and one of my existing students has just passed Stage 1 of his tuition. 6 more stages to go with his junior level, then 4 senior levels and he can get a Diploma in Music.

I was approached by a local council to put in an offer for an event that will promote the Fair they plan on holding in a local park, and wanted me out the front with a drum circle to promote peoples interest to the Fair, ask the on-lookers to participate and then head into the Fair to see what other people are showcasing.

I sent them a quote, offering my drum circle at a highly reduced price, in the vein that I will be heavily promoting the music school and making a tremendous amount of contacts.

They contacted me the following day saying YES! and then asked me if there was anything I needed to help with the drum circle. So I asked how many chairs they think I need to bring. They said they'll provide the chairs. I asked if I can set up a marque? They said one will be provided.

In fact the only thing I need to do is turn up, bring my drums, djembes and cajones and make sure I have a ton of business cards, pamphlets and a sign that says who I am so people are aware of Revolution Guitars.

A brilliant opportunity that I can't pass up. Hopefully the discount I offered help get the job, and even more hopeful that it pays off with clientele. Fingers crossed.

On the gig front, Craig and I have played a few more gigs, and we had a chat the other day about really starting to get paid for the gigs we play. That would be nice. The reception we're getting from the gigs we play has been good. So hopefully we can start organising some paid work there. Craig and I enjoy playing music together, so it would be great if we start getting some money for the hard work we've done to make this happen. I'm working on a MySpace page that has nothing on it at the moment. So bare with the sparcity of the site right now, but we will have some more videos and music up on it soon that I think you'll like.

Well, that's pretty much it. Nothing philosophical to say this time around. Nothing special, just life updates and happenings.

Drum Circle developments

I finally got word back from the local council regarding facilitating free community drum circles.

The short answer is, they're really not interested.

The long answer is, they can allow me to do it but in light of the girl getting shut down with her lemonade stand, I have discovered that I need two things for a free drum circle.

1. Money - The council wants me to pay them to use the public park I already pay for with my taxes.
2. Public Liability - I need to be insured in case someone drops a drum on their foot and sues me.

This has made trying to get a drum circle up and running a lot more difficult that it really needs to be.

In totally opposite news, I have a good friend who works for Hurstville council and has told me about an up and coming Fair the council is putting on to showcase what they have to offer and allow the community to join together.... hey! A council that encourages community and bringing people together, not discouraging it with insurance and fees, etc.

So I've been asked to provide 10 drums, start playing and encouraging passer by'ers to sit and play some rhythms hopefully to encourage them to take part in getting into the Fair. I'm apparently setting up out the front somewhere.

I'm planning on buying some more djembes and also getting one of those roll out signs made up that you see at conventions and stuff. The ones that you roll open and then stick a pole behind it to stay open. Then take the pole out when you're done to allow the poster to contract back into the roller shutter thingy.

I'll also probably get a small marque. Something big enough for ten people to sit around in a circle. Just to keep the sun off. Though if it's under cover, I won't bother with that expense until I get big enough to bother with that sort of expense.

I've found a place that I'm going to see on Tuesday and try to negotiate with the agent for a couple of months free rent which will allow me to get started without much outlay of funds. I'll have to paint the place and as I get more students I'll start building more rooms.

A fresh coat of paint and some signage is all it needs for now. Stay tuned (pun intended).

I'm riled up

I love sticking it to the man. Any chance I get, there's nothing more fun than sticking it to the man.

But when the man sticks it to a person, and that person is harmless, I get riled up. I get pissed off. I feel like giving the man what the man deserves. A punch in the face.

This article pretty much sums up why I feel this way.

If you can't be bothered reading it, I'll summerise:

A little girl decides to open a lemonade stand. Her mother helps her do it.

While we were young we did this sort of thing, but we did it in front of our house. This girl did it at a Fair.

Inspectors come by, completely by chance and shut her down or she'll get a $500 fine for not having a license to sell food products.

Now, I can see the issue here. What if someone chokes on a pip from the lemon, or someone cuts themselves or falls in front of the lemonade stand, or lightening strikes the stand, with the shock running through the dispenser, into the cup and out to the customer. I can see how this could be an issue.

However, things are very different. There's no glass, there's no pips, there is no lightening. Just a cute little girl trying to be an entrepreneur. Then getting shut down by the man.

Why couldn't they have just turned the blind eye, seen a kid trying to do something positive, and go and shut down the local pizza joint who probably clears all the roaches from the cardboard boxes every evening before opening up the restaurant?

Because they're arseholes.

Point Plomer Photos

As promised, here are photos from Point Plomer.

Kookaburra resting on a tree trunk.

Lorikeet enjoying nectar from the bottle brush tree.

Me, rising out of a pile of turds.

Me, performing on guitar with my Cajon sitting in the background where a drum kit was set up moments before hand.

One of the hidden caves on our walk along the beach.

Alone, midday on the beach.

The tide going out.

Storm coming in from the West.

Nothing like seeing your foot prints on the beach and no one else's first thing in the morning.

I hope you enjoy all the photos from Point Plomer. I'll have more later in the year when I head back in November.

What do you want?

I'm not sure what will be written over the next few paragraphs, so bare with me.

There are things in life one likes and there are things in life one dislikes. It's often seen that in actual fact, we do things and have things we like, and perhaps there are some things in our life that we dislike. That sounds like I am repeating myself, but think about it.

Really think about it. You have stuff, do things, have friends, possessions, work, etc that we may enjoy, but there's always a part of it you don't. With more than enough self-help books out there, with people looking for the ultimate answer on how to put their life back on the straight, why is it that our lives are more complicated than ever?

There always seems to be a fix for something. Is it because there's always a problem?

Why is there always a problem? After all, we are in charge of our own lives. So why do we put ourselves into a position where we do things we dislike? We get into awkward situations that we don't want or like. But how does this happen when we are in control?

Is is society? Is it peer pressure? Is it just that things come and go unnoticed?

How do you find the situation you're in? Are you happy or content?

Point Plomer

I've briefly mentioned a place I go camping every now and then to get away from it all. This is not the usual camping trip I take every year to Sofala.

Point Plomer is a place I discovered through a friend over 15 years ago. Sadly, my friend died in a terrible car accident that is a story on its own. Point Plomer is a secret 60's surf spot. Today it's still a bit of a secret. Mainly because the road into the place is shit at best.

I put my little girly sized car through a lot to get there, and return. But she's a good car, and makes it there and back with never a complaint.

This time around was a bit different. I didn't exactly camp at Plomer. I stayed there in a house about 100 metres from where I usually camp. Funny part is, I've never seen that side of Point Plomer in the 15 years I've been going there.

Because of that, I had issues finding the place when I got there on Sunday night. Doing about 20 minutes of driving up to the point where the road had a sign that says "4WD Only".

Turning back around, I found some small houses lined up and then I found the bigger place thanks to my wife jumping out and asking for "The Plomer House"

Arriving there, we unpacked and made friends with some people we didn't know and caught up with friends with did know.

Since most of us are musicians, we had all brought our gear. The friend who organised the whole thing brought in a PA, so we had mics and proper sound. Then this guy rocked up, known in the local area as "Happy Days". A large hippy who lives 30 minutes away in a community share property, however the vague details suggest everyone there lives for themselves rather than communally. Not sure. But what I am sure of is Happy Days is a brilliant musician.

He turned up, set up his drum kit, and while people were a bit "strummed" out with their guitar playing and singing, Happy Days brought in a new breath of life and while he set up his drum kit, I played my bass, providing some tasty low end. He turned his skins and we were off, a bit of drum and bass to get the others warmed up and back into the rhythm of things.

We jammed together for a good 30 minutes before giving up because no one showed up. They were too busy eating, drinking and smoking.

Happy Days played the drums really well. Some of the rhythms he brought out were really technical, but not over done. They were simple, yet intricate.

Later than night he played my bass while I played along to the guys who finally got up to jam. I had jumped on my cajon, which I took up on the trip with my acoustic guitar and bass.

Man, Happy Days played bass really good too.

Later than night Happy Days had a few drinks and got on the guitar, played, started singing and everyone stopped what they were doing to have a listen to him. He was great. What a talented musician.

I won't lie. I was jealous. But my wife told me I was like him too. I just needed to stand in the lime light some more, instead of always trying to take a back seat. She's right. So, I've made myself a promise that I'm going to perform more of my stuff and get it out there rather than kick back and just play along.

The following day was sunny, so my wife and I went on a nice walk on the beach, though there were some areas that we couldn't walk around on the beach because the rocks reached out to the water, and the tide was coming in fast. So we said we'd try again the next day, but leave much earlier. The other side of the beach had some caves and stuff, so we headed back and ate lunch, enjoyed the rest of the day in the sun and played some more music.

Unfortunately Happy Days had to leave. I would have loved to have had more time to jam with him and also talk about the lifestyle he lives, off the land and off the grid.

The following day was much the same. Breakfast, music, walk on the beach, lunch, music. We watched some DVD's of concerts of famous musicians. Eat dinner and then had some nice cake that one of the visitors also staying at the house brought with them, running their own cake distribution business. This was perfect, as it was my wife's birthday. And while the trip away was mostly about getting away and forcing my wife to get away from her job for a short period of time, it was after all a good birthday present. Well, I thought so. The trip was all about relaxing and taking time to clear the mind, regather and head back into town a week later, ready to clear up some mess.

I think the trip worked out great in that regard.

I saw a side of Point Plomer I had never seen. I met some interesting people I'd like to see again. I gave my wife a good present. I had a break and caught up with friends I hadn't seen in a while.

I'll post photos over the next few days.

Gig last night with Craig

I haven't kept too many people in the loop on my cajon playing. There's a tonne of stuff about them on my website. And I have been playing a lot of gigs lately with the cajon. But last night was something else.

Craig, the legend from St.George Shire (hahahah), has a bucket load of good old fashioned Australian folk songs he recorded just as good old vinyl was being phased out, and CD's were the latest fashion. Sadly, he spent $4,000 on the record when it would have cost $40,000 to produce the same thing on CD back then.

When he got all the copies to distribute, people were buying CD players and throwing out their old record players on the street.

He later put his songs on CD, but the spark had fizzled, and people were listening to other stuff by then.

If you were to ask me "What's Craig's music about?" It's Australian folk. Good, honest songs about Australia's past and present.

I'm not in this video, but here's a sample of Craig's stuff.



Last night we played a couple of songs at Allawah Pub, which holds an open mic night courtesy of a good friend of mine in a neighbouring music school, Village Guitar. Which you might remember I spoke about when looking for a new career about 8 month or so ago.

Well, Craig and I were up there and we played two songs. We played them well. We played them so well than we won People's Choice award. And we were called up for not just one encore, but we did two more songs, finished up, and we were encored again.

People couldn't get enough of us. I wish someone got a recording of the night, but no one did.

What they did do however was sing along to the songs during the encores. There are two things a performer loves to hear the most. Applause and the crowd singing along. Amazing stuff.

Ah well. The night was enjoyable, and that's an understatement. Everyone was pumped up.

I love it when a gig goes that well.

Drum Circle

I was asked to facilitate a drum circle on Saturday. I was excited about it, being my first one on my own, as Revolution Guitars.

I had the help of Aurora Percussion who provided me with a great deal of the percussion instruments that I tried my best to provide, but ran out of money and time to get everything.

Fortunately one of the music shops I went to gave me a significant discount on some drums and hand percussion once I spoke to him about what I needed.... lots of drums, cheap as possible.

I got talking to the guy and found out he wanted more cajones, which is the plywood box drums I mainly play that originate from Peru.

He said he's been looking for an Australian supplier. So I told him I'm the guy, here's my card. I'll call him next week for a catch up now that I've spoken to my cajon supplier who is bumping up their system to have more in stock.

I went to see them yesterday and we worked out some issues of stock control, handling, shipping, etc. Also more on drum circles too because I had a muslim woman ask me about facilitating a drum circle, to which I said yes to. However, since being a man might be an issue surrounded by scarfed women, I suggested my cajon supplier might like to do that one. Don't you love how after so much progress, there is still segregation amongst human beings? Regardless of background, belief and culture.

Anyway, back to my drum circle I did on Saturday. It was great.

I started off introducing myself, then I asked everyone if they had ever been in a drum circle before. No one had. I wasn't sure if that was a good thing, a bad thing, or just not a thing at all. I decided to take the latter. It didn't worry me.

So I started to play a rhythm on my cowbell and asked everyone to join me when they were ready. They did, but there was no rhythm. I completely expected this, so I continued, un-phased.

5 minutes into it, 55 minutes to go.... Someone picked up on the rhythm I was playing, and then it spread like wild fire. Everyone got into the groove and off we went.

We played around with various drum circle games and before I knew it, my 60 minutes were up.

I thanked everyone for participating and hoped they all enjoyed themselves. Everyone appeared to love it. I called it a success, packed up my stuff and let the rest of the day continue.

My first official drum circle, on my own and 22 people in a circle around me. This is on the larger side for a single person to facilitate.

Looking back at it, I remembered a bit half way through when the beat started to fizzle out, but I stuck to my rhythm, strong and steady and let it all come back. It recovered well and carried on until my time was up.

A fantastic event, a good turnout, the feedback was positive and I enjoyed myself. Made a few dollars on the side which pretty much covers my time and setting up of the whole thing. There will me more, much much more.

My planet

Further regarding the BP disaster.

This link to a time lapse of the spill courtesy of NASA, and lets not forget, none of this would be possible without the help of BP and the ignorant, money greedy people running it.



Thanks BP, for fucking up my planet.

When the signs are right in front of you

Ever so often, there are disasters that make you sit up and pay attention. Disasters are always just that. A disaster.

Sometimes disasters cannot be avoided, while others can.

One of the biggest disasters to have occurred in recent times is the oil spil in the United States. I'm not going to go into the details, as it has been welled covered over the news and Internet. Hovewer, I came across this website today with images from the area affected by the oil.

http://www.newsweek.com/photo/2010/06/21/road-signs-of-rage-against-bp-oil-spill.html

The first image shows a sign with the writing "God help us all".

If there is a God. I think they are the only one who can help. But if there is a God, why would they when greedy bastards have their own agenda and care little about others.

From the outside, and I mean that by being in a country not the U.S. It would seem that those in responsible in the United States for the United States care little about it.

If they did, New Orleans would have been cleaned up by now. And I'd imagine this BP oil spill, as it has already been, will continue for quite some time.

People responsible aren't being that. And the only one left, since no one is taking the heat that will be left to fix it all is probably God.

While I'm not a religious person, I have belief. And I believe the sign in that first photograph is all there is since one one else is raising their hand.

I can only imagine the devastation of this disaster. The rest of the photos show peoples lives and businesses that have failed due to their livelihood relying on the fresh coast, now tainted with an inconvenient leak that no one is really stopping.

I may not be hearing or seeing the full story living all the way down in Australia. But what I have heard, read and seen is enough for me to be distraught with humanity and there isn't much that's happening that will restore that for me. Not in relation to this anyway.

Why enough isn't enough

As humans, we always want more. More is better. More is more. Less is crap. The person with more always wins. It's not a human condition, it's a social one. Society tells us that more is better. Bigger is better.

I see this all the time. Being an ex-motorcycle mechanic, I always take notice of automotive marketing blurbs.....

"Our new model is faster, lighter, handles better......"

The same goes for cars. "Our most powerful model yet"

You know, even if that were the case, and each year since an automotive manufacturer made their cars increased the engine power , the theory states we should all be driving super fast cars that weigh nothing.

With motorcycles, you hear it all the time, "We made a weight saving of 5kg." And they seem to do this each year, at the same time the swing arm is longer too. So how come the bike isn't tipping the scales at 45kg and producing 400 Horse Power?

I think a lot of it has to do with more bullshit. And I think it plays on the heart strings of modern humans who automatically think more is better. Even if you're not getting more. You'll pay for thinking it, and being able to tell your friends.

How far can this go? It goes far enough. Same as shops who have those great SALE! signs up, all the time. When isn't there a sale?

I'd like to have a sale one day where I put up signs that say "No SALE today! Try next door"

I think I'll probably get more attention because it's so different.

There is some light, and while the end of the tunnel is still a while away. I think a minority of people are starting to realise that less is better. More is excessive. I won't lie. I'm one of them. More was always better. Now less is. I want less. I want everyone else to have less.

Why does a house have to cost half a million dollars? Why not $20? Who decides that my land rates are lower or higher than the neighbour in the next suburb?

Why does my water cost more than your water?

How come I get taxed higher because I make more money? Even if you tax someone who makes more, at the same rate, you still end up with more money.

Is it just me or has the world gone mad?

I know what it is. It's greed. People always want more. Because more is more. More is better.

Well if more is better, I'm happier being worse off.

Alternatives

People often look at how much they consume. This is generally brought on not because of the environmental impacts but because of the impact on their hip pocket.

However, when I read an article that has been published on an online environmental website I enjoy reading both for the informative and stupid, wasteful ideas. I get worked up.

The article, here, is about oil consumption, specifically in the US. The question it asks is, where does oil go? Based on the graph the article displays shows that passenger transportation, freight and heating are the biggest factors in oil consumption. In fact, they account for over 70% of all oil consumption based on this information.

How can something so simple consume so much oil?

I posted a short answer in the comments section of the article which made me start to think, how hard is it?

The comment I made referred to passenger travel. Most people travel quite short distances. Since this accounts for the major part of the graph, I'd say walking or riding a bike would be beneficial. And I can relate because I do walk and I do ride. I understand there are times when you can't. You have a heavy load to bring home. Weekly grocery shopping is hard on a bike. Then again, I use to ride a motorcycle and didn't have a car or a license to drive one only a few years ago. I did my weekly shopping on my bike, everything fit in my backpack and it also made me buy wiser. Buy less, which meant that less was thrown out. If I ran out of something, the large and convenient shopping centre was easy to ride down to and pick up the items I need the most.

Since I picked up less items, and I did it locally, I didn't have to purchase things from far away. Since then I've become even more conscious of freight and buy from local farmers. There's no double (or triple) handling of goods. They're not frozen (6 months ago) for my freshness. I pay less for it, and they haven't been freighted around the world or from interstate. If something is out of season, too bad. I just have to wait. Instead of buying imported pineapple or strawberries.

So, I've covered oil consumption for passenger travel. I've covered oil consumption for freight. What about heat. It's a comfort, sure. But is it necessary?

I'm going to say yes. Heating is important. It gets cold in some parts of the world. And while it doesn't snow where I live. It does get to -1°C. 2 weeks into Winter and I'm waking up to 3°C mornings. I turn on the heater only when it is ultimately necessary. Otherwise, and more usually I dress for the occasion. There was once a time when dressing for the occasion, hot or cold meant I wore shorts and a t-shirt. The shorts got a bit longer but usually never past my knees. My winter apparel consisted of long shorts and a t-shirt. Now, as I get older, I still don't turn the heater on unless the house is freezing. But with my place it is never that cold because of the aspect on the block of land. While it's an old house and has inefficient insulation, it goes okay for Winter. Summer is a stinker. It gets hot.

Though for heating, using electricity, oil or gas, which all ends up consuming some form of fossil fuel, I try and keep it to a minimum by putting on a jumper and some jeans or pants. I stay warm, and I haven't turned on a power consuming heater.

Wow. Three simple things I can, and do and I've consumed 70% less oil. I wonder what would happen if everyone did that?

On the move

Retirement is something everyone wants. Who wants to work? No one. Why do we work? Money. We all need it in todays society. It's rare in built up areas to be able to head down the grocery shop and say "I'll clean the floors if you give me some eggs, carrots, potatoes and onions."

When I look at people who live off the grid or on the land, away from it all, there's a level of comfort that I can see. You can grow your own fruit and veg. You can have your own chickens for eggs and meat for the special occasions.

But what about the life of a vagabond? My wife and I like the idea of retiring and hitting the road for the rest of our lives. We like the idea of a motor home or something like that. Though I like VW Kombis. She likes the fully kitted out caravans that I wish not to tow.

What can you do with regards to food when it comes to a life on the road?

I thought long about this and only came up with one thing. Money.

The vehicle needs maintenance, fuel, servicing, unscheduled breakdowns, and there's no where really to grow anything you want of substantial significance that you could live off. You'll have to pay for food too.

Paying for it isn't so much the problem as much as more and more people these days talk about never retiring because their pension won't support them once they stop receiving a regular income from fulltime work. That is, if there is a pension when they retire, and by "they" I mean "me".

While you can live quite frugally, and I know I have had to in the past. I do believe it would be quite difficult at times.

Watching the River Cottage series, the main guy starts off living on the road, but that soon changes and the "cottage" turns in to a full blown farm/restaurant thing with a full production farm that comes with beef, milk, chicken, eggs, fruit and veg. Sure it cost more than a van, but this is where I can see obvious signs of self sufficiency. On the road, I just can't see that and I'm curious how it works.

How does life on the road differ to life on the land?