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.