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Belated Happy Christmas and New Year

2010-01-14T17:15:00.002+11:00

Hi anyone,

Just wanted to wish you all (a belated) Christmas and New Year wishes for 2009. Here's the now traditional Aimee Xmas shot:

3 months on....

2009-12-10T16:41:00.003+11:00

Hi all, been a little absent from the blog front...not much to say really. So heres a quick catchup.

Aimee's 4th Birthday has come and gone.
Aimee's moved up to frogs in swimming woohoo.
We went to the farm for the Octoboer Long W/E - see photos.
Planning a holiday to Phuket over New Year.

Other than that, Rose and I have been busy with work. Which sux.

Anyway, enough for now....

Merry Xmas to all my readers....all one of you.

Here's a photo:

August...

2009-09-04T13:57:00.003+10:00

Hi all,

August has come and gone. In our family, we celebrate mine and Aimee's Birthday, as well as our friends Kitty and Mariana. So it's been a busy month.

Aimee turned 4 on the last day of winter, boy that has gone quick. As her Birthday fell on a Monday, her official party is tommorrow. We've invited her cousins, family friends and pre-school friends. This time the party has been outsourced, so when I get a chance, will upload pictures.

Poor little Aimee has been sick since the day before her Birthday, until yesterday really. Not eating much and a lot of throwing up. Not good. But thankfully, this has cleared for her party.

Caught up with Rochelle and David via Skype last w/e. It was exciting to see Inara for the first time - in action. What a good little girls she is, she turned six months last Saturday. Again, time flies...

Aynway, enough from me. Chat soon.

Aimee jumping in...

2009-07-14T11:27:00.002+10:00

Scratchy video, but Aimee looks like she's having fun. The video was from my Dad's mobile, thanks Dad

Where have I been....

2009-07-13T16:02:00.003+10:00

In short, nowhere...

Sorry, have been neglecting my blogging duties - not that anyone would notice.

So, what's been happening - not much. Bought Rose a HP Mini, loaded Windows 7 RC1 on it...not bad, bit slow to boot, but once running it works nicely. The Mini is nicely spec'd and does the job, Atom N280 processor, 1GB ram and a 160GB drive. Good enough to surf on your lap while out an about (tethered via bluetooth to my Nokia N96 over the Telstra NextG network). Funny how Rose's Mini spends most of it's power on time sitting on my lap. ;)

What else...

We got away for the long w/e in June to Port Stephens, nice w/e away with friends - big group - who was there - Jeff, Kitty, Craig, Thao, Renato, Mariana, the boys, Duncan, Connie and Sebastian, with us totalled 14. Aimee had a great time . Will post some pics over the next week or two.

Went to Sydney Aquarium, hopped a ferry and had a nice day out, though Aimee was a little ratty for most of the day. Spongebob was everywhere for some reason?? Kurtis, I think enjoyed it...

Winter seems colder this year, maybe I'm just getting older and feeling it more...

Anyway, enough for now - off for a hair cut.
Cheers

Site news....

2009-04-23T16:55:00.003+10:00

Hi all,

I know you've all been waiting for it (yeah, right!) - I've finally fixed the photo album. Couldn't sleep last night, so it was the perfect opportunity. So feel free to browse for the latest lot of photos, I've added 4 new albums.

The weather page now updates when I'm at the PC only, so don't bother checking it - it was showing errors more often than not due to the wireless points dropping out, so no point maintaining it.

The only thing remaining is to backup the site before my host screw it up again and fix the video page...that all of you probably haven't heard about.

Anyway, enjoy the photos and take care.

Easter 2009

2009-04-17T22:48:00.006+10:00

Hi anyone,

We've had a nice week, spent 5 days up at the farm meeting the cows....then on Wednesday, went to the easter show here in Sydney.

Since we were last at the farm (Xmas), the boys have bought some cows, 18 to be precise. They are on there way to fattening up for a year or so before heading off to a butcher near you...

The show experience wasn't too bad, we went early and were back home by 3pm. Aimee was scared of he baby lambs and goats in the farmyard nursery - was really hoping for a good photo op, but she enjoyed rides on the bumper boats, merry go-round, mini roller-coaster and big wheel.

Check out this video for Aimee's reaction to the cows...

The weather was unseasonally warm, close to 30c. Aimee did well in the showbag hall, her Poppy and Nanny donated $50 bucks, so she got a "Dora the Explorer", "Tigger and Pooh", and "Pirates of the Caribbean" bags. Here are a few more pics at the show.

See ya next time.

Time for a photo blog...

2009-03-26T04:31:00.002+11:00

Syncplicity wins...

2009-02-24T14:18:00.003+11:00

Hi all,

Just wanted to blog about a good and free solution for either backing up, synchronising 2 PC's or both. Previously, I wanted a solution that would sync my work laptop and home PC documents and blogged I was trying foldershare (which later became MS live mesh, and then MS live sync). This worked well, but had one very important limitation for me - it did not work through a proxy. This sort of defeated the purpose, as when I'm on my work laptop, I'm generally at work connected to the Net via the proxy. I would have to connect my laptop to the home network in order to sync. Crazy.

So, when I heard about syncplicity - I was pleasantly surprised to see that it does indeed support proxies. I downloaded and installed it on both PC's - it detects IE proxy config, so it's just a matter of setting the user and password and that's it - easy peasy.

I quickly ditched MS foldershare/live mesh/live sync/whatever the branding is this week as syncplicity offers more features (apart from just synchronisation):

Real-Time Backup: Murphy’s Law doesn’t pay attention to the clock. Syncplicity backs up your files not once a month, once a week, or even once an hour, but immediately. Create a masterpiece only to accidentally delete it three seconds later? Skip the sinking feeling. Just go straight to the Syncplicity website and get your precious data back.

Sharing made Simple: Share any folder with anyone with a simple click of the mouse. Because your files are already in Syncplicity, others get access right away. And if they choose to use the Syncplicity client, the files simply show up on their computers.

Access anytime, anywhere: Access your files while away from your computer through the Syncplicity File Explorer. At friend’s computer, and need to print out a file? Grab it from the File Explorer and print it out. Find a typo along the way? No worries. Just make the change and upload it back. The edited version will be waiting for you on your computer when you return.

Multiple Computers, One View: Keep all of your computers in sync. With Syncplicity, it doesn’t matter which machine you use. Writing a letter at home on your desktop, but need to run? No problem! Just save the file like you normally would, grab your laptop and go. Your letter will be on your laptop, ready and waiting.

An Elegant Experience: Pleasant and powerful. The Syncplicity client is built to be second to none. It intelligently synchronizes your computer and is never intimidating. The client integrates tightly with Windows so you can see status with just a glance and perform common actions with just a right-click. Want more information or help? The client walks you through common tasks with ease.

Bridges the Online and Offline Worlds: A one-of-a-kind platform breaks free of limitations that restrict you to a single website or set of computers. With Syncplicity, your files follow you to where you want them, including web applications such as Google Docs and Facebook.

Secure: Syncplicity transfers all your data using 128-bit SSL, the same encryption used for online banking. On the backend, your files are stored encrypted using AES, military grade encryption. Only you can access your files.

One handy feature I like is that up to 30 days of revisions are kept on a file by file basis, I've found this very handy as I have on several occasions reverted to an earlier version of a file (don't know what that says about me though).

You can get it work between XP and Vista, my home PC is Vista, work laptop XP. I think syncplicity is meant to handle this, but for whatever reason when I set it up it didn't quite map 'My Pictures'(XP) to 'Pictures'(Vista) and the like correctly, so I ended just renaming the folders in XP.

Some limitations to note:

2GB storage with the free account. However, if you send invites to friends and they accept, you'll get 1GB p/friend to a limit of 5GB.
Currently does not support Mac.
The web based file browser requires Flash.
Initial backup slow (obviously) - first time will be the size of your 'Documents', 'Pictures', 'Music' and 'Desktop' folders if you use the default - but this can be interupted as backup/synching always resumes.

Generally, I'm very happy with the tool, so much that I have set it up on my Dad and bother's PC's to protect their documents. They are novice PC users, so it runs in the background purely for backup purposes.

Still not convinced, go and watch the video.

Anyway, cheers for now.

Pre-school and phones...

2009-02-16T07:58:00.005+11:00

Hi again,

a month (almost) since the last blog... Guess I'd better write something then.

Aimee has started pre-school 2 days a week. She's nearly 3.5, and we think needing some more learning and social stimulation, so off to school. She loves it, can't get us (or Grandma and Papa) to leave quick enough when she gets there. So, school has begun... sort off.

Picked up a new Nokia N96 as my old phone speaker stopped working (Nokia N80). Yeh, it's nice and it's NOT an iphone. I really like the Nokia PC Suite - great for syncing all my contacts, appointments and tasks from my exchange account. Comes fully featured, Wifi, GPS, Radio, 5mp camera, 16GB memory etc. Has it's own podcasting app, so no 'middleware' itunes application. Very happy with it. I've posted some pictures on Flickr (direct from the phone), so you can check out the quality of the images.

Anyway, enough for now. Write soon.

Zig Zag Railway and Friends of Thomas

2009-01-21T10:46:00.007+11:00

Hi anyone,

Last Saturday was the long anticipated "Friends of Thomas" at Zig Zag Railway day. Our family group included, us, Zane, Airley, Brad and Cindy and both sets of grand parents. Mariana, Renato, Luca and Marco along with Jeff and Kitty came as well.

The day started early as the Zig Zag railway is 2 hrs west of Sydney. The weather in Sydney has been hot lately, so it was a bit of shock the 9c temp that awaited when we arrived. Very chilly, but we were in the mountains (>3500ft).

The "adventure" includes a ride up and down the now historic Zig Zag railway in some rickety old carriages pulled by "Thomas the Tank Engine". The ride up and down lasts about 25mins, and you spend an hour between trips in a shed full of fun activities for kids and hot coffee or tea for adults (very much needed on this day).

After returning to Clarence Station, we had a picnic lunch - still chilly but luckily it had warmed a little.

I can fully recommend this to any parent with kids into Thomas. Train buffs might like it too!

See you soon.

Happy 2009....bye bye 2008

2009-01-16T13:38:00.005+11:00

Well, 2009. Yikes, were all getting older! (mind blowing insight I know!)

Anyway, hi anyone,

Here's what's happened since Xmas. We started by taking Aimee to the beach. It was our 5th wedding anniversary (27/12), so we went for an early breakfast at Neilson Park cafe, then took Aimee for a swim. Aimee is funny girl, wants to build sandcastles but doesn't want the sand on her hands - big dilemma for a 3yr old. :)

For New Years eve, Rose's office was opened up for the 9pm (kids) fireworks, so we ventured out - and surprisingly, we all enjoyed it. Back home by 10.15. Rose and I stayed up to watch the midnight fireworks, initially on TV. But outside around the corner was a great view, so we took turns to go watch the fireworks. They have several firework barges up and down Sydney harbour, so from our locale, we could see three barges and the top of the bridge - not bad at all. There was also a huge crowd around - surprising to see how many people were there by the bay walk and at the parks. Next year we'll just stay home to see the fireworks :) (photo: NYE sunset from Rose's work)

On New Years day, we went to the farm for 4 days. Hot up there, but we had a restful time. Aimee's cousin Kurtis was there, so she had a playmate. Check out the bum crack photo to the right.

My webhosting mob have moved servers again, so have been sorting out some issues - the photo album (gallery2) is broken, so in the mean time, have posted a temporary album with link with the photos from these 'adventures'. Enjoy

Hope you all have a great year

Christmas Carols

2008-12-24T10:44:00.007+11:00

Hi anyone,

On Monday we went to the local Christmas Carols, nice evening here in Sydney - just a bit blowy. We went along with Cindy, Brad, Zane, Airley and Cindy's friend Jaquie. Aimee and Zane enjoyed running around and seeing Santa arrive on a old english double decker bus (go figure?), dancing and generally being 3yr olds.

I've posted more pics in the album.

Merry Christmas (or Happy Holidays to be politically correct)!

Merry Christmas...where applicable!

2008-12-11T10:04:00.003+11:00

Hi anyone, time for an update...

We've had a busy month since the last post, lots of catch-ups, christenings and the like. Also lots of shopping for Xmas. We took Aimee to the city for the Xmas Parade on December 1, which was pretty average I must say. Aimee enjoyed it though. The highlight of the day was seeing Santa, so here's the pic.

She's growing up fast, she's 3yrs and 3 months in this photo, but looks more like a little girl to me.

Anyway, that's it. I need to fix the weather and some other pages. In case you haven't noticed I've swtiched layouts, and now need to retrofit the blogger template to the non-blogger published pages. Sort of lost motivation for now, but should be done in a month or so.

Hope you have a great Xmas and New Year. :)

Hunter Valley Gardens

2008-11-14T08:47:00.007+11:00

Hi anyone,

Spent and enjoyable Sunday up at the Hunter Valley Gardens.

2008-11-09 Hunter Valley Gardens

We carpooled with Jeff & Kitty and met Renato, Mariana and the boys there. The gardens are well worth a visit if you're into 'that'. Spectacular, good at this time of year. In the end, didn't even get to a winery :( - but doesn't matter - it was a great day out.

Aimee enjoyed herself running virtually everywhere as a 3yr old does. Might have to go back for the Xmas lights spectacular, looks interesting from the website.

I've posted some pics on Picasa Web, nothing compared to Renato and Jeff's efforts with there 'big' EOS type cameras, but good enough to capture the day.

ciao.

Face Painting...

2008-11-04T20:34:00.001+11:00

Last Saturday was Milena's 4th b'day. Snapped these pics on the N80 of the face painting efforts. (lame, but free!)

Aimee enjoyed playing pass the parcel, face painting and generally running around and making noise like a 3 year old.

Aimée at the wheel!

2008-10-31T06:48:00.001+11:00

It's becoming part of the arvo routine. Aimée has to jump into the driver's seat. Hmmm... Don't know where it comes from ;-)

Apologies for the poor photo, best not to view the full size

Mobile Blog...

2008-10-29T18:59:00.003+11:00

Hi all,

I'm testing the blogger email post thing. You never know when it might be useful,

Jeff

--
Sent from my mobile device.

Rejected takeoff...

2008-10-14T21:07:00.008+11:00

Luckily no one hurt but this takeoff doesn't go quite to plan..

The youtube link and text credit from Flightstory Aviation Blog:

Video - Ilyushin IL-18D Aborts Take-Off
Published by Michael October 13th, 2008 in Videos and Aviation Safety.
An Ilyushin IL-18D (D2-FFR) operated by Alada Empresa De Transportes Aereos - Angola, was filmed from close-by as it aborted take-off at Cabinda Airport (CAB / FNCA) Angola. The IL-18 overshot the runway, a few tires blew, but fortunately no one was hurt. The reason for the rejected takeoff is unknown.
Found via YouTube

Singapore F1...wow

2008-10-01T12:43:00.003+10:00

Hi anyone,

Watched from home the inaugural Singtel Singapore F1 race on Sunday night, and from what I saw it looked to be a spectacular event. I would have loved to have gone, but as previously blogged just couldn't justify the expense.

As for the race, as most f1 races are nowadays, it was little processional. The safety car continues to be a wild card, who would have thought Nelsinho's accident would benefit his team mate Alonzo so well? Mark Webber's bad luck continues, he benefited from the SC but fell fowl of a mechanical failure, I doubt he would have finshed 2nd, but he would have had points. Poor Felippe, bad luck from bad design I guess. I would expect Ferrari will be trashing there automated green light system next race - it has let them down twice now.

I really like Singapore and I think the coverage was a great advert for the country. Maybe next year or the year after I'll get there... maybe :)

Langkawi Holiday - Sep 4-16

2008-09-23T15:32:00.008+10:00

Hi anyone,

Should have blogged this earlier - but with site issues and the holiday, not much chance.

We recently went on holidays to Pulau (Island) Langkawi in Malaysia. Langkawi is a group of 99 islands (I think 1 only inhabited) on the north western Malaysian coast, right on the border with Thailand.

We travelled with two other couples spending 5 days/4 nights at the Four Seasons resort, followed by another 7 days/6 nights at Tanjung Rhu resort.

Four Seasons is very nice and recommended. It's a newish resort with luxuriously appointed rooms (even the basic Lower Melaleuca we had), super comfortable beds and even has a an outdoor shower/bath - very nice. Tanjung Rhu has been a long-time favourite, this our 4th time there - it too is luxurious though the rooms are getting a little run-down now and beds not as comfortable - but nothing to stop us from going back. :)

Both resorts feature at least two pools (drinks/dining there too), three main restaurants each, gyms and spas. Rose enjoyed the spa at both hotels, while I had a massage at Tanjung Rhu - nice. Both hotels also offer non-motorised water sports and beach activities. So there is plenty to do other than swimming/sunbathing/reading/eating.

As for the weather, we had a few storms, but nothing that would ruin a holiday.

Click the links and checkout the resort websites - both are recommended. Also, I've uploaded the photos we took, so feel free to browse our photo album.

Webhost problems...

2008-09-23T15:10:00.002+10:00

Hi anyone,

Have recently been having issues with my webhost.

Around the 29/8 I noticed my site was not found... Contacting support, I was told to change my DNS entry to new name servers. This resolved the missing site issue, but created a new issue, whereby the data on goodridges.com and Rochelle's site radac.net was as at 28/3/2008 - 5months old.

After exchanging emails with support, it turned out that my base account was moved to a different server on the 28/3 and as I was not advised to update the name server entries, all updates were to the old server. Finally around the 29/8 they switched the old server off.

Moral of the story I guess is not to rely on webhost backups. My webhost keeps them for only 3-5 days, and the fact that it took over a week of exchanging emails to convince support I had nothing to do with date regression (they want $75 to restore the site) and that they needed to investigate meant no chance of restoring the data (they looked but couldn't find it). So, I lost all updates since the 28/3.

Luckily, blogger keeps my posts, and I had backups of php changes I'd made. I also need to upload phot album's added since 28/3.

Anyway I'm a little annoyed and will from now start my own offsite backups of webhost data - just have to work out how :)

Aimee Gymnastics

2008-08-14T10:17:00.007+10:00

Shot this of Aimee, obviously inspired after watching the Olympic gymnastics team finals last night.

A Sommersault, followed by a half twirl - difficulty 5.6 (for someone who is nearly 3).

Another Dad moment - sorry.

cya.

Blogtime...

2008-08-05T08:42:00.006+10:00

Hi anyone,

Well, the week without Aimee passed slowly - but strangely enough - we survived :)

I purchased a new point & shoot camera last week, a Canon IXUS 90IS or Canon PowerShot SD790 IS depending on what part of the world you are in. I'm happy with the purchase, here are some sample shots taken over the past few days.

I've posted these and others in the Photo Album if you want a look. The camera replaces the IXUS 75 which we've found doesn't bounce too well on a tiled floor when dropped.

It's b'day month in our small family, two of us have b'days, mine next week (ho hum) and Aimee's 3rd b'day at the end of the month. I'v asked for undies - that's all I need.

Also, September is Holiday month, we're off to Langkawi for 12 days. Fun in the Sun hopefully. Just planning how to keep Aimee entertained and in her seat for the flight (7.5hrs, + 1hr). Wish us luck. Anyway, more on that subject coming.

Ciao for now.

Strange week....

2008-07-15T13:49:00.004+10:00

Hi anyone,

it's been a strange week...

We've let Aimee go to the farm up at Merriwa with her cousin Kurtis and grandparents. Apart from the emotions of our daughter being away for the first time, we've had to re-adjust to what it was like before Aimee came along. A very strange feeling indeed!

We dropped Aimee over at her grandparents on Sunday at lunchtime for the trip, then came back home. Rose and I didn't know what to do!, it was really quite puzzling. We ended up, after lunch, watching a movie - something we are lucky to do once a year. We almost watched another lastnight.

Strangely, the house is so quiet and feels empty without Aimee running from one end to the other stamping her feet as she goes.

We've taken Friday off so we can join the family at the farm. Roll on Friday, it's just too strange until we have Aimee back.