Graduate Diploma of Information Technology

Originally uploaded by collective.dust

After 3 long years I have finally graduated with my Graduate Diploma of Information Technology from CSU.

As usual we were bending the space time continuum to make the afternoon ceremony at CSU campus in Wagga Wagga. A very efficient process of paying, kitting up in a black robe, fancy hood and mortar board only took 5 minutes and I was allocated to my seat waiting for the ceremony to begin.

After some welcoming words and an extended flute recital I was up and ‘doffing’ my cap to Chancellor and walking away with that piece of paper in my hands. That piece of paper represents 3 years of my family putting up with many late nights, a stressed out Daddy at assignment and Exam time and alot of blood sweat and tears. So a big big thank you to my wife and daughter for the support and encouragement to accomplish this, I couldn’t have done it without them.

I was in two minds about attending, but as H reminded me, ‘You don’t graduate everyday’. I must admit I did feel a great sense of pride and achievement when receiving the certificate.

Would I do it again? Not right away, ask me in about 10 years

Presenting Mr and Mrs O’Neill

Originally uploaded by collective.dust

A big congratulations to Peter and Claire on their wedding day. It was a wonderful day that will hold many fond memories.

Of course the 2 days leading up to the big event were filled with last minute details and stresses - namely a car company that were not going to honour their agreement of hiring the 3 Audi A6’s only the day before! But then everything just fitted into place and all the hard work in preparing paid off.

A traditional church ceremony for 400 at Trinity’s in Adelaide, photos at Botanic Park and the beach at Grange followed by a superb reception at Classics Restaurant topped off a wonderful day.

The bridal party took a leisurely blat through the Adelaide hills at 2:00am in the 3 Audi’s, just to see what all the fuss was about.

Ok so I got tagged by Ruth Ellison for the ‘8 things you don’t know about me’ meme.

The rules are pretty straight forward:

1. Link to your tagger and post these rules
2. List EIGHT random facts about yourself
3. Tag EIGHT people at the end of your post and list their names
4. Let them know they’ve been tagged

So here goes. I’m fairly new to blogging so linking to 8 other people is going to be a bit difficult at this stage. Anyway on with the random facts:

1. I was born in Australia and was adopted by my Japanese Mother and Australian Father. I have only recently discovered that my biological parents are Chinese. Wow can you say ‘multicultural’?

2. I grew up in the Bega valley where I distinctly remember being one of only 2 Asian students attending High School. Needless to say I copped a bit of flack (from a few small minded individuals) due to my ethnic roots but overall it was a great place to grow up. I don’t think I really appreciated how beautiful that part of the world is until I moved away to undertake studies in Environmental Science in Canberra.

3. I dig coffee - now there’s a gem for you. More specifically I really enjoy making espressos. My wife was kind enough to buy me a coffee machine a few years ago and I think I have spent every weekend since then to produce the best espresso’s that I can. Sure it takes me 5 minutes to produce a single latte and sometimes they turn out …well, crap, but once in a while it all just comes together. There’s something mesmerising when an espresso shot is poured and it looks like honey.

4. I love fly-fishing. It’s one of those hobbies that appeals to people, like me, who dig accessory sports. There’s plenty of expensive gear and gadgets to be purchased, all in the pursuit of outwitting a trout. If I’m completely honest I rarely catch any trout and the one’s that feel sorry for me and decide to take the fly are released to fight another day. Fly-fishing really provides the perfect excuse to go to the Snowy Mountains at least once a year where we meet up with an old friend from high school at Lake Crakenback resort in between Jindabyne and Thredbo. I love this part of Australia, clear air, beautiful rivers and streams, snow and of course the mountains. Fly-fishing also allows me to enjoy all that natural beauty in the secure feeling that only a pair of rubber pants can provide

5. I have a bit of a fascination with watches and watch design, I particularly like chronographs my favourite brand is Tag Heuer. Unfortunately my job doesn’t pay well enough that I can buy the real thing, (although we did splurge one Christmas and got ‘H’ a real Tag Heuer). I do however have a couple of ‘good’ quality copies, thanks to friends travelling through Hong Kong. They’re a bit more affordable and I like to mix them up bit during the week.

6. I really dig SHAG (JoSH AGle’s) art, we have one limited edition print of ‘Vinegar Girl‘ which is a limited edition lithograph print of the first neon sign in Melbourne. My friend Pete originally got us onto SHAG and since then ‘A’s God parents have bought 2 other SHAG prints. The web doesn’t really do the prints any justice check out Outre Gallery next time you’re in Melbourne or Sydney to see the real thing.

7. I was into body piercing in my mid twenties, tongue, nipple and navel….only navel remains.

8. I also had long hair for a while…it was bad, and I was always getting cornered by dodgy people asking me if I could sell them drugs. I was channelling some serious Triad style back in the day.

Ok so there you have it, I was going to tag Patrick Kennedy but in the time it has taken me to get back to this post he’s already been tagged. I’ll have to build up my contacts a bit more for next time.

Wow been absolutely flat out with work to post lately, but I just had time to watch a new movie called ‘Cloverfield’ produced by Josh Abrams. Can’t elaborate too much at this stage but if you ever got into an episode of ‘Lost’ and can handle the documentary style camera work of ‘The Blair Witch Project’ then this movie should keep you engaged for just over an hour.

Check out the Cloverfield trailer at apple.com

Commitment at G20

Originally uploaded by collective.dust

Fast and furious downhill racing with Nathan Rennie beating a field of top Aussie riders to take first place for the weekend. The winning time was a 2:37.95!, Bryn Atkinson came in second with a 2:40.11

The course had been tuned to allow more flow and faster cornering and the times reflected this. It was great to see the local riders like Ben Cory and Jared Rando in the top 5.

It’s inspiring that Australia produces such good DH racers that can take it to the international level and beat the best in the world.

I was a bit disappointed with Sam Hill’s comments in the latest AMB where he openly expressed his dislike of the Mt Stromlo DH track. I guess he should know what a world cup track should be like but unfortunately his comments have put a bit of a dampener on the locals who have put a hell of alot blood, sweat and tears into building Mt Stromlo bike park.

Anyway enough griping, check out more race photo’s at flickr

The movie adaptation of ‘I Am Legend’ based on the novel by Richard Matheson was good in parts but I think really missed the mark with the ending.

I read ‘I Am Legend’ in 1999 and it was one of the most memorable stories I have come across. I remember being engrossed in Robert Neville’s plight as he struggled as the sole survivor of a virus that had turned humans into ‘vampire’ like creatures. What really made this story memorable for me is the way that Richard Matheson ended ‘I Am Legend’ and made the reader question their ideas of normality. I think that the ending in the novel added so much more meaning to the title compared to the movie. That being said I thought Will Smith did a pretty good job portraying Neville’s character.

I guess most people would prefer a ‘Hollywood ending’ but in this case it really loses the significance and central message of the novel.If you get the chance to read the novel, you won’t be disappointed.

I just read this brilliant article by Matthew Smith on ‘Collecting for Design’. If you are even remotely interested in seeing how other designers work, this article will inpsire you to read, practice and collect.

I really love Matthew’s use of FlickScreen to grab screen shots and send them straight to his Flickr account with minimum  effort. What a great way to quickly build up Flickr user interface collections for future reference, all tagged, commented and organised.

Now all I have to do is upgrade to a Flickr Pro account to be able to have more than 3 sets.

I was just checking out John Allsop’s blog and came across this posting about a set of web tools called ‘Design’ by Allan Jardine. If you  are into web design this is a cool tool. ‘Design is a suite of web-design and development assistive tools which can be utilised on any web-page. Encompassing utilities for grid layout, measurement and alignment, Design is a uniquely powerful JavaScript bookmarklet.’ You should also try John’s bookmarklet called ‘MRI’. Great tool for learning how different designs have been achieved using CSS.

Just announced. Should be good to hear Geoff’s talk and see what he’s been up to of late.

Details

• Thursday 31 January, 2008
• 2:30 pm to 4:50 pm
• NLA Theatre, lower ground floor, National Library of Australia
• Speaker 1: Geoff Dibley (Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry), They came, they search, they leave - improving internal site search for users.
• Speaker 2: Paul Hagon (National Library of Australia), Users aren’t as clever as you think they are - search analysis of Picture Australia.

I came across this footage of Aussie downhill world champion Sam Hill, taking on a Subaru WRX rally car in Anup, WA. Riding doesn’t get much smoother or faster than Sam, it’s no wonder he has 2 world cups under his belt….unstoppable! You can watch the full race at Pinkbike.com