My Blog Posts

Having experienced a numerically significant birthday in the last couple of weeks I don’t want to regale you with stories of my derring do or lists of expensive presents. I’d rather share with you a couple of quotes. The first is from a birthday card sent by my brother in law and his tribe: “being forty is having a choice between two temptations and choosing the one that will get you home earlier.” - Dan Bennet

We have just returned from our ‘Summer’ holiday on the Gold Coast. A swell time was had by all, despite the fact that the roads were in turmoil due to the impending motor race. We were there to relax, kick back and to scare small people witless at the various adventure parks. We managed to achieve this quite successfully I feel. We went to Dreamworld (twice) and spent a very nice day at Sea World. We did manage a day of ‘rest’ at our luxurious holiday accommodation but given the level of activity I wouldn’t classify it as restful.

The boys and I have just enjoyed a nice quiet weekend. Whilst SWMBO enjoyed herself at a cheap little place up the coast the boys and I have: Been to under 5 sports activities (a.k.a “runaround”) Gone swimming Been to JFGP’s piano lesson Survived a trip to the mall Finished swimming lessons for the term Spent a morning at the zoo - and thoroughly enjoyed the bird show Played football on the beach Now I need a sit down.

As the sporting focus of 2008 comes to a close I think it is time I shared with you a theory I have been working on. In the spirit of clarity, and as a fairly good wind up, I have been trying to work out what exactly is a sport. Ordinarily, as a good Englishman this isn’t a problem because the answer is always “cricket, and everything else is for oiks” but bearing in mind that I now live in Australia and some of the local obsessions have been rubbing off on me (except for the thing with the marsupials, which will never feel right to me) I have been forced to rethink and revise my position. So during these 17 days of the 2008 Olympics whenever one of the 38 sports being contested is shown on TV I have been raising a perennial question - “but is it a sport?”.

People, there is good news about. The local purveyors of that hideous slop that the Americans call coffee is shutting most of their Australian stores. With a bit of luck my fellow Australians will stay away from the remaining stores in droves and they will shuffle off back to the land of the styrofoam cup. Well, a chap can hope. I, meanwhile, will be buying my daily skinny cappuccino at a decent coffee shop for local people.

People, good news. Ben Folds has a new record coming out called “Way to Normal”. It’s out in September, remarkably close to my birthday. Hearing this news has made my day. For more information check out the details in an interview in the (previously unknown to me) magazine called Paste.

After a quick weekend trip to the Blue Mountains (where SWMBO only tried to kill me to death by hypothermia) this weekend we celebrated MIGO’s 3rd birthday in the traditional fashion with cake and fire. If you look closely you can see that the birthday boy is wearing his present from his grandparents. He hasn’t taken off the superman suit since unwrapping it on Tuesday. Which is frankly a bit worrying and will soon be a little too smelly. I shall have to start a psychological campaign to convince him to take it off.

All, after being off the inter-web-net for most of the last six weeks we are now back online and talking to you via a much ‘fatter’ pipe (ooh err missus, etc.) Which means that we may finally be able to converse with people in the mother country via this here computer. I’ve downloaded and fired up Skype and if you want to call me send me an email and I’ll let you know my user name.

Today marks the occasion of JFGP’s fifth birthday. To celebrate here is a photograph that I didn’t take today. He had a great day, with presents galore and a full family birthday tea. This morning he went to clown town and this afternoon he had his hair cut in the local salon, for an amount of money that would keep me in haircuts for about six months. I’m not saying our children are pampered or anything but I’m busy figuring out how I can swap places with them.

- Trying to answer the age old question of what do you buy the mother in law who has everything - and cakes are right out of the equation [#](http://twitter.com/andy47/statuses/817348116) Powered by Twitter Tools.

- @carlfish: Badger, badger, badger! [#](http://twitter.com/andy47/statuses/816246740) - Trying to figure out how many more meaningless tasks I have to get done today [#](http://twitter.com/andy47/statuses/816256940) Powered by Twitter Tools.

- Getting into the exciting world of claims data migration [#](http://twitter.com/andy47/statuses/814548725) - Trying to decide if I should be perturbed that Amazon classifies my taste in music as "Adult Contemporary" [#](http://twitter.com/andy47/statuses/814870765) Powered by Twitter Tools.

We’ve just returned from a long weekend away. Partly to celebrate SWMBO’s birthday but also just to enjoy ourselves in the Hunter Valley. Good food, good wine and good company, what more could you ask? We finished with lunch at the Margan Wines cellar door in Broke (about three minutes from where we were staying) and naturally the wines were tasted whilst we waited for our food to be cooked. I declined because I was driving but that enabled me to shoot a few photos. Here we have Mark showing our youngest how to appreciate a wine. I fear the lesson was lost on the little fellow though.

- Stocking up on Codral [#](http://twitter.com/andy47/statuses/808953407) Powered by Twitter Tools.

- @brunns: s/^V^M// [#](http://twitter.com/andy47/statuses/807131453) - Lazyweb - how do I write a Python function that accepts either a filename or a file object? [#](http://twitter.com/andy47/statuses/807131819) - @brunns: If it's a one off just open the file in vim and type ':set fileformat=unix' [#](http://twitter.com/andy47/statuses/807134955) <li>@brunns: Did you type <ctrl-V><ctrl-M>? [#](http://twitter.com/andy47/statuses/807136902)</li> - @brunns Well, the way I've done it is to remove the extra ctrl-M at the end of each line, when you use it in sed you have to escape it [#](http://twitter.com/andy47/statuses/807140444) <li>@brunns forget sed, try this - tr -d '\r' < dos_file.txt > amended_file.txt [#](http://twitter.com/andy47/statuses/807144377)</li> Powered by Twitter Tools.

- @alang: And which location will you be eating in? [#](http://twitter.com/andy47/statuses/805159196) - Off for my fourth coffee meeting of the morning [#](http://twitter.com/andy47/statuses/805160107) - @alang: No wonder you aren't answering my calls [#](http://twitter.com/andy47/statuses/805282213) - trying to scrape up scarce resources [#](http://twitter.com/andy47/statuses/805282395) Powered by Twitter Tools.

- Apparently life is a highway ... and I'm going to ride it all night long. [#](http://twitter.com/andy47/statuses/804535492) Powered by Twitter Tools.

- Introducing SWMBO to the delights of planet penguin racer [#](http://twitter.com/andy47/statuses/802969100) - Catching up on admin whilst the tin lids watch the latest incarnation of Gladiators [#](http://twitter.com/andy47/statuses/803097981) - Normal practice is for houses to be cool in summer and warm in winter. Sadly ours is the other way around. [#](http://twitter.com/andy47/statuses/803469347) Powered by Twitter Tools.

- @keithpitty: Congratulations! [#](http://twitter.com/andy47/statuses/801694151) - thinking seriously about a cold beverage on the way home [#](http://twitter.com/andy47/statuses/801694195) Powered by Twitter Tools.

- Strangely excited that I've replaced the bulbs in the cooker hood and can now see what I'm cooking [#](http://twitter.com/andy47/statuses/798600646) Powered by Twitter Tools.