10 August 2008

Looking back with street view

I’m becoming strangely addicted to Google Street View. This picture is from outside our house in Ceduna, where we lived in 1992-93. Kathleen was conceived there Read more »

Tags: memories, south australia
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7 June 2008

Special moment

The 1982-83 Melbourne Ashes Test is special to me for several reasons. I was 15 years old and it was the only time my Dad took me to the city alone for consecutive days.

We stayed at a motel in Carlton and made our way to the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG) each day for five days of gripping action.

The scores were fairly even and below 300 for each team on every day. The crowds were large throughout. Read more »

Tags: cricket, memories, Sport
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4 March 2008

Odd coins in the change

A reader came into the newspaper office with a 1900 sixpence she had found in her small change, thinking it somewhat remarkable. I don’t think it’s amazing at all, but worthy of a blog post.

I don’t handle much change these days except one and two dollar coins. When I was a child these were banknotes. The one and two-cent coins of my youth no longer exist.

Decimal currency was introduced to Australia in 1966. Pounds, shillings and pence ceased to be legal tender in February 1967, a month after I was born. Read more »

Tags: Australia, finance, memories
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12 January 2008

Changing times

When you haven’t seen someone or something for a year or so your sense of observation is more acute. It’s harder to notice gradual change if you see something every day.

But if you haven’t seen someone for a year it’s easier to tell if they have put on weight or turned grey.  It’s the same with places.

We have returned to the same holiday house at Falcon we stayed in last January. The house hasn’t changed, but the neighborhood has.

The vacant block next door hasn’t been developed yet, but it’s now for sale. A new subdivision has been opened up for development between the house and the nearby shopping centre, called the Olive Waters Estate. It’s not built yet, next year I expect it will be.

We visited the Jolly Frog restaurant on a canal between the estuary and the Indian Ocean. The development on the other side of the water was startling.

Since last year, nothing has closed as far as we could tell. Most of the new activity was in construction. In addition to Hungry Jacks, Noodle Wok and Red Rooster there is now a McDonald’s as well. That’s progress, I suppose.

Falcon still has a nice mix of modern buildings and beach shacks. I wonder how long that will last.

Tags: holiday, mandurah, memories, Western-Australia
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4 November 2007

Mo no go

One of my staff suggested I should grow a moustache to support the Movember fundraiser. I would if I could.

The picture above was taken in 1990 when I tried to grow one. It was a feeble effort. After about three months that was the full extent of it; a sort of fluff.

I’m hairier now than I was then, but I still don’t think it could happen. I could grow sideburns (but why?), however a moustache is out of the question.

Tags: memories
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22 October 2007

The changing face of communications

The way we communicate has changed dramatically in my relatively short lifetime.

When I did computer studies at school in 1983 it was all programming theory; we didn’t have any actual computers in the classroom.

When I started working as a journalist in 1987 we used typewriters, the office didn’t have a fax machine and there was no such thing as a mobile phone. Read more »

Tags: blogs, internet, media, memories, social-networking, Technology
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21 October 2007

My cricket career

I had a hit of cricket with Michael Jnr at the local school nets this morning. I know I’ll be sore tomorrow.

I’ve always enjoyed cricket, but never achieved much in the sport. I regret that to some extent.

If I was being immodest I’d say that I was a bully of bad bowling. A fairer assessment might be that I was a handy batsman, and if I had applied myself I might have done alright. Read more »

Tags: cricket, family, Kids, memories
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10 August 2007

Returning ‘home’

I’m spending a few days in the Latrobe Valley, where I grew up, with my parents. It’s the first time I’ve been here for nearly three years.

After 18 months in an arid area I’m struck by how green Victoria is. I had also forgotten what mud looked like before today.

On the negative side, my hayfever has been triggered again.

I went for a drive around Traralgon with Dad today. I lived there from 1968 to 1986, aged 1-19, and think of it as home. The population has increased from 10,000 to about 30,000 in that time.

I went to high school at St Paul’s College and there were vacant grounds across Grey Street where we used to play football. That’s a housing estate today.

It was good to see the houses we used to live in. Traralgon is an attractive, modern city.

Tags: family, memories, Victoria
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4 August 2007

Scene from the early 70s

In the previous post I mentioned how most of my personal scanned pictures are now online here. Browsing them tonight I came across this photo which seems so classically late 60s, early 70s. I was maybe four years old when this picture was taken, dating it 1971.

The car looks like an early Toyota. I haven’t seen a K number plate on the road in Victoria for a long time.

Tags: memories
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27 June 2007

Giving a sperm sample

I don’t know what prompted me to think of this subject today. Probably it was a repressed memory which must have been triggered by something. Certainly it was a memory I had banished from my conscious mind.

After Michael was born in 1996 Juliet decided to have no more children. It wasn’t something I agreed with, but who am I, a mere male, to challenge someone who spent 20 hours in labor giving birth to our first child?

Being a woman though, Juliet changed her mind a couple of years later. We spent the next couple of years practicing the business without producing any dividends.

Suspecting a plumbing issue, Juliet went to see a specialist in Albury. Being a very competent and thorough gentleman he wanted to rule out all possibilities before giving his pronouncement. Read more »

Tags: health, humor, memories, sex
2 comments