I started high school at St Paul’s College, Traralgon, in 1979. For music, students had a choice of learning the recorder or guitar. I chose the recorder, with a view to later learning the clarinet, which I began in form two (year 8).
I made good progress with the recorder and can still play tunes today. [...]
The Internet Archive Wayback Machine offers hours of browsing fun. The archive contains 100 terabytes and 10 billion web pages archived from 1996 to the present.
You simply enter a web address to be taken back in time to cached pages of that site. This is potentially embarrassing for web site owners.
My own site isn't [...]
I had a hit of squash today for the first time in 15 years. It was at the YMCA for Michael’s birthday, playing against kids and solo practice.
I used to be a pretty good at squash. I peaked when I was about 17. After that I played irregularly except for a solid season at Bairnsdale [...]
This is the last in my current nostalgia series. The photo was taken in October 1990 at Victoria Falls from the Zambian side.
I did a week-long tour of Zimbabwe and really enjoyed the spectacle of the falls. With another Australian, two Swiss and an Italian we hired bikes, hazarded the border crossing and took a [...]
Continuing my photo scanning and recollections, this entry is sure to fuel the fire of local Labor conspiracy theorists who warned John Bowler I was a National Party hack out to get him.
John and I have a good working relationship, and for the record I am not a member of any political party.
In 1986 though [...]
Me and horses just don’t get along. This picture shows me on a horse for about the first time. I was visiting friends at Gelantipy in 1986 and climbed aboard this rather docile creature.
It was a reasonably pleasant experience and it probably lulled me into a false sense of security and ambition.
A few months or [...]
This is my first school photo: prep at St Michael’s, Traralgon, in 1972. Interesting to note there were 38 children in the class.
I still remember some of the kids. I think 1972 was the only year for me that boys had to wear ties as part of the uniform, or maybe it lasted another couple [...]
I discovered some photo albums in the garage today and decided to scan a few pictures in case they ever get lost.
The albums cover the period from leaving home in the mid 80s to when I started using digital cameras around 2001.
This picture is of me working as a cadet journalist at the Bairnsdale Advertiser [...]
I played hockey at high school and for several years afterwards. My first experience in year nine was pretty rough.
By Year 12 though we had become more sophisticated and we had established teams. I played left inner, by memory, and was captain of the school team that defeated Traralgon High and drew with Gippsland Grammar. [...]
The 163 players who have represented Australia at one-day international cricket have omitted former skipper Allan Border from their popularly elected best-ever team.
The selected side in batting order is: Adam Gilchrist, Mark Waugh, Ricky Ponting (vc), Dean Jones, Steve Waugh (c), Michael Bevan, Andrew Symonds, Shane Warne, Brett Lee, Dennis Lillee, Glenn McGrath, Greg Chappell [...]
