To Wander and to Wonder the nature of our Perambulating Progeny

My house is full of gadgets and would be what you wou classify as not very child friendly.
It's not that it is unsafe, Don't get me wrong - kids would love it - they would love all the bits and pieces every where -all of my toys - all the stuff that sits too easily within their reach....

But as a friend of my partner said, she is not able to bring around the youngest of her two because she would be watching constantly as he would be forever wandering around, wondering which bit of delightful high tech goodness would happen to fall within his grasp next.
"To Wander and to Wonder, then examine things up close and personal" seems to be the mantra of the youngest of our perambulating progeny. The more flashing lights it has (well at least until they pull that one cable too hard..and then the wailing starts. & then you see which machine they pulled they power cable out of and you wail quietly on the inside for the hours of work lost. Thinking of the mantra you keep telling yourself you should be living by.... "Back up regularly..back up regularly"... ahh the young.. thay remind us well, the things we take for granted

I suggested to our friend that it should not be beyond them realm of social thinking, that there should be some form of device that allows for her to be able to bring her youngest son with her on outings and feel relatively safe in nearly all "child-unfriendly" environments. (again as upposed to UN-safe environments). and therefore allowing the owner of child unfriendly environments to feel more at ease with small younglings within their abode.

The harness that you see some parents using in shopping centres and in parks for their children.
Why not one of those? - and have it on a shortened lead that allows you to have them mobile within a certain - pre-determined safe distance. She smiled at this idea and countered with a retractable one.
"Could you see me, sitting there, having coffee and chatting with you when, 'hang on a sec', as I put my coffee down, and reel him back in to within distance.. " I think she was starting to warm to my idea.
The retractable control brings to mind a whole new leg to this.
I'm always thinking of others' safety.
The retractable control whould come with denim overalls with leather (or faux-leather) knee and elbow pads to help with any potential bumps and knocks.

maybe then we could have the Adventurer-Set with little leather (or faux-leather) padded gloves.
Leather (or faux-leather) boots with thick padded robber upper toe and a durable set of roller skate rubber wheels (the old-skoole pair, not the new blades) in the top of each toe as well as on each knee.
if they go down to hands and knees, will make it very easy to reel them in. (the padded gloves make more sense now)

she left to pick up her eldest from school, laughing heartedly - but also telling my partner she wanted a set.

We go up we go down

waking up to the market this morning was a little painful.
but probably not as painful as it could have been if i had actually watched Apple plunge to 199.... just seeing it today in the chart is bad enough...
but it will rise again -
or it won't...
i will be right about this, unless i am not
peace & light

Beer & Curry NIght

I have the tantalizing aroma of a yummy (and not sot so "hot") balinese chicken curry frolicking through the house.... I am soo looking froward to that. A freshly poured pint of Heineken perched just NE of my keyboard..

It has been a long day......... (and I am still recovering from the travesty that was the mistake to finally succumb to the SP1 upgrade of Vista/..... a couple of errors told me I should..my gut said "Stop the Bus!", and now I am looking at one of the final releases of Windows 7 to see what is all the fuss.....)

the long day continued at work...(yes even here from home it can happen)...
(when I then got home....) now the dishes are done, and dinner finally in the oven.
 and sitting back to see how close to finish I can get for Matthew Reilly's latest adventure - "The Five Greatest Warriors" - It arrived by mail order yesterday - I refused to sit down and read it straight away... that resolve lasted an hour and a half i think. I then set my goal not to read it all in a day....
I stopped last night with 100 pages to go....
this is part 3 of an awesome trilogy "Seven Ancient Wonders", "The Six Sacred Stones" & "The Five Greatest Warriors"...

{check}
the pint is a third drained, another 10 pages down. ending these Musings to stir the pot, drain the glass...see where the windows 7 install is at, and then if dinner isn't ready back into the book and beer...awaiting the finale - exploding with awesome curry and denting this 5L keg.

MD out

Embracing Our Past & Re-connecting with Our Future

I was looking at my blog, and realized - that it had bee a little while since I touched base here....
time to let the ramblings of this troubled mind spew forth somewhere, and why not here.

(like so much of late - it appears I am connecting again with a lot from my past..)


an offhand comment I made recently is more apt than I first realized...
I am about to step forth and leap out across the world for some time, and yet as I prepare to do this, I seem to be reopening all of these doors to my past - hehe - my ancient past (I did just have my 20 year school reunion - well one of them anyway) - and missing the other one has impacted on me a lot more than I would ever have expected.

It has re-awoken all of these thoughts and feelings and memories from a time so long ago ... they might as well have been fossilized for all that I had believed they meant in my life...part of the foundations of my building blocks yes....but did they mean anything to the cognitive, conscious person I am now, today? I have any feelings attached - or live memories of that time still.. so many life times ago...? no - or so I had thought..... The strength and vigor of this wash of memories from the nether world of who I am... wound tight, and stored away, all that raw adolescent power, untempered by the wisdom of time, awaiting the day to spring forth, like a jack in the box on steroids, bursting at the seams, it's sole desire being to explode out of it's confines, and surprise the living shit out of me...
such a colloquial phrase... I do like it... (sorry if it offends)

and surprise me it did.... I have been enveloped in the Mists of my own time past.
Wrapped in the ghosts of memories that I did not realize still existed.

As I begin the process of closing the doors on this life here and now, and begin the preparation for the journeys and adventures ahead, (I find myself enjoying the journey also happening back into my past, to a time when I knew more about chivalry, innocence, dreams and believing in my fellow human.
I also realized that back then - when I was 14/15 - I had set goals on where I wanted to be in life - what my passions were and where I wanted to go. Until my career guidance counselor talked me out of them.
My passions
- Ancient History (a subject not available at school so I studied it on my own)
- Theology & Symbology - (good with maths & a heightened spatial awareness & i was forced to learn the Christian way, so became a little more conversant with the others, which opened up my desire to want to know more about humanity's relationship with spirituality & the divine throughout the eons)
I wanted to go into Archaeology - to dig up the past, to find the truth about mankind's history buried beneath the Sands of Time - sorry that is ethnocentric of me - to find the Truth about our Planet's history- to find out what really happened to our past - beyond what we were being told by religious texts and ancient documents already found.
I have never stopped dabbling in this field from a personal hobbyist level - and I always follow my gut.
(a recent excursion to Cambodia, and what we found on top of Pnom Bok, is testament to that... nb... never walk through the jungles of Cambodia away from well marked trails - and even then.... be sure you know where you are....-landmines are everywhere - it really is not safe) - I will write about this excursion one day soon. ( I have pictures as proof of what we found.... of both the before and after the destruction).

- Cooking - grew up with takeout and AussieCuisine -meat &3-5 Vegg (boiled/steamed) there had to be more flavour out there. and that desire to follow this path has me up at the Gourmet Cook level in the kitchen - to the level of being able to say No to an offer of Sous Chef in a five star French/Cambodian restaurant/hotel in Siem Reap. (if life had allowed it to be different I would have said yes). But it is a feather in my cap that I am very proud about.
For me, creating meals in the kitchen simply by combining different flavours to create works of sensory art (so I am told) is just a pure joy. (and something I will take with me to Cambodia again when I set up a cafe & guesthouse)
- technology - thankfully this one little passion of mine has been fostered throughout my school life, so it was no surprise really that I am a telecommunications and IT consultant of nearly 20 years- something had to pay the mortgage.
- getting the story out there - (I was school journalist and then editor for two years) - I have always like the idea of making sure everybody is informed. Photography wasn't available to me then, so I picked up the camera privately and have played with one for years - I have my own photography business now.
-> These days I live by an idea... "Knowledge is Power and needs to be shared so that we are all Powerful"
Information is fast becoming the new currency of the digital age...
As a photographer, I am recording what happens in life - in society, so that I am part of the mechanism that hopes to maintain our history for the future - if the paranoia of the person with the big nasty camera can be overcome, that is...
post 9/11 with a professional camera is perceived weirdly by most of the public...they see me as a threat with my camera.......and yet terrorists use little compact cameras to be discreet - they are not 6'3" hairy wookies with large camera equipment that is impossible to be hidden within a crowd.

ahh well .. I ramble....

my point in all this is - and it blows me away still when I read it above here so concisely (in it's meandering way) and looking at who I am today, I have come to realize that what I wanted to do with my life back then when I was 14-15 are what I am living now.

That is a scary scary thing to come 22 years down the track and find that I am doing what I wanted to do when i was sitting at high school thinking of my future..
I may not be Indiana Jones - (although being chased off newly discovered & destroyed ancient ruins by an AK47 wielding civilian dressed govt soldier I think almost counts) ; or Jamie Oliver (just becoz i don't have my own show....yet...hehe); or Robert Cappa - would someone mind being shot in the head so I can get the photo please? (just kidding - no really - I am)

Nor am I Peter James - eminent UK Egyptologist (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_James_%28historian%29& http://www.centuries.co.uk/) nor Peter James the immensely popular British author (www.peterjames.com)

I am me......

touching base here briefly to reopen this blog...hmm yeah right..
well I guess I can say..

So I am back...

Hello World....

Great Ideas

I had a Great Idea smack me fair and square between the eyes the other day.

It was such an Earth Shattering, Life Changing Idea that I knew I had to run with it.
I knew that due to the potential ramifications for the betterment of mankind, it was something that I couldn't let go of, and that to make sure it didn't fall to the way-side, I therefore had to run with it

and I ran with it..................

and ran with it..............................

and ran with it some more................
In fact, I ran with it, so well, for so long,
That I forgot the original reason I started running.......

Next time, I will write it down first, and then it will be a Great Idea that I can share

next time...

The world is round...........

We know this...........

And we know this because we have been told so by those that know......

Therefore, actually...... we can call this........ a fact......

And for a small percentage out there, and they are the lucky few, (as they don’t have to read about this from anywhere else) they know this already for themselves because they have been out there and have experienced this small, but well known, fact.

They have seen the curvature of the Earth firsthand thru the window of the vehicle they are traveling in...... Be it Plane, Train or Ship (or even spacecraft for that Elite few)

They have seen the horizon off in the distance… seen it and.............

1) not thought anything more of it; or,

2) wondered, like all adventurers and great explorers have wondered throughout the ages before them, what lies beyond?…… What is out there?

What lies past that line that we cannot see beyond?

They will either find out for themselves, or wait for some one to tell them or maybe even just not care, and therefore won’t look beyond the end of their own nose.

Who can say how they will react to this...

How they will approach this scenario....... as everybody reacts differently...........

Hmmmm, but I do digress - as I am wanton to do if not paying attention to my own ramblings.......

The world IS round.......

After many years of fearing falling off the edge of the world, some brave and intrepid explorer with possibly more courage than sense (oh, and a healthy desire to know what lay in the Unknown), decided to go see what would happen if he sailed off the edge of the world, and promptly didn't!

and I guess that is what this is all about->

==>having the courage to poke around, and delve deep into the unexplored territories that reside beyond the edge of my consciousness .......

To find out what it is, exactly, that lurks beyond the the dark Purple Curtain at the edge of my Consciousness, in the realms of my Sunconscious and Beyond.... to explore that which makes up my Psyche.......... and share it with you.....

May the Path you walk, be the one you want, because It is the One You Chose... And if it isn't, then Choose another, Because You CAN!

I'll be back,
Blessed Be.