Whose Storkin?

Funny thing the Universe, with it's synchronicity and illusions. I s'pose its even funnier the way we put them together to form patterns and superstitions.

A silly personal association I have is with people and wild critters lately. In my mind they have become like totems where the appearance of the creature will herald the appearance of the person. This to me has developed over the last couple of years, slowly ebbing its way into my consciousness. I notice the critter and go about my business and a car will come up the drive or the phone will ring.

For some reason these particular critters stand out in my world, as if they each have a special magic, something I cant quite put my finger on.

Sometimes the critter directly reminds me of the persons character and suits them down to the ground, other combinations don't make any sense at all apart from the synchronicity of their appearance in my day.

These critters usually seem to be associated with the women in my life, I don't know why, they don't seem to correlate to any of the blokes. Maybe just they way my screwy head is - who knows. But its there for me, part of my life and the way I see things. ~shrugs~

The Sea eagle, the grey crane, the maned goose, even one of the crows all have their associations for me and I can expect a visit or a call from their relevant humans.


 Lately I have been visited by Ardea Alba , the Great Egret. Just a single bird brightening my day with its presence along my shoreline. Such a magnificent creature just shining with the magic and mystery of the others but with a difference, I have no idea who it is associated with.

So when I see it, wandering along the shores close to the boat, I wonder and dream .. who is she?


Crazy huh? Not to worry have to take the magic and hope in life where ya find it.

Be Safe n Well,


Scuzz.

Parenting and "The Slap"

I cant believe the tripe thats going on about the TV show "The Slap" aired last night on ABC1.

How can anybody take the side of the parents of that child?

Maslow said, "Give me the child until he is 4 , and I will give you the man." The kid is totally spoiled and lives without boundaries, what is worse is that the only consistency in his life is that he is rewarded for antisocial behavior.

In the children's play there are good examples of the child's antisocial behavior and although the other children try to include him , he consistently draws their ire.

The unprovoked child bites another child and is rewarded by being mollycoddled and breast fed when the other children admonish him.

The child deliberately breaks the game controller when he looses a game and is again rewarded by breastfeeding when the other children object.

The child is left to his own devices away from the other children and begins destroying the hosts CD/DVD collection, when admonished he runs to mummy again.

And then comes the controversial incident where the host sets up a game of supervised cricket for all the children. The child is included by giving him the batting position but once again when he looses he becomes violent, dangerously swinging the cricket bat at the other players and screaming at them.

When one of the other children's parents protectively intervenes (his own parents do not) the child lashes out and kicks the man in the shins.

That the adult male responds with a disciplinary slap to the face is not surprising. Personally I probably would have just kicked the child back in kind.

All of this to me is not new, we have all seen it in todays world, where bringing up children without discipline and boundaries is rife. Done by lazy parents, too self absorbed to take the right line and patting each other on the back for taking the easy, feel good path. Parenting is not just a right, it is a responsibility. We have the responsibility to bring our children up to be functional and contributing members of society. Parenting is not a popularity contest with our children, we are there to guide them and sometimes the things we have to do are tough.

The touchy feely extreme of over permissive parenting leads to unruly children with overblown senses of entitlement and no understanding of their role in society or their social responsibility.

There is no easy way out and to neglect setting boundaries on a child's behavior is more damaging to a child in the long run than any face slap could ever be.

scuzzi_au's photostream

scuzzi_au's photostream on Flickr.

The (very) Long Weekend

Day#10, Friday at the start of a long weekend.


 I wanted to put a message out, nothing big, but sometimes, particularly at the start of any holiday I think about those traveling. I think about those that either wont get to their destination, or wont get home. I s'pose because it is one of the things that has impacted so heavily (unintended pun) on my life, something that can happen to anyone, and something usually quite avoidable.

I thought I might look up the web for horrific pics of motor accidents and do a collage in photoshop until I ran across the pics of Nicki Catsouras. A 18 year old girl who borrowed a Porsche and lost control in the U.S. Really, I'm not going to put those pics up here, and I found others, many worse, but couldn't find anything that conveyed what I wanted to express. The net is full of horror pics and that isn't what I really wanted to work with.

One Image took my eye, it wasnt the girl lying dead on the road that got me, but the look on the guys face as he realised what had happened. At least it was something I could relate to and from there I whipped up a quick poster for my daily contribution.

I thought about the kids I know and love and put a message together ...

Interestingly enough, the pic was taken by a group of students from Lancaster & Morecambe College for their own road safety message.

Day#11 due time was coming close and I was playing around trying to revive my old photoshop skills. I still haven't got the hang of it back again since they changed all of the tools and their buttons, can't find anything. Even though it's filled with wonderful new tools, I'm still not up to speed on what they do or how they work. Anyway, was playing with "winters Day" image and when I rotated it and fiddled a bit, a spoon emerged, Vallah, I'm a happy man, that will do nicely ~grinz~

My cousins wife rang as I was posting it up, bit of drinkies going on at their place so I thought I might get out of the house and socialise a bit. Have a few drinks, a game of pool and couch surf.

On the way over I found myself thinking, as I had since making the accident poster, of my own accident. One thought stuck in my mind, about the kid that had run into me, the kid who changed my life so dramatically, .. and yet.. I could not remember his name.

Anyway, we had a few drinks, danced a bit, I lost badly at pool and slept on the couch.

 Day #12 broke and the sun was shining. Did a bit of work on my cousins computer, ate baked spuds, and took a pic of the clouds coming over. I was struck with the difference between the sunshine we were in and the dark tones under the clouds as they rolled in. I sent the pic into the cloud project at pool.

I was still thinking about my accident, thinking about an upcoming ABCOpen project, and thinking about how to tell that story. On the way home I stopped at the site of my accident and took some pics, maybe it was healing, maybe part of the process, I dont know. Taking the pics felt like what I was supposed to be doing ~shrugs~.

I also stopped in at the shed to get some images of sketches that I had there. Old artwork I had done, and in particular there was an image that I had sketched as soon as I was able to, after the crash. It was bugging me at the time, that image. I wasn't able to clear my mind of it until I put it down on paper in the hospital and then I had some peace from it.

I took some digital images of the sketches and went home. After transferring them to the mac I began to play with them (again in photoshop) and posted two them.  For that day I posted "tzuki no hanna" - flower of the moon. Just a doodle I had played with inspired by a Japanese woman I had known. I didnt alter the pic itself too much except to put the whole thing against a black background. I could have fixed the blemishes and spots but that was how I had originally made it and it stayed.

 Day#13 and it was the other side of midnight from posting Tzuki no hanna. I grabbed another of my favorite sketches and imported it to photoshop for a fiddle. This one had started out as a Bowie-esque supercritical self portrait, evolved into a comment on fashion and then was put away for a few years. I photoshop framed it called it Richard Fasionista and posted it up to give me a free day.

 

The next day was to be a busy day and I had volunteered to work at a combined exercise with the police, the SES and Red Cross. I had cut myself some slack as regard to the 30 days of creativity project, set my alarm, and wandered up to the event.

I was to be a victim/patient in a couple of different scenarios in rescue training. I s'pose I might have foreseen how emotionally confronting this was going to be within me. Because I am an amputee I was easily made up and put into scenarios that mimicked my original injuries. It  all seemed surprising familiar to me, laying there, waiting for help. I had taken a spare leg and bent it at ridiculous angles inside the leg of the pants I was wearing. It looked pretty graphic. It brought back memories and I drew on them for the purposes of the exercise. Apart from the lack of pain and the bleeding, I reproduced the whole thing, I could feel the emotions and managed to shake from the inside as I had remembered doing. Had to do it twice, once in the morning trapped under a car, and once in the afternoon with one leg trapped down a wombat burrow and another broken and shattered outside it. I think if they gave awards for acting that day, I would have got an oscar. ~grinz~

When it was over I was physically tired but hugely emotionally drained. I stopped in at my sisters on the way home for a cuppa and a much needed debriefing session.

Sitting at the table chatting with Dave (my brother in law), I started to fiddle with a piece of wire my sister had left on the table. My sister does artwork and stuff to keep her sane since they are slowly pensioning her off, at the moment she is crafting wire, something she can do inside because her lungs are shot from the chemicals and complications at her work.

The wire slowly formed itself into a small dragonfly so I took some pics for uploading. A quick photoshop frame and it's uploaded for Day#14's offering.

 On the drive home I kept thinking about the day, my accident and why I couldn't remember the kids name

I used to know it off by heart, not something one forgets easily.

I remember him sitting on the side of the road, his work ute written off and his face in his hands weeping in self pity. My pillion lay dead and I struggled, immobilised, broken, bleeding out and straining for breath against the choking strap of my helmet. I saw him there.

I remember my wife picking me up from hospital to attend the coroners inquest, I remember his face and that of his supporting family as the judge made his ruling. I remember going back to the hospital after my brief hours escape to that court, back to the traction and the surgeons.

I remember going to the criminal court for his charging by the Police. They were charging him with culpable driving, for reckless endangerment, maiming me and killing my pillion.

I remember clearly the pivotal moment where I put my hand on the silver door handle, the feel of cold metal, my wife maneuvering my wheelchair so that we could enter. I remember my thoughts and the conundrum that faced me at that moment.

To me,  if he received a harsh punishment I would have felt vengeful - a satisfaction that within me would have been bad Karma. Alternatively at the other end of the spectrum, if he received a light sentence I would have felt ripped off,-  I would be wanting him further punished. This also would have been bad karma within me.

So I took my hand from the shiny metal handles on the glass doors and turned to my wife, "Please, take me back," and I went back to the hospital not knowing, not wanting to know, simply for my own spiritual well being.


Some years later, I ran into one of the police involved and we spoke of the accident and the court, he went to tell me of the verdict and sentencing and I stopped him, explaining why I didn't want to know and he nodded and acquiesced.

To this day I still don't know, and still don't want to.

Perhaps not even remembering his name is a sign of the healing.

Perhaps methinks this is a good thing.


Be Safe and Well,

Scuzz.

Gone Fishin

Well the 30days of creativity continues, as does my affair with twitter.

One of the people constantly popping up on my screen is Mark Pesce ( @mpesce ) who was speaking at a conference in New York so I followed his links and listened.....


 Day#8 was a bit slack, I had spent much of the previous night watching a conference called PDF11 (Personal Democracy Forum) which was kind of like a 2 day Ted Talks for geeks. There were some exceptional speakers and they are all online for review here. My all time favorite and the must see was Jim Gilliam. He stepped up on the stage and I thought "here we go", he looked like a geeky, nervous, string-bean and I honestly though he was going to speak about computer code or the ilk. Mark tweeted "listen to this guy" before Gilliam started speaking so I refrained from walking away and making a cuppa and listened. I had no idea of the power of what was about to be presented. I was gobsmacked. Jim's talk was interrupted by standing ovations and those present reported not a dry eye in the house. I know mine leaked half a world away. So do yourself a favour and watch it.

After so little sleep I was physically exhausted and though inspired by many of the talks, my heart just wasn't into artistic stuff that day. Sitting down the queen having a cuppa, the pouring rain and relentless wind beating against the side I took a pic, trying to capture the feeling of the cold and bleak that swept the lake that day. This was to become "A winters day". Not a great image but enough to put up.

Day#9 and I still cant get the PDF11 talks out of my head, something had fundamentally shifted. One of the talks, by Lucy Bernholtz was about Philanthropic organizations and from that a remembrance was sparked of what I was doing before I let my life get consumed by the net (yet again). I was building a boat, well rebuilding one. The vessel had a specific purpose and was being redesigned just for that. The vessel is the "Narracan Queen" and its purpose is to take wheelchair people fishing.

Now admittedly the queen isn't very large or very flash but shes shallow draft (runs in 11 inches of water) and now she is stripped inside has ample room for wheelchairs. There's a heap of work still to do on her but my dream for a while has been to make her safe, competent, and accessible for wheelchairs. I figure its a pretty good lifestyle for an old fella to spend his time takin' people out fishing on the little lake.

Synchronicity hey? bloody thing. I had done a bit of a search on the net, trying to find designs or internal structures that would be suitable for such a vessel. The nearest I could come up with was a small tinnie designed in the UK called a "wheelyboat". No not a jet-ski to chuck wheelies on, but a small boat, rather like a midget landing craft where the flat bow folded down to make a ramp

Last year I contacted the manufacturer, which is a not for profit organisation and asked them if they were available here (Australia) but received no reply, that is until today. Wouldn't you know it! lolz. The universe waiting until I was ready I s'pose.

Wheelyboats sent me back a nice email saying that they didn't have any here and suggested I contact some local manufacturers to see if I could get them to modify a current model etc, but the pearls that they sent me were the names and contacts for other Australians who had contacted them about the same thing. There are less than a handful but its gold to me, to know that others might be interested in the concept.

I also found a blog entry from a lassy who has MS and is wheelchair bound on her experience of a wheelyboat, again synchronicity.

So day number 9 changed my direction. I sat down and wrote to these contacts asking if they were still interested, assured in my own way that even if they weren't, others would be. That people other than me had shown an interest assured me that it wasn't a hopeless cause that only I could believe in, and that it was worth striving for and could be achieved.

With my mind set I began the first steps, contacting those I knew of that may be interested and putting out feelers for others. I whipped up a quick logo on Photoshop and began publishing the meme. Thus my creation for day 9 is the Australian Disabled Fishing Association.

Its going to be a long haul, and I loath politics, but I am a creature of the net and one of the things PDF11 reminded me of is the power of it as a tool for change.

Wish me luck.

~smiles~

Be Safe and Well,

Scuzz

#pineapplewars

The Nets a funny thing, part educational part entertainment and lots addictive.

At the moment my focus is being distracted from applications like the dynamic web pages of the ABC projects including ABC Open and ABC Pool, to the social applications of Facebook and Twitter.

Although I've been on it for a while, Facebook remains an eye opener, especially watching the kids coming online like its a natural extension of their daily chat. Someone once described Facebook as a list of the women you have slept with, although this doesn't seem entirely true, it does have that kind of ring of truth about it and I can see why someone would develop that idea. We tend to "friend" people as part of our discovery of each other, part of the current mating ritual it seems. Interesting concept, unfortunately I have many friends that I have neither slept with or have any intention of doing so, heaps of past co-workers and people I respect and their kids. I also have a few family as most seem to have on there.

Anyway, what was I rambling about? Oh yeah, the net. Twitter, funny thing Twitter, its role in the way news is being reported ('cos all the journo's seem to be on there) is pretty amazing. Stories and pics are passed around, mostly by links as the format is limited to 140 characters. Most of the Journo's I have followed are ABC with a smattering of political freelance. I also follow a few of the comedy producers/writers/actors like Dan Ilic from Hungry beast, they are great value, chattering away and tweeting up interesting links to youtube or other sources, often extremely funny or relevant stuff. The 2009 vid of Tony Abbot proposing a carbon tax that was eventually shown on QandA on the telly last night was tweeted by them a couple of days ago.

But apart from news and snippets of relevant humour Tweeps, (as the twitterers seem to call themselves) have great word games they play, if your quick you can catch them before the threads gets to a point where it trends and attracts the attention of the automated spam robots (bots). From there it quickly degenerates into crap.

Last Saturday Randomhouse Australia put up a thread/game :-

Let's play a game - mash up of classic book titles and Australiana #australianbooks

The meme came up with some very funny names and it kept me busy for an hour or 2 and I was truly laughing at the brilliance of some of the contributions, my personal favorite was 

"The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Belanglo State Forest" from triotoussideburn.

But check the link for others, there really are some clever people out there with not much else to do.

Day#4.  I did manage to put up some more stuff into the #30daysofcreativity project as well,  I cropped and posted a pic I had taken the day before, it was just too good a vision not to snap and had to share it.

Day#5 and while I was reviewing footage I had taken of myself with the intention of making an short video add (to get loose women within my clutches and ply them with drink while watching a sunset) I noticed how badly I walked on this new leg. This put a little dent in my ego and I had a bit of a think about it and wrote a short piece about how net perceptions were different to reality in "On the Net". My English teacher would have torn strips off me if  she had seen it, but it was something to post, and touched a nerve with some. I even copped some feedback on Facebook from friends thinking I was depressed but it wasn't at all so.

Day#6, Well one of my favorite tweeps I follow is a hopelessly politically addicted lassy who writes under the pseudonym of Drag0nista . I am finding out a lot from her about the working of politics, mostly just by watching and reading her writings but she also is approachable and I ask her questions.  Whilst I feel sometimes that these questions may seem politically naive to her, she answers them honestly and will often send me helpful links. Anyway, one night while she was discussing what's for dinner, a public discussion ensued about ordering pizza and what toppings were suitable - with said lassy eventually championing a savory meat based pizza with additional pineapple topping. Many found this abhorrent and the tongue in cheek thread #pineapplewars began.

This thread got me salivating and come next tea time I just couldn't help myself and went into town to get a pizza. Ordering a savoury pizza with half pineapple (because I'm just a diplomatic kind of guy-see comitaphobe ) I just had to duck into K-Mart and dolly the thing up for a pic. After all, it's about creativity ;) and having fun.

 Day#7. I've been a bit annoyed at the introduction of those pics on the top of facebook for a little while now and saw that a few people had them in a series that made what we used to call a banner, across the top of the page. So, in my usual manner, I decided that it would be possible to make my own. A quick google revealed a youtube vid done by some smartarse kid and I managed to follow it, with lots of pausing etc, and make my own. I used the graphic I had made for the banner on this blog as a starter graphic and away I went. After cropping and chopping it all went just as he said it would and I posted it to my facebook page. I then put the whole thing up on Pool as Creative Commons with instructions and download links for my seventh day of creativity. So if you want to grab it and change your facebook banner from all those pics your friends tagged you in, feel free ;)

In the meantime..


stay Safe and Well

Scuzz

Beginnings

Comes a time to re-create a blog,
Seems this is it.

What does one blog about, anything and everything I 'spose.

Meeting some interesting people (tweeps) on twitter, I've only been at it a little while, resisted the urge for ages but eventually relented. So now I get information from people all over Aus, ~shrugs~, as opposed to people all over the world on Paltalk or Secondlife. To be fair I surfed Paltalk for many years and made a lot of friends before wandering over to Secondlife for a few more years.

Paltalk did have the advantage of video and voice communications which enriched the communications experience somewhat (as well as the perv factor).

Twitter on the other hand I am finding slow to find the people I want to talk to, although I am finding some interesting people at 140 characters per tweet. It seems that twitter contacts expands by contact one at a time, not really a problem but a slow start.

Ive had a blog for years, provided by my phone company (Telstra) but generally just posted pics from my phone up there everyday via MMS because of the slow speed and limited functionality. I think this is a major shame on their behalf because they started so well with content provision but simply died in the arse. Perhaps it was just that they didn't see the value in it, or that they made some sort of commercial decision not to invest in further server infrastructure, but most likely it was that they are totally lawyer phobic and worried that somebody might write something that dissed them.

Anyway, today has been interesting, It started with a committee photo shoot for publicity for the lake but after the Politicians and truckies (brought in for props) had gone I was left alone at the lake looking out over the fog lifting on a mirror flat lake.

I grabbed the phone from my pocket and went off happy snapping. I even made a short vid for day#3 the 30daysofcreativity project which is running from an idea at #createstuff's page.

This is the third day for me, the night before the first day my crew came around and we drank a fair bit, truly - I only did it to be sociable. So for  day#1, I created a hangover, and a short text and audio piece.
For the second day, day#2, I had a play with some old machinema footage I had in stock and put it together as this dreadful promo piece.

Anyway, tomorrow is day#4, another day, another creation. In theory I 'spose I could count this as a creation, but not really my style.

Be Safe and Well,

Scuzzi.