Monday, November 27, 2017

Sunday afternoon at the zoo

Eli was invited to a friend's birthday party on Sunday which left Audrey and I free to explore. We rode our bikes to the zoo and had a fun afternoon looking at the baby meerkats and (very cute) baby zebra.

The zoo had three baby meerkats on display and was running a competition to name them. (two boys and a girl). The names had to begin with an 'S'. I chose 'Solomon' and 'Sid' Audrey (more intellectually) chose 'Savanna' for the girl. We'll find out in December if we win!

Here's some pics of our Eli-free afternoon!

Cute baby zebra

Not a very good picture of a peacock

Australia says 'Yes'

For the last few months a fairly pointless debate has been raging in Australia concerning marriage equality. Essentially Australia is/was one of the last few remaining parts of the western world which failed to recognise same-sex marriages. The government was unable (too chicken) to come to a consensus and were unwilling to vote on the matter.

As a result a postal 'plebiscite' was announced costing over $122 million to administer. For the uninitiated (and I was one) a plebiscite differs to a referendum in that the result is not legally binding. It ultimately gives the government a 'get out' clause if things don't go their way. Really the UK should have had a plebiscite rather than the ridiculous Brexit referendum which will throw development of the country back a few generations. Similarly if the Australian government had had any balls they'd have just been able to vote on the matter and we could have all moved on $122 million better off.

I've got into a few discussions with people about the terminology of 'marriage' and whether it should be kept separate to 'same sex union' or somesuch. There are legal differences (mostly to do with end of life stuff like inheritance, access to estates etc and power of attorney) If you're really interested then look it up for yourself. Ultimately though I believe that if two people love each other then it doesn't really matter their gender or sexual persuasion and they should be able to get married same as anyone else. I don't buy the religious/moral argument either - especially when 70% of the country gets married outside of church and most of the remainder probably only get married in a church because the building has a nice stained glass window which will look good as a back-drop for wedding photos.

I was frustrated by the ongoing debate as a) it gave bigots the opportunity to publicly voice their opinion and b) the whole thing seemed like a complete waste of time and money when it was just essentially a fundamental human right that was being withheld from people and really politicians, the media et al should be talking about something which actually drives the economy, creates jobs, improves healthcare, helps refugees, stops a dirty big mine being built which will destroy the Great Barrier reef etc etc.

In the end the plebiscite (which is really just a glorified opinion poll) fell on the side of the 'Yes' vote (62% v 38% if you're interested) the ACT proudly led the way 74% v 26%. Our gay (and sadly fairly ineffective) chief minister Andrew Barr was unsurprisingly over the moon about the result.

Various ramifications and debates now have to be gone through by federal parliament but hopefully the result gives enough of a mandate to allow marriage equality to be passed into law and agreed by the end of this year.

Canberra threw an impromptu street party - again the cynic in me wondered if there were some undertones of the Chief Minister pushing his personal agenda, but what the heck it was a nice sunny evening and the street in question has a great ice cream shop on it so we all went along after school to celebrate marriage equality!



Thursday, November 23, 2017

Otis Night for Nights

 
 
I was asked to speak at the Otis ball in Melbourne. I've been a supporter of the Otis charity since Amy and I stayed at one of their properties in Thredbo.
 
I agreed months ago and as the calendar ticked ever closer I became ever so slightly nervous!
 
When the weekend itself arrived I was lucky enough to be able to leave the kids with some kind friends and head to Melbourne.
 
The dinner was enormous! 840 people - far larger than any charity ball I'd ever been to. It was really glamorous as well and the night was full of incredible performers, a DJ and....before I went on stage a guy who had previously won the Australian Voice (a singing talent competition!). He was so talented and certainly a tough act to follow - I felt like I was next into bat after Don Bradman.
 
Anyway, it all went well and the whole night was a spectacular success. When I left the event had raised $540k which is just wonderful.
 
I've made a bit of a commitment to raising more cash for Otis in the future, so I've got my thinking cap on at the moment about things we (I'd drag the kids into it) could do :)


Thursday, November 9, 2017

Touch rugby

Eli's mate (Noah) and his family are moving to Sydney, so they threw and impromptu party after touch rugby on Thursday. Eli scored four tries in the match (one where he ran the length of the pitch) :)
 


Tuesday, November 7, 2017

Bread

While Audrey was coding Eli and I baked a loaf of bread. It was good fun and he really got into the kneading. We were both chuffed with the outcome, but I'm not sure how much A&E really enjoyed it as it was quite a heavy dough and so took more chewing than the factory produced wholemeal bread they're used to. Still, it was a good way to spend a Sunday afternoon together.
 

Monday, November 6, 2017

Coding for Girls

I found out on the grapevine that there was a 'coding for girls' workshop being run at one of the local secondary schools for girls aged 10 and above, it was run for a whole day on a Sunday.

Both the kids have done a bit of computer coding in the school holidays and really enjoyed it. The day was run by the Department of Defence and was entirely free (including lunch) so I signed Audrey up.

The kids programmed in 'Sketch' and wrote routines to either light up a set of diodes on a circuit board or write code which made words appear onto a scrolling LCD display. Adults were excluded from the room(!) but I was able to see what Audrey had done at the end of the day.

Audrey really loved it and her code was pretty impressive. It reminded me of my ZX Spectrum days (pouring over a home computer trying to key in code from a magazine to make a fairly rubbishy pac-man game). By way of comparison Amy won prizes for her coding at University (far more impressive!) so I guess nerdy computer coding runs in the family a certain amount. It appeared to be a fun and well run day.

Audrey with her circuit board

Thursday, November 2, 2017

Eli's second try of the game




Playing touch football at Deakin Oval #livingvicariouslythroughmychildren