Our ‘net connection sucks right now. I don’t yet know whether there’s a problem in the tubes or whether our account has been throttled back because we’ve gone over our monthly download limit. It has been a big month in terms of downloads. Wonder why.
I’ve setup a second blog. It’s called Ubuntu 9400, and it’s all about running Ubuntu (a Linux distribution) on my Dell Inspiron 9400. If that all sounds a bit geeky then it is. One of the things I found is that there are very mixed reviews on how well Linux plays with laptops. I’ve had a great deal of success with it (the 1920×1200 screen and the WIFI worked out of the box! woohoo!) but also had some disasters (iPod sync, I’m looking at you). I figured I’d start blogging about it so other people can learn from my mistakes and so I can use google to find what I’ve done in the past.
Had a quick google chat with Laura this morning. She’s on her school holiday trip to the UK with the school theatre group; they’re in Edinburgh right now.There’s some photos up on flickr and a blog they’ve created for the trip.
I’ve just finished my week’s holiday. Back to work tomorrow… for one day, then the weekend. The Kid’s cousin will be staying for a few days, so we’ll be pretty busy over the weekend. It’s almost like tomorrow is a day’s interruption to a slightly longer holiday. 
Yesterday we took the kids to the Anakie Fairy Park. Lisa has fond memories of visiting as a child, and knew that The Kid would enjoy it. I don’t recall having ever been, so it was new for me too.
The park occupies around 25 acres of land at Anakie, about 30 minutes north of Geelong. It’s built on a smallish hill of granite boulders, and they’ve made great use of that by having cobblestone paths ducking and weaving around the various attractions.
It’s primarily about fairy stories: Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood, The Three Little Pigs, Goldilocks, etc. Each of the attractions is a small display summarizing the story with some simple animation and lighting while an abridged version of the story is spoken. At the very start of the park complex is a statue of the Brothers Grimm, and their work is a pretty good indication of what you’ll find around the place.
Right at the very end is a huge playground, and The Kid spent at least half an hour there without getting around to playing on everything. We took a picnic lunch with us.
When we finished there we did the few extra miles into Geelong and went to the botanic gardens. These gardens have suffered because of the drought – like most gardens have – but it’s still a nice place to visit.
They’ve also got a special garden area that’s specifically about the drought, and it shows that you can still have a lovely outdoor area without the need for much water. Most of the tall trees they’ve got are still thriving, but lots of the lush vegetation has disappeared.
Photos: There’s a gallery up on SmugMug, and I’ll put a few shots up on flickr. I think this is my favorite shot of the day.
The weather here was absolutely beautiful today, so Lisa and I took The Kid and The Baby for a walk into town. We planned lunch at KFC to give The Kid a treat. This was unfortunate because the regional football finals were on today and just before we got into town the place was overrun by football yobs. Regardless, we finally got served, had lunch, then walked around to the playground at Lake Victoria. Just like in Ye Olde Days, people were boating on the lake, walking in the sunshine, and generally enjoying a rural town on a lovely spring day. There’s a gallery up on SmugMug, and I’ll probably dribble a few shots up on to flickr over the next couple of days.
As well as today being the last day of term 3, it was also the final day of book week. The Kid’s school have been doing book related activities all week, and today was a big parade where all the kids dressed up in book characters. There’s a gallery of shots on SmugMug (password protected, email me if req’d, blah blah…).
The other big event was that The Kid had a tooth pulled yesterday. It was damaged in a playground accident a few months back — a silly accident that started off by going down the slide the wrong direction and ended up with a mouthful of pine bark. Anyway, there’s a shot of the toothy grin up on SmugMug too.
Last night, The Kid’s school put on their annual play. This year it was The Pirates of Penzance.
I remember telling Mum and Dad that they were doing Jesus Christ Superstar. My mistake. And I have no idea where I got that thought from.
Anyway, Pirates it was.
Lisa took The Kid, The Kid’s Friend and The Kid’s Grandma Joy. I stayed home with The Baby. I don’t know that the two kids got much out of it from what Lisa tells me; they were more enjoying the fact that at 9pm on a school night they got to scoff lemonade and chips. Lisa and her Mum thought it was a great effort. The quality of singing was highly variable but they’re kids. It was all good fun.
Lisa wanted to get some photos of the night, so she took the D80 along. Because we’ve only got the slowish kit lens for it we figured that ISO 800 would perhaps do a reasonable job of capturing indoor shots without introducing too much noise.
Unfortunately, Lisa tells me (and the photos show it) the hall was far too dark. Lisa said that was the real disappointment, and that it was a shame there wasn’t some professional lighting to highlight the faces on stage.
Overall it sounds like they did an good job though. I can’t imagine it would be easy getting a couple of dozen primary school kids all pointing in the same direction at the same time and singing the same (sort of) tune.
Based on the dismal lighting on the night, we’ve decided that any future events like this we need to think about getting in beforehand (maybe dress rehearsals) to take some decent shots of the performers. A faster lens and beefier flash would help too.
Who said what?