Category Archives: News

Stupid Camera House in Canberra City

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Apart from taking photos with our digital camera, I have really got back into film recently – I’ve discovered the joy that is professional quality film and I bought a second hand Canon EOS 30 last year, which is a rather excellent film camera and a decided improvement on my Dad’s old Pentax SP1000 which I had previously used. Using great film like Fuji Velvia or different varieties of black and white film gives better colour and tonality than in digital format, and I can scan them in on my computer to get a digital version afterwards. I have many photos displayed on my account on Flickr taken with film – you can particularly notice the black and white ones and the ones taken with Velvia, which have such wonderful colour.

I took a roll of black and white film into Camera House in Canberra City (Civic), which is right near my work, the other week to have negatives developed. I normally go to another excellent photo shop a bit further down the mall, but it was raining and I didn’t feel like running through the rain.

I should have braved the rain.

The shop called me back an hour later to say they had accidentally put the B&W film through the colour development process, which had the effect of wiping my film – the negatives are almost completely clear. You can imagine how massively upset and angry I was about this. The people at the shop apologised, gave me a new film and offered to process it for free – which is something, but still left me feeling sour.

I got my next B&W roll developed to negatives at my usual place today (it looks great) and I was re-reminded of how disappointed I was about the loss of my previous negatives. I not only lost photos from our holiday to South Australia (taken on the way back between Nerrandra and Canberra) but also more photos than I thought of friends in Sydney. So, Mandy, Byron, Jess, André, Charmaine – I’ve lost my photos of you. Mind sitting for me again next time?

Two signs that the drought is really hitting here

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  1. The playing fields across the road from our house appear to contain no green whatsoever – it is all brown.
  2. There are kangaroo droppings on our front lawn, meaning that there is obviously not enough grass for the kangaroos to eat elsewhere in the area. While we’ve seen them in the area before, we’ve never before seen roos on our lawn. Note: our lawn hasn’t been watered for two months.

Blogging or “The Future of This and Other Sites Based Around the Written Word of Tim”

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I might be posting a bit less often to this site (if that is at all possible) in the future as I have started up a new blog: about Christianity in a Democracy, which can be found at http://christianity-democracy.blogspot.com. In that blog I’ll be posting thoughts, ideas and trying to provoke conversation around the role of Christianity in Australian politics – which are individually two things I’m very interested in, and I’m even more interested in exploring how they work together. If that at all interests you, I hope that you will check it out and participate in discussion there. I’ll still update this site with bits and pieces of news about Tegan and I.

On the other hand, having started another blog might lead to this site receiving more frequent updates for one of two reasons:

  1. Because I’ll be writing more anyway, I might be prompted to write more here in addition to what I write over there
  2. It might prompt Tegan to fill the gap and post here more frequently

I’m not sure if either of those possibilities will actually come true, but let’s see how we go.

Open letter to idiot driver

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To the idiot in the car on Limestone Ave yesterday morning who bumped into Tegan and knocked her off her bike:

  1. Bicycles have the same rights on the road as do cars under Australian road rules
  2. If you ignore a cyclist signalling to change lanes and you also change lanes behind them, that’s your fault – don’t get angry at them
  3. If you hit someone and don’t stop – that’s actually a criminal offence, commonly known as ‘hit and run’ – it potentially carries a significant financial penalty and gaol time
  4. Everyone else around at the time thought you were in the wrong and an idiot

And to any of our friends or family who are reading, it’s not as serious as it sounds – someone clipped the rear wheel of Tegan’s bike while she was riding to work yesterday morning, knocking her up on to the median strip and off the bike. She’s basically ok though – neck and shoulder muscles are a bit strained and copped a bit of a scrape on the arm, but otherwise ok. She was pretty shaken up at the time though – her hands didn’t stop shaking for some hours afterwards.

Christmas and New Year

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Another Christmas and New Year period has come and gone and now we’re back at work and eagerly anticipating and hanging out for another holiday (although with a new blog design implemented, in keeping with the ‘New Year’).

Christmas is always a bit of an odd time of the year. I have long held the view that Christmas is over-commercialised and not even a particularly significant Christian celebration – although my view on that one changed a bit this year. In the past I was of the opinion that Jesus’ death and resurrection were the focus of the early Christians, as demonstrated throughout the New Testament, and that a celebration of Jesus’ birth never really gets much of a mention. Never mind the evidence that Jesus’ wasn’t actually born on 25 December and that Christmas seems to have been put on that date as a continuation of earlier pagan festivals. I always appreciated the family aspect of Christmas – spending wonderful time with extended family more than at any other time of the year – but thought it was all a bit overdone. This year, I still think it’s overdone, but have a renewed appreciation of the wonder and significance of the incarnation – what an amazing thing it is that the God of everything would willingly choose to enter into our world, take on human flesh and frailty and experience in the body the life of a human, before finally giving it up in a painful, undeserved death – and all that because he loved us. Amazing.

Tegan and I hosted family Christmas for the first time ever in our new house. My immediate family came down to stay on the weekend before Christmas and we had our traditional Christmas Eve gathering with just the five of us. On Christmas Day we went to church, were Tegan was always leading the singing, and then we hosted the feast for the extended family on my Mum’s side. We had such a great day! It was one of the best Christmas gatherings I can remember – the food was great, everyone got along really, really well, we didn’t overdo the presents too much (instituting a “secret santa” style gift giving arrangement), and it was just a good relaxing day: food, drink, cricket in the park – all good.

Two days later we also hosted a Christmas gathering for Tegan’s family in Canberra, so we had ten at lunch that day (a little easier than the thirteen on Christmas day). This was also a good day in all the same kind of ways. The rest of the week was pretty quiet after that (well, the bit of the week that was left) although we also had a quiet but fun gathering of friends for a BBQ and games (including backyard croquet) on New Years Eve. And then it was back to work on 2 January.

So far, this year has involved:

  • Larissa coming to stay with us for a week
  • Our good friend Lisa staying with us for a couple of days before she moves overseas
  • A couple of BBQs and social evenings, with much Singstar! and Guitar Hero (particularly since I got Guitar Hero 2 for Christmas, now giving us two guitar controllers and allowing great multiplayer action)
  • Tegan being involved in wedding preparations for her sister, Bec, and cousin, Bess, both of whom are getting married this year and at both of whose weddings Tegan will be a bridesmaid (bridesmatron?)
  • Work, unfortunately, although with a decision not to move to Melbourne for a different job

We’re also taking three weeks leave after Australia Day, most of which will be doing nothing kind of time, except that we’re going to Adelaide for a few days to go to the Big Day Out.