brad

Out on my own

I wake reasonably early this morning wanting to be at work early (7-ish). 45 minutes later and I still can’t find the keys that let me in my house last night. 45 minutes is how long it takes to turn my little house upside down 2.5 times (3 times in the likely spots, twice everywhere else). So I called Priya - “Can you give me a ride to work?”, “Oh, I wasn’t going to work today, I’m sick”, “Don’t worry, then stay in bed, I’ll find them or get a bus”.

A few minutes later turning upside down the spare bedroom that I added a desk to yesterday, the keys are found hiding under a pile of useless paper that must have got thrown on them while rearranging stuff. A few minutes later on the way to work the radio star signs come on. Shame I wasn’t listening in earlier, my Gemini stars for today “You have to get out on your own.”

The beautiful (crying) game

As if it wasn’t enough the first time against Australia, I had to watch Italy score the crucial first goal in the dying seconds to beat my old residence Germany. Much as I hated him for falling over Lucas Neil, Grosso’s strike against the Germans deserves due credit. It was a stunning shot from a defender.

Who would have thought my first blog in months would be about soccer? This whole site needs a cleanup, but there’s other things to do. Unless of course you want to come weed the lawn, clean the house, do the washing etc Somehow I’ve been at work a year. I haven’t achieved what I would like there and its an open question whether that will happen. But I leave that thought for another time. Replay of France vs Portugal starts in 20 minutes so I’ve got to get home.

Taus Off the Beaten Path?

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200507/s1422443.htm
Kakadu remains discovery prompts bushwalker warning

Parks Australia North (PAN) says visitors to Kakadu National Park should stick to the path to avoid trespassing on Aboriginal sacred sites.

A bushwalker who strayed from the walking path near Nourlangie Rock last week discovered the remains of an Aboriginal man at what is believed to be a traditional burial site.

Peter Wellings from PAN says traditional owners are concerned.

“The arrangement for access to Kakadu, like most national parks, is visitors are encouraged and welcome, but we ask that visitors go to approved places,” he said.

“In our case, we’ve cleared [them] with traditional owners.

“And that’s why it’s a general rule in national parks that you go to places only that are open.”

Blog@Research

“Using RSS and Blogs for Research”

A free half hour course offered by the library tomorrow… I assume they’ll be coming from the reader’s side of the fence, but I’m going on the off chance they’ll include the blogger’s side. Carte blanch, nay, good reason to blog from work could be a result. Worth half an hour to find out. (1st Lecture is in 12 days)

Happy Anniversary

My folks have been married 35 years today. Trying to blog a coherent thought about that and I just baulk at it. Friends of mine married in their early 20s, have two kids by 30 and compare with my folk’s story. But I’m trying to comprehend 35 years of marriage and the stories they’d gone through by my current age and the reality is I don’t relate. The gap would be even bigger to my grandparents.

I wonder if any kids I have will relate to what I did in my 20s as they approach the end of theirs? Perhaps more importantly will I be able to relate to what they’re doing?

Professor Brad?

Not just yet but… I just received a verbal offer for a lecturing position. <pinch>

time for fine print and details and stuff but… <pinch>

oww.

wow.

The Cat Empire

Got to mention last Friday’s outdoor concert in Freo by The Cat Empire. They rock! Get the crowd up dancing, you can feel why they went over to Cuba to record the new album. One of the singers (Felix) reminded me of Michelle an Italian playing music and ultimate in Portugal and bringing his guitar to Bar do Peixe campfires for years.

After everyone else had done solos (the horns were great), the bass guitarist had a go. The bass just went straight through me. Felt like my lungs were vibrating. Buzz.

Suzuki Says

So I went and heard the charismatic environmentalist David Suzuki. I never knew he was initially inspired by Silent Spring which forced him to confront issues and not pursue genetics. His presentation started out by making the case we need to treasure the earth like generations before used to and traditional peoples still do and not something to exploit. Like something that gave birth to us. Sounded quite like Gaia, although he never used the term.

Suzuki used the air we breathe to demonstrate a principle. In one generation we’ve gone from asthma being rare to being present in around 1 in 5 first-world kids. One breath contains ~3×10¹⁸ Argon molecules. Unlike other components of air, Argon is inert, so it just passes through us. He did some dodgy assumptions to indicate the chances are you’ve got an Argon molecule in you right now that I’ve breathed at some point. The gist was we’re breathing the same limited stuff and it goes around and comes back. So what we put in the air we put in ourselves. Rephrased: we are the air. Similarly with water. What we do to the air and water, we do to ourselves. The atmosphere is only 8-10km thick and the only place we can survive. If the Earth was a basketball, the atmosphere would be thinner than glad-wrap. And we still use it like a rubbish tip. I was expecting a quip about messy kids who let their mothers clean up after them, but it never came.

He says the 30% change in Carbon content of the atmosphere we’ve caused in the last century will take a millenia to filter through all the Earth’s systems (if left there). Since we don’t really understand them, the risk is there we’ve already done damage we can’t cope with. He says this Carbon content could be peanuts compared to what will happen if with even mild warming the methane trapped in the tundra gets released. (Methane is more of a greenhouse gas than Carbon Dioxide). Basically he’s saying we’ve already caused warming and other changes, and as they start, we’ve set nature into motions we don’t know how it will respond to. It may be damped, or it may grow exponentially. He really stressed that we are quite naive and don’t know very much, but as a society believe that science understands the science and risks and have to push forward.

I’m sure I’ve forgotten stuff, but he said he tried to change things top down by sending one of his books to all canadian politicians and didn’t get a response. So he did the challenge and petition I mentioned before and after lots of people signed on, politicians got interested. So bottom up leading to top down worked best for him. I wonder if any power brokers were in the audience. I fear not, the elections were won.

Question time wasn’t that revealing. Suzuki feels he’s just one individual and doesn’t kid himself that he will be able to change things. He doesn’t want his grandchildren to say “but you could have done more”. That wasn’t the optimistic outlook I thought I’d heard from him before. There’s a lot of frustrated, downtrodden environmentalists out there. His suggestion is to hang out together, get into nature and don’t let things get you down.

Out in Nature

Things have been happening, but I’m out of the routine of blogging them as they happen.

I managed one of those out in nature trips anizers like, down in the Stirling Range National Park. A group of 5 Ultimate players got away from it for a weekend (I tried banning all Ultimate discussions… why can’t we do that?), hiked up Bluff Knoll-> (the only place in WA that snows, max ~5cm) and then along the ridges. Up and down. Up and down. Sleep in Cave. Sunrise. More up and down. Lunch in a fantastic glen. At this point I thought we had an easy walk out. Wrong. Steep scarp, lost the path. Bash through the bush. Rick held on to a bit of dead wood that went snap and ended up with a stick protruding out of his shin. If I hadn’t left my camera in the car, the photos would already be up, but Rick and Dan took heaps of shots of the hike and as soon as I’ve got them, you’ll get to see the gore. Our Physio, Mama Jo couldn’t cut it down, so ended up pulling it out and bandaging it up. Luckily it wasn’t too bad, we got down ok and stayed at Jo’s grandparents near Albany hospital where everything was announced to be ok. Unbelievably he played ultimate 4 days later.

After a deep sleep (beds!), we went down to the most stunning beach at Nanarup before fish and chips at Middleton Beach in Albany. Detour back to Bluff Knoll cafe on the way back to pick up my wallet < cough>. Thanks to Inga and David Johnston of Hamburg for handing it in. Deb’s folks then put on a fantastic BBQ dinner… only after Dan temporarily mucked up his car’s electrics helping a damsel in distress (ok, old lady), so we caught up with them again walking along Albany highway. No boredom!

Despite lugging 9kg of water and ending up covered in ticks, its all smiles. The next night, David Suzuki said people should get out into nature more. Deb and I felt our aching muscles, itches and scratches, looked at each other and grinned, agreeing with him.

edit: Oops, I forgot to mention Moongoongoonderup. We saw the moon, drank two bottles of wine (not really goon) and also did lots of up. Moongoongoonderup: been there, done that.

Did you say "obfuscate"?

Am I the only person on anize who doesn’t write music and play guitar? How did I waste my youth? Strange that I can’t remember what I would have been doing with that time instead.

I will learn guitar. Not before I’m 30, because June would be pushing it. I managed to get my hair long in time, my Spanish is half-way there, but I haven’t touched a guitar since a few Munich winters ago where I discovered that it will be extra hard work with my lack of talent. Maybe we can do “anize-con: guitar for dummies”. With hammocks and campfire. I guess that means it won’t be in Australia or it would be with swag and total fire ban.

I’m in a somewhat irreverent mood. I just sent off a job application to be a lecturer that took much time to try and obfuscate the fact I haven’t taught and stretch all the selection criteria so they sounded like I had. I even stretched my response to “Desirable: Skills in the use of web-based resources and facilities to enhance teaching and learning”, I wrote “…I maintain a personal weblog…”. Sorry DFC, we all know you maintain anize… but the brad bit is personal… and maintained some of the time…right? I doubt I’ll get the job, but it would be very cool so we’ll see what happens and continue to play every card I’ve got.

Elsewhere I’m running around again after almost 4 weeks recovery after calf strain #2. It feels like a little kid finally allowed to go to the park. Less than 9 weeks till nationals so training needs to pick up a notch. My weekend’s evenings were late and enjoyable: there’s no friends like old friends (Friday) and ulti friends that sing Karaoke after a few drinks (Saturday). Time to go catch up on some sleep.

Say no to drugs

A family friend recommended I talk to a Dr colleague of his, who runs a business making medical equipment, useful and cost-effective outside western hospitals. At the time little did I know Dr George O’Neil is well known (and somewhat controversial) for his treatment of heroin and other opiate addicts. You can read a journalist style report here and about implants here.

Having done some background research and conversed on the phone, we met on Wednesday and went to his clinic. On the steps outside we met a vacant soul desperate to be helped today. ‘Nice to meet you’, I said. We entered, met a policeman from Mauritius visiting through his church, a volunteer, a nurse, a filmmaker, a recovering patient and more anxious, fearful troubled souls. ‘Nice to meet you’, I said, shaking hands.

Within 5 minutes we were in a surgery room, Dr O’Neil, a nurse, an amazing volunteer, a very nervous 28 year old girl from interstate, her very pained mum, an aunt and an observer… me. Everyone got to know each other a bit as things were prepared and my education started. She’d been on drugs for 11 years, the boyfriend who’d started her on it is in jail. She had to get permission from the authorities to fly here. We didn’t ask what she’d done. He’s not getting out anytime soon.

The treatment involves sedation, a rapid detox and the insertion of naltrexone implants. Naltrexone was invented in 1964 if I remember rightly and blocks receptors, meaning the addict is unable to get high or overdose. In Australia, approved medical practice turns heroin addicts onto another highly addictive opiate Methadone, available in daily doses from pharmacists. They say its harder to withdraw from methadone than heroin. These implants should last around 6 months in which time the patient is independent of both opiates. Unlike with tablets, there is no ‘forgetting’ to take the blocker. The procedure isn’t open heart surgery, but enough for the squeamish, especially in a stuffy non air-conditioned room. I sat. A drip was inserted in the arm and the patient relaxed. The Dr repeatedly injects into an area above the hips over quite a few minutes, which causes some pain, then makes an incision and puts in implants - which look like a row of pills before stitching it up. The patient is then helped to recovery.

The next guy just wanted the procedure done. He had a $400 a day habit, a baby and a two month pregnant using partner. He came alone, also from interstate. This one struggled through the treatment, totally out of it and screaming in a foreign language nobody understood. The amazing volunteer I mentioned held his hands and arms. At one stage he unconciosly tried to bite her. She’s been helping here for 6 years since her son was treated. I never found out where he is today. I would have asked privately, There wasn’t time for privacy. They needed me to hold his legs. He fought…and I got a closer look at the operation than I’d ever have expected. His stitch was very tight.

I was in on two more male patients, both heavy users (for around 15 years), but easier patients. The volunteer from before was needed in the recovery room so I found myself doing whatever needed to be done, not quite an old hand, but somehow as-if. I then spent time in the recovery room. The detox occurs under sedation, with nurses and volunteers on hand. Its not pretty but over relatively fast. The first patient had a few problems and was taken to hospital in an ambulance for observation; her narcosis being a bit on the risky side of deep. By this stage her family were nervous wrecks, our amazing volunteer always cheering them up, offering strength and a hug. Give her a medal. At some point sandwiches were brought in for everybody alike. I got to helping and talking to more of the volunteers, the Mauritian policeman showed me digital camera film he’d shot in the other operating room. Maybe you’d like to see it, but I’m glad the idea never ocurred to me. My camera was safely at home.

It was a long day and I left early to get back to my less naive, but oh-so-trouble-free existence. I bought a wine barrel mum wanted for her garden and joined old uni friends in a group of 23 for a double birthday dinner. AFPC won the Ultimate league finals, but the beer ran out before I could get there, so I missed it all.

Pingelly

The big news last week was the farm. I hadn’t been out of the city really since I got back. An old uni friend comes from a farm 150kms from my front door. I last saw Mike in Chester and London for Christmas 2002. Before that he’d visited me twice in Munich. Its strange he and I have come back within months of each other. You would find it a very big farm.

Just driving out of the city environment into the red dirt verges and eucalypt forests had me in a damn good mood. His family are some of the best people ever. I can call just to talk to his mum. I got up there around lunch time on a thursday during harvest (grain). I’ve been there before around this time, so knew they’d be hectic and hard-working and visitors take second fiddle unless they’re helping. Within an hour, my hands started developing callouses. I love visiting this life, but I’m amazed at the people that live it. I can earn more pushing paper and numbers around. They feed us. Is that right? The farm mum gave me 2 dozen eggs to take home, 6 or so of which are duck eggs.

We spent time in the trucks, filling bins and silos. Down in a field, Mike was showing me how the new grain cleaner worked. climbing up we took a look and openinq it up he noticed a screen roller not working. Our timing was fortunate and made my visit worthwhile. A bolt had just sheared off and was potentially minutes away from really damaging the machine. A bit of searching in grain turned up the bolt, which Mike then welded, better than new. The delays meant taking a load to a CBH Receival Point first thing the next day, so we were in the truck by 0630. After some refueling, a ride in the harvester and some new problem with the grain cleaner blocking up, I spent a little time up at the house before heading back to Perth to walk the dogs, do Jacobs ladder 6 times, dinner with rellies, pub and live-music with friends and a very good nights sleep.

Saturday I cycled out in the Swan Valley, killing my quads on the return headwind. A Sunday afternoon round of disc golf was memorable for my first ever birdie. A 30m approach that went in. Oh baby!

Its been real

Maybe its just as well I’ve been a bit slow blogging about my trip to a friend’s farm last week. I’d been thinking about writing how ‘real’ it seemed on the land. City folk like me appreciate the space and quiet, but easily forget the callous forming work required. If its broke fix it, all hands on deck together, take the ups with the downs: out there nothing else works. Surviving comes first, then they try and turn a profit.

That sounds pretty real huh? Not like a comfy office job (or vacation) in the city right? Then I went down to a clinic and observed opiate addicts getting a rapid detox and naltrexone implants closeup. ‘Survival first’, for a heroin addict apparently means getting to the next hit. Your last thought at night, your first in the morning. A profit? Forget it! The saddest thing… I was meeting the lucky ones.

Sometimes its nice to dwell on how soft our lives really are compared to what is and was. I got a jolt making me dwell on this more, even when its not nice. There’s millions of people out there whose problems make ours seem trivial. They’re real too. Its easy to sit back, do nothing and forget about it. Its easy to complain about our problems. Very easy.