My Hurting Country

Back from the Easter Break. I travelled back to my home country in the Riverina. We have been farmers in the area since the 1850's. It was a terrible shock. Trees that have been familiar friends since I was a child are dead and dying. Dust storms, the scourge of the 1930's are back, because the irrigation areas out around Finley and Deniliquin are gone. You can smell the dust in the air and the sunsets were blood red. My Grandfather would start sowing the years wheat crop on the 1st of March without fail, knowing the rains would come. I drove hundreds of kilometres around my district and did not see a single plowed paddock. The paddocks were bare and desolate, and rarely did I see any stock. If I did they were poor and skinny. Not in my families recorded memory have things been so bad. My cousin did ring last night to say they got some rain after I left and everyone is madly sowing wheat, hoping for follow up rain in the next few weeks to try and salvage something of the season. I got back to hear everyone complaining about the rain here on the North Coast. Please never complain about rain.

The Weird turn Pro

When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.

– Hunter S. Thompson

Hunter S Thompson, god bless his cotton socks was a Gonzo Journalist. Accepted Journalistic practice is never to put yourself in the piece, third person only, no personal opinion. Journalists and writers like Hunter S ignored this. Gonzo's were blogger's before the Internet was invented.

His quote is very apt for the times we now live in.

A computer programmer called Michael Osinski is being blamed for causing the world financial meltdown. He is now picking oysters out of some ice bound hell hole in the far north. 

To get a handle on the toxic self destructive timebomb created by the Gordon Gekko's of Wall Street, read this great article.

To see how things have not changed since the Bush bailouts, read this and weep! 

Whimper and not a bang

This was the Week that was!

Well the conficker worm that was going to nail us all on April Fools day came and went with barely a bang, more like a murmur.

New research points the need for bosses to set aside some web bludging time for their workers if they expect extra productivity in these troubled times.

Bosses who sack workers for putting up their facebook status things like " I hate my job" may well be illegal. So it should be, it would be a mongrel act in the land of a fair go. Would it not?

Computer gamers develop sharper eye sight. We all knew that right!

Have a good weekend.

Welcome

The first day of my blog has been wild and windy.

The storms that trashed Coffs Harbour are heading our way.

The CGVE kids had a birthday party for one of their friends in the student lounge today. I was doing my lesson preparation to the sounds of fun and balloons popping. Took a break from Dreamweaver to steal the odd potato chip.

One of our favourite teachers, Norma who retired last year provided morning tea and proudly introduced her beautiful new granddaughter to us all. I tried to enrol the child in an IT course but apparently, 6 months old is too young. They haven't heard of "hot housing" obviously.

I'm starting this blog to:

• Reveal the hard working life of a dedicated TAFE IT Teacher who loves his job.
  
• Demonstrate to students the new emerging Web Technologies available.
  
• Push my own learning curve.
  
• Find students who I have taught in the AG12 computer room since 1987.
  
• See if anyone out there remembers me throwing the Apricot computer out the window in 1988.
  
• To have something else to do while I'm watching the ABC News.
  
• Inform my Students of current issues I want them to be aware of.
• Practice typing under water with my mouth full of marbles.

Pete