21st October

The last few months have blurred... The story of the China total solar eclipse survival tour is yet to be written up, and I'm still to post the photos of the Europe trip that followed (though I have managed to finish the photopage for the Yarrangobilly caving trip in September). The outcome of all of this adventure has come down somewhere on the positive side, though I'll remain stressed until I finish the latest SAO unit that I'm doing, and the kids get over the latest cold that has given them an extended school holiday and me an extended headache. I spent a fair proportion of my time in Europe being rather more drunk than usual, but at the same time I have managed to recover from an unpleasant addiction and I've felt a lot better for it.

The next OzCanyons Slide Night is set for the 28th November, though I haven't had much time to plan for it yet. I have a backlog of reviews to get done, assignments to do and reading to catch up with. The SAO unit Particle Physics and High Energy Astrophysics, is extremely interesting, to the point where I've been tempted to kick everything else just to concentrate on that alone. I'll be doing more particle physics for sure - I don't know why I've left it so long.

My to-do list has been growing faster than things have been coming off it. So I did the most logical thing and stopped looking at it.

Aspects of the Sun

26th May

I've lost a few months somewhere... My good intentions regarding the photos went the way of all my good intentions, that is, on to the backburner while my attention was directed toward the Swinburne university astronomy unit "Theories of Space and Time". That said, I still managed to get a lot done, including a chapter of my novel which had held me up for a good long while - one of those mental blocks that was finally broken in an all night writing session that took me three days to recover from.

So, after two horrible months of going nowhere, I've done canyons, gliding, abseils, and spent time hanging out with the astro-photographers while waiting for the cloud to clear (I don't count myself an astro-photographer yet, I'm still in the 'wannabe' category) .

Then there was a further delay while I ditched Optus as my internet provider and mobile phone service. I was not impressed that Optus decided to give credibility to the Federal Government's internet censorship trial by taking part in it. Internet 'filtering', censorship - call it what you will - is never justified, not under any circumstances. Free and open access to information is what marks us as an enlightened civilisation... If you don't agree with something, you provide a counter argument, you don't seek to suppress the opposing view by denying people access to it. To do so is nothing more than an act of cowardice - it neither addresses the issue nor makes it go away. Criminal activity in particular needs to be confronted at the source - not filtered out of view so that society can pat itself on the back and pretend it is acting to do something about it.

If the government continues down this path it won't have to worry about whether it can afford to pay for Ruddnet or not. The only thing on the internet we will be sanctioned to look at will be Chairman Rudd's Little Red Book on How to Bankrupt a Country/State/Council During the First Year in Office.

This year the ASNSW Star party, with over 300 registrations, suffered from an infestation of cloud and cold weather. A lot of alcohol was consumed (among other things), Dr Charley Lineweaver spoke on the big questions of cosmology, and the astro-imagers stunned the audience with the depth and clarity of their photography.

The moment of magic came around 10.30pm on Saturday night when - for all of 15 minutes - the skies cleared to reveal the Milky Way directly overhead in all of its true glory. To listen to the gasps of awe from people who had never seen a properly dark sky was a delightful experience.

For Ben and I, today - the 26th of May - would have been our 9th anniversary.
Nothing in the world feels right without him.

Uploaded:

Circus Infinitus #2 and special issue review
Berserk #301, #302 and #303 review
Grand canyon (January 2009)
Glow-worm tunnel (January 2009) and Pipeline Canyon (January 2009)
North Queensland and Heron island (January 2009)
Coorongooba Canyons (Easter 2009)
Freshwater Canyon (April 2009)
Malaita Wall Abseil 2009

February 24th

I've been very slow in updating this diary (which isn't really an issue because, thankfully, no one actually reads it). January was spent in almost continuous motion and February in almost continuous inaction - most likely a consequence of January, but it probably had more to do with my returning to reality, my children returning to school, and a sudden change in the weather that left everyone in the family feeling a bit under it.

Ira, Nivalda, JR and Luca arrived in the Blue Mountains at the beginning of January and Marco finally escaped from a snowbound Milan airport to join us a couple of days later. After a canyon or two, Marco and I went one way (to Cairns) while the others went another way (also, as it happens, to Cairns). They went diving off Lizard Island while Marco and I took a 4WD up the Bloomfield track... in the wet season. Cooktown was humid and f#^&$*! hot (as you would expect in the middle of January). Our inland trip back to Brisbane via Emerald was interrupted by the Cape River being 2m over the road between Clermont and Charters Towers... so it was back to Townsville for the night, followed by a Townsville-Brisbane drive the next day. We then flew from Brisbane to Gladstone and made it to the Marina in time to get the launch to Heron Island - while my bank balance sank below zero for the third time in recent history.

Heron Island was beautiful, as it always is... I've been there a few times now. Good to see that the University of Queensland's Research Station is undergoing a much needed expansion. However, I'm not sure that having a room at the resort with air conditioning was a good thing. Moving repeatedly from high heat/humidity to chill and back again was giving me a cracking headache. Besides which, I go to the tropics in order to enjoy the heat, not to avoid it... The water was very warm but snorkelling visibility isn't the best in summer (still, it was a good 10m or more). The turtles were hatching, and still more were coming ashore at night to lay eggs. It was a relaxing four days but we were actually glad to get back to a (slightly) more temperate climate when it was all over.

I should have the photos for these trips posted soon.

Comit Lulin is putting on a decent show at the moment... if only I could get to see it. It's been cloudy or murky almost every night for the past two weeks. My telescopes have dust on them...