Mandatory Video Footage

That would be Elder Son, more or less performing Silent Night on the cello before the assembled masses of parents at the School Awards ceremony this morning. Poor little bugger: he's got some kind of cold/throat lurgi, and he's mostly lost his voice. I promised him we could scarper immediately after he did his gig, but shortly after I arrived, one of the teachers quietly nixed that plan. Apparently they had an academic award to give him, so he had to stay.

Happily, he shared the award with his very best friend, so a happy ending came to all. Except me, of course. Because the full award ceremony went for two hours. Sigh.

Tonnes of laundry have been done, and I've officially farmed out the job in the future to the boys. Elder Son will gather laundry, load, operate and unload the machine. Younger Son will fold and sort clean, dry loads. They'll both score 50c for such operations, which should work out okay, since we've got a moderate-sized front-load machine, not a monstrous great toploader.

Of course, I'll still be dragged into the hanging up and taking down bit of the process, because the clothesline is a bit too high for the kids. But at least it throws some of the responsibility onto the little barstewards. Let's see how much dirty laundry they generate NOW, eh?

Dinner is almost prepped: twice-cooked baby taters, and chicken stuffed with sundried tomatoes, onions, and home-made meatballs (leftovers from a barbecue the other day), slathered with tomato paste and basil (stuffed in under the skin and all), wrapped in a big dough sheet and slow-baked; fresh garden salad. Of course, I won't be eating because as soon as Natalie or the babysitter gets here, I'll be off to sword training.

Never mind. We're getting closer to the end of the year every day.

Staggering Towards The Finish Line

Natalie made it back from Canberra on Friday evening/afternoon, and promptly had to be on-call. At least the night went fairly smoothly.

Yesterday we were double booked. Elder Son was committed to perform on cello for his music teacher's end-of-year concert. Meanwhile, Younger Son had his birthday party scheduled. Kind of necessary: poor bugger's born on Christmas Eve, so it's tough to gather his friends on the day itself.

We had to split it. Natalie took Elder Son into Launceston. I understand there was a practice in the morning, then a break of a few hours before the concert itself. They went to see Planet 51, but I'm informed that Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs is better.

Meanwhile, that left me as Party Dad. I baked a chocolate cake in the shape of one of those Warner Bros cartoons -- black and round, with a bit sticking out at the top with a fuse. It was only 2d, since I couldn't figure out how to make a spherical cake keep its integrity, but I did write TNT on it in red icing.

Younger Son was delighted, particularly as the black (did you know you can get black food colouring now? True!) icing was strongly peppermint flavoured. The whole ensemble was his request anyhow. Where does he get these bent ideas?

Other than laying in a stock of party food, my only other preparation for the party consisted of hastily wrapping a last-minute present (a snorkel and mask set) and buying a bunch of high-powered waterguns. And that, my friends, was a stroke of genius.

It was a warm, sunny day. The boys arrived. They seized the waterguns, and it was on.

First, they hunted the dog. (I pitied the beast.) Round and about, over and under, they pursued the poor bastard like paparazzi spotting a blonde hair on Tiger Woods' shoulder. After the dog finally disappeared completely, they turned on each other like the feral beasts they are.

Mid-day until two this went on. At two, they filled up on sausages and birthday cake, and then they decided to watch a Godzilla flick on the big screen in the shed. I made lots of popcorn and cordial, and set them up comfortably.

Within half an hour, they'd give poor Godzilla the arse, and they were back out in watergunland. Oh, and did I mention that the Mau-Mau had her best friend up for the afteroon as well? They were armed too.

The second phase of the Great Watergun Massacre went until five in the afternoon, when parents finally realised their kids had been missing for some time...

By then, of course, Natalie was back with Elder Son. And a couple random visitors had dropped by, just to jazz up the day a little. So I fed a whole lot of people, and failed to get much of any use done.

Today? Well, Nat took the kids to the swimming pool in the morning for a while, and that was nice. But Mad Neighbour Anna had a soiree in the afternoon, and I'd promised a salad, so there was shopping, and similar. (The salad was good, by the way: prawns, turmeric rice, cucumber, capsicum, spring onion, heaps of coriander and sushi dressing. Yay!)

Then I took a Dremel tool to the soles of my feet, which are once again cracked and callused... blah. Hurts like hell to walk, lately. And there's no use fucking around with pumice stones or the like. I have an odd skin condition which causes rapid formation of callus and keratin layers, so the hide on my feet is just too thick to confront with anything short of power tools. Seriously. It took me half an hour with a sanding drum on a Dremel to remove the gargoylish armour. But with the keratinized plates reduced, the remaining skin will be more flexible, less prone to cracking. For a brief period, anyway.

The afternoon party went very nicely. Again: warm and sunny. The kids played in and around the spring-fed pond next to Mad Neighbour Anna's house. We drank wine, and glögg (pronounced 'glerg'; and I'm assured that since it's Swedish, the two dots above the o in glögg do NOT comprise an Umlaut. That is German, I was told with a very severe look. But I didn't get told what the Swedes call their umlauts...). I should point out that glögg is Swedish for "mulled wine", so it wasn't a terrifying experience or anything. Frankly, a little disappointing. I always envisioned glögg as something that might invade Earth or stomp Tokyo, maybe.

The turnout wasn't enormous, but it was lovely. Genuinely marvellous people. The kids had a great time, I drank wine and ate good food and argued ecology and dams and education and good stuff like that... and then it was time to bring the kids home to bed.

Tomorrow, Elder Son has to perform on the cello at the schools awards thingy. And in the evening, I have sword training -- but Natalie is on call (probably) because one of the docs at the surgery has had a bit of a family emergency, and everybody is rallying 'round. We've organized babysitters, though, so I can still go... which is good, 'cause it's the last sword session until February.

So as you can see, things are slowly, slowly easing. There will be no ju-jitsu on Wednesday. School finishes Thursday, or maybe Friday. Sword training finishes tomorrow night. Younger Son's party is out of the way. Cello and violin commitments are nearly done. The end is in sight...

... if I can just survive that long.

Time To Mobilise

Dr Peter Watts, one of the smartest and most interesting writers of hard SF at the moment, appears to have been stopped, beaten and arrested at the Canadian border by US border guards. You can find a more complete version of the story here, at Boingboing.

Obviously, it's impossible for us to judge accurately without on-the-spot information, but the Boingboing folks have long since earned my respect. Further: while I don't know Dr Watts personally, I do have plenty of that kind of one-degree-removed contact you get in the relatively small world of SF writing, and I note that the people who do know of him speak with the greatest respect and affection.

I will add to this that I have, myself, had issues with US border fuckwads many years ago, before all the War On Terror nonsense: I had an antique wooden piccolo, the property of my grandmother, stolen from a car in which I was travelling during an hour-long search of the vehicle while I was interrogated as to my reasons for crossing the border.

Personally, I'm fucking tired of reading about the goddam wannabe Storm Troopers they stick on US border security. I've long since decided that there's no particular reason I should ever travel back to the USA - at least until the nation's authorities re-learn some basic manners - but this bullshit is redlining me.

Dr Peter Watts is an educated, highly intelligent man who has produced some remarkable works of fiction that I have enjoyed greatly. He comes with the endorsement of a number of people I trust as fellow professionals, and some whom I trust as friends. In this case, the people on the opposite side are known bastards, with a world-spanning reputation for viciousness, violence, and random malice. Those of you reading this are welcome to your own opinions. You may wish to wait for more information. Me? I've had enough.

I can't do much, but I can contribute to Dr Watts legal defense fund via PayPal, to donate@rifters.com. I can also point you in the direction of the Boingboing article, and to Dr Watts home page. He has a link to a donation site for his cat on his backlist page.

While you're at it, take note that Dr Watts has released a range of his works under Creative Commons licenses. They are free to download from the Rifters site, and I'd say that if you're donating to help the guy out, he'd be delighted if you picked up something in exchange. It's worth the effort: his work is smart as hell, well written, engaging, and thought-provoking.

And as a community, Science Fiction deserves better treatment than this. Hell - we all deserve better treatment than this, but since we can't act directly against the pricks who abuse their power at our expense, at least we can help one of their victims, and maybe even the score a little.

Dirk Flinthart Endorses...

"Cool Blooz" safety glasses by some corporation that uses "MSA" as a logo.

Back when I rode motorbikes a lot more than was actually safe, I got into the habit of wearing safety glasses because I was never really very fond of helmet visors. But there's a lot more it to that. These things possess many advantages over your standard fashion sunglasses, to wit:

• They really are safety glasses. I get 'em from the hardware store. They wrap around nicely, and keep things like flying woodchips, metal flecks, bugs and bits of vegetation out of your eyes. You can wear 'em in the workshop with a fair degree of confidence.
• They are also fully UV protective, in accordance with the Australian design standards for UV-resistant sunwear.
• They're not actually ugly.
• The frames are tough and flexible. You really can sit on these by accident, then wear them afterwards without any problems.
• They fit really comfortably.
• They're not expensive: these things retail at about $20 Australian. I don't know about you, but the last time I tried to find a pair of fashion sunglasses I could stand wearing, they started close to $100... and to get a pair with all the advantages listed above, you had to get closer to $150 or more.

So, there you have it. No: nobody has given me a pair of these things to review. I just like 'em. They're a good product, and I figured other people might find it useful to know about 'em.

In other news: plodding painfully towards year's end. The Ju-jitsu barbecue is done at last. It rained on us, naturally, but not too much, and the park has great shelters as well as really good electric barbecues supplied by the council. Many sausages and chickeny bits were consumed, and the attendees appeared to have a fine time. We kick off again February next year, so for a while, I don't have to figure out what I'm going to teach every Wednesday afternoon. Yay!

Medical Student Grace has returned Brizwards today. She was a fine guest, and will be missed. But Medical Student Chrissie is stepping neatly into the gap, so we're not short of guests, or in danger of loneliness.

Natalie gets back from Canberra today, in a couple of hours. She's been involved in some project to help the Fed Govt set policy on home births, midwifery, and Big Serious Stuff like that. Naturally, she's also on call tonight. Which is how it works around here at the moment.

Elder Son appears to have a solid grip on "Silent Night", to be played for the school assemby on Monday. A few more practices to smooth it out, and we'll be good to go.

Smaller Son will have his birthday party tomorrow. That will be my job, because Natalie has to take Elder Son to Launceston for his music teacher's end-of-year concert. Why do music teachers feel the need for such things? Ah, hell. Never mind.

I have made the error of letting Smaller Son play around with a beat-up old French Horn which was in the music room while Elder Son was having a cello lesson. The look of absolute glee on his face, coupled with a startling amount of control shown in producing tone... yeah. Okay. There are no French Horn instructors around Scottsdale. But we may have to look into this.

Okay. Must run. Time is up. Adios!

His Hoopiness The Dalai Dude

I did a 500km round trip today. Drove all the way to Hobart and back. I took Elder Son with me, and carried a random passenger as well. The reason?

The Dalai Lama was having a public gabfest at the Derwent Dome.

For those who don't know, I'm strongly interested by the Buddhist philosophies, although I'm definitely more focused on Zen than the Tibetan tradition. However, I've read a few of the Dalai Guy's books, and I've been greatly intrigued by the man himself.

The irony of his position, for example -- that's fascinating. If China had stayed the fuck outta Tibet, I think we can all agree that the Dalai Lama would probably be nothing more than a minor notable, one of those colourful characters from the backwaters of the planet. Oh, sure: he'd still be full of good sense and compassion, but if China hadn't decided to shit all over Tibet, chances are he would be perceived mostly as 'quaint'. But precisely because China got out the Ugly Stick and waved it around, the Dalai Lama became a player on the international stage, and a very clear thorn in China's side.

Anyhow, I figured this was probably a once-in-a-lifetime chance to see him do his thing, and so I cleared it with the school and took both Elder Son and another interested local with me on the long trek.

The lecture itself was entitled something about 'Who Is Responsible For Our Future', but before the Dalai Guy we got a few words from Senator Bob Brown, a local Aboriginal Elder, and the head of the Conservation Foundation of Australia. There was also a videorecorded message from Cate Blanchett for the CFA, but it was either intended for the deaf, or for mimes, because even though her lips were moving up there on the big screens, we never actually heard a word from her. Oh well. And then, of course, His Dalainess trundled up in his purply robage, and began distributing long white scarves hither and yon. "Part of our culture," he explained, looping one over Bob Brown, and another over the Aboriginal Elder, and another one over the bloke in the grey suit with the microphone, who seemed to have the job of shoving his foot in his mouth by way of introducing everyone.

Whole lotta scarves there. Gotta wonder who packs all those things.

The lecture itself was nothing spectacular, but I wasn't there to take in revelations. I was interested in the man himself, and the 'sense' of him as a person, a character, a public figure and a communicator. He spoke simply, emphasising compassion, awareness of self, understanding of others, self-confidence, truthfulness and trust. There wasn't a single word he offered that I could have disagreed with in any useful or meaningful way, and I rather hope that Elder Son took enough of it in to remember it. A lot of what Mr Lama could be very helpful to him in his growing and maturing.

Once the lecture -- really, it was an informal talk -- finished, there was a half-hour question time. And I'd like to fucking strangle the joker who filtered the questions. There was a box put out for the placing-in of questions, and I did avail myself, yes. On behalf of Angela Slatter, I asked what His Holiness actually wears under that purple robe, and I do admit I didn't expect that one to reach him. But I also asked what he thought his position on the world stage might have been if China hadn't taken a thunderdump on Tibet, and since I phrased it much more politely and diplomatically, I rather hoped he might have something to say.

Unfortunately, the egregious maroon who filtered the questions left in nothing but plaintive, rather new-agey Dorothy Dixers. "How can I find a lasting inner peace?" "How can I travel to Tibet, highlight the plight of the Tibetan people, and still take part in the Tibetan Buddhist spiritual experience?" "How can we raise the self-esteem of our young people?"

I mean, seriously. The guy's addressing a crowd of two or three thousand, and you want him to tell you, personally, how you achieve 'lasting inner peace'? He was clearly nonplussed by that one, though he answered politely and very kindly, as he did with all the reasonably meaningless questions. Some he dismissed with evident good humour, and a disarming laugh that couldn't have offended even an earnest new-age wisdom seeker. But unfortunately, none of the questions really called for much from him.

Overall, I was favourably impressed. His Holiness is a very comfortable, very relaxed speaker who doesn't take himself too seriously at all. At one point he was playing with the aerial wires for his hands-free mike and earpiece, obviously thinking they needed to be clipped safely out of the way. When someone gently corrected him, he giggled, and said "How foolish!" of himself -- and I have to admit, watching the spiritual leader of a major religion acknowledge his own fallibility and foolishness with grace and good humour was truly refreshing.

Likewise, I appreciated his willingness to support science and research, and I was delighted when he spoke out strongly in favour of secular teaching of morality and ethics. He made a point of defining secular, calling it 'equal respect for all religions rather than a rejection of religions', and emphasised that he held all religions in equal respect himself. I can't imagine a Pope pulling that one off... and as for hearing words like that from an Ayatollah or a Caliph -- the very idea is ridiculous.

One thing that struck me sharply, and saddened me, was the optimism of the man. He acknowledged it himself, and spoke of an improving, maturing human race, and of the ability of individuals to initiate and carry out positive change. A man dispossessed of his country, whose people are displaced and oppressed, whose culture is suppressed in his homeland... and yet somehow, he maintains more faith in human nature, more belief in a human future than perhaps I could ever muster, even when I was a child.

I'm not sure, but I suspect I envy him that optimism. For while I can, and do, follow the precepts of compassion, honesty, trust and awareness that he spoke of so simply and sincerely -- I do it without any real hope for a better outcome. I do it because I believe these things of myself, and because these things reflect the person I want myself to be, and I hope to continue in these ideals even if the world collapses. I don't need a 'better outcome'. The ideals themselves are sufficient.

But I think it would be nice to have real hope. I guess it's good to know the Dalai Lama does, anyhow.

Oooh. New Music!

I kinda like swing. Got myself a Gene Krupa album, yeah. And the odd Royal Crown Revue recording. But I also like odd stuff. And so I offer the Diablo Swing Orchestra, which is probably best described as manic/psychotic Goth Swing.

Here's a couple of YouTube links:

The Tap Dancer's Dilemma

Balrog Boogie

...suit yourself. They fit my sense of fun...

Wow. I Am Seriously Tired.

I've got a couple hours breather now. The house is quiet. Soon enough, I'll have to corral the kids and drive into Launceston to collect Chrissie the Medical Student, but for the moment, a brief, welcome island of peace.

I spent the early part of the morning assembling stuff. A small but strongly built table. Two bricks. A concrete paver. Twenty pieces of 20mm pine board, of convenient size for martial arts demos. A couple of decent-looking rubber knives. A bunch of flyers with contact details for the club on them. Uniforms for me, and for the boys.

Once I got all that into the car, I stuffed the kids in afterwards. Then I drove halfway to Scottsdale, and picked up two more kids.

I parked the car near the church hall where we train, and we carried all our gear into Victoria St, about a block away, where the demo was supposed to happen. Then I grabbed a few more people, and we made the trip back and forth from the hall a few times to collect mats. Well within the appropriate time, we had a 4x4 metre square laid out. It wasn't too bad, even with the road surface underneath.

The Christmas Parade in Scottsdale is a big event, locally. It's very cheerful - a much-loved institution that involves pretty much everyone, in some way or another. As a result, there was quite a crowd to see us doing our thing. The kids were definitely nervous.

I launched into my spiel: "...ancient fighting art of the Samurai... unarmed combat... fierce fighters... greatest martial artists on the entire street..." and picked up a few laughs, and then we went for it.

The kids were great. I set it up so we went from the smallest to the largest, and everybody got the chance to show off a bit. We had plenty of pine boards for smashing, and they dodged knives and threw each other and wrestled and kicked and pushed and shoved... I was quite proud of them.

The first surprise I pulled was at one of my older students. Jeremy is sixteen. He knew he was going to smash a few boards, but he'd only practiced with three. It looked too easy, so I set him up with four.

And why not? I strongly believe that one of the most important things to learn in any martial art is the capacity to get out of your comfort zone, and push things farther than you expect. I knew perfectly well that Jeremy had the strength and technique to manage an extra board, and he did just fine: big, arcing hammer-fist, shattered pine-boards flying everywhere, round of applause.

Then I put Adam on the mat. Adam is at uni this year, so he doesn't train routinely, but I put him through brown belt last year, and I have firm expectations of anybody I push that far. I picked up a short stick, showed him I was about to belt him over the head with it, and listed three particularly spectacular throws. Then I stepped in and did my best to crack him on the scone.

He performed beautifully. I vaguely recall brief periods of whirling weightlessness with my feet somewhere high over my head, and then there was a lot of crashing into the mat, and then a rather painful armlock applied until the stick was removed from my grasp. Full marks, that man...

I finished the whole thing with a couple of breaks. There's this striking technique I lifted from a friend in k'ung fu many years ago -- it's a snapping palm heel strike, but it's delivered with the full force of the body behind it, and if you learn to do it right, you can rest your fingertips against somebody's collarbone and still smash ribs -- but your hand doesn't actually move more than five or ten centimetres. You really have to get your shit in gear to manage it, though. Delivering a powerful strike with a ten centimetre travel-distance is a bit of a nifty trick. I used it to smash my way through two of those pine boards.

Finally, I stuck a concrete paver (about 45mm -- call it just shy of 2") between two bricks on the table, and smashed it with a hammer-fist. Took me two tries, though -- I was off-centre the first time.

It's probably good that I didn't manage it first go. After the show, I discovered that a lot of people in the crowd figured I'd somehow weakened the pine boards for the kids, which is just silly. But they definitely believed in the damned paver.

They'd better, mind you! After I smashed the damned thing, a piece of it fell off the table, and landed on my toe, cutting it.

So -- we finished up. And then everything had to be packed up, and the mats all put away again. And then the boys had to go to the Cub Scout float to ride in the parade, and lunches had to be obtained... and finally, I collected the Mau-Mau from our neighbours and made it home.

I'm absolutely bloody shagged out.