Milestones: School Camp

Jake is off to his first-ever school camp. He did the music camp thing over summer, so he's got the basic idea, but school camp is another step.

I believe they're going to be hanging around Port Arthur and various other convict-era sites. They've been studying colonial Australian history since the start of the year, so no doubt the programme for the camp will be aimed at tying into this stuff.

That will be a challenge, though. I turned up at the school this morning with Jake's case/pack in tow, and the newly built school hall was pandemonium incarnate. Kids, baggage, parents, and a few desperately harassed-looking teachers, ticking names off clipboards.

They're due to be gone until Thursday afternoon. The weather, naturally, is turning cloudy and rainy - as it should for a school camp. The kids are supposed to be doing the whole sleeping-in-tents thing, and Jake has taken a three-man job along. He's got a couple other lads assigned to the tent with him... which of course, is going to turn sleep into a non-event.

Jake's not much of a camper anyhow. He's going to spend much of the week being peeved about being wet, muddy, cold, crowded, etc. I've made him promise not to complain about the food, though. That would just be unfair. It's hardly the school's fault if they're not set to load him up with Oysters Kilpatrick and san choi bau and nasi goreng, is it? I'm sure the food will be perfectly healthy, and edible. He'll just have to deal with it.

Of course, we had to dodge the prohibition on snacks. It was a moral obligation. The kids are not supposed to carry any junk-food treats with them. I can understand that, but it's red-rag-to-a-bull stuff. Jake and I made a big batch of rich chocolate fudge, and now there are ziploc bags of fudge cunningly concealed throughout his luggage. Doubtless this will help assure his popularity for at least a brief period... until somebody blabs and the fudge in his socks gets discovered. But I reckon it's unlikely they'll find the rest of it!

Meanwhile, I'm prepping for the National SF Con. Doing a workshop on introducing fiction-writing techniques to RPG campaign/game design, with the aid of the inimitable Peter Ball -- another veteran gamer and fantasy writer. I'm also on the 'Great Debate', apparently. We're arguing over whether or not the universe and everything in it is actually a simulation. Those of you who have read Angel Rising will be aware I have a few thoughts on that, so it should be fun. Oh, and I'm also handling a storytelling game/event in the ballroom for one evening. Hopefully, there will be a few professional storytellers involved (as well as myself) and a couple bottles of wine. If it works, the meeting of the Gentlemen's Entomological Society should be a real treat. If it doesn't - eh, we'll drink the wine and improvise.

Right. Gotta go. Things to do today, and pretty soon it's time to go and collect my somewhat diminished school brood...

If These Guys Were Any Cooler, Your 'Net Connection Would Freeze

I don't actually spend my time browsing youtube. But occasionally, people send me stuff. And since my elder son (now known as "Jake") plays cello, and the younger son (now referred to as "Genghis") is a bassman, somebody sent me this:

Wow.

That is very, very cool.

Is It...Okay That I Find This Hilarious?

Probably not. I admit it: I really shouldn't laugh at the Iranian Policewomen's video. But... all those burqa! And so SERIOUS! Doing all that serious cop shit, with guns and fast cars and rappelling and stuff.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDQYCG2-PMo

Dammit, I can't help it. I spent too many years laughing at Monty Python. I watch this video, and I desperately want to start a parody show called... I dunno... 'Burqa Squad'. Or maybe "The Confessionals". Or something.

Seriously. Watch the video. If you can get all the way through without even once thinking of voice-overs in a screeching Terry Jones or Graham Chapman falsetto... you're probably too goddam young to be reading this.

A Dad Prank.

I bought a packet of googly eyes. And also some blu-tack

The kids have been running around the house like crazed leprechauns, trailing streams of manic laughter. Every time they find a new 'hidden face', they race off to find everyone else and show them. They've even started putting up their own around the place.

It's disturbing. Like the house is watching me...

Goddam BUGS!

It's been a long... fortnight? Longer? I dunno.

The situation this year should be simple. Five days a week, no kids due to school. That should allow me more time for myself, and for work.

But factor things in. The usual: cooking, cleaning, shopping, errands. Add the rest of the usual. Then account for the stuff added this year: gymnastics for the kids, orchestra for the boys and Natalie. And now swimming lessons of a Saturday, at the big pool in Launceston. That's my job too, because the boys (who need to swim better, definitely!) will listen better to me, and because I spent a lot of my young life around two professional swim teachers - my parents.

Then add in a tummy upset last week, and a bunch of visitors, and multiply by the fact that I am trying very hard to give more weekend time to being with kids, etc, and you'll realise that I was really, really looking forward to tomorrow. Monday. Nobody home but me.

Tuesday Natalie's home. I can work, but it isn't the same. Wednesday likewise, and of course, I'm planning for the afternoon and evening of ju-jitsu. Thursday is a nightmare of back-and-forth to Scottsdale with instruments, lessons, Swedish studies, etc. Friday isn't so bad, but by that end of the week there are usually pressing errands. Monday is the day I like to pile in and really get my own work done.

The weekend was pretty full-on. Natalie was on call, so I couldn't be out of communication with kids/house, etc. Therefore I took Genghis to his bass lesson Saturday, with a quick stop at an interesting nursery that has some fantastic apple trees that I want. Definitely want. And they were supposed to email me, and they haven't, and obviously I'm going to have to go back and shake them up a little. For they are gorgeous trees: maybe two and a half metres tall, and every branch utterly groaning under tonnes of beautiful, pink-red apples the size of plums - but tart, and sweet, and delicious, not like crab-apples at all. They lean over the road from the nursery, and shamelessly I stole a couple of kilogrammes last week and made a spicy apple jam... it is utterly delicious, and I want those apple trees.

Anyhow. While Genghis was doing the bass stuff, Jake and the Mau-Mau and I padded about inner-city Launceston. We found some Asterix and Obelix DVDs - cartoons from the 1970s. I didn't even know they existed. They were six or seven dollars each. We bought three.

After the lesson, Genghis put his new transport wheel into the bottom of his bass, which delighted him. The luthier who teaches him bass had only managed to procure this wheel that morning, you see, but Genghis had been anticipating it for weeks. It's about fifteen centimetres high, and it works like a castor, on a support rod that fits into the socket at the bottom of the base where the spike usually goes. With his new wheel in place, Genghis is at last able to move the instrument comfortably. We've been carting it around for him up until now, have Natalie and I, since the instrument itself is considerably broader and taller than he is. But with the wheel -- well, he slung the neck of the bass over his shoulder, and zoomed off down the sidewalk, making loud motorcycle noises.

Happy kid.

We spent a couple hours at the big pool complex after that. One at a time, I took the boys into the larger pool and put them to some serious swim learning. They're both water-safe enough for Tasmania, naturally, but I'm determined that they're going to actually swim, not just float, thrash, dog-paddle, or whatever.

Jake is built for it - lean and gangly. He takes after me, and I've always been a very good swimmer. (My mother held several Australian records in her age group when she swam in the Masters. And she quite liked the odd 10km race. Father... well, with his shoulder, he doesn't swim hard any more. But when he did, he was very, very fast indeed.) Unfortunately, Jake is nervy, and not relaxed, and it's hard going to get him to progress.

Genghis, on the other hand, is stocky and densely muscled. Not good for floating at all. But once he got the idea, he was right into it. In the space of half an hour, he went from kickboarding to practice his breathing and flutter kick, through to working a basic freestyle stroke, and by the time we quit for the day, he could manage six or seven metres of very fast, very strong freestyle... but he couldn't yet integrate the breathing, so he did it all in one breath.

I figure another two, three weeks for Genghis and he'll be ready to handle a full fifty metre lap of freestyle - if he keeps learning at this rate. It'll take Jake longer. On the other hand, when they can both manage it, the situation will reverse, because Jake has the advantage of his reach, and build. Never mind.

We made it home, and I rounded up a bunch of laundry, etc. Then I handled dinner, and we watched one of those Asterix flicks. Which was... very odd. But you get the idea: busy day, not a lot of my own work.

So, today. Sunday. Determined to do well for the kids, I got up with everyone and we had our pancakes and backon. Then I played a couple games of "Kung Fu Samurai On Giant Robot Island" with the boys, and sorted a bunch of laundry. After that, a short lunch, and then an hour or so of combined frisbee/vortex toy throwing with all three kids, because the sun was out and the day was beautiful. And then we went shopping, and I set up for a charcoal barbecued chicken dinner.

I was the Good Dad, yes. And it was nice. We had a very pleasant day. And all the time, I could feel the emails piling up, and I figured: yeah, I'd get them tomorrow.

Dinner finished. I threw all three kids in the bath, and climbed in to do a mass hairwashing. All good.

And it should have stayed that way. Except that the Mau-Mau continued to complain of an itchy scalp. Natalie had already checked her for bugs, and found naught, but I figured - with her hair damp, and using a powerful LED torch, I could really do the job right.

I found one.

One rotten, stinking louse. One.

So.

Tomorrow, all three children stay home from school. The boys seem to be completely clear, as usual, but the rules say they stay home too. And I shall go to the chemist, and I will purchase a crapload of ti-tree and eucalpyt based products. And I will individually treat all three kids, and then myself - for of course, my scalp now itches like hell, though Natalie says there's nothing to be seen - and all of this will take most of the morning, and the afternoon will have kids running back and forth, and arguing, and I will not be able to string together the quiet I really desperately wanted, and that's that, isn't it?

One filthy little bug.

Iceland Wins Again!

You may recall that some time ago, I wrote of Iceland with some enthusiasm and approval. I believe it was shortly after they elected a professional comedian as mayor of their largest (only?) city, Reykjavik.

Iceland goes from strength to strength, however. When the Icelandic banking system began to smell like a bucket of bad hakarl, the Icelanders didn't permit a massive bullshit bailout. They did NOT authorize a huge transfer of taxpayers (public!) funds to prop up a bunch of (private!) corporations. Nope.

Like the sensible folk they are, they took it on the chin, and let the banks fend for themselves. (Amid considerable rancour. As should indeed have been the case.)

Now they've gone one shining step farther. Not only have they begun prosecuting the people who played fast and loose with the banking system -- they've actually found one of them guilty, and sentenced him to prison. To top it off, before the crash he was actually a permanent secretary in the Icelandic Ministry of Finance.

This is a good thing. Imagine how much better the USAnian situation could have been right now if the American government had shown some stones, and actually arrested the corporate megabastards who financially sodomized their entire nation!

But they didn't. Instead, they threw something like a trillion dollars of taxpayer monies into the hungry maw of the corporate finance beast - and at last check, Wall Street finance companies were once again paying multi-million dollar bonuses to their executives while the government teeters on the edge of shutdown, and ordinary Americans find themselves without simple things that most of the Western world takes for granted.

Now... if only Iceland would stop harpooning whales and start harpooning American bankers instead!

Some Photos And Stuff.

As usual, I really don't know how this stupid blogging software is going to order these photos. I can never remember whether it's backwards, forwards or sideways. So you'll get what you get, in the order you get it, and you'll deal with it. Or not.

Right. Now, for those who may not be aware, my residence lies along one of the Tasmanian highways which host the yearly Targa Tasmania, a road race which is apparently very well known and popular worldwide amongst people who... errr... like to drive expensive cars very quickly around road which really aren't designed for that.

To many people in Tasmania, it's a major highlight of the year. Unfortunately, I'm not much of a petrolhead, so for me, it's just that day in April when they close off my driveway from 0700 to 1200, so the kids don't go to school, and poor Nat has to get away very early indeed to avoid leaving the hospital a doctor short. And then, of course, it's about three hours of loud car noises.

The kids like it, though. The day off is appreciated, and we always make a point of going up to the top paddock to have a look at some of the competition. Not that we know much about it...

That's a car. I'm sure of it. It was going pretty quickly, too.

This is another car. Notice that it's a different colour. The kids were quite taken by the fact that it didn't have a roof. I don't think they'd ever paid attention to a convertible before. This car was also going quickly.

Oh! And this photo has nothing whatsoever to do with Targa Tasmania. It was, in fact, taken the other day when we were all down the beach at Bridport, keeping up with two sets of visitors at once. There was Gemma and her two kids, and at the same time, there was Nat's dad, and his wife. It all got a bit manic at times, but it was a nice day. And as you can see, the Mau-mau was delighted by the chance to play chasey with the waves.

And this photo shows Younger Son, doing the lost-and-lonely-on-the-beach thing. I like this shot very much. The composition is good, and Younger Son was ambling along with just the perfect attitude. It helps that he's a striking young lad in his own right, but the timing was rather good.

Oh - I should mention that Younger Son has finally earned a name here in these annals. Even as Elder Son became 'Jake Flinthart' after the WorldCon in Melbourne, Younger Son has laid claim to "Genghis Flinthart" as his own.

And frankly, it suits him. Therefore, Genghis Flinthart he shall be henceforth.

Which brings us to this last photo: Jake and Genghis raptly enjoying the race at about 0800 this morning. They watched about five minutes worth of cars going past, and then the urge to race around like loons overwhelmed them. In this picture, they're playing their very own combat game called "Star Trek Punch-Out". The rules are simple: each player takes on the role of one of the more violent of the Star Trek regulars, and then they swing wild, slo-mo haymakers at each other, reeling back with hilariously exaggerated expressions of dismay whenever their opponent takes a swing at them.

It's unnervingly like the fight sequences from Old Trek, actually. But Genghis's occasional cries of "Khaaaaaaaaan!" lack that special something which only The Shat could ever bring to the screen...