to Rio Tinto and Coal and Allied, owners of Mouth Thorley Warkwarth

This is an open letter to the owners of this mine. I am a member of the Sydney Photobloggers Photography group. On Sunday 30 December, we went for a Photo Trip to the Hunter Valley. Passing by your mine we saw some terrific photography opportunities and decided to stop to take some photos.

A man in a ute with a little yellow light drove past and stopped at the top of the hill. I guess that this was to get good line of sight communications. Is this correct. Was he reporting my vehicles number plate back to some central control room for instructions on the course of action to take? Or am I just being suspicious?

After some time, he came down the hill and advised us that we were not allowed to take photos from the road-side verge because it belonged to the mine. We said we were allowed to take photos from public property. He said that the verge was private property and that the fence was set back. Can you confirm that this is the case? The last thing he said before leaving was that your company does not like people taking photos of it's operations from their property (in this case the road-side verge. Is this correct? Is you company's policy to discourage the general public from taking photos? I would suggest that this is a bad policy. Is suggests that there is something that you want to hide from the general public that is clearly visible from he road side? I have added some photos to show what we took. A full collection can be seen at this location.

I would point out that I went to school here in Australia. I am quite aware of the trespass laws. Also I can read, and we read your no trespassing signs. At no stage did we trespass and at no stage did we intend to trespass.

"Australia NSW Bulga Mine 20071230 IMG_2919" by yewenyi [?]

"Australia NSW Bulga Mine 20071230 IMG_2915" by yewenyi [?]

"Australia NSW Bulga Mine 20071230 IMG_2905" by yewenyi [?]

"Australia NSW Bulga Mine 20071230 IMG_2914" by yewenyi [?]

SPB Road Trip IV

Apart from our run in with Australia's security aparatus, we visited a few places on the way for our trip. The route was Sydney - Windsor - Colo - Putty - Payne's Crossing - Singleton - Bucketty - Old Great North Road - St Albans, Wiseman's Ferry and back to Sydney.

Colo River

Putty

Paynes Crossing
"bridge" by yewenyi [?]

Singleton

"giant insect" by yewenyi [?]

"Red Zone - Restricted" by yewenyi [?]

layout managers

Downloaded netbeans 6.0 a few days ago. Spent a while fighting the layout manager. Changed the layout from absolute to gridbag (my favourite) still fought the layout manager. Gave up in disgust. Some time later, thought, I wonder if it is a bug. So went back, downloaded all the latest patches. Lo and behold! the layout manager is now doing what I want it to do. It had some kind of weird resizing problem.

doctor,

I went to the doctor this morning. There are many places, so I picked a likely one as I did not want to travel all the way to the one who had been recommended. This turned out to be a mistake and I think I have me the worst doctor I have ever met. This is sad, as my last doctor, who is now retired and is half way across town was the best doctor I have had. Now I will need to go again next week and try and find another doctor as he was unable, even unwilling, to work out what is wrong with my left arm.

Orphans' Christmas

For the second year in a row we had an Orphan's Christmas. This time we went to Taronga Zoo. We ate lots of food, with not a single piece of turkey or ham to be seen, and then had a photo competition, of which the results have not yet been calculated.

"Christmas day picnic" by Morgan Carpenter [?]


"A Bird" by yewenyi [?]

Thursday pre-Christmas drinks: The Colombian, Oxford Street, 6.30pm

We went down to the Colombian to sit on the roof and have some drinks. In the end we also had a meal. That noggin, Chris showed up. He started harping on and being unpleasant again. One of the things he was harping on about was the dishwasher emails I had sent to myself to remind myself to buy one.

He also said that not only did he once work for the police, but now he works for Telstra. So we had a discussion about how I no longer get a staff discount as the company I work for is 50% owned by Telstra. To get a staff discount the company needs to be 51% owned by Telstra.

One of the topics was how, the police, who stole Jame's film before the APEC summit had not made any attempt to return it or make recompense.

There was a heated discussion about macs vs windows which was just silly. Again he seems to be trying to make everything I do seem bad. A man had to come to his rescue. He sat at the table beside us and pointed out how when you install leopard your computer starts crashing, as mine has. (though I have removed most of the offending programs. I still seem to have a hardware heat related problem and have to remember not to push the computer too hard for too long.) Seems to me that they know a lot, but understand next to nothing.

Anyway they still won't say why they are being obnoxious. But they are and their attempts to say sorry will continue to fail. Though this is not the actual reason why it is failing.

Flickr Stats

Fickr have introduced a new stats page. It shows some interesting results. For instance, in the last month I uploaded an image from my mobile phone of Ned Kelly in the town of Jerilderie. As they were having a festival in 2008 for the famous Jerilderie letter, I put said letter in the description of the image. Then in the last week, Flickr introduced a stats package that shows where the viewers came from. Interestingly this image was getting a lot of traffic from Yahoo. Here are the top 25 searches that people used. They are hysterical.

1 dog in a cadge
2 right to a speedy,fair trial
3 dogs that live with another animal and do not…
4 putting hand under the rain
5 i dont believe god brought me this far just…
6 turkeys bad people
7 animated right use of medicine
8 appearance of an aids patience
9 turning of the wheel of truth
10 dropping something off
11 back future town clock
12 animated money pounds
13 right to speedy, fair trial
14 dr. king getting arrested
15 cut your own pine tree
16 fencing jacket
17 colonial paper maker
18 fair, speedy, public trial
19 victorian poor people
20 dogs blowing their coats
21 6 mile gang signs
22 reach down to help a person
23 evidence of victorian coming to reading
24 i want to hang myself by the neck
25 farmers keep them eating

and the image:

"poor ned better off dead" by yewenyi [?]


oh and the next and last 24

26 british signs articles of piece
27 animated lazy person
28 blood hand signs street gang
29 religion people always shove it down your…
30 father and son cattle drive
31 anything war can do peace can do better
32 blood gang signs
33 strapping boy
34 two+people+having =+a+conversation+or+a+fight
35 the writing on liberty bell
36 cutting tree more than required
37 back business suit
38 one tree hill season five
39 animated dog laughing
40 save the earth posters
41 human body from toe to chest
42 first aid for cuts on hands
43 every little bit can make difference
44 working your finger to the bone
45 woman handcuffed
46 animated drive by shooting
47 rich victorian children at school
48 blood gang hand signs
49 images showing cruelty to bull

birthday

we went up to Terrigal for Pete's 40th birthday. It was a lovely day, with full sunshine and a strong on-shore breeze. I got mild sun-burn.

"flying a kite" by yewenyi [?]

"bangers and onions" by yewenyi [?]

Medicare Grrrrrrrrr

Well I needed to change my address. When I went to the web site I saw that you can change it online. So I sent off to be sent a password to set up an account. I set up the account, created the 60 billion questions you have to have to prove that you have a poor memory for such things and cannot prove that you are yourself. I then had to log back in and lo an behold, they have not enabled the address changing feature. Liars. Anyway now I need to go to one of the overcrowded offices to change my address. What a waste of time.

is the lunch time cruise boat

this is an old sydney ferry. At first it was cramped but acceptable... but...then the rain came and the boat leaked. They used the plastic table cloths to redirect the water. they had to close all the doors and windows but the engine compartment was open so there was an oliy smell in the air. we could not go upstairs as there was another party up there. Outside a bolt of lightening hit the shore only a few hundred meters from the boat. I do not know what it hit, the rain was too heavy, but whatever it was lit up much more brightly that the bolt of lightening.

In this midst of all of this, my burgler alarm went off forthe first time and I was called by the alarm company. But I was out in the middle of the harbour. We decided not to call the police. They would call me back if another sensor was set off.

so when we arrived at the warf to let the upstairs party off I made a quick exit, as did half of the company, and quickly went home to check all was ok. There were no problems. Seems I left a window partly open and there had been a big gust of wind.

is the lunch time cruise boat, originally uploaded by yewenyi.

Recovery

Well, finally I got the broken computer back, fixed and with a new HD to boot. It took about 2 hours for time machine to back up the boot drive. How lucky was I that I installed it 2 days befor the computer died. I have yet to update the windows part. I do not think I will install a boot camp partition this time. Rather I will use parallels to install windows. All the emails I read during November have become unread again and now there are 500 emails in my in box. That also took hours to download and resynchronize.

"restoring" by yewenyi [?]

A photo walk around Marrickville

We went for a walk from Sydenham station up to Marrickville.

"brian embraces the child within!" by Jarod_Is_Childish [?]

"storm water basin" by yewenyi [?]

Lighthouse - Proteaceae Adenathos

Well I cut out one of the plants in the planter box and replaced it with another native. And then it rained lots, over 5cm. So the plant is very happy.

"the new plant" by yewenyi [?]

Dinner at makan@Alice's.

Dinner at makan at Alice up in Thornleigh. It is a malaysian place and the best I have found so far in Sydney. Still not fully up to the Melbourne standard, but now my list of good malayisan places in Sydney had grown to 2. The best two dishes were the Chai Tow Kuih and Durien Ice cream.

Paparazzi

Sydney Photo-paps, originally uploaded by Naddsy.

I have not blogged for a while because my computer has been at the repair man. it should arrive home tomorrow.

I had my first job as a member of the mysterious SPB paparzzi at the Different Christmas party. It is hard, but fun work and the food and drinks were good.

"Different in ice" by yewenyi [?]

SPB Day Trip III - Kangaroo Valley

Well we headed off to Kangaroo Valley this time because Emma took some photos there and suddenly every one else had to go there. It's a nice spot.We went via the inland route and came back out via the coast road.

"suspended" by yewenyi [?]

"mmm donuts" by yewenyi [?]

Helen's Birthday

We went into town and had Thai for Helen's birthday.

"Brian" by Morgan Carpenter [?]

Sydney Bus Museum

Looking at the map, it was clear that just around the corner is the Sydney Bus Museum. Finally I got a spare day and headed off down there. It is a simple affair and anoyingly I could not get to most of the busses as they are almost all closed and half you cannot even walk past. But I saw a few buses and went for a ride (included in the admission fee) to the International Airport in a double decker bus.

Click To Play

lunch at the carousel cafe

We (including Sophie, Mike, Helen and Iris) went to the carousel, but there were no fountains lit by coloured lights, no little drinks with umbrella's and little plastic animals and no revolving floor... what ever happened to protecting our heritage?

"Iris" by yewenyi [?]

"Melbourne CBD" by yewenyi [?]

on boat

I'm devastated. The unfinished Spanish galleon of Finley lake is no more.

a letter from Jerilderie

Sitting here writing a letter by a dry lake eating a pie and drinking a milkshake. Strangely thinking of Irish catholic traitor police and Anglican masters. Glad that pentridge is closed. Bothered by flies. There are signs, statues and posters everywhere of a man in armour holding a pistol up high.

"ned kelly horse" by yewenyi [?]

Sculpture by the Sea

Well we got up early for the sunrise. But it was cloudy and at times raining. But my first time to this event. Some suggested that it may not be on again next year.

"girls with dogs" by yewenyi [?]

Automator Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard

I upgraded to Leopard, but will write more about that later. I have only one gripe. Automator only is able to work about 15% of the time. It seems unable to open files. This morning it crashed and I sent the report to Apple.

Night of the goat

I was going to call it , year of the goat, but well, it simply isn't the year of the goat. So I named it night of the goat. Aparently some think thought of Satan. I was surprised by this. Across the road from where I now live is the Mui Huong Goat Meat Restaurant at 314 Victoria Road Marrickville. It has one type of meat on the dinner menu: Goat. I found the meat very mild this time, more like lamb, than when I have had it in Melbourne and Jakarta.

daylight savings madness

Daylight savings happened. But not as smoothly as one might have expected.

• The VCR and Windows OS clocks changed automatically over night.
• The mobile phone and apple OS clocks changed automatically at midday the next day. Windows and Macosx are running on the same computer.
• The clock in the bedroom was updated manually. But then this morning, the alarm, which has never gone off, went off at 6AM.
  

bad driving

This morning I pulled out onto South Dowling Street, a ute (ao75ng) was approaching along south dowling with it's left indicator on. So I pulled out in front of it. Many cars turn left at that point. The male driver came up on my left and glared at me, and then pulled in front of me. I put my left indicator on to show he still had his left indicator on. About 5 blocks later he actually turned left. Just before he did so, he turned off his left indicator.

Bucket of Meterology

According to the BOM (Bureau of Meteorology) we have had 0.6mm of rain since 9AM yesterday. But according to another BOM (Bucket of Meteorology, conveniently located on the north balcony) we had about 1.5 to 2.0 cm of rain. (unfortunaltey the Bucket of Meteorology is a somewhat crude and not calibrated technology.)

In Your Face

Some of the mob from the SPB decided to have a show of portraits. They shot each other because it put them on both sides of the camera. It was a good night and there is a documentary movie that was shown on the night. Even better still it was held about 200 meters from my work. The opening night was excellent and there were many people who I only see occasionally and a few new faces.

"In Your Face" by The Department [?]


In Your Face - The Documentary from Wing Poon on Vimeo.

rainfall

According to the BOM (Bureau of Meteorology) we have had 9.8mm of rain since 9AM yesterday. But according to another BOM (Bucket of Meteorology, conveniently located on the north balcony) we only had about 2-3 mm of rain.

Melbourne Cup

Well it can't be long now. This is on the wall of the pub across the road.

Sydney Camera Market and Dank Street Fair

Today I did a few things. I went, for the second time, to the Sydney Camera Market. There were a few photo bloggers wandering the stalls. Mostly the market has a collection of very old cameras. They even had a table of free stuff. Though there are some more modern lenses. There are very few. I picked up a ND filter for only $18, which is much cheaper than a new one. But I have no idea of it's value as a second hand item. Again there was a single, but different, 3d film camera. There were not many digital cameras. I think I find the market a little disappointing.

After that I went to the Dank Street Festival. As I walked up there was a sign in one of the industrial complexes saying no church parking. In the next building, there were many people, so I decided to go in. On the way in, I was welcomed. I wandered around for about a minute and decided that this was quite likely the church. I was a little on the wrong foot, so decided to leave. On the way out I was thanked for visiting. And then on the footpath, a man asked me what I thought. Across the road I could see that it was a hill song church. One day I might have to go in and see a service in real life.

The festival itself was well run, full of people, had high quality food and mundane art. I think that was the problem. The festival suffered from being very mundane. I was not inspired and after walking around and after a drink and an ice cream, I left.

photo shoot

I did my first shoot up in the Blue Mountains with the group of photographers. I have quite some learning to do about how to set up photos and work with the models, but I was able to learn quite a lot from the others. I am not used to portrait shots, and I spent a lot of time trying to get my exposures right in addition the the framing. I also spent lot more time in aperture adjusting the levels and colours.

"" by yewenyi [?]


"by the convict made pool" by yewenyi [?]

sensor cleaning

My camera's sensor has never been very clean. On one of my first shoots with the new lens, I was swapping the lenses for the first time. I was all thumbs. While I had the camera open, there was a gust of wind. It stirred up a small dust storm, the kind that makes you close your eyes and cough. Unfortunately quite a lot of this ended up inside the camera. So I purchased a cleaning kit form a company in Perth as they were recommended one on the flickr groups. I am very happy with the results. You can see the results:

"Australia NSW Marrickville 20071015 IMG_0648" by yewenyi [?]

"Australia NSW Marrickville 20071015 IMG_0653" by yewenyi [?]

a day of gardening

Well I spent my first weekend gardening since moving to Sydney. The plants are all trimmed, the worm farm has worms in it again, we discovered lots of mondo grass and the plants are removed from growing through one of the air conditioners. I've planted two new plants. One is a Westringia Wynyabbie Gem, a house warming gift. The other a Party Pink High Society Pandorea to climb over the southern pagola.

"where there's smoke..." by yewenyi [?]


"City Lights" by yewenyi [?]

wandering around manly

I went to see the chinese doctor again. Arrived a bit early so took some photos on the camera phone. For some reason the uploads were not working. But this seems fixed and the uploads are working again.

The window instantly reminded me of the children's program I watched as a kid.

There's a bear in there, and a chair as well,

There are people with games, and stories to tell,

Open wide, come inside,

It's Play School!

Norman Lindsay

We visited Norman Linsday's house, part of the National Trust and with my new camera and improved technique I took better photos than last time. We did not really spend enough time here. But lunch beckoned. Unfortunately, after that the others wanted to head off to the lolly shop in Leura.

"the three sisters" by yewenyi [?]

wind

One of the new uprights for my booshelf fell over while the paint was drying becuase of the high wind. Then the wind changed direction, so the other fell over. Now an alarm down below has gone off.

Pilfered Mail

One of the tenants in another unit discovered a man (last night or this morning) in his early twenties going through my mail box. He had used some piece of metal to open it and was opening my letters. He said the person was feeling the letters first, to see if they contained anything. Apparently they do this to find credit cards. Two of my letters had been opened. Anyway, the co-tenant, who I will have to give thank-you letter stopped the thief and delivered my mail as the mail box was now open.

A young man in his early twenties. approx 173 cm tall, 65 kg (so quite skinny), short black hair, well dressed in black and white over sized top, dark sunglasses, jeans and runners. He had a shoulder bag hanging on his right shoulder. He had a short mustache and spoke clear English.

SPAM

According to these people I have been deemed to be an evil SPAMER using a spam IP address. But maybe it is the relay point that was rejected. Bit hard to tell really. I just get a nearly useless generic message.

Connected to 65.54.244.136 but sender was rejected.
Remote host said: 550 Mail rejected by Windows Live Hotmail for policy reasons. A block has been placed against your IP address because we have received complaints concerning mail coming from that IP address. We recommend enrolling in our Junk E-Mail Reporting Program (JMRP), a free program intended to help senders remove unwanted recipients from their e-mail lists. For enrollment instructions, please refer to: http://postmaster.live.com/Services.aspx#JMRPP. For additional information about Microsoft's technical guidelines, please refer to: http://postmaster.live.com/Guidelines.aspx

dinner in Sydney

Had dinner at a Japanese BBQ place, all you can eat in 90 minutes for $41 followed by desert at the Intercontinental Hotel, one of the places that are part of the SMH good food month festival.

"Sugar Hit" by Gun Sydney [?]

moving house

It is the final day of the time off to move house. The drama of the air con is resolved. Though at the moment, leaving the doors open seems a better option. The alarm system is installed and working. The adsl modem showed up,t but the adsl is not connected at the exchange. I am stuck using the internet on the mobile. The sleepy locksmith came twice. Once to install a dead lock and once to make keys to the storeroom and laundry locks. It turns out that the storeroom is full of painters equipment. Morgan came around and helped lift the tv and put up the corner shelves.the book shelf in the lounge is three cm too far to the left. A bit late to fix that now. None of my old light bulbs fitted the new lights so i had to buy some more.

moved

Well I have moved house. It took ages, partly because it is up three floors. But most things are up there. I have never been so tired from a move. And even when I changed the light bulb I needed a 15 minute rest.

breakfast

Frost, birdsong, instant coffee, arnotts biscuits, balsmic vinegar & pumpkin bread.

floriad

We went down to the Floraid, and stayed the night in Gunning. It was great to be in the NSW country again, it is ingrained in my soul. Crisp morning and the smell of frozen cow poo. The Floriad was interesting, though I think that there is a lack of variety of types of flowers. I certainly took lots of flower photos.

"flowers" by yewenyi [?]


"rest stop" by yewenyi [?]

Woman in Black

A strange event happened while moving house. I was down in the basement putting some things in my car. As I returned I saw the bottom of the truck in the drive up at road level. I head someone running on the wooden plank ramp leading up into the truck. So I ran towards the truck. From where I was, all I could see were the legs of someone wearing black from about the knee down. When I got to the road level there was only one person who could be seen. A woman at the flats next door, in the direction the person had run. She was wearing a black burqa dress. She stood there and looked at me. I wonder if she took anything?

countdown

The people moving into my place are pushing for a 12:30 settlement. I agree so this is good. It gives me time to get into the new place.