Karma Farmers

Steve and I planned a trip from Sydney to Canberra for a bit of a weekend getaway.  The plans had been made. We would drive down Saturday afternoon and spend three nights at The Pavilion–a lovely 4 and 1/2 star hotel with an indoor atrium.  Sunday we would spend watching the footie and doing a little sightseeing.  Monday and Tuesday morning would be spent wandering through the endless government buildings and museums.  We would then head back Tuesday afternoon in time for dinner and an early night, pending going back to work the next day.

All was going well when we left.  The hatchback was loaded with our luggage and full of fuel.  The navigator was pointing the way as we headed off.  Because we had been a bit short on dollarydoos the month before, we had not topped up our e-tag and so programmed the navigator to avoid toll roads.  We should have noticed something was wrong when it showed 5 and 1/2 hours remaining on a trip that should normally take 3 hours.  Confidently we followed the navigator’s route through the winding and windy mountain roads.  It was a good couple of hours before we discovered it had taken us through Wollongong and south through Nowra.  By now, we were too far off course to go back and trusted that the navigator must know a better way. (But we were so very very wrong.)

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Well it has been a very long year, full of moving, changing jobs, changing cars, a wedding, etc., etc., the list goes on.  Next year will be another busy one, but nowhere near as busy as 2007.  It’s good to know that I can now relax a bit and settle in.  The only thing that we’re waiting on, is the result of my second immigration application — nowhere near as thick as the first one was.

We’ve gotten a new kitten as a friend for Tiggles.  She is quite adorable!  Tiggles is teaching her all of her tricks — opening doors, bird calls, climbing on things, etc.  They’re not 100% friends just yet, but I think as the kitten gets a bit older, they will become closer.  Right now they enjoy getting into trouble, chasing each other, and play tackling. 

Digger - my horse - is doing well.  After a bout with the horse flu, he is now fully recovered and is coming along nicely.  I am having to start over with teaching how to stop.  He does it fine in the yard, but once you get out on the track he just wants to run forever!  I think I need to take him on a long run to get it out of his sytem.

How is everything…. Life is finally going places.

It’s been a long time since I blogged last but this post is about a serious problem that has to be told everywhere it can be told. 

If you haven’t heard already this has happened.

On March 2, 2007 the Copyright Royalty Board (CRB), which oversees sound recording royalties paid by Internet radio services, increased Internet radio’s royalty burden between 300 and 1200 percent and thereby jeopardized the industry’s future.

At the request of the Recording Industry Association of America, the CRB ignored the fact that Internet radio royalties were already double what satellite radio pays, and multiplied the royalties even further. 

The 2005 royalty rate was 7/100 of a penny per song streamed; the 2010 rate will be 19/100 of a penny per song streamed.  And for small webcasters that were able to calculate royalties as a percentage of revenue in 2005 – that option was quashed by the CRB, so small webcasters’ royalties will grow exponentially!

Before this ruling was handed down, the vast majority of webcasters were barely making ends meet as Internet radio advertising revenue is just beginning to develop.  Without a doubt most Internet radio services will go bankrupt and cease webcasting if this royalty rate is not reversed by the Congress, and webcasters’ demise will mean a great loss of creative and diverse radio.

There is time left to act on this, unfortunately its not much time, so when you get a chance head over to http://www.savenetradio.org/ and join us in helping internet radio survive.

By the way, if your into dance/trance/house music check out Music One at http://www.m1live.com/ while there is still time left.Thanks for taking the time to read this, it will mean alot if you all help out.

Well now everything is coming together.

My visa got approved.  Tiggles visa got approved.  I have plane tickets.  Tiggles has her own people to take care of getting her plane tickets.  Now there’s just the little over thirty days wait until I fly out.  There’s so much to do before then.  I have to pack the things I’m bringing, try to sell the things I’m not bringing (that’s a lot harder than it sounds).  Then I have to take care of all my affairs in the states and get everything set up so that it takes care of itself for a while until I get everything transferred over there. 

So that’s where everything stands.  I’m so excited that everything has worked out so well so far!! =)

I have been giving some thought to this and was kind of wondering what defines the point where a photo becomes so computer edited and changed that it’s no longer a photo and becomes a graphic.

To me I like to see good photos. Computers can be used to enhance already good photos and sometimes even make bad photos better by adjusting color balance, brightness and contrast, and cropping.

But with everything you can do on a computer, how do you know when to stop? If you keep playing with an image, eventually it becomes something else, and you loose the essence of the image.

Well it’s that time of the year…time to file your taxes, which means for me that it’s time for overtime.  I’ve been really busy lately with work.  This is my first tax season, and so far I don’t think that I’m cut out for the long hours.  My goal for this tax season is to work 55 hours a week.  Once tax season is over, I am definitely taking a vacation to rest and recooperate. 

In other news, Tiggles got her new travel crate.  I think she likes it, but maybe that’s because I filled it up with catnip mice. hehe.

It’s funny how excited I am about this, but I am very excited that we purchased a washing machine.  I’ve been wanting one of those for ages, but had been holding off on purchasing one until I was sure where I would be living.  (It’s not exactly something you want to lug around with you.)  This past week we bought one, 9.5 kilos.. I can wash a lot of stuff in there!  The other thing we got is a fridge.  That’s cool, but not as cool as the washing machine.  Trust me, you don’t realize how convenient one of those is until you have to do your washing at the laundromat every week.  I’ve been doing that for the past.. umm.. 2 years I think it is and I’ve really grown sick of it.

 The other big event of this past week is—a house.  After searching for a few weeks, we found a house that we really like, or at least, I think I like it.  I’m not really that particular so I’m sure it will be fine and it has a big deck–definitely a great point.  We’ve put in the application and hopefully soon it will be ours. =)

After a long haul, much stress, and many sheets of paper, the immigration application is finally finished!  You wouldn’t believe how thick it is–almost a ream of paper.  I can’t wait to see how much it costs to make a copy of it and then to send it.  I’m so excited!  I can’t believe it’s done; it seemed like it would never end.

 It was this big….

Merry Christmas to me!

I got a little bored this past Saturday and decided that I should upload some of my other pictures to my Flickr gallery.  I went through pictures from as far back as 2001 and now I have them all uploaded in one place.  After that it was a bit of a task to update all the titles and tags, and to organize them all in the proper sets; but now it’s all done and I love it! =)

Ah 2006, what a year. It’s been a Rock ‘n’ Roll Rollercoaster ride, but it’s over. Don’t get me wrong, it was a good year Teresa came over for an exciting 2 weeks (though 2 weeks was even near enough time) and we picked a day for marriage of which will be the 18th November 2007.

After all that you think ‘wow that’s alot of really cool stuff, why are we giving 2006 the bums rush out the door?’

That question can be summed up in one word: IMMIGRATION!

BLOODY IMMIGRATION. It’s a nightmare of making small mountains of information that you really wish your forgot years go (in some cases you already forgot). This is on top of the oh so fun information scavenger hunt running from place to place trying to work out what the name of the Dog owned by the Aunt of my Second Cousins Niece.

But it’s over. It’s done, it’s going in a envelope today and heading over to Teresa. This was the moment we was waiting for the actual submission but then there is Phase Two of the process….. THE WAIT!

2007 is going to be a great year regardless, but I can’t wait, I think I may become the victim of ‘calendar watching’ and they say a watched pot never boils.

To all of you I wish you all a Happy (and quick) Holiday Season, visit your families and have some fun, usher in 2007 with a bang.