The awesome Mac Pro Quad Core

Those of you that have been reading the post on silencing a Powermac G4 Mirror Drive Door (MDD) will be pleased to know that the old girl is still going strong as I sold my MDD to a mate( it’s now used as the recording workstation for our band- The Single Fins). I then bought from a mac reseller in Melbourne Victoria, Australia, a second hand Powermac Dual G5 2.5 tower for $Au 999.

From day one I had numerous crashes & startup problems with it, not the least being the fans went at full speed and didnt shut up! I spent countless hours reinstalling it, unplugging RAM, doing all sorts of diagnostics to it, but no joy. After  the first repair in which they calibrated the fans( after 2 tries), It worked Ok for a week or so, then started crashing & not starting up properly. In fact some times I had to hard restart it from between 3 times up to 12 times, just to get to the desktop.

After the second  repair( and 3 more weeks in the shop), they replaced the new logic board , 2 new processors (one was DOA), tried new video cards etc etc.. Apple couldnt fix it so they decided to replace it with a brand new 2.66 Quad Core Mac Pro.

No more sleep issues, crashes etc…This thing is sooooo quick and incredibly silent.

suffice to say… I’m one happy camper.

Our Bhutan Journey – We got married!

  In November 2008 Audra & I went to the secretive little Himalayan country of Bhutan. Aud’s best friend Michelle has   worked over there a couple of years and she invited us to go on a group tour she had organised as a trial run for setting   up her tour company ” My Secret Bhutan” with her friend Caroline. It was an incredible time to be there as we were lucky enough to see the celebrations for the 5th Kings Coronation which was an amazing thing to share with these beautiful and gentle local people who love their royal family so much.

Here is some of the diary that I wrote about it:

On the flight back there was none of the excitement and anticipation that was present on the way in. There was just a quiet introspective mood with everyone reflecting on the incredible experiences through this magical kingdom of Bhutan that we had all taken part in. As I sat on the plane writing this account of our trip and we plunged further back into modern civilisation, I couldn’t help wondering whether this amazing journey was just a dream.

 

DAY 2:

We were again treated to clear skies as we wake up early for breakfast where we meet a group of film makers from National Geographic, who are in town for the Coronation celebrations. After a quick breakfast, we drove west out of town to view the massive white peak of Mt Jhomolari (7314m) which is almost always shrouded by cloud, but luckily in full view in the brilliant sunshine. Like all Bhutanese peaks, it has never been climbed by any human out of superstition and respect by the locals. It’s stark white unadulterated peak, rises from behind several heavily forested hills in the foreground, creating an unforgettable sight. We stop in a small village to take photo’s of the peak & even more interesting shots of the local people going about their daily lives.

We then travelled through various quaint little villages to the carpark at the start of our two hour hike up to Taktshang Goemba, most commonly known as “The Tigers Nest”. Taktshang is easily the most famous of Bhutans monasteries, as it incredibly sits perched on a 900m high cliff at an altitude of 3140m. The Bhutanese believe it was attached with the help of angel hairs. The trail up is very steep and rocky, with many people taking the easier option of a ride on a mule up the mountain, which after a short time seems like a really good idea as we were all suffering from the change in altitude. The hike starts in lush forest with crystal clear streams flowing under bridges and tinkling through small bells mounted in shrines or “Stupors” which are found in every corner of Bhutan.

As we continued up the mountain and the terrain grows steeper and more rugged, we passed numerous groups of mules & donkeys on their way back down after dropping their passengers off. My nerves started to grow as I think of how and where I am going to pop the question to Audra after all these years together. Between panting & puffing I decide I’ll just see what happens and trust myself to know the right time when I see it.

Halfway up we were greeted by the welcome sight of the teahouse, which served us a banquet of lovely Bhutanese food, much of it containing their favourite vegetable, the chilli. We sit, rest, eat and marvel at the panoramic views of The Tigers Nest on the cliffside across the deep ravine. After eating way too much, we continued up the mountain, past springs where we were told by Rinchin to bless ourselves for good luck and past a cave which marks the birth of the previous Je Khenpho, where Rinchin stopped and told us his story. A short distance from here bring us to a spectacular lookout and small guesthouse where bhuddist groups sometimes stay. We all lighted a butter lamp in the adjoining butter lamp room, which is very hot from the hundreds of candles flickering in there. After hanging some long prayer flags across the trail, helped by a friendly young Bhutanese girl staying there. We started the descent down the very steep 800 steps carved out of the cliff, down past a bridge & waterfall covered with hundreds of colourful prayer flags, past the Snow Lion Cave meditation retreat, jammed into a rock crevice which is used by monks, Lama’s & Gurus, before we climbed back up to the monastery entrance. I was starting to get really nervous now.

We arrived to be greeted by two army soldiers guarding the temple, and we had to take off our shoes & leave our cameras & bags with them downstairs before starting our tour of the monastery. We were very fortunate that we arrived late in the day due to our tour groups tendency for procrastination, as there were no other tourists in the monastery now, so the head Lama could show us around personally, as he normally doesn’t have the time to spend with foreigners. Inside, monks dart around sweeping & cleaning amongst the gothic architecture as the sun casts long shadows in the late afternoon light.

We headed up to the most holy place in the monastery, the Dubkhang, a cave where Guru Rimpoche meditated for three months after flying on the back of a tigress back to this very place where he is said to have subdued the local demon Singey Samdrup. Outside the cave in a small room is a statue & shrine of

Dorje Drolo, the manefestation that the guru assumed to fly on the tigress. It is here that after we prostrated three times to the shrine, the head Lama gave us each a Bhutanese name and joked around with us as our guide translated the meanings of each name for us.

It was at this time with the late afternoon sun streaming through the cliffside window that I thought, well there’s never going to be a better time than this, so I quietly slipped the box containing a ring I had brought over from Audra’s favourite shop in Fremantle, out of my pocket and summoned all my courage to speak up through building tears and said, “ I’d just like to say something.” I turned to Audra and said “ Boody, will you marry me?” She was in total shock, so I said it again and she hugged me and said “Yeah of course I will”. There were tears everywhere with everyone’s faces showing disbelief, joy and happiness all at the same time. The Lama summoned us over through our guide Rinchin and proceeded to tie a knot in a white scarf that had been on the shrine to Guru Rinpoche and put it around both our necks. He then took the gold ring which sparkled in the late afternoon sun and placed it on Audras finger before closing his eyes and chanting for about half a minute. Little did we know, but he was marrying us according to Bhutanese tradition and before we knew it, after the shortest engagement in history, we were married in front of seven special witnesses who we were privileged to share this magical experience with, including Audra’s best friend Michelle and my best mate Dave.

We were to learn later that night that this was the first wedding of foreigners and possibly the first ever wedding within one of the most holy shrines in Bhutan. To top it all off, on the way back down the mountain, past the lookout, we were summoned into the small guesthouse to meet a great Lama who had just came off a long meditation of several weeks there. Sitting cross legged in a room overlooking the Tigers Nest with his laptop & mobile phone next to him was none other but the Lama who is said to be the 16^th re-incarnation of Guru Rimpoche. No one else knew he was here and our guide Rinchin was so excited as he had wanted to meet him his entire life all all Bhutanese do. He placed another knotted white scarf around our necks and said to us in perfect English, “ have a wonderful life together” before throwing rice over us. It only dawned on us several days later how important he is in Bhutan as next to Buddha in every temple was a large statue of Guru Rimpoche himself.

On the way back down the mountain in fading light our guide Rinchin, came up to me and put his arm around me and said

” I think, what just happened…was a miracle…”

welcome back!

Well I’m back here , my last post was November 2007! wow, time flies… i just dont seem to have the time anymore to post, and so much has happened in the last year or so. Basicly I started posting up here a lot when Aud’s & I had separated for a year( almost exactly to the day). It passed the time while I was alone I guess. We are now thankfully back together and happier than ever! ( read the next post for more details)

I am going to try and post up more often as I now have wordpress on my iPhone, so I might just jot small thoughts up here regulary. Like a proper blog should be. More like a digital diary and notepad…

I touched a UFO: ex-air force pilot

A group of former pilots who have recounted seeing strange phenomena in the sky has demanded the US government reopen an investigation into UFOs. Several pilots offered dramatic accounts of witnessing UFOs – including a transparent flying disc and a triangular craft with mysterious markings – as they insisted their questions needed to be taken seriously more than 30 years after the US file was closed.

“We want the US government to stop perpetuating the myth that all UFOs can be explained away in down-to-earth, conventional terms,” said Fife Symington, former governor of Arizona and air force pilot who says he saw a UFO in 1997.

“Instead our country needs to reopen its official investigation that it shut down in 1969,” Symington said. The subject of UFOs came up in a recent debate among US presidential candidates, with Democrat Dennis Kucinich saying he once saw a UFO – making him the object of ridicule and jokes by late night television comedians.

Sceptics say UFO sightings are merely aircraft, satellites or meteors re-entering the Earth’s atmosphere. But the retired pilots spoke to a sympathetic audience of UFO “believers” who heard them recall their encounters with seemingly other-worldly objects appearing out of the sky. “Nothing in my training prepared me for what we were witnessing,” said James Penniston, a retired US Air Force pilot, as he described seeing and touching a UFO when he was stationed at a British air base in Woodbridge.

He said he saw an inexplicable triangular craft in a clearing in the woods with “blue and yellow lights swirling around the exterior”. The UFO was “warm to the touch and felt like metal,” Penniston said. One side of the craft had pictorial symbols and “the largest symbol was a triangle, which was centred in the middle of the others,” he said. Then after 45 minutes the light from the object “began to intensify” and it then “shot off at an unbelievable speed” before 80 Air Force personnel, he said. “In my logbook, I wrote ’speed: impossible’.”

“One of our most important civil aviation cases occurred in 1988, showing that unidentified flying objects can be a danger for air operations,” he said. “A Boeing 737 pilot on a final approach to the runway at the Puerto Montt airport suddenly encountered a large white light surrounded by green and red. The pilot took a sharp turn to avoid a collision, according to Bravo.
The panel included a former Iranian fighter pilot, Parviz Jafari, who said in 1976 he tried in vain to fire from his jet at an “object which was flashing with intense red, green, orange and blue light” over Tehran. But when he approached, “my weapons jammed and my radio communications garbled”. A former Air France captain, Jean-Charles Duboc, said in 1994 he and his crew saw “a huge flying disc” near Paris with a diameter of about 300 metres that left no sign on radar. The disc “became transparent and disappeared in about 10 to 20 seconds,” Duboc said.

The former pilot said like other major airlines Air France was mindful of its image and it was difficult to raise the subject of UFOs.
A former official with the Federal Aviation Administration, John Callahan, said government agencies discourage inquiries into UFOs. “‘Who believes in UFOs?’ is the kind of attitude of the FAA all the time,” he said. “However, when I asked the CIA person: ‘What do you think it was,’ he responded ‘a UFO’. When Callahan suggested the government tell Americans about a UFO, the CIA official allegedly told him: “‘No way, if we were to tell the American public there are UFOs they would panic.”‘

AFP

US Plan to bomb Iran next.

In what seems like a case of deja vu, US Diplomats have been ordered to compile a dossier, detailing Iran’s violations of international law that could be used to justify military strikes on Iran. Members of the US secretariat in the United Nations were apparently asked last month to start “searching for things that Iran has done wrong.” I find this ironic, considering that the US Administration completely ignored the UN & world opinion when it broke international laws itself & invaded Iraq.

At the same time, Australia, Britain and Israel have “expressed interest” in a US campaign to launch “surgical” bombing raids on Iran targeting the Revolutionary Guard facilities, one of the US’s leading investigative reporters, Seymour Hersh, reported. Hersh details how the US is making plans for a strike on Iran, beefing up intelligence resources within the CIA and shifting its rhetorical campaign in a bid to win support from the American people should the strikes proceed. Hersh says the US Administration has stopped trying to justify the campaign on the basis of curtailing Iran’s nuclear ambitions, to redefining the war in Iraq as a strategic battle.

These developments are indeed gravely serious to the stability of the Middle East & the world as a whole. If they think the invasion of Iraq has turned out badly, wait till they disturb the hornets nest of Iran, It’s infinitely more powerful army, the tens of millions of fanatical patriotic Iranians & the thousands of muslim extremists who will come from every arab country in the world to fight the US invaders. To coin a phrase by an ex tyrant, this would be the mother of all battles, which would soon involve Israel & no doubt their nuclear weapons of mass destruction. I hate to say it, but it really could devellop into a world war to rival the first two.

Let’s hope people calm down & the war mongers of the Bush Administration dont get their way again.

Time for Bush to face the truth on Iraq war

I saw this article written by Madeleine Albright, the former US Secretary of State in the paper & thought it was worth posting up. These first two paragraphs summarise perfectly the feelings of many people towards the Iraq War. Why on earth did we all get caught up in this insane crusade to invade a country that posed absolutely no threat to any of us. Well it sure poses a threat now, and George Dubya is now planning to invade Iran… scary stuff how an imbecile can become the most powerful man in the world.

The threshold question in any war is: What are we fighting for? Our troops, especially, deserve a convincing answer. In Iraq, the list of missions that were tried on but didn’t fit includes: protection from weapons of mass destruction, creating a model democracy in the Arab world, punishing those responsible for the September 11 attacks and stopping terrorists from catching the next plane to New York. The latest mission, linked to the “surge” of troops this year, was to give Iraqi leaders the security and manoeuvring room needed to make stabilising political arrangements — which they have thus far shown little interest in doing.

A cynic might suggest that the military’s real mission is to enable US President George Bush to continue denying that his invasion has evolved into disaster. A less jaded view might identify three goals: to prevent Iraq from becoming a haven for al-Qaida, a client state of Iran or a spark that inflames region-wide war. These goals respond not to dangers that prompted the invasion but to those that resulted from it. Troops are being asked to risk their lives to solve problems our civilian leaders created. Mr Bush is beseeching us to fear failure, but he has yet to explain how the military can succeed, given Iraq’s tangled politics and his administration’s lack of credibility.

You can read the rest here:
http://www.thewest.com.au/default.aspx?MenuID=54&ContentID=40011

Give trees a chance!

I found it unbelievable that recently the Chairman of the WA Turf Growers Association criticised Environment Minister David Templeton for his sensible proposal to rebate home owners that replace their water guzzling lawns with water wise native plants. How could he possibly think that grass is better for the environment than native shrubs which have adapted perfectly to this harsh country over thousands of years?

Grass requires gallons of water every week, huge amounts of toxic fertilisers which leach into the ground water & pollute our rivers and it also requires mowing which sends more pollution into the atmosphere. I have a native garden which I planted 15 years ago which I have not watered for ten years! It’s spectacular flowers & trees attract many native birds including honeyeaters, parrots & kookaburras. 

I’ve noticed that people just don’t plant trees anymore in the newer suburbs. They plant palms & petunias, diosmas & pencil pines, or just about anything that doesnt drop leaves. In years gone by in the old established suburbs, people did plant trees, native & exotic, which has created beautiful leafy suburbs like Nedlands, Claremont, Churchlands & even not so old leafy suburbs like Duncraig & Carine.
In twenty or thirty years the new suburbs wont have any trees, just tired dilapidated houses with dying palms, pencil pines & diosmas!

The time has come for suburbia’s obsession with perfect green lawns & exotic water guzzling plants to end and plant our magnificent native shrubs & trees, that are perfectly suited to our harsh dry environment. This creates a habitat for the native wildlife that is increasingly losing more and more bush land to development. It’s up to the Government, local councils, landscapers, nurseries & the general public to start planting less lawn & more native trees for our future.

The awesome Playstation 3

I have just spent the last few weeks playing with my latest toys, a brand new PS3 and a Sharp 32″ HD LCD TV. I got the PS3 on ebay for Aus$780 so I could afford a few games as well as a second wireless controller. The clarity is simply amazing, a big step up from the old PS2. It has to be seen to be believed. It’s also great having the wireless controllers… no more untangling wires! I was able to connect to my Dlink wireless router after a bit of configuration ( it’s not as easy as connecting a mac to a wireless network, no where near it in fact), but after entering all my DNS addresses manually It connected and hasnt dropped out since.

You can get onto the Playstation store and download several demo games, a free Gran Turismo HD preview which is great, and I also bought Tekken 5 for $16 there. They then sent me a copy of Casino Royalle on Blue ray disc which is simply amazing in it’s clarity. Everything glistens and it’s just so crisp with beautiful colours. The Motorstorm demo is awesome and a great one to chuck on to show people the power of this thing. I bought NBA 2K7 which is a trully great basketball game with amazing graphics. It’s like watching the real thing, you can even see the sweat running down the players arms. I also bought Tony Hawkes 8 which is OK, Fight Night 3 which is a good one for a group of blokes having a few beers and a laugh at halftime during the football.

The best game I have though is Resistence Fall of Man. This game is just incredible, a great fluid feel to the movement, some really scary aliens to shoot and the sort of attention to detail that never ceases to amaze. I’m only a quarter of the way through it, but it’s awesome! Easily the best game I have ever played. I hear that they’ve only just begun to touch the surface with the current games when it comes to the power of this PS3 games machine. All I can say is bring it on.

Backup, backup, backup…

You know I’ve always thought that some people were a bit obsessed with making back up copies of everything on their computer. I suppose after having apple macs for many years that don’t crash or get viruses lulls you into a false sense of security. That was until last month when my main hard drive stuffed up and was unreadable.

I noticed a few strange things going on with the computer like high pitched noises and it was a bit slow etc. So I decided to do a disk utility ” Repair disk” by starting up from my original OSX 10.4 Installation disc to see if that would fix it. Bad move…

The hard drive must have been on the verge of crashing because it got through about 3 quarters of the way & then stopped with the alert ” Drive reported error: Sense key = Hardware error. Internal target failure”

When I tried to restart the G4, it wouldn’t get past the grey apple logo… Oh oh… So next I thought I would go get a new 160GB hard drive & install a nice new OSX installation onto it. That worked & I was back up & running, but it looked like I had lost all my data on the old main hard drive as it was unreadable. So I tried good old trusty Disc Warrior, which thankfully, was able to scan & read the broken hard disk and I was able to drag & drop my old user account onto the new hard drive.

I ended up losing nothing, but for a while there I thought all our photo’s, music, movies, bookmarks, emails etc were gone. Like a lot of things in life, you don’t realise how important they are to you until you think they’re gone for good.

So the moral to the story is if you have anything you can’t afford to lose on your computer, backup regularly… cause it can be all gone at any moment.

The fish surfboard revolution.

The latest trend in surfboards recently has been the renewed interest in retro style surfboards. Back in the seventies & eighties, surfboards were quite short & very fat( 3 – 4 inches thick). This was just a natural progression from malibu’s which were long ( 8-10 foot) & fat. Then came along hot young surfers like Mark Occhilupo, Tom Curran and later Kelly Slater, who all rode increasingly thinner boards for better turning ability. So every kid then wanted what the pro’s were riding, which saw the demise of the thicker boards which were much easier to paddle for the average surfer. So the average surfer had no choice but to get one of the new generation thin boards, but because they were harder to paddle, they had to get a longer one, so instead of having a 6 foot board, now they had to get a 6′6″ board which was still a bit more work to paddle , and didnt turn as good as the old thick 6 foot long boards. The whole thing has come around full circle now with the reintroduction of short thick boards that are called ” Fish” which are ideal in small waves up to about 2 – 3 metres in wave face height( or 3-4 foot in surfing terminology).

While most of the “Fish” style boards are shaped like a brick ( and turn like one), Darryl Wilkes from Western Australia has refined the genre with his range of “Pyg” boards that are the same shape as a thin shortboard, but have the thickness in the middle of the board for easy paddling. They are also quite thin at the nose, which makes duck diving under waves easier. These fish style “Pygs” which are attracting a lot of attention from your average recreational surfer, come with nice rounded tails , are 20 inches wide and 3 inches thick. Faster and more responsive than a normal fish style board, they range from 6″0 up to 6″8 and deliver unrivalled paddling power, speed and loose turning ability , especially with the optional VCS – Vented Concave System. Above all they are a lot of fun in small beachbreaks and a much better option than a mini mal for the average surfer. I ride one myself and most of my mates now ride one after they have a go of it.
For more imformation click on this link below.

http://www.wilkessurfboards.com/