A blog about nothing is moving...

If your bookmarks are for the old Blogspot address (http://parr0t.blogspot.com), you won't have noticed that the domain www.aboutnothing.info now points elsewhere. I'm hosting this blog on Tumblr now so if you feel like following me around the InterTubes, please update your bookmarks.

I make no promises about interesting posts (or even more frequent posts) but I do promise a cleaner looking site at least.

Bored of the dance...

I hate dancing more than I can possibly explain. I hate doing it myself, which I can’t anyway, but I loathe and resent the necessity to try. I hate watching other people do it. I hate the way it breaks up conversation. I hate the slovenly mixture of sexual exhibitionism, strutting contempt and repellent narcissism that it involves. I hate it when it is formless, meaningless bopping and I hate it (if anything even more) when it is formal and choreographed into genres like ballroom or schooled disco. Those cavortings are so embarrassing and dreadful as to force my hand to my mouth.

... and ...

I think less of no one for loving to dance. I am fully aware that, from the most polished society to the most, hem, savage, it is what humans do more than writing, ball games, praying, knitting, riding, singing even. They dance in the mornings they dance at nights, they dance in their trousers and they dance in their tights. The whole world dances. Except Stephen and a few others. So do believe this. I am not in any way, not in ANY WAY scornful of those who dance, I am merely describing my allergic response. I am allergic to champagne as it happens, and this has given me a very healthy and natural distaste for it. I could describe the loathing and fear I have of the drink, but it would in no way implicate champagne drinkers. So let it be with Terpsichore and her art. I am allergic to it, but I do not despise those who are not. I can’t go so far as to say that I envy them, but scorn and derision? Absolutely not. Just don’t ever look for me on the dance floor.

Stephen Fry - Bored of the Dance

Couldn't have said it better myself (except for the bit about champagne - I love champagne).

Too much clutter

Our house has too much clutter.  Want to know how  I know this?

Last night, I was sorting through my wife's pile of paperwork that she appears to take great delight in ignoring.  I had had enough (as happens on an irregular basis) so while we watched some Season 4 Scrubs (a Christmas 2007 present) I began going through it.

Apart from a large number of empty envelopes, out of date coupons, old newsletters and important notices, I found a bunch of Christmas cards from 2006.  Inside one of those cards was $50.

When your clutter is costing you money, you know that the time has come for some change.

Isn't that right, dear?

Representation

I have been eligible to vote since 1996. I find it interesting that for the very first time in my voting life, I will be represented at a national level by a government that I actually voted for. For the first time in my adult life I can safely say that the majority of my fellow Australians feel the same way that I do on the issues that matter to me.

I have spent 11 years in the wilderness, out of touch with society. It's nice to be back :)

Back amongst the living again

It's been a while, and so much has happened yet nothing changes.

In the last couple of months we met Tori Amos, I was involved in a minor car accident, the car was repaired (and looks better than it did before the accident), my knee continues to recover well (I have permission to start running again. Yay!) and Elijah continues to grow and amaze us all.

University sucked up every spare moment that wasn't spent either at work, choring domestically or playing with the boy. I discovered yesterday that the effort was worthwhile as my final assignment mark was returned to me, just squeezing me up in to the High Distinction category, maintaining my perfect record (6 HDs from 6 subjects studied so far). There is still a long way to go as my current pace of 1 subject a semester will see me graduate at the end of 2010 {sigh}. With a bit of luck, the IT skills shortage will rage on unabated until then.

Work has been spotty and at times lacking in stimulation. The new year will bring some personal reflection and evaluation of where I want to be and where we want to be as a family. Interesting times might well be ahead.

Chicks really do dig pink

At least, according to this article on The Economist (Sex, shopping and thinking pink).

Puts those brochures below into perspective I guess.

Boys versus Girls

Two identical pieces of advertising copy. One of these was addressed to me and one of these was addressed to my wife. Guess which one is which?

Getting it right

I'm not a perfect husband by any means. I'm often tired and grumpy, I can be impatient and I have a nasty habit of being sarcastic, glib and dismissive (all at the same time, mind you).

Last week the local paper had a competition to win an opportunity to meet Tori Amos and receive front row tickets to her Canberra concert. Anyone who knows my wife knows she is a huge (obsessive?) Tori fan and we have had tickets to this concert for many weeks already. I knew H. would be busy the day of the competition so I entered it on her behalf. A chance to meet your hero doesn't come along very often after all.

As a consequence of my entry, we now have two spare tickets to the concert, my wife has enjoyed a week of excited anticipation as she waits to meet her musical hero this weekend and, for just a short period of time, I have been proclaimed The Best Husband in the Universe.

See, sometimes I do get it right.

Alive and well

I've received a number of notes from people checking to see how I'm going as the nasty looking photos of my knee are the latest bits of information I have up.

Briefly, surgery went well, recovery/rehab is going even better and I'm making daily improvements.

Life is good (but a bit achy at times).

Feeling kneeded. Again.

I'm out of hospital and feeling okay (painkillers help, although they are a little strong). The worse-case scenario didn't materialise and I am thankful I didn't need my ACL reconstructed. In the end my meniscus was repaired (by cutting lots of it away) and the doctor punched a hole in the cyst that had also grown on my knee. Hopefully that will start draining away, too.

For the not so squeamish, here's the before and after...

Before

After

Slice and dice

It's official - I'm going to be operated on and I'm booked in for Tuesday.

I knew when I injured my knee playing football four weeks ago that it was going to be bad news for me. Straight away I felt something go and I thought "This could be it for the year." Turns out I was right.

The verdict from external examinations is that I've got a very badly torn lateral meniscus in my left knee, a large cyst (the result of significant trauma apparently) and an even-odds chance that I've sustained damage to my anterior cruciate ligament (ACL), which is kind of like the foundation ligament inside the knee joint that is very important for stability of the joint.

At best, I'll have a very large chunk of my meniscus removed (what is left of it anyway - I had a piece removed 11 years ago) and the cyst will be drained of the fluid and left to settle on its own. A medium outcome is that the cyst will have to be surgically removed (which is surgeon's preferred option at the moment) through an incision on the side of the joint. Worst case scenario is all of that mixed in with a knee reconstruction where a piece of my hamstring tendon is removed and used to reinforce the ACL. Across the options recovery to full fitness varies from up to 6 weeks to up to (and beyond) 6 months.

Urgh.

The whole thing is going to cost thousands, too. That's after rebates from Medicare and my health insurance, mind you.

Lots of funky (but ouch, my god, they are going to do what?) video and animations at Orthosports.

Braiiiins

Braiiiins
Originally uploaded by smperris

In Case of Zombies.

Threadless t-shirt birthday present number 2.

30 days later...

This is definitely a late post. I am aware of that.

I have been absorbing the lessons from my disastrous attempt to spend 30 days actually doing something...well, anything, really.

1. Have a plan. Knowing what it is you want to do has to be more successful than thinking "Right. It's Monday. What do I want to do now?", because that sucked big time as a method of achieving stuff.
2. Related to the above, spend some time working out where it is you want to improve. Fumbling and bumbling and guessing and hoping it will come to you is probably not going to work. It didn't for me at any rate.
3. Failing is okay. Not being able to get it together has shown me the deficiencies in my "plan".

That's it. It took a week to sort out, but that's it. Distilled knowledge, people. Lap it up.

In the short term I'm reacquainting myself with GTD. I had my GTD mojo at the start of the year but it slowly ebbed away as I get a little cocky that I was on top of things. I let my whole system fall apart. Time to rebuild it.

One of the unexpected side-benefits of this process is that my wife has started to get really down with all the clutter we have in our life and our house. We're slowly working on reducing the amount of useless crap we have accumulated. We have both greatly reduced the amount of paperwork we have lying around the house. The shredder has been getting a really good work out. I have also started to be a bit ruthless about what books I will keep and which ones I will get move on. It's been liberating, in a way.

All up, an interesting experience, and one worth trying again after a little bit of preparation.

"Mind like water".

That is the state I want to reach.

Days 27 - 29: It's a trap!

This 30 Days experiment has revealed to me a part of myself that I was only dimly aware of previously - there's a part of my self that likes to set me up and try and make me fail. It attempts to trap me and keep me down. I don't know why it does this but I am aware of it more than ever. It tries to lure me in with promises of change and success and excitement but then tries to keep me in the same old rut, doing the same old tired things. I need to change this. I also have to want to change this. I think the want is nearly there as well.

The last three days have been mildly productive. I did some study (that's going to be a common theme for the next three months); we both finally filled out those forms I have been blathering about for weeks; I fiddled with our broken camera and narrowed down the problem to the zoom lens in some capacity; I finished backing up the home videos on DVD; I checked out some second hand filing cabinets with a view to picking up a couple for the study/studio/computer room; I took the boy out of the house for a couple of hours to give his mother some much-needed peace and creativity time; and at work I individually numbered 200+ pages in my new files, in amongst the day to day activities that keep the machinery of government working.

Like I said, mildly productive. You can make even the laziest of days seem productive if you go to the effort of listing everything that you have done.

I might not have achieved all that much over the last 29 days, but I am learning a lot about myself and how I work. Trying to make substantial changes to the way I do things without a game plan is like leading my self-confidence to the slaughter. I hope to repeat something like this soon(ish). I intend to be better prepared.

Meal worm in venus fly trap originally uploaded to Flickr by blmurch. Used under a Creative Commons BY-SA 2.0 licence.