Category: Newsworthy

2024, my year that was

Reading Time: 11 minutes

It’s amazing how quickly the years pass by.

Before the memories fall into a dateless mix of my life, or worse and completely forgotten, I wanted to chronicle some key moments from the last twelve months for future reference. I’m hoping my recordkeeping is good enough to support the new habit of producing a yearly report. My own State Of The Union.

Events

20/01: Some mates and I attended the Geelong Beer Festival again. Each year it seems to get bigger & better. What made it interesting for me was our dubious attempt to archive the event by recording videos of the different beers we tried, with thoughtful reviews which just got louder and less articulate as the day went on. Well, until my phone died altogether – along with my method of payment.

A mate and I also navigated a very creative route from Johnstone Park to a nearby bar, which I learned the next day that I had helpfully saved to Strava.

24/02: Pakofesta, Geelong’s multicultural festival (on Pakington Street) we lock in to attend each year. This time we had my parents staying with us, and as always we all enjoyed eating various delicacies from around the world. It’s our challenge each year to eat from more countries.

27/06-04/07: One of the most significant events of the year was our full family trip up to Queensland.
It was under the pretence of my brother’s 51st Birthday Party (as Corey & his family came down to celebrate his actual 50th birthday milestone with us). The night out at Redcliffe Leagues Club was actually a surprise celebration for our Mum. She got to see so many of her former colleagues, friends & family from various parts of Australia without having to wait for a birthday, or to put it morbidly as we did, for her own funeral where she’d be disappointed to miss the party.

We combined the trip with a few memorable activities, like flying into Coolangatta where we stayed and caught up with our old Dubai friends who had moved back to the Gold Coast, whom we haven’t seen for quite some time. We even went Go-Karting with them the following day. There it became very obvious they’re a family of petrol head / motorsport enthusiasts and my kids & I clearly are not. It was definitely fun tho.

Lewis, Owen and I stayed up in Qld for another couple of weeks as we had no work/school pressures to get back to. It gave us time to stay up with my brother on the Sunshine Coast for longer, and even drive up to Hervey Bay to stay with my cousin John/Jason for a night and explore the region a little – including a selfie or two with Mary Poppins.

It’s a little perplexing that we had such a great time and fitted in so much, yet I posted nothing online during or immediately after this trip. In hindsight, it was probably too daunting to do justice to such an awesome holiday. So I did keep the photos to myself and just shared with family. And we certainly enjoyed being in the moment.

Movies

It’s pretty rare for me to visit a cinema, but I did go to watch two films this year.
03/04: I kind of reluctantly watched Kung Fu Panda 4, which wasn’t bad. Just felt maybe longer than necessary, and predictable.

25/08: And Lewis & I went to watch Deadpool & Wolverine. It was such an epic movie, we seemed to need quite a debrief afterwards to check on some of the content & gags that we struggled with, which maybe only true fans might get.

Sports

2024 was a wonderful sporting year for me in many ways.

Brinky boys sport

Lewis & Owen both won their first rugby union premierships, after moving clubs to join the Wyndham Rhinos.

Lewis had another significant year in rugby. He captained his school team, who went undefeated to become Rebels Shield premiers of Victoria. He also became a key player in the Super Rugby Under 16s competition for the Melbourne Rebels in their final season. And he joined the Lloydies Aboriginal team with Uni of Sydney again for the Ella Rugby 7s competition in Sydney. His performances got noticed by others as well. A player agent reached out, and has supported him to take a new trajectory with his rugby. It will now see Lewis shifting to Queensland in 2025 to join in the private school’s GPS rugby competition. He’s looking forward to it, with far fewer hesitations than his parents having a first son leave home.

Myles’s Aussie rules team, the Anglesea Reserves struggled more in 2024. I think it’s fair to say it was a rebuilding year. And despite the coaches placing Myles into defensive roles for significant parts of the season, he still had a wonderful year and in the final match kicked four goals to narrowly leapfrog his competition to win the coveted leading goal kicker award.

We recognised these amazing achievements with our own “Sporting Legends” dinner at Squire’s Loft for the family. And we felt it important to reiterate that their successes are amazing achievements and not something we can’t take for granted.

My own sporting exploits were definitely hampered this year due to my age and a string of reoccuring injuries.
I “played” in both the VACSAL Basketball Tournament in Shepparton (09-10/03), and the VACSAL Football Carnival in Portarlington (05-06/10). But each resulted in me having pretty bad (and different) knee complaints.
At the basketball I’d put it down to me doing too much before the tournament began. At this stage I was playing basketball every week or so with the AMC (old farts) league, and usually doing well with 2-3 casual games on a Thursday evening. But while in Shepparton I thought it’d be a good idea to run from the hotel down to their ParkRun, do that & run back again. Then, by no surprise at all, after the 2nd or 3rd game, my right knee had enough and started swelling. We played better as a team this year. In 2023 I was frustrated watching from the sidelines, with the same knee issue the year before. But this group made it one game away from the grand final. Once we were done there, the kids and I still managed to climb Mount Piper on our return journey.


At the footy carnival, I’d put my knee injury down to me thinking I was young again and trying to match the athletic kids leaping high for a mark. My body has clearly become unfamiliar with such heights, and on the landing I hyperextended my left knee. I was able to play one more game very sheepishly, then sit on the bench for the final game of that day. Day two I had to play a couple more games, on account of our team lacking numbers. The correct taping of my knee joint by a proper footy strapper though made it bearable and allowed some pain free movement. Apart from those limitations it was wonderful to be out with our local Aboriginal community and have lots of fun.

Golf

On the 01/01/2024, Myles and I with another father & son played a round of golf at Anglesea. The scoring went a bit off, but it was great to start the year right by getting out and having a social hit. And I’m happy to report it’s become an annual tradition now, after we played together again on 01/01/2025. That’s been great, if we ignore that we all said last year that we should do this more often. HA!.

Myles returned to working at the golf course this year, and has taken more of a shining to playing golf in recent months. So with Lewis, we’ve played a handful of times almost weekly. It’s been lovely to see the boys figuring out their games and rapidly improving. Myles in our final game beat me for the first time. I’m sure it won’t be the last.

Sports spectating

When the kids or I aren’t playing sport, I enjoy watching most sports. I’d say I enjoyed some mixed results this year.

Olympics

Just five months on, I had almost forgot that 2024 was an Olympics year. It was hosted marvelously in Paris. There were many highlights, and sadly for breakdancer Raygun quite a few lowlights that will be the main memory for many. I see in my notes from the time, I made the most of the timezone difference on a few evenings to watch the whole Olympics program until our morning. Australia did amazingly well. The Australian team came fourth overall, winning a record 18 Gold medals.

Aussie Rules

The Brisbane Lions are AFL Premiers, after beating the hapless Sydney Swans (their 2nd Grand Final loss in 3 years). What a HUGE relief for Brisbane after losing the grand final the year before, against Collingwood of all teams. We couldn’t get any grand final tickets (for less than $5000). So we happily watched at home, well initially it was more nerves than happiness. The game finally finished 9.6 (60) – 18.12 (120). In many ways the grand final was an anti-climax after the Lion’s two preceding games needed massive come from behind wins. Being behind by 44 poinst against GWS in the Semi-final, and winning a tight contest again Geelong Cats (our local team) after being behind by almost 30 points at one stage.

Two months later Brisbane almost pulled off ultimate bragging rights, with their AFLW team also playing for the premiership in the women’s comp. Sadly that wasn’t to be. It flipped the outcome of the 2023 season, where the lady Lions won, and the men’s team lost.

Before the biggest day on the AFL calendar, I attended an AFL Grand final eve golf day. It had many promotions & special activities, sadly I didn’t manage the year’s worth of beer Hole-in-one. With so much on the line the following day with my Brisbane Lions, I had less interest in the game of golf and much more interest in contributing to the profits of CBCo, the event’s beer sponsor. It was fun day I’ll probably do again.

We attended a couple of matches this year.
07/06: Bulldogs vs Lions in the Medallion Club of Marvel Stadium was a highlight. We sat alongside some of the injured Bulldogs list in the fancy seats. Lions got a nice 40 point victory. It led many nearby Western Bulldog fans to quite hilariously complain incessantly about the umpiring which we viewed as absolutely perfect.
That victory was the first in a record nine match winning streak, which was desperately needed to get the Lions back into a position to battle for the premiership. And it was also the first time Myles saw a Lions win live, after him attending matches since 2018.


28/06: While in Brisbane for my Mum’s celebration we managed to catch Lions vs Demons with nine of us. Brisbane won by less than a goal in the final minutes courtesy of a Hugh McCluccage 6 pointer, after being behind from basically the middle of the second quarter.

Rugby League

04/04: In a pretty sad annual tradition, I went to see Melbourne Storm beat Brisbane Broncos down here at AAMI Park. This time it was terribly close, ending 34-32. A couple of mistakes the only thing keeping Broncos from achieving quite the upset.

17-19/05: I loved attending the NRL Magic Round again. This time I took two mates from Torquay up to Queensland to make it a boys trip. One of the guys had not attended a single match before that weekend.

Unfortunately in the NRL, my Brisbane Broncos failed miserably in 2024. So miserably, the powerbrokers realised a change was needed and Kevin Walters their coach was dropped, along with a few other off-field changes like club stalwart Allan Langer no longer running the water on the field.

And one the other 5 league teams I support, the Redcliffe Dolphins in just their 2nd season narrowly missed out on finals again, due to a final round loss to Newcastle. Though they had a fantastic season.

Sadly, Queensland lost the year’s State of Origin Series despite looking unassailable again after winning Game 1 of 3. That result was massively assisted by (new rugby union recruit) Joseph Suaali being sent off in the 7th minute for a brazen high shot on Reece Walsh. It seemed Mike Maguire the NSW coach was worth his money, turning around the series very impressively. Now that he’s the new Broncos coach, things are looking up for Brisbane in the 2025 season! And hopefully bad again for NSW for three foreseeable future.

Rugby Union

Last year I attended only a couple of professional matches.

23/02: We saw Rebels vs ACT Brumbies at AAMI Park while my parents were in town. The stadium lived up to its informal title as the coldest place on Earth. Sadly the Rebels got smashed 30-3 in the opening round clash.

13/07: And we also watched the Wallabies playing Wales at Marvel Stadium. It was good to see Wallabies playing better, winning 36-28.

Wrestling

11/05: Something entirely different, was when Owen & I went to watch Lucha Fantastica (Mexican) Wrestling at Geelong Town Hall. It was so much better than I ever expected. We’re definitely on the look out for when wrestling comes to town again.

Running

I was happy to easily complete another 100km per month, finishing the year at the Dawnbuster Fun Run on the morning of New Year’s Eve with a total of 1290km. This year I was less motivated to round up and force in another run. It was the same time at the Dawnbusters two years earlier that I learned how to find my yearly km total in Strava, where I had a meagre deficit to make a 1200km year, which I rectified when home with a second run.

10/02: The first event of the year though was the half marathon at Bellarine Sunset Run, which I unexpectedly joined up with my friend Gary.

21/09: The highlight event for me was Surf Coast Century 50km trail run. What a delight that was! Training went well with the Surf Coast Trail Runners, and it was a worry to open my eyes to the potential of going further, when in the final 3 kms we actually sped up and had plenty left in the tank.

13/10: I also ran the 10km at Melbourne Marathon with Myles and our family friend again. This goal time was reduced again to support Todd, and somehow I managed it – despite the hyperextension of my knee at the footy happening the weekend prior. I thought that was a sign the knee wasn’t serious. Nope. The physio clarified running in a straight line is easy. My PCL injury is bad with all other types of movements.

2024 was my most prolific year at ParkRun. I ran 21 events (in the preceding 6 years I ran just 37 times). It’s hardly a noteworthy number, with some people religiously completing 52 each and every year. But for most of the year I do have a clash with the kids Saturday sports. At ParkRun I enjoyed volunteering twice also, including being the photographer for the first time. It was definitely fun, although the whittling down & editing of 400+ photos was a mammoth undertaking.

Actually I volunteered a few other times this year:

  • Marshall at the inaugural Torquay Triathlon – where I basically just cheered on for all my friends out on the course
  • Aid station at Afterglow, which was lots of fun, and
  • Sweeper at the Anglesea Roo Run.

Health

I started the year with big hopes for being super healthy, returning to Yoga after many years off. It became a solid weekly practice thanks to a ClassPass benefit from my employer. I’d even pack my mat when meeting mates at the brewery, before walking on to my Yin Yoga session nearby which got a few laughs. A couple of knee complaints though put a stop to me wanting to stretch in non-mandatory ways.

Overall I think I was pretty healthy in 2024, given it’s the oldest my body has ever been. There was one further hip/adductor complaint in late July that had me painfully glued to the couch which required physio attention. The physio sorted that out without it hampering my Surf Coast Century training, which I remember being an absolute relief.

I am surprised to spot that I actually had COVID again in 2024, on 9th January missing the first few days returning to work after the new year.

One further blemish last year was that I donated blood only once. And that occasion was a #fail, with the blood flow slowing too much to continue in full. I sufficiently drank far too much water as usual beforehand to help, which I learned from past experience. But my veins weren’t playing on the day. There was a trainee nurse who did seem to struggle with the needle. And it was the week after the 50km ultra marathon. But neither of which should have mattered.

Reading

I managed to complete my 2024 reading goal of six books. Having a 2 hour commute a couple of times per week has been really helpful. I actually read 7 books, https://www.goodreads.com/user/year_in_books/2024/12648231.
I noticed in the initial Goodreads summary, one of my tally was a graphic novel which I didn’t even enjoy. So I fast-tracked finishing a more appropriate book before the year was out.

This is in quite stark difference to previous year’s reading goals where I included audio books, which I was well aware I had very little recall of moments after listening to. This was particularly the case while listening during a run, to manage the final book’s completion on the final day of the year.

And that’s a wrap

2024 was another great year that I’m terribly grateful for. My family and I experienced so many joyful moments & events.

It’s been lovely to review and recount many of those moments in pulling this together.

Here’s hoping, we all have a happy and safe 2025!

An update on Bella

Reading Time: 2 minutes

One week and a few days on, our Pomeranian Bella has pretty much returned to normal after being attacked and needing a vet procedure.

There were a few rough days at the start for all of us. Bella was in pain and lethargic. Myles was distraught from being in the thick of the conflict, thinking he should have done more. I suspect my own difficulties might have been minimal, but it certainly didn’t seem so as each day I wiped out the bloody ooze from her inserted drain tube, and cleaned her fur.

After a couple of days Bella wanted to return to the scene of the crime – so to speak. I took her to the school on a close leash the first couple of visits. Then we tested her with a few friendly dogs and it was such a relief to see her showing no fear, and no new aggression or reaction.

First visit back to school. I SMS’d my family, that she was looking for a rematch, but how do I update her (about the other dog’s unavailability)..

At home we may have even noticed Bella has grown more attached to us. Most of the time, that’s nice with her snuggling and loving more pats. When we leave though, her fury might have actually become worse.

I let the other family (whose dog attacked Bella) know that Bella is back and doing well. They appreciated the update, even saying it might help their healing process. It turned out Vicky’s injury from the bite was serious enough to still need more recovery time.

We were all terribly impacted by the events of last Thursday afternoon. It seems though, the physical and emotional scars, may be more significant with the other family.

Bella received her final medicine this morning – to combat infection. This was just as she seems to have learned the sound of a tablet being crushed up in a bowl, and training herself to come close and sit for the reward of a small bowl of milk. I guess we can keep up the reward bit for a little while longer.

Holding dogs close

Reading Time: 6 minutes

Thursday began on such a canine high.

While I was finishing my morning run I saw a Mum with a pram and a dog, dropping off her 5 year old girl at school who was protesting that she didn’t want to enter. I heard a chorus of her little classmates already inside, chanting something of encouragement, but the girl continued to hold back. The Mum’s body language seemed to say, Not this again as she began pleading with the girl. I got within earshot by this stage and heard the girl’s response, “I can’t go in until I get a kiss”. I almost let out an audible “Ohhh” witnessing such a treasure, the daughter needing a goodbye kiss from Mum. But I misunderstood. The girl walked back to the dog (who was standing dutifully by Mum’s side), bent down and gave a peck on the ageing-grey head of her black labrador. She then practically skipped through the gate to join her friends.

Later that day, events abruptly made me forget that joy.

My eldest son Myles and I took our dog Bella to that same school for a walk, like we do any day that I’m working from home. After she had her routine bathroom stop, she approached another dog and played her usual annoying (Pomeranian) game of barking at the dog to get a reaction, then run around or run away. I paused my kicking the footy with Myles to go apologise to the owner. Other people never seem to mind a tiny loud Pomeranian playing. I moved her on regardless, to give everyone – including me – some peace and quiet.

Her dog “friend” left soon after, then we stopped kicking the ball to take Bella around the oval for some exercise.

Bella always trails behind us. I’m rarely concerned. She’s well-behaved off the leash and never strays too far from us, and always returns. We then noticed a couple of unleashed dogs run up to Bella, seeming to want to say hello or play. Bella didn’t do her usual barking or growling to entice a reaction. She looked more cautious or unsettled, perhaps due to how close they suddenly came up to her. We paused to watch, as a third dog joined the other two, and I began to worry that Bella had no easy way to escape. I saw a lady was in pretty close vicinity to the three dogs, who were all probably 30 metres from us.

We started calling Bella to come back to us. But her tail was up, so I wasn’t too worried. Then we heard a rise in commotion, with barking or growling from one of the other dogs, and saw Bella was trying to scurry away but was completely surrounded. We called her more forcefully to come to us, but she couldn’t escape.

I told Myles “Run!” One of the dogs, a medium-sized brown & white Labradoodle began biting at Bella. Bella was tiny in comparison, and completely defenseless. She yelped out, scared and in pain, and I kind of noticed the lady trying to intervene. Myles arrived quickly to the scene and lifted Bella out, which seemed to free her from the Labradoodle’s jaws. It was only relief for a moment, as the dog started jumping up and latching on, trying to rip down Bella’s tiny hind leg. This is when I reached the scene. I screamed an obscenity at the dog, threw a poo bag at it, and kicked it hard. The dog seemed unphased by me, but it did retreat a little. That enabled Myles to lift Bella more safely away from the snapping jaws of the Labradoodle. The other two smaller dogs weren’t aggressive, but just as interested in Bella. The owner of the dogs was failing to control any of them.

I felt obliged to explain to the lady my fury wasn’t directed at her, but I had no choice as her dog was unresponsive. Our conversation could have gone in a couple of different directions. I was livid. If she had a problem, I was ready for it! She didn’t protest at all. In fact, she was happy with my actions and had already begun apologising profusely.

With the danger now over, Myles and I, and the lady started to talk through the shock we just experienced. I checked Bella’s foot where the dog had latched on, and was happy to see no painful reaction. We also saw no physical marks, so we were relieved to think the attack might have been ‘more bark than bite’. The lady continued to apologise, and tell us how embarassed she was, and that it had never happened before. She gave me her details – let’s call her “Vicky”, and mentioned they would pay for any vet bills to get Bella checked out or whever was needed. Also shared her fear that this event would be all over the local Facebook page, which seemed an odd concern at that point.

We then noticed blood streaming down Vicky’s own fingers. The Labradoodle must have also bitten her in the skirmish, but she deflected any concerns we had for her, and worried only for our dog. Poor Bella did have a growing red stain on her fur, around her neck near her right shoulder.

Myles & I were still worried for Vicky’s well-being. She was bitten badly, clearly in shock, struggling to speak, and almost at the point of tears over what her dog had just caused. We offered to help get her home, and make sure she was OK. But she didn’t want our help. It turned out their house backs onto the school oval. Bella & I walk past their place almost every single morning. She was clearly embarassed and was scolding & muttering her worries to the three dogs, all now finally leashed. Myles & I tried continuing our walk with Bella, hoping things could still be normal. It didn’t last long though. Bella was too shaken and the blood on her fur was starting to increase.

We have a friend who works at the local vet, who I phoned while Myles was carrying Bella home. I really just wanted advice whether her vet was open, or whether we’d need to visit the animal emergency – 30 minutes away. Instead, she kindly drove straight over to take a look. She shaved away the fur near the wound, and washed it out with a few items she picked up. We could then see there was a single puncture mark, just over a centimetre wide. It continued to bleed. Bella was clearly stressed from the attack, and nipping at some of our advances. We were hopeful though, at the vet the next morning they’d find nothing too serious, and maybe just add a couple of stitches.

I sent a text message to update Vicky that night, with a couple of photos that showed the damage. Soon after, I received a call from an unknown number, who turned out to be Vicky’s husband. He asked if I could communicate with him, as Vicky was too shaken up. The guy then explained that they were on their way back from the animal emergency themselves, where they had just been, …. to put down their dog!

I fell silent. Even though their dog had allegedly never attacked before, they felt they couldn’t trust the dog from then on. I said I respect their wishes, but it’s (DEFINITELY) not what I wanted. Earlier I wasn’t even clear myself, whether it was right to report the dog to local council. After the attack I deliberately stretched my hand out in front of the dog to check if I’d consider it a dangerous dog. Which I guess given what it just joyfully did to Bella, should be utterly conclusive.

The next morning at the vet, it turned out the damage was more severe. While it seemed like a clean puncture wound into her skin, the bite in fact tore quite long, length-wise parallel to the skin’s surface. They learned this after putting her under general anaesthetic. They cleaned the area, and stitched her up after inserting a drain which they hope to remove next Friday. The drain is even more disgusting than it sounds. It’s there to allow fluids to release from the area, and prevent infection.

Altogether our vet bill #1 was $1,280. Although the other family would be grieving the fresh loss of their dog, I didn’t hesitate to send the paid invoice onto them, which they promptly reimbursed. In our communications I asked again how Vicky was doing. It turned out she went to work to take her mind off it.

It’s terribly upsetting to see your dog wounded from an unprovoked attack. This whole episode was made worse, knowing it led to a family having to say farewell to their dog.

And to think, my day started so lovely, witnessing a sweet little girl unable to start her day until she kissed her canine companion goodbye.

Long-conspiracies

Reading Time: < 1 minute

Just when I thought I’d encountered the final dumbterances^ of COVID conspiracy theory cookers, they round for another approach.

Re-reported old news is that AstroZeneca has now withdrawn its major COVID vaccine from Australia. Their reason, the latest variants of the virus are more effectively handled with their newer vaccines.

But as always, the loudest with the least interest in facts, scream Blue Murder. Their paranoia hinges on the known (extremely low) risk of blood clots identified with the AZ vaccine, and that the company’s business decision is actually a clear admission of the true, severe, and ongoing harm of the jab^^.

Source: https://www.health.gov.au/our-work/covid-19-vaccines/advice-for-providers/clinical-guidance/tts

Do you know what has a higher risk of blood clots? The common birth control pill.

Source: https://www.webmd.com/sex/birth-control/birth-control-methods-blood-clot-risk

I can hear them protest again, they’re likely no fan of the pill either.

Well, do you know what has a higher risk of blood clots than the birth control pill? Being pregnant, and having a baby.

Source: https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/dvt/features/blood-clots-pregnant-women.html#:~:text=Although%20anyone%20can%20develop%20a,women%20who%20are%20not%20pregnant.

In hindsight, I think I’ve never been disappointed not hearing about the news. I should just ignore it all more often.

^ “dumbterances” is a portmanteau I think I just invented, combining dumb and utterances, which seemed useful here.

^^ We really need a way of highlighting / tagging text that indicates it’s what someone may believe, instead of something that is written as a correct statement. Maybe like if some text is being said sarcastically it can be italicised. With the rapidly increasing spidering of content to teach Large Language Models and AI, it’s essential we don’t teach the robots the precise things we are in fact mocking.

A tough watch

Reading Time: 2 minutes

I knew it would be a tough watch.

A recent episode of ABC’s Australian Story program featured the work of Mechelle Turvey, mother of Cassius Turvey – the 15 year old Aboriginal boy who was slain in 2022.

Cassius was the victim of a senseless, unprovoked, racist attack in Western Australia. His death shocked all of Australia and resulted in nationwide vigils and rallies (Wikipedia). As a father myself of Aboriginal boys of the same age, I clearly remember the story rocking me to my core.

The timing of this episode was sadly poignant. In a fresh story also out of Western Australia (this time Broome), video footage had gone viral of a tradesman that had used cable ties to handcuff and shackle three young Aboriginal siblings together. The three kids – ages 6, 7, and 8 – were restrained for almost an hour in the 33 degree Summer heat. The kids are seen in the recording screaming for their Mum and wanting water. And why did the guy feel the need to intervene and assault these children? He found them trespassing in the neighbour’s pool.

Against that emotional backdrop, I watched this episode, mostly bawling my eyes out.

Like most Australian Stories it was amazing.

I had heard that Mechelle Turvey took a very peaceful position when the protests began in Cassius’s name. There were definitely forces rising across the Nation which wanted revenge and worse. “Mama’s on a Mission“, as they titled it, shows just how incredibly warm and positive her response became, to ease those tensions.

Mechelle is inspiring, and a very worthy recipient of WA’s Australian Of The Year. She has even gone on to teach empathy to the Western Australian police force in an ongoing role. This is just remarkable, given some of their ineptitude they showed in dealing with the Aboriginal community.

There’s no way I can even fathom that amount of grief, let alone come through it with something positive and helpful. We also learned more about Cassius, and how he continues to inspire through his memory and the legacy his beautiful Mum honours.

Although it was tough to watch and hear about this episode again, I think it adds some important positivity to some terribly negative stories of racial violence, which is sadly not yet a thing of the past for Australia.

“.. That’s not going to fly”

Reading Time: < 1 minute

I was following some quite extraordinary news of a ship bound for Jordan, which was carrying 15,000 livestock, remaining stranded off the Western Australian coast. The ship apparently sought to abort their voyage, on account of the increasing security risks posed to merchant ships travelling into the Middle East. This resulted in a sorry state of limbo for 15 days as groups debated on the appropriate action for the animals. Today’s update is the ship has now berthed at Fremantle Port to offload the animals.

When I first heard of the story, I assumed I knew who was behind the disruption to the live export ship’s journey:

Giving your customers the Downward Dog

Reading Time: 2 minutesNever mess with your devout yogis or yoginis!  Behind that calm, grounded and pliable exterior, quite a lot of the yoga community seem on-edge and ready to go for your jugular at a moment’s notice.

What am I talking about?

I’ve been doing yoga for a few years, almost entirely thanks to the Yoga Studio App.
My inflexibility and devout maleness prevents me from venturing out into public yoga. The app works for me, and I’m sure yoga classes everywhere work much better without me.

But last week when I wanted to do yoga, I found I was locked out.

Gaiam, the company who acquired the Yoga Studio App, changed the business model to subscription-based.  The app now gives nothing but a sign-up page. All the loyal premium customers lost access to the content they paid for.

The effect was immediate.

The communication was nil.  But the outcry was massive!

In one day the company’s Facebook reviews and appstore ratings, went from 5 stars down to 1. And as the ratings reset with each new version, some users said they will keep giving 1 star reviews. Others mentioned, they would share alternatives on the appstore reviews.

Hundreds of nasty responses came to the company’s eventual tweet to outline what happened.  And the company cowardly replied to only people who had subscribed; not to the existing mass of upset users.

Some iOS customers quoted a breach of apple’s app store review guidelines, 3.1.2(a): specifically,

If you are changing your existing app to a subscription-based business model, you should not take away the primary functionality existing users have already paid for.

(My emphasis added.)

Others suggested this commercial ploy was pure ransomware.

I wonder if it was just tough talk in the hope the company would switch their decision.

I didn’t comment or reach out.  I figured common-sense would prevail.

And it seems Gaiam has changed their position.  Their latest message suggests they will restore the original content for premium customers, once an update is released.  Users would then need to subscribe only if they wish to get new content in the future – which seems fair.

Perhaps it’s too little, too late. Many folks have switched to one of the many alternatives.
I myself have begun assessing alternatives, like Yoga with Adrienne‘s YouTube channel, Downward Dog, Fitstar Yoga, Yoga Academy, and Asana Rebel.  They all have their benefits (and downsides).  It’s sadly just an evaluation exercise I didn’t want to do.

One the irate customer’s observations is probably correct. We might have all subscribed to Yoga Studio App if it was communicated in advance, and our existing experience wasn’t taken from us without warning.

We all learn. Sadly too many learnings, come the hard way.

Namaste.

 

Silver acts swiftly, strongly against Sterling « NBA.com | Hang Time Blog with Sekou Smith

Reading Time: < 1 minuteI was astounded to hear the recent news of Donald Sterling – the owner of the LA Clippers NBA team  – making racist remarks against black people. I listened to the recorded phone conversation, hoping it was just a confusion.  It was not.

It’s astounding that it comes from someone with such a long history of involvement in the National Basketball Association – of which it’s players are predominately African Americans.

The only comfort to this episode is that the NBA organisation took swift action in making an example of him.

In this day and age, there is no room for such intolerance.

The healing process may take some time.  At least it’s already off to a great start through such a strong message coming from the governing body.

Silver acts swiftly, strongly against Sterling « NBA.com | Hang Time Blog with Sekou Smith.

The Olympics selection business case

Reading Time: < 1 minuteThe “ruling” is in, Pippa Savage won’t compete at the London Olympics. A couple of weeks ago, Emma Snowsill also lost her “appeal”.
Olympic selection is no longer a sacred unassailable privilege. It’s a discriminatory process – potentially costing athlete’s opportunities, which is right for legal challenge.
Perhaps the athletes’ intentions are to make sure the selection criteria were followed in the interests of fairness. Perhaps their complaints are based on honorable ideals for a Nation to be represented by its best competitors.
I think such cases clearly demonstrate though, the event is obviously no longer a competition of amateurs. Commercially, it makes sense for the unselected to gamble the expense of legal teams, rather than miss the windfall of competing.
I think this trend is sad. Will people look back on our results and always wonder about selection choices and “what if..?”. Hopefully I won’t.
And hopefully the chosen athletes in the throws of training and competition are unburdened by their own concerns whether they are the right people to represent their country.
They’ve proven through healthy (often fierce) qualification events they were our country’s best.
This used to be more than enough.

40th UAE National Day

Reading Time: 2 minutesToday marks the 40th anniversary of the United Arab Emirates formation.

Although it’s been a short history, it’s been an amazing story of progress and prosperity.

The local Emiratis celebrate the event through revving the turbos in their hotted up cars to deafening levels, and by covering them with masses of crazy string, and snow in a can.

It was truly a lot of fun. We found a good vantage point on Beach Road, which at 6pm was already pumping with a car park of amazingly decorated cars in all directions. They weren’t literally car parks, just cars not moving.

There were so many amazing cars painted in the Red, Green, White & Black of the UAE flag, or adorned with patriotic stickers of the Nation’s rulers. No expats seemed to take the celebration to such limits, we at least had UAE flags hanging off the windows – like many others had.

It was interesting to see the local guys focus quite a lot of their spraying of crazy string on certain seemingly non-descript cars. We worked out later it was the cars of local Emirati women – which were only able to be spotted through the extremely dark window tinting.

Another trick the guys with snow in a can had was to walk down the line of cars that are stuck in traffic. Then when they reach a car with their windows down, they let the car have it and fill it with as much snow and string until the car’s windows close. I learned this first hand when they got me! I’ve never noticed before how extremely slowly our electric windows go up, when you need them up. It was all a lot of fun.

It made me think though, a night like that couldn’t work in Australia. Here no cars were spared, in Australia I imagine quite a few folks would be protective of their cars and fights would probably ensue. And the partying that we saw on show was totally alcohol-free. In Australia, the addition of alcohol – such as at our own Australia Day celebrations – more often than not eventually turns such large public events into a bit of a disaster, once people become too far gone.

The celebrations started around 6pm, but they’re still going now at 2:15am. We’re not sure what time this will stop.

Happy 40th birthday UAE. Thanks for having us and my family. You don’t look a day over 35. 😉

Here’s to the next 40!