Megève’s a stunning place to see Snow and Ice, something I don’t know!

I’ve always wondered what it’s like to be in the Alps in winter. The cold, the snow, the strong biting sun but I’ve never had the chance, until now!

Megève from high up on the slopes

What we call mountains in Australia doesn’t really compare to what is the real alps scattered around the rest of the world. When I finally saw those mountainous rocks piercing the sky on my first visit to Megève in the summer of 1992 for my sister’s wedding I thought to myself, “these are real mountains!” …And as I left I wondered what it would be like in winter.

Now I’ve seen a real winter scene.

Megève at night

Coming from the sub-tropics, a real winter as experienced by most people is something that I’ve always wondered about. Sure I’ve experienced some cold moments in my life but never the ice and snow of the French Alps and all that it entails. It’s far too easy for me to have no idea what to do and how to live in this environment but there is also the fun of seeing for real what I’ve only every seen in film and images.

• My first step when I arrived involved sliding on the ice. (The ground isn’t supposed to be slippery).
• How do the hedges survive under half a metre of snow.
• Amazement of the strength of the building to hold tons of snow on the roofs.
• Icicles forming from dripping water on the gutters.
• Bitting cold that saps the warmth from every exposed or poorly covered part of the body.
• Snow that remains dry and powdery even after days of warm weather.
• Ice that melts (sublimates) to dryness without ever being liquid water.
• How much air is in freshly fallen snow.
• A large mouthful of snow results in very little water to drink.
• Ice is really hard to walk on in leather soled shoes!
• The comfortable inside temperature is no indication of how cold it is outside.
• Ice crystals growing on the snow over the several days of fine weather .

An Alpine Village

Megève is a quintessential French Alpine village with all the cultural aspects that come with that. The people are fiercely proud of their farming heritage even though tourism has developed into a major part of their community. The local produce from cheese to cured meats is of the highest standard and in no time at all you can indulge way too much of the good life.

Mixing it with the Locals

If you’re inclined and can afford it I would whole heartily recommend Megève as a place to visit and enjoy.

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Tycho
“Hours” (mp3)
from “Dive”
(Ghostly International)

Buy at Amazon MP3
More On This Album

 

Letting life unfold as it will…

What will happen, will happen and we can do nothing about it because we don’t have any control despite the illusion that we do.

This, to my understanding is the way of life. We live an illusion that we make decisions about all manner of things but the reality is every decision we make is based on the sum total of experiences that we’ve had in our life. At the most fundamental level we are our genetics and our totality of experiences, nothing more. And those two criteria are all that we are and every decision is based on those things. We make our decisions based on this criteria but who are we, if not our genetics and our experiences which drive our decisions?

Todays Your Story Addendum episode is from the departure gate just prior to boarding my flight to Europe.

I’m off on a trip to Europe for 2.5 months. Initially I’ll be in Megève in the French Alps as a guest of my sister and her family then I’ll be heading north to spend a couple of months in Berlin.

Did I make the decision to go?

On My Way to Europe

Well, I may think and feel like I did but the reality is I simply reacted to the situations as they presented themselves with the final upshot being I’m now on my way as I write this somewhere over Indonesia. But more to the point this trip is about creating situations that could provoke opportunity.

In my everyday life I have a routine of situations and people who are a constant with little variation and without breaking away from the status quo I’ll continue to have the same opportunities.

It’s crunch time!

For five years now I’ve been working on Your Story and Create Your Life Story, to learn the skills and develop the sites to where they may be able viable as more than just hobbies. I’ve tried a few things to develop them but to date these things haven’t worked and it’s time to see if there may be some other opportunities that I haven’t considered.

Staying in my home environment will maintain a similar situation to what’s been the case for these last five years but travelling to Europe may, just may, create an environment that is different and present opportunities that I couldn’t find at home.

Everyone who’s had any level of success will be the first to credit the good fortune in their lives that has lead to them becoming who they are (actually that’s the same for all of us, good and bad), and that good fortune could turn up anywhere. It’s just that if you get around, meet more people and be in different situations there is a greater chance of that good fortune turning up.

It isn’t choosing anything!

For me this is just about putting myself out there where opportunity may arise and allowing things to unfold. When we think about it, that’s how life is for all of us.

I don’t know or can’t imagine what may come of this trip. Maybe something, maybe nothing but as I said when I started on this adventure of learning how to podcast I’d rather give a red hot go, than stay in the certainty of routine.

What may come.

I’ve a few ideas for content for Your Story. We may get to revisit some past stories to see how they’ve developed over the last few years and I’m sure we’ll discover a few new stories. I’m hoping to produce both video and audio content and I’ll be putting it out in all the usual channels.

Since my last trip social networks have continued to develop and with the power of my new iPhone 4S along with the video, photo, audio sharing networks there is an opportunity for me to put out a variety of content through multiple channels.

If you want to find all the major social channels that I use go to About.me/IanKath where you can link across to see all that I produce over the next many weeks.

If you have any ideas for people to meet of place to visit in Berlin please let me know using the contacts above.

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Interview on GeneaBloggers Blog Talk Radio & Podcast²

It sometimes becomes a deluge but recently I’ve done two interviews.

The first published was with Thomas on GeneaBloggers – BlogTalk Radio about the advantages of recording a life story and how that will become part of the history for future generation.

The second was with Andrew at his podcast review site Podcast² which is all about letting you know what is out there in the world of podcasting and winnowing out the wheat from the chaff. Recently I was interviewed but Andrew about how I got started in podcasting and a bit of the back end story of me and podcasts.

GeneaBloggers

If you want to listen to GeneaBloggers – BlogTalk Radio I’m on from about 5:00 minutes to 25:00 minutes

Some of the topics Thomas and I touched on were:

• My back story
• Ease and cost of modern technology
• Laying down genealogy for the future
• Sharing stories with family
• Audio as a start for other media
• Advantages of recording before it’s a panic
• Leading to others developing an interest

Podcast²

Andrew and I discuss similar topics but get into a little more of the podcasting side of things. If you want to listen to the Podcast² I’m on from about 11:30 minutes in.

Let me know what you think of the interview in the comments below

 

Every generation thinks that it’s all new and then you see something that comes from the past in the case of this from 1940 reminding us that nothing changes and the same issues are around today as have been part of civilisation for a long time.

**Start and play both videos together, Chaplin video starts 54 seconds in.**

Although The Great Dictator was a film of it’s time this closing speech by Charlie Chaplin is still relevant today as we deal with the infernal War on Terror.

 

I’ve been a Tad Busy with a Flood

I want to bring you up to speed in this episode 26 of Your Story Addendum to help you understand what’s been happening, particularly in the last three weeks with the flooding of the Brisbane River and it’s impacted on me.

This Episode 26 Recorded Here in the Foreground

If you would like to understand my experience I’ve written a post about the Brisbane Flood 2011, on my personal blog about what it was like to prepare and make the most of a community flood but in this episode I just want to explain and remind you that all is still good and I’m still here although maybe a little busy dealing with my other podcast Create Your Life Story and a few of the issues that come up from time to time

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Back on Episode 50 with Kate Foy I used a track from Nick Hollywood. I was just poking around the web and I found a few other tracks  that you may find interesting. Here they are:

This track is from Swing Republic just in time for Christmas Boogie Woogie Santa

SWING REPUBLIC – BOOGIE WOOGIE SANTA by FreshlySqueezed

 

Talent, hard work and good fortune this is what made the success for John Birmingham

Sometimes we can read a book that has a significant impact on our understanding of things. To come to an understanding of what Sydney is… it’s history and personality, I needed to read Leviathan : The Unauthorised Biography of Sydney and get under it’s hem stained skirt to really understand just what Sydney was really like and how it got to be like that. Leviathan then gave me a whole new understand of this city by the harbour as I live there back in 2001.

John Birmingham

Leviathan was my introduction to John Birmingham and his writing style. A style that is entertaining while still immensely informative, pulling no punches from telling it as it is but with humour all the way, albeit sometimes a very dark humour. John is a local Brisbane lad, who grew up in Ipswich after migrating from the UK with his family in the ’70′s. He’s one of the  better known writers in Australia initially for his 1994 share house exposé, He Died with a Felafel in His Hand that later went onto stage shows and a film but now his notoriety is for his columns and articles in numerous publications including Brisbane Times and an ever extending long list of published novels and researched non-fiction.

In recent years he’s written the Axis of Time trilogy and is now two books into the Without Warning trilogy with the final book in the series due for publication in 2011. He’s currently rewriting a 10 anniversary update of Leviathan and is working on numerous other publications.

This man is a writing machine with a work ethic setting a constant budget of 2000 words a day five days a week all year. One book, one started,  columns and articles. If you want to understand how to write this is how you do it. You write!

His website is CheeseburgerGothic,com

He writes for Brisbane Times

Give his books a go, they’re a bloody good read Here is a link to his Amazon Page.

To automatically receive this podcast freely to you, click on one of the links to the left or search in iTunes for “Your Story.”

Check out my other podcast Create Your Life Story about how easy it is to record yourself or someone you know.

Join the Your Story Facebook group .

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Support Your Story by commenting on this episode with one of the social network sites below or writing a review on iTunes

Music is from

The Black Seeds
“Sometimes Enough” (mp3)
from “Into the Dojo”
(LOOP)

Buy at iTunes Music Store
Buy at Rhapsody
Buy at Amazon MP3
More On This Album

Kalpataru Tree
“Elliptical Sequence” (mp3)
from “Preverberations From The Infinite Future”
(Cyberset Music)

More On This Album

 

One of the great pleasures of having a blog is being able to be self indulgent  -  This is one of those self indulgent posts.

As you may know I dance tango for pleasure, a great pleasure! Sure I’m still learning after 3.5 years but I think tango is one of the life passions that is all about learning and the journey rather than the destination. To that end I’m slowly, very slowly becoming enamoured by this most wonderful of dances. If you have no idea of what I’m talking about I suggest you go and watch Sally Potter’s The Tango Lesson and you may get some small idea of what I’m talking about… But that is not what this post is about.

On twitter I’ve made the acquaintance… (yes that’s right, a small friendship that is possible to be generated on twitter), with a quite spectacular musician in Sean A McGee and his ElectroTango (read nuevo style) music.

I must admit that when it comes to dancing Tango I tend to be a bit of a traditionalist (it’s what’s familiar), only occasionally dancing the more modern styles of tango that have become popular with Gotan Project and Carlos Libedinsky. But when it comes to listening pleasure I adore the electronic blends that are this style of tango music and I much prefer to listen to it over the traditional (Piazzolla and a few other excepted) music.

To give you a bit of a taste here is a player of some of Sean’s music. Click away and imagine being in one of those wonderful milongas in Buenos Aires, like the image above, when I was there last year, and the rich tapestry that is that city, that is the very heart of Tango.

The album Nebulosa is out in September so if you like his music go and buy it… go on, you know you’ll love it

 

It’s been a long time but welcome to Episode 25 of Your Story Addendum.

I was chatting to you from by the river.

I thought it was time to get you up to speed on what I’ve been up to with Your Story and the new podcast Create Your Life Story.  This is 18 minutes of me filling you in on developments over the last couple of months so you know that I haven’t abandoned Your Story and what I’m hoping to achieve in the next few months.

Create Your Life Story

To automatically receive this podcast freely to you, click on one of the links to the left or search in iTunes for “Your Story” or subscribe freely in iTunes by Clicking here. If you use another Podcast software Get the feed here.

Support Your Story by giving it a Digg or Stumble from the links underneath and writing a review on iTunes

 

Inspired from Your Story a New Podcast is now Online.

I’ve been very quiet these many months here on Your Story.  I’ve been busy putting a few things in place, starting a new podcast and site.  I have been a little bit head down getting everything done so to speak.

I mentioned that I recently spent some time with my uncle, Bill Kath where I recorded our conversations and published them on his own site to share his Life Story with our family and anyone who may come along from the greater community.

This inspired me to start a new podcast to help explain how the average person can now record, edit and publish an audio Life Story, then share that story with family and the world if they choose.

I have always said that Your Story is a personal passion and I would love, one day to travel a lot more and record stories from around the world.  For three years now I have been learning and developing the skills needed to converse and produce audio while slowly going backwards financially.  With Create Your Life Story I hope to create a podcast to allow me to develop an income that will give me the ability to continue to produce Your Story while helping others to gain some of the amazing benefits that I have seen from sharing personal Life Stories.

The premise of Create Your Life Story is simple.  There are people who want to capture the Life Story of someone they know or there are people who wish to record their own personal Life Story.  These stories are interesting initially for family but also for the greater community, if only they can be recorded and made available, before they are lost, as has happened for all of human history.

I now have the knowledge from producing Your Story and several other versions of audio Life Stories to share with anyone who is interested in learning how easy and available it is for them to do the same.

It’s very early days but I have already produced a considerable amount of content to share that will give a lot of people a good start.  I have even produced a free e-Book to help you get started.

Please come over to Create Your Life Story and if you know of anyone who may be interested in learning to record and share a life story, either their own or someone else’s, please share this information.

 

A few years ago I was introduced to John Perkins‘ book Confessions of an Economic Hitman and was duly shocked by it and it’s revelations of corruption and manipulations of the economic elite to strip mine any and everything for their gain. Then his follow up book The Secret History of the American Empire: Economic Hit Men, Jackals, and the Truth about Global Corruption, which took the story of corporate geed for the American Empire deeper down the rabbit hole.

Here is an interview with Perkins about writing the book and the revelations in it:

Then when I was in Germany in 2008 I was introduced to Naomi Klein‘s book The Shock Doctrine where I learnt of the systematic  manipulation of disasters, created or natural, for the benefit of the same elite.

This learning lead me onto the rage I feel from understanding the incompetence and corruption that is the CIA revealed in Tim Weiner‘s book Legacy of Ashes.

If you have not read or heard of all these books, I encourage you to consider the information, as it will round out your knowledge and understanding. Tonight I came across this 2 hour documentary that will both educate and demoralise you as you realise (if you aren’t already aware) that the whole system is rotten right to the core. This sums up many, though not all of the points outlined in the books but it is a good addition to them.

Trouble is with this knowledge it’s not possible to unlearn it and once learnt it’s a scary thing to have.

 

I’ve recently been having some issues over the last few months with the podcasting plugin(PodPress) that I use to post the show. Because it hasn’t been correctly updated in two years it’s been throwing up all sorts of issues lately including completely stopping the feed or sending the wrong files to iTunes. Most of the time it’s been okay if you play or download direct from the site but it’s been getting very spotting over at the other podcast catchers(iTunes).

This has finally led me to have to change the plugin and that had a couple of issues in bringing the files across but I’m pleased to say that as of this morning when I look at all the files on iTunes it seems that everything is now as it’s supposed to be.

Cheers

The good thing about using the BlueBerry PowerPress plugin is that I can now put additional content up on the site with it’s own player and it won’t go out on the feed to iTunes. This has been something that I’ve been wanting to do for some time and I’ve resorted to doing alternative things that were not as neat as I wanted. This now means that the recent Episode 47 about Cliff which had the incorrect audio being sent to iTunes is now resolved.

If you heard the unintential additional content on iTunes for Episode 47 simply do this to get the correct audio of the show.

• Delete – YS Ep 47 : Cliff. Food Allergies and Cancer Treatment from a Life in Science.
• Un-subscribe
• Re-subscribe
• Right/control Click on the header – Your Story : How We Play the Game of Life and select Update Podcast

That will refresh the podcast feed instantly and the now missing Ep 47 should start downloading the correct file that was originally intended to be the episode.

Sorry about these issues but I’m learning as I’m doing and it sometimes takes a while to get the knowledge to sort out these problems.

Thanks to my daughter mentioning that the feed in her iTunes was not the correct file I was made aware of these issues and fix the problem. If you notice anything that is incorrect or needs improving please let me know as it sometimes takes a while for me to notice issues. Thanks in advance.

 

I’m not drinking coffee at the moment as it seems to make me feel a little jittery too easily so I’m discovering the joys of tea again and the most interesting a varied form of tea, especially if I want something more exciting, rather than soothing, is Chai. While recording the last podcast episode with Tiffany Bond at Chez Laila in Portside we enjoyed a pot of Chai which lead to a discussion on the joys of it.

It’s only been a couple of years that I’ve been making Chai and when I mentioned to Tiffany that I make it she seemed a little surprised but I explained how easy it is to make and how there is no one recipe for it, rather it’s an artform that is as unique as the individual, their mood at the time, the weather and the spices and tea on hand. However there are a few ingredients that are basic to all recipes.

My method is simple and easy, and I throw it together, let it brew over and hour or so to enjoy over the next couple of days. Tiffany asked for my recipe and as I wrote the email to her I thought that others may be interested in just how easy this is so here is my recipe.

Just remember there is no correct method and all and every component of this recipe can be changed to suit you but this is a good basic recipe to get you started.

All measurements are loose and dependent on how much falls into my hand on the day or my mood. It will never be wrong, although occasionally a batch will be better.

• 1 litre of water
• 6 cloves
• 5 cm of cinnamon or half teaspoon of powder
• 6 peppercorns
• 8 green cardamon pods (cracked open with the back of a knife or spoon)
• 2 cm of fresh ginger (sliced finely)
• 2 desert spoons of sugar(or to taste)
• 2 desert spoons of good black tea (I like Dilmah)

Heat all spices and let simmer for 15 to 30 minutes.
Add sugar and return to simmer to dissolve it.
Turn off heat and tea add immediately.
Allow to steep for 5 minutes(too long and it’ll go bitter).
Strain off all spices and tea, then refrigerate liquid for use as required.

I heat 2/3 cup of tea to 1/3 cup of milk in a small pan as needed.(add more milk for a chai latte).

I use Demerara sugar as I like the earthy flavour but also for a change I use Palm sugar occasionally. Not easy to get but very interesting, rich flavour. My favourite place to buy the spices in Brisbane is All India Foods, 31 Balaclava St Woolloongabba. Their range is huge, in bulk if you want and you won’t beat the pricing anywhere. Fresher and better than the supermarket.

Pretty simple really and don’t sweet the small stuff as far as ingredients go as like I said you can add different spices depending on what you want, bay leaves, chilli, nutmeg, mace whatever. It’s all up to you. Nutmeg is nice as is its cousin mace but a little scary so be careful with it as it has a lot of the psychotropic chemical in it, that is also present in nutmeg. I no longer use it as it makes me anxious and hyperactive which no longer suits me but if you want that “charged” feeling give it a go.

That’s it… Enjoy

 

While watching Michael Moore’s Sicko tonight on YouTube I discover the name of Tommy Douglas (1904-1986), regarded in 2004 as The Greatest Canadian. Now I don’t care who they are but if a country names a single person, particularly  a politician, The Greatest in that country I think there is something probably going for them and maybe they might have something to teach us. So on digging around I discovered this video animation with Tommy’s voice telling the story of Mouseland.

In many countries as the corporations slowly get hold of the governments to do their bidding and we end up with political duopolies where both parties are a subtle shade variation of their political agendas I think old Tommy may have a timely reminder for us.

Here in Australia after having a Liberal Government making moves into introducing an Internet Filter we now have a Labor Government doing similar despite making moves of moving away from such a ludicrous idea prior to their election.

To my disappointment the Rudd Government has turned out to be just another cat.

Wait for the coalitions

 

This is just an attempt to see how the WordPress app on the iPhone is as a publishing tool while on the go. It would be a great way to get content up while out and about but the thought of writing long text on this key board seems exhausting. However a quick comment, then a photo and a link would be valid, I wouldn’t want to do much more than that though.

Just to see what it’s like I’ve added a photo also.

 

This morning my good friend Adam Daniel Mezei who I had on the show while I was in Prague asked on twitter what I thought of the Argentine Beef and how much did I eat.

Mmmmm well.

As we know Argentina has a long history within the beef industry being one of the largest exporters in the world. The main reason for such an extensive industry is due to the Pampas, a huge treeless area of South America, much of which is in Argentina cover in rich grasslands perfect for grazing and fattening beef cattle.

I learnt most of what I know about the Argentine beef industry from the show episode that I did with Mike where he explained the difference in the methodologies of raising cattle between Argentina and the US. He wrote an interesting article on how the industry is changing in Argentina and the compromises that he is being forced to make. Suffice to say, what I learnt and tasted of the beef in Argentina is that it is different to what I’m familiar with, particularly in flavour.

I’m not a substantial meat eater, I’m not vegetarian but I eat a primarily vegetarian diet and add meat protein from time to time. My favourite these days is kangaroo for the health and environmental reasons but I do eat beef occasionally. Going to Buenos Aires I ate beef more than I had in many long years which was a bit of a shock on my system but as they say “when in Rome…”

I observed some interesting differences with the way beef is used in the Argentine culture. The retail of it is everywhere. It’s possible to walk into a small corner store and out the back someone is breaking down a side of beef placing chunks of it in the refrigerated display cabinets. At the markets huge quantities of it are just hanging in different stages of butchering as you walk past, next to the cheese and vegetables. It’s everywhere, raw and real, rather than in plastic wrapped Styrofoam trays, just like the old days.

When I say chunks that’s what I mean. It’s as if they don’t seem to have the elegant butchering style that I’m familiar with. It’s more like a cow has been forced through a course tree chipper and the chunks that come out are what you get. Random pieces of meat, fat and bone all to be thrown on the Asodo and cooked over the smoking coals adding more flavour.

I found the taste quite strong for my palate which could be for the dietary reasons I mentioned above but also as Mike mentioned the cattle in Argentina are grass feed, older and free ranged(exercised) so the meat is stronger both in flavour and in texture. I enjoyed the beef that I had while there but I must admit that after four weeks I was getting a bit over it and searching out alternatives. It was good to return home to a lower meat consumption but a great opportunity to embrace the culinary culture of Argentina.

Yes the Argentines love their beef, they have a lot of it, it’s a distintive style and it’s prime quality. I hope that they don’t go the way of the feed lots and maintain this resource in the style that is theirs alone. As for me, by time I return hopefully in two years I’ll be over the quantity I’ve recently been through and I’ll be ready to tuck in again.

 

It’s taken some time but I’ve finally finished the video of my trip to Buenos Aires in July. It amazing how long video takes to edit but it’s now here.

Like everything in this world of online media production I’m continuing to learn and yet again there are many things that I would do differently, especially while I was in Buenos Aires recording. However this is a good overview of what we got up to.

Enjoy

Please leave a comment either here or on Viddler. I’m interested in your feed back

 

Argentine Libertarians

While sitting in the airport waiting to head back to my home in Australia I thought that it was time to share my thoughts on my time in Buenos Aires, it’s time for a wrap up on my visit. So I pulled out my Zoom H4 here they are, additional to the last Your Story Addendum where I sat down with my friends to give you an overview.

I also mention that I spent some time the night before with some Libertarians who mentioned  some interesting political points.  I would have loved to have recorded some of these conversations but alas it’s not possible on this trip and hopefully by staying in touch with them through some of their online systems, when I return I will have the opportunity to share some political stories and history of this once and maybe future great country.

 

Welcome To Episode 20 of Your Story Addendum.

As today is Anzac Day I thought I’d do a recording of the dawn service to share with you a little of the atmosphere of the morning. If your an Australian and you’ve never been to a Dawn Service give yourself the experience, at least once, if your from elsewhere here is a little of what it’s like.

The Eternal Flame

I’ve been attending the Anzac Day Dawn service in county towns and city squares for fifteen or twenty years and I’m always moved by the spirit of the occasion however I don’t understand why I feel the need to attend and why it always brings a lump to my throat and a tear to my eye. I seem to have a deep intimacy with the spirit of World War One and find that attending the Dawn Service quite cathartic. It’s just one of those things that I feel compelled to do.

Brisbane Dawn Service

At 4:28 am the city is still asleep and although there are many thousands of people in the small Anzac square I find the quiet of the service extraordinary so much so that you can still hear a cough across the square.

I mentioned that the ABC has build an amazing site for Anzac Day which shows the events that happened on 25 April 1915.

To automatically receive this podcast freely to you, click on one of the links to the left or search in iTunes for “Your Story.”

Subscribe freely in iTunes by Clicking here.
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In 2002  I was walking along Oxford Street in Woollahra, Sydney when I spyed in the window of a store an Atomic Coffee Maker. I spun on my heels and headed inside Bon Trading to meet the wonderful Rita.

Rita is one of these indomitable mature women who you know will go on forever and has a friendly chatty nature. I asked if I could buy the Atomic in the window but unfortunately she told me that it was for display purposes only as they were waiting on stock. However she was expecting an order probably before Christmas and she could put me on the waiting list.

My Atomic

WoooHooo, I thought I’ve always wanted an Atomic and if all goes well I should have one in a few months.

Well I didn’t hear from them that year or the next or the several few years after that. Often when I was in Sydney working on a film I would drop in and see Rita and ask when the shipment was due and she assured me that if all goes well they should arrive in the next six or maybe twelve months…

Over the years I have seen them occasionally in second hand shops in Sydney but no one in Melbourne seems to know of them and only occasionally would I meet someone in Brisbane who understood what they were. Eventually I got the word that the high quality Lifeline store in Brisbane had one in stock. That was a target for me.

I walked in and there it was in all it’s polished glory. In as new condition as a secound hand Atomic could be. The price $350 was reasonable for Brisbane. In Sydney it would have been more like $500 – $700. Well I wanted one, so this was the one and here it is now these 3 years making me my daily coffees. It’s taken a while to get to know how to use it but I now make brilliant coffees with my Atomic.

Then out of the blue I get this call today from Ray at Bon Trading saying that they now have stock in and would I still be interested in getting an Atomic. Seven years after putting my name on that slip of paper, thinking that I had been long forgotten I get the call.

Bon Trading now has Atomic Coffee Makers in stock.

So if you’ve ever wanted the original 1947 designed Atomic they are now available. I’m okay I have mine but if you want to contact them say hello to Rita and mention that you read this.

Bon Trading www.bontradingco.com.au

sales@bontradingco.com.au

12-14 Oxford Street

Woollahra 2025

02 93312007

UPDATE: In homage to this classic design the full story of OTTO, inspired by The Atomic, is now a podcast episode in Ep 63 : Craig. Creating the Best Stove Top Espresso Machine from a Classic

 

Have you ever thought about doing something for the greater community? Have you ever considered donating blood?

I first gave blood back when I was only 19. I didn’t initially do it out of generosity but because I was able to do it during work time and they gave us a free lunch of as much as we could eat. As a 19 year old with a ravenous appetite I made sure I filled up.

After a short while of doing a couple of donations I realised that I was actually doing something good for the community so I’ve continued now for 30 years. I wouldn’t say I’m a regular, my lifestyle doesn’t enable me to make that sort of commitment but when I have the time I often pop into the local blood service where I might be living and give.

Whole blood can only be donated every 3 months to enable time for the body to regenerate so if I had been regular I could have only made a maximum of 120 donations to date. As it is I’ve just clocked up 45 donations so you can see how irregular I am. But hey it’s 45 donations and every bit helps.

All these years I’ve been donating whole blood but my last visit 6 weeks ago I gave plasma for the first time and today I donated plasma and platelets for the first time.

The procedure takes quite a bit longer, for me about an hour hooked up to the machine whereas for whole blood I can normally fill a bag in under 10 minutes. However plasma and platelets can be donated every 3 weeks and are very highly valued as it requires more of a commitment and the platelets have a shelf life of only 5 days.

Here is a little video of me being jabbed and hooked up to the machine to give you a bit of an idea. Thanks Shelly

If you want to do something for the community that costs you nothing but your time consider donating. There are blood services all over the place, it’s a pleasant way to chill for a while and they give you something to drink and eat. Maybe you’ll even get an ice cream like I received today.

Go on you’ll feel good for doing it.

 

Recently Cameron Reilly invited me to discuss a few things on Polyamory with him and anyone who wanted to call in on his G’Day World Live Podcast. We had an initial conversation with Nick Beaugeard regarding some of his climate change  skepticism then I had a bit of a rave about my thoughts on Polyamory into which Kate Edwards came along for the ride.

I’ve mentioned these same points in a previous post so I won’t go into them here but if you want to read in detail my thought on it feel free to go back to the post and get back to me if you want to have a rave.

Just one brief point. Polyamory is about allowing people to have the freedom to choose the life they want and that being the case, the life some people want is to not be free therefore if you care for someone the ultimate gift is to give them that freedom. And yes that was intended to be contradictory. Life is like that often.

 

Recently I was in Sydney and I was invited by Brenden Wood to explain what I’m doing here with your story. If your interested in hearing the story of Ian Kath and Your Story from the other side of the microphone go to Is It Possible to Make Money Online where we sit and have a chat about things so far.

I d like to thank Brenden for the chance to have a rave about the things that I care about and to experence it from the other side

 

Welcome To Episode 19 of Your Story Addendum.

Hello all. I’m in Sydney catching up with friends, making new friends and recording a few podcast episodes so I thought, as I like to do, give you a quick opinion of my thoughts of Sydney and a few of the things that I’m up to.

This is short and sweet little episode and just dropping in basically to say Hello.

To automatically receive this podcast freely to you, click on one of the links to the left or search in iTunes for “Your Story.”

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Support Your Story by giving it a Digg or Stumble from the links under the heading for this episode or writing a review on iTunes

 

As it’s now the end of 2008 I thought I’d just like to reflect briefly and thank everyone who has been on this journey with me.

Thanks Nikki J

I had only just launched the podcast at the start of the year. Since then I’ve posted 30 Your Story Episodes  and 18 Addendum Episodes. Along with many blog posts about the things that interest me. I’m reasonably happy with that

Initially I was still struggling a great deal with the technology but I had a few goals of what I wanted to achieve and I had a strategy in order to achieve them.

They were to finance the equipment that I needed to be able to travel and post episodes. Then I wanted to test the methodology with a trip to Melbourne in preparation for the eventually trip to Europe. And what a wonderful experience that was. I meet, recorded and spent time with wonderful people in Berlin, Prague, Vannes, Paris and London. That experience is here on this site if you want to explore it along with links to my flickr account.

The surprise is, I’m amazed at the depth of friendship that I have achieved through the social networking aspect of the Internet particularly twitter which enabled me to connect with so many interesting people through #TUBS here in Australia but also to connect with people interstate and internationally, some of whom I have meet personally during my travels. Also as I spend time talking internationally I’ve noticed and  I commented just the other day how I’m now starting to think in international timezones and can happily say good morning in my evening. Rather bazaar. Is this what a global citizen is?

As for next year I have a few ideas to change my income earning to include these new technologies and another trip overseas but more on that as it evolves.

To those of you who care, thanks for being here for me, it’s not always easy to work in the vacuum of producing a podcast but the occasional comment does more than you can imagine to motivate me.

And to the people I’ve meet, some of whom I’ve recorded, thanks for you involvement, it’s been a great ride so far, I’m interested to know where it’s gong.

Here Comes 2009… Stay tuned…