Well, yesterday (Sunday) was an open Blues Jam session
at a local sports club. Seeing as I haven't played in a band for over
15 years now, I thought it would be a good idea to go along and dust off
a few cobwebs. Well, lets just say that the cobwebs are there to stay.
I wasn't 100% happy with my performance, but the star of the show was
towards the end of the afternoon when my son Jordan (10) got up with my
guitar and jammed along to a couple of tracks. He blew the crowd away,
and I am not too proud to say that he actually played better than me.

If he keeps up this whole guitar thing, I daresay he will be a far
better musician than his old man ever was...

A couple of months ago, I decided to build a guitar effect pedal -
specifically a 'Fuzz Pedal' based on the old 1960's germanium fuzz pedal
as used by Jimi Hendrix and others. I sourced the parts from various
places on the internet. Rumour has it that the germanium transistors in
the unit (that I purchased from Bulgaria) were sourced from old Soviet
bombers!

Anyhow, after I had finished building and testing it, I was considering
what colour to paint the box, but before I could do anything, my wife
grabbed it and spent two nights decorating it to match the theme of one
of my favourite movies - Hott Fuzz. What better name for a fuzz pedal
than "Hot Fuzz"?

It features three of my favourite British comedians - Simon Pegg, Nick
Frost and of course Bill Bailey. Please note that all the 'cutting and
pasting' was done by hand - using a pair of scissors. Including the
replacement of the guns in their hands with guitars. No computer
manipulation here at all.

Back around 1982 or 1983, I clearly remember sitting with my best friend Ian in high school, shooting the breeze about rock bands.  Ian had got me interested in a lot of classic bands such as Whitesnake, Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple.  At that stage, Deep Purple had just broken up for the nth time, and we were lamenting that we would never see them in action at a live show.  I vowed then that if the chance ever came up to see them, I would go all out.

This past weekend, we decided to do a family road trip to Kakadu National Park, and stay at Cooinda which is near Yellow Waters.  We spent 4 blissful days getting back to nature.  Highlight of the trip was going and climbing around the base of Nourlangie Rock, a very powerful, spiritual place for the Aboriginal people.  The last time I was at Nourlangie was 20 years ago, during the Darwin International Guitar Festival, when John Williams and the Darwin Symphony Orchestra played a concert at the rock - it was spectacular.

Once again, I am in the fantastic coastal town of Eden, NSW for the annual Clarion Developers Conference.  As well as learning about top level development techniques, we get to enjoy the scenery around this beautiful town.  Everyone here is so friendly and generous.  These pictures were snapped with my iPhone whilst walking around the coast this morning.

Earlier this week, Jordan, my 9 year old son
and I embarked on a project dubbed "Project Walker" (*for the ghost who
walks). Basically, we took one of his old, plain black guitars, and
decided to 'upgrade' it by decorating it with Phantom comic artwork.
 
We chose "Mystery at Pendragon House" for the comic, and at the same
time, we decided to change to fretboard inlays to Steve Vai's "Tree of
Life" pattern - now that took some work!.
 
Seen here are the results of our efforts - not bad for a first time, but
we learned a lot of things to do differently next time...now to find a
cheap guitar on eBay! :)

It's Navy Week in Darwin at the moment, and as
part of the event, the local patrol boat base at HMAS Coonawarra was
opened to the public to come down and have a gander at the boats. We
got to crawl all around HMAS Pirie, as well as talk to the sailors and
support crew and have a look at some of the weapons they handle.
 
These boats are used 90% of the time to stop illegal fishing in our
waters. They carry a crack boarding party (essentially commandos) that
regularly intercept and board Indonesian and other foreign vessels that
are conducting fishing within our 200 mile nautical limit. There was a
demonstration of their boarding techniques during the day, and I must
say, if I was an illegal Indonesian fisherman, I would NOT be messing
with these guys anytime soon!

 

This morning, the boys and I were lucky enough to be invited to RAAF Base Darwin to view a
squadron of F/A-18 Hornets that were in town for an exercise with the
USAF. Thanks to Daniella and Boyd, we got to meet David, one of the
plane captains, and he spent some time showing us around a couple of
aircraft that were undergoing maintenance in one of the hard dispersals
on base.
 
I thought I was a bit of an expert on these things, but David proved
that I still have a lot to learn. We spoke at length about the weapons
systems, the future of the Hornets in the RAAF and many other things.
For instance, did you know the cannon on the Hornet can fire approx. 100
rounds per second? And that they only carry enough ammo for a 6 second
burst? Because of the firing speed, the shells are electronically
discharged, i.e. not with a traditional manual firing pin.
 
I also did not know that the Hornet can fire weapons at a 'High Alpha'
(approx. 35 degrees nose up) and is one of the only aircraft in the
world that can do that?
 
We would like to thank David, Boyd and Daniella for giving us their time
during a busy exercise to show me and boys around. I think I was way
more excited than my sons to be honest. Jordan also presented David
with a hand drawn F/A-18 as a thank you present.

 

We have a tradition at our household, where on any immediate family
member's birthday morning, we set out a 'Birthday Table', with a nice
tablecloth, flowers, candles and all the presents laid out on it. We
take about half an hour out on that morning to spend time around the
table having a special breakfast and opening presents. We have even
been late for school on more than one occassion as the birthday table
ritual comes first.

 Today would have been my Dad's 79th birthday - however as most of you
know, he sadly passed away 6 weeks ago. Nevertheless, my lovely wife
and sons decided to make up a special birthday table for him in his
honour, and the family have decided to carry on this tradition in the
years to come. (NB: the tablecloth on his table this morning is
actually one of mum's old sari's).

 Happy Birthday Dad, wherever you are - and may you still be watching
over all of your grandchildren as they grow up!

> In > e > ar > ly > M > ay > 2 > 00 > 9 > wa > s the 'Seabreeze Festival' here in
Darwin - where about 2 km of foreshore is converted into a fairground
with lots of stalls and entertainment for the locals for the whole week.
This year, Jordan's band, "The Rockers" played during the opening acts
at 3pm on the Saturday afternoon.

 Jordan is seen playing his favourite Gibson SG (a'la Angus Young),
through MY Boogie amp (!). A good gig all in all, and we were
approached by a producer guy at the end who gave us his number. We'll
see if he contacts us for a recording contract! :)

 Next gig for "The Rockers" is at the Royal Darwin Show in late July.