MikeFitz with overflow bit set…

Haven’t heard from Mike for a while?

Well, after a slight medical outage earlier in the year, it was decided to stick to Plan A.  Mike is here…

Full itinerary here.

Who said Facebook is just for the youngsters?  I don’t know when the Australian War Memorial created its Facebook page but a couple of days ago I saw this advertisement on my Facebook news feed.

Clicking on the ad took me to an Event page for the ANZAC Day Dawn Service at the War Memorial’s parade ground.  The Event page has an “Export” button so you can add the Dawn Service to your Outlook calendar.

Yes, I’ll be attending, and then it’s off to Code Camp Oz in Wagga Wagga.

Is this the road to peace?

I don’t think so.

Palestinian relatives of the Atallah family mourn during the funeral of six family members on March 2, 2008, after they were killed during an Israeli air raid in Gaza City the day before.
Photo: Mahmud Hams, AFP - via abc.net.au

I have a Facebook friend, Sana Ahmed who lives in the Gaza strip.  A week ago I asked her this question…

We see such terrible things in the conflict between Palestine and Israel. I’d like to hear what you or any of your friends would answer to this question:

“What has to happen before Palestinians and Israelis can live side by side in peace?”

Sana’s immediate response…

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… in binary.  That’s 32 years in decimal.  Mrs Fitz says you get less for murder.

Anyhow, Thank you Mrs Fitz for being the most wonderful wife and mother to our three sons.

Yep, Australia Day tomorrow and the boys are organising their annual Australia Day Pool Party/BBQ again at our place.

Check out the photos of last year’s party which was a tremendous success.  Dugie tells me that he and I both make it in the top 5 google images hits for “australia day bbq“.

I had to drive Pete’s car today because he borrowed the 4WD to pick up Andy’s batch of home brew from the bottling joint.  It’s all now on ice, ready to go.

The event was advertised on Facebook months ago. (Not publicly, though.)  If 500 people show up, I’m gonna hafta pretend Corey Delaney organised it.

’AveAGood’Un.

Being a true romantic, Mrs Fitz gave me half a rainwater tank for Christmas.  Being equally romantic, I gave her the other half.

But our real Christmas presents will be a trip to South America in May.

Mrs Fitz’s usual technique of exorcising her travel bug is to find a travel agent who knows the target area well and has good contacts with local hotels, guides, drivers etc.  She then asks for a price for a personalised tour for 10 to 15 of her friends. (Typically, 10 are needed to qualify for discount airfares.)  This is so much better than a regular tour where one waits for 44 strangers to get on/off the coach.  Better still, we never have to go to the guide’s brother’s carpet shop!

For this trip she has been working with Gary Tate of South America Journeys in Auckland to put this personalised itinerary together.

We now have 11 of our friends signed up to go, some of whom are coming from Canberra & travelled with us to the Middle East in 2005, others travelled with Mrs Fitz to China in 2006.   Last days if anyone else wishes to join us.

Who has the most enigmatic smile?

A zoom in to the original image reveals an imperfect shave.

#2 Son recently purchased a fancy new camera.  It’s a Canon EOS 40D.  He brought it over to dinner one Sunday night and these were some of his first photos.

While Mrs Fitz gets the soft focus treatment, I get quite the reverse.  Go to #2 son’s Flickr photo page, zoom in to the original and you can actually count how many whiskers I missed when shaving.

Also on his Flickr pages, he says nice things about his mum, but calls his dad a “hippy”.  Do you think he is trying to tell me I should have spent more on education? 

Those of us with Facebook profiles will know that there is a space where you can, if you wish, display your religion.  You can leave it blank, select one of the major religions or write anything in there - anything at all.

Up until yesterday, my religion box announced
  “Tolerant of all; except the intolerant.”

I thought that pretty much encapsulated my belief that, as a species, we should not allow religion to divide us.  Further, those who would use religion as a weapon to divide us are the most evil people on this planet.

However, yesterday, I learned from retiring High Court judge, Justice Michael Kirby, that mere “Tolerance” is not enough.

I’m a little bit suspicious of the word tolerance. It’s a rather condescending notion, isn’t it, that you tolerate somebody else. Acceptance is the notion that you just accept that people are different and have different views and we’ve all got to live together.
  - Justice Michael Kirby in a Sunday Profile interview with Monica Attard on ABC Radio.

I share Michael Kirby’s belief that Australia is uniquely well placed as a multicultural society and a multi-religious society to find bridges between faiths and if we can do that we can make another contribution to the world, as a tolerant, accepting society.

As of yesterday, my Facebook profile announces that I am
  “Accepting of all; except the intolerant.”

Could I have said that better?

It’s time we stopped thinking as separate races, separate religions even as separate nations. It’s time we started thinking as one species; and an endangered one at that!

This Saturday, I’ll be handing out Green how-to-votes at my local State School.

Australian Greens leader, Senator Bob Brown with Queensland Greens lead Senate Candidate, Larissa Waters

———————
Update: Wed 28 Nov 2007
Having manned the booth on my own all day, I was keen to see whether I made a difference.  It looks like I did.  Compared to surrounding polling places in the Division of Rankin, the Kimberley Park booth returned twice the swing to the Greens in the House of Representatives and about a 2% higher vote in the Senate.  My sunburn doesn’t feel nearly so bad now.

Reference: AEC Polling Place Kimberley Park, House of Reps, Senate.

Yep, Mrs Fitz and I are just back from three weeks in France.  You don’t want to read a day-by-day travelogue (hey, I don’t want to write one), so here’s a simple list of things we saw and did.  (Geek readers: scroll straight down to the sections on Technology, Battlefields and Driving.)

Art & Culture

Who has the most enigmatic smile?

Le Louvre: Mona Lisa by Leonardo, plus works by the other Ninja Turtles.

Musée d’Orsay: loved all the Monets, Manets, Cézannes; was surprised to see that the sculpture I knew as Rodin’s “The Thinker” is actually a disappointingly small part of a much larger work, Porte de l’Enfer.

& what we saw.

what he saw…

Vincent…

Vincent van Gogh: got right into Vincent - saw Starry Night Over the Rhone at the Musée d’Orsay - even bought the Starry Night souvenir tie.  Two weeks later we had a delightful lunch at the Yellow cafe in Arles which was the subject of Vincent’s Terrasse de Cafe la Nuit

Eiffel Tower: Great view on a sunny day but most entertainment came from the hordes of beggars, pickpockets and tricksters.  When they asked if I spoke English (their way of filtering out prospects), I responded with “Lah Shukran” - “No Thank-you” in Arabic.  That put them off their game a little.  We saw most of the tricks coming; “Did you drop this ring? Here let me see if it fits your finger.” - a thinly-veiled attempt to deftly remove other rings, bracelets and watches.  Still, Mrs Fitz came away without a glasses case containing her prescription sunglasses.  It *might* have fallen out of her coat pocket.  After a visit to an optician and an eye-test, she now has a bi-focal souvenir of Paris with lovely French frames.

Cathedrals and Chateaux

Notre Dame: Spectacular, yes, but if I’m remembering correctly, the interior is not as extravagantly decorated as the Notre Dame cathedral we saw in Montreal last April.

Notre Dame

Sacré Coeur

La Basilique du Sacré Coeur de Montmartre (Remember the scene in Amelie?)  More tricksters approached Mrs Fitz; this time with a loop of string; “Put your finger in here for good luck.”   My shout of “Ne touchez pas!” stopped them immediately. 

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