google.com, pub-6750398400224078, DIRECT, f08c47fec0942fa0

Simon's personal website and blog

This is where I write about whatever is going on in my life. Mostly family or photography, also some tech, sport, travel, blogging and comments.
Pencil and Paper Votes

Pencil and Paper Votes

  Yesterday Victorians voted to decide who would form the state government for the next four years.  The highlight for me was my 18 year old son, Josh, voting for the first time.  He collected all the How-To-Vote fliers from the various parties, lined up with me...

read more
4K TV upgrade

4K TV upgrade

  Eleven years ago we bought one of the first flat widescreen televisions with a digital tuner.  Prior to that most people were using a set top box to receive the digital channels, or persevering with an analogue set.  Many households struggled to squash a...

read more
Halloween – I Don’t get it

Halloween – I Don’t get it

Halloween, I don't get it.  Kids, of various ages, are dressing in "spooky" costumes, walking the streets, knocking on the doors of people they don't know and taking lollies (I'm not going to call it candy) from complete strangers. When we grew up, Halloween was a...

read more
Karla’s Lego video

Karla’s Lego video

Karla was excited to pick up her latest Lego project.  The "Friends" kit, featuring a Lego ferris-wheel and rollercoaster, had been on lay-buy at the local toy brick store ("I'm Rick James Bricks" in Pakenham) for some time.  Karla decided to use some of her birthday...

read more
Adelaide Road Trip

Adelaide Road Trip

My 13 year old son, Brad, is really into football and Essendon in the AFL.  As a treat to him, we made the trek over to Adelaide during the Easter long weekend to see Essendon play the Crows.  I've said many times that I don't mind a good road trip, so a quick...

read more
The YouTube bug

The YouTube bug

In my previous blog post, I talked about making YouTube videos with my daughter.  Now I think I've got the YouTube bug! Making videos Karla and I have started a video series on her YouTube channel of playground reviews, which have been a lot of fun for both of us to...

read more
Making videos with iMovie

Making videos with iMovie

Since moving from the Windows PC world over to Mac, with my new MacBook Pro, I've been on a learning curve as I find my way around the Apple operating system.  Overall using a Mac has been pretty easy.  Yes it's different, but a quick Google search will tell me how to...

read more
2017 AFL Footytips

2017 AFL Footytips

Tomorrow night the 2017 AFL footy season kicks off between Richmond and Carlton, but I'm more interested in Saturday night's game between Hawthorn and Essendon.  The Hawks are missing their big names from the last few years, while the Bombers have their big names...

read more
My stolen photo

My stolen photo

Last weekend we decided to have a look at a house being sold a few doors up from us.  During the "Open For Inspection" the realestate agent, Craig Currie, invited prospective purchasers to visit his website for a floor plan and more information.  We are 12 or 18...

read more
Coincidence, a new Mack and a new Mac

Coincidence, a new Mack and a new Mac

I've just realised the coincidence about my last two blog posts, a new Mack truck and a new Mac computer.  The common name was purely accidental. The big difference is that the Mack truck was on loan for a couple of days for work, the Mac laptop (Apple MacBook Pro) is...

read more
I bought a Mac

I bought a Mac

I've had enough of Windows 10 I'm sorry Microsoft, but I've had enough of Windows!  My home-brew PC ran fine on Windows 8, but ever since my horrible upgrade experience to Windows 10,  I've had no end of problems.  There have been so many Blue-Screen...

read more
I’ve been driving a new Mack Superliner

I’ve been driving a new Mack Superliner

With a few of our trucks in the workshop, there's been a brand new Mack Superliner "loaner" truck at work. The Superliner is very nice to drive and it rides very well, but most trucks do when they're brand new.  I think the woodgrain dash panel is overkill in a truck,...

read more
My other blog was hacked

My other blog was hacked

My other blog, Vic.Pics, was hacked! Luckily it wasn't too bad.  Thankfully I have regular automatic WordPress back-ups to restore from. I'd logged into the site's Dashboard and installed some updates, I then clicked on "Visit Site" for a quick look before I started...

read more
Talking technology with my 7 year old daughter

Talking technology with my 7 year old daughter

The hairbrush singing video my daughter (Karla) and her cousins filmed on an iPad Mini has prompted another video. With a couple of cameras set up on tri-pods to record us, Karla and I sat down for a chinwag (that's Aussie for "chat" or "talk") about the progress of...

read more
10 Years on Twitter

10 Years on Twitter

  So I received a notification from Twitter this morning, that's nothing unusual, except that this one said "It's your Twitter anniversary..." What?!  Apparently it's ten years since I signed up to Twitter.  If you'd asked me yesterday, I would have said that the...

read more
2018 filmed on my iPhone

2018 filmed on my iPhone

  I was looking for a video project last weekend, and rather than going out and filming video, I decided to use footage I already had.  I thought it would be a great idea to grab every video clip on my iPhone filmed during 2018, add some copyright free music, and...

read more
Christmas Morning Family Photo

Christmas Morning Family Photo

  Christmas Morning Family Photo Even though our eldest son, Josh, is almost 19, he's still with us and able to continue our tradition of a family photo on Christmas morning.  We started taking our family group photo in-front of the Christmas tree in 2010, when...

read more
I’ve shut down my Weblinks Website

I’ve shut down my Weblinks Website

  Early web publishing and bookmark sharing One of the first websites I ever made was a simple Blogger (Google's blogging platform) site to record some of my favourite websites.  This was a long time ago, before social media and before you could synchronise...

read more
Black Friday

Black Friday

  Just like in America, Australia had big Black Friday retail and online sales last weekend.  These sales kicked off a month of Christmas shopping, but where did Black Friday come from and did I personally pick up a bargain? Black Friday in Australia When I was...

read more
Pencil and Paper Votes

Pencil and Paper Votes

  Yesterday Victorians voted to decide who would form the state government for the next four years.  The highlight for me was my 18 year old son, Josh, voting for the first time.  He collected all the How-To-Vote fliers from the various parties, lined up with me...

read more
4K TV upgrade

4K TV upgrade

  Eleven years ago we bought one of the first flat widescreen televisions with a digital tuner.  Prior to that most people were using a set top box to receive the digital channels, or persevering with an analogue set.  Many households struggled to squash a...

read more
Halloween – I Don’t get it

Halloween – I Don’t get it

Halloween, I don't get it.  Kids, of various ages, are dressing in "spooky" costumes, walking the streets, knocking on the doors of people they don't know and taking lollies (I'm not going to call it candy) from complete strangers. When we grew up, Halloween was a...

read more
18 Months Later… My Mega Catch-Up Blog Post

18 Months Later… My Mega Catch-Up Blog Post

The key to a successful blog, so they say, is regular updates.  "Regular updates" probably means at least a weekly blog post, so not doing anything to this site for more than a year, isn't really good form.  Back in April I realised it had been 12 months since I'd...

read more
Karla’s Lego video

Karla’s Lego video

Karla was excited to pick up her latest Lego project.  The "Friends" kit, featuring a Lego ferris-wheel and rollercoaster, had been on lay-buy at the local toy brick store ("I'm Rick James Bricks" in Pakenham) for some time.  Karla decided to use some of her birthday...

read more