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
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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,...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...