It is taking me a while to get used to posting this extra post on what’s happening in and around me each day. These are my ‘365 Posts’ for the Blog, where I try and do one post a day concerning my life, something I experience, etc – for each day of the week. I haven’t bee too successful in being consistent at this as of yet. Hopefully soon I’ll achieve it.
The problem is I keep forgetting, but I only ever forget what I don’t remember, and that which I remember I never forget.
The link below is today’s link. It is to a site called ‘Dumb Little Man,’ which provides tips for saving money, increasing productivity and generally making life that little bit easier. It is essentially a weblog.
Visit ‘Dumb Little Man’ at:
http://www.dumblittleman.com/
It’s another wet and windy day in paradise, so not much to do but sit it out. It also means I haven’t got a lot to type about (as opposed to write about, given I’m using the keyboard). So I’m going back a little and posting about some photos I’ve taken in recent months here. In fact, what I’m posting about today is one of the great things about living here in Tea Gardens, which differs a great deal from other places I have lived down Newcastle and Lake Macquarie way and that is the abundance of wildlife around here. Sadly we have managed to kill of most of the wildlife down around Newcastle, or at the very least drove it all away. Here it abounds and I love it being so.
I’m not talking about just the smaller animal and bird species you might expect to find in a suburban area, but even the bigger examples of wildlife also. Kangaroos and Wallabies can be found all over the place in this area and it isn’t unusual to see them bounding down the main street in numbers. In fact, sadly, you often find them as road kill on the main road out to the highway. Where I work we have smaller wallabies and kangaroos actually living in and amongst the homes, with joeys in their pouches as well. The odd Dingo can also be seen from time to time. Koalas are known to live in healthy numbers around the area – not that I have spotted one here yet.
Reptiles abound here also, with large numbers of Red Belly Black Snakes, Diamond Pythons (pictured at above left) and Tree Snakes readily found in the warmer months, along with Blue-Tongued Lizards and Goannas. I have seen some Goannas that have been at least 1 metre long. Some of the Diamond Pythons have been closer to 2 metres in length.
It is the bird life that really thrives around here, especially the wetland varieties. The area is rich in bird life. At work you can see on a daily basis Wattle Birds, Blue Wrens, Finches, various Parrots and Rosellas, Black Cockatoos, Galahs, Water Fowl, Wood Ducks, Ibis, Egrets, Spoonbills, Herons, Black Swans and many, many more species of birds. There are the rarer sightings of birds also. A Tawny Frogmouth (pictured at below right) has made its home near where I live, trying its best to look like part of the tree in which it chooses to roost.
The area also abounds in sea life, of various types and sizes. It is not unusual to have Humpback Whales sighted of the coast here and Dolphins can be spotted almost every morning if you know where to look. The Sting Rays are also easy spot at the right time of the day.
You do get your not so welcome species of wildlife also, such as mosquitos and sand flies, but I guess these play their part in the general run of things, being food perhaps for the more welcome members of wildlife society.
One of the things I’m doing down here, tieing in my interest in web applications and social networks, is being involved with the Project Noah social network. This is a place to log wildlife spots with GPS markings using the iPhone application, along with the web application. I haven’t long been involved in it, but it is something I will be doing more and more. It will be good to build up a more complete picture of what species live in the area. Others can get involved in recording and mapping the wildlife of the area here by joining the ‘mission’ I have started at Project Noah.
The mission I have started for Tea Gardens can be found at:
http://www.projectnoah.org/missions/12346009
Mylifelisted.com is a social network where members can list, count and share their life experiences. It seems a little odd perhaps to make lists of your experiences – what you’ve done, when you’ve done it, where you’ve been and what you’ve achieved – but it may be a useful way to remember your life to some degree. When you add locations on a map, add photos and comments, add the names of people who shared your experiences, the lists you form begin to take on even more meaning. So perhaps mylifelisted.com could be a helpful and useful way to remember your life.
Mylifelisted.com has only just begun and I have only just signed up, so time will tell as to how useful a site it is. I’ll give it a try anyhow.
I love WordPress and doubt very much that I would ever use any other platform or site. I also love Google and the many tools they offer freely in so many areas of online life and computing. As you would expect, Google also has a Blogging platform that is free to use and hosted for free.
Check out Google’s Blogger at:
I use Evernote and have a premium account to which I save all manner of files and notes that otherwise would clutter my life. I use Evernote as an archive to which I can turn should I ever need something that I have stored digitally there. It is a great service which I will be using more and more as time goes by. This is why I am very impressed with the latest improvements to the Evernote service and why I have decided to post on Evernote for my post today.
Evernote now has a ‘history’ feature, allowing premium users to view a file over time as it develops. A past version of a note can be downloaded just as easily as the current version of the note. These historical views of files are not added to the monthly upload limit that premium users have for their accounts.
Another upgrade to the premium service is that individual note sizes have now been doubled from 25 Mb to 50 Mb, which certainly allows for much larger notes to be saved and uploaded. The current monthly limit of 500 Mb of file uploads a month may soon be increased also.
It is great to be a premium account holder at Evernote.
This photo is of young, developing, elkhorns growing on the side of a tree in the coastal Bundjalung National Park in New South Wales, Australia.
Spring has sprung at Tea Gardens Grange where I work – not that this particular photo shows that really. This photo is a picture of just one of the many ponds we have around the village. There is also a large central artificial lake.
This particular pond is one that requires very little maintenance and that is probably because of the lower light levels, which means fewer aquatic weeds and plant life are able to become established. This is largely due to the many tea trees that surround the pond.
It would be my favourite pond in the village.
More Spring photos at:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/kevinmatthews/sets/72157622203247845/
OK – so this Blog is about posting a photo every day and the photo is to capture some aspect of my life/experience that I can share with others. Well, today’s photo provides something of an insight into what I do on a Monday morning at work, once every three weeks.
I guess the task that has been photographed can be seen to be something terribly mundane and monotonous. However, it is part of my job and something that is essential in the operation of the retirement village in which I work. It is also plays an important part in providing (granted it is a small part, yet essential part) the overall experience that is living in the over 55s retirement resort at Tea Gardens Grange. It is another task that is taken care of for the people living in the village and adds to that terrific retirement experience that is Grange living at Tea Gardens.
Is it mundane and boring? I guess it is a mundane task – it certainly isn’t a romantic task. Is it boring – not really. I have the opportunity of interacting with many of the residents as I go about my task, as well as interacting with other staff both involved in the same task or otherwise. Also, the surroundings in which I work are hardly oppressive in any sense whatsoever. So in short, it is a part of my job that needs to be done and is not a task I would describe as particularly burdensome. Sure, you can make it that way if you wish – but I do not find it that way at all.
So what is the task – collecting the garbage bins and delivering them to the garbage pick up location and then cleaning the bins afterwards.
Kevin's Daily Photo, Video, Quote or Link 