We Interrupt this Dystopian Nightmare for a Visit to Rippon Lea

It's time for some #AlternativeFacts. Trump is not President, Obama is allowed to have a third term, and that Simpsons episode from 20 years ago remains a funny satirical portrait of an alternative future America.

And in this lovely, lovely world, we can safely ignore politics and take our children to visit one of Melbourne's historic houses.

Our original intention was to visit Como House, and then take the little punt across to Herring Island. And after I talked up both to the kids and got them all excited* about going, I did the very basic internet research I should have done first and found that Como House wasn't open.  (It seems to be open on weekends again now, so we will go another time).

So, on this particular day (last Saturday), we visited Rippon Lea instead. (Read on to see some pretty pictures and experience the charm of Rippon Lea).

Tech Life: Build, Test, Release Adventures

For the past year and a half I've been working for a small and smart financial software vendor, which I love. I'd been inching my way from financial services to "the other side" of the software fence for a few months before I made the change, and I thought at the time I had developed a solid understanding of technology vendor-ship and what that work would be like.

But of course, you only know so much until you get there.

Living in a Modernist House

I recently caught up with a great two-episode series on the ABC called Streets of Your Town, about suburban architecture in Australia. It's worth a look - you can catch it here until 30 November.

Watching this, I suddenly recognised the first home I remember living in. It was a brick box with sloping roof, exposed beams and bricks, floor to ceiling windows, a split level ground floor and an open staircase, all nestled in a native garden and surrounded with a ti-tree fence. Tick tick tick - all of these are features beloved of the modernist architects of the time.

We have always remembered this house as an oddity - weirdly designed, a menace to small children, plagued with hunstman spiders thanks to being nestled in that native garden. But now I realise it was actually a modernist masterpiece!

Illustrations of (My) Life

Hello, and welcome to another instalment in an ongoing occasional series I call Lazy Blog Posts.

As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words. Here are some photos which I thought were a pretty good short-cut to saying something about life.  Or in some cases just my life.

So without further ado: photos!

5 Favourite Posts

How fortuitous that just when I dusted off my blog this week, along came a new Listography! Whether this marks a return of Listography or just a one-off thing, I'm happy to see it and immediately want to participate.  I loved Kate Takes 5's Listography when it was a regular thing - always so easy and fun to make a five-point list of anything.

So this Listography is Five Favourite Posts.

Halloween Party 2016

I don't blog much these days. But you didn't think I could ignore Halloween did you? A quick search on the word 'Halloween' on my blog turns up 22 posts (?!), including this one (2015), my first one (2012) and my Halloween poem - so it's no secret I love Halloween.

The Olympics

The Olympics are on! So I decided to write something about the Olympics.

I've written before how much I love the Olympics. I always have, ever since childhood, when during school any teacher who could commandeer a TV would set it up in a corner of the classroom for as long as they could get away with it.

The Movie Nut's Meme

Here's a short set of questions and answers about my movie history. I got this from Princess Pandora, who got it from Sunday Stealing.

In politics, I am extremely against extremism

Listen up, Australia. I am pretty sick of our recent political environment. We do not have to do extreme right, religious conservatism and introduce a sudden pro-gun agenda just because America does those things, okay?

Two App Ideas (please send money)

Dear Venture Capitalists, Developers and Marketers,

I have two great app ideas and would like these developed as soon as possible please.  Please note these are my intellectual property but I am open to sharing the millions of dollars we make on them under a reasonable arrangement.  Please let me know when they are ready.