The Frying Dutchman

Two Guys From Kabul

Just upgraded to WordPress 2.5 and thought I’d attempt a post to try out the install…

The image above is a drawing a friend did of the band I was was in back in 1995. We were called “The Frying Dutchman” and played at the Punters Club in the RMIT heats of the National Campus Band Competition. Hard to believe it’s been more than 12 years…

Anyway… came across the drawing when I was looking for my music books after I bought myself an acoustic guitar a few weeks ago… thought I’d share it.

Prolonged Hiatus is Over

I’m Back.

Those of you that haven’t given up checking this site, or your feeds subscription may have been wondering where I’ve been. Hell, those of you that have stopped checking were probably thinking the same until they gave up on me and removed me from their blogrolls and bloglines feeds list.

Well, I’m here, back if you will, to let you in on a little secret… I’ve been busy… mucho busy.

“Yeah, yeah… heard it all before”

No… seriously. I have been VERY busy, in all aspects of my life… and this blog has suffered for the last 6 months because of it.

Now, I plan of back-filling the blog with some information about what I’ve been up to…

  1. To record what I’ve been doing; and
  2. To get rid of that ugly lacuna in my Monthly Archives

Now, those of you still with me may have noticed some changes to the look of the site… and this site make-over has been on the cards for some time. Like my blogging, it has suffered because of the unbelievable “degree of busy” I’ve been experiencing this year (and for some time prior too, I must add). Well, I decided to say “to hell with it” on a few of my other commitments for an evening or two and get this design up and running, and to implement some useful plugins which will facilitate regular postings here. A post on the new design and plugins will be one of the posted in the next few days.

Also, there will be some other changes coming… notably in the subject matter you’ll see here. I hope to make this blog more design orientated. It’s still a vision in its infancy… We’ll see how/if it develops beyond the idea phase.

Let’s leave it there for now. Don’t want to over do it on my first night back blogging… hate to suffer from “Born-Again Blogger Burnout”.

Treinta y Tres

Rolling Rocks 33 logo

Rolling Rocks’ 33

Where has the year gone? 365 days ago seems almost like yesterday. At least they were a relatively good 365 day (with an obvious exception… but I guess it could have been much worse).

So… what has 33 have in store? Anyone’s guess really… but looking at the significance of the number, one suspects there might be a bit there.

  • 33 is the largest positive integer that can not be expressed as a sum of different triangular numbers. It is also the smallest odd repdigit that’s not prime (unless we consider 1-digit integers to also be repdigits).
  • The sum of the first four factorials is 33.
  • Jesus’s age when he was crucified in 33 A.D., according to many, though not verified historically.
  • Alexander the Great died at the age of thirty-three.
  • A highly significant number to the Freemasons, and is one of their sacred numbers, recurring profusely throughout their ‘Dogma’ (as Albert Pike calls it), rituals and other miscellaneous places.
  • In French, Italian, Romanian and Spanish, the word a patient is usually asked to say when a doctor is listening to his or her lungs with a stethoscope (Trente-Trois, Trentatrè, Treizeci ÅŸi trei, and Treinta y Tres).
  • A normal human spine has 33 vertebrae when the bones that form the coccyx are counted individually.
  • And much much more

Oh well, with the world cup this year, and a new PC coming soon (fingers crossed), hopefully there will be more blogging this year than last.

Stefan Richard

Stefan Richard Kekoc

Stefan Richard at 5 days of age

Two weeks ago, the 19th of October, at 1:25am, Stefan Richard Kekoc was born. Michele had her waters broken at approximately 2:30pm the previous day, was placed on the oxytocin drip to speed up and strengthen the contractions at about 8pm, and only when she was ready to start pushing at midnight was it discovered that Stefan was in a breech position. We were given to option to go for a breech birth of to have the baby delivered by caesrean section, the doctor telling us the pros and cons of each… the safest seemed to be the caesarean, so Michele was preped for surgery and Stefan was safely out by 1:25am.

Mother and child are doing well, though, Michele hasn’t rebounded as well from the surgery as she did from the natural deliveries of the past. I’m just glad that everyone is fine and safe… I’m thouroughly enjoying being the father of a new born again.