Robert's Ramblings

This week's photo was taken back in January under Rapid Bay Jetty. Same time as my last photo, in wonderfully warm summer!

Perhaps now best known as the home of the Leafy Sea Dragon, Rapid Bay Jetty is a wonderful dive all of its own. The tall close packed pylons create a deep forest feel within which hundreds of schooling Yellowtail, Olds Wives and other fishes meander.

The old jetty is falling down now but the marine life does not mind one bit. Rumor has it that a facelift of sorts is in the pipline so keep an eye out for future developments.

Get down there and see for yourself just how fantastic a dive site we have here!

Douglas Adams once wrote, "Cleanliness may be next to Godliness but
tidiness is the the result of an S.E.P. Field".

Creativity in the office often goes hand in hand with a noted lack of
tidiness. There will always be those who make it their responsibility to keep a
sense of order and tidiness, to other's, myself included, we are happy to make
it Someone Else's Problem. So what happens if you work in an office
lacking an S.E.P Field? "CHAOENTRAPY"... The place where both chaos
and entropy eventually turn the office into a non-functional tip of boxes,
paper and broken equipment...

So today's mission is to create a new office environment for everyone. One
which is not only functional, but self organising and regenerative. In short
the challenge is to embody the new space with its own S.E.P. Field so we can
all get back down to the business of being creative and messy again!

Sorry to all those who's internet connection crashed and burned today trying to read my website. I had the main page forwarding on to itself via remote proxy bla bla bla..... The end result was that it not only brought the client to its knees but crashed my router and bumped my IP address. All fixed now, but oh the joys of running your own site! ...Robert

This week's photo was taken back in January under Rapid Bay Jetty. Ah, remember way back when the water was a balmy 22degrees! Jennifer was almost in tears the very first time she met one of these beautiful creatures. They still take my breath away even now...

Leafy Sea Dragons are actually quite common along all of South Australia's more protected coastal waters. It's just that they are so good at blending in with their surrounds. In my first 14 years of diving I had only seen two of these amazing dragons. In my last two I have seen 50 or more.

Popular locations to see Leafy Sea Dragons include Rapid Bay Jetty, Edithburgh Jetty, Wool Bay Jetty and The Bluff at Victor Harbor. So brave the cold, open your eyes and behold one of natures most extraordinary creations!

Ok, so who is the General and who is the young lady? Well in both cases you'd most likely be wrong and wrong! Well maybe the picture might just give a little clue!

For the last few months I have been fretting and imploring my Girlfriend to get new tyres for her 900S SAAB. The last straw came after realising she'd been driving around for a month on her spare because no tyre place would repair a flat tyre with bits of steel wire poking out from all directions! Being the typical male and a bit of a closet car enthusiast I decided to take matters into my own hands!

Hmm now, a set of decent tyres would set her back somewhere around six hundred for a new set of boring old R15 tyres to go on the OE steel rims. Ok, start shopping around for new rims! Ok, start shopping around for second hand rims due to severe financial constraints!! Oh, and make that a set of second hand rims with good tyres all for less than the cost of four new tyres. Ok, so now I had a goal! Why do we always turn the simplest of things into a challenge?

So, after much shopping around the prognosis was looking pretty grim. Does anyone ever part with SAAB wheels?? Ok, new angle, back to fundamentals and let's look at the actual dimensions of bore, PCD, width and diameter. Oh look, Opel/Vauxhaul use the same dimensions on late model Astras and Calibras. Hmm, interesting. .... Well you get the picture so to cut a long story short I found her a beautiful set of 16" Holden Astra alloy rims that fit just perfectly with good tyres to boot! There was even enough change left in the budget to pay for balancing, an alignment and even an evening out at a very nice restaurant!

So, the General's wheel's adorn the Lady's body and just like my Girlfriend, she's looking mighty fine indeed!!

This week's photo is a semi-silhouette of a Grey-Nurse shark taken earlier this year. The location is Fish Rock, South West Rocks, NSW, Australia. This trip will be one of my most memorable ever. The site easily deserves it's place in Austrlia's top dive locations.



Just imagine being in a 20m deep gutter, 25m visibility and 40+ silent sentinels cruising up and down as if to guard the secret entrance to Fish Rock Cave. Yes the cave is something special too but really the entire site needs to be experienced for its sharks, rays and abundance of tropical and temperate life.

Plan to visit it at least once, expect to go back for more!!!

I have just experienced a day of getting my crippled laptop back to life again. It's no fun when you are trying to meet deadlines and fix your PC!

Finally I had to resort to reinstalling XP and my troubles went from bad to worse! XP refused to activate an promptly logged me off every time I tried to log in. It seems that as I had recently replaced both the motherboard and the hard drive, Microsoft refused to believe I was the legitimate owner of the XP license!

At least to their credit Microsoft were able to fix the problem over the phone but it took some time and a lot of numbers were involved! Ah Microsoft, You've Done It Again!

I have updated the links section in the on the left side bar to include all of Jennifer's really cool stuff!! Please go have a look and make her day!

Today both Jennifer and myself took on the Glenelg Scuba Dive Passort SA Challenge! A list of 45 local SA dive locations covering shore, wreck and boat dives. Looking through the list I am am astounded that I have only dived 32 of them so far. Not that that counts as everyone involved starts from January this year. We will need to get into some planning now because the tricky ones on my list are sites like the Zanoni, the Ulonga and the wrecks off Wardang Island.

Ok, so blog has been tested from a remote site and it all looks ok. Now that bed is looking rather nice about now!

Ha, my very first blog entry! Well that's not very exciting at all as the real fun was setting up the blogging application on the server! So let's see where this goes!! ...R

New Photos

Just a few new photos on my gallery page of my last Edithburgh trip. We had a fantastic dive on the wreck of the Clan Ranald, some great drift diving on Troubridge Reef and two beautiful night dives! The visibility was nearly 15m at times! Perfect for photos and making my fellow divers green with envy (or should that be aquamarine)!

Back In The Game

Well it had to happen that I have found myself back in the thick of things with TDA Tech Pty Ltd.  With technology development based in Adelaide Australia and  manufacturing resource in Hong Kong and China, TDA offers a complete end to end OEM solution for trusted digital authentication. Want to know more? Visit. http://www.tda-tech.com August 2005.

Inceptu Ideas Forum Launched

The ongoing development of the Inceptu Web Site now hosts a new ideas forum.  This is a place for people interested in ideas, technology and innovation to share ideas in a public space. Even if you are not interested in innovation and technology please have a visit and let me know what you think. Please visit. http://www.inceptu.com/community/index.php Monday 4th July 2005.

It's Getting Cold In The Water

Well winter is now here with a vengeance and I guess it's not exactly news but the water is now officially COLD! I took a class into the ocean in wetsuits on the weekend and we all survived but that hot tomato soup between each dive was really appreciated! So how cold is it? Here's a look back over my local diving for the last year and as you can see, it's COLD!

Launch Of Inceptu Website

Well, it has been a long time in the making but Inceptu is starting to form an identity and the website is now ready to bare all on an unsuspecting Internet. Have a peruse and let me know what you think or let me know if you find anything that does not work properly!

Australian Federal Government Releases Copyright Whitepaper

The Government is aware some common personal uses of copyright material infringe copyright. Examples include transferring music from a CD onto an MP3 or iPod player or copying a television broadcast to view later. Those engaged in such uses do not believe they are or should be considered copyright pirates. Many observers believe copyright law should be reformed to reflect public attitudes and practices. Some interest groups feel a copyright balance might be better maintained in a rapidly changing digital environment if the Copyright Act were to include an open-ended ‘fair use’ exception that would allow the courts to determine whether a particular use of copyright material is ‘fair’ and should be lawful. Others argue the present specific exceptions in the Act should be amended to make certain uses of copyright material lawful.

In this "White Paper" the Federal Government is seeking submissions on ways of addressing these conflicting views and canvass options in this paper. In particular, they seek views on whether the Copyright Act should include more specific exceptions or a fair use exception which would facilitate the public’s access to copyright material. Submissions deadline is July 1st, 2005.

http://www.ag.gov.au/agd/WWW/agdhome.nsf/AllDocs/E63BC2D5203F2D29CA256FF8001584D7?OpenDocument

Congratulations Jennifer "50 Dives"

50 dives may not seem like such a big deal but when you consider that my girlfriend Jennifer has achieved her milestone in less than 6 months from becoming a new diver then that's something to talk about.

The photograph is of Jennifer on dive no.#50 during our recent trip to Whyalla for the Cuttlefish mating season. From here it will be just a matter of time before she reaches 100 dives. The challenge will be in doing this in the next 6 months.

Whyalla Cuttlefish Weekend

For the May long weekend, Jennifer, Rebekah and I traveled to Whyalla for the annual cuttlefish mating season. The weekend was one of two weekends to Whyalla that Glenelg Scuba have organised for this season. The weather was fine and the diving was great with hundreds of cuttlefish being observed in various states of matrimonial behaviour! Even Rebekah braved the cold, snorkeled out from Black Point and spotted a few herself.

In addition to the cuttlefish we enjoyed a dive in the Kingfish pens. Imagine being in a big net 10m across and 6m deep with 40,000 fish!!! It was quite an experience!