VideoSift

I've been a bit slack on posting. I've been working on some contracts, and also on my new pet project, VideoSift. It's a social networking site for video, specifically YouTube and Google Video. It's been going now for about 7 weeks, and has taken off in an amazing fashion. We get about 30 new sign-ups a day and are averaging about 40,000 page views daily. We're also getting lots of good write-ups from the bloggerati. I'm not sure where this will lead, but it's been pretty surreal. We were even mentioned by Bruce Sterling, out of the blue - (though he took a swipe at our content).

The Soul Food Van Launches!

Kelly launched the food van at the Organic markets to a thronging crowd last weekend. On the menu were Bircher Meusli, Chai Tea and fruit salad. I was the dishwasher, errand boy and menu designer.

All in all, it went really well. Not huge amounts of profit, but we overestimated the amount of food we needed to purchase. We will have it streamlined by next week. Also we ran out of water for some reason, about half-way through - I was the designated water hauler from the nearest petrol station. Kelly had to get up at 4:00AM to be at the market and set-up before its opening time of 6.

I predict a bright future for the Soul Food Van.

Sophia's 8th & Sage's 5th

This year we decided to have a combined, small birthday party for Sophia and Sage. It was still a lot of work, and next year we may skip parties all together and do something else.

The kids had a good time though on the beach of Tallebudgera creek - with egg-spoon races and rides on the kayak. After the birthdays is the official demarker to put up the Christmas tree. This year we got a real one, but it doesn't look like any kind of Xmas tree that I'm used to. It's some kind of Jurrassic tropical pine - not of this world. For Christmas we'll probably be at the beach again, trying to avoid the heat.

In Retrospect ...

It's over. We've been back on the Gold Coast for around 6 weeks. We are renting in Palm Beach, a couple of blocks from the water. Our 4.5 months away as travelers feel very distant. It's had an impact on the kids in little ways. They are very much aware of the concept of other languages and accents. At times they like to do a Spanish accent or ask us what words mean in different languages.

We've emptied out our shipping container. Emptying a box is a lot easier than filling it. All the kids' old toys are magically new again. Our living room is on the second floor. Jed the piano man, is coming with a hoist to raise up our piano onto the beck deck. I'm going to assist, but I'll let Jed be the one under the piano.

Cable broadband is installed already, but no phone yet. We're probably going to go VOIP, and run it off the cable.

Shave and a haircut 60 Baht

Which is about $1.65 Australian. They really did a good job too. They even shave the little fine hairs on your earlobe, and give you a neck massage. I was debating the "Adolf" Mustache and haircut special, but in the end decided against it. Thailand is fantastic. Outside feels like a sauna powered by car exhaust pipes - but you have to realize everything balances out. The traffic is terrible, but we take taxis everywhere. An hour taxi ride costs around $3-4. We haven't been here for 10 years, and things are really feeling a bit more spiffy. They have a really great elevated train system now, which travels down one of the main roads. If it only covered this whole sprawling city, the cars and tuk-tuks would be in put in their places.

Kelly and I have been enjoying the fantastic food. We're staying with our friends Bobby and Kazuya, who are Thai and Japanese, respectively. Their daughter, 4-year old Keito, is quite amazing. She speaks Thai, Japanese and English - and somehow knows which language to use with which person. With the maid, or mom, it's Thai. With dad it's Japanese, and with us, or her schoolmates at the international school, it's English.

If it weren't for the heat, pollution and unbearable travel-time, I could imagine living in Bangkok.

Natsukashi Nihon

The coming winter in Ireland is replaced by a humid indian summer in Japan, after a 12 hour plane trip from London to Tokyo. We flew into Narita, Tokyo and then booked into a guest house in the area.
We met my old Austar workmate Micheal and his family the next day. The kids had a great play at a park near their house.
The next day, it was off on the shinkansen (bullet train) to Kyoto. Our kids love Japanese food, so they were in heaven, with all of the onigiri, soba and great Kansai food like okonomiyaki. Kyoto and Osaka was a bit of a homecoming for Kelly and I, as it was where we met and got married. We managed to catch up with some old friends during the visit, but not as many as we wanted to.
After a few days in Kyoto, it was back on the shinkansen to Tokyo. I met Michael for a final day of geeking out at the Japanese techie shopping district, Akihabira, and then off to Bangkok the next day.

La Costa Brava

Ryan Air flies from Shannon, Ireland to Girona Spain for 29 Euros one way. I’m not sure how this airlines manages to make a profit, but evidently it does. Everthing is used to generate revenue, even the seat-backs have ads plastered to them. And everything offered on the plane is for sale. They also manage to save a bit by flying into the smaller airports which probably have smaller usage tarrifs. Both Shannon and Girona are off the beaten track.


After landing in Girona we lucked out on an upgrade to a nice BMW. We drove South to the Costa Brava for a little Bungalow place in the town of San Feliu de Guixols. Everyone speaks Catalan in this area near Barcelona, which sounds a bit like Spanish mixed with French. However, Catalonia is offficially part of Spain, and the locals don’t mind speaking Spanish to tourists - although they probably do mind speaking it to Spaniards. It’s been a while since I’ve used my Spanish, but we soon got into the flow.

The kids were happy to spend most mornings in the chilly pool, - we managed to get to beach a couple of times, and explore the cities of Sant Filieu and Girona. The streets were narrow little cobblestone paths, obviously built for horses, not BMWs. A couple of times I was concerned for the side mirrors (should have gotten that extra coverage).

Dali is from these parts, and we managed to get up to the popular Dali Museum, down the road in Figueres. We saw a good portion of his stuff, no not the melting clocks, not sure where those are.

On our second to last day we drove down the autopista to the French border. The speed limit was 130kph, but everyone was going 150kph, so I joined the crowd. It felt like about 80kph in that heavy, noise dampened BMW.

Having gotten used to the US Mexican border, and pre EU borders back in the early 90s, I was shocked that the Spanish-French border in the Pyrenees mountains was completely unmanned. Everyone just drove through, not even any guards. These days in the US, even the borders between states are more heavily guarded than that.

On our day trip to France, we stopped at a winery and got a case of cheap French plonk, to share with Kelly’s rellies back in Eire, and stopped in the town of Perpignon. Language-wise we were completely lost. The only word I knew was "formage”. I hoped no one broke a leg - “Ow, I broke my formage.”
We found the streets and round-abouts much more chaotic than in Spain, and the drivers more aggressive. I only got flipped off once.

After this, we’re off for a last few days of Ireland - getting cold now, and then the big jump to the land of the rising sun.