Aussie Bloggers

We get some interesting visitors to our backyard, in the form of native birds. We have an aviary with budgies, and they tend to scatter birdseed around which attracts other birds. Here’s a selection of some of those visitors.

My favourites – the Sulphur-Crested Cockatoos. They are quite common around Canberra and you often see large flocks of them grazing on the sides of roads, or in parks.

Rainbow Lorikeets are also fairly regular visitors. Its always a treat to spot them, because they’re so colourful.

Now for something we only see occasionally. King parrots.

We also get the usual suspects, the various black coloured birds, and black and white ones – which I lump together as crows and magpies respectively (which amuses my daughter who does know the differences between the various types of black and black and white birds – but then what am I to know …I always thought Golden Retrievers were just hairy Labradors until a couple of years ago, when I learned they are completely different breeds of dog). Galahs hang around fairly regularly, and in the non-bird arena, we get our share of possums, and even once had a kangaroo out in our street (and we’d be at least one kilometre from the nearest bushland).

But for something really unusual, check this out.

No, just kidding!

But seriously, I’d be interested to know what interesting/unusual/pretty visitors you’d had at your house. Let me know in the comments.

photo credit: andyp uk

It’s almost five years ago since I started blogging. I can’t believe that I’ve kept it up for that long and that I still really love doing it.

I’ve kept a written journal of some description or another since I was 18, and I feel quite embarrassed at some of the stuff I wrote. Mind you a lot of things I wrote in a private for-my-eyes-only journal, I wouldn’t even consider writing on a public website.

I’d tampered with typing my journal back in the 1980s, printing it out and sticking it in the written journal but that was fraught with danger. What if someone from work found what I’d printed before I had a chance to collect, or what if someone found my electronic document? I think I did that once or twice before giving up.

So the written journal only tended to really happen when I was travelling or when I felt like it.

Then about six years ago Oprah.com had some sort of online journal setup, kind of like a blog I guess, and I remember thinking that it could be the way to go to get away from longhand.

Then one day I received a webreference.com newsletter which mentioned the Bloggies and I had a cruise around some of the finalists and I thought that this blogging thing could be a really good way to go. I setup a blog on Blogger or something similar and realised that this was something I wanted to do, so I ended up getting an account with Typepad. I blogged using that platform for about three years after which – wanting more control over my blogging platform – I went with self-hosted Wordpress.

When I did my first blog post, you can see (if you read it) that not much thought went into its content and when someone actually commented I nearly fell off my chair.

During the last five years my blogging has evolved enormously. Here’s how.

• I’m sure because I write a lot for my blog that my writing has improved. In fact one regular reader has commented on this. I’ve also had feedback that my blog writing style is engaging.
• I’ve met a fabulous online community of people which has enabled me to go join a blog meet in Perth, one formally and one on the side with an individual blogger. I’m sure meeting people in person strengthens online relationships.
• I also get regular comments on my blog and I wonder if I would have continued blogging without this. The validation, sympathy, good wishes – whatever – help make it worthwhile.
• It’s enabled my passion for photography to flourish. While Flickr isn’t blogging, it is social networking which blogging is a part of, and I do use my Flickr photos a lot on my blog. I’ve also met real people through a local Flickr group.
• Meeting people online has brought opportunities like this Aussie Bloggers forum and blog that I would have never otherwise heard about.
• My blog has also come to the attention of PR agencies who are looking to tap into bloggers to help market for the companies they work for. This has brought me things to try out like a mobile phone, Lego, fruit juice and DVDs. It’s therefore caused me to setup a Reviews and Giveaways section on my blog – something I’d never really thought of prior to the opportunity landing in my lap.
• I also entered my blog in the last 9rules membership round and was accepted.
• I run ads on my blog and while I don’t make much money at all it helps out with the hosting costs. It feeds my hobby and if I start earning more that wouldn’t be a problem. It also helps me give back occasionally.

The above list is probably not exhaustive and if I didn’t work nearly full-time and if I wasn’t a full-time mother and could therefore devote more time to my blog goodness knows where it could take me. A different job maybe? A girl can dream can’t she, or does it have to be a dream?

This family made a new friend when they went for a picnic at Pebbly Beach.

Pebbly Beach is located on the South Coast of NSW. The only pebbles you will find there are created by the kangaroos!

Over here in the States, we’re going through a major change in our television – turning off the old analogue stations which have been serving us for upwards of 65 years in some areas, in favour of digital signals. In fact, we’re not the only ones going through this digital transition – it’s happening all around the world.

Of course, all of y’all in Australia have been experiencing digital television for many years now, with the convenient backup of the analogue signals still available for at least another year or so, depending on what KRudd and the crew decide to do. One of the most interesting things, however, is the fact that, over here, they aren’t making the most of digital television.

The main thing that broadcasters aren’t taking advantage of is switching to Widescreen digital programming. A major misconception over here is that if it’s widescreen, it is HDTV. As you have known for at least 7 years (possibly longer – I haven’t read up on the history), you can broadcast multiple channels in widescreen and not have any issues with quality loss.

One of the places we will visit as we drive up the East Coast of Australia is the Coffs Harbour Butterfly House. We’ve been there once before and they had many gorgeous butterflies. Here is one of the pictures we took on our last visit.