Paverpol dragon

A Paverpol dragon from "Lynette's Creations", a stall at Gerringong Markets. Paverpol is a waterproof glue-like substance, and Lynette Mathein soaks various fabrics in it, draping pieces over metal armatures to create fantasy creatures.

We want you at Starfleet Academy!

Corroney cover: IDW Star Trek (ongoing) #2 - alternate cover.

Very cool Starfleet "recruitment poster" cover by Joe Corroney! News at Trekmovie.com

30-Day Photo Challenge: finale

DAY 30

I spotted a cute little dragon at our Pedlars' Fair today! A great finale to my 30-Day Photo Challenge. The slideshow of all 30 images is HERE.


Leftover Pedlars' Pennies go into the prize draw.


The library snowman finds a friend!

Cookie and jester

DAY 29

Love the juxtaposition of Cookie Monster cookie jar and a jester Toby jug. Mmm, good timing, too. My last "30 Day Challenge" pic tomorrow - falls on our annual Pedlars' Fair day at school.

Platypus crossing

DAY 28

Warning! Platypus crossing. If toll owing, put it on his bill.

Crescent moon

DAY 27

I love how the tree seems to have made space for the crescent moon to snuggle in close.

Jack's ponto

DAY 26

I am currently reading "I am Jack" by Susanne Gervay to all of Stage 2 and 3. Here's my newly-made prop: Jack's "ponto", from the novel. (Jack has managed to graft an onion to a potato to invent a new vegetable, which he calls a "ponto").

One world, many stories

DAY 25

My new $4 bargain store world globe, in preparation for Australian Children's Book Week 2011 and the theme, "One world, many stories". The globe is quite small; those books are miniatures. The shop also had smaller globes for $2 and a similar size in a different, sturdy base for $8.

Treat time

DAY 24

Saturday morning Kong treat makes Jack a contented boy.

Ouchie

DAY 23

Oh no! My Tasmanian Devil puppet has the dreaded facial cancer!

Just another day of photographing images around school (the students are creating slideshows on Photo Peach)...

Big mail day

DAY 22

My retro "Frankenstein Jr" money box arrived in the mail today. Finally, he has been reunited with... "The Impossibles". Anyone too young to have watched 60s television may be underwhelmed.

Also in the box today was a retro Mego Captain Christopher Pike and...

the long-awaited Salt Vampire ("The Man Trap").

CBD

DAY 21

Thanks so much to Sue Tuckett and Graham "Garfield" Barnard for the kind invitation to preview "Captain America: The First Avenger" tonight at the Paramount Pictures theatrette. I wasn't expecting it to be in 3D in such an intimate venue. Excellent film - and great to see some friends from decades ago, such as Craig Walker and Quentin Saville!

Toy Porn 2!

DAY 20 coincided with opening night of "Toy Porn 2" exhibition at NG Art Gallery.
Claudia Chan Shaw introduces the art of Nick Stathopoulos.


Thunderbird 1 by Nick Stathopoulos.


Batman and Robby the Robot by Nick Stathopoulos.


Tin Tin paintings by Nick Stathopoulos.



What a great night. Thanks, Nick, fo the invitation. Nick's beautiful Archibald-entry portrait of illustrator Shaun Tan (above) was in the downstairs restaurant.

Sunset

DAY 19

Good timing for a pic on my way home.

Being Jack

DAY 18

Jack, trying to be on his best behaviour, at my Mum's place. He still has the evidence of his shaved tummy (ultrasound) and back (lumbar puncture) from late last year. The hair just doesn't want to grow back. Cortisone does that to dogs. Sigh.

Pretty!

DAY 17

These purple flowers photograph like butterflies!

Bark

DAY 16

I passed this massive tree trunk walking home this afternoon. It's hard to juggle a bag, an iPhone and an open umbrella at the same time.

Wet, wet, wet

DAY 15

Halfway point! A little magic on a gloomy, wet night. Lights from my pool through a glass candle-holder.

Enter the brain

DAY 14

Our school library recently had a visit from a brain, official adjudicator for the Stage 2 students' presentations on "What is the most important human body part (apart from the brain)?"

Where do the children play?

DAY 13

The school playground equipment, about to get its first workout in two weeks.

Somewhere over a rainbow

DAY 12

First day back at work. Spent the whole day looking for "30 Day Challenge" photographic subjects - no luck, no inspiration, walked dejectedly out the gate this afternoon, and lo: a rainbow revealed itself, becoming all the brighter as I spent time choosing how to frame it in the iPhone's viewer.

Pass it on!

When the last NASA space shuttle lands this month, everyone wear Ape suits. Quick, pass it on.

Sunday brunch!

DAY 11

At Mash Cafe, Glenbrook. Poached eggs Barcelona, with roasted capsicum, chorizo sausage, hash brown and sour dough toast. And a dash of paprika.

Sydney Tower

DAY 10

Sydney Tower over Centrepoint, now a Westfield shopping centre.

Max sets sail

DAY 9

My latest eBay purchase just arrived on the front step. Max sets sail ("Where the wild things are") in a delightful Hallmark Christmas ornament, just in time for Midwinter Christmas - and Book Week. Sadly, this wild thing - a favourite from my own childhood - was missing from the recent live action film. I really expected him to at least make a cameo appearance.

Seen in Penriff

DAY 8

Ah, good ol' Penrith: an old church on the horizon, completely overshadowed by a cyclist with no helmet, riding on the wrong side of the road, and the newly renamed hairdressers, now specialising in... head-lice control.

Tough lips

DAY 7

Cycad: Proof that the dinosaurs had very tough lips.

Variegated leaf geranium

DAY 6

Somehow, this geranium has avoided being devoured by snails this year.

All the better to see you with

DAY 5

Jimi the gargoyle, who guards my garden. The glass eyes were my own customization, thanks to a little outdoor quick-set putty.

Seagulls are aliens

DAY 4

Spotted these fascinating seagulls at Shellharbour, south of Sydney. One was attracted by a falling, tiny, crumb of sausage roll - and soon there were hundreds. Once the fuss was over, they were gone again.

Chess master/busker

DAY 3

Spotted today at the QVB in the CBD. The chequerboard hat really makes it, I reckon!

Brrrrr!

DAY 2

First frost in Penrith today! It was still zero degrees at 7.30am. Brrrrr.

What I loved about my original "365 Photos project" was the anticipation of finding a daily pic. It kept the senses tuned all day, flitting in and out my head, seeing potential subjects everywhere. Some days I'd forget until almost midnight - I ended up with about ten shots of the dog looking startled, wondering if it was past our bedtime. The project unexpectedly made me blog more often.

It recorded some very significant events, including my last photo taken of my Dad before he passed away, but before he started to look too frail. It's a year of my life more fully documented than any other in my life. It also led to a fun afternoon chatting to TV personality, Andrew G, who was doing a "365 self portraits" challenge of his own and had a gallery exhibition.

You can't really imagine what 30 days of doing anything will lead to. It'll be great to see what happens sharing experiences with a group (on Maang). A great project for a class, too.

30 day challenge

"Try something new for 30 days", Matt Cutts

My NSW Department of Education and Communities colleagues on Maang have decided to embrace the advice of Matt Cutts in his TED talk, "Try something new for 30 days" (above).

First up is the Photo Challenge (click for the cumulative slideshow). For the next 30 days, we take a photo a day and post it under the dedicated thread for the day. Day threads will be numbered according to which day we are up to. Subject matter? "What's happening in your life/work today?" (I'm already experienced in this type of challenge, have done the 365 Photos project in 2009-2010.

Here's my pic:


DAY 1

These homemade stuffed cats date back to my teachers college days (1979), based on my cartoon characters, Fish'ook and Bluey, who featured in a comic strip in the college newspaper, "Dugil". They turned up in a vacation cleanup this week; hadn't seen them in years! (Ah, Hobbytex, remember those roll-on paint-in-a-tube things you bought on party plan like Tupperware?)

A book on the porch is worth three in the hand

Ah! The postman just delivered my Amazon-bought hardcover copy of "Starfleet Academy: The Gemini Agent". It was a delight to hold a new "Star Trek" book in my hands which has cover art that I don't recall ever seeing online first. (It was a mere neutral rectangle when I pre-ordered it.) Nice cover! Green background. Chekov, Kirk and a dark-haired woman with pointed ears. Uhura on the back cover.

"The Delta Anomaly" (#1) I originally found locally at Galaxy Bookshop, but only as a paperback, then I couldn't find "The Edge" (#2) anywhere - even now - so a few months ago I weakened and rebought #1 through Amazon, as a hardcover, plus #2, and pre-ordered hardcovers of #3 and 4. These "young adult" novels are set in the altered timeline seen in the JJ Abrams-directed 2009 movie, "Star Trek".

Doin' the happy dance.

Customs

Playmates' 9" "Star Trek" figures: Mirror Universe Marlena Moreau (TOS), with a Lokai (made from a painted "Lost in Space" Major Don West figure in Bele's customised costume) and "Deep Space Nine"'s Ezri Dax (made from a Marlena figure - hair removed, new hair sculpted in putty) and wearing a "First Contact" Geordi LaForge uniform (inner collar dyed teal).


Ezri Dax

Penrith powder

Here's what Jack found on his walk around the block this evening:



Welcome to Penriff.

A bird in the crown is worth two in the hand

This seagull was attracting lots of attention today as it stomped around inside the crown of the Queen Victoria statue outside the QVB in the CBD.

It was a dark and foggy night...

Walking back home from seeing the animated movie, "Cars 2", last night, Penrith was becoming blanketed in an eerie fog.

By the way, the best things about "Cars 2" were the hilarious "Toy Story" vacation short that ran before the movie (Barbie and Ken are such dorks), and the closing credits. Not a good sign for "Cars 2".

Vale Max

I had my "Magic Circle Club" photograph professionally
framed, along with Max Bartlett's autograph!

Dammit. I just tried to send Max Bartlett ("Magic Circle Club") an email update and it bounced back. I've just Googled him and uncovered the headline of a "Herald-Sun" obituary, so it seems Max passed away in July 2010, not too long after Tedd Dunn (Fredd Bear).

As a fan, one tries not to be too much of a pest, but the time goes so fast. And then... they're gone. Seems like only yesterday that Max and I met, and my memories of several phone calls are strong (eg. "I rang you because I thought it might give you more of a thrill than sending a text message"). I'm hoping to do something with the interview I conducted (April 2009). Several irons are still in the fire...

Vale Max!




Ian & Max meet in April 2009


Me - when I first discovered
"Magic Circle Club!"