Humble Opinions

Northern Beaches goes to Bright from Hume Winzar on Vimeo . Kirstin organised a group to travel to the legendary Mystic Hill, Bright in Northern Victoria over the Labour Day Weekend, October 2009. Nine enthusiastic novices, with experience ranging from 60+ hours to about 10 minutes, took part. Rain and fickle wind ruined much of the five days, but we had a great time, expanded our skills and knowledge, and saw memorable flights, especially from Nico, Marc, James, and Kirstin. Here is a sample.

Sometimes the deities smile and the reasons we become academics converge and we have a great time as both scholars and lovers of life. This last weekend has been pretty good. I presented a research paper on Friday, curtesy of the Business School at University of Adelaide. The topic was my ongoing study on application of Complexity Theory to undrestanding consumer/market behaviour. There were many more people in attendance than I had anticipated. People went away saying that it was worthwhile and there were lots of questions that got me thinking more clearly about where next to take the project, so it was definitely worthwhile for me. On Saturday I ran a workshop on Best-Worst scaling and how to link that in with conjoint measurement. That went for an hour longer than expected and again everyone felt it was worthwhile. Amongst those two events I was able to catch three shows as a part of the Adelaide Fringe Festival, and take in three wineries in the Adelaide Hills, and then fi...

These images posted, with permission, from the Gallery at fishrock.com.au A belated post summarising a part of my journey to Sydney from Brisbane. My first plan was to make a circuitous route from Brisbane along the coast and then inland to the town of Manilla over perhaps two weeks. But that really was going to be more driving than it was worth. First stop was South West Rocks, about an hour North of Port Macquarie, where I took pot luck on accommodation, staying two nights at the Sea Breeze Hotel right on the water overlooking Port Macquarie beach. I met a couple of lovely people there - Kieran Hartley and his friend Suzanne Ison. I'll be keeping in touch with them. Next day I went scuba diving! Port Macquarie has some of the most amazing diving that I have yet experienced. The main feature is an underwater cave. At 126 metres long and completely dark inside. Each entrance is guarded by a wobegong shark, not the cute little half-metre creatures that you'll often s...

Acknowledgment: Picture by Stefan Brandlehner on Flickr i.e. those are Stefan's feet, not mine. But they could have been. I've been wanting to fly Rainbow for a while now. In fact I and two of my flying buddies, Tashi and Reid, had arranged to go there several weeks ago, but the weather forecast was not encouraging. Now that I'm heading off to live in Sydney the project had taken on some urgency. So I headed up on Boxing day morning and returned last night. Despite the season, there was room for a one-man tent at the camping and caravan ground. Rainbow Beach is a little over three hours drive North of Brisbane. It's the staging post for 4WD enthusiasts and beach-fishing types to cross by ferry to Frazer Island or to drive along the beach at the edge the famous Cooloola National Park The "shorter" route, calculated by whereis.com or your GPS navigator, has you driving for nearly 100Km along corrugated dirt roads to Rainbow. Maybe this is a practical ...

I'm progressively getting better at paragliding. I'm still pumped after an excellent flight this afternoon at Beechmont, inland from the Gold Coast. Ridge-soaring and some thermals that kept me up for more than 40 minutes! Next weekend we'll be up again. These pics taken by my daughter, Grace. That's me with the orange wing with "silver" trim. Tashi Sherpa has the custom purple wing.

My grandson, Charles Francis Fleming, was born last week. Mother, Lauren, is tired & sore but very happy. Charles is healthy. Father, Mitchell, is beside himself. And I am officially old. [Wt: 8 lb (3.6Kg) All fingers and toes. Feeding well.]

I came to Adventure and Party City with the intention of taking another bungy jump off a high bridge, but that hasn't happened yet. Two days were spent with colleagues from Griffith Uni taking a brief holiday after the conference - main activities: drinking, eating, drinking, bonding, slandering previous heads-of-department, current deans, pro-vice-chancellors and associated sociopaths, and drinking. Worth doing. Now I've converted an Introduction to Paragliding day into a full course! The Intro day was exhausting. And painful. The day involves learning how to make a safe takeoff, and a relatively safe landing. Takeoff involves racing downhill as fast as you can trying to imitate an angry goose - chest and head down, arms stretched out high behind your back holding on to the glider controls. The result usually is to pull the glider in front of you so that it pulls you over onto your face, or lower one hand/control just slightly so the wing moves suddenly to one side an...