T’s Paintings and Monsters

by Hobbies

There’s not much to this post. Being back in Perth I saw a few of his paintings. Made me want to put some effort into learning to draw again. We’ll see if that happens.

I also found a post about Dave Devries work where he takes sketches of monsters drawn by children and paits them realistically. His book is called “The Monster Engine”. It’s pretty awesome, but as my friend said, isn’t this infringing on the poor childrens hard work? :P

A toothed donut monster... I think

Attente Tourmente

by Life ToKorea Travel



This song was one of the twenty we had in the van.

With this group we first travelled through Coral Bay and Onslow. In the few short days it took to do this, we’d had problems with only two vans. Little did I know the mechanical workout I was going to get before this trip was over.  In actual fact there was a lot of time spent on the phone to my old man or one of his friends and a lot of crash courses on different parts of the engine. Poor guys. We also got some soccer in, I got some rock climbing in, there was the compulsory snorkling (which I didn’t do) and a fair bit of camping. I was impressed with their campfire cooking. I didn’t know that zucchinis could be so delicious. And I found out that you can’t use garlic and onion together. Crazy Italians. I Also learnt that “it’s never too early for goon”. And Me and Romain spend or first night sleeping in the 4WD so that the new couple could get some space together. I also saw bioluminescence in the water for my first time that I remember although I have no idea how that could be the case since I’ve seen it everywhere since.


On the way to Nanutara road house it was our turn for the van to break down. We fixed it by temporarily replacing the fuse with a bolt before limping to the road house (and later to Tom Price). When we got there, we randomly meeting some friends of mine who were a bit shocked to see me wandering around in the middle of nowhere without shoes or a shirt.

Tom Price was one place I’d really been looking forward to. When we got there I spent a while running around my old hood. I checked out my old house and climbed the tree I used to climb each night as a kid after my jog around the oval. I also talked to an old mate on the phone but we couldn’t arrange a meeting in the end. Then when we camped at Kings Lake, I went for a walk up the hill between there and my house looking for thunder eggs and the old caves that I used to explore. It was a lot harder to find them in the dark but I found a few. I also hoped to find some honey like we used to but no dice.

Before going to Karajini the Italian couple dropped off their van to get repaired. We could still camp together as a group. The first day was Fortescue falls and I learnt how to play Dixit. A game I suck at. The next day I even got to climb Mt. Bruce for sunrise thanks to Cedric. It meant a lot. It probably seems cheesy but my old man took me to the top of Mt. Bruce on the dawn of my 13th birthday and as the sun rose told me that now I’m a man and something poetic to do with being high up. He’s always been far more poetic than I (can you tell with that eloquent description?). But it meant a lot to be able to do this again before I left. And when we left, the Italian borrowed the girls van and went to pick up theirs. We got to the meeting place and waited. And waited. And eventually found out that they had gone to fuel up at Tom Price’s only fuel station only to have the car next to them catch on fire and they had to wait until the service station opened for business again.

When they caught up, me and Romain parted ways to go to Port Hedland for the night to stay with some family of mine. My uncle has backyard bar there. I wish I had some pics of it. It has a lot of character. The bar itself is a nice timber log places on top of a snake aquarium with a sea snake skin on the back wall and great quotes scattered around the bar in various marker pens. I got killed in pool by their children, as expected. We also watched some Aboriginal girls fishing. It was interesting watching them sitting with the VB throwing the lines in, pulling them up with a fish, taking a swig, leaving the fish to flop about and then throwing the line back in. They’re far better fisherman then I.

Between Port Hedland and Broome we stopped for a night to celebrate the Italians anniversary. I have a note here “I should never have explained double pluggers to them”.

We finished out time together as a group in Broome at Max and Fleur’s house for a few nights. They’re family friends from way back and have been having couch surfers stay with them for ages. They had some great storys and the best feature wall of any house I’ve seen. A huge world map. They were really warm and staying with them and their children was great. Even if the boys relished in showing me up on the trampoline. We had a good last night with as all enjoying ourselves over a few drinks. First at the beach and then at the house. Sadly, I was just really getting to know a few of the group and me and Romain would be splintering off early the next morning. He had three days to catch a flight in Darwin to see his mother so off we went. Or so we thought.

The next morning saw me driving. God know’s why. That was rare so I’m guessing Romain must of been pretty hungover. We made it as far as… nope we didn’t even make it past the Derby turn of. The car just stopped. It was kind of hard to give more of a description than that because we were talking and listing to music but the car just seemed to loose all power and stop. Romain had no mechanical knowledge and all I wanted to do was sleep. It sucked. Slowly we had people stop and look over the car. And I harassed poor Max and my old man. They must have been getting sick of me by now. Everyone came to the same conclusion. There was no spark at the distributer. It was probably dodgy wiring or the coil. We had no tools or circuit diagram and I didn’t really have the patience for someones idea of using a 12V light and some wire to test different parts of the wiring. So, we hailed cars until someone was happy to tow us to Derby. It was quite the experience since neither of us had been towed before (and Romain had recently been in a car accident with someone else at the wheel), and I didn’t expect to be travelling at 110 km/hr with a tow rope this short. But, we were pretty happy as we pulled up and fate being the way it is a girl walked past and gave us her husbands number since he was a mobile mechanic. That night we splurged and had a pub counter meal before Romain decided he wanted to go fishing. I wanted to sleep so I convinced him we should push the van there. The Jetty really isn’t close but we made it a fair way.

The next morning, fate being the way it is, the mobile mechanic messaged us just before lunch to tell us that he didn’t have the time. A morning wasted. We learned a few things after we got to Derby:

  1. Derby isn’t the best place to get repairs done. Funnily my old man did call to tell us that. It was as we were undoing the tow rope.
  2. Small towns cook horrible seafood.
  3. French people are horribly snobby when it comes to food. Wait… only to food?
  4. You shouldn’t tow an automatic a long way or quickly without taking out the tailshaft.
  5. It’s a long way to the wharf and probably too far to push a van that doesn’t work. We made it half way though.
We eventually found someone who could fit us in but Romain wasn’t sure he could get to Darwin in time so we decided that it might be best if he arranged a bus ticket and I drove the van to Darwin. I was also meant to renew the vehicle registration but there were a few complications with this and it looked like it was going to be simpler for me to “buy” the van off him and then “sell” it back to him. In the end we didn’t and it soon became unregistered with amusing consequences. The goodbye that night was interesting because we were both in a less than perfect situations, tired and we’d known each other only ten days. The following morning the car (surprisingly) got fixed and I started driving it to Darwin, alone, but something seemed strange with the gearbox. Again, this has consequences down the line.

Your Pack Is Always Full of Crap and Missing Things You Need

by Life ToKorea Travel


While I was travelling there was often music people were playing that reminds me of a time, place or people. I can’t think of a good song for these events but this song was stuck in my head a lot just before I left.

There’s a bit of an overlap with this post and Day 1 and Day 2 & 3. I hope it’s not too much. I wrote it trying to keep myself awake one night shift on the boat.

I’d spent my last few nights (or weeks I believe) at Paz’s house with Dougy and Esu. I’d had a really great few weeks with them. Actually, I had a great time with everyone I stayed with before I left. (I may have slipped past the point that I’d been “homeless” for my last year before I left Perth. Well, I was living out my car. Mostly housesitting or renting short term). I’d convinced Paz, Dougy and Esu all to drive me north (Much to Dougy’s chagrin since his car was on it’s last legs) to drop me off just west of Joondalup so that I could start hitching out of Perth. Miraculously, this fine Saturday morning there was a break in the rain.

I said goodbyes waved and watched the car leave before heading off north. I like to walk when I’m hitch hiking. There’s something about walking that I find relaxing. It also gives a sense of achieving something, which is a nice contrast to everyone driving past. So I walked. And walked. And doubted. It had been a while since I was hitch hiking and I’d forgotten the golden rule. Just after you start to doubt and wonder if this was a good idea or will anyone stop, someone does and so someone did. Off I was. One of the things hitchhiking is that everyone has a story. I’d like to list them here but they go in some other posts.

I find that keeping up your end of the bargin (entertaining the driver) is the hardest part of hitchhiking for me. Not because it’s hard, but because often you’ve just woken up from the side of the road with a  few hours sleep. And this is what happened that first night. I’d turned down the offer of going somewhere to sleep and decided to trek on. Next thing I knew there are howling dogs, a cold breeze and no windbreak and all my clothes were wet because I’d decided to leave instead of waiting for them to dry. Did I mention that I’d decided last minute that the tent and sleeping back weren’t needed and were to large to bother with in the pack? Then the only bush i could find to supplement my pack as a windbreak with was filled with rats. Well… that was day one over. And yet, being free and travelling these things weren’t a problem.

The next day brought me the rest of the way to Carnavon where I’d planned on catching up with one of the Taiwanese backpackers that had worked on the vineyard my dad manages. There hospitality was amazing I took a day off here to set up the pack (and you know, dry out the washing).

Setting out from there I made it a while before getting a lift from a Mauritian bloke going to Coral Bay. He was nice guy. We talked easily for most of the trip. He offered to take me into Coral Bay and I turned down the lift so he dropped me at the turn off and I tried to get a lift the rest of the day. No luck.

That night I walked back to the road house to get some food and then hit the bush to find a place out of the view of oncoming traffic to get some shut eye. In Carnarvon I’d buckled and bought a cheap sleeping bag. The next morning it was wet and I was cold. Dammit! :P After getting up I walked to the road house to get some food and it was here I saw a guy looking lost. I don’t usually hang out at road houses and harass the customers but two days sleeping ill prepared on the side of the road was enough for me at the time. Then just as I was about to ask him for a lift, he drove off. Thankfully he didn’t drive too far before he pulled over. I ran over to him to ask where he was going. It turned out to be Coral Bay. Great! I wanted to get to Darwin as fast as possible. There were three boat races heading north and the first was starting now. There was only a short window. I was desperate though. “Where are you going after that?” I asked. “Karijini” he said in a French accent. This was the one place I did want to see heading north (I spent a fair amount of time growing up growing up nearby and I still have quite an attachment to the place) but I didn’t think I would have the time to spare and hitchhiking there was (I assumed) fair from simple or easy. I decided that if he was going back onto my route after this then it would be worth the delay. He was. Port Hedland and then Broome. Even better, he had a plane flight he had to catch in Darwin so we wouldn’t be delayed too long. It was further in the future than ideal, but I would be able to see Karajini!! I exchanged names with Romain and jumped in the van. It turned out that he was travelling with four other cars. So now, including myself, nine people in total. We hung out in Coral bay for the rest of the day playing soccer and swimming. He was a decent guy and I didn’t know it then but we were going to become good friends.

Day 2 & 3: Getting to Carnarvon and Relaxing

by Hitchhiking Life ToKorea Travel


Butter with Kyle’s Raphael
I’m in Carnarvon and these guys are awesome. I love backpackers. Butter, her boyfriend and their friends are great. Now I just need to work out what to get them as thanks. People that say “nothing” suck 

So, I woke up yesterday morning and wrote out the last post, then did some Korean study, packed my things that had left my bag and started walking down the road with my thumb out. It wasn’t too long until someone felt sorry for me and turned their car around to pick me up. Actually, I felt sorry for them. With the amount of sleep I’d had the night before, there was no way I was going to be great company. Luckily, he loved talking so we did fairly well. I convinced him to stop at one of the road houses so that I could have a real brunch unlike the two kiddie sized chocolate bars I’d had for breakfast. Needless to say, I’ve spent most of today preparing. Making sure all my clothes are clean and packed, buying a cheap sleeping bad and throwing away half the crap that made it’s way into my bag. Well… mostly it’s just half of my first aid kit and spending the $47 in loose change I was somehow carting around.

I suck at poker
I digress, back to the bloke who picked me up. He had a daughter who jumped straight in the back of the car giving me the front seat. I never know how to handle that too well but it’s the norm so you just kind of mutter out a thanks. The bloke who picked me up was a Kiwi with a pet hate for the rivalry between the two countries. He educated me on a few points that I haven’t bothered to check, like Farlap being from New Zealand and told me a fair bit about Carnarvon. He loved smoking, could no longer drink and had hitch hiked along the west and east coast when he was younger along with having done a bit of squatting. He’d apparently once done it with two guys who murdered someone who picked them up just for the cash in their wallets. Apparently you wouldn’t of picked that they were capable of it but they were easily stupid enough to do something that…. stupid. So, after a brief stop at the cemetery, he gave me a tour of the town and dropped me off at my friends house.

I’ve now spent one night here and plan on heading off early tomorrow morning. It’s raining now (my jumper was on the line outside) but should be clearing up by the morning. Wait! The rains stopped! I might try and get some stuff done in town before it starts up again!

Oh. The plan is to stop in Dampier, Port Hedland, South Hedland, Broome and then… well I’ll sort that out then. That is, presuming the plan hasn’t changed by then.

Day 1: A Good Start

by Hitchhiking Idiot Life ToKorea Travel


Me at the Gravity Center for the Magic 8-Ball trip.
Ah! It’s good to be moving. I woke up at some ungodly hour to do my tax and pack. Then Esu, Dougy and I drove to T’s before heading to my hitching point near Muchea. It took very little time for my first lift to pick me up.

He was a guy from south England somewhere and was going to the gravity centre in Gingin. He’d been to most of the tourist sites in Perth and couldn’t wait for the two years until his contract was up fast enough. He dropped me in Gingin and we bonded over how things closed too early in Perth and that the living wasn’t dense enough. The standard stuff.

The next guy was a year younger than me (although he thought I was younger). He had a bunch of tattoos (some of which he’d done), built custom bikes (the reason he’d been in Perth), worked as a DJ, had done some work in security and was now working in the airport. He’d also travelled a surprising amount of Australia. He dropped me at the Geraldton maccas (so cheap) at two pm but said he could drop me off at a backpackers. I’m now on the side of the road somewhere north of there. Grumpy is probably a word that would come to mind. I’m just glad it’s not raining.

This currently has a startlingly similar feel to the time when I was hitch hiking, maybe in townsville, where three lovely African girls took me to their families house where I helped cook and babysit the children and they fed me. Then they tried to bring me out to a party with them and told me that it was no problem and they’d sort somewhere out for me to crash the night. I said no. I said that a truck driver might pick me up over night and take me a long distance. Sometimes I need to be beaten until I’m unconscious and then when I wake up, beaten again just to drive the point home. That was a stupid decision and this one seems no better.

If you squint, that’s Lee!!
Anyway, turning down that lift lead to me meeting Lee. I’d just made it to the outskirts and had a lot of people driving past pointing. It was rather futile though because I hadn’t made it to the unknown intersection ahead, so I had no idea which way I’m going. Anyway, Lee was a French hitch hiker who was on my turf and was also heading to Carnarvon that night. He didn’t seem to have much luck and nor did I after meeting him. I stopped hitch hiking and walked a few km’s past him before sticking my thumb out again. Only to see him drive past in the longed for comfort of the passenger seat of some car. He didn’t even wave! And then… a few km’s further, we crossed paths again. I hadn’t managed to get a lift and apparently his fell quite a bit short. I should probably point out that Lee was doing the wise thing and waiting next to the 24hr service station. I walked past him again and got a phone call from Sammy at around sunset which I stopped short since a car was stopping for me.

The family didn’t even see it!
My next lift was a family that took me into Northampton. The girl, who was around my age, was telling me about how she’d briefly owed monkeys in Indonesia. They also explained that Northampton’s population of 1000 was enough to support three bars. Upper, middle and Lower. Or was it First, Second and Third? Meh. They were amazingly creative names. I had a beer in the last one. I was hoping for some food but the kitchen was closed. The girl behind the bar was a gorgeous Italian girl. We talked a bit about travelling and then instead of:

  • asking about accommodation,
  • hitting on her, or
  • getting ridiculously drunk, or

or anything else that could have resulted in me not lying on the side of the road ridiculously aware of the fact I was freezing, I quietly walked off. Really just running towards my eventual fate. Right now, I’m using my computer as extra ‘heating’. I have another jumper. To find out why it’s wet instead of just a little dirty we’ll have to ask last evening’s hungover Bodey. I’m not his biggest fan. So, another night of walking because it’s too cold to sleep. Last time I was in this position I learnt that my hiking pack doesn’t effectively double as a sleeping bag. This time I learnt that maybe I shouldn’t have (deliberately!?) left my sleeping bag and tent at home. It’s not completely my fault I’m in this situation. The weather man lied to me about the night time temperature. It’s mostly my fault though.

Before I knew it was going to be this cold I made do by setting up a hovel in a grove using my backpack as the final wind break. I was sharing it with a number of rodents that wanted to continuously run through the grass. Off in the distance was the symphonic tune of multiple of dogs howling and barking which lead to me I drifting off to sleep with the soothing thoughts of wether foxes would take on a sleeping human (the dogs didn’t seem to be getting any closer). This didn’t last long because it was still cooling down around me.

First I went through my pack, putting on the few clothes that were dirty instead of going into the washing machine the night before. This only briefly helped but then I hit the jackpot. I needed to eat and Sarah’s kit-kats were in my pocket wrapped in a bag. I grumpy tore them apart hoping that there was no note because it was unlikely to get read and that would get me in trouble. And then I saw it! Pop rocks! Holy shit. It was like heaven. True, a sleeping bag or those hand warmer things might of been more useful but far more mundane. Man now I want some more. Anyway, I had to abandon the hovel to walk to feel warm. A bit further along I decided jogging on the spot is a far better idea. I’m now aware that the last town’s caravan park was full so staying there wasn’t an option. It’s five thirty so I’ve almost made it through the long night. The next few hitch hiking legs are 400 km segments so this shouldn’t happen again. I’m still going to make sure my clothes are dry.

On Carl Sagan

by Life


When my husband died, because he was so famous and known for not being a believer, many people would come up to me-it still sometimes happens-and ask me if Carl changed at the end and converted to a belief in an afterlife. They also frequently ask me if I think I will see him again. Carl faced his death with unflagging courage and never sought refuge in illusions. The tragedy was that we knew we would never see each other again. I don’t ever expect to be reunited with Carl. But, the great thing is that when we were together, for nearly twenty years, we lived with a vivid appreciation of how brief and precious life is. We never trivialized the meaning of death by pretending it was anything other than a final parting. Every single moment that we were alive and we were together was miraculous-not miraculous in the sense of inexplicable or supernatural. We knew we were beneficiaries of chance… . That pure chance could be so generous and so kind… . That we could find each other, as Carl wrote so beautifully in Cosmos, you know, in the vastness of space and the immensity of time… . That we could be together for twenty years. That is something which sustains me and it’s much more meaningful… . The way he treated me and the way I treated him, the way we took care of each other and our family, while he lived. That is so much more important than the idea I will see him someday. I don’t think I’ll ever see Carl again. But I saw him. We saw each other. We found each other in the cosmos, and that was wonderful.

Ann Druyan

Survival Language

by Language

So, I’m planning on doing some travelling soon and I’ve started wondering how much language I should learn before I leave. And this got me thinking about the minimum phrases needed for communication. Really, this number is close to zero since arm waving and pictures can get you through, but it’s nice making things easier for other people.

As far as I’m concerned, numbers are out. You make too many mistakes until you master them and there is a quite a bit of rote learning. There’s just too much risk of doing more harm than good by trying to use them. So, what is in? My current list is pretty short:

  • Good
  • Please
  • Thank you
  • Beer
  • Cute / Pretty
  • Where
  • Help
  • Hospital
Obviously there are a few more you might want to add depending on specifics. Like “train station” if you’re expecting to use a lot of public transport.

I wonder what’s missing…

A Boring Title: Producer Consumer Queue

by Coding Nerdy

I’ve been doing a bit of embedded programming for Stellaris microcontrollers in C recently. I’ve needed various queue’s to buffer data between code running in different interrupt contexts and ended up using some hacked up sub optimal implementations that then got hacked away while trying to find a particularly annoying bug. After fixing the bug and coming back to clean up the code and merge, I found a nice blog going over a lockless producer consumer queue. It’s reliant on at most one consumer thread and one producer thread. And neither of the reader access or writer access methods are reentrant. For my needs, there is more than one interrupt context that the producer can run from so interrupts have to be disabled in the code. Here is a mutilated version of the code. Due to a lack of locks, the size code should only be used as a rough measure. I was only using it for some debug while determining the best size for the queues.

Learning Korean

by Language

A while back now, I bought a book on learning Korean to impress my then girlfriend. We then broke up, before I read more than the prelude. Being stubborn, and now owning a book on Korean that would have no purpose otherwise, I decided to learn Korean. It turns out that the book wasn’t really useful for this. Fate hey. And the purpose of this blog post is to point out some things that have been been useful. I figure I may as well since I wrote most of this in an email to a friend so it’s mostly already written!! So, here goes. Wait, first, here’s the only dictionary I’ve found that’s reasonably usable and good for a non-Korean speaker.

First things first. Learn the alphabet. There isn’t really any compromise here, especially since it’s so quick and simple. I find computer games are the fastest for this. Sadly they aren’t used often enough for knowledge acquisition. There isn’t a lot of choice in Korean, this game is the only reasonable one I could find and it’s no Slime Forest Adventure. Then, practice some pronunciation of these sounds using this page from the Korean Wiki Project. It also has a nicely compiled list of language learning sites.

Now comes the real learning. There’s a few ways to go about this. My preference is to use Anki and build up my own cards. I know the data will be there for as long as I want it and I can code a port to a better system if one comes along. It allows you to remember facts over time using less and less effort as you become more familiar with these facts. The only problem then is to find the resource to learn from before you memorise using Anki.

Ideally, lessons introduce well explained concepts quickly, without dumping too much on you. It would allow listening to plenty of audio, use natural language and use the Korean alphabet. It would throw in a bit of culture and explain common uses of some phrases. I had trouble finding something nice, but settled on Talk to me in Korean. So far, I’ve liked it.

I use three different models for study. One for numbers(/counters), one for general questions and one for example sentences. Ideally, a few cards would be put in for each ‘grammar point’ with most of these cards using a sentence that only introduces one new word. Each of these sentences should have an explanation of the grammar point to ensure you knew it when you answered.

At some point you have to start being more natural with your language use. You hear people arguing for immersive language study ‘because it works with children’. I think that view’s overly simplistic. Children get dumbed down info and frequently corrected. We don’t easily have that luxury as adults. The other view I’ve seen that was interesting is never make a mistake. If you don’t know how to say something, don’t say it. The argument here is that if the other person understands you, it will reinforce that you were correct, even if you weren’t and then you’ll get into the habit of using incorrect language. I can’t find the website that is based around this idea though >< That is a scary, slow and tedious path though although I think there is some truth in it. I’ve seen too many people that were speaking some great English more into a house filled with people learning English whereby everyone starts reinforcing each others bad use of English. It’s part of why I really don’t like the view of only speaking the native language of a country you move to.

So then, how do you best go from book learning to something fluent, useful and fun? Who knows? :P From now though I’ve got a reasonable basis of knowledge with Korean and if I wait much longer I’ll probably start reinforcing bad grammar and pronunciation, so it’s time to work on it. My first step is to find some people who’s English is roughly equivalent to my Korean and enforce a half hour solely of one language, followed by a half hour of the other. The other step is to start making diary posts at Lang-8 again. It’s a pretty cool site where you correct peoples diary posts that they’ve written in your language and other people correct yours. Multiple people make corrections and you get to see the result. I should probably start making some Japanese posts there again too. It’s been a while :P It might make up for me skipping the language exchange tonight :P

To finish up, I thought I’d leave with a pretty cool video I watched today that ends with him talking about a beta for a new language learning site. I think it’s a great idea and very positive, but I’m not so sure it’s that good for the learner. I can’t see how the progression, reinforcement and non-overwhelmingness required for language learning fits smoothly, but hopefully that will be introduced into the idea with time. Oh, a last point before I put on the video. I learn concepts easily and visuals / tasks (writing Chinese characters) but I’m not so good with audio.. or learning new vocabulary. I really just grind it out. Anki is good for making sure you don’t forget, but it’s not designed for learning. That’s not a problem for using Anki to learn Kanji or grammar points, but it’s not perfect for me learning new vocabulary. Anyone got any pointers? I suppose that’s where immersion helps :P Anyway, here’s the video: