2degreesofseparation's Blog

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  • Coffee

    Coffee

    There are some addictions that I won’t admit to publicly, and there are some that I won’t even admit to myself…but I wear my coffee addiction like a badge of honour. I love it. I make myself a coffee everyday before I ride to work, and yet every time I pass someone drinking a coffee on the way to work, I think ‘Man, a coffee would be so good right now!’, despite having had one no more than 10 minutes ago.
    What’s more, I have added insult to injury by becoming a ‘coffee snob’. I’ve walked out of cafes when I saw they way they were making other people’s coffees…I’ve walked right past cafe’s because a cursory glance at the coffees being drunk by people at the tables outside didn’t look like they would make the grade…I have even asked the person making my coffee in small town in the Mallee if they would mind if I came behind the counter and made the coffee myself!
    This is not socially acceptable behaviour! I would never walk into a Thai restaurant, order my Pad Thai and then stroll into the kitchen telling the chef “I’d use a bit more fish sauce. Actually, step back from the wok…I’ll take it from here.” But such is the power of coffee that I will transgress social norms just to ensure that I get a good coffee.

    Now the purpose of this blog is not to tell you what makes a perfect coffee, or where to go for the best coffee (although I will be dropping some pretty blatant hints about both of these) because, like many of the finer things in life, a ‘good coffee’ is a very subjective thing. Some people like it weak, some people like it strong, some people like it scalding hot and some people like soy milk. So instead of telling you the coffee you should like, I’m going to tell you some of the things I’ve learned over my 20 year coffee drinking career.

    How to find a good coffee
    OK, look around. Are you in Melbourne? If ‘yes’, then you should be fine. Just walk into any non-franchise coffee emporium and order your coffee with confidence. If ‘no’, then I’m afraid you have your work cut out for you, but here are some key pointers:
    – If they are offering ‘Mugachinos’, run
    – If they start heating the milk, and then walk away to serve another customer, you are doomed
    – Don’t get too picky with your order. Yes you may like a 3/4 latte with 1/2 a sugar, but order that and at best you are going to get some horrific fraction based version of a coffee (I’m talking to you Geelong!)…or at worst you are going to get a withering sigh from an elderly woman who really doesn’t have time for this crap (hello Numurkah), or the distinct impression everyone else in the shop now wants to kill you (hello Rainbow/Orbost/Waragul).

    All you need is love
    A passionate barista who doesn’t have the best materials, but is determined to make you a great coffee, is going to do a hell of a lot better job than someone with the best equipment who just doesn’t give a damn.
    Fortunately, there are plenty of places with great coffee, great people and great equipment. If you are ever in Melbourne, then you need to go to:
    65 Degrees
    The League of Honest Coffee
    D’Marcos
    Manchester Press
    Because these people love their coffee, and the lines of people waiting to order show that people love their coffee too!

    Get a coffee machine
    Some people frivolously wasted their baby bonus on plasma TV’s, and those people are clearly not fit to be parents. We on the other hand purchased a coffee machine and grinder. Now before those of you without young children get all angry and say that we were being selfish, think about this- by purchasing the machine and therefore having our coffees at home, we were no longer cluttering up your local cafe with prams and screaming children, leaving you to read the newspaper/pretentiously work on your laptop/nurse a hangover in peace…so we were basically providing a community service!
    We got a Rancilio Silvia machine and a Rocky Grinder for about $1,100. For over four years they have made at least two coffees everyday and have not missed a beat.
    Also, the cred attached to saying ‘No I don’t need the beans ground…I have my own grinder at home’, is pretty much the same as introducing yourself as a Formula 1 driver.

    It was the best of times, it was the worst of times
    I have had some truly memorable coffees; a coffee with lots of cardamon in Sharjah, my first ever espresso coffee at a little cafe in Kew that was the only place that would let my friends smoke in there before school, and any coffee that provided respite during a freezing cold bike ride. But if I know my audience, you don’t want to hear about the good times…you want to hear about those moments that make you glad that you are you…and I am me.
    So let us cast our minds back 4 years to our family holiday to WA. We had a toddler and a baby in the car and we were driving from Margaret River to Pemberton (about 4 hour drive). We had decided not to get a coffee in Margaret River, and instead find somewhere along the way so we could break up the trip. In Victoria, as you travel through the countryside you can usually find somewhere that offers a serviceable coffee, but after 2 hours of driving (and the dull thud of caffeine withdrawal starting to emminate from the back of my skull) we finally made the executive decision to go to a McCafe. The logic was that it wouldn’t be a 10/10 coffee…but it would be a dependable 7/10 and that was all we needed. So I parked the car and went in and ordered two lattes. The girl behind the counter went to grab the percolated coffee. I said ‘No, no…I’d like them from the machine’. After a lot of huffing, the girl went over and put the steam wand into the milk to warm it up…then went of to serve someone else. By the time she returned the jug was glowing red hot…and I think I was weeping a little. She then made the espresso and walked away again (clearly the burnt milk would balance out the lukewarm espresso). She then came back and filled the cups to the absolute brim with scalding hot coffee, and I walked back to the car doing that thing where the cup is so hot that you have to rotate which fingers are doing most of the holding for fear of burning them. When I got back to the car I discovered that our baby needed a nappy change and was screaming about the fact that this was happening…at the same time our toddler was trying to drown out the cries of our baby by screaming louder…causing the baby to cry even louder. In a state of zen like calm that can only be achieved by a true addict, I was in the process of removing the lids from the coffees and adding the sugar. The first coffee was fine and I had put it in the cup holder for my wife, and having added the sugar to my coffee I was replacing the lid when I somehow pushed down to hard and tipped the contents of the cup all over my lap.
    I’m not 100% sure what happened next, but I do remember both children suddenly going quiet…and my wife hurriedly saying ‘You can have my one!’
    Within about 30 seconds the coffee in my lap had gone from scalding hot to tepid and clammy…and thus began one of the least comfortable drives of my life.

    But for all that I still come back to coffee as the perfect start to my day, the best way to reward myself and my happiest vice. But anything that gives so much and takes so little must have some sort of horrible secret, and when in 20 years time people look back at the way we drank coffee with much the same horror as we look at the smoking in Mad Men and say ‘But didn’t they realise how much damage they were doing to themselves?!’ I’ll just smile and say ‘It was worth it!’

     

     

  • Renovating.

    Renovating.

    If, like me, you’ve watched a lot of Grand Designs, you know that in order to renovate your house you need to go through some hardship, but then 42 TV minutes later you will have Kevin McLeod wandering through your house admitting that it has all worked out quite well…despite his reservations. Although if you’re watching the Australian version, you will know that a renovation involves 42 minutes of people so excruciatingly smug and self-obsessed that you want to throw something at the TV.
    Well we are now 2 years into our renovation, and we still haven’t actually done a single thing to the house…so Now I’m No Expert, But here’s some key questions to ask yourself if you’re thinking of renovating.

    1. Do you have money?
    Good. Now double it. OK, now we’re talking. This is probably the most amount of money you have ever spent. Now prepare to have this amount of money laughed at by everyone from the Architect, to the builder, to any other person looking to take this money from you.
    At the same time, expect the bank and anyone else you talk to, to reel in horror at this amount and make comments like ‘What are you building, a MANSION?!’

    2. Do you have children?
    If yes, then clearly you lied when you answered the first question.
    This is the renovation paradox, you renovate because you need more space for the kids…but if you have kids the bank won’t lend you money. Here is an example of a recent conversation with the bank we currently have our loan with:
    Me: Hello, I’d like to borrow some money.
    Bank: Do you have a loan with us?
    Me: Yes
    Bank: Let’s see, ah yes here are your details. Based on this we could lend you approximately eleventy billion dollars. When can you and your wife come in to sign the paperwork?
    Me: Well my wife’s at home with our kids, so we’ll have to…
    Bank: Sorry, your what?!
    Me: Our kids.
    Bank: You have kids?! How many?
    Me: Three.
    Bank: Oh…in that case we can lend you…negative $12,000.
    Me: Done…I’ll bring the money in shortly.

    3. Do you have time?
    We started this whole thing because we thought we might have a third child some day…and if we did we would need the space. If we didn’t we could have a room for piano teaching/ video editing.
    Then we became pregnant, and we were thinking ‘I hope we’ve moved back in before the baby comes’.
    Then it became ‘I can’t believe we wont be living in our house when the baby comes’.
    Then ‘Oh my God we’re going to be living in my parent’s house with a newborn!’
    Now it’s pretty much ‘I sure hope we can celebrate the baby’s 18th birthday in our new house!’

    4. Are you going to go over budget?
    In my version of the ‘Grand Designs drinking game’ you get to drink each time someone:
    A) goes over budget,
    B) decides to project manage the whole thing themselves (their job in IT is pretty much the same anyway), or
    C) or reveals that they are expecting a baby.

    I guarantee that you will be drunk by the halfway mark of the show…and why?

    A) Because everything costs so much that things inevitably go over budget,
    B) so you try to find things you can do yourself to save money,
    C) and you can’t afford to go out anymore so you have to find things to do at home to entertain yourselves…next thing you know you’re pregnant.

    So far the exclusions on our job include a roof, the floor, the painting, the deck and the cabinetry…take out the walls as well and we no longer have a house!

    5. Why are we doing this?
    Good question. Considering all of the grief we have gone through over the last two years on this, and this is before we have to pack up and move out, and before we have to decide if we want to rent locally or live with my parents, and before we discover that our house is built on an ancient burial ground/fault line. The answer is; it’s better than the alternatives. In our case the alternatives are to just patch things up around the house and hope that Josh feels ready to move out of home when he’s 8. Or to sell the house and buy somewhere that already has what we want. But the real estate reality is that if you want more than you have, then you have to move further out. Seeing as we feel very much part of the local community we don’t really want to have to do this. Even if we do choose to move, we’re probably going to have just as many problems borrowing money.

    On the positive side, if everything goes to plan, we will have an amazing house that we can live in for the rest of our lives. What’s more it will be a home that we feel is truly ours.
    Which is good…because at this rate we won’t be able to afford to leave it for a looong time.

     

     

  • Belgians, live music and getting old

    Belgians, live music and getting old

    Much like polishing floorboards and painting a house, it’s important to go backpacking…if only to ensure that you know to never do it again. In 1998 my then girlfriend (now wife) and I backpacked across Europe for 6 months, and from this experience I took away three things; Dogs in Portugal bite, I am not cut out to be a telemarketer, and Belgian band dEUS are pretty awesome.
    14 years later I went and saw dEUS perform at the Corner Hotel…and they were indeed pretty awesome.

    In 1999 dEUS released an album titled ‘The Ideal Crash‘…and I thought it was pretty much perfection. It has great lyrics, it was brilliantly produced…and it was sufficiently obscure to garner indie cred (the most precious of all cred). In fact if over the course of 1999 – 2000 you managed to spend time with me and not hear The Ideal Crash, Rebirth of Cool Phive or Endtroducing, then I clearly didn’t think all that much of you. At the same time I was also very much into local band Something for Kate, and when I scored a radio interview with their lead singer (Paul Dempsey) and got him to bring in a few tracks and he played a dEUS track…I reached the musical equivalent of Tantric sex.

    But with the onset of a mortgage and then kids, I think it’s fair to say that my musical purchasing and gig going went into steep decline. I can remember being in the middle of the moshpit at a Rage Against the Machine gig at the Palace and seeing a whole lot of older guys standing on the outside of the mosh just watching the show. At the time I thought ‘Those guys don’t really appreciate this music…if they did they’d be in here like me, getting seven shades of shit pummeled out of them by some sweaty stranger!’ But then just a couple of years later I was that older guy, watching a group of kids smashing into each other in the mosh pit and thinking ‘How can those kids be appreciating the music if they’re doing that all show?!’ Then a couple of years later I was that guy driving along Punt Rd seeing a poster for a show and saying ‘Oh, the Decemberists toured last month. Shit!’

    So when I heard that dEUS were touring Australia for the first time ever, I had to go. I called the usual suspects, and my brother was keen to come too…my brother-in-law was going to wait until every single band from Rebirth of Cool Phive was going to appear on the same night. So tickets were purchased and suddenly I was back to that excitement of going to a gig. Because I love live music. I love that strange alchemy that happens when a band and an audience suddenly connect and make something amazing happen. Sometimes it just builds over the course of a gig to a point where no-one wants to go home (thank you Morphine at the Prince of Wales), sometimes there is a moment when everything just clicks (thank you Portishead at Festival Hall), sometimes the band can feel it just isn’t happening and take a 10 minute break on stage to try and work out what’s going wrong…then came back and blow the audiences mind (thank you Dandy Warhols at the Forum), sometimes it’s a flamenco dancer under a single spotlight dancing up a storm while the drummer joins in and then the entire band just explodes to life (thank you The Cat Empire at the Forum)…and sometimes it’s just Gil Scott-Heron at The Lounge.
    These moments are seared into my brain. I can still picture and recreate all of them, and I think that’s because the link we share with music is just so primal, and so the feeling of experiencing this link with a group of people ticks so many psychological boxes that your brain just says ‘right, we’re not likely to need long division anymore…so I’m replacing that knowledge with a memory of this experience.’

    I won’t say that the dEUS gig entered my pantheon of gig mythology…but they were freaking awesome. It was just so great to see a band that have been playing together for so long, and know exactly how to put on a show. It was inspiring to see how an amazing live band interprets a brilliant studio album. It was surreal to spend so much of the night standing next to Michael Gudinski. It was depressing to be getting so old that security don’t even bother asking for ID. It was serendipitous to see Paul Dempsey at the gig, and for dEUS to play live the song he brought in for my radio show (‘Instant Street’). But most of all, it was just great to be back out and seeing a live band again.

    So let’s all revel in the fact that Melbourne is such a great live music city, let’s get out and see a couple of gigs, let’s reminisce about those great gigs that we have seen, and most of all, let’s never admit that the first live concert we ever went to was Bon Jovi at the Tennis Centre.
    If you’ve had an amazing live music experience…or if you’d like to finally admit that you’ve seen Bon Jovi live…I’d love to hear about it.

  • Why I love Instagram

    Why I love Instagram

    As most of you probably know, Facebook recently purchased Instagram for $US 1 billion (which is about $AUS 2 billion if Adobe or Apple are charging…but that rant is for another time). This was disappointing on a few levels:
    Firstly I don’t really like Facebook,
    Secondly I had hoped that Google would purchase it for Google+,
    …and Thirdly because I had offered to buy the company for $85, and that was now looking like it wasn’t going to be enough.

    But none of this has been enough to diminish my love of this app. So I’m No Expert But…here’s why I love Instagram.

    1. It can make remarkably average photos look sensational.
    Allow me to present exhibit A:
    Before

    After

    2. It’s very easy to use
    Just download the app onto your phone, then either take a photo with the app, take a photo with the phone’s camera or choose a photo from your library.
    Open this photo in the app and start adding filters, blurs and borders.
    Once you’re happy with how it looks you can then add it to your Instagram account, share it on Twitter or Facebook… and the photo is saved in your library if you want to email or text it.

    3. Filters and blurs
    There are about 18 filters available, giving you everything from pronounced black and blues, through to washed out reds and black and white. I personally like ‘X-pro II’, ‘Lo-fi’ and ‘hefe’. But it really depends on the photo you’re using.
    The are only two blurs, but they are awesome. There is a circular blur that you can manipulate the size of, and that can used to cheat a depth of field. And there is a straight line blur which can create a pretty cool tilt-shift look.
    One feature I’ve been using a lot is the ‘lux’ tool (the little sun like icon in the bottom left of your screen). It basically adds contrast and saturation to the image (the before and after shot above is a really good example of what it does).

    4. But it’s not real photography
    I can remember my guitar teacher telling me how he had played guitar for a couple of years and then bought his first wah-wah pedal…and suddenly everything he played sounded awesome. But he got so carried away with playing with the pedal that his actual  skills deteriorated.
    This app can definitely have the same impact on your photography, an average photo can be made look pretty damn good. So you can get a tad sloppy.
    But by the same token, I’ve learnt a lot about shooting with the filters in mind and have found that I’ve been getting better results out of Lightroom because I know what I’m looking to do.

    5. It ain’t perfect…but it’s free
    I discovered Instagram because I was annoyed by the shortcomings of Hipstamatic (limited preset looks, missed shots because the app was ‘cleaning the lens’, inability to apply effects to existing photos etc)…so initially it ticked a lot of boxes. However it would be great if the photos could be saved at a higher res (you can do this by using the camera in the app…but I don’t like that camera as much). I would really like to enlarge and print some of the photos I’ve taken…but the file size is so small that it look pixelated on anything larger than a phone.
    I’d also like to have another black and white filter…the one that’s there already is pretty washed out and it would be nice to have one that had more shadows and contrast.
    But seeing as I paid $0 for it…I’m not going to complain.

    So if you haven’t already got it, then I recommend downloading and having some fun. If you’re using some alternative apps I’d love to hear what you’re using and why…and if you want to follow me on Instagram my use name is @sumo_21

    I’ll leave you with some photos I took on a recent trip to Geelong and Warrnambool.

     

  • The kids on Facebook

    The kids on Facebook

    When it comes to putting photos of my kids on Facebook I think I’m somewhere between one of those lunatics you see holding up a ‘The end is nigh!’ sign and King Canute.
    I still think it’s dangerous, I would rather it didn’t happen…but deep down I know that there is no chance I’m going to stop it. So am I a paranoid delusional madman…or is everyone else just stupid? Well clearly the first option is ridiculous…so it must be the second one.
    Sorry.
    Now I’m No Expert But…here’s why:

    1. Dear stalker, do you need any other info on my child?
    I’ve put up a photo of them on their first day of school so you know what they look like and what school they go to. From some of my other posts you know their hobbies, friends and cute stories about them, what my name is and what I do. But have I really given you enough info to go on?

    2. Wait, why is my child’s image on that ad?
    At the moment you can change your privacy settings so that your photos aren’t used in ads. But an ad for a product that features your own child is going to have a massive impact on whether you buy that product. So companies would pay a lot of money in order to get access to your photos for their ads…and Facebook would really like to take that money.
    So as long as Facebook puts a greater emphasis on your wishes than on large amounts of money…you’ll be fine…*snigger*.

    3. But people need to know what my child has achieved!
    Let’s face it. The minute you have kids, you have pretty much given up on achieving anything impressive for yourself for the next 15 years. So you can’t really post ‘Just remembered to put the bins out’ or ‘Just fed the whole family and didn’t kill them’ because no-one really cares (actually in truth you can and most likely do post these sorts of achievements…but you shouldn’t…you’re ruining the internet for everyone with this sort inanity). But if your child has done anything from losing a tooth, to riding a bike to not asking ‘why is that lady so fat?’ in public…then this is worthy of a post and a photo. Because your child’s achievement is vicariously your achievement. After all they couldn’t have possibly done it without your exceptional parenting.
    So by all means put up those photos of your kids…but just don’t pretend that you’re saying anything other than ‘My child is better than your child!’

    4. Wow! That’s some impressive paranoia you’ve got there.
    Ok, I’ll admit that the chance of someone stalking my child as a result of appearing on Facebook is remarkably slim. In fact the whole idea of stranger danger is a bit of a nonsense seeing as about 85% of all acts of abuse a perpetrated by someone the child knows…and if they know the child then they’re not going to need Facebook to know that they look like.
    But then I’m sure that every one of those muppets who leaves their key in the wheel arch of their car while they go for a walk/run and comes back to find it stolen was equally sure it wasn’t going to happen to them.

    5. But I’ve got some great photos!
    Ah, this is where it gets tricky. In a previous post I talked about the importance of shooting what you know and what is going on around you. For me, pretty much all I know and all that’s going on around me is my kids…and if I had to choose the best 10 photos I’ve taken over the last 5 years, I can guarantee that they would all be photos I’ve taken of my kids. Not being able to show these off via social media is killing me…KILLING ME!!
    But given the choice between fulfilling my heart’s desire…and maintaining my ill advised devotion to a poorly thought out idea, I’m going with the latter (I didn’t endure 18 years of Catholic education for nothing!).

    So there we go. Parenting is all about choosing the risks you want to expose your child to. I’ll happily let my 6yo son ride around the block on his bike by himself, but I won’t put identifiable photos of him on the internet. A lot of people would do the exact opposite.
    I know that in 6-7 years he will be happily sharing photos and videos of himself that will cause him a lot more grief than anything I could post. And I know that my refusal to put photos up is completely useless seeing as my wife happily puts photos of our kids on Facebook.
    But like a recipe in a Teague Ezard cookbook, I’m complicated.
    I’m also interested to hear your thoughts, so what do you think twice about putting on Facebook?

  • Shooting portraits

    Shooting portraits

    My favourite photography to look at and to take is portrait photography. I love the idea of trying to tell a story, or capture an emotion in a single frame. I recently took a whole lot of portrait shots at a family get together, and I was really happy with some of them. So ‘I’m No Expert, But’ here are my tips for shooting portraits.

    1. Light
    If you have a studio and lights then you are probably reading this post on an ironic level…so I’ll just provide advice for the rest of us.
    Use whatever natural light you have available. So if there is a window in the room, make sure the subject is facing towards it (and obviously avoid placing the person in front of the window, as all the backlight will make their face comparatively dark).

    2. Shallow depth of field
    A shallow depth of field basically means that one part of your shot is very clear, while the rest is blurred. To me this allows you to make the persons face the focus of the shot…everything else is just background. The lower the f-stop you use, the smaller the area that is in focus. My lens can go to 2.8 so that is what I use. Some lenses can get down to 1.4, some can’t get lower than 3.5.
    The challenge with using a shallow depth of field is that while it means that you have one area beautifully in focus…you need to make sure that it is the area that you want. I have a dazzling array of photos where the person’s hair is in focus…or their ear. When in fact what you want to capture is…

    3. The eyes
    This is where the connection is for me. The mouth can be smiling…but the eyes will always tell the real story…so make them the focal point of the shot.
    If you can, try to get some ‘light in the eyes’. If people are looking towards the light you will see a reflection of this light in their eyes, which adds an incredible sincerity to the shot.
    Steve McCurry is a great exponent of this.

    4. Camera settings
    If you have the time and ability, then by all means set your f-stop, aperture and everything else manually.
    Personally, I use the ‘CA’ (Creative Auto) setting on my Canon. Then use the following:
    Flash: Turned off
    Background: Blurred as possible (this is the shallow depth of field I was talking about)
    Exposure: Leave as is unless it is really dark or sunny…and even then, just move somewhere else
    Picture setting: Monochrome (I really like my portraits in black and white). But only do this if you can work with RAW files on your computer.
    File type: RAW+L This will give you a RAW file (in full colour) and a JPG in black and white (if you’re in the monochrome setting). A lot of people will tell you to shoot full colour and then desaturate the image to make it black and white. But I personally like to see the image in black and white as I shoot it…and if I suddenly need a colour version, then I can just save the RAW file as a colour jpg.
    Shooting: Continuous (people’s expressions change in the blink of an eye…so it’s worth shooting a whole lot of shots, to get that one moment where you have captured something special).

    5. Put yourself in their shoes
    Imagine you are sitting in front of a camera, unless you are an extreme extrovert, you are going to be feeling a bit nervous…the photographer takes the photo, then says ‘No, that didn’t work’ or ‘We’re going to have to do that again’. How do you feel? I’m going to guess ‘not so great’. As the photographer you may have meant ‘I didn’t quite get that right’, or ‘I’ve got to change my settings’…but the damage has been done. You are now very unlikely to get a great shot of this person because that are going to be feeling awkward or self-conscious.
    So always put yourself in the shoes of the person you are taking the photo of…if you wouldn’t like someone doing something to you, chances are they won’t like you doing it to them. And from a purely selfish perspective, you are going to get a much better photo of someone who is happy to be there and having fun.

    I also think it’s worth making sure you get at least one photo that the person having their photo taken will actually want. Yes that photo of them in the middle of yawn ‘totally captured their inner child’ and yes that photo where pretty much everything is out of focus except for their left nostril is a fitting tribute to ‘the look you were going for there’. But you’re going to run out of people who are happy to let you take their photo pretty quickly if nobody likes how you’ve made them look.
    So find some work that inspires you (I love cycling so Kristof Ramon , Veeral Patel, and Wade Wallace are a few of my faves) and get out there and try to capture some magic…then upload that magic to the internet…then wait for people to tell you that ‘you’re doing it wrong’.

  • An open letter to my pregnant sister in Beijing

    An open letter to my pregnant sister in Beijing

    Any week now my sister is going to make me an Uncle, thus granting me the highly coveted male familial quartet of Father/Son/Brother/Uncle (a feat only achieved…by a dazzlingly high number of people…mostly men).
    Regrettably she is over in China, and so I haven’t had the chance to pass on all my accumulated knowledge on what it’s like to become a parent for the first time…but I know she reads this blog, and I needed a topic for this fortnight…so this is what we in the industry call a ‘twofer’.
    Now I’m No Expert But, here in no particular order are some things I wish I had known before I became a parent, but I didn’t find in any of the books I pretended to read about becoming a parent.

    1. Sleep
    You will want it, miss it and crave it. You will become obsessed with your child’s sleep. Complete strangers will ask you about your sleep. And do you know what? Not one of these things will actually help you get sleep.
    There is no point comparing the amount of sleep you used to get before you had a baby, because that was a totally different time. Just as you can’t yell at your husband about having to make your own lunch, because you didn’t have to when you were 7 years old. That time has passed…and so to has having long stretches of unbroken sleep. Complaining about it won’t result in more sleep…but it is immeasurably therapeutic.
    One of my clearest memories of when Josh was a couple of months old was talking to my boss at work and mentioning how many times I had been up the night before trying to get him to sleep. My boss had teenage kids and just looked wistfully into the middle distance and said ‘I would do anything to know where my kids were at night.’
    Just know that there does come a time when you get to sleep through the night again, and that in the interim you will be freaking tired…but will find amazing reserves of energy.

    2. Your child will be fine
    One of the wonderful results of having very little sleep and being thrust into a role you have had very little preparation for, is that you suddenly start aging your baby 10yrs but giving them their current behaviours. ‘Oh my god I’m going to have the first child who sleeps in their parents bedroom until they’re 20’, ‘Oh my god our child is going to be the only child who still has a dummy at 10’, ‘Oh my god, my child is just going to scream every time he doesn’t get what he wants’. These are all things I thought about our first and second children, it’s only now with the third that I am able to relax and just enjoy my time knowing that they will develop at their own pace.

    3. Accept people’s offers of help
    A very large part of you will just want to just form a little cocoon around your new family and keep the rest of the world at arm’s length. Not least because you have no idea what you’re doing and don’t want someone to come in and tell you that you’re doing it wrong.
    But if someone offers to bring around a meal, or clean up, or hold the baby while you have a lie down…take them up on it. They will feel great knowing that they’re helping you out, and you will feel great having one less thing to worry about.

    4. Get ready to have your world view changed
    Your respect for single parents will increase about 400%…your shame about your behaviour towards your own parents will increase about 8,000%…and the frequency of you crying while watching movies/news reports/Octonauts will be awkward for your fellow film viewers/colleagues/6 yr old nephews.
    Also, have you heard that amazing new album by that hot new band? No, neither have I…however some of the Hooley Dooley’s early stuff is sublime.
    In the last three years I have never read so few books, but listened to so many podcasts.
    I’ve never been so consumed by own little part of the world, but had so many moments of noticing true beauty in the world around me.
    And I’ve never felt so insanely out of control of my life, but felt so content.
    Best of all you can start any sentence with ‘As a parent…’ and non-parents have to pretend that this actually somehow makes your point more valid.

    5. Go in and look at your baby before you go to sleep
    This is not out of some paranoia that they might have stopped breathing (although, to be honest….you will do this a couple of times), and not because it is the one time when they’re not expecting you to do something for them.
    But because there is nothing more beautiful than the sight of your own child sleeping.

    So let’s see that’s everything I know about parenting in less than 850 words…yep, that sounds about right.
    Babies are contrary things, so just because something works one day…doesn’t mean it will work the next. But by the same token a failed strategy one day may be the perfect solution the next. Just go with your instincts, you’ll be right more times that you’re wrong. Why? Because you’re an amazing person, and you’re going to be a fantastic parent!

     

  • Staying fit when you’ve got kids

    Staying fit when you’ve got kids

    Apart from the actual exercise itself, two other essential ingredients when it comes to staying fit are consistency and sleep. You need to have a regular routine rather than sporadic bursts, and you need to be getting enough sleep to let your body recover. However there are two things that are going to be mere blips disappearing into the distance of your rear view mirror as you travel on the good car ‘parenthood’; routine and sleep.
    So what can you do if you want to stay fit with kids? Well first of all I have to premise this with the fact that a year and a half ago I completed my first half ironman…but after the birth of our 3rd child 6 months ago, my next involvement with triathlon will be next weekend when I am going to handing out drinks at the Melbourne Ironman…so I’m not claiming to be a shining example of being in peak fitness.
    ‘Now I‘m no expert but’ here are some tips I’ve developed over the last 6 years of raising our three kids.

    1. Consider being a bad parent.
    Being a good parent is actually really time consuming. All that loving, and nurturing and ‘being there’ can really bite into your training time. Sure, being a good parent will probably result in them being well adjusted human beings who people actually like spending time with…but if you put the time you’re putting into being a good parent into your running training, you could probably run 4 minute kms for the marathon. So think about which one of those is more important.
    But bear in mind that your kids are probably going to be the ones who decide which old people’s home you get put in.
    2. Abandon hope all ye who enter
    Ok, so a  more positive way of saying this may be ‘readjust your goals’, but positivity disappears at about the same rate as your anaerobic threshold after the birth of a child, so  unless you:
    a) have gone with the option above
    b) are a genetic freak
    c) have been setting your goals remarkably low
    You will not be returning to your pre-child levels of fitness for at least the first 6 months of the child’s life. So there’s no point trying to achieve it, and even less point beating yourself up for not achieving it. On a good day I focused on ‘maintaining a base level of fitness’ so that I when the time became available I could increase my training without having to start from scratch. On a bad day I focused on not becoming someone who was morbidly obese and had to be lifted out of their house by a crane.

    3. Work the training into your life
    As I discussed in my previous post (which ‘The New Yorker’ described as “We don’t review blogs so please stop sending us emails”), it’s hard to find time to do the things you want to do at the best of times…and finding time to do the things you want to do when you have kids is even harder. So where possible work it into your day to day activities.
    For example:

    • Ride to work if you can. If you’re feeling courageous try running to work.
    • Pretend that carrying a small child is in fact an exercise for your core
    • Still carrying that child? Pick up that toy you just stood on. Now do it again…look you’re doing squats! You used to pay to do this at the gym.
    • Take your kids to swimming lessons and participate. If the sight of yourself in bathers isn’t enough to terrify you into more exercise or less eating, then you’re doing well.

    4. Misery loves company
    You know how little you cared when one of your friends without kids complained about how they had to wait for ages to get a seat at some new and expensive restaurant even though they ‘totally knew someone who worked there and had spent like at least $200 on drinks at the bar’? Yeah, well that’s about how much they care about your ‘I got no sleep’ and ‘I’m pretty sure this is an acceptable amount of vomit to have on my top’ discussions.
    So if you’re going to spend a couple of hours on a bike talking to someone, make it someone who is the same situation as you. They are a lot more likely to empathise with you, and a lot more likely to be at a similar level of fitness as  you.

    5. It does get better
    My experience has been that you spend the first month after the baby is born living off residual fitness. For months 2-4 the sleep deprivation accumulates and your level of exercise is pretty much eviscerated. At this point you become pretty much convinced that you will never be fit again. Months 5-6 are frustrating because you suddenly get intermittent exercise availability…but nothing consistent enough to let you feel as though you’re doing anything other than fighting hard to stay in the same place.
    But after that you will hopefully start finding that you can get out every second weekend for a ride…or to the gym a couple of times a week. Within a year, suddenly you’ll start feeling some of that fitness come back and you might start identifying some targets for the next year. Within 2 years you will be back to your original level of fitness and you will have completely forgotten all the pain and frustration of that first 6 months…then you will decide to have another child…and 9 months later it will all come flooding back.

    But is it all worth it? Well I’ll leave you with the immortal words of Jon Stewart who says that ‘Parenting seems like a lot of work. But for all the hassle and worry once in a while comes a moment of pure innocence that touches your heart and tickles your funny bone…nah f%&$ it, it’s a lot of work.’

    If you’ve got any advice or tips, I’d love to hear them.

     

  • Anyone can take a great photo

    Anyone can take a great photo

    Welcome to the first NineB (‘Now I’m no expert, but’) blog

    A while ago Things Bogans Like had an excellent piece on bogans purchasing camera equipment and assuming that they were automatically great photographers. As usual I started reading the article and thought ‘Ha, ha…those stupid bogans!’…and then gradually began to see more and more of myself in the article. Then I stopped reading it. I don’t have time for that sort of pseudo-intellectual lefty crap.

    The problem that the bogan and I have, is that pretty much anyone can take a great photo. If everything goes right, and all the moons align, and you take enough photos…eventually you’re going to have one that is a great image. And you’ll look at it, and you’ll think ‘If I can do this once…I can do it again…so clearly I’m now a photographer!’ But you’re not. The big difference between me/you and a good photographer, is that they continually get great shots. They definitely shoot some duds…but then they also shoot some photos that are so good they make you want to just give up on ever taking another shot (I call this the Lee Jeffries effect).

    But there are some things we non-pro’s can do to improve our ratio of crap photos to good ones.

    1. ‘It is about the bike’
    Sure Lance Armstrong may have said that his success was ‘not about the bike’…but that’s a lot easier to say from the comfort of a $10K road bike. Likewise, the money you put into good equipment (particularly lenses) will make a massive difference to quality of the images you take.

    2. Using ‘auto’ features does not make you less of a man.
    Yes, a great photographer doesn’t need a stabiliser, or autofocus…and they set the f-stop and aperture and everything else manually (they probably even know what the f-stop is). But you are not a great photographer…yet.
    When I first got my DSLR I shot everything on full auto (other than flash..I hate using flash), and they are still some of my favourite photos.
    By all means learn how to do everything manually (it will make you a better photographer), but if you see a great photo happening in front of you…don’t forsake capturing the moment for some sort of misplaced professional pride. Besides, when someone asks about your photo, you can still lie and claim you did it all yourself.

    3. Don’t be afraid to ask for advice from photographers whose work you like.
    Most good photographers know that there is more to what they do than just the settings they use (such as the way they work with the people they’re photographing, the post production processes they use, the time they spend in the freezing cold to get the shot), so they won’t mind answering your questions.
    If I want to ask someone about taking a MTB our outdoorsy photo I’ll ask Tim Arch, or if I want some tips on taking a great portrait shot I’ll ask Veeral Patel, or if I want a great car shot I’ll ask Joel Strickland…and of course if I want a photo that represents the pain of riding from Melbourne to Adelaide on a fixie I’ll ask Andy.
    But be warned, some photographers are just jerks and won’t get back to you…I’ve sent numerous emails and tweets to Ansel Adams asking if he uses a Canon or a Nikon DSLR. He still hasn’t responded to any of them.

    4. Shoot what you know

    If you like cars or bikes or wilderness or ponies, then shoot cars, bikes, wilderness or ponies. If you have an interest in something, then you’re likely to have an intuitive idea of; how things should look, when is a good time to take a shot…and ideally where you can find a pony who can either drive a car or ride a bike in the wilderness.
    Most importantly, it is a lot easier to fit photography into your life than it is to make time to go and take photos. So the more you can work photography into what you do everyday, the more practice you will get,and the better you will become.

    5. Shoot early, shoot often

    The joy of shooting digital (and there’s no way you made it this far through this blog if you’re shooting on film…so don’t try to claim otherwise) is that you can take a whole lot of shots, and you can see them immediately, and then you can adjust things accordingly …and then you can shoot a whole lot of shots again.
    It’s basically the snowboarding/surfing scenario. It’s a lot easier to learn to snowboard, because each time you fall over, you can just get up and try again. Whereas with surfing, each time you fall off you have to paddle back out, wait for a wave, catch the wave then try to stand up again. So be like a snowboarder, and take a lot of shots so that you can learn how things work. But at all times know that surfing is way cooler.
    It is also very important that you get as good at deleting photos as you are at taking them. If you’re shooting a 100 shots and keeping more than 10 of them, you are either setting your standards way too low or you are some sort of photographic wunderkind. Either way you are not the target audience for this blog…so it’s probably best if you left.

    So there you have my hints for taking a better photo, to paraphrase a DJ Shadow sample ‘It won’t make a bad photographer good…but hopefully it will make a good photographer better’.

     

  • Let’s get this party started

    It’s probably not the best way to start a blog…with two comments telling you to go elsewhere…but with a 7 week old in the house, I’m not about to tempt fate by pissing off an organisation helping people affected by SIDS.
    Yes a seven week old in the house, and it’s fair to say that I have at least a 7 week backlog of work. As I move through it I’ll put up some examples of what I’m working on. At this stage I’m shooting on a Canon 550D and cutting on an iMac using FCPX, and I’ll happily tell you how it’s going.
    But for now, I’m just going to put this post up and start seeing what I can do with WordPress,
    Cheers,
    Chris.