My Blue Aura

Right, I've been thinking my car was looking a bit dull for a while now and really needed something to separate it from the rest of the cars on the roads. Santa obviously got my letter, and wrapped up some 12" Blue neon's for me. Cheers Santa!

Yup, righto, I hear you. Those people with under body neon's are the people who you want to ram off the road as they speed past you in their fully riced up lawnmower. I had no intention of putting them under my chassis though. To start with I'm too old to be lying on concrete, trying to find a way to secure plastic lights. So I opted to put them where only the best will see their glow – under the two front seats...

Before I even started I knew there would be three issues. First, you need power. Second, you need to be sure the power you've selected can light the neon's. Finally, the purpose of this is still to unsure driver and passenger safety, and lights inside the car while driving at night can be a distraction.

Thanks to a suggestion from Santa that I had already considered, the best place to mount them would be at the back of the front seats, so the spill is mainly behind the driver's vision, and not in front. And when I last cleaned the car (that makes a grand total of the number I've cleaned the inside of that car to one now) I found that the driver's seat belt sensor could be unplugged. And even better, it registered twelve volts on my "oh, not stolen" multimeter. This should be a piece of cake right?

Wrong. To start with, I connected the Molex connector with the wrong polarity. Words beginning with "f" spill from my mouth. I donno about you, but I assume when I see a red and a blue wire; the blue will be the ground of the two. And then, to my dismay, I realised the second of my possible problems had come true. Being only a seatbelt sensor, it hardly needed the three Watts (hee hee, I said "Watt") to see if I put my seatbelt on (which I always do, even when backing out of the drive... Habit...) and as such, only half lit the neon's.

Bitch whore...

So now I need to find twelve volts somewhere in my car. To the idiot who just said take it off the battery, I don't have any more than a meter of wire, and that's before I point out the safety issues...

Four hours later, I found a set of wires heading to the rear of the car. I hoped to take a little bit of power off the parking lights (so the neon's would come on when I turn the headlights on). It only took me fifteen minutes to find a set with power in it, and another fifteen to find a set with twelve volts...

Not quite sure what the set of wires I found does, but they are "always on," which leads me to believe they have something to do with the rear boot light (the switch for which is based in the boot, how simple). And considering my other set of lights hasn't blown up yet, this seemed a good a set as any to take power from.

Extend my wire to the centre console, attach a Molex connector, plug it in, and voila! Under seat neon's! Reassemble the car (I know I took mine apart doing this, but I found long lost coins totalling $10).

Now to tuck this all away neatly I removed the much useless ash tray to mount a switch built into a PCI backpane (can anyone guess by now where these neon's were designed for use?) and drilled a hole in the plastic of the console to mount it. Silly me made the hole a touch too big, so don't play with it if you are in the position to do so, or I'll make you fix it...

Driving at night is a breeze with these, and don't distract me at all. The hardest bit is remembering to turn them off, because they're not visible during the day and remain on even when the ignition is off.

Have some photos of the car, or better yet, come for a night time drive...

The Switch

It'll be a switch I'll flick on 29th March 2008, 8:00PM... Will you?

And here's something else that saves power, saves the environment...

Another post titled Fame!

And so Fame is over...

Upon reflection over the many years, school productions aren't just about the audience, aren't just about a great show, they're about taking out all the great moments we have when we bump in or out, have dinner together, or run the show.

And as usual, Fame has outdone itself with plenty of memories I will treasure forever... Confetti, a broken car, and the customary decorous conversation (yeah... RIGHT!).

I could explain how the show went, but if you don't know already then you should have bought tickets.

I could enlighten you as to the details of bump in and the construction of the set, or you could just look at the pictures and their descriptions down the bottom.

I could even inform you of our wonderfully exquisite conversation that we often had as we dined in fine restaurants, though I might not want that kind of conversation left in writing for the whole world to see.

So instead, just remember the days of hard work and hours of lost sleep shared by the crew:

Stewart Bell; Director.

Luke Hawley; Stage Manager.

Brett Pullyblank; Assistant Stage Manager, Locker mover.




Nic Frame; Assistant Stage Manager, Pain in the ass...

James Lescohier; I dunno, what did I do??

Jonathan Davies; Stage Crew.

Laura Matthews; Stage Crew.




Zabrina Batterham; Stage Crew, Locker mover.




Liam Burns; Stage Crew.




James Lee; Stage Crew.




James Panther; Venue Manager + more.

John Panetta; Lighting Design/Operator.

Steve Monkhouse; Lighting Queue person.

Alastair Bryant; Would-be Stage Crew.

Don Wallice; Sound, Music Industry teacher.

Matthew Sanderson; Wireless microphones/sound.
Linh Nguyen; Sound Queue Person.




Dale Krummins; Sound.

Steven Bowler; Pianist.




Kristy Kendall and Lauren Perfect; Dance and Choreography.




Clarabelle; King Cow...


There are plenty I have missed, let's not forget them too.

Thanks to all the cast too, though our jobs are usually easier without you!

We have lights!!!

So after two days of work (Thursday and today), we now have 95% of the lights hung from whatever they need to be hung from. Things like data and power are also 95% under control.

This is quite good, because it means we've done enough work to not really warrant the need to go into school again tomorrow (unless we want to work on the set).

Our IT guys, Pant and Rich, along with some useful but overall unneeded comments from the entire crew, managed to copy the entire pre-patched show to the GrandMA via a network connection. After which, they managed to install a wireless access point to the desk and connect a PDA to it and you can now control the entire show from anywhere within range, albeit on a very small screen and hard to do controls.

The pinspots, MAC 700's and Golden Scans were all hung from their various trusses today as the Cyber VL's had already been hung Thursday. The slight bow in the second truss indicated too much weight and we attached it from a third point to the roof.

The Miniscans also had to be hung from underneath the set which seemed a challenge as the bar we attached them to would rotate. My original idea was to attach clamps which sorta got ignored/not understood and wasn't used until we found that gaff wouldn't hold it quite right. In the end we used the clamps.

With a handful of extra pinspots we were a little stuck as to what to do with them, but I came up with the genius idea (if I do say so myself) of having them under the landing at the front of the stairs for a little bottom light (which I also remember Belly saying he'd like at one point) and it looks really sexy! Pant, however, will tell you it was his idea. We settled the matter by calling it "James' Idea." The whole design of the idea though involved me climbing under the set on the dirty dusty floor to put them in position and to address them correctly.

And so with the Parcans focused, the various moving lights in position, a couple of 2K's aimed at the stage and a hazer hidden away it seems like we're mostly up and going. I say mostly because we'll find work to do later, we always do.

Lunch today was also pretty fun. Luke took orders from everybody and we both went and bought it all from Hungry Jacks. I did the calculations and worked out the change... which mostly worked (everyone is out about 10c, some have more, some have less, I don't think you care though).

Make sure you take a look at the all of the photos at the bottom of the page that didn't make it onto this post. Also, there's a movie or two of people working.

A Fame Rehearsal

Well, I could tell you all about my day, or you could just read Luke's, Steve's or Jono's blogs...

I was there and did all that with them...

That's all I have to say really, I'm only writing this for my reference. Also this looks like my english homework to my mother...

Just a quick one...

Been playing round with the site and what not...

All my pictures/movies/music will be down the bottom probably, for you all to access as you want, and my link to Flickr and some people's blogs have been removed. Also, one new blog, Jonathan Davies (the roof bitch for Inheritance :P).

Also, expect more things for the site soon, I'm eighteen now, which means I can do a lot more with the internet (No Alastair, that's disgusting!).

Talk to you all soon!

Busy seems to be a running theme...

It's Friday afternoon, during my one and only spare during the day.

Homework to do, SAC's to study for and people to please.

I'm doing the latter, pleasing a bunch of you by doing numerous things:

• For those that have continually bitching and whining to me about the bus videos, they're removed, not even set to private. Reason: This weeks front page of the newsletter. They really seem like they're starting to get serious and I'd rather not get caught if I could avoid it. However they are not erased from memory and sit, encrypted, on a flash drive. I'm still considering allowing a few of you to have a copy. End of the year though (25th October) they'll all be up again, for the glory of us all!
• I've touched up a few of the photo's from Melbourne Girls Grammar Formal and plan to have them up very very soon (like tomorrow, when my upload limit for flickr gets reset). Assuming I get the time of course, I'm sure I'll manage.
• I've moved my computer outside on a permanent basis, so now can't be distracted by watching TV when I should actually be participating in the conversation we were having.
• I'm actually writing a post. Yup, I haven't done one for a while (I kept saying I'd do it tomorrow) so I figured I might as well keep you up to date.

And so what is keeping you up to date?

Well, since my last post I have been working hard to catch up with the school work I missed (still have an English SAC to catch up on, but that's tomorrow). Also, I have been to all the rehearsals for the school play, Inheritance (which has been fully discussed on Luke's, Matt's and Steve's blogs). I am the person that lifts the suicidal, depressed, farmers into the roof when they decide that life is just no longer worth living. Quite fun actually, who would have thought that killing people could be so much fun.

But I have only actually been at three of the four nights of the play so far, because I went to Izzy's formal on Friday 29th. My replacement, Martin Kinsey, did an excellent job of my work (the whole two cues) even if his feet were dragging on the ground. They did after all change the way it was going to be done (which is the reason why it didn't work that well).

Izzy's formal started with pre-drinks at somebodies place (You expect me to remember names! If it wasn't for my license I'd forget mine). Too many people there and it made it hard to talk to anyone (Not that I knew that many people to talk to, total of six). Izzy got a little tipsy after a few drinks, such is the price of not eating for most of the day (Actually, the same happened to me). The formal was fun, plenty of prizes (Compared to the three at ours), and music was good too (but the DJ had a Dale streak and played old music that no one wanted to hear). Food was fine, but I just didn't feel that hungry; but dessert was fun: chocolate ice-cream with chocolate moose and a choclate éclair. Ran though the rain to get changed (We could have walked, but the rain was evil, it also allowed us to get round the corners before the rest of our group). Taxi to afterparty, plenty of Pizza (Wasn't that right Christiaan? That's right, give Ian shit :P ). More dancing, but this time people had more alcohol in them. Didn't see Nick or Christiaan pulling off any smooth moves... disappointing... Went home, Izzy stayed the night (You know the story I think, if you don't then you need to ask me for it).

Pictures for the formal and after party are up HERE!

Also, last night of the play tonight, should be good, but we're all dog tired. This also means the after party for the play is on tonight. Late night perhaps? After my previous two? I'll be so tired tomorrow. Don't call me...

Proposal

I just finished my Electrotechnology Proposal and if you're curious, I've posted the final circuit diagram here - If you don't know how it works, ask and I'll do my best to explain it (its easy when you know the theory).


Total Cost: $151.61, assuming I don't blow something up!

Life's a little hectic at the moment... some of you might know why; but consequently some things are moving a little faster, and I might be picking up some benefits along the way (no promises). Though it generally doesn't mean things are any easier...

This week will be a busy one... I've got something written for every day except Thursday, which means that Thursday will be really busy, it always is.

And finally, my favorite video from YouTube: Kiwi!

Time for an Update

Yup, it's that time again... it's time for an update:

By reading Matt's and Luke's blog you'd already know that everybody who does English Texts and English Journeys (I do Journeys, but I'm told that they are essentially the same) had a SAC (School Assessed Coursework for those of you too far away from Victoria to know) this week. I did fine; I wrote on a Part 2 topic which everybody seems to think is a huge massive crime against nature cos we haven't done them before. My middle finger salutes those who tell me off. I'll print my mark in the next few weeks when it gets back from being corrected by two, maybe three teachers, then we'll see who did better...

Also, those who do Chemistry got to complete (or not complete, depending on your speed) a SAC this week based on the gravimetric analysis of fertilizer... boring... I'd rather be practising to mix Hydrogen Sulfide, for when the end of year comes around; and that's not for the exam! Nevertheless, our results were delivered the next day unlike the English (Lazy humanities teachers... always thought they were evil with their messy desks) and the marks were varied. Out of thirty, some of the lower marks were in the single figure range; from what I can gather the average was about 17; the majority of the 'smart' people scored between 23 and 28; the top mark was 30 and was by Chris Loh, but there might be others. I scored a 28.5, which was far better than what I could have hoped, but being that close I would have preferred a 30. Next SAC for Chemistry is probably in two to three weeks, and this time on Volumetric Analysis (of Fertilizer).

So yeah... busy... and I still need to start my Electrotech proposal. I'm going to be building an 'Asian Wonder' like the ones we used in the Tattoo only it won't be DMX controlled unless I get the time and enough money... I'd rather build a second one then upgrade the first... more light. So I need to write up my proposal with a budget, timeline and a detailed description of the product. I have ideas, but I'm still not 100% sure how I want to power it... Whether I have a transformer that plugs into the wall or have one built into the light (which raises I whole new level of safety because I'm not qualified). Meh... I'll work something out...

I feel like I'm missing a subject? Ah.. Math... boring...

Write something again next week perhaps.

Kafka Rules! (and so does Roger Waters!)

Luke was kind enough invite me to see Roger Waters live last night... it was awesome... The tickets were supposed to be a restricted view, but are seats were some of the better ones there; we were really close to the stage. It took quite a while for everyone to arrive; at 8pm (the supposed starting time) the place was only about three quarters full, but the show didn't start til 8:15 anyway.

The show included Pyrotechnics, Excellent lighting, Awesome sound (they're still ringing), A spaceman and a Flying Pig! The Pig was obviously a fan of Kafka's English lessons and displayed this prominently with the words: Kafka Rules!

I've never really listened to that sort of music, but I was still able to enjoy the show because it was just so fantastic... My download list now has quite a few Pink Floyd tracks.

Don't have a lot else to say at the moment; I'm very busy with homework because I received a lot more than I thought I would get for my first week... must be because of that term 4B thing and the teachers wanting to get back into it... or perhaps the start of the school year is always like this and I just never noticed.