Indecisive. I’m in Byron Bay, and I will be learning to surf tomorrow, but I’m not clear on my direction or motivation. Having a bit of a cold and something of a sunburn (on my face, from walking around town at lunch today) makes me want to stay in, big parties make me want [...]

So it’s Friday afternoon that I leave for Byron Bay. Michelle’s Dad went down to Melbourne for a couple of days, and Michelle didn’t want to go from me to no-one immediately. And I wasn’t quite ready to leave. He’ll be back for the weekend.

What have I been up to? Spending time with Michelle, keeping myself distracted. I’m restless now, and in possession of a 30 day bus pass to Cairns, so I will be headed North in a day or two. Probably Thursday.

Spent a lot of time going through old entries the past couple of days and transcribing to the web site. Entries at the start of this year talk about a water curse, and it seems to have caught up with me here – rain and flooding in the area, including the Paramatta ferry terminal being [...]

Photovoltaic cells that change shape so that they maximize the amount of light that they capture, by being placed on metals that have different thermal expansion , a cell phone that learns the voice of it’s owner so that it can more accurately filter out ambient noise. Large scale, direct-solar desalination plants.

The heat was hot today. Fortunately, I didn’t have to do much. And I am now in an air conditioned carriage. Today I went to the Welcome Home parade for the Australian Paralympians, which started around noon and went ’til almost 2, in the baking heat. Also went into one of the parks to see [...]

It is somewhere over 36 degrees celcius in Sydney. It is a pretty dry heat, but it’s still hot. I’m in the park, in the shade of a tree with 1.5l of water.

Dr. Jose Protacio Rizal (1861-1896), National hero of the Philippines. Born 19th of June at Calamba, Laguna, died as a martyr on 30th of December, 1896.
Wrote “Noli Me Tangere” and “El Filibusterismo”.
There’s a monument for him in Sydney.

Looking up through the leaves on the trees in the park to the obscured sun, each leaf is encircled by a ribbon of white light. I remember how each leaf feels, from when I held one and incorrectly identified it as a maple. It’s not got the right shape of leaves. Close, but not right.

Things to do today:
Get bank account (HSBC?)
Get TFN
Locate Singapore Airlines
Look into flights for Perth, NZ, Brisbane, travel options to Melbourne