Today marks the third anniversary of my cardiac arrest and the beginning of my amazing recovery back to more or less complete normalcy. Two kind friends remembered this event in advance, for which I thank them - and Emily who is good a remembering this kind of thing has no doubt sent me a card from Quito, which has yet to arrive. Yes, Quito in Ecuador! She and Greg are off shortly to the upper Amazon jungle and I wish them good luck.
Meanwhile, back here we're going to celebrate this evening with a night out. It looks like being a nice day in another way. The sun is beating down after yet another day of rain - getting on for another 25mm (or inch) or so. Dumaresq Creek flooded again. So, I might get out of the car and take to by bike to work at UNE. Yes, work. Well, I'm now interim Director of the Centre for Applied Research in Social Science (CARSS) and I've circulated a 5 page discussion paper on CARRS's future. And then I'm working on a grant application which, if successful, would keep me employed until 2015 - when I turn 70! And a owe an article to a colleague by Monday. Oh well, it's sort of fun and keeps me off the streets where I might get up to mischief.
AS
Friday 19 November 2010
Wednesday 17 November 2010
Under Water
We have just had several days of rain, and the next four will also be wet. We probably had about 60mm all up, or about 2.5 inches in imperial measures. After several months of above average rain, virtually nothing sank into the saturated ground and it ran off into Dumaresq Creek, which runs through the middle of town. This is a perpetual creek and always has water in it, but constrained to a narrow channel maybe 2 m wide.
Well, the latest rain generated an immediate flood and the accompanying pictures were taken about 4 hours after the last lot of torrential rain stopped and just as the grey cloud was lifting. Several streets cross the creek at right angles via causeway and the photos are of the Faulkner St crossing, which was closed to traffic. As you can see, the creek is now about 5 to 10 times its normal width. The first photo looks south down Faulkner St towards the CBD; the second looks east towards the coast - 100+km away; and the last, west towards the Great Divide, just 10km away. Such events usually occur once every two years or so, but the long dry period of the noughties reduced this somewhat.
AS
Well, the latest rain generated an immediate flood and the accompanying pictures were taken about 4 hours after the last lot of torrential rain stopped and just as the grey cloud was lifting. Several streets cross the creek at right angles via causeway and the photos are of the Faulkner St crossing, which was closed to traffic. As you can see, the creek is now about 5 to 10 times its normal width. The first photo looks south down Faulkner St towards the CBD; the second looks east towards the coast - 100+km away; and the last, west towards the Great Divide, just 10km away. Such events usually occur once every two years or so, but the long dry period of the noughties reduced this somewhat.
AS
Sunday 14 November 2010
A Complicated Life
It's a while since I made a new posting here, but that is not through lack of anything to say!. Things are just becoming more frenetic and complicated. Last weekend, for example, I attended the Armidale Chamber of Commerce awards night because someone tipped me off that I might be getting an award, and I did after a fashion because a business school colleague, who is participating in a major study on small business innovation with me, one a lovely trophy and the citation included our work!
And then, last week, I was put back on the University payroll for a few months as interim director of the Centre for Applied Research in Social Science, with a remit to reform it in line with School (of Behavioural Cognitive and Social Science - BCSS) needs and emerging UNE Centres policy. There's a large number of meetings scheduled here.
On Thursday I gave an hour long staff seminar on the subject of "The relevance of Quantum Mechanics to Regional Science (i.e. economics)". The was a lunch-time presentation, not that I had time to eat anything. It went down well and I'm fortified to deliver versions of the paper in Melbourne in December and Monterey in California in February.
Also on Thursday, the Faculty held is annual celebration of research at a late afternoon function in Booloominbah, the grand old house at the centre of campus. Since (a) BCSS published the most articles in 2010, (b) I was newly appointed to that payroll, and (c) I was one of the more prolific staff, it was politic to turn up, even though the speeches were predictable.
I rose early (6 am) on Saturday morning to put the finishing touches on the full draft of the conference paper I delivered on Thursday, which I finished at 8.00am. It was then emailed to my colleagues at the University of Arizona at Tucson for inclusion in the Monterey program. I'm a member of the Western (US) Regional Science Association which has perhaps 150 members world-wide, including two here in Armidale.
Then it was off to a bridge tournament being held here this weekend, which means sitting at a card table for 16 hours over two days! I'm off for the Sunday sessions shortly. We didn't do well yesterday, but today should be a lot better and yesterday's poor results are history since today's event is completely separate.
Immediately after the closure of yesterday's event, I headed off to an Indian Cultural Festival in the Town Hall organised by by one of my work colleagues, Kiran Shinde, who comes from Pune (or Poona for the plebs). It was fantastic. There was a 90 minute show of Indian classic dance from various parts of the country, some Bollywood numbers, and some very lively dances by Sikhs from the Woolgoolga community down on the coast from us. After the dancing came a nice Indian meal enjoyed by the c. 200 guests. I didn't know that Armidale had so many people of Indian background - although I know well Kiran and another colleague, Raja Rajaratnam. Sounds Indian, eh! There I also met my new Head of School, who started his job on Friday. He's from the University of the South Pacific in Fiji, but believe it or not was born in Hastings in Sussex, the same English County as me. Even more interesting was his living for a while near Brighton Station - presumably a few yards from where I was born!
Oh well. It's off to bridge in a few minutes, so I'll draw the curtain on this post!
[PostScript] We did really well in the bridge today and ended up a close second out of 27 teams contesting the event. Meanwhile, I attach a lousy picture of the Indian festival taken with my mobile phone!
AS
And then, last week, I was put back on the University payroll for a few months as interim director of the Centre for Applied Research in Social Science, with a remit to reform it in line with School (of Behavioural Cognitive and Social Science - BCSS) needs and emerging UNE Centres policy. There's a large number of meetings scheduled here.
On Thursday I gave an hour long staff seminar on the subject of "The relevance of Quantum Mechanics to Regional Science (i.e. economics)". The was a lunch-time presentation, not that I had time to eat anything. It went down well and I'm fortified to deliver versions of the paper in Melbourne in December and Monterey in California in February.
Also on Thursday, the Faculty held is annual celebration of research at a late afternoon function in Booloominbah, the grand old house at the centre of campus. Since (a) BCSS published the most articles in 2010, (b) I was newly appointed to that payroll, and (c) I was one of the more prolific staff, it was politic to turn up, even though the speeches were predictable.
I rose early (6 am) on Saturday morning to put the finishing touches on the full draft of the conference paper I delivered on Thursday, which I finished at 8.00am. It was then emailed to my colleagues at the University of Arizona at Tucson for inclusion in the Monterey program. I'm a member of the Western (US) Regional Science Association which has perhaps 150 members world-wide, including two here in Armidale.
Then it was off to a bridge tournament being held here this weekend, which means sitting at a card table for 16 hours over two days! I'm off for the Sunday sessions shortly. We didn't do well yesterday, but today should be a lot better and yesterday's poor results are history since today's event is completely separate.
Immediately after the closure of yesterday's event, I headed off to an Indian Cultural Festival in the Town Hall organised by by one of my work colleagues, Kiran Shinde, who comes from Pune (or Poona for the plebs). It was fantastic. There was a 90 minute show of Indian classic dance from various parts of the country, some Bollywood numbers, and some very lively dances by Sikhs from the Woolgoolga community down on the coast from us. After the dancing came a nice Indian meal enjoyed by the c. 200 guests. I didn't know that Armidale had so many people of Indian background - although I know well Kiran and another colleague, Raja Rajaratnam. Sounds Indian, eh! There I also met my new Head of School, who started his job on Friday. He's from the University of the South Pacific in Fiji, but believe it or not was born in Hastings in Sussex, the same English County as me. Even more interesting was his living for a while near Brighton Station - presumably a few yards from where I was born!
Oh well. It's off to bridge in a few minutes, so I'll draw the curtain on this post!
[PostScript] We did really well in the bridge today and ended up a close second out of 27 teams contesting the event. Meanwhile, I attach a lousy picture of the Indian festival taken with my mobile phone!
AS
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