Life + Times of Fenton et al.

Category: Uncategorized

  • 2015 in Review / 2016 Ahead

    Gaynor has been through a bigger year this year than many in recent memory. Apart from the turmoil at the beginning of the year with a husband looking for work and the uncertainty that meant of where she may end up living, Gaynor carried on with quite a few hours of part-time work at the local schools. Then I left for the US and she took on the tasks of organising to ship our goods, selling, throwing or giving away what we weren’t taking with us. On top of that, cleaning and final preparations for renting the house kept the stress levels at DefCon 4 until leaving for the US in mid-July. She seemed fairly happy to have me around again and so I took that as a good sign.

    The rest of the year was re-acclimating to southern California for everything that was the same as last time and acclimating to the new things about San Diego. Drivers licences, getting the children into school and dealing with that bureaucracy, setting up more of the house, unpacking our goods when they arrived, … you get the idea.

    This year promises to be not much less eventful than recent ones. Though she’ll still have all the children on the forefront of her mind with only three needing immediate, at-hand help she has a little more time available. She expects to fill that, initially, with volunteer work and — probably around late August, after the children return for the new school year — will be looking for paid employment. Exactly what is yet to be determined but she’s not a great fan of typical US employment practices.

    Joshua After a tough last half of 2014, Josh continued working on his comedy, developing and performing various shows at a number of locations around Canberra and Melbourne. He resumed his university studies in the second half of this year, moving in with a couple of friends after we fled the country. I think 2016 will be more of the same with shows at the Canberra Comedy Festival and the Melbourne International Comedy Festival already on his radar, as well as running a room in Canberra that regularly hosts comedy acts. University may also get a look in as well, if nothing else, ‘to keep Mum & Dad happy’.

    Elijah continued his volunteer missionary work in New Zealand and is set to complete that late June/early July. He has been enjoying his time there and sends almost weekly updates about his activities. We look forward to spending more time with him again when he returns. Unfortunately, my work visa conditions means that he won’t be able to stay with us longer than three months unless he decides he wants to stay on his own terms, say as a student. I don’t think anything is set in stone at this point, so we’ll see how it turns out as the year progresses.

    Mara successfully completed her first year of university studies where she is undertaking a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Dance Performance. She has really enjoyed the learning, the fresh challenges, and the performances. I don’t think she has enjoyed the regular early mornings so much, taking strongly after her father in that regard. Her and Josh were both able to join us in the US for Thanksgiving and Christmas and it was just lovely to have them around, enjoying regular interactions again. There’s been plenty of laughing to be had. 🙂 Mara is looking at another year of the same — more challenges, more learning — as she develops her talents. Contrary to her opinion, I don’t think she needs to develop her chocolate eating skill set much further.

    Ariana closed out 2015 having starting Year 11 twice, once in Canberra and again in San Diego. As always, she’s been taking her studies very seriously — the common thread between both high schools was the International Baccalaureate program she enrolled in — and continuing to try her hand at all and sundry extra-curricular activities. In Canberra, outside of her school’s purview, she played cricket during the summer, representing the ACT in regional competitions as well as playing in a local boys team. In school in San Diego she’s become involved with the academic league (glorified trivia) and improv groups, and helping in the library. Outside of school she’s followed in her older brothers’ footsteps and has taken up rugby. They have a seven-a-side season first with a few high schools combining to field a team, followed by a full 15-a-side round of games. The latter most depends on how many girls they can recruit to join up. Having watched a lot of rugby over time as well as plenty of backyard mucking about with her siblings, she has a good sense of the game and how it’s played. Now she just needs to further develop the skills to go with that. With this year having two weeks away from home at Girl’s camp and FSY.

    Bryna enjoyed her last semester at her school in Canberra, participating in many sports as well as bringing home a decent report card. Ballet is still her main activity besides schooling and she’s keen to take that as far as she can. We loved her dance school in Canberra and part of the challenge of a transition to a new area is re-finding institutions of this nature that will be up to the standard — not to mention sporting the right kind of culture — that will enable reaching one’s potential. She’s been attending two different schools, with a class each, and it looks like one is more our style of place so she’ll continue there, picking up more classes.

    Micah didn’t find the first school we enrolled him in particularly satisfying. Lunch and recess breaks that were too short left him not enough time to make friends. Since Micah is a very sociable, this is, in our opinion, much more of an indictment on the system and format they had at the school. We managed to wrangle him into another nearby charter school that follows principles and guides much more inline with our preferences. They even offer German as the second language, which works well around our house. 🙂

    Fenton mostly feels like he’s been doing whatever has been needed to provide for the family. He finds it easier to think of this in the third person. 🙂 I think the new job should work out well on a long term basis — as long as they don’t fire me for incompetence — with plenty of opportunities in a thriving research environment. So, you know, should be good that way.

  • Getting There

    After a few months of a very intensive work schedule, these are the last remaining tasks. Scraping together the time to get them done is the challenge now.

  • Extending Ourselves

    In past posts, I’ve alluded to the planned extension to our home and now that we are getting down to the business end of the deal, I thought I’d better share a post showing what we have planned before everything comes unstuck. 🙂 Even though it has been/will be quite busy around here for the past/next while, hopefully I’ll be able to post a few progress shots. The lack of posts in the recent past are mostly due to work on the extension and my new responsibility in our local church congregation as its bishop.

    Original State A few extra trees which were present when we purchased aren’t shown. After all, I didn’t want to get obsessive did I?
    After Demolition The parts that will be removed or altered.
    Planned Status The final product.
    Planned Status, Internal Reveal Inside the final product, showing the mezzanine at the front to catch all that lovely northern sun.
    Kitchen Detail The current kitchen and dining will be converted to the master bedroom and en suite. Floor here is polished concrete and is hydronically heated.

  • I Love a Sunburnt Country

    The parched grass, the ever-green trees, the sublime colours of the sunset … I love a sunburnt country.

  • Micah and Multiplication

    Leave it to Gaynor to teach Micah multiplication using food. Every time he now sees peanuts or chocolate chips he asks to do his ‘times’.

  • Will Steffen: The Science of Climate Change

    As mentioned previously, being back at a university provides opportunities to listen to some well-informed people on topics beyond my own area. The Director of the Research School organises a series of colloquia throughout the year and earlier this month I listened to Will Steffen, Director of the Climate Change Institute and ANU discuss the science of the changing climate. If you wish to hear and see what he presented, an audio recording synchronised with his slides can be found at the bottom of that last link. I found it an informative colloquium and an unedited copy of the notes I took can be found below.

  • Note that the thermal energy reserve in the oceans is far bigger than that of the atmosphere & change in the energy content of the oceans is a significant indication.
  • Divergence between sunspot activity & Global Temperature Index (GTI) which were previous correlated.
  • Correlation between greenhouse gases & GTI but not to cosmic rays.
  • AIRS satellite observation of emission spectra (blackbody with absorption by H2O, CO2 & O3)
  • 1950 a tipping point in greenhouse gas (GHG) concentrations.
  • d13 CO2 signature shows burning of fossil fuel. (fossil fuels have depleted d13 CO2 due to being trapped away & not part of the regular cycle).
  • Albedo ~30%. Ice at poles does a lot of reflecting.
  • CO2 absorption is a bending mode of the molecule. N2 & O2 are transparent since they have no bending mode being a bi-atomic molecule. The reason CO2 is important is because 99% of the atmosphere has no effect on absorption of reflected light.
  • Land use (deforestation & replacement with grasses & crops) cools planet through increase in albedo.
  • Overall radiative forcing due to human activity.
  • Increase/decrease in radiative forcing increases/decreases intensity of hydrological cycle. Water vapour is a fast, strong GHG.
  • CO2 less soluble in warm water than cold.
  • Note that system is not in equilibrium (undergoing a perturbation) & so some equations & assumptions are not valid.
  • Troposphere is warming but stratosphere is cooling -> consistent with GHG warming but not solar (external).
  • Warming unequivocal but anthropogenic ‘very likely’.
  • Increase in number of ‘hot weather’ events & extreme weather events.
  • More deaths from extreme heat in Melbourne (2009?) than in the bushfires.
  • Earth oscillates between two stable states, glacial and warm with the glacial being slightly more stable.
  • Natural CO2 (last 400k years) between 200-280 ppm. Currently ~400+ppm.
  • Bifurcation point around 3 degrees C -> system moves to a much hotter stable state? Keep around 2 degrees C possible return to Holocene condition.
  • Previous abrupt changes show classic signs of a complex system.
  • Previously hotter ~1-2 degrees C & sea levels 5-9m higher than now.
  • Orbital (earth) variations account for cycling of the system in the past. More circular orbit gives a warmer period (Medieval Warm Period).

  • Winding Down 2011

    Many things are drawing to a close at this time of year. For us, a lot has been happening, in part, simply due to the number in our family but also because of some significant milestones.

    Most significantly, Joshua has successfully completed college. For those outside Canberra, this is essentially the final two years of high school. The system here is for high school up to Year 10 and then a separate school, called a college, that very much like half university and half high school. The dress code goes from uniforms to free style, the teachers prefer to go by first names and the hours of attendance are more relaxed. Out of all our children, Joshua and Mara — mostly simply due to their ages — have had the least settled formal education. Joshua has attended six and, by the time she finishes, Mara will have attended eight schools across three countries and educational systems. In any case, after a less than certain start while he readjusted to the Australian educational style, Joshua put in a good effort to finish the year strongly. He mostly enjoys the humanities with Spanish, sociology and history being his stronger subjects. He’s already secured himself a full-time job and plans to work, pending the outcome of university entrance offers.

    One Last Touch
    Joshua gets one last adjustment from his mother on the way to his college graduation.

    Mara has concluded one and a half years of Year 10 — half in the US and one here — and is onto college next year. In graduating she received the Kylie Souter Gift which recognises team work and quality commitment in the Performing Arts. Obviously, dance is still a big part of her life.

    Elijah, Ariana and Bryna all had good academic years too with Elijah set to graduate from college next year, Ariana getting one B grade and an award for physical education and Bryna just enjoying her studies.

    For the past few years, ‘end of year’ for us has also meant ballet productions. This year, Bryna joined Mara on stage in their ballet school’s production based on the Sound of Music. Bryna was in two numbers and Mara performed in six or seven, including one as a queen bee tending to some very cute baby bees. They were both very busy the past couple of months with rehearsals and the performance was superb. A couple of weeks after the performances and ballet was done for the year with a good two months off before resuming.

    Favourite Things
    Bryna poses on the front lawn in her costume from the ‘Favourite Things’ number in a recent ballet school production. And dance and costumes really are a few of her favourite things.

    For myself, a deadline at work, plans for the house and car repairs as well as the typical end of year goings on have taken up whatever spare time I had laying about. A couple of weeks off over Christmas, relaxing with family up in Brisbane, seems like just the tonic at the end of a fairly busy year.

  • End of a Rented Era

    Today marks the official end of our years spent renting houses to live in — 10 places and just over 19 years in total. Settlement on the new place was completed late last week and today was the final inspection on the most recently rented property.

    I’m also pleased that we’ve never lost a cent in bond/security deposit money. A few were close — mostly due to the distance the landlord/lady/property manager was from Earth — but the many hours spent scrubbing, cleaning and fixing someone else’s house paid off. Of course, this wouldn’t have been the case without our family and many good friends (in three countries) who helped us and were right there beside us scrubbing, cleaning and fixing. We are grateful.

    So, now we’ve joined the Masses of the Mortgaged — only 30 years to go baby!

  • So … We Bought a House

    After nineteen years of wedded bliss and six children, Gaynor and I feel it is time to settle down[1]. While we certainly aren’t ruling out relocating to other countries in the future — if it’s a disease, Gaynor and I should probably both be formally diagnosed — but for the time being putting down some stable-ish roots is our plan. We believe it is the right time for the children and, financially, it makes more sense for us too. Actually, this is probably our first real opportunity to buy a house. No-one would give me a loan as a student and once I finished my studies we fled the country almost straight away. That was always our plan and hope anyway. Although we came close to buying a house in California — the market was certainly good for buyers and we were looking — uncertainty in our longer-term plans made us hesitant.

    So once we had decided to move back to Australia, and with the certainty of at least a few years of employment, we knew we wanted to buy a house as soon as possible. As much as we would have liked to, we didn’t think we could stay in temporary accommodation until we purchased but we talked to a mortgage broker soon after settling in (and taking care of the very hectic stuff) and he helped us understand our financial reach. Then all we had to do was find something with that reach.

    Unfortunately, what seemed to be within our reach was a small cupboard “far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the western spiral arm of [Canberra]”. Somewhat deflated, but nevertheless undeterred, Gaynor started scouring the web and newspapers but this time for real. Our plan was to try and find something that needed improvement, preferably with a larger block in case the house also needed extensions. We also thought that if we could put in most of the work ourselves we’d be getting ahead a little, or at least providing a little protection if the market were to take a downward slide.

    Gaynor has had strong opinions about houses and their designs since she was young. I have lived in houses. So one of the challenges for Gaynor was not only to find a house within our budget, our preferred area and our improve-it-while-you-live-in-it plan but to negotiate with her husband and his quickly-formed opinions. Fortunately, I’ve learnt a lot about houses recently and, combined with a bit of travel, I’m now far more amenable to ideas outside my traditional purview. Still, I provide the occasional resistance, just to help me feel like I’m part of the action.

    Despite all this, we did find a few houses that fit our criteria and they were all being offered via auctions. The first house was on a massive block but was riddled with termite damage. We estimated about $20,000 worth of materials alone to make it livable. In order to get the hang of auctions, I had attended one that I did not register to bid in. Interesting to see how quickly several thousand dollars can be added to a price. At the auction for the Termite Castle we were eventually outbid by a guy who almost certainly will sub-divide the block, knock down the Castle and put in a couple of new houses. Hard to compete with that kind of money.

    At that auction was another real estate agent who approached us afterwards to inform us that there was another similar place, just around the corner, coming up for auction in a few weeks. After looking through it, it also needed a fair bit of work but not as much as the first place. The auction eventually rolled around and it turns out, we were the only bidders! My opening bid was, obviously, too low and so we negotiated with the seller afterwards. In the end, she had an over-inflated sense of what the house was worth and would not come down to something closer to reality. We’d always maintained the position that we had to be prepared to walk away if it didn’t work and we wouldn’t put ourselves into something we couldn’t afford. And in this case, we walked.

    Finally, we found a small place, better maintained than the first two but with a slightly smaller block and a little further out. From the outset there was very little interest in this property and when the auction arrived, we were the only registered bidders. I did feel a little awkward as the auctioneer asked repeatedly for an opening bid, knowing that I was the only one who could start. One might think that the previous auctions had helped me relax a little but I still find committing to that much money a bit stressful. My starting bid was naturally low and, as per auction regulations, the seller, via the auctioneer, can enter one bid. He did this but it was already beyond what we felt we could comfortably afford and more than I was prepared to commit without further consideration. The house was passed in unsold and then we started a tense 20 minutes of back and forth between us and the vendor and discussions between Gaynor and I. Eventually, we decided came to a price slightly lower than half way between his initial price and ours. I note that it was slightly lower because he wouldn’t budge and we daren’t go any higher and so, to make the sale, the estate agents knocked the last thousand off, out of their commission. We can live with that.

    So now we have a place. Settlement is in a few more weeks with plenty of paperwork and financial decisions to worry about in the meantime. And, even though the challenges of renovations and, hopefully, extensions are still ahead of us and, even though it’ll be smaller and older than we have become accustomed to in the past few years, Gaynor still seems pretty happy and it will be ours.

    [1] I believe I have worked through my fear of commitment.

  • Control Room Envy

    I know it’s something straight out of the 70s but Nuclear Physics Control Room seems so much cooler than the Heliac’s.