Rasita My Family, My Animals, My Food

Wow! what a day yesterday was. I have never had so much fun as a coach! I thought the athletics was fun but this was even better!.

First I had to get all the girls from the convention site down to the gym and ready to play. This was harder than it sounds. It was absolutely belting down with torrential rain, I was looking after my two youngest girls – who were very well behaved, and some of the girls were doing other performances beforehand. Also the captain was too sick to play.

We all got to the courts and started warming up – and dodging the rain that was falling onto the court through holes in the roof – it was so heavy the roof leaked! we did have a good warm up which was great and the girls were the first team there which is also a psychological advantage. They were not very switched on for a while but eventually we got them into some drills that made them focus and get the blood pumping. My fantastic assistant coach aManda was also sick so that made it even harder as I had to do all the other organising things I usually left her to do.

We finally got onto the court for the first game and after a slow start the girls began to romp away fro the other team. All the girls got a run during this game which was good for the 2 girls who were not in the starting 5, Cassie and Tamika. They both played well while ont he court and I was very impressed with Cassies improvement in performance since the last coaching session 2 weeks ago where I was able to talk through some of her game play with her and help her with her confidence. I think we won by 15 points or so which was a great start. It was straight into the next game with only a 5 minute break and the other team was fresh so I knew this was going to be tough. I didn’t make any subs this whole game as the score was locked together all the way – with a maximum of 4 points difference to either side. We eventually ended up winning by 3 or 4 points after controlling the ball in the last minute of the game with a turnover helping that to happen. I had to rethink my player placement during the game and made some interesting moves. I ended up with one of my guards Esther G playing as a forward and my other guard Kahlila as a centre for a while at the end as I put my 2 main hustling forwards Jemimah and Jess into the guard position to really stop the other teams attack. This worked really well as not only were the other team not able to advance beyond the 3 point line easily, when they did they did not have good control and the other girls just picked off the ball. In addition the two girls were my mains corers and creating turnovers here resulted in some fast breaks that actually got us the lead back right near the end. My main centre girl Esther F played a really strong role with lots of defensive rebounds and then good passes to the guards to get it down the court.

We won and cheered and got a team photo and then headed to McDonalds. Mostly to get the girls out of the gym and relax before the final which was 1 hour and half after that game. We knew the other team was good. Very good. We also knew why. They had two state rep girls who could really play – sisters who were very good. they had 4 other players who basically made up team numbers. I had snuck over to their court during the end of our first game – when it was in the bag with 2 minutes to go and watched their game for a bit. the 2  sisters controlled the ball, did all the work bringing it up and driving to the basket making layups around the defensive post position for every single shot. I don’t believe they hit any jumpers though they tried a few. If the other girls got the ball they almost always looked straight away to give it off to the two sisters. the team the played to get into the finals was a walk over. They beat them by twice their score. Not bad for effectively 2 on 5. My spies who watched the whole game and the score sheet showed they had made all the points between them.

   McDonalds and strategy time. I kicked all the boys away from the table and sat down with the girls to discuss my plans. They were all very buoyed up after the last hard win and were positive about the game to come. We knew it was going to be tough but I had a plan. Back to the gym (through the pouring rain) we went to discover our final had been delayed as 1 court was closed due to water coming in, one court was being used for tennis (moved from outside) and that only left one court for basketball. I got the girls sitting down watching this game until half time when we went and used a corridor to begin stretching and warmups. The girls were surprised (though I wasn’t) at how stiff and sore thy were. A good long warm up got us back out on the court raring to go.

First of all I decided to keep Jess out in the guard role and user her to get fast breaks were possible. This actually worked very well as they to sisters were nearly always deeply committed on offence and unable to get back in time to beat Jess to the basket. Jess scored most of our points this way. My second strategy was to ignore all the other players and focus almost solely on the sisters. I instructed my girls to double team them at all times. This meant a lot of very hard defensive work as I wanted my new centre (ex guard Kahlila) to manage the centre, She did an awesome job here marshalling the defence from the centre. The other girls were then working very hard in defence. Jemimah and Esther G were glued to the two sisters – being pushed and shoved and throwing arms across chests and working very hard at a very tight man on defence. Jess and Esther F did a great job of being the second man up on the ball holder and we made them work hard. The shortened game format meant that the personal fouls were also reduced to 3 and inside 5 minutes we had managed to get 2 charge fouls from one of the sisters. I was ecstatic. One more foul and she would be off the court! The game started very well with us getting the first points, and then drawing a foul for Jess to go to the line and shoot one of her 2 and make it 3-0. I used my first time out to stop the Caboolture girls from getting a run on and we talked about the charge fouls. Jemimah had given away a foul that could have been a charge, except she stepped back. She said – but it hurts! She had been knocked to the floor, and to finish the picture there is probably a 10 cm height and 15 kg weight difference between her and the other girl. I said its going to hurt either way, but if you stand your ground and get knocked over we get the foul on her, she is out of the game and we get the ball. If you step back – you are still gong to get knocked over its still going to hurt but you will collect the foul and they get shots. Stand firm!

And they did. At half time we were one point down.

The second half saw the Caboolture girls get more and more frustrated with our defence – the girls kept body contact on a constantly and were pushing back as much as they were being pushed – it was great to see. At one point one of the sisters lost her cool and flung Jemimah to the floor right in front of a ref. Luckily for her no professional foul given. I used my last time out with 52 seconds to go and 7 points down (16-9) to talk to the girls. They got their breath. I made a huge mistake and said we have lost - lets just play as well as we can for the last minute. I subbed off the two Esthers and put Cassie and Tamika on. Man was I wrong. Within 38 seconds we had reversed that by 2 points and made a 3 point foul play to get another 3 points. Now only 2 points behind (and with no timeouts left) the Caboolture girls got the ball. With 6 seconds left we forced a turnover, Jemimah drove down the floor to the basket and as the buzzer went made a shot that she was fouled on. But it was too late. She needed to have made the shot about 1/2 a second earlier to force extra time. They lost 16-14.

I didn’t care. We were ecstatic. We proved that the giant of the two state rep players was not unbeatable, – in fact we all could see that we could haven beaten them. We leaped and jumped and revelled in the second place and I think my girls were more excited than the Caboolture team. Well done ladies!

Pizza party is on at our place next Thursday night to relive all the magic moments on video.

(Photos courtesy of Neil Abraham and Rachel Pinel)

This is the Ukrainian acronym for my business. Yesterday we signed our first contract. Here is a photo of Katya - the first student to join our classes. We signed up four students yesterday and have another sign-up evening today. Classes will start next week, and I expect they will grow by word of mouth.

Please praise God with me. I'm not normally a nervous person. I have been more nervous at various times this week than I can remember in a long time. I am very much aware of my inabilities and my desperate need for reliance upon God. Praise God for all He has done so far, thank Him for the many people who have helped thus far.

AN IMPORTANT NEED FOR PRAYER: I am not only an English teacher, but also the owner and director of a business registered here in Ukraine. Every day I find out more and more what that means and it only gets scarier. Tomorrow I will be meeting with top class (expensive) lawyers in Kyiv. It seems that I may have a problem in my documentation of what I legally can and can't do. I am seeking to learn the laws and requirements - though I rely on translated advice. I feel out of control in this situation - but I want to seek to honour God in all I do.

The aim of the language school (apart from meeting and helping people) is not to be successful in the world's eyes, but to bring honour and glory to the Name of our God.

Today I delivered some work to a client to get a major piece of work completed. The client was 100% happy and there were only a couple of minor things to fix. They have requested more work but that will have to wait until after other jobs are completed. From there I drove to the school convention and picked up a car full of athletes who I have been coaching. We headed of to St Lucia University campus for a 5PM start of the athletic meet.

Unfortunately due to my “childishness” I broke my phone screen and I didn’t have any other camera with me. I did take a couple of shots of my main man Drew running the 1500 metre with someone else's camera though.

Drew cleaned up tonight. Although he could have ran a much faster 1500 than he did I made him run a slow race to save himself for the other events. He followed my instructions exactly. Ran into second place within the first 100 metres and sat right on the heels of that guy for 400 metres before hitting him with a 10 metre clear burst on the 2nd back straight. Settling back down the the same pace he ran with the 10 metre lead for another full lap. Then he picked up the pace and ran harder drawing away to a 50 metre lead. He held this then right into the main finishing straight and then turned on his sprint for the last 50 metres winning by an easy 75 metres or so. I think he could have won by close to a full lap but he was very good and ran our race plan exactly. This was good because he was straight into the 100 metres – though because his was the lat 100 metre heat / final he had time to prepare. I had 2 runners in the 100 metres and I played the waiting game as long as possible to keep them out of the chill breeze. I walked them to the start last of all the runners every time, warmed them up at the back of the staging area with some calisthenics, stretches and short sprints. No other athletes were as well prepared so I was happy with that. Caleb came second in his U16 100 metres and drew came in first or second – it was a photo finish and we haven’t been told the result yet.

From there it was to the 200 metres and Cassie. She has suffered terribly from self confidence, and tonight I finally learnt that she didn’t think I was happy with her progress. Well she came in a solid 2nd with a strong final 50 metres and she now knows I am happy with her performance. Her grandfather also told me tonight that her mother died in a car accident when she was 3 which is why she lives with her grandparents. Anyway I did the same thing with Cassie, taking her over to the start a good 5 minutes after everybody else was already there, knowing she had 3 races in front of hers. I kept her in her track suit right until the last minute warming her up on the track while we waited. She ran very well and I am proud of her improvement since I have been coaching her.

The 400 was next and this was going to be interesting. I had 3 runners here, Drew, Jemimah and Esther. Esther ran first and I didn’t get to see her start as I was busy with the others. However she came in second also and she really hung on well in the last 100 metres. She went out a little strong in the opening 100 but it worked in her favour in the end. Jemimah and Drew actually ran in the same race as there were only 2 girls competing at her age group of over 16 and there were enough spare spots on the track for the 2 girls to run with the 5 or 6 boys. She ran a very good race and came in first. Drew however blitzed the boys field here. I was standing at the start line with all the timekeepers and they couldn’t believe his opening 100 metres. From lane 2, in that opening 100 metres he had passed all the other runners and was in front. From there he just pulled away and won by about 30 metres. A very impressive run and he wasn’t even puffing after he finished. I’m thinking the next Usain Bolt!

Next were a couple of 100 and 200 metre finals for races where they had had heats. None of mine were in this as their races had all been finals. The 800 was next and I had Thomas and Breanna in this. Breanna ran a very good race to our plan and finished 4th but only a few metres behind 3rd and maybe 20 back from first. Well done. Thomas didn’t follow my instructions. I had told him to run the first 100 in his lane and slot in behind the first runner on to the back straight. Instead he went to the front and the two of them at the front drew away with Thomas pacemaking to about 10 metres out. Unfortunately this boy was in the open class and Thomas wasn’t even supposed to be racing him. With 350 to go this boy gained 10 metres on Thomas with a pace increase and I had told Thomas not to up his pace until 300 to go. Thomas however was spent by this time so when he lifted on the back straight he tired too quickly. Going into the last 200 he was 25 metres behind the first boy which didn’t matter as he was still leading his U16 class. However his nearest rival was now only 10 metres behind and closing fast. As they hit the front 100 the other boy passed him. Thomas lifted into a sprint and it was a seesaw neck and neck but the other boy had more left in the tank and the last 5 metres saw him take the win. Still a good run that Thomas put everything he had into and a silver isn’t anything to be ashamed of. I do think he could have won it though.
From there to the relays. Too big and strong the other teams were. Our under 16s team Caleb, Liam, Nathan and Thomas ran really well with a credible second but never looked like beating the first team. Still a great run by all 4. The open boys team consisted of Drew to open, Dean and Cailen to follow and Coen to finish. Drew gave us a 10 metre lead over the first 100 metres. Dean lost all of that to the next team and a bit more and Cailen lost the rest and a bit more so we were about 10 metres behind into the final straight though just clear of third. Coen ran a super fast sprint and was gaining rapidly on the first place. However he could not pull him back and we lost by 5 metres or so. Our girls team had to forfeit as one of our runners was too sick to race and had in fact gone to bed. We had not registered Cassie as a reserve so could not use her.

I had an absolute blast coaching these fine young athletes. For me the best part was seeing just how much the difference I could make in preparing them well, setting their mental state prior to each race and getting them onto the track totally focused on running their hardest. Some of their competitors were looking around, joking with spectators and supporters and skylarking amongst themselves. None of them warmed up properly. My kids were all told to keep that nervous energy in check and store it up and use it in the race, and to ignore what anybody said to them except the starter. Almost with out exception they followed these instructions (and most of the pre race instructions I had given them a couple of days ago for preparation earlier on in the day as well. I am super proud of them all! Now girls basketball comp tomorrow – knockout so we have to win 2 games to get to a final and hopefully win that as well. Its gonna be fun!

our boys team played their first game yesterday. The other team was quite a bit better then them and this was evident before the game. I think this overawed them at first and i had to call a time out 3 minutes in. I told them they were playing like girls and to stop being nice. The rest of the game they played really hard and i was really proud of their efforts. The defence was very good most of the time though we need to work on rebounds. We also need to work on offence.

As hurricane Gustav hits New Orleans we are tracking its progress with more than just curiosity from this side of the world. For all the news step by step from the Zipa building in Poydras Street in New Orleans check out the www.gustavbloggers.com website. Our domain name registrars DirectNic are located there. After there fantastic work to stay online during Katrina we determined to stay with them and have increased our domain name holdings with them since then. They have expanded also and now have massive redundancy and server centres in Chicago, Houston and Naples, Florida so they are not expecting any outages.

I note with sadness that this hurricane has already costs many deaths in the outlying islands of Jamaica, Haiti, Cuba and Dominican Republic.

No time to say them.

But what the heck here I go anyway – warning rant begins!

American politics. Short thought - storm in a teacup. The two sides are so bitterly argumentative (generally) and so closely alike (generally) politically anyway that the whole thing is a bit of a joke from the outside looking on. Lets just have a little look at the major external global policies (I am not conversant with internal American politics so much).

Oil – and Iraq. They are not leaving – they are staying. Obama or McCain – ones says he wont go, the other cant no matter what he says.

Money. No president can control the Federal Reserve Bank. America’s economy is on the brink of disaster and only continual creative accounting and loose money policy keeps them from collapsing. The fact that American dollars are the black market economy standard around the world says more about the quantity of cash outside of the continental states than it does about the strength (or weakness) of the dollar.

Global warming (or not). Okay temperatures are rising. Ice is melting, etc. No one disagrees. Does this constitute “global warming”? Yes in the strict definition of those 2 words. The earth is warming (very slightly). Is this an environmental disaster like never before. Categorically no. It has happened before. This bad? no one really knows for sure. Will we survive? Yes. Does it really matter what president is in the USA? not really. After all the USA won’t even ratify the Kyoto protocol. There are two major schools of thought on global warming neither of which can agree. End of day this is not as bad as the oil crisis of the 70s (I remember that) and Americans wont change their lives much because the president changes.

Bigotry. Americans have that down pat. Generally speaking. Of course all the nice American people I know aren’t bigoted – at all! Or at least not intentionally. Yet this is the nation that has the large majority of its school children (and adults) who cant locate major capital cities let alone countries on a map of the world. So for those enlightened enough to be reading my blog you are excused and I certainly don’t tar you with this generic brush. The rest won’t come here anyway. But most Americans cannot seem to see that the way they represent themselves, their attitudes about their country and others show bigotry of ignorance in most cases or arrogance at least. Go to St Louis or Atlanta and tell me there is no racial bigotry inside USA – and where is the political where with all to deal with that?

Political systems. the USA has a political system that allows choice. However at the end of the day that choice has been screwed down to this is the way its going to be with some very minor differences. The two political parties are largely alike in most ways. the system is controlled by a congress which counts vote buying with money and power and has virtually nothing to do with representative government – let alone the mathematical problems associated with proportional representation (look up the Alabama paradox for that one!)

Ok end of rant – normal programming will now resume.

Oh and I am interested in comments – and thoughtful ones. If you are going to just sneer at my opinions and not provide reasoned debate than I will just delete your comments – that is my right.

Pictures courtesy of Capital Capitalism.

I have had such a heavy workload lately that about 2 weeks ago I planned an entire day off – knowing I would need it and the family would be needing me. So yesterday was locked out in my diary as being work free. well it didn't entirely work out as thanks to Optus screwing around with my plans I had to go and do a wireless internet install and local network setup for a client in their home. 3 hours later,  5 PCs online, mostly patched for windows updates, AVG 8 installed and updated, and Live Mesh installed for some users and synchronising backups. I left for this really early so we were able to leave the house and be ready to go at lunch time! We stopped on the highway for Maccas and KFC for lunch 15 minutes after leaving. hen it was back ont he road again and off to Mapleton Falls National Park. This is part of the great Sunshine coast walks and I was on a recce for a great bike ride that we are planning.

I had used the camera heavily the previous two days taking photos for the geek girls dinner and then for the missions fund raising dinner. Check the photos and the 3D photosynth out of the dinner. So the camera batteries were on the charger and I only had my mobile phone camera. Still I took some reasonable shots. The panoramic picture picture above was created using Live Photo Galleries cool panoramic feature from the falls look out platform. I would estimate that the height was about 100 metres straight down. I also made a photosynth of the same pictures – check it out – it is way cook and allows you to zoom in heaps.

We took heaps of pictures on the rain forest walk all up on Flickr. Here's some fun ones of all our shoes and then all our faces. Click the photos to be taken through to Flickr and the rest of the photos.

After that we headed out to Coolum Beach for nachos and doner kebabs by the beach. The children jumped waves and played for a while and then it was time to go home. I relaxed with Jude for a bit before settling into code for a few hours before hitting the sack. All the Coolum beach photos are on Flickr also.

Last night aManda and I went to the inaugural Brisbane Geek Girl Dinner. It was lots of fun!. 19 girls and 3 blokes is a good ratio!.

I took lots of photos – all up on flickr, and aManda will do a longer write up later.

I am absolutely stoked. I just got news that my mate Dion was baptised on Sunday. When I was a kid growing up in Motueka, my best friend was Dion who lived just down the road. We were at each other's houses every day. As I got older, I invited him to youth group etc. and then we moved away and life moved on. I have thought about and prayed for Dion on and off over the years and once or twice got in touch. This year we reconnected while I was in NZ. I may not have been the most faithful friend, but God is a faithful God, and over the years drew Dion to Himself.

All praise to God! Great to have you in the Family mate!

hi all.
i am selling the guinea pigs.
i am sad.
see you soon.
miranda.

so im away at the moment. In toowoomba. Working. Its so hard choosing where to eat out. Tonight i had to choose between pizza, steak, chinese, italian and mexican. I went mexican. Oh good food just got served. Im about to enjoy a quesadillo followed by a pablano with the hottest sauce they have.

Yesterday was Independence Day. Independence - freedom - from what? Soviet rule? Yes. But is Ukraine truly free?

What about me? I want to be free Lord, totally free to live - to love - to be the me You created. Yet those I love the most, I judge. I feel judged by them and I allow negativity to bind me. I listen to selfish desires and the noose tightens. Oh who will free this soul from bondage. God like Asaph in Psalm 73 - give me eternal perspective. Take me into the house of the Lord. Let me understand that in all heaven, I have nothing but You - and for me it is good to be near God.

Oh free me! Let my spirit soar - let my soul rejoice - let my body dance. Independence Day has come.

People often ask me that. Not gloating or anything – grin.

No seriously, its not that I know more than others. Its just that I use a website to share it. Anybody who has lived to 40 as I have will have had plenty of experience and learnt lots of things. People who have lived longer tend to know more, and people who are younger tend to know less and think they know more!

However when it comes to knowledge there are some important things to understand. I remember when I finally got my head around these concepts it was like breaking through a brick wall or finally creating the right mix of chemicals! Ka-Boom!

First there is far more knowledge than you realise. About lots of things. As soon as you can possible make the admittance that you don’t know everything there is to know about any given subject, and that other people may know more or different things about the same subject the sooner you will stop being a “know-it-all” annoying type of person. I used to be one of these before this “revelation” hit me. More on this below. I think the worst thing I can hear some one say is that they don’t need to learn about something because they know all they need to know about it. The only thing sadder than that is the person who is convinced they are right about their knowledge of a subject and is not prepared to listen to reasoned debate of alternative views. Religion and politics feature highly with this one.

Second there are 4 types of knowledge.

1. There are all the things you know that you know. This is actually a very small amount. Think of a grain of sand in a bucket. That is what you know compared with the next 2 things.
2. There are the things you know that you don’t know. You probably know that your microwave works using technology that you don’t know about. You probably know that your doctor understands how cancer is caused but most of us don’t know the specifics. This is maybe 3/4 of the bucket of sand.
3. There are the things you don’t know that you know. These include the things you forgot, but you learnt once. The name of your kindergarten teacher for example. Maybe the ability to smash through a glass window – well you would suddenly be able to do that if your baby was behind it in a building on fire. This is the remaining quarter of a bucket.
4. The last thing is all the things you don’t know that you don’t know. This is like the sand on the very large beach that the bucket is on. Only you don’t know that the beach even exists because you live inside the bucket and you cant see out. Once you can visualise the beach you suddenly realise the vast amount of knowledge that is there waiting to be explored. This is the revelation that needs to happen for some people. Once they can see beyond the boundaries of their tiny plastic bucket mind they suddenly become less arrogant, more humble and accepting of others viewpoints and opinions.

The exploration of knowledge is a wondrous thing.

Here are some hints and tips I have picked up that can help you learn more. This is not exhaustive – of course. Any readers with more ideas please comment and add your knowledge to this small sand castle.

• Deliberately pick some topics – one or 2 at most that you intend to study for 2 years. Read books, subscribe to RSS feeds about them, take classes maybe, find people who know more and network with them – study under them and learn from them. in 10 years time this course of action alone will see you being an expert or at least a very knowledgeable person in 10 major topics. in 30 years, 30 major topics. That’s more than most people ever know. Yes this is a long term view but I can say for certain that since I started this practice some 6 years ago that it is starting to pay off for me. I wish I had started it younger.
• Throw out your preconceived ideas. You don’t need to abandon your beliefs or opinions. Just be prepared to have them shaken. Particularly beliefs. If what you know is true it will probably be confirmed as a result. If it is not then you might just find yourself changing your mind about some things. This can be hard. I have had to make some hard decisions about some “religious truths” I held as a result of studying theology and philosophy. The result is that while I have had my faith confirmed far more seriously than I ever had before, I have had to change some of my understandings. I had been taught and accepted without questions a belief structure about some things that I have now had the chance to read the studied debates on. Debates held by people who are very gifted in this field of study and have spent their life time studying and writing about it. I am currently reading the complete works of Francis Schaeffer, probably the last centuries most gifted theologian / philosopher / Christian apologist.
• Be prepared for some controversy. Where there are two sides or more to a field of thought there will be always be conflict. Human nature dictates this. Study carefully and don’t just believe the first thing you read. Read the critics and opponents to evaluate the others points of view.
• Don’t believe everything you read. Cross reference/ double check. If its on the Internet find several non connected sources to verify information. Establish the facts before you create beliefs.
• Keep your mouth shut. Don’t start spouting off about your new knowledge 4 weeks in. Wait for the 2 years or more before you consider yourself an expert. By that time you will probably realise that you are not an expert at all and keep your mouth shut anyway. This is one I had trouble with (and probably still do).
• Share the knowledge. No this is not in conflict with the previous paragraph. Sharing what you know because you read something is not the same as spouting off as the fount of all knowledge on the subject. Qualify your advice or knowledge with the source and let others know that you are sharing information you have learnt but you are not qualifying it as absolute truth. Write a blog or website like this one to share what you learn as you go. Others will find the site and the commenting system will allow a community of other people interested in the topic to offer their advice, comments and links. Teach a class, help your friends, join a hobby group, coach a sport. There are lots of ways that you can make your knowledge useful. On its own knowledge is useless, shared it is invaluable.

Finally be confident in yourself. You have got talents and abilities to share to the world. Don’t shortchange yourself. You do know stuff, but often other people are not aware of it. So get out there. Learn and Live and Share it..

SEO or Search Engine Optimisation is paying off for me.

I have an unfortunate name. Tim Miller is a pretty common name. So when you do a Google search for me you cant find this Tim Miller, instead you find a whole bunch of other people. This is part of the reason I have promoted my blog as SpyJournal. Its a unique name and its the name I use for most of my social websites and so on. Our business names also of Jethro Management and Jethro Consultants are pretty unique.

  So when I do a Google search for SpyJournal, every single entry on the first page is me. Jethro Management is the same, and Jethro Consultants has the second last one only as not me. 9 out of 10 or 10 out of 10 results is pretty good. I think I have a pretty good chance of getting found with my company name. By the way I would be interested if readers in other countries could try the same thing and let me know in the comments what you find. Feel free to use other search engines, though Google is of course the main one. I cant remember the time I needed  to try a different one!

The next step for me is to keep working on my keywords, specifically Drupal and Excel and Excel VBA.

I have received numerous jobs recently through from people who found us with Google searches here in Australia. More in the last 6 months than in the rest of our business history so far.

I have been requested numerous times recently by readers in comments and emails to write some how to articles for VBA. It is my intention to start to do this.

My basic plan will be to take situations where new VBA users record some code with the VBA recorder, and then want to try and make it more robust.

An article by Nick Hodge (the Excel Nick Hodge) on Dicks Daily Dose of Excel website illustrates my point.

I probably will not write articles as long or as in depth as he has done. Instead I will focus on small parts of this code such as range selection, switching workbooks, defining variables and constants and using them etc. Specifically each article I write will have real practical application. E.g how to copy data from one file to another, how to save a spreadsheet as values for emailing etc.

In the meantime enjoy Nicks article on his coding technique particularly the latter stages where he talks about the progression in code development in VBA.

I have something like 20 or more websites open in browser that I want to be able to review or recommend. I haven’t got time so I will link them here, tag on delicious and clip into socialmedian as appropriate.

Here goes.

• Windows Live One Care for Server. Free trial. Works on Server 2008 Standard 64 bit, SBS 2008 Standard and Premium.
• File Dialogs – adding My Places in the File Open and File Save As dialog boxes. Quickly find frequently used locations on your PC or network.
• Adding signatures to email in Windows Live Hotmail
• Plugins – Flickr for Live Writer, Flickr for Outlook, Flickr for Word. Zemanta for Windows Live Writer. Hat tip to Sarah Perez from Channel 10 for this. (see our Geek Girl profile on Sarah)
• Another from Sarah is the Circle Dock Application launcher. Go straight to Circle Dock.
• How to share large files without attaching them to email
• Bulk convert old documents to new Office 2007 format from Digital Inspiration. I will be trialing this with a set of copied documents to test the results.

Step 1: Download Migration Manager kit and extract it into a new folder - say: c:\office.

Step 2: Download and install the Office Pack - this step is required even if you have Microsoft Office 2007 already installed on your computer.

Step 3: Assuming that you extracted the Office Manager files in c:\office directory, go c:\office\tools, open ofc.ini using notepad and add the following line.

fldr=c:\users\labnol\documents

This refers to the folder location that holds your office files. I am pointing this to my Documents folder but it could be different on your machine.

Step 4: Open command prompt and go to c:\office\tools. There you’ll see a utility called ofc.exe - this is the Office File Converter that will convert all old Office files to the new 2007 Office document format in bulk. Run.

Immediately all old Office files in that folder (and sub-folders) will get converted to the new format and are saved in a new folder.

This utility works with Word (doc to docx), Access databases, PowerPoint (ppt to pptx), Visio diagrams, Excel (xls to xlsx) and Microsoft Project files. The conversion may however fail for password protected documents.

• Record and send video email with Windows Live Messages once again from Digital Inspiration. Go diorect to the Windows Live Video Messages site.

This massive amazing technology was released for preview yesterday. Already the servers cant keep up. Its on and off again. They are working ion it.

I have downloaded and installed and created a synth – I think, I cant view it to check. It will be live soon I am sure.

Here’s a bunch of news about it and stuff you can look at it to review. This should have been in a post of its own. Sorry.

• Live Labs forum
• Photosynth blog
• Photosynth User Review from LiveSide.net
• Nick Hodge’s initial review of Photosynth

• Battlefield Heroes. A new game. Site built in Drupal
• Windows Live Messenger integrated with Line Rider.

• Goofy2. A new social media site? I haven’t even checked it out yet. Here’s what they say “Goofy2 is a service for you and the world to share and discuss about anything through short posts and comments with rich media embedment.”
• Widgenie. I still haven’t tested this but will one day!

• How to win a photo comp. As I have to judge one soon I though this would be a good read – it was. Thanks Darren!

I'd like to invite you to pray with me. Tomorrow I will meet with the Director of School Number 1 here in Rzhyshchiv. My hope and plan is that they will be pleased to offer me a permanent room in the school from where I can operate my English Teaching business. I plan to teach after school classes to students to improve their English skills. I met with the Education Director for the Rzhyshchiv region last week. She is keen for the plan to go ahead.

This morning I read in 2 Chronicles 20 about Jehoshaphat going into battle. In verse 12 he says to God, "We don't know what to do, so we look to you for help." He then calls the people together and Jahaziel led by God's Spirit says, "Don't be afraid or discouraged . . . The battle is not your battle, it is God's. Just stand strong in your places and you will see the Lord save you."

Then I read in Proverbs 21:31, "You can get the horses ready for battle, but it is the Lord who gives the victory."

I feel like my horses are more like donkeys or mules. The trainer is inexperienced and nervous. The plans are many and varied. But I understand that anything I accomplished will only be as good as I can do. Anything God accomplishes - well now we are talking far far above my plans - my plans seem rather lame.

So I'll prepare the horses, can you stand with me before our God - 9:30am Friday morning.

Thanks !

When I returned home to Rzhyshchiv, the cat which was hanging around last year was still here and pregnant. Mark and Jacqui, friends from NZ have befriended it and now I have three kittens as well, Kiwi, Smokey, and Chunkey. They are beginning to become used to being fed and loved. I still haven't relented and let them inside yet. But I must admit they look rather adorable - but then they grow up don't they?!?

online at the shops with unsecure wireless network