You can listen to audio from the speech from 2008 or watch the same speech (below) delivered as part of the Toastmasters District 70 Area 16 International Speech Contest in Pennant Hills on 12th March 2010.
Also have a look at Bel Vidal's reaction to my speech.
Humorous Speech Contest 2008 (4.7 MB). I won the competition at the club and then went on to represent the club at the Area Contest, but there were much better speakers than me there.
"The Pursuit of Happiness" (4.2 MB). My tenth speech from the Toastmasters Competent Communicator manual, about how to be happy.
"Unexpectedly Entertained" - A more lighthearted speech. This speech was delivered at Hornsby District Toastmasters Humorous Speech Contest on 7th August 2012, but this particular recording was made at Toastmasters District 70, Area 10, Evaluation Contest on 15th March 2012, where this speech was the Target Speech for the contest evaluators.
The Book of Host Records.
When we were kids, we amused ourselves setting and
creating records. These are not World Records or even
Australian Records - just records among people that I
know. There's been a renewed interest in it from the next
generation, mostly from my nieces. So here it is.
Poetry. I've written some poetry. Here's some of it.
When Faced With Calamity - A passage of Scripture about how King Jehoshaphat managed when he was faced with calamity. This has inspired me when I have faced disaster and not known what to do.
Installing a Solid State Drive (SSD). Replacing a faulty standard hard disk drive with a new Solid State Drive (SSD) should have been relatively straight-forward. It wasn't. You can read my saga and perhaps learn from my mistakes.
Turramurra High School Reunion
of ex-students who were in Year 12 in 1981 or Year 10 in
1979. For registered ex-students only.
Video taken on 3rd January 2020, the second last day that trains ran on the Carlingford railway line in Sydney.
3D video taken out the front of my car while crossing the Sydney Harbour Bridge. It's supposed to show 3D controls in YouTube, but these don't seem to be working at the moment.
Fun with dry ice and a glass of milk - in real time and time-lapse.
Flying. Before the days of video cameras, we played with 8 millimetre movie film. Here's a short one from 1981.
Skiing Without Snow. I've always enjoyed stop-motion animation. As children, we spent many hours creating stop-motion animations using 8 millimetre movie film. More recently, computers have made stop-motion animation easier, and so Daniel and I have spent many hours following this pursuit. Here's a small sample.
Clicking on some of the following links will cause you to
leave my site. I am not responsible for anything you may
find on these sites.
Links were last checked on January 29, 2024.
Evangelus - Some of my nieces sing. Jacqui has a page on MySpace, which includes some of her songs, one of which I have co-written ("Only Love Goes on"). More of her songs are on You Tube. Another of Jacqui's songs, "911" is on Bandcamp which you can hear by clicking the play button below.
Audio Archives
I like to collect audio. This is just a small part of an unusual collection, which includes:
Bloopers: The Firestone Tyre Factory, A History of Rings, Macquarie News, with laughter, Orson Welles Findus Recording Session, Aluminium, Riding Roughshod, Shalamanov, Australasian Post - Yvonne and Yvette, and the entire 25 minutes of the 2SM 1980 Blooper Tape.
Radio 2SM Sales Presentation Tapes: 2SM Hot Winter Presentation 1979, 2SM News Presentation 1979, 2SM Presentation circa 1980, and A Normal Day at 2SM Sales Presentation circa 1981.
2SM
in the 1970s. Anyone who grew up in Sydney in
the 1970s, and enjoyed Rocktober, Concert of the Decade,
Macca and the Hon Nick, and everything else about the
premium music station of the 1970s should not miss Debbie
Kruger's extensive site.
Don't Touch That Dial - Hits 'n'
Memories of Australian Radio. This is the name
of a book by Wayne Mac. Wayne was a broadcaster for many
years. He says that there are many books about the
"Golden Era" of radio, the forties and fifties, but
precious little about the "modern" era. This is Wayne's
effort to rectify that situation. The link used to go to waynemac.com but it doesn't seem to work any more, so the best I can do is point you to the National Library of Australia's listing of the book.
Australian Old Time Radio.
Features a huge amount of information about Australian
radio from before 1960.
The
Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy. The official
BBC Radio web site. See video of the recording sessions
of the latest series, download trailers, and heaps
more.
CD Duplication and DVD Duplication
CD-ROM Services. This is where to go for mass-duplication of CDs and DVDs
Yes Video Australia. The best way
to have your videotapes converted to DVD. Old movie films
and slides can also be converted to DVD.
Other CD and DVD related pages
CD-R FAQ. Everything you ever wanted
to know about CDs and related technology. Lots of information
here.
Tape Baking - I used to bake recording tapes. Here's why.
3D Photography
Sydney Stereo Camera Club.
If you're interested in stereoscopic (3D) photography and live in Sydney, this is a good place to start.
Web Authoring
Dynamic Drive. A great
source of DHTML scripts. The highlights in the menu
section of my site are created using a script from
Dynamic Drive. But there's heaps more.
How Stuff Works. If you need information about things, this is
one of the best Web sites I've seen. Check it out. It's a bit harder to navigate around the site than it used to be, but it still remains a great resource.
Museum of Obsolete Media - A comprehensive resource showing just about every type of media that has ever been used to record audio, video and data.
The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows - The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows is a compendium of invented words written by John Koenig. Each original definition aims to fill a hole in the language - to give a name to emotions we all might experience but don't yet have a word for. I like this a lot.
Jesus was asked, "Teacher, which is the most important commandment in the law of Moses?" Jesus replied, " 'You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. A second is equally important: 'Love your neighbour as yourself.' The entire law and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments."