time flies like an arrow. fruit flies like a banana

This may well be my last post for a while as I'm about to head over to my first Northern Hemispherean summer. Although it's only a short blitz around the world, the work/travel preparations are starting to invade my mental and physical space. Exciting prospects that leaves little time for the extracurricular.

ACMI is currently featuring the new media installation monkey bear robot to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the 8 hour day. Each creature stands for Play, Rest and Work respectively and punters stand on floor touch pads to manage these different aspects of life. More weight on one over another leads to a certain death. A balance between the three and you are rewarded with a semblance of a Vitruvian man. As antiquated and unrealistic as this 888 idea sounds these days, it's an ideal worth striving for.

So jfox is going into hibernation as the Robot identity gets a massive workout for the next month. In an online effort to place more weight in the Monkey department I present some small projects.

Unless I can work out how to blog on European keyboards, we'll see y'all in August!

Happy Hippy

Just to confirm a sib's suspicion of my secret life as a hippy (wearing clothes with flowers on them doth not maketh a hippy doth it?), I recently volunteered with Conservation Volunteers Australia. This involved some planting and vegetation management in Blairgowrie on the Mornington Peninsula. Not bad for a hippy's day out eh?

Our group of 6 met up with local volunteers to remove a few weed species and also plant some native grasses and trees. We considered ourselves lucky to be at this beachside location and were even more grateful for the gorgeous overcast day, a minor blip in Melbourne's current crisp cold snap/hailing/etc.
The weed removal created trailers and trailers worth of unwanted vegetation. However, I spent the majority of the day planting: a bit of fertiliser, some water saving crystals and a fresh young green plant.

It was quite a thrill to be placing these lifeforces into the ground, an incredibly rewarding experience. We all vowed to return in a year to see how our little patch would mature.

The rest of the afternoon? Looking out over the Sorrento back beach whilst a wedding party celebrated, surfers hurled themselves at giant waves and clouds rumbled across the sky.