Created a tip sheet for Photoshop Elements ~ version 3 admittedly but still useful for later incarnations of the software. I am running a workshop for Year 6 students from a neighbouring primary school on Monday. They have been collaborating on a project with our Year 7 students. They would like to repair and modify some photographs, hence the workshop. You may find the tip sheet useful. It is a pdf file ~ about 1.3mb. I created it using Comic Life and ‘printed it to pdf’.

Well, had a quick look at Bimbl yet I am not impressed. Should the team at Posterous be worried?

Posted by email from Watershed Lite (posterous)

Updated the Year 9 and 10 history pages last night. Added some links relevant to the local and national sites studies currently being undertaken by the students in those years.

Year Nine History links

Year Ten History links

Some of the sites are worthy, others not so worthy. The students will provide feedback on that. Included some Wikipedia entries as well. Referencing WIkipedia does not always go down well in some academic quarters. Often the external links at the foot of a Wikipedia page are useful.

I shall encourage the students to suggest more links. If you would like to suggest some local Illawarra History site or Australian historical sites of national interest please comment below.

Our kitchen is being replaced. On Friday our old kitchen was removed. Back to the original walls and floors. We temporarily covered the floor to prevent accidents with nails protruding from the wooden part of the floor. Parts of the wall were removed. Inside one of the wall cavities were pages from a newspaper dated March 28th, 1978. I flicked through the pages and the items that caught my eye are illustrated below.

Advertisements for calculators that still give the impression of the revolutionary and brilliant this technology. Calculations… Casio solves them scientifically! I think our family obtained its first calculator in 1977.

Then there is this advertisement for a 48cm colour television with a price tag of $599-00AUD. That was an enormous amount of money back then. That may have been equivalent to a month’s salary for many people, perhaps more. The advertiser has used a photograph of ABBA on the TV screen. Love the AM/FM transistor radio and the bedside AM/FM clock radio. You still see those clock-radios in motels.

Finally, an article about the copyright problems posed by the rich man’s new toy, the video tape recorder. The article indicated thet there would be legal battles between manufactuers, television stations and home consumers of the product. Things have certainly changed in some respects.

We are going to put a current copy of the local paper, wrapped in plastic, back in the wall cavity for the next renovators to discover years from now. I wish there was an anachronism lying around I could throw in for good measure.

Last night Shao Ping and I celebrated the 50th birthday of our friend Luke. Interestingly Luke and I were both born on the 8th August, 1958.  We taught together for about 10 years at St Joseph’s Catholic High School, Albion Park. Luke, and his wife Janine, are now both teaching at the Nobel School, Stevenage, England. Luke and his family are back in Australia for a holiday.

Luke and Larry

Well, Luke and I have shared fifty years. One hundred years in all. We both come from large families and both our dads spent time in Changi Prison as guests of the Imperial Japanese Army during the Pacific War. Luke is a great bloke, full of life, enriched with wisdom and generous with loads of good, old commonsense. Luke always called me Larry at school ~ a play on my family name.

Peter, Beth and I

Luke and his family are having a great experience in England. I think everyone should endeavour to work abroad at some time in their careers. It can open their eyes and make one realise there is so much out there in the world to discover.

Peter, Beth and I discuss the delights of Hong Kong

Caught up with many old friends last night including my old school chum and former colleague, Beth. We both went through school at the same time. She is a legendary English teacher and now happily retired on the south coast of New South Wales at Erowal Bay. Beth, my colleague Peter and I had a great old night talking about the good old days.