My Story

I am a Physiotherapist and have a small practice with a colleague in Atherton.

I am a Baha’i by religion and apply myself to the precepts of Baha’u'llah (1817 – 1892) as well as I can.The Baha’i World — Official Site of the Baha’i Faith

I do a lot of volunteer work for the Baha’i Faith and between 1994 and 2009 spent considerable time working for the advancement of Rural Health in Australia on the boards of SARRAH and the National Rural Health Alliance

Strangely, I am quite the introvert (according to Meyer-Briggs tests). So, I love science, science fiction, philosophy, great writing and ideas, poetry, theatre and performing arts, art, sculpture, design. Overall, I am a ‘patterns thinker’ and, although I like being creative, I only just get by at the nuts and bolts of action.

I want a chip in my head so I can work and research and generally use the net as a direct feed to my auditory and visual cortex and wired to motor function. I expect the effect should appear as virtual information floating in front of me, and be able to be used like a touch screen and or voice command.

My motto is that we live is unusual, that we might be clever enough to live to the end of the universe is promising, so we might as well do something interesting and helpful to get us there.

Cyclone Larry tore over our place in North Queensland, Australia, on 20th March 2006. Luckily we are on high ground and inland so it eased down to a Category 3 from a category 5.

It seemed like we took most of the rest of the year just cleaning things up or helping others cleaning things up.

Anyhow the year went on. Apart from the work at the Physiotherapy Clinic, I supervise a youth group for the local Baha’i Faith community. Occassionally the youth really kicked up their heels.

Uno italiano, uno Vanuatuan, uno Australiano on our verandah in June 2006

In January 2007, my sons tried to get to a wedding of a friend some 450 kilometers away during wet season flooding on the north east coast of Australia. They didn’t make it. Here is the story.

While assisting the Baha’i Uth Agents of Change Program in Townsville in April 2007, one morning while having a coffee before everyone got up, a kookaburra flew down and landed nearby. I went to get my video cam from the nearby hall and found the kookaburra had followed me upstairs. He sat still for about 2 minutes while I put the camera in his face. I told the story to some of the teenagers later on, and an aboriginal girl said, “that’s my totem”. Later when we told her Aunty, she said, “maybe you better ring your mother.” I remembered an old friend from Cape York was always saying that different birds coming by meant different things – some reminders, some bad news.

Since the beginning of 2007, my friend, Ben, has been enticing me on a regular bike ride on recumbent tricycles. We can keep up with the beginner’s group of the local bike club.

31st July 2007, an interview with me went to podcast on Baha’i Perspectives . Much about my childhood to adulthood from a point of view of my eventual membership in the Baha’i Faith.

The latter half of 2007 saw the eventuation of the Australian Federal Elections and I spent a lot of time assisting the work of SARRAH and the NRHA in providing a policy message on rural health. The elections were won by the Labour party and the new Prime Minister is Kevin Rudd who cartoonists depict as Tin tin. I and the rest of the board of the National Rural Health Alliance met with the Health Minister Nicola Roxon in March 2008.

My wife and I and our three sons went on a one month trip to Signapore, Malaysia, Frankfurt, Turkey and Haifa (Israel) in December 2007. It was a great trip that I have described in a little more detail in Meanderings. The purpose was to perform an official pilgrimage to the baha’i Holy Places in the Haifa district of Northern Israel where Baha’u'llah spent the last 19years of His exile from Persia. I have uploaded many photos from the trip and especially Haifa, on the Flickr site.

At the beginning of 2008, as we returned from Pilgrimage, I decided to begin a long time dream, to start an educational theatre production company. So I have registered Phoenix Functions as a business. My first production was to showcase the work of architectural historian, Barry Rowney, ex of SA University and now living in Atherton, but who still assists on archaeological digs in Egypt and Syria. Here is a summary clip of the evening which includes a short animation that I did which was intended to interact with Barry. Well it almost came off, and as you see Barry and the audience enjoyed it.

I have given myself three years to experiment and learn about the local market and educational uses of performing arts. I have recently agreed to help co-ordinate a production for the Wilderness Society to go into schools next year.

Recently, while at the Agents of Change Program, another parent brought along Mony Python’s Dead Parrot skit. Here is our version.