Barry and Vivienne Site Introduction

Check out Kyogle Tidings

Last update October 2008

 

We have now been in our house at Kyogle, northern NSW, for 4 years and are happy to be here.  The first year had a hot summer and mild winter. The last winter was much cooler though there were no frosts. When we arrived in Kyogle, November 2004, the Poinciana tree (below) had red flowers, and last year was covered with them, though the wind blew off many of the flowers. There were very few flowers in 2006, but better in 2007. The tree shown above is the Golden Rain.

Poinciana Tree (2005) and Golden Rain with its new leaves

Later in 2005

This site  includes material about our many interests over the years, though the camera work is Barry's.  Vivienne has another site (www.hooper-home.net), a study into the historical events of the bible, supported by bible chronology based on this analysis. Another site, that is devoted to Kyogle is called Kyogle Tidings created in 2008.

We have one dog,  a Shih Tzu (Folfie), he is now 8. Jazzbo, the St Bernard we had with us here in Kyogle passed on, aged 9, in October 2006.

 At one time we did have three St.Bernards and all our dogs can be seen in our dog section.  We tried to get a puppy Shih Tzu for Folfie. We took him along but rejected all we offered to him. He prefers (perhaps) to be the only one.

This site shows some of our interests. Prior to 2002 the photographs were taken with a variety of film cameras. Between 2002 and October 2005 a Canon G3 and after that a Canon Pro1.  In the photography section are a number of pictures of our trip to the south island of New Zealand in April (2003) and there is a section on photographs taken in England in June 2003. This is accessed via the Photography link or direct to New Zealand and UK Trip 2003. Many of my photographs (prior to 2002) taken with a variety of cameras are being scanned from negatives, slides and pictures  and some of these have also been included. Scanning negatives and slides is a slow process, about 6 minutes each plus time to correct colours and exposure. However, it's very rewarding as the detail revealed over and above the original prints is nothing short of amazing. Scanning is done with initially with the FS4000US Canon scanner at 3000 dpi which has now been replaced by an excellent Epson 4990. A great scanner.

There is also a large section on Jazz indicating its history with examples from the early days of recorded jazz. Our particular interest is in New Orleans Jazz, especially that played by Sammy Rimington.  Most of the jazz site was prepared by Vivienne (a mammoth task). Our particular interest is how and why and when Jazz developed (no-one really knows why/how, or what it sounded like in the early days), and who were the main players at that time (around the year 1900 in New Orleans), though reading of Daniel Hardie books (Australian living in Sydney) are recommended to find out more about those early days.

There are also a couple of donkeys (Tango and Solly), and many pictures of these wonderful beasts are included. They lived with us in our previous house in Romsey and have remained on the 40 acres when we moved north.

Solly                                                                                 Tango

1214 Romsey Road

Prior to moving to Glenwood with its 40 acres, a couple of Hobby Farms were owned. The first was at Mirboo North in conjunction with my dear friends, Tony and Stella Hyde. This consisted of 100 acres and we were there from 1979 for a few years.

Mirboo North (Vivienne and Barry)

After Mirboo North Vivienne and I had a 40 acre property at Welshman's Reef.

Welshman's Reef

The Project Management section is a complete document on the process of managing the development of computer systems. This was my (Barry) job prior to retirement in 2002. I suppose the contents are "old hat" now and newer methods have been adopted for the type of systems developed today. So it is included for historical reasons though I am sure some material would be of interest to Project Managers, to get those projects up and working on time and within budget.

Other interests we have are genealogy, on-line chess,  creation of slide shows , home beer brewing (and drinking), digital darkroom and colour management, films and DVD recording, PC building and others. Like most we seem to be very busy people with many projects in train. Not to mention keeping the garden in reasonable order.

Also, at home, we have a network of five computers, along with 5 monitors, laser printer, colour printer (Canon i950), scanners and so on.

Very difficult to make cables lie neatly