I have resisted or even saying much about the election this year. None of it’s particularly impressive really, not to mention the media coverage — worse than ever — but that said, it’s clear to anyone who knows me who I’d prefer to see win.

I’m in a funny position this time around — I mean, I will always agree with Labor positions over Liberal ones anyway, but usually it’s more of a general “social justice” position where I care, but it doesn’t effect me greatly. This time, it potentially affects me and my family enormously.

My great and near-perfect job, as Technical Support Officer for Coonabarabran High School, could be under threat if the Liberals have On the flipside, the whole laptops program is a key Labor project, meant to give a good amount of economic stimulus and be a key boost for the future of the country and our youth, and with them back in it will continue nicely.

Needless to say, of course I support the program, and of course I want it to continue (do I think it needs some adjustments though — I certainly do, but that’s only a side concern). I think it does an enormous amount for the schools and students, and my presence at the school improves the place in many ways — and in ways beyond just the laptop program, since there are more computers in the average high school now than you would believe.

In fact, it would be my position that no matter who wins, it should be the position of any side that every high school above a certain size has a fulltime computer support manager. High schools have as many computers as most businesses and it should not be teachers’ responsibility to run them. Teachers should be teaching, while an IT manager (ie: me), should be running the computers.

That said, the whole election campaign is pretty much a farce. Filtered through mainstream, especially television news media, it becomes a joke, and one  I’m glad to largely opt out of. I read up as required online, but it’s liberating to ignore TV news. Even outside of election time, it’s become an increasingly sick joke anyway.

So without making public my thoughts on people who would vote for Tony Abbott, let’s just say that I’d really like to see the incumbents returned, for many reasons. I don’t know if I can say that my family’s livelihood depends on it, but it sometimes feel like it.

I’m off to vote now, and will carry good thoughts with me. If it doesn’t work out for us, I’m sure we will get by one way or another, but really, I’d rather it did

There seems to be something wrong with my site setup at the moment… pictures arent’ uploading, things aren’t updating like they should.

Not sure if it’s a random problem, or something worse (my first incident with a hack came up recently), but it’s stopping me posting things I’ve wanted to add here (and pics).

More when I can actually fix this issue up…

Apparently…

(Yes, another web meme thing, but given the topic, I really couldn’t resist trying this one. Not a bad answer to see, really!)

News just in this morning… I did not win the Text Prize for fiction…

http://textpublishing.com.au/news/post/text-prize-winner-announced/

Congratulations to Jane Higgins, winner of the 2010 Text Prize for Young Adult and Children’s Writing, for her apocalyptic action novel The Bridge.

I’ll second that. Congratulations to Jane on her win, and congratulations to my fellow nominees for being shortlisted. May we all be published eventually!

See the Text Publishing site for more details, and the basic plot of Jane’s novel. It’s hard to tell of course from such a brief description, but The Bridge does sound like a compelling and exciting work.

I’ll be back here, writing away furiously on my next work, and perfecting the first News Bytes. Did I mention that News Bytes is most definitely a series? There was never really a place in the entry to indicate that, though I suppose the book itself gave some clues to that at the end.

But enough about me (that’s the only time you’ll ever hear this on my blog!) Congratulations to Jane again — may you have much success when the book is released.

It’s not like shopping used to be that exciting… in fact, one of the good things about getting away from Sydney has been avoiding big shopping centres every weekend. But when you avoid them most of the time, I guess it makes the rare occasions that you get there just a little more exciting.

We bought clothes, books, games, and plenty of DVDs. It’s a big family day, and naturally most of what we got was for the kids… and naturally most of the trouble was from the kids Made me remember another reason we got out of Sydney…!

We went to Rouse Hill today, a relatively new centre, quite nicely put together all on one level, designed as an open “town centre”, rather than a shopping centre. It’s easy to get into, easy to park, and easy to get around. Had some great Japanese for lunch… the no. 1 foodie thing we’re missing in Coonabarabran!

Picked up multiple TV series DVDs… including Buffy season 3, East West 101 season 2, Flight of the Conchords season 2, and The Wire season 5, while Sallie grabbed Glee season 1 and The Tudors season 2. That’s going to give us plenty to do right there

The boys were eventually kind of insane by the end of the day… don’t know if it’s the overload of the senses or just their tendency to get silly after a while at a shopping centre, but eventually we had to get out of there.

Back home tomorrow… that’s about five hours driving, though it seems to be getting easier every time I do it…

Pixar can really do no wrong.

Toy Story 3 is just such a fun movie; so well made, well performed, moving, funny, adventurous and fulfilling. Can’t put it better than that.

I took Will, and Alex (for the first time), and the daughter of a friend, to see the movie at Blacktown Hoyts while we’re down in Sydney. Will loved it, and while Alex was having some fun, it was ultimately too much for him too soon (he’s a year younger than the first time I took Will to a movie), and I ended up taking him out just after halfway through a leaving him with his Mum. But Will and I were in there for the duration…

So many good moments, so much emotional resonance, and just so much fun. They’re calling it the first serious Best Picture Oscar contender for a reason… go see it now!

… For the first time since I moved away in early February. The whole family is going down there for just under a week, most for medical stuff for Will and Alex, but also the break and the shopping will be good.

We’re actually staying at Ronald McDonald House, which sounds serious, but is really just nice of them to let us in! It should make the hospital stuff so easy, and though I know we have it much better than most staying there, Will has been a consistent user of the hospital since he was born, and we now qualify as being a very remote family, so it’s good there’s a place for us.

Plan to see Toy Story 3 while we’re in Sydney, and do a lot of shopping and see family, but this is basically a hospital visit more than anything else. Shouldn’t be any problem, but it’s something that has to be done.

Must admit I am extremely proud and happy about this one. I only submitted for this competition at the literal last minute, after I found a courier in town that could ship to Melbourne overnight. But look where I am now…


From http://textpublishing.com.au/news/post/text-prize-shortlist-announced/

Text Prize shortlist announced 30.06.2010

After weeks of reading, discussing and reading some more, we have chosen a shortlist of five contenders for the 2010 Text Prize for Young Adult and Children’s Writing. We were really impressed with the high standard of entries this year, and look forward to the continued growth of the prize, now in its third year.

And the shortlisted titles are…

Haunting the Dead, Tiffany Chapple
The Diamond Factory, Julie Harris-Spearritt
Breken Crossing, Jane Higgins
Youth Bytes, Stephen Turner
How to Talk to Girls, Philippa Werry

Congratulations to each of these authors! The winner will be announced at the Australian Booksellers’ Association Conference in Brisbane on July 12, and on the Text website later that day. The winning book will be published by Text in mid-2011.

It’s quite a big prize this one, and the rewards would be professionally and personally lucrative…. but at the same time it really is a great thing to be nominated (to borrow a cliche), and it really is something I can use to point to my writing progress in big and little ways.

Click through the link above for details on the other entries, but then here’s the details on my work I supplied, and the biography I supplied as well:

YOUTH BYTES
Five smart and talented teenagers are brought together by a software millionaire to start an online youth news service. They have no choice in the matter—they might be smart, but they’re also in big trouble with the law in various ways. But the teenagers discover real trouble when an Aboriginal girl brings them the case of a cop who might just have murdered her brother. With no one else to turn to, and their own problems to deal with as well, each member of the team needs to step up and show what they’re made of: break the story, expose a corrupt cop, and stay alive while doing it.

About the author: Stephen Turner has been a writer since he could read, and has worked in journalism and editing, but now works with computers at a local high school. From Sydney originally, he’s escaped the rat race and now lives with his wife and three children in Coonabarabran.

The winner is announced on July 12 at a booksellers’ conference in Brisbane, and believe me, even if I don’t win, I plan to make myself a winner in the long run from this anyway!

(Image from Flickr user Powerhouse Museum, used under Creative Commons License.)

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Hi Mum,

Happy Mother’s Day, from your son Stephen, and your grandsons Will, Alex and Lachie.

I know it must be a little odd now that we’re so far away, so here are some videos, some from the last couple of weeks, some from just yesterday and today, so you can see how we all are I hope you find this a good present.

Love Stephen.

Tags: family, mothers day