Alison Young

Thus here is the second half of the round-up of our first week on the road:

Day 4- 25 December 2011
Once again it’s a multi-parent Christmas Day for me. We started the day with breakfast at Dad and Stepmum’s place then jumped in the car and made for Wangaratta where a very much needed fuel stop gave us enough to continue the trip to Edi where we spent the afternoon with Mum, her partner and his extended family drinking, talking, eating and playing backyard cricket. Gifts were exchanged at both houses and I wound up with quite a good haul including Skyrim which will probably consume more parts of me than I’d like to admit when we return from holidays.

Day 5- 26 December 2011
Departed Albury and made for the mountains. The route we took led us past the Hume Dam and over Bell Bridge at Bethanga. The original plan was to stop by Thredbo and ride the chairlift, however when we arrived and had just opened the car door this massive thunderclap rang through the air. Despite some pretty big pouts we decided that rainy, foggy conditions on the chairlift would not be fun and decided to try again tomorrow. Stayed at the Lake Jindabyne Hotel who once again delivered on being a great value spot with spectacular lake views from every room and tasty food in the bistro. I stayed at the same motel when I stayed in Jindabyne a few years ago after a thoroughly enjoyable day driving through the Snowy Mountains.

Day 6- 27 December 2011
The day was bright, clear and sunny… perfect for a chairlift ride and hike. We headed back to Thredbo where we collected our lift passes and headed up the mountain. At the top, all plans to not hike were discarded as we set off along the wonderful raised mesh walkway to Mount Kosciuszko. Made it almost 3km before heading back and having morning tea at Eagles Nest which is 1937m about sea level with some pretty amazing views. Afterward we drove to Canberra and finished off the day sharing a few pints with Mick who was down from Sydney.

Day 7- 28 December 2011
Up bright and early to meet Madeline for breakfast. The original location was closed so we wound up at Gus’ which is something of a Canberra love/hate location. Following a very filling breakfast we headed off to the Australian War Memorial and once again I was highly mistaken about the size of this place. Found some of Adrian’s relatives on the roll of honour and looked through all the exhibitions. Could easily have spent far longer than we did here. For lunch I couldn’t resist a visit to Koko Black while in town, and I didn’t think Adrian would have any objection After lunch we headed to Parliament House and had a look around, just quietly I think I like Old Parliament House better. Dinner was some pretty damn tasty Malasian at Rasa Sayang with Lana, Dermott and T.

That concludes week 1, I know we’re almost into week 3 of the actual trip. Aiming to get round-ups of week 2 posted before we get back, probably sometime in the next couple of days.. depending on what else is going on. You know what it’s like, this being on holidays business.

For all the photos from the trip have a look at the Ali’s Family Magical Mystery Tour set on Flickr.

Since there’s no real small way to do a 4.5week roadtrip I’ve decided to do week-ish updates of where we’ve been, what we’ve done and who we’ve seen along the way. To make this easier to put down here I’ve been carrying a notebook that I’ve been updating each day or so. When referring to people (who aren’t my direct family or have asked not to be linked to) I’ll be linking to their twitter accounts.

Thus here is the round-up of our first week on the road:

Day 1- 22 December 2011
Drove from Brisbane to Dubbo, this took almost 14hours. So long to travel ~850km was because we stopped at a couple of driver revivers for tea, made at least 2 fuel stops and had lunch in Narribri with Nicole. In Dubbo we stayed at the very dodgy Formule 1 which was a comedy of fail including dead bug collections, views of Hungry Jacks and toilet horrors.

Day 2 – 23 December 2011
Drove from Dubbo to Albury which was thankfully a much shorter trip. Stopped briefly in Cootamundra to drive slowly by Donald Bradman‘s birthplace then laughed at lot at some not very private public toilet doors. Grabbed lunch in Young after I posed like a fool in front of the town sign and made our way to my Dad and Stepmum’s place in Chiltern to stay overnight after a stopover in Albury to see Mum and have dinner.

Day 3 – 24 December 2011
Quite a busy day! Up early to get back to Albury by 9.30am where I assisted Mum and wrapped presents for 3hrs collecting donations for the Make a Wish Foundation. My favourite moment of the morning was a man asking if he could get me a coffee or orange juice as we were working so hard. I politely declined and was very glad when 12.30pm rolled around as my back was killing me from leaning over a short table. Then Adrian and I had lunch with Mum and her partner and took a drive out to the Hume Dam on the way back to Chiltern. Once back we were in the car again with Dad and my Stepmum and heading up to Beechworth for afternoon tea. Admired some stunning creations at Potters Gallery and had a quick look through the lolly shop mere minutes before they closed. Later in the evening I followed ‘xmas eve in Chiltern’ tradition and went to church with Dad and Stepmum, the priest loved my blue hair and after the service there was shortbread and sherry. Back at home we gave Stepmum her birthday presents as her birthday is the same day as xmas day.

This post got a tad lengthy so I might do bi-weekly blog posts. Hopefully I’ll have the next one up before too long!

For all the photos from the trip have a look at the Ali’s Family Magical Mystery Tour set on Flickr.

Self-described as “location-based social networking” BrightKite encourages you to check-in to a location and then post notes or pictures. I’ve been using it for several weeks now and have become quite fond of the ability to instantly photograph and share things occurring around me with others. The whole premise of the location-based social networking phenomenon is to be able to locate and communicate with other users in person as well as via the site. BrightKite is still in beta and membership is invite-only, however there is a growing user-base. Unlike many other sites in alpha or beta, invites are topped up so should you run out it’s only a matter of time before you acquire more to distribute as you see fit.

What can I do?

At present you are able to check-in, post photos & notes and a new feature unveiled just today allows you to comment on posts from others. In terms of friends list control you can opt to add others and also set a trust level for each friend which will determine what level of detail they can see regarding your location. There are a number of ways to set privacy options should you wish to give the site full address details such as street, or even street number. Personally I’ve locked down my posts so that un-friended and casual observers can only see my city, whereas friends can see the suburb and trusted friends the street details. When at home or the homes of others I check into only the street whereas if I’m at a restaurant or cafe I’ll use the full address and usually post a note identifying where I am.

How do I do it?

Checking in and posting can be done through the website and by sending MMS messages to your personal BrightKite email address which can be found in your Settings. Once becoming familiar with the symantics of MMS messages it’s very easy to post check-ins, notes and photos while on the go which is where I feel BrightKite really is the most fun. To make life much easier when on the go you are able to specify placemarks which can be used instead of sending the full address of places you frequent; common placemarks would be things like home, work, SydneyCBD, VicPark, and perhaps the names of favoured places to eat out. To check-in via MMS to King Street, Newtown I’d send a picture message containing the following text: @King St, Newtown NSW 2042, Australia. BrightKite is an international service so mentioning that you’re in Australia is useful, if you’re not sure of an exact address you might find yourself checked-in somewhere strange indeed. Of particular note was when a friend checked into Central Australia while trying to check into Central Station, Sydney. If in doubt create a placemark first then it’s as simple as MMS’ing @<placemark name>, eg @home.

I’ve configured my BrightKite account to sent notice of new posts and photos as Twitter messages which allows everybody in my timeline to see when I’ve posted a new photo. For an idea of what my personal BrightKite timeline looks like you can view it here. Timelines are also fully able to be configured in terms of friends and what you wish to see from each in terms of check-ins, posts and photos.

The other side of the fence

There have been a number of people who have raised concerns about the idea of publically identifying where you are, or more importantly, where you are not. This is a valid concern and if it troubles you to identify to a public or self-selected audience where you are then perhaps you might not enjoy what BrightKite has to offer. There have been a number of discussions about whether checking into a website is a privacy concern or not and how it might differ to the more traditional ways of informing people of your whereabouts.

Some things to keep in mind if you are interested but wary are:

• You only need to provide as much or little information as you are comfortable with. Checking into “Sydney CBD” is fine, if you wish to say you’re at “270 Pitt St, Sydney NSW 2000” then that’s alright too. This information is used to place a map pointer, obviously the more accurate your check-in, the more accurately the pointer placement is going to be.
• Only add people as friends if you know and trust them and are willing to share with them your whereabouts.
• Don’t have an open timeline just because everybody else seems to.

BrightKite isn’t going to suit everybody, but that’s true for any web application. Majority of the people who are involved in BrightKite or even just look at the pictures others post seem to enjoy the experience. Feel free to just look at postings from others and comment to them in Twitter. It’s all accepted behaviour.

Additional things to note

In my experimenting with the site I’ve found you can upload pictures of any dimensions you wish, to see a picture in fullsize from the picture page then click the image again. It is also possible to post notes and pictures to a location without being checked into it. Just search for the location or go to the relevant placemark and you will be able to post, however I have noticed that if you’re not checked into a location then BrightKite won’t post notice of pictures/notes that you’ve added to Twitter etc.

Already I’ve noticed a fellow, as yet unknown, BrightKite user who works in the same building as me from the pictures they’ve posted to the street I work on. Its very easy to swap timeline views from friends timeline, those around me, and everybody. It’s a fun way to see what others are posting and who else is checked in around you.

I have a few invites if you are interested in seeing what all the fuss is about. Otherwise have fun and I’ll let you all know when the site is released to one and all.