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Hello! You've decided to be bold, daring and adventurous and find
out more about me, so hopefully you will find what I've written here
interesting and informative...
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Kulcha 8-) | 
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I was born on the September 11th, 1968, in the labour ward of Sutherland Hospital, and I have one sister (Jodi) who is 4 years younger than me (she was born on August 31st, 1972). We are therefore both under the sign of Virgo. Please don't hold that against me. 8-)
My parents divorced in 1980, with my father re-marrying and going off to live with his new wife in another state of Australia. I have no contact with him.
Until February 1998 I was living in Sydney, Australia, residing in a suburb of Sydney called Cronulla which is right on the beach in the most south-easterly corner of the Sydney metropolitan area. As the crow flies it's located about 20 kilometres from the Sydney CBD.
Immediately north of Cronulla is Botany Bay, infamous because our current major international airport (Kingsford Smith Airport) has two of it's runways sticking out into the middle of the bay like cancerous growths, and it's surrounded by heavy industry (oil refinery, container terminals, chemical plants, etc). Airports, like bus terminals, really are ugly places - avoid them if you can.
Botany Bay also features it's own national park which incorporates parcels of land on both the north and south sides of the inlet to the bay.
Immediately south of Cronulla is Port Hacking (and the Hacking River
- one day I'll create a map!) which runs east-west and forms the boundary
between the residential suburban area of the Sutherland Shire (of
which Cronulla is a part), and the Royal National
Park. This national park is the oldest in Australia, and the
second-oldest in the world - only Yellowstone National Park is
older.
The Royal National Park is a treasure-trove of Australian native flora and fauna. Pictured at the beginning of this section is a piece of yellow flowering wattle, part of the acacia family. Flowering wattle is Australia's national floral emblem, and many different species of this family of plants can be found in the park.
[ The other plant picture is the red flowering waratah, which is part of the telopea family. The waratah is the NSW State floral emblem. Check out my collection of links to information on growing Australian native plants for more info. ]
On the southern end of the Royal National Park there are several small towns, the main one being Helensburgh, which is where I lived from February 1998 until June 1998. Helensburgh has it's roots as a coal mining town, and Metropolitan Colliery is still very much in operation today, more than 100 years after it was commissioned.
During June 1998 I moved into an ex-railway officer's house at Waterfall with my partner Tiffany and our then baby daughter Nara. The house (built in 1888) is a full-brick, 3-bedroom dwelling with open fireplaces, high ceilings and baltic pine floors. 8-)
Waterfall is located on the western edge of the Royal National Park, and is
the last suburb in the Sydney metropolitan area on the way south to
Wollongong. On Christmas Day 2001 a huge bushfire threatened
the town but we were lucky to lose no houses, and despite all the
ill-founded media reports, our public school, which turned 100 in October
2001, was also spared.
Family Matters...We ended up falling for each other (lol!) and Tiffany became pregnant with my first child (her second - see later) around May 1997. Nara Lee was born in Sutherland Hospital on February 22, 1998 MCR.
Tiffany became pregnant again near the end of 1999, and my second child (her third) - another girl - was born on August 10, 2000 MCR. We named her Skye Alexandra. She was also born in Sutherland hospital.
Our next child is Quinn James who was also born in Sutherland Hospital on May 21, 2003.
Patrick is Tiffany's first child who was born in 1996 before I met her.
For those who are wondering, Tiffany and I are not married, and we're very happy just the way we are. I think Tiffany would like us to be married but I'm very much against doing it just for the sake of the children. If you're a fundy religious nutter who's going to condemn us to living in sin because of our lack of a piece of legal tender declaring a formal marriage, then so be it! You'd better visit FooBar Anti-Consulting and HereticWeb and feed some more anti-conformity information into you... 8-)
"Xray-Delta-1, this is Mission Control. Do you copy?
...."
My real job is driving trains for CityRail, the
suburban and intercity electric passenger train division of the RailCorp (formerly State Rail Authority of NSW)! I
have been doing this since the end of 1994.
Sydney's suburban passenger rail network is one the most extensive in the world, and has been sporadically growing and developing since the first official electric suburban passenger train ran from a quaint little station called Oatley to Central station in 1926.
Back then, electric suburban trains were comprised of all single-deck cars and very little of the present Sydney metropolitan area was served by the electrified system (in fact, very little of what is now the Sydney metropolitan area was part of suburbia then!). As Sydney has grown, so has the extent of the electrification of the rail network in and around Sydney. Nowadays our fleet comprises entirely double-deck cars of various types and vintages, with the geographical coverage taking in most parts of the greater Sydney region.
The suburban rail network conveys several hundred thousand people to
and from various locations every day, using a fleet of several hundred
double-deck electric passenger trains each comprising between 2 and
8 cars each. The network comprises nearly 200 stations spread
out over about 8 major routes and numerous branches.
The Thirst for Knowledge...
Driving suburban passenger trains isn't the only job I've had with State
Rail though. I've been continuously employed since February 2nd,
1987.
For three and a half years I worked in the former Signals and Communications Branch in various roles including trainee signal electrician and trainee electrical engineer while studying for an electrical engineering degree at the University of Technology, Sydney. I became fed up with the lack of challenging (ie. technical) work being offered to me and decided to leave this position for 'greener' pastures, seeking for a complete change of direction.
In mid-1990 I transferred to a position with FreightRail (now known as FreightCorp) as a trainee locomotive driver at DELEC depot, Enfield, commencing there on the 6th of August that year. DELEC depot is adjacent to the largest railway freight yard in Australia (Enfield Yard).
On the 23rd of July 1994 I was appointed to the position of Acting
Driver after having become qualified in the management of all classes of
diesel locomotive then in operation at Enfield (NSW 422, 44,
442, 45, 48, 49, 73, 80,
81, and 82 classes as well as V/Line C and G
classes) as well as having become qualified in road knowledge for all Sydney
metropolitan routes plus the main line to Goulburn (225 km south of
Sydney).
In November 1994 the opportunity arose for me to transfer to CityRail on the Sydney electric suburban passenger trains at a depot within walking distance from my home at the time (Cronulla!). I took this opportunity and was appointed to the position of Driver on the 30th of December, 1994. I am still in this position today.
Near the end of 1998 I transferred to Waterfall depot so I could be living close to work, and get a lot more time to spend with my family.
But Wait, There's More...Yes, there's still more, but don't worry, unlike the venerable Tim Shaw (former front-man of the Demtel TV marketting company) I won't bill you! 8-)
Apart from working in various jobs with State Rail, I'm also a keen railway enthusiast (or railfan as some people like to call us). I have been a rail enthusiast on and off since 1975 when my father took me on a special train trip which was organised to raise funds for the Darwin cyclone relief effort (Darwin, the capital city of the Northern Territory, was almost completely destroyed by Cyclone Tracy on Christmas Eve in 1974).
In 1985 I began to hear about passenger rail services being cut here in this state and since then I have been actively involved in railway preservation and heritage activities. I'm a member of a couple of railway heritage and research societies and I provide moral support for many others. My rail transport website is the place to look for more information.
As well as that, I'm also a dedicated railway modeller. I model in HO scale (1:87.1 scaling factor), and I specifically model Australian prototypes, with most of my efforts put towards modelling equipment and infrastructure used and operated by the railways in this state at one time or another. If you're interested in railway modelling, you might like to skip to my rail tranport links page to check out a collection of other sites and places on the web.
There's Still More (but only just)...As well as all of this, I have interests in computers (and information technology), electronics, photography, older Saab cars, and alternative electronic music. I've been into electronics as a hobby since 1983, computers since 1985, native flora since forever (!), and Saab cars since 2003 (though I was fleetingly interested back in the 1980's too). The first two have been full-time activities for me since my university days in the late 1980's - so they hardly qualify as hobbies any more. My alternative electronica interests were fostered through a deep involvement in the Sydney rave party scene in the 1990's.
Computers
and Information Technology
In the time since I developed an interest in Sun hardware, I have also created from scratch the SunShack website which provides access to a lot of specialised technical information, etc. relating to Sun Microsystems and compatible hardware, software, and related subjects such an Unix operating systems, etc.
Alternative
Electronic Music
My interest in alternative electronic music came to the fore in the early
1990's when I became involved in the Sydney rave and underground electronic
dance music scene. However, the scene is now far too commercialised, so I've
branched out further and joined Clan
Analogue, a collective of experimental audio and visual artists. You
find out more about this aspect of my life in my guide as Zonavar while you're here if
you like.
Photography
My photographic interests have broadened since moving into my current residence (adjoining the Royal National Park) and now also include Australian native flora and fauna along with anything to do with classic Saab cars (see below!).
Saab 'Classic' 900-Series Cars
I'm what you would probably call a 'shadetree' mechanic in that I try
to do as much work on my Saab's as I can, while sourcing most of the parts
myself from suppliers all around the world (mainly in the USA and UK - Ebay is very definitely my friend! lol).
We've got some excellent well-established in Australia too
and since I've been a member of the Saab Car Club of Australia my
involvement with the classic Saab community has continued to grow.
In an effort to give a strong boost of support for fellow Saab C900 enthusiasts and owners (especially in Australia and New Zealand!), I've been developing and maintaining a special website called Craig's Classic Saab WorkShop. I also have a personal Saab page that has extra things available.
Durka Durka Muhammad Jihad!What will the future hold? It's one of those perennial catch-22 (or $64!) questions. Nobody knows and the funny thing is that usually we don't know until it happens, by which time it's gone from the being the future, to the present, to the past, all in a matter of seconds! How's that for profound vision. 8-)
Moving on, fighting the good fight as they say. After all we're only transient in this world, and no that's not a religious viewpoint but simple fact. Just stand back one day, look up at the sky at night and think about how infinitessimally small our planet is compared to the rest of the known universe. Even discounting the unknown parts of the universe (which could be mind-bogglingly large by immeasurable orders of magnitude), we are nothing but ants on this planet, and this planet is just a tiny spec of sand in the massive volume of time and space.
No matter how much we might try to shape the future, it's going to happen regardless. Time (at least in the way we as humans understand the concept of time) marches on relentlessly and we're just very, very lucky to be passengers on the train of existence who are able to, for a very brief instant, absorb some of the energy from the motion of that train and share in the experience of self-awareness...
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