A while ago I volunteered for a couple of days at the World Vision AIDS Experience. It's an eye opening look at how poverty and disease are threatening the future of the developing world, and how we can make a difference.

World Vision are not alone in seeing the problem, but it's interesting how many of the solutions revolve around the role of women in that environment.

With World AIDS day and Thanksgiving fast approaching, stop for a moment and consider the girl effect. What can you do to help fix the problem?

We have a new member of the family – a 2 year old Pit Bull / Chow Chow cross called Sasha.

As you can see she’s integrating fairly well!

Bryn and Rhiannon are working out the various logistic, dominance and pecking order things while Sasha finds her way around the house and garden.

Luckily the kids all play well together – but it’s getting a little crowded on the sofa in the evening, and driving back from the park with two dogs steaming up the windows is going to be interesting!

She was a very spur of the moment addition – she needed a home and luckily when we met her it was a good fit. She’s very welcome as long as she can cope with the mess!

A few months ago I installed some "dogfood" software for a new Microsoft project that promised to revolutionize computers at home.

Yeah, right I thought. And it'll bring me a cookie and tuck me into bed.

Well several months have passed and it's yet to surprise me with its culinary skills, but it has lived up to it's promise of making our home network a better, safer place.

This wonderful piece of technology has a name - Windows Home Server - and is available right now.

So why do I like our Windows Home Server?

Organization and peace of mind.

The organization comes from having one central, expandable, reliable place to back up everything. Be it photos that I took on a trip, MP3s I ripped from a CD or an MPEG of a family movie (and yes, if you're backing up personal copies of DVDs you can store them there to!). Those files are then available from any machine on the network and thanks to embedded Windows Media Connect software you can display the photos and video on your Xbox360. Check out this amazing home media setup based around Windows Home Server for storage and streaming...

But where does the peace of mind come from? I'm glad you asked! It's all very well remembering to save your photos onto a shared folder on the server, but what about everything else. Your emails, your MS Money file, that document you just over-wrote with totally the wrong thing, the laptop you just dropped and that's making a very funny sound instead of starting up?

Every night Windows Home Server wakes all the connected clients up, and backs up anything that has changed. But it's not just a backup from the last time it changed, it keeps a history of each file and allows you to revert a single file or an entire machine back to whatever point in time you need. You have total control over how much backup data is kept (within the confines of available space of course, but WHS machines are easy to add new disks to either internally or via USB 2.0)

Best of all because WHS is based on Windows Server technology it's robust, reliable and proven. Couple that with an open API that allows people to write plug-ins to extend the capabilities of your server (want to host the family blog or automatically back up to a remote location - all possible, and more).

So when your kids come home and ask "why is there a server in the house" .... you've got an answer

A couple of weeks ago we went up to Vancouver for the Dance Masters of BC 2007 Golden Cup.

Not content with her 3rd in Portland (with Ivan), her 2nds in Seattle (with Gabriel) this time the kids pulled out all the stops to come home with not one, but two first places for Juvenile Newcomer Latin and Standard.

I'm such a proud Dad ;)

... she'll be wanting to borrow the car next !

and Bryn found it all very tiring

Yesterday I was 39. Today I'm 40.

Still seemed like a good idea to fall asleep in the garden with Bryn :)

After Rhiannons little accident with some oatmeal we've been watching the healing progress on her leg.

I'm very happy to report that things are looking good - mobility and strength are pretty much normal and the biggest worries now are keeping sunscreen on it and patching up her knee when she falls off her bike!

It's still going to be quite a while before it's settled right down to normal but it's so much better than it was back in February. Not too itchy, doesn't hurt and while she does get a bit tired in the leg she's dancing and competing (did well in Portland and Seattle in the last couple of months and looking forward to Vancouver this month)

Huge thanks to everyone who's sent Rhiannon support over the last few months... it's very much appreciated.

Hopefully in another 5 months both legs will be looking the same again....

If some members of the U.S. Chocolate Industry have their way, we will soon see a detrimental change in the quality of chocolate you love. Their proposal is to change the basic formula of chocolate in order to use vegetable fat substitutes in place of cocoa butter, and to use milk substitutes in the place of nutritionally superior milk.  These changes will have adverse effects on the eating, physical and nutritional quality of chocolate, and beg the question: What consumer benefit is associated with implementing these changes? The answer is none.

I like chocolate just the way it is. Made with 100% cocoa butter and real milk, not than some concocted blend of fats and other substitutes.

Without proper labeling, consumers will find it difficult and confusing to differentiate the current gold standard of real chocolate vs. this new concoction, which has substitute ingredients. This will amount to economic fraud to the consumer as the product will become cheaper with inferior ingredients.

The proposed formula contains large quantities of bad Trans fats, which are not good for your health.

Cocoa butter is unique; vegetable fats can only masquerade as cocoa butter.

The eating properties, flavor and mouth feel will all be different - they're messing with the user experience and pleasure.

All manufacturers, even those who do not want to support this, will be forced to convert to the new concoction due to the economic advantages associated with the new formula and their wanting to remain effectively competitive within the category. The net effect will be a total downgrade in the eating enjoyment and quality for chocolate.

When does it end? Sawdust and brown food color?

Come on, for the last several hundred years (if not longer) chocolate has been taken to have a particular minimum list of ingredients.

To allow something that's a bland artificial substitute simply to allow a few corportations to make an extra buck is just plain wrong.

Let them call it chocolike. or candy. or processed slurry - there are plenty of names for it, but leave chocolate alone. I know what it's doing to my body and accept the risks but this - it's playing Russian roulette with a nations sweet tooth

What next?

If this passes I shudder to think.

Act now before it's too late. Read more here, and sign the petition here. Do it now while you still know what's in that peanut butter cup....

I was in the UK on business last week and managed to catch up with Jools and realized why I've always hated him - he's got great taste in cars! The radio might not work but you don't really want to listen to that anyway....

JKS Ferrari 355F1 Spyder Hosted on Zooomr

There's nothing worse for a parent than waking up to the sound of their child in pain. It happened to me this morning. Rhiannon has been making herself oatmeal (something she's done may times before both in Australia and here) and managed to slip on some of the dogs mucus (the poor thing is recovering from pneumonia still) and poured hot water on herself.

Straight into a bath of cool water (which stung no end) while we rang 911.

They arrived in amazingly good time, wrapped her up and rushed her off to Harborview Medical Center (where she still is, with Storm, at the moment)

The doctors are all quite confident she'll do well with little or no scaring - and of course as with her other hospital trips she's being a real trooper (I'm so proud of her!). In her usual fashion (proving that she does have the stomach for her chosen profession of vet) she quite happily watched as they pulled and cut away the dead skin from around the burn, laughed as the blisters bust and refused fall asleep (despite the medical staff giving her enough narcotic and mood leveler to stun a mule) until after the job was finished.

Typically for a child of this generation, she had the presence of mind to remind me to take photos...

So after Bryns trip to Aerowood, my little visit to Overlake and now this... let's hope our medical emergency quote is over for a while.

Update Sunday: Just got back from spending a day with the girls in hospital. Rhiannon is feeling the effects a bit more now as it all sets in. She was great with her first bandage change and although it hurts has been doing well on her physio. They're not letting her out today as it was quite a big burn on her leg and over her knee so they want to make sure it's healing nicely, no infection and she's got full movement before they let her out. Hopefully Monday or Tuesday at this point. Storm is staying over again and I've come home to tend to the dog.

Update Tuesday: Well, not looking so good. As the dead skin sloughs (or is pulled off) off it's getting a bit more painful. The physio is hurting a bit (but as usual she's doing her best) though there's a medication free technique being trialed in the ward (partly funded by Microsoft founder and philanthropist Paul Allen) that has some amazing results. Because the knee still isn't showing any sign of healthy skins they're starting to wonder how deep the burn is. Looks like she'll be in over the weekend at the least. The graft word has been mentioned but not as a certainty yet. Apart from the VR therapy Rhiannon’s highlight today was Sarah and Ruby paying a visit and art class. She says "Hi" and "Thanks" to everyone who's wished her well - and got me to tke some smily photos as well!

Update (Monday): I spent Saturday night in hospital with Rhiannon to give Storm a break. It was good to spend time with Rhiannon but I think she looked after me more than I helped her! Sadly she's not healed enough be released but she's on the mend and looking much better. It's horrid for her at the moment because around day 7 to 10 are the most painful as the skin and nerves are reforming and very tender. I hate seeing her in pain after her bandage changes and even harder is the regular exercise she has to take to get the leg straight and bending properly again. Hopefully she'll be able to work through the pain and stretches and get to a point where the doctors are happy to let her go home (but not until she's fit and well). It's tough (emotionally) on us grown-ups but I wish sometimes I could take the physical ouch and discomfort for her.

Update (Tuesday): Well, we discovered today that Ativan is not something Rhiannon should have. There's something ironic (but not amusing when it's your child) in having medication that's supposed to reduce anxiety having her raging and emotionally out of control. The good news is that the healing is progressing nicely and the amount of cream and bandages is slowly diminishing. Before the drugs caused their reaction she had her best wondcare and physio yesterday - Storm says she had a nice straight leg and heel... just hope it keeps up once she's back on an even keel.

Update (Thursday): The girl is home :) Much to the delight of the dog we're all back at home, sleeping in our own beds again. Actually, the dogs not too happy with that as he's back in his basket not sharing the bed with me! We've got another few weeks of pain meds, stretching and taking it very easy (interspersed wth clinic visits and maybe still a skin graft) but... things are heading in the right direction.

Update (Day 15): Two weeks after the accident her arm is looking really good and the leg is starting to come together nicely. We still won't know for a couple of weeks if the healing will be sufficient and the doctors won't recommend a graft but for now here it is in all its g(l)ory