Back in 1999, while working with the Department of Defence in Canberra, I took a four week holiday in Far North Queensland. I spent the time harassing fish, lazing on beaches, and wandering through the rainforests. On the final day I sat on the Cairns Esplanade, and thought it would be nice if I could stay. At the airport, while waiting for my plane, the departure board displayed the weather around the country, with one catching my eye: Canberra: Min 2 Max 27. This was in mid-November.

My resignation, which I gave on 24 December 1999, didn’t come as a surprise to anyone at Emergency Management Australia, then part of the Department of Defence. I stayed at work over the Y2K period – which was a non-event, with the only reported incident being a fax machine in New Zealand that turned out not to have been set up properly. On 21 January 2000 I headed to Cairns. I now reside in Trinity Beach, on Cairns’s northern beaches.

My passions are aquarium fish, learning about science (particularly evolutionary biology), snorkelling, and lazing in cafés. I’m an atheist, secular humanist, rationalist and “small L” liberal. This blog will reflect these interests, but also veer off on tangents every now and again.