Walking, walking

I'm used to walking at a pace that competes with the best of them. I guess that's at least 5.5 - 6km/h. Right now I'm only able to keep up about 2km/h. So that gives me plenty of time to sight see and smell the roses. I expect that speed will climb quite quickly but it's fast enough for now.

The surgeon had asked that I start off slowly and then build up to a reasonable walking distance each day. I'm not sure what that means exactly. I got out of hospital on Monday and managed to do a 1.0km walk that day, which seemed quite puny to me. That was in addition to all of the coincidental walking around the house and a visit to the super market. The next day was a little more at about 1.2km.

Then I stretched my legs and walked 1.7km the next day followed by a 2.0km day on the Thursday and a 2.1km day on the Friday.

All of this taught me two things: firstly I can't do speed just at the moment - I've still got a little bit of a drug load on board so I'm particularly careful crossing roads and checking where I put my feet. The second is much more galling: the run-up to the surgery was pretty rough, to the point that I couldn't really walk at all - 150 metres saw me out. Add to that a week in hospital, even though I did wear out quite a bit of the carpet walking after the surgery, and you end up with somebody who's seriously out of shape. I'm trying to put that right, but it's galling to raise a sweat just ambling somewhere at 2km/h!

My 5km jaunt yesterday left me pretty sore and sorry for myself so today I may slacken off a bit. We'll see. I can't see a trans-continental jaunt in my near future though - sorry Forrest Gump!

How do you do that?

So out of the ward, down in the lift, across the road and we're at the car. I'm not allowed to bend at the waist, I'm not allowed to twist and I'm not supposed to sit with my knees higher than my hips. So how do I get into the car seat? Well gingerly for a start...I got the car door open as far as it would go and sat on the edge of the seat facing outwards. Of course all modern cars have seat bolsters designed to retain you as you circuit the Nurburgring at 200+ km/h. All very useful in that situation but for my purposes a pain in the arse. Once perched on said seat bolster I then pivoted my legs into the car, after having somehow got my head inside without bending, twisting or doing any of the other forbidden things. The result, if done well is a simple pain-free entry into the car. The alternative is, well let's call it a mess. It works well though, so well, that a friend still uses it 17 years after his operation.

The ride home wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. The surgical site and my back are remarkably impervious to bumps and jolts. I'm simply not troubled by most of what a modern road can throw up.

Of far more importance was the problem of getting on top of drug management. I arrived home in possession of 7 different drugs, each with their own raison d'etre, timetable and regime. Up to that point I'd been rattling back about 20-25 tablets a day, not to mention various potions designed to keep the trains running in the face of the constipatory forces of the other 7 drugs. A spreadsheet was the only answer. Each drug, it's maximum daily dose, suggested dose and timing was set out in the spreadsheet and off we went on the magical mystery tour.

Quite quickly it became apparent that firstly my requirement for pain relief was falling and that the spreadsheet was allowing me to target my drug use to periods of need. Monday the intake fell to 15 tablets, Tuesday it was down to 10 tablets and by Wednesday it was down to 6 tablets.

Two things became apparent at that point: firstly my pain wasn't quite under control and so I was wasting my time a bit. Secondly I was having bouts of what turned out to be withdrawal. Shakes, shivers, sweats, anxiety...as I weaned myself down from the high levels of drugs.

Thursday the total number of tablets is back up to about 9 and that seems, for the time being to be the right balance. I'm hoping that I can carve into that further over the weekend.

The other thing that has to be tackled is my rehab programme. This can best be described as the modified Forrest Gump programme. Instead of "run Forrest, run" it's a case of "walk CA, walk". Basically the idea is to start off slowly and to build up to several kilometres a day over a period of weeks. Of course me, being me, the idea became fixed in my head that if small walks were good, then big walks were better. I'm currently paying the price for that as well!!

Overall though, this surgery is a miracle so far. The only thing I can't do for myself is to put my socks on. I can't work that one out yet. I can do anything else I've tried so far with some ingenuity including picking things up off the floor. That involves squatting, down on one knee, down on both knees, pick up the object and then the reverse the process. Stairs are no problem, though they're treated with due respect and driving is out of the question. I'm carrying too much of a drug load to want to be out on the roads at the moment, though from a purely physical point of view I think I would be capable of it, without the drugs.

More to come as I explore the niceties of a recovery as opposed to mere functionality.

The path to the exit...

What wasn't so great was that my right hand side, which had been largely pain free before surgery was now painful. It was as if I had swapped the pain from the left to the right hand sides! The explanation was pretty simple: I'm a big bloke and in order to get access to the various bits of my spine and to place the screws and the fusion cage it was necessary to use a fair amount of force, including retractors and a "scissor jack" style distractor to re-establish the old disc space. This led to some substantial bruising and perhaps some bleeding. I suspect that the "handedness" of the surgeon who inserted the cage from the right hand side also had something to do with it.

The upshot of all of that was that it was hard to get and maintain pain control. I kept getting muscle spasm in the right buttock and that is a vicious circle - more spasm = more pain = more spasm. At about the same time the line in the back of my left hand got knocked out by a clumsy movement and an attempt to re-establish a line in my right hand was unsuccessful. That left me without access to morphine. The whole situation culminated in me sitting on the edge of my bed in tears at midnight one night unable to cope with the pain. A phone call or two and a sharp increase in pain control medication got the situation back under control. In retrospect that was the nadir, life improved quickly from there.

Days three and four saw the return of the torturers (the lovely physios)! They had me out walking again, firstly with the frame then without, then climbing three "mock stairs" then out to the fire stairs for a scary unaided climb up and down one flight of them. At the end of that process they declared that they were finished with me and I was fine to go home!

Friday also saw me off to the X-Ray department for a quick picture to ensure that everything was where it should be. Only two things were holding me back now: pain control and the delicate matter of "opening my bowels". To put it bluntly you can't go home until you can control your pain successfully and until you've demonstrated your ability to have a crap! Opiate pain medication is not helpful in achieving the second of those goals!

As far as pain control was concerned I was getting about 2 hours between bouts of medication. My nights consisted of two hours sleep, some medication, half an hour's walking the circuit of the ward and another couple of hours sleep before the cycle started all over again. I could shower myself, dry myself, dress myself. The drain and catheter had been removed. I just wasn't really on top of the pain and it was now 7 days since I'd had a crap. Finally on Sunday night it all came together and on Monday morning - 7 days exactly after I'd entered the place I was kicked shakily out onto the street.

Working Back Through the Intervening Days

So what happened after coming out of surgery and leaving hospital on day 7? Well quite a lot really.

I vaguely remember this insistent voice in recovery saying "what's your pain now dear?". The scale is 1 (no pain) to 10 (unbearable pain, worst you've ever felt). I remember answering "7" every time. It sounded like a good number in my semi-conscious state. The unexpected result was that I arrived on the ward from recovery with 40mg of morphine on board and quite quickly accumulated another 4mg. Life was pretty painless at that stage!!

I also had various tubes and lines in place. A venous line into the back of my left hand, put there by Charles when he anaesthetised me and now being used for the Patient Controlled Analgesia (PCA). This is a marvellous device that delivers 2mg of morphine every time you press the button, limited to 1 press every 5 minutes and 95mg total over some time period which I never worked out.

I also had an arterial line in my left wrist, which soon came out leaving a big bruise; a drain from the wound on my back and an in-dwelling catheter in my bladder to remove the need to get up to go to the loo; and finally a further "spare" venous line in the crook of my left elbow.

The wound was dressed with a waterproof dressing which was in turn covered with a heavy "cushioned" dressing of something like rubber or neoprene. I never suffered the slightest pain from the suture line, however all tapes and adhesives give me some degree of inflammatory reaction so that was an issue from time to time.

Bruising after removal of the arterial line from my wrist

The first 24 hours focused on keeping pain relief up and helping me learn to turn with assistance from the nurses. I was allowed no water or food whatsoever until bowel sounds returned just the occasional wipe around my mouth and gums with a dampened swab. Once small bowel sounds returned I was allowed crushed ice to suck. What we were all waiting for was a full-blown fart! A sign that my gut was again working. Apparently surgery on the spine can cause your gut to go into a sulk. Taking food or drink in that situation leads to nausea, vomiting and other dire consequences so crushed ice it was. Finally about 50 hours after my last food I finally produced the requisite fart and was allowed to begin a light diet.

About 30 hours after I returned from surgery I was encouraged to hoik myself out of bed and into a vertical position. This involved edging towards the edge of the bed in lateral recumbency and then pushing up with my arms as I swung my feet to the ground. That happened all in one motion and got me to a sitting position with the minimum of twisting and very little pain. From there it was simply a case of using a small walking frame and what remained of my wasted thigh muscles to rise like Lazarus to my feet. The first thing I noticed was that my left side, that had been so painful pre-op, was now completely pain free.

That ws a huge milestone getting to my feet again and taking a few small steps.

7 Days On

Pedicle screws, rods, cross link and the radio-opaque markers in the fusion cage (from the back)

Pedicle screws from the side showing the hardware at the back and the radio-opaque markers in the fusion cage.

Last Monday morning, bright and early at the hospital for all the clerkly things to happen, then to be weighed, have blood taken, an ECG done and finally to meet Charles, the anaesthetist - and coincidentally the guy who was going to be keeping me alive for the next few hours. After those formalities and me grilling Charles, it was off to the holding bay. This is a little area just outside theatre and was the last walk I was to make for a few days. I was placed on a trolley with a big sign "Pre Warm". I was placed under a large bubble cell blanket that was in turn connected to a hot air blower. The idea being that I was going to be in a cold environment for the next few hours so I might as well get as warm as possible.

Next on the list of visitors was Tim, the surgical assistant. Tim was a friend of a friend so a nice chat helped to bust my mounting anxiety.

Finally Peter the surgeon came along for a chat and I was wheeled in for Charles to weave his magic. The next thing I recall was Peter telling me that he'd just rung my wife and that all had gone well.

Operative time was a very quick 140 minutes - we'd all been expecting 180 to 220 minutes, so that boded well.

During the operation Peter had removed the laminae from between the L5 and S1 vertebrae, together with the facet joints; cleaned out the intervertebral space; and inserted a fusion cage and finally placed 4 pedicle screws, two rods and a cross link. As well he had opened up what remained of the neural foramina on both sides to give a clear path for the nerves to exit.

So far, so good and I was off to the ward.

D-Day the early morning

Alarm went at 5:00am, I have to be at the hospital at 6:30. Currently making coffee for others! I'm hungry, thirsty and dying for a cup of coffee...and I can't have anything.

That saying "ignorance is bliss" has got a lot going for it. I think if I didn't know what was at stake here I might have had a decent night's sleep. Instead I tossed and turned and worried.

Soon it will be off to the hospital and I'll talk to you on the other side. Wish me luck.

D-Day minus 1

Tomorrow's the day. I'm having a single level spinal fusion - L5-S1 - with inter-body fusion cage, pedicle screws and rods. Doesn't sound too bad when you say it quickly.

For years I've had back problems firstly with a ruptured disc at this level and then as time has passed the facet joints have collapsed and I've developed stenosis of the neural foramen, particularly on the left side. In plain language that means that the nerves that run down my leg are being trapped and squashed.

Over the past 3 years or so it's become increasingly difficult to stand - 5 minutes is generally too long now, and increasingly difficult to walk. A couple of weeks ago it got to the stage that I had to sit and re-gather myself 3 times whilst walking a single city block. It makes life pretty limited. Going to the art gallery is out of the question, travelling is a problem if you have to queue at the airport or walk to your departure gate. About 2 weeks ago I went to listen to the MSO. It was all I could do to cope with the queue and get to my seat - a real feat of endurance that left me pale and shaking.

So to surgery. The problem with something like this is that no matter how intolerable the chronic pain and reduced function is, the prospect of surgery is not nice, not nice at all. You know that there are risks, anaesthetic risks, surgical risks... and you know that you are going to face a period of acute pain, rather than the chronic pain you have been facing. You are going to be in the hands of others, dependent on their care and skill. Not to mention minor indignities and inconveniences.

I'm supposed to be first on the list tomorrow morning - around 7:00am - and I'm told that it will take 3-4 hours for the procedure, followed by a week or so in hospital and 6 weeks off work. I'll try to keep this blog up-to-date, no doubt for the first couple of days it will be entirely unattended, but as soon as I can I'll give you some details.

That fetish

I'm feeling a little confessional this morning so I thought I'd tell you about one of my fetishes. It's about bags, I can't help myself, I just like bags. I know I'm not alone and I bet a fair number of you also share this fetish in one form or another.

First let me set your mind at rest, it's not a fetish for black garbage bags (go and google that one) nor is it a fetish for handbags. I confine my fetish to functional bags - a bag to carry my stuff to work or to carry around a camera or two. David Alan Harvey, of National Geographic fame, has a serious camera bag fetish. It puts my mild obsession to shame.

Years ago with me it used to be highly functional bags made of all sorts of high tech fibres, designed to stop a speeding bullet at ten paces and protect your camera from anything the world could throw at it. In the mid 1980s I remember buying a Tenba camera bag for, what was in those days, large sum. It was a great bag, not too deep, decent dividers, various pockets and padding. All in all a great bag, including its nondescript grey colour. The problem was it was made, I think, of an early version of Cordura and it wore its way through any fabric it rested against. Your clothes didn't stand a chance. A couple of years ago I dragged this same bag out of its resting place because I had a use for it. Unfortunately the waterproofing in the bag consisted of some sort of coating on the inside of the Cordura. This coating had parted company and disintegrated into a fine dust - the kind that is designed to penetrate - and stick to - every part of a camera or lens. That was sad because it was a good bag, nobody seems to make those shallow, minimalist sorts of bags any more.

More recently my fetish turned to Crumpler bags, first a Fux Deluxe messenger bag, then a variety of computer bags and most recently a computer knapsack. Whilst I really like the look and feel of an elderly, grubby, Crumpler messenger bag, they don't grab me like some other bags. Nor do they quite cut it in the "perfect work bag" stakes.

Now we come to my most recent fetish. Maybe it's something about the ageing process - mine not the bag's - but as I've got older I've come to value the qualities of "old fashioned" materials over the latest high tech carbon nano particle gadget bag. Enter bags by Billingham and others.

The thing about Billingham bags is that they're made of very old fashioned stuff - laminated canvas, cotton webbing and leather. They shouldn't really be effective camera bags...but they are.

Now the next problem with bag fetishes is size - I always seem to think I need a bigger bag than I do. My first Billingham bag was a 555, I can load more kit into that bag than I can lift! In fact I can't work out why I bought that bag. It's so big that nobody in their right mind would try to carry it. I use it as a container to lug stuff around in but I don't try to walk anywhere with it.

My next Billingham bag I decided was going to be a sensible size. I had to be able to carry it when it was full and it had to sit comfortably. "Buy a Hadley" they all said to me at the shop when I told them what I wanted. I tried the Hadley and decided it was too small. I tried the 225 - a great little bag - and decided it was too small. You can see where this is leading can't you?

I ended up with a 335, this is also a great bag, but you can never use the words "small" or "little" in the same sentence. You could take this bag away with you to Outer Mongolia for 6 months and carry enough gear for a professional assignment. A great bag...just not what I intended to buy.

Meanwhile my back's been getting creakier and my bags appear to be getting heavier. So off we go in the search for another bag. I've got to the stage that I don't tell my beloved that I'm bag shopping and I sneak the new purchases into the house hoping they won't be noticed. She's a very tolerant woman but my bag fetish is a bit much for her!

This time I went straight after the good advice bag - a Billingham Hadley Pro. It's a small looking bag but it takes a surprising amount of stuff. I can fit a Leica M, a couple of lenses, notebook, keys, passes, "first aid kit", pens, wallet, MacBook and various other cords, chargers, earphones and stuff. It doesn't weigh too much and it sits comfortably on my shoulder. When I went to buy it, they only had black. I didn't want a black bag, but I wanted a bag. So I bought the black one. It's actually turned out to be an inspired choice. It blends in and it doesn't look like I'm straight out of the British Raj. I just hope that it doesn't overheat in the summer.

Interestingly the bag tags didn't tell me what the material is, however on the Billingham site it says that black bags with nickel plated fittings are made of their new, synthetic, FibreNyte material. If it is, it's a great copy of canvas - it looks and feels just like their canvas.

Oops I realise in this exploration of my fetish I haven't told you about the important sub-branch - Pelican cases...never mind another day.

For those who are interested I'll work up some piccies of various bags to add later.

Ears yet again!

Day 14 is drawing to a close. I've just had my first 24 hours pain free and that is a bit of a revelation. I'm hopeful that it's all plain sailing from here. I was surprised at how painful the procedure was and how long the pain persisted. Since about day 10 the pain has reduced and my reliance on painkillers has also reduced. If there was one thing I hadn't counted on it was the pain - ears are clearly sensitive!

The other unexpected thing was the infection. I suspect that suture removal at the beginning of day 4, may have resulted in the infection. By day 6 I had a substantial infection and that ultimately needed both oral and then IV antibiotics. I finished the course of antibiotics on the morning of day 13 and the infection had certainly cleared up.

Now whilst the ear is tender to the touch it is vastly improved and the outcome looks pretty good as you can judge.

Day 6, two days after the sutures came out

Day 14, well on its way to looking like any other ear

The one outstanding issue is loss of sensation. I've got a large area that runs up the back of my ear and over the top at the centre that has no sensation. As well the area inside the auricle above the graft is also without sensation and of course the graft itself has no sensation. I'm told that this will resolve but it is certainly unexpected and mildly unpleasant.

So really that's the story! The surgeon says I'll get improvement in the look of the graft over then next 2 to 4 months. I'm pretty happy with how it's looking now. When the last bits of serous scab resolve and the surface of the skin renews over the next few days it will look almost indistinguishable from the rest of the ear.

I spoke too soon

Not long after my last post, my ear began to get sore and tense, with some drainage. Saturday afternoon, AFL Grand Final replay day...not a great day to have problems. Nevertheless I toddled off to the Emergency Department at the local hospital. The doctor had a look and called the surgeon. Very quickly I found myself with a drip in my arm running in a dose of IV antibiotics. Next, a short trip across town and I found myself being admitted to hospital for more IV antibiotics, a dressing and observation.

Great care from everyone but not what I planned for Saturday night.

Hopefully this will start to run smoothly sometime or other!!

The ear update!

Today is day 8 and all of a sudden over the last 24 hours things have improved. I'd really got myself into a little black hole with the unrelenting pain. All from such a little procedure!

After the sutures were taken out on Tuesday the ear seemed to get worse not better. I was getting a lot of serous exudate from the graft site and it was very painful and swollen. On Thursday morning things started to get a bit mucky. It wasn't readily apparent that I had an infection but I took myself off to the doctor. His view was that it was infected and that this was also the reason it was a bit swollen and sore. He prescribed antibiotics and within 8 hours life had taken on a whole new meaning!!

It's amazing how release from a bit of misery makes you feel so much more positive and happy.

I'm now looking for a hat to "shut the door after the horse has bolted" as it were. I want something that I can wear with a suit or casually to protect my ears and face in summer without looking more like an idiot than I do now! Any suggestions?

Ears and things...

Where's your hat? Stay out of the sun! I can remember my mother's refrain from childhood. I was a very fair skinned kid and sunscreens were really not available when I was young. Consequently I was regularly burnt and on odd occasions I developed sunburn blisters - unpleasant and painful.

As I've got older I've become increasingly obsessive about sun protection - hats, screen, sunglasses, long sleeves...The problem of course is that the damage is done. All that childhood exposure is now revealing itself in the way of solar keratoses, and various bits and bumps. The dermatologist removes them or freezes them off and I go away for another 6 months.

About 12 months ago I became aware of an area on the face of my ear that developed a small crust and wouldn't heal. The dermatologist gave it a blast with liquid nitrogen but it reappeared. A biopsy revealed a Basal Cell Carcinoma (BCC). These things are slow growing but can be difficult to completely remove. I was referred to a plastic surgeon. He said "you'll be surprised how extensive this is". I wasn't! By now it had stretched from inside the antihelix across the face of the ear and up to very close to the ridge of the helix. The decision was that it had to be surgically removed and a full thickness skin graft used to cover the defect caused by the removal.

The ear in question with the graft in place - day 5

The surgery was scheduled as a day procedure. When the time came I was placed on my back on the operating table and the anaesthetist gave me a sedative and a short acting narcotic painkiller through a canula, whilst the surgeon infiltrated my ear with local. I was aware of what was going on but the drugs prevented me from feeling the pain as the local was injected and made me happy to just lie there.

The procedure involved removing the neoplastic tissue and a 2mm margin around it. Then a full thickness graft was harvested from the groove behind the same ear. I could feel the pressure of the cutting, snipping and pulling as the graft was harvested. Then the graft was trimmed for size and sutured in place with lots of interrupted sutures using nylon. I chatted briefly to the surgeon while the graft was sutured in place.

Once that was done the ear and surrounding hair were cleaned up, the drapes removed and then I shifted myself from the table to the trolley to go back to recovery and then after a couple of hours off home.

My ear was numb from the local. As that wore off later in the evening the pain began. Initially the pain was from the donor site for the graft. It was closed with dissolving sutures and because it was quite tight it was very painful. It was reasonably easy to control the pain with Nurofen (ibuprofen) and Panadeine Forte (paracetamol and codeine). However I required regular pain relief every 4 to 6 hours and sleeping was a real problem. I could only sleep on one side and moving hurt - it's amazing how and where your face and neck muscles are interconnected!

The surgery was latish on Friday afternoon. The weekend required regular painkillers but it wasn't too bad. However the pain got worse not better! I removed the dressing on Monday morning as directed and showered as normal before going off to work. My ear was swollen and sore with areas of numbness where nerves had been compromised. The graft looked like something out of a horror movie and there was some bruising and tenderness in various areas. Enough to frighten small children and squeamish adults!

Monday was a big day and I was glad to get home after work for a nap. The pain on Monday night was worse and I spent a fair part of the night awake as I waited for various doses of painkillers to kick in. Part of the pain seemed to be from the swelling and part from the increasingly tight sutures. Early on Tuesday morning the surgeon took the sutures out which was a bit of an ordeal and left me pale and sweating. He cleaned up the graft and declared himself happy. He put a vaseline gauze and a simple dressing in place for 24 hours. After that he directed a daily soak and cleaning of the graft with saline followed by a smear of petroleum jelly to keep the graft moist and supple. I'm to see him in 16 days.

I managed almost a full day at work on Tuesday, despite feeling shaky and looking pale, I had lots that needed doing - the surgery having coincided with a critical stage in a big project. Finally in the late afternoon I had to give in to the pain and go home. Tuesday night was bad from the point of view of pain control. I woke on Wednesday morning, after limited sleep, feeling pretty crappy. I finally gave in to the inevitable and took the day off work. I hope that will let me get on top of the cycle of pain and sleeplessness.

I'm left feeling that I cannot for the life of me understand why people would undergo this sort of pain for cosmetic reasons. In my case the BCC had to be removed before it spread further. However I can't understand why people have facelifts, boob jobs etc. It's just too painful!

Secondly all I can say is: if you are young then please take care of your skin. This kind of procedure is painful, costly and despite the skill of the surgeon, it will never look like it did before.

The anti-Craigslist campaign and other stupidities

It may not be a big thing on this side of the globe, but in the US there is a major campaign against Craigslist. Broadly the campaigners claim that Craigslist provides a way for criminals to pimp and traffic young women for sex. By inference it appears that they believe that Craigslist does nothing to stop this trade, that it is widespread within Craiglist's listings and that the company is venal. We now have young women's advocacy organisations rejecting donations from Craiglist.

Meanwhile the Attorneys General of 20 States in the US have run a campaign to force Craigslist to close its Adult Services section. Note that it appears that there is no legal reason for Craigslist to do that. One assumes that if even one of those Attorneys General had the legal means to do so they would have taken action in the courts to force Craigslist to take action, Instead we have a campaign that has sought to harness public opinion against Craigslist.

It appears to me that we have the modern day version of the lynch mob chasing Craigslist and without sound reason.

The argument used is that Craigslist and other websites provide the ideal place for criminals to traffic young women, and that they are used by those people in that way. The anti-Craiglist lobby argues that the problem is huge. This quote (and the others to follow) is from a CNN news report:

"Nobody knows what the real numbers are," said Ernie Allen, the NCMEC's (National Center for Missing and Exploited Children) chief executive. "I'm also confident that the internet has changed the dynamic of this whole problem. We're finding an astounding number of kids being sold for sex on the internet."

Allen said the best source of information on the number of underage girls being trafficked online are websites themselves. While online classified giant Craigslist shut down its "adult services" pages in early September, other sites like Backpage.com are filling the vacuum left behind, he said. And while there are clues in the way the ads are written, only a small fraction of them get referred to law enforcement or organizations like the NCMEC.

Let's be clear before we go any further that we all know that even one exploited child is one too many. That's something that I feel very strongly about. Equally I feel that in this case the advocates, and as we will later see, the law enforcement organisations are engaged in a massive stupidity. Bluntly they have forgotten that their job is to catch (or advocate for the right action against) the criminals who exploit children and instead have embarked on a campaign without evidence against Criagslist. My message to the NCMEC and all of the law enforcement agencies is this: If the problem is as large as you claim then you are simply lazy and not very good at your jobs. You are not doing your job, rather you are seeking to blame an easy target. When you have driven Craigslist from business you will not have made one single ounce of difference to one single exploited child. Not a single bit of difference.

The first sentence of the quote above gives us a guide to what is going on here. "Nobody knows what the real numbers are". That is the standard line used when there is no evidence. However that's not going to stop him or others. What that really means is that these people don't have a shred of evidence but they're still hell bent on their lynch mob tactics with respect to Craigslist.

Further on in that same report we get this:

"It's an outrageous thing to say, but one of our goals is to move these operators into some other illicit enterprise -- to get them out of the trafficking of human beings and into some other illegal business," Allen [CEO of the NCMEC] said.

Yes it is an outrageous thing to say. He's talking about the people that he claims are pimping young girls via sites like Craigslist. Similarly we have this:

In Atlanta, Georgia, one of the country's busiest prostitution markets due to its position as a highway and air travel hub, police and prosecutors witnessed the effect of the internet on the business of prostitution firsthand.

Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard told CNN that eight years ago, law enforcement began a serious crackdown on the pimps that control most underage victims, until the pimps vanished.

"At that time, we saw a number of underage girls standing on street corners, and they were usually standing there because a pimp had placed them there," Howard said. "After we started our crackdown, we began to notice that the numbers became fewer and fewer, and we were wondering, 'What's going on?'

"What we found is that there was a wholesale transformation from young girls standing on the streets to those same young girls being sold through Craigslist and other internet vendors," Howard said. "That has put us in a terrible position, because much of the illegal sex activity now goes on almost undetected by the police. The numbers we believe remain the same, but what has happened is that they are now out of sight."

So when was the last time we heard about the need for law enforcement to move with the times? These guys are still stuck in a 1960s time warp. The world has moved on guys and the way you need to catch criminals has changed. Why is it that your definition of law enforcement is to run campaigns against legitimate businesses? Why are you too lazy to work out how to enforce the law with respect to the real criminals: the people who place the ads.

By all means if, in the course of doing your job, you arrive at evidence that Craigslist is breaking the law then prosecute them. They have no right to special treatment. But at the moment what's happening is that the law enforcement establishment is targeting Craigslist and allowing the real criminals to go on exploiting women unchecked. That's a shameful situation.

This campaign has moved to the point of mob hysteria is some quarters. A search of Twitter will turn up reams of increasingly bizarre posts lauding the campaign against Craigslist.

What really makes me angry is that all this effort is misdirected. Direct the energy to smart, effective law enforcement. Catch these people and imprison them. At the moment all this campaign is doing is diverting energy from the real actions that will help the young people who are being exploited. That's shameful.

PS: sorry about the formatting in this post...sometimes Blogger defeats me!

iPhone 4 - Ho, hum

The title says it all really. We wanted another iPhone and it seemed pointless to get a 3Gs when the next model had already been released and the price point for a 3Gs was not that attractive compared to the price of the 4.

If you care about design, this is a nice looking piece of technology. The problem however is that it's too thin. If you have big hands then you'll like the old 3Gs better probably. It had a bulge on the back that fitted nicely into your palm and altogether it felt better to hold and use. What is good about the 4 is that it doesn't have the "slippery" character of the 3Gs - the tendency to slide off things and to be slippery in your hand. It's about a draw in my view: the iPhone 4 is designed to sit on a flat surface more than anything else!

If you're using a 3Gs with the latest iOS then you won't actually notice a lot different with the iPhone 4. Yes granted the phone is slightly, and I mean only slightly, quicker. It's not an "oh wow" thing though. It is just a tiny bit more responsive.

The screen on the 4 is however gorgeous. Indeed the screen is the one stand out on this phone. Without the new screen I'd say it was simply a nice revision of an existing product. But this new screen is very luscious. The retina display makes the task of using a small screen just that much easier and it looks delightful. I can't speak for all iPhone 4s but mine certainly has a greenish yellow cast to the screen. It reminds me of the 1980s Nikkor ED lenses. They had a very similar cast and it added a brightness and spark to photos taken with them. I can't tell whether the screen is supposed to have this cast, as mine does, but if it is supposed to be there then I bet it's about making the screen appear as good as it possibly can. The cast is strong enough that it is just barely acceptable. Whites certainly ain't white!

Speaking of colour casts the camera on the 4 is shocking under tungsten or fluorescent light. It simply doesn't know what white balance is. In daylight the camera produces nice photos, but under artificial light it's simply a shocker.

Now for the real cruncher: It doesn't keep the proper time! How hard is that? If you set the time to automatic it is always slow. Please don't give me rubbish about cell towers and carrier software. When sat alongside a 3Gs, using the same tower, it is always, always slow, as it is compared to a MacBook using a time server or any other item of timekeeping equipment. This and the camera and the screen colour cast, taken together, represent my biggest beef with this phone. It isn't ready for real life. Apple need to fix this NOW.

Other issues and problems with the iPhone 4 for me are:

• In iTunes it repeatedly throws errors saying that it requires backups to be encrypted. I don't want my backups encrypted but iTunes with iPhone 4 won't backup at all for me without encryption turned on. When I turn encryption on that's it - I can find no way to turn it off again! What's that about? Also the whole issue of encryption passwords is buggy. I really don't know what my encryption password is because of some aberrant behaviour around setting and changing passwords. That is very bad in my view and requires an early fix from Apple. (iTunes 10.0 (67))
• iPhone 4/iTunes 10 reject perfectly good provisioning profiles for beta software. I have one that's good for another month and it simply won't install the software.
• The home button occasionally does nothing...that feels really buggy;
• Battery life is NOT better than my old 3Gs. I used to barely get a working day from the 3Gs and I barely get a working day from the 4. That means say 6:00am to 6:00pm - it will often shut down on the way home. I religiously charge it to 100% every night but it simply doesn't last the distance. I use it all day every day at work with both private email accounts and several Exchange accounts as well as shared calendars. That's the way my life is and I suspect that's why the battery life is so poor. It isn't good enough though. I find myself obsessing about making sure I have a charger and USB cable everywhere I go. Not terribly useful;
• Now this issue isn't an Apple issue but it really, really bugs me: On the 3Gs I had a great silicone case. It had, in addition to a cover for the back, a piece that covered the home button and a similar piece at the top and was thick enough to provide some grip and protection to the iPhone. The silicone cases I've seen for the iPhone 4 and the one I have are, in a word, useless. They are these little soft skinny things that seem more like a little black dress than a working item. They give the phone no protection, they come off when you pick up the phone or pull it out of your pocket. They seem designed only to show off the iPhone 4 in all its anorexic, super model skinniness. These are working tools not fashion accessories. Can't some manufacturer give us a decent silicone case that stays on and protects the phone? It's not that hard...you did it for the iPhone 3 so you know how.

So overall a pleasant upgrade to the iPhone but nothing startling and with some unresolved problems. I haven't had the death grip problem but its country reception is worse than the iPhone 3Gs.

The resolution of the election

There's been a lot going on, so these are just some random thoughts about the (non) election which, whilst indecisive, I believe is all to the good. Already we've seen Tony Abbott in his true colours, first refusing to submit his policies to Treasury for costing and then, inevitably having to agree to do so. Why didn't he just agree in the first place? He looked very silly behaving the way he did: result shot in foot with own gun!

Julia Gillard on the other hand is desperate about this: she wants to "win" this election so badly she can taste it. By that I mean that she wants to be able to form a government. If I was her I wouldn't want to be the shortest lived Australian PM. It also appears that she isn't sleeping very well - she looks tired and drawn.

What we are seeing, despite the missteps from Abbott, is that both sides realise that this is the end of their picnic. They can no longer behave like they have been and expect the Australian public to cop it. I hope the independents keep whoever forms government on their toes. In this regard we want no backsliding.

The other thing we want no more of is Julie Bishop's heckling from the sidelines. As a deputy leader of a major party she has a very limited repertoire and none of it is either very useful or very flattering. My view is that she would do her party a great deal of good by learning a new repertoire that had some positives in it, which focused on what her party was going to deliver and how, and which stopped with the bagging of all and sundry. Enough already from you Julie.

Now to the "independents", Katter, Oakeshott, Windsor, Wilkie and Crook. This is where it gets interesting. The first three are tending to hunt as a pack, Wilkie has said he wants none of that and Crook has simply said that whilst he's a National he won't be on the coalition benches. Whilst Alby Schultz might claim that Crook has "done a deal with the ALP" I think we can be pretty certain that Crook won't help the ALP form government. There's the matter of the mining tax. Julia Gillard is in the position where she can't win on that: if she drops it Crook might well support her but a great big chunk of Australia will say "they've done it again, first the ETS now this". That would be pretty terminal in terms of public trust in the ALP. On the other hand Crook is on the record as saying he can't support the tax.

Andrew Wilkie may well be the first to show his hand, and maybe as early as today. Adam Bandt has already shot his bolt, saying very early on that he would support Labor. So the next cab off the rank is Wilkie. Ordinarily I would expect him to support Labor - that represents a win-win for him. He will keep the Labor voters happy in his seat and he will be able to exert independent leverage therefore keeping his own voters happy. However I suspect it is not that simple. Andrew has moments when he appears to be a zealot of the purest type. That being the case he won't do what appears logical to you or me. Watch this space.

As for the other three, whilst Bob Katter points out that the three state electorates within his seat all vote Labor and that his vote is personal rather than party aligned, I nevertheless believe that it will be hard for him to align with Labor. More importantly he is appearing to act as a bloc with the other two independents. Whilst he might want to align with Labor I think that Oakeshott may well be the stumbling block.

My guess, and that's all it is, is that we'll end up with a coalition government supported by the bloc of three. Please note Julie Bishop that has nothing to do with who got the greatest two party preferred vote or any other measure - all that's irrelevant. The only thing that matters is who can go to the Governor General and form a government and who can survive on the floor of the house. But I'm sure you don't get that - you show no public signs of doing so.

The next few days will tell and it will be interesting. What will be perhaps more interesting is whether, in the longer term, the independents and Adam Bandt can move beyond a pork barrelling mentality to understand that they have obligations to the whole of Australia and that they will be badly punished if they don't live up to them.

What a (non) Result!

I went to buy fish at my usual place in Victoria Street, Richmond, today. As I walked in the Vietnamese guys who run the place were all watching the TV on the wall, Gillard was talking. They jumped on me and said "What was the result? You explain please. We don't understand". I thought 'well you're not alone in that boys', and tried my best to explain that there is no result and there won't be for a while. They love Labor, the shopkeepers along that strip, and this was a big disappointment to them.

Whilst there mightn't be a result there are some things that are clear:

1. The ALP got what they deserved, they were a crappy, presidential style, failure of a government;
2. We didn't give Tony Abbott a mandate - and that was on purpose - we don't like him that much either;
3. Having said both of those things, the party most responsible for the result - whatever it is, and therefore the party with the greatest obligations is the Greens.

So let's work this through. I think that Australians showed a great collective consciousness. You couldn't have orchestrated this result if you had tried. It's basically a hung parliament and it's doubtful that any one party will get to form government in their own right. There's still water to flow under the bridge and there's still an outside chance that the coalition might just get over the line in their own right. I doubt it at this stage though. Therefore the Australian public has chosen to trust neither major party. A good call, and with certain caveats I think it's good for Australia.

That means a parliament with 4 independents of various persuasions and a Green. Adam Bandt won in his own right in Melbourne and more on that in a minute. Neither major party has the requisite 76 and probably won't get there. So whoever forms government needs at least some of those 5 votes in order to survive any motion of no confidence on the floor. And that's all that's required now to govern. One of those independents is new and took the seat from the ALP with Green preferences, he came from third spot in the primary vote to do it.

Here's the thing about Melbourne though: Adam Bandt's election is a sign of the yuppification of the seat and indeed you might argue that he typifies the local yuppy! A review of some of the booths is instructive. St Mark's Church in the heart of the yuppy belt of the electorate saw the Greens polling more or less double the ALP, over in Mooney Ponds it was line ball and in Elizabeth Street in Richmond, amongst the Housing Commission flats Labor won the booth. So it's not all clear cut. Adam won the seat in decisive fashion but the electorate did not uniformly vote for him.

The Greens more than any other party have delivered this result. They took votes from the ALP, they took a seat from the ALP and they have a commanding hold on the Senate - or will have from next July. That delay is a farce in itself.

The obligation that the Greens now face is to deliver not only warm fuzzy policies but good government. The stability of the Australian government will almost certainly rest with Adam Bandt and Andrew Wilkie - the new member for Denison who whilst not a Green in name is certainly a proto-Green.

Are they up to it? Are they up to the hard yards of being part of a government, a government with no clear majority? Are they up to grappling with the difficult, pragmatic realities of delivering to Australia in all the areas of government, not just the warm ones? I'm not belittling the environment by saying that, rather I'm saying that a solid economic and social support base is imperative if we are to have the choice to deliver on environmental needs. It's no coincidence that developing countries generally have poor environmental records and that stable financially sound governments have choices when it comes to good environmental management.

One thing's for sure: If Adam Bandt fails to deliver on his responsibilities for sound, stable government, then Gen X, Gen Y and the older yuppies will ditch him quick smart at the next election. They'll also run far and fast from the Greens in the Senate. Witness the downfall of the Democrats.

Happy days Adam, I hope you're up to it. We all rely on you.

Whinge, whinge...

In mid-July Steve Jobs announced that the iPhone 4 would be released in Australia on July 30. I've come to a couple of conclusions since then: firstly his definition of "released" and mine differ; secondly Apple has become insufferably arrogant towards its customers.

What has Apple stuffed up this time around? Well let's try this for starters:

1. They offered to keep us informed about the launch of the iPhone 4 if we registered our email address. I'd expect that they would email me to tell me about the upcoming launch and to tell me how to get my iPhone 4...if I wanted one. Instead they emailed me at 20:30 on 30 July...that's about 20 and a half hours after they "released" it. That's early notification isn't it Apple? And the email told me nothing useful.
2. Right through the day that Apple say they released the iPhone 4 the Apple website said "coming soon". Was it released or wasn't it? Only at about the same time as the email did it change.
3. When the Apple website changed to show it had been released the pathway that it sent you on to determine where to buy said iPhone petered out, with no actual advice on buying it.
4. The Apple retail stores wouldn't talk to you on the phone about the iPhone 4, even after it had been "released" so you had no idea whether they had stock or not. As it happens it was largely "not".
5. Attempting to order an iPhone 4 online led to the information that one would be available about 23 August...not 30 July.

What is apparent is that the iPhone 4 was available through the telco partners on the day of release, and it appears to have continued to be available there...but only on a plan. Some few were also available from the Apple stores on 30 July, but that seemed to be for show.

What appears to have happened is that Apple has left about a month for their telco partners to sell the phone on a plan, before they "really release" it to the general public.

Now you can be sure that Apple don't really care what you or I think about this. They are probably more concerned with the traffic jam in Cupertino, caused by the trucks bringing in all the money that the company is making! Whether you or I think they behaved badly is of no concern to them.

The thing is that the buying public have long memories. When Apple's long line of product successes deserts them, as it will at some future point, then the buying public will take the opportunity to twist the knife. What might otherwise have been a minor hiccup could well turn into a mass desertion. Why's that? I think that the reason is that Apple is progressively squandering the very strong base of consumer support that they have enjoyed. They are treating their consumers, their customers, carelessly and disdainfully. It will come back to bite them.

What should they have done? Two easy things would have kept me happy:

1. For all those people who registered to receive an email: send them an email around 26 July saying: The iPhone 4 will be available in very limited quantities from Apple retail stores from Midnight 29 July, it will be available in greater quantities on telco plans from the same time. Apple recommends that you order your iPhone now, through our online store. We expect full stock levels from around 25 August;
2. Place the same clear and simple message, prominently on their website 24 hours later;
3. Allow the pre-registered people to order from 26 July through the on-line store for later delivery.

Problem solved, I'm not in receipt of instant gratification but I know where I stand.

Underlying all of this is another more interesting issue: Apple doesn't seem to have its supply chain in order. Not only can it not supply iPhone, it can't supply simple things. The new Magic Trackpad is reportedly "released" as well. The problem is I can't find anywhere in Melbourne with stock, including Apple's own shops. I'm not ringing all around Melbourne to find one, but the inquiries I have made in the logical places have drawn a blank.

So the consumer happiness issue would go away if Apple sorted out its apparent supply chain issues. If you release a product on 30 July then make sure you have stock and intend to make it generally available. The better alternative would be to announce a real release date and make sure you have sufficient stock to supply demand. It's not like you haven't had a chance to see the stock implications of iPhone and other new items. And as for no stock of a simple thing like the Magic Trackpad...really Apple that's just silly.

Project Information - Where to put it and how to use it?

I've had cause to think about the issues of managing projects without a LAN. Indeed managing any kind of business activity without a LAN requires a particular mindset.

If you think about project information it falls into a number of clear categories:

• Control material - things like status reports, actions, issues etc. This stuff is both structured and requires formal control. In a LAN-free environment it lives in some kind of web-based project control tool. This kind of information is generally well understood and well catered for by projects and project managers;
• Formal documentation - material such as requirements documents, reports, project plans. This material belongs in a document management tools - web-based. The tool should allow check-in, check-out with version management and fine grained access control. Again, this material is well catered for and well understood by project managers;
• Semi-structured project information. This is the perhaps the most troublesome type of information. How often have you had a client or someone else saying "where do I find last week's status report?". You don't want them wandering around in the document management system and you don't want to have to continually email documents around. Similarly the endless questions about "what's happened about x this week?" can be more effectively answered by having that information in a central spot. It's this last set of information that is both the most troublesome for projects whilst being the least thought of in terms of management.

Clients, project owners, management and client team members are often very interested in progress, often in a qualitative fashion. It takes a lot of time to keep all the stakeholders up to date, particularly those with a voracious appetite for information.

Enter the wiki and blog. This is the right place to manage this sort of information. A really simple initial structure gets you off the ground. The master pager of the wiki has links to these pages:

• Who's who? Many projects have a large pool of people that they deal with. Induction for new project members can be incredibly slow and time consuming because of the large number of people that they need to be aware of. Creating a Who's Who page and then encouraging all team members to keep it up to date can be a big help here. This is particularly important with the layer of people who are outside the team but very important to the project;
• Status. This is the place for final copies of the weekly or monthly status reports. Once they are finalised a copy can be placed on this page to give interested parties access without needing to provide access to the DMS;
• Documents. Every project creates "landmark" documents, whether it's a stage report, a Func Spec or a set of FAQs. These could be placed in a "public" section of the DMS. The reality is it's probably easier to put them on the wiki page. This forestalls the endless questions from project members like "can you send me a copy of...?".
• Blog. Perhaps the least thought of capability is a blog. This is where project members can be encouraged to publish short snippets about small project achievements, activities for the day and planned future activities. It's a way of letting other project members and stakeholders know what you are up to.

Sitting alongside those pages you need some way of letting others know what has changed on the wiki or blog: either email or RSS feeds work well. Expecting interested parties to visit and check for updates is not very useful, you need to tell them what's happening.

Similarly the capacity to email items of interest into the wiki and to have attachments appear is also important. It creates an additional means of interacting with the system.

So here's what I'd like to know: Do you use wikis and blogs in projects? Do you find them useful? What specific tools do you use?

I've been using the Snow Leopard Server Wiki Server 2, I like it, it works well and it's very simple to use.

Election Campaigns and Musings

Deep into the second week of the Australian election campaign, I'm struck by the fact that we appear to have not one but two sub-par offerings from the major parties. Tony Abbott doesn't have it and doesn't get it, but he is busy promising us anything we want. Want a backflip on the company tax anyone?

Meanwhile Julia Gillard is promising to review, consult, plan, hold a forum and do anything but make a decision. In what passed as a debate the other night, the worm turned firmly against her every time she said something like "we'll work it through" or "we'll consult". The public are heartily sick of this current government's failure to deliver. There's a clear message out their Julia and if you want to win you better get it. Paraphrased the Australian public are saying: Just Fucking Do It! Sadly I don't think she gets it.

As for Tony, he wants us to think that he's moved into the 21st Century, he really does, he also wants us to think he's no longer a zealot. The truth is I suspect that Tony would be much happier back in 1955 having a cuppa with Jeanette Howard on his way to an Opus Dei meeting. Sorry Tony, the zealotry shines clear and bright about you.

The thing that troubles me is that old saying "you get the politicians you deserve". If that's the case then, as a nation, we've done something pretty bad to offend the Gods. These two are seriously not up to scratch. I find myself longing for an honest, straight shooting larrikin. Come back Bob Hawke...all is forgiven.

Seriously, next time you frown about a politician rooting his secretary, being seen leaving a gay club, abusing a waiter or using the wrong stamps on her campaign letters, I think you should pause. If what you think we need are seriously sanitised, one dimensional morons, then by all means run in on the attack. If you want people with no flair and no brains then by all means nod sagely when a carping opposition complains that some government member isn't married when they should be. If you want a set of decent innovative politicians then cut them some slack. Don't try to hold them to standards higher than the rest of the community and don't expect them to be colourless conformists. If you carry on like we've been carrying on the cut of our politicians can only get worse.

I'd far rather a politician who could identify a scumbag in the opposition and called it as he saw it (go Paul Keating) than the colourless lot we've got now.

Julia Gillard is doing her best to lose the election that is hers alone to lose. Maybe we don't want her, maybe we do...all I know is that it's a pretty sorry spectacle right now.

Apologies Dear Readers

I think I do owe you an apology. I've been incredibly busy over the last few weeks and so I've let the posting slip a bit.

What a few weeks it's been: Kevin Rudd off to obscurity; Julia Gillard in, via a very snappy coup; Lindsay Tanner calling it quits in Melbourne; a "deal" with the miners and announcements about asylum seekers from both sides of the fence.

The real interest for me though is the plight of Labor in Australia. In NSW they are simply rotten to the core and despite there not being any sort of opposition worth worrying about the NSW government is about to change. It will be an utter rout, a rout that will take a few years to claw back from.

In Victoria we're fairly likely to get a change of government as well. This government is not on the nose like the NSW government; they're not rotten to the core, they are however trailing in the polls quite badly. They backed themselves into a corner over the bushfires and the likes of Justin Madden have done them no good. Again there's no worthwhile opposition but it seems like people have decided it's time for a change. John Brumby seems sound but he has the charisma of a piece of roadkill.

The real game's in Canberra however, at least that's what federal politicians think! My problem with the current leadership of the Labor Party is this: if Kevin Rudd can be characterised as a wolf, then I fear that Julia Gillard is simply a wolf in sheep's clothing. The problem for the Labor Party is that they are pushing and shoving to occupy just the same ground as the Liberals. That's not new, but it's increasingly stupid. In image terms Labor used to be the party of the people, connected, earthy, left wing, brash and at times machiavellian. Just like a large disordered family really. The Libs on the other hand were haughty, austere and had strange accents: think Andrew Peacock and Malcolm Fraser.

The lurch to the right of both parties - the ascendancy of the "dries" over the "wets" in the Liberal Party, and the ascendancy of the right in Labor - has seen them stuck on the same dance floor. Not comfortable and indeed it makes the dance floor mighty crowded at times, hard to distinguish one from the other.

Meantime the Greens have taken up the space vacated by Labor, the inner cities are their's for the taking, the connected earthiness of Labor of old is now increasingly the style of the Greens. They look more and more like a chance in several lower house seats, not the least of those being Melbourne - Lindsay Tanner's current seat.

Here's my difficulty though: the Greens that I see around tend to strike me as power-hungry, inner urban yuppies. Not pleasant, not what I'm looking for in a politician. Bob Brown and the old guard of the Greens are genuine, on the money with their messages, but ultimately not a political force. The new Greens should not be mistaken for the old guard. The new Greens are politically savvy but they carry none of the really important stuff that the old guard does. They are Greens in name only.

Should the greens become a force, as they well might given the stupidity of Labor, they too will disappoint us as mere politicians, more interested in power than principles. That'll make 4 parties like that in Australia, because that's always been the case with the Nationals.