...make the effort and start carrying my small camera with me wherever I go again!! Sai Gon is one big photographic opportunity!!

being back in Sai Gon is all that I expected it would be. this time I decided to be take a very pragmatic approach to how I dealt with things here because last year when I came back I have to admit that my emotions got the better of me to the point where I […]

After some sql query problems and a couple of tragic coding changes (my fault) I decided that a re-install of pMachine was in order. Consequently, royby.com seems to be up and running again. Fingers crossed.

I have begun a new album on my Picasaweb site which you can access from here  

After experiencing record low temperatures here in Brisbane, the last 2 or 3 days have been unusually warm with temperatures 7 degrees above normal. The days were so good that I took advantage of the fact and dusted the cobwebs off my bicycle and went for a ride. I was going to do the same […]

My research project was confirmed this morning which means that I can forge ahead with the full backing of the School and the University. Well, that’s a weight off my mind, now the real work begins.

Last Friday was the first of the postgraduate seminars within POLSIS and the topic was “The PhD process from beginning to end”. One of my supervisors was the presenter so some of the things she had to say came as no surprise to me, but on the other hand, I wish that I had attended […]

Last Friday week I presented my Statement of Intent (SOI) paper at a seminar open to all academic staff and my peers within the school of POLSIS and any other interested parties. This presentation is part of the confirmation procedure wherein you must explain the background to your research problem, why your research is important […]

The old lady in this picture sleeps in this spot every night right next my favourite Bun Mam eatery in an alley off Vo Van Tan St in HCMC. In fact, I took this image from where I sat eating. She would usually sit and smoke a cigarette before turning in for the night and […]

Sadly, Dr. Laurie passed away at 5.25 pm yesterday in Royal Brisbane Hospital. He had been ill for a long time and when I spoke with his wife yesterday afternoon he was in a coma, but his family were all there with him. Laurie was our doctor in Sai Gon and became our good mate. […]

This is the sort of article that just makes me feel good all over Eight one-day-old ducklings were safely rescued on April 14 by Wormalds University contract fire technician Dave Peebles and School of Integrative Biology PhD student Beth Symonds. The ducklings fell down a deep drain near the St Lucia campus bus stop while […]

Over at Tha Loi, my mate Jaap is building a robotic vehicle from the ground up. Can’t wait to play with it when I’m back in Sai Gon

I had not heard of Joshua Bell until today. I know what a Strad is, but admit that I wouldn’t recognise one purely by its sound. So I guess I would do no better than the one thousand and something people at a New York rail station. Now if it had of been say Mick […]

Ha Noi is a remarkable city in which to capture images. This marvellous example of Ha Noi art deco architecture on Ly Thuong Kiet St. was built in 1936 for Dr. Vu Ngoc Huynh Buy a new blouse and select meat for the evening family meal in one easy visit Look up, your destiny awaits […]

Boat building on the beach at Da Nang is still done the traditional way. These photos were taken a couple of weeks after typhoon Xangsane hit the central coast of Viet Nam, and this fishing village on the foreshore bore the brunt of the storm’s ferocity. A new boat under construction Meanwhile, an older boat […]

shit, Thorpey’s dead at 60. Haven’t had the time to think about it since I read the news a few days ago, but it was his funeral service today at the Sydney Entertainment Centre and about 7,000 people turned up. If I was in Sydney I would have been tempted to go along myself. Today […]

I came across this video clip on the blog belonging to Vo, Thi Minh An. It is gut wrenching, to say the least, and it brought a lump to my throat. It reminds me of the times I spent with children like this at the Hoa Binh village in the grounds of Tu Du hospital […]

I am in awe of our university library service, especially the document delivery feature. I found a reference to an unpublished masters thesis that was completed in 2001 at Uppsala University in Sweden, the title of which seemed very relevant to my own PhD research. I contacted the chief librarian at Uppsala and received a […]