So what’s being going on here at Beer Can Hill HQ? Plenty, hence the relative inactivity on this internerd fridge magnet.
Firstly there was a WIN with the Bin the Bike Ban campaign last month, which requires monitoring and follow up. Then the peaceful re-education of several anti-cyclist facebook groups and their subsequent conversion to Bike Pride chapters. Although we shouldn’t really be surprised by the rank stupidity that people (using their real names) are capable of on a public forum.
There’s been so much activity that’s it’s difficult to put it all in context, from Roberts exceedingly kind offer of getting the plastic Igor eagles for Team Captain Bike (MS Summer Cycle), and media monitoring of even more rank stupidity in public, this time on the radio waves.
The WoJ website has been languishing of late, invariably BtBB took up a fair chunk of my time & energy in January/February, so hopefully (yes I do use that word at lot) there will be progress on the sites redevelopment sooner rather than later. If you are a dab hand at Joomla or know of someone who is, there is a couple of hours work going on offer to fiddle with the CMS. But obviously it’s going to be me who ends up fiddling with it to get the site up to spec. Why did publishing cease on WoJ? Obvious really, despite the huge amount of unique visitors and equally huge amount of links back, it was becoming rapidly too cumbersome to maintain.
Given Wordpress is really a blogging platform and not really a CMS all that was happening was a huge amount of re-publishing of online bicycle-themed articles. Which for me personally, is a massive timesuck and not really a effective use of time & resources. So the move to a new CMS (Joomla) and the news content service probably being better provided by widgets and RSS feeds. If there’s any crazy webkids out there who can describe a more effective method of doing news content, then feel free to let moi know.
Returning to the subject of radio waves, several of us should be on-air with a weekly Melbourne-based bicycle radio show on 3CR within the next few months after the training is completed. It’s all terribly exciting stuff and we’d like the show to have a emphasis upon social history, peoples stories and translating some of the more arcane mysteries of the bicycle riding world. We can do most of the show with prerecorded content - so if you’ve got a brilliant idea for a radio docu or segment, know of a family member or friend with a cycling story that’s never been told or a particular angle, then please get in contact and one of us will be around shortly with a iRiver. As a sidenote, all of the volunteers involved with the show have got really nice speaking voices. With the exception of yours truly, as I’m not entirely sure that Melbourne radio is ready for someone who’s dulcet tones sound like Minnie Mouse with a broad strine.
Beer. Beer. OMG, haven’t mentioned BEER yet! So here goes, the hop bine out in the front garden has provided it’s first abundant hop crop this season, the plant was lovely nurtured over the summer with buckets of shower water and the occassional liberal application of cat turds. We think the bine is Pride of Ringwood, it’s bittering qualities should be know soon as The Bloke gets time to finesse with the brewing equipment. Did I mention we’ve also got a bee hive too? Yep we’re de-evolving into bloody hippies. Just don’t let me hear you say that around me!
