Writing More

I have started writing more for a UK based financial services journal with a few million web viewers. Managed to get a few thousand people looking at my first few blog articles which is nice.

One Saturday in Winter

Saturday is a great day. Particularly on cool clear Winter days.

Soccer, netball, rugby, walk the dogs, maybe a spot of gardening

I took these photos a few weeks ago but thought I'd put them up for our out of town and international visitors to see.

On this particular day the kid's teams both won and so did Australia over France at Homebush stadium in front of 50,000 people.

A good day.

First Eucharist

It seems fitting that on the last day of WYD when we just saw the pope's plane fly off (over our house) that I finally get around to posting photos from the family celebrations and the ceremony for the little fella's first holy communion.

The service was sweet although you'd think after 2,000 years we could organise a decent group photo afterwards...

Family and friends were exceedingly generous with presents, so much so it was like Xmas but I think the highlight was simply being the centre of attention for a change and getting to play with younger cousins. A great day. Photos are up on the site.

Buddha Central

We not buddhist but this was amazing.

After hearing so much about the largest temple in the southern hemisphere we decided we really should take a look.

Nanny and Pa came along too after franks birthday (see separate post on that) and before visiting Sue. It was a great weekend.

IF you are passing Wollongong the Tan Tien temple is a do not miss opportunity to see a unique community in action. It has remarkable architecture, devotion and expansion plans for a university and more.

We can all learn from each other, and this is a great example. His teachings have a little bit in them for everyone, fairly practical too. More of a school of philosophical thought than a religion in my mind. Photos are currently loading on the site.

Frank's Birthday

Happy Birthday old fella!

We went down to Wollongong a few weeks ago to my Uncle's 70th Birthday bash. It was a great night, and the photos are finally up on the site.

We also dropped in an old friend of the family Sue for the night in Moss Vale, a very pretty town. The drive through the rain forest (Macquarie Pass I think it is called) up to Robertson (great pie shop) was gorgeous.

Congrats again Frank. We will all remember that night for a while!

World Youth Day 2008 Sydney (WYD08 or WYDSYD) Opening

Sydney has been invaded... by the holy spirit.

I took the gang in to have a look at the opening mass, the city was jumping with hundreds of thousands of young, international, catholic visitors with flags and guitars and drums and crosses and heaps of colour and noise. We didn't get into the main mass (had to have tickets and J is too young) but did take some good photos.

New blog for the family at last

I kept having difficulty deciding if really personal stuff should go on work blogs or not so have decided to split them.

This is our personal family blog. My other blogs are -

I still write on finance, technology, innovation, entrepreneurship and a few other things at alturnal.

The work stuff I did for saasu is on the saasu.com simplify life blog and takes about business and personal productivity with a financial management focus.

A bunch of political commentary ones that will get links posted here from time to time.

A fun one (but very geeky) for lobbying technology companies to lift their game for the benefit of all of us called crashexchange.com

I have also been asked to write for finextra but haven't managed to find time this year, hopefully that will happen soon.

Other sites are -

Investing and consulting via our company Cooper Sydney which focuses on financial technology.

Peter's professional profile on linkedin.com and peterjcooper.com