Well as usual it has been a while since my last post. In the mean time it has also become 2011. I spent New Years this year camping on a beach on the East Coast of Tasmania near St Mary’s, though I am not sure of the name of the beach. While waiting for midnight we made this great photo using a long exposure and some sparklers.

I like the long sparkle coming off the bottom of the “0”.

As it is the New Year it is time to assess how the 10 year plan is going. This year is the 4th year of the 10 year plan, and I still have not developed any income streams. The ideas for the 10 year plan are continuing to develop, I have more products in mind and have further developed existing ones. The problem still remains of finding the time to work on the projects, and of course coming up with the equipment, materials, skill etc to do them. The majority of products we have in mind as part of the 10 year plan require a degree of financial outlay in order to get set up. A direct to garmet printer for short run T-shirt designs for example is ~$50,000. It has therefore been a major part of the 10 year plan in recent years to try to find lower cost starting businesses in order to start bringing in an income whcih can then be used to finance the more expensive businesses.

At the moment what I am working on is three starting businesses, Face Painting, a brand of soft drink, and super fridge magnets. It will be about $700 or so to set up the face painting business, but I almost have everything I need for that already. I have the equipment I need for the drinks carbonating set up. With that I will then work on various recipes, and work out any technical problems and see if I can come up with my own line of drinks. Lastly I use magnets a bit in my lab and the ones I use (rare earth magnets) are very strong and difficult to get off the fridge. So I am looking into ways of making handles for them. They are great for holding notes and things to your fridge too.

Of course apart from anything to do with the 10 year plan I also have a research lab to run in my day job!! I also have a series of goals in mind to keep my science ticking over as well. Collectively then my goals for 2011 are:

• Finish collecting data from Rena’s tissue
• Finish collecting data from Shaf’s tissue
• Finish collecting data from Vic’s tissue
• Write Rena’s paper
• Write Shaf’s paper
• Write Vic’s paper
• Write review of Astrocyte Theory of PD
• Apply for Michael J Fox Rapid Response grant
• Start some Experiments for Histo Text Book
• Plan Histo Text Book
• Finish Setting up Lab web page
• Record more songs
• Record some ads for voice over material
• Prototype SmellAway
• Keep increasing blog readership – post more often
• Put up a list at work to add to it for post ideas
• Try taking some microscope art pics, frame them and try to sell them.  Aim is to sell 5 by the end of this year (can include Rat Art pics)
• Buy Van
• Set up face painting business (web site, equipment, free face painting at shopping centre)
• Make More You Tube Videos (Singing, Carbonator (1. Setting up; 2. Optimisation; 3. Recipes), Face Painting, Science (method of clipping canula, TH staining))
• Get the gear to make magnet handles
• Open stall at Windsor Markets (Magnets, soft drinks, face painting, Micro Art)

So it looks like another busy year, but hopefully a fruitful one.  As always I will try to post more often, and keep everyone up to date on how my 10 year plan is going.

Bye for now.