About us

About Us! About Us! About Us!

How I got here! No not from Dad outa Mum, but how I got to the WWW.

My name is Jacqueline and I have a son called Jack - hence Jack's outback. I also have a daughter who is a little miffed this isn't called Hannah's outback, but I've told her she has editing rights to the Kids page.

Anyway I have heard tell that just about anyone can make a website and get Google to put adds on it and it will pay for itself.

Being a GEN Xer (generation X) I am skeptical to say the least. How can a 40 something with kids who knows nothing about URL, HTML etc design and make a working webpage?

Having a background in technical science - (I once was a Laboratory tech at Penfolds and Saltram Wines) I decided to put the theory to the 'litmus test', and give it a go!

Was I successful - you be the judge!

Why Outback Jack? Well the name should be obvious to all who read the first column, but why the outback? By the way the dog on the home page is named Jack too (he's from Pernatty)

I live in the outback and I love the outback. It is a special place that builds special people. They are a mixed bag up here, "like a box of chocolates, you never know which one you're gonna get". It is almost like the harsh varying conditions of drought and flood makes for some "real unusual weathering" or perhaps it's just that we grow in more isolation up here and that lets us develope some more "interesting" shapes like crystals forming quietly in a "vug" or geode!

I suppose you are wondering what makes me an expert on all of this. Nothing really, except maybe the fact that I have had 28 different addressess, lived in 4 states (comotose, semicomotose - just kidding) of Australia - Northern Territory, Victoria, South Australia and Western Australia., and also lived and travelled overseas.

I've lived in cities, country towns, a resort - Uluru, and in remote places where you had to travel over 250 to the next nearest regional centre. I lived by the sea; on Defence force property - Woomera, Puckapunyal and Wotsonia Barracks. I've lived on small acreage and in small squashed up units. So I guess my life experience leads me to know what the bush can look like as compared to the city.

I can compare and admire and come to realize that the bush is the place for me! Hopefully this love will rub off on some city folk and you too will want to come and have a look at the "treasures of the outback"

(Outback Kids) (Outback Kitchen) (Photogallery) (Outback Stories) (Things to do_see) (Soups and Starters) (Soapbox) (Food from the Land) (Kids Colour in) (Maincourse) (Don't give up) (Home)
(Outback Colours Art Gallery) (Listening Prayer) (Australian Animals) (Port Augusta)

UPDATE - The Web Project so far - May 25th 2007

Well it has been an interesting learning curve. What I have discovered to date is that the building of the website is actually easier than the generation of traffic. I didn't really expect this after all I felt totally pushed to master the host, domain, build thing, but getting traffic - boy is that hard.

It first started with trying to get Google page rank. Not too hard, just get people to link your site with theirs, but who do you choose?

Websites with like minded information may see you as a competitor, or they may already have soooo many links on their site that yours gets lost in the crowd. Still I managed to get SA Central - govt site, Flinders Ranges secrets - local guy in town, a couple of christian sites one Australian two American.

These sites helped my pages get picked up quicker by Google but not in the first 8. Enter the "Big Bad Blog thing". Bigpond sent an email 'do you want to Blog'. Nah I thought why would I, but then I suddenly thought maybe it will get some people to my site. The added bonus I didn't think about is that this blog rates high on google, well higher than my site was. So I blogged and blogged and it almost became addictive. Then the double whammy came. My blog became more popular than my site. I was getting over 400 views a day. Sometimes upto 600. Only about 6% were following through to my site. Want to know the name of my blog? See if you can guess and find it?

So now I am trialling Palkey a new American search engine and traffic swarm
Come back in a couple of weeks for the rundown on how they perform.

I have scrapped traffic swarm it seems as if the URL's I had listed there lost page rank upon listing. Also the sites listed at traffic swarm were 90% money orientated.I got sick of looking at make money now adds, and you had to click on sites to gain credits so you could list your site.

I am thinking it is better to leave it to God, He can be the traffic director.

Update June 19th. Palkey is proving to be a failure too. Most people putting their URL in are just focused on making money and people are not using it as a search engine to find other topics. Palkey has not generated any traffic in the last 20 days.

I have discovered another purpose for this site, recipe minder. Now when I loose my recipe (which I do often, ask my mum) I just tell the kids to get on our site and read me the ingredients.

All about me!

I am a passionate person. Passionate about God and about my country. My passions lead me on a "life-long" learning adventure. Just about everything arouses my curiosity and sends me on a hunt for knowledge. (except proper spelling, on that I am a little lazy)

Being a "teacher" at heart I love to share what I learn. Sometimes in too much detail, just ask my friends they often ask for the short answer as they know I love the detail. Many times I get emails from friends asking me to research things for them as they know I'd rather do that than watch telly. The internet has been my friend since it makes research so much faster. However you can't always find what you need on the net.

I love people but I also love quiet times. Quiet times are important because I need to re-energize and to sort and catalogue my thoughts.

God is the main focus of my life. I have had an amazing journey with Jesus these last 20 years. He lead me out of the New Age and Occult into a life full of His presence and power. It has not always been smooth sailing though as I have had a lot of issues that God has had, as is still dealing with.

I remember once a Pastor telling me that God did not promise to remove troubles from our lives, but He did promise to walk with us through them. This I have found to be true. Whether it has been troubles of my own making (there have been quite a few of them) or troubles brought on by others Jesus has trod every step of the way with me.

My pet likes and passions will be evident as you cruise through my site. You will find that I am not "politically correct" in my thinking. If something offends you feel free to leave it, forget it or even email me about it.

My pet hates well maybe the less said the better. (I don't like housework ironing sucks, but I will sweep up outside anytime)

However there is one thing that really troubles me in this present world of ours and that is the "Prosperity Gospel" and the Emerging Church. They bother me because they twist the message of Jesus, trying to make it "more pollitically correct" because they think they can make friends this way. I have seen the "Church Marketing Gurus" make inroads to just about every denomination, trying to sell them the methods to "increase bums on pews".

I always thought that it was God who brought people into the kingdom, not demigraphics, not marketing stats nor the latest in music trends. Yet this is what they seem so pre-occupied with.

To me the Christian life is about dying to self and living in Jesus. We are called to carry our cross and follow Jesus. Jesus never focused on His needs, he just focused on following the Father, speaking the words He heard the Father speak and being obedient to do the things the Father asked Him to do.

It says in Matthew that we are NOT to worry about what we will wear, eat, drink or where we are going to live, because God knows our needs. Instead we are to focus on God's kingdom and the rest just comes. It may not be in the excess the Western Church seems to love, but it will be enough.

To this I can testify, whatever God has called me to do, be it travel overseas, quit my job and go to Bible College, make soup for a sick friend etc - He has always provided the means for me to do it. God never fails.

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The Outback Christians Section is in conjunction with Flinders Christian Fellowship, a house church that meets in an old shop. To find out mare about them, go to the Faith Statement section.

Hubby

Jacqueline & Jack

NED

Hannah