The original start to my Space, but that area has become too full of other things to allow this to sit prime of place...at least for the present.

Out beyond the asteroid belt, our Earth is a tiny blue spot, not visible for the fireball of the Sun. In the Solar System, it is not very impressive. Not a giant gas planet like Jupiter, or an impressive space traveler like Halley's comet, it's just another rock like many others this far out. Draw a little closer, with the infinite zoom of the mind's eye, and you can see the blue halo of an atmosphere above the darker blue of liquid water. Closer still and the landforms start appearing behind the artist rendered clouds. Darker, rising sometimes thousands of metres above the sea, the land makes rough fortresses to the invading oceans that surround them.

Dip down below the imaginary equator line that runs the girth of the planet and settle on a large, dry island. From space, this island looks empty of life; the majority of the landscape is rusty and forgotten. However, move below the clouds and finally settle on a city on the island's southeastern coast. Here there is life. Sprawling from the coastline to the mountains in all directions a city of five million thrives and develops. This is my city, the town I was born and raised, work and relax. There's nothing glamorous or exotic about this town, nothing large and powerful. It is only my home, and as such, it would be hard to imagine myself in another.

Just to the left of the tallest buildings, a structure previously known as Stadium Australia, looks like a large egg from your heavenly position. Two years ago, it was the centre of the world's attention, now it mostly lays empty during the weekdays, visited only by tourists and moths. Below the egg, in the city's southwestern suburbs, I work providing access to information to the community.

I have two reasons for being part of the online community here at h2g2. Firstly, access to quality information on any and all subjects is as important to me as it is to the physical community I serve. Provided with an opportunity to add to the diversity found here, opens up a completely new world for me personally. Secondly, enjoyable literature comes from the looking at the ordinary from a new perspective. From the views of all the researchers in h2g2, I hope to find new ways of looking at Life, the Universe and Everything;as I hope you have here.