Today at work after ben and I had been on a quick adventure to officeworks to get some stuffs, jenny and i decided to go for a bit of a walk around glebe just for a break.

We walked up the street and decided to do a loop around a few blocks that we havent explored before. Just as we where approaching glebe point road on our return part of the loop it started pelting down with rain. Jenny had a little umbrella. So she put it up and we walked together under the umbrealla but i was getting all the runoff from the umbrella and the rain casue the umbrella was so friggen small.

I was drenched, my shoes filled up with water and got super heavy.

You would think we could seek refuge under shop awnings but no, the bloody council has been owrking on the footpath for ages now and the footpath is closed.

by the time we got back to the office we were both water logged.

I had to change into a TEAR shirt casue my other shirt was dripping all over the office floor.

earlier in the day i made a comment about real men not needing umbrellas, so i’m not going to point out that if i had my own umbrella i probably would have been mostly dry.

After reading keith’s blog post this morning about his and stellas great bicycle adventures, I decided to find my helmet and ride to the french’s to hang out with hannah. I haven’t ridden a bike in years and since last riding a bike i have added just a few kilos to my load.

Anyway it’s a 5km each way trip, a good start i think, and there are quite a few hills along the way.

I found my pump, helmet, repair kit and lights and went down to the old bike that looks like its just come out of an archaeological dig, covered in dust and dinasour bones.

I realsied one of my lights had a broken bracket and as i would be riding home in the dark i set about mending it, with some hardcore glue and rubber bands to hold it in place.

My first hurdle was the driveway, i made it to the top of the driveway which is at least 5 metres long and my legs where jelly already. So the rest of the trip varied in speed acording to how saw my extremely unfit body was or how collapsed my lungs felt due to asthma.

I stopped in at the office to be greated by an ice cold 600ml coke which sure did help me get over that last 500 metres from the office to the french’s.

It was then that i could have a 5 hour break before the return journey.

Hannah and I did some jumping on the trampoline which was fun casue i couldnt really feel my legs, added a whole new level of fun to jumping.

I took my rubberband braced light out of my bag to see how the glue was going. It was doing well pretty solid, infact it was so solid that in trying to put the light back on the bracket i snapped the bracket, this time in a place that couldnt be fixed with rubber bands.

I spent about 20 minutes rigging up a light bracket out of gaffer tape and attached it to my backpack.

then when the time came i was ready, no cars where going to hit me, and if the did hit me my gaffer tape brace would have kept my $2 ebay light safe.

The problem with riding home was that the French’e live halfway down the world’s steepest hill. so to start my ride home i had to ride up the hill of death.

I did it, i didnt want to walk up it casue you look like a pansy if you are pushing a bike up a hill.

I got to the top with only a mostly deadly asthma attack brewing in my lungs, and i’m pretty sure i left my legs at the bottom of the hill somewhere. I cruised pretty slowly alongv after that, alsmot dying to death when i hit a stick i didnt see in the darkness. I’ve worked out that bad eye sight mixed with darkeness and asthma are a bad combo. anyway the stick let me off with a one foot on the ground slide maneuver.

I had a drink and breathe break at normanhurst before powering up the last few hills narrowly missing some smug pedestrian who was using the footpath for walking.

I made it home in once piece and will probably never ride my bike ever ever again.

On thursday last week jenny bought an ipod shuffle from the mac site.

We thought it would arrive today, but it hasnt so I logged inot the TNT online tracking and the shuffle is currently in PuDong airport in Shanghai. I would have thought that ipods would have been shipped from somewhere in sydney not from overseas.

crazy.

Different Coloured Cellophane (remix)

Back in the 80’s a bogan was born,
He sang in a band, foreign brimstone its name,
They rocked out the wooden hall next to the tennis courts
They rocked out Scotts’ backyard, the noise travelling to woodcourt

Back in the 80’s a bogan was born,
Often found in his birthday suit
He would moon his peers at the drop of a  hat  pants
He would moon his suburb with no fear or retract

Back in the 80’s a bogan was born
A self appointed ladies man
He convinced a nice lady to be his wife
He convinced a nice lady to bare him for life

Back in the 80’s a bogan was born
Now he’s a nerd working at a uni
Something to do with communications or IT or geek stuff
Something to do with blog reading, cyber stalking and mischief

Back in the 80’s a bogan was born
Your weekend enemy and foe
He’ll wake early on a Sunday and start up his 2 stroke
He’ll wake early on a Sunday, mowing his lawn and going for broke.

Back in the 80’s a bogan was born
Bloody nice bloke, his name is Scott.

Spiders scare the crap out of me, and this bad boy is hanging above the path to the front door.

Paul Kelly is becoming one of my all time favourite musicians, and this is being fed at the moment by his brilliant gift to my ears and wallet.

Each month he is releasing a bunch of songs some new some old for free!!!! Las month was songs starting with the letter A and this month B and its gonna keep  going each month til Z

10 songs this month!!!

winner, thanks paul!

www.paulkelly.com.au 

I made a discovery just before.

that discovery was that my fly was wide open, i retraced my day and realised that the last time i opened my fly was at home this morning before i walked to hornsby and had lunch in westfield, followed by a visit to the community centre and eventually an afternoon here with hannah.

its up now!

Mum came down and stayed with us over the weekend. She came to pick up some antique cupboard to something she had bought. It was fun having her,on saturday mum and i went and visited one of my cousins. Yesterday lots of peoples came over for some Wii action which was fun.

the low light of the weekend would have to be mum beating me in an arm wrestle.

Today I went to the Doctor to get my 3rd twinrix needle and also some hardcore sleeping pills.

My appointment was at 11:30 and I went in at 12:05…not too bad!

doctor man hooked me up with precriptions then sent me next door to the chemist to get the twinrix needle.

Why thell does it takes chemists so damn long to print a sticker and take my money. ‘come back in 5 – 10 minutes’.

I came back in 5 minutes and it still wasnt ready. Eventually the chemist man put my little box of goodies in the little basket then i got to pay and leave.

then it was time to be jabbed by an over enthusiastic nurse. She jabbed me in the arm and let me have 2 jelly babies too. She couldnt find the hole made by the needle so she said “lets just put the bandaid………here!”

and that my friends is that

Having two youth related jobs with fancy titles  (‘Senior youthworker’ and ‘NSW Youth coordinator’) I feel i have the authority to make the following observations.

Young people are getting more and more unreliable as the years go by, and on top of that they have shorter attention spans and less regard and respect for authority and leadership of most forms.

I know its a bit rough if i was to say ‘all’ young people are like this, but boy oh boy its a high percentage.

I get to work with young people in a few different contexts and in a few different roles. One of which is the MC type role.  sometimes its for large groups where there can be up to 100 young people and I dont think I have ever manged to speak without at least a handful of young people talking or oblivious to my presense even if i have a microphone. You may say ‘but howie’s thats just casue you are boring and we dont want to listen’ But i see it with everyone who does speaking in front of young people.

I could rant about this for longer and give examples of groups of all different sizes and at all ddifferent types of events but i would like to move on to my next point.

young people are unreliable.

It seems more and more these days that a young person will say ‘I’ll do that’ or ‘I’ll be there’ but then they are a no show. often its becasue a more appealing offer comes up or they just cant be bothered when the moment arrives.  Or they get distraced by their xbox or something. Maybe i’m from another planet but when i was younger if i couldnt end up going to something i would ring or find a way of infomring the person that i couldnt come. but these days there is no thought of that.

which brings me to my last point of disregard for authority and respect. It seems young people dont really get into a mindset that their actions can impact others in a posative or negative way. Or if they are aware, they dont really care. Not turning up to something, who cares!

Its all well and good for me to complain about it, but what is the casue of this slide in manners, attention and unreliability. I’m sure media has a part to play and also the higher rate of broken homes and family problems. But I think schools are also to blame. I know some really tops teachers at schools but i’ve also witnessed a lot of what i would see as dodgy ones. Treating young people like pets. A lot of shouting, accusing and being quite parent in how they treat the young people. I think if you spend 6 years in an environment where you are just told what you are doing wrong well ofcourse you are going to start switching off when someone like a teacher starts talking to you.

when i was at school there was this teacher who used to tease me about my eyes and make jokes with me and just chat. I teased him about being gay and old and whatever i could come up with. Its funny casue in his classes i always did pretty well casue we had a relationship not a woot woo relationship but a equal one where he wasnt higher than me or vice cerser.

In other classes i didnt do so weel and often it was the ones where i would get in trouble more or where teachers sore my eyes as a hinderence to their teaching and made me feel like crap.

I think young people lack that sort of posative relationship in their schooling and sometimes its even lacking in youth groups and chruches.

And i think its the casue of wy young people are so absent these days both physically but also emotionally and even spiritually.