howie’s halfpipe

Well yesterday was confirmation of a new place for us to live for a while. It will be my 14th place of residence and we will probably go to number 15 bwfore the end of the year.

I think wife is a bit stressed about moving casue she has never really moved before in her life. For me it’s more like a weekend hobby.

We are off to Waitara to live with an lovely old lady who we know through work. She has a big house and lives alone. so we will take up 2 rooms of her house probably for a few months while we look for a more permanant option.

I’m so excited about leaving the worlds worst train line and being so close to civilization.

Tonight Bevis and I went off to a inter-school social justice forum. We had to run a workshop on poverty and responding to it. Pretty much pitch TEAR a bit and try and give these young people a glimpse of what life can be like in different situations.

There was about 250 young people at the forum and they all got to pick 2 workshops they wanted to do. I think there was about 7 or 8 organisations running workshops. and they all ran twice.

Our first group was really good, it was all girls and 2 boys. They got into the little simulation that bevis ran and asked questions and took info, they listned whil i rattled off a bunch of resources and things they could be part of.

Then we broke for dinner.

workshop 2 however went to the dogs, it was a nightmare. no one listened. the boys spent the whole time flirting with the girls. They didnt take the simulation serioulsy at all. they spoke and even shouted over steve and no one listened to me. which in it self isnt bad cause young people enjoy a bit of fun. the anoying part was that they chose to be at this event but had no desire to interact or even listen to the material presented. and to make matters worse the member of staff that we had in the room just sat up the back totally silent. she sat there smiling.

time for sleeping have to be up early for a staff meeting in glebe

james is prawn just fixed my lappy.

Lappy seems to have a cold at the moment. He was working fine on saturday after a holiday to the UK but then on sunday he came down ill.

Mail - Mail opens and i can recieve emails but if i try to reply, or create a new email the program shuts.

Itunes - itunes begins to open but then suddenly shuts

even twitterific doesnt work anymore or any other twitter ap i download.

its and anoying and frustrating casue i cant fix it.

help me world. or buy me a brand new 17″ macbook pro

On one of the days in Dubai wife and I went to Wild Wadi. We bought a waterproof disposable camera here are some of the pics.

It’s a cool water park. Up hill water slides, lots of water.

What a day it was. Arriving in Sydney town at 6am after 14 hours of a no sleep, no leg room flight. Then the drive home followed by a bit of napping and seediness. Followed by cold shivers with a sweat. Followed by some toilet sitting.

Had a tops sleep last night about 14 hours all up!

Today is lazy day of laziness and lazing. Having my first coke in 3 days as i write this post…..mmmm coke is good.

then back to the daily grind tomorrow.

I am home and seedy.

I packed my bag tonight for our UK trip. I know i broke my own ‘day of departure packing’ policy. but for some reason i did.

Anyway I have packed socks, undies, boxers, shirts, shorts, pants, hats, drink bottle, shoes, thongs, cables, towel and other bits and pieces and my suitcase is only just over half full.

I’m pretty much the best.

one more sleep then i get to go on a plane, i love planes.

I’ve now sent out my resource kit that i made at work. It’s gone, posted, and emailed. So now thats done i’m ready to escape for 3 weeks to the kingdom that is united.

don’t really have a heap to do now so maybe it’s home time…..

there is no internet at work casue telstra are dumb, and now we have gone over our limit at home so its super slow thanks to dumb optus.  looking forward to the 5 mins of free internet at sydney airport on Saturday. Unmetered, internet kiosk bliss.

In other news Paul Mcdermott still hasn’t called me asking me to be a guest on GNW, must be waiting for the season finale.

Today was day 2 of meetings in melbourne. I awoke to the rudeness of my alarm at 7:23am and had a shower and a vegemite sandwich (not at the same time). Then began my walk to Richmond train station so i could grab a train out to blackburn. I really enjoy exploring transport in other cities.

I got to the station as the train was pulling in so i had to make a dash for the platform, I just made it!

Meeting today was good. Although i was pretty stuffed so didnt say much compared with yesterday.

at 4pm 6 of us filed into a maxi taxi to head to melb airport.

we parted ways at the airport and 3 of us boarded straight onto out flight back to sydney. The plane landed at 7:20pm and at 8:25pm i was in hornsby ordering a pizza. lovely.

It was good to go down and meet my colleagues and see the national office. Met some lovely people and had some good conversations, was also tops to hang out with david and sleep in his pad and talking over a beer in a richmond pub.

it’s not even 5am and i’ve already had my shower.

friggin melbourne meeting, friggen early flight, friggen frigg frig

We drove to Armidale on Friday, Drove home yesterday.

Was a pretty productive time, we planned lots of our trip to the UK. Not the kind of planning Gowers do but super duper planning for the howie’s.

Us howies normally rock up somewhere for a holiday and decide on each day what we will do that day and just stay and places we drive past and think look nice.

So i think jenny was finding that idea a bit stressful. So we have planned a fiair bit. We even know which towns we are staying in each night. On top of that we have even booked a few of the nights accommodation.

My dad nealry exploded with all the planning and had to go take some time out. I kept it well hidden that i too like the just rock up kind of style but its not too bad, we dont have a running sheet for each day, if we had that i’d run away.

Now the only hurdles that need to be jumped before we leave is that my mum needs a passport and my dad needs a re-entry visa into australia.

minor details

in the morning wife and i are heading up to Armidale to hang out with the fossils over the weekend. the plan is the organise a bit more of our trip and do some booking of stuffs.

we drive up in the morning and drive back sunday. 1 full day in armidale is more than enough.

with just over 2 weeks until we jet set off to the UK, I’m starting to get super excited about a 3 week holiday.

I think for one of the first times in my life there are people who are really starting to get on my nerves, more than i can ever remember. So it will be a lovely moment stepping onto the plane and taking a break.

In other news I think 2008 could be the year of howie getting a tattoo.

Today two of our buddies got married. I was all dressed up in a suit and tie. Wife and I were ushers.

It was a nice wedding, although the minister began his sermon talking about a diamond incrusted g-string and how he saw it on the internet. not your average wedding sermon.

The reception was fun too, at a fancy place in pyrmont.

now its bond watching time with sammyt

Today I worked hard all day, I was super productive.

Which means I should be able to send out my schools resource pack next week. Thats exciting!

I do wish jenny would hurry up and find a new office, all this walking is making me hot.

Don’t let the title mislead you, my phone number eventually got ported to virgin mobile. Take that soul you piece of crap phone company.

I whinged the other day when i discovered that the charcoal chicken shop in hornsby closed.

Today it re- opened with a new name and a few bits of silver stuff stuck over the top of the old decor.

It’s now called ‘Flying Chicken’

bit of a strange name, anyway it was important to see how their chips would be. Their chips arnt as good as the old days, this new mob gets a 3 / 5 for their chips. dissapointing.

today is the day when my phone number should be ported from soul to virgin. It’s an exciting day! 2 years of waiting!

Soul is a piece of crap!