in my ears
“Just hope that as we remember Servicemen and women today we remember the Australia they fought for – wasn’t gay marriage and Islamic!”
He later tweeted this apology….
“Ok you are right my apologies this was the wrong context to raise these issues. ANZACs mean to much to me to demean this day,not intended”
Wallace and ACL you do not represent me!!!!! Don’t want to demean this day??? only intended to demean gay and Islamic’s ???? How christian of you.
I just had a mother and daughter come to my door. I opened the door and the mother said ‘Hello, do you have sin in your heart?’.
We had a bit of a chat and I told her that I sin all the time, she was shocked by this and quite firmly said “NO if you believe in Jesus dying on the cross then you are free from sin”.
I tried to say that I personally don’t quite agree with that and that I do believe that Jesus died for my sins, but that I will keep sinning even as a believer , that Jesus death does not make me perfect but does give me a gateway to forgiveness.
Anyway she was beginning to get a little to heated for my liking so I suggested that we may not agree but it’s ok to to have different beliefs.
She then asked what my name was and said goodbye.
No wonder Borders is in receivership, they spent all their cash on printing sale signs.
Sitting in the front room enjoying Tim Minchin’s show on tv I didn’t want to go all the way upstairs to do a wee. So I did my mildly regular front garden wee.
I went outside, did a quick scan of the footpath and our neighbors driveway, which seems to get an awful lot of foot traffic, to make sure there was no pedestrians, couldn’t hear any footsteps coming. (Thanks to the early onset of autumn our tree that provided ample wee sheltering has shed all it’s leaves.) So gave my self the green light.
I wee’d
After zipping up and turning to go back inside the engine started and headlights turned on in the car that was parked right out the front of our house. So someone must have gotten a little show.
So it’s now been 7 months since I lost my job and it’s starting to suck bad.
I enjoy being home with Oscar and Jenny and we get to do a lot of hanging out but with neither of us working there are increasing limitations on what we can do and the small boy seems to have a limit to his happiness just being home or walking to the same shops or park. We also have toilet training limitations in the things we can do but hopefully that will pass quickly.
I would really like a job and it seems to be getting harder and harder to find something and all the jobs that I apply for that i would really like to do and that have some sort of meaning or purpose require a bloody drivers license. Being proficient at public transport use doesn’t seem to cut it.
I also have the problem of no real formal qualifications in anything apart from TV production and it was so long ago that I did the course that most of the technology used has all changed. In terms of youth stuff and educating people I have many years experience that looks great all spread out on my resume with dot points highlighting programs and things I have run or been part of, but most places want online applications where you fill out surveys about your formal qualifications and a tiny box at the end for putting in a few examples of your experience. Some places don’t even want a resume at all, just a long survey with multiple choice questions that somehow spits out a detailed analysis of where or not someone is a good fit for the role. What do people in HR departments actually do these days?
Sure you are probably thinking I should go off and get some formal education then, and I’m not providing for my family now so I might as well not provide for my family while learning stuff at the same time.
Well I don’t want to, I don’t want another 3 years of no employment and I don’t want formal qualifications so I can then enter some corporate bull crap structure and climb the ladder to success. I just want to be a worker bee. I want to spend my days doing something that helps empower and support people. I’ve had 2 amazing jobs that have filled almost the last 10 years of my life, both of them where roles that pushed me and helped me develop a passion for others and seeing them make a difference to world, both roles I got to be stupid in front of people, I got sit one on one with people and I got to journey with people. Why can’t I get another job like the last 2? I didn’t apply for either of them, they both just happened.And not blowing my own trumpet but I think a lot of the time I was pretty good at both jobs, there was defiantly times I wasn’t but it was not because of lack of training it was probably of increased selfishness and me not putting others first.
Anyway someone make another of of those jobs happen.
I’m also looking in to running my own small business but that probably will never happen
Maybe I should become a politician. Or a late night tv host on a variety show. That would be awesome.
Oh and I’m not depressed or considering listening to jewel CD’s. I’m probably mildly frustrated.
This weekend NSW residents will flock to primary school halls to buy an over priced sausage and draw on colored paper with pencils. It’s time for us to vote in the state elections. This will probably surprise you but when it comes to voting in my local member I will probably lean a lot more towards the conservatives than I would in a federal election. In fact kind of polar opposites, in the last federal election I voted Green but on Saturday my vote will probably go to one of our local independents who up until recently was an active member of the Libral party.
Our current local member who is retiring this weekend has been a great advocate for the people in this area, so good in fact that most of the time you would not have known or cared what party she represented, she was always out supporting people in the community who had concerns. Old people who formed a committee to lobby for better bus stop structures, there was our member supporting them, towns rallying to get connected to mains sewage, there was our member. She seemed to have a real and deep love of her community and a strong sense of obligation to actually find out what local issues are and be a representative in the parliament for us. If she was standing for this election I would probably vote for her.
Her replacement will probably win the seat but he won’t get my vote because he has way too many posters of his face in my street.
But I probably will vote for the non crazy independent who has served as local mayor and also seems to have a genuine care for this community.
The issues that sway my vote in federal politics like climate change, immigration and development are mostly federal issues so in a state election I say just vote for whoever is gonna do good stuff in my local area.
In the supermarket today I noticed that you can buy a chain of paper people.
Back in my day you made them yourself, cutting up your parents bank statement.
Not kids these days, the little fatties get some baby in a sweatshop to do all the cutting.
If money was no issue, or at least if money was somewhat available even if that meant a morgage this is what I would like to live in.
I would like to buy a block of land that backs onto bush, then on that land I would like to build this:
This particular design is called ‘Parkland’ and it is buy a company called Eco System Homes.
I really really like it. You can look at the floorplan here
Their houses are designed to reduce need for heating and cooling and make use of natural light etc.
The olny problem is that this particular design costs around $311,000 plus land although it does include a lot more than just the shell of a house.
As you may know, our little guy is kind of toilet trained.
He seems to have gone backwards a bit in that if we are out and about he will say ‘wee wee’ and we then know we have a couple of minutes to find a toilet, shrub or Libral Party election signage. But if we are home he rarely says ‘wee wee’. It’s only when Jenny and I notice crutch related dampness that we run to the toilet and sometimes we make it. It’s getting a wee bit annoying! (Get it? ‘wee bit annoying’ gosh I’m good). the problem is how do we coach him to be like he is when we are out?
Segue to an event a few days ago.
The other evening after dinner at the inlaws we got in the car for the 10 minute drive home and about 1 minute into the trip Oscar said ‘Wee Wee’. We where on a major road and not sure what to do, Jenny asked if he could hold until we got home. There was silence for a few seconds then “wee wee” followed by some anxious sobbing. So Jenny quickly pulled in to a side street and I jumped out, got Oscar out of the back seat and pulled his pants down hovering him over the ground next to the footpath. He did his wee and then without any signals followed his wee with a nice big poo that fell less than a centimeter from my shoe. Jenny was still in the car watching this event unfold through the open car door. She began to laugh uncontrollably as I stood completely still holding a hovering 2 year old just above his puddle and log.
Thankfully Jenny pulled herself together enough to get out of the car and come over with some wipes to clean the small ones bum. Mid wiping and with Oscar still hovering a lady crossed the street and said quite loudly “Oh…………………I know you from church!” Luckily my big bushy beard covered my increasingly red face.
She kept on walking and I manged to relocate hover boy back on to terra firma and Jenny put him back in the car, after pulling his pants back up of course.
I very carefully moved my foot and turned to Jenny who had got back in the car and was still laughing. No verbal correspondence was required to realise neither of us wanted to pick up the poo and take it home with us. So I covered it with leaves and got in the car and we continued home singing along to playschool songs.
Leading Actor – Javier Bardem in “Biutiful”
Supporting Actor – Geoffrey Rush in “The King’s Speech”
Leading Actress – Natalie Portman in “Black Swan”
Supporting Actress – Hailee Steinfeld in “True Grit”
Animated Feature – “Toy Story 3”
Art Direction -“The King’s Speech”
Cinematography – “Black Swan”
Costume Design – “The King’s Speech”
Directing – ‘The King’s Speech”
Documentary Feature – “Exit through the Gift Shop”
Documentary Short – “Sun Come Up”
Film Editing – “Black Swan”
Foreign Language – “Incendies”
Make Up – “The Wolfman”
Original Score – “127 Hours”
Original Song – ““We Belong Together” from “Toy Story 3”
Animated Short – ““Let’s Pollute”
Live Action Short – “Na Wewe”
Sound Editing – “Toy Story 3″
Sound Mixing – “Inception”
Visual Effects – “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1”
Adapted Screenplay – “The Social Network”
Original Screenplay - “Inception”
Best Picture – “Inception”
Yesterday our Prime Minister and the little parliamentary climate change working group announced that a price on carbon will commence at the beginning of the new financial year in 2012. This was not a detailed breakdown of how it will work but just a preemptive message that it’s coming and details are still being worked on.
Within seconds twitter, facebook and other sites on the interwebs where full of two types of statements.
It won’t shock you to know that I align with statement one, but what shocked me was the instant whining about increased fuel and electricity costs. Of course the prices of these things will increase, that’s the point. As a nation we have a Charlie Sheen style addiction to consuming oil and coal, and just like Sheen if we don’t get into rehab soon our country will be axed by a major network of increased natural disasters, failing crops and drastic temperature fluctuations.
The carbon tax isn’t just a money grab to enable governments and politicians to line their pension fund, It’s about raising necessary funds to implement drastic changes to the way we produce and consume energy. It also has a helpful bi-product which is forcing people, business whatever to reduce our environmental impacts and provide avenues of alternate ways of living and consuming.
Now I have no doubts that whatever the details of this carbon price are that it won’t be enough to help us drastically reduce our nations emission reduction, but it is a step in the right direction and it’s nice to see us not playing the primary school playground line of “We won’t do it until they do first”. While it is important for other big emitters like China to make serious steps to reducing their emissions and important for us to keep advocating for this, it is more important I think that we get cracking.
I think the majority of Australians believe climate change is real and a man made issue. I also think as a nation we are pretty selfish about how we respond to climate change. I don’t think Australians on the whole realise that climate change is causing havoc already and that it’s impacts are mostly being felt by the poor in developing nations.
We are one of the biggest contributors per head of carbon emissions yet it is countries like Bangladesh where they are some of the lowest emitters that are feeling the affects and having to adapt to rising sea levels, more frequent and intense monsoon storms.
If the sea level rises, for us in Australia it will just mean rich people don’t have to walk as far down their garden to board their moored yachts. In Bangladesh a sea level rise of 1 metre would displace 30 million people!
Closer to home this video spotlights one tiny Island part of Papua New Guinea
For me this carbon tax / price whatever it’s called is not the whole answer to our nation reducing our negative impact but it is a step in the right direction. We also need to remember it’s not just about our government doing stuff it’s about individuals finding ways of living a more sustainable existence too. And if nothing else having things more expensive may be a driving force in me using them less.
Paying for travel etc for the familes of those killed in the boat tragedy off Christmas island to attend funerals was a good and noble thing to do and allowing the orphaned boy to be released from detention is a great thing.
Charlie Sheen is a silly billy
Cricket Australia needs new selectors and the dumping of Ponting and Clarke
Celebrity romances are boring
NSW election is boring and I don’t want to vote for anyone involved
With my very limited understanding and intellect I think recent events in Egypt is a good thing
My wife has probably already drowned you with the details of our little childless junket to Melbourne so I need something else to blog about but nothing much has happened lately.
I did notice the other day that I have taken 1000 photos on my phone so maybe I’ll go through now and make a ‘best of’ post. Does that sound interesting enough?
Tom shows the love
The boy
House meeting
dinner?
happy pram
dinasour
harbor bridge
Jo and Victor’s happy party
noob
slum during hail storm
almost perfect wife
hotels hotels hotels
Q&A
refreshing
B2
Wang Mart survives NZ earthquake
boy and rain
noisy
Melbourne splash
Not to be outdone by the Brit’s, in the weeks that followed, an American archaeologist dug to a depth of 20 feet, and shortly after, a story published in the New York Times: “American archaeologists, finding traces of 250-year-old copper wire, have concluded that their ancestors already had an advanced high-tech communications network 50 years earlier than the British”.
One week later, the state’s Dept of Minerals and Energy in Western Australia, reported the following:
“After digging as deep as 30 feet in Western Australia’s Pilbara region, Jack Lucknow, a self-taught archaeologist, reported that he found absolutely nothing. Jack has therefore concluded that 250 years ago, Australia had already gone wireless.”
(I Stole this from Richard freeman)
Today I found out that I didn’t get a job that I would have liked quite a lot.
Applying for jobs sucks, my last 2 jobs that i did for several years each involved no applications, interviews or rejection phone calls. Back door employment is my kind of thing. So if you happen to think I would be a great asset to your workplace, invite me to work for you rather than making me go through some depressing application process.
I think I’m defiantly at a stage now where I need to just find any old job. I really didn’t want to get to this. I’m kind of stubborn about not working for money but rather working for something that uses my skills to make a difference and if I get paid for that then what a bonus.But I’m starting to feel that may be a luxury and that I may need to do a job i’m not interested in so that we survive until something more meaningful comes along.
Here are some things I would like in a job, I don’t need all of them and they are in no particular order just thing I would like.
So I might be a bit picky, now all you have to do is call and offer me a job!
This afternoon after Oscar woke up form his afternoon nap it was decided that he and I should go on an adventure. I say decided it was more the response of a groaning noise jenny made when I said ‘What are we doing now?’. The groan was interpreted as ‘can you please take him and yourself away for a few hours’.
So Oscar and I ventured out into the blistering sun while jenny sat in the air conditioned bliss watching crappy home renovation shows on DVD.
We caught the train to Milsons Point with the intention of going on a ferry but Oscar had other plans, he wanted to go to ‘Una Park’. Seeing as I have an annual pass I got a wristband and decided to take the little man on the ferris wheel or as he calls it ‘big balls’. (as a side I find it hard not to chuckle every time he says ‘big balls’).
The line was pretty long but Oscar loves the ferris wheel so I went around to the exit first and asked if I could put the pram behind the fence, the friendly man said no worries and wheeled the pram right up to the exit platform of the ride.
We ended up standing in line for about 30 minutes, it was super hot, I was dripping with sweat and had to hold Oscar the whole time as he didn’t want to get down. We made it through the turnstile and where the first in line for the next ride. Just as the ferris wheel was about to stop there was a running water noise and dripping sensation down my leg. At first I thought it must the sweatiest I have ever been and that my man parts where trying to cool down with some excesive sweating, but then quickly realsised that Oscar had done a big wee and that somehow his nappy was on strike. My whole left leg was wet, my foot was wet and I was standing in a small puddle. I had 2 choices at this point
The problem with the first option is that Oscar wasn’t at all upset and he was excited about going on the big balls.
The problem with the second option is that it would be about 20 minutes before I would have access to the pram even though it was about 3 metres away from me becasue it takes about 10 minutes to load the wheel then 10 or so minutes of it going around and around. The other problem with the second option was that I didn’t know if anyone else noticed.
I went with option 2.
Which created a new problem, the whole time in the ferris wheel Oscar wanted to sit on my lap, he refused to sit on the seat or stand up which caused a rather large wet patch on my shorts in a position that made it look like the ferris wheel was a little to intense for me. Lovely view though.
When the ride did eventually stop I stood up and picked up the O man walking very quickly to the pram so it could be in front of me and hide my wet pants.
I changed his nappy on the grass under the bridge and put on the spare shorts jenny put in his bag then sat in the sun for a bit to dry my own pants before getting the train home.
Even though both of us got covered in wee I think I made the right choice becasue we had a grand old time.
I didn’t agree with most of what Howard did as PM but there is no denying that he acted on his convictions and definitely had emotion and showed his emotion, the same is true for Rudd but unfortunately I can’t see it with Gillard. We have a national crisis unfolding in QLD and our prime minister can’t make eye contact with news cameras, she is heavilly scripted and showing no emotion. In times of disaster and public panic we need strong leaders but we don’t need robots, we need to see that passion and drive and most of all we need to see the weariness and concern that an event like the floods brings. I think Julia if she does actually feel overwhelmed and weary needs to show us, without emotion there is no real connection.
