Hi guys.

Wishing you all a happy Christmas tomorrow.  I hope everyone slept well last night.  It was so bloody hot.  I kept waking up every hour, which means i still haven't fully recovered from the last two nights of clubbing. 

The Mercury Lounge has a lot of older people there.  Which is kinda cool cos 20 years from now it could be me.  But i won't sleaze on 18yr olds like one guy did.  In fact the whole place has got these sleazy guys; i've never seen anything quite like it.

We nearly got killed on the way back when Judith's ex-boyfriend decided to run through a red arrow across tram lines and nearly smashed into a taxi.  I think the worst bit about that incident was - if we did hit - that the two girls would have copped it while i and the other "Novak" would have walked away unharmed.

I cleaned my room this morning - at last.  This huge Huntsman scurried from under one of my posters from above where i sleep.  It was probably there the whole night, maybe even the whole week.  How's that for a settling thought? ;)  I kind of feel bad for half crushing it when i was capturing it.  If she dies i'm sure she'll find out my intentions were good.  Unlike some people who use the most sadistic method of fly spray...Esther. 

All right, have a great Christmas everyone.  Don't eat too much.

Dave

Hi guys.

Not much to say.  Christmas was a rather rapacious sort of a day: 2 big meals a couple of hours apart.  I don't think i've recovered yet. 

Don't you just love this weather?  Just gorgeous.  Why is it as soon as i'm not bushwalking over Christmas the weather is nice and cool?  Damn.  Still i guess it's better than being in southwest Tasmania.  I think, when the weather fines up, there'll be a lot of people coming off the mountains and trudging across buttongrass plains.  This is not the week to be attempting Federation Peak (Aus highest cliff).  Only 50% of people attempting Feda will actually make it.  You can't climb it when the weather's bad - and the weather is at least ten degress cooler there than it is here.  Plus it rains over 300 days of the year.

In 2002 we attempted Federation Peak, but when a cold front passed through we were camped for two days in emergency campsites as blizzard conditions prevented us from moving on.  It was an experience though.  I loved it.

I might try and see Aliens at the Astor tomorrow.  Although i've seen it 50 times it's still gripping on the big screen.

All right.  Next thing to get through is New Years Eve.  Hope it all goes well for everyone.  I'll probably do another blog before then.  If not, have a good one.

Dave

Hi everyone!!!!

I hope everyone's New Year's was good.  If you want to know what i did, read Sarah's.  The whole tsunami disaster put a downer on celebrations this year.

What are everyone's new year's resolutions like?  I haven't thought that much about it this year. Apart from the every year maintaining health and fitness, i guess this year i have to:

• Work harder at getting a job.  I'm certainly gonna look around for writing and editing jobs, but technically rehab is still what i do.  I need to save up to hopefully climb Mt Aspiring next summer.  Love the split infinitive in that sentence.
• I need to crack down on running.  It's been a bad year, but - with the exception of 2000 - every even year is an average year for running & training. But odd ones are good ones.
• Most importantly i need to keep in contact with friends i don't see very often.  Too many drifted away last year.

FYI, the Chinese believe that if you wash your hair on New Year's Day you wash your good fortune away with it - oops.

I spent Scott's voucher on the Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe.  I had another $100 voucher too and bought Tremble by Tobsha Learner.  It's a series of short erotic stories but have a fantasy edge to it.  The stories are really good.  She's an Aussie writer too.  I also got Sex with Kings - shit pick up a pattern there - and a compilation of fairy tales.

K then.  Till next time, take it easy.

I'll leave you with my favourite few lines in Bram Stoker's Dracula.  Don't know why i'm doing this but anyway...it sounds cool.

Through my lashes i saw the girl with eyes like pale sapphire bend over me.  I felt a wicked, burning desire for her kiss - and a deathly fear.  As she voluptuously arched her neck, i could see the moisture on her scarlet lips.

Lower and lower went her head.  Now i felt her hot breath on my neck; the sensitive skin on my throat began to tingle.  Then i could feel the soft, shivering touch of her lips and the sharpness of two teeth, pausing, just touching.  I closed my eyes in ecstasy - and waited....

I saw the Count lying within the box upon the earth, some of which the rude falling from the cart had scattered over him.  He was deathly pale, just like a waxen image, and the red eyes glared with the horrible vindictive look which i knew too well.

As i looked the eyes saw the sinking sun, and the look of hate in them turned to triumph.

But on the instant, came the sweep and flash of Jonathan's great knife.  I shrieked as i saw it shear through the throat; whilst at the same time Mr Morris's bowie knife plunged into the heart.

It was like a miracle; but before our very eyes, and almost in the drawing of a breath, the whole body crumbled into dust and passed from our sight.

Hi all.

Yes that's right.  Hollywood is history now.  They are nothing.  They can't produce any good horrors anymore.  It's time to move over and let the big boys take control:  the Japanese.

I saw the Eye last night and i was blown away.  I'm placing this movie in my top five - although i should be careful there because normally i don't do that until i've seen it a few times.  But it's brilliant.  It's scary and creepy yet it has a good story line.  There's a Sadako type figure in it: a girl who was abused and degraded by the villagers because she was different, but really her intentions were good.

It starts off with a woman who has an eye transplant - which happens to be from the girl after she died.  The woman is able to see dead people, and she has to return to the village to settle some business about the girl.  I won't tell too much.

It's scary; it's sad; it has a great climax.  Esther, you have to see this; Mel, you have to see this, and any other stranger who reads this blog!!!!!!!!!

I also saw the Grudge for the third time.  I'm finally starting to understand the sequence of events, but i'm still not entirely sure how Izumi is involved.

These movies really get me excited about my own writing. 

I saw a classic P plater incident the other day.  It started off by me nearly getting hit by these idiots.  They drove down the street, and i was following them (on a bike that is).  They turned right and disappeared.  When i got to the bottom of the street i saw them again, this time driving backwards because a truck driver had stuck his door out at them so they couldn't pass.  He was hurling abuse at them - they were absolutely shitting themselves.  I laughed.

I don't know what they did, but they were lunatics and i'm glad the truckie gave them a scare.  They disappeared down the street so i don't know what the result was.

Not that i'm demeaning all P plater males.  These boys were knobs.

See ya.

"I've met a lot of people who get...kind of retarded the moment they become a celebrity."

Matt Damon.

Such a hot night on Tuesday.  I went for a midnight swim at Oakleigh pools.  They have a ten metre board there - which is blocked off, but the 8 metre's good.  It's more exciting because you can't see the water level in the dark, so it just smacks your feet when you hit...kewl.

Okay so i was kind of breaking in, but free's free.  And it cooled me down at least.

Today is the twenty-seven year anniversary of Ted Bundy's Chi Omega killings, his most diabolical yet insidious of his crimes.

The Chi Omega sorority was a college home in which many students temporarily resided while studying, all of whom were females.

Ted was last seen at a club dancing with one of the residents.  She turned to her friend and said, 'I think i'm dancing with an ex-con.'  She was right.  Later when she looked for the man, he was gone.

At 3a.m. Nita Neary came home.  As she walked through the rec room she heard a thump and some running footsteps upstairs.  As she hid, a man ran down the stairs.  He held a club: a log, and burst out the back door.

Nita grabbed her friend and they crept upstairs.  They heard moaning.  When they turned the light on they were horrified to see their friend Karen Chandler (21) stumbling, blood streaming from her head.  Her roommate, Kathy Kleiner (20), had suffered the same treatment.  But...they were alive.

Lisa Levy (20) from room four was not so lucky.  Paramedics tried to revive her but the strangulation was too severe.  She had also been sexually assaulted by a method too horrible to publish on this blog.  Her right nipple had almost been bitten right off, and teeth marks were discovered on her left buttock (teeth marks that became Bundy's downfall.  When teeth impressions were compared to the bite marks on Levy, Bundy received his 1st of 3 death sentences).

Margaret Bowman (21) from room nine was a most appalling sight.  She was found face down; a nylon stocking ligature had shrunk her neck by half - no this is not the Boston Strangler.  Blood was sprayed all over the walls from head injuries so severe, later forensic tests could not determine the origin of each blow.

All of this happened within 15 minutes and all within ear shot.

But Bundy didn't stop there.  He ran up the road and broke into another apartment - as though he knew what he was doing - and bludgeoned Cheryl Thomas.  Although she survived, she suffered permanent brain damage and consequent partial deafness. 

What i find fascinating about this case is the ability for people to sense imminent danger.  Two of the girls got up in the middle of the night - one for the bathroom, the other for food - and as they were about to walk downstairs a strong foreboding came across them: they should not go down those stairs.  Their intuition served them well.

Do you believe in this?  It makes good novel material.

Okay, so can me for writing this blog, but in the annals of sexual crime Bundy's one of the most famous.  And you can celebrate his death in ten days when he was executed on 24th Jan 1989 at 7.16a.m.

I haven't read anyone's blog for a while.  Sunday night at about 10.15 i received a message from Bushwalkers Search & Rescue (BSAR) saying to stand-by for possible search.  At midnight i received a call from my club delegate explaining the details of a missing young woman at the Grampians, and i accepted.

We had to meet in Brunswick at 3.15 a.m. before heading off.  I would have had the equivalent to about an hour of sleep on the bus.  Once at the meeting point we got briefed, and then for the next fourteen hours we were scrub-bashing down a rugged spur.  Blah!!!

Talk about exhausting.  Police, SES and channel 7 news were there; it was a big deal.

The good news is, one of the BSAR sub-groups found her, alive and well, travelling down one of the creeks.

The finding of her was very good because often searches are unsuccessful.  You either don't find a person, or when you do he or she is dead.  Police were worried she might have slipped down one of the vertical cliffs on the other side, and many sections around the Major Mitchell Plateau are very rugged and high.  But it was all good in the end.

I love the Grampians.  The first explorer to the area Sir Thomas Mitchell called it 'the noble range'.  Anyone into climbing and bushwalking would love the place.

Once i figure out how to paste a picture into a blog i'll put one in.

I can't believe Andre Agassi had to play Roger Federer in the quarters - my two favourite players still in (well one now) and the two most gentlemanly as well.  Couldn't they play later?

I hate Lleyton Hewitt's antics and i hate the hype about him.  Security must be tight around him because someone would have decked him by now.  All the other players hate him.  He's getting what's coming to him.  I can't believe he's going out with Bec Cartwright.  What is it with these intelligent, gorgeous girls who go out with absolute nobs of boyfriends? - Delta included.  As Matt Damon says, celebraties are morons.

You can call me a bad Aussie supporter, i'm glad - bite me.

Here's a bed time song.

FEAR OF THE DARK - Iron Maiden.

I am a man who walks alone

And when i'm walking a dark road

At night or strolling through the park

When the light begins to change

I sometimes feel a little strange

A little anxious when it's dark.

Fear of the dark. Fear of the dark

I have a constant fear that something's always near

Fear of the dark.  Fear of the dark

I have a phobia that someone's

Always there.

Have you run your fingers down the wall

And have you felt your neck skin crawl

When you're searching for the light?

Sometimes when you're scared to take a look

At the corner of the room

You've sensed that something's watching you.

Have you ever been alone at night

Thought you heard footsteps behind

And turned around and no one's there?

And as you quicken up your pace

You find it hard to look again

Because you're sure there's someone there.

Watching horror films the night before

Debating witches and folklore

The unknown troubles on your mind.

Maybe your mind is playing tricks

You sense and suddenly eyes fix

On dancing shadows from behind.

Fear of the dark.  Fear of the dark.

I have a constant fear that something's always near.

Fear of the dark.  Fear of the dark.

I have a phobia that someone's always there.

When i'm walking a dark road

I am a man who walks alone.

Only after the last tree has been cut down,

Only after the last river has been poisoned,

Only after the last fish has been caught,

Only then will you find that money cannot be eaten.

- Cree Indian prophecy -

Well now i've heard of everything.  Gunns Ltd (Australia's largest logging company) is trying to sue the Wilderness Society of $3.5m for disruption of its logging operation and vilification of its corporation.  Grrr.  These arseholes make me so mad.  We get shut down for standing up for what we believe in.  I wish people would see sense through all this.  Most of these woodchips are going to Japan, and they come from trees that are taller than the MCG floodlights, from an ancient forest that is about 2% old growth now because these greedy, malevolent fuckwits are burning it all down.  They think they can do what they want for money, and it doesn't help in Genesis 1:28 where humankind is to have dominion over everything living - great.

They're all mass murderers.  In fact we all are.  I hope we all choke. 

Maybe i should just shut up - i'm mad.

Gastropod:  n.  Mollusc (e.g. snail) with locomotive organ placed ventrally.

 - The Concise Oxford Dictionary

Mr Burns:  Smithers, what is the name of this gastropod?

Haha.  No matter how many times i hear this it always cracks me up.

I watched from Hell the other night - okay so a little overdue - which is based on the story of Jack the Ripper: seminal serial lust murderer of the Victorian.

The movie was quite accurate with the real life story: the high crime rates, poverty and drunken men, the contempt for Jews & prostitutes of the East End of London; not to mention the nature of the killings and the sequence of events.  Abberline (Johnny Depp) is based on the head detective of the Ripper case and the victims were all the same.  The double murder was factual; the chalk message was the same; Mary Kelly (Heather Graham) was the last victim found at 13 Millers Court - true occurrence.

The movie was dark.  They based the movie on the theory that the Ripper killings were based on Freemason ritual, which was one of the true theories, but...for the record (just in case you think the real Jack the Ripper was discovered and that the killings were based on ritual):

• The Freemason theory was ruled out when there were inconsistencies among the victims;
• Martha Tabrum was stabbed to death and not slashed and disembowelled as in the movie;
• Jack the Ripper had no association with his victims; he was a stranger and vice versa;
• Kate Eddowes' kidney was sent to police and not Annie Chapman's;
• Jack the Ripper worked alone;
• Grape stems were not found with each body;
• The Ripper would strangle the prostitutes first and then slash their throats;
• Most importantly - the identity of Jack the Ripper is still unknown. 

In the movie the Ripper (Ian Holm) was revealed, but this is based on the writer's conjecture. The true suspects were drawn up and included:

• Aaron Kosminski: a psychotic Polish man with a contempt for women.  Once he was caged in an Asylum the murders stopped;
• Montague John Druitt: the failed barrister with a family history of mental illness whose body was found in the Thames.  Tests suggested he committed suicide shortly after the final victim, Mary Kelly.
• George Chapman:  A lady's man who was hanged in 1903 (over a decade from the Whitechapel murders) for murdering his wife.  He moved to America, after Mary Kelly, where a prostitute was murdered in a similar fashion;
• Michael Ostrog - the Mad Russian.

Other suspects included John McArthy, Fredrick Deeming, Thomas Bowyer, John Kelly.  Motives ranged from seeking revenge from contracting syphilis from the prostitutes; others think the organs that were taken from the victims were done by a doctor who needed them for research.

No one really knows who Jack the Ripper was.  There was no fingerprinting or DNA tests back then.

Anyway, i'm boring you.  If you've read this far you must know something about this so drop a line.

It was Montague Druitt, hehe

There are some new fad words to describe how you're feeling:

Airfauxbics:  Any sequence of stretching exercises designed to cover the fact that the person at whom you just waved turned out to be a complete stranger;

Bedinage:  Playful repartee or banter between two blokes on the subject of their amazing success with the opposite sex;

Brietentious:  Descriptive of a person who shows off about cheese;

Bumbaker:  A person who has sat in the same office chair for too long, causing it to overheat;

CDecoy:  The groovy CD placed on the top of the daggy ones when you've got someone to impress;

Cellulights:  The especially harsh lighting found in fashion shop changing rooms designed to prove you must cover your body at all times, preferably with their overpriced clothes;

Coach potato:  A sports fan, usually a man, who lies on the couch in front of the TV shouting instructions to the players in the apparent belief that they can hear what he is saying;

Eelation:  The feeling of excitement when you turn on your computer and discover you have 20 emails;

McFamished:  The feeling of being intensely hungry 10 minutes after you've finished a meal at McDonald's;

Mansoon:  The sharp intake of breath when a young woman passes through a group of businessmen, and they all suck in their stomachs;

Queuecumbered:  To be trapped in a queue which slowed down the instant you joined it.

The male rules. 

We always hear the "female rules", now check these out:

• Birthdays, Valentines and anniversaries are not quests to see if we can find the perfect present, yet again!
• Sometimes we are not thinking about you.  Live with it;
• Shopping is not a sport.  And no, we are never going to think of it that way;
• Ask for what you want.  Let us be clear on this: subtle hints do not work! Strong hints do not work! Obvious hints do not work!  Just say it;
• Yes and no are perfectly acceptable answers to almost every question;
• Anything we said 6 months ago is inadmissible in an argument.  In fact, all comments become null and void after 7 days;
• If something is said that can be interpreted two ways, and one of the ways makes you sad or angry, we meant the other way;
• Wherever possible, please say whatever you have to say during the commercials;
• If it itches, it will be scratched; we do that;
• We are not mind readers and we never will be.  Our lack of mind-reading ability is not proof of how little we care about you;
• If we ask what is wrong and you say 'nothing' we will act as if nothing's wrong.  We know you are lying, but it is just not worth the hassle;
• If you ask a question you don't want an answer to, expect an answer you don't want to hear;
• On dates absolutely anything you wear is fine - really.

Okay, if i were married i'd be sleeping on the couch after this.  But it's actually kinda cool.  We really don't mind; it's like camping.

That's it now.  The play equipment at Ashburton Park has been removed.  I grew up playing on that.  I remember sliding down the slide with a couple of friends on rainy days and landing in the mud at the bottom.  On the last day of grade six the whole class went there and ran underneath the sprinklers.  Today i use(d) it as rockclimbing training as it has good horizontal overhangs and small grooves that push your finger strength to their max.

Next weekend i'm getting the camera and taking photos of other places i roamed as a kid, before they go too.

A few blogs ago i wrote about how Gunns Ltd - Australia's biggest logging company - was trying to sue the Wilderness Society.  Well...they did.  $6.4 m worth.

This really places a burden on free speech and standing up for what we believe in.  And if this becomes a step forward for the logging company then soon all old growth forests in Tasmania will be destroyed - forever.  I'm not going to describe the implications of lost species and ancient forest etc, it's too horrible.  But please...make a tax deductible donation to:

The Wilderness Society Inc.

GPO Box 716, Hobart, Tasmania 7001, Australia.

One person makes a difference - especially anyone international.  Tell your family, tell your friends, tell everyone!  Let's kick some arse before we're all doomed.

A man and his wife are in court getting a divorce. 

The problem was who should get custody of the child.

The wife jumped up and said, 'Your Honour.  I brought this child into this world with pain and lobour.  She should be in my custody.'

The judge turns to the husband and says, 'What do you have to say in your defence?'

The man sat for a while contemplating...then slowly rose.  'Your Honour.  If i put a dollar in a vending machine and a Pepsi comes out...whose Pepsi is it...the machine's or mine?

Has anyone noticed how much advertising is consuming our lives?  Damn.  It really struck me when i walked out of Chadstone shopping centre and saw a giant electric billboard advertising Kodak, that wasn't there before.

At the end of TV programs the credits are shrunk to make way for ads.  Tennis matches have ads after every game now and not every second game.  There are screens in supermarkets, McDonald's, frigging taxis that advertise.  This is only a small fraction of the scenario in Melbourne.

Given that 1% of ads actually get noticed then why are we wasting sooooooo much time and money on producing them?

'As a child i thought that if some fairy offered me three wishes, the first thing i would ask for would be the identity of Jack the Ripper; the thought that it might remain a mystery forever was intolerable.

 - Colin Wilson - The Outsider.

I've just finished reading the Complete History of Jack the Ripper by Philip Sugden.  First of all, apologies to my friends who are constantly having to put up with the same genre of writing with me; you must be bloody sick of it.  But my fascination of serial killers is like your interests in fantasy, Buffy and anime etc.  I'm hoping i can reach out to a wider audience - hopefully someone out there knows something about the atrocities and wants to share his or her views about seminal lust murderer and the world's most famous unsolved crime.

If you have some idea about this topic read on; if you want to be introduced read on.  Otherwise tell me to get over it :)

For those who don't know, in a time before fingerprints and DNA, a series of hideous murders of prostitutes took place in the East End of London - Whitechapel - between 1888 to 1891.  The total was nine.  Jack the ripper is inequivocally responsible for five of these butcherings in which he would strangle the victim; slash her throat disembowel her and, in two cases, disfigure her face.  These took place from the end of August to 13th Nov 1888.  The official victims were called Polly Nichols, Annie Chapman, Liz Stride, Kate Eddowes and Mary Kelly.  A woman called Martha Tabrum was the first victim who was stabbed to death - a different modus operandi.  And in 1891 Alice McKenzie and Frances Cole were murdered in a similar fashion to the five predecesors only they were thought to have been done by a copycat killer.  We don't know.

Okay, the suspects.  I'm not going to bore you with the details of the murders.  In this next section i'm assuming the reader has knowledge of this.  If not, research some more.

Montague John Druitt, the barrister who failed at teaching, was alleged to be sexually insane.  Mental illness ran in his family.  His body was found in the Thames River on the 31st Dec 1888, and was dated back to having jumped around the time the final victim - and the most grizzly - Mary Kelly was slaughtered.  His family was convinced that he was the Whitechapel murderer.  Now there are objections to Druitt.  Jack the Ripper lived in close vicinity to Whitechapel.  Druitt did not, but it wasn't impossible for him to make the trips and return early morning.  Jack the Ripper had anatomical knowledge.  With the removal of Kate Eddowes's kidney Dr Phillips believed that not only did the Ripper possess anatomical knowledge, but surgical skills.  Not a strong case for Montague.  My argument to this is that, based on Dr Bond's allegations about the Mary Kelly murder, the Ripper had no anatomical knowledge.  Neverthless, Montague's early days at college exposed him to anatomy.  Plus in the case of Andrei Chickatilo, he removed the wombs of his female victims so meticulously that they thought the killer was a surgeon.  As it turned out he knew nothing of the sort.  Could the same be said about Druitt?  Finally serial killers do not committ suicide.  Sir Melville McNaghten inferred that after the horrible crime of Mary Kelly the Ripper was appauled and threw himself in the Thames.  Well, the Zodiac and the Green River Killer were never discovered.  Did they suicide?  One thing is certain.  When Montague Druitt died the murders ceased.

A lot of evidence points George Chapman as being the Whitechapel murderer.  I'm not so sure.  I'm unsettled as to the lengthy cooling off period he had after Mary Kelly.  After Kelly he moved to New York where a prostitute was murdered in a similar fashion. Mmm.  Police believed it was unlikely to be Chapman.  From this point until 1903 he poisoned three of his 'wives' in which he was hanged for them in 1903.  He never confessed to being the Ripper when he had the chance.  One would think he would.  He wouldn't gain any financial advantages in murdering his 'wives'.  But going from slaughtering to poisoning doesn't sit well, especially over such a long time.  And many dissimilarities occurred among witnesses' descriptions.  But Chapman did possess anatomical skill.  He had the same medical qualifications, the appearance, the cunning and cruelty to have been Jack the Ripper.

Two more suspects Aaron Kosminski and Michael Ostrog.  Many ripperologists believe Kosminski was the Ripper.  The Polish Jew who had contempt for prostitutes.  Once caged in a lunatic asylum the murders ceased.  Except he was admitted two years after Mary Kelly, in which he refused to work; ate bread from the gutters and drank tap water.  The murders were too disciplined to have been committed by such individual.

The Mad Russian Michael Ostrog was a con man and trickster whose whereabouts on each night of a murder were unknown.  McNaghten believed he was 'unquestionably a homicidal maniac' but his sources on this were unreliable.  The most likely witnesses said they saw a man in his thirties and was average sized.  Ostrog was probably 55yrs and five foot and would have towered over Kate Eddowes.  It was too unlikely to be Ostrog.

Well there you have it: a tiny fraction of what's out there on the subject.  I'm calling myself a Druittist.  Information on him is limited.

 So many theories are present for each suspect - there are many more.  I think i should really settle for the fact that Jack the Ripper was a sailor who came and went.

If you've read this far you must be interested.  Hopefully you know something.  If you do pleeeeeaaaaase write back; i'm busting to hear your arguments. 

Cheerio.    

I write this blog in the fear that within a year i'll be shaving my head to blend in with the smooth dome capping my brain.  It's happening...

About 45% of males experience hair loss; 30% suffering it before old age. 

Each hair sits in a follicle. Baldness occurs when the follicle shrinks over time, resulting in shorter, finer hair.  That result: a very small follicle with no hair inside. Ordinarily hair should grow back. In baldness the follicle fails to grow a new hair.

Remedies range from pills to a $10,000 transplant, all of which are useless.

A bald man tends to do perform better at work, and while we are less attractive to women, we have higher testosterone than our haired nemeses.  Cop that!!!!!

Having attended the latest sports medicine conference here are the latest figures on childhood obesity:

20 - 25% of Aussie kids are overweight - a result that has tripled in the past decade.  We are now the world leaders which will take 2 generations to reverse.  Food portions are 2 to 8 times greater now than 20 years ago.  Junk food is too accessible.  We're just not encouraged to move.

Here's what they're doing in Singapore.

Singapore's Government is forcing schools to deal with childhood obesity by rationing food for overweight children and making them exercise during lunchtime.

They're regularly weighed.  Those overweight are told how many calories they should consume.

Thin pupils wear colourful 'i'm trim and fit' wrist bands.  Overweights are to exercise under supervision in addition to P.E classes.

Perhaps fairly radical.  Children need to enjoy health and exercise.  They get it from the parents.  If you're a healthy mother or father then so will your children.

To all the people - most likely female - who have a pig-headed athletic partner, read these:

Runners make better lovers but sometimes lousy spouses: that is the problem.

Runners are an introverted lot.  They like to keep their thoughts to themselves.  Their behaviour is at best anti-social, at worst utterly selfish...It can create an atmosphere that does nobody any good, and certainly not the runner.

(Carol 1981)

Obligatory runners are individuals who know pain.  They compromise their bodies by continuing to run when injured.  They forfeit jobs, marriages, friends and other pleasures because of their running regimen.  They plan their vacations around running and when they are not running they ruminate endlessly about time, distance, food and proper shoes...They work towards a lower percentage of body fat so that they can run faster and farther.  They retire early in the evening and begin running well before dawn.  They almost always run alone.  There is nothing in their lives that can equal the experience of running.

(Yates 1991) 

A lot of the time we know what we're doing but we just can't stop.  And we won't.  May our lives, according to this, be unhappy.  Maybe it's a hormonal thing.  It starts with 'T'.

Maybe swimming for ten minutes as far into Port Phillip Bay as possible; in the middle of the night; with no one around; nothing to save me, is a stupid thing to do.

Next time i'll go for ten minutes more :p

I went and saw the Grudge 2 last night (Jap version of course) and i wasn't disappointed.  Maybe not quite as scary as the first one but there are certainly some finger gripping sections.  There's more of the woman ghost, in fact some places she's very very close up *eeww*.  The house is back and the boy is back; that same croaky sound emitting from the woman is back.

Although there's still no story line, and nothing else gets explained, it's worth a watch.

I'm a bit superstitious today as it's the day that two years ago my cousin committed suicide.  But i have some news of my own. 

A few days ago i went exploring on some mindsay accounts and came across a bit of a domestic between someone called darklordslair and sk8ingonstars13.  I went and replied to the sk8ing one and two days later i received an email from darklordslair which said:

This is darklordslair and I see you've replied to sk8ingonstars13.  Your foolish and gullable (sic) nature has lured you into a curse.  Now you will suffer from my lord (assuming this is referring to Satan due to the name and the rather malevolent profile about the douche's hobbies).  I have contacts in Melbourne.  I know where you live, whitechapel - or should i say David - because all your computer's details are hooked up to a central database.  I and my hundreds of computer hacker associates have acces to this information.  I am like a god, and i would stay away from electrical appliances this weekend if i was (sic) you.  And if i'm feeling particularly nasty i'll give one or two of your friends the same treatment.

I thought it was a joke, but there were others who had visited sk8ingonstars13 who published a similar message.  A couple of days later their friends were horrified to discover that that person had been killed somehow by electrocution.  This shit's freaking me out.  I'm a little edgy today and i hope that you guys keep away from anything electrical and certainly those blogs.  I will.  If i turn this computer off i might die.  If i live through this weekend i'll let you know.

Don't ignore this! 

Wow.  I should take the 'boy who cried wolf' story a bit more seriously.  I guess my horror stories are more believable than i thought. 

 It was full of crap.  Those two blog addresses don't exist.  Actually I got the idea of the story from reading a mindsay squabble between 'pussypatter' and 'svenskaposaune'.  The internet is like a virus.  You click a button and within a split second millions of people can have access to unwanted information.

I'm fine.  Sorry if you got concerned.

Vienna:  Researches at an Austrian university have used human corpses as crash-test dummies.  Public prosecutors in the southern city of Graz are investigating whether Graz Technical University broke the law by using the bodies.  The experiments were questioned when the university tried to renew its supply of corpses. 

A local forensic institute had supplied the bodies and never queried what they were used for.  When the request was made to a medical university, it was referred to an ethics commission.  After details were leaked to the media, church officials filed a complaint.

If researchers did not have permission from those used or relatives, they could face charges of violating the dignity of the dead and face six months' jail.

The Age  11th Apr 05

A clean sky permits millions of stars to dazzle like serpent eyes - pure and placid.  Cliff tops overlook endless fields, spanning like an entrance to eternity.  Buzzing insects present themselves from admidst the sharp whine of nocturnal birds, ceasing at the call of an unseen owl, cinfirming her lordship to the nightlife.

And a deathly cold enwraps, inviting the darkness from a shadowed bluff created by moonlight.  No breeze stirs; the twisted eucalypts mimic motionless ghosts, staring back with haunted hollows.  A shooting star diverts your attention from the footsteps approaching.

Actually there were no footsteps - no real ones.  When you isolate yourself in the wilderness when its dark and away from any human, and imagine something scary is about to happen, you can see and hear things that are not there.

Try it ;)

Someone is going to have to smack some sense into me, before i get killed.  Whenever i'm surrounded by cliffs i'm like a child in a playground. 

I spent this weekend at Mt Arapiles, climbing (bouldering), running, writing, meditating, but when it comes to something dangerous i just can't help myself.  I climbed a cliff about twenty metres high with no rope and the only protection were the balls of my feet and my sore hands.  One slip - i die.  This isn't the first time.  Near the summit of Mt Taranaki (NZ) of scrambled up a cliff in blizzard like winds, white-out and minus 2 deg.  I jumped 12m down a canyon into a narrow pool of unkown depth.  I climb a three storey building on an aluminium pipe at my old primary school.  It's not enough.

I don't know why i do this.  I won't say 'because it's there'. Some psychologists say that people who take gratuitous risks have a form of mental illness.  I prefer the quote from an Age newspaper headline from about 1997 which said, 'feeling more alive when flirting with death'.  I think i might use that for an intro quote.

In the Australian 20th April a brief article was published on a new Ripper suspect.  Tony Williams is a writer and has claimed that his ancestor John Williams was the murderer.

Sir John Williams was a Welsh doctor and a personal friend of Queen Victoria.  The writer unearthed evidence linking Sir John to the murders while carrying out research on the doctor.  He discovered that he had treated all five victims and performed an abortion on Polly Nichols, based on old medical notes and diaries.

The motive was for medical research because his wife was unable to have children.

Well...

Jack the Ripper had medical expertise so that's a plus for this accusation.  The theory that the Ripper removed the wombs from some of the victims for medical research has been a long established theory.  However, if Sir John knew each victim then he would have planned to meet them at certain places or could easily lure them.  In real life that happened; however, on the night of the double murder Kate Eddowes spent several hours in the police station sobering up.  On her release she was murdered.  No way could Williams have orchestrated the murder of Liz Stride and Eddowes in that manner if he told Eddowes to meet him at Mitre Square.

Plus the Whitechapel murders were sex crimes.  According to Tony Williams the motive was research - doesn't happen.

I can't make any more comments until i read his book.  But the National Library of Wales has dismissed the research.

Mandy & Stargazer, this next one's for you.

I read Patricia Cornwall's theory on Jack the Ripper (actually i finished a month ago) in her believing the artist Walter Sickert was Jack the Ripper.  She made some good points, and i place Sickert fairly high on my list.  I think his deformity gives him a good motive and he certainly was a late night wanderer.  But i'm not convinced.

Cornwall made a lot of conjectures.  She was vague on what happened to Sickert after Mary Kelly.  In my opinion you cannot point the finger at the Ripper without knowing exactly what happened to that person after Kelly.  He probably went to France.  Cornwall believed that other murders happening two years later were attributed to Sickert, but those murders, according to the head police doctor Phillips, were not from Jack the Ripper.

An important witness in the Liz Stride murder said the Ripper called out the word, 'Lipsky', hinting that the Ripper was a Jew.  Sickert was not.  But given that Sickert was an actor and ripperologist Phillip Sugden believes it was a diversion, then my argument may not be strong on this one.

She's placed a huge amount of emphasis on the paintings and the letters.  The letters were hoaxes and even if Sickert did write the letters, nothing more can be proven.  She believed his paintings were full of malevolence and contempt for the lower class woman - emphasising that the paintings mimiced his fantasies.  This, again, does not mean anything.  I mean, jeez, some of my early poems from adolescence still shock me today but none of it is real.  Everyone has unacceptable fantasies, and so did Sickert.  Following them through is another issue.

Plus there's the issue of anatomical knowledge.  Jack the Ripper could even have been a surgeon but Cornwall has completely refuted what Dr Phillips has confirmed.

Jack the Ripper worked during the week because the murders occurred on weekends.  Sickert was an artist who could kill any night.  Why weekends?  Cornwall ignored this entirely.

Finally, based on the psychological profile developed by Special Agent John E. Douglas of the FBI in 1988, Walter Sickert doesn't fit the profile of a serial killer.  The only way serial killers can stop their atrocities is if they are jailed or committ suicide.  Sickert couldn't just stop.  He lived till old age.  There is only one characteristic that Sickert fits in the profile - that is, Jack the Ripper would have worked in a solitary job where he could live in his fantasies.      

So there you have it.  There is a strong case for Walter Sickert but i think that Druitt and Chapman have a stronger one.

Cheers

Barely any of my readers give a fuck about this topic but i'm writing this with the premonition that you'll look back in twenty years and say, 'geez, David was right.'

Our coal-fired power stations of the Latrobe Valley (Hazelwood) are set to expand to meet our greedy energy demands.  The trouble is the most polluting brown coal will still be used.  Victoria was supposed to be one of the cleanest Australian States but definitely not now.  In fact we produce more greenhouse gas emissions per capita than any other state.  We are the world leaders.  And nothing is being done by the Bracks Government to stop the use of brown coal at Hazelwood because it's cheap and resources are immense.  But the cost to the environment is multiplying.  About 62 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions are produced per year.  That's 24 tonnes per person per year.  The US release 21 tonnes per person.

Every time you turn on a light you're feeding Hazelwood.  As we move to larger homes and work in offices more reliant on massive energy use nothing is changing.

I know you won't write to the Bracks Government or write to the Prime Minister urging him to Ratify the Kyoto Protocol.  But at least limit the amount of electricity you use.  So - Esther ;) - don't leave your computers on when you're not using them. Don't have lights on in rooms you're not in.  Don't drive everywhere.

Be smart.   

I got this from the latest Mad which would have been published in the US yonks ago.  I think they based this on an actual episode where one of the characters 'comes out'.

But these cracked me up.

Bart Simpson:  In the fourth season, Bart had a pet.  Anybody seen that hampster lately?

Homer Simpson: While trapped in an avalanche, fantasised about eating Mr Burns.

Lisa Simpson:  Seeing her parents' straight marriage up close is about as compelling a motive there is to 'switch dudes'.

Marge Simpson   Counting the extra 29 inches of her hairdo, she's got the perfect WNBA profile.

Chief Wiggum:  Even for a cop, says, "Up against the wall and spread 'em," a little too often.

Groundskeeper Willy:  Rippling abs, no underpants, a breezy kilt...dressed like that, Willie could be Grand Marshall of the next Gay Pride Parade.

Kent Brockman:  Everybody knows that the last heterosexual working in local TV news retired in 1998.

Apu:  The sign in his window says "open 24 hours," but are we positive it's referring to the store?

Waylon Smithers:  If for no reason other than no Simpsons fan would ever see it coming.

Sideshow Bob:  With all that time spent in prison, it was inevitable.

Barney:  Has spent more time facedown in a restroom than any other man in Springfield.

Uter:  Always struck us as a little light in the lederhosen.

Ned Flanders:  Is the most 'diddly' guy in town.

Dr Hibbert:  Owns way, way, way too many "inappropriate, even for a doctor" X-ray photos.

Bumblebee Man:  For all we know he's a queen bee.

Krusty the Klown:  The only male in showbiz to spend more on makeup than RuPaul.

Nabendu Nahasapeemapetilon (Apu's 7th kid)  Character's straggering irrelevance allows left-wing Simpsons writers to feel hip and topical, without pissing off the conservative advertisers or the Bush-humping FOX executives.

Duff Man: Come on! The guy's name is DUFF Man! How wide open does he have to kick that closet door? 

Montgomery Burns:  Once mistaken for a space alien (and everyone knows about those guys' unquenchable taste for anal probes).

Comic Book Guy:  Never seen with a girlfriend..oh, wait, that's because he's a comic book guy, not because he's gay.  Sorry.

Milhouse:  Sidekicks are ALWAYS gay: Robin the Boy Wonder, Ron Weasely, John Edwards...

Snowball 2:  Who says all those hairballs she coughs up came from her?

Otto:  Has a gentle and loving touch whenever he drives a stickshift.

Moe:  He's around drunk guys all day -- things happen.

Would you believe i was the 1 millionth visitor to Mindsay?  I closed the site to see a big advertisement saying that i have won a free cruise at the Carribean.  Time remaining...000.

Dang.

You know something occurred to me.  I'm 25 and my bedroom is still covered with posters.  Some date back to 1992.  I was 12 then.

- METALLICAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA -

Here's a poem for all the arachnophobes out there.  I read this at a gig last week and it got the most reaction.

There was a huntsman spider in my room

Staring back at me

As if I were a mirror,

Its legs spread

fangs curved like a new moon.

Its presence unnerved me

            I moved

                        it moved

            I left

                        it left

            But it was somewhere

                        In a corner, a crack

            Watching me

            Like an owl with a mouse.

When I went to bed I saw the beast once more

In an air-vent

Tucked away so I couldn’t catch it.

But it still watched me.

When I awoke in the morning the huntsman was gone:

            Not in the vent

            nor a crack or corner

            – Gone –

But I felt queasy

and a bitter taste lingered in my throat.

They say you swallow spiders at night.

I couldn’t have, could I?

- sleep well -

As my friends know i can eat.  Here's how it can be a bad thing.

I left work needing sugar, so i thought i could sneak into the bakery and buy a biscuit before the train came.  Which of course i missed it.

The train after that had ticket inspectors at the next station so, being the cheap bastard i am and not buying one, i had to get off.

The train after that stopped for ten minutes outside Spencer Street Station.

Time was starting to press.

By now i'm getting fed up.  When i got home one of the cars was missing which meant dad had to drive me - in the opposite direction from where i needed to go - to the library where i got the keys to the other car from mum and drove to my destination twenty minutes late.

All because of a measly biscuit.

Here's a cool one:

"Be not afraid of greatness: some are born great, some achieve greatness and some have greatness thrust upon them."

William Shakespeare, from Twelth Night.

So i went to the Careers Expo today and - yay - saw Mandy at a stand, gritting her teeth, biting at chips on the run while talking with teenagers and at the same time thinking, i hate kids.

I was there to...actually i don't know: to find some direction.  Instead it exacerbated my confusion and insecurity about where my life is headed.

I'm currently working 18 hours a week on a poonsy wage on the other side of Melbourne and trying to save up to climb Mt Aspiring at the start of next year.  So the reality for me is to pull my finger out and get a full time job, which technically i've been trying since graduating in 2002.

By the time i get one i'll prolly be ready to take off next year for ten weeks and do a camp America - as i am now on the mailing list.  That's been at the back of my mind for the past few years. 

I wish i knew where writing is going to lead, so I said to myself, at the end of last year, that if i weren't anything by the time i'm twenty-seven i'll join the fire brigade.  Not too shabby.

But i'm an exercise physiologist, so i could go to Otago University, New Zealand, and complete a Masters Degree (as opposed to here).  But would i be doing that to get another *unnecessary*expensive* qualification or to experience the mountains and uni life?

What this is obviously leading to is the feeling that i've wasted a few too many years and i want them back. 

Last week i overheard a teenager talking to his mate about passengers on the Glen Waverley line.  He speculated that people getting off at Kooyong will pack in to the last carriage; people in the middle carriages will get off at East Malvern and Darling and people at Syndal and Glen Waverley take the front carriages.  I tested this hypothesis last week, and it turns out that he was right.

Is this a fluke or are people so lazy that they would meticulously work out where on a train they would sit so that at their stop they can avoid walking an additional thirty metres along a platform? 

Man...

I've come across some very depressing blogs, so i'm going to put a happy one on.  Because i'm in a smiling mood today.  I was lifted on the weekend and i'm still up there now.  I'm singing, laughing, flying; i want to take on anything that comes my way.

I'm aware that something will happen three times harder to bring me down, but right now i don't care.  I'm living in this moment now.  And it's just amazing.

Take your time.

HAUNTED BEAUTY

My hands search for her

to breathe in her scent

to caress her body

gently

like a feather on skin.

When I find her

She’s like a dream

Yet I grasp and embrace her.

This nocturnal mistress who descended from violet skies

A flame too intense to resist.

Trembling and tangled in her legs,

waiting for her to come.

I dissolve into a haze

like mist filling empty graves.

Her nails engrave red gorges in me;

Her bites ignite the cold crimson flows

in the chambers of my heart.

And the beauty lifts away.

She haunts;

sent my essence into illusion.

Severed from night

I lie

      alone

               awake

                           bereft of vitality

Unable to fight the coming of dawn.

It burns.

David Markham

17.6.05

I wrote this as a simple vampire tale, but when i read it several times i started to discover other hidden meanings and themes.  What did you find?

She entered the restaurant, her hair, the colour of a lion's mane, spared from the rain by the fluffy beanie capping her head.  The light beamed on her as if she were protected from darkness, her smooth skin gleaming.  And her smile reflected the delight in her soul, emitting her irrepressible beauty.

I remember every detail.  Her name is Sarah.  And a year ago today i decided i had to have her.

This is sort of a response to Jestar about dieting and all that crap.  Losing weight is in all the magazines and on television.  I've heard so many stories about "celebrities" trying to lose weight.  There is really only one way - involving 2 things - to do it.

Increase the amount aerobic (swimming, running, cycling, walking) exercise and decrease the amount of fat in your foods.  Fat has far more calories than anything else, followed by alcohol.  If you have 1kg of fat - extremely unlikely but still - you will have consumed 37,000kilojoules!

Bah who cares?

You can't lose weight by starving yourself.  A centre in the brain called the hypothalamus regulates your weight.  If you suddenly lose it the hypo' will kick in to bring your weight back to where it was and so you consume more food without realising it.

Exercise reduces body fat and that's what you're after.  It's piss easy and everyone has time to exercise.  Go to the gym, start walking - whatever works best for you.  Australia and the US are too fat, and the cost to tax payers is monstrous.  It doesn't have to be.

Our strongest thought will dominate our life.

The Evolution of a Serial Killer.

It starts with a thought - very early on.  There's a temptation, and a message tells him to try it.  His thought is exaggerated and becomes a fantasy.  He questions this but the end is not shown.  He is told to keep going.  These fantasies become fuelled by sado-masochistic pornography because excitement is granted - but not fulfillment.  He feels a high, an satisfaction, but it leaves him feeling depressed and disappointed.  The only way to alleviate his mood is to try again but instead of reaching the previous point he must exceed it to feel more.

Soon his activites involve paraphilia, voyeurism and/or exhibitionism.  He begins to stalk potential victims, and watch...sometimes for months, years.

He knows it's wrong but he has too much doubt and fear for anything else.  He could turn around and acknowledge that it's wrong but he doesn't.  He chooses to satisfy his addiction, turning rape into murder that will continue until he's caught.

Once he's caught he blames the enemy.

...He became socially detached and developed a 'diminished emotional response to people in general'.  His anger was internalised....He developed a fantasy life which, as he grew older, included the domination, abuse and mutilation of women.  As an adult the Ripper was an asocial loner....He would look for employment in positions in which he could work alone and experience vicariously his destructive fantasies....

-John E Douglas.  FBI, the psychological profile of Jack the Ripper-

Ted Bundy claimed - to be approached with caution because he was a pathological liar - that after his first kills he felt horrified and very scared.  But he continued to kill, reaching a point where he stopped feeling and caring.

This is the most extreme case.  But all of us now are having negative thoughts.  The message i listened to today from Gurmitt Gill was very heartwarming about how we can change our thoughts for the best.

The reason we become negative is that bad thoughts have an emotional charge behind it.  There's a stream of consciousness and patterns that mimic our personality.  When someone is left alone he or she becomes absorbed in lonely, self-destructive thoughts.  When things go wrong we tend to blame something else.

We have to rearrange that sort of thinking, have those emotions lifted so we can be taken to a higher place.  Battle the doubts and fear.  If we are anxious we'll have anxious thoughts.

Grab the opportunities and things will start to happen.  Take on whatever comes our way and we will overcome the obstacles.  Dwell on the positives and encourage ourselves.  Build an atmosphere around ourselves and push forward.

Once we start listening to the wrong thoughts we'll feed our nightmares and then it multiplies.  So be tough and stop pampering them.

Get support from others and don't isolate yourself.

Choose life generating thoughts.  What we set our mind to will ultimately triumph.  We can't ignore our thoughts.

If we start thinking positively then we'll act that way.  And it rubs off on others.  We were created to have a beautiful mind.

A midwinter southerly change and i'm out running at the Dandenongs:

bitter wind

rain

frozen hands

soggy, heavy feet

mud sprayed up to your arse with each step

cloud

fatigue

cold

bleeding nipples.

Don't ask me why i do this cos i don't know.

There are a number of bloggers who are in their forties - maybe fifties.  I just wanted to say thanks for coming on and sharing with everyone about your lives.  A lot of people seem to visit and comment on your blogs and i think it's because we respect your opinions because you've all experienced more than what we have.

Top work and don't stop :)

Even Satan can disguise himself to look like an angel of light!

2 Corinthians 11:14

14th July 1974 - Lake Sammamish.

Desiccated leaves that float in a breeze,

whispering your names to loved ones left anguishing.

Why were you chosen?

Was it that you were alone?

Your beauty?

The lively happiness of your soul,

that people loved and embraced everyday?

Perhaps that was the downfall,

shading your intuition

when the stranger greeted you with a smile.

But the leaves will season again,

as a remembrance of your charm and love for life.

And may your whispers breathe on the ones close to you,

to offer warmth from the cold memories,

and a reminder you are still here and safe.

To Janice Ott and Denise Naslund

-peace-

Warren MacDonald is an Australian adventurer of a different kind.  In 1997, while walking through Hinchinbrook Island, a one in ten thousand year thing happened: his legs got crushed by a falling boulder, trapping him for 48 hours until help arrived.  His legs were amputated above the knee.

After six months of rehab he has achieved some awesome stuff.  He climbed Cradle Mountain, Federation Peak, Mt Kilimanjaro, Central Pillar route on Weeping Wall (180m) ice waterfall, El Capitan (USA's tallest vertical rock face) and has aspirations towards an ice cliff in Antarctica.

Although he didn't directly blurt out the cliche of 'life is short so live every moment' the themes is his biography A Test of Will are obvious - that you do need to get out there and seize everything that we want without thoughts on the consequences.

My goal this summer is to do a guided ascent of Mt Aspiring (NZ) as well as traverse the Douglas Range of Kahurangi Nat. Park.  Other friends are thinking about walking Precipitous Bluff (SW Tassie) and a trip from Penguin to Cradle Mountain. 

This'll probably take 2 months all up.  I think i should just take off, leave my job, wipe out all my savings this year and eat into my life savings account to do this.  Cos i want to.  Then when i get back i'll be unemployed (I'm not new to that :?), pending a further loss of $1000 later in the year if i counsel on a Camp America program.  I have the application form in front of me.

After that, financially i'm pretty stuffed.  But it'd be so worth it.

There he is again for the seventh year in a row.  I'm sure the other riders are sick of him.  Lance Armstrong 7 times Tour de France champion. I should be careful with that cos there's still a stage left and he might crash and break his collar bone.  But unlikely.

Read his biography Every Second Counts.  He's not just a champion rider but a cancer survivor.  By the time he found out, it had spread to the lungs and brain; they operated immediately.

Although he was weak he came back to ride again.  Resting heart rate of 32bpm he is one of the fittest men in the world.

'I don't ride for pleasure i ride for pain.'

True true.

My legs hurt.

You go to the gym or try a new exercise and you say the next day i felt okay, but the day after i could barely walk cos my legs are so stiff and sore.

Sound familiar?

Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness (DOMS) - although still not fully understood - happens when the muscles are loaded on an eccentric muscle contraction (when the muscle is lengthened).  At a microscopic level the muscle filaments tear and the muscle membranes become damaged causing pain, tenderness and swelling.

Another theory is the release of oxygen free radicals that occur through inflammtion.  They damage cell membranes too. 

The possible reason the pain occurs 48 hrs after the exercise is that the cells die in that time.  When muscle tissue is being regenerated, the nerve endings are stimulated, causing pain.

As for reducing the effects - good luck :)

The best thing to do is train (:( for some)  Start slow and build up.  The muscles become accustomed to training and it becomes easier.

Stretching does not prevent nor treat muscle soreness.

A theory is that soreness is part of the natural process of muscle hypertrophy (increase in muscle mass).

Rock on!

Okay.  I was supposed to blog a horror poem response to Stargazer911's blog from 26 Jul, but got sidetracked with some beautiful music called black metal.  Most of you agree that it's just noise but you really have to sit down and appreciate what it is.

With my new life i have to approach this kind of music with caution, and i don't embrace the lyrics the way i used to, but the music is the best bit.  Limbonic Art (my favourite band) can stir some unbelievable images in your mind.  You close your eyes and feel the music and you'll be taken and flown to a realm of looming cliffs under twilit skies with swirling purple skies and a giant full moon.  It's the most awesome feeling.  The only - repeat only - other kind of music that can do something similar is classical.  As you can see i appreciate all kinds of music but black metal tops them all, hehe.

Here are some cool extracts from the album Moon in the Scorpio.

My face is a river

See my eyes as they drown in black.

My sacred doom and nemesis

Beneath the burial surface.

The final act of immortal sin

I'm led by funeral winds.

     Tonight i enter

Into obscure dreams

In darkness shelter

I am unseen

The esoteric gifts i possess

I bring damnation

By enforcing death

In the beginning of the storm

I'll come forth.

   Darkzone martyrium

Endless vast mysterium

Give to me the blessing

When i meet my destiny

Ruin is all there is to feel

And a cold reality of steel

Life slips through your fingers.

Now imagine there is a constant flow of a soothing guitar behind a dominant keyboard emitting gloomy melodies mixed with piano.

Course that's hard.  But music is beautiful. 

I am sick of people saying what beautiful weather we've been having.  Noooooooooooo!!!

Our temperatures are several degrees above average; our dams have not risen since the February storms, when now they should be filling; the snow on our alps is fair to poor.

Stop saying the weather's fine.  In the driest continent with a decade of drought, fine days are our nemesis and cold, rainy days are our friend.

THE OLD HAG

I open my eyes,

the darkest fiend.

The clock radio flashes,

a disturbing green, lighting my room.

It makes my mind cringe.

She has arrived…again

That plump witch woman,

emerging from the corner,

watching me,

having peered over as I sleep,

sniggering;

Her cackled laughs are like needles piercing my temples.

I’m frozen, like the ice of her pimply skin.

Her wrinkles are like twisted rose stems,

her hair stringy, desiccated.

And the boil on her nose, capped with a whitehead,

makes me want to spew my intestines out.

She compresses my chest

As she sits on me,

grinning, exposing her soiled teeth.

Her putrid breath is like necrotic flesh getting devoured by maggots.

She takes her clothes off,

and I choke on my vomit.

My autopsy – an unexplainable death.

A demon

Or the tricks in my mind.

Taking sleep paralysis and hypnopompic hallucinations to the extreme.  People across the world have had experiences like this, but some parapsychologists believe it's too much of a coincidence, and that there really is a demon who attacks sleeping people.

Woohoo, yesterday i climbed the West Ridge of Mt Buller :) which is a back route (away from the ski runs) that's the closest a Victorian can get to mountaineering.  Awesome dumping of snow we had on Thursday.  This time i made it to the summit.  I almost turned around but found a way up eventually.  Although getting down was the harder part.  I slipped on a rock and nearly fell about five metres where i potentially could have rolled down to the tree line.  And yes i was by myself so no one would have found me until maybe this afternoon.

But it feels good.

Victoria Beckham is writing an autobiography.  Here's what she says:

"I haven't read a book in my life.  I haven't got enough time.  I prefer to listen to music, although i do love fashion magazines."

Last night i had a dream that a Tyrannosaurus Rex was attacking people - including me.  It was like a huge game of British Bulldog.  Eventually i became too exhausted to run away and it devoured me.  I woke up.

I looked it up in my book of dream interpretation and the closest i came was if a reptile attacks you there is trouble of a serious nature ahead.  Mmm....

Heads up, people, it's magpie swooping season.  I didn't think it was this early.  As i'm riding along i felt this tapping on my helmet, and i noticed a shadow of a magpie.  The idea is to look them in the eye, and they'll ease up, but i had to concentrate on the road.  So the damn thing continued to swoop.  I was trying to fend it off on an 80km/hr road with cars behind me.

I didn't think magpies came in to physical contact with you - even the savage country ones don't.  Ironically it was the same maggie attacking me at the same place as last year.

Oh yeah, and i saw the Belgrave Wizard again today.  Man that guy's a cack.

My friend from Cell group had a vision she would sprain her ankle on Mt Buller yesterday, and it was probably not a good idea to go.  And with adverse weather and an overheated radiator were obvious signs but we were still keen to go snowboarding.

In the end, once we were already on the mountain, we decided not to.  It was white-out up there with only one lift operating due to strong winds, and the only section you could really ski on was a small, narrow slope not worth going on.

But this other girl (we'll call her Mary) and i went off on a small snow drift to slide down on a taboggan.  I never imagined she'd break her leg when she hit the bottom.  So in freezing temperatures i had to look after her cos she couldn't move.  Fortunately one of the village staff members (i don't know what he officially did) walked past and had a radio where he called the ski patrol.  A couple of them came with a stretcher where we were finally able to carry her to the medical centre.

The doctors there assessed her, jabbed her with a lot of painkillers and took x-rays.  As it turned out she had broken two bones in her leg - that includes the tibia!

She was immediately transported to Mansfield and subsequently sent to Wangaratta Hospital for surgery that night, which meant we - the rest of the group - drove a further hour and a half to get there to see her.  Man...that was a huge day.

It was good in a way because being new to the Cell group i could see the strong fellowship of it, and i feel a huge part of them now.

By the way, guys, girls can hold your hand pretty bloody tightly when they're in pain.

Homer Simpson:  "I'm used to seeing people being promoted ahead of me..."

Not that my colleague's promoted - that's impossible in our position.  I've sort of complained that my job isn't challenging and that after four years of uni i'm not doing what i do, and that anyone can do my job; however,  my colleague, who hasn't been there as long as i have, is getting more responsibility than me.

I'm supposed to be shining at work - thank yous to Nicole Connor :) - but clearly i'm not.  I just don't have the personality to be pro-active and deal with people effectively the way some people seem to.  Even in past jobs people are always achieving more.  They see me as a dag, someone who just floats through.  They're right.

Though the residents see me as a gentleman, kind and supportive, and they're very grateful when i sit down and talk with them about their lives, except the manager never notices.  She wants speed and lots of things happening till we don't have time for documentation.  Then again, she's not really a people person and she is very discouraging.

Well i can focus on the positives:

I'm blessed with at least some sort of finance;

Although i can't see it, i've been positioned there for a reason;

and i'm doing something good to improve older adults' quality of life.

But i'm still feeling left behind.  I can work my arse off if i desire it; i just don't think this is the right place for that.

So i don't know.  I'll go climb a mountain.

I've just finished reading this book, which is one of the latest books published about the infamous Whitechapel murderer of 1888.

Let me just establish something first.  My readers here will know something about the Ripper; i'm not going to explain everything cos we'd be here all day.  However, if you don't know much about him, feel free to read on but don't complain if you get lost.

John Williams is the author, Tony Williams's, great-great Uncle.  Tony was researching his family history and came across John Williams for his work at the National Library of Wales.  John was an obstetrician and gynaecologist.  Tony never imagined he would unearth something about him that no one would have imagined.  John Williams spent some years living and working in Whitechapel at the same time the Ripper reigned.  Tony also discovered that John had performed an abortion on the *official* first victim, Polly Nichols.  He also had contact with Annie Chapman and Kate Eddowes, as well as evidence connecting Williams to Mary Kelly - guessing she was his mistress.

The motives behind the killings were because John Williams could not conceive a child with his wife, and that the abdominal mutilation and subsequent organ removal of the victims - Kate Eddowes especially - was for his own scientific research.

Okay, let's set this right.  The Jack the Ripper murders were sex murders.  Let's not get diverted with satanic theories, freemason theories, the Russian sent to embarrass British authorities or even research theories.  Jack the Ripper was the seminal modern day serial sex murderer.  The act of killing and cutting his victims was the act of sex.  In fact the true definition of a serial killer is one who kills to fulifill his sexually sadistic fantasies.  Based on that John Williams's motives would have been all wrong.  There's no way he would murder with such ferocity just for the sake of research.  There's psychology behind the face slashing.  The Ripper hated himself so much that he slashed two victims' faces so they were uglier than he.  John Williams had a normal upbringing - in fact there was evidence that he enjoyed his childhood.  Already a problem there.

Tony Williams postulated that John was only after Mary Kelly - due to the amount of mutilation.  That's just not true.  The Ripper was indoors away from the streets and had all the time in the world to savage her.  The fact that she may have been Williams's mistress Tony Williams speculates that she could have suspected John and was blackmailing him, so he killed her, moreso than the others.  And because she was more attractive and younger meant more to him.  But the killings worsened as they went along.  Kelly was the final act of his atrocities before moving on to wherever.  No one can say that the other victims were flukes.

Tony Williams surmised that the reason the murders ceased was because John Williams could not solve the mystery of his wife's infertility so he gave up; or perhaps because the police were getting too close; or because he was overcome with guilt - hence his early retirement.  All are hopeless guesses.  Clearly Tony Williams is not tuned in to the mind of a serial killer - although based on his book Jack the Ripper is not actually the definition of a serial killer.  Lust murderers cannot just stop.  The only time they do is if they are caught or dead.  Just look at the victims.  Did the Ripper have any remorse?  John Williams had a normal upbringing; therefore, he would have had a conscience.  It's too far fetched.

John Williams knew four of the victims.  I stopped to think about this because he made some good points.  But there weren't many obstetricians and gynaecologists in those days, and Williams was one of the leading doctors.  It's very likely the victims would have come across him in his time at the infirmary but that doesn't prove anything.  John Williams was successful at what he did - again another glitch in the mind of a serial killer - in fact he was so successful that he made contact with the Royal Family.  He continued working for the National Library after retiring.  Doesn't happen.  Serial killers, although having above average intelligence, perform poorly at work.

Three main witnesses - not George Hutchinson - Joseph Lawende, Israel Schwartz and William Smith were the ones who probably saw the Ripper himself.  Tony Williams stated that Hutchinson was the main witness but he was unreliable with his account with whom Mary Kelly was speaking.  In the Liz Stride affair and even Kate Eddowes, Jack the Ripper had been spotted.  He was in his early twenties.  At the time of the Whitechapel murders John Williams was 48.

Another thing worth noting is that Jack the Ripper was probably a Jew, not because of the chalk message 'The Juwes(sic) are the men that will not be blamed for nothing' but when he was nearly caught after Liz Stride the Ripper called out the word lipski.  Not something John Williams is likely to do.

There's a lot to cover with Jack the Ripper.  Tony Williams has not focused on the facts but made a lot of conjectures based on circumstantial evidence.  There are two reasons which made me think John Williams might be Jack the Ripper:

1.  He was a doctor;

2.  The victims knew him.

That's not enough.  It's all to do with what happened after Mary Kelly.  John retired and worked on establishing the library.  He stopped because he felt remorse.  Well i'm sorry but anyone who believes that is just not switched on.

Please reply and tell me your thoughts.

The next book i want to read is Jack the Ripper: 21st Century Investigation by Trevor Marriot which explores the sailor theory in more detail.  And i haven't read about the physician yet.

Wooohoooo! At last i've finished the second draft of my novel!!!  It feels good, probably better than last year cos i've added another year to that, and my writing's improved since then.  It's now >85,000 words which is 15,000 more than draft one.  The idea is to cut.  Guess i'll do that next year.

Man what a ride.  Sometimes i could just write without stopping when i was on such an adrenalin charged groove.  Other times i was really flat and many times i thought my writing was so shit i wanted to tear up the pages and burn them.  It's so lonely writing.  You sit in a room with no one around, just paper, a screen and your mind.  There's still sooooooooo much work to do.  I reckon another five years on the same novel and i'll still be trying to get it right.  Well, i'm driven.  Even if i never get published at least it's still satisfying.

I've nailed the serial killer stuff.  I have to work on the ghost and apparition aspect because i don't think much of it was believable; however, it's more defined than last year, and at least the themes are down now and can get worked on.  And i need to work on a couple of characters, especially in their friendships.  Plus having just done the finish i think it's unexciting.  There's no twist at the end or last minute action.  It all gets meshed together.  It's kind of hard to keep it the way you want it when God's tapping on your shoulder saying go another way.

From here i'll leave it completely till January.  Then i'll make changes based on the workshopped chapters and read through it.  You know i haven't read it as a whole, only editing chapter by chapter. 

Thanks to all the cool people who have supported and encouraged me throughout the last two years.  I'll still need you: Esther, Mel, Martyn, Sarah and if you want to throw in Gary then so be it.  Actually his feedback is really good.

Kick arse.

See you guys round.

Due to high petrol prices people are finally accepting the greener, healthier method of catching public transport or riding to work.  Guess it's better late than never.

Sorry there aren't any photos.  Even pasting ones from Google sites didn't work.  I spent last weekend and the one before walking and climbing on Mt Feathertop and the West Ridge of Mt Buller.  It's cool cos there are still snow drifts left on some of the slopes.  The sun's out but it's not too hot.

I love finding a place on my own and just meditate, embrace the views and the majesty of the wilderness and God's glory.  Makes you shiver; it's just awesome.

At night there are so many more stars than in the city and when you wake up in the morning, clouds surround you in piles.  You can see into the valley through the gaps, but you feel as if you're above the clouds as the summit of the mountain (hill compared with other countries) pierces the sky.

It's got me all inspired to do more; it's been a slow year bushwalking wise.  I'm planning all my trips for next year.  Actually here's a really cool quote by H.E Newton:

"I cannot explain it, a man must feel it, but once he has felt it he will divide his year into two equal halves, one half looking back on his last trip, and the other preparing and planning for next year."

Actually i've paid for a flight to New Zealand and a deposit for a guided ascent of Mt Aspiring.  One wonders how i'll afford Christmas pressies this year but it'll be so worth it.

I went to a...er...business enterprise i guess you call it.  Basically one of those brainwahing 'make megabucks by handing someone a form and getting them to sign it' type things - a US $1billion company.  It was a seminar in a room filled with men in power suits with slick hair, chewing gum.  I only went because a...friend? a bit of a flirt - that's probably why i went with her :p - invited me and she knew i was looking for work.

But i was glad to get out of there.  I feel really dirty.

There's something about this weekend of this month that everyone was born.  I had a 30th on Friday then a 21st.   Then there were others.

So happy birthday to (alphabetically so no prioritising):

Anita (actually no one else knows her but there's the plug;

Esther jestar ;

Jarrod jazza ;

soapboxtop 

Many happy returns and have an awesome year ahead.

Anyone else i've missed?

Well there it is; i guess i should have seen it coming.  I'm at least hoping the letters i wrote accounted for something, but obviously not.  The climate killing Hazelwood power station has been approved to be expanded to at least 2030.  That will mean 445 million tonnes of greenhouse pollution - that's an extra 105 million cars on the road for a year.  This is an environmental tragedy.  We're already feeling the heat from climate change and Premier Bracks has now crossed the line to speed the process up.  Hey why not?  There will now be 43 million tonnes of new coal which will pollute for another 25 years.  The other issue is that the technology is old.  Hazelwood is already the the most coal-fire polluting station in the western world.  Brown coal is the dirtiest of them all.  Now it's up to green groups to take legal action.  It's not easy because there's still not a lot of support - yeah i'm talking to you bloggers who ignored my previous warning.  Every individual can make a difference.  People think that global warming is an environmental problem and take no responsibility for it.  It's too hard, too big, too intangible - and people don't know where to start.  Start by either joining the Wilderness Society, Australian Conservation Foundation, Environment Victoria, Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace.  Make donations - tax deductible bear in mind - and help community groups plant trees.  Be wise with how you use energy.  Victorians are extremely greedy when it comes to energy use, thus why the expansion is going ahead.  Every bit of electricity you use is feeding Hazelwood.  The locals of Moreland and Traralgon are coming down with chest infections, eye problems, skin problems because of the smoke.

Okay...fuck.

Did you know:

150 million people will become refugees because of climate change by 2050;

Victorian dams will drop a further 35% by 2050;

The poorest people of the poorest countries will be hardest hit;

Insurance premiums are expected to increase because of the economic cost of climate change.

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I heard this briefly on the radio so it's anecdotal.

When we are angry we eat meat;

When we are sad we go for chocolate and sugary foods;

When we are lonely we eat custard and ice-cream;

When we are sexually frustrated we eat chips, hamburgers etc;

and when we're jealous we indulge in everything.

Have you noticed this month the bright, reddish spark in the nightsky?  That's Mars, and this month it's very close to Earth.  So get out now into the country and look for it because it won't be this close again until 2018.

I'm right in the middle of a transition period.  I went to another 30th last night - actually same person, different night.  It was a three course meal at a jazz club, dancing and heaps and heaps of people; this is one popular girl.  The dancing was fairly laid back with tango and rumba etc which was still heaps of fun.  And it's great mixing with slightly older people whether they are engaged, married or single.  But the pace is slower.  They get tired quicker.

There's another part of me that's still screaming to go nuts at clubs, and friends are still having 21st which sort of brings your age down a notch - at least that's how it feels.  But there's not much for the people in their mid-twenties.  We're in between.

Got home last night and the house had been egged  :|

Chris MacNeil:  ...the Devil keeps advertising, Father.  The Devil does lots of commercials.

Father Dyer:  But if all the evil in the world makes you think that there might be a devil then how do you account for all the good in the world?

Probably a little overdue in reading the Exorcist by William Peter Blatty, but i'm glad i did.  What you get in the movie is pretty much based on the book - including the spider walk down the stairs, right, Esther :p  It's a really really good book and i'm aware that most people stay away from it, but the most obvious theme is have faith in Christ.  I found it interesting the way Blatty made it out that the victim was not Regan but the people helping her.  Mostly through Damien Karras who felt guilty over his mother's death.  The demon attacked him this way.  And the metaphor behind that, i found, is that the Enemy can gain a foothold on us through emotions like guilt.  But the power of Christ will wash us clean.

I also loved how Blatty explored heaps of psychological reasons behind why people think they are possessed, and all the brain activity and psychophysiology behind it.  I loved it.  The novel does not have malevolent intentions - the complete opposite actually.  I wish i could write like this. 

Here's a thought that's been at the back of my mind for the past five years and has suddenly slapped me in the face - to go to America for three months and work on a summer camp.  It's probably the best chance i have to do it next year being single, young and not working full time.  These camps sound like the most awesome fun.  I'd do a special needs group or specialise as a hiking counsellor or something. 

And the way they work the visas allows you to spend another month in the US travelling.  I'll go to Colorado and go climbing.  Anyone know of any other cool places?

Then when i get back i'd be broke and unemployed.

It was my dad's 60th birthday last night.  Can you believe that?  60!  But he's doing well though, that's for sure.  We went out as a family for dinner, and he's meeting more friends today.

Today was the Olympic Dream fun run.  Considering i'm out of training, went out the last two nights and my legs were like tanks, my time was pretty good.  So at least i haven't lost too much ability.

Man it's kind of a sad moment for the last day of class last night, knowing you won't see anyone for a while.  But at least our group is strong and we won't lose contact as i have done with past courses.  There's still Christmas, Naomi's birthday and we're probably going away for a few days over summer - somewhere where there's lots of water :p

Awesome stuff for Jarrod, winning the best first year award!!!!!!!!!

Can you believe that Greenies had a win?  Letters, petitions and donations do make a difference.  After five years of campaigning for the wild rivers of Queensland the government passed the new Wild Rivers Act 2005.  Now these life-giving rivers are finally protected and will sustain our unique wildlife and vibrant communities.

Also the Tasmanian Government jointly announced the protection of significant areas of Tasmania's old growth forests.  Parts of the Styx Valley, home to the the world's tallest hardwood trees, and the Tarkine - Australia's largest wilderness rainforest - were protected in a series of formal and informal reserves.  While i don't trust that sleazy, slimy Premier Lennon, it's a good "win" in forest protection for a decade.

I'm interested to know what other 25 yr olds do on a Friday or Saturday night.  It was the end of year young adults formal for our church.  400 people crammed on a dance floor with heaps of high, party vibes.  Course the reception centre closed at midnight - as most do :(

A small group of us wanted to go out afterwards, but when we stood outside for a few minutes they said, 'oh nah i'm too tired'.  Then everyone went home.

Too tired!!!!

That's not the first time i've heard that.

Anyway i went to the Crown and danced for most of the night...on my own...sober.

So i have two questions:

1.  Should i start acting my age and focus on the real things like...marriage?

or

2.  Keep going and get left behind as my friends go to jazz clubs and restaurants before closing in by 11pm :|   

THE MAYONNAISE JAR & 2 CUPS OF COFFEE
When things in your life seem almost too much to handle, when 24 hours in a
day are not enough, remember the mayonnaise jar and the 2 cups of coffee....

A professor stood before his philosophy class and had some items in front of him. When the class began, he wordlessly picked up a very large and empty mayonnaise jar and proceeded to fill it with golf balls. He then asked the students if the jar was full. They agreed that it was.  The professor then picked up a box of pebbles and poured them into the jar. He shook the jar lightly. The pebbles rolled into the open areas
between the golf balls. He then asked the students again if the jar was full.  They agreed it was. The professor next picked up a box of sand and poured it into the jar.
Of course, the sand filled up everything else. He asked once more if the jar was full. The students responded with an unanimous "yes."
The professor then produced two cups of coffee from under the table and poured the entire contents into the jar effectively filling the empty space between the sand. The students laughed. "Now," said the professor as the laughter subsided, "I want you to recognize that this jar represents your life. The golf balls are the important things---God, your family, your children, your health, your friends and your favorite passions---and if everything else was lost and only they remained, your life would still be full. The pebbles are the other things that matter like your job, your house and your car. The sand is everything else---the small stuff. "If you put the sand
into the jar first," he continued, "there is no room for the pebbles or the golf balls. The same goes for life. If you spend all your time and energy on the small stuff you will never have room for the things that are important to you. "Pay attention to the things that are critical to your happiness. Play with your children. Take time to get medical checkups. Take your spouse out to dinner. Play another 18. There will always be time to clean
the house and fix the disposal. Take care of the golf balls first---the things that really matter. Set your priorities. The rest is just sand."
One of the students raised her hand and inquired what the coffee represented. The professor smiled. "I'm glad you asked.
It just goes to show you that no matter how full your life may seem,
there's always room for a couple of cups of coffee with a friend."

>Please share this with someone you care about. I JUST DID.

Esther very, very, very, very, very kindly gave me a box set of Seinfeld episodes - since she's upgraded to DVDs.

The problem is you watch one episode then another, then another until you reach a point where the afternoon has gone.

Oh, and eS, Extol rock!

Memo for a Saner World  written by Bob Brown.  I finished reading my *signed* copy just now - yay :)

For those who don't know Senator Bob Brown is the leader of the Greens party in Australia, and the book was about the endless fighting that greenies have to do to save the natural environment from development. 

We have it tough.

I can't believe how much animosity people have towards greenies.  Politicians - namely our beloved John Howard -  and major developing companies find us such a disruption to their work.  They just don't care about anything except for money.

Many times they are violent towards us.  At Farmhouse Creek in Southwest Tasmania a group of protestors were shot at by loggers, yet the loggers got only a hundred dollar fine for "shooting on a Sunday"!

People are beaten up, sometimes in front of the media.

Mt Etna in Queensland, protestors in a remote cave, teething with four metre stalactites - attractive to miners for limestone - were forced out of the cave when developers set sirens off.  The sound was so loud that protestors were emerging to the surface with bleeding ears.  This was before the miners blew the caves up by dynamite, killing the hundreds of ghost bats inhabiting the caves - the only carnivorous bat in Australia.

Some places overseas like the Amazon, Rwanda, Columbia, greenies have been kidnapped, tortured, murdered.  In many cases - even in Australia - protestor's cars are blown up.  Greenpeace's ships were sabotaged by French nuclear testers. 

The list goes on.

Antarctica is the only place on Earth that remains untouched by commercial development; however, there are plans to start mining on it.

The Siberian Tiger is facing extinction.  The attitude there is, 'Let them die out.  They don't mean anything to us.'

Hyundai Engineering and Construction is building a dyke on the Saemangeum, where hundreds of thousands of water birds fly to migrate there.

On a more local scale in Australia, the beaches are under threat.  Too many people are moving to the coast and destroying what attracts them to the locations in the first place.

The Styx Valley and the Tarkine Rainforest of Tasmania continue to be logged at an alarming rate.  The world's tallest hardwood trees grow in these areas.  They are four centuries old, and yet only a tiny section is protected.  They haven't been declared National Parks.  Will they ever?  The Government just doesn't realise that tourism brings far far more money than the profits from logging.  While the owner of Gunns Limited, Australia's largest logging company, is swimming in millions of dollars, his workers are underpaid and working huge hours.  The more trees that are felled, the bigger the pay cheque.  They sell woodchips at an extremely low cost to Japanese paper mills, as if they can put a cost to the destruction of Eucalyptus regnans.  And overseas people have been put off coming to Tassie because of logging. 

These trees are being logged at a rate of 10,000 football sized fields per year in Tasmania.  They can exceed 80 metres!  They are not protected.

We're always fighting for something.  It never ends, but that's fine because we won't.  I only hope my readers who don't know much about this sort of thing will some day.  I'll be continually writing letters, signing petitions, making tax deductible donations, joining rallies and whatever else is needed to stop developments, mining, logging etc.

One person makes a difference, and if one person can then so can YOU.  Look at the Franklin River campaign, the wild rivers in Queensland, Southwest Tasmania World Heritage Listing. It works sometimes.  But there's work to be done.

Talk to me about it.  Because here's a thought: 

German researchers estimated that the world's natural resources are worth US$61 trillion per year!!!!!!

Show this to the treasurer.  I pray some day they'll listen.

What a horrible weekend.  I've got one of the worst colds i've had in a long time.  I couldn't enjoy our life group's break up dinner at the Cuckoo because i was sneezing every second.  I went to bed at 8.30 last night - Saturday!  I wanted to go out and play pool.   And after ten hours sleep last night my throat's sore and i'm still sniffing everywhere.

The irony is that tomorrow i'll be 100% better...just in time for work   

There's a cafe in Glenroy.  It's hours are:

Mon-Wed   7.30am-7.30pm

Thu-Fri  7.30am-9pm

Sat  8am-9pm

Sun  8am-3pm

The owner works all those hours, and probably more to set up and close.

That's phenomenal 

Hey guys, visit bynoon.com .  Press "enter" and then "fantasy blades".  Have a look at some of them.  Sure they look pretty good, make good collectibles and would certainly make good writing for my fantasy buff friends.  But they are designed to cause maximum damage.  The problem is if anyone is over 18 then he or she can buy a knife like this so easily - no questions asked, no licence or background check, just over the counter. This is what concerns the police the most.

Gang activity is rising in Melbourne. In addition the numbers of knife related fatalities are increasing.  You wouldn't want to come face-to-face with someone holding one of these.

Merry Christmas, everyone!!!!

Stay safe and full of joy.

Just a couple of days before the movie came out in Australia ie. today, i read the Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe.  The last time i read it must have been 15 years ago.  I can't believe how much i forgot.  The funny thing is that the only scene i could remember was with Edmund and the White Witch...and the turkish delight.  Based on what Esther told me, food for children is like sex for adults.  That's why i could remember.  Me likes turkish delight.

But it's such a good story.  It's so visual yet Lewis uses hardly any words to describe the scenes.  And all the mythical creatures like centaurs, dryads, dwarfs, giants etc. really add to it.  Though i found it unusual that the satyrs were on the good side.  Typically they are womanising drunks with oversized testicles.

But i'm psyched about seeing the movie now.  Apparently it's very similar to the book, which is awesome cos most movies aren't, and they turn out just awful - eg. pet sematary, in fact any Steven King movie.

This is one of my favourite extracts from the story, kind of summing up the relationship between God and Satan (as that's what some characters are based around):

..."You at least know the Magic which the Emperor put into Narnia at the very beginning.  You know that every traitor belongs to me as my lawful prey and that for every treachery i have a right to a kill."

"Oh...so that's how you came to imagine yourself a queen - because you were the Emperor's hangman?  I see."

 

This is an even better one about Aslan (Jesus):

..."Only you mustn't press him.  He's wild, you know.  Not like a tame lion."

 

Talking of writing, i started a novella - just be a really quick first draft before i start *sighs* draft 3 of my novel in February.

Ugh...i'm so bored - bored, bored, bored, bored, boooorrrreeeedddd.  Everyone's away or going away.  And it's too hot for anything; too hot to go out; too hot for training; too hot for shopping; too hot for reading; too hot for writing; too hot to go to the beach.  I was thinking of going to Mt Buffalo for a couple of days - mostly for devotion but also to do some climbing, walking, running, whatever but it'll be >35 (~100F) degrees both days. 

Forget it.

That's my whinge for the day.

Actually today wasn't too bad.  I had an interview for Camp America.  I hope i get in.  I won't know for at least two weeks.

After that i went to The Word bookshop.  It was cool, the latest Hillsong CD was only $15. 

I'm not looking forward to tomorrow.  Someone give some ideas of what to do before New Years.

In 50 years i'll look back on 2005 as the year my life started.  Forget its being the best year; it goes way beyond that.  Because on the 13th of February i did something incredible; unplanned; something daring; in fact unthinkable; the most rebellious thing i could do in a lifetime: I came to know Christ. 

It was funny some of the reactions i received.  The main one was, you can't have any fun.  Actually i've never had more fun in my life.  There are so many cool people i've met, and we're constantly doing things.  Then there are many who think that it's weak to rely on God.  It's practical.  I find Christians are so much more complete than others.  They can fight away traumatic experiences really well because they don't rely on themselves to do it.  My dad says the Bible is full of crap and contains nothing relevant to today, and my sister still thinks i'm getting brainwashed into a cult.  So be it.

This is what it feels like to be in a relationship with Jesus:

Complete and utter joy and fulfillment.  There's nothing else in life you can need.  You have it.  To me it's like a continuous skydive, only it lasts forever and i'm flying instead of falling.  People are always searching for something to truly satisfy them.  That included me of course, and i'm just pissed i didn't take this walk years ago.  But that's fine.  My past has been destroyed.  And it's not as if i'm restricted from anything.  I still go climbing; i still go clubbing; i still head bang to heavy metal; i still go for midnight rides on the tramlines to East Burwood and am still searching for a Jack the Ripper suspect worthy of researching.  It's just that everyday i wake up smiling, and singing as i walk down the street.  I've been filled with emotions i never thought existed in me.

Let everything that has breath praise the Lord.  Praise the Lord.

(Ps 150:6)

See you all in 2006!

Happy birthday to me!!!!!

Another year gone and another drop in maximum heart rate.

My wish for today is that everybody reading this puts a huge smile on - regardless of circumstances.  

Love you all.

Dave

Whoa this was one pretty explosive weekend.  Everybody visit nimbo's  blog and say congratulations for turning 21 - although it's not officially today or Saturday but we'll take it nevertheless.  It was her party on Saturday.  If you're lucky darkfox may put the photos up.  It was a mask theme, so we all posed for the cameras to show them off.  It was a good night, and i'm sure 2006 will be a huge year for Naomi.

On a less festive note - but also exciting/sad - a few of us went to Warburton to say goodbye to our friend Chiaw Hui who's moving to China permanently :(  Actually none of us was that sad because we know that it's a new beginning and she's always being looked after.  We had lunch at a cafe and went for a walk along the river - and yes i went swimming.  Nice and refreshing.

Wish Chiaw the best of luck also.

I just haven't written that much this month.  Someone give me a topic to write about.  I went to the tennis last night and saw our beloved Lleytton Hewitt get beaten .  Despite the other guy, Chela, being a bit of a knob i'm glad Hewitt lost - even though he behaved well.  

I had to cancel a bushwalk with my life group this weekend because it's too hot.  And this morning i had a VO₂  max test.  I sometimes volunteer for PhD students' research in exercise science, and this may be one of them.  I got 65ml/kg which was 5ml lower than three years ago.  Guess i'll have to get training again.

*Sighs* it's too hot today.

Yes, yes, yes, yes - yeeeeeeeeeeeeesssssssss!!!!!!!  I got in.  I received the acceptance pack for camp America.  What a way to lift me up today.

I don't know where i've been placed yet but i'll keep you updated.  Hope it's somewhere green, rainy with lots of mountains.  I want to work on one of the disability camps, and they have a huge demand for those ones.

Okay, i'm coming to America.

A mad scientist

creates a ghastly monster

who just wants a hug

- Mary Shelley -

Although this haiku is based on Frankenstein it has so much relevance to society.  It reminds me of people's miscoceptions about intellectual and/or physical disabilities.  I know someone whose daughter died of MS.  When she was still alive people would see them coming and cross the road.  Many people think that intellectual disabilities means institutionalisation but they're so not harmful.

Take this to another level.  Serial killers are accused of being monsters but keep in mind that 90% of them were constantly bashed as children and had no nurturing whatsoever.

To me hugs go such a long way.  What did you think of when you read the haiku?

Think of a number between 1 and 10.

If you thought 6 you are part of the 70% group who say that.  10 years ago people would think of 7.

Apologies for this useless information but as i was waiting for a train - as you do - this guy came up to me and told me that.

I read this article about a man who's writing a cookbook.  But this is a little different.  For many years he claims to have collected, cooked and eaten roadkill.  His favourite is a badger sandwich.  He also makes meals out of pheasants, porcupine, rats, cats, weasels, foxes and a labrador!

Is this how Jeffrey Dahmer started?

He says he does it because it's free and they haven't been bulked up on hormones.

I was eating breakfast when i read this.  I was nearly sick.

Hoo hoo, about twelve hours and i'm off to New Zealand to climb Mt Aspiring - yay!  So you won't hear from me for at least a week.  But there is an internet centre in Wananka so i'll post you on how it went.  The following week i'll be walking the Cascade Saddle route - not that anyone knows what that is but it's steep.

I shaved my head tonight.  It feels awesome but let me know how it looks if it doesn't grow back too quickly.

Tonight we're going to dinner with my cousin.  I haven't seen him since 2003 and even then that was a really brief visit.

Everyone take care.

Love you all.

Hi guys.

Got into Wanaka yesterday after a sleepless night at a backpackers in Christchurch.

The cloud finally lifted from Mt Aspiring this afternoon.  Although the weather's been fine there is always cloud in the alps.  I went canyoning today.  Man that's fun.  At one point we had to jump off a rock ledge twelve metres high and into a small pool.  I don't know how deep it was but the guides obviously knew.

This afternoon i'm just cruising around, swimming in the lake, eating and preparing for tomorrow before i enter the darkest New Zealand.

Oh yeah...unleaded petrol is 149.9 c/L!!!  Cop that.

Hi everyone!

I'm back in Wanaka having successfully climbed Mt Aspiring (Titea, the glistening mountain)!  And i just have to say that it was awesome!  Unfortunately i don't have any pictures of the trip - sorry, Ambreen, i'm a little behind on photo technology.  But here's a picture of it from this website www.peakware.com/peaks.html?pk=18

The first day (my one year Christian anniversary :) ) i went with my guide, another guide and his client (a beautiful blonde who was unfortunately married and lived in Auckland) in helicopter to Bevan Col where our first camp was.  That day i climbed Mt Joffre as a warm up.

Valentines Day we were stuck in the tents for the whole day waiting for a storm to pass.  But in a way that was good because we got fine weather following it, which meant we could climb to the summit the following day. 

It took 18 hours to climb!  We headed off at 3.30am and got back in the dark, exhausted but elated.  The summit had winds of 80km/hr so we couldn't stay up there too long.  At least i didn't get blown off the mountain.  Though i can see why people do.

The following two days we spent descending into the glorious valley.  The country is so amazing.  I always get so inspired to do more trips.

Anyway there'll be one more update after i climb the Cascade Saddle - this time on my own but it doesn't require mountaineering skills. 

I'm thinking of you all.  Hope everything's okay.

Dave

Now in Wanaka for the third time, but this time i'm off to Christchurch tomorrow to fly out the next day.  Then back at work the day after :|

This week was really good.  I camped on a meadow in the West Matukituki Valley just a short way from Aspiring Hut which is the same valley we came down off Mt Aspiring.  I mostly did day walks up some of the peaks - the Cascade Saddle being the highlight.

Oh yeah, and it actually rains over here.  I mean proper rain, not any of the hour long showers we get in Melbourne.  It snowed down to 1700 metres one night.  I've got photos of that.

But the main purpose of this second week was to spend one on one time with God.  5 and a half days worth!  That was awesome.  Occasionally i'd come across a few people but i was just about always on my own.  It just rocked.  There's so much wilderness here.  I feel really focused and goal oriented.  Empowered by the Holy Spirit, Jesus returned (from the wilderness)... Lk 4:14.

Try it some day.  You'll never get closer to Him.

Hope you guys are all okay.  I'll see you in a few days. 

I've been placed!  The camp is in the Shasta Trinity National Forest.  It's a family camp so i'd be interested to know how that goes.  They chose me mostly for my recreation background, but particularly the climbing.   Seems really cool.  Here's the description of the camp at http://www.bar717.com. 

It's in Northern California.  I think the rainfall is high there :)  The dates i'll be there are pretty much from the second week of June to the end of August, which is a bit longer than other camps.  Maybe i'll get every weekend off as a substitute but it doesn't give me much of a chance to sightsee after i finish - unless i renew the visa.  So maybe no Colorado :(, and i may not get to visit your home city, Ambreen :(.  Hopefully though i'll meet some potential Australian climbing partner. 

Anyways i'm getting excited.   

I finished reading Touching the Void, by Joe Ball, a phenomenal true story of two climbers in a remote mountain range in South America.  They were low on oxygen and food when an accident occurred, resulting in Joe's breaking his leg.  When this occurs it almost certainly means that a climber will perish as there is no way of getting down a mountain safely.  But they tried.  I didn't understand the technical terms but at one point Joe was hanging on the rope about to pull his partner, Simon, off the mountain.  Simon had to cut the rope, and Joe fell down a crevasse.  He survived!!!! but was unable to climb out.  So he abseiled down further, incredibly managing to find a way out of the crevasse.

But at this point he was a long way from camp so for the next two days (with some sleep) he managed to crawl or hop across the glacier, then eventually on a rocky section.  He found some water here, but still hadn't eaten.  By the time he got to the camp, where Simon had stayed an extra night, he was just a centimetre away from death.

There's too much to explain in this blog, but what i learnt is that the human mind is able to push the body to incomprehensible extremes.  He could have fallen to the ground and given up, but he kept fighting and fighting for his life.  It was an incredible story.

Finally some sense.  Finally some wins to us:

The decision to protect 180,000 ha of Tasmania's old growth forests including the Tarkine rainforest & part of the Styx Valley;

Commitment by the QLD Govt to establish a Wild Rivers Act and a promise of $10million towards the protection of Cape York Peninsula;

A forty fold increase in protection for WA's marine environment with another 120,000 ha added to no-take sanctuary zones;

7,000 ha of NSW old growth forests protected, including the vital upper Deau, Monga and South Brooman water catchments;

In Victoria, declaration of 102,000 ha of the Otway Ranges to create a new Great Otway Nat Park and a further 10,000 ha of Geelong's water catchments excluded from logging;

Declaration of the new National Park and petroleum exclusion zone at Coongie Lakes, SA, that represents the end of 20 years of controversy over petroleum activity in the region.

All it took was a few letters and donations by all.  Individuals make a difference.

"I cannot ameliorate the ineptitude of Principal Skinner."

Although Superintendent Chalmers doesn't have a huge part in the Simpsons, he cracks me up .

Last night on Catalyst a Queensland scientist was interviewed on a recent discovery about the world's most famous unsolved crime.  Actually i think he hasn't gone anywhere, but it was interesting.

After travelling to London to investigate he collected DNA from a single cell of saliva from the "dear boss" letter - from under the stamp.  The actual killer could not be nailed due to inconclusive results; however, the DNA itself was from a female!

Jill the Ripper.

I haven't read much about her spot in the case because most Ripperologists disregard her.  Inspector Abberline postulated that instead of looking for a male the Ripper could be female.

Although the program was vague, the theory behind Jill the Ripper (Mary Pearcey) is that she was a midwife who was hanged in 1890 (shortly after the horror) after murdering her lover's wife and child in a similar throat slashing modus operandi to the Ripper killings.

Witness Mrs Maxwell said she saw Mary Kelly between 8am and 8.30 after the killings when in actual fact it was Mary Pearcey disguised as Kelly by dressing in her clothes.

Other aspects which highlight the Jill the Ripper suspect is that because the police were looking for a Jack meant she could easily slip through the streets at night even with bloodstained clothes.  Being a midwife she could justify being out late at night.  A thought about her also is that she had anatomical knowledge (although the sources here are too arbitrary to take too literally).

Now, let's not make mistakes here.  Even though a handfull of letters may have been written by the Ripper himself, this still can't prove anything.  For one thing, serial killers are not female. To fit the true meaning of the word developed by the FBI in the 1970s, serial killers are male (so your Lizzy Bordens and Jane Topans don't fit).

There's too much discipline and ferocity in the killings to be from a female, even though Sir Melville MacNaghten said she had a solid build.

And the more reliable witnesses, Joseph Lewende, Israel Schwartz and George Hutchinson clearly saw a male of mid twenties to thirty years at their sites.  The Jill the Ripper theory veers away from the Liz Stride killing where a male - possibly two - was clearly involved.

Anyway, the episode was worth watching.  Advances are coming in narrowing the suspects down.  I love the way Philip Sugden closes his book with "But a sound historical scholarship and the latest profiling techniques is beginning to tell us more about him [Jack the Ripper] than Abberline would have dreamed possible."

I undertook great projects: I built houses for myself and planted vineyards.  I made gardens and parks and planted all kinds of fruit trees in them.  I made reservoirs to water groves of flourishing trees... I amassed silver and gold for myself, and the treasure of kings and provinces...I denied myself nothing my eyes desired; i refused my heart no pleasure.  My heart took delight in all my work and this was the reward of all my labor.  Yet when i surveyed all that my hands had done and what i had toiled to achieve, everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind; nothing was gained under the sun.

Ecclesiastes 2:4-11

Joy, joy, joy.  It doesn't come from things but a relationship with God.  The only time i used to get a small increase in happiness was running a marathon; getting a PB or climbing a mountain.  It never satisfied.  Depression is at an epidemic level.  There's a lot of isolation today, self-absorption, victimology.  We look for short cuts for pleasure like big screen TVs, a new car, jewellery, lots of money which will do nothing.  Even successful, happy looking people are still dying inside.

Don't let your emotions become your focus.  Don't replay bad times - remember good things.

Use your strengths to serve others.

True joy comes from a life with Christ.

Isn't this weather fantastic?  It feels like a day where snow would cap our alps down to 1000 metres.  I just love it.  Bout time too.

Well i'm back...alive.  From Friday to Saturday three other guys and i were a team in this year's Oxfam Trailwalk - 100km in 48 hours (we did it in 31), Jells Park to Mt Donna Buang.  I loved it so much.  It's hard work but really rewarding.  You tend not to think about the distance but just keep walking.  And we had support crew at each checkpoint giving us delicious food and footbaths.  We were fortunate in a way to finish.  Only 118 teams out of 500 were able to.  Friday night they closed Mt Donna Buang because of snow, which meant the checkpoints started filling up with people.  We had to stay in a primary school in Woori Yallock to get a few hours sleep before heading off early next morning.  Our intention was to go right through, but the few hours of sleep helped a lot.  But then at 12.30pm they stopped people walking beyond checkpoint seven because of extreme weather on the summit.  Luckily we had already passed that point and finished the entire event by 3pm.  Although it was 0 degrees with a windchill of -3, the weather was still bearable on top.  I'm glad it was cold and not sun.  I overheat so much, but i guess it's a duty of care thing.

Well i went to bed after a bath when i got home, which meant missing Brian Houston from Hillsong Church speaking at ours, but i needed that sleep.  My calves are killing me.

It was awesome.  I loved it.  I'll do it again next year. 

Anyone want to join me?

One of my friends (ex gf actually) started going into labour yesterday.  Then my sister sent me a text saying she was 36 hours into it.  I haven't heard anything more yet.  When she had the ultrasound many months ago the baby was facing the other way so the doctors couldn't determine the sex.  So it'll be a surprise.  I'm thinking a girl.  Either way, it's exciting.

Wish her luck as a mother.

Yesterday i submitted my resignation.  I gave five weeks' notice which is heaps of time.  The timing was bad though, because the girl i work with put hers in the day before.  And other people have left recently too.  At least with me it's on good terms.

Six weeks i'm going to Americaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.

Flinders Street Station

people of all races

wait for the same thing.

- Leanne Murray -

This haiku was on a poster in the train.  Beneath was a slogan, Moving Melbourne with Art.  I've come across other ones like this.  Once there was a painting that a primary school kid did.  But the message is what intrigues me.  It seems maybe the Government is recognising art as important to our daily lives.  Could this be an opening for our writing, fellow TAFE bloggers?  Talking of which i sent that 3,000 word short story off, and there's another comp on where i'll try and squeeze in a story in the five weeks i've got left.  Writing's fun.

This is always a touchy subject but getting together in a small group and discussing it, there's a lot to talk about.  It's been two weeks since John Bevere came to CityLife Church but we're still reflecting on the challenging messages he gave.  One was on offence, titled 'the Bait of Satan', and these dot points were compiled after he preached.  We went through these in our lifegroup:

1.  Tests form character;

2.  Be on guard against the power of 'offence' (Prov. 18:19);

3.  An offended heart is a breeding ground of deception;

4.  The person closest to you can hurt you the deepest.  It's all about expectation;

5.  Your forgiveness needs to be as exhaustible as God's (Matt. 18:21-35);

6.  A person who can't forgive has forgotten what they have been forgiven [by God];

7.  Are you offended?  You won't be free until you admit it;

8.  God hates those who sow discord (Prov. 6:16-19);

9.  Great peace have those who who love God's law and nothing will offend them (Ps. 119:165);

10.  Be 'offence-proof'.  Get in shape spiritually (Acts 24:16);

11.  Pray for those who wrong you (Matt. 5:44-48).  Make it a daily exercise.  Buy them a gift;

12.  Forgiveness and reconciliation are different;

13.  Your response to offence determines your future - you will be either bitter or better;

14.  Do you have the right to be offended?  Not if you walk with God.

Mmm...yeah, but remember that God is closest to the broken hearted.

I know the men's 100 metre sprint has a new world record holder a week ago but i'm still putting this up.  Justin Gatlin (USA) is now the world record holder, world champion and Olympic champion sprinter, finishing in 9.76 secs in Doha last Sunday.  Whoo.  Does anyone realise how fast that is?  This is how the records have improved over the decades:

Donald Lippincott  10.6, 1912

Charles Paddock  10.4,  '21

Percy Williams  10.3,  '30

Jesse Owens  10.2,  '36

Willie Williams  10.1,  '56

Armin Hary  10.0,  '60

Jim Hines  9.9,  '68

Jim Hines  9.95,  '68

Calvin Smith  9.93,  '83

Carl Lewis  9.92,  '88

Leroy Burrell  9.90,  '91

Carl Lewis  9.86,  '91

Leroy Burrell  9.85,  '94

Donovan Bailey  9.84,  '96

Maurice Green  9.79,  '99

Asafa Powell  9.77,  2005

Justin Gatlin  9.76,  '06.

And i'm not just talking thinking you're too old, i mean old old.  One of the residents where i work gave me this.  If you work in aged care you'll be on the floor laughing at some of these:

Everything hurts, what doesn't hurt doesn't work;

The gleam in your eye is the sun hitting your bifocals;

You feel like the morning after, but you haven't been anywhere;

Your black book contains only names ending in M.D;

You get winded playing cards;

Your children begin to look middle aged;

You know all the answers but no one asks the questions;

You sit in a rocking chair and can't make it go;

Your back goes out more often than you do;

You sink your teeth into a steak and they stay there;

Your birthday cake collapses from the weight of the candles.

Well i've got one week to go until i finish.  You need heaps of patience and the money is lousy working with older adults but it's really a huge blessing.

Whoo!  What an empowering weekend.  I should hopefully sleep well tonight.  Not that the nights have been late, it's the intensity of what's been happening.  That's the adrenaline of praising God all weekend.  We had a mens Redline conference at our church entitled 'Drive'.  I've got so many notes from three different speakers -excluding the regular weekend celebrations - and i still couldn't get everything down.

Joseph Garlington, David Dohertey & Phil Dooley spoke to 1000 men after a vibrating worship starting Friday night (although i still say there's not enough jumping in our church).  Although i was tired i couldn't sleep well because i just wanted to bounce up and down and praise God.  It takes a lot out of you when you come off that high.

But the messages were about breaking down the barriers obstructing your purpose; not to fear when God calls you to do something you really don't want to, that your mission is an assignment and the opposition precedes opportunity (all based on Jeremiah 1:1-12).  Living a life of integrity; Standing up and being counted.  The topics were challenging but not right to the throat like John Bevere's.  But i have so many things to think about the future, and there's something going on in my mind, something really great will happen - to all of us.  We need that sort of attitude.  When you speak that nothing is happening in your life (the way i used to a couple of years ago) then you'll get nothing.  You speak it, you'll get it.  You haven't been sacked, you're in transition.  You've been sacked when you believe it.  And you'll keep reliving these experiences until God says you've got it right.  You'll make mistakes but it doesn't mean you're stupid.  You have an assignment.  Be the best.

This is just a fraction of what i got down.  I have to go through everything properly.  Most of what was said was from Acts 20:10-20, Proverbs 16:32, Romans 12:1-2.

What and awesome weekend; what and awesome God.  Man, it feels good to be alive!!!!

Okay it's nearly here.  In just over 24 hours i'll be off to America for three, maybe four, months.  I'm super excited but nervous.  I hardly had any sleep on Sunday night cos of the things i had to do the next day, but at least i got to have lunch with jestar , darkfox and nimbo.  You guys are great!

Today i'm just patching up little details like letters, addresses, sending stuff to people.  And i'll try and go to Kathmandu to use that $50 voucher.  I've done the packing at least. 

I'll keep posting as much as i can.  Internet access is limited but i'll do my best.  I'll write letters and emails as well.  If any of you send an email and it doesn't get answered, don't be offended, i just haven't read it yet.  And i don't have a digital camera either so i can't post pictures.  You'll just have to see the photos when i get back.

Happy birthday in advance, Mel.  You rock.  Have a great day/night.  And Sarah too - 21!!!!! Yay :)

I'm not sure when you'll hear from me next.  It could be two days, two weeks or two months.  But i love you all.  Have an awesome few months ahead.  I'll see you some time in September. 

Dave

Hello, everyone beautiful - that means you.

This is the first entry since being in America.  So i made it safely to camp, which means no more annoying travelling for a while.

The ranch in northern California where i'm based is just gorgeous.  It's surrounded by hills, and some of the distant higher mountains are covered with snow.  There's a river down the hill with heaps of swimming holes, which will be needed cos it's really hot here.  The camp hasn't started yet.  The first couple of weeks is orientation and training.  I'm in charge of the high ropes course.  Hoo hoo just my thing :)

I'm glad i'm out in the countryside.  I didn't enjoy Los Angelese.  It's dirty and every shop along Century Boulevard (near the hotel where we stayed) is fast food.  Everything's sugary.  Breakfast is usually doughnuts, bagels, croissants  etc.  But on camp the food's much better.

Well because today is a day off i haven't been doing much.  I was just updating to let you know it's all good.

Cya later.

Good afternoon, y'all

Though now i'm back home i should be saying 'g'day mates.'

An American can always spot an Aussie (excluding accent) not by the way things we say are but what they're not:

How are you today?:  Not bad;

How far have we got?:  Not far;

How long is it?:  Not long.

  CCUSA promises the best summer of your life, and every word of it is true.  Since the start of June i've been in Northern California in the Shasta-Trinity National Forest working as a counsellor at Camp Trinity.  I don't even know where to begin to explain how it's been, how fun, challenging, rewarding.  You think about this more when it's over.  It's funny that when you're there at camp exhausted, fed up at times you wish it was over, but when it is over you want to go back and do it all again.

So...here's a summary of the past three months in the sun.  It's only about 0.1% of all that's happened though.  The camp is on a ranch in masses of forest and between two small towns.  It's really beautiful.  The forest is vast, consisting of pines, firs, madrone; and heaps of deer run through, squirrels, chipmunks.  I saw a black bear one morning, and it's also one of the buggiest places i've ever been to.  But i didn't get bitten that much.

The ranch is big.  There's a barn with about thirty horses, and small animals too.  Then on the other side of the road is all the eating areas, main office, sleeping platforms and the program areas.  The things the kids were able to do were horseriding, art n craft, woodwork, pottery, silk screening, tie-dying (a thing where you drench a t-shirt in dye and make weird patterns on it; you look like a hippie wearing one), archery, ranch projects like trail blazing, woodchopping, hay bailing etc.  Then there are dances, camp singing, age group nights, skits and untalent shows.  I facilitaed archery during the week and the high ropes course on Saturdays.  That was fun.  Due to the many rivers there was heaps of swimming.  At the start of the season it's freezing snow water but it improves a little.  And because they had double the rainfall over winter and spring the water level was higher than usual.  There are heaps of jumping rocks too.  Many of these places have trails going to them, so we did lots of hiking - one overnight per week and one day hike per week.  Because the sky is so clear, i've never seen so many stars.  And the start of August was meteor shower time, so you could see shooting stars almost every minute.

Here's a bit of a run down on the sessions.  Basically there were two weeks of orientation and training, two weeks for the first session of kids camp, two weeks for the second, three weeks for the third and two weeks of family camp.  Long summer!

Orientation:

This was the worst bit, and it seemed to drag on because of all the intro to camp and training.  The international staff arrived a couple of days before the rest of the Americans.  The people were great - really great; it's just they had their own circle of friends and it was hard for me to break into.  The whole summer i was on the outside.  But one of the other girls said it's like that.  There's a 'cool group'.

So the first week was spent getting to know the other counsellors and going through everything we needed to know about camp.  The second week was a bit better.  The group was split up a bit as some of us did our wilderness first aid training and lifeguard training.

Session 1:

We could get our feet wet before the storm with the first fortnight.  I think there were 80 campers.  Another counsellor and i had nine boys for our platform group (a platform is a sleeping area.  It's a shelter with mattresses laid out).  They were rather hyperactive but really great boys.  The first overnight hike was super humid.  Corral Creek is one of the coldest spots in the area especially early June when snow is still melting.  We caught up with another group.  The teenage boys from there challenged themselves to see who could stay in the water the longest.  I learnt from this that in subtle ways teenage boys need to have challenge and, to a small extent, competition.  Otherwise they get bored.

The reason for the humidity was a storm.  When we went to bed it started to rain.  Now because it doesn't rain in Californian summers we sleep under the stars.  Luckily we had a tarp to go under, but it still got wet.  And lightning was getting close - really close.  The sky lit up to the point you'd think it was daytime.  I'm surprised the boys were so brave.  But eventually our boss drove through and took us and another group back to the ranch.  But other groups had to sit through that storm.  Nevertheless everyone had their stories to tell, and memories like this last longer.

We also had an untalent show this session.  The campers, if they choose, can perform a skit of some kind, and they usually involve someone getting painted, having pies squashed on someone or getting wet etc.  One of my platform boys likes telling jokes, and when he went up and said this i cracked up:

"If you asked the most beautiful girl in school out to prom night and she rejects you what do you do?  You go home and cry to your mom.  And you know the expression, 'it's the try that counts'?  Well that's not true because she said no."

Picture a small ten year old saying that.

This session also celebrated the 4th of July.  We were down at the homestead for a barbeque.  Obviously we couldn't have fireworks but we set up a few booth type things and had a celebration.

Session 2:

Whoa...120 campers for this one.  I had eight boys all to myself on the platform.  Two of them had ADD.  It was non-stop go with them.  I was constantly nagging them to be quiet when it's quiet time, to not climb the trees, jump on the beds etc. I really just wanted to have fun with them but i couldn't really.  It was cool though cos on the second last day one of those boys came up to me at the dance and hugged me.  He actually liked me the whole time.

My favourite overnight hike was done this session.  Below Mays is the name of a swimhole where there's a 15 foot jumping rock.  After playing in there we river walked up to a beach on the river.  Despite plastic bags many of our things got wet - that included my poetry book :/  - but at least the campers didn't complain too much.

They also had the annual barbeque where people from Hyampom and Hayfork also visit the ranch.  A horseshow was on as well.  Some of the kids were doing handstands and all sorts of crazy moves on the back of a horse.  They could show jump too.  Impressive stuff.

I worked during intercession this time around.  Some campers stay on for the third session.  The counsellors had a big day off and two were required to look after the remaining campers.  This was probably the hottest day so far.  We went down to girls camp for a swim.  We brought down an esky of soda, cookies and chips etc.  and watched a movie in the evening.  I had a go at milking a cow.  Kaitlin and i could barely fill the bucket because the bad tempered cow kept kicking it over.  But i had fun though.  That day the pigs escaped from their pen.  They were out of control, and started eating everything in sight.  The trouble is pigs are harder to round up than horses and cows.  Sometimes we had to kick them to get them to move.  On the last Tursday of family camp those pigs were sent to the slaughter house - most likely to be eaten next year - so Kaitlin and i had a little celebration.  They're the most disgusting creatures i've ever seen.

Session 3:

This was like the grand finale - and blackberry picking time!  By now i was so used to the American accent that the sound of my own voice was strange.  My platform had four wonderful 10 year old boys.  Two got homesick which passed in a few days.  The third session means Harvest Festival, which is like a mini county fair.  We develop booths based on a theme (aliens this year) and go to each one.  We did a scavenger hunt where we hid stars in a section of trees and blackberry bushes.  The boys painted me green so i would hide and scare people as they looked.  After this was over most people jumped into the mud pit before heading to the basketball court and danced while others sprayed the fire hose on us.

The second week i led a three day hike with another counsellor to the South Fork of the Trinity River.  That was sensational and in a beautiful section of forest.  Four girls and two boys came on that trip.  They were absolute troopers.  This was around the time of the fires.  The Trinity Alps and other forest near us were in flames, so smoke made the air hazy.  Every breath we were technically breathing smoke.

In the final week was the last overnight.  I was on a short one to Girls Camp by the river still on the ranch.  They were mostly teenagers at this hike, like a goodbye for them.  We went swimming again, cooked baked potatoes, played Mafia.  At midnight we took our clothes off and went swimming.  That was a cack because the water was so cold, and the guys had to hang around a corner waiting for the girls to finish.  We had to leave when we started shivering.  I didn't get much sleep that night.  There were three counsellors on this one and we had to sleep in between the teenagers so they couldn't sneak off and make out.  Christian actually busted a couple before anything could happen.  Just as well because i heard some filthy stories about other cases.

We also had an international dinner where the international staff made some meals based on something from their home country.  Billie and i just did lamingtons.  Has anyone tried making them?  They looked terrible but still tasted okay.  The Columbian food was awesome - this pancake type food with avocado, chicken and sald, and the Russian girl made a soup which was unusual but good.

After the Harvest Festival things were coming to a close.  We had the last dance and singing then said goodbye to the campers for that session.  Lots of tears. 

After clean-up the next day we had our last big day off to a spot by the river.  People got smashed, had sex, whatever.  But the next day our boss hired a couple of boats and a speed boat on Lake Trinity where we went skiing/tubing.  That was so much fun.  On the other boats we had a barbeque, jumped off the top and swam, and generally just chilled.  But this was the day when 75% of the counsellors had to leave for college or other things.  It was the big goodbye.  More tears for some.

Family Camp:

With days getting shorter, temperatures not so oven like this was a good way to ease down and catch up on two months of sleep.  NO MORE KIDS!!!!  Basically with family camp we offer what we do for kids camp but the campers are families, so there are still kids but they're not our responsibility.  I was doing the woodshop this fortnight.  Guess someone had to.  It was good to go swimming and not be a lifeguard, and the apples were ripe so we spent a morning picking them and making 100% apple juice, apple pies, apple crisps (that's crumble here) etc.  And counsellors spent more time with each other.  We had time to.  But it came to a close as well.  As i stood on Hogsback Ridge one morning run i sat down and looked at the river knowing it would be the last time i would see it.  I thought about all the memories, the funny things, the challenging things, the wilderness and most importantly the people.  I was nearly in tears.

On the last day we had to round the horses to one of the fields on the other side of the hill.  They kept escaping the track so we had to go and re-round them several times.  That was exhausting but fun.  Have you ever had twenty horses come hurling towards you?  That's scary.  Our boss rewarded us with some shooting.  He took several guns from his house and we did some firing at unclaimed pottery.  That's right guys i've fired a gun!  Not that it's fun but an experience.

After another goodbye E, Randi and Sara drove me down to Sacramento - buildings, houses!  It felt so strange.  I wanted to go back.  But the city's quite pleasant.  Old Town Sacramento is set up as it was in the 1850 gold rush days so there were restaurants, cake shops, craft shops etc.  It's by the river as well.  Nice.

Then Los Angeles again.  Then out.

When i got home i suffered a genuine episode of culture shock.  When i heard about this for people returning home i couldn't quite believe it.  Now i do.  It's a weird sensation; i can't explain it.

Days off:

We got about two per session in groups of four or five.  Big days off were at intercessions. There were usually two towns of interest: Weaverville, a small town by the Trinity Alps.  There was a concert one night.  Some country music.  It's easy to dance to it because all you do is jump up and down.  It has that sort of beat.  Arcata is a cooler town by the coast with a major hippie population.  The ocean was the coldest water i'd ever plunged into.

American Life:

In a few words it's not that much different.  Americans are no fatter, more obnoxious and arrogant than Australians.  It's just that the media has us believeing otherwise.  Celebritities.  In a hotal room in LA i was flipping channels and saw two daughters of a model who said they never leave the house unless they look perfect.  There was also a monster who wanted to be the strongest man in the world.  This is what he said, 'i will be the best for America; i will be the greatest; i love America and i will be the greatest in its name; i will be the strongest man alive.'  Here's a message: hardly any American is like that.  I walked down Century Boulevard with $1500 CASH with me.  No one was going to rob me.  I was saying hi to black people because they were saying hi to me.  I think it's just gang activity that you have to watch for.  People are great.  I heard a lot of country music and Paul Simon.  That's a difference for sure.  And i think 90% of Americans hate George W Bush.

I want to go back - if not for camps, mountains and rivers then for s'mores, ambrosia salad and those Carnation ice-cream sandwiches.  I'll miss the friends i made, the river, Gates Mountain, the blind horse on 'Friendship Hill', the ranch dog called Bear.  I would relive those three months any day.

I LOVE AMERICA.  Go, USA.

I don't have photos to put up here.  I went through eight rolls of film but nothing digital.  But you might be able to register with www.bunk1.com and see the official ranch photos there.

I'm glad to be home, even though i'm four kilograms heavier.  Now i can see everyone at last.  I missed y'all heaps.  You're gnarley and rad :)

But now that i'm home...i need to look for a job :( 

I went to a careers counsellor this morning.  It was the first time i've been to one, and it was really useful.  She just got me to look at areas in interviews i could work on.  In the past if there was just one or two things i lacked or wasn't quite so good at then i wouldn't get that job, but that would apply to everyone in one way or another.  I need to say how willing i am to learn it.  I should also get in contact with my uni again to find out what's around.  Based on my experience etc she even suggested working at a private school - not teaching but something on the lines of sport & rec.  It's such a broad field so it's hard to know exactly where to head.  At least i have some more ideas now.

I've picked up some work supervising children with a disability, which will keep me going till Christmas.  It's not full time but hopefully other opportunities should come forward as i go along. 

"Do you ever feel you have the right equipment but are in the wrong place?"  - Bishop Joseph Garlington.

He spoke these words at the Redline conference in May.  It's just a guy talking but when God puts charge on it, you know about it.  Ever since i got back from America i've felt unchallenged.  I sometimes wonder if Melbourne really has what i need.

Just a thought...i'm not actually going anywhere.

I have to get to Box Hill immediately.  This time with money.  I was there this week and went into an anime shop, and there i saw something i've been looking for for so long - He men! :D

There must have been thirty of them.  Fisto, Cyclops, Jitzu, Spikor, Two-bad, Tongue-lashor, Rattlor, Hordak, Skeletor, Mossman and heaps more that i've forgotten the names of, and others i'd never seen before.

I don't know how much they were, and my Newstart doesn't kick in for 13 weeks so i won't be getting any money within that time unless a job comes up.  But i want them; i want them.

I think i have goosebumps.

About five years ago i went to a conference where one of the speakers talked about stress.  He said that even just fifteen minutes of napping during the day can affect sleep at night.  I took half an hour yesterday.  I was tired after going out both Friday and Saturday nights and then getting up early Sunday for some long overdue heavy training on my bike.  I wasn't tired when i went to bed last night because of that snooze.  The whole night i was tossing and turning.  When i finally got to sleep i stayed asleep until the morning, having slept in and feeling awful.  So for quality sleep, don't nap.

On a more positive note, visit jestar 's blog and say happy birthday for yesterday.  Hugs and joy to you always, eS.

Usually my blogs are not about any contemporary issues or topics but something that’s been coming up on radio, books, church this past fortnight is an affliction that’s gripping your boyfriends, husbands, friends, sons, fathers – pornography.

So I’m about to give a kind of sermon I guess on the effects, why, what the Bible says and what can be done to alleviate the effects.

I can’t say I was ever addicted to porn but as a non-Christian and in the first four months of being one it certainly had mood altering effects on me.

Pornography addiction is just as crippling as alcohol and gambling addiction.  The difference is that it’s secret, making men have to battle with it alone, which consequently becomes very damaging.

$US15 billion is spent on porn annually – more than movie tickets and performing arts combined.  In LA 10,000 porn movies are made compared with Hollywood’s 400.  Pornography is everywhere – in clubs, infiltrating into advertising, soon to be in mobile phones.  Because of this, addiction is happening more rapidly.  In the 80s porn was harder to access so it could take several years for addiction to occur.  With the internet now children as young as eight can be addicted to hardcore pornography within a week!  It can take more than 10 years to unlearn.  But what effect is it having on males?  Does it encourage men to expect sex inappropriately? Does it affect relationships? Does it encourage rape, sexual murder?

Why the Buzz?

Moby says, ‘I like pornography – who doesn’t?  I don’t really trust a man who claims to not be interested in porn.’  It’s about how men are wired.  There is a 3D visioneering; men see things rather than people, and chemicals in the optic nerve are related to crack, amphetamines etc.  These sorts of chemicals are released during masturbation, permitting a natural high, but leaving feelings of depression, flatness, anger so you have to do it again.  And the process continues.  Testosterone plays a role in risk taking, aggression, a relentless sex drive.  Porn offers that level of excitement.

The Influence

Males usually resort to it during times of loneliness, wanting acceptance.  The women portrayed offer sex but don’t provide it.  They are always available and depict what a man can do to them sexually.  Teenagers are curious about it.  It’s naughty and accessible.  Sex becomes objective.  Boys are taught that success is driven by competition.  As a result they will not express emotions because they don’t trust their feelings.  In porn there is no criticism of male performance.  The women are always ‘hot and ready.’  Men’s authority is unchallenged in porn and women are their willing and grateful servants.  Men tend to feel threatened by the ‘emotional power’ they perceive women to exert over them.  Unable to feel alive except when in relationships with women they are at the same time painfully aware that their own salvation comes in being sexually acceptable to women.  This sense of neediness can provoke intense anger that finds expression in porn.

In Robert Stoller’s book Porn: the Myths for the Twentieth Century he interviews a porn actor who claimed that men in the industry brutalise the women to make up for lost girls they couldn’t have in high school.  Through pornography real women can be avoided, male anxiety soothed and illusions of phallic prowess indulged. 

The Reality

Pornography is false.  It develops falsehoods about men, women and human relationships.  Men can easily be disgusted with themselves because of it.  Too much is deadening.  Extended exposure can ruin relationships.  It alters views on what men want out of sexual relationships.  Women are dehumanised; there is dissatisfaction with real women.  Eventually men will not be able to sustain a real relationship because they feel so dead inside.  It encourages transience, experimentation and moving between partners.

Sex Crimes

One psychologist has postulated that all pornography ends up into sadomasochism.  Images of women engaging in acts of bestiality are becoming immensely popular.  The fantasies become addictive which gives the feeling of sexual relief when in actual fact there is none.  Men want to experience the sex acts in real life.  So does this lead to sexual crime?  As sex offenders are confronted they use a wide range of distorted views to excuse their actions, justify their behaviour, blame the victim.  They seek to make their crimes seem normal and porn legitimises these views.

Perhaps the most extreme case is with serial killer Ted Bundy, ‘It happened in stages, gradually…My experience with pornography that deals on a violent level with sexuality is that once you become addicted to it…I would keep looking for more potent, more explicit, more graphic kinds of material.  Like an addiction you keep craving something that is harder, harder, something which gives you a greater sense of excitement, until you reach the point where the pornography can only go so far…It reaches that jumping off point where you begin to wonder if, maybe, actually doing it will give you that which is beyond just reading about it or looking at it.’

While he stopped short of blaming porn for his atrocities it certainly played an intrinsic role in his motivation.

What to do?

I’m not a psychologist so I can only describe what I’ve been told and what the Bible says.  It’s a cliché but prevention is the best cure.  If you’re a parent do not, do not, do not allow your child to have a computer with internet access in his room.  Educate him on the harmful effects – continue to educate him – and be aware of what he’s doing on the computer. Love your son.  Show him that he has integrity and adventure.  You can’t let him slip away.

Here are some scriptures worth looking into:

For he who sows to his own flesh or sensual nature will reap decay and destruction.

Galatians 6:8

‘Anyone who so much as looks at a woman with evil desire for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.’

Matthew 5:28

‘The eye is the lamp of the body.  If your eyes are good, your whole body will be full of light.  But if your eyes are bad, your body will be full of darkness.’

Matthew 6:22-23

It’s important for men to get support by others going through the same experiences, to get professional counselling, prayer.  If you don’t have a relationship with Jesus Christ then think about how He has promised to help you in Hebrews 2:18, Because Jesus suffered when He was tempted, He is able to help those who are being tempted.

Not to mention forgiveness, If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.

1John 1:9

Cast all your anxiety on Him because He cares for you.

1 Peter 5:7

Fear of man will prove a snare, but whoever trusts in the Lord is kept safe.

Proverbs 29:25

Porn is a fantasy in place of reality.  You can only get nourishment out of real relationships.

"I haven't the slightest doubt that we who were attempting Everest in 1953 were the lucky ones.  We were not driven by ideas of fame and fortune (or certainly i wasn't).  All we wanted was to climb a mountain that had been a constant challenge for more than thirty years."

Edmund Hillary.

Be the Quiet

Why are you so angry and cold-hearted

To the hand that helps you

You're breaking destroying what is

Around you i'm pleading

Will you let me into you

All the fingers point to you

I'm reaching out my hand to you

If you won't let me there'll be no one left to save you this time

Will you let me

Be the quiet in the storm that you created

Will you let me

Be the quiet in the storm that you created

Why do you rush into the raging of the ocean

That drowns you

It's breaking destroying what is

Around you i'm pleading

Will you let me into you

All the fingers point to you

I'm reaching out my hand to you

If you won't let me there'll be no one left to save you this time

Will you let me

Be the quiet in the storm that you created

Will you let me

Be the quiet in the storm that you created.

From the self titled album - Disciple

Acts 2:13.  ..."They have had too much wine."

If someone *right now* were to ask me what it feels like to be a Christian i would boldly tell them it's like a 24/7 adrenaline rush.  This is my second Alpha course - 1st time as a leader - and i love the weekends away.  It's an intense time of worship, study and prayer.  Many new and non-Christians give their hearts to the Lord on the weekends.  It's so cool to see the bondages shattered that hold people back from progressing, to see men give up their pride and resort to tears they've been holding back for decades.  When i did the course last year it changed my life when i was filled with the Holy Spirit.  It's such a great feeling, and to continue to be filled is just as awesome.  There's no better life than this.

When i got home i wrote this in a couple of minutes.  It's rough but spontaneous.

Bring on the praises with full force

with astonishment and love that fills oceans

Our hands will reach the stars

Our hearts will cause earthquakes

Our cartwheels will cause hurricanes

Our jumping will move mountains

Our singing will be heard in space

Nothing will shake us,

split us

Our light burns brighter than the sun

It's all for You, God

Forever we'll create storms with our praises.

Whoooooo

I spent the last couple of days at the Grampians, all on my own this time, just wandering, walking up some of the peaks, admiring the views.  I love the Grampians.  It's got everything, and considering the long weekend there weren't that many people around.  It was good.  I needed that time to myself, praying, thinking things through.  I guess the good thing about not working atm is the ability to take off and go somewhere for a few days.

It's a beautiful place.  Except when i was in primary school i remember it always rained there.  Now nearly all the creeks have dried up.  I don't know how the animals survive.  I wish people would stop saying how great the weather is.  Great weather is wet weather.  They're saying we are in the worst drought for, not 100, but 1000 years.

Now for the rest of the week i have to work on the newsletter for my buswalking club.  At the next AGM i might stand down from this role.  I've been editor for three years and i've lost motivation in doing it.

My sister had her birthday on Friday - yay!  I still find it strange that my little sister keeps growing up.  Course that's always one more year for me too.  She's not a youth anymore, though i'm sure she still feels like one.

We went to a Mexican restaurant.  Oh man that's good food.  There aren't enough Mexican restaurants in Melbourne, not like America.

Two of her friends i also knew in high school have kids now.  It's happening more and more.  They're so beautiful i must admit.  I love playing with them, holding them above my head, but when they start crying it's time to pass them on hehe.

I'm still glad i'm single.

Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.  Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.  Consider Him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.

Hebrews 12: 1-3

Our senior pastor gave us these verses at the last leaders summit.  I imagined running a marathon. It's a race and they hurt.  They hurt!  You reach a point where you want to sit down, collapse, drink, take the pain in your legs away.  The beautiful thing is, you don't stop, because you know that at the end there is a prize.  The finish.  It's great and it feels good.

The same applies for the race we run everyday in our walk with the Lord.  There are times when we want to give up, when people oppress us, when we're weary and hurting; but we have to focus on Jesus.  He's already run the race ahead of us.  We can't let situations get in the way of the grand prize at the end (1Cor 9:24-27).  Just keep pushing through and eventually you'll be delivered.  And the glory is awesome.

Although i still went to bed late last night i'm glad i've caught up on sleep.  One day it'll come crashing down.  Friday night was the young adults end of year party for our church.  It was a bling theme, and my sister managed to get a long necklace (which was actually Christmas decoration) and attached it to a clock from the reject shop.  It worked well.  And it was a really good night.  I went out again Saturday and Sunday night.  Sunday was the volunteer appreciation night at our church.  It was cool; as i was talking i had this massive filling of the Holy Spirit and felt so much love and joy i just wanted to chat with everyone and hug them, even complete strangers walking down the street later.

Whoo!  Glory to God.

Tonight's the last Alpha.  Next year will be full on with five for the year.  Not to mention ministry trax classes, short story classes and a heap of other things.  I accept the challenge.

Here's a funny quote coming from a guy who's exactly like a child:

'You'll never be a child again, but you will become a senior.'

Daljit Gill.

Bad Mistakes On Resumés

Here are some real-life examples:
"My intensity and focus are at inordinately high
levels, and my ability to complete projects on time
is unspeakable."
"Education: Curses in liberal arts, curses in
computer science, curses in accounting."
"Instrumental in ruining entire operation for a
Milpitas chain store."
"Personal: Married, 1992 Chevrolet."
"I have an excellent track record, although I am not
a horse."
"I am a rabid typist."
"Created a new market for pigs by processing,
advertising and selling a gourmet pig mail order
service on the side."
"Exposure to German for two years, but many words
are not appropriate for business."
"Proven ability to track down and correct erors."
"Personal interests: Donating blood. 15 gallons so
far."
"I have become completely paranoid, trusting
completely nothing and absolutely no one."
"References: None, I've left a path of destruction
behind me."
"Strengths: Ability to meet deadlines while
maintaining composer."
"Don't take the comments of my former employer too
seriously, they were unappreciative beggars and
slave drivers."
"My goal is to be a meteorologist. But since I
possess no training in meteroology, I suppose I
should try stock brokerage."
"I procrastinate--especially when the task is
unpleasant."
"I am loyal to my employer at all costs. Please feel
free to respond to my resume on my office
voicemanil."
"Qualifications: No education or experience."
"Disposed of $2.5 billion in assets."
"Accomplishments: Oversight of entire department."
"Extensive background in accounting. I can also
stand on my head!"
Cover letter: "Thank you for your consideration.
Hope to hear from you shorty!" 

Well, i guess mine aren't too bad. 

You've probably come across this already on NineMSN but i'll post it anyway.  You wonder if articles like this are actually true.

You see the picture in my profile.  That's Dibbin Hut on the Bogong High Plains.  I was there for the second time this *cold* Easter.  While it survived the 2003 bushfires this weekend might be another story when this expected 'superfire' comes.

Many people are staying to defend their homes.  I hope they know what they're doing.

Tomorrow night Tennis Victoria will have a meeting to discuss the implications of stage 3 water restrictions on porous surface tennis courts.  We are banned from watering them, which means there'll be no reason to play competition, no reason to play socially.  Clubs are set to close down.

The same applies for cricket and football clubs.

Well there it is.  I may not see my sister now for a year.  It still hasn't hit but it will on the nights she normally comes over.  But it's good.  She's gone with her boyfriend on a huge overseas trip to:

Japan

Cambodia

Thailand

India

Nepal

China

Germany, Switzerland, probably most others

England for six months working

USA

Mmm...i wonder how she'll go.

We all stumble in many ways.  If anyone is never at fault in what he says, he is a perfect man, able to keep his whole body in check.

James 3:2

We all stumble in many ways.

It's so easy to put people down when they fail at something.  The problem is you start to judge people, criticise them and assume the worst of them when we need to be helping in that area; and always keep in mind that everyone makes mistakes and struggles with things in life.  So in marriage, work, parenting, relationships look on the positive and offer help.

One of the widows of September 11 when her husband was killed put it this way, 'What i wouldn't do to walk into the bathroom and see the toilet seat up.'

Well i'm here, which means i didn't go bushwalking over the Christmas/New Year period but we may still do a two day hike.  Originally i would be up at Mt Kosciusko but the trip got cancelled due to bushfire danger.  Ironically Christmas was cold.  I've got to say i was impressed with that weather.  My parents and i went walking in the Dandenongs.  There was snow on one of the roofs of a house.  Sensational. 

We also had dinner with friends from the family bushwalking club.  That must have been at least fifteen years ago, but it was good to see them again after so long.

And the day before i caught up with my ex-girlfriend - if nothing else but to see her 7 month old daughter.  She's at that stage where you just want to hold her and play with her all day.

So there's a little insight into the past couple of days.  Is anyone actually interested?  Course my sister's in Japan.  She went on the bullet train to Mt Fuji, has visited temples and spent Christmas eating Saki, or something.  Sounds much like jestar's trip there. 

End of the year usually means sorting out things you need and don't need.  I went through all the folders in my study trying get a decent system of drafts, good copies and other notes from all the poems, short stories and the novel stuff of 2004/5.  It's amazing how much can be written in just a few years - none of which is even close to getting published but it's still such a great feeling imaginative writing.

I came across this silly poem i wrote in 1993.  I don't know where i came up with this but here it is:

THE TOTALLY MAD KID FROM MEXICO

There once was a boy from Mexico

Who liked to chew on his toe

He chewed it all day

He chewed it all night

While he sat on a pile of hay

He liked to jump on mattresses

And throw his sister into cactuses

He liked to throw stones at birds

And watched in awe as they dropped their business all over him

He liked to go to the pool

Which he thought was really cool

Especially when topless women sun-bathed in the shallow pool

His parents got sick of his behaviour

As he was a total failure

So they sent him away

On a holiday

And never was he to be seen again.

Hehe.  The teacher graded it with a question mark, and wrote: rather a strange ending.

Happy New Year, beautiful people :)

Although i'm not a fan of video games for the purposes of friendship and a good time for New Years Eve we played on jestar's wii for a short while.  I can see how this technology will keep improving.  In fact you could almost predict that soon we'll be able to play adventure games where we have to find keys to secret rooms and defeat the boss dudes to gain treasures, only instead of using our fingers and thumbs on a control we'll be standing up and playing for real.  We'll wait and see.

I'm glad i didn't go into the city for New Years.  I have before and got bored each time.  I'd rather spend it with a small group of friends as i did last night.

I can't wait for 2007.  I don't have any major climbing or bushwalking trips planned but i know it'll be a great year no matter what happens.

Well it's a humid day, and i feel like going to the beach.

I won't be posting anything for over a week now.  Next week i'll be by the beach on the Southern Cross Kids' Camp.  It's where many foster kids come on camp and get buddied up with volunteers and do heaps of cool things.  This is my first one so i'm not entirely sure what to expect but it will be a mind-blowing experience.

And i hear next week is my birthday...shhhhh!!!

This week has been an intense, tiring yet super rewarding week.  I was on the Southern Cross Kids' Camp this week.  Foster kids are buddied up 1:1 with volunteers and we do heaps of stuff like games, swimming, snorkelling, surfing (although on calm water), jet-skiing, harley davidson rides, art n craft, giant swing and much more.

The main aim of the camps is to show the love of Christ but be thick skinned about it.  So there was also light ministry and worship.  In general the kids responded well.  There were no cricket bat fights one leader said, which happened one time.  I can't give the name of my camper but he was a great boy graduating this year which got him upset.

It was a real eye opener.  Really basic things like giving gifts of socks and two dollar toys means so much to them.  Stuff like not yelling at them if they wet the bed is a huge change from their life; and being fed so much food.  They never complained about the food, simply because many days of their life they don't eat a thing and to have unlimited food on camp is such a big deal for them. And yet we go to expensive restaurants and whinge about what we've got - not on!  One of the girls was so amazed that her buddies had decorated the room.  She felt wanted and appreciated.

I'm glad i didn't know the background of the campers.  They were all so beautiful and precious, and it would break my heart to know what they've been through.  And that's why we had to give them care and heaps of encouragement all throughout.  One week makes a difference to them.  One girl came back for the third time.  Her first year she was extremely rude and antagonistic but in her final letter to the directors she wrote, thank you for helping me believe in Jesus. 

I have now entered 'the next phase' of unemployment.  Five days a week i am to attend job training, spending 4 hours a day with job hunting, group and individual workshops as well as an additional 4 hours a day of outside job hunting, which you do in your own time.  It feels incredibly demeaning, and it's not as though for the past five months i've been sitting back and waiting for jobs to come to me.  *Sighs*

They don't want me to go on this youth camp next week because it's voluntary.  Well, i look forward to it all the more.  One week by the beach sleeping in tents, doing water activities and lots of devotion time.  I need it.

I'm back from eight days at Camp Coolamatong near Bairnesdale.  It was a youth camp for year seven and eight students.  I haven't worked that much with that age group.  They're right in that transition phase.  Some looked like kids, others looked like older teens.  But it was so much fun.  We did kayaking, canoeing, water-skiing/tubing, swimming, windsurfing, an overnight stay on 90 mile beach and plenty of other activities - one in which i had to stuff a banana in my mouth and push the mush through a stocking.  I didn't win that game.  And there was also worship and ministry time with a water theme.  I love being a Christian.  To think i wasted so many years before.  At least i'm getting them back.

I came back yesterday to find that Serena Williams won the Australian open :o  Where did that come from?

Well...i'm back to reality now.  The end of January pretty much means the end of holidays.  Only this time last year i was preparing for New Zealand.  Oh i feel like climbing a good mountain now :(

I normally don't remember my dreams but this was kind of strange.  People were coming up to me for advice, and as i spoke, their faces got all disfigured to the point they became monster like and then died.

Mmm...

I love the weekends but waking up on Monday morning means another week of the reality of unemployment.  I go to the job centre for training and i'm glad that many there are genuine people but there is a handful who turn up and if they're not hungover they're stoned.  Well...

There's some light this week.  I have an interview on Wednesday.  Let this be it.  I can't handle application after application, jobsearch after jobsearch for much longer.  Unemployment is not a holiday.

I was filling out an application form and this was one of the questions:

Gender (please circle)  M / F / U

U?

Undecided? Unnecessary? or a typo?

After a night in the city i got back to a carpark in Glen Waverley to find my car had been broken into.  The irony of the break in (even though i may have left the door unlocked ) that there was absolutely nothing of value in it - no CD player, CDs, money etc, except my Bible case containing a Bible, journals, sermon notes and a very important notebook with 'God moments' in it eg. prophetic words, words of knowledge spoken over me; Scriptures, dreams, messages, anything.  That was missing and i nearly freaked, but we later discovered it to be under the car, which is still interesting because if i were the guy i would have taken it away and thrown it in a bin or something.  The only thing that was stolen was my sunglasses which has dirty lenses and bits of rubber missing on it anyway.

Overall I'm sure the perpetrator was very disappointed.

I got these guidelines off the radio.  There was a thirty minute seminar on the top five recommendations on what men and women need in a marriage.  I didn't catch the name of the teacher/marriage counsellor but she tours the world giving this message.  I thought it was interesting.

What women need from men:

1.  Affection

2.  Conversation

3.  Honesty/openness

4.  Financial security

5.  Family commitment.

What men need from women:

1.  Sex

2.  Recreation opportunities

3.  An attractive spouse

4.  Domestic support

5.  Admiration/words of affirmation.

Her closing statement was certainly confronting:  'Don't complain about your husband or wife.  You chose him or her.'

Don't agree or disagree with me.  I just wrote down what i heard.  I'm not married.  In fact we explored spiritual gifts on Friday in lifegroup and my second highest was celibacy - passionate single. 

Yay for singleness!

I've been at Anglesea this weekend for the first young adults weekend retreat for our church.  One of the first camps i've been on recently where i haven't been a leader.  I could sit back and enjoy the ride.  It was an awesome weekend of praise and worship and other fun stuff.  Some of us went mountain bike riding in some of the hills at the back.  There was a BMX track next to some wetlands so we rode there for a while Saturday morning.  The thing is we were 'adults' so we didn't worry too much about safety.  That afternoon most of us went swimming but unfortunately the waves weren't very high.

Rob Beach, the young adults pastor from Hillsong Church, gave a few messages on purpose, sacrifice and finding your own faults.  It's great to see someone so passionate about our age group.  Most people throw the emphasis on children and youth - which is great - but there are still many issues we face today.

Well i'm still very behind on sleep.  I got home and half an hour later got ready for Lifetrax.  It never ends. While i should have been in bed i went for a coffee with two girls after it, finishing at midnight.  One of them i like.  But more on that later. Despite being exhausted last night i didn't get much sleep so hopefully i can get some tonight.

I'm feeling truly pumped up right now.  And it seems i may be getting some work next week.  Not nearly enough to be full time but at least it's a start.

In my whole life i've seen one redback spider, and i think i was nine.  Last night while waiting for the train i was most fortunate to see another under my seat.  She was making her web, constantly weaving up and down between the ground and the seat.  I just stared at her for ten minutes until the train came.

Beautiful aren't they.

Another one under my belt.  The Oxfam Trailwalk is a 100km walk/run from Jells Park to Warburton to be completed in 48 hours.  Our team did it!

There were plenty of dramas along the way.  Friday was a 37c (~105f) day.  I didn't find it that bad but i was getting dehydrated, just peeing twice that whole day (if you need to know that).  20% of race starters retired.  One of the race stages was cancelled due to fire danger.  One man collapsed while crossing a busy road. Apparently one of the race winners (we go in teams of four) rehydrated too quickly and with just plain water and had to enter intensive care with cerebral oedema.

The winning team this year was all female.  That's the first time that's happened on the event anywhere in the world.  Some of the leading male teams started conking out because of heat exhaustion.  Shows how strategic the race is.

But Friday night the cool change came, bringing rain this time, and when we started again on Saturday the temperature was beautiful (by that i mean cold).  But it meant muddy tracks.

I may be able to put photos up soon, once i get them.  Ah...i think i'll do it again next year.

What is the shortest chapter in the Bible?  (Psalm 117)

What is the longest chapter in the Bible?  (Psalm 119)

Which chapter is in the centre of the Bible? (Psalm 118)

There are 595 chapters before Psalm 118

There are 595 chapters after Psalm 118

Add these numbers up and you get 1188

What is the centre verse in the Bible? (Psalm 118:8)

Does this verse say something significant about God's perfect will for our lives?

The next time someone says they would like to find God's perfect will for their lives and that they want to be in the centre of His will, just send them to the centre of His Word.

Ps 118:8. "It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in man".

Now isn't that odd how this worked out (or was God in the centre of it)?

My sister's still on her big world trip, now in England working and trying to stay put with some decent accommodation.

And guess who her boss is.  Nicky Gumbel!

Coincidence?

No...not based on my prayers.  Salvation is coming upon her.

It's been a bit of a while since i last blogged.  There hasn't been a huge amount to mention.  Everything's going well except i can't figure out why i'm feeling frustrated and unchallenged.  I feel like disappearing into the mountains for a week and go climbing or something.  I need that.

On Saturday i went to an information session on Alpha for prisons.  Nothing will happen on that for some time but they have my details and i got a confirmation email from one of the organisers today.  We'll see what happens with this.  Sounds exciting and difficult.  I'm also enquiring about missions work with children in Ethiopia, possibly for next year.  So yeah, rock on.

Here's a quote from John Eldredge, but i don't think it directly applies to many mindsayers:

Don't treat her [your wife] as a problem to be solved, rather treat her as a mystery to be known and loved.

Yay, an entry at last.  Seems ages.  Though there's still not a lot to really mention.  I'm spending my Saturday night on an assignment, but at least if i get a chunk of it done now then tomorrow i can cruise along and enjoy church and hanging out with friends.  Last night and today i was at a mens conference.  The theme - momentum.  These events are getting better each year.  There were heaps more people than last year.  And one of next year's speakers is Erwin McManus from...i think it's Mosaic church in California. Can't wait.

Yesterday we had an RDO at work so i went to Maroondah Dam and ran (in the rain :) ) up Mt St Leonard.  When i reached the top there was this beautiful mist over the Yarra Valley.  I love mist.  I really do.  There's something truly magical about it.

I lot of my girl friends are joining the gym with the intention of getting fit and/or losing weight, but they quit soon after because of lack of time or motivation.

Here's why.  Too many people think of fitness as going to the gym.  'I'm going to the gym to get fit.'  The thing is, weight training and spending 30 minutes on a treadmill is boring.  It's boring.

You don't have to go to the gym.  Go for a walk or jog in the park; go for a bike ride; play a team or racquet sport; go dancing; do yoga; go swimming.  There are so many options.

In addition to this - and remember this - the first 4 to 6 weeks of exercise is hard.  You have to keep doing it though until it becomes peaceful, until it feels good.  The fitter you get the more this comes.  It takes about a month of regular exercise.  Eventually you'll get to the point when you'll feel uncomfortable when you miss a day or two of exercise.

Hi everyone,

Although it's 8.30am on a public holiday and i'm blogging i did get some decent sleep last night, after the past three nights of going out.  I wasn't able to see some friends' new baby they had last week but a few of us went to Bendigo for the day to see some friends.  I haven't actually spent any time there, and it's quite a nice town, and really good to be with my friends.

I'm actually housesitting for the next six weeks.  There's a cat to look after but she tends to do her own thing.  It's a really big and beautiful house.  We're having lifegroup here (hehe, all night praise and worships).  But this is a good chance for me to rest up a bit.  I've dropped a couple of commitments so i can come home and put my feet up, spend more time with God and read and write and go running more.  Yay!

Okay i s'pose i'd better respond to the tags.  So here are the six:

1.  I have a thing for people's heads.  I love placing my hand on them and squeezing, patting them, messing up hair. 

2.  When i laugh hard - really hard - i laugh like a girl.

3.  I'm on a quest to buy the He-men i got rid of as a child.

4.  I like reading about ghosts, monsters etc.

5.  I don't have an i-pod.

6.  Snakes are my favourite animal.  Especially Australian ones.

Frank Peretti and Ted Dekker wrote a novel House (which was actually a Christmas present from jestar ) i have to say i loved it. 

Check it out here: www.rambles.net/peretti_house06.html.

It's fast, creepy and finishes with a cool message of how demons flee from Christ's authority.  It made me think for myself if i were placed in a house that had powers and influence that mimicked my sins what would it look like.  What would happen.

The book is supposed to be getting made into a motion picture.  Hope it goes well.

Ah, so relaxed.

I headed off to the mountains on the weekend to climb Mt Feathertop.  Yes it's not recommended to go alone, and my lifegroup couldn't quite justify my motives, but it's just what i do.

The snow was beautiful.  Absolutely stunning.  Although i didn't make it to the summit due to poor weather it didn't matter because it was just me and God.  And there's nothing better than that.  I've never felt so much love for Him before.  I really needed to be up there in the cold, the clouds, the snow, ice, views and profound beauty.

I had prayer requests but when i got to my campsite i changed my mind and just worshipped in my own different way.  I could go on forever.  I'm just in awe of Him.

He is good.  He is good.

You know i have to say there really is a feeling of satisfaction when you give money away.  One of my friends is heading off on a missions trip tomorrow but she, as of Wednesday, was short of money.

So i anonymously deposited a rather large amount of money into her account - more than i could really afford.  I've been a bit tight with my money the past couple of months.  But this feels really good.

I must say i'm looking forward to this year's Melbourne Marathon.  I ran a 30km race this Sunday and did well.  In fact the time i got could be calculated on some runner's world training system on the internet to be a sub 3 hour marathon.  Hope it's right.

When i woke up in the morning i almost wasn't going to go.  But i did, started running and turned out to be a good solid race.

I've done just about every outdoor adventure activity you could think of but i'd never been snowboarding until this weekend.

There were twelve of us who went to Falls Creek.  It was just fantastic.  Although the long drive and poor sleep the weekend was awesome.  There are some good runs on the mountain, even though most of what we went on were green runs.  I was getting the hang of it and managed a couple of blue runs.

But i'm really sore both from falls and muscle soreness from using muscles i don't normally use.  It was worth it.  I am so doing this again.

The Melbourne Writers' Festival finished yesterday.  As i browsed through the bookshop i had never seen such a high concentration of books on God's non-existence.  People are buying them, believing them, challenging believers with so many questions.  I had a guy doing it to me and a friend at church on Saturday.  I wonder what it is that makes these books so popular.  Could it be that knowing an all loving God who allows suffering, and to have academics proclaim it's all a myth, offers some comfort?  We saw the popularity of The Da Vinci Code, the latest now The God Delusion.  Two more can be added with God is Not so Great and Adams Versus God.  It's true that Christianity is declining in Australia.  In 1996 80% said they were Christian.  That has now gone down to 60%, and of that 60 only 9% are actually committed.

Still, the mega churches are on the rise, with new and young Christians being more passionate about their faith.  In another bookshop Philip Yancey's Prayer was actually next to the God Delusion in the religion section.  Ironic.  This was a secular bookshop mind you.  And i heard on the radio with some scientists who claimed that in five years the theory of evolution will be ridiculed by just about all researchers. 

One of the sessions i went to at the festival was entitled The Politics of Atheism.  Three atheists spoke about writing these kinds of books - what to consider, the difficulties etc.  One of the speakers Margaret Simons said she grew up as an atheist, but after visiting Hillsong Church as part of her research she says, 'now i'm not too sure.'

Erk...i don't normally get colds for five days, and it's still not recovered.  I guess it had to happen.  I've come across so many people with a cold and haven't caught it until now :(

The Melbourne Marathon is less than four weeks away, and the past two weeks i've had off running with an injury (which thankfully is now healed), only to be replaced by a cold.  But i'm running it!

At least i've actually got time to write emails, write on here and explore facebook a bit more.  I still don't understand the darn thing.

After ten years i've seen it again.  It's brilliant.  I love it.  You have to be so thankful for beautiful music.  A friend said that in an interview Anthony Warlow said that after ten years he plays the phantom much more comfortably this time.  I agree.  I was so drawn into the performance.  At times i could feel the phantom's pain and loneliness.  The tone of his voice had such sadness at times.

The effects were great, especially at the end with the phantom disappearing behind the chair, leaving the mask behind.  The costumes as well were magnificent.

I woke up this morning and the songs were still in my mind.  The music is so captivating.  My favourite part lasts only a few seconds but it's a single violin that plays just before Christine Daae sings Wishing you were somehow here.  It's intoxicating.

When Gaston Leroux wrote the original novel - which i'm halfway through now - he based it on a true story.  A French opera house with a labyrinth of cellars and a subterranean lake at its base had some unusual manifestations and events taking place.  The people there devised the concept of a ghost, but further research indicated a man of flesh and blood lived in the cellars and was responsible.  He lived as a phantom would.  Christine Daae really was kidnapped; the Vicomte de Chagny really disappeared and his older brother, Count Phillipe, was found dead on the bank of the lake.

Wonderful.

Last Sunday Ethiopian Haile Gebrselassie broke the marathon world record in Berlin in an incredible 2:04:26!  This was 29 seconds faster than Kenyan Paul Terget's previous record.

I ran the Melbourne Marathon on Sunday.  All i can say is, it hurts hehe.  I love it.  There's something truly different about this race.  It's a beautiful feeling running for a long time on a road with people everywhere, wind, heat and adrenalin.  It's a gift from God.  Robert DeCastella (former Olympian) described the marathon as a romance.  I think that's a perfect term for it.  There's emotion at the end.  Despite the tank like legs, pins and needles in the arms and the everlasting desire to sit down it feels so good when you cross the line.

So the results i came 150th out of, i think, 3,000 people in a time of 3:01:58.  So close to a sub 3 hour but i'm pleased with what i got.  The photos will be available on Wednesday.

Now i'm very sore.

"In the 5,000 and 10,000 metres you are running against the clock and the opposition.  In the marathon you are running against the distance itself."

Haile Gebrselassie.

Well this is my Friday night, working on a newsletter.  But it's finished.

I was thinking about what to do this summer:

1.  Catch up with friends

2.  Go to the beach many times

3.  Long rides on Sunday morning

4.  Another skydive

5.  The Portsea Twilight

6.  And a friend wanted to go water skiing.

Oh yeah, and it's official.  In February i'm off to Ethioipia on a missions trip.  Can't wait.

What's everybody's first thought when you hear the words intellectual disability?  I've worked at a day centre this year, and it's interesting when we go to a park for lunch how people nearby will pack their things and move somewhere else.  When we're on the bus or at a cafe other people just stare as though they've never seen a human before.

I don't know whether people think they're dangerous or just don't know how to react to them.  The problem is for people with intellectual disabilities (moreso the severe kinds), even though they can't talk (when i say this i mean the ones i work with) they know people are moving somewhere else because of them; they know people act differently around them because they're 'outcasts'.  And it hurts them...everyday of their lives.