Sellout

I'm now officially a sell-out. I've just joined Facebook. So if you wanna add me as a friend, I suggest doing it quickly. This is because I can't see my regular involvement on it lasting much longer than the new year.

To all my friends who encouraged me to join: (you know who you are!) Why? What do you see in it?

War Against "If Life Were a Musical"

This YouTube clip is for all you fellow Chaser fans out there. It's a bunch of random people doing their own 'If Life Were A Musical' on 'The Chasers' It's pretty good!

I'm still alive.

I have not been abandoned, no I have not been
Deserted and I have not been forgotten
- I Need You, Relient K

There's been a long absence of blogs recently. The reasons for this are many and varied. I'll update it with some of lifes recent happenings at a time when I'm not working 12 hour days.

Like 'The Simpsons', there is a Relient K lyric applicable to almost every situation I think.

It's so close I can taste it...

1 Exam to go. Only days away from having a tertiary education & letters after my name!!!! Woooooooooooo!!!! Can't wait. Friday afternoon sees the curtains draw on my University career. It is so exciting! It's just 1 of the amazing things that God is blessing me with at the moment! There's been somthing else kinda important happen in the last week or so as well, but I'll save that for another post.

Shout out

This one is a shout out to Ange. My sister who finished Year 12 yesterday. Congrats sis. May you never have to think about the quadratic formula ever again. I know I havn't since my Year 12 exams.

The 1

No better time than 1:20am to try and compose a meaningful blog post.

I don't believe in 'the one' as some Christian circles would portray it. You know, where God has your perfect soul-mate already picked out and he is preparing the two of you for each other & you will meet when all his preparations are complete.

My two main objections to that 'Hollywood' version of meeting that special someone are:

1. People have this nasty habit of hurting and sabotaging relationships with one another. Whether accidentally or on purpose, it seems unlikely to me that God would punish such actions against 'The One' with eternal singleness.
   

2. I believe than any person could potentially make a marriage relationship work with many different people. I believe this because love is a choice and not an emotion. I believe a marriage works when both people choose to love each other regardless of circumstances.
   

But rather than detract from romance, I think these things add to it! With #1, people can learn from their mistakes to improve future relationships. As for #2. Well out of all the (good) guys that are out there, Tiarnee choose this one!

If anyone is worried, I'm only planning on making a marriage relationship work with 1 person.

I wonder if this will make sense in the morning....

Hope in Adelaide

I was in Adelaide on the weekend for probably the last time (for the next few years anyway) as a visitor. Scary as that fact is, a brief moment of confusion would later calm my fears as I realized that maybe Adelaide won’t be so bad after all. I was confused because I was waiting for a bus on King William St, (Melbournians, think Collins or Bourke.) & lo and behold a tram rattles on past me. I got some serious déjà vu and as a tram rolls past the start of Rundle Mall. I wondered for a second if I was in Melbourne.

But alas, I was not. I was still on King William St just opposite Rundle Mall. For those who don’t know, the 1 remaining tram line in Adelaide has just recently been extended so that it runs the full length of the city, instead of half way. This was a revolutionary thing for Adelaide & the idea of tram lines in the busiest part of the city was a difficult one for many to swallow. But it is slowly being accepted. They haven’t quite mastered the art of turning right across tramlines yet, but all things in time.

This tram line may only be a small extension, but it gives me hope for the future. Any step which makes Adelaide more like Melbourne is a positive one. Perhaps, just maybe some South Aussies are starting to see the light. Today, it’s tramline extensions. But who knows? Tomorrow they may build freeways through the city, or waste large amounts of money on abstract architecture. (ala. Fed Square or ‘Southern Cross’) Adelaide may even get to host major sporting events.

Biblical Sarcasm

It has been said that:

Sarcasm is the lowest form of humor

But if it is good enough for God, it is good enough for me! Where does God use sarcasm I hear you ask? Probably the bible. One instance is in Job 38. I read it the other day, in particular note verse 21 in which God is quoted as saying:

Surely you know, for you were already born! You have lived so many years!

As I said, if it's good enough for the almighty, it's good enough for me!

Political Aid

To follow up my previous post somewhat:

• Labor have promised to lift Foreign Aid levels to 0.5% of GDP by 2015. This is an increase from:
  
• The Coalition who have already commited to 0.35% of our GDP in Foreign Aid by 2010. The Libs are yet to commit past 2010.

So despite Labor looking the goods on this issue, BOTH parties have thus far failed in our commitment to the UN Millennium Development Goals of 0.7% of GDP in foreign aid by 2015. (Source!)

Interestingly, both The Greens & Family First state in their policies that they would like to see the 0.7% figure reached or exceeded.

Political Judgement

According to this article (Heat on PM to cut link to pastor) Tony Abbott has made the call that the Labor party does not have "the degree of Christian commitment" that the Coalition has. So by inference "if you consider yourself a Christian you should vote liberal". I wonder if Mr. Abbott & other 'Chrisitan' pollies have read Matthew 7:

1"Do not judge, or you too will be judged. 2For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.

3"Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? 4How can you say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? 5You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye.

I think I'm capable of deciding on my own which party best represents my Christian beliefs. This should be obvious anyway because of fath & deeds etc. (James 2:17)

Like it was yesterday

I remember the days when I used to have to do assignments & tests etc. at school and Uni. I remember clearly the nights when I would go to bed at 3 & 4am only to be up before 9 in order to make looming deadlines. I remember when I would watch episodes of [Scrubs] and 'How I Met Your Mother' in order to procrastinate and avoid thinking about assignments. I remember how about week 8-9 every semester I would freak out about the amount of work I had left to do and complain to Tiarnee about it. Yet every time I would get them all done and still manage to pass. (& often more!) I remember how God was with me every step of the way, even though I couldn't see him most of the time. I remember the time that I passed a subject, simply because my assignment partner was about the smartest guy in the IT School. I remember teaching myself C++ as I completed my assignments because I couldn't understand what was said in class. I remember comparing my marks & work to my classmates and wondering how I was there with them.

I remember handing in my last assignment and thinking NO MORE ASSIGNMENTS EVER!!!! I remember feeling relieved and happy that I've made it this far. But most of all, I remember being thankfull to God. Thankfull that I've made it in-spite of all that I do not know. Thankfull that I'm 4 exams away from a Degree in Information Technology. Thankfull that I've found a job that I can make a career out of. Thankfull that I really enjoy this job & that I'll always be challenged and learning from it.

Yep. I remember the feeling of doing assignments like it was yesterday. Hang on, it actually was yesterday. No more assignments. Ever.

Say what?

Three Sundays ago, I arrived back here at Res after church, I'd just walked into my room and 1 of the girls advised me "I wouldn't go into the bathroom if I was you." A little unsure exactly what this meant, I said "Can I ask why?" For all I knew there could of been girls in there doing girly stuff that I don't want to know about. (See Upstairs Living #1 for further info). I was informed that people were in there doing a séance.

The next morning this was confirmed, as the table & shot-glass were still in there. I'm not really sure why they hijacked our bathroom to do it, apparently it needs to be dark & quiet or something. I wasn't really sure what to make of a séance happening just through the wall from me. I'd heard forever that they are bad & I'd always believed it. But it occurred to me that this was all 2nd hand information. What did the bible say about "séancing"?

So I did a couple of Google searches. Looking for articles/ commentary on the subject. After a couple of "it's bad because it's evil" justifications without any reasoning I came across "What does the Bible say about channeling?" on GotQuestions.com. There is a record of a seance in the bible. Not surprised? Well I was.

1 Samuel 28 is where you will find it.

1 Chronicles 10:13-14 is where Saul dies, in-part because of the séance.

So it seems to me that while seances are sometimes real, and not always fake as I'd suspected. They should not be practiced because it is turning to someone/ something other than the Holy & all-knowing God for guidance.

But read the article, all I'm doing is regurgitating what it says.

IBM, iRiver & 1 Bolt

Yesterday was a very eventful day, for 3 reasons. Two I had planned, 1 I had not.

1. I worked my last shift at IBM yesterday. It was a gracefull departure with hand-shakes and well wishes from my bosses. As I said in my farewell email to everyone:

   My time at IBM has come to a close today! With the end of my B.I.T. at Uni just 35 short days away it’s time for me to leave and concentrate on my final assignments, as well as exams. As well as celebrate during Week 13.

   Being a tech support person definitely helped my communication and confidence in dealing with people. I now know that in whatever job I do I need to be learning and being challenged. The challenge had been lost in my tech-support role, and I was starting to find it repetitive.


2. 
   After work I shopped around for and purchased an iRiver x20 4Gb MP3 player for $184 from JB Hi-Fi. Which is the coolest shop in Ballarat, since it opened earlier this year. The reason for purchase was that I was sick of only having the radio to listen to in my car, & it would be cheaper to buy a portable MP3 player than get my CD player fixed/replaced. I've had a play with it & it also has an FM radio & can play Video and display photos. Oh, it has an inbuilt-mic & a line in port & did I mention a Micro-SD slot for extra memory! You can't get that functionality in an iPod.


3. 
   I was driving back to res after buying said mp3 player, when my clutch pedal broke while attempting to slow down to turn into a supermarket. Later inspection would reveal that the clutch itself isn't broken, but rather 1 bolt very similar to the above has fallen out of the clutch pedal housing, so now the pedal won't push in far enough to press the clutch. Just because my 4 assignments due this week arn't keeping me busy enough, I now need to get my car fixed.

All in all it was an interesting/ fun day!

Procrastination

What is lazy initialization? Does the Singleton class display lazy initialisation? Explain. If lazy initialization is not being used, modify the class so it does.

I think I'm showing some lazy assignment initialization at the moment.

That question and the 8 or so underneath it have been staring at me for at least the last hour. What does one do to make themselves study? Are there any effective ways of managing the whole 'overwhelmed cos of lots of assignments' feeling?

Oh well, I guess I'll get there in the end. I have for my previous 5 semesters. Besides, with God on-side nothing is impossible right?

Next Phone

While procrastinating an assignment earlier today I discovered what my next phone/PDA/GPS is going to be:

The Mio Digiwalker a702 (Link)

Featuring:

• Windows Mobile® 6 Professional


• Built-in 20-channel GPS Receiver


• Built-in 3.2 Megapixel Camera


• Geotagging of Photos


• WiFi Connectivity

Bio taked from here

The Mio A702 is a high-end PDA phone equipped with GPS function, a 3.2 Mega Pixel with autofocus, a movie player and an MP3 player. All these features are built into one device and it is distinctively smaller than conventional bulky PDA phone.

The Mio A701 comes with Windows Mobile 6.0 Professional edition, providing access to the Internet as well as Windows Office functions such as Microsoft Outlook, Excel, Word and PowerPoint. It also has Bluetooth and WiFi module built in. The A702's functions are activated by using a stylus or the keypad. The large 2.7-inch screen can be switched between landscape and portrait at the user's discretion. Mio A701 gives the user the ability to synchronize contacts and calendar entries contained in the phone to those in Outlook. The pda phone also eqiups with a new SiRFDiRect based Navsteadi high-precision navigation technology. Navsteadi brings in-dash like positioning accuracy and reliability to portable navigation systems.

It should be released towards the end of the year, and seems to be exactly the portable PDA/ GPS/ Phone/ MP3 Player/ Wi-Fi/ Camera that I've been looking for!

I mean seriously, not having to remember where you took photos because they're Geo-tagged, way cool!

EDIT: Should be a nice upgrade from my trusty Nokia 3315.

Free Burma

From time to time you'll read on this blog my rants about how inept my government is. But I can do that without fear of reprisals. I'm not blogging about how my government is hunting down & killing protestors.

Unwanted Education

I'm part of the problem,
I confess,
But I gotta get this off my chest.

Let's extinguish the anguish
for which we're to blame,
and save the world
from going down in flames.
- Down in Flames, Relient K

Until recently I didn't understand how big fights and splits could happen in churches. It seems that I've been educated. How do you resolve such differences? How does God see these differences?

I know that in my particular case, both sides of the dis-agreement prayed for resolution. As far as I'm aware, both sides even prayed for conviction if what they where saying wasn't what God would want. Yet despite this prayer and many hours of face-to-face conversation a resolution could not be found. All we managed to do was barely 'agree-to-disagree'. Agreeing to disagree is fine if discussing politics or football, but in situations that are closer to home it doesn't solve anything.

Taking a step back from the situation, clearly one or both parties are acting in a way that isn't Godly. Clearly after prayer and discussion neither party believed that it was them. This has been taking up alot of my thinking time recently. Can good come out of these situations where no-one wins?

Time on

I've just got back to Uni again for the final run home. I've just moved into Time-on in the final quarter of my University career. In 8 weeks & 4 days I should hopefully have a University Education. Which on a global scale at least, makes me very fortunate!

So here is the closing stages of the game by statistics:

• 8 weeks & 4 days to go
• 5 weeks of classes
• 1 week of swotvac
• 2 weeks of exams
• 5 assignments
• 1 presentation
• 4 exams
  
• 1 massive (or more) celebration(s)
• 1 Bachelor of Information Technology w/ approx 18 months experience @ IBM.
  

I have a lot of work to do!

Worlds Combined

It was great to have 100+ people join us at the Woolshed Hotel in Bordertown for our engagement party last Saturday night. Almost all of our close friends & family there to "Help us celebrate the excitement of our engagement."(as the invite stated) The food was also excellent. Naturally, I ordered the plate with the most types of meat in it, which happened to be the 'Stockmans Grill' which featured:

• A small rump steak
• A chop
• A prawn
• Chicken
• Rashers of Bacon
  
• 1 Sausage

The deliciousness of the above was complimented with fries and later on some delicious mud-cake made by my mum! Our different worlds did combine, with friends from home, Uni friends from Ballarat & Adelaide, together there with family from both Melbourne, Adelaide and SE of South Australia. It was a wonderfull weekend of seeing people & celebrating.

It was so much fun I'm thinking of having another big celebration (or two) sometime in the next year or so!

Drought: A second comparison

Way back in January I posted photos comparing a normal wheat harvest to last years drought. Now I'm home for the holidays I can provide an update as to what things are looking like around here, and a comparision to 2006.

These photos where taken yesterday of a Canola crop in full-flower next to my house:
This photo was taken on October 3 2006, where the canola was just past flowering:
We have been very lucky in that we have recieved good rain so far this year, but it has been quite dry for the last 4-5 weeks, and so we still need some significant rain to finish off the year well. But spare a thought for those in the mallee & elsewhere who are far more worse-off than ourselves, their crops look nothing like what is posted above, and there are real fears that many people will simply walk away from their farms & livelihoods.

The quest for the Holy Grail

Last Friday at work I attained the ultimate in call-center work. I reached the pinnacle of my job. It will never better than it was on Friday. I may possibly never work a shift that good again in my entire life and because of this I almost resigned on the spot so I could do a 'Steve Bracks' and quit while I'm at the top. So what happened on Friday at work that was so awesome? I wasn't promoted, I didn't get a pay rise & my work was the same as any other day. So what happened? The answer: nothing. I attained the holy grail of IT support. No calls for my entire shift. Ok, so it was only a 2.5 hour shift, but I still got money for nothing. It will never get any better than that.

Thanks to APEC & the public holiday in Sydney, the calls where few and far between. I actually think that APEC was worth it because of the above, and the fact that the Chaser team got to stage a fake Canadian Motorcade. It certainly didn't achieve anything for the good of the planet. If only HECS & HELP debt repayments were "aspirational & non-binding."

Now stop typing Jonny, before you get angry that innocent people can get locked up overnight without legal recourse in THIS COUNTRY for accidentally crossing the road at the wrong time.

A Peak at The Future

This time 1 week ago I had just finished a delicious $12 meal on O'Connell St & was strolling with Tiarnee through North Adelaide marvelling at some of the obscenely large houses that exist there. It was a great weekend, where we could just hang-out for once without the pressures of 'seeing' & hanging around our family. We could actually just 'live' a little bit, we didn't have to squeeze 2 weeks of catching up with each other into 48 hours. It was nice.

I also got to have a bit of a look through my future work-place. It was very cool. Don't know exactly what I'll be doing, but I'll be programming something, most likely web-orientated stuff(hopefully!) in Java or C#. The corporate world looks to be a very different world to the one I'm used to. I don't think I'll mind being at the bottom of the food chain (corporate ladder). Oh, & I DON'T have to wear a suit to work. Standard dress in the office is jeans and T-shirts. Which I'm very happy about. Almost as awesome as the dress-code, is the fact that I might be getting flown to Melbourne one weekend and put up in Crown-Towers to attend seminars and stuff. Food, flights, accommodation etc. included. Hopefully it happens!

Anyway, the weekend came at just the right time. Reminded me not to get too bogged down at Uni, and that yes, after all these years of study I'm finally working towards something tangible.

Lame?

Tiarnee is twenty today,
She is sadly so far away
"Happy Birthday to you"
and a prayer or two
Just seem like the right things to say.

Flatout Neglect

I've been negelcting this blog quite alot recently, with only 4 (this makes 5) posts in the last month. My site statistics have reflected this, with August likely to be the second lowest number of hits in a month since the inception of this blog. The positive side to those statistics is that it shows that people will come & read what I have to say, as long as I'm saying stuff. So why the neglect? Two reasons that I can pinpoint:

1. After the excitement of getting engaged, everything else that I'd normally blog about suddenly seemed trivial & un-important.
2. I am pretty flatout with different things at the moment.
   

Here's a rough listing of events on each weekend starting 1 week ago from today.

• Went home for the weekend.
  
• Team weekend for Rock Solid Kidz mission.
• Going to Adelaide (next weekend) to visit Tiarnee.
• Nothing at this stage (Switchfoot, Pillar Antiskeptic Gig in Melb on the 6th.)
• Engagement Party weekend (at home/ Bordertown)
  
• Rock-Solid Kids Mission in Ballarat from the 22nd-28th Sept.
  
• Home for the final weekend of the holidays, before coming back for final few weeks at Uni.
  

So all that on top of the roughly 15 hours a week at IBM & the final Semester Uni assignments. Speaking of which, I've gotta go and design me a website. I have 2 assignments due before I leave for Adelaide on Thursday. I'd better start one of them....

Does this bother you?

Read "In Iraq, sex is traded for survival"and tell me if it bothers you. Because it certainly bothers me.

She said: "I'm a nice-looking woman and it wasn't difficult to find a client. When we got to the bed I tried to run away … I just couldn't do it, but he hit and raped me. When he paid me afterwards, it was finished for me.

"When I came home with some food I had bought from that money and saw my children screaming of happiness, I discovered that honour is insignificant compared to the hunger of my children."

So this is what we've helped to create.

Why doesn't our media do reports like that one? For those like me that wonder the real reasons for the war in Iraq, have a read of this article: Row over Iraq oil law

Not Yet Anyway

I was digging through my rarely checked Hotmail account just now when I found this, sent to me a couple of weeks ago by a reformed South Australian. Seen as how I'm moving to Adelaide next year, I thought I'd go through them to see how South Australian I hopefully am not yet.

I'll bold all the ones that apply to me

YOU KNOW YOU ARE FROM SA WHEN.............

• You have been to Glenelg and got extremely sunburnt
• You know what fritz is
• You say plaaaant not pleeeent
• You have the same friends from high school
• You can't go out without seeing someone you know
• You really miss the old Sizzler cheese bread!!!
• You like ugg boots, not moccies
• You have a very strong opinion on Lleyton Hewitt
• You have been to one of the following lookouts: Stirling, Mt Lofty, Penfolds Rd, Sunnyside Rd, Eagle On The Hill, Montefiore Hill,Windy Point
• You know what Fruchocs are.
• You believe that anything that has ever breathed or moved in Adelaide air is 'Adelaide's Own'.
• You're well aware that for one month of the year, it is impossible to travel from one side of the city to the other, and during this period you will acquire a passion for V8s, a love of the arts, appreciation for world music, and expertise in food and wine.
• You pour Farmer's Union Iced Coffee on your breakfast cereal.
• You will never forgive Melbourne for stealing our Grand Prix. Never.
• You know how 'dance', 'pool', 'castle' and 'graph' are SUPPOSED to be pronounced. - NOTE: YEAH, the only one that has an 'r' sound in it, is the word that actually contains that letter.....
• You get offended when people from Western Australia call SA part of the "East Coast".
• You insist on calling AAMI Stadium, "Footy Park".
• You say a Pie Floater tastes great just to maintain your street cred.
• You believe that other states' time zones are not good enough for us. - I believe the inverse.
• You acknowledge that, while half of our state is uninhabitable, you know that it's still the greatest.
• You think the 'Tiser has no journalistic integrity whatsoever....and yet you still read it every day.
• One word: Haigh's - Never been there, heard they're really good & probably will when I move there.
• You buy your CDs from shabby "Big Star" outlets
• You know that Victor Harbor is the only place to be for Schoolies.
• You forgave the Chappells for the 1981 Underarm Incident purely out of South Australian patriotism.
• You have a unfettered love of either Crows or Port to the complete exclusion of the other.
• You know the people out on the Torrens are either tourists or rowers. No one else would go near that water. - That sounds strangely like the Yarra......
• You think the Festival Centre is a wonder of modern architecture. -HAHA, Like Federation Square..... *Sarcasm*
• You console yourself that, despite all our faults, at least South Australia wasn't built by convicts.
• You can leave work at 5:15 and miss "peak hour traffic" -Bull, it's always peakhour because they havn't thought of building Freeways yet.
• You can have a grin at the fact that Adelaide's second name is "City of Churches"
• You're not scared by Aboriginals walking around Adelaide in speedos and gumboots - That guy was (is?) a legend......
• Your 'sports gurus' are KG and Cornesy
• You either live on one side or the other of the great divide (Gepps
• Cross intersection)
• You're aware that everything is not just good, it's "heaps good"
• You still claim Anthony LaPaglia as an Adelaidean cos he worked in a shoe shop in Rundle Mall once.

150,000

My car turned over 150,000kms while driving back to Ballarat on Sunday. This means I've driven approx 56,000kms in the 2.5 years I’ve had my licence. My statistical analysis indicates then, that I’m averaging 22,400 kilometres per year, which equates to approximately 430km a week, or 61 kilometres per day. To take this analysis a step further, assuming an average of 550km per tank of fuel, which seems to be about what I get on highway driving, I’ve burnt 101 tanks of fuel. A 40L refill at $1.15/L would indicate between $4,500- $5,000 worth of petrol in that time. The cheapest tank of fuel I brought was 95.5c/L, the most expensive $1.399/L. In that time I've owned the car I've had to replace the tires, windscreen, timing belt & some drive thing in the steering.

You don't have to live in The Matrix to be dependant on machines.

Media Announcement

This is how the big news was reported in all the local media outlets!

Communion

I've been going to blog about this for a week or so now, but with other exciting things happening, I've not gotton around to it.

On the last night of camp at Halls Gap, we had a church-type service which included communion. The communion talk given on this night, painted communion in a whole new way for me.

The humanity of Jesus is often lost within Christianity & religion. Communion is a very good example of this. What do you do when you're about to leave your home base on any sort-of long journey? Alot of people hold going-away parties, so that they can say good-bye to those closest to them. At the very least people will catch-up with all thier closest relatives and friends. Jesus was no different. It is Jesus last night before being arrested and eventually crucified, and he knows this. So what is he doing with his last night of ministry? How did Jesus spend his last free hours on earth? He wasn't out healing the terminally ill, forgiving & talking to prostitutes or condemming the actions of religious leaders, as he'd become famous for. Nor was he delivering that one last 'this is how I want you to live' message. No, he spent it having a meal with his closest friends. He even states in Luke 22

"I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. For I tell you, I will not eat it again until it finds fulfillment in the kingdom of God."

Or to put it in the way I understand it "I've been looking foward to eating this meal tonight guys, it's the last one I'm getting untill I've been raised from the dead." (Which was still 3 days away) So Jesus is about to have his last meal with his disciples, a meal which has extra significance, because it is the Passover, an important celebratory meal in the Jewish tradition. He then takes bread, a staple food of his time, and still a staple food now & breaks it. He similarly takes wine, a common drink then, and a common drink now & gives it to his closest friends as is recorded in 1st Corinthians 11:

The Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, "This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me." In the same way, after supper he took the cup, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me." For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.

So Jesus is telling his closest friends that whenever you eat bread & drink wine, remember him! Not once a week, or once a month. But every time you eat bread or drink wine, which in those days, would've been almost every meal. Jesus intended communion to be a normal thing for his followers to do. Eating a meal, remembering Christ. A normal daily occourance. When Jesus instituted what we now call communion, I think he meant more that a semi-formalised ritual undertaken weekly or monthly.

Anyone understand what I'm trying to get out of my head into words?

Strange Celebrations

The people of Iraq finally have somthing (small as it may be ) to cheer about. With Iraq causing an upset to advance to the Asian (Soccer) Cup Final. They beat our boys along the way 3 - 1. Good on them I say, they need a source of pride at the moment.

But after all they've been through, I must question one of their methods of celebration. I can fully understand why shooting an AK-47 into the air would be a fun way to celebrate anything, but is it a smart thing to do in crowed places like towns and cities?
This newspaper is reporting the deaths of 8 people from celebratory gunfure & this news agency is saying at least 50 have been injured for the same reason. Why? Surely they need no education about the dangers of playing with high-powered rifles.
Imagine being the person that survived all through the reign of Saddam Hussein and then 4 years of sectarian violence, only to be killed by a celebratory bullet. I know I shouldn't laugh at others deaths, but the whole thing does seem quite ironic.

Must Have Done Somthing Right

The song "Must Have Done Somthing Right"by Relient K pretty much sums up how I'm feeling at the moment. But rather than post the slab of lyrics that are contained with this song, I'm going to link to the lyrics & music video of this great song. Oh & in an attempt to gain some credability, I'll state that I did like the song months ago, I think this is the second time I've linked to it.

Final Stretch

I've had the most amazing couple of weeks. I think I'm the most blessed guy going around. I can't help but wonder what the future holds, as I contemplate just how great life is at the moment. The old saying is true. No amount of money in the world could buy what God has given me.

So I've had to pull my head out of the clouds a bit, now that I'm back at Uni for my final semester. After some messing around, I've managed to get my timetable sorted out. While I can't wait to start my new job next year, there are some things about Uni that I'm going to miss. My timetable as it stands, has Fridays off & only 2 hours on Mondays & Wednesdays. I somehow don't think my 'full-time' work will only consists of 15-16 hours a week.

Saying goodbye to Tiarnee still sucked majorly. But I think it's easier to cope with knowing that the long-distance thing is going to be removed from our relationship forever in about 16 weeks.

Life Changing Love

And I'm racking my brain for a new improved way
To let you know you're more to me than what I know how to say
You're ok with the way this is going to be
Cause this is going to be the best thing we've ever seen
- Relient K

Surreal. Joyous. Anxious. Apprehensive. Happy. Tired. Blessed. Are but some of the emotions I'm feeling at the moment. Allow me to explain why:

Surreal - Because as we walked out under the Jetty at Lake Charlegrak, I felt unlike I ever had before as I spoke to her, held her hands & then dropped down onto one knee. It was incredible and amazing, I almost remember it as though I was standing there watching someone else. But it was me.
Joyous - Because of the silent moment where we realised that all the pains of a Long Distance Relationship were worth it before she smiled, and looked lovingly, and said "Yes".
Anxious - Because people may think we're "too young."
Happy - Because she liked the ring and I think it looks beautiful on her. Because all our (extended) families where together for a meal for the first time tonight. Because I've been able to see most of my close friends this afternoon. Those that I havn't seen I'll be able to catch up with over the next few days.
Tired - The emotion of telling people close to you about your life changing decision is encouraging & almost overwhelming, not to mention somewhat tiring.
Blessed - Because I'm the most blessed guy going around. God is amazing. He's given me everything. I'm engaged. To a pretty girl with a beautiful heart. She's so different from anyone that I've ever met. It is just the most amazing and wonderfull feeling in the world.

Wow.

Refueling

Wow. What a week. I returned this afternoon from the 'Fuel Youth' camp at Halls Gap. Was a great week with approx 70ppl attending, from locations as diverse as Kaniva, Serviceton, Bordertown, Keith, Murray Bridge & Adelaide. Personally, it was an incredibly encouraging week, and taking that time out to worship & learn about God with my closest friends in the picturesque Grampians was just what I needed.

The theme for the camp was 'Kingdom of God' (The wiki explanation is a really good one!). Knowing that Gods Kingdom isn't some abstract concept, but rather alive and with us now is just so uplifting. As well as Gods Kingdom, I was reminded of how refreshing & important both prayer and worship are. It's also been an important reminder that these activities draw us closer to God. God, who is always with us, waiting and wanting us to return to him.

Tiarnee is also getting confirmed this Sunday at her home church of Minimay. So that should also be a great time of praising God!

Counter Terrorism Warming

A few random observations about various things, that most people probably aren't interested in:

1. My visitor counter seems to have returned after a mysterious leave of absence. I did nothing to remove or bring back the counter. (Unfortunatly it's now showing that Aaron is more popular than me)
   
2. Terror threat: If people delay/cancel any planned travel to Indonesia, does this hand victory to the terrorists regardless of if there is an attack or not?
3. There's been a bit in the media about climate change recently for people from both sides of the fence. On the 'For' side we have the 'Live Earth' concerts which true to their name & cause are attempting to be the first major music event to be 'carbon-neutral'. On the 'Against' side: the ABC is screening a controversial documentary on Thursday which some scientists are claiming shouldn't be aired because it goes against the beliefs of the majority of the scientific community.
   

Are these the same scientists that say the teaching of creationism should be banned? Are these people that narrow minded that they belong to the Flat Earth Society? The people who originally flagged the idea of a round earth where ridiculed by the scientific community of the day. The debate on this issue, and any other like it should be encouraged and not suppressed. The media should give people the chance to hear alternate points of view, look into them and decide for themselves. Why are scientists sometimes so un-scientific?

Troubleshoot this....

I've got one for all you IT nerd troubleshooters out there:

My brothers PC just randomly started up. True story. The two of us had previously been trying to get a Radeon 9800 Pro to run in it, with limited success. The card runs, but is horribly unstable and we have no idea why. His PC is running Vista with the latest Radeon drivers installed. So it should be running well. But anyway, after messing around with that for a while, he'd given up on it and gone to bed. Ten minutes later he calls out to me, I walk into his room, and it is pitch black apart from the Windows loading screen on his monitor. For you skeptics, there's no remote control rig setup on this PC, & the box isn't within arms reach of the bed.

His PC just booted itself up of it's own accord. True story. I wouldn't have believed it myself, unless I saw it with my own eyes. I've heard of & experienced PC's shutting themselves down before on their own, but never booting up.

Any ideas as to the solution of either of these two problems?

Admitting the Obvious

So the Australian government is finally admitting the obvious. That one of the real reasons we went to war in Iraq is oil. Not weapons of mass destruction, or ousting Saddam, or Iraqi liberation or even "The War on Terror."

Side Fact: Al Qaeda had no presence in Iraq until after the 2003 invasion. Iraq was officially a secular nation, and Saddam had no time for extremist Islam.

Serious Satire

The Chasers War on Everything & [Scrubs] are my favorite TV shows. I particularly like the Chaser because of it's hilarious satire and bagging out of popular Ads & TV Shows. Satire in general amuses me, because it points out the stupidities in what we often accept as normal.

However, the best piece of satire I've seen recently is the following video produced by the Stir team of World Vision. Really points out how lucky we are in Australia, and how most of us 'Aussie Battlers' really aren't battling that hard at all.

Teenage Affluenza

Friendly Competition

Aaron & I are quite good mates. We both started Uni & Res. life at the same time, both studying I.T. and more importantly, we are Christian brothers. These many similarities have lead to quite a bit of friendly, but high-spirited competition between the two of us. The best example of this, began at the start of 2006, when we took up playing squash against each other. For a start I was beating Aaron convincingly, as I'd played before a lot more, then over time he improved and for the latter half of 2006 we where both quite even in skill level. However, this year that all changed, me having won only 2 of our weekly encounters all year to date. I almost literally had to beat him, in order to defeat him.

But as this list shows, squash isn't the only thing we've managed to make competitive:

• Best PC - Me winning at present
• Best Uni marks - Aaron
  
• Football teams - Spoils shared here, with Essendon fairing better overall in 2007, but with Port giving the Mighty Bombers a shock loss a week or so ago.
• His bigger res. bedroom Vs not having to cook for myself as much.
• Call of Duty: United Offensive - Only just taken it up again after a long break, Aaron used to have the wood over me, but after some practice, I seem to be slightly better, for the time being.

This competition has now reached the online world. For quite a long while my blog was racking up many more hits than his, but over the last month or so the tide has changed. His overall count has almost reached mine, his counter being at roughly 700, & mine (even though it seems to have disappeared of my main page, not sure why) being about 770 at present. If current trends continue, he'll overtake me in the next 5 - 7 days. But as of today, we're both on holidays, so with the extra time on our hands, expect a flurry of activity on this blog in particular over the next 2-3 weeks. So it would help me out a lot if you could all check back regularly...

Resemblance

A weird part of me found this amusing....

The WOW has started with a bargain

I was lucky enough to pick up a bargain today, another guy on Res was selling:

• A Radeon 9800 Pro AGP 8X graphics card
• 512 MB DDR400 RAM

For $50!!

I put them both into my Vista PC and the WOW has now started! The Windows Aero interface is just so pretty. I really like it, the Flip 3D interface is really cool as well. As for stability, I would say it’s on par or slightly better than XP, but system recovery is much improved.

Unfortunately, Colin is getting the graphics card and so the prettiness is going to disappear tomorrow. But it has given me a nice taste of what’s possible. Thus endeth hands free blog number two.

Why Now?

There has been quite a lot said about John Howards plan to crack down on sexual, drug and alcohol abuse in remote aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory. Howard has even gone as far as saying the situation is Australia's own Hurricane Katrina. While it seems like it's good thing that action is being taken about this, it is vastly different to Hurricane Katrina. Why has it taken until now to act? These problems have existed for years. Ask anyone who lives in the Northern Territory. It's not like these social issues have only just come out into the public light. I've been to the Northern Territory twice, and seen the evidence of widespread alcohol abuse, It's there for everyone to see, in the main streets of most towns.

As this article states:

The strange thing is that the news about Aboriginal men's rampant domestic abuse and the increasing rate of child abuse in the NT and elsewhere came as a shock to Howard. If one cared to look, or was interested to look, the information has been around for a generation.

Why did it jump to national attention last week? Why am I asking this question on my blog? Why isn't the media filled with articles asking this very question?

Hands Free

This is a blogging first for me. Everything about this blog has been completed without me touching the keyboard. Everything from opening Firefox, to opening Windows Media Player so I can listen to dc Talk. Voice recognition is one of the most ingenious yet frustrating features of Windows Vista. My initial observations are that it is good for simple program navigation but very frustrating to dictate text into. But I'm sure it will improve over time, both as I improve at using it and as the software slowly improves.

Yes ladies and gentlemen that's right, except now when I talk to my computer…. it listens.

Because We'd All Like to at some stage....

Given the title of this blog, I thought this was appropriate. Thanks Ange.

Say What?

This is an actual (part) question from my Windows Programming Exam today. If you think you wouldn't understand it anyway, substitute ".dll" for "potatoes." The effect is still the same.

How will you be able to use the .dll to use in your project?

I think I passed the exam, how well will be very interesting to see.

LDR

This (according to Google) is how long my distance relationship is:

This is a visual picture of the distance:

At the moment, it really sucks. But we'll get through, just like we have for the last couple of years. But who are we kidding anyway? We wouldn't still be putting each other through this separation if it wasn't worth it at some stage. I'm done with being negative about what God has made so positive. He'll be with us all the way. We should turn to him at all times. Embrace him. Embrace his promises.

I can do everything through him who gives me strength.

-Philippians 4:13

See you in 10 days.....

Making money worth more

If you have a spare 10-15 minutes I strongly advise you to read the transcript of this speech by Bill Gates at Harvard University on June 7, 2007.


Very inspiring. It's amazing & encouraging to know that the worlds 2 richest men would choose to spend their fortune supporting philanthropic work

Us Christians could do well to learn from some of Gates' ideas and examples.

I love getting people excited about software - but why can't we generate even more excitement for saving lives?
-Bill Gates

Ironic sidenote: The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation website wouldn't display properly in Firefox. Switch it to Internet Explorer & it displays perfectly.

Vision FM

If you're in or going through the Kaniva area at any time, tune into 88.0 Vision FM. It is Kaniva's newest radio station, broadcasting from the centre of town. it seems to have a range of 10-15kms depending on the terrain. Well done to the people responsible for getting it all set up, is really good to be able to have a positive alternative to the usual media selection.

Weekend Wrap-up

Every year I come to State Youth Games and it gives me nothing but pain, yet every year I keep coming back.

- Shaun

After almost 8 hours of traveling it was great to arrive at State Youth Games XI in Gawler, South Australia. I was apart of the 41 people that made up the team of Bordertown United which consisted of players from Serviceton Church of Christ, Bordertown Church of Christ, Magill Church of Christ and Edwardstown Baptist Church.

Results:
Sat. Morning - T-ball. Despite one of our team-members being unable to run, we were competitive in 3 out of our 4 games, no wins unfortunately, but the only real blow-out was in our opening game.

Sat. Arvo - Flag Football - Our opening game loss 3 - 1 was no surprise as this sport was completely new to most of our team. It was great fun and very satisfying however to notice the improvement in subsequent matches. A great interception and run, followed by some gritty defending led our team to a surprise (even to us) win 1 - 0, over our friendly opposition Modbury. Our third match was against the banner and flag waving Noarlunganites. We battled hard against more experienced opposition, and were more than happy with a 2 - 0 loss. Our final game would come down to the wire, after both teams scored early the match was deadlocked at 1 - 1, but a great interception and run in the final play of the match would see Bordertown snatch unlikely victory.

Sun Morning - Netball - Probably the sport I enjoyed the most. Playing most our games at Goal-Attack, I was able to score a few goals as well as run through the center, it was very tiring but great fun. We managed 1 win out of our 4 encounters, but again the enjoyment was had in seeing our team improve over the course of a morning.

Sun Afternoon - AFL Modified Football - Bordertown 2 were going to be battling all day in this competition. With only 3 of the 5 allowable males on our team & myself being the only player to have played football competitively before, it was going to be tough. Nevertheless, we battled on hard, ran till we had a stitches and enjoyed the challenge. Experience playing for KLU for a number of seasons had taught me to appreciate scoring points as scoring goals, and scoring goals as winning games. This we certainly did and when I was able to snap-kick the handpass I'd received from a team-mate to a marking forward, our only goal for the afternoon was kicked and we celebrated our moral victory.

Bordertown United were Runners Up overall. We where champions in the following sports:

• Flag Football
  
• Darts
• Mens Basketball
• Womens Basketball
• Table Tennis
  
• 3 on 3 Soccer
  
• Marathon Relay

Teams were also runners up in the following:

• Netball
• Backyard Cricket
• AFL Modified Football

Was a really good weekend. Well Done to all my fellow team-mates. Also well done to Marion for winning overall & Happy Valley, who won the best sportsmanship (sportspersonship?) award. Would also like to make mention of the fact that the country churches placed rather well, with Balaklava taking out the small- church category.

I think we'll all be there again to get some more pain & soreness next year.

State Youth Games

I've been looking forward to the State Youth Games this weekend for ages now. I'm travelling approx. 700km to go with Bordertown United to the South Australian Games. Road trips are always fun, but bus trips with mates on weekends like this are awesome!!!

At the moment I'm playing the following sports:

Sat Morning: T-Ball
Sat Arvo: Flag Football

Sunday Morning: **Unsure** (Either Netball or Backyard cricket)
Sunday Arvo: AFL Modified Football

All are mixed team sports.

Let the Games begin!

It Happens

It annoys me greatly that after tragedies like the collision between a truck & train near Kerang yesterday, all anyone seems to want to do is play the blame game.

• Readers Comments on heraldsun.com.au/
• An Unsafe System? (The Australian)
• Crash sparks debate over level crossings

Why is it so hard for people to accept that accidents happen? I don't understand why I have not seen or heard anyone in the media mention the possibility of brake failure on the truck. Every time I drive a large truck, I put my faith completely in it's braking system. If it fails while the truck is doing 100kmph, there's not a lot anyone can do to stop it. Maybe it wasn't mechanical failure, maybe the truckie couldn't see because of the sun, in which case he was driving (at least to an extent) recklessly. So what? It's a risk you take every time you get inside a fast-moving vehicle. Besides, every driver in the world has done something stupid on the road, intentionally or otherwise.

It's not possible to get the convenience and pleasure of travel without the risk of it.

My Two Systems

Since it's inception this blog has carried the title: 'The Blogs on an IT Nerd in the Country.' Yet up until now, I have not listed the specs of my 'system'. Surely it's not truly a Nerds blog until I list the details of my 'Rig'. Today I fix this anomaly.

Currently my main system specs are:

• AMD Athlon 64 bit 3400+ CPU socket 754, 2.41Ghz
  
• 1Gb (2 x 512Mb) PC3200 DDR400 RAM
• Abit KV8 Pro Socket 754 Chipset
• XpertVision ATi Radeon X800GTO 256Mb AGP 256-bit DDR, DVI, TV-Out, AGP 8X
• Seagate 300Gb 7200 SATA 8Mb Cache
• Western Digital 120Gb 7200RPM 2Mb Cache IDE
• Videomate DVB-T 300 Digital/Analog TV Tuner Card
• Windows XP Home SP2

I've also just built another PC from old parts that I've upgraded on the above PC & bits I've got off mates & eBay.

It is:

• AMD Sempron 3000+ 64-bit CPU, 1.8GHz, SOCKET 754
• 512Mb PC3200 DDR400 RAM
• ATI Radeon 9250 128Mb AGP 8X
• Western Digital WD800JD 80GB 7200RPM SATA II 8MB Cache

When I get it up and running it'll be the perfect games server. Only problem is, the Hard-drive above is SATA II. The motherboard is only SATA I compliant. So I need a HDD jumper to jump the Hard-Drive back to SATA I speed. I don't have any HDD jumpers. So if you have a spare one lying around, let me know.

So I now have the combined power of a Dual-Core machine.....

A Future Beginning

"You're a white-collar worker, YOU'RE TURNING liberal!" -Tiarnee

"I can't believe you're joining the corporate world" - Sus

Only the most avid of my readers (Read: Aaron & Sus) will have noticed that back in March & April, I alluded to travelling to both Adelaide and Melbourne. I didn't however allude to the fact that these two trips were very much related. Apparently, I did well enough in the inital group (& personal) interview to warrant a second look. The second look was in Melbourne, where I was asked a series of programming questions and asked to work them through on a board. I honestly thought it went ok without being brilliant. I was told then & there that I would hear either way within 2 weeks. That was almost a month ago.

Since then, I'd all but accepted the fact that I hadn't gotten the job. That was ok, it is after all only June, which is heaps of time to find other stuff. I did however want to put the whole idea to rest in my mind, an email and 3 working days later, I get a 9am phone call from mum. I have recieved a big manilla envelope in the mail. She starts reading, I sit up in bed, no longer in the drowsy half-asleep mode I was when she rang.

I been offered a positon as a 'Graduate Software Engineer' with this company.

I found that out on Wednesday, but it's only starting to sink in now. While I type a blog on company time in my current job. I'm the most blessed guy going around I rekon. I'm in constant awe of Gods faithfullness to me, inspite of my non-faithfullness to him. He has had every step of my life planned, and never failed to silence my own doubts about his ways.

I'm going to be a 21 year-old Graduate Software Developer. It's amazing. My future is starting now, who (God) knows where it will end.

I'll leave you with this quote:

13I can do everything through him who gives me strength.
Philippians 4:13

Achievement

I don't have an endless supply of expendable labour, so to get my 3 assignments done by the end of the week, I can look forward to screen-sore eyes, caffeine and not much sleep. Hopefully by the weekend I'll have some sense of achievement.

New Template

I decided it was time for a bit of a make-over. I'd been looking for a new & free template for a while, and finally found one I liked. What do you think?

Good Day

Today has been a really good day. A number of really good things have happened. Allow me to list them in chronological order.

1. I was able to purchase the final parts I needed to complete my 2nd PC project.
2. I defeated Aaron at squash for the first time this year. This broke a drought lasting 6 months from November last year. To play as well as I did today was satisfying.
   
3. I saw this same Aaron spend well over 30 minutes messing around on a computer running a LINUX distro. The reason? He couldn't get a program to install. I wasn't amused by the fact he was frustrated, I was amused that even Linux will crash and not work sometimes for no reason. Thus showing that different to Windows isn't necessarily better.
4. Was able to make some progress on 1 of the 3 assignments I have due this coming week.
   
5. I watched the Bombers kick 3 goals in 5 minutes to come back and beat Richmond in a thriller at the MCG. I was worried at 3 quarter time, as Richmond are on the bottom of the ladder, so to lose to them would've been somewhat of a shock, it also would've greatly harmed Essendon's chances of seeing action in September.
   

I'm off to build a PC.

The Wiki Truth

Arguments about the nature of truth are as old as the hills. Arguments about the age of the hills have been around since about 1859. So we can naturally assume that arguments about the nature of truth have been ongoing for a minimum of 148 years.

While reading another blog today, I checked out the link to the Wikipedia article on truth, the introduction says:

There is no single definition of truth about which the majority of philosophers agree. Many theories of truth, commonly involving different definitions of "truth", continue to be debated. There are differing claims on such questions as what constitutes truth; how to define and identify truth; what roles do revealed and acquired knowledge play; and whether truth is subjective, relative, objective, or absolute.

This amuses me. Assumptions about truth need to be made to even understand the above. These statements seem to assume that if the majority where able to reach a consensus about truth, then we would know it.

It seems to me at least, that everyone holds to some absolute truth whether they believe it or not. For if you believe that all truth is relative, then that is your absolute. (Not to mention self-contradicting) Whereas, you obviously hold an absolute if you believe in any sort of absolute truth.

What is your absolute truth?

Corporate Machines

They've just introduced a new 'coaching' system at work. Where we are given statistics on our previous weeks performance and then work out a couple of 'goals' to work on to improve our call handle times. I'm lucky enough to be apart of a pilot group, that'll be extended if it's a success. (Early signs are pretty positive) The aim of this is to obviously find ways to help us improve our call handling times. Stated benefits of this system include:

• Over the weeks being able to see improvements in our performance & therefore being better at our job.
  
• Better motivation to work as we can see that our improvements are helping.
• Better working conditions as improvements slowly mean that things will get less hectic & so everyone is less stressed and happier.

Non-stated benefits of this new system include:

• Better employee productivity/ more efficient labour.
  
• Lower wage expenses/ better use of wage expenses.
  
• Revenue growth due to better overall performance.
  

Apart from the aesthetic positives listed above, there are no benefits for the individual. I don't get paid any more for doing my job more efficiently. Yet the system works, after only just over 1 week on the new system, I've already shown strong improvements in some areas. Therefore, I'm doing quite a good job at helping an American multi-national corporation boost it's profits.

Yep. I'm a good little cog in the machine of capitalism. Doing my bit to maintain the socio-economic status quo. That is, the divide between rich and poor, and those in between like myself.

Appropriate Response?

Found this article on The Age website:
Late trains spark commuter riot in Buenos Aires



Imagine if Melbournians reacted like this every time a train was delayed.....

Two Prawns

Far away in the tropical waters of the Caribbean, two prawns were swimming around in the sea - one called Justin and the other called Christian. The prawns were constantly being harassed and threatened by sharks that inhabited the area. Finally one day Justin said to Christian, "I'm fed up with being a prawn, I wish I was a shark, then I wouldn't have any worries about being eaten."

A large mysterious cod appeared and said, "Your wish is granted" and lo and behold, Justin turned into a shark. Horrified, Christian immediately swam away, afraid of being eaten by his old mate. Time passed and Justin found life as a shark boring and lonely. All his old mates simply swam away whenever he came close to them. Justin didn't realise that his new menacing appearance was the cause of his sad plight.

While swimming alone one day he saw the mysterious cod again and he thought perhaps the mysterious fish could change him back into a prawn. He approached the cod and begged to be changed back, and, lo and behold, he found himself turned back into a prawn.

With tears of joy in his tiny little eyes Justin swam back to his friends and bought them all a cocktail. Looking around the gathering at the reef he realised he couldn't see his old pal. "Where's Christian?" he asked. "He's at home, still distraught that his best friend changed sides to the enemy & became a shark", came the reply.

Eager to put things right again and end the mutual pain and torture, he set off to Christian's abode. As he opened the coral gate memories came flooding back. He banged on the door and shouted, "It's me, Justin, your old friend, come out and see me again." Christian replied, "No way man, you'll eat me. You're now a shark, the enemy, and I'll not be tricked into being your dinner."

Justin cried back "No, I'm not. That was the old me. I've changed. "I've found Cod - I'm a Prawn again, Christian!"

Good Signs

While I don't think anyone is game enough to call the drought over yet, there is a lot of hope for this coming season and the rest of this year. The signs are definitely better than they where this time last year. I noticed this especially when I was at home over the weekend, the country-side is green again, (this didn't happen till June-July last year) and the tractors are out in-force seeding this years crop.

If statistics are anything to go by, Kaniva has already had more rain in 2007 than it had for the entire year of 2006.

Unpopular

It seems that Iraq isn't the only country that is getting sick of American Military presence.
Collateral Disasters

While Afghanistan hasn't been nearly the PR disaster for the West that Iraq has, there have been several interesting developments there.

For instance, it is estimated that Afghanistan produced 6,100 tonnes of Opium in 2006. That is apparently enough to make 610 tons of Heroin. That represents about 92% of the worlds Opium supply(According to a U.N. Report). What's perhaps more interesting is that the Taliban, with help from the UN, had almost eliminated Opium production in Afghanistan in 2000-2001, prior to the US-led invasion. In 2001 Afghani Opium production was an estimated to be 185 tons. Which means (if my maths serve me correctly) that Afghani Opium production has increased 3,297% in 5 years! When you read this article, it soon becomes apparent why they do it.

So, everyone who supported the war in Afghanistan have supported: untold thousands of civilian deaths, massive increases in Heroin production worldwide and the resulting deaths & illness caused from it.

500

Congrats to my 500th Visitor, who visited my blog on: May 8 2007 10:50:46 pm(AEST). They where probably from somewhere in Sydney. They have some brains as they where using Mozilla Firefox on a screen resolution of 1024 x 768. What's the best bit is they stayed for a while, having the page open for 6 minutes and 56 seconds.

But thank you to all my visitors. It's your readership that keeps me coming back. Special welcome goes out to all my International Traffic, especially my Swedish visitors.

But then you assure me.....

It's amazing how God can assure us.

Anthony suprised me by showing up in Ballarat out of the blue on Friday night. He collaborated with another one of my good mates who is down here & we meet up under the attraction of Pizza and bowling. Which meant that instead of a weekend of dirty rooms, assignments and boredom I had a weekend of mates, movies, eating out and laughs. Despite my initial internal apprehensions, (& shock/surprise) it was the best thing that could've happened. (or second best anyway!) It interrupted the cycle of Uni, sleep, work, Uni, Assignments, Work etc. Also, instead of sitting in my room feeling guilty about now doing work of some description I was able to get away from it completely.

Sometime during the duration of the weekend I was also reminded somewhat of my (our) own self-worth. God loves me enough to give me mates that will take a weekend out for no other reason than to 'catch-up' or 'hang'. It was a huge encouragement to be reminded that with God I've got this far through Uni, and the with his help I can get through my final year. I have more Uni work now than I've ever had, but 2 years later I'm starting to learn to actually manage it. Don't get to wrapped up in the immediate stresses and work of life. Because then you lose your perspective on other areas of life. Not only that, but you become (as I did) introverted & self focused. This leads to guilt, selfishness and negativity etc. It seems that as Spiderman 3 (which we saw) showed, it's very often that the greatest battle lies within.

In Summary:

Sometimes I think that I'm not any good at all
And sometimes I wonder why, why I'm even here at all
But then you assure me

I'm a little more than useless
And when I think that I can't do this
You promise me that I'll get through this
And do something right
Do something right for once

More Than Useless - Relient K

Protests

Does anyone know what the protest up Swanston St. Melbourne was about yesterday? The tail of it was walking past just as I had to cross it. I couldn't see what they where protesting about though. My guess is either against Uranium mines (in which case it was pointless) or Industrial Relations (Again pointless, just vote Labor at the next election).

Anyways, good on them for protesting against whatever it was they didn't like about our Government. We're very lucky to have the right to disrupt daily life for thousands of people just because we have a gripe about something.

My only fear is that it fell on deaf ears.

Poster

This has just gone up in the toilet.

Wonder what comments this will bring?

Upstairs Living

Brace yourselves for the most controversial and insightful blog ever to grace the thisisjonny.blogspot.com/ domain....

Prior to now, I have not divulged to the blogosphere (I think that's somewhere between the stratosphere and the atmosphere) the fact that my room on res. this year is Upstairs. Not a major revelation, unless you are familiar with Res workings here at Mt. Helen. The units here consist of 12 rooms, 6 upstairs and 6 downstairs. In a mathematically perfect world this would mean 6 boys downstairs and 6 girls upstairs. But as those of you that've ever woken up before 8am would know, we don't live in a perfect world. So I'm living upstairs with 5 other girls. While I could say many things about living alongside the opposite gender, for the time being I wish to concentrate of the peculiarities of the upstairs bathroom. Now I know you're all expecting & waiting for one issue in particular now that I've mentioned this, but it really won't hurt you consumers to wait a moment for your fill of blogging gratification. That topic is last.

1. Hair in the Sink - I walked into the bathroom one day & discovered hair in one of the 2 sinks. Not unusual in my past, but as the only male frequenting this room, I was a little perplexed as to how this hair had appeared. You see, I had not shaved at that sink at any time in the past 2 days. (Any longer than that & it probably would've been cleaned)
   
My logical brain struggled for solutions:

• Underarm Hair? No girl would do that publicly.
  
• Facial Hair? Mine was still on my face.
  
• Arm hair? The day I see a girl with arm hairs that thick... I'll be scared.
  
• Leg hair? How is it possible to do that?
  
• Head hair? The smallness of the hairs would hardly warrant that much effort.

Answer: I learnt a few days later that it's possible to shave your legs in a sink if you sit on the bench. While it's not confirmed, this is the most likely explanation.

2. Splash back - Now we come to the toilet. No waitup, it's not that topic yet. But I generally go to the toilet standing up, whenever I can. So imagine my horror, when on one of those occasions when I'm unable to go standing up, I spot some droplets of.... liquid on the toilet seat. Again, mostly males get the blame for this, but I know for a fact that it wasn't mine!!!!!! My logical brain didn't even try to understand this one. Guys can misfire, but girls..... AHHHH!

Answer: I've since discovered that occasionally after flushing, some water will splash out onto the bowl. Again, this is the likely explanation. But there are others.....

3. Toilet Seat - Here you go, this is what you where all waiting for. Surprisingly, this hadn't been an issue until last week sometime. When a green sign with black writing appeared at about eye-level above the Toilet: "If you pee standing up, can you please remember to put the toilet seat down." Why? If the issue is touching the place that numerous people have had their bare bottoms, I have to do it to pee. It's fair that if they expect me to put it down, I expect them to put it up. I used to think that the issue was seeing whatever wasn't flushed down last time. But that isn't the case here, as there isn't a lid. Just a seat. So there is no resolution for this one as yet. Time for me to go make a sign of my own.......

"The rains are here....."

"Then, between the 26 & the 28th of April 2007, the worst drought in recorded history broke across Southern Australia"

At least hopefully a line like that will appear in a history book someday, and Mr Howards warning of zero irrigation in the Murray-Darling basin will never eventuate......

It's just started raining in Ballarat. But Nhill (~40km from my home) has already had an inch. Adelaide has had an inch and a half, or 40mm! WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!

Ballarat Rainfall

Centeral Victoria Rain Radar

Praise God for his continuing blessings to us all!!!

My Minor Epiphany

I was sitting at my table, eating my delicious Ice-Cream and ok-but-far-from-brilliant Vanilla Slice at Res tea last night when I think I had a minor epiphany.

I was eating and thinking over a conversation I'd had the previous night with (the beautiful) Tiarnee and while doing so, I came to the conclusion that while it is fear that often (almost always) rules peoples lives, the object of fear is not always the most obvious one. It seems to me, that the vast majority of people are not in-fact fearful or scared of rejection. I contend that love and acceptance are more feared than rejection and disappointment. Why would anyone fear love? I'm not 100% sure but I'll try to explain it best I can.

Before I started 'going-out' with Tiarnee I was very hesitant to tell her that I liked & was attracted to her. It took some serious prodding from God (& Tiarnee herself) before I actually dared to acknowledge the feelings and things that where happening inside of me. I was petrified to acknowledge that I liked her, but not because there was a possibility that she would reject me. Tiarnee had already made it clear how she herself felt about me. I was scared of being accepted by someone for who I was. I was afraid that I would get too close to the wrong person. That God would say that this is the wrong one. But mostly, I was afraid that I wasn't good enough.

Too this day I still often feel in-adequate compared to the love shown to me by God and yes, my girlfriend. People don't go and have one-night stands because they're scared of rejection. Because rejection is a given in a one-night stand. The next morning it's all over. Both parties involved in a one-night stand realise they're just being used by the other. People have one night stands (I belive) because they don't know how to, or are scared of being accepted and thus, vunerable before other people. Because once someone is loved, and then loves in return, life loses its' focus on self, and losing self focus is about as popular as swimming in Lake Wendouree. This applies to all relationships with all people, not just ones with romantic (or otherwise) interest.

Does that make any sense? It made alot of sense when I thought of it in my head......