Phillbo’s Blog Site

It was a nice day, and very warm, and I decided its about time I got my bicycle. It has been living at my old house for the past six months, and has been unused due to the fact that my old housemate’s dog ate my helmet. I got a new helmet last night.

Anyway.. I rode to my tennis club, realising my bike probably needs some minor repairs. The gear changes are slightly out of align, but its rideworthy I suppose, even though I can only select from about four gears. The tyres were very low on air, and the uphill climb to the service station was a bit unpleasant, but all was much better once I got 50 PSI of air into them.

After a few sets of tennis (for finals preperation), I head on for night ride back home. All is good mostly except I noticed my seat is moving. When I was around the corner from my house, my bike seat moved further back, and became very uncomfortable. When I turned on the porch light on, I see exactly what has happened. The seat hasn’t moved, the whole shaft is bent. Hence I think its time I got the seat and gears fixed. I loved the ride home, however I think I must weigh too much for my bike. Which would be the ultimate cop out for an overweight person like myself, however I am sure they can find industrial strength seat shaft.

On Wednesday night, my mixed team made it over the finish line in the semi-final, and has been awarded with a place in the Grand Final. I am pretty proud of them too. I am a bit disappointed with one team member, as he has sour grapes about not being selected, however as the selection committe in my club choose the team, I feel a bit upset he expressed his grievences at myself and a few other team members. His attitude poorly reflects team spirit.

My Men’s team also did a great job, and comfortably won their Semi-Final by 16 games, for a chance to have a crack at the big one. I am very impressed with their efforts, even though I’ve sat out for finals selection in both teams. Hopefully it will give me some time to have my shoulder assessed and treated. It is still pretty sore.

I’ve been keeping low, enjoying my week of annual leave from Telstra. Almost shocked myself when I saw more money in my bank account. I forgot about pay day. Its amazing how you can get out of routine so quickly….I love it lots.

I think I’ve found a new addiction; Star Wars Battlefront. I’ve been playing it all night.. and its now 8am… and by rights I am thinking about coming back for more. Maybe the only way out of this addiction is developing my gaming strategy, or taking Bard’s euthanasia kit. But as it is well into daylight now, I better get some sleep sometime soon. I suppose it is a good thing that I am on my annual leave from my regular job.

Well the title says it all. Today my inspiration for waking up was the promise of the Immortalised Slow Cooked chicken. Indeed the Immortal can cook chicken like no other… and this was as good enough reason as any to get out of bed.

Today I got to implement my liaising skills, and determined they’re pretty much non-existant. However the Church database project is on the way, and it should be conceived in classic style. I really should learn more and more about MySQL and PHP, but I’ve been busy on other geeking adventures. However as I’m in the process of building the MyDomain Australia web site with Trickey, I’m sure I will be forced to learn in record time.

The Immortal (aka Miles) has been a gracious host, so once again I shall steal a line from the Simpsons, and “Toast the host who can boast the most roast”.

A close friend of mine has been battling his paternal “right” to see his child. This battle has been ongoing for over four years, and there is not much I can do to help him. Unfortunately I cannot disclose information, as Family Court does not allow for a public record of accounts during proceedings. This law (and probably a noble law too) makes this whole situation worse. Well I think so anyway.

What I will say hyperthetically is that a person has been victimised by a system where he stands accused for various crimes just for the reason of wanting to have a relationship with his own child.

Imagine being deliberately deceived, and unintentionally breaking a restraining order by telephoning someone (after they telephoned you) and getting locked up?

Imagine being told you have no part in your childs life? Being told by a Judge that Christmas doesn’t exist.

Imagine being accused of a crime in Family Court, and having the police embrace new anti-terrorism law ammendments to collect your finger prints, detain you for considerable amounts of time, and then attempt to beat confessions out of you, until you fall unconcious.

Imagine waking up with stitches across your face, seeing triple vision, and realising your nose is broken.

Now imagine this has really happened to someone all in the name of fighting for the “right” to see your own children.

There are many non-custodial parents within this country, and this problem is escalating way out of hand. I honestly don’t know the solution to this problem, however I know that many non-custodial parents have tragically taken their own lives by giving up.

I honestly believe all Australians should be made more publically aware about this issue, and push the government for Family Law reform. Moreover, I think its time Australians passionately seek an ammendment to our consititution guaranteeing a precdent for basic for civil rights.

Australia has freedom of religion with our constitution, but no constitutional civil rights; all our civil rights are simply implied. With recent ammendments to Anti-Terror legislation, these “implied rights” can be (and allegedly have been) bent beyound distinction.

I sure hope my post doesn’t appear to be considered a political grievance, as I too could be considered a terrorist, and locked up. I desire what I think most Australians would desire, and that is to proudly look forward to the day where all Australians can proudly sing the first verse of our national anthem; “Australians all let us rejoice, for we are young a FREE”.

Tonight… I played in the last round of the season. My team won by just four games in the end. I started off average, played brilliantly in the second set, and by the time the last set started, it was over before I had a chance to breathe. Consequently lost the third set in a convincing fashion. I am mostly to blame for that result too. Well that pretty much wraps up my Mixed Tennis.. we finished 2nd on the ladder for the season, and semi-finals start next week.

I am looking forward to mens tennis tommorrow night. I sure hope we win, as it will cement our chance for a finals berth. Should be quite a challenge, and in most cases, if the stakes are high, I usually player better. So I sure hope my team follows this attitude. Better get an early night me thinks.

Well… you’d never know it, however my workplace (where I turn up on a part time basis), has been taking snapshots in order to embarras people. Mug shots are usually displayed on the walls at work, or on internal workplace monthly newsletters. While I dislike the idea of being photographed without consent, it only goes to show that some people have too much time to waste. I personally think they will update my Fire Warden or First Aider profile with my current work place pictures.

My “what the…” pose.

My attempted terrorism pose.

“Are you still here?” look.


Images have been drastically reduced in sized for formatting purposes… however I’d love to know what happened to “the other” pictures that were taken where I was using a universal sign language gesture.

Well I just did a blog post… and accidently messed it up.. due to my side “back” button on my mouse. It is about time I installed the Logitech driver and disabled that function… maybe I’ll do that another day. Normally Mozilla Firefox keeps all typed content within the form, however this new version doesn’t seem to be doing that. Possibly a feature enhancement; if you could call it that.

I had 10 hours straight sleep last night.. blissful.. made it to bed at 9am. Even though I am usually tired from under sleeping, I felt just as tired from over sleeping. I need to find a happy medium! However maybe I need to discipline my sleeping habits? I think that is the only way I will feel refreshed and sustained for the coming days. Regular sleeping patterns. Too bed you can’t accrue it and use it as needed

Work was so and so, however I am sure happy to be home again. It looks like a few of us (including myself) are under performance management review. Should be interesting.. however I would probably take a redundancy offer if the price was right. Now I am dreaming.

Had one of those awful mornings… I woke up early. I was dreaming about work, and was trying to express my point of view, and then suddenly, I woke up realising I needed to visit the toilet in a hurry. All that comes to mind is, the Biological Alarm clock doesn’t fail; when nature calls, you wake up. The rest of my dream involved riding a motorbike, interacting with old friends, seeing people from my tennis club, visiting my local hamburger joint (which is called Kevs), and “wheeling the bike” through a breth-o-lizer without wearing a helmet. I find it quite amusing that you conscience can still convict you in your dreams. Anyway. I think its time to get myself organised, as I have a big day ahead of me.

In the spare moments I’ve had, I’ve managed to find a theme that is pretty cool. No work required on my behalf… and I think it appears easy on the eyes. I may modify it one day, however I shall be content for the time being.

For anyone using bBlog, this site has a small selection of generic themes.

http://hardgrok.org/templates.php

A lot has happened over the past few weeks. Melbourne Cup has come and gone, and it looks like both of my tennis teams have qualified for the finals; however I must admit, my contribution towards the cause has been somewhat inconsistent. Today I am feeling a little tired, and hence won’t bother to check my spelling.

To quote a line from the Simpsons, I’d have to, “Toast the host who can boast the most roast”. My friend Dan prepared an elaborate BBQ, and it was definately a very fullfilling experience.

A busy day is scheduled tommorrow (well actually day light today), and I hope to keep making a concious effort to keep challenging thoughts of procrastination.