Phillbo’s Blog Site

Well today went a lot better than initially expected. I arrived in Geelong during the early hours of the morning, and managed to sleep straight away.

I made it to St John of God hospital just in the nick of time, and had an ultra sound on my shoulder. Primary analysis reveals that I only have a cist in my shoulder, and a GP should be able to extract this. There is some concern, as the cist lies close to a muscle join, so depending on the results of my scan, I may need to see a surgeon. The good news is, the lump isn’t cancerous.

I also paid Peter and Trickey a visit, and had dinner with my family and Trickey at Wood Oven Pizza. I ate this unorthodox vegetarian pizza, but didn’t over eat as per usual, but it sure was tasty none the less. By chance, I also bumped into Dan and Matt at lunch time.

On another positive point, I’ve managed to make it to a second interview for a new job, so please feel free to wish me well. I think I could certainly use a career change.

Well tonight, I played Basketball, in the Ertman team. I picked up Miles for the journey to Geelong. We did a slight detour via Footscray, where Miles purchased a computer monitor for his brother. We then drove to Geelong and arrived at Miles’ mothers place. She had a guitar, I just had this urge to tune it up, and give it a strum.

We then went to my folks place, had a quick bite, and re-sized my Dad’s scanned images, just so he could email them. We then went to basketball.

Tonight’s team consisted of Daniel, Adam, Cookie, Jason, Andre the Giant, Miles, and myself. We had a shakey start where we were down by a few points, but managed to pull ourselves back into the game by half time. In the end, we won by five points, and I managed to score five points myself. A well deserved team victory, as four of my points came directly from assists. Andre also tried to steal the ball from one of my rebounds. But it was a fun game none the less.

I took Daniel home, then made a detour via Werribee and dropped off Adam, and arrived back in Melbourne. My friend Marcus also briefly dropped by for a quick visit, before he went for his journey to Geelong. He is seriously considering becoming a full time musician, and I think he has the talent to do it. Well I think I better hit the hay, as I’ve got a long day ahead of me.

I find it quite amazing how I’ve come into contact with many people over my life, and some friendships seem to have evolved by chance. I have been blessed by knowing many friends; however it seems most of them live miles away these days. Many of them are married, have families, and have dedicated their time to serve others. I think it makes me appreciate them even more. I do tend to bump into these friends occasionally, and make the most of every opportunity. However over the past three or four years, I’ve had to adapt to changes in their lives.

Sometimes I feel like I am the loneliest person in Melbourne, yet other days, I feel like I am on top of the world. I often ponder about, “What if” I pursued this relationship, where would I be now? Why didn’t I embrace this opportunity? I know if I ponder on it too long, it gets depressing. I know it is pointless, however some times I think about the most happy times in my life.

Some friends have told me I’m not settled, and I agree with them. I not sure *if* I’d be content living elsewhere either, unless I can find a way that I can be totally content with myself. But hey, I am working on it. I am sure its a positive goal to work towards.

I know when I was younger, I had more determination than I could possibly imagine, and I wouldn’t let obstacles in my path come even close to defeating me. These days, I’ve allowed complacency to master my existance. In some ways it has benefitted me, in other ways it has had negative implications.

I am now starting to feel that desire to move forward once again, I’ve even very happy with my perseverance on watching my weight. There have been a few set backs, but I am sure I can keep making progress to healthier living. I know not to expect too much straight away, but I am already happy in knowing that I am making progress none the less. Anyway.. I’ve rambled enough, I should get some sleep.

PS. I am mobile again, I have a new car. I may take some photos of it pretty soon.

Yesterday I went to my doctor, as I’ve been having some unusual head aches, that haven’t gone away with standard pain killers. He (the Doctor) is pretty sure the lump on my upper trapezium is most likely a cist, however there is a small possibility it may be cancerous, but thinks that is unlikely.

Well I could be ignorant, however as the lump has significantly increased in size over the past few months, I think its time I got ir professionally assessed. I don’t feel too worried about, however I think I won’t be playing tennis for a while. All I need to do now is book an appointment for an ultrasound/biopsy, as the Doctor has already given me a referral.

After a friendly cliff hanger tennis match last, my team managed to win by one game. This has happened two weeks in a row. My performance was probably close to a D grade standard, so I wasn’t too happy with myself. However I did managed to play much better in the final set.

Afterwards, Dave, Ross, Shane, Angelic Basic, Ian, and myself had a few beers (which isn’t good for my diet), however we had a grand social occasion that went well into the early hours of the morning.

When I finally got out of bed, I managed to take a shower after several interruptions. I noticed that hardly any water was going down the plug whole. My friend Marcus came up from Geelong, so we weot on a mission to find a plunger. K-Mart didn’t have one, and a supplies type of shop didn’t have one either. I went to the Supermarket, and voila, a plunger was to be found and consequently purchased. I also bought some Draino, and proceeded to fix this problem. Attacking the plug hole with a plunger managed to cause some water to go down the plug hole. It took about 10 minutes for the water to drain. I then administered some Draino, and I could hear the plug whole errupt. A foul smelling gas also appeared from the plug hole. In the end, I just poured all the Draino crystals in, and after several more erruptions, I can finally have a shower without having a bath also.

Marcus and I also went to Miles and Brooke’s place for dinner, and we had our first weigh in since the challenege began:

I am currently 118.5kg, and Brooke is currently on 109.5kg. So it looks like we’ve both made progress on the race towards double digits.

Well today I did sleep in a little, and I even went to bed rather early the night before.

The sun was out, it was warm, the weather was brilliant. I went for another bike ride, and ended up at my tennis club. I had a good ‘ol yarn with Dot and Big Bad Bob, and managed to play a few sets of doubles. I won both sets, however my opposition was not very good, so there is nothing “gloatworthy” about the victories.

I made it home just before dusk, and have been testing geek stuff with Trickey ever since. I haven’t checked tommorrow’s weather forecast, but I sure hope it is at least half as good as today.

In order to promote good health, and also due to lack of reliable private transport (but not for long), I decided to ride my bicycle down to Richard’s place. As Richard likes to remain anonymous, we’ll call him by his real name as most people I know never refer to him by his real name.

Anyway… I jumped on my bike, rode down Merri Trail from Fawkner to Northcote. About forty minutes later I was at Richard’s place. I got to see his handy electronic work in action, as he was moding the circuitry in his guitar.

We later proceeded to head down Cheltenham, which is on the other side of Melbourne in comparison to where we were, so I got a ride with Richard. We saw Enzo’s Van Halen tribute band perform, and appreciated some class act guitar riffs and brilliant lead work. I also saw a few more “shredders” from work, being Phil and Gavin. The band that followed were a Deep Purple Tribute band. They were good musicians, but Deep Purple doesn’t have too much appeal to my musical tastes.

Richard got a bit drunk, so I was made designated driver back to his place. I then hopped on my bike, and proceeded to ride back in the dark using my bicycle’s new head light. It was smooth sailing until I hit Moreland Rd. I had to improvise, and took a dubious detour past flood damaged areas along the creek, and eventually got very lost. Going through some unfamiliar suburban areas, I headed back down to the creek trying to find the Merri Trail. I found the trail, however it lead to broken tree branches, blocking access to the path. Back tracking, I was trying to find a familiar land mark, but could not find any. As Merri Trail has paths on both sides of the creek for much of the trail, getting to the other side may have been a viable option.

I don’t remember going past Coburg Lakes on the way back, however for some reason, I missed my suburb entirely after making a final creek crossing, and ended up somewhere in Resevoir. I had to ask a service station attendant about my current location, and he gracefully provided me with directions back home. Riding along next to a highway type road, I had to walk my bike, as fast traffic on blind corners kinds of puts the chills down my spine. So it was a slow walk back in some instances.

I finally made it to Camberfield on the Hume Hwy, and headed back to Fawkner. Along my journey home, I felt extremly tired, and almost lost the will to persevere. However as I was lost, I’d have problem calling a Maxi Taxi to an unknown location. It was bloody cold outside, and when I kept moving I stayed kind of warm. However once I saw familiar territory, I found a new supply of energy.

I am certain I have ridden well over 50km today, and probably walked about 2 - 3 km along unstable terrain, and alongside thin highway shoulders. But I am glad to make it home. I think I should invest in a Palm Pilot and GPS unit. Whilst my body isn’t thanking me right now for the extra excercise, I am sure it will thank me later. But one thing is for certain, I will sleep very well.

So my weight loss tip of the day is, deliberatly get lost!

Well going back to March 31st, I got to appreciate the Rump Stump. I don’t think I will eat another one until I can see my body mass get to double digits, however these things are pretty big.

This picture came courtesy of Sophie’s phone to Lance, and Lance just sent it to me. Lance said it was blog worthy, so here it is.

I had an under supply of sleep Wednesday night, and by the time I worked all day and hopped on the tennis court in the evening, I didn’t feel normal at all. My tennis game reflected it.

I really struggled with ground strokes, but somehow managed to have a consistant serve, and my volleys work working quite well too. I won 2 sets, and lost 1 set (and I lost this off my own racquet); my doubles partner played quite steady.

Peter was in Melbourne, so I dropped around to see George and Peter. George is known as the 3rd Midnight; and I think his voice is deeper than the late Barry White. When I arrived at George’s place, I was almost in shock, I’ve never seen a computer have 23,000 instances of the Netsky worm. I am sure Peter is on to the task of the big clean up, however I don’t think I’d trust a computer that has been so badly violated.

On Tuesday, I got up early for work, and due to poor quality of sleep, I regretted going. But I have to earn my living. The day did drag on a little, and the air conditioning at worke packed in, giving me a warm and stuffy environment. I just took a few more unscheduled breaks, otherwise I would have most definately dozed off.

When I arrived home from work, I got changed, and headed down to Geelong to visit Trickey. He’s been making heaps of progress on our web site, which is currently offline. I think we’ll get some more work done today, so I better take a shower, pack my bicycle, and head off.