A Deposit

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Beware – blokey toilet story ahead…

I was out in Ellenbrook today laying some turf and because it is Sam’s ‘day off’ school I took him with me. He’s a great little bloke, keeps himself amused and (apart from the constant chatter) he is no trouble at all.

However half way thru the day he needed to do a poo…

I looked around for a portaloo. New developments always have them, but not today. By chance the letting agent had driven past earlier that day to take a picture of the house for their website and, because I needed to access a powerpoint, she kindly let me know where the housekey was.

So should I let Sam poo in the house?…

‘Oh what the heck I thought. Lets just home the owner doesn’t drive by mid push…’

So Sam did his poo and I plugged my drill in. I was about to close and lock the door when I had one of those ‘parent moments’. ‘I wonder if he flushed the toilet…’ I thought.

I was in a rush so nearly assumed the best and pulled the door shut. But something urged me back to the ensuite where my boy had left quite a substantial DNA record of his presence in the home.

So glad I looked…

In a manner of speaking…

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Bloody Aussies

Time for a touch of humour. If you’re an American then this will probably make absolutely no sense whatsoever!

You know you’re Australian if…..

1. You believe that stubbies can be either drunk or worn.

2. You think it’s normal to have a leader called Kevin.

3. When you hear that an American “roots for his team” you wonder how often and with whom.

4. You pronounce Melbourne as “Mel-bin”.

5. You believe it makes perfect sense for a nation to decorate its highways with large fibreglass bananas, prawns and sheep.

6. You call your best friend “a total bastard” but someone you really, truly despise is just “a bit of a bastard”.

7. You think “Woolloomooloo” is a perfectly reasonable name for a place.

8. You’re secretly proud of our killer wildlife.

9. You believe it makes sense for a country to have a $1 coin that’s twice as big as its $2 coin.

10. You understand that “Wagga Wagga” can be abbreviated to “Wagga” but “Woy Woy” can’t be called “Woy”.

11. You believe all famous Kiwis are actually Australian, until they stuff up, at which point they again become Kiwis.

12. You know that certain words must, by law, be shouted out during any rendition of the Angels’ song Am I Ever Gonna See Your Face Again.

13. You believe, as an article of faith, that the confectionary known as the Wagon Wheel has become smaller with every passing year.

14. You still don’t get why the “Labor” in “Australian Labor Party” is not spelt with a “u”.

15. You believe that the more you shorten someone’s name the more you like them.

16. You understand that “excuse me” can sound rude, while “scuse me” is always polite.

17. You understand that “you” has a plural and that it’s “youse”.

18. You know it’s not summer until the steering wheel is too hot to handle.

19. Your biggest family argument over the summer concerned the rules for beach cricket.

20. You still think of Kylie as “that girl off Neighbours”.

21. When returning home from overseas, you expect to be brutally strip-searched by Customs – just in case you’re trying to sneak in fruit.

22. You believe the phrase “smart casual” refers to a pair of black tracky-daks, suitably laundered. (Danelle would say this one is for me…)

23. You understand that all train timetables are works of fiction.

24. When working on a bar, you understand male customers will feel the need to offer an excuse whenever they order low-alcohol beer.

25. You get choked up with emotion by the first verse of the national anthem and then have trouble remembering the second.

26. You find yourself ignorant of nearly all the facts deemed essential in the government’s new test for migrants.

27. You know, whatever the tourist books say, that no one says “cobber”.

28. And you will immediately forward this list to other Australians, here and overseas, realising that only they will understand.

(from The Sydney Morning Herald , Australia Day, Jan 26, 2008).pinocchio divx download

Conversations with Ellie

Last night as we sat around eating home made pizzas, Ellie continued to affirm her disbelief in God and suggested that maybe she shouldn’t be part of our church.

‘Ok, whatever you reckon sweetheart…’ I responded.

I don’t think she is playing games. I think she genuinely is questioning and I am really interested in what is going on inside of her. As I asked her thoughts on God, life and death etc she spoke quite passionately again while I listened and tried to understand.

I know most people go thru this kind of doubting at some stage, but Fowler would suggest that Ellie is a bit of a way off to be ‘individuating’ her faith. One significant difference between my own childhood faith and hers is that I was much more deeply rooted in a larger church community and my social life revolved largely around it. Ellie has very few Christian peers but plenty from outside the church few of whom would affirm her faith, so I’m sure this fuels her current questioning.

I don’t think this is a problem though. Sooner or later you need to deal with the issues. If we can have these conversations over the next few years then I am sure she will enter teen years with some confidence.

However she is a complex beast… On the one hand she concluded that maybe she didn’t believe in God and therefore belong in church any more, and then five minutes later asked me if she could do the teaching this Sunday.

‘I would love to teach people about Esther dad!’ Esther has been Ellie’s hero for a while now – the ‘brave beauty’!

‘Sure honey – that’d be brilliant’ I said, secretly thinking, I don’t have the energy for this tonight.

Fatboy chirps in with ‘Yeah and I could do Jonah because I know about him!’

As soon as I said ‘yes’ it was like I had launched a juggernaut as this seven year old grabbed all the books we had and started figuring out how she would teach this to the group of adults and kids about her favourite Bible character.

In the next hour we pieced together a time of learning that began with Esther but moved around to various (sometimes completely unrelated) places. But it was her initiative and energy that created it.

So on Sunday Ellie ‘preaches’ to the crew. She will lead and help people learn. I will be there as her backstop, but I’m not sure she will need me…download uncle buck dvd bullitt dvd download

The Last Temptation

Today and tomorrow I am facilitating an .acom residential on Christology.

One of the things we did today to provoke thought around who Jesus is, was to watch part of the Last Temptation of Christ. Its definitely a thought provoking movie and made all of us feel quite uncomfortable in places as we watched its early scenes. It doesn’t come from an evangelical point of view and conveys an image of Jesus that in many ways is quite foreign.

And therein lies the value. Sometimes we need to be rocketed out of our conceptions of Jesus and even an off beam presentation can make us think more than simply more of the same.

I remember the stir when it first came out in 1989 as Christians protested and objected to it being screened. Of course all that did was send more people along…

We only watched the first 50 minutes and used it to reflect on our own grasp of christology. Scorsese portrayed a very human Jesus, but also a fallen, broken and confused Jesus.

I am looking forward to watching the remainder and chewing it thru.

AVG 8?

A question for the tech-heads…

Since installing AVG 8 my normally speedy Sony Vaio laptop has been rather sluggish and slow to respond to commands. It is especially noticable when flicking between tabs on Firefox.

I have done a complete factory restore and it is as up to date in terms of being ‘clean’ as it could be. AVG 7 ran well and there were no problems but for some reason this one seems to be the cause of a mass slow-down.

Has anyone else had similar problems?

My wife’s computer runs like a Commodore 64 at the moment and I think AVG is the common issue.

Interestingly you can’t do a system restore to pre AVG installation…