The Chronicles Of…

I’m in the process of getting ready to leave town (for my uni course) for a few months, and I’m finding it quite difficult. I’m having to buy things to take with me, and work out what needs to be packed.

Although I’ll be able to come home on a semi-regular basis, I know that it’s going to be difficult to visit everyone that I’d like to on my weekends at home, so I’ve been trying to make a point of seeing the ‘right’ people over the past few weeks (those I thought I’d miss the most, or whatever). Hasn’t always worked out, but such is life.

I got a laser printer (discounted because it was the last one in the shop), and I was surprisingly excited about buying an iron. I spent far more money on that than I would have expected to, but I’m told it’s “the best one on the market, currently”. Which I assume means that it’ll be obsolete in about 45 seconds.

I’m finishing up at my jobs, and the church is taking us out for dinner tonight which is nice. The Uni didn’t make a similar offer, but then again I’m only a casual there, and they couldn’t care less.

Anyway, I’m starting to feel a tad nervous with all this preparation going on in my life, and my ‘new life’ is probably going to be fairly challenging. I’m just hoping that I can keep this sort of thing in mind, and in action:

24 Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize. 25 Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last; but we do it to get a crown that will last forever. 26 Therefore I do not run like someone running aimlessly; I do not fight like a boxer beating the air. 27 No, I strike a blow to my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize. (From 1 Corinthians 9)

So it turns out I’m off to Melbourne for Thursday and Friday next week.

I booked this course for work months ago and forgot all about it, then yesterday I get an email with my flight itinerary and stuff on it.

I stay Thursday and Friday nights and fly back early Saturday, so naturally I checked and unfortunately there’s no AFL game at the MCG on Friday night, very disappointing. There’s one at Telstra Dome, I haven’t been there, but let’s face it it’s not the G.

So off to the Casino I guess.

If I continue doing this series of courses every month to second month I will either go to Melbourne or Sydney, but I’m not so sure whether I want to do them or not, for various reasons, one of which I will blog about in the next week or so… so stay tuned…

I was in Sydney yesterday, for a coupe of hours then left…

Well, I drove down Monday night, got there a little after midnight after having a little stop in freezing cold Bathurst to catch up with some friends. Then Tuesday morning I had to drive out to Bella Vista as there was an open day on for the finance company we use.

I got there only a little late, then had a tour of the office and I kid you not I had to try very hard not to laugh out loud on a few occasions as it was almost like I was in an episode of The Office.

The guy giving the tour at one point has gone “And this is Julie” he the turns to her “hey julie…” a few air punches “yeah…”, “Julie looks after…” he the gets cut off by someone saying “ummm, that’s Susan”… he then just moves on “oh, of course, of course, anyway Susan looks after…”

And then later on the big guy in the show from accounts comes to talk to us, goatie and all…

This was a really modern place, lots of staff, but still I think if I hung out there much longer it would been have hilarious.

So at lunch time, I say lunchtime because lunch was listed on the program but they never came through with the goods, naturally I’ll be having words with the rep next times he’s out even though they provided a good spread for morning tea, we wrapped it and headed home.

So I drove to penrith and picked up another ebay purchase before heading up the mountains, catching up with some other friends for a few hours and then off home…

All in all not a bad trip.

Up in Forster there’s this dolphin watching boat called the Amaroo, for years Nat has wanted to go on it but we’ve never done it due to it being a little pricey.

But this year we decided to go for it.

Cruising up the lake and out towards the heads was a lovely trip, a little windy the further we went, but really nice. Except at one stage Caleb tried to climb the side railing on the top deck and slip, he didn’t fall off the boat but I played a more active role in making sure he didn’t from then on.

That was until I started to feel a little queezy once we were in open waters. Then feeling only got worse, until I had to use the little spew bag the lady had given. From then on Nat looked after the kids while I tried to fill the bag I’d be given.

I wanted it to be over, but it was a 2 hour cruise!

I saw no dolphins, Nat and Caleb didn’t really see much either as she started to feel a little queezy too and had to sit down.

Good times.

I’m on the Central Coast now… at Watanobbi actually, which I remember some time ago was in the news because of the towns name.

Residents had unsuccessfully tried to get the name of the town changed after they found out that the town’s name wasn’t actually an Aboriginal word, but in fact may have been named after an early landowner commented on the shape of the surrounding terrain being rather “nobby”.

A beautiful story I think…

But land prices have reportedly remained rather static because of it… A small price to pay I say.

Anyway we’re at Nat’s sister’s place (a day earlier than expected) after spending a week in Forster but after enduring the rain for quite a few days we left early.

So there’s a few stories to tell, I made notes, so they will follow.

Fi and I were up here in Byron on Sunday so we thought we’d go to church. We had no idea what, where, or when that would be until Fi saw a sign on the local notice board for a church in Byron that had a service at 10am (10am was a good time for us because we were sleeping in…) and seeing as these guys had a notice and we knew their service time we thought we’d give them a shot…

But I must admit that the location gave me some hesitations…

This church wasn’t located in the main centre of Byron but in the industrial estate on the outskirts of town. Now, geographical position doesn’t always tell you much about a church but to my mind the industrial park is a melting pot for everything that’s weird and wacky in the Christian church… Just think about some of the churches you know that are located in industrial estates… Yeah.

So I was tentative about what we mind find…

I don’t mind trying something different for church but we really weren’t up for anything too out there… you know, like wild prophesies, tongues, and a 2 hour sermon…

We probably should’ve made a different choice.

When we arrived we found it was quite small… Smallness is fine. Nothing wrong with a small church, but it does mean it’s harder to escape un-noticed if you need to bail.

They were quite welcoming, but when we walked through the door it felt like people just stared at us in a way as if to say “What the Hell are new people doing here? We don’t have new people?” That just felt kinda awkward…

Then we sat down to begin the service. The opening line went something like:

“Wow. Awesome. Great to see so many people here this morning… must be for my birthday (?). OK. So umm, we were hoping to have a prophetess speak to us this morning but she can’t make it – caught up in a revival somewhere – so if you came to see her sorry about that. We got some other guy instead…” Not an exact quote… but something like that.

At this stage I was, let’s say… ‘curious’ about what was to come. We sang some songs that I knew and that was comforting. We sang a 20 minute version of “How Great is our God” and I was cool with that. People started shouting out “Jesus Hallelujah!” and I was cool with that. Then people started chanting “Jesus Jesus Jesus! Hallelujah Jesus Jesus!” and I was cool with that (basically people just replaced the word “um” with “Jesus” when they spoke…). Then the dude in front of me kinda had some spasm and started laughing in short loud bursts… I was kinda cool with that but a bit freaked.

We did communion after singing. It seemed kinda spontaneous because someone just volunteered to do it out of the blue, and I was cool with that. The format was casual and pretty normal. Good quiet contemplation and reflection.

Now it was time for the sermon.

Cue sermon introduction: “Good morning folks. I forgot my guitar and I forgot my notes.” Good intro.

The “speaker” borrowed a guitar and burst into a song. His wife came up and joined in. They finished by speaking in tongues and then encouraged everyone to join in. Most peoples “tongue” sounded alot like Hebrew or Arabic. I don’t speak in tongues, so I just watched… The tongues bit went on for a while. Some of it was interpreted and some wasn’t. The crazy thing is that people would speak loudly in a tongue for a bit and then interpret themselves (for our benefit I guess), but it did make me wonder why they wouldn’t just skip the tongues bit and just give us the interpretation bit? There’s no benefit for me to hear their tongue when I can’t understand it. (cf. 1 Corinthians 14)

I thought the songs and the tongues might be the sermon seeing as the speaker forgot his notes, but… I was wrong.

Instead the speaker’s wife got up and gave a 30 minute talk followed by the “speaker’s” 30 minute talk without notes… I say 30 minutes but we actually left before he finished and he’d already been going for 35 minutes without any indication of finishing anytime soon.

It was kind of awkward walking out in full view of everyone and we smiled and said goodbye and thankyou and then took off.

Fi and i are just spending the week up in Byron on a “Babymoon”…

“Babymoon?” you say…

Yes, well apparently that’s what you call a pre-baby holiday… It doesn’t really roll off the tongue, and it sounds a bit dicky, but… it’s a holiday… and our last one ever without kids.

So we’re up here in sunny and warm Byron Bay for a week. So far so good. Even though I’ve travelled through Byron quite a few times, I’ve never actually stayed here, and it’s quite a nice place… Kinda expensive, but we got our accommodation cheap.

Our plan for this week is to:

• eat
• sleep
• watch Le Tour
• go to the “lounge cinema” ($7.50 tickets to watch new releases at the cinema on a lounge!!! woohoo!)
• more eating
• more sleeping
• And more of Le Tour…

I’d like to be reading a novel up here as well, but since finishing Dracula I haven’t thought of another good book to read… I feel alot of pressure when it comes to choosing a good holiday  book because you really want something that’s good – to really draw you in… know what I mean? Maybe I should’ve brought up another Victor Kelleher book…

OK, so after watching tonight’s (repeat episode) Top Gear African special, I’ve been inspired… instead of spending a YY weekend in a house somewhere drinking beer and solving the problems of the world, why don’t we do some form of road trip?

Choose a vehicle and off we go… Great Ocean Road? Somewhere North? Somewhere West? (East isn’t really too much of an option)

We could camp in the evenings if it’s nice weather, or go to a motel, or…?

So I’m back in town, and back into the swing of things.

The house we stayed in was really nice, just across the road from the beach with very nice views of the ocean and an island (which was pretty much in the ocean). On our first trip to the beach I caught my first ever fish (it was a ‘respectable’ whiting, according to the family fisher-types), which we then cooked and ate. The following evening I caught a crab on my line, which bit Nadia and then scurried off to safety back in the ocean. Jamie caught a flathead around the same time as my crab was making his dash for freedom, but apart from that our rods were barren for the rest of the week (although we did get some abalone which tasted pretty good).

I managed to get in quite a few swims, some kayaking, a decent run (which produced a number of blisters because I ran in shoes without wearing socks), quite a few walks, some board games (I love my new Christmas (no x-mas’ here, Michael, although I do like the look of ‘x-mas’, because it looks like the name of a superhero or something) copy of Risk), quite a bit of guitar playing, and plenty of reading. All in all, a very relaxing time away, with loads of good food and drink, and nice time with the family.

I made the trip home alone so that I could get back to work, and Vanessa has stayed with the family for a couple more days. I expected to be tired after the drive, but instead managed to get the washing done, catch up with a few friends, then ended up getting Thai takeaway (Kee Mao noodles with duck, one of my favourites) and a couple of DVDs (Shooter and 300) with a friend. The downside to this was that we didn’t finish watching 300 until about 1am, and then I had to get up early this morning for work, so I may have undone all that good relaxing… especially seeing as tonight I just got home from seeing Kings of Leon (who were pretty darn good) at the Hordern (which has been significantly tarted up since I last saw a band there).

…mainly because although I took the camera, there wasn’t much to photograph. The weather was a bit wet for most of the weekend, so a lot of our time was spent indoors in the loungeroom (or at McDonald’s).

Much FIFA was played, much iPod listened to, and much (?) card games were played. We ate, drank, and relaxed, and as usual, I’ve come home from a holiday needing to sleep in and spend some time relaxing afterwards (I’m such a wuss).

The house was fantastic (although a bit leaky in such a heavy downpour), and we were very fortunate to have access to it. We sampled the Big Macs of various suburbs across the Central Coast, and managed to look / sound / feel like idiots in various other social settings.

Thanks especially to the corner shop lady who charged us about $8 for a loaf of bread and 2 litres of milk.

Chris – can we start a digital countdown to next year’s event now?