At the end of the day...
fun 1 Comments »10 NOVEMBER 2009
...is the beginning of another...
...is the beginning of another...
spot the odd one out.
fun, personal 1 Comments »
6 NOVEMBER 2009
This view from my window at work always makes me smile a little - no matter how I might be feeling about work otherwise :)
This view from my window at work always makes me smile a little - no matter how I might be feeling about work otherwise :)
16,000kms of finding small boxes.
1 Comments »Readers who have travelled with me from the previous incarnation of this website will know about my interest in geocaching… And today the reality of this hobby hit home as I discovered a new website which lets you see some interesting stats on your geocaching activity:
So, in the 784 days since we started this, what have we done:
So, in the 784 days since we started this, what have we done:
- 330 geocaches found, which means roughly 1 every 5 days (although finding on average 2 caches on every day that we have cached)
- The best day we ever had was 11 finds (the day I hit the Warburton rail trail by myself and went a bit nuts)
- The longest stretch of consecutive caching days was 5 in October last year (which coincided with our Grampians holiday – makes sense!)
However, the one stat that stands out is that the distance we have covered, if you just measure it from cache to cache consecutively is over 16000kms! Yikes…
I found that a bit hard to believe at first, but then recalling that there have been two separate trips to Sydney, and two separate trips to Adelaide in which I’ve done some caching, then it kind of makes more sense. And of course, those kilometers weren’t travelled JUST to geocache, but were usually holidays, work trips, etc. But still…. Makes me realize how far we do actually ‘move’ in a year when this figure is probably only a tiny fraction of our real movement…
Long gone are the days of someone being born, living, and dying within 10kms of one spot!
Becoming a stereotype
society 0 Comments »
2 NOVEMBER 2009
It’s always unsettling to find that, to some extent at least, you’re a stereotype…
We live in Box Hill, and we love it here. The distance from the city, the nice mix of urban and parkland, the fact that the people are all very down to earth, and that it’s a suburb with a lot of history. And of course it’s a suburb with a strong Asian element which my wife (being Asian herself) loves, as do I. But to be honest, apart from the central part of Box Hill (with its concentration of wonderful restaurants and asian grocery stores), you wouldn’t necessarily know it from just wandering the suburbs. In our street (which is fairly long), I’d be surprised if we can think of more than one or two other houses that have Asian residents…
So it took us by surprise a little last night… We had taken dinner (fish and chips!) up to a local park with the kids and just spent a good couple of hours relaxing, watching the kids play, chatting, enjoying the food and a nice glass or three of wine. Then suddenly I noticed something... All of the families who were at the park at that time were mixed Asian/Anglo (aka Eurasian) families. And that forced us to reflect on the other friends we have in Box Hill (mainly from church). Both were within walking distance, and both were also Eurasian. And without knowing the cultural make up of Box Hill in regards to mixed marriages, it did suddenly make us feel quite self-conscious as a ‘typical Box Hill family’ (which is always a weird feeling given how proud we are normally of not going with the flow!)
But on reflection, it’s maybe no surprise in Box Hill, as the suburb itself is a wonderful blend of the old anglo and new asian cultures, so it’s no wonder that those relationships form in or are attracted to the area.
On a similar note: As much as there’s a bit of flack being thrown around currently about Australia being racist and xenophobic (and a few unfortunate and severe acts which continue to reinforce that), we have to admit that with very few exceptions our relationship feels wonderfully unremarkable. Even though mixed marriages tend to be a catalyst for racist opinions, it’s been a very very long time since we’ve encountered anything of the sort, to the point where we don’t feel ‘different’ at all… Even as we’ve travelled through the country, we have very rarely encountered as much as a funny look or sideways comment… (maybe we’re just oblivious!)
It’s always unsettling to find that, to some extent at least, you’re a stereotype…
We live in Box Hill, and we love it here. The distance from the city, the nice mix of urban and parkland, the fact that the people are all very down to earth, and that it’s a suburb with a lot of history. And of course it’s a suburb with a strong Asian element which my wife (being Asian herself) loves, as do I. But to be honest, apart from the central part of Box Hill (with its concentration of wonderful restaurants and asian grocery stores), you wouldn’t necessarily know it from just wandering the suburbs. In our street (which is fairly long), I’d be surprised if we can think of more than one or two other houses that have Asian residents…
So it took us by surprise a little last night… We had taken dinner (fish and chips!) up to a local park with the kids and just spent a good couple of hours relaxing, watching the kids play, chatting, enjoying the food and a nice glass or three of wine. Then suddenly I noticed something... All of the families who were at the park at that time were mixed Asian/Anglo (aka Eurasian) families. And that forced us to reflect on the other friends we have in Box Hill (mainly from church). Both were within walking distance, and both were also Eurasian. And without knowing the cultural make up of Box Hill in regards to mixed marriages, it did suddenly make us feel quite self-conscious as a ‘typical Box Hill family’ (which is always a weird feeling given how proud we are normally of not going with the flow!)
But on reflection, it’s maybe no surprise in Box Hill, as the suburb itself is a wonderful blend of the old anglo and new asian cultures, so it’s no wonder that those relationships form in or are attracted to the area.
On a similar note: As much as there’s a bit of flack being thrown around currently about Australia being racist and xenophobic (and a few unfortunate and severe acts which continue to reinforce that), we have to admit that with very few exceptions our relationship feels wonderfully unremarkable. Even though mixed marriages tend to be a catalyst for racist opinions, it’s been a very very long time since we’ve encountered anything of the sort, to the point where we don’t feel ‘different’ at all… Even as we’ve travelled through the country, we have very rarely encountered as much as a funny look or sideways comment… (maybe we’re just oblivious!)
I don’t know how many other countries could pride themselves on being the same... So whether you're from elsewhere in the world or a local questionning our own culture, please don't believe the hype that Australia is a racist country. It's simply made of the same old humans as any other place - a few of which have nasty insecurities which play themselves out on easy scapegoats. But in reality, Australia is a land of (mostly) migrants who by and large all work hard to live well with each other...
Tech Life
faith, society 2 Comments »
29 OCTOBER 2009
Today’s been a long day…
For the last week, the email at work’s been a bit unreliable… So today they obviously tried to fix it which required everyone (as any of you who work in an office will be familiar with!) to log out for a while...
That ‘while’ took over 7 hours… which is a long time when all of your work is sitting in the computer...
But it did give me an opportunity to reflect on the dependency on technology that we create amongst ourselves – Certainly, some of that is for good reason (as technology makes things possible that once weren’t, and when you lose that possibility you can’t function as efficiently) but some of it is also I think just about nature as human beings.
I’ve always noticed in workplaces that something as simple as the internet going down means that everyone just downs tools... I do it too I must admit. Suddenly you feel incapable of working, despite the amount of time we often spend in non-internet activities like meetings, talking on the phone, filing, etc. By denying us a technology we suddenly feel impotent.
And I see it in other areas too beyond work. Once a friend of mine was complaining about how someone she was planning to see that day wasn’t returning her SMS’s. “Why don’t you just call her?” I ask… “Oh, we don’t do that….”. I think she did in the end, but to actually think of picking up the phone and calling voice to voice required a bit of habit-breaking. Communication is a big one as we’ve progressed from face to face, to phone, to fax, to email, to skype, to sms, to facebook, to twitter… each time shunning the previous medium…
Or how those mornings when I set off to cycle to work to find my iPod isn’t charged, and feel as if I can’t ride now because I don’t have my music. (replace ‘iPod’ with ‘heart rate monitor’ for some others people! – For a while there I ran both until I realized I was starting to turn into the Million Dollar Man (there’s a bit of nostalgia for older readers..)
Or those hundreds of people I see these days driving around their same old suburbs with their portable sat-nav systems running… Thank heavens they won’t get lost anymore driving down the road to get some milk.
Now don’t get me wrong – I love technology. I’m sitting here writing this on my new eee PC which I adore, with the kids playing a Wii across the room, and just the other day developed an obsession to go buy an iPhone (which was fortunately fleeting, given how expensive the darn things are). But it is remarkable how dependent we can so quickly become on something that, maybe only a matter of weeks before, we never knew existed and/or never felt we needed…
But then perhaps that’s who we are as human beings. I’m sure we’ve all experienced the same feelings with a person who one day we didn’t know even existed, and a few short weeks/months later felt like we couldn’t live without, and losing them would feel like losing a part of ourselves….
Perhaps it’s human nature to become dependent. Maybe it’s something God slipped in there to encourage us to lean on him, but of course, we find other things to lean on instead.
Today’s been a long day…
For the last week, the email at work’s been a bit unreliable… So today they obviously tried to fix it which required everyone (as any of you who work in an office will be familiar with!) to log out for a while...
That ‘while’ took over 7 hours… which is a long time when all of your work is sitting in the computer...
But it did give me an opportunity to reflect on the dependency on technology that we create amongst ourselves – Certainly, some of that is for good reason (as technology makes things possible that once weren’t, and when you lose that possibility you can’t function as efficiently) but some of it is also I think just about nature as human beings.
I’ve always noticed in workplaces that something as simple as the internet going down means that everyone just downs tools... I do it too I must admit. Suddenly you feel incapable of working, despite the amount of time we often spend in non-internet activities like meetings, talking on the phone, filing, etc. By denying us a technology we suddenly feel impotent.
And I see it in other areas too beyond work. Once a friend of mine was complaining about how someone she was planning to see that day wasn’t returning her SMS’s. “Why don’t you just call her?” I ask… “Oh, we don’t do that….”. I think she did in the end, but to actually think of picking up the phone and calling voice to voice required a bit of habit-breaking. Communication is a big one as we’ve progressed from face to face, to phone, to fax, to email, to skype, to sms, to facebook, to twitter… each time shunning the previous medium…
Or how those mornings when I set off to cycle to work to find my iPod isn’t charged, and feel as if I can’t ride now because I don’t have my music. (replace ‘iPod’ with ‘heart rate monitor’ for some others people! – For a while there I ran both until I realized I was starting to turn into the Million Dollar Man (there’s a bit of nostalgia for older readers..)
Or those hundreds of people I see these days driving around their same old suburbs with their portable sat-nav systems running… Thank heavens they won’t get lost anymore driving down the road to get some milk.
Now don’t get me wrong – I love technology. I’m sitting here writing this on my new eee PC which I adore, with the kids playing a Wii across the room, and just the other day developed an obsession to go buy an iPhone (which was fortunately fleeting, given how expensive the darn things are). But it is remarkable how dependent we can so quickly become on something that, maybe only a matter of weeks before, we never knew existed and/or never felt we needed…
But then perhaps that’s who we are as human beings. I’m sure we’ve all experienced the same feelings with a person who one day we didn’t know even existed, and a few short weeks/months later felt like we couldn’t live without, and losing them would feel like losing a part of ourselves….
Perhaps it’s human nature to become dependent. Maybe it’s something God slipped in there to encourage us to lean on him, but of course, we find other things to lean on instead.
Saying goodbye to Facebook
4 Comments »
23 OCTOBER 2009OK. It's done...
The post about introversion and the relevance of things like Facebook in that has forced me to do some serious thinking, which today resulted in me deactivating my Facebook account.
Why?
Well - what has it done for me...
Yeah, sure - it's shown me what a lot of people I used to know or have had contact with in the past are doing and thinking. OK. That's nice. Does it improve my life? A little... but not by much, and if I really cared about these people that much I'd be picking up the phone. If I can't be bothered phoning them, then do I really deserve to stay in touch with them?
Have I created new friendships? No. I'm not like that. I need lots of time and contact to make real friends (which is why I have so few)
Have I deepened existing friendships? No. At least, not as a consequence of Facebook. I've met a few people who I hadn't seen in a while, but straight afterwards it resorted back to a Facebook only relationship.
So why did I use it? Well, apart from the voyeur factor and the occasional chuckle or interesting tidbit of news (which doesn't really add much to my life), I think a lot of it was about wanting the attention of others. I loved it when people commented on my status updates or photos or links. And when they didn't I got quite upset and insecure. I wanted people to pay attention to me, and in doing so I almost found myself being competitive, wanting people to pay attention to me and what I had to say. I guess that's the definition of vanity, which is never an admirable trait. I was always slightly ashamed of myself.
When it comes down to it, I think Facebook made me a worse person, a worse friend. It threatened existing relationships with an easy superficial connection with no real degree of support or commitment. And it made me more insecure about the attention and devotion of others to my friendship, which I know has made me a worse friend in real life. One who is more insecure, and consequently more needy, more demanding of assurances from friends that I was just as important as their 387 'friends' on Facebook, and have risked becoming a burden to them as my insecurity affects my behaviour and expectations of those that, at heart, I do love intensely and dearly. To those people, I am truly sorry.
So, will I be worse off without it? Perhaps I'll feel it in the short-term, perhaps I'll feel a bit isolated. But to those people who truly do matter and to whom (more importantly) I matter to them - well, they know where I am. My time and home are theirs, and I hope they know that. And given that in the end it is them that matter (and not the 387 names who didn't do anything more for our relationship than log-in to Facebook), then no. I think I'll be fine :)
Nomastery newness: The Timeliness of Christ
0 Comments »A new article is up on the Nomastery - "The Timeliness of Christ" - this time looking at the issue of time in relation to how we love God and others... They were interesting thoughts to follow - I hope you find them challenging as well.
(And for someone who might read this and think this article was me having a go at them, please don't think so! :) Our discussions merely sparked some reflections, so thankyou in fact!)
