I am HOPELESS at just sitting down at the computer and getting stuff done.

I have been trying to get some work done for a couple of hours now, and each time I start to write a few lines, I do the old ALT-TAB and flick across to see what’s making the news, and whether I have any new emails (even though I get a desktop alert if I get an email).

This blog post is an attempt to force myself into writing something – even though it’s not the work that I need to be doing. I figure if I sit down and type some stuff, perhaps I’ll get into the groove and then be able to get done the things that I need to.

I guess I should talk about something then… what I got up to today? Kinda predictable, but what the heck. It’s a start.

Today is Australia Day. My count-them-on-one-hand readers are all Australian, so they know this already and have no doubt enjoyed themselves today. I woke up about 9.30, with the little lad having had a sleep-in, owing to a late night out at a friend’s BBQ. He woke up just after I did, which was handy. I hate it when he wakes before I do, and robs me of sleep! My wife was going in to work this morning, so the lad and I had our cereal and a shower, before heading to the shops to pick up some groceries and a present for a neighbour across the road. The neighbour in question was having a 1st birthday BBQ today, so we got a present and a card and came home to quickly wrap it up and write on the card. The shop we went to was having a sale, so I picked up a couple of cool dude t-shirts for the lad as well. As you do.

My wife got home at lunchtime and we headed across the road. The BBQ was a post-actual-birthday affair, and this one was for the mothers’ group people, but we scored an invitation owing to our recent establishment of a relationship with these neighbours, who are lovely. We walked in and got the introduction to all these couples and their children, and rode out the first bit of newbie awkwardness without too much trouble.

After a bit, lunch was ready and we sat down to a far of BBQ meat and yummy salads (though the ravioli and apple, covered in potato salad dressing, was a bit weird). The table we were at was pretty chatty and everyone was nice, talking about kids, houses, burglaries and the like. Normal suburban conversations for parents! As the mothers drifted off to the lounge room to watch over the kidlets, us dads were sitting down and enjoying a cold beer. Conversation soon turned to football, as it does at these things when a bunch of men are meeting for the first time. Was a good footy chat though, without anyone being too ‘Mike Sheehan’ and acting like a tool. I had to duck off about 3, as I was meeting a mate to hit the driving range! I bade farewell and headed out.

I’d been wanting to have a hit at the driving range for a couple of months, since I played a short 9 holes with a few work guys a couple of months back. I had never been much of a golfer at all, playing a handful of rounds and being quite sucky. But this past time I had a ball, and really enjoyed the walk and the outdoorsiness of it all. I have a terrible swing though and a strike rate of 50%, so the driving range was a good place to try and arrest that.

My mate and I got a bucket each of 80 balls, and headed out for a hit. I was ok, and connected about 75% of the time – an improvement! By the time I was down to my last 10 balls, I was making acceptable contact and actually getting some air. Up until then, there had been a few worm-burners and skimmers. I can feel now that I’ll be sore down the left-hand side of my ribs and stomach tomorrow, but that’s fine.

I should also mention that I bought myself some clubs the other day! I was only after a cheap and reasonable-nick set, and after combing Cash Converters with no success, checked out eBay. There were some great sets going for cheapish prices, but I still couldn’t justify $300 on clubs, even if they normally retail for $800. SO I found another website which was selling sets of clubs that were actually marketed to beginners and occasional golfers. It comes with a bag, most of the clubs I’ll need, and the bag even has pop-out legs for easy standing. All for $99 plus delivery! So after getting the seal of approval from the wife, I purchased a set of these bad boys. They should arrive in a week or so, and I can’t wait to get them out and have a swing.

After that, I came home and played with the lad for a while. He’s a bit of a fan of wrestling with me at the moment, so we mucked about for a bit before I cooked tea.

Dinner was an Aussie standard – steak and veg. The rump was a bit tough, though my steamed vegies were delicious. I find it hard not to overcook vegies for some reason, but these were just right. A fair dash of salt, and all was good.

After that I tidied up a bit and put the lad to bed. The wife is making cupcakes tonight, some of which I am taking to work for my team. They’re a good morning tea snack and a nice gesture.

And here I am now, after a couple of hours in which I’ve done about 15 minutes of proper work. These 1,000 or so words have flowed pretty well though, it’s good. Means I should be able to try and keep up something resembling a schedule of writing now. For a long time I’ve struggled to just type at home. Work is ok; perhaps the salary makes it easier to let words flow from my fingers? Home writing has been a bit of a challenge in the last couple of years. Part lazy, part hard. I like what I’ve done tonight though, which is just write about anything, no matter how boring an uninteresting, and just get the fingers moving about on the black keys.

Should do more of that!

Later skaters.

September 1st? As in four and a half months ago? Wow, it has been forever since I actually posted something here. I cannot believe it has been that amount of time. Since I set this lil thang up back in late 2005, I’ve missed the odd month here and there, but never 4 months between content. I mean sure, I posted one of those Downfall clips we all love, but that’s just a YouTube link, innit? No excuses. I need to pull my finger out and make this blog worthwhile to my 4 readers, or else I’m just another git taking up room on the interwebs and offering fuck all in return for it.

In my defence (I’ve done well to wait until par 2 before justifying my laziness, eh) I have been superbly busy and otherwise occupied. At this minute, my wife and I are just 7 weeks away from welcoming our second child into the world! Super-excited and really starting to wish time away so he (we’re told it’s another boy) can join our little family.

My side project – being a daddy – is months behind in content updates as well (about 9 for that one). I need to type up all these notes I have on pads and scraps of paper, and get the record up to date and start in on that weekly parenting pseudo-column I originally had in mind. There was a flurry of activity over at that site in September last year, where I churned out about 20 posts in a couple of weeks, but then it was back to stagnation and the traffic dropped off, as it does.

I have been very active on Twitter, as you can see from the sidebar where my tweets appear. I think Twitter suits my inability to focus on things for more than 15 minutes at a time – a half-way readable decent blog entry takes me about 30 mins to draft, proof and publish, and sometimes I just don’t have that kind of time. Twitter makes it all so short and sweet, which is handy. But it isn’t really a decent record of your rants and raves, is it, as context is generally pretty critical if your thoughts are to be more than a ‘look at me’ moment.

A couple of weeks ago I decided that enough was enough in the physical health stakes, and made an appointment with my long-neglected local gym. I was weighed and measured, and found to be wanting. No surprises there. But I had a plan drawn up, which has me doing 3 sessions a week of 60 minutes each, alternating between cardio and weights training. In addition to this, I took a leaf out of a few tweeples books and jumped on board the Couch to 5k bandwagon and downloaded the app for my iPhone. I forced myself through days 1 and 2, and then had to get my longstanding ingrown toenail cut out, as it was ripping my toe to bits whenever I ran. That happened on Thursday, so mid-week this week I should be able to whack the runners back on and start pounding the pavement and treadmill once more.

Back in September I was approached about a job offer, and so being a polite man, gave the enquirer the courtesy of 5 minutes of my time. I couldn’t believe it, but the role they were looking to fill was everything I wanted my next role to be, and it was time to move on from my last employer, so the timing was perfect. I’d hit a wall work-wise and nothing was going to change – I’d learned all I could there and was jack of the place. So all went well over a few chats and coffees, and the job was mine. I snatched it up, enjoyed a couple of weeks respite between (where I planned to get my online life up to date, but was distracted by the backyard and Bunnings) and started in early November. It has been absolutely fantastic since, and I’m loving work for the first time in a few years. Nice to be able to say that.

As for my creative self, I have neglected that too. I have a Moleskine in my satchel which hasn’t had its cover opened since about October last year. It always happens to me – every time I try and start some sort of regular journal, I give up after a few months. I don’t know why as I love the idea of a journal, but I seem to baulk at recording real journal-y stuff in case someone finds it and takes it the wrong way. To counter this, I set up another side-project online, which nobody knows about, and am ready to start using that as my non-identifiable channel to really open up and examine myself in the cold light of day. I’ve created a persona for that project, twitter account and all, and will see how it goes. I do plan to be still doing it in six months though… we’ll see.

For now, I think I’ll sign off. I do promise to make more of an effort to share something of dubious value on a more frequent basis, and hopefully someone will find it interesting.

A little while ago I was reading an old feature article about the now-axed Tony Martin radio show Get This. In it, Ed Kavalee said of Martin’s influence on him:

“He’s made me learn that there’s no substitute for working your arse off.”

With this as my inspiration, I have pulled my finger out and will now use much more of my ’spare time’ to write, write, write and do less faffing around.

To assist, I have recently procured a lovely little 13″ Macbook Pro, and my iPhone is capable of tethering, so there is no excuse for not being a much more active writer and keeping my various online projects going.

To that end, I have made a conscious decision to update, re-skin and re-launch one of my side projects, beingadaddy.net. This week, I am spending my lunch hours and nights catching up on around 11 months worth of entries (I have been keeping notes offline, but never got around to writing them up) and trying to build some non-blog-post content as well. Any suggestions welcome.

I plan to relaunch the site in a couple of weeks, and then really work my arse off at building it into something people will actually want to read. I’ve come across a lot of possible publishing avenues of late in the parenthood genre, where I’m sure if I was to pitch a piece here and there and have a decent blog of work behind me, I may have half a shot. May as well chance my arm!

In a similar vein, I’ve recently built the company website for my brother-in-law’s security business and really enjoyed that. So I have enrolled in a short course at the Melbourne CAE for 4 Monday nights, starting next month, and will sharpen up my skills in this area. I’d love to have my own little marketing outfit and just wile away on small jobs for local businesses, building websites and doing some other freelance and business writing. Can’t make it happen if I don’t try though.

With a concerted effort to build up my skills and creative output, I do hope to be in a position where I can consider giving it a decent nudge.

Verbal jousting, argumentative parrying, intellectual tete-a-tete and some clever and witty repartee. All part of daily life in fictional president Jed Bartlet’s White House.

The West Wing ran for 7 seasons on NBC and was a phenomenally successful show, blitzing the Emmy and Golden Globe awards in its early years and leaving a generation of Bush-fatigued viewers wishing on a prayer that Martin Sheen would run for office.

Creator (and writer for the first 4 seasons) Aaron Sorkin has made liberal intelligentsia his signature, his follow-up “Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip” providing it in concentrated form for the one season it was around. Sorkin’s characters are all exceptionally smart in their own way. Some certified and some not. The main characters on The West Wing can boast:

• A degree in Communications
• A plethora of law degrees
• Nobel Prize in Economics
• Medical degree
• Recognition as a specialist thoracic surgeon
• Editorship of Harvard Law Review
• Decades of experience as political operatives on local, state and federal elections
• PR contracts with Hollywood movie studios
• Partnership in major law firm
• Cabinet membership
• Executive at munitions manufacturers…

And that’s just the book smarts. The crew are all champions of various social causes and leap to the defence of all that is good, challenging men & women who are supposedly senior and supposedly of divine wisdom. They make an artform out of getting the right things done, for the right reasons. Sure, there is plenty of compromise along the way in order to effect their agenda, but at the end of the day their work makes a difference and they challenge anyone who gets in their way or isn’t up to speed.

Those who cop the worst are those who could be said to be ‘less intelligent and competent’, the bumblers and the wannabes. Each pretender is slayed and flayed and held up as a buffoon.

So how does all this make me an asshole?

Confession time: I too dislike idiots.

I share the pain of our West Wing friends. I was so inspired by these people that I began to expand on the traits of theirs that I have: I started asking more questions, challenging my superiors and asking for good reasons when bad decisions were made. Over the past few years I’ve lost most of my inhibitions about those who are ’superiors’ in the workplace. As far as I’m concerned, if they have more responsibility and decision-making power, then they should also be smarter and more considered than those of us who work for them. Is it too much to demand that those in positions of leadership be both intelligent and competent? I don’t think so.

So I ask questions now even when I know people don’t want to hear them. I challenge decisions if I think they’re bad, or made for the wrong reasons. I don’t mind going on the record and calling something out as being shit, if it clearly is.

The moment I realised all of this was turning me into an asshole was fairly recently. A bunch of us were coming out of a meeting where I’d posed some questions about a direction something was being steered in. I ended up being the only one asking any questions and the rest of the room – bar my sparring partner – was fairly quiet. I could tell I had the room on my side but no one was backing me up. As the meeting broke up (with my contention defeated based on hierarchy, not common sense) a colleague whispered in my ear, “I agree with you, well done for saying it”. I looked at them in disgust and said, “Say it in there, or don’t say it at all. Your support is useless to me in the corridor”. And I walked ahead and left them in my dust.

I needed some air and so walked down the road for a coffee and a ponder. As I sat there and rued the scorched mouth I now had, I realised I’d made it harder for me to count on that person’s support in the future. Even though I was right about their spineless meeting behaviour, my curt retort I would start one person down next time. Stupid, but that’s how it is.

There’s a line in one West Wing episode where Josh and Toby are talking about Bartlet’s campaign strategy against the Bush-like Governor Ritchie, a bit of a simple man. Josh says to Toby, “Your problem is you want to beat him, but I just want to win. You want to beat him and that’s a problem for me”.

At the time I couldn’t see the distinction, but essentially Josh is pointing out Toby’s desire to prove himself smarter than Ritchie, whereas Josh isn’t fussed about smart so much as winning – and if pretending to be less smart makes it easier to win, he’s ok with that. Toby isn’t, and there’s your difference.

I realised the other day that I’m Toby – all about beating someone and being right, but less about the result. That doesn’t really suit someone whose job is to sell a message – being smarter and right doesn’t always beat dumb and wrong, just look at the success of Sunrise…

Not sure what needs to give here – do I make an effort to chill a bit, or is my quest for right and good my calling card? I have no idea and will probably just make it up as I go.

We travelled up the highway this weekend, to the town of my childhood. The town where I spent my teenage years. The town where so many firsts took place.

First love, first kiss. First tiff, first heartbreak. First job, first resignation. First cigarette, first drunk spew. For a lot of the people I went to high school with, it was also a case of first flight from the family home, first chance they had.

After years of this town being the location of our coming of age, many years of this being the centre of our universe and the place we allowed to define our place in the world as we then knew it, a lot of us left. Many didn’t, and they are still here. Some of them have kids of their own now, going off to the schools their parents attended and playing for the sporting clubs their parents did. Some of them paired up and became the most unexpected couplings, but that surprise is because of who they were then, and like me, they have probably changed a bit since we finished high school and mooched on to the next stage of this adventure.

Many a rural town escapee has made the kind of trip that I have this weekend. Truth be told though, this isn’t the first time I’ve made this trip.

Since I initially left nine years ago (a year after school let out), I’ve left once for a few years, came back for a year and then left again. That second departure was 4 years ago now and since then I’ve married and had my first child. A lot’s changed for me and so each time I do this trip, those tortuous-and-at-the-same-time-wonderful years of adolescence seem that bit further away. But this is the year of the big post-school milestone – the 10-year reunion – and so everything is magnified and seen through the muddy-glass question of “What have I done with myself and am I happy?” So this trip is one that begs me to stroll down memory lane as my car drives into town, meandering around that first bend and approaching the first supermarket, the one where I worked and earned my stereo, CD and alcohol money.

Consciously remembering your teenage years, to me, seems kind of bizarre, like picking a scab of memories and then wondering why it bleeds as it does. But we do it anyway. And we remember many things, but rarely everything at once. Rarely do we accurately recall the emotional context in which we acted back then. So we can’t objectively evaluate how we were then, but we do try, and that recollection is what we compare ourselves against. If you do it a few times, you can get a better idea of you and your life as it was, and so every time I make this trip I find myself remembering more of my earlier years and I add that to the mental papier mache me I have constructed in my head. It’s not a piñata, thankfully. For that much I can be proud.

The landmarks seldom change. They are the same bridges, water towers, train station dugouts and football ovals that once figured so prominently. Yet time has moved on and they have weathered a little, as have I, and we seem like strangers to each other. I wonder if the bridge remembers me, a mad man in a crazy-wheeled trolley, rolling down one side of it and smashing into the brick fence of the doctor’s car park? Does the supermarket remember the late nights and early mornings of counting stock and sweeping the front door entrance? Does the football oval recall the unco, tubby, pasty kid who had a bag full of dreams and a little toe’s worth of talent?

It’s pretty arrogant, I think, to suppose they do. I am one of tens of thousands of young people who’ve grown up in this town and my blood and my tears and my laughter is one of a million such things to be felt and heard and seen by this town. I am nobody super special and there are no plaques commemorating the day I swam from one side of the river to the other, so am not so precious to think I have left my mark on this rural town.

I sit on my mother’s back veranda, which was built after I left home – things have changed even here – and I can see the patches of lawn where I played cricket and footy with my brothers. I can see the trees planted over pets long gone. I see these things and I realise the grass has been mown a million times since then and the trees have given up fruit for many seasons since the pets slipped away from us.

It is humbling, to visit a place you once thought of as your kingdom, and see it no longer as yours, but as somebody else’s. You wonder then how many other people from earlier generations have thought the same things, and you miss your father and your grandmother – who both loved remembering things and telling you about them – and you wonder if they too had that moment of acknowledged insignificance and whether it was a happy realisation or a sad one. The romance though is that they are gone and you won’t ever know if they did or not. The towns of their childhoods would be hardly recognisable to them, they would not be able to point to many landmarks and remember.

So as the weekend comes to an end, I will shortly be driving away, back down the highway to where me and my family live. I will likely forget about this reflection and have a similar feeling next time I visit. Which will be November, for the reunion.

I hardly know what to be – excited or nervous.

‘It was him or me’: Dad donates organs to 11yo son

A father has saved the life of his son and made medical history in the process by becoming the first living New Zealander to donate two organs.
Wayne Pycroft donated a kidney and part of his liver to his sick son Jesse, who at 11 years old has become the youngest New Zealander to receive a double transplant.

Jesse Pycroft has had to battle for most of his life after being born with a rare genetic enzyme defect, which slowly destroyed his liver and kidneys.

His mum Faith Pycroft says it has been heart-breaking watching her son suffer.
“Some days you felt like you weren’t going to get through it,” she said.

Last year, as their son’s health deteriorated further, Wayne and Faith Pycroft decided one of them had to donate two of their organs.
Wayne Pycroft was the perfect match.
“It was either going to be me or our son because he was getting so sick, and we had to act,” he said.
“From the start I just put up my hand.”

Full article here.

I’ve mentioned in an earlier post how I get really choked up by the death of young husbands/wives, especially those who leave children behind. More than most any other thing, it wells the eyes.

I was just beginning to think we were enjoying a good run, and then this happens and I get sad again.

Many years from now, a young man will be reading a scrapbook of articles, hoping to glean an idea of what his father was like. Those articles, and probable letters of commendation from an appreciative C.O. or minister, will shape how this young man sees their long-gone father. That correspondence and news articles are the closest some people get to knowing where they come from, is so sad.

If there was a charity that could work to combat this whole thing, they’d get a sizable chunk of my salary…

Was in a cab the other day, on my way to a meeting. I was having the age-old internal struggle of “Do I make conversation, or pretend I have a really important text message to send?”, when I registered that the woman cabbie had some lovely, carol-like music playing. It was a nice change from the talkback/weird cultural music you normally get.

I tried to make out what the music was, but couldn’t quite get a handle on it. Being soft, soothing music with a feelgood sort of vibe, I thought they must be carols and that the cabbie was getting into the spirit of things.

I asked her if she had Christmas carols playing and was ready to launch into a bit of a conversation about the business of it all, followed by good times with family.

She shot back a quick “Hey? No. No.” and that was it.

I never recovered and we travelled the rest of the trip in silence, with me sending text messages to people I hadn’t spoke to in a while…

A million years have passed since my last post. A lot of things have been happening and many a time I have thought, ‘I should write about that at deckchair guru’ but for various reasons, haven’t.

My wife and I have welcomed our first baby, a boy we named Leo! More will be at beingadaddy.net once I finally finish the opus that is the ‘Birth’ entry. So much to say and now, so little time in which to try and get it down on paper online. I have never felt so happy (wedding is very close though!) and I cannot wait for each new day as a family unit. Am sure to write loads more about this as we go along.

My workplace has moved offices, from a crappy dive in North Melbourne to brand-spanking new digs in the Docklands. Whilst I love being closer to the city and being able to look through a window again, it has meant I can’t drive to work anymore. My nice little 35 min commute is back to being a 70 min car-train-walk journey again. While it sucks as far as time goes, I do have time to read again and am enjoying that aspect. Just this week I knocked off The Rise and Rise of Kerry Packer Uncut (tip of the hat to lunaminor for the good review). What a mogul he was, in every way. On to The Shark Net now, borrowed off the mother unit when I last visited her a few weeks ago.

Have finally engaged in this Twitter caper and added a little widget to the upper RHS. I’ll try and make it interesting but no promises.

Also discovered that Bob Ellis is still writing columns, for the ABC’s ‘Unleashed’. Given he hasn’t updated his own website for two years, this was a welcome discovery.

I’ve started keeping a diary again, a lovely Moleskine Much trepidation about whether it’ll last 3-4 weeks and fizzle, as has been my wont. Time will tell, as they say.

Obama won, slaying the limp forces of McCain-Palin, the freak show that political union was. I have a lot of hope (pardon the pun) that he will do some great things and am pleased he has a somewhat pliant Congress to assist. Again, time will tell.

Shall post again soon – proper entries too, not this pathetic little ‘Dear long-lost friend’ jotting.

There’s too much of this death thing going around. It’s everywhere and no one seems safe. The most frightening aspect of it all is that it seems to be discriminately picking off young family members in the prime of their lives. Every time someone goes I find it that bit harder to not cry over someone I didn’t know.

It started, in my consciousness, with Troy Broadbridge, the Melbourne footballer who died in the Asian Tsunami while on his honeymoon. While on his honeymoon!

Since then we’ve had Steve Irwin, one of the most animated people I’ve ever seen on TV, being pierced in the heart by a sting-ray and entering folklore as someone who could tame crocodiles but not big flat fish with eyes a metre apart.

There’s Belinda Emmett, who in the words of her husband Rove McManus, “turned the lemons of my [his] life into lemonade”. Poetry.

There have been others not-so-famous but equally sad – Brendon Keilar, who was coldly shot dead coming to the aid of a woman who didn’t deserve his help, as it turns out. He left behind a young family who now grow up without their father.

Since I found out my wife and I were expecting (read about it all at beingadaddy.net) I’ve become acutely aware of the fragility of life and how important it is to take care of oneself. I quit smoking in an effort to be around for a lot longer and tomorrow I start on a fitness regime that will help me drop 15kg and be in the best shape I can be so I’m up to the rigmarole of being a parent.

But then today I see a newsflash that Jane McGrath has passed away at 42. Glenn and the two young kids are now alone and will have a gaping chasm for a mother for the rest of their lives. How can you not cry at that?!