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.

‘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.

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.

I AM GONNA BE A DADDY!

My wife is 10 weeks pregnant and due mid-September, so excited. Have started a ’side project’ to chronicle it all: http://beingadaddy.net

Wow, I’m the happiest bloke around…