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.

Dear Dad,

Ten years ago today you fashioned yourself a noose and bid the world goodbye. A large part of me thought you a coward then and an even larger part of me thinks so now.

It all seemed a little implausible – you were 35 and had four sons, aged 16 (me), 14, 9 and 3. Sure, your wife divorced you a couple of years after you walked out and moved away, but do you blame her? You refused to support your kids financially yet benefited from their unblinkered love for you, which for me bordered on worship. I know now what a fuck-up you were, but still now, looking back, it seemed to me that at that point in time at least that you’d finally come to peace with your flaws, but then you left permanently.

I mean, yeah you were seeing a strange woman at the time, but we all need an ego boost at times right? I say she’s strange, yet when you died there was an air of blame toward her wafting around. What is she to blame for Dad? You reached that tipping point and gave in. You consigned four boys to a fatherless life. And you will never know my beautiful wife or the child we’re expecting in September. You are to blame, Dad. You listened to the voice, gave in to temptation and You Hanged Yourself In Your Garage.

So anyway, what’s been happening with you, what have you been up to? Me? Wow, where do I begin…

You died in 1998, I was in Year 11. I went on to finish Year 11 and then Year 12. During this time I was with my first proper girlfriend. Never could ask you how that should all unfold, could I? I made do though. After Year 12 I spent a year in a video store haze before moving to Canberra for uni. That first year of uni was full-on! I fell in love, had my heart broken, made some great friends, learned what good writing was, got drunk a lot, got stoned a bit, lost a lot of weight and lived the stereotypical uni life, basically. Then I went home for summer and recuperated.

Second year in Canberra, 2002, I fell in love again and would spend the next two or so years in love with that girl. That was a pretty good year 2002, the first nine months of it anyway. The next year and a half I kind of stumbled through in a bit of a daze, lost interest in most things. The relationship was on-off and eventually died the death it needed to when I got blind drunk and came a cropper off a bridge, landing on a road 7m below and breaking my pelvis and left wrist. I’d been visiting Canberra that weekend, having moved back home to spend a year working and taking some time out to weigh up what I wanted to do. After that incident, I spent 3 months in bed and it was then that I think I finally laid to rest the demons that had hovered since you died. Six and a half years, and I finally felt like I was getting somewhere. Thanks, Dad.

Strangely, just as I was banishing you to my past and learning to think of my future and what I wanted to do with myself, some money of yours turned up. It wasn’t much, but it meant I could pay my mother back some money and also get a tattoo. I got a Celtic Circle Cross, just like you liked. I wanted to mark your memory in some way so that I could let you go properly.

The great amusement of this is that the very day I ended up getting that tattoo, is the day I met the woman who would become my wife. It was only that I happened to be on my way to the tattoo guy that I stopped by and visited a lady I worked with, and who had her niece visiting from Melbourne. That niece is now my gorgeous wife and is carrying your first grandchild. I guess in some way I should thank you, as when i finally started to let you go, I found my new life. And now, I wouldn’t change a thing.

There are some times that I really miss you Dad, and some that I don’t. I wish you were at my wedding and I wish you were helping me to get ready for fatherhood. I pit this, though, against the fact that you weren’t the greatest father, truth be told, and I come to believe that some of the greatest lessons that you taught me were those that I shouldn’t follow. I won’t be divorcing my wife as I will always work on my marriage if it ever needs it. I won’t be leaving my kids as I know how they’ll be if their father pisses off. Mostly, I won’t be a stubborn prick who bottles their bullshit up and lets it corrode my soul. You showed me what that can do.

Don’t get me wrong Dad, I don’t hate you. I have loads of great memories of you and in particular I will never forget the conversation we had when I was 15 and you were visiting. Those words have stayed with me and I do try to live up to them.

So now it’s a decade since you were last here, since that final voicemail on my NEC Fido mobile phone that you said was an expensive waste of money! It’s been an interesting decade, though I can see it’s made me into who I am. For kicking off 10 years of discovery and the building of me, I do thank you.

If there is something beyond the earthly world (I keep changing my mind about whether there is or not), perhaps we’ll cross paths then. You’ll be able to pick me out – I’ll be the one who looks a bit like you but who in a delicious conundrum, is ten times the man you were, partly thanks to you.

Your eldest,

Joel.

With the exception of a four/five-month break, I have been a smoker for around 10 years. That all ended nearly two weeks ago. I am now a non-smoker.

The origins of this habit began earlier. I had my first full cigarette the day of my 11th birthday and bought my first packet, myself, aged 12. I smoked now and then, on and off, until I was 15 and decided I didn’t want to be a smoker ‘when I grew up’. When I was 16, I started again and as mentioned earlier have been ever since, excepting a short intermission where I toyed with quitting, but if the truth be told, never viewed it as more than temporary anyway.

The past six months or so I was getting closer and closer to calling it quits on the nicotine front. I wasn’t enjoying it quite as much as I did and plans for the future were evolving – plans which required me to be a non-smoker. So I decided on a day and went and spoke to a chemist. After some chatting and divulging of my smoking habits and rituals, using patches was decided as the best way for me to go. I’m doing the 3 month program, where you use 21mg patches for 6 weeks, then 14mg ones for 3 weeks before dropping down to 7mg patches for 3 weeks. The chemist told me that some people are on them much longer than that and if I felt that I needed longer to keep using them. It’s obviously early days (Week 2 almost at an end) but I am comfortable using patches for as long as I need.

The day before Q-Day, I smoked a lot. Every 30 minutes I’d duck outside for a couple and really suck them back. I savoured every breath and tried to imagine how the next day would play out. I think that smoking that much actually helped me quit, as I felt a little ill by the time I puffed my last and climbed into bed. Waking the next day was tough, as I usually showered, dressed and smoked before heading off to work. There were many times throughout that day and the ones that followed where I was at a loss for periods of five minutes – these gaps were previously smoking time but they were now empty.

I came to realise that for me, smoking was a form of punctuation – a way of marking the passage of time: I ate then smoked, I worked a little the smoked, I arrived/left work and smoked, I got home and smoked, and so on. Without the smoking I was a little lost and found myself panicking about how I didn’t know what to do with myself at those previously-critical junctures. So I started having a glass of water, followed by some fruit, each time that I would normally have a cigarette. That helped and I have been eating a lot of fruit and drinking a lot more water than I used to. The first Saturday was tough and I ate a whole rockmelon on one sitting, wondering whether I’d really be able to shake the habit.

Each day has been a little easier, and knowing that my body isn’t psychotically screaming out for a smoke due to the patches, I have found myself getting better and not thinking about them. The other day though I forgot to put a patch on at home and went the day without one.

I was ok whilst at work but when I got home that night I was really struggling. I didn’t want to use a patch only for a few hours so I rode it out, but the wife found me particularly hard to be around and went to her folks for a few hours. Next morning I remembered and it was a lot easier.

So I’m two weeks in and quite proud of myself. It is easier this time also because I am definite in my desire not to be a smoker any more. I don’t want a sore throat any more and I don’t want the wife to roll away from me when I get into bed, put off by my odour. I keep telling myself that “I am a non-smoker” and it’s sinking in. Each day is better than the last (ever so slightly) and I am confident that by following the patch program I can really shake this addiction once and for all.

The kids I will one day have will be glad I live to see them become adults. And I will have beaten an addiction. Both pretty damn good motivators.

I have an exam tomorrow for Sociology of the Media and Pop Culture, which has been an interesting subject.  Whilst a little undergraduate in content, it’s thrown up some good analyses of audience and consumerism.

As a reward to myself for having seen off two subjects this semester, I plan to purchase the latest Murray Whelan installment from Shane Maloney, and one of two Kevin Rudd biographies now in book stores.

I’ll also have weekends and nights freer to spend with the lovely wife, whom I admit hasn’t had as much attention from me lately as she should; I’ve been in an academic funk and will be glad to come to the surface over the next four weeks while I take a study break.

I already have the reader for one of my subjects for next semester and it looks to be a cracker, so here’s hoping the motivation to study gets a boost in the second half of the year.

Overnight Australian time a young Los Angeles resident was jailed for 23 days after a series of minor driving offences. This is bigger news than China’s reluctance to pursue some sort of solution to its contribution to global warming and thus save the planet.

According to Media Monitors, the incarceration of Paris Hilton has received 485 broadcast mentions across all Australian electronic media in the past 48 hours. Chinese emissions policy, by comparison, has been referred to 71 times.

Are we there yet? Have we finally arrived at some point at which the public imagination has at last been saturated by the low-life likes of Lindsay Lohan, Nicole Richie, Britney Spears and Paris Hilton? Who are these people? Why are we obsessed with intellectually malnourished, semi-starved, over-coiffed, hyper-indulged air heads? Why on earth does anything that they could conceivably do matter? They are like a cancer of the collective bowel.

The great pity is that only one of them is behind bars. A zoo if it has to be. Just take them away.

Crikey, 5 June 2007.

I want to be writing editorials like that one day.

On the train and then bus home tonight, I listened to Andrew Denton’s interview with John Hewson.  Hewson was talking about life after losing the 1993 election and of life after his second marriage broke down a few years back.  He spoke of how after both of these challenging periods, he ‘re-made’ himself, and that he must have ‘re-made’ himself four or five times over his then 59 years.

It got me thinking and wondering – have I ever re-made myself? And after some reflection, I think the answer is yes.

I’m different to how I was a few years ago.  And how I was then was different to how I was a few years before.  And another cycle of a few years.  If I take the Hewson View of Self, I think I could make a case for having re-made myself 6 times.  Below is a list of periods/events and the ages they could cover:

• Beginning, ages 0 – 9
• Moved towns, ages 9 – 11
• Parents separated, ages 11 – 13
• High School – ages 13 – 16
• Father dies, ages 16 – 19
• University, ages 19 – 22
• E’lise, ages 23 – present (25)

I’m sure I could condense those into two or three though, which would be:

• Beginning, ages 0 – 11
• Parents separate and father dies, ages 11 – 19
• University, ages 19 – 22
• E’lise, ages 23 – present

That was harder, only down to 3 re-makes.  I wonder if I do this exercise again in ten, twenty and say fifty years time, whether it will be any different? I can see things changing, for the better, when kids come along, but other than that I am hoping life is constantly happy and pretty well linear.

Anyway, the interview was good and I learned more about John Hewson.  And we’d all benefit from having Andrew Denton back in our lives more regularly.

The crossover from 2006 to 2007 saw me spend a quiet evening at home, reading, and then going to see my fiancé, who was doing stocktake at work (lucky girl indeed) for the countdown and a bit of a New Year Smooch. Same as last year, though this year we went out onto the store’s roof and watched some fireworks.

New Year’s Resolutions and I have not really ever been close – I’ve not really made any sweeping declarations of intent and therefore not failed to meet them. Last year, however, I did make one, which I very happily achieved.

In 2007, there are two major things slated that I am looking forward to, for very obvious reasons:

• Marrying my girl, which happens on April 20
• Travelling overseas, a late honeymoon, which will be in July-September sometime.

With major changes covered, there are a few smaller things and attitudes I’d like to get onto:

Shed a few kilos and get a little buff
My brother bought me some adjustable weights for my birthday (28 Dec for those playing at home) and took me to the gym to explain how it all worked. I now have a bit of a routine to keep, which I plan to do every second day, and do some walking/bike riding on the other days.

Write more
Last year I didn’t do a whole lot of writing, though I did manage to keep something vaguely resembling a journal (a private notebook, not this ole’ thing), albeit with monthly entries and not the weekly ones I planned.

As for major writing projects, I’ve previously started several but lose interest in them after a few chapters. I’ve done the Stephen King thing and put them in a drawer for a later time when things may be more conducive for those particular ones.

I intend to have a first draft of a novel done by the end of the year, with a conceptual synopsis done by the end of this month to help it get kicking.

Be a little ‘sunnier’ and not as quick to fire up
Whilst I consider myself a fairly nice and affable person, I do get irritated fairly easily and quite quickly. I want to work on being a little more relaxed and not getting agitated quite so quickly.

If I can make some decent headway on these three things, I think I’ll go a long way to keeping my head clear and being a bit more generally healthy as a result.

Over the past few months I’ve become increasingly sick of myself saying I wanted to do something, yet not actually doing it. One such thing I’ve wanted to do for a while, is learn French.

I did a term of it in Year 7, way back in ‘94, and enjoyed it. I vaguely remember playing “Il Professore” in a radio play my teacher wrote himself. Our school didn’t offer French beyond that so I ended up doing Italian for three years, which was enjoyable enough, but the teacher I had was one of those wankers who mistook his own brooding for intelligence. Nuff said.

So, back to French. I want to learn the language, but have very little spare time beyond what I spend in transit (around 80 mins a day) and I usually listen to the old iPod. Using my excellent skills of multi-tasking, I decided to check out some “Learn French” podcasts. I found a few but decided to download the first 12 lessons of this one. From what I can gather so far, each lesson is between 6 and 14 minutes in length and covers the basics, before moving on to more conversational challenges. There are PDF tools you can download too which could be good.

I’m interested to see what I can pick up and am looking forward to it. The real challenge will be not talking along whilst listening to my iPod on the train…