Friday, October 31, 2003

I Knew a Boy....

I was thinking today of how I will teach Joseph about life as he is growing up. How can I give him advise without preaching, how can I encourage him without forcing him to do the things that I wanted to do, how to ensure he is happy and stays out of danger or trouble. What have I learnt about the way life actually works that I can impart to Joseph so that he can cut straight to the chase, or more simply just be happy.

I suppose throughout history, this question has been answered through the use of home grown wisdom passed down through the generations. Some sayings seem to be specific to a particular country or culture, some to a particular religion. What about the ten Hawaiin Rules as a reasonable starting point...

-Never judge a day by the weather.
-The best things in life aren't things.
-Tell the truth - there's less to remember.
-Speak softly and wear a loud shirt.
-Goals are deceptive - the unaimed arrow never misses.
-He who dies with the most toys - still dies.
-Age is relative - when you're over the hill, you pick up speed.
-There are 2 ways to be rich - make more or desire less.
-Beauty is internal - looks mean nothing.
-No rain - no rainbows.

Two of the phrases I always remember were old Cherokee Indian sayings I read, they were

"Don't try and be a great man, just try and be a man."

and

"Act brave, and you become brave."

Suitably vague and general I think.

Perhaps I should take the approach of pointing out some of the things, Joseph definately shouldn't do. Drink more than three cans of red bull in one sitting, buy an Elton John album, wear socks with sandals.

I remember Mum's strategy of pointing out incredible disasters that had befallen various young boys who happened to have performed the same action that you were currently attempting.

"I knew a boy once who ran with a pair of scissors...he tripped over his shoelace and gouged out his eye and the eye of his younger brother."

or

"I knew a boy once who played with matches...he forget he was at a petrol station and set alight to the petrol attendant and his car which happened to contain his favourite toy."

It was never girls, always boys.

MrT 10/31/2003 09:58:00 am [+] : Feedback!

MrT 10/26/2003 11:32:00 pm [+] : Feedback!

News just in....
British Expats Tim and Victoria Ward and their seven month old son, Joseph were said to be "extremely relieved" after buying tickets to the quarter final in Brisbane before seeing England's less than convincing performance against Samoa at the Telstra Dome in Melbourne this evening.

Victoria lept to the computer to make alternative travel arrangements and sell the two expensive tickets on eBay for "whatever we can get for them" before seeing England take control within the final fifteen minutes.

Meanwhile husband Tim was in no doubt as to what the final result would be or so he claimed whilst completing the form to cancel his leave from work to "save time in the morning - just in case."

Elsewhere in the UK, banks reported record numbers calling their customer helplines after confident clients had been let down three times after putting the mortgage on Johnny Wilkinson maintaining his 100% record. Ironically most of these calls were routed through to client service centres in Edinburgh and Glasgow and were answered with a strange recorded message mumbling something about not being able to take our freedom and who cares if we got beat by a nation of snail eating, wine guzzling, road blocking frenchies.

MrT 10/26/2003 11:42:00 am [+] : Feedback!

just a little movie
MOV01181.MPG

MrT 10/24/2003 08:24:00 am [+] : Feedback!

After England's excellent win on Saturday night, Joseph, Victoria and I have secured tickets for the 1/4 final in Brisbane ( probably playing either Wales or Italy). That's assuming of course that England win the group - which is a bit of a risk I suppose.

Helen has provided me with Laura Millichap's number although I'm not sure she will recognize me - it's been such a long time.

We're currently looking for somewhere to stay, it seems everywhere is booked out - maybe we should hire a VW camper and setup in the car park outside the Rugby ground. Better yet, what about a hot-dog van!

Darn it - that's another good idea posted on the web and ripe for someone to come along and set-up their own hot dog vans in the car park. Well if you're reading this, all I can say is that you will have to get darn early to beat the Wardies this time.

Around 7.30am in fact most days.


MrT 10/20/2003 11:14:00 am [+] : Feedback!

The Day I met David Attenborough

It all started a few days ago when Tim, Joe and I happened across a book store advertising a visit from Sir David! Well we all agreed this was an opportunity not to missed. A chance to meet Big Dave, Sir Davy, Walks with Gorillas... God!
Well if you had one question to ask god what would it be? Quite a huge task. Possible cliched questions would be... Is there anyone that has inspired you? Do you have a favourite animal? Is there anywhere that you haven't been? Is there any 'Life on's...' left for you to do? What's your favourite colour? ( That was going to be my stand by, that and.. Will you be watcing any of the rugby?) I even asked Helen what would she would ask him (cos next to 'God' she the only other person who knows the name of any particular bird, animal, plant or insect, that you might happen to point to at any given moment!)
But still I couldn't think of the ultimate question. So I threw caution to the wind, decided to live on the edge, go commando... just wing it!
The signing started at 12:15, I was there at 11:45 the security guard told me DA would be there for 2-3hours so realising that Joe needed feeding and he would probably sit and scream, I decided to sit at the cafe next door and wait till the queue had gone down!
Joe finished his dinner and the queue went down and at around 1pm Joe decided he needed his nappy changing thinking I had bags of time. (the change room was at the opposite end of the building and on the bottom level!)
Anyway got back just as the they were finishing and luckily the nice security guard let me in!
His horrid australian PR woman wasn't going to let me in, saying 'Oh where've you come from?' At that point I nearly started crying I'd been sitting watching and waiting for an hour and half and when a baby has to go he has to go! This was my big chance and I wasn't going to let her stop me So I declared in a slightly wobbly pissed off mother voice...
'My baby had done a pooh!'
To which Sir Dave replied in his best David Attenborough confronted by a dangerous animal, voice...'Yes, quite' and handed the book to his horrid PR (who had yellow teeth just like an old lion!) who handed it to me!
That was it my big chance, and I told Sir David Attenborough about my baby's bowel movements!
But oh yes, I will have another chance cos I found out where He'll be on Friday and I'll stalk to him then (oops I mean talk)


(notice how he doesn't look me in the eyes!!)

MrT 10/17/2003 01:08:00 pm [+] : Feedback!

No blogging for a while, as our Internet connection has been going down a lot lately, and the computer itself threw a complete wobbler a couple of days ago. All ok now though.

After posting all of my good money making ideas on the Internet, I have now comitted the cardinal sin of posting my highly profitable trading strategy on the wealth lab site. It's called Safe Gainer and it's been the most run script for around a week. That means there are around 600 people making money from my idea! Ah well, it's nice to know it works - for someone.

The opening ceremony for the Rugby was quite good. I liked the part when all the children did a formation dance to represent the rugby player. Although, I think it looked more like an Aussie sheila opening and closing her legs than a rugby playing running. I've heard of a warm welcome, but that's ridiculous.

The atmosphere in Sydney is really good, with everyone wearing their respective rugby shirts - which reminds me. Here is the picture as promised.



MrT 10/10/2003 11:55:00 pm [+] : Feedback!

Toe wrestling. I've scanned the rules and there is no indication of the orientation or length of toenails. Victoria would argue that I have an unfair advantage.



MrT 10/02/2003 11:24:00 am [+] : Feedback!

Starting to get pumped up for the Rugby now. I hope we do well, otherwise life will be unbearable at work. I have taken the rather risky approach of being very cocky and practically saying that England will definately walk away with the trophy and so will be in for hell if we don't even make the quarter finals.

Joseph was very excited to receive his England Jersey from Lucy and hasn't stopped talking about it since he got it. In his own special language of course, but I can tell he's very pleased with himself. Will arrange a photo-shoot at the weekend.

A client was telling us a couple of days ago about signing your baby up for a modelling agency. He says that most people think that the television commercials get the big bucks, but apparently the money is to be made in packaging. If you get your picture on a pack of Nappies, you get a commission from every package sold. The sales rep who was with me, has already got in ahead and booked his son into Lollypops which is the baby modelling agency in Sydney. He's already had a gig, modelling for a page in one of the Sunday glossies. Although the pictures were only of his baby's hands and it was for a fertility treatment.

I know everyone thinks their baby is the cutest, but Joseph is up there amongst them. I've been checking out the packaging for Huggies nappies, and I'm sure he beats that kid hands down.

MrT 10/01/2003 10:58:00 am [+] : Feedback!