The guilt of doing something nice

Today has been a long but good day. It started with me getting up and staggering down the hallway to the.... well actually I think we can safely miss the first part of my day out so as to prevent you from having indelible mental images requiring much therapy to remove from your brain.

I changed my insurance company first thing this morning. It's always fun answering questions about your past criminal activity. I wonder how guilty I looked when I paused after being asked if I had any speeding convictions in the last 5 years. I haven't had any in case you were wondering. But I did have to stop and think for a moment... how long is 5 years, what have I done? I'm sure I looked suspicious.

I then came home and started to clean out my garage. I haven't been using the garage for my car, rather it has been a black hole of storage. An old desk, two lawn mowers, a ladder, various tools, garden table and chairs, bales of insulation.... and several rubbish bags full of newspaper and old plastic bottles. So I started to clean things out, picking up the rubbish bags and putting them in the car to take to the landfill. I got a hell of a fright when I picked up one bag and the bag underneath started to move! Closer inspection found a mother hedgehog and three little baby hedgehogs nesting in the bag. This created a bit of a quandry... I couldn't leave the hedgehog family where they were, but I also didn't want to cast them into the bushes. The mother was rather perturbed at my presence and was nudging her offspring further into the shadows while I stood there scratching my head. In the end I grabbed a cardboard box and using some paper I picked up the babies and put them in it. The mother was a bigger problem as I didn't want to touch her and she was trying to run away. So I quickly scooped her up with my spade and put her in the box as well. Then I took the whole lot down to the garden shed and put them inside. I don't want a colony of hedgehogs living in my shed but I figure I'll leave them there for a few days until the babies are big enough to survive the outside and then I'll evict them.

So why was I cleaning the garage? Certainly not for my 18 year old Nissan Bluebird. No... this is the good bit... today I traded it in for a new car. I'm now the proud owner of a 3.8 litre V6 Holden Commodore! I've never had such a nice car. I used to own a sporty Honda Prelude and then a Nissan 300ZX, a two seater bright red sports car that went like a rocket. But that was 10 years ago and since then I've had a grotty Mitsubishi Mirage that was a cast off from my sister and the aforementioned Bluebird. These cars both served their purpose and as a youth worker I really couldn't afford to spend much on a car. So I'm really buzzing about the new wheels!

It raised an interesting issue though. I couldn't help feeling guilty at spending good money on myself. I started to worry that "people" would be upset that I had a good car... because somehow it seems that people think that because they help pay your wages they somehow have the right to question how you spend it (I now work for my church after spending the last 6 years working for Youth for Christ, both jobs getting paid from supporters). I know I'm not alone in this... the feeling of guilt. It's as if I should live a life of humilty and poverty, because we all know that poverty makes a better youth worker, an even better christian (tounge fixed firmly in cheek).

Over the last few years I've learnt how to live very simply. If I told you how little I've earned a year, you would cry. And it's been good to learn that you don't need a lot to be happy and you can be satisfied even if you don't have a wallet bursting with cash. But it has also been tough at times. It's not a good feeling when you are worried about spending $2 because you have nothing left in your bank account. There were a few weeks when I didn't eat lunch because I couldn't afford it.

So it's been a time of interesting feelings as I've gone through the process of buying this car. I've decided that the car will be a blessing and that I will enjoy it. And if you have a problem with that... tough! I'll turn off the traction control and wave to you as I lay a big black patch down the road!

Living on fumes

The end of the year is near... does anyone else feel as though they are nearly running on empty? The dregs of fuel are sloshing around in the bottom of the tank and it seems that it's only the fumes that are keeping things going.... in a spluttering inconsistent kind of way.

Somehow my sleep patterns have shifted so that I seem to be wide awake late into the night, working on several projects at once. The mornings after are hell. Especially this morning when a supporter of mine wanted to catch up over breakfast... at 6am. It was awesome catching up with him, even better after the caffeine started to kick in. But I have to say that three hours sleep is just not enough! I was home again by 7.30, eyes rolling disfunctionally in their sockets, my brain gently spinning in a disengaged stupor.

I get involved in a lot of stuff... cool stuff, fun stuff, busy stuff. This year I've organised the technical side of Soul Survivor, Fuse, Christmas in the Park Porirua and a number of smaller events. I've helped at the Ignite Sport indoor sports competition and their fundraising quiz night, a World Vision 40 hour famine concert, The Noise in Feilding. I've helped a local church with their sound engineer training as well as totally reorganising my own church sound system and training new operators. I've taken on the role of music director at church, looking after a 10 piece music group and not only arranging music and teaching the songs but having to look after all the issues that come with a group interacting with each other. I've left Youth for Christ and become a staff member at my church taking on an administrative and development role that has me involved in everything from Sunday school, youth programmes, and special events to sorting out phone lists, training materials etc. I've worked on several graphics projects from business cards and signage to posters and t shirts. And this is just what I can remember off the top of my head.

Tomorrow I'm official photographer for a local dance school's annual recital concert... as well as helping set up the lights beforehand. I'll also find some time to catch up with Sam and the rest of the Soul Survivor music team to discuss set up and soundchecks etc for the festival in January.

It's all good stuff and for the most part I love doing it. But the problem is... how do you decide what to keep doing and what to drop off? I want to do more things but there is never enough time. The worst feeling in the world is where you feel that you are just running from one thing to the next and not spending time really enjoying each thing, appreciating it, savouring it.

I discussed this with a few people like Sam at various times... and I think we all agree that there is no easy answer. We manage to come up with a few good theoretical models but the actual operation of these never quite measures up to hope or expectation.

So off to bed now... maybe I'll have an epiphany tonight.

Do I have a girl for you?

The start of many a cheesy romantic comedy involves a scene where the middle aged single guy is set up with a procession of women by his married, well intentioned but horribly inappropriate friends. There's always a montage of the craziness that ensues as a procession of imbalanced, kooky, clingy, obsessive women date our hapless gentleman.

I'm getting worried that such a campaign may be percolating in the minds of some of my acquaintances. The signs are there and I'm starting to furtively glance over my shoulder when in public.

A few weeks ago a guy I know took me out for lunch after I had helped him with a computer problem. "Sweet" i thought, not being the sort of guy to pass up a free curry. We had a good time discussing church, politics, sport. Then, with a succulent piece of madras chicken inches from my mouth, I was faced with... "so, you're not morally opposed to marriage are you?" The couple at the table three feet from ours paused their conversation and glanced in morbid curiosity at us as I spluttered incoherently. What do you say to that.... well, I mean what do you say without being rude to that? It's maybe hard for some people to understand that being single may be a more complex issue than simply deciding it would be a good idea. For one thing, it's generally easier to get married if you actually have a woman.

The next 10 minutes were taken up with me listening politely to a story about a very nice girl my friend knew and some general information about previous matchmaking success. Interestingly, it was never discussed that he wanted to match me to anyone.... but it was implied... I'm not that slow.

Then, this last weekend I was talking with another married friend who out of the blue informed me that he had been telling a girl all about me. "oh... ok" i stammered, "that's nice". "Good looking, tall", he said. "Great", say I unsure what else to say. Once again nothing more was offered so now I'm left wondering what to expect next. I'm popping breath mints like they're going out of fashion just in case I'm suddenly snatched from the street and bundled off to mystery date. Every time I walk into a room I'm clandestinely looking around wondering if "she" is there... whoever "she" is.

So no, I'm not opposed to marriage. I'd very much like to meet a good woman. But at the same time i'm getting nervous about what my friends are up to.

creative doldrums

I'm not feeling very creative at the moment... just one more reason for not writing anything here for a while. It's frustrating me a bit though. Life gets so busy it's easy to just go through the motions and suddenly realise that the year is nearly over and I haven't achieved half what I wanted to.

I'm doing heaps of graphic art... but it's all for church or work (which is for the church). I mean, it's cool doing little cartoons for the Sunday school or posters for the latest womens seminar, but I have a whole lot of ideas banging around in my head with no time to do them. I'd like to screen print some T shirts, make some crazy posters...

The same goes for photography. I have a nice camera but mostly all I take pictures of are things to go into posters for the aforementioned events. I did hang out at the beach the other day to try and get some (cliched) sunset shots which was fun. But I need to find some more time to put into this. If I could drag my sorry ass out of bed it would be awesome to sit on a cold pre-dawn morning and wait for the sun to come up.

Then there is my music. I look after my church music group and play guitar which is a lot of fun (although not without the occasional liberal dose of heartache!). But I really want to write some of my own stuff... something I haven't done in ages! Partly it's a time issue and partly my lack of creative ideas at the moment. I sit on the end of my bed with my guitar plugged into a pair of headphones and muck around... but nothing is really gelling together. I feel a bit insecure in this musical endeavour as my brother is really talented with a degree in performance jazz and composition and a fairly prolific song writer. I know I shouldn't compare, but my stuff sucks to my ears at the moment. I do at least though get to help record his stuff adn can at least use my technical ability to get his stuff sounding good.

So with Christmas fast approaching (btw whats the deal with having a Christmas parade in Nov? Seems to be earlier every year) I need to sort out some priorities. I'm not going to get any younger and I really don't want to have any regrets looking back on my life... so I've got to get off my butt and do some creative stuff. I'm committed to my work but i need to set aside some me time that doens't include watching tv or sleeping.

btw heres one picture I took at the beach.

People are such hypocrites!

People on TV make me cross! Not everyone... just a lot of them. We've been watching "America's got talent" recently, and enjoying most of it. The acts have been a lot of fun... it's the judges that drive me nuts. Actually, just one judge - Brandy.

Now, I don't know Brandy... never met her... unlikely ever to meet her. So I don't want to be uncharitable as she might be a lovely person. Maybe the editing makes her look like a self-loving, arrogant princess. Or maybe not. The look on her face as an act she doesn't like is on! There was a Ska band on the other night and she just radiated contempt, totally not "getting" the ska style and dismissing it out of hand.

But tonight was the best. The other judges had decided they wanted a burlesque dancer to appear on the semi-final show and Brandy was disgusted. Now, before anyone judges me... I do not think that a burlesque act (ie fancy stripper) is appropriate for this show. I didn't really want to see it, didn't think it was fitting for the show. But my issue is this:

Throughout the act Brandy scowled. She was disgusted. The act was obviously distasteful and she made that obvious. But what?! Have you seen the video of Brandy's song "aphrodisiac"? The one where Brandy prances around in no more clothes than the girl in tonights act... along with slow motion water being poured over her and a handful of shirtless guys all around. So what is the difference between the two acts? It seems that using sexuality is ok of you are selling R&B albums. Somehow a bit of urban music makes revealing outfits and overtly sexual posing ok for general public consumption.

I'm confused and I'm sickened. The posturing from this girl tonight, of mock morality, of false decency turns my stomach.

We need more people whose words and actions match up. Stop the hypocrisy!

My box of crap

There’s a famous movie quote that says that life is like a box of chocolates. Ever think that the box you got was somehow pushed to the back of the shelf until the expiration date had long past, the chocolates were all stale and came with such appealing names as crème-de-dog crap or turd cluster?

The last month has been pretty tough. I’ve had an angry man threaten to knock me down and then threaten that his son might also knock me down. I’ve had to step into the middle of an argument between friends that blew up over a misunderstanding. I’ve had a young guy totally blindside me in the middle of a group meeting with comments of such unabashed rebellious crap I wanted to kick his ass. And these seem to be the highlights!

Sometimes I’m sick of the fact that my car’s gas tank is in a perpetual state of emptiness and so is my wallet. I hate how my rented house has been a cold hole during winter and the shower’s water pressure is shamefully inadequate. I’m tired of dealing with other peoples crap… the kind that they refuse to deal with and it keeps on popping up, wasting my time and energy.

Thank goodness for a few mates. I spent time today with Karl who was able to empathise with some of my issues, give me some good ideas and reassure me I’m doing the right thing. And then Sam came around and we finally had a much anticipated cold beer and a bit of a yarn. Thanks guys, I needed that!

Blind Panic!

I had one of those moments yesterday. I'm sure you know the kind of moment... it's when you do something and immediately panic you've done something wrong. Now I don't want to dwell on anything distasteful or crass for long so I'll try to keep it polite.

I was at work and I had a pain in my stomach, so I went to the bathroom. Let's just say I had a slightly upset stomach... you fill in the blanks. Mission complete I reach for the flush button and push.... and nothing happens! I stared in horror, and just in case the toilet had miraculously fixed itself in the last 2 seconds I pushed the button again. Unsurprisingly, but no less horrorfyingly, nothing happened again. Several scenarios instantaneously flashed through my mind, and every single one of them involved humiliation as I try to explain why I used a toilet that everyone else knew was broken. Remember the start of this paragraph when I mentioned the upset stomach... you can imagine how one might feel the onset of panic at a time like this.

Being a reasonably logical chap I started through the checklist of obvious faults, found that the cistern was empty and the fill valve turned off. A quick turn to the left and the water began to flow, my heart rate returned to normal and the pallor left my face.

Ok... maybe not a truly momentous occasion worthy of space on this page... but it felt pretty meaningful at the time.

A movie i want to see

I have a pitch for a movie. Basically I’m tired of all the feel good, warm fuzzy, overcoming movies out there… particularly those about sport… especially those about American Football (incidentally the lamest “sport” ever!... oh the controversy). You know the movie… you’ve seen it several dozen times:

1. It has either a small town team or a team from the ghetto.
2. They suck
3. The team consists of misfits and miscreants.
4. One team member is grossly overweight but lovable.
5. One is a tough guy who doesn’t need anything from anyone.
6. There is an undercurrent of racism that will explode about 20 minutes into the film.
7. Enter the tough new head coach who won’t take crap from anyone. He’ll throw a few team members off the team for not getting good grades. He’ll also threaten the team with a good dose of violence at the end of a baseball bat.
8. The team will rebel… then they will listen. They’ll probably also stand up against the conservative management who now want to throw out the head coach.
9. The movie will end with a game against the nemesis team. It will be close. Our team will win the championship with 2 seconds to spare.
10. The credits will begin with photos of the characters and text that tells us how each of them has gone on make something of themselves.
11. Of course it’s all based on true events.

I don’t want to see that movie anymore. This is what I want to see:

The Sweetville Titan Panthers are the greatest team in the league. In fact, people are saying that there has never been a team like them in the history of College football. Records have been broken every time the team has taken to the field. The trophy cabinet is bursting at the seams.

But all the fame and success has not gone to the heads of the players. In fact they are all ‘A’ students, take part in community service projects and care for the environment. The team is a model of multicultural understanding and respect for women.

The head coach is fantastic… a pillar of the community… loved by all. But he’s just accepted an offer from NASA to train autistic children to pilot the space shuttle.

After a quick search on Ebay the college find a new head coach… a drifter named Derek who, when he’s not hopped up on crack cocaine is running an illegal underground fight club. Derek can’t stand the kids on the team but the money’s not bad so he figures he might as well stick around until something better comes along.

At training camp Derek feeds the team on a steady stream of doughnuts and soda. The weather’s a bit cold so rather than going for a run in the morning the team play football on their Xbox. Average weight gain is 30 pounds per player. Nerves start to wear thin and there is a knife fight between the offensive and defensive teams, leaving the quarterback with one eye and three fingers missing. The star linebacker calls his girlfriend of ten years and dumps her for no reason.

The first game of the season is about to be played. Due to a mix-up at the Chinese clothing factory all the uniforms have been sent to Las Vegas and used as part of Celine Dion’s new stage show. Half the team are laid up with a debilitating case of acne… and the other half are drunk.

Head coach Derek gathers the team together in the locker room and completely demoralises them with his pep talk. There are no ‘high-fives’, no boisterous yelling, and strangely for an American team there is no ass slapping.

During the game Derek drinks all the Poweraid himself and falls into a sugar coma leaving Doris the cafeteria lady to run the plays. Unfortunately the ‘Spagetti spiral’ play is not as successful as Doris had hoped, leaving two team members permanently crippled. The other team completely decimate the Sweetville Titan Panthers 200 points to nil. Due to the high attrition rate the season is over after one game.

The township of Sweetville goes bankrupt, mostly because the local clothing industry can’t compete with cheap Chinese knockoffs of football uniforms. The college however stays full… but mostly because the students are too dumb to pass and keep being held back another year. We end the film with a slow zoom out of the town, the dilapidated buildings crumbling picturesquely in the dull glow of the sun through clouds of dust from the dried up fields nearby.

THE END

Five Photos...

Do you ever wish that you hadn’t been listening to what the preacher said at church? I have to say that I have been feeling that way a bit recently. Why couldn’t he have just shut up? You see, now I’ve heard what he said, I have no excuses.

I have no idea what most of the sermon was about now… all I remember was the part about how we treat people. Are we friendly to the checkout operator at the supermarket? Do we reflect a God of love or are we just as bad as the rest of the world?

This thought annoyingly intrudes upon my conscience on Sunday afternoon as I stand, in a quiet rage, at Camera House. All I want to do is get five photos printed in a hurry. Sounds simple, but apparently on Sunday it’s not.

There is now a proliferation of these self service photo machines, purportedly to make things simple for us. There are about seven of these machines at the shop I was in and they were all being used. So I stand between the racks of photo frames, trying to avoid being run over by pushchair wielding mothers searching for a frame to make their ugly baby’s photos look good. And I wait…… finally a machine becomes free but before I could start loading my pictures a shop assistant asks me if I am a “special member”. I stare blankly at him for a moment, incomprehension furrowing my brow before remembering that I have a gold membership card entitling me to cheaper prints. Apparently though, the shop has just updated their systems and now I need to get a new card… before I can load my pictures.

So I follow him up to the counter, losing my place at the machine. There then followed a conversation with the assistant that, if you saw it in a movie you would fire the scriptwriter, it was that confusing. He looked confused, I felt confused, I may have even lost consciousness for moment. To abridge the conversation… even though they had my details on their computer already, I had to give it all to them again to get my new card. But the way the assistant approached this was with a logic that felt like a Salvador Dali painting, complete with flying goats and melted clocks. My blood pressure was slowly rising.

Finally I am free to go back to the machines…. Except that they are all busy again. More waiting in the aisles, reading the fine print of price stickers.

Have you used one of these photo machines? I ‘m pretty good with computers but I still found the process difficult. A touch screen with more options than the menu at the foodcourt next door. And it doesn’t seem to follow a good logic. But I get it done, I’m now on the home straight. Ha.

The machine spits out my receipt and I go stand back in the queue to pay… as per the old system. I wait in the queue for maybe 5 minutes before being told that the system has now changed and I don’t need to pay until I come back in an hour to pick up my photos. Grrrrrrr!

I dutifully come back in an hour, money in hand, expectation building, excitement at seeing my photos… to find that they have been cropped oddly, cutting off an important part of the picture. So I vent a bit to the assistant, not too politely, and shove my photos back across the counter to him before striding back to the machine again to have another go. The problem is that the stupid machine software that is supposed to make things easy for us all, fails to show when a photo is bigger than the print area. This is something that every home printer tells you automatically… but somehow the brilliant programmers of this machine can’t get it right. Going through it for the second time I find a microscopic “edit” button well hidden that when pushed shows me all the cropping and sizing controls I need. Of course when the brilliant programmers developed the system they put it next to the whopping big button that shows you the full picture with no cropping in evidence.

So I go away again for another hour to wait for these new pictures to be ready. That’s when I start to think about what that preacher said and I start to feel a little convicted. It’s not the poor assistants fault that he’s lumbered with a crappy system. It’s not his fault the new owners of the company have changed all the procedures that are now confusing the customers. It’s just that he is the guy standing in front of me feeling my frustration as I vent it at him.

So when I came back for my pictures I apologised to him. Then we a had a good talk about how his job is difficult and I apologise again. His manager came over too and we all had a good laugh and left on a really positive note. It’s not easy to show God’s love to people when you are as easily annoyed as I can be… and I wish I never heard that preacher! But in the end I guess I’ll be better off for it.

A quick mindless rant...

I’ve been reading blogs tonight and I’m not sure why. It’s some kind of masochistic pleasure I think. This is because many of them make me mad… not the eye-rolling, drooling, lost my mind kind of mad… more the irate, want to slap someone kind of mad.

Why do we feel the need to share our dubious wisdom with strangers? Why do we have to write such pseudo intellectual diatribes? Why are we so keen to strenuously defend our misinformed ideas against the onslaught of someone else’s equally misinformed ideas? Why are we so keen to prove that we are somehow different from the masses by lambasting the establishment and spouting liberal doses of “humility” and “justice”?

Is it really worth it? Does it really make a difference in our world? Does it even influence a single person? What would Jesus write in His blog?

Before I’m left off anyone’s Christmas card list… I do read the blogs of a few friends of mine that I DO appreciate. I like to hear what people are up to. I like to laugh. I like to be challenged occasionally.

I guess my next post had better be about something light hearted… maybe about the huge rat left proudly outside my bedroom door by my cat this morning. Or maybe about the same rat, half digested, being deposited on the living room floor some hours later from the insides of my cat. Thank goodness for polished wooden floors!

Lawn mowing & Espionage

My lawn and I have been engaged in a battle. Lawn nearly won. It all started innocently enough. Lawn was behaving himself, sitting quietly in front of my house as a good lawn should, content with being green. But dark undercurrents of rebellion were stirring within Lawn. The first sign of trouble was the Dandelions. Like an advance party of Special Forces they surreptitiously began moving into position around Lawn, slowly lifting their heads from cover and looking around. I should have acted then… but my Sister had given me an Xbox and I was… busy.

Then things escalated. Lawn began to expand, upwards, fast. A slightly queasy feeling began to grip my stomach. I’d stand in my living room and careful pull one corner of the curtains aside, furtively glancing around at Lawn before quickly retreating back the relative safety of “Need for Speed Underground 2”.

Time for action! The problem is that I don’t own a lawnmower and I don’t fancy my chances with a pair of kitchen scissors. So I call the mercenaries… Lawn decapitators for hire. These guys have the gear to decimate Lawn and to carry away the evidence in a canvas bag. It turns out they aren’t cheap either! Especially as Lawn has now established a beachhead and is I suspect planning an invasion. I decide I can’t afford the mercenaries. An air of disquiet hangs over the neighbourhood. The neatly groomed properties either side of me seem to scream at me every time I drive in. I’d close my eyes except then I’d probably drive over my letterbox.

Plan B. This sees me borrowing a mower from my brother-in-law. I went to the hardware shop and bought a brand new petrol can, stopped at the service station to get some fuel, and headed home. Lawn looked at me defiantly as I walked past. I filled up the mower and rolled it into position, settled my earmuffs securely into position, firmly grasped the mower’s pull cord and… well pulled. Nothing. So I reset and grasped the cord again, took a deep breath and pulled again. The first 200mm of pull went according to plan. But then with a snap the cord broke. My arms kept up their momentum and my fist, still clenched tightly around the handle, smashed into my face. Lawn got a reprieve for another day.

Now to the espionage. While all this was happening it seems that one of my neighbours was giving reports back to my landlord (who lives a few hundred kilometres away). First I know of it is when I receive an email that says, “street report u r making hay on front lawn? lol, plse keep cut, ta”. Aaaah… I’m trying! Now I don’t know about you but there is something creepy about finding out that your landlord has someone watching the place to make sure you’re doing everything right. Not knowing who it is that is watching we are now glaring over the fence at all our neighbours… chances are we’ll eventually glare at the right person. Everyone else will simply think we’ve lost our minds and will warn their kids to stay away from us.

Back to my war with Lawn. The disgraced mower got sent to the repair shop and I was promised that I would get it back in three days. That’s three days where Lawn sat gloating at my failure. Both my neighbours cut their lawns again, just to rub salt in the wound. After three days I rang the repair shop… not ready. The next day… still not ready. Finally after six days I get the mower back. Look out Lawn, your time has come!

So I put on my boots, fix my earmuffs securely to my ears, check the petrol level and roll the mower into position. Then carefully pulling the choke to fully on I grasp the new pull-cord pausing long enough for a deep breath… and pull. It starts! For all of five seconds before spluttering in a death rattle to silence. I think naughty words loudly in my head. After much poking and prodding (and maybe just a bit of kicking) I realise that the fuel valve has been turned off during the repair. A simple thing to fix… and now I’m back in business.

Alas, the end of this story is not too dramatic. I cut the Lawn down. I am victorious. I need a cold drink. Until we meet again my nemesis Lawn!

Soul Survivor part 1

Ok... time to get back to writing. And due to popular demand (well actually two requests) I'll talk a bit about Soul Survivor. If you want to know all the details of what Soul Survivor is, what it's about etc check out the link. This post won't try to explain all of that.

My role for SS was the rather dubiously important sounding "production manager". I think that meant I was supposed to look as if I knew what end of a guitar to plug the cable thingy into and that a speaker is both a person standing at the front of the marquee sharing their wisdom with us and the big black box the sound is coming out of. It's all very technikal.

Because of this rather weighty responsibility I decided to get up to the site early on the set up day. The site was at Manfield Park in Feilding. Feilding it seems has won awards for being the prettiest place in NZ or something. Not being particularly enthusiastic about pretty gardens it's not a place I have ever been before. The salient fact however is that it is about 2 hours from where I live. And so I dragged myself from bed at 5.30am and was on the road by 6.30am with the intention of being on site at 8.30 in time to watch the marquee being erected.

Everything went according to plan until Levin. I wish to speak no bad things against Levin. You may come from there and love the place for all I know. And to be fair what transpired was not actually the fault of Levin or her inhabitants. I did however think some rather dark and uncharitable things when, just as we were driving out of Levin my van shuddered, sighed and then stopped. Basically the van was knackered with the balance belt in several pieces and bent valves etc. So for me SS started with my van being loaded onto a tow truck and having to be picked up by a kind man with a trailer (many thanks Shane!). By the time I got on site the marquee was up. Good for my ego that… reinforcing the fact that no one actually needed me there!

The rest of the set up went pretty well. Except for the lights. I know next to nothing about lights except that they scorch your retina if you stare into one and that sometimes if you spend lots more money you can get lights that move and can blind more people than the silly static ones. This is the reason why I have people on my team that are lighting guru’s. Unfortunately none of them were with me at SS.

With only about an hour and a half before the first meeting in the marquee I still had no lights working. Well, to be precise, they did work… just not in any logical or useful way. Phone calls were made hastily to Wellington and with the phone clutched to my ear and with a drummer sound checking his kick drum 2 feet from my other ear I knelt on the ground in front of the dimmer pack and tried to explain to lighting guru Daniel what was going on. Finally, with barely an hour to spare and desperate I pulled the power from the lighting, waited a minute and turned it all back on… and it worked! Stupid lights.

Next time I’ll write something a little more deep and meaningful about Soul Survivor.

The box

My life is in a collection of brown cardboard boxes. Some of them are small. Some of them are large. They are all full of my eclectic collection of paraphernalia… junk if you prefer. Maybe I should clarify by saying that I have just moved house, 3 days before Christmas to be exact. The problem was that I have also just been involved in the inaugural Soul Survivor NZ festival and therefore have not spent any concerted effort in getting unpacked.

I’m sure many of you have had the dilemma that I now face… where the heck did I put everything? I’ve lost count of how many times I have needed one small thing and then spent the next 15 minutes opening every single box and rummaging through the contents… then rummaged through them all again because I couldn’t find what I was looking for the first time through.

I have of course unpacked the essentials of life. My 550 CD’s are on the shelf… in alphabetical order no less. My cutlery and crockery is in the cupboards. The TV and computer are all plugged in and working well. I’ve found all the chargers for my phone, camera and ipod. But half my clothes are still in the boxes, My books are on the floor and I’m currently sitting next to box I suspect is full of rice, pasta and various herbs and spices.

So how long before I get sick of clambering around the boxes that are in every room of the house? I think my lethargy can extend a couple more days.

A feeble excuse...

So, the two or three people who read this may have noticed I have not added anything for... um... a while. My feeble (nay, pitiful) excuse is that I have been busy. And I have. But is it an excuse... I'll leave that to you to decide.

Since my last post I have:
a) Done the Christmas at the Park event in Porirua
b) Shifted house
c) Celebrated my Mother's birthday
d) Eaten far too much for Christmas dinner
e) Been a part of Soul Survivor's first ever NZ event
f) Slept nowhere near enough

So now that I have all of that out of the way I will endeavour to write a little about some of those things that have been keeping me busy... as well as finish unpacking all my household items from the multitude of boxes that are stacked in every room of the house and that I trip over at least once a day!