The hours

7.23pm!

It's 7.23pm and I'm sitting at my desk at work, in an office building completely empty except for myself. I have 15 computers stacked beside me, and I've finished building 13 of them, so only 2 more to go. I am taking a drive to Toowoomba tomorrow to give the branch there brand new computers.

I find it slightly ironic that I'm going to Toowoomba tomorrow, after only having just come from there after AGMF - and am wondering if it is some cruel joke on the part of the guy planning the new pc rollouts.

I put so much time, so many hours, into working at this job, and what do I get out of it? Well the answer to that is money, but I feel that only getting money from the long hours I spend here isn't rewarding enough.

Why do we work so hard for money? I know we should see our workplace as our mission field and that should give us the motivation to continue in our workplaces, but there are times when I feel I could be doing so much more with my hours!!

Ok so now I've racked up 3 hours of overtime - it's now 7:30 - but do I want to be here? No! If I had planned my day better, I probably would not be here, but I had so much on my plate these computers kept getting put off, and now I have to get them done before tomorrows trip.

I guess also today - to make me more mindful of my attitude towards my job - we had a small mishap in our area. One of the guys (who could probably think a touch more before he acts,) had a freak issue with a network switch. Suddenly the switch on his desk created a 'loop back' and was broadcast over the entire network - effectively taking the whole of the company's computers offline! No small feat!

Unfortunately he did it a second time when trying to figure what the problem was. Now we have management looking closely at our work practices, and it looks like some of the privileges we've had to make our job easier will be taken away.

All this has made me think, is it time to give it all up and try something else? Bible College has been knocking on my mind for a while, but I just don't know whether God really wants me there.

Your prayers would be appreciated.

Well I've just finished the last PC (thank goodness for dual screens so I can blog and work at the same time) and Prison Break is on tonight so I'd better get home....

AGMF Pictures

Benz, Scotty and I leaning up against the Mighty XR6!

The Main Tent, including the SU Cafe and Merch area, what a huge tent!

Our tent in the backyard.

Mike Frost and the Icemen (Chris Poulsen on keys)

Scat at the Fancy Pants Ball - White house paint suits (sorry about the quality, was a mobile phone camera shot)

USQ Main Stage (Thanks to Bec for this pic)

AGMF 06

What a weekend.

Great music, good food, and awesome mates. I headed up to Toowoomba for the Australian Gospel Music Festival with Scotty and Ben on Friday, we set Benz tent up in the backyard of our senior pastors brother's house.

I've never been to AGMF for the whole festival before, there was so much good music! Actually there was so much that I missed some acts I would have loved to have seen.

The Chris Poulsen Trio was the one band I really wanted to catch, having never seeing them live before, and knowing Chris and loving his playing in Scat and Mike Frost and the Icemen. Unfortunately I forgot the time they were on, and we ended up going to a break dance workshop instead. However Scat were unbelievable! Chris absolutely burnt up the Fender Rhodes, the man is the best piano player I have ever seen, or heard! Scat always put on a good show, but they had an energy this weekend that was above and beyond anything I've seen before. The Fancy Pants ball finished off AGMF on Sunday night, and Chris had this idea that Scat should buy second hand suits and paint them completely white (using house paint). They looked amazing, but as Craig (lead singer) said many times during the ball it would have been mighty hot inside a stiff thick painted suit, shirt and tie!

Chris Poulsen has become a AGMF and Christian music scene star, as soon as he hopped on stage with any band he pulled huge crowds. It's great to see a good friend of mine enjoying his music so much, and sharing it with so many people, I'm sure he has a very prosperous future ahead of him.

Newsboys were the headline act, and they didn't disappoint. Ben, his niece and I ended up in the back of the mosh pit, enjoying the atmosphere and music from one of Australia's best Gospel rock groups. Having Paul Coleman as lead guitar was weird. It's almost a shame that a man with so much talent ends up playing guitar and doing backup vocals. But he is happy, and he still put on a great performance with the rest of the band.

Rebecca St James was good - well the part I saw anyway, we only caught the end. I was even able to get her autograph afterwards.

Other highlight bands were Half Way Out (Chris' brother Dave is the new saxophone player for them), The View (Sydney band I hadn't heard before, but were really impressed by), Rhubarb (haven't seen them in ages but woohoo!!), United Band, MIC, Soulframe and 24 Feet.

In other areas sharing the weekend with Scott and Ben was great. We went to Hog's Breath Cafe for dinner one night, and the Coffee Club another. We drove around in the XR6 and shot people with supa soakers, ran through the Bush Dance at full pace and sang unashamedly in line for Rebecca St James' signature.

I'll post some pictures in a second

12 months of Blogging

Well when I started my blog I created a few back dated topics just to get a heap of stuff on my site, but as of this week my Blogs been online for 12 months.

And it's come a long way.... looking back at some of the stuff from last year I can't believe it all happened 12 months ago!

Amped/Whitehill update

Hey well it's been a while since I've put something up here. My life has been pretty busy, but nothing too serious.

Amped is going great so far this year, we have two major nights running in conjunction with other outings and service events we do. One night is called Nexus - which is a night of awesome praise and worship music, teaching from the Word of God and time in our small groups which we call D-Teams. The other major night is Delta which is where we spend the whole night in our D-Team having a group discussion on some aspect of becoming Christ Like.

Amped's vision statement is to be a Christ Centred, Servant Hearted, Outward Focused Youth Community. We've been acheiving this by focusing on what the Bible tells us Christ was like, working in the community to serve as Christ served and looking to school friends and others to bring into our youth community. Recently we spent the night at a local Aboriginal Church painting their youth hall and sanding back furniture so they can decorate them themselves. It was a great night of service and the youth really enjoyed getting out and doing something productive.

Last week at our Evening Service, we ran what is known as an Open Space Technology conference. Anyone can post a question/topic for discussion on the topic of "The Church". It probably wasn't received as well as we hoped, but I found that the people who put the effort into the night all walked away having learnt something new. I myself enjoyed the night a lot, I posted a topic Why Do We Do What We Do? and had some awesome discussion about what the Church is all about, and why we do some of the different aspects of services. It made me and others think about the meaning behind our Sunday 'worship' services and what role they should take in our lives. I also visited a topic on Is there division between youth and older people in our church?, and What is the Church?

This weekend is Easter, and unlike other years I've decided not to go to the Keswick Convention on Tamborine Mt, but instead to head up to Toowoomba for the Australian Gospel Music Festival.

A New Year Begins

Well the year hasn't really begun, until the new season of the V8 Supercars starts. So even though I know this blog seems to be turning into a rev-head blog, the Adelaide 500 is a weekend I've been waiting for for some time.

And even better, good old Craig Lowndes won the first race, and he sure looks good to win today's race as well. But the whole field looks so good. New colours, new sponsors and new drivers has really made the whole V8 series look and feel so fresh for 2006.

So bring it on, can't wait for the Qld events so I can see em in person. And GO FORD!!!!!!

Soccer Continues

Well we had another game today, played another division 2 team, and only went down 1:0. So another good result, our team is developing, working on our fitness and getting ready for the begining of the real season just after Easter.

For those of you who know Ben Zambra, our WA friend came so close to scoring in the first half, he cleared the goalie and smacked the dead centre of the goal post, very unlucky.

For the upcoming season, I've been placed into the 5th Division team, so am looking forward to the challenge of playing up a division this year, and I get to play on the same team as my brother, and Ben.

What a Morning

Well here's something you don't expect while sitting stuck in traffic on Ipswich Road. This morning just before I left home I SMSed in my code for the new Pepsi "Rock, Paper, Scissors" competition, I sort of did it as an afterthought just before I walked out the door.

Well anyway; I received an SMS while I was stuck in traffic telling me I'd won the half hour competition, so I now have the choice of $500, 2 iPod Nanos or a Nokia 3250 phone as my prize! I already have an iPod, and my current mobile phone is dieing a painful and frustrating death so I'm pretty happy to get a brand new mobile, especially one as good and with so much stuff as the 3250!

Nokia 3250 Information

I love my Mountain Dew, and my addiction has finally paid off, I hardly ever enter these competitions, but with my phone dieing I thought I may as well have a go cause I need the new phone. Now I'm sure glad I did :-)

Bending It...

Ok so maybe linking this post to David Beckham is pushing it a bit, but I had my first game of soccer for the year last Saturday.

Lucky for us it's just the pre-season, meaning the games is only 20 minute halves (making the entire game shorter than one half of a real game), but it's a good way to build yourself up to the start of the season.

Anyway; after only one training session we were all still pretty rusty, and we were playing a Division 1 team. Amazingly we were able to keep the game 0-0, which means we didn't score, but it also means we didn't let them either - GO WHITEHILL!

After the rain we've had the field was pretty soggy, and some full back decided to perform a perfectly executed slide tackle on me so I ended up with mud all over me.

However I really enjoyed the game, felt pretty good at the end of it, and am looking forward to the coming season.

Oh and one more thing I learnt creating this post, if you type in Beckham and do an image search on Google, there are not many pictures of him actually playing soccer!

Nostalgia Drag Meet – 26/02/2006

I love old muscle cars! And I have absolutely had my fill today. Willowbank Raceway was packed with pre-1972 cars from both Australia and the USA. There was over 100 in the ‘Show and Shine’ competition and 75 race competitors, and it was the best day of racing I’ve seen since starting the Chaplaincy work with Dad.

The Willowbank team were running on a skeleton crew today so Dad and I ended up helping on the track (and in the process build relationships with the blokes we were working for). Dad was the ‘water boy’, basically using the hose to leave the start of the track wet so the cars can do their burn out before their run. I kept an eye on the cars doing their burnouts and made sure nothing came off the cars or spilt on the track while they were doing it. So that meant Dad and I were on the start-line all day, and it was fantastic.

I’ve never inhaled so much smoke and been covered in so much rubber; even after showering I’m still picking pieces of rubber off my arms. BUT IT WAS SO MUCH FUN!

Some of the highlights of the day were the twin turbo 351 V8 Mustang, a superchargers 1932 Ford 3 Window Coupe and a 1968 Pontiac Firebird. Unfortunately that Firebird’s day ended in the wall, it was a pretty sickening crash and it destroyed one of the most beautiful cars at the event. The driver was fine and walked away, but it was a horrific crash.

Also on the start line I noticed a 1947 Anglia backfire and the exhaust on the top of the carbie light up. I was able to stop the car before it took off, and the fireman simply blew out the flame and once the car restarted he was still able to do his run.

So I had a great day, and we were also able to build our friendships with the rest of the guys working on the start-line.

**There’s no substitute for cubic inches!**

US Muscle 4x4

Um yeah... is this a waste of a beautiful 1968 Pontiac Firebird? Or a clever and unique idea for a hot rod?

Read more about it at this site here. It seems like a serious muscle car, and a serious 4WD. I think it's slightly weird, but cool at the same time. Tell me what you think?

Anti-road rage

I was driving to work today, and as usual the traffic on Ipswich Road was pretty awful. It took about 20 minutes to travel from Dinmore to Gails where I get off onto the toll road for a relaxing commute down an almost car free road.

I'd sort of been following this guy in a Toyota Camry while stuck on Ipswich Road, and passed him just before I took the toll road exit, which he also took. In the light traffic I was able to reach 100km/h and use my cruise control for a nice easy drive the rest of the way to work. Obviously the guy in the Camry had his cruise control set slightly higher and was catching me consistently over a distance. Another car was speeding and overtook him and me. As this other car was passing me we caught up to truck doing about 80k/h I had to disengage the cruise control and coast until the car passed me, the Camry was also out to over take me and the truck, with a semi trailer coming up behind him.

The guy in the Camry actually slowed down and let me merge in front of him so I didn’t get caught behind the truck doing 75km/h and waiting for the other semi to go past as well. I was able to overtake at 100k’s then move back into the left lane and let the Camry pass me. As he passed he gave a little wave (which I returned) and off he went.

A nice experience of sharing the road, especially when we see so many occurrences of Road Rage these days.

LIVE Camp 06

Well I've just come home from Whitehill's first LIVE Young Adults Camp. What a fantastic weekend. I think there were about 39 of us, and we spent the whole weekend at Luther Heights Campsite at Coolum Beach. It was a beautiful location, overlooking the beach, close enough to walk down, and a short drive from patrolled beaches.

The trip up was a touch stressful, with traffic a nightmare in Brisbane, and then a friend was unlucky enough to be behind a truck when its tyre blew and ran over the steel rim. So we spent quite a while on the side of the highway, making sure the car was drivable and getting all the details off this truckie.

Once we finally got to Luther Heights we realised one other thing... it was extremely hot... and unbearably humid. I haven't felt humidity like that since I was in The Gambia! The whole weekend was an effort to stay out of the heat.

The speaker for the weekend was Scott Vawser from WA. I met Scott on the Youth Vision Melbourne Ministry Tour last year, and he's a fantastic bloke. Scott is also the reason I got more serious about blogging and I regulary check out his blog here.

Scott spoke on the Kingdom of God. He used the "Truman Show" as an example of what Christians can create which he dubbed the 'King-Dome of God'. For those who have seen The Truman Show will know the movie follows the story of a man who has lived his entire life inside a huge dome, being filmed and unknown to himself, become this star of a hit TV show. In so many ways Christians have created their own dome. We have our own world where everything 'bad' and 'ugly' is kept outside our dome, and we never venture outside ourselves.

Scott has some amazing ideas on the Church - not in the sense of the little white building on a hill, but as the body of Christ - and he was able to share and really challenge all of us to live Biblical lives, not just religious lives.

One thing that really hit me was the importance of the truth behind John 13:34 and 35. " A new commandment I give you, love one another, as I have loved you. In this way all men will know that you are my disciples."

We looked at what Jesus' love is all about, things like endless, sacrificial, empowering, life giving, unconditional and non deserving. And in that passage Jesus tells us to love one another just as Jesus loves us. So as Christians we need to love one another just like all the things we listed about Jesus' love. Jesus didn't command us to go out and preach to people, he didn't tell us to run huge outreach events, he told us to love one another. So through un-Believers seeing the way we love one another, this is the greatest witness of all.

It was a new and fresh way to look at the Christian life, and Scotts stories of how he is living in his neighbourhood and creating friendships/relationships and networks of believers and non-believers were an up lifting idea for how we should spend our time instead of sitting inside a religious dome.

I came away challenged, but also refreshed. The camp gave me an opportunity to have some quality alone time with God, and really take stock of where my life is at the moment. The biggest thing for me to realise was that I don't really know where I am at the moment, and I have to spend a lot more time searching God before I can figure that out.

I guess I can use this blog to continue to search myself and express what I'm feeling at times. And hopefully your feedback can help me to continue to search God, and stretch my own faith.

Our praise times on camp also allowed us to truely worship God, and Elise was able to be tender to God's will and lead us in woshiping him honestly and humbly.

So overall it was a special weekend. Full of good fellowship, teaching, challenges and praise and worship.

Myth Busters should see this

Remember the Myth Busters episode where they tested the CD's shattering in the CDROMS? Well we experienced that at work today. One of the new university industrial trainees brought a PC back from a user and was trying to figure out what was wrong with it. When she manually opened the CD ROM she found about a million pieces of CD ROM.

I've heard of it happening, but this is the first time i've seen it. Supposedly the RMP of the drive gets too much for the disk and it just cracks, which at that speed causes it to shatter. Needless to say the CD ROM drive is totalled!

But as the Myth Buster's proved correct, nothing came out of the drive, and nothing else was damaged. Well done boys!

Kick it into Gear

Here's my new baby. I've been riding pretty regularly for the last 3 months. I had a mate help me get my old bike in order, and now that I've gotten myself into a routine I thought I might upgrade my ride.

It's amazing how good equipment can make things easier. This bike makes riding so much easier, and I've been able to extend the length of my rides, not because I'm fitter, just because the bike doesn't resist as much as my old one use to.

So yeah, I thought by maybe posting it up here I could get some accountability into keeping up with the exercise. I'm enjoying the riding, and getting out with Dad and Brett some afternoons as well. And with the soccer season starting again soon, I'd really like to raise my level of fitness before then.

Oh yeah, note the personal sponsor on the water bottle....

Finding Animals

A couple of weeks ago, my mother brought home a stray pup. She'd been at a school function and the security people had said this little jack-russel terrier had been hanging around all day. Mum said he looked pretty stressed and put out so she told him to hop in her car and brought him home.

It wasn't a big deal, he was an obedient little thing, and though our dog (Wilson - a cattle dog) was a little put out by having a visitor in his domain, Jack spent the night on the back porch. The next day we had a friend at the council look up 'Jack's' registration number and contact his owner, who was delighted to find her lost puppy.

Funny enough the name we'd come to call him 'Jack', was his real name (original hey!?). So a happy ending for all involved.

TONIGHT...... Dad and I are sitting watching Layton play in the Aussie Open and I hear a 'meow' at the door. Sure enough the tiniest little kitten is sitting at the door. Now a jack-russel was easy enough, just stick him out the back with Wilson, but if I took this little thing out there Wilson would just think I was serving him a late supper!

We are not cat people! Dad's hated cats since he was a kid, and that's sort of rubbed off on all of us. I've never really had time for cats at all, if it hadn't been such a tiny kitten I would have roused on the thing and kicked it off my front porch (not literally kicked, before any of you call the RSPCA).

Anyhow, I brought the little thing in, gave it some milk, and mum cracked open a tin of sardines, he/she/it is now trapped under a washing basket in the lounge room, we decided putting it in a cardboard box and taping it shut was a little cruel, so we used the washing basket and put a couple of pavers on top to stop any escape tricks. What we're going to do with it tomorrow is a mystery as it has no registration collar. We definitely are not cat people, and tonight with meows, scratches, and general 'cat behaviour' has reminded me why, no matter how cute the little thing is!

Online Forums

I've been involved with online forums for years. First off with the 96.5 Forum (Brisbane Christian Radio Station), and I was able to meet many of the members in 'real life' and felt part of an amazing little community.

After some issues the forum was shut down, and most of us moved onto the Gold Coasts Christian Radio Forum, or the 107.3 Life Forum. Again I've been able to meet people in the real world, and make some awesome friends.

But over the last few months I've noticed how much bickering, complaining, backstabbing, putting down, slander and jealousy there is on these forums. I wonder if because it is a 'faceless' means of communication we think we can be more upfront and direct in the way we speak to each other.

Unfortunatly I found myself responding to some of these attitudes in kind, and suddenly noticed that I didn't like the way I spent my time on the forum, and the way it made me feel.

So I stopped posting. I still read the forum, and many time's I'd like to fire away a reply, but I've been able to restrain myself. I haven't posted in over 3 weeks, and I'm feeling a lot better about myself, my attitude and my Godly witness.

I'd like to contribute again, but I don't think it will be in the act of replying to posts, but mainly posting encouraging and thoughtful topics and ideas for other people to think about.

As a bit of a disclaimer, I don't think the attitudes on the forum are the fault of 107.3, it's a fantastically set up forum, and having met one of the moderators, she was able to give me an insight into how they make sure the forum stays in line. I have a lot of respect for the moderators and they do a great job. And the ministry at 107.3 in broadcasting to the Gold Coast is awesome and something I'm totally behind.

Check them out. www.1073.com.au

Holidays

I had last week off. I decided that I'd love to have a holiday over my birthday (last Tuesday), and thought I'd head down to Cresent Head in NSW with Mum and Dad for the week.

We stayed in a caravan right on the beach, and had a great time. I really didn't get up to much, was able to sit in the caravan most of the time, or walked on the beach. I had time to get stuck into a new model, a 1970 Dodge Challenger.

Also my mother's aunty owns a beach house up on the hill and her and her daughter's family we there at the same time. So I was able to catch up with Kylie's 3 kids, Lauchlan, Georgia and Jacksan. They're awesome kids, and we had loads of fun playing on the beach, making sand castles, carrying buckets of water and playing catch in the creek.

I'm sure my mother got some photos, so I'll post some up later on.

My birthday was nice, we went into Port Maquarrie and had an excellent seafood lunch by the river.

Left Behind

I've just finished reading the whole Left Behind series again. I must say I enjoyed the first few a lot, and slowly found them less and less challenging and following the 'Biblical line' and more of a fictional tall story.

That is until the last book, The Glorious Appearing. I really enjoyed their depiction of Jesus' return, and the final judgments. I'm not totally sure on their theology but the descriptive writing is fantastic,

Just wondering who else has read the books, and your thoughts on them.

Keep her in your thoughts

Hey just thought I'd ask you all to keep a good friend of mine in your prayers. Her name in Wendy and for the last 6 months she's been working as a music teacher in an International school in India.

I was lucky enough to be able to catch up with her last night at a new years party, she's home for a couple of weeks visiting family. It sounds like an awesome time, but there must be many challenges to face.

After experiencing missional life myself I love encouraging other's who are doing it as well. So keep Wendy in your prayers as she continues to teach.

Thanks