With the Greek exam over, I find myself in a highly unusual situation - I have nothing to do! Actually, that’s not strictly accurate: there are at least half a dozen things on my immediate to-do list, each of which will take a number of hours to complete, but I have nothing to procrastinate with: [...]
A wet week in north sydney
For those of you reading this while feeling nostalgic for sydney weather, it’s mutual. Hard to believe that we were in a drought, wondering if it would ever rain again!
We pray for rain, but always secretly hope that it will only fall exactly where [...]
decaffagato
Spent the afternoon in Grind at cronulla tidying up tonight’s sermon.
I’m probably not the first person to coin this term, but I’ve never
heard this combination of decaf and affogato used before.
Update: no hits on a gogle search for the word. think I’m onto something…
[justin moffatt] Cites some advice to churches: Anyone new feels alone and stupid! I’ve seen the opposite, though, where people who were greeted felt smothered, or over-visited. Clearly it takes some practice to make people feel welcome when they visit a church.
A friend sent me this definition
Decafalon: (n.): The grueling event of getting through the day consuming only things that are good for you.
I have to admit that I rarely manage to stay on the “consuming only things that are good for you” wagon, but this is my fifth week of decaf, and - apart from [...]
Took a rare day off to streach out a quick trip up and down the coast. Managed to spend some time with Kel’s mum, grab a 5km run along the Nambucca river and towards the beach, visit church in Macksville, and see the latest addition to the Morton family.
Rescued from train breakdown
An adventure on the way to work is always blog-worthy, if not actually welcome. Waiting on wynyard station from just before 9am today, the 1 minute warning jumped up and down to 2 minutes: up and down. I was starting to think it would make a [...]
The opportunities that blogging opens up never cease to amaze me. Having had a bad coffee at a particular cafe, and blogged about it, I received an email not from the cafe owner (this has happened before), but from the coffee distributor, asking me to come in to their warehouse and try the coffee.
At first, [...]
A few weekends back, I sat in on a training session called “managing change in 3 questions”. The session was about coping with conflict that comes from implementing change. The essence of keeping your cool? Keep ascribing good motives to the other person, even when you’re in the midst of conflict.
The three “questions” were:
- What [...]
Birthday macchiato at mecca
What better start to a birthday than a café breakfast? Why, a café breakfast with a free coffee! Thanks to the guys at mecca who - on hearing it was my birthday - gave me the second coffee free!
Their macchiati, though, are really worthwhile: so smooth, [...]
At the moment, I’m working my way through (famous atheist) Richard Dawkins’ book The God Delusion - it’s the first book I’ve read that seeks to persuade someone who is sitting on the fence to embrace atheism (the belief that there is no God) as a life-philosophy: as a faith, if that’s not a poor [...]
Easter monday, mcdonalds at sydney international airport
Inexplicably, only two registers are open, while the manager sits in her office at the back of the store.
Dragonboating race - regatta centre, penrith
I’d never seen a dragon boat race before, but we knew one of the racers, so we headed out to have a look. The race here, the boat that came second had an 80 year old lady in its rowing team, although the average [...]
new (to me) stapler
One of the benefits with helping people move, once they’re at the move-or-throw-out phase, is the new stuff. For some reason, I haven’t been able to bring myself to buy another stapler - it’s so rare that I need to staple something - but when one [...]
My watch has been playing up for a while. First, it needed a new battery, so I went to a watch shop. The guy who changed the battery seemed to have something against the watch - he had, in the past, worked for the company that made the watch, and had not enjoyed his time [...]
In the lead-up to easter, I had the opportunity to describe my schedule for the weekend to a few people. At the time, it didn’t seem like too much, but in hindsight, it really has been a busy time.
Friday
morning church
watch a movie with a friend
greek homework
christian reinterpretation of passover dinner, where - surprisingly - I [...]
Farewell #1
How many people would see you off at the airport at 5:30am? In this case, 22 people.
there, but not yet back again
It was a pretty early start to reach the airport, and we were among the first to meet jord and chan - all up, there were over 20 people braving the pre-7am departure.
We’ve just heard back that they’ve arrived safely on the other side [...]
To all the people I have offended with my stance on whether to use disinterested or uninterested - I’m sorry. In fact, though usage has skewed towards disinterested meaning the same thing as uninterested, in the event in question, I was wrong in my usage of the word. (The Oxford dictionary agrees with the brief [...]
Regular posting will resume shortly.