Bicycle Races

A sense of wonder often occurs for me when I look at sports people either elite or your Joe average.

Here we have a fit healthy person spending alot of time exercising to build a healthy fit body so they can run a little bit faster than another person.

Is this a thing that we should admiring. The energy, dedication and drive that people put into these activities glows from the human heart. It can show the very best traits in perseverance and mental strength. Or should we be wondering what happens to these gains in physical condition when the person ages, and can no longer exercise at the level they were. Should this energy be put into something more worthwhile, such as finding a way to empower the downtrodden. Or maybe developing more energy efficient means of transport or energy generation.



The human condition is transitory, we live, we die and that is it. How vain are we to think that we can reach for immortality through money earned, records won or genetics passed on.

Life is a bicycle race, for all the pedalling you do, for all the stages you win or lose. We all finish at the same place, the end.

Pedal at your own pace and do what you have to to make it worth your while.

New technology

Have just downloaded a blogging tool for my PDA. Seems to work fine, but would like a few more bells and whistles.

Might even encourage me to write a little more.

Avatar

Recently went to see Avatar, was a very good movie. I enjoyed it very much

while the story line was a little predictable, the special effects were spectacular. Suspending belief to believe that there was floating islands in the sky and blue people wasn't difficult. The concepts were astounding and created lots of discussion in the car with my family aftwerwards. I would recommend you see this move. Hopefully more indepth discussion will follow later once I have thought about it further.

Tolerance

How many times do I need to relearn that being tired stops me from being patient.

As we progress into week 3 of of the semester and the workload begins to build, work continues to expand and we all get busier at home. I am beginning to increase my tiredness and it alters my perspective of my surroundings. Sitting in class today with someone I respect did the noisy whiney thing that he has been doing for the last couple of years I finally snapped and was quite mean to him. While I am not proud of it I did feel a certain level of satisfaction at finally having said something. It wouldn't have happened if I hadn't been tired.

closure

Well I have finished my 350 metres of fencing. It was a real family effort with the four of us carrying, winding, straining and working for the last 2 weekends, but now it is done.

I am officially the worlds 3rd worst fencer, ( I have yet to teach my two children everything I know)


But the feeling of having finished is a great sense of satisfaction. Yes there were some difficulties along the way, one of the end assemblies decided that it wanted to life up out of the ground as we strained the wire. Probably because of the hill, and the sloppy ground. Thank goodness for the rain!

My 11yo daughter and I built one of the end assemblies together. It was the first time I think that we have been able to work as equals (neither of us knew what we were doing) and it was really nice. I was so please to rediscover that my daughter is a nice thoughtful insiteful person. These are things that I knew, but in the business of life miss from time to time. We talked about school, her friends where she was at, what she was doing and wanted to do. It was fabulous. I believe I will remember that day forever. At those moments there is nothing better than being a Dad.

Age filters

What happens when we age, why do we change? What part of ourselves do we lose, or is it more a case of we lose that which isn't essentially us.

Mental acuity is an important part of who we are, I know that when I get older the possible loss of being able to think and work out stuff for myself scares the living daylights out of me. I can't imagine being myself if I couldn't express myself as well as i do now.

I see old people struggling with concepts and ideas that they must have coped with when they were younger.

I see them react as if they no longer have filters to moderate their behavior.

So, have they lost or found themselves?

TALKING TO KIDS

I had to speak to a group of teenagers tonight, telling them stuff they didn't want or feel they need to hear. How do you get through to them? Well, I tried a range of things, unfortunately it was a pretty dry topic, but they had lots of questions and that was helpful. What they really wanted was to head off and do neat stuff, but instead they had to listen to a boring old fart like me.

They were really good and paid attention but I think I need to pay a little more attention to my presentations with young people.


I will need time to do this so
PLEASE PLEDGE TIME SO THAT I CAN DO THIS