Baggas’ Blog

Just got some new glasses yesterday and I’m very happy with them - they work well and look good. They took about a week to arrive from 39dollarglasses.com as recommended by ob1. Definitely worth checking out and let me give you another tip - before you buy any glasses Google “39dollarglasses coupon” to find codes for discounts, free shipping etc. I got $5 off my pair and free shipping, so it’s well worth it.

ABC News: Kazakhstan’s War of Words Against Borat

Hilarious story at the moment coming out of Washington DC about the fictional Kazakh reporter Borat, who has been holding press conferences outside the Kazakhstani embassy and trying to get into the White House in order to promote his new movie, “Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan.” Among other things he wanted to invite some notable Americans to a preview of his film, including President “George Walter Bush,” Secretary Rumsfeld, Bill Gates, “O.J. Simpsons” and “Mel Gibsons.” The above article from American ABC news gives some of the most detailed coverage I’ve seen of his antics, which just happen to coincide with a visit to Washington by the real President of Kazakhstan.

I haven’t seen much of this guy’s work before, but if the rest of it is as funny as this episode I’ll definitely check out his movie. He’s kind of like a Kazakh version of the Australian character from the 1970s Norman Gunston, who made a name for himself harassing famous people.

While I’m at it, I’ll make a book recommendation for those of you who like irrerverent satire pertaining to central Asian former Soviet republics. A couple of months ago I read Absurdistan, by Gary Shteyngart - the tale of an overweight Russian Jew who is into hip-hop but is unable to get back into the US since his wealthy father murdered a businessman from Oklahoma, and his misadventures in the fictional republic of Absurdistan. It’s a very weird book, but good for a laugh, and if you probe a little deeper there’s some cutting satire aimed at both American and Russian culture. At the moment I’ve loaned it to my Jewish Russian friend so I’ll be interested to hear his take on it.

We’re heading off down south tomorrow for a week’s holiday. It seems a little silly to be going away on a holiday less than a month before going to Africa, but we booked this in a while before we had even thought of going overseas. I considered cancelling this week off, especially in view of the fact that I don’t get any pay for all this time off (6 weeks total including this week and the Africa trip) so the finances are going to be in pretty poor shape. But ultimately the allure of a quiet relaxing week on the beach in Busselton was just to much to pass up. We’ll just have to try and do fairly inexpensive activities … eg. lots of swimming in the sea or hotel pool, lots of reading, maybe a spot of fishing, sandcastles, sport etc.

Only one drawback to leaving tomorrow, is that I’ll be driving down south at the same time as the Eagles play Sydney in the AFL Grand final. I doubt I’ll be permitted to spend the whole trip listening to football on the radio so perhaps a discrete pair of earphones might be the go… At least I’ll be able to hear the game one way or another - others are not so fortunate. My parents (who are Eagles members) are flying off to Europe tomorrow, and a bunch of people I know are heading to Thailand. No AFL broadcasts on international flights I would guess.

Plus for us it may turn out to be a blessing in disguise - traffic down south on the first day of the school holidays is often horrendous. If I’m lucky a lot of people may delay their trips so they can watch the footy, and we might then have a nice smooth drive south. Well that’s my theory anyway. I’ll let you know how it turns out.

slacktivist: Parable

In this modern retelling, Slacktivist brings an ancient parable to life. Brilliant!

‘Veggie Tales’ loses faith
One of the shows my kids enjoy watching on DVD is Veggie Tales, a sometimes cringeworthy but usually funny Christian children’s show in which a cast of animated vegetables act out stories from the bible or other religious lessons. I disliked the show at first, but it is growing on me after being exposed to hours of the DVDs.

Anyway it seems that a storm is growing in the US over the show. Recently they signed a deal with TV network NBC to show the show in it’s Saturday morning lineup. Unfortunately, the network then proceeded to force them to excise any references to God or the Bible from the show, which kinda defeats the purpose of it in the first place. Creator Phil Vischer and his comrades were kept in the dark about this and felt betrayed. You can read some of Phil’s side of the story on his blog.

What strikes me about this is what it says about the schizoid nature of American society. We so commonly hear about how the religious right is gaining more and more influence, and how the US is one of the most religious nations on Earth. Yet at the same time we see this sort of extreme political correctness where you can’t mention God in a kid’s TV show. I’m not saying that this is not true of Australia also, you just see it so much more vividly there. Very bizarre story.

alastair.adversaria » N.T. Wright: A Biography

Followers of this blog may have noticed that I’m an avid reader of the works of Anglican Bishop N. T. (Tom) Wright , who combines rigorous Biblical scholarship, firm Christian orthodoxy, with a pastoral heart and a flair for writing. In all the books and websites I’ve encountered, one thing I’ve missed has been any sort of biography of the man, other than the odd snippet here and there.

The above link from adversaria has provided what I’ve been looking for. A very interesting read which has further increased my estimation of Tom Wright, not least for the fact that he is a fellow guitarist, as you can see in this funky picture. If you have any interest in N. T. Wright and his writings, then I’d suggest you have a look at the site - I’ve only scractched the surface of his blog so far but Alistair is one serious Wright devotee, and unlike me he has the educationalbackground knowledge to seriously and critically examine the issues involved. Definitely a site to watch.

One of the good things about my job is that my hours are flexible, so I’m able to take Owen to and from school most mornings and afternoons.

This morning we got to school and took the long walk from the carpark around to his classroom. As I went to put his schoolbag down with the other kids I realised it was not a schoolbag, but my briefcase. I had walked all the way carrying the wrong bag. How dumb is that? A trip back to the car and back soon fixed that but I felt like a right doofus. Talk about absent minded.

I was invited to a church breakfast for business people this morning, which was very worthwhile.

But as far as being in business goes, it’s all still a little foreign to me. Doctors are notoriously bad with business and finance issues, and I am no exception to this. It’s just something we get no exposure to during our training. When I first found myself in business and left the comfort of being an employee I felt quite lost, and had to struggle to get help and information about how things worked. I still feel like there’s probably something I’m missing, or not doing right. Hopefully being involved in this business group at church might help me feel a bit more comfortable in that role. If nothing else, it gives me a chance to have breakfast and talk with interesting people once a month. Was a perfect morning for it today, down at the beach.

Well it’s been a week for well known Australians being killed doing the dangerous things that made them famous. First it was the sad news about Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin being killed by a stingray, and now this piece of news just hit my inbox : Peter Brock killed in crash -  theage.com.au - apparently the racing legend’s car hit a tree while racing a rally here in Western Australia. I had said to someone the other day that although it was sad that Steve Irwin had died, at least he had gone out doing the thing he loved, rather than getting cancer or dying in a crash. And the same is true for Brocky - after so many years racing it’s both tragic and yet somehow fitting that he died behind the wheel… A sad week here in Australia all round.

These things seem to come in three’s though - wonder who’ll be the next Australia to die doing what they’re known best for? How about Germaine Greer dying with her foot stuck in her mouth??

Time to start blogging again. I’m still so busy with so many things that a lot of my regular routine activities like blogging and reading have suffered a bit of late.

In terms of our travel plans, things have generally fallen into place very easily, although not without the odd frustration (I’ll share some of those below). We now have all of our flights booked, and all the accomodation except for 5 days. Although we’re still going to be quite a bit out of pocket at the end of it all, due to me having to have a month off work (I don’t get paid when I don’t work), the actual costs of the trip have been virtually all covered by some unexpected funds that have almost miraculously appeared. The day after we decided we wanted to go, I found out about a government grant I could apply for where they give me thousands of dollars in return for me committing to working in an outer metropolitan area for the next 2 years. Since I already live and work in such an area it’s basically giving me extra money for doing exactly what I am doing now. Amazingly, I discovered this grant one day after we decided to go, and one day before the deadline for applying for it. If I had’ve been one day later I would have missed out on the money, and if I had’ve found out earlier I would most likely have blown the money on other things (like paying off debts and other boring stuff like that) - a brilliant example of God’s perfect timing!

As I said before the planning has mostly been pretty smooth, though I’ll air a few of my frustrations here, to get them off my chest :

1. Frequent flyer points are difficult to use. We had enough points to cover half of the flights we needed, however when I checked the availability of seats, it turned out we would be able to get to Africa on the dates we wanted, but then there were no available return seats until nearly Christmas! So in the end we had to pay for all our flights, thus sucking up some of our spending money (though at least we get to earn a heap more points for our next trip) Next time we want to use points I guess we’ll have to get in a lot earlier..

2. Travel agents seem to be of little use. We went to discuss our plans and flights with a travel agent, to see if she could get us a good deal or offer any suggestions, but she was of no help whatsoever. In the end I got the same flights/prices by booking it all myself over the internet. I can imagine that the internet has really hurt the travel agent business in the past few years. However, one example that both illustrates my point (about the usefullness of the net) and is an exception to it (about the uselessness of travel agents), is my dealings with an online travel company go2africa.com, based in Cape Town. The person I have been dealing with, Richard, has been fantastic. He’s basically taken care of the whole South African/Zambian leg of the trip, arranging for accomodation in both countries, transfers, and flights to and from Victoria Falls, bending over backwards to make it perfect (and at a good price too). So although visiting a travel shop proved to be a waste of time for us, using an online travel consultant has been invaluable.

3. Email can be frustrating at times. Sometimes we get used to the idea of email being an almost instantaneous form of communication, particularly if we have access to our email 24/7. Hence it’s frustrating when you send an email and there is a delay in getting a response, or when the questions you ask aren’t specifically answered by the respondent. Living in other countries/time zones contributes at least part of the frustration, but not all. A good way of learning patience I guess.

Still, overall even the planning stages thus far have been mostly a positive experience. And since we’ve started to let people know what we are doing, the positive feedback and encouragement we’ve been receiving has been great. Also lots of people already offering stuff for us to take across to give for the orphans and babies.

 I’ll keep you posted on what’s new…

Grace is opposed to earning, not to effort.

~ Dallas Willard