Baggas’ Blog

Here’s the second part of the video from our weekend in Denmark. It really is a beautiful spot down there - lovely countryside and some great coastal scenery.

It’s another long weekend here down under, this time for Australia Day, January 26th. We’ll be having the customary lamb dinner tonight with some chops before yet another public holiday on-call for me tomorrow.

So far this weekend’s been good though. Jen and I went out for dinner and a movie on Friday night - saw Charlie Wilson’s War which is an excellent cold war political drama starring Tom Hanks. Full of history, humour, and irony, if you like The West Wing (my all time favourite TV show) then you’ll probably appreciate this movie. I also like the understated way the movie referenced the USA’s failure to capitalise on its victory over the Soviets in Afghanistan - as the characters discuss the dangers of not following through with helping rebuild the country, you hear the ominous sound of a jet airliner flying over Washington in the background.

Saturday we took the kids to Garden City Shopping Centre in Booragoon to do a bit of shopping and see a movie. Our only choice was Alvin & the Chipmunks which was not the best but the kids seemed to enjoy it. While doing that I dropped our Prado into a hand car wash they have in the undercover carpark there to get all the dirt off it from our previous weekend down south. The beauty of that place is not only do they do a great job for a pretty good price, but it saves me having to drive around for 20 minutes looking for parking. Now the car looks like new again, or perhaps even better than new

Speaking of last weekend, I’ve posted a video on YouTube with some footage I took while we were down south. Have a look here if you like :

In the next few days I’ll upload the rest of the video. Also I’ve posted all the photos from the trip on my flickr page.

This week’s been a little quieter at work - no babies born so I’ve managed to keep well away from the hospital. Taking advantage of the odd bit of free time I’ve been working on getting my office a bit tidier and better organised. Now my office is by no means that bad - some of the other doctor’s rooms are incredibly messy. Even so, it’s been good clearing out the shelves and drawers and getting rid of all manner of odds and ends - mountains of drug company post-it notes, pens, out-dated drug samples, old books, drug information sheets, referral pads for services/specialists I’ve never used, various useless gizmos and other drug company paraphenalia, amazon.com boxes, and much more. Some of this stuff was 5 or 6 years old, from doctors who are long gone. I now have all this empty space that I can start filling up again - it’s wonderful.

On the subject of organisation, I’ve been doing some similar stuff at home - getting the garden tidied up, organizing the garage a little bit, tidying my study, organizing my music, doing 6 months worth of filing. Maybe it’s some sort of nesting instinct

I’ve also found an awesome piece of software to help get me organized on my Mac laptop. After trying a few similar options I’ve settled on a program called Together, for Mac OS X Leopard. Basically this is a great way of organizing my thoughts and various pieces of information, documents, pictures etc that I find as I surf the web from day to day. If I find something on the web I like, I just drag the URL to a little tab at the side of the screen, and the Together software will store an archive of that web site for me. Or I can just cut and paste a bit of text and store it as a note in Together. All this can be done through the little tab without needing to open the main window of the software itself so I can keep my focus in the browser or whatever else I am doing. When I do open Together, I can easily categorize webpages and notes etc through various Group and Folder settings, as well as tagging. For example in planning our trip to Denmark tomorrow I was browsing various websites and came across some good information and maps etc - I’ve just dragged these into Together so I now have an offline archive of all this info that I can easily retrieve, even if I am down in Denmark with no net access. I’ve also decided, with the aim of making my book reading more effective, to start typing the odd note or quote into my laptop - Together looks after this for me too. It also handles a large range of other file types, including email (handy to drag an important email across from mail) and media files. Another way of sending info to Together is using the Print command in any other application, and “printing” as a PDF file directly into the Together archive - very neat. I like the way Mac OS is so well integrated with PDFs. Anyway it’s a great piece of software. I don’t think I’ve really done it justice here so if you are a Mac user I’d definitely encourage you to check it out.

Plot to kill Queen foiled - World - theage.com.au

It may sound silly but this story almost makes me feel proud - Ugandan security services foiled an Al Qaeda plot to attack the Queen in Kampala last year. I must say in my own dealings with the Uganda Police force last year I was not exactly inspired with confidence in them, but obviously those charged with protecting the Queen were a bit better resourced than the rank and file officers we dealt with. Anyway, good for Uganda - the newest ally in the war on terror!

Last night I finally finished reading Peter Brown’s biography, Augustine of Hippo, which I started in October and have been reading a little at a time since. This is very slow going for me but it’s been a busy few months and I’ve knocked off plenty of other books in the interim. Contrary to what my pace might suggest this book is not such a difficult read - it’s well written and holds your attention. It’s just not a gripping “can’t wait to read the next chapter” book but then when your subject is a late Roman bishop what do you expect? Anyway it gives a very vivid portrait of St Augustine and the times in which he lived. I also found it interesting to read the epilogue, in which Brown examines new discoveries in Augustinian studies over the last 30 years since the biography was originally written, and revists some of his conclusions and emphases in the original book (which remains unchanged) - it’s fascinating to see an author humbly change his mind and admit where he might have gone wrong in his earlier work. The only thing I personally found lacking in the book was a bit more of a rounded synopsis of Augustine’s theology (which is only briefly touched upon in it’s relation to the events and controversies of his life) and a discussion of the ongoing impact of Augustine’s work through the ages up til the present day - but then these were not the intention of the book so I can’t really complain too much.

Now that that’s finished, on to something a little more current - “The Audacity of Hope” by Barack Obama; and then Eric Clapton’s autobiography. Got a long weekend down in Denmark this weekend so should be able to knock those two off in fairly short order.

Well it’s been a busy start to the year. This morning I had 2 more babies born, that’s 15 now since the start of the year, and it’s only 10 days old. So it’s been pretty hectic, and I haven’t really had much chance to settle in to any sort of routine yet. At home I’ve been tackling a few jobs - getting over 6 months worth of filing done, tidying up my music, starting to throw out accumulated junk, and getting the nursery ready for baby Mia. Jen’s done a great job with the nursery, which up til now has just been a storage room - now it’s a great room with a nice feel to it (just so long as you like pink… lol). And to play her lullabies I’ve put a new CD player in there which also happens to have an iPod dock (handy if daddy wants to hide away somewhere with some tunes…)

Really looking forward to the next two weekends when I can switch my phone off and forget about the hospital for a while. This weekend will be spent at home - mostly doing outdoors jobs putting the finishing touches on our front garden and pool area which we recently had landscaped, and then taking a big load of junk to the tip. And, knowing that all the big jobs are done, I’ll be able to have a very relaxing time with the family on our mini-holiday down south at Denmark the following weekend. We’ll be leaving Friday afternoon and coming back Monday the 21st. But for now I just have to get through the next day and a half of work… kinda hoping no-one else decides to have their baby between now and then

Wonder if you can guess what important lesson this children’s book is teaching kids? If you want to find out, the whole book is scanned in at Gizmodo for your enjoyment - click here…  (rated G)

Race abuse costs Harbhajan three-Test ban

Is it just me, or does Andrew Symonds and the Australian team seem a bit soft for complaining about being called a “monkey”? I certainly think a 3 match ban for Harbhajan is overkill, although I’m sure Ricky Ponting will be breathing a bit easier - might actually be able to score some more runs in the next Tests.

But really, is calling someone a “monkey” serious racism or just a harmless taunt? And to be totally honest, take a look at Symonds and you can kind of see how the Indians came up with the monkey image… Either way, it was good to see the Aussies equal the record for the longest ever winning streak (though they might as well give Steve Bucknor an honorary baggy green for his contribution) - let’s hope they can put all this acrimony behind them and go one better in the Perth Test.

Dennis sent me this video on facebook earlier. I thought it was quite well done and I know it will appeal to the kids :

Just watching live coverage of the US primary elections. Really impressed with Obama’s victory speech - very inspiring. It made Kevin Rudd’s acceptance speech when he won the Australian election look like a uni lecture. Clinton coming in third throws a big spanner into her campaign but by no means is it a knockout blow. Really hope Obama can maintain the momentum he has generated in Iowa. As for Huckabee… well I’ll admit he scares me a little - just seems to have come out of nowhere. Regardless of what happens, it will be fascinating to watch what happens in the USA in 2008…

Business beckons as Birney packs in politics – for now : thewest.com.au

I don’t normally pay a lot of attention to WA state politics but this story grabbed my attention for a couple of reasons. Matt Birney, former leader of the WA liberal opposition, announced yesterday he will be quitting politics to pursue a career in business. This will be a huge blow to the already hopeless WA Liberal party - Birney is one of their few bright stars who at least can string a sentence together and look good on TV (unlike their leader Paul Omodei).

One of the reasons Birney gave for quitting, in his refreshingly honest announcement was that politics is “an expensive hobby that did not pay the bills.” This drew a bit of fire from the West today, since the $125,000 base pay plus allowances of a backbencher is far above the average wage in our community. However I must say I agree with Birney here and always find it annoying when the media complain about MP’s salaries. The fact is that although MP’s get a pay that is considerably above the average wage, they have to work incredibly hard and make a lot of sacrifices for it. And more tellingly, the pay of even a senior federal minister working incredibly long hours in a high pressure job, is still far below what can be earned in corporate management. If we want the best quality people running our country we should be prepared to pay them adequately. Leaders in business, law, medicine and other professions are unlikely to be able to take a huge pay cut in order to enter the risky arena of politics. Especially in these boom times where unskilled young people can be earning well over $100,000 in the mining industry, we should be paying our government leaders more. And in reality, even if we were to double the salary of all the MPs in the country, the impact on the federal and state budgets would be minimal - a small price to pay for potentially attracting the best possible candidates to run our governments.

‘Suppose brethren, a man should make a ring for his betrothed, and she should love the ring more wholeheartedly than the betrothed who made it for her … Certainly, let her love his gift: but, if she should say, “The ring is enough. I do not want to see his face again” what would we say of her? The pledge given her by the betrothed is just that, in his pledge, he himself may be loved. God, then, had given you all these things. Love Him who made them.’

~ St Augustine

Happy New Year and all the best for 2008!

So far it’s been a nice relaxing start to the year. Spent most of the day at home taking it easy with the kids. Got a few jobs done including taking the Christmas tree down and Jen has started setting up the nursery (which has been a storeroom for the last 2 years since we’ve moved in) - needless to say there’s lots of pink stuff

Two trips out in the new Prado today - one to the hospital for the first birth of 2008, and one to Bunnings with the boys to grab a few things. Yesterday we spent the morning down at Rockingham Beach playing around on the family boat, enjoying the new SeaBiscuit tube that Kyle got. Here’s some film of it :