Baggas' Blog

• Awesome weather. Constant thunder,lightning, and heavy rain. Just wish I wasn’t on-call with 3 babies on the way this morning.. #
• Had to drive to the hospital in the middle of a thunderstorm for the first baby – two more still on the way at least #
• Crazy day! Hot water system died. Back fence blew down in the storm… and still waiting to be called out for 2 more babies to be born #
• On my way to 3rd delivery – C/Section this time. Looks like a section of fence has blown down at church also #

Local shots 15

Originally uploaded by baggas

Well it’s been a wild, stormy day, but at least we’ve been treated to a pretty spectacular finish

Our backyard

Originally uploaded by baggas

Major storms in Port Kennedy today. Constant thunder, lightning and heavy rain for much of the morning. And this is what happened to our fence..

Today’s been a crazy day in general. I’m on-call for the hospital. Have already had 2 babies delivered today with at least one more on the way, so I’ve been driving back and forth to the hospital in the heavy rain. Also our gas hot water system stopped working this morning so we had to call out the gas man to fix it in the pouring rain. Not looking forward to getting the bill for that.

What’s your theological worldview?
created with QuizFarm.com

You scored as Neo orthodox

You are neo-orthodox. You reject the human-centredness and scepticism of liberal theology, but neither do you go to the other extreme and make the Bible the central issue for faith. You believe that Christ is God’s most important revelation to humanity, and the Trinity is hugely important in your theology. The Bible is also important because it points us to the revelation of Christ. You are influenced by Karl Barth and P T Forsyth.

• Spent some time down at pre-primary this morning doing a ‘doctor talk’ for the kids – lots of fun #
• Nothing worse than a bureaucrat who wants to be petulant – wasting minutes of my time and denying my patient her treatment Grrr #
• Just reminded of how much I like African people – there’s just something about their character that is cool #
• Parent-teacher meeting this afternoon. I can already predict what she’ll say “Owen is a lovely boy, well behaved, but has awful handwriting” #

• Sudden deluge here. Good weather to be inside. I love having the window open listening to the rain pour down. Just a shame I’m at work #
• Seriously looking into enrolling in Uni again next semester – just trying to ascertain exactly how much time and travel will be involved #

Jetlag is all in the stomach – www.6minutes.com.au

This story just popped into my inbox, which suggests that it may be easier to reset your body clock when food is scarce. In other words, fasting before a long flight might help reduce the amount of jet lag you feel. This data is derived from animal experiments and has not yet been validated on humans but it’s worth thinking about.

If nothing else it just gives one more excuse to avoid eating dodgy airline food…

On the Trail, One Aide Looms Over Obama – NYTimes.com

For a young, single, athletic, educated guy, this would have to be one of the best jobs in the world. This story from the NYT looks at Reggie Love, 26 year old personal aide to Barack Obama. If you’re a West Wing fan think of Charlie and you’ll get a rough idea of this guy’s job – assistant, friend, training partner. Better yet, read the article.

And not only does he have a cool job but he’s got a pretty funky name – Reggie Love.  Speaking of cool names, another good one I heard last week is the Australian Indy car driver Will Power. I once worked with a doctor who’s surname was Power – now that’s a name you can get creative with. I think if it were me I’d name one son William and the other Max. Anyone else got any naming suggestions for the Power family??

Went and saw the 4th instalment in this series yesterday with my brothers and dad. Don’t have time to write a full review but my advice is that if you even mildly enjoyed the other movies, you should definitely go see this one. It recaptures the whole vibe and feel of the series well, and the storyline and action sequences are what we should expect from the team of Steven Spielberg and George Lucas. They include plenty of in-jokes and references to their other movies – and not just the Indiana Jones ones – even Close Encounters and Star Wars get a look in. Harrison Ford does well, slipping back into the character like into a comfortable old suit. And they manage his advancing age very smoothly – at no point does the age factor seem stupid or unbelievable.  So go see it – a  fun and nostalgic way to spend a couple of hours.

Now we’re just waiting for the Lego Indiana Jones computer game to be released. Owen especially can’t wait to see that one…

• Heading off to Baldivis church this morning for my nephew Seth’s dedication #
• About to watch the new Indiana Jones movie #
• Increasingly impressed with Ban Ki Moon – for a diplomat, he seems unusually effective #
• Trying to work out how to adjust the action and intonation on my bass guitar – tricky #

• Just had a music workshop at church – really worthwhile #
• Watching Deadliest Catch with Jen and Owen – great show #

• Feeling a bit crook today so staying home from work. Still have a patient in labour though so will have to go deliver a baby at some point #
• Watching “Metal : A Headbanger’s Journey” on Foxtel – still waiting for 2 babies to be born #
• Both babies delivered now. So I am officially off duty for the weekend #
• Just cost me $255.90 to fill the car with petrol… ouch! #
• @hismethod – Prado. 180L (2×90) tank. Plus I fill it with Ultimate fuel which adds to cost. But at least it’s only once every few weeks… #
• It’s a day for music docos today – now watching a biography of on of my heroes – Bono… #

• Had Owen quite sick last night with a nasty cough so he’s off school today. I have a little bit of it myself. #
• Playing with Netvibes – sort of like a meta aggregator for all your social networking/media sites : http://www.netvibes.com/baggas #
• Ok so netvibes might be useful – helps provide a nice snapshot of all my online stuff. I’ve added a link onto the top of the blog #
• Heading out to the Last Drop Tavern for my sister-in-law Sarah’s birthday dinner #

I walked into the study this morning to find our two boys Owen and Luke sitting at the computer laughing their heads off. The video below, which they had discovered themselves on YouTube, was the reason. See what you think…

• Slow morning today. They booked me a half hour slot to excise a skin cancer which took about 10min. Gives me time for a coffee break though #
• Just watching our Prime Minister speaking Mandarin on the news – kinda disconcerting. And now the ongoing frustrating news about Burma #
• Economists are predicting the Australian dollar might reach parity with the US$ this year… wish I could take another trip to the USA.. #
• Drooling over Deano’s big iMac – beautiful #

P1040890

Originally uploaded by baggas

A while since I’ve posted any photos of Mia on the blog so here she is

Even this photo is a few weeks old. I’ll try and get some fresh ones onto flickr in the next day or so. It’s on my (new, paper based, super-functional and actually effective) to-do list.

Along similar lines to my last entry about wild west cowboys to be blamed for legalism in 20th century evangelical/fundamentalist churches, one of my favourite bloggers Fred the slacktivist weighs in with his take on C.S. Lewis’ book Prince Caspian :

I haven’t seen Prince Caspian yet, but since it was the “No. 1 Movie” this weekend, let’s revisit what that wonderful little book was about:

Prince Caspian is about beer.

He then goes on to quote Lewis from Mere Christianity discussing this very issue of legalism, especially relating to alcohol. And Lewis, as you may or may not know, enjoyed his beer. Fred’s interpretation of Prince Caspian is that the bad guys (Telmarines) represent excessively legalistic “anti-beer Christians” and the mission of the Pevensie children is to help Caspian and Aslan restore joy and wildness to the land.

It’s a long long time since I’ve read the book, and I’m also yet to see the movie (not sure when it comes out here in Australia) but it’s an interesting take on a classic children’s book. I’ll have to try and revisit it sometime soon.

You can read Fred’s post here.

You know the old taboos that used to abound in Christian circles (and still do in some ultra-conservative or fundamentalist groups) – like no playing cards, no dancing, no alcohol at all, no going to movies etc? Well according to the following quote from a book I’m currently reading, this sort of thing might be directly attributable to the excesses of the American Wild West! Who would have thought that all that stuff we know so well from old cowboy movies could have such a big impact on the 20th century church?

The origins of the dos and don’ts in American evangelicalism go back to the revivals in the frontier days of the nineteenth century. All of us have seen the western movies and the depiction of life in the western spread of the American frontier. The center of town is a bar with it’s heavy drinking, gambling, card playing, and lewd women. As Christianity spread west in the revival tradition, it was imperative for Christians to distinguish themselves from the crude, boisterous, drinking, smoking, dancing, card playing, gambling, and lascivious crowd. Christians, therefore, swung the pendulum to the other side and insisted on a cleaned-up life as a demonstration of a converted life and a spiritual walk with God. In time these outward expressions of a cleaned-up life turned from sin became the external marks of the spiritual life.  While abstinence from wordly practices was a genuine choice of an original generation of Christians, the dos and don’ts became for the second and especially the third generation of Christians an imposed structure of spirituality. The inner convictions that generated the original choice to refrain from wordly practices was lost. In it’s place now stood a legalistic ethos, that is, restraint from wordly practice became the sum and the substance of the spiritual life.

Unfortunately these dos and don’ts oten get in the way of seeing the real ethics of Christian spirituality such as the growth of character, the concern for justice, and the care of the poor and needy.

~ Robert E. Webber – “The Divine Embrace” p81

• Nothing like an amazon.com box to brighten up my day #
• Finished for the day. Just testing Twitter updating via SMS #
• Now testing twitter via mobile web. This way is probably cheaper… #
• Played parents vs kids at Owen’s soccer practice. I scored 2 goals in our winning team but was exhausted afterwards. Really need to get fit! #
• Whose stupid idea was it that notes on the bass clef are different to the treble? It’s a pain to learn to read one sort of music, not two! #

Local shots 14

Originally uploaded by baggas

Well this is part of the memorial to HMAS Perth, a guided missile destroyer that served from 1965 to 1999, including distinguished service in the Vietnam war. Rockingham is the site of a major naval base, which is I guess the reason they put this memorial here. Also nearby there is a huge ship’s gun turret, presumably from the Perth.

In the background you can see the blue CBH grain terminal wharf, where I spent many summer days while I was in medical school. I had a job there most summers shovelling grain, unloading trains and loading ships. The top tower of that wharf has one of the best views around – was a great place to sit and eat my lunch or dinner, or just hang out when there wasn’t much work to be done.

SO can you accurately locate Bolivia, Ivory Coast, and Turkmenistan on a world map?

If not then you have some catching up to do. Take a look at this video of a 2 year old geographical prodigy. I would bet that the vast majority of our high school students wouldn’t come close…

I know, it sounds like something they might be teaching at a Calvinist college, but actually it’s my suggestion for a compulsory course at our local government high school – how to cross a road. I am tired of having to slow down or stop for these kids who blithely wander into the middle of a stream of traffic rather than crossing at the lights or crossing areas. It’s frustrating enough that traffic slows to a crawl through these 40km “school zones” but to be continually stopping to avoid running over teenagers is too much. I’m surprised no one has been seriously hurt already.

About a month ago, with the aim of working on my health and fitness, I visited our local bike shop and got myself a reasonably good bike. The last one I had was a cheap one that rusted from disuse a few years ago. Well I haven’t been doing so great thus far, being so busy that I’ve only ridden it 3 or 4 times, and only short trips.

Well tonight I went out for a ride along the cycle path near our house, and was well rewarded with some great views of a gentle sunset over the ocean. All too often we don’t appreciate what a beautiful place we live in. I need to work at getting out on my bike more often, and scenes like this are a great incentive to do so.

Local shots 12

Originally uploaded by baggas

Down the park near our house with the boys. Owen is practising his bike riding (doing pretty good too!)

… and flickr is still not co-operating with this blog posting.. the photos make it to flickr, but not to my blog. I have to take the extra step of blogging the photo from within flickr… annoying

• Watching SBS world news – there is no better news program on free or pay TV. #
• Doing something I’ve never done before – putting new strings on a bass #

Local shots 11

Originally uploaded by baggas

This is in one of the better parks in Rockingham, with plenty for the kids to do – but I have no idea what the point is of these totem pole things. Is it some weird new age thing? Do they hold occult fertility rituals or sacrifices here in the dead of the night? Certainly doesn’t look indigenous to here.. strange.

Speaking of parks, keep your eye on this blog for some upcoming video of “The Best Playground I Have Ever Seen” and it’s right here in WA. I’ll post it up here over the next few days.

Anyway I’m off to dance around the totem poles.. :p

• Just had my Thunderbird bass guitar arrive that I picked up cheap on eBay. Can’t wait to get it home and plug in #
• John Edwards has finally come out and endorsed Obama. Surely this should be close to game over now for the Democratic nomination? #

Came across a video similar to this one on cnn.com today and thought I’d go on The Google and see if I could find a YouTube version to post for y’all. This is not exactly the same but it’s essentially the same basic story – classic Bushims! Ain’t the internets a wonderful thing!

• I’ve finally achieved my century of eBay feedback – currently 104 not out with a blue star, though I really need to stay away from eBay… #
• looking at the Federal budget – our family loses a fair bit on this one. First time I can remember actually being worse off after a budget #

Great article from Huffington Post (who also have one of the best iPhone news apps, though very US-centric). Although the author, Mike Lux, seems to have walked away from orthodox Christianity, he still seems to have a very good grasp of scripture. In this he challenges the extreme political conservatism of many American Christians in the face of the pervasive Biblical emphases to the contrary. Well worth a read, and in my opinion, he’s pretty much on the money for most of it.

I don’t think Australian Christians suffer as much from quite the same narrow political focus as our American cousins, however there is the potential for us to head in that direction. It will be interesting to see what transpires on June 21 when Kevin Rudd and Tony Abbott address Australian churches via webcast (see Australiavotes.org) I sincerely hope the focus of the discussion is broadened beyond the traditional favourite issues of conservative American evangelicalism (ie. anti-gay and pro-life) to include more pressing global issues of poverty and injustice. For example, will the government be held accountable for their budget which, in an act of tricky accounting, reduced our foreign aid obligations by over $1 billion over the next 4 years? This webcast is run by Jim Wallace (not to be confused with the excellent left-leaning American author of God’s Politics, Jim Wallis) and the Australian Christian Lobby. I’m not always 100% on the same page as them, but I do think thus far they usually keep their agenda relatively broad and not overtly partisan. Will be interesting to watch…

In the meantime here’s some of the meat of Mike Lux’s article that I referenced above :

Read the rest of this entry »

Local shots 10

Originally uploaded by baggas

This one’s from last week – Shoalwater Bay. My friend used to live a street back from this beach so we spent a lot of time down there as kids. I particularly remember one episode where we got freaked out by an angry seal when we tried to swim to Seal Island. We ended up turning around and going back to shore. Good times.

Time to update after a busy few days.

We spent the weekend down south in Manjimup visiting Jen’s brother. Stayed in a farm stay cottage which was nice for the kids, getting to feed and play with all the animals – donkeys, ponies, sheep, cattle, birds, an alpaca and others. Did a bit of four wheel driving in the Karri forrest down there and overall just had a good relaxing time. On the way back I trusted the GPS to take us the shortest route however this was not necessarily the quickest – we wound up driving along the “Blackwood River tourist drive” which was an incredibly beautiful winding drive along the river through hilly forest and farmland… but very slow. Lesson for the future : if the GPS says go one way and my judgement says go another, trust myself instead of the computer (assuming of course I have a fair idea of where I am and where I’m going).

The last few days have been busy with work and other things. Yesterday I got my car serviced and went to Perth to do a few bits and pieces. Sure glad I don’t live in Mandurah – the drive from Perth to Mandurah is just that little bit too long for my liking.

The other thing which may or may not be happening is that there is a chance I may be going over to Myanmar (Burma) soon to help in the relief efforts in the aftermath of the horrendous cyclone. Of course this is dependant on whether their government decides to issue visas for foreign workers to come and help. But my name is on the list with an organisation who are hoping to send a medical team in so we will see what happens. I would have mixed feelings about going and leaving Jen and the three kids including baby Mia, so it would necessarily be a fairly short trip but hopefully I would be able to do some good for people. For this sort of thing it’s Jen making much more of a sacrifice than I would be, by allowing me to go. So please pray for both of us, and the entire sitatuation over there.

Anyway for the time being there’s work to be done here and patients waiting to be seen, so I’d better get on with it.

Just waiting for my last patient to show up and then we’re heading off down south for a couple of days. Jen’s brother moved down to Manjimup earlier this year so we’re going down to visit them. We’ll be staying in a cottage on a “farmstay” type place which should be good for the kids – well the boys at least – even though this is Mia’s first holiday I doubt she’ll appreciate it that much. Look forward to getting the wood fire going for those cold nights. A cottage on a farm, wood fire, nice bottle of red – can’t wait to get going

Local shots 9

Originally uploaded by baggas

Penguin island on a gloomy autumn day.

Local shots 8

Originally uploaded by baggas.

Boring looking photo I know, but significant to me. This is the Safety Bay Scout Hall, where in grade 4 in 1984 I was part of the first ever class of students at Maranatha Christian School – we had a combined class of grade 4 – 7 students and around 40 kids total in the school.

Now I’m parked outside the current, much huger, Maranatha College waiting to collect my grade 2 son. I noticed the other day in the office here that they still have a few plaques with my name on up on the wall. Scary how fast time flies. Life is too short…

Just got some depressing news – one of my good friends from university (who was my age) passed away last month. I hadn’t heard anything about it until another friend who just arrived back in town after a couple of years dropped me an email. Even now, the only information I know is what I can glean from comments on his facebook page, which is very sketchy. We hadn’t seen much of each other in the last couple of years living busy doctors’ lives at opposite ends of the city, but even so I will miss him very much – he was a good mate. Wish I had’ve known sooner so I could have attended the funeral but my prayers and thoughts are with his family. We’ll miss you, Dean…

I need to get a batch of photos printed over the next few days. Usually if it’s just a few photos that need printing I’ll use our printer at home, which puts out pretty nice looking prints, but if it’s a bigger size batch I prefer taking them to a shop to get them done. I’ve used Harvey Norman printing a bit in the past because it’s nice and close to us, but the last time I went there the prints were awful quality.

SO, I’ll ask for advice… anyone have any tips on where is the best place to get digital photos printed, preferably in the Rockingham area (though other tips are welcome too)?? And if so, how do you get them done – glossy or matte? Do you use their “image correction” features or just print them as is? What’s your experiences on pricing and waiting times? … thanks

Local shots 7

Originally uploaded by baggas.

You could call it a beach, or you could call it a sea weed depository … either way Safety Bay is a nice spot.

Now let’s see if this works – the flickr blog posting is a bit inconsistent – the photos I send from my phone always make it to flickr, but don’t seem to then make it to blog every time. It’s a bit hit and miss – so here goes…

[yep - the photo made it to flickr but not to the blog. Although it's then easy to send it on using one click from the flickr website but it's a shame the mobile posting is not so reliable...]

Coffee in a can – Five Senses Coffee – Premium Coffee Roasters in Australia

If there’s a product that is wacky, strange, weird, or downright scary, you can trust the Japanese to come up with it.  And this product is scary indeed – canned coffee. The thought of it makes me shudder… but check out the above blog from 5 senses nonetheless – if for no other reason than to laugh at the hilarious photo of Dean!

And if you seriously want to explore more of the bizarro world of coffee in cans – then check out this blog for the full story about the life and super powers of ‘Boss Black’, or try cannedcoffee.com. Very disturbing.

Local shots 6

Originally uploaded by baggas.

Whenever my drug pushers disappoint and do not bring me lunch, I like to visit this joint up the road – Perth Noodle Wok. Always very tasty. Today’s meal – Phad Thai noodle box – and it was very nice indeed