Baggas’ Blog

• Watched an evangelistic Jesus video at church this morning, but it had the unintended effect of making us want to move to Tasmania - lol #

• But the more I read about this Palin, the more risky the choice seems - a risk that might pay off, but could also be a huge disaster for … #
• Metallica’s new album looks interesting - a welcome return to their earlier style : http://ping.fm/Ho79e #

• Once again, just when I was starting to relax a bit, frustrated with the management of this place #
• Time to get out of here - has been a slightly frustrating day but looking forward to a nice weekend #

• Just looking through my calendar - after this week I am not working another full 5 day week until Oct 13 - so much going on! #
• Crazy day today. All sorts going on. Waiting for 2 babies to be born, hopefully in the next couple of hours… #
• Babies born. All good. Now have to run a few errands before a relaxing evening at home hopefully #

Yesterday evening we decided on the spur of the moment to have dinner down by the beach. Was a beautiful calm night and it was great just hanging out as a family. Been reminded a lot lately of what a cool place we live in and the need not to take it for granted. Definitely need to get down there with the kids more often.

• Doctors’ meeting this morning which was okay. Now stuck into another day of work #
• Seems the “fake cancer pastor” story has gone international… It’s now on the CNN website : http://ping.fm/Y68vK #
• Had a good long play with an iPhone 3G last night and was super impressed… if only I weren’t already on a contract… : #
• Still don’t like the new facebook, which seems to flip itself on randomly from time to time #
• No more patients - feeling very hungry - might be time to head down the local for lunch #
• Reading Brian McLaren in a pub… feeling very “emergent” right now… :p #
• Something special about coming home and making a beautiful cup of coffee - perfect shot of espresso and fine foamed milk… mmm #
• Italian dinner by the seafont with my wife and 3 kids - simply the best #

Always a sucker for a good quiz, Christianity Today have put up a Church & Politics Quiz. Many of the questions are very specifically geared at the USA and are fortunately issues we don’t seem to ever encounter here in Australia (like having national flags in the sanctuary and the notion of our nation as being somehow “chosen by God”) but it’s still very interesting and worth doing.

For the record my scores were :

• Part 1 Politically Engaged or Disengaged : 29 - You scored between 10 and 32, which indicates that you believe the church ought to be Politically Engaged
• Part 2 Chaplain or Prophet : 27 - You scored between 10 and 32, which indicates that you believe the church should take a prophetic posture toward the government.

This all puts me close to the centre of their grid, but within the “Quiet Critic” quadrant, which I suppose is fair enough. Not the most precise quiz of this sort I’ve ever seen but still worth a look. The Out of Ur blog is hosting a discussion of people’s results but there’s not much there as yet.

• Really hate having to write reports for lawyers. Don’t they realise that their stupid questions are just a huge waste of my time? #
• Police have foiled what looks like a serious plot to assassinate Barack Obama : http://ping.fm/fxRHb #
• Sitting in a cafe, working on some stuff (and found free WiFi too) but looks like they are getting ready to close… at 3pm #

Imagine I was a member of a local church of some variety, for example Baptist. And let’s say that some thing happened in that church that I was not too pleased with - maybe they changed the style of music, changed the carpet to a colour I didn’t like - or something a little more weighty like not electing my preferred elder, or employing a new pastor different to the one I wanted. And now imagine my response to such a decision - I kick up a big fuss in the church, complain and disrupt proceedings… and then walk down the road and sign up as a member of the local mosque! Doesn’t make sense does it? For a Christian, no matter how cheesed off I may be, I should remain within the Christian church - not go and join the Muslims.

This is how I see these Hilary Clinton supporters who are threatening to vote for McCain because she got defeated by Obama (and now also was not selected as his VP choice). I’m no expert in US politics but surely policies and party loyalties should come before personality? Obama and Clinton are not too distant from each other in terms of policies and would probably take the USA in similar directions as President, but both are miles away from Republican John McCain. So why would any person who previously supported Hilary give their vote to McCain instead of Obama? It just seems so incredibly childish and petulant to me. If they are opposed to President Bush, how could they risk 4 or more years of the same by voting republican purely on the basis of sour grapes?

Hopefully these fruitcakes are just a vocal minority (see the CNN forums if you want to sample some of their idiotic ramblings) and the majority of Clinton voters will get in line behind Obama. Will be interesting to watch the events unfolding in Denver over the next few days…

• Really detest the term “client” - doctors don’t have clients, we have patients! Don’t know why but it really bugs we people use that word. #
• Giving my stethoscope a long overdue wash #
• England are pretty happy about their Olympic triumph but they better not crow too loudly - turns out they cheated in the 05 Ashes - http … #
• http://tinyurl.com/5d6kp9 #
• Lunch by the sea with my two girls - doesn’t get much beth #
• Lunch by the sea with my two girls - doesn’t get much better than this #
• Another travel show I love : “Odyssey : Driving Around the World” - Brilliant show, on the Nat Geo Adventure channel #

• Really detest the term “client” - doctors don’t have clients, we have patients! Don’t know why but it really bugs we people use that word. #
• Giving my stethoscope a long overdue wash #
• England are pretty happy about their Olympic triumph but they better not crow too loudly - turns out they cheated in the 05 Ashes - http://tinyurl.com/5d6kp9 #
• Lunch by the sea with my two girls - doesn’t get much better than this #
• Another travel show I love : “Odyssey : Driving Around the World” - Brilliant show, on the Nat Geo Adventure channel #

• Wasn’t planning on watching the closing ceremony, but then I heard Led Zeppelin might be playing, so now I am #
• Thinking a trip to London in 4 years might be on the cards.. #
• Sadly we’ve only got 1/4 of Led Zep - Jimmy Page is playing but some chick is singing instead of Robert Plant #

• Taking my boys to see Clone Wars movie - have Iron Maiden on in the car #
• Star Wars : Clone Wars was actually not as bad as the reviews had led me to believe. And it was nice hanging with my boyz #
• Heading out for dinner with my lovely wife - a nice meal and sunset over the ocean #

• Heavy duty start to the day but rolling along nicely now. Must try and avoid wasting too much time online #
• Seems my problems with gmail’s spam filter have bee resolved #
• Trying to get Fring (mobile IM) to work but it won’t load properly on my phone.. #
• Arranging rental cars for Adelaide & Townsville trips. I’m inspired to hire a Porsche or similar in Qld but can’t find any online… #
• Just saw a woman being pulled along by a dog harnessed to a chair with wheels… in the middle of Rockingham! Unbelievable. #
• Watching the Golden Guitar awards on Country Music Channel. #

• Had to book my free AMEX flight before it expired.. so now I am off to Sydney for 2 weeks next April, though I have no plans to stay there. #
• Feeling hungry - hope someone brings me lunch today… #
• Seen my last patient for the day - still waiting on a baby to be born though #
• Sitting down to study in my new favourite café - still waiting on that baby though… #
• Havee been in a pretty good mood this arvo… but then got a phone call with some bad news I will have to break tomorrow… #
• Another new life enters the world… such a job of contrasts I have… #
• @obrienmb yes I always have been that kind of student. But strangely I’ve always studied better in cafes than libraries - go figure? #
• Wondering why my facebook status updates are not making it onto my mini-feed? #
• Finally worked out to connect my MacBook to the internet using Bluetooth and my phone’s 3G connection #

• Since I’m a Uni student again I might as well hang out at the Uni café - very good coffee  ;) #
• Finally got around to sorting out a place to sit my exams this semester. Was fairly easy once I found the right person #
• Nice to see Australia has once again overtaken Britain in the medal tally - we’re in 3rd place now behind China and USA #
• For some reason I lost all my Messenger contacts - had to re-add them all. Anyone else who wants adding just send me a msg.. #
• Reading about travel diseases makes me want to travel more… does that make me weird?? #

• Just had the best automotive experience of my life thus far #
• Quiet house to myself - just me and a sleeping baby Mia. So the question is what to do? Study, watch Olympics, play my new guitar, tidy up?? #
• Can’t understand why they keep interrupting the Olympics to show football??  But at least they’re showing Hand-ball on SBS, which is kin … #

• Lazy day watching Olympics today - but I can’t quite relax though, I’m on-call and have a patient in labour… #
• Have decided I think I would definitely like to work somewhere different. Might make some calls this week to see what kind of offers I c … #
• Here’s a new video I just uploaded of Mia and her brothers : http://ping.fm/Eu6rA  #
• Trying this again - ping.fm didn’t convert the link properly. Mia’s video : http://ping.fm/Eu6rA #
• Gold for Australia in the rowing! Second in a row #
• Gmail is still throwing almost all our email into spam. Frustrating having to continually check the spam folder. #
• Updated flickr with photos of my music gear / guitars, including my new Telecaster : http://ping.fm/QzoMJ #
• Have wasted far too much time on Facebook and other networking sites… time to go do some study… #

It’s great watching Mia get to know and love her brothers more as she gets older. She thinks they are hilarious, as you can see in this video…

• Seriously in need of some coffee - maybe that will perk me up #
• Presently feeling like I would be open to an attractive offer to relocate my practice… if any GPs happen to read this #
• Seen my last patient here for the day. Still have a patient in labour and then on-call for the weekend #
• Time to drink coffee and veg for a while #
• Oh and I musn’t forget - a nice chocolatey piece of caké #
• Music recommendation : Dierks Bentley - excellent country/rock artist. #

Social networking - it’s the big buzzword at the moment. Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and many others are the latest extension of the blogosphere, and are reaching a much greater crowd for whom maintaining a proper blog would not be considered. Politicians such as Barack Obama and many other well known personalities are using these sites to their advantage.  Even my wife now has her own facebook!

The two main sites I’ve used are facebook and twitter, which have different, but sometimes overlapping, uses. Facebook has been good for connecting with current friends and family, old friends from school and Uni and elsewhere, and even allowed me to maintain some contact with some Canadian friends I met in Uganda last year. The applications of facebook are myriad - from messages and chat (as Jen discovered for herself last night), photo and video sharing, through to a vast range of mini apps, ranging from the useful to the completely stupid.

Twitter is much simpler - you just post a short, SMS length message which goes onto a timeline of messages from you and your twitter friends. It’s hard to explain the appeal of this but it can be good for just posting quick status updates or having extended (though sometimes difficult to follow) conversations. A primary use of twitter for me (as for ob1 and others) is to feed twitter posts into my blog so as to maintain a level of activity here when I am to busy to create full blog updates.

And these are just two examples - there are plenty more other overlapping and different social networking sites.

The problem for some of us then becomes that if we are signed up to 2 or more of these sites it becomes :

• (1) a chore to keep them all up to date
• (2) difficult to keep up with the activity on all of them

I know there are some apps which attempt to solve problem 2 but I am yet to investigate them. However I have found an excellent solution to the first issue - http://ping.fm

Using this site you can type in your twitter style update (or a longer blog for sites which support that) and it will be instantly sent to as many of these different networking sites as you are registered for. As I said my 2 main sites are twitter and facebook, however along the way I have signed up with plurk, livejournal, myspace and several others - so this stops them from lying completely idle. It also has the advantage that I can update ping.fm (and hence everything else) not only from a web interface but also by IM and a range of other mini-apps, which is useful for mobile updating. Definitely worth checking out if you use any of these sites. Currently it’s still in Beta (though works perfectly) and you need a code to register. The current code is “pingitlikeitshot” but if you find that doesn’t work let me know and I’ll try and get you a newer one.

EDIT (Aug 16) :  new code for ping.fm is “vivalaping”

• Can’t be bothered with work at present. Dreaming of a fresh start… #
• The good news is my new guitar is “On FedEx vehicle for delivery.” Should have it today at last! #
• Finally my Telecaster has arrived! Looks awesome. Can’t wait to get it home and plug in #

• Crazy medical software here at work keeps crashing - the error message “Abstract Error.” Now that’s really helpful! #
• Some bright spark has decided to replace the kids playroom here with a Pathology room - when there’s perfectly good path place next door #
• My guitar is moving again. After some annoying (and expensive) hassles with Customs, it is once again “in transit” - won’t be long now… #
• Time for the first of 2 caesareans - my job is to act as the paediatrician. Already had one normal birth this morning. #
• Waiting for second Caesarean - printing out a mountain of stuff for Uni #

• According to Fedex tracking my guitar is in Australia but there is a “clearance delay” - what does that mean? How frustrating. #
• Now Fedex says “clearance in progress” - Am I the only one who finds package tracking exciting?? #
• Lunch overlooking the ocean… such a beautiful day today #
• Sitting down to another night of study. Tonight’s subjects … Malaria (ok) and Epidemiological study designs (bleh) #
• prefers the old Facebook to the new facebook (I think)… both are an unnecessary distraction anyway #

• Watching Olympic women’s basketball - Australia doing well against Belarus. These Olympics are going to make studying a challenge… #
• My new Telecaster has now reached Honolulu - wish I was there too. I love Hawaii! #
• Owen’s soccer team won 5-1 today which was a nice change. Now time to feed Mia and watch some more Olympics #
• @obrienmb - or you could update both using http://ping.fm #

The focus of the world is on sport over the next fortnight, and the best international sport not being featured in Beijing would have to be cricket. I’m not a huge sports fan but I have always been a lover of cricket. Cricket is huge in Australia, and heroes like the great Don Bradman are honoured like saints… but perhaps cricket is even more saintly than we imagined…

According to an ancient Armenian manuscript, Jesus may have played a form of cricket as a child on the shores of the sea of Galilee. Check out this fascinating story from The Age. It seems Jesus had an unfair advantage in this form of beach cricket though, with his ability to walk on water! Cool.

• Feeding Mia & watching a great Canadian show “Word Travels” which tells the stories of a couple of travel writers…. #
• .. it’s a good show because they not only tell about the place but the process they go through in finding a story, as well as their hassles #
• .. the episode I’m watching is set in Ethiopia … really makes me yearn to get back to Africa! #
• Just testing out ping.fm, which enables me to update multiple sites at once, including Twitter, Facebook and many others #
• Okay - so http://ping.fm seems to work well. If you want to try it, use the following beta code to sign up : “pingitlikeitshot” #
• Just about to sit down and watch the Olympics opening, with a textbook, macbook air, glass of red wine, and some salt & vinegar chips #
• Five minutes in and the Olympic ceremony is pretty cool - the kids have never watched one before and they are loving it! #

The Global Ambition of Rick Warren

this is a great article from Time about Saddleback megachurch pastor Rick Warren, author of the Purpose Driven Life. Warren cops a bit of flack on the Christian web, both from conservative dogmatic types and from some emerging types, for being a bit of a lightweight, too compromising, not conservative enough, not liberal enough etc etc - but perhaps this is part of his success. He has managed to present the gospel message in a way that connects with the average person in a real and meaningful way. Although a very smart guy, he keeps his message simple and direct so as not to overwhelm people.

So I’ve always kinda liked Warren, but his story gets better. Not content with having a massive church and being a best selling writer (who gives away most of his earnings though), Warren is now moving more into the political sphere. Fortunately he’s not just becoming yet another of the divisive, condemnatory Religious Right - rather he seeks a more conciliatory, unifying approach to Christian involvement in politics. He seems to see the role of the church as being a force for good, making positive changes in the world, rather than just a defense against bad.

He says he is more interested in questions that he feels are “uniting,” such as “poverty, HIV/AIDS, climate change and human rights”

Interesting article about Warren, his global PEACE plan for Christian mobilization, and his upcoming political forum where he will have both Obama and McCain together for one of the first times this campaign.

• Yet another morning of vaccinations, sick kids, and antenatal check-ups #
• Finally the guitar I ordered a month ago has been shipped from Seattle. Hopefully should arrive by the end of next week. #
• “Sexiest laptop ever” http://tinyurl.com/6jvvxf I just love this MacBook Air. Couldn’t resist taking the MBA vs MBP photo either #
• New practice letterhead arrived with the new doctors on - and they have completely deleted my name! I am getting very sick of this place… #
• WA state election called for Sept 6… hopefully we can finally get this crazy shopping hours issue over and done with after that #

• Lunch at the tavern … got asked if I wanted my usual table… lol #
• Never studied in a pub before… actually quite productive. Helps having my new MacBook Air though #
• Just got called to my patient’s delivery and walked into the wrong room - but that was lucky because that baby needed an emergency delivery! #

• Just checking out Google maps street view - they have a clear view of my house on there… wow that’s amazing http://tinyurl.com/5tx6oq #
• Not sure whose car is on my driveway in Google street view though?? #

• Very slow morning at work so I’m printing readings for Uni… and getting quite intimidated :\ #

• Studying with kids will be challenging I think. Between Mia crying and fighting Owen for my MacBook Pro I didn’t get much work done today.. #
• Heading off to watch ‘The Dark Knight’ - got my Batman tee shirt on. Should be a good one! #

• Heading to Owen’s soccer game. Once again it is pouring with rain in Perth today… #
• At my nephew Tobias’ first birthday party #
• Chinese dinner for the family at the Treasure Inn tonight. #

Ok time for me to knuckle down and get started studying, before I get too far behind. This is challenging for me in a number of ways :

• never done serious university study whilst working full time and having a family before
• never studied externally before - seems harder to find out just exactly what I am required to do. There has been little information forthcoming from the uni thus far
• it’s over 8 years since I’ve been at Uni and the technological landscape has changed considerably. Over the course of my 6 year medical degree in the 90s the internet gradually emerged from being completely non-existent to being a useful, but still quite peripheral, adjunct to our studies. Few students had laptops and they were rarely seen in class.

So in view of the third point especially, does anyone have any advice for me? I sat down this morning to start reading and taking some notes and then wondered if I should actually be putting these notes into my laptop instead of my awful handwriting. Should I be using a simple word processor (eg Word, Pages etc) or is there other software out there which is better suited to study and note taking?? (only Mac software please!)

• Trying a new cafe this morning by the beach. Bit of rain coming in over the ocean. 2 of my patients in labour today. #
• First baby delivered with no problems Just waiting for one more to be born some time this afternoon… #
• @ruraldoctoring - hopefully not. The 2nd is a multip. Really feel the need for some lunch but might go to the hospital first to check on her #
• @ruraldoctoring hopefully have time for lunch. Off to the seafront then… #
• @ruraldoctoring heading back to the hospital for delivery. Had just enough time for lunch #
• Second baby girl born for the day. Just in time for me to go pick up the boys from school #
• Got the music book CD for the new Hillsong album - still not sure about this one. Only 3-4 songs I really like - the rest are fillers.. #

Lunchtime view

Originally uploaded by baggas

Very wet day here in Rockingham. I got soaked between the car and the café. You can’t see it in the photo but there is actually an island a couple of kilometres across the bay, Garden Island. It is barely visible today. Just waiting for my oceanside lunch of fish & chips to arrive, hoping my patient doesn’t have her baby just yet…

Doing this as a bit of a test post to make sure all is still working properly.

My domain was hit by a bit of a spam attack over the last 2 days and we were without email and any that were sent to us during that period have been lost. It’s a terrible feeling to be without email, not knowing if I am missing out on something important. Almost as if the postman was in an accident and his motorbike exploded - we may never know what letters we may have missed, burned up in the accident.

Anyway, if you have sent me or Jennifer any important emails or the last 2 days please send them again. It seems like the email system is all back to normal again but I keep sending myself emails to double check. Fortunately I now have my uni email address which has been a useful backup during this time. If anyone wants this address it is paul . baggaley at jcu . edu . au

Anyway patients to see and babies on the way….