My view and thoughts on everything!

"The subject of my laughter was because the bookmark was advertising, wait for it, the 'National Public Toilet Map'!!...After all, I was in Canberra, a city that has 'circuits' instead of roundabouts and a Parliament that has a lawn on its roof" A couple of days ago, my wife and I thought we would drive down to Canberra and attend an event held by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). Our main reason for going was that a good friend of ours, Jia, was one of the keynote speakers at this event. We had a great time and got to talk to a number of ICRC members about their work across the globe. As we bade our farewell (we were driving back to Sydney the same day - 600 kms round trip), I noticed a stand that contained some informational leaflets. I decided to check them out while waiting for my wife. There was one in particular that drew my attention. It was shaped like a bookmark and had the Australian Government emblem on it. I decided to pick it up

"One can only hope that Santa has an air-conditioned sleigh, otherwise he is going to be reeking really bad in that fur lined red cloak!....Suddenly, you notice a passenger standing up holding onto a rail with armpit raised" Even though it’s not quite summer here in Sydney, it is certainly starting to feel like it. Already the temperatures are rising, and the nights are getting sticky (and that’s not because Justin Timberlake was in town recently he he he). This year it seems that the humidity has started earlier than normal, as we don’t often experience that humid, clammy feeling until January at the earliest. So for the vast majority of people living in Sydney, we can expect perspiration to be the order of the day for the next three months. One can only hope that Santa has an air-conditioned sleigh, otherwise he is going to be reeking really bad in that fur lined red cloak! With the possibility of reindeer droppings, the mind boggles as to what the combined smell would be l

"It is quite surreal to walk into a department store and see these 'winter images' ... Try cooking a roast turkey with all the trimmings when the mercury is nudging 40C! It's not a pleasurable experience at all!" This morning I took my two daughters to the local supermarket as we had to pick up a few odds and ends. Although it is our local supermarket I had not visited it for a few weeks. Partly because I had been overseas, and partly because, well, I hadn't! Anyway, as I walked into the store, straight away my eldest spotted some Christmas candy sticks (sort of striped walking sticks - but obviously not on the same scale!). Immediately she said 'Dad, I think we should get some for Christmas". My reply was "not today, Christmas is many weeks away yet." When we got home, I realised that Christmas is not a long way off at all but only five weeks away. My second realisation was that I need to start seriously thinking about the family Chri

"The milk only lasted 3 days! Yes, that is correct, just 72 hours!!...So far, no one has shown any signs of a milk addiction" This is a follow up to my two earlier blogs where has all the milk gone and looks like the milk is still disappearing where I mentioned that I must be living on top of a ‘Milk Triangle’ similar to that of the Bermuda Triangle. In this case it is our milk supply that is going missing and not planes or boats! Well, I can announce, rather frustratedly, that this problem has gone from bad to worse! Last Sunday we purchased 15 litres of milk for consumption by the family. At present our ‘family’ consists of three adults and two young children (aged 5 and 4). For a ‘normal’ family 15 litres of milk would probably last the best part of a week, or even longer. Alas, this is not the case in our household. The milk only lasted 3 days! Yes, that is correct, just 72 hours!! Putting on my mathematical hat that means 1 litre was being consumed every 4.8 hours. Sin

"The class, oops introduction night, started with….a prayer! I began to think, in my groggy food poisoning state, that maybe I had turned up to the wrong place!....Then the Principal asked if there were any more comments while fixing me with a steely glare. I looked away and pretended I hadn’t heard the question." A couple of weeks ago my wife and I attended an introduction night for a local Catholic school. The reason for this was because we are thinking on enrolling our eldest daughter into it when the new school term starts in late January 2008. This school would represent the first year of ‘big school’ for her. Since mentioning the words ‘big school’ our eldest has suddenly become ‘grown up’ and even started to boss around our youngest! It’s amazing how children change their habits so quickly (even quicker than what a Nun could do – very bad joke!) when they think they are growing up. Anyway, there were a few issues about attending this introduction night. Firstly, my wif

"Workmates also suffered my powers of persuasion and I managed to influence Jia and the Bunno Bumpkin to take up blog writing!....I am popular in the US city of Tulsa as it is my 6th most popular city! " When I started writing blogs I didn't really think that anyone would be remotely interested in them. To my surprise I soon found out that people all around the globe were clicking on to my blog to read my tales of catching buses to Kellyville, watching Fairy DVD's with my daughters, discovering a Milk triangle (Bermuda Triangle for our milk supply) in the house, travelling to Ashfield from Sydney via Broken Hill! and so on. Even more surprising, especially to myself, was that I have continued to write blogs at fairly regular intervals. I honestly believed that I would be able to write 6, or maybe 7, and then that would be it. I also thought that the novelty of having a blog site would wear off. How wrong could I be! This blog is my 24th effort since mid July. I soon r

"In fact, the amount of milk purchased would have been enough to feed all the starving children of Africa!...Could it be that when I am sleeping my daughters are tiptoeing downstairs, using the telephone to call their toddler friends and inviting them over for a midnight party A couple of months ago I wrote a blog called 'where has all the milk gone?' //http://dw-perspectives.blogspot.com/2007/09/where-has-all-milk-gone.html The premis of this was that despite buying copious amounts of milk it always seemed to vanish. In fact, the amount of milk purchased would have been enough to feed all the starving children of Africa! Anyway, things settled down soon after I published that blog and I thought that, maybe, it was just a blip on the radar. After all, not every plane disappears over the Bermuda Triangle. So it seemed that my very own 'milk triangle' had decided not to make all our milk disappear every time. Naturally my two daughters (and even my wife) seem t

'I apologised and handed him a $10 note only to find the shop assistant still looking bemused. I then realised that I had given him 10 Hong Kong dollars and not Aussie ones!...you can be assured a 5 and 4 year old will not let you sleep, especially when they are continuing with the rugby tackles' Well I've been back in the land 'Down Under' for just over a week now and I really feel like I never went on an overseas trip. I guess that is the thing with reality. Once you arrive back home your holiday, trip abroad or whatever the reason was that you ventured overseas for seems very surreal. I suppose there's always the photographs for you to look at to remind you of your 'great adventure across the ocean'. One of the things all travellers have to get over, especially when flying half way around the world, is jet lag. Now jet lag is not just the fact that you are in a different time zone. It is also about having to deal with a different climate; culture; lan