It is 1am, I am about to head to bed & it is 26 degrees (that is 78 for your Americans out there). Summer weather has arrived.

Strong Bad might have felt like he didn’t need Pecs because he was “AA”, but “All Abs” is not the only “AA” answer. There are any number of other answers you could give, “Alcoholics Annonymous”, “Amy & Andrew“, or “Arbitrary Answers” would fit too. Ansel Adams is also an viable answer. On this occasion Ansel Adams is also the correct answer…. that is, if the question was “who made the following quote?”

“Millions of men have lived to fight, build palaces and boundares, shape destinies and societies; but the compelling foce of all times has been the foce of originality and creation profoundly affecting the roots of the human spirit”
We all want to press our fingerprints into other peoples lives don’t we. That proof that we are unique & add something irreplaceable to the world around us. We may not even want other people to be able to notice it, but secretly we find comfort in knowing that the mark might be there, like initials in wet cement.
I wonder though, what drives this force. Is it the need to apply those gifts that God has lavished upon his people, or is it something darker? Is that drive at the “root of the human spirit” that of sin itself? Do we want to see ourselves on the dais, glorified before the people. Are we inflated and driven with our need to proove our self-worth? A pride that says we are incomparable? Rather than glorifying God through the gifts he has given us, we seek to use those gifts to declare outselves God?
Something for you to think about as you drift off to sleep tonight as you drift off to sleep.
“He must become greater; I must become less.” –> John 3:30

“Living in the moment”. A lovely post-modern kind of phrase. I’m not doing it too well right now. My body is firmly in the present, but my mind is somewhere around 9:30PM on November 21st.
I’m looking forward to being done with these exams. I’m looking forward to being extravigant with my leisure time. I can’t wait to wake at 10am, look across at the clock & then decide to go back to bed.
I’m also looking forward to some pretty fun social events. Any pretense of being able to call myself a “young adult” will be gone mid-November, when the big Three Oh hits.
My brother (in Christ) Timmy D. marries Christy in December, so that means New Zealand for the wedding! That also means a couple of weeks of driving around NZ & checking out what there is to be checked out…
I’m looking forward to reading when I want to read. Maybe getting back into the beach. Being able to hang out with the dudes at church.
And sleep, blessed sleep.
I miss sleep most of all…
“Leisure is a quality of spirit, not a quantity of time” → Eugene Peterson

So my love of certain aspects of American culture is documented. I love the burger joint & I once wrote about the Plethora of options available to the burger connoisseur. I am pretty sure I also posted a picture of some “Stewarts Key Lime Soda” that we had, whilst hanging out at a cafe in Kansas City.
This is a conversation I also had with some of the “Cedarville Singers”, a group from Cedarville Uni in Ohio, who came to my church (and some others) to do mission. It was also a conversation, apparently, that Lyndell remembered, resulting in a 4-pack arriving on my doorstep today!!!!
It turns out that Lyndell had a friend coming to Melbourne, so she gave the bottles to her & got them to post them from here (It would be WAY too costly to do it from the US). MOST impressive!!!
And also most tasty. 1 down, three yet to enjoy…..
Thanks Lyndell, and also Chrissy who I think I neglected to thank formally on my site when the two of you sent me some goodies earlier.
Reciprocity shall be exacted!

Clava Cairns. Culloden, Scotland.
You know, it is just shy of a year since I was standing at the Clava Cairns taking this picture. Man, time goes quickly!

Finishing an assignment after far to long.
Waking up to winds that were so rough, that some guys thought the dorm might get blown over…
Making my own T-shirt that said “I shot the Deputy!” on it. (It got the popular vote over my preferred option, the slightly criptic “Can I be your Boaz?”)
Having two worlds colide. College and old friends, both at a party.
Preaching a sermon that involved the phrases “The chicken or the Egg” and “how do you play Marco Polo with God?”

Doing the hard yards with the word to prep for the sermon.

The look of a man who is both tired and relieved…

I love a multicultural country and I love a multicultural college!
Jacqui asked me what I was doing for lunch today & I said that I could be up for going somewhere quick. When 1pm rolled around, we found that we had a group of 4 (Prilz and Mike joined the gang), so we decided to head to Burwood for some Yum Cha!
OK, I love Chinese food to start with, and Yum Cha is the coolest, cause you never know what is in half the little dishes that the people bring around, but the coolest of all is going to Yum Cha with two people who speak Cantonese! Jacq and Prilz had the downlow on everything, so we avoided the “traps for young players”, (also known as Spring rolls… “Such an Anglo-Chinese thing” I was told) and got to get down to the real deal!
One of my lifes goals was achieved when I got to try Chickens Feet! OK, so most peoples goals revolve around fulfilling careers, kids and making the first million, while mine rotate around edible avian appendages. Some might think that a little weak, but I think it is important! I like the thought that I can give just about anything a try. The concept of eating chook-foot is alien to my sensibilities, so if I can ignore that, then that is a powerful thing. a) Why let my western view control me, and b) how could 2 billion Chinese be wrong?
As it turns out, I don’t particularly like the taste of Chickens feet, mainly because I don’t really like meat off the bone & they are pretty much all bone & gristle!
The lunch was superb, and the afternoon was made when Jacq generously shouted us, then Prilz bought us all an egg-custard tart for desert (Mum, if you are reading, I know you are jealous now, even if you weren’t at the thought of chook-foot.).
Otherwise, there is very little to report. I have tried to keep myself locked in my room doing essay stuff & prep for a sermon on Sunday, and I have occasionally strayed to the closest TV to see Australia V. The Rest of the World team in Cricket.
OK, back to work….

Above, you have the pictorial representation of my day.
Actually, that is not entirely true. The Lion’s share of the day was taken up with driving to and from Gosford, reading stuff for an essay & walking up & down valleys to get to waterfalls & other such stuff. So when not doing the above, I managed to do a fair bit of…. the even further above.
It is always good when you get to go take pictures with another photographer. You see the angles they look at & it challenges you to find some new angle. You have an idea & then they build on it. It is a symbiotic thing. It is great. It is particularly good with people like Tom, cause this dude takes a pretty dang good photo!
So, it was a great day, but I am underwhelmed with the pics as a whole. I don’t know if I am getting worse at photography, or just fussier. What a worry!
Anywho, 12:13 in the am, LOTS more work to do tomorrow & a bed that is only 3 feet away… Is this post going to get any longer? You do the math!

So, I was thinking this evening that maybe my brother would have made an attractive woman. After all, Charlotte does look a fair bit like him, and she is a total cutie! Maybe he missed his calling? Well, he’s a good guy anyway, and Kristin seems to like him, so maybe he has done OK as-is.
Yeah, I have been in a writing kind of mood, but I think I should use my artistic feelings to fuel good essays, so this bad boy is going to get cut short.
Tomorrow day is going to be spent, in part, shooting pictures with Tom Carlos up in Gosford. Finally a chance to catch up with him. Should be cool. Then it is back for an exciting night of essay writing on the “Colossian Heresy”. Also fun in its own way.
Photo shooting tomorrow means I should also be able to have my third day in a row of posting on the site! Lucky you!
Lucky who?
Like my mate Chris, I can’t help but wonder who actually reads my site.
Go on, be adventurous, leave a comment. Make my day!
Cheeky little monkeys!

But for the faint wailing of a siren several suburbs off, I might be forgiven for thinking that I am the only soul an the streets of Sydney. As I slipped out the side gate of the college, it was otherwise silent. Families are already out on public holiday picnics, or else they are sitting in their lounge rooms wondering whether or not this warm weather has been here long enough to heat up the back yard pool.
People with a more nervous disposition might find an afternoon like this a little disconcerting, too quiet, a little eerie. Bolder souls like myself revel in the silence that is screaming out the name of a loving creator.
On days like this everything becomes exaggerated. It starts with my awareness of the swish-swish as I walk down the street toward subway (the streets, quiet enough that I can walk down the centre of the road & avoid the sidewalk). when I kick a discarded scrap of metal, the little clang rings out like it has been fed through an amplifier. I can even hear the beat of wings from the minor bird that passes overhead.
I don’t ever want to get sick of days like these. I don’t want to be impressed only by super spectacles, or awesome architecture. I want to make sure that I revel in this kind of stuff for a lifetime. A quiet afternoon, sunny weather bringing a warm breeze, even to the shadows. Squinting in the harsh sunlight and breathing in the sweet air, fragranced by the sweet scent of jasmine, hidden in one of the house’s backyards.
Elijah, I feel what you feel!
“The LORD said, “Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the LORD, for the LORD is about to pass by.”
Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the LORD, but the LORD was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake. 12 After the earthquake came a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper. 13 When Elijah heard it, he pulled his cloak over his face and went out and stood at the mouth of the cave.
1 Kings 19:11-13