31/01/2007 28.06m
Before she passed away, my Grandmother had been writing about her life. This is Gran’s story.
Heroes Live Forever – Vanessa Amorosi
Email me at andrew@andrewfaith.com
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Sunday was another day of relaxing.
Big Blackheath Breakfast at the Victory in the village – eggs, bacon, mushrooms, hasbrowns, toast and tomatoes along with a couple of large lattes. Mmmmm. Got my motor going.
Off home and a cake in the oven – another banana and passionfruit yoghurt cake to take to a picnic.
Anzac and I wandered over to the picnic held in the backyard of my friend and Buddhist teacher Renate and her husband Andrew. It was a lovely afternoon. The extra special guest was Venerable Robina Courtin, another of my teachers and also one of my Gurus. She’s absolutely incredible.
She came into the garden and saw Anzac and bent down and blessed him. It was fantastic. Normally he jumps up on people and licks them and carries on, but he was totally calm. He had a bit of a sniff and that was it. Very well behaved.
Yesterday I spent most of the day at the last day of a six day retreat with Ven Robina. I cycled the 10kms down to the retreat centre and felt like I’d never walk again.
Ven Robina gave a teaching and then people took refuge or renewed their refuge vows , which is what I did, and then we took the Bodhisattva vows. It was a really nice day and I came away feeling more positive about doing my practice than I have done for a while.
It was a nice night with the girls last night.
It started with a Vodka Martini. Entree was prawns wrapped in prosciutto with rockmelon on the side.
Then lamb roasted with rosemary, honey and mustard, roast salted potatoes and rocket and parmesan salad.
Finished off with pavlova covered in cream, strawberries, banana and passionfruit.
And too much champagne.
The girls left at 11.30pm and I woke up on the lounge at 3.45am – then went to bed.
A do nothing but the clothes washing day and I still have to wash up from dinner.
Definitely a quiet night and a simple pasta dinner.
26/01/2007 19:49m 18.2Mb
I’ve finally done it! My very first podcast. Let me know what you think. A bit of an introduction about me and my life.
Happy Australia Day.
Advance Austalia Fair – Human Nature and Julie Anthony
Email me at andrew@andrewfaith.com
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
So there is someone (you know who you are) who likes me without the beary beard thing happening.
So the question is:
With
Or without.
The most comments will decide my facial fate*.
*Unless I decide otherwise.
I’d like to welcome a new addition to the Faith family – my nephew.
Connor Jerren Faith born 15/01/2007 3:59pm 8lbs 1oz (3.6kg) 21 inches long (53cm) in Arkon, Ohio
And one of the proud Dad – see, I told you we’re identical twins!
Don’t know when I’ll get to see him, but hopefully this year.
Welcome, mate!
We’ve got two elections this year. The first is in March for the State Government and the second is around October for the Federal Government.
I’m normally a Greens voter, but I think I’ll be trying to use my vote in another way this year.
For 12 years we’ve had a Labor Government in this State. And it has to change. We’ve had reductions in Police, Teachers and Nurses. Now they’re trying to get more and saying look how we’re increasing the numbers. But they were the ones who cut them in the first place.
We’re in drought. Serious drought. And they want to install desalination plants instead of harvesting stormwater and recycling. Go to London, New York, Paris or dozens of other international cities and they’ve all be recycling water for years. I lived in London for seven years and I was drinking the water straight from the tap. But what does our State Labor Government want to do? Put in desalination plants that chew through electricity at a rate of knots and contribute to global warming – the main reason we’re in drought in the first place. They keep saying that people don’t want recycling – maybe because it just hasn’t been explained. The fact that the water we currently use is rated at 4-star and the water from recycling is generally rated at 5-star hasn’t seemed to be a factor.
The public transport in Sydney is a joke. It takes two and a half hours to get from Blackheath to Central railway station. Driving takes an hour and a half. You do the math. We used to have express trains from the Mountains to Sydney, but they’ve been cut. And now the trains stop at suburban stations along the way. When did commuter services become suburban? The city is becoming more and more congested, so instead of the ideal solution of reinstating trams, they do nothing. Apparently trams would cause more problems. Then why on earth has Paris started putting trams back in? And why is Melbourne transport so much better? They’re all about trams, and they’re brilliant! Trams are also a lot more environmentally friendly because of the number of people they can carry, but the State Labor Government keep saying no. We’ll keep building more and more roads and tollways. And when we retire from politics, we can join the companies who built them and earn a huge pay packet.
We were a great state with a great city – thanks to Labor, we’re in the bottom of a hole with no way out. I’ll be backing the Liberals this year.
As for the Federal Government. We’ve had a Liberal/National Coalition for the last 12 years. And it’s the same with them. I’ll definitely be putting my vote to Labor. Sounds contradictory?
We wouldn’t be involved in an illegal war. We wouldn’t have signed a free trade agreement that gives us nothing and the other guys everything. We wouldn’t be selling everything that isn’t nailed down, with more and more Australian iconic companies becoming foreign owned. Single people, the poor and the elderly wouldn’t be getting screwed by tax, prescription charges and the rest while couples and families are having money thrown at them. As a single person, I have to reach the same amount in prescription charges as a couple or a family before I get them cheaper. Tell me how that’s fair and right. Really, I’d love to know why I’m being punished for being single.
Countries all over the World are giving gay and lesbian people rights. Equal rights. We’re still treated as second class citizens. No Superannuation rights. No marriage rights (that’s a whole other topic – I’ll just say I don’t want to be married, but it would be great if my relationship, if and when I have one, was recognised). No medical rights. No adoption rights. Need I go on?
We need a change. And this is the year it’s got to happen.
Not really impressed with the Keynote by the iGod, Saint Steve.
The iPhone won’t be available in Asia/Australia until next year and it’s not 3G. Australia is moving completely over to 3G, so ’2.5G’ isn’t an option. And the Nokia N93 basically does all that the iPhone does. And it’s available now.
Apple TV can already be done in other ways, so that’s not really exciting for me.
Desperately wanting software updates and what’s happening with the iSight?
Don’t get me wrong, I love Apple/Macs as you know, but I’m thinking it could have been a whole lot more.
My 2 cents worth anyway.
You know when you go back to work after being on holiday and you really don’t want to be there? That was today.
It was a great run down this morning – only 1.5 hours instead of the usual 2-2.5 because people are still on holidays. But I didn’t really want to be there. Don’t get me wrong, I like the money, it’s just that I’d like to work from home again instead of travelling. I’d be able to sleep in a bit instead of getting up at 5.00am. I could spend the day in my sweatpants. I could walk Anzac for an hour in the morning instead of 30 minutes. Okay, maybe I’d still walk him for 30 minutes, but I’d have the option.
Anyone want to pay me to work from home?
Just a quiet night in last night – with a certain someone getting a cuddle on the lounge.
It doesn’t happen often. He’s over 25kg of solid muscle, so he gets a bit heavy after a while. Don’t get me wrong, it’s nice. And not in a weird way. M’kay?
It was a great afternoon. I went down to see Alexander and he, Sophie and I left mummy in peace and went to the park.
We had a great time on the swings.
Then we kicked the ball around, and finally had a climb on the monkey bars.
I’m not sure who was more tired. It’s the special times like these that make me glad I had the opportunity to become a dad. I don’t think I really want him to grow up.
Just finished the podcast with Peter and Pinoyboy from Oh My Pod.
That was the best fun I’ve had with my clothes on in a long time. Well, maybe apart from one of the dates yesterday, which was lovely.
We laughed, we talked and so you’ll have to listen when it goes up on Friday.
Welcome to my new home.
Being a complete ego maniac I decided it was time to invest in a website with my name.
It’s all done in WordPress, because, at the end of the day, I don’t have a clue about all this php stuff and I just added the bits and made mistakes.
And I couldn’t get the Blogger import thingy to work, so I thought I’d start again, though you can still go to the old website if you want to read stuff until I work out how to move it all over.
It’s still raining here. It hasn’t hit more than 19C in the past week. And this is Summer? Last year it was high 20s and low 30s.
I blame John Howard and George W Bush. They didn’t sign the Kyoto Protocol.
Be sure to listen to Oh My Pod too – I’m a guest on their show in a couple of hours time.
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