Adelaide conference

Hi ho, been quite a while since I last posted. Just very busy - heaps of marking and other odd things to keep me away from the keyboard.
A big night of sport on TV - cricket, rugby, AFL - just watched the Lions come back from 47 pts down to win in the last few minutes - exciting stuff.
Anyway, last weekend I flew to Adelaide for an Anglican schools conference - a real honour and perk, I guess. Had to be up at 4am on Friday to be at the airport at about 5 and then on the plane to Adelaide via Sydney at about 6. A few strange things happened here and there but I must admit it was nice to fly QANTAS with free food etc, not like last year's trip with Virgin back from Perth, which was a bit painful. Flew with Lizzie there and back - her first time away from the boys, so I expected it to be a bit odd for her, but she stayed calm. Spent a lot of the weekend in the company of other female chaplains Sharon S and Sarah L - great people to hang with.
Stayed in Mercure - not a great experience. I had deliberately booked a cheap room to save the school some cash, but by golly, my room was miles away from the lift - down a long corridor, through a doorway, down some stairs, around a corner and then right down at the end of another very long corridor. My view was scenic to the extent of lots of rusty rooves and back alleys and some other hotel in the distance. After being up at 4 and then a long (but admittedly mainly fun) day, I hit bed at 10 gratefully, looking forward to a long sleep. I was appalled to be woken at 3.30 by a fire alarm going off in the hotel. I made it to the door but noone else was going down, so I went back to bed. There was a rumour later that some party-goers had come back with sparklers to their room, setting off the smoke alarms - sounds right. My room also seemed to be near a nightclub, with thumping bass clearly audible most of the time. Oh well.
Conference itself was described later by Paul B as more interesting than good, which I think is about right. St Peter's College was even more obviously wealthy than I had believed - rolling in cash by the look of it. Amazing grounds and facilities - put shots on Facebook. Huge main oval - huge assembly hall etc. We were all stunned that almost none of the keynote speakers bothered to use PPT slides or visuals when they had a colossal screen to work with behind them. Having them lecture us for about an hour at a time with no visuals was hard going in some cases. Worship services were also very bland indeed - very little imagination, I thought. The up-side of this situation is that it makes our job on the committee for Brisbane 2010 pretty easy in terms of doing better than this one; the downside is that schools may be seriously wondering if it's worth going again, and we'll have to convince them that it is! I was very disappointed that Tim Costello dropped out as a keynote speaker only a few weeks before the conference. There was no explanation of this at all.
Other highlights for me, apart from my first trip to Adelaide, included meeting Tim Cooper, CEO of the Coopers Brewery, who was good enough to autograph a stubbie bottle of Coopers Pale Ale for me - that one went straight to the pool room when I got home.
In other news to hand, Dec got another High Distinction in the UNSW Science Comp - the only kid at KSS to get an HD. Amazing stuff! They also had their 2nd last soccer game today, and I think we're all glad the season is wrapping up soon. They won only narrowly 4-3 against a team they have walloped twice this year - their form has really dropped since the mid-year break and I don't think anyone really knows why. Glad I'm not the main coach!
OK, better head to bed. We are hosting Neville's 50th birthday tomorrow and this will require vast efforts of cleaning etc after church. Talk again soon.

All sorts of stuff

Hi ho, Sunday night. Weekend disappeared yet again. At least some of it was productive - Magazine report for chess club, drafting etc, and on the home front, finally got around to cleaning and partly oiling the pool deck which was looking a bit overdue. Will try to get home early tomorrow to finish it off.
Declan away on cub camp all weekend. Had to drive to Sandgate and back Friday night, and same this afternoon - 2 hr round trip each time. Still, seems like he had a lot of fun, and of course any time spent away from family is good experience for a young lad, I would argue. Didn't get into too many scrapes by the sound of it.
Still going with the Chess Fiends on chessmaniac.com. Had an awesome win over a guy where I sacrificed my Queen with only a slim likelihood of success, but it came together and I prevailed. I resigned my other game against him, but it was the kind of buzz that chess like this is meant to create.
What else? This week is going to be big. Ekka day on Wednesday so a day off to do marking and get ready for the days afterwards. Thursday night we are heading up to Toowoomba to see the TGS production of JC Superstar and then I have to be at Brisbane airport next morning at the appalling time of 5am for a 6am flight to Sydney then Adelaide for an Anglican conference. Hope I can sleep on the plane or at least not stay out late on the Friday. Never been to Adelaide before but looking forward to it - won't be much time to look around though, I suspect. We get back 7.30 Sunday night and then straight back into school on Monday, so no time to fool around.
OK, better hit the sack - but I should mention we had Bp Tom Frame preaching again at church this morning and it was one of the greatest sermons I've heard in a long, long time. Admittedly, he was at least partly plugging his latest book 'Losing my Religion' but by golly, I'm going to buy a copy because it sounds great. He didn't have any with him today because he says they don't actually come out until Friday, but I'll be on it when they do, you bet. Ciao now.

Wasted time

Well, today was a pleasant and relaxing day in many ways, but also annoying owing to self-inflicted problems.
Tutor group: fine. I had the bright idea of using the data projector to pull up Youtube to show the latest hit clip - the JKWeddingMarch - basically a young bridal party doing cool moves as they all dance down the aisle in pairs etc. So we all enjoyed that.
Yr 10s - drafting their satirical narratives. No big dramas.
Yr 12 - drafting their resumes and letters. Several away, including the slackest baddies, so class ran pretty nicely, despite my need to confiscate a couple of phones during the lesson - they don't like that!
Then 8 RAVE times 2: finishing off Evan Almighty which has really grown on me as a film - not at all offensive, and if I may say so, a bloody good choice for a Yr 8 RAVE unit! Need to follow it up with a discussion of discipleship etc next week.
Then a lunch duty where I was somewhat incensed by 5 year 8 boys who crossed my path brawling and being stupid - they soon came to regret the error of their ways as they accompanied me on a big litter pick-up. Silly stuff!
Then lots of spare time this afternoon which I mainly misspent playing chessmaniac games - continuing my winning run but making I think a fatal error in at least one game, so I suspect I'm going to be a dead duck there. I was disappointed to find the afternoon had disappeared in that way, but maybe I needed the wind-down time after being amped up at lunchtime!
When Nigel and I finally took off and made our way home for the umpteenth time, something incredible happened.
We got to the big roller coaster section of the road at Mt Crosby and we were listening to basically an announcer's comedy routine when suddenly there was a boom on Nigel's side of the car and I found myself shocked to realise I had actually veered slightly too far over and had actually bounced off the guard rail! I was able to immediately pull over safely and we both jumped out. There's a long thin mark along the side of the car and perhaps a slight depression, but no major damage, which is pretty lucky. I felt incredibly stupid - how easy it is to lose concentration and of course having a passenger on board was embarrassing. It certainly could have been a lot worse in many respects. We got back in and took off and I was a little surprised at how calm I felt as we drove along - but then again maybe I am just a cool customer who's become used to adjusting to strange circumstances.
Haven't told Al about it as yet but probably will tomorrow - would be good to see if I could clean it up before she sees it, but I'm not sure that will happen!
Bed now - absolutely intent upon getting as close to 8 hrs sleep each night as possible from now on. Must get back into the gym routine as well, but I don't think tomorrow morning will be the day!
With prayers for a good, productive day tomorrow, ciao.

Spooks

Just watched the final in this series of Spooks. What a top show it has become, after maybe a couple of dodgy years here and there. Despite the unlikely subject matter, they do a great job of convincing us these kinds of things can happen around us (espionage, bombs going off, etc.) Hope it's not long before the next series is shown (and hope that it's not long before then).
Still continuing my good run of chessmaniac games for the Chess Fiends. Thought I'd completely blown one in my grasp today against rudi111 (who turns out to be a female Canadian) but I have it back in hand now. Still, I'm going to get clobbered soon in one of the other games, so happy to have seen my rating get up to 1605 today.
Saw Kates at Mum's tonight. She was here to get her kids before heading back to Sydney tomorrow. Looks well enough to me, which is good. Cooktown festival went well for all concerned. She was on the phone to Damian at one point and returned to report that he'd made $3000 on the stockmarket today! Golly, and this is the composer and arts writer living in a tiny flat with two kids. It's a mad world.
School was good today. Strugnells gave me the 2 bookcases from Sheila Dawson yesterday and I got kids to carry them into the office today, along with numerous cases of books to the library. An awesome collection. I have adopted a couple of books from the pile yesterday, including a book on David Rowbotham by John Strugnell himself, and some Bruce Dawe books, including one called 'An Eye for A Tooth' which is inscribed, 'Dear Sheila, Thanks for suggesting the title of this book' - Bruce Dawe 1968! Now, I rate both of those as small literary treasures of which I can see worth that others may not so I'm keeping them safe and sound right here.
Was seriously considering going to the gym tomorrow (first time since knee op) but probably too late to get out my gear now - Al asleep etc, and the more sleep for me, the better at present.
More funny stories to come tomorrow, I would say. Night night from me.

Tipping

My little nephew and niece Felix and Maggie are in town and staying at my Mum's. Maggie is a great little kid - I think she's about 3. Felix is about 5 and pretty demanding. I hope he doesn't get diagnosed as hyperactive down the track, but it wouldn't surprise me if he does. He is very impulsive with not a lot of obedience when it comes to being told to be quieter or to do things. Hope my mum can survive the weekend! They'll be at the other grandparents' place tomorrow then we'll pop over to see Kates and co again on Monday afternoon.
Thought I was a clever footy tipper again today when Raiders wacked the Broncos 56-0 but lost the feeling again after 2 massive losses by other favourites. At least virtually everyone else tipped the same as me, so no drama but I don't see myself soaring up the ladder by the end of the season.
Played a lot of chess for my team on chessmaniac this week - probably a bit too much and I'm certainly cutting down. So far so good with results but I still have 14 games active now and there will inevitably be some losses there.
Took all 4 kids to some Prep kid's birthday today, held at Rowdy Rascals at Jindalee. It was very noisy indeed inside and I was already feeling a bit headachey before we arrived. The dad gave us some vouchers for drinks which was good. Had some chats with Jamie S, old Anglican Youth figure from way back - now the father of 7 kids. I remember he and Tammy marrying very young - probably one of the first AYM couples to get married - but they're still together, so there you go. Didn't get a lot out of him except that having 7 kids is pretty darn hard and makes travel virtually impossible! Apparently Tammy brings the kids to school on the BCC bus each morning, etc.
Very happy with the way the Curriculum Review is looking at school. Consultant seems to know her stuff, and I am hopeful we will actually be able to position the school in a way which sets us up for many years to come.
Have now discussed LSL options with quite a few people, but we actually have no solid plans. Al still hasn't heard back from the job she went for last week, so we don't know if we are in place for a sudden income boost or not. Am following a travel blog from a colleague who is off on his own LSL trip around the US and Canada with his wife at present. I feel jealous as anything but also still hopeful that we will be able to get over there next year sometime. Better start getting a passport together first.
Time for some bed and read a bit of Book Thief if I can. C u soon.