So I’ve been training hard for the Bridge to Brisbane. I’m doing pushups to get some upper body strength. This will allow me to push people out of the way and to support myself when I get to the end and need to lean on something.
However I’m also walking whenever I can. I fit in a bit here and there on the way and back home from work. I’ve also done a couple of walks around the area during my week off work last week.
All in all, it’s all going gangbusters and I’m looking forward to doing the actual walk at the end of August. Don’t forget to dig deep and give! Every dollar helps.
My mum has been working hard over the last three years to organise a community garden in her local community. The official opening was today and Natalie and I went down to check it out. Natalie has even put together a video of our trip (and also a review of some new pens she recently bought). You can check out her other videos on YouTube as well.
It’s a space to allow people who don’t have the space, or who enjoy community company, to get together and grow their own veggies. There are around 40 plots of 3 meters x 3 meters which is plenty of space to grow enough veggies for yourself and to have some left to spare. There are even raised beds for the physically disabled to allow them to enjoy the fun in the sun.
I’m very proud of my mum and what she has achieved. She even had the audacity to ask for more money for more beds (as seen in the video). My mum is awesome. They estimated that over 300 people attended this afternoon’s opening. That’s amazing to be honest. Maybe it was due to her becoming a media tart in the last few days.
Lets hope we can get some stuff like this in our local area soon. I’d love a garden bed to get into a grow some veggies of our own!
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This year I’ve decided to enter the 2009 Bridge to Brisbane. I’ll be walking 10km on August 31 30 (thanks, Natalie!) with a team of people to get some fresh air and exercise. I’m really looking forward to it.
I’ve decided that to make it something extra special, I’m going to try and raise some money for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. My wife, Natalie, is a Type 1 diabetic and I see each and every day how this affects her. It’s the time it takes to monitor her sugar levels, the sugar lows and highs (both can be dangerous) and anything I can do to help raise funding to assist in the fight against this I will do. Almost anything. If you are serious and have enough cash, ask – you never know.
If you visit this fundraising page you not will be helping me, you’ll be helping my wife and others like her. So if any of my blog posts have ever spoken to you, or if you just want to help a good cause and feel warm and fuzzy for a moment, please give whatever you can.
I have decided to aim for Target 1000 – $1000.00 from you, me and others will help the foundation fund research into cures and treatments for this disease. I’ll be bringing you regular updates on my training progress between now and August 30, with regular reminders of the fundraising drive. I’ll also bring you how we are progressing towards Target 1000.
I work for the Queensland Public Service. It isn’t something I would normally bring up on my blog — I don’t like to bring attention to career as a public servant. My views on this blog are mine and have very little to do with my job, other than everything in my life shaping my opinions.
Many of the fine folk who work in the Queensland public sector could be earning a lot more money working in the private sector. A big mix of skills and experience that these people have allows the public service to provide services to Queensland that no private company could. Many departments can’t be profit making – would you expect child safety officers to try and turn a profit? Can you imagine a business surviving long on that business model?
The government pays well and has good employment conditions, but there is a cost as well. Public sector staff work many long hours, and at upper levels with no overtime entitlements. Costs are kept to a minimum at every opportunity in order to provide front line services.
“But you get hours and hours of paid flex time?” I hear people scream. Flex time, or ADOs as they are often called, are hours that you have to work before you can take them off. So you might be required to work a 37.25 hour week, but you work 42 hours. That adds up and eventually you might be lucky to get a day off.
Then again, you might not. Many can’t take a day off as there would be no one else to do their job. Don’t think that flex time just accrues forever either. There is almost always a limit where you lose your hours if you don’t take them. And many workers either feel a duty to not take them or just can’t find the time/get the approval to do so.
This is just in the ‘regular’ public service where you aren’t dealing with front line services. Think about all the child safety officers, housing officers, nurses, teachers and police officers who work long hours for less than they could earn elsewhere.
There will always be those in any workforce who use and abuse systems and entitlements. But don’t let that fool you into thinking that the public sector isn’t full of lazy workers who do little more than drink from the golden goblet and head off at 3pm each day.
Giving workers 2.5% increases in pay each year is an insult. This is LESS than inflation. Add in the expected increases in fuel, electricity and other life essentials and it’s clear to see that it isn’t fair. It’s tough at the moment to keep good workers and this step is going to be another reason for those who are dedicated and stay for the betterment of the state or the clients they serve to pack up and get a better paying job in the private sector.
(Disclaimer: I am a Queensland public servant, but these are my views and not those of my employer, or of my pet llama.)
Cardinal George Pell has come out and made it a really Good Friday for Pope Benedict XVI (they need more papal names it seems) and supported his recent comments made to the media. Seems nothing so sinister and isn’t all that surprising, considering his position within the Catholic Church. Until you read into it more. Then you realise that it is disturbing and quite dangerous.
The Cardinal, who sadly I have to admit is an Australian, has come out in support of the Pope’s comments that the use of condoms was actually making the AIDS issue worse in Africa, and not better. Instantly I know that the scientists and politicians of the last 10 to 20 years are wrong and the Catholic Church are unbiased and trusted source of science on this issue. Please.
We should not be quick to judge. We should check whether this is what the Pope really said. Perhaps it is some misquote from a rouge journalist who picked up something he is supposed to have said from an unreliable source. No, it’s a Reuters journalist and it was uttered at a media conference.
“AIDS cannot be overcome through the distribution of condoms, which even aggravates the problems,” he told media persons on March 17 while on his way to Cameroon.
They also reported that the Pope has a better solution for this AIDS epidemic:
According to the Pope, combating the spread of AIDS requires a ’spiritual and human awakening’, friendship for those who suffer, and a ‘responsible, moral attitude toward sex’.
Awesome. A very viable suggestion. We will stop people who are having sex knowing that they might get AIDS by giving them a spiritual awakening. They don’t need to know about AIDS and be told of all the possible ways to help stop its transmission. Just get them to pray that they won’t want to have sex anytime soon.
What needs to be done is that out of touch organisations, who are more concerned about their own pontificating than the wellbeing of its followers, should get a grip and come around to the 21st Century. It isn’t going to go away any time soon. There will be no apocalyptic horsemen, although global warming might make them think they are in Hell anyway.
Start providing the right sort of education to all people around the world about the dangers of AIDS. Be sensitive to their backgrounds and current education levels so that they can understand what they are being old. Provide good quality condoms only and provide them for free so that everyone has some. We shouldn’t be making money out of fighting an epidemic.
Edit: You can here his media stop in this AFP video on YouTube. It seems AFP won’t let you embed their videos, even if you are a paid affiliate. And I’m not even close to that.)
