We won't make poverty history??

Had an interesting chat with a friend on the weekend... he asked about the Live8 concerts, looked at my Make Poverty History armband and said "You won't, you know." I processed his meaning, then started to explain the goals of the campaign... halving world poverty etc. He went on to explain that if the world was given a clean slate, if everyone had the same wealth and opportunities, then people are still going to rise up and exploit other people who will then end up in poverty. "The Bible says there will always be poverty... etc etc".

I agree - the liklihood of completely erasing all forms of poverty from the world is pretty much nill. But that doesn't mean that we shouldn't do anything about it. I'm sure my friend would agree, but implicit in his statements was the extra sentence... "so why bother doing anything at all?".

8 guys in Scotland can make decisions that will change the lives of millions and we should try to influence them to make the right decisions.

I believe there is no worse wrong that we can do, than to have the ability to save someone's life, but not to do it. I'm guilty of it...

PS The whole G8 summit has changed with the bombings in London I guess...

Badly Grown Garden

Presenting... a feat of engineering, nature and art, created at 9:30pm last Saturday under lights...

'Badly Grown Garden'

Named in honor of 'Badly Drawn Boy', who's soundtrack to 'About a Boy' we were listening to during the garden's creation. If the name turns out to be ironic, then we can always call it 'Bradley Grown Garden' - a fact pointed out by Ben Smede. Thank you Ben. Although the garden IS a joint project and it would be quite unfair to give credit to only one half of the team.

Inhabitants include a chilli bush, some lemongrass, two tomato plants, a rocket plant, thyme, and oregano. Updates on BGG's progress will be published regularly.

In other news...

• Julie (Di's sis) is coming to visit for 10 days
• We picked up my Mum and Dad from the airport yesterday, back from a megatour of Canada
• We ate at Sur Taj on a WEDNESDAY night for the first time in memory. Thanks to a visit from Mark Dingle. Non-Tuesday Sur Taj food is wonderful. As is Tuesday food...
• 'Downfall' is a depressing war movie. Go see it if you're into that sort of thing. I thank my ancestors for immigrating to Australia before the World Wars!

Happy New Financial Year! (If you're into THAT sort of thing...)

A closeup of the pride of our backyard... 

Satellite Photo of Our Place - Thanks Google!

Google maps have added Satellite photos for lots of the world! Here is out place! I love it! You can't see our new plastic table in the backyard OR our brand new garden.

Like Michael as a long time fan of KeyHole, I was very excited at the release of Google Earth for FREE. Google IS fast becoming an evil empire. Someone has to do it I guess...

Satellite Photo of Our Place

Google maps have added Satellite photos for lots of the world! Here is out place! I love it! You can't see our new plastic table in the backyard OR our brand new garden (named Badly Grown Garden since we were listening to Badly Drawn Boy while constructing it...).

What's the White Band??

Hey everyone!

Di and I went along with Ben, Sarah and Chey to the launch of the Micah Challenge in Brisbane last night. The Micah Challenge is basically a worldwide Christian organisation getting behind the Millenium Development Goals that all 191 UN Nations have pledged to meet by 2015.

The Micah Challenge, along with the 'Make Poverty History' campaign and events like the Live8 concerts are all trying to raise awareness and put enough pressure on the governments of the world to keep the commitments they've already made to getting rid of poverty. At the moment, most countries are lagging behind their goals. Australia is one of the worst. It's pathetic... they know what needs to be done, it's not going to make a shred of difference to our wealth, but our government is not doing it!

SO - if you could spare a few moments, please

• Email John Howard about this
• Sign the 'Make Poverty History' pledge
• Write to your MP (Fortunately our guy, Kevin Rudd is on board with this. UNfortunately, his party is not the government at the moment!)
  
• Check out all these websites and learn more about it!

B.

PS Yes, the time is right - this WAS written at 4:54am... I couldn't sleep.

Solo Daisy Hill Ride

Went for a 15km mountain bike ride around Daisy Hill - found some fantastic single track... the red squiggly bit on the right-hand end of the map above. I think my 104kph maximum speed is fairly impressive... ??? (I think tree cover affects GPS quite a bit!)

Friday afternoon fun in the office... 

Keeping up with the Neulings...

My ride home from work on Wednesday!

I regularly ride my bike to work. Yep, I'm a fit, strapping young lad. Approximately once a month I get my tredley out and organise myself to ride the 16kms to work in the morning and home again at night. Usually it needs some other form of persuasion too - such as a new 'thing' that I buy for my bike. This week it was a $5 LED light I picked up in Hong Kong. Not much - but enough to get me off my lazy butt and ride!

The weird thing is, I really enjoy the actual ride to and from work... I just hate the getting up an hour earlier to get ready, and how I have to be organised enough to have clothes etc ready so I can shower/change at work... pathetic excuse I know!

Anyway, another motivation this week was to log the ride with a GPS unit and download it using Sportsim and MotionBased (both pointed out to me by Mikey) so I can view my ride and play it back and do other sorts of useless, nerdy things with it! WEEHEE I LOVE IT!

Bring on the geek/nerd comments... come on - I dare you! Rate this as more or less nerdy than my Zip Zap post if you wish...

I'm such a car guy...

My 1967 Shelby GT-500 Zip Zap radio controlled car.

Di's pulling an all-nighter to get her last assignment in tomorrow, so I'm doing some really useful things around the house. Like playing with my Zip Zap

If you don't know what a Zip Zap is, then next time I, or someone you know goes to the USA (or if you live there, next time you go to the mall), buy one from Radioshack! They are the coolest, funnest little radio controlled cars around! You can even get a Herby one now I see!

My project for this evening was to install a 28000RPM 'racing' motor - repalcing the 21500RPM 'performance' motor that came standard. I also installed the 'turbo' performance gear and some extra-wide rear street tyres. The result was a definite increase in speed and grip, but a decrease in Torque. To be expected I guess.

Here ends my Zip Zap report.

Zip Zap and controller/charger 

I'm back and Glen's back!

I got home from Hong Kong this morning and received a phone call a few minutes later to say that Glen was ready to pick up from the mechanics. Car was stolen for 1 week, and it took 3 weeks for insurance to sort out towing and mechnical checks and get a lock replaced! I didn't mind taking the bus so wasn't really chasing the insurance company, but gees - that is a long time!

I went and saw Star Wars Episode III - managed to find a cinema putting it on in English! There were Coca Cola sponsored storm troopers there! I think George ripped out a pretty good Star Wars movie this time! Loved it. 

Harbour view at night - Hong Kong island from Kowloon 

Hotel city view 

Our Peking Duck 

At the 'Police Club' with our host in Hong Kong. He's an ex-policeman so can come here to hang out and eat great food. 

Bamboo scaffolding fascinates me! 

Ian snapped this during the downpour the other night 

Ian exiting the restaurant where we ate.