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Showing posts from April, 2008

Vehicular Incompetence - the parable of the handbrake

One of my tasks on Wednesday night was to drive Sally Morgenthaller to her hotel after a women's dessert and coffee night. I had borrowed by husband's work car in order to chauffeur the important international guest. Apart from this being a much nicer vehicle, a recent altercation with another car has left me unable to open the passenger front door of my own car... and I didn't think putting Sally in the back seat was a good look. But after I had loaded up Sally and her luggage, I realised something was wrong with the car. It shuddered, it lacked power, and my first thought was "Oh... something's wrong with the fuel or exhaust system." I drove some distance, but thought I'd better return to the church car park lest we have a breakdown somewhere in transit. Fortunately, I quickly found a volunteer who was happy to drive Sally to her hotel... a young woman in ministry who seemed quite pleased to be able to chat with Sally further. Sally's luggage was d

The next "Survivor" series

I received this email today... a pilot for a television series. Six married men will be dropped on an island with one car and 3 kids each for six weeks.Each kid will play two sports and either take music or dance classes. There is no fast food. Each man must take care of his 3 kids; keep his assigned house clean, correct all homework, complete science projects, cook, do laundry, and pay a list of "pretend" bills with not enough money. In addition, each man will have to budget in money for groceries each week. Each man must remember the birthdays of all their friends and relatives, and send cards out on time. Each man must also take each child to a doctor's appointment, a dentist appointment and a haircut appointment. He must make one unscheduled and inconvenient visit per child to the Urgent Care (weekend, evening, on a holiday, or right when they're about to leave for vacation). He must also make cookies or cupcakes for a social function. Each man will be responsib

Confessional: not much of a trainer

I was once the "official trainer" for an English Channel swimmer. This is actually far less impressive than it sounds. I had assured my friend Suzanne that I would go over to England for her channel swim. As I was the only person who had committed to do this when she registered with the Channel Swimming Association, she noted down my name as her official trainer. Her "real trainer" stayed back in Australia. As it turns out, another of Suzanne's friends Mary travelled to England with her and perfected her "feeding technique" (warm carbohydrate drink lowered from the Dover pier during practice swims; and passed from the boat during the actual swim). This left me with the "comic relief" role of singing songs all night (yes, it was an overnight swim) through a microphone. I also assisted in the swimmer "greasing" process immediately before the swim, did some videotaping of the swim (with inane commentary), and held out a torch beam to g