Big Changes

There's a good reason why the blog has been quiet lately (in case you were worried!).

After 16 years as a school chaplain my time in the position has come to an end. I have finished up at Busselton and am officially looking for a new job.
There have been some issues and concerns along the way over the last couple of years and a certain level of unhappiness in the job. A recent dispute with the employing body could not be resolved and thus we have parted company. It was nothing to do with the school who were disappointed with the outcome, as was I, but I am looking ahead with a positive attitude and already feel a sense of freedom as if some weight has been lifted off me. I enjoyed my time as a chaplain and have some great memories and friendships as a result but it can also be a stressful and draining job and I have found it more of a struggle recently.

I am going to New Zealand in a couple of weeks to spend a week with my good friends Paul and Vicki so I can't really get a full time job until after that, therefore I'm just looking for some casual work at the moment. I'm also going to talk to a bloke at the small business development centre shortly; I've had some ideas brewing away for a while and now is a good opportunity to do a little more thinking about it and see if anything can be translated from idea to reality.

To the Dump

I load up the trailer with rubbish and debris from around the house and head out to the tip.
Upon arrival there are half a dozen other cars & trailers/utes emptying their loads.
As I start throwing stuff off the trailer I spot a couple of interesting looking things amongst the mounds of refuse. I also notice that I am not the only one scanning the tip with more than casual interest. Several other blokes are doing the same. It's as if we're meeting for secret men's business, not saying much but clearly thinking the same thing: "I'll just go and have a closer look at that..."
Encouraged by this unspoken cameraderie I start poking around. The first thing I do is load up a TV, printer and a few old radios for relocation to the electronic goods recycling section. Their dumpers were obviously too lazy or in too much of a hurry to separate their junk. Then some car batteries which too have their own section. Good deeds done I can now focus on genuine scavenging. The greenie mantras include "Recycle" so it seems only right that I should rescue the unopened tube of glue, the police video, the lotto barrel toy and the Trivial Pursuit set from becoming landfill. A more speculative retrieval is the electric hedge trimmer. Surely it musn't work or it wouldn't have been thrown out (ha!). I bring it home and test it and sure enough it doesn't work. Curiousity satisfied I put it in the rubbish bin. The challenge is to go home with less than I came with. I manage, just.
Sport Boy programming Mrs Holt Press' new phone, a task so technologically demanding it requires an 11 year old to do it.
Monday was Spike's 18th birthday. We only have one child left! It was a low key celebration. Favourite Daughter is in Halls Creek and The Heir was sick and unable to come down so five of us including Spike's girlfriend Lauren went out for dinner at the Jade Chinese restaurant.
The food was average but the company and the occasion were good.
My second son and third child is officially an adult. Happy Birthday.

Recent Drawings

Gold Squid
Purple and Blue
Purple Circle
Orange Flower
36 Squares

I'm Back

I didn't plan to go blogless for a week but computer problems and other more important issues lead to it occurring.

I had a very long shift in the cab last night and have had a bad headache for much of today. I'm feeling OK now but my body clock is out of whack. On the plus side it was the busiest night in the cab for several months so the hard work was at least profitable.
The customers varied from a couple with a 10 week old baby and a labrador whose car had broken down and needed to get to the holiday house they were staying at in Yallingup to three young women who at best could be descibed as feral! More so on the way home than on the way out.

I dragged Sport Boy out with me for a while to go garage saling where we found a few watches, a snorkel and mask, a free Dockers bag and one very grumpy proprietor who I'm sure must have charmed his customers all morning. To be fair, his ad had warned that "Early birds would be charged double"!
We ended up close to one of Sport Boy's friend's place so we "abducted" him for the afternoon, which has now stretched into a sleepover with fish and chips for tea.

I've spent the rest of the evening catching up on recorded TV, reading the paper and drawing.
And monitoring Tottenham's progress resulting in a 2-1 win away at Portsmouth.

I'm looking forward to the day of rest.

The retreat finished this afternoon and was a resounding success, rave reviews all round.

Caught a lift up to Perth with Steve and Cam, good to debrief on the way, and talk footy. And other more serious topics like marriage and relationships.

I met up with Sport Boy and Favourite Daughter who had driven up early this morning in my car. We bought some dinner at Goreng Goreng in Mt Lawley then Sport Boy and I went to see Perth Glory play Adelaide United in the A-League. The first 70 minutes were pretty boring but the last 20 were flat out and exciting with Glory scoring the only goal of the game, having a player sent off and surviving a wave of attacks through brilliant goal keeping, stout defending, and downright luck.

SB and I are staying the night at Letchy's before heading home tomorrow morning, after we take Favouriter Daughter to have a look at a Kombi campervan in Parmelia.

It's been a very good day and a great week, except for Shane Mumford being traded to Sydney!

Go Cats

In case you hadn't noticed, I haven't blogged for a few days. Surprisingly the world hasn't come to a stop, the internet hasn't gone into meltdown and most people appear to be carrying on with life regardless!
I've been laying low and doing a lot of drawing. I had planned to show you the results but my pc is not cooperating with very much at the moment. My virus protection expired and even though I renewed my subscription I am having a LOT of trouble installing the update. Thus, anything that needs signing into, like Blogger, is inaccessible. I am using the laptop in the meantime. I think I'll have to get a PC geek to come and fix it but it will have to wait a few days.
I'm going on a retreat tomorrow, I'm hosting about 20 chaplains who are coming to Busselton for three days.


I've been hunting for old watches recently and I hit the jackpot at the Scouts op shop in Geelong. There were none on display but when I asked if they had any one of the ladies (above) went out the back and re-emerged with a box full of exactly what I was looking for. I bought the lot! They asked what I wanted them for and when I told them they are for a new mixed media painting I'm planning they said they'd like to see it. I haven't started it yet but in the meantime I promised to put them on my blog. So here they are. Thanks ladies.


Scott Darlow is a BIG Geelong fan too, in a previous life Scott was 1/2 Cat the Cat's mascot, so when the two of us met up at the Grand Final it was hugs and celebrations all round. He told me it was one of the greatest days of his life, on a par with the day his kids were born.

That reminds me of something I heard the other day. Unrelated but very funny. It was an Irish bloke at country week, the coaches and parents sitting around one night having a few drinks and the subject of marriage came up. "My wife and I would have divorced years ago but neither of us wants the kids"!!


Cam Mooney is one of my favourite players, he's a real barometer for the Cats. If he plays well and kicks goals we almost always win. He's had problems kicking at goal at times but he kicked two in the GF, as did Tom Hawkins who has also had accuracy issues. Everyone stood up when it counted.

Another one of my favourites is Paul Chapman, he is gutsy and tough and a real big-game player. He could easily have won the Norm Smith medal in 2007 and for that reason I put $5 on him to win it this year. He duly won the medal and I picked up $35 woohoo!

A sampling of the colour and support for the Cats in Geelong for the Grand Final. Most businesses were displaying Go Cats signs and blue and white colours and nearly everyone was wearing a Cats jumper or shirt or scarf or beanie. It is suggested that when Geelong win a game the local economy is boosted by a million dollars. Who knows how much a premiership generates but anyone selling anything blue and white was on a winner.

Country Week

Sport Boy's country week team, LNJSA 13s, won both their games today, 5-0 against Karratha and 2-0 against Goldfields which means they will now play off for third and fourth spot against local rivals Bunbury, CCJSA, tomorrow at 12 o'clock.

He's had a great time, not just playing soccer but making friends and having fun. He's hardly got any voice left. He'll need the second week of the holidays to rest and get over it!

I'm looking forward to getting home tomorrow and seeing Mrs Holt Press and the rest of the family.

I'm not looking forward to the early start in the morning!