Just found this. Figured I might give it a shot. Why bother with all the stuff in between eh?

I just signed up for Second Life as a man named Otto Bumstead. I have no idea what it is but SMH keep doing silly reports about it, so I thought I'd go become a virtual person. Hooray!

I'm the richest man in this whole damned world and in all the skies above.

We finished the massive weekend of filming today. Lesley has summed it up pretty well. I did have fun shooting today. It was interesting how much the impending announcement impacted the day. I told Matt this morning it was coming so he could manage the day well for the few people who had just found out at the morning service and the rest of the people who were about to find out.

But apart from that it was a fun shoot. I love the jib. And I really enjoying the camera. Shooting in Chatswood last night with big lights and council permission was heaps cool. Plus we have Guy with us who knows what he's doing. We feel like we're becoming more and more pro.

So good for us. Now I'm going to sleep. And sleep well. No alarm tomorrow morning. Thank you God.

Tonight Steve announced to the church that he is leaving the Church. He'll be gone in two months. He's off to take a job overseas. I've only known this since Wednesday, and it hit me for six. I had no idea it was coming. I haven't really got my head around it, it doesn't seem real. I haven't really been able to react to anything else since then. At least not at work. Wednesday was spent processing. Thursday was spent mainly in a staff meeting with the new team which was the oddest staff meeting I've ever been to I think. It's hard to figure out what's relevant anymore. It's hard to know how the year will look.

Everything is kinda up in the air. Of course, I'll still be the youth minister, and I'll still run the youth ministry. But who will run the church? And how will we find a new minister? How will we work with the interim minister? How will the church run when there is no senior minister for however long it is between Steve leaving and someone else arriving?

I guess everything is full of questions now. And I'm trying to process how I'm feeling. It's all pretty massive. I know what I thought 2007 was going look like. Now I have no idea. I just know it'll look different.

Finished filming again. Earlier than yesterday with no overtime that I know of. And I got an hour and half sleep in the middle of the day. Luxury.

We just finished filming. We were meant to go from 8am-9pm. But people left about half an hour ago. No worries. That's what happens when you make films, I've done them before.

I'm sure I learnt something important today but I haven't figured out what that is yet. I guess I'll get there when I've figured out which way up everything's gonna land.

The Google Plane isn't going to fly over our house. I was going to write "Bring David Hicks Home" on our roof. Oh well.

It's a good thing we all washed our cars today or otherwise it might not have rained.

Jo, Jem, Mil and I about to go on a community trip to get our cars washed. Soon, I'm going to have a smiling, sparkling van of love. Spink!

We bought a new gas bottle today because someone stole ours. And I just went outside to sit at our outdoor set and that's gone too. So now in the history of our house we've been robbed of a table, 6 chairs, a gas bottle and a laptop.

If anyone's seen any of them and wants to return them that'd be nice. I want to be able to drink beer outside without having to sit on the ground.

5:00 - Woke Up had quiet time
5:30 - Went for Run
6:00 - Shower
6:15 - Breakfast (Musili, mmm)
6:45 - Light Church History reading to keep the brain ticking
7:45 - Travel to work
8:30 - Check and reply to emails
9:00 - Write report
9:45 - Research for sermon
10:45 - Short break
10:50 - Bible Study prep for Term 2
11:03 - Help homeless man
11:04 - Back to Bible Study Prep
11:45 - Meeting with Bishop
12:15 - Lunch
12:45 - Phone calls
13:05 - Help Homeless Man again
13:06 - Resume phone calls
13:25 - Paraphrase Calvin's Institutes for Kids
14:00 - Meeting with Council Youth Panel
15:00 - Attend Prayer Healing Group
15:15 - Buy Carrots for the Dinner
15:30 - Fill out application form for Young Rotarian of the Year
15:42 - Refer Homeless Man to someone else
15:43 - Resume application form
16:15 - Prune Church Gardens
16:45 - Paint Church Doors
17:15 - Plan youth ministry care and support vision till 2012
17:45 - Visit from troubled youth
17:50 - Call Police
18:00 - Check emails and reply
18:15 - Go home

Really, I saw Tim off at the airport, went to work, did some, caught the bus home at the end of the day and watched most of Die Hard. Now it's off to bed. Filming tomorrow.

I was meant to go see the Dentist today but they changed the time on me and forgot to tell me. So I escaped that rather expensive and un-pleasant experience. But I just watched two episodes of The Sopranos so I keep getting flashes thinking that my Dentist is in the Mafia and he's going to pistol whip me for not turning up or something.

I've flossed every night since the last night I saw him except Christmas Eve, New Years Morning and one night when I was just too lazy. So hopefully he'll give me some mercy.

This could take a long time. These are the photos from the day Jo, James and I spent frolicking in the Cotswolds.



Being the navigator always brings you to the height of map wearing fashion. Note that I'm wearing my "Communist Party" t-shirt. It was the first time I wore it on the trip. I'd been too scared to wear it while I was in any of those ex-communist countries. I thought people might not have found it as funny.



Wheat



James and Jo walk on luscious Costwoldish Grass.



Now I know I went to England



Lost



Zipping along in the Mini of Fun. Boy that was a good Mini.



This graveyard was cool. Though not as old as I wanted it to be. No one buried in the 16th century or anything. Shame.

I thought it might be time to stick up my photos from when we were in England. I know it's been ages, but my blog is looking rather bare. So here are some photos of England land.



Actually this is in Austria. It's one of those toilets with a shelf. I needed to document it for anthropological purposes.



The clouds as we flew to England were pretty cool. We pretty much had sunset the whole way there.



More cool clouds



Everybody loves Buckingham Palace



"Superman" at the Odeon in Leicester Square. Yeah Baby!



Westminster Abbey



Our home in Oxford for three days

So there you go. Some photos. I'll stick up the rest, when I get around to it. Maybe now.

So we went shooting again on Sunday. I got up at 5am which was rather painful. I'd been planning to be in bed by 9:30ish, but the community house was visited by members of the extended community so 12:30am it was.

Anyway, I picked Helen and Jon up at first light and we drove to church to meet the crew and cast. Then it was off to Stockton Beach which was to double as our desert for the day.

Actually we made it to Stockton Beach only after breakfast and getting lost for an hour or two. But we got there.

Stockton Beach, as far as I can tell from the small amount that I saw of it, is the gathering place for the weekly weekend convention of dirt bikers. All over the place there are people with trail bikes and ATVs. This makes it difficult to shoot a scene that is meant to be set in a deserted desert. There's tracks everywhere and the noise of bikes regularly coming from all directions. Still we did our best.

During the day we managed to shoot all the stuff we wanted except one scene which we moved to a smarter place in the schedule. It was hard work spending all day walking around on sand, and harder work lugging equipment across dunes all day. And I didn't even carry the heaviest stuff.

The jib was good fun. And I'm enjoying having a camera assistant, who when he isn't distracted by the "Making of..." camera or anything else of mild interest, attends to my every need. Basically, after every shot (if it's hand held) I hand the camera to him and walk away. I hear this is standard industry practice. I'd feel bad doing it except the holding the camera all day might mean that the quality of my work goes down cause I can't hold the camera steady anymore I'm so tired.

I haven't seen the footage yet but I think I did a better job with Day Two than Day One. I'll watch the stuff tomorrow.

We finished our shooting at about 8:30pm. We all split up decided to travel home separately because we were tired and just wanted to get back quickly, but we all met up at McDonald's anyway. It may have been that we all wanted to avoid each other and accidentally bumped into everyone else none the less. The joys on only having one big rest stop between Newcastle and home.

I made it home by 11. It was a rather extended day.

So far today I've done pretty much nothing. It's been rather nice. I was thinking of cleaning my room. Which is still on the cards, but I'm downloading a trailer which is slow and has ground my super computer to a halt in almost all other areas. So now I'm down stairs blogging.

The reason I can't clean my room till my computer comes back to me is that I can't tidy up without music. It's physically impossible.

I have realised that in this house I am incapable of cooking almost anything except pasta. Which means that in these days of money saving attempts (which aren't working too well) the options for my home cooked meals are rather limited.

I think I might blog about Sunday. And seeing as it's Wednesday, it hasn't taken me that long to get there.

We had day one of shooting for Pilgrim today. It was a good day's shooting. Though I'm a bit disappointed with my work. When we watched the rushes it turned out that I was mostly over-exposed and a bit out of focus.

Part of it may have been the TV we were watching on. But still, it's a new camera and I'm not real good at figuring it out. I find the viewfinder really hard to focus with.

Anyway, I've going to have to do a better job tomorrow 'cause the stuff we shoot tomorrow is more important.

I did have a good time though. And today was useful for me to figure what I need to do tomorrow. One day I'd like to go to learn to actually do what I do, rather than just make it up as I go along.

After a day of sitting around the office trying to convince myself to do work, I went out with some of my lovely friends and watched Apocalypto, which, apart from being way too graphic in it's violence, was pretty good. The human sacrifices which showed you everything were a little too much. But the last half of the film is just this awesome chase. I loved it.

Mel's pretty good quality. Even if he does hate some of my family.

Work is rather strange at the moment. I feel like I'm rebuilding a Youth Ministry from the ravages of the New Year. Sometimes I have meetings or discussions that leave me feeling really optimistic, other times I end up wondering how it's all going to end up.

But in the end I figure God will look after it all. He's good like that. And I think it's going to be a good year. One of the best I reckon.

My room suddenly smells like a fart. But I didn't fart and there is no one else in here.

Was probably Rodney the Ghost.

Had a dinner with Jo Kemp tonight which was fun. Good quality she is.

Plus we had a meeting for the filming of the next production. It should be fun. I do like a good shoot. We're getting a jib. I do love a good toy.

I did suggest to Matt that was do a commentary for TOOBSC now that I've finally got it almost ready for DVD (it's only been three years). I think it'd be pretty fun. I've never done a director's commentary before, so I think it'd be tops.

I just want to free up the space on my hard drive.

I've decided that filling the hours between 10am and 6pm at work if you have no ministry activities is really hard.

I watched 21 Grams tonight. It was a very good movie. When Christians talk about films about redemption and forgiveness and condemnation, I don't know why they don't talk about this one. It was very special.

For when the loss burned, their cornfields became green again. - From the end of the film

Here's a news story for the ages.

I, for one, am outraged that such a thing could happen at the happiest place on earth.

I've preached once so far, and I'm preaching all day. Should be fun. I was up till 1:30am finishing the sermon. I had two days to work on this one and still it managed to fill all the available time.

I was up again at 3am chasing a mozzie around my room.

I'm a little tired.

Ryan and I just watched Picnic at Hanging Rock. For a classic Australian film, it wasn't very good. I expected it to be full of mystery and suspense. I was worried I might get a bit scared. Instead it was badly written and mostly about the subplots. It was much less scary than when I watched it as a kid. No one got eaten alive by ants, which is what I thought happened. I guess my memory was a little off.

Oh well. At least I've seen it all now.

You can tell you're procrastinating when you find yourself reading the list of financial contributions to Wikipedia for no apparent reason.

"Great minds discuss ideas. Average minds discuss events. Small minds discuss people." - Eleanor Roosevelt

I discuss all three. I'm not sure what that means.

Anyway, I think she's wrong.

She's also dead. But that's beside the point.

This website is cool.

I'm writing the 'Wisdom with Tabitha' scripts now.

Any suggestions?

For about 5 nights in a row I've had a mozzie in my room. I go to bed and turn out the light and then I hear "Zzzz". I wait till it gets right in my ear and I turn on the light and there is no mozzie to be seen.

I turn off the light and the same thing happens.

Sometimes the mozzie wakes me up its buzzing is so loud.

There have been a number of nights this week that I've found myself standing in the middle of my room at 2am, scantily clad in my night attire looking for this damn mosquito. I've seen him a few times, but I've never got to kill him. But one day I'll get him. One day...

When I was 14 I was on a camp and I was told that in 10 years only 10 per cent of the people on the camp would still be Christians. So when I went home I wrote a sign that said "Where Will You Be in 2007?" in an effort to remind myself to still be a Christian in 10 years time and stuck it on the back of our front door.

I remembered that tonight as many of us sat around following our New Years Day barbecue. And I thought "I'm here." In my family we've been talking about the arrival of this year for a while. And now it's here. I never thought I'd be here, living where I am, doing what I'm doing, but I'm glad I'm still with Jesus.

I'm thankful that I'm still a Christian. I'm thankful that all of my family are still Christians. I'm thankful that most of my friends are still Christians. I'm thankful that more of my friends are Christians now than they were in 2007.

Probably that camp in 1997 set me on a trajectory that has ended me up here. That camp motivated me to see teaching as important for my spiritual growth. It motivated me to own my spirituality. It taught me about the need to hold on to my faith. I think it started a fire in my that hasn't gone out.

It's been a great 10 years.

Maybe there was nothing in those statistics, but they pushed me, and here I am.

Hallelujah.

I wonder where I'll be in 2017...

Pet a snake: Yes. Done it. I'd love to own a snake.

Spend a week in an empty room: Only if I had to. Like if I was a political prisoner. Then I'd do it and think about how righteous I am.

Ride in a hot-air balloon: For sure.

Sky dive: Yep

Sing in front of a huge audience: Yes. Is 300 huge? Cause I've done that.

Scuba dive: Yes.

Sit in the front seat of a roller coaster: Done that. That's not as fun as the back because at the back you go fast down the whole hill. At the front you have the wait for the back to get over the hump.

Deliver a baby: That'd be cool. Although I think I would only be able to say "Push" and "You're doing great."

Swim across the Amazon River: If no one told me what was in it.

Change careers: I'd love to be an electrician

Disappear for a long period of time: Oh yes please. I'd love to.

Walk through the bush alone at night: Done that.

Join a space mission: Yes!

Tell everyone what you honestly think of them: Most people. Not you.

Call off your wedding: I guess so. If I thought I shouldn't marry the person. Probably, knowing my ability to procrastinate. I could have doubts a week after engagement and only get around to calling it a week before the wedding.

Walk naked through Hyde Park for 10 minutes during rush hour: No. At least not till I'm old and wrinkly and it's a really good joke.

Disarm a bomb: Probably not.

Clean the outside windows of a skyscraper: I often look up and think "I want that job!"

Draw a mustache on the Mona Lisa with a permanent marker : Not unless Jesus told me to, in person.

Go on tour with Elvis: That'd be the bomb!

Go swimming during a thunder storm: I guess so. But I'd be pretty nervous. I get nervous in the ocean at the best of times.

Perform surgery on your best friend: No.

Anyone else...

Thanks Lesley.

It's been a long December
and there's reason to believe
Maybe this year will be better than the last - Counting Crows

Because it felt like the time to pull the quote out again.

Happy New Year.

For all acquaintance be forgot, la da de da da daaaaa!

We braved the buses home. Those stupid horn things should be banned. I love fireworks. I'm happy to live in Sydney.

I'm feeling like I may have done the whole harbour thing now.

I'm looking forward to 2007 with you all.

G'night.