Watching a bunch of overpaid wimps running around with oversize pillows on their shoulders to protect their fragile egos made me a little bit excited about the real footy season ahead.

The Fremantle Dockers have a pre season scratch match on tonight, and it will be interesting to see how it goes. Press have been reporting that the Dockers have had a very hard pre-season, with the impetus being the need to redress the last quarter fadeouts that plagued us last year. If we had been able to turn a few of those 10 points or less losses into wins…anything could have happened….. (sigh)

Unusually for the press at this time of year, we are not installed as pre-season favourites along with other much more qualified teams. Maybe thats a good sign.

Tarrant is not injured, Hasleby is back, Pavlich is a superstar, and likely to play a more ‘James Hird midfield fix it” type role.

Grover is the leagues most underated defender, and hopefully has put the emotional and personal turmoil of last year behind him. Mr Pharlin is awesome.

With the best ruckman in the AFL (Cox is heavily overated)…and the best first year player of 2008 at his feet, Hasleby picking up the spoils, Hedland fit and firing…..who knows?

I have my new membership card…I am ready….

Biggest crowd we have had at ‘regular’ church yesterday…..approaching the size of the crowd we had at our launch.
A lot (lot) of new folk…coming back and staying.
We ran out of communion elements….we had to open up the back doors…..

It does make you feel overwhelmed. I have always been a pastor of a church hovering around the 80-100 mark, and I have known everyone…..well.

I still make it my business to introduce myself to new people, and to shake hands at the door.
But we are actually utilising the systems we have put in place now. Pastoral care leaders etc.
A loss of feeling like I know everyone and what is happening in people’s lives.
But as we grow, and continue to grow, this is only going to become more so. Interesting times ahead.

Number one son…..has turned eight.
Late last night Melinda and I were reminiscing about his birth. It seriously seems like yesterday, now he is growing into a fine young fellow…and my mate.

I pondered long and hard about what to buy him. He is developing his own personality and interests. He is not going to be a sportstar….although I am hoping he will enjoy exercise and being outdoors…and he does, he loves the beach. I suspect if we lived closer, and he had more of an oppportunity, he would be a surfer…like his dad ‘pretended’ to be when he was young. I use to have a thruster on the back of my bike, and was regularly found down at Triggs and other beaches, near North Beach…often. Even.. and especially on Fridays…when I should have been at high school.

I settled on a digital camera. I know he is young…but they are cheap. 8 megapixels, 3 times optical zoom, face recognition and stability….all for under $100. If he breaks it…it is not a tradgedy. So far…..he has taken around 100 pictures. He loves nature, little creatures…and computers. I reckon this interest may be something he pursues. A love of computing, photography and design….something good.

Another thought to consider as I work through emotional intelligence.
No one fits the mould. No one is exactly what or who some test says they are.

The heart is deciteful above all things.
It lies to us…about ourselves.
Who we think we are, may be totally off.
How we operate under stress may be totally different….we may operate under a different set of personality/emotional traits.

“put your head up and face the world head on son….”
So I say to my son as he and I walk from his classroom.

I believe that knowing Jesus gives us the courage, curiousity and passion to approach life with a positive, frank and loving attitude.

This article from an avowed athiest is fascinating. I don’t quite agree or understand why his atheistic views gives his observations more credibility, but they seem too.

“Whenever we entered a territory worked by missionaries, we had to acknowledge that something changed in the faces of the people we passed and spoke to: something in their eyes, the way they approached you direct, man-to-man, without looking down or away. They had not become more deferential towards strangers – in some ways less so – but more open. “

H/t

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