One Geek

My blog turned two years old today. Yay for it.

This world sucks 3 million people die of TB each year which is a treatable and curable disease. This is due to a lack of access to the correct drugs and diagnostics.

At the same time India has passed a patent law that prevents Indian companies from reverse engineering the new AIDS and TB drugs. At least the law allows them to countinue making the ones they have developed.

When the hell will the companies of this world stop holding the developing world ransom for profit. Screw profit let the people have the drugs at a fair price.

I installed google desktop search. It is such fun. I can instantly find the strangest old email’s and documents. So much better at searching then Windows, or even any mail clients I have. It’s like having gmail on your desktop. Beautiful!

Anyone want to see a $5 movie today at Hornsby with me? Before Commy Dinner some time.

Last night I called up 000. It was so fun but in the end anti-climatic.

Tom, Gwinavere and myself were in the car on the way back from Dee Why. On the side of the road we saw a little fire, near fitness first and office works on Pitwater Rd. We decided that we should report it. So I called 000.

I was greated by an automated message. Then a woman asked me town, state and service. Then they put me through to the fire brigade people. I told them where the fire was, they said they’d send out a truck and that was that.

Less then 3minutes to report a fire. Good fun all round. Please report any real fires you see. Don’t report imaginary fires.

Sitting here in my backyard doing a bit of work on my laptop. What a glorious day. Kind A good way to remember the risen Lord. Nice and symbolic. A beautiful Autumn day.

I can’t come to the group meeting next week because “I’m going to the Easter Show.”

I have decided to enable links on my blog now. They are not complete but they are a start.

I know that it’s becoming the latest craze. And people might not do my questions because I’m a blatant rip-off (like how no one is watching Starstruck after Idol) but I’ll give it a go anyway.

Comment on these if you read my blog (I assume you won’t be able to if you don’t read my blog)…

Name:
Age:
Blog:
Location:
Why you read my blog:
How long you’ve been reading for:
Where you first met me (if you have):
First Television Character you had a crush on (apart from me):

I think I am changing. It’s all a bit scary really. Part of me wants to just stay the way I am.

God seems to be blessing me with the gift of crying. It seems to have happened a bit at churchish stuff over the past little while. So much pain in the world, it sucks.

I am being challenged to live a more authentic faith. To truly love the least in my communities. To love my neighbor as myself.

I am also being challenged to spend more time with God, reading the Bible and praying. I am realising that whenever I get lost it seems to be because I have stopped actively pursuing my relationship with God.

Anyone interested?

Might even add veggie pasties and ice cream to the mix.

Finally got wireless to work at Uni. It is so buggy, the UTS IPSEC client hates my computer. But I finally worked out how to get it to work. Disable IPSEC policy and quit IPSECclient, repair wlan network, open webbrowser, Assign IPSEC policy, start IPSEC client.

So here’s the thing. I am committed to spending 2006-2010 serving the poor and marginilised in developing countries.

It’s odd thinking about how I came to be at this point. I never really thought I would be doing any work like this at all until some time in 2003. I don’t remember what started it. There where these internships you used to be able to do in Germany. It sounded like an easy way of getting to work overseas. It stopped being offered and so that dream was destroyed. I could of gone for the US, but I hadn’t meet Pete so I wasn’t sure if I’d thought I might not meet many nice Yanks.

Latter I started thinking it would be cool to do some work in developing nations. I was going to apply for this Youth Ambassodor program. But I couldn’t bring myself to fill it in. Required far to much BS for my liking.

But God bless Steve and Mim for leading me to TEAR. I wonder if I hadn’t ever meet them if I’d be earning lot’s of money right now. I am glad I did though. They have been great in showing what is possible. From then all the ball started rolling and I ended up in India for six fantastic months.

Thanks to TEAR for finding me a place to work.

Thank you Soul Survivor Sydney 2004 for giving me greater Biblical/Spiritual motivation for serving the poor. Thank you for providing the space which prepared me for the possibility of longer term then just my 6 months in India.

Thank you to my friends and family for supporting me whilst I was in India and before I left.

Thank you India for rocking my small self centred universe. For showing me some amazing and some horrific things.

Thanks to all the wonderful people I meet during my time in India. You were all such good quality. Many of you are inspirational people.

Thanks to EHA for providing me with work and friendships.

Thanks to my mates for putting up with all the India talk from this India Boy.

Thanks to Soul Melbourne for lighting the fire in my heart again when I was so tired.

Thanks to God for everything.

That wasn’t meant to be an Accademy Awards speech.

I still find it odd to think of myself as one of those super Christian people who go and do mission work. It’s hard for me to deal with that image applied to me. It’s so easy to get a big ego trip about this kind of stuff. To feel like your special because you have gone and spent your time serving. That somehow you are better then others. And also it is hard to understand how not everyone is as passionate about these issues as me. And not everyone is called to serve abroad.

I am not better though. I am a sinner. I am arrogant. I can be conceited. I am often proud and sometimes even self-righteous. I could go on but best not too.

I am no better then any of you who read my blog. I am just lucky enough to have been called on an exciting adventure with my Lord. Which is a great way to get to know Him more, cause I really don’t know him well enough.

So where do I leave this post. Well I don’t know where I am going next yet. I could end up somewhere with significant civil unrest. Or somewhere perfectly safe. Will it be in Asia? Africa? Somewhere else? I just don’t know.

So I am going to have a competition for my blog readers. What are the next three developing countries I am going to visit? Who ever is correct wins a postcard from each of the countries
correctly guessed.

Haigh’s Chocolates makers of the finest Australian Chocolate are opening up a shop here in Sydney. It’s going to open in May in the Strand Arcade. Remmember you heard it first here.

Just got home from Melbourne. Catching the last flight to Sydney from Melbourne for the night. Didn’t get all the work finished in Melbourne unfortunately. However I did have two lovely dinners whilst I was there. A penne in Flinders Lane, and Pad Thai at Melbourne Airport.