The life and times of Michelle, Glenn, Zoë and Bethany
The sneaky kebab that cost me $1,000
| Blogs - Glenn's Blog |
The $1,000 sneaky kebab...
This is a yarn about a $8.00 kebab, guilt over a small amount wasted,
and the disproportionate costs in outcome.
Last Tuesday I had a "TBA" day at work. This means that I was rostered
for work, but was effectively on "standby" at home. This in itself was
welcome because I was still weary and run-down after long hours the
week before testing some new locomotives. (not that I did much to
contribute, but just putting in the hours was tiring!)
So I slept in, then went shopping, and ran some errands. During this
time I got a bit hungry, having skipped breakfast. So I visited my
regular kebab store in Katoomba and bought a kebab. And hoped Mrs F
wouldn't find out.
Shakespeare wrote, "What a tables web we weave when first we practise
to deceive." We al know that the web weavers at St Andrews House and
Lithgow Anglican Church get away with web weaving with impunity and
disentanglement, so I figured my little description would be easy
enough to cover, including the $9.00 cost.
Although having said that I also knew Mrs F cannot be deceived, so I
carried guilt for spending money we don't have and fear of the I
evitible discovery of my deception. As an aside, the principal web
weaver tried to tell Mrs F I couldn't be trusted as I was an alcoholic
and if Mrs F was a fool if she didn't believe the informant. Such is a
tangled web of lies. But such is Mrs F's ability to get to the truth
that instead of destabilizing our marriage as was intended, it
strengthened us and our resolve not to be defeated by the tangler in
deception. What a shame bishops lack such discernment.
Anyway, I hung low at home until Mrs F and the little fs went to my
parents' place for a few days. So far, either undiscovered or
unconfronted!
By late Tuesday night my stools were flowing like a river in flood. A
dirty river. Assisted by stool stopper pills I made it through work on
Wednesday although I didn't make it through the front door, if you get
my meaning.
Suitably cleaned up I used my TBA on Thursday to recover and the lead
up to my 18:30 sign on Friday also to build strength.
But five minutes into work i ran over a colleague's iPad, left
accidentally in front of my car. There goes $1,000.
I am now sitting in a doctor's waiting room with exploding tummy and
pains all over. I've called in sick for tonight and tomorrow.
We evangelical and Reformed Christians do not believe in karma, and
rightly so. Otherwise there would be no explanation of the
"flourishing" of the web weavers after we were shafted for doing good.
But I can't escape the natural human response to a sneaky kebab
costing us a month's saving towards our mortgage we need to be saved
up for by August!


A letter written to Wran by Iemma
| Blogs - Glenn's Blog |
I am reading the book "Betrayal: The Underbelly of Australian Labor",
by Simon Benson (Sydney: Pantera, 2010).
On page 258 is a letter from Neville Wran to Morris Iemma on the day
of the latter's forced resignation:
> Dear Morris,
> The circumstances of your departure and your conduct throughout the whole distasteful affair reflect great credit upon you which, of course, could not be said of those who orchestrated the debacle. You
> will remembered your positive contribution to the party and
> the community long, after the Lilliputians, who created the impossible situation that confronted you, have been forgotten.
> Kindest regards,
> Neville Wran AC, QC.
The whole book resonates close to home; the ALP Party Machine with
local, state, federal and factional rivalries is not at all dissimilar
to the Sydney Diocese.

Need to catch up on CMS Summer School 2012?
Tags: cms summer school
| Blogs - Glenn's Blog |
Have you missed a session because of Church commitments?
Are you one of the wonderful CMS Summer School volunteers who direct the parking or look after our kids?
Were you too busy playing Angry Birds on your iPhone and missed one of Archbishop Jensen's more salient points?
Are you playing at home?
Well, youre' in the right place now:
Catch up on the 2012 CMS Summer School, as tweeted by its tweeting attendees!
So far we have online:
Keep checking for more!
CMS Summer School Day 2 by twitter
Tags: cms summer school
| Blogs - Glenn's Blog |
Welcome to day 2’s ‘Twitter Summary’ of CMS Summer School.
Before we begin, I have to announce a great tragedy. @jmoff, also known by his human name of Justin Moffatt, will not be at #cmsss this year. This means we cannot repeat our game of spotting @jmoff and reporting it on twitter.
We need a new twitter game this year. Please hashtag your suggestions with the usual #cmsss and #cmsgame. Thanks.
Now, the michelleandglenn.com clan managed to make it to #cmsss on time today. It’s a very long commute, from Eastern Leura to the site!
By God’s good providence we got Miss Nearly 6 on the bus and Miss 2 stayed with us in the tent. Miss Nearly 6 didn’t get much sleep as she was so excited about seeing her mates from previous years.
Warm-Up Tweets:
The usual warm-up tweets were exchanged before proceedings got underway:
@kenwest: #cmsss almost registered - long story!
CMS Summer School Day 1 by twitter
Tags: cms summer school
| Blogs - Glenn's Blog |
Despite living locally, I missed the "Day 1" sessions of CMS Summer School 2012. Partly because I've got little kids, partly because I'd just finished night shift in Sydney and was pretty wasted by the afternoon, and partly because it's unfair on Mrs michelleandglenn because she'd have to stay home and mind the tin lids.
But thanks to the miracle that is twitter, here's Day 1 of the 2012 CMS Summer School. Thanks to the tweeters!
The anticipation of the first session:
Thank you Apple, for the gift of "Find my iPhone"
Tags: apple | iphone | technology
| Blogs - Glenn's Blog |
One of the delightful features of the Apple iOS suite is "Find my iPhone". We're always losing them at home, and little fingers switch the volume off, so ringing them doesn't cut it!
Wrong gift?!
Some of you know I love the cartoon "Pooch Cafe", which I discovered when I was a daily reader of the Illawarra Mercury.
The Boxing Day cartoon made me laugh: primarily because I opened a parcel from my mum addressed to me. It contained a Jemima doll off Play School, obviously intended for one of the girls! ![]() Best regards, Give the ultimate gift... but it's already been given!
While I'd love to receive this as a gift, it hardly compares with the true ultimate gift that we were given on that first Christmas: the birth of God incarnate, the Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. He lived the live we ought to have lived, died in our place the death we deserved to die, and rose again to show he was fair dinkum.
Have you received this ultimate gift yet? It's free. What I always wanted to do, my contemporary did!Tags: applied-science-degree | computers | dreams | information-technology | inventions | linux
I started university in 1989. Across the other side of the world a bloke my age started university in 1990 I quickly became enamoured of an operating system called "Unix". Across the other side of the world my contemporary also did so. I started hacking Unix with moderate results, never for malicious reasons but to see how it worked. Across the other side of the world my contemporary also did so. I had dreams of writing my own version of Unix to run on PCs instead of MS-DOS (this was pre-Windows, of course!). But I never had the brain power to do so.
Across the other side of the world my contemporary actually pulled out his finger and did what I, and no doubt many, many others, dreamed of doing. The result was the operating system known as Linux. It's 20 years old this year. Click on this link to see an "infographic" from makeuseof.com detailing the history of Linux. And to Linus Torvalds, the bloke from the University of Helsinki who achieved my dream, well done mate! Divinity and Humanity and the office of ArchbishopTags: anglican | archbishop-election | bishops | church | church-politics
The text of the article is below:
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- That prayer from second form
- Interesting dictionary.com stats
- Apple FAIL: I waited 2 weeks and the buggers hung up on me!
- Worship the God of Judgement in Joyful Song... what the?
- Changing Bible Translations
- Don't forget to proclaim the resurrection!
- I am number 3,720,343,124. And Jesus died for me.
- A personal response to today's collect: 32nd Ordinary Sunday / 20th Sunday after Trinity.

I was astounded to receive an email during the week (see graphic)... entitled "Give the ultimate gift this Christmas". But no! It wasn't the gift of salvation through Jesus Christ but a DVD-ROM with PDFs of every copy of the US Trains magazine ever made!
Check out the latest issue of 








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