Article on The Regrets Of The Dying

Pretty decent article, which outlines the key messages a palliative care nurse has gleamed from taking care of those about to die.


http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2012/feb/01/top-five-regrets-of-the-dying

"Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity."

Today's quote of the day: "Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity."
- Horace Mann

Einstein's Views on Religion and Ethics

Continuing on the religious theme, came across an interesting write up on Wikipedia today, about Einstein's views on atheism and agnosticism. Old Alby labelled himself an agnostic, saying that "the problem involved is too vast for our limited minds". He firmly believed in ethics, saying "The most important human endeavour is the striving for morality in our actions...Only morality in our actions can give beauty and dignity to life...A man's ethical behaviour should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties and needs; no religious basis is necessary." Apparently he didn't rate atheists: "I do not share the crusading spirit of the professional atheist whose fervor is mostly due to a painful act of liberation from the fetters of religious indoctrination received in youth". Interesting!
I've been thinking lately that atheism, as the opposite of belief in God, is an act of belief in and of itself, believing in the non-existence of God. In the same way that an atheist would reject christianity's certainty that God exists, how can the atheist be certain that God does not exist? So where does that leave me? An agnostic I guess.

Book Review: The Life Of Pi

Book: The Life of Pi, Yann Martin.
Rating: Average. Won the Booker Prize in 2002 but I can't see what the fuss is about.
Review (Spoiler Alert): So this is the story of a religiously included Indian kid that gets lost at sea. It has a pretty religious bent, which maybe is why I didn't dig it. Upon reflection, one of the reasons I didn't really like it that much is one of the themes of the book. I just didn't quite buy it. The protagonist, Pi, might say well that's your choice, much the same way that you can choose whether or not to believe in God and the stories of the major religions. His choice to believe in God(s) and religion is based on the fact that viewing the world through the religious lens is a "better story" and makes life more pleasant, for Pi.  He makes the distinction between believing in the Bible/Qu'ran/Hindi texts literally, but rather chooses to believe in the moral themes and lessons they teach. 
Strangely relevant - if I'd been a little less cynical when reading this book, I probably would've enjoyed it more. Can the same be said about God and life? 
As far as the story goes it definitely wasn't a book that I couldn't put down, but I guess I have to give it points for being thought provoking. Big props for Sparknotes for breaking the themes down, I enjoyed reading the analysis after I finished - although I guess this is cheating in a way...

Goal Tracking - Oct '11 Status Report

Another belated entry, but better late than never...
Here's the wrap up from October:

• Writing: 24 Blog Entries - Amber. Couple of entries posted in Oct, bringing the grand total to 19. Admittedly they have been quite short and pretty lame, but points for trying.
• Reading: 24 Books - Red. Finished 100 Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez in October, so the running tally is now 7, a long way short of the yearly target. The book was pretty interesting in that it was the first one I've read that uses the style magical realism. I didn't love it, but it did have an interesting ending.
• Listening: 15 Gigs - Green. Pretty good month for music. Saw Bill and the Jerks, The Russ Walker Duo and the Feremones, bringing the total up to 11. Only 4 to go!
• Save: $$$ - Amber. Doing ok. Can do better though by setting myself a budget/and or giving myself an allowance, and saving the rest.
• Contribute: Red. Done NOTHING.
• Health and Fitness: Amber. October was pretty good, fair bit of running and yoga. 
• Work-Life Balance: Work Less - Amber. Did pretty well on the meditation, also only a few nights spent working late in the office. Headed up to Byron at the end of the month which did wonders for the mental fitness. 

So the exec summary: massively underperforming on the reading and contributing, however other areas are pretty good. Socially it was a good month, went to the Cox Plate with Foles and Syme which was a great day out. JD came home and caught up with him on a Saturday night which was cool, ended up back at mine with JD, Grundy and Foles just talking rubbish and reminiscing about old times. Good fun.

Gig Review: Byron Gigs

So went up to Byron for a bit over a week earlier this month. Had an awesome time, so much so that it was pretty depressing coming home. Headed up with Syme, and a few days in Chaz and Ash came up as well. On the first day we wrote a list of things to do, and going to see a few gigs made the cut. Being on holidays we pretty much went out every night, and the live music scene in Byron is pretty healthy, so managed to wrack up a few gigs during the week by just being out and about.
First up was the Russ Walker Duo at the Beach Hotel. Got a texty from Syme after my yoga class to head down to the Beach, he was there, three schooners in (despite it being only ten to five in the afternoon) and chilling out listening to a couple of dudes beatbox, sing and play acoustic guitar. Didn't know their name at the time, but when he started singing I thought the lead singer sounded like that kiwi dude that won australian idol. Didn't mention it, cos I thought it would sound too cliched. Anyway, just looked him up on google, turns out it's Stan Walkers brother. No fucking wonder they sounded similar. So me and Syme hung out for a few hours and watched them play, they were pretty good. Song selection wasn't fantastic, but it did win points for being a little unusual, they did a pretty cool mashup at the end. Would see them again.
A few days later on the Sunday, there was another gig at the Beach Hotel, this time it was The Pheromones. No idea what they were going to be like going into it, we got there and realised they were a bunch of ageing rockers. They played covers of classic 60's and 70's hits, music was pretty good, plus it was entertaining watching the old girls smash up the dance floor. They loved it. Didn't hang around too long.
Lastly on the Thursday night, after hitting various pubs, we stumbled across Kikuyu (http://kikuyu.bandcamp.com/) at The Rails. She does some really cool stuff with looping background beats that she seems to make up on the spot, using an italian combo organ, then sings along. Cool voice, cool sound. Would see her again for sure, and seeing that she's from Melbourne, will have to keep an eye out.
So we posted some solid numbers in Byron, adding another 3 gigs to the tally. Only 3 more to go!

Gig Review: Bill and the Jerks

Friend of a friends band was playing on Smith St last night, and given that I've got to clock up another 7 or so gigs before the end of the year, thought why not head down and check it out. Venue was The Blue Tile Lounge (95 Smith St Collingwood), a pretty grungy bar with similarly grungy crowd. Felt a bit out of place not having tats and a checkered shirt but was prepared to overlook that (and the smell of stale beer from the bar) considering that $2 pots and free live music were on offer.

1st act up was the hastily put together Robot Mugabe - I think they formed the night before. Cool name, not much talent. Next was Jame Forbes who put his spin on a few classic covers, my favourite being an acoustic hip hop version of Regulate by Warren G and Nate Dog, which was pretty awesome. The next act was the friend of a friends band, Bill and the Jerks. Describing themselves as pshychedelic funk rock, they definitely had a broad range of styles - apparently they have a few people write their songs, which could explain it. First few songs were well-rehearsed and pretty good, however the rest were a bit 'meh'.

All in all though, good night out - close to home, cheap and easy. Cross another gig off the list, so only 6 more to go.

Goal Tracking - Sep '11 Status Report

So it's been about three months since the last status report. I'll put the absence of posts down to being busy combined with a mild case of winter depression, resulting in a lack of a clear focus on what is important.
So what's been happening lately? The key event of the last couple of months has been the purchase of a motorbike. Getting my L's again has been on the list for a while, and when a couple of my mates at work let me know that they were going to go for the test, and asked if I wanted to come, I jumped at the chance. Took a day off work and headed out to a training centre at Sandown, 6 hrs later BOOM, I'm street legal. Me and Dave pledged to buy bikes before our proper license arrived in the mail (which usually takes about 6 weeks), and we actually managed to do it. Since I bought the bike about a month and a half ago, I've gone out riding pretty much everyweekend, weather permitting. It's pretty awesome, can definitely start to understand the term 'the joy of riding' now. As a few of us ride from work, I usually head out with a little crew. Still got a lot to learn and need to keep practising to get my skills up, but a few of the rides have been fantastic. Haven't had the bike long but already done over 1000km's on it. Here's a couple of shots of the bike and crew.

Can't wait until the weather gets even better, plan to cover a lot more ground, see more of Victoria. Favourite ride so far has been out to St Andrews, up towards Kinglake.

Other than that I've just been chippin' away. Work's going along ok, too much to do as usual, and the challenge as always is managing customer expectations. Trying to hire some more staff to lighten the load a little, but it's also proving difficult to find good people.

So coming into the last quarter, decided it was time to re-visit my goals and see what can be achieved before 2011 runs its course. Aim is to outline the gap between my original goals and what's been done so far.

• Writing: 24 Blog Entries - Amber. Think I'm doing ok here. Including this post I'll have published 17 blog entries to date, so only need to punch out 7 more to hit the target. Admittedly some of the entries are pretty lame (short meditation ones etc), but hey, I'll take what I can get.
• Reading: 24 Books - Red. I've read 6. That sucks. Kinda got stuck on Dostoyevsky's 'The Brothers Karamazov' a few months ago and haven't picked up anything since. 18 more needed in 3 months, that's 6 a month hmmm going to be very difficult to achieve. May need to ban TV or something, or start reading my nieces Mister Men collection.
• Listening: 15 Gigs - Amber. So far this year I've seen Sia, Paper Kites, Avalanche City, Horrow Show, Architecture in Helsinki, Bliss n Eso, Birds of Tokyo and Drapht, totalling 8. 7 to go to close this one out.
• Save: $$$ - Amber. Doing ok. Problem with not writing down the target back in January was that I've now forgotten it, so hard to define success on this goal.
• Contribute: Red. Have pretty much clocked up zero hours of helping out society this year. Easy to make excuses (such as I don't want to give up time/flexibility from my precious weekends) but at the end of the day, that's all they are - excuses. Need to do something pretty significant in this area if I am to have any hope of passing.
• Health and Fitness: Amber. A little hard to define what a pass mark is, however I've been doing 10 minutes of Yoga everyday for the last two weeks, plus occasionally running to work. Daylight savings kicked in this weekend which should make going for a run etc after work a much more viable option. I haven't really been going to the gym to lift weights at all, however I'm generally making it to proper Yoga classes twice a week. I think if I stick to my 50% AFD rule, get in a bit more running and keep up the Yoga for the next 3 months I can give myself a tick.
• Work-Life Balance: Work Less - Amber. Have been making some grounds the past month by booking time in my Outlook Calendar for personal appointments, such as my Tuesday 5.30pm Yoga class. Makes it a lot easier to form a habit, and give me a reason to leave the office. Need to keep this up. Also going up to Byron bay for a bit over a week at the end of the month which should be AWESOME. Morning meditation sessions for the last week have reduced the stress/anxiety a fair bit, just need to keep these up.

Washup - it's going to need to be a big 3 months. Not much 'green' in the list above so need to get cracking.

Meditation Challenge: Days 7-14

Been keeping up with the whole meditation quite well, having an unbroken run from when we started 2 weeks ago, until today. Upon reflection, I'm finding that I'm less stressed, sleeping a bit better and less tired during the day. Sure, could be a little confirmation bias creeping in, but either way I think it's positive, and it costs me nothing, so it's a win.  Aim to keep it going for a month or so, see how I feel after that. I've done it a few times hungover, gotta admit that it's pretty useless, can't 'quiten my mind' at all when I'm feeling dusty. Guess the solution to that is to not be hungover.

Meditation Challenge: Day 6

This morning was the hardest by far, but interestingly enough found myself hopping out of bed almost looking forward to it. Don't think drinking the night before is the best lead-in - went and saw the pies play the hawks in the prelim final at the g last night. Epic match, collingwood got up by 3 points, kicking a goal with 3 minutes left to grab the lead, booking themselves the chance to win back to back premierships next week. Headed down smith st for a few celebratory drinks with foles, got home bout half one.
Have started to incorporate a few basic yoga poses before meditation, just as a little warm up. Dad stayed at my place last night so felt too self conscious to bust out the 'aums' with someone within hearing distance. Only managed about 12 mins, but having an AFD today so tomorrow should be better.

Meditation Challenge: Day 5

Friday morning came with a mild hangover, due to a charity poker tournament I went to the night before. Pretty cool night, went down with the boys from work and played my way to the final table. Got knocked out before the final three though, so didn't quite get the job done.
The meditation session was ok, again struggled with the candle thing. Will probably just start skipping it, but the good news was that I did manage to get in a solid 20 minute session.

Meditation Challenge: Day 4

Can check Day 4 off the list, with another session completed this morning. Tried sitting in a chair which made it a bit easier to relax, as I was worried about my posture. Not getting the whole 'be at one with the candle/eyes open' thing though, found that really tough. Rest of it was good though.

Meditation Challenge: Day 3

Another solid effort this morning, crunched out a good 20+ mins. Tried the 'Hero' pose for a few minutes, although that was painful, so switched to a variation of the cobbler's pose with my back against a chair which was much more comfortable. Finding the 'eyes open' meditation much more difficult than having my eyes closed. This morning a few thoughts from work starting creeping in when I was staring at my candle, however wasn't too bad. Will see how I go tomorrow.

Meditation Challenge: Day 2

Day 2 of 7 in the Meditation Challenge. Found this morning also to be quite difficult - I guess cos I don't really know what I'm doing...

Here's my current meditation runsheet:

• Prep: start my youtube meditation playlist in the background, light a candle on a little table, and sit cross legged about an arms length from the candle. Close eyes.
• Punch out a few 'aums' to warm up.
• Focus on breathing for a bit.
• Visualise 'heart' breathing.
• Visualise 'centralising' myself.
• Open eyes. Meditate on the candle for a while.
• Close eyes. Few more aums.
• Finish with an affirmation.

This morning was pretty tough, I think mainly because I find sitting cross-legged quite difficult. After talking to Meriel (who went to another class last night), found out that sitting cross-legged isn't a 'must have', it's more important to be comfortable. Also looked up the internets at lunch, and came across this article which was pretty decent: 

http://life.gaiam.com/article/do-you-have-sit-cross-legged-meditate
Will give the 'hero' pose a go tomorrow.


Also went to my usual Tuesday night yoga class tonight, and finished off with the routine 15 minute relaxation/meditation session, which we always do. Don't know if it's because I've being do some much of it lately, but really got a lot out of tonight. The instructor talked us through firstly a body relaxation exercise and then followed with a mind relaxation/visualisation exercise. Picture yourself in a forest, beautiful blue sky above, sun shining on you, that kind of thing.  It's hard to describe but by the end of it I felt like I had this little ball of focus in my mind, just behind my eyes. It was pretty cool.

The Weekend (+ Meditation Challenge Day 1)

Had an awesome weekend. Friday night had a couple of low key beers with the dudes from work. Nothing too major - implemented my new policy of only having light beers until I've had dinner. This was a direct result of an absolute bender on a Friday night a few weeks ago, which caught me a little off guard, and left me with the worst hangover eeevvvvaaaaa.
Saturday morning went out and saw the Skahill's clan, who were down for a a few days for a wedding. Great to catch up with the crew. Given the sun was out, cruised out to Warbuton on the bike, clocked up a round trip of 160kms. Very nice countryside out there, definitely worth going again. Came back for a barbie at Em's place, which was entertaining, mainly because of the body language of a certain couple, and the theories/gossip this sparked, definitely gave the rest of us something to talk about.
Sunday morning headed out to Kew Library for a meditation workshop. Didn't know a lot about it prior to going in, but had Syme and Meriel to back me up. I was thinking that if they started talking about Shakra's and Reincarnation I was going to bail, but luckily it was pretty much on the level. Practised a couple of new techniques, and started a 7 day meditation challenge with the others (to meditate everyday for a week), will be interesting to see the results. Meditation course finished, it was time to balance out the healthy stuff by heading off to the pub to catch up with Johnny Hibble, Gabbo and Foldy. Ended up having an impromptu mini pub crawl - hit up the Baden, the Union and also Grumpy's on the way home. Grumpy's had this local band playing, they did an awesome cover of Brooke Fraser's 'There's Something In The Water'. It was pretty cool, keen to head back there next Sunday to check em out again.

Goal Tracking - May '11 Status Report

Again getting a bit lax, it's already past the end of June and I'm only just punching out the May report. Highlight for May was definitely the Vietnamese mission - headed over to Hoi An to visit JD. Syme and Flick were having an argument about Flick wanting to go on another holiday. He's like "we just got back from our honeymoon - look, I'll show you how expensive the tickets are", then checked jetstar's website only to find return tickets for $600. "If they're that cheap, then I'm going too" was his next comment...

Flick spoke to Kaz who was also keen, Syme sent me a text reading "buying tix to vietnam for 6 hungy return in 5 minutes, let me know if you're in" - "GOOD MORNING VIETNAM!" was my reply. Turned out Lou (Flick's bro's gf) would also be travelling through SE Asia at the same time, plus also I bumped into an old school friend (Grundy) at a music festival (GTM) who happened to be planning a visit at the same time. To make it even better, Jetstar offered us a business class upgrade for $150, so we pulled the trigger and decided to head across in style. Syme and I even had our flight-plan organised - make sure we drink our one fiddy's worth, interlaced with inappropriate comments directed at the skankiest hosties, with the aim being to get at least one warning. And it doesn't count, unless it comes from the pilot. We even had our responses ready - "why don't you go fly for a real airline, top gun" and "how bout you head back into the cockpit with your little boyfriend there, goose".

On the day of departure we got to the airport nice and early, plane was delayed by half an hour or so, but that's no problem when you're sitting in the lounge sipping champagne - just means you get to smash another one before jetting off. Highlights of the trip were:

Catching up with Joel. He was pretty busy and has only just started at his new job so couldn't really take any leave, so we didn't get that much face time, but it was great to hang out for the first time in ages.  

JD rippin' it up

Chillin' on the streets of Hoi An with my $12 slab.

BBQ pork sticks. JD took us to this local 'fast food' joint, and as soon as we arrive they bring out all this food, no order necessary. One plate was full of pressed pork threaded on kebab sticks, bbq'd, fucking amazing. Even though I had eaten only 30 minutes beforehand, I ate like 1000. The food in general in Hoi An was awesome - great restaurants, we ate as much as we could and drank cocktails all night, I think the most expensive bill was $20 each. 

Vietnamese fast food.

Doing it in style. Flew biz class there and back (thanks to the cheap upgrades), stayed at JD's five star resort which was really cool, infinity pools all over the place.

Practicing my superman impersonation

Karaoke + Club Night. On the Tuesday night we hit the town, in a big way. Dinner, vodka shots, karaoke, vodka, then onto the club for some dancing and more vodka. Ended up in the pool at 3am in the morning, good times, good times.

The gang, smashing it Vieto Style

Local bike tour. Went with a small group on an organised tour of some of the surrounding villages, got to see close up the conditions that locals live and work under. When you see someone weaving mats all day to earn the princely sum of $2 a day, makes you stop and think how lucky you are.

Giving the basket boat a try, and the watchful eye of the old Vietnamese lady.

Bullock on the road we were cycling on

Ice-cream Sandwich in Singapore. Slice of ice-cream between 2 bits of white bread, what more could you want.

Ice Cream Sandwiches - Glorious.

Lowlight, predictably, was coming home. We only went for a week, from Saturday to Saturday, and by the time you take out the connecting flights (Melbourne to Singapore, Singapore to Ho Chi Minh City, HCMC to Da Nang) then we were only at the resort for a full three days, with half days on either side. Don't think I'll go OS for such a short period again, if I'm going to go through the pain of getting everything super organised and handed over at work, then I think 10 days off is the minimum. Man, but travelling with mates, that's where it's at.

Owing to the impromptu holiday, I guess it was a pretty good month overall. Let's checkout the results:

Goal Category	Monthly Trend
	Feb	Mar	Apr	May
Writing				-
Reading				-
Listening				↓
Saving				↑
Contributing				-
Healthing and Fitnessing				-
Work/Life Balancing				↑↑

• Writing: Amber (static). A couple of posts in May - last months review, plus a couple of book lists. I guess that scrapes through for a pass.
• Reading: Amber (static). Had a little bit of time on the plane, so whipped through Dune (Frank Herbert). Good book, although the classic problem with a 'hero' story is that you know how it's going to end up - they're going to win. 
• Listening: Amber (down). No gigs in May, poor form, however cos I went to so many the month before I think I'm still ahead of the curve (hence the amber rating).
• Save: Amber (up from red last month). Still not smashing it, however I did implement an automated savings plan (deducting money on pay day into a savings account that I don't use everyday). Now the challenge is to make sure I don't dip into the savings fund.
• Contribute: Red (down). I am still a leech on society.
• Health and Fitness: Green (static). Making running to work a habit. Good to see.
• Work-Life Balance: Green (up 2 pips). This is a funny one. Even though I had a week off, it was pretty stressful getting everything organised. Note that I use 'stressful' in the loosest sense of the word, I know my job isn't life and death, although to get ready to leave I had to work late nights most of the week prior just to make sure everything was in order. That said, crushing beers by the pool for a week, just hanging out with the crew is enough to skyrocket this category into green.

Post Implementation Review: 11th June Dinner Drinks and Karaoke

Result: Success. The proposed run sheet went pretty much to plan, with a couple of added bonuses. Nam Loong got the job done with dinner, and didn't seem to care that the later it got the rowdier we became (their fault really - pretty much a direct result of their byo policy). Other things that worked well included grabbing a wedge round of pocari sweat's (plus some hello panda's) from the Asian grocer on the way to karaoke, plus paying for karaoke up front (removing the need to work out cash from 16 peeps at 2am after 100 beers). Karaoke was great, although have to say it did get a bit schweaty with 16 units crammed into a small booth.

And the awards go to:

• Best Dressed: Chaz Humphries
• Best Non-Hairdo: Chaz Humphries
• Best Disappearing Act: Bec Rosa
• Best Lie: Michael Nash (refer to Appendix A)
• Best Conversion of a Lollipop Container Into a Fake Tittie: Ash Buller
• Best Overuse of the Phrase "Oh My God This Is My Song!": Penny Goh
• Best Venue Addition: Simon Byrne (for suggesting the Exford for a power beer while waiting 2 mins for the waiter to clear our table before dinner)
• Best Social Sickie: Fi and Nath
• Best Accident: Sarah Curtain
• Best Solution: Charles Humprhies, Ash Buller and Michael Nash (refer to Appendix B)
• Best Bomb Dropped in the Karaoke Room: Bit of a mystery this one, but topping the list of suspects is CH and FB.

If I've missed any awards/highlights, please comment!

Appendix A: Best Lie

Fliss noticed that I kept on looking at her teeth while we were talking during dinner.  "Do I have something in my teeth?" she asked, to which I replied "Yep". She tried to get it out: "Is it gone?". "No" was the reply. Fliss tried again. "Is it gone now?". "Not yet". Fliss tried again. "Now?". Me: "Yep". The extremely noticeable half eaten spinach remains were actually still there, but I sure as hell couldn't be fucked with that conversation anymore.

Appendix B: Best Solution

Pretty sure that Ash, Chazzo and Myself came up with the solution to the live cattle export problem over wind-down beers at Golden Monkey around 2am, although unfortunately we were pretty pissed so none of us could remember it the next day.