1. Climb a tree
2. Sleep under the stars
3. Fall off a bike
4. Learn to swim
5. Build a cubby or tree house
6. Find a geocache in your neighbourhood
7. Go beach combing after a storm
8. Cook damper in a campfire
9. Go on a school camp in the bush
10. Catch a wave
11. Play chasey in the rain
12. Catch a prawn in a river (or at least have fun trying)
13. Make a water slide with builder’s plastic and a hose
14. Find a cave
15. Make something with things you find
16. Play in a creek
17. Do something you’re scared of
18. Watch kangaroos in the wild
19. Slide down a sand/grass hill on cardboard
20. Yell “cooee!” in a gorge or valley
21. Camp on a beach
22. Build a sandcastle city
23. Skim a stone
24. Plant something, watch it grow
25. Play spotlight
26. Ride your bike on a bush trail
27. Visit an island
28. Go for a two-day hike
29. Snorkel at the beach or on a reef
30. Ride a flying fox
31. Play under a sprinkler
32. Climb a big rock
33. Play in the bush for a whole day
34. Visit a waterhole
35. Meet kids in a park and invent a game
36. Paddle a kayak
37. Dig for worms in your backyard
38. Catch a crab
39. Learn the Aboriginal names for five plants and five animals
40. Visit a national park
41. Go fishing
42. Play on a rope swing
43. Eat bush tucker
44. Make a kite and fly it
45. Jump off a jetty (check water depth first)
46. Identify the birds in your backyard
47. Go abseiling
48. Catch a tadpole (and release it)
49. Make a mud pie
50. Find a lake/puddle/pond; use a magnifying glass to spot the living creatures in it
51. Play beach cricket
52. Visit a farm; help move a mob of sheep

I know that’s a bit more than fifty things, but who’s counting? Also, I added that last one. Our kids are very lucky to have one set of grandparents who own a wheat-and-sheep farm, and we visit them many times over the year – so the kids get lots of opportunities to enjoy the country air, the country animals, the country smells, and the country way of life.

I fully intend to provide my kids opportunities to do all of them. I can tick 11 items off this list for our eldest two so far.

What do you think should be added to the list?

Have you ever wanted to start keeping track of your growing home library? Do you know how many books you have? When you’re at the shops, do you wonder whether to buy that classic movie on DVD, thinking, “didn’t I buy this a few years ago?”

Read more about it here: myhomecontentsau.wordpress.com

1. “My parents had to drive me to school themselves. Both ways!”

2. “My parents had to hold our hands when we crossed the road – otherwise we’d get run over by a car or bus. Yes, cars and buses would routinely kill kids!”

3. “School was always in the local neighbourhood – I never remember getting to go to another country for school. Or the moon, for that matter.”

4. “We had to gather in a classroom together with a random bunch of other kids – the only reason we were together was because we shared the same birth year.”

5. “We had one teacher and one assistant for a class of 20 kids. Only the ‘special’ kids got one-on-one teachers.”

6. “The teachers had to do a lot of training before they could teach. They had to go to school for 12 years, and then university for at least 3 years!”

7. “Yes, we had computers. But, your grandfather – at your age, he didn’t even know what a computer was!”

8. “I was required to learn to use a mousepad. No, it was just a smooth piece of plastic that knew where your fingers were.”

9. “Not all the screens could be touched.”

10. “No, the computers didn’t know how to teach us. We had to work it out for ourselves.”

11. “I was required to draw letters, words and numbers with a pencil, on paper.”

12. “The paper was dumb – it didn’t have autocorrect, couldn’t upload, and to re-use it we’d either scrape the pencil marks off with an eraser, or throw it in the recyclebin.”

13. “The recyclebin was just a container, it didn’t do anything – they had to send all the rubbish away to special recycling centers.”

14. “We had to memorize the spelling of each and every word! (Mind you, it was only for one language – English – but there were literally thousands of words to memorize!)”

15. “We only had to learn one language other than English: Japanese. And we called it a ‘foreign language’.”

16. “Almost all the kids at school had white skin. See this photo? This is how light my skin was when I was your age. We had to wear hats and sunscreen, otherwise we’d get skin cancer.”

17. “No, we didn’t usually tease the white kids.”

18. ”We didn’t go to school until we were at least 3 years old – they called it ‘Kindy’. Before we started school, my mum and dad taught your aunts and I at home.”

19. “When I was your age, I had no idea that I’d go to school for 10 years, then another 10 years of internship.”

20. “My dad wrote a whole article about this stuff when he was my age. Oh, I see your Helper has found the archive already. Don’t laugh – back then they had strange ideas about the future. They thought we’d own flying cars and have computers everywhere.”

What do you think your kids will reminisce about when they grow up to be your age?

Read this, then consider.

Certainly, the Church should not merely be an organisation. The body does do a lot of the things that an organisation does (e.g. hire people, build buildings, do things) but it’s got to be more than that, otherwise it’s no better than a club.

The Church is a bit like a movement. It has an emotional heart. It has a purpose greater than just being somewhere to go on Sunday. It requires leaders, not managers – but it is not owned or defined by its leaders.

The Church is, in some ways, like a philosophy. Despite two millenia of attempts to snuff it out, it persists. It morphs and changes, but always there remains a core that does not deviate from its original purpose and ideals.

I think a fourth category needs to be added to this list – Organism. The Church is a living, breathing thing, composed of many people in a single body. It will last forever, because it has its life in the head, Jesus Christ. It has many parts, expressed as local gatherings, with local leaders, but not one of these represents the whole.

I’m going to do my little bit – on 25 March I will be “Spinning” in Central Park – ride as fast as I can on a stationary bike for eight minutes with no resistance. Believe me, it’s harder than it sounds … I’ll be part of a five man team from the Bonds Team.

I’ve started training for it. On Wednesday I went 5km in eight minutes, and my legs felt a bit wobbly afterwards. Today I managed 5.3km in the same time.

If you would like to support me, please follow this link: http://spin.jdrf.org.au/WA/JeffreyKemp/ and click “Donate”. None of the money goes to me, it all goes straight to JDRF. Thank you!

“Independent Senator Nick Xenophon says an explanation from Queensland about why it did not take out disaster reinsurance has left him unconvinced.” (emphasis added) http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/02/16/3140843.htm

Insurance is a risk-management product that hedges against loss or damage of some sort. It is used by individuals, businesses, companies, organisations and governments.

Re-insurance is a particular type of insurance taken out by insurance companies that hedges against an unusually large amount of claims on the insurance policies it has provided to others, e.g. in the wake of a widespread disaster.

Unless it wants to become an insurance company itself, the Queensland government doesn’t need re-insurance. It probably does, however, need ordinary insurance.

Parenting Tip: from time to time, allow your kids to argue – and don’t step in to resolve the conflict. Instead, teach them how to resolve the conflict themselves.

Today the kids wanted to watch a DVD. Problem was, they each had a different video in mind. They’ve just had an afternoon nap, have had their afternoon tea and are in good spirits – perfect opportunity for a teaching moment.

Me: “So, which DVD are you going to watch?”
Chloe (5 yr old): “Princess Stories”
Daniel (3 yr old): “Bob the Builder”

I decide to restrict their choices to force a conflict scenario:

Me: “Ok, you can watch one video right now - only one. Which one do you want?”
Chloe: “Mine!”
Daniel: “Mine!”
Me: “You cannot watch both. Both of you have to agree before you can watch anything.”
Chloe: “We can watch mine today, and Daniel can watch his tomorrow.”
Me: “Ok, Daniel, are you happy to wait for tomorrow?”
Daniel: “No!!! I want mine now!”
Chloe: “Daniel, you can watch yours tomorrow.”
Daniel: “No, you can watch yours tomorrow!”
Me: “Well, it looks like we’re not going to watch any video today. Unless one of you wants to compromise.”
Chloe & Daniel: “???”
Me: “Compromise means you give up what you want so someone else can have what they want.”
(repeat above exchange two or three times…)

In the end, Chloe finally decided to let Daniel watch his video today. She got a lot of praise for that … and some day down the track I’m sure we’ll have plenty of chances to teach Daniel the value of compromise too.

One friend, who happens to be a pastor, had an issue on his laptop (running Windows 7), and asked me to have a look at it. In the process I noticed he’d started using Windows Live Mail, instead of the Google Apps account I’d set up for him previously. I asked him why he was using this mail account as well as the google one (not that I’ve got anything against Microsoft’s product, I haven’t used it myself, but was just curious).

He didn’t know – “the email said I had to install it”. I almost blew up at him – I had visions of trying to clean his computer of malware while explaining that just because an email appears to be from a trusted authority like Microsoft, doesn’t mean that it actually is – “never click on a link in an email!” – who knows what’s been installed now!

As it turns out, it wasn’t an email anyway (phew!) – it was a popup within Windows 7 itself – part of Windows Update. My next question was, “why did you need to install it?” He just didn’t know. After a bit of questioning I determined that he didn’t really care one way or another, so I recommended we uninstall Windows Live and leave him with the Gmail account, which he’s happy with.

It wasn’t until later, when I was updating another computer, that I saw what he would have seen: an “Important Update” that should be installed, called “Windows Live”. Now, in the information pane it says this update is actually “Recommended”, which (if you’re familiar with Windows Update) is different in meaning from “Important”; it is closer in meaning to “Optional”.

An “Important” update usually meant a fix for a serious security or other bug. These almost always should be installed – although a lot of the time, they never affect you (but you never know if they might).

“Optional” updates, on the other hand, are fixes for uncommon bugs, updates to drivers, or other extra features, which are not going to be universally useful (for example, if you’re no longer using that dot matrix printer, but it’s still registered on your computer, you would probably choose not to install any updates for it – but Windows cannot tell if you really need it or not).

“Recommended” updates, are just that – recommended by Microsoft. They’re not needed, unless you look at them and decide “I’d like that”. Windows Live, for example, looks like an attempt to get everyone to use Microsoft’s solution for email, Messenger, etc. There’s probably more to it than that, but the bottom line is, if you want it, install it – if you don’t want it, don’t install it. After all, if you make a mistake and decide to install it later, there’s no late fee! So don’t clutter up your computer with stuff that you “might need sometime”.

This raised the question: why is Microsoft listing a “Recommended” update along with the “Important” updates? Sounds a bit fishy to me – like they’re taking advantage of the fact that 90% of Windows users don’t want to have to think about what software should or should not be installed on their computer, they don’t have time to research these things, and they (arguably) shouldn’t have to. That’s my theory, anyway.

The good news is, Microsoft have provided an option to turn off this behaviour. The bad news is, it’s turned on by default (I don’t know when they added this option, it just seemed to appear at some point). To change this option, follow these steps (which are easier than they look):

1. Click on the glowy “start” button on the task bar.

2. Click on “All Programs” and select “Windows Update” (alternatively, just type “Windows Update” into the search field and pick it from the list).

3. In the Windows Update page, click on the “Change settings” (on the left-hand bar).

4. Un-tick the “Give me recommended updates the same way I receive important updates” option (refer picture below).

5. Click OK. If a warning popup asks you if you want to “allow the program to make changes to your computer“, say yes.

You’ll still be notified of “Recommended” updates, but they will no longer be disguised as “Important” updates, which in my opinion is sneaky. I’ve had a browse through my history of updates, and the majority of the “Recommended” updates are ones that I’m happy to have; but I prefer to have the choice.

Wonder no more.

Most of the month, this little brick building is a heritage site. On this one Sunday every month, it is transformed into a church – filled with people from a number of families, many of whom are directly related to Rosalie. There are eight children ranging from 1 to 10 years of age, their parents, some grandparents, and a great-grandmother.

This multi-campus church is currently without a pastor, so Dennis (my father-in-law) leads the service. After a day’s work spraying paddocks yesterday, he stayed up late into the night preparing for the Sunday morning service.

Before the service starts, I volunteer to set up the projector, etc., for him. He plans to show a brief clip from the Truth Project, so I’m setting up a DVD player as well as the laptop. He’s done this before, so all the cables are there. He’s even got some PC speakers gaffa’d together, which will sound a bit better than the projector’s builtin speaker.

A few minutes before they’re ready to start, I notice the laptop hasn’t finished booting. WinXP sits on the “Welcome” screen (which appears prior to the login screen) seemingly forever. Tried a hard reboot. Seems to hang on that welcome screen. Dennis starts the service with a Bible reading. I try safe mode, it works – but safe mode doesn’t allow projection on the secondary VGA out, so I can’t use that. They start with the opening song – To God Be The Glory – with Dennis reading out the words as they go (“To God be the glory, great things he has he done…”). Reboot again, still stops working at the welcome screen (“…so loved he the world that he gave us his Son…”). I try safe mode and restore to an earlier savepoint, but still no better (“…Who yielded his life an atonement for sin…”). Reboot again, this time I notice that when the welcome screen is up, the HD light is going like crazy, continuously – so I decide to just let it run and see what happens (“…and opened the lifegate that all may go in.”). After about 5 minutes, it finally finishes – and I’m able to bring up the powerpoint for the morning’s service. The laptop probably just needs a fresh install of XP.

Playing the piano (which could do with a bit of maintenance) is Mrs Blasdale, who plays every time the church meets at Minnivale. She may be a bit slow on the keys but everyone appreciates her faithfulness.

The video clip is from Lesson 5: Science – What is True? – Dr. Del Tackett inviting his listeners to consider the majesty and beauty of God’s creation, followed by a wonderful montage narrated by a little girl, “Did you ever wonder…?” (“crazy…cool!”). After the montage ends, Dennis stops the playback and invite everyone to talk about what we see in God’s creation all around us, and what it says about Him. After some discussion we end with silence, prayer, “To God Be The Glory” again (this time with words) and “It Only Take A Spark”.

After the service, out comes the tea, coffee, cake and bikkies. While the kids explore the bushland surrounding the church (where else would we be quite happy for the kids to run around freely, unsupervised?), the adults stand around talking weather, footy, cosmology, spraying, and IP cameras (my brother-in-law wants to set up some webcams above his pig pens).

It’s been too long since my last visit to the in-laws. Hopefully it won’t be too long before I can get another weekend away.