I love reading
Stimulating the imagination or stimulating the mind
Theres nothing quite like
A good blog find.
http://blog.talkingphilosophy.com
Needs a decent Sunday afternoon to do it justice, it is good for stimulating the mind, or trying to understand it, or to marvel at its complexities and nuances. It is a blog that does a much better and focused job of explaining philosophy and in particular the philosophy of the mind.
Recently, they even got onto Climate Change! Check it out.
I was riding home from a joy ride to Liqudoe with Paolo on the weekend when I spotted my very precious stolen helmet! I was very very annoyed when this helmet was stolen and this frustration and anger bubbled out of me when I spotted the helmet on the street. I promptly locked up the back wheel in front of the Presidents Palace and the crowd assembled for the Independence celebrations. Dropped a U-Turn and roared off after the Helmet. I raced passed a truck load of transit police, over the canal on Comorro Road and finally caught up with the culprit outside Tiger Fuels. It was definitely my helmet, albeit with a few new stickers.
I hemmed the other bike rider behind a taxi and some other bikes and screamed at him to pull over, waving my left arm to tell him to pull over. He tried to duck around the inside of the taxi then the outside but luckily a parked car and myself kept him on the straight and narrow. More yelling and hand waving and with me guiding him to the gutter he pulled over.
He was riding a 125cc Yamaha motorbike but by no means looked rich or tough. His pillion passenger was a bit bigger but I hardly noticed him, he was grinning. I was making a scene and he looked pretty shocked. Still yelling, somehow some rational thought got through to my sub-conscious and after telling him that he was wearing my helmet which had been stolen 3 months before, I asked him where he bought it. Of course, he had bought it from a friend and it had cost him $60. I explained it was my helmet, showed him the Australian Standard sticker and demanded it back. He rather feebly said that he had paid $60 for it. I had paid $50 for the best helmet I could find in Timor, and I told him he could have it in exchange for my helmet. Amazingly, he accepted, I got my helmet back!.
The next day they called me and wanted to meet. It seemed like they had the other glove. We arranged a meet and I gathered a ‘crew’ for the show-down. Paolo and James were back-up and we headed to Timor Plaza for the meet. Unfortunately, they didn’t have the gloved and just wanted another $10 because he had paid $60 for the helmet and I had only paid $50 for the one he ended up with. Fat chance.
Moral of the story: don’t buy stolen goods. if you don’t buy it, they wont steal it.
A friend dedicated this song to me and I’m quite pleased! Thanks Roni.
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Nomad by Iron Maiden
Like a mirage riding on the desert sand
Like a vision floating with the desert wind
Know the secret of the ancient desert lands
You are the keeper of the mystery in your hands
Nomad, rider of the ancient east
Nomad, rider that men know the least
Nomad, where you come from no one knows
Nomad, where you go to no one tells
Undercover of the veil of your disguise
The men that fear you are the ones that you despise
No ones certain what your future will behold
You’re a legend your own story will be told
Nomad, rider of the ancient east
Nomad, rider that men know the least
Nomad, where you come from no one knows
Nomad, where you go to no one tells
No one dares to even look or glance your way
Your reputation goes before you they all say
Like a spirit that can disappear at will
many claim of things but no ones seen you kill
Nomad, your the rider so mysterious
Nomad, your the spirit men fear in us
Nomad, your the rider of the desert sands
No man’s ever understood your genius
Those who see you in horizon desert sun
Those who fear your reputation hide or run
You send before you a mystique that’s all your own
Your silhouette is like a statue carved in stone
Nomad, your the rider so mysterious
Nomad, your the spirit men fear in us
Nomad, your the rider of the desert sands
No man’s ever understood your genius
Legend has it you speak an ancient tounge
But no ones spoke to you and lived to tell the tale
Some say that you have killed a hundred men
Others say that you have died and lived again
Nomad, your the rider so mysterious
Nomad, your the spirit men fear in us
Nomad, your the rider of the desert sands
No man’s ever understood your genius
Why I listened to the bloke who said to put my helmet on the floor I don’t know. It was a pretty good spot. Under a low chair, next to a pole, behind the waitresses stand. I was less than 3 meters away, between the helmet and the door and I knew all the people around me.
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A mate of mine, Richard Nolan is doing the Oxfam 100km Trail Walker challenge with a bunch of friends. This is the second time they have done it but thus time they are trying to get it done in under 24hrs. Last time they just wanted to finish, and they did, in about 30hrs from memory.
The Oxfam 100km Trail Walker Challenge is a charity event to raise money for Poverty Alleviation. The Sydney event takes place in Northern Sydney and faces some pretty tough ups and downs, with about 10 150m ascents.
They boys are very dedicated to the cause, having put in numerous training hours, organised poker nights and even a gala dinner. Richy even underwent a chest wax ala ’40yr old virgin’ style. Just to be clear though, Richy is not 40 years old.
They are very close to there $5000 fundraising target, if you would like to support them and help them over the line you can click here tp donate via their official Oxfam Trailwalker Page.
Good luck boys.
A bigger collection of pictures from Maliana are available on face-book. Picasa is just not doing it for me. These are my favourites though:
Arrived Bali without incident. So nice to go for a swim and body surf. Place has cleaned up a lot since last time I was here in 2002. Much easier to walk around, roads are better, hotels are better. Got a good clean hotel room for 60k IRP in Jl Poppies I (was paying 80K for similar in Jakarta). However, everything else except beer is more expensive – well the taxi’s, the food and the water (double the price!). Sunscreen is more expensive than Austalia – your looking at $20 AUD for a 100 ml bottle.
Went and visited Adu’s – Charging 300K for essentially the same rooms they had when we were there 8 yrs ago, but with air-con. Same owner, new staff. Nobody recognised me, as expected. It was good to see it was still there though because there is a lot that has changed, and a lot that is in the process of changing… including a huge mall / hotel with Kuta beach frontage… shame.
From Adu’s I was able to re-orientate myself, and I paid a visit to the site of afew party nights when I was here in 2002, which is now the site of a memorial to those who lost their lives in both bombings. Its a simple but beautiful memorial which the locals obviously care about, as it was covered in Hindu prayer offerings and yet there was nobody selling them nearby.
The level of english spoken here far exceeds Jakarta, even Jl Jaksa. Although it shouldn’t be odd, its a bit strange to hear that the locals speak english with a pretty broad Australian accent.
Off to Dili tomorrow at 9. Moris Rasik are picking me up from the air-port, so holiday will be over. Looking forward to it.
Just a quick note to let you all note that I have gone through the archives and updated the blog for labels, so hopefully this will make it all a bit more usable. You can now click on a label on the menu on the right hand side and it will show all/only posts for that label.
Hopefully this will enable me to focus the blog a little more on and keep me from rambling too much.
I just watched this TED video on Vulnerability by Brene Brown, a social science researcher story-teller. It was fascinating. It is the story of her research as a social worker into human connection and the impact that her findings had on her own life. I cannot do the video justice so you should watch it. However, I can tell you the potential benefits of watching the video will be:
What I find relieving is how simple life really can be. All it seems to take to feel like a good person all the time is to be a good person, all the time. Easier said than done.
Nomad-Odyssey 