Dad's Daily Quotes "Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go."
T.S. Eliot
This year's achievements!
Okay, so
let's hit the ground running this year. I know that in some ways I am
out of left field with some of the things that I get up to in my work
and am able to achieve. However, we can all have the same determination
and focus in what we do and make our lives this year something of
incredible value and gratitude for what we have achieved. We only get
to pass this way once so let's do it with some passion and get the most
we can out of life, but more importantly what is it that we can give to
enrich the lives of others?
Love is, above all, the gift of oneself. ~Jean Anouilh
Yesterday was our wedding anniversary. As always we watched the new
release movies at the cinema. We saw "Australia" and "The Curious Case
of Benjamin Button." I won't give any details in case you want to see
them but recommend both movies. In the evening we went out to the local
tavern, had a meal and reviewed our achievements in 2008 and planned
our achievements for 2009. If you haven't yet done so I would highly
recommend that you do a similar exercise before the year gets too old.
We split our achievement or goal categories into:
Fun
Family
Health
Contribution and Giving
Church and Spiritual
Friendships
Investments
Work
Jeff - Personal
Wen - Personal
Trips/Holidays and
2008 Celebrations (that is
the things that we managed to achieve during 2008 and that we are
grateful for the opportunity in completing)
Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it. William A. Ward
I must admit we weren't very good at our goal setting last year. The
year just kind of happened. But we have found during previous years
that when we have taken the time to sit down and plan the year, set
some targets, targets that will stretch us, and some dreams, that when
we have reviewed the year it is unbelievable that we have nearly always
achieved our goals.
So I would encourage you to go out somewhere and have a cuppa. If you
are married or in a formal relationship go out together. If you are
single take a good friend and share your lives. Hold yourself
accountable to each other for what you declare for the coming year. Sit
down with the list above and have some fun. List out all the
achievements of the past year. One of my achievements for the past year
for example was, "survived work.!!!" So be honest as well. We came up
with a list of about 50 things we considered to be achievements and I
am sure that if we really thought about it we could have listed about
two hundred. Our goals list for 2009 currently runs to about 60 items
in total.
The
important thing is to strive towards a goal which is not immediately
visible. That goal is not the concern of the mind, but of the spirit.
~Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
I would encourage you to make most of your list achievable though. If
you can see your goals can be achieved then at least you will get a
sense of being capable of getting there. But I would say maybe make 10
percent of your list dreams or things that will stretch you to get
there. Have at least two big goals that you will find very difficult to achieve. If you keep them in your mind you never know what might
pass your way, to get you on your way!
If you don't know where you are going, you will probably end up somewhere else. Lawrence J. Peter
So where are you going this year?
Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you'll land among the stars. Les Brown
Dad's Daily Quotes "We spend January 1 walking through our lives, room by room, drawing up a list of work to be done, cracks to be patched. Maybe this year, to balance the list, we ought to walk through the rooms of our lives... not looking for flaws, but for potential."
Ellen Goodman
Happy New Year - this will be the best year of our lives!
Happy New Year. It is our wedding anniversary today. 26 years of marriage and still going strong.
Newlyweds become oldyweds, and oldyweds are the reasons that families work. Author Unknown
I have found that one of the strongest things you can do to impact people's lives is to just be around and for people to see you and the way in which you behave. Everything you do is watched by others and processed consciously, but mostly unconsciously. So, you either become an example of behaviour and people like what they see, so copy what it is that you do, or... you become a warning and people avoid the behaviour that you model in their own lives.
You know, some of the greatest areas of conflict between parents and children are because a parent sees in their children exactly the things they don't like in themselves and it is these things they attempt to change, in their children! Mostly I have found if only we could see that the biggest area of change we can make in our children is to change ourselves and model that behaviour.
In the same way marriage is sometimes the strongest example in just becoming an oldywed. Children do not necessarily need to hear advice, mostly they just need to see it.
So what am I trying to say for the New Year?
Well most of us set some New Year's resolutions to change things. We go on a diet for a few weeks, lose some pounds/kilos, and then go back to our old ways. But if you look at those who are successful in those areas of life you also wish to be successful in, successful people make those areas a lifestyle and become "oldyweds" in that area. That is they practise small things constantly, consistently and forever.
Chains do not hold a marriage together. It is threads, hundreds of tiny threads which sew people together through the years. ~Simone Signoret and
A wedding anniversary is the celebration of love, trust, partnership, tolerance and tenacity. The order varies for any given year. ~Paul Sweeney
What are you going to concentrate on this year? Doing small things constantly and consistently throughout the whole year? Celebrate those things in your life that you do well.
Happy New Year to you all.
Happy Anniversary to the love of my life, Wendy. A new year to enjoy, model and conquer.
Dad's Daily Quotes "The only person who is educated is the one who has learned how to learn and change."
Carl Rogers
Change - it happens. Are you learning and adapting?
I hope you all had a nice Christmas and have had an opportunity to relax since.
Did you know? - Our new subscribers.
And welcome to a couple of new subscribers. This month we have had Bill from Boston, Kobus from Johnannesburg, Linda from I don't know where, Meryl from New York, Adam and Cath from Lawson, Rob from Brisbane, Paul from Glenbrook, Paolo from I don't know where, Candis from Battle Creek, and Teri from Sioux Center. Welcome to all and I hope we can enhance your life in some small way. We have had many subscribers join in the past six months and I haven't had the opportunity to formally welcome them. There has been MaryAnn from Armidale, Tasha from Castle Rock in Colorado, Matt from Penrith I think in New South Wales since I live quite close in Glenbrook, Deborah from the Sunshine Coast, Sam from Bristol, Courtney from ?, Candice from Cheltenham in Victoria, Josh from Winmalee, Joy from the Blue Mountains, Blake from ?, Catherine from Lapstone, Annie from the Blue Mountains, Nicolle from Ontario, Brad from Owatonna MN, Nora from Mt Vernon, Colleen from ?, Mike and Kathy from Hampton VA, Scott from Austin, Kelly from Saskatoon, Steve from Lincolnton, Paul and Sue from Warrimoo, Linda from Vicksburg, Donald from Clover SC, Loretta from Greentown, Diane from Calgary, Carol from Owasso, Angela from Mosman, Chris from Mt Sterling KY, Cathy from Glenbrook, John from Fallon, Pat from Coogee, Kim from Tulsa, Steve from Brisbane, Stormy from Little Rock, Valerie from Dayton, Jerry from Puyallup, Madelline from Westerville, Virendra from Chandigah in India, Joe from New York, Beth from Hong Kong, Yvette from El Paso TX, Janae from Arlington, Anthony from Lake Forest, Renee from Milton, Michelle from Minot, Tre from Birmingham, Ali from Bishop, and I think that must be up to date from about June this year.
Welcome everybody and again I hope that in some small way we can help each other out and provide some wisdom for us all to learn from each other's experiences.
What do you know about - Education?
Wow. As always I am continually humbled by the broad range of people that have subscribed and I honour you all for your extraordinary commitment to a more fulfilling and rewarding life. Listing those names above was a bit like the Play School show here on the ABC in Australia. Play School frequently run down a list of names to say hello to all those watching. Play School is an educational show for preschool children and has been running since I was a kid.
Education is so important in our lives isn't it. I completed a post graduate degree a couple of years ago in adult education and I found it fascinating to be inspired by all the key thinkers in this domain. Paulo Friere, who wrote a book called "Pedagogy of the Oppressed," Carl Rogers who wrote "On Becoming a Person" and many many more 20th Century theorists and many throughout the ages including people such as Marx, Socrates and Bandurra.
I think the fascinating thing for me was to have a view outside that culturally, on all of these key thinkers, and to see that they had something to offer for the time and even for now. Friere especially impacted me with his notions of social structure and the effect of conditioning on education.
Education either functions as an instrument which is used to facilitate integration of the younger generation into the logic of the present system and bring about conformity or it becomes the practice of freedom, the means by which men and women deal critically and creatively with reality and discover how to participate in the transformation of their world. Paulo Friere
So how do you transform your world? Well you must participate.
It is heartening to see people rising to the occasion and commencing discussions on education for the future and what that will mean given all the significant changes throughout the past few decades in computers and medicine for example. One of these is Karl Fisch of Arapahoe High School in Centennial Colorado. He is my new Inspirational Person of the Week on the DDQ website. (Follow the link to read more).
Karl has realised that the methods we learnt by in the past will not necessarily be those most effective in teaching the current generation of children. For example, my first computer was a Tandy TRS80 that I bought in about 1982. It had 16k of RAM and no other memory!! I couldn't do all that much with it except play Space Invaders!
My first laptop I purchased in 1989 and it had 20 megabyte of memory on its hard drive. I could type a few documents and do some basic database work but really that was about it. My current computer, an Apple MacBookPro has 100 times the memory just in RAM and 250 gigabytes of hard disk space. Only two decades but a 12500 times increase in capacity. I can do almost anything on my computer and do it quickly and intuitively.
I commenced school without computers and cannot operate without them now. So any education must be taught differently to encompass the differences in technology available but must also be adaptive to give skills in change and learning in these environments.
Another two decades of computer improvement will see amazing increases in technology that we have not even thought of as yet and jobs will be created that nobody even can contrive of there current form or detail.
So how do you teach people to behave and perform in such an environment? Well that is a question.
And this is the question being asked by Karl Fisch as he attempts to engage the community in this important discussion.
In what ways are you moving with change? Are you embracing the changes in technology and learning new skills? How can you best teach and mentor your own children and relatives to learn and grow to be more.
Socrates learned to dance when he was seventy because he felt that an essential part of himself had been neglected. ~Source Unknown
“It is Christmas in the heart that puts Christmas in the air."
W.T. Ellis
Merry Christmas
Well it is
almost Christmas and the past week has been as hectic as they can get.
I am sure that your week has been equally as busy and wondering where
all that time went. Still I do hope you all have had some time to enjoy
the lead up to Christmas Day and enjoy the day with your families. For
me I am on a day off for Christmas Day but our crews will be as busy as
ever. In fact I have just got off the phone with one of my helicopter
rescue crews coordinating a search for an aircraft that has crashed in
Western New South Wales. Unfortunately the weather tonight is quite
poor and we will not be able to achieve much. Such accidents rarely
have a good outcome and unfortunately some people will have lost their
lives tonight.
Not a good way for some poor families to commence their Christmas break or Christmas Day.
Christmas is not as much about opening our presents as opening our hearts.
Janice Maeditere
So
tonight I have also been down to one of our operating bases and played
Santa Claus. Santa's helper came along as well. We delivered some
presents and food for the crew that will be providing rescue and
aeromedical coverage to the people of Sydney should anything untoward
happen during the day. And there are many other's out there opening
their hearts in support of the community in many other ways giving up
the normal opening of presents to impact the world in a meaningful way.
He who has not Christmas in his heart will never find it under a tree.
Roy L. Smith
But Christmas is not about the gifts and the food and I am certain that
whilst our crews will appreciate what is under the tree, they will no
doubt appreciate the extra effort that "Santa" went to in ensuring that
our crews got something for giving their time on Christmas Day in
service of the community.
Never worry about the size of your Christmas tree. In the eyes of children, they are all 30 feet tall.
Larry Wilde, The Merry Book of Christmas
So we never need to worry about the size of the present. Our crews
tomorrow, will provide for somebody the biggest Christmas present of
all as our helicopter crews will unfortunately be called out to
somebody who has had a terrible accident and will save their life. Now
that is a gift.
The best of all gifts around any Christmas tree: the presence of a happy family all wrapped up in each other. ~Burton Hillis
And the greatest gift of all?
Well for me it is the celebration of the birth of Jesus. If this isn't
your context for tomorrow I am sure the great gift will be in your
families being together and remembering the gifts of love, support and
gratitude you have for each other.
For our
subscribers Dave and Sandra who have been battling cancer this year,
successfully, the greatest gift of all - well is the love they share
with each other and the family they have around them supporting them.
There is a new post on the blog if you wish to read it. See the link
below.
Merry Christmas to you all.
What is the greatest gift of all for you this Christmas?
“Time is the most valuable thing a man can spend."
Theophrastus (372 BC - 287 BC)
Not enough Time!
Well doesn't time fly? Christmas is just around the corner and it seems like 2008 just got started and here it is nearly finished. Wednesday has arrived and I haven't had five minutes to sit down and write a quote. So here it is, before the week and time available disappears!
Does it ever seem like you have a different amount of time each week? Sometimes a week flies and others just go by ever so slowly. Do you ever say to yourself or to someone else "I don't have enough...time", "I can't give you the time today", "I wish I had more time", "where did that time go?"
The Future is something which everyone reaches at the rate of sixty minutes an hour, whatever he does, whoever he is. C.S. Lewis
So we all have exactly the same amount of time to experience, dispose of, kill, give or use each and every day. If I have a day to spend my time, I have:
24 hours
1440 minutes or
86400 seconds
just like everybody else. I get the same amount as everyone of you, providing of course I live the day and don't expire!
Time is an equal opportunity employer. Each human being has exactly the same number of hours and minutes every day. Rich people can't buy more hours. Scientists can't invent new minutes. And you can't save time to spend it on another day. Even so, time is amazingly fair and forgiving. No matter how much time you've wasted in the past, you still have an entire tomorrow. Denis Waitley
You can't save it but we sure do spend it. How are you going to spend your time tomorrow. It is the one thing we all have the same amount of.
There is a great amount of fear about at the moment. Rightly so I guess given the way in which our various national economies are going. Rio Tinto, one of Australia's largest mining companies slashed 14 000 jobs this week. The US President George Bush announced the US economy to be officially in recession and the worst unemployment rate in 15 years at 6.7 percent with 544 000 jobs lost last month. The worst job loss figure recorded in the past 34 years. So if job loss statistics is anything to go by and if this is how you assess being happy or depressed, well we had better all get depressed and remain fearful!
I am not immune here. Our company has been operating without a contract for the past two years and we are hanging on admirably, albeit on a thin sliver of hope. But we do at least have that.
So is Hope enough? Well Hope reminds me of Hope Stout whom I had featured on my website. She is still the "inspirational person of the week."
Hope had the worst of job statistics placed in front of her. Hope was told she would never have a job because of terminal cancer. She chose to brighten the lives of others in her only too short life. Read the full story here.
Was Hope afraid in the shadow of death? I don't know but given she was flesh and blood like you and me, I can only guess so. But what she did with that fear I guess is the question and I wonder how we can model that?
General George Patton, nicknamed "old blood and guts", was somebody else who understood fear pretty well in the context of death.
Old "blood and guts" is probably not the one you would ordinarily model yourself on, unless of course you are a tank commander in the Army. However his record for courage under fire is amazing. Again not statistics that we would really like to hold too high, as I am sure we would all agree, war is an abhorrent thing. But, Patton's 3rd Army during the World War 2 campaigns of 1944/45 proved amazing. Patton's Army inflicted 144 500 deaths on the enemy and only lost 16 596 themselves. The German's across all conflicts in Europe during this period lost 263 000 and the allies lost 186 900.
Casualties (deaths) inflicted on the German Army
Own Casualties (deaths)
By all other Allied Armies (excluding 3rd Army)
118500
170304
By Patton's 3rd Army alone
144500
16596
Total
263000
186900
Patton's 3rd Army inflicted over 54% of the casualties throughout the European theatre and only lost less than 9% of the total allied casualties.
Some incredible figures. I guess you can draw your own conclusion but George Patton knew something about courage and fear in the context of that thing we most fear, death.
So how did Patton save so many of his own troops lives in the face of imminent death? How did he motivate them in spite of incredible fear? Today's quote gives some guidance. Hold on to your fear just a minute longer sometimes and you will find what it is you need within you. That fulfilling action is often termed courage.
In our context it might be discipline, kindness, love or some other display of emotion, behaviour or action to alter a situation and move on to the next thing in our own context.
Patton's motto:
Always do everything you ask of those you command.
George S. Patton
Patton insisted on only sending people out to do things that he had done himself. He could often be found at the battle front shooting at planes or tanks with his pistol!
Patton would rarely lead from being in some command post. He was noted for being in the thick of the conflict and showing people how to overcome their fear. He was there with his troops. And he was not perfect. There are many incidents where his behaviour was a warning rather than an example. But there we also go in our own lives being imperfect human beings.
One of the things I am acutely aware of in these difficult times is that my children, young adults now, are unconsciously modelling my behaviour. They are watching my every move and looking for references so that when they get to the same position as me in their own lives they have some behaviour to reference to. I can't say that I am getting it right necessarily, but I am staying the course with things at the moment.
I don't measure a man's success by how high he climbs but how high he bounces when he hits bottom. George S. Patton
We are no doubt in for a rocky road next year. If for no other reason than people say so and everybody believes it. When you jump into a raging stream which way do you go? Well wherever the stream is going. It is hard not to go with the flow. But the raging torrent does end and what we do at the end can be defining.
So I guess we will hit bottom but as Patton says, how successful you will become is dependent on what you do when you hit rock bottom?
So what are you going to do? Sit there or bounce up and get on with life?
My sense is we haven't hit bottom yet. But I am ready to bounce and pounce on the rest of my life.
"War does not determine who is right - only who is left."
Bertrand Russell
Do you like frogs?
On Monday I had been travelling around the northern part of this magnificent country of Australia. Today, or rather tonight I am in the southern part, Melbourne, having flown down to attend a working group on a drug and alcohol program that our company needs to implement as part of the national aviation regulations. I am ever grateful the opportunities to travel but am very tired tonight and would obviously prefer to be at home with my family.
The past two days have been eventful for me with much conflict to deal with at work. I would in some ways wish to avoid the issues and just lie in bed and watch a good movie. However, that approach rarely works and you just end up with some other issue to deal with, because you didn't deal with the first one. But it does sound rather appealing to deal with conflict by watching a movie. Oh for a world where issues were resolved in such a manner.
The direct use of force is such a poor solution to any problem, it is generally employed only by small children and large nations. ~David Friedman
You know I used to be a tradesman. I joined the Navy as a boy of barely 15 years of age. A long story that I can relate at some point. But my approach to most tasks as a tradesman was to do the most difficult job first. I always found that I had the energy and presence of mind to deal with the hard tasks first rather than later or last. In fact if I didn't do the hard tasks until last, I generally found that I left these for another day or for somebody else to deal with. Of course this approach either ate you up all night as you contemplated the difficulty in facing the next day, or there was some other conflict generated because you left the hard work for your colleagues to deal with. And then of course what did your colleagues leave for you to deal with when you took over from them? Well sometimes the same job you left them to sort out, but more than often they would wait until they found a really difficult job and handed that over to you as retribution or payback. Sound vaguely familiar in anybody's life at all?
Well, you would think that given such great patterning in my work ethic, that my level of maturity in my dealings with people would be equally as magnificent.
But I have to admit it has taken me a long time to realise that the a good way to deal with personal conflict is to tackle your biggest problem first thing in the day. Everything else is easy, or at least easier by comparison. I tried this approach yesterday with some success for myself. The situation ended up fairly difficult to deal with but at least I got it out of the way. I didn't have to dwell on the issue for any length of time. It wasn't completely dealt with and in some ways raised other issues. But it was done and I felt that I at least I tackled the issues.
All wars are follies, very expensive and very mischievous ones. In my opinion, there never was a good war or a bad peace. When will mankind be convinced and agree to settle their difficulties by arbitration? Benjamin Franklin
The psychology of the approach is another story and based in The Song of Songs a book in the Bible. But my approach to getting it out of the way was based in a link I received to an e-movie I had watched some time ago, but had promptly forgotten until Monday.
I had watched a short e-movie by Brian Tracy called "Eat That Frog.' Here is the link. The movie suggests that if you eat a frog for breakfast every day (that is tackle your greatest difficulty first thing) then things can only get better and easier. Watch the movie and see what you think.
And well one other thing I have learned, especially when dealing with the brighter gender of the human race...
All the arms we need are for hugging. Author Unknown
So who are you going to hug today? To my wife and children and gained children in the form of in-laws and prospective in-laws I send you a hug from my keyboard. The best I can do today.
"Love is a symbol of eternity. It wipes out all sense of time, destroying all memory of a beginning and all fear of an end."
Author Unknown
Gardeners are we!
It was Brad and Katherine's wedding anniversary yesterday. Brad is my eldest son and Katherine of course my eldest daughter-in-law! They are in Istanbul, Turkey, working with a mission organisation in support of a conference. How exciting is that for them? The memories this will give them of the celebration of their first year together. My wedding anniversary is on the 1st of January and as it is the day after the "big night" of New Year's Eve, it is a very quiet day. There is virtually nothing open except the cinemas and a couple of takeaway food shops. So Wendy and I spend the day watching the new release movies at the cinema, take in a show and generally just have fun. I must admit though I don't recall what we did for our first wedding anniversary. I am sure that I will be reminded tonight and will let you know later this week!!
An anniversary is a time to celebrate the joys of today, the memories of yesterday, and the hopes of tomorrow. Author Unknown
So Happy Anniversary Brad and Katherine and we all hope that you had a memorable and enjoyable time celebrating your marriage, and your lives together over the past year, in such an incredible location as Istanbul, Turkey.
And how has your week been going so far? Mine as usual is full before it starts and I wonder how I am going to manage just including the simple things of my life. Yesterday I flew to Newcastle and Townsville. This was my first trip where I was technically the captain of the aircraft as I have been just training before this. I have been learning on this jet to enable me to help out with our international aeromedical work. However, yesterday was a military transport job. Just to keep myself current on the airframe. The east coast of Australia has been subject to a number of big storms of late. Yesterday was no exception. Here is a photo as I am passing around a large storm at 37000 feet over western Queensland. It is difficult to tell from the photo but this storm extends far above our own altitude.
I didn't really sleep Sunday night for a range of reasons, one being the early hour I had to arise to get ready for this flight. There is an incredible amount of preparation that goes into something like this especially when you don't do it that often and you are trying to impress. Needless to say I was happy that the flight went quite well and I managed to stay awake for all of it as well!
Today I am back to reality. Office work, compliance mapping, problems to overcome, personnel issues to resolve. This was going to be the subject of my quote today however is not to be today. My focus today is on those that I can be grateful for in entering my life.
Let us be grateful to people who make us happy, they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom. Marcel Proust
It may not be my wedding anniversary today and I might not remember what I did on my first wedding anniversary, however I do know who I spent that day, and chose to spend the rest of my life with. My wife Wendy and she is the charming gardener in my life that makes my soul blossom.
So who makes your soul blossom? Whose soul do you make blossom? How much gardening are you going to do today? Tell someone today that they are the gardener of your life and the impact that they have on you.
Congratulations again Brad and Katherine. You are both truly magnificent gardeners in each other's lives.
"God grant me the serenity to accept the people I cannot change, the courage to change the one I can, and the wisdom to know it's me."
Author Unknown
Change
Boy am I busy at present. My day today has been as full as can be. 2km swim this morning. A chat with my friend Rod who holds me to a higher standard in my life. Then flat out with work all day in meetings and organising. We are looking at moving to a new office building. Our company is currently working out of portable offices behind our aircraft hangars. These demountables are leased for about $120000 per year. A not insignificant sum!! We have found a two story building that is literally a three minute walk from where we are currently located. It is brand new, bigger than that we are currently in and if we purchase the building it will cost us about the same per month in mortgage repayments as we are currently leasing our portable offices for!!
Everybody is excited about the prospect but some have fears about moving. That is a natural part of life to be nervous about change, and things... well changing.
Those who expect moments of change to be comfortable and free of conflict have not learned their history. ~Joan Wallach Scott
So for me I am not afraid of the changes. In fact I rather enjoy change, the uncertainty and excitement that it brings. However, I do not enjoy the conflict and difficulties surrounding emotional attachments and holding onto the past rather than embracing the future. But I do understand the difficulties that people face in the light of significant change.
If you want to make enemies, try to change something. ~Woodrow Wilson
So I am not attempting to make any enemies but there are some ruffled feathers appearing. How does all this play out for me then? Well I have to ensure that I continue to engage people and encourage a look toward the future and the positives. I must understand their fears and address them. Maybe I need to provide some leverage for them to not sit still but to rise to the challenge. If we stay here what will we look like as a company in 5,10 or 20 years? Will we be left behind and irrelevant?
And to seek growth in the journey.
Growth is the only evidence of life. ~John Henry Newman
So how are you living your life today? Are you embracing change? After all change happens without any input from you. You get older day by day. How are you embracing those changes?
"The most important thing in communication is hearing what isn't being said."
Author Unknown
Are you listening?
The first day of summer here in Australia. The first day of winter in the Northern Hemisphere. I have a weather application on my iPhone and I have been watching the weather in a number of my more frequently visited places. We have friends in Jordan so keep an eye on the weather there. I visit Stockholm reasonably regularly although I have only been there once this year. We lived in England for 3 years so watch the weather in London, Shawbury and Falmouth where we used to live. I have visited Denver a number of times for work and enjoyed Christmas in a lovely little village in south western Colorado called Ridgway a few years ago. So I also keep an eye on the weather there. And of course keep an eye on many places in Australia. I am writing this at 10pm on Monday night after a warm day and it is still 25 degrees Celsius (77deg F).
In Denver it is minus 8 degrees Celsius (17 deg F). A completely different experience to Glenbrook.
We have some Tongan people saying with us this week. We are sweltering and they have their coats on! Exactly the same weather but a completely different and entirely opposite experience.
It is amazing how we all see and feel things differently, even small things like the weather. If we view something simple like the weather differently, even though it is 25 degrees and not raining, but have a completely different experience, how are two people going to view many of life's events? Obviously not the same.
Wendy my wife and I were talking about our internet connection over the weekend. We have two phone numbers into our house but only need one so I have been suggesting getting rid of one for some time. Wendy took this to mean we should also get rid of the internet and change to a different provider as our internet line was on the phone line I was suggesting cancelling. When Wendy raised this with me I thought she meant that we couldn't stay with our current internet provider but she meant that we couldn't stay with our internet provider if we got rid of that number. I was hearing but didn't listen. Listening means to understand the words uttered, and heard means to perceive the sound made by someone or something. Listening is more of an active process.
We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak.
Epictetus
Now we have gone through the whole process of changing our internet provider at great expense and it seems we could have stayed with the old one. If only I had listened and not just heard.
And this was just over a silly little thing like an internet connection. How can two people married for 25 years view and listen to the same experience and still get completely different perspectives? If we can't get this right, how many things in our lives have we misinterpreted and gotten wrong through attempting to understand what we heard, from our own perspective, rather than listened to what was said and understand the other person's perspective?
My wife says I never listen to her. At least I think that's what she said.
Author Unknown
So it is always worthwhile, before going off and making assumptions over somebody's actions or what they have said, that you have the full story and understand what it is the other person said or is trying to tell you.
And of course if you don't listen well...
In the course of my life, I have often had to eat my words,
and I must confess that I have always found it a wholesome diet. Winston Churchill
This year's achievements!
Happy New Year. It is our wedding anniversary today. 26 years of marriage and still going strong. 
So
tonight I have also been down to one of our operating bases and played
Santa Claus. Santa's helper came along as well. We delivered some
presents and food for the crew that will be providing rescue and
aeromedical coverage to the people of Sydney should anything untoward
happen during the day. And there are many other's out there opening
their hearts in support of the community in many other ways giving up
the normal opening of presents to impact the world in a meaningful way.
So how did Patton save so many of his own troops lives in the face of imminent death? How did he motivate them in spite of incredible fear? Today's quote gives some guidance. Hold on to your fear just a minute longer sometimes and you will find what it is you need within you. That fulfilling action is often termed courage. 
The east coast of Australia has been subject to a number of big storms of late. Yesterday was no exception. Here is a photo as I am passing around a large storm at 37000 feet over western Queensland. It is difficult to tell from the photo but this storm extends far above our own altitude.
friend Rod who holds me to a higher standard in my life. Then flat out with work all day in meetings and organising. We are looking at moving to a new office building. Our company is currently working out of portable offices behind our aircraft hangars. These demountables are leased for about $120000 per year. A not insignificant sum!! We have found a two story building that is literally a three minute walk from where we are currently located. It is brand new, bigger than that we are currently in and if we purchase the building it will cost us about the same per month in mortgage repayments as we are currently leasing our portable offices for!!