Straddie

A day trip to Stradbroke Island.

Frank, Phoebe, Jai, Amy & Fletch. 

Tesla to Cleveland and the cat to Straddie.

The three kids got a lift from Phoebe's brother and Phoebe and I took it bus. 

Angus & Lizzie Party

A very nice party at Angus and Lizzies place. 

To celebrate Angus winning best HOTY cox and their new house. 

Saw Maddie and Alice - Maddie coxed our boat two years ago and Alice coxed it this year. 

U16 social media ban

Nanny state and don't we just love it. 

The government removing individual freedom under the guise of safety. 

 Philosphically the government should not be protecting people from themselves.

I believe the government does have a role to play and that is to provide a balance on behalf of the people against the power of business. We understand that the social media platforms determine what is presented to users. The government should be requiring them to ensure that content is appropriate. As AI develops,  the task of curating the feed should actually become easier. 

Sunnybank Hills UC

The UC are closing Sunnybank Uniting Church.

I'm quite negative about this although I must say that I don't worship there and effectively it's not actually my business. 

The service included speeches from several people. Most reminiscing positivly about their lives here as a child or young adult. One fellow (Grant) gave a forthright description of recent [shitty] events. 

I'll have to ponder my opinion on this. 

I think the UC has some real systemic problems. I've obviously got my biases. I consider the UC was totally unprofessional in the way I was not followed up when my marriage failed. But I digress.

This lot have about 30 worshipping regularly. If they were young people, the church would be over the moon but because they are old, the church decides they are not worth anything. These are people who have given their lives to the church. The church fucks them over. 

On the building side, it feels like higher levels of the church are fixated on demolition and safety is being used as an excuse to close it.   This was hinted at when one speaker said that the remnants of the congregation were not allowed to get their own engineering assessment. Politics all the way.  

It feels like the UC is top heavy. Financially naive. Make bad investments at high levels and appropriate property to pay their bills. The difficulty being that so few people go to church these days. A few really big essentially independent churches are doing well and they attract the people while small local churches struggle and gradually fade. 

It's a pity that community seems to have evaporated.  

Park Run

Rocks Riverside parkrun results for event #595. Your time was 00:42:11.

Just me and Mags this week as Phoebe attending the closure of Sunnybank Hills UC. 

Ran the first 2.5km but not long after the turn around broke into a walk. 

I haven't done my usual Thursday run for several weeks. I'm fat. Didn't do park run last week.  General mental malaise. All contributed to a lack of drive.

Jemma returns

The high point was picking up Jemma from the airport. Her return from Europe. At her request we stopped into "The Norman" for a steak. 

BGRC AGM

move Glenrich to Byrnes 2

Equality

Been listening to videos on Jordan Peterson.

Some to do with "Equality".   Here i mean "Equality" to mean "Gender Equality"

A point that is part of the discussion is:  "Does equality mean equality of opportunity or does it mean equality of outcome"?

Equality means (to me) no social structures that favour one gender over the other.

Equality of opportunity means that people are free to choose without social structures biasing that choice.  I guess one would measure that by asking people whether they felt free to choose and whether past choices were ones they'd made v where they'd kind of been forced or corralled into a certain life path. 

Equality of Outcome being more like do we have equal numbers of women and men in each profession and do men and women in the same job get equal pay and do men and women spend equal time at home, cooking, cleaning, child rearing and at work. Do we have have equal numbers of women CEO's, engineers, nurses, soldiers etc. 

Interestingly, the more free a society is in terms of providing equality of opportunity, the less equal it is in terms of outcome.

The reason being is that in a society where one is really free to make choices, one is likely to choose based on underlying desires and personality traits and so on.   So if you are really driven, you might choose a path that has some uncomfortable challenges and competition for positions and some conflict along the way.  If you are more relaxed and value and enjoy socialisation, you might choose a path of relaxation.

Mags on Dave's couch

Hmmm. Visiting friends. Once upon a time Mags knew to stay off the furniture.  I've given up....

MONDAY NIGHT MENS GROUP

At Dave's place. During dinner I realised Mags was missing. I discovered the front door had blown open by one of the strong gusts of wind we'd been experiencing. 

I went out to the street and called loudly for mags.  

Suddenly I heard a voice in the darkness asking if I was looking for a dog.

The voice came from high in the darkness.  A highest Queenslander verandah behind a tree. 

I climbed the stairs and met the family mum, dad and two older teenage boys. Mags emerged from the group as they explained they'd given her treats and listed her on the local FB group. 

Having completed the conversation, we decamped to Dave's place and I locked the door. 

The next thing I observed was Mags taking up residence on the couch as we discussed our issues. 

Centenary Awards Night Dinner

SAT 29

Set up PA using the new mixer. 

Bluetooth connection shows up as BT SPEAKER and the associated knob is MP3 - both unhelpful. 

A nice night. The usual speeches.  Kids opportunity to dress up. 

Food was boxes from cosco and very good.