Way to ruin a Friday night

Reading Time: 4 minutes

With an impending child arriving early next week, today was most likely my last day of work before I take three weeks off. It was a great trip home on the bus thinking of the timely break from the job.

Our Friday night schedule is getting fish ‘n chips then going home to watch the Friday night football (NRL of course).  A schedule I love a lot, and really look forward to.  Unfortunately events outside of my control ruined the simple joy of this, tonight at least.

After we placed our order at the fish ‘n chips shop we walked the short distance to the supermarket to get just a few things. At the checkout, it appeared like there was some sort of scene developing between what I thought was the supermarket checkout supervisors, and a 20-something girl and a guy maybe in his 30s.

Once I had paid for our groceries, I walked through to my wife who was sitting at the entrance and quietly asked what was happening.  She had a good vantage point from her seat, but she said she didn’t know except that the girl walked straight up and asked the supermarket girls to call the police.  Oh dear.

I walked us out of there, past the guy and the girl arguing. As I pass them, trying to become invisible, I noticed that she had two children with her. One was maybe 2 or 3, the other 10 or so.  My wife, son and me walked on while the arguing was intensifying. I couldn’t comprehend what was being said, except that there was plenty of swearing, and it was mostly him. One of the only things I recall the girl saying was that the security cameras within the shop would have recorded him.  This is not good I thought to myself.

With all the arguing, when we were a safe 20 or so metres away from them I decided to not walk any further and keep an eye on what was happening.  As I look back I notice that the guy was starting to look very aggressive toward her.  Right then he threw an almighty punch that connected with the side of the girl’s face. I couldn’t believe my eyes, but straight away I knew I had to do something. I handed the bag of shopping to the wife and rushed toward the guy, still thinking this can’t be happening .

I figured I reached him pretty quick.  He was setting himself to get her again when I caught him side on and shoved him from her.  I had expected right there that this would then just become a fight with me.  Despite the guy not being too small, my push managed to knock him to his knees with his back more or less towards me.  I was a bit surprised, but certainly glad of the result.  I grabbed the back of his jacket and forced him to the ground flat. Within seconds I had another guy jump on board like Steve Irwin taking to a rogue crocodile.  I noticed the guy helping me was saying actual words to the guy about him hitting her.  Straight away I’m appreciative there’s some confirmation of what had actually happened, and that my fellow arresting citizen was equally peeved at what had occurred.

The two of us have the low life pinned around the shoulder area, when a couple more quickly joined in.  One keeping the man’s legs down, and the other holding his arms down in front of him.  We’re certainly in control of the guy, but that didn’t stop him trying to escape, or unhook an arm to force us off.

He continued to struggle, only to stop now and then to tell us to get the f___ off him, or that he’s going to remember all of our faces, or that he’s going to cut us all up real good.  He also let fly with individual insults about each of us within his view.  Actually before the whole posse got involved the guy had tried reasoning with me. Allegedly the girl was trying to take his kids away – I wondered to myself if he really believed that was justification for belting a girl half your size.  I didn’t say what I really wanted to say, but I made it clear I wasn’t moving. He’d have to sort it out when the police arrive.

Unfortunately the police took more than half an hour to arrive from the moment the flood of 000 phone calls were received from people at the scene.  In fact one of our sheriffs had to leave during the ordeal due to the delay.  As it was taking so long, we started to take turns at different regions to allow small rests.  It turned out the police had come from another hairy situation which required them all. 

They handcuffed the guy, and asked around who had been involved to take our details and brief statements. When the cop was told I was first on the scene he came to me and said, ‘Talk to me – what happened?’ I told him the honest answer, that guy ruined my Friday night footy – which got a slight smile. 

Fortunately we managed to get home before the footy started, and with time for me to have a shower to try and wash off the foulness I felt that the situation spread over me.

The whole spectacle was disappointing on a number of levels.  My three year old son witnessed the guy hit the girl, then me having to get involved, then the guy on the ground bleeding, swearing and threatening all of us. But just as disappointing was some of the comments people walking by had made to us. I think at its peak, the crowd would have been 20 – 30 or so people.  But it seemed everyone that walked by needed an explanation.

The majority of comments were to leave the guy alone cause he could sue us.  The worst comment though had come from an older lady who came up to me very early in the piece and said – very seriously – the girl was a drug addict anyway.  My goodness that made me mad.

I heard later that the girl involved in the attack just ran off once I had dropped the guy.  On the way she sweared at my wife for trying to help her with the pram.  While that wasn’t very nice, I feel for her.

I really hope she’s OK, and she never has anything to do with that piece of trash oxygen thief again.  Hopefully she presses charges and he gets what he deserves.  But I’ve heard that’s not the common pattern with these sorts of things ..

The weekend has to get better from here. The police officer suggested I write down my version of events while I remember which often helps getting things clearer.  They could be in touch for a more detailed statement.

But then I’d like to strike it from my memory, but I know I’ll be unable to.

Whale of a comment

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Sadly, a lost baby whale dubbed Colin has been found swimming alone north of Sydney at Pittwater. It’s been trying to nuzzle moored sailing boats, hoping that one of them will be its lost mother.

It seems like a tragic case. The authorities and experts have indicated that the whale will not survive long without its mother. They have all but given up hopes of finding the mother, or another lactating female to give little Colin the necessary support.

Apparently questioning my heavily pregnant wife whether she was lactating yet was out of line.

 

Addendum: I looked this up after some time.  And sadly Colin was euthanased after authorities found what’s likely to be the mother dead in nearby waters, https://www.news.com.au/news/have-sharks-eaten-colins-mum/news-story/4a34ddbb324d4225e7ddae95018dddfe, accessed 20 Aug 2018.

Messiah Vampires

Reading Time: 2 minutes

We like to make the most of the weekends with my son, particularly doing or seeing things I know he’s interested in.  So when the world’s oldest active ocean-faring passenger ship called the MV Doulos was docked at Portside for the public to view and visit, I thought we were onto a winner.  Unfortunately, our attendance was under false pretences.

We heard about the event from the Our Brisbane portal, which just described the MV Doulos briefly and had a link to another site which had more of an account of the boat’s history.

We had a big day in the city, then caught a citycat out to Hamilton to check the ship out.  The ship was definitely a classic.

Once we were aboard the roped off route took us to the boat’s end (or the stern for those in the know). Here they had a massive bookshop.  I thumbed through a few books which seemed to be for kids, and bought a nice colouring-in and activity book about the MV Doulos which the three year old liked.

It was around lunch time when we were aboard, so we also had a hot dog.

One thing I noticed was just how nice all the crew were.  In fact, they seemed almost super nice. They were also from a huge range of different countries, which I thought was interesting.

Once we had seen all we could see, we followed the winding route around the ship towards the exit. And just before we were about to make our way down the ladder back to terra firma, yet another super nice crewmate  greeted us. She has an armful of books, and she gave one to my son, and a different one to me.

I could make out the front page of the kids book which alarmingly put our trip and all those super nice people into context.  The cartoon book was called “The greatest story of all”, and if the title wasn’t enough to give it away, even the graphics on the front page had the tell-tale style about it.

It turns out the MV Doulos is a boat of devout Christian missionaries. In fact, I was totally oblivious to it but a large part of the boat’s mission is its impressive Christian bookshop which it takes to those who haven’t experienced God.

Looking at the Google results now, it’s plainly obvious what the boat was all about.  However the web sites I visited all just said, great old boat on its last trip to Australia.  It was no real skin off our nose, it was still nice to be aboard.  However there was just a slight feeling of being robbed as the boat was here for one reason and I was there for something very different.

I went there wondering what the MV stood for, whether it be merchant or military vessel, etc.  When I first realised what the ship was all about I thought perhaps it may have been Messiah Vampires.

I downgraded our score for the trip to a 5 out of 10 for false-advertising.

Broncos vs St. George – 15 August 2008

Reading Time: 2 minutes

A few of us decided to catch this Friday night game at Suncorp Stadium.

It’s always good to watch us play St. George.  And at the moment there’s an extra level of interest due to ex-Bronco Wendell Sailor now playing for them after a period of retirement from active sport by playing internation rugby union.  And, also our founding and long-standing coach Waybe Bennett has decided to leave at the end of the season for the Dragons.

The game started well for the Broncos with two opening converted tries.  My mate and I thought it was the start of an easy victory for us.  Unfortunately the Broncos appeared to think the same thing and relaxed – not a good thing to do in any professional sport.

We still led at half time 12 – 6, but to cut a frustrating story short, in the end the Dragons rolled us 24 – 20.  We scored the final points which made the result appear closer than it was. Unfortunately we had massive defensive holes, and again we failed to score or provide at least a satisfactory attacking play when needed.

Another unfortunate part to the night was a minor clash with the people sitting behind us.  They were St. George supporters which wasn’t the problem.  The problem was they had a supporter’s flag which continued to be waved across my mate’s sister’s face. When she turned around to make them aware of this, the guy apparently called her a grumpy slag or words to the effect.  When my mate questioned him about it, he denied everything and couldn’t offer any construction explanation .. The guy was in his 50s, yet acted like a 10 year old wanting to start a school yard “did not, did too” debate. I’m glad we rose above it, and quickly moved our focus back to the game.

As we left, the guy behind built-up his vocabularly to sarcastically say it was nice to meet us.  Perhaps it was his version of the school yard “nyah nyah”.  We didn’t let it spoil the night, but they certainly changed the mood which certainly wasn’t needed.

Barack who?

Reading Time: < 1 minute

My three year old son was interested in the weekend newspaper I was reading this afternoon.  He usually focuses on the cartoons which means I have the difficult task of describing what’s happening, who the people are, and why it could be considered funny by people. Regardless my obvious failing at this, he kindly laughs anyway.

But today there were a few stories on the US election, and specifically Barack Obama. The three year old was quite interested.  He asked who was in the picture, so I told him it’s Barack Obama and as my boy is a big fan of our prime minister – heaven knows why – I mentioned that Barack Obama is trying to get the same job that Kevin Rudd has – but in America.  My boy giggled, and said “bummer”. 

Puerile, but quite funny at the time.

Broncos vs Cronulla – 25 July 2008

Reading Time: < 1 minute

I managed to get a free ticket to see the Broncos play the Cronulla Sharks Friday night at home.  The weather wasn’t great throughout the day. But that was of no real concern as the seats were undercover of the Eastern stand.  It hardly rained during the match, but the ground appeared a bit wet.

The Broncos were boosted by the return of a few players. The team won pretty comfortably in the end, enabling me to leave before the finish only to sit on the first train out of Milton for twenty minutes. Despite it being a good finish for us, the commentary between my friend and I referred to an arm wrestle for most of the match.  Contrary to others’ reports, I felt the Broncos were quite flimsy in defense a few times. They only just managed to do enough to prevent several tries through broken play.

Man of the match for mine was Greg Eastwood. He did loads in defense, and as per normal he also attacked strongly.  In fact, against all odds he supplied a pin-point kick to the corner for a much needed try, then he followed-up with the match winning try.  “Slammy” Thaiday also had a blinder getting over the line, and keeping the Sharks forwards on the backfoot.

Paul Gallen had further evidence of getting priority treatment from the referees.  They certainly seem to target him.  Almost every time he was a wanker, the referee penalised him. The pinnacle was a high shot on David Stagg that made Stagg see stars, and hopefully sees Gallen get a week or two in suspension.  Poor old Gallen. Quite a drop after his man of the match performance in State of Origin 2008, almost single-handedly providing the Maroons (his opposition) that series.

To quantify a “handfull”

Reading Time: 2 minutes

I was recently chatting with a colleague about our respective kids, when he started comparing our situations.  Ordinarily there’s no value in making comparisons.  But it was just interesting to see the difference in our ages.

Despite being almost ten years older than me, our children are set to be very close in age.  He made a comment along the lines of finding his kids quite a handfull, and it would probably be a lot easier for me to get around after my kid.  But in answer to him, I had to say I’ve never found it effortless.

Every year it seems there’s a new oldest mother in the world, often with a lot of negative publicity.  There’s a number of reasons why that’s not a good idea.  Most importantly in my eyes is life expectancy.  These mothers in their 70s would be doing exceedingly well to just be around to see their child’s 15th birthday.

But in terms of ideal age, I suppose it just made me reflect that it’s obvious to me that at no age a parent is going to find it easy to endlessly chase after and look after their kids while keeping them entertained.  Last year I was probably the fittest I’ve been in my life.  I was in marathon running shape so my stamina was quite high.  But I can honestly say my son was still a handfull. 

Perhaps the measure of a kid being a handfull is something they watch. Perhaps they are just able to guage how much energy a parent has,  sap it to the point of exhaustion, then they’re ready to go to bed.

I think this may explain how my older, non-marathon running colleague found his kids such a handfull, yet I did too. 

Guess it begs the question how much energy do our kids have.  I think in all honestly, there is a connection between how well you’re able to keep up with them, and how much energy they’re able to exert.

But the longer I’m in the game of being a parent I also see the value of being creative.  A game to keep them entertained is good.  A game that keeps them entertained while not involving you physically is better.  But a game that keeps them entertained, while not involving you physically, that helps with getting some of the house work done is clearly the best!  I can’t recall any of these examples off the top of my head, but I will certainly document them when I remember.

No, I’m the conductor

Reading Time: 2 minutes

Since we weren’t fit to participate in the Jetty 2 Jetty fun run this year, my son and I went to Clontarf to just watch the finish.  It was another beautiful Queensland day, providing some very nice running conditions.

We settled at a point around 50 – 100 metres from the finish.  We saw four or five people from the running club, and cheered on many others as well.

My little guy was quite impressed at the number of little kids taking off at the start of the 3km event.  He mimicked my cheering by yelling out random names at the pretty big crowd which got many giggles.  Later he said he was just doing it to make me laugh.

We then went to a park in nearby Scarborough.  It has a train, so obviously a big hit!  My attempts at getting him to come with me to a cafe before the park were very ambitious.  We went to the park first.  Of course the train was the first thing used. He took to the controls, and barely moved for the next 20 minutes.  That is, except to tell me to occasionally change the signals – which I could never seem to do right.

Another boy came along who also favoured driving the train.  Although unhappy about it, my son accepted that his shift had finished so it was time to move to his second preference job, the train conductor.  The Polar Express movie has a lot to answer for.  My little guy was quoting lines to the other kids, most a little older than his three years.  None of them quite knew what to make of the dialogue.  But one other kid, quite older, thought he should be taking people’s tickets.  When my son spotted this rogue activity I could read in his face, “Not on my watch!”

“No, I’m the conductor” he said very repetitively which didn’t get the result he was after.  It seems the chain of command my son was working within at “the train park” had not been ratified.  I thought it was an opportune time for us to check the train’s carriages.  The other boy seemed to move on also.

Just before the hour mark I made moves for us to leave. It’s strange but he’s quite the opposite of most other kids we see at parks.  He definitely gets quicker the longer he’s there.  In fact we’ve had confirmation from other parents.  One mother commented that we wouldn’t have many photos of him that weren’t a blur.

The thought of leaving wasn’t taken overly well, but it never is.

Two babycinnos, and a serve of pancakes with ice cream and maple syrup seemed to make things a little less disappointing.  But he told me straight that he wasn’t very happy.

A guy enters a bar joke #1

Reading Time: < 1 minute

I just know I’ll write more of these, so I’ll forward plan and start numbering.

A guy enters a bar and asks the bar tender for a tall glass of the most expensive scotch he has.  The bar tender is happy to oblige and hands a full glass to the guy.  The guy puts it to his lips and sculls all the whiskey down in one rushed gulp. 

He asks the bar tender for another, just the same.  The bar tender pours another tall glass for the man, and yet again – amazingly – the guy sculls the entire glass of scotch again.

At this, the bar tender says to the man, “You’re drinking 18 year, single malt, single cask, scotch imported from a 250 year distillery deep within the highlands of Scotland.  You really should slow down and savour it.”

The man responds, “Mate, you’d drink it this fast too if you’ve got what I’ve got”.

To this, the bar tender is taken a little aback.  He apologises, and explains he didn’t want to be insensitive.  But he just had to ask, “So what do you have?”.

Sheepishly the guy replies, 25 cents.

Teewah – 12 July 2008

Reading Time: 3 minutes

My brother has been camping up at Teewah Beach the past week.  Possibly the coldest and wettest week Teewah Beach has seen in the past three years.

It was a beautiful morning so my son and I drove up and spent the day with him. To be more precise, the tides dictated that we were only going to spend 4 or 5 hours with him.  Regardless, we still filled the back of the X-Trail with enough activities that could keep a childcare centre busy for a week or two. We had footballs, beach balls, cricket set, fishing rods, books, comics, cars, Tonka trucks, and much, much more. I’d rather have more things than are wanted, than less.

We took just over two hours to get there, including a short stop on the beach before Red Canyon to show the police presence my driver’s license and pass their Random Breath Test. I naively asked if they do this very often cause it’s the first time I’ve seen them.  He said yes, we’re always here around school holidays. Later I realise he was never going to answer, ‘No, this is the first and last time we’ll ever be here to make sure people aren’t misbehaving’ – even if it had been the truth.

The instructions to find my brother were perfected to the kilometre. It was a well-sheltered spot.  It should be pointed out, the term ‘sheltered’ here is only used relatively since the thickness of the tent’s skin could me measured in nanometres. Camping in winter has a further marketing issue when a sleeping bag only adds a few centimetres of protection.

Sitting back watching the ocean we spotted at least two pods of whales swimming North. They were only a stone’s throw from the breaking waves (NOT that we tested this).

We played a bit of beach cricket, as much as you can when one third of the players is a three year old. A three year old with a fantastic cover drive I should add.

What was also a bit of fun was when the three year old delegated the remaining workers into their tasks to develop an apartment.  If the youngun wasn’t having so much fun doing his job of moving the Tonka truck between the quarry to the construction site, the task may have been a little pointless. The structure was only made from the stuff that’s everywhere around it – sand. But we did manage to dig down deep enough to get to water which helped it climb an extra few inches. We all marvelled at how it grew. Well, we thought we were all marvelling until a split second later a Tonka violently climbed the side, knocked off the penthouse and top two floors, then descended to several laughs.

Unfortunately not too far from where the construction was selected there was obviously the final remains of a pelican. By its rate of decomposition all you could really see were feathers. Of course my son spotted it, and asked what it was.  I tried to shelter him from the truth and just said it was where some feathers had fallen out of a bird.  “Nah, I think it’s just dead – that’s all” was his reply which made me grow up.

Lunch was a beautiful fresh bread sandwich with freshly caught fish. You can’t beat that.

The trip home was a little delayed so we were still on the beach close to high tide. Sometimes this is a cause of concern [insert here picture of poor 4WD stuck at the beach drowned to its roof].  But there was still more than enough room for us. It just made us drive in softer sand, which to a learning 4WDer was a lot more fun anyway.

The poor child fell a sleep very soon after we left the site. But he woke when we stopped to give the brother’s car some cooling down time. I can only think he woke from realising his sleeping head was no longer getting thrashed around in his car seat.

Finally we got back to Brisbane and into a take-away shop near our house just after 7pm. By this time the boy’s eyes were watering from his tiredness and the salt or sand.  And his temperature from his cough had risen a lot. I said poor little boy, you’re not very well are you. He looked at me with these poor blood-shot little eyes that were clearly hard to keep open and said “No, but why does that chicken have a big belly?” – pointing at the Red Rooster logo.

What a little champion. And what a day.