We had our school athletics carnival over the last two days. The weather was perfect, and as it was our last carnival we were ready to have a good time.
The slideshow below shows a selection of the photos I took. You can get the full photos or comment on them by clicking them (or something – I’m no expert).

What do you think? Leave a comment.

If there was a “Greatest Hero Award”, I know who would win it. I know because when we were shopping for camping supplies he bought the medal to go with his Santa Suit. Like all the great heroes of the past, he loves to have fun, has an insane sense of humour, is always ready for a surf, and he is a bloody awesome friend. His name is Will, everyone calls him Wilkin, and this is our story:

Part 1: The Beginning
The morning I met Will was just like any other Thursday morning. Enjoying the clear skies and the coolness of morning, a hint of warmth in the air, I climbed the seemingly endless paths through the school up from my bus stop. I threw open my locker and stuffed my bag inside. As I turned to join the group huddled in the playground, I caught a glimpse of someone I’d never seen before.
“Exchange student.” I thought, and kept walking.

As usual, no-one moved when the bell rang. Minutes later, as I dragged my feet towards my locker, I passed him again, tall and slim with hair that would have been emo but for its sandy colour. He was walking with a few other people. “Good, someone’s looking after him”.  I thought, feeling relieved of any responsibility.

Talking to a friend at lunchtime, I noticed him at his locker alone. “Lets go and say hi”, I suggested.  
“Go on then” she said. Driven more by my desire to avoid losing face than a concern for others, I walked over. I can’t remember the exact conversation, but it was probably something like this:

“Hey mate, Andrew” I volunteered in my typically awkward manner.
“Hi. Will” he replied. We shook hands.
“Where you from?”
England
“Oh yeah? You like cricket, then?”
“A bit”

Neither of us knew it, but in that moment we had discovered some small connection between us, through which we would come to be best of friends.

To be continued: Cricket, surfing, camping, parties, life – why Will is the Greatest Hero.

Dale reckons we should fight for Jesus. If you can’t work out why, episodes 1, 2, 3, and 4 might help.  

Being a Christian is 24/7. Everyday. Every hour. Every word. Every thought. Every action. Everything. Jesus matters more than being cool. Who are you trying to please? Jesus or some pimp daddies at school? Stand up for Jesus. Suffer for Jesus. Don’t be ashamed of Jesus. Tell your friends about Jesus. Join the Jesus Fight Club. Fight for Jesus.

Do you agree? Head to iagreewithdale.com and leave a comment.

Food for thought #3

“The things I thought were so important – because of the effort I put into them – have turned out to be of small value. And the things I never thought about, the things I was never able to either to measure or to expect, were the things that mattered.”

Thomas Merton

Out of all that we do, what of these will matter in the end? How do we work it out?

Do the things we consider important line up with what God considers important?

Experiences, thoughts, comments? Leave a comment below.

If you are still in school, are busy, have a job, or have a life, do not read this post.

My family hate the way I watch TV. I channel surf, and I’m very good at it. I haven’t watched an ad while in control of the remote for a long time.

Stumbleupon.com is a way to channel surf the internet. You download a toolbar and tell it your interests – then, any time you feel the need, you just click the ‘Stumble’ button and it will take you to a random site ’stumbled upon’ by another user. The sites are usually pretty cool because someone else with your interests has to have liked it for you to see it.

Be careful not to waste your life though.

Stumbleupon – 21st century procrastination.

[Note: all the posts on this site have 'Share This' links at the bottom. If you one, you can use that to 'stumble' it and share it with other people. ]

Excuses For Being Late #249: time does not exist.

I find this sort of stuff fascinating! Do you?

“Time, in this view, is not something that exists apart from the universe. There is no clock ticking outside the cosmos.”

People read differently on the internet. We tend to scan paragraphs, searching for key words. We often decide quickly how much time the page is worth – or move on.

Life is short – it’s probably a good habit on the web, and website writers have become good at catering to this habit. But I have found myself scanning off-line, in newspapers, books, textbooks, even exams!

We can’t scan without losing meaning. At best, comprehension drops as we skip over minor details (statistics, facts, lists of examples like this one), but at worst we can miss the entire meaning completely.

Consider this example. Read the following as you would normally on the net:

Liverpool Street is the finest point of departure in the whole of Southern England because wherever you go from it, whether to Southend or, ultimately, to Outer Mongolia, it cannot fail to be an improvement.

Does the writer like Liverpool Street? Unless you are a more careful reader than me, you read the first few words and skimmed the rest, especially the details in the middle, and so decided that the writer is speaking favourably. But, in fact, they do not “because wherever you go from it … it cannot fail to be an improvement.” By scanning, the content can be completely misunderstood!

My challenge is this: By all means, scan a page to decide if it is worth reading, but if you you consider it worthwhile then read it properly – especially if it is offline.

Jokes are dead. The internet is responsible. Your job: to bring them back.

Has anyone else noticed the death of the Joke? Or am I just hanging around with the wrong crowd? I haven’t heard a solid shaggy dog story in months, maybe years; it seems to me the art of spinning a good joke is dead.

I blame the internet. (Blaming the net is all the rage these days)
Come back with me to a pub in an outback town, decades before ‘internet’ was even a word. What were jokes then? They were connections to other people, conversation starters, and entertainment.

But most importantly: they were jewels. Without online joke databases and email chain letters, jokes were passed through their telling. They were tested on new audiences; good ones remembered and retold complete with the teller’s signature exaggeration. A new joke might have crossed oceans, deserts, or mountain ranges, carried by the faithful word warriors in fishing boats, on horses, in pubs, camping, driving, or in trains.

Enter the internet. One of the first websites I ever visited was a joke site. On it you could read tens of thousands of jokes, rated, ranked, and categorized.

Now jokes could be mass-consumed m&m style, alone, one after the other, joke upon joke, without pause, until the reader had eaten enough. Jokes were cut off from the source of life supplied by a human speaker, whose timing, intonation, facial expressions, and all-important embellishment were the real origin of the humour. Removed from interesting environments, they also lost what made them meaningful: their ability to form connections between people.

And so, jokes stopped being funny. Still amusing, still entertaining, but now hardly able to bring more than a smile. And so also, jokes ceased to be remembered. Once we prized the ability to recall every detail of a dozen jokes, but now, who would need to, with such vast compilations at our fingertips?

But is it so far gone?

 In a world of ever expanding cities, of busy, faceless strangers, of stress and rush, people need to connect. We often share our busses, trainstations, Starbucks, bars, park benches and offices with the same people everyday, but remain trapped in our own world by our ipods and magazines. Jokes are perfect ice-breakers and ideal conversation-starters; comforting and entertaining. It’s time for the joke to make a comeback.

And the job falls to you. You will notice I have not linked to a single website in this article. Of course not. Jokes must be sought and collected, not searched and downloaded. This is what you must do: When you’re next on a bus, in a restaurant, at a sporting event, ask: “Do you know any good jokes?”. Or, better yet, tell one. But that’s only half the job. You’ve got to remember their joke, spread it, and, most importantly, improve it – add to it.

Corny as it sounds, how better to start a conversation and get people to open up than with a laugh? Try it, and, who knows, maybe the joke will be resurrected.

Now get out there! You’ve got a job to do!

I’m getting back results from my trials this week. It reminded me of this great collection of answers from students who should have studied.

I Agree With Dale Episode 4: (#1, #2, #3)

Jesus is my homeboy. What does that mean? He’s my homie. We hang out everyday. He’s got my back. I listen to him. I speak to him. I love him. I worship him – for real! 2 He’s the best. I want my mates to be homies with him to. Jesus is my homeboy.

Do you agree? Head to iagreewithdale.com and leave a comment!

3 great things happened to me today:

1. I woke up, which is always nice. As far as I can work out, it means I’m alive.
2. I had the last of my trial exams – just my real exams to go now!
3. I took my new board out for a test run. Yesterday I wrote about how to get into surfing, and point 4 was “Do it often”. This afternoon I found out why. I haven’t been out for a while so I was very unfit and even more un-surf-fit (the surfing muscles… were gone!)
   Even though I was a bit rusty, the new stick is very, very nice! I haven’t tried out all the features yet (like standing up… kidding, sort of) but I like it heaps.

Tonight will be sweet too: youth group. Good food, good music, good fun, good people, and learning about Jesus – good times! If you live on the Coast, 7-9:30pm tonight @ the Erina High School hall (on The Entrance road) is where it’s at!

Have you ever wished you were a surfer? Ever heard yourself say “I can’t surf”? You were wrong, you can start now. Here are 6 steps to falling in love with the best sport in the world.

Imagine: You are resting on your board out the back, waiting for a wave with your mates and drinking in the most magic scenery on Earth. Even with the blood pumping and adrenalin flowing, you feel an almost-mystical peace with the world. Hakuna matata, time has stopped. The business of life slipped completely out of your mind the moment your board hit the water, and when you get out you will have no idea how long you were in.

Surfers are among the most laid-back people on the planet, and I’m not surprised. Connected to nature and having fun, getting exercise and meeting people, all in the most relaxed setting on Earth. And thats without even mentioning the cool-factor. Surfing is just one of those sports that almost everyone wishes they were part of.

But can you just ’start’ surfing, or do you have to grow up surfing?

Not every guy (and chick) shredding the surf this summer was born wearing a wetty and hanging ten before they could walk – it is possible to take up surfing later in life. I’m no pro (yet), but before last year I had never even picked up a surfboard, and now I love it.

So how do you get into surfing?

1. Grab a mate - Find a mate who has a similar level of surfing experience as you, and decide to try it together. It’s almost always more fun to surf with friends and watching each other improve will be motivating. Even better: grab another mate who can and surf with them too.
2. Grab a board – you don’t need to throw hundreds of dollars at surfing. Just about every surfer around has some old boards lying around from their grommet days. Borrow one from a mate or buy one second hand. It’s also possible to rent boards(check out local surf shops or surf schools) but I wouldn’t reccommend it – you want to be able to throw a board in the back of the car any old time, not be dependent on a shop being open. Lastly, all boards are not equal. While you can learn on anything, some will be harder, and therefore more frustrating, than others. (Some good guides are here and here)
3. Just do it! A famous shoe company once said something like this, and they were right. Get in the water and try it. Expect to be hopeless but go with a sense of humour and have a laugh. It will be an interesting mix of fun and frustration (funstration?) but just get out there and have a go.
4. Do it often. Try to go out at least once a week, but 3 times a week is even better. Don’t wait for the perfect waves (but don’t go out in dangerous conditions either), have a go even if it looks hopeless. I once was out on a shocking day – the waves were terrible, I was even worse, and I hadn’t caught a thing. An old bloke out the back summed it up: “At least you’re out here”. 
   Pick your mate up every Saturday morning for a surf. In Summer, you might even be hooked enough to keep your board in the car at all times, just in case you get a chance.
5. Keep doing it! Stick with it. The only way to get better at surfing is to do it. And do it. And do it some more. Daydreaming, talking about it, watching other surfers, reading magazines, watching surfing movies (even ‘how to surf’ movies), and practicing on a mechanical bull will all be fun, and you might even pick up some tips, but they won’t make you a good surfer.
   Don’t expect to be ripping it up after a month, and don’t set goals either – just enjoy surfing the way you are surfing and progress will come.
6. Get help – I put this last because it isn’t essential… but it helps! While some people might pick it up instinctively (snowboarders, skateboarders, or stampcollectors for example), there are some little tricks that make big differences. Getting help can be free, like asking for advice from a mate or watching other surfers in the water near you, or you can pay for a lesson. There are surf-schools all over the place and they aren’t too expensive. Just one lesson, especially when you are just starting to learn, can make a big difference. You can even find some great resources on the internet (like the videos at this site, for example)
7. Optional: If you live in an area where the water is cold, buy a wetsuit. Cold water is no excuse!

 Getting into surfing isn’t hard. It’s so much fun that the biggest barrier to you being hooked is your reluctance to try it in the first place – so have a go! You won’t regret it!

I want to end by saying this: Surfing is almost spiritual – it’s a sweet way to feel free and at peace with the world, but the feeling is temporary. Lasting freedom and lasting peace, of which surfing is but a taste, is found only in Jesus. You don’t need a board, he doesn’t want your money, and you can’t earn him – he wants your heart. If you don’t know him, I encourage you to check out his claims (or contact me if you have questions). You don’t even have to choose between Jesus and Surfing.

Surf’s up! Do you have any tips? Lessons you have learned? Leave a comment.