• promising weekend ahead – just got to get there #
• RT: @emergentvillage: RT @rcarrasco – overheard today: “in a postmodern world, we must disciple people before we evangelize them” #
• Day has improved since finding http://tinyurl.com/bo2r9b – hat tip to Mark E here: http://tinyurl.com/b6eg5o in reply to ChristinaAitken #
• importing photos into iPhoto and uploading to facebook. New faces feature is kinda cool, although it definitely takes some training #
• Waking up. Gradually. At my desk. With the aid of (moderately OK) coffee. #
• great post at the Ergo blog on the outgoing CEO of TEAR http://tinyurl.com/ae65av #
• Languages upon which Arnold Schwarzeneneger’s acting career was built: http://tinyurl.com/dkvrb6 #
• New wounded tiger po Ben (with apologies to Michael Jackson):
  Ben, the two of us need look .. http://tinyurl.com/c7l65p #
• Wounded Tiger Post: After NAB Cup Round 1: What We Know Now http://tinyurl.com/aufl6q #
• RT: @retrogrrl: Yarra Valley Chaplains & Churches have organised a special community service at Lilydale Showgrounds tonight at 7 #bushfires #
• disgusted at commercial TV reporting of the release of a bushfire arsonists name. It was all caps and house-of-horrors red on channel 9 #
• is no longer a member of the 18-24 demographic and has become a 25-35 #
• http://ffffound.com/image/9228f3f2ad542021ff306fcd21ca2a916338cf84 – The Trilogy Meter. Can’t see any I disagree with #
• “Welcome to the Welcome Wagon” (produced by Sufjan Stevens) and “The Audacity of Hope” from my wife for birthday. Oh, happy day. #
• seeing a lot of twitter chatter about Facebook terms of service – know I probably should care, but not sure I do. @knightopia, @problogger #
• reading a very respectful and fascinating story from #bushfires in kinglake – http://tinyurl.com/b5wxyr #
• looking forward to getting home. #
• Going home to my beautiful wife, our fairly nice families, and my sisters-in-law’s horrendous boyfriends #
• RT: @jonestony: RT @jaybakker: ” We know how to love, yet we hate.”(Martin Luther King Jr) #
• Finished with birthday celebrations for the moment. Families have gone so it’s a quick nerd fix and then I’m done for the day. #
• feeling a tiny bit queasy in the stomach, but hoping it’ll go away soon #
• Getting away from the client for the second half of the day for our quarterly work meeting. #
• feeling a little bit tired. Been a big coupla days #
• regardless of feeling tired – loading up first episode of West Wing season 5 #
• My #progressbarof life: http://progressbaroflife.com/view/992 – ht @nealtaylor #
• Soul Survivor is on Twitter: @SoulSurvivorAu #
• nice cruisy night in. #
• Depressing article in The Age around disasters and media: http://tinyurl.com/bjxe8o #

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There’s a time in almost every man’s life when he realises he’s unlikely to ever:

• Become a professional sportsman
• Represent his country at the Olympics
• Play in a World Cup of pretty much any variety

At 25, with my only current sporting activity being an F-grade basketball game (and my designated role as the tall, fat guy who sits under the basket and tries to jump).

So today’s my birthday, and I thought I’d take the opportunity for a self-indulgent navel-gazing post taking stock of where life’s sitting at ripe old 25. I’m not even going to pretend to have proper structure here: I’ll think it, write it, publish it and regret it. Work is the thing that’s occupying the most head-space at the moment. While I’m in a better job than I was a year ago (both financially and in terms of interest levels), I’m still left with that feeling that it’s not really the vocation that I find myself envying in others who seem to have found theirs. That and an intense sense that there’s not really that many things that are “good” in an altruistic kind of way about the crew I work for, which is pretty unsatisfying. I’ve been looking at a few things – school teaching for one, but I’m really not sure about anything. Obviously with the economic climate looking the way it is, it’d be a stupid idea to just quit without something else lined up, but sometimes stupid feels right.

Marriage on the other hand, is certainly the part of life that feels the most like how it’s all supposed to be. We’re used to each other, Rebecca puts up with the filthy slob she married, and I get to spend my days with a truly amazing woman. We make each other’s world more fun. Gotta be happy with that.

And church is a bit of a funny one at the moment. We’re starting to feel more and more disjointed from the church we’ve been in – which in lots of ways has to do with not really living in the community that our church primarily exists to reach. So we’re in the process of re-evaluating where we belong, and looking at some options in that area. It’s taking a lot of prayer and a lot of consideration; perhaps even some regret especially given what a huge part of life Yarra Valley Vineyard has been for me. But there’s a time for everything, and there’s never a guarantee that any goodbye has to be the last one.

So there you are – a stocktake at the quarter century. Nothing too spectacular, and plenty left to ponder so there’s no danger that I’m about to stop being so self absorbed any time soon. Bad luck there.

• totally remembering my lunchtime sausage every time I breathe #
• chewing gum in the car for the trip home may just save my marriage #
• Appreciate the concern for my marriage. Crisis averted. Sleep time now #
• Watching and listening as most of our state burns #
• 14 already confirmed dead from fires in victoria today. Virtually none of the fires are done yet. Very scary. #
• http://bit.ly/gzEZ – ABC reporting fears of up to 40 deaths from fires #
• http://www.abc.net.au/news/video/2009/02/08/2485362.htm – The township of Marysville is effectively destroyed (ABC video clip) #
• Still can’t believe the magnitude of the fires across Victoria #
• finding it hard to go back to business as usual after the weekend #
• feeling better about the world after hearing how badly England got beaten in the cricket in the West Indies http://tinyurl.com/bnw4om #
• 25 Random Things by Jesus of Nazareth. Chad is very funny sometimes. http://e4iw4.th8.us (via @trippfuller) in reply to trippfuller #
• still can’t re-engage with the real world after the weekend fires #
• don’t just sit there feeling crap about the bushfires – donate: https://www.redcross.org.au/Donations/onlineDonations.asp #
• Good to see David Hussey finding some fantastic form. #
• http://tinyurl.com/cf3o2s – I’ve finally taken a photo that impressed my wife, so I’ve got to tell everyone! #
• fantastic article on community response to #bushfires and priorities on ABC site – http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/02/11/2488154.htm #
• RT: @774melbourne: Red Cross website having trouble coping with number of people donating! Please be patient or donate by phone 1800 811 700 #
• has a beautiful shiny new white macbook waiting for him at home #
• a little bit bummed that 2:30 would be too early to leave work #
• Can’t really leave work at 3 either, can I? #
• gradually inching closer to new-macbook-o’clock #
• can totally see the light shining from my new macbook at the end of the work-day tunnel #
• making a run for home and some fun with my shiniest new plaything! #
• MacBook totally as shiny as I had hoped! #
• expecting a better day at work today. Without any supporting evidence #
• had my first excitement for the day – there were ants INSIDE my computer! #
• Cannot believe that this guy gets a gig for Australia – #
• Try again – Cannot believe this guy gets a gig for Australia: http://tinyurl.com/acugks #
• RT: @becmatheson: Blog Post – some photos of #bushfires taken up toward Healesville: http://tinyurl.com/aozch3 #
• Cannot believe that this guy gets a gig for Australia – #
• RT: @774melbourne: Red Cross appeal tops $48m: Australian Red Cross chief Robert Tickner says… http://bit.ly/1633DM #
• wondering if the new coffee machine here is making stronger coffee than I expected #
• Have probably had too much caffeine. Stupid new coffee machine that I haven’t got worked out yet!!! #
• New photoblog post: Autumn comes early http://tinyurl.com/cf3o2s #
• RT: @chadcrawford: [now brewing] Save Sarah Palin! http://tinyurl.com/ae4rtx #
• testing @tweetdeck – the version is only about half an hour old . Thanks to @problogger for the tip #
• back to being concerned about fires around Healesville. #
• RT: @774melbourne: Charities have been overwhelmed with donations of goods. Please donate money (ie – Red Cross) instead.http://bit.ly/y20zQ #

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• - clearly going to have to try this with the next line of ducks I see – http://xkcd.com/537/ #
• Back from a relaxing 3 days at shoreham, tired but completely stressless #
• Just saw the superbowl. Awesome game, shame that the cardinals had to lose but you couldn’t begrudge either team the victory. #
• Don’t know why TwitterTools WordPress plugin only knows I’ve put up a new blog post sometimes. New Post here: http://tinyurl.com/b9gxxw #
• ready for lunch #
• disappointed that @KevinRuddPM is adding AU$12B odd to the national deficit so that everyone can blow $950 on random consumer junk #
• for almost the first time in my life, I’m cheering for the Libs – @TurnbullMalcolm is rejecting KRudd’s big spend http://tinyurl.com/c8kuka #
• This sounds like a pretty cool idea – RT: @ChristineSine: Join us for fill a freezer day http://tinyurl.com/b2hx7v #
• really wishing I’d had a proper lunch. Instead I went to the post office and picked up our battery grip for the D90 #

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• Bad news for today Disk 2 of the companion disks was corrupted on download. Good news for today – the HTTP Server install doesn’t use Disk 1 #
• Bad news for today Disk 2 of the companion disks was corrupted on download. Good news for today – the HTTP Server install doesn’t use Disk 2 #
• will go home from work feeling like I’ve accomplished something – how I’ve missed this feeling! #
• yeah, eventually #
• @auran yep eventually – although I had to compose the 1s and 0s manually myself once they’d arrived in reply to auran #
• Shaun Tait is a hack #
• enjoying a day off for invasion day #
• Really appreciated having today off. Packed the day nice and full with friends. Is there a better way to spend the public holiday. #
• @auran Games shop on Swanston St #
• @auran – You’re going from “help there’s nowhere in all of Australia” to “do you think my next door neighbour sells it”. Ungrateful #
• @auran – I reckon your best option might be to jump on ebay or an online store and get it sent to you #
• Going to do my best to avoid my house for the next few days – doesn’t have the air-con to survive four 40 degree plus days #
• Wondering why I’m not feeling sleepy yet #
• http://tinyurl.com/d79z27 – @jonathanbrink comes up with the best quotes ever #
• and when I say “comes up with” I actually mean “finds”. oops – yet another Geoff twitter fail #
• so glad I didn’t take a day off to go to the Australian Open this week – you’d die! #
• feeling a tiny bit guilty about having had a developer publicly flogged – but not that guilty #
• http://tinyurl.com/b7rel8 – easily the saddest thing I’ve heard today #
• heading to mum and dad’s to see Mark and Dad for the last time before they go to Uganda. (it’s just coincidence that they have a pool) #
• hot and tired. #
• @adamwc – looks fun, but a tiny bit unbalanced. in reply to adamwc #
• Totally feeling special that Scot McKnight just added me as a Facebook friend. Clearly I’m the most pathetic type of nerd #

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Followers of my Twitter or Facebook (or people who just know Bec) are likely aware that I was without my wife for almost all of last week. She was leading at a kids camp, and so I was left without my wife for the longest period of time since we were married.

It didn’t go how I expected. To be really honest in some ways I’d been kind of looking forward to a bit of space, a chance to just chill out, and not be around Bec all the time. But what happened felt very different. There wasn’t anything specific that was different, and it wasn’t like there was much that I was doing that I would have done differently, but it was just this nagging feeling that life was out of rhythm. Just that life wasn’t quite right – not the way things should be.

I was chatting with Paul about it on the Thursday, and he hit me with a bit of a stunner. He highlighted just how difficult it must be when a spouse of 25+ years passes away. I can’t imagine.