Friday, June 30, 2006

Gotta fly....

From Instapundit, check out kite flyers! They
are basically go-karts bolted to hang gliders, with giant engines on the back driving pusher props.
Ooooh that sounds like fun....
The main thing I miss about living in California is being able to fly... It's not impossible here, just inconvenient and expensive. So I haven't really flown since.. well since 2001. Wow, it's been too long. I've gotta go flying.

Thursday, June 29, 2006

Gaza

It's hard to tell from the little reporting coming out of Gaza what's really going on. I presume we'll know more once it's all over.
My thoughts have been with the Israeli soldiers doing what they are good at in Gaza. May they and the 2 kidnap vicitims return home safe and sound... And it certainly looks like this time the IDF has been given the go-ahead to clean up a lot of the mess that has been festering in Gaza.
Hamas leaders arrested! I like that.
Sonic booms over Baby Assad's palace in Damascus! I like that too.

Like all (or nearly all) Israelis, I hope and wait for the day when the Palestinians establish their own free, democratic state side by side with Israel, with fill economic, political and cultural cooperation.
But this is not possible with crazy Hamas in power who want to kill all the Jews.
I'm afraid that there's only one way to solve this mess, and that's with war. It can be long and drawn-out, or it can be short and decisive.
Let's hope it will be short so we can get on with more constructive activities.

In the meantime all my thoughts are with the IDF soldiers, go and do a good job and come home safely, so you don't have to go back any time soon.

Tuesday, June 20, 2006

Socca

I'm not much of a sports person, but it's hard not to get caught up in the world cup madness. People here are going nuts, but in a good way, about the soccer (or 'socca' as the Aussies say). They stay up all night to watch the games, and then half the country takes a sickie on Monday because they can't get out of bed in the morning.
It's all good fun, and while everyone wants the Soccerroos to win, it's all done in that wonderfully light-hearted Australian way. "Goooaalll!!! Wait, who scored? Ahh, have another beer mate!"
I was happy to see the Ghanian player wave the Israeli flag, and not at all surprised by the childish and stupid reactions from the rest of the world.
I was also very happy that Australia lost to Brazil "only" by 2 points. I was worried they would get totally creamed. Nobody seriously expected them to win, but after the sensational win over Japan, people are starting to get optimistic. Even the Brazilians admit that the Soccerroos played a great game. All they need to do now is win or tie with Croatia, and we're off to the next round!
Go Soccerroos!

Baby Boom

The Australian government wants us Aussies to have more babies. At least three, in fact ("one for mum, one for dad, and one for the country"). Two years ago the government started paying new parents $3000 for every new little Aussie brought into the world. And it worked! People were cynical, and said that nobody would have a baby just for the $3000.... true, I don't think anyone did, but it sure helped them decide to have one when that was added to all the other reasons. In fact, more babies were born in Australia on July 1, 2004 than on any other day in the last three decades.
When the baby bonus policy was first announced, in the big-spending pre-election budget of 2004, the families minister at the time, senator Kay Patterson, was asked whether it would have been better to have announced and introduced the policy on the same day. She said: "Well, I don't believe mothers would put (their babies) at risk."
Yeah right!! Hardly any babies were born on June 30!
This year the baby bonus will be increased to $4000 and this time they are expecting another mini-boom.
I just hope the government is planning to increase the number of day care workers and centres because even now there is a 2-year waiting list for some of them, especially in Sydney.
I know what would make me keener to have another bub: better maternity leave benefits at work. The only reason I'm waiting with #2 is because if I wait a bit more, I'll get better benefits. I couldn't imagine having nothing more than 12 weeks off. What am I supposed to do, put a 12-week old baby in full time day care so I can keep my job? As it is, with the waiting lists I wouldn't be able to even if I wanted.
Having extra cash to help with the expenses involved in caring for a new baby is great. But I need more than that; I need to know that I'll be able to raise my kid and keep my job, if only part-time, until I'm ready to go back to full-time work.

Home?

I spent waaay too much time this morning reading this article in ynet. It's written by an Israeli who has been living in Canada for 10 years and will soon be moving back to Israel. Most of the time I spent reading many of the hundreds of comments. Roughly half say what I figured they would say: you are crazy for wanting to come back here, and can I please take your place? I was quite surprised to see quite a lot of comments welcoming the writer back home and telling her she's making the right choice. But the comments that scared me most were those that said "your children will hate you for forcing them to leave their home and growing up in a much worse country".
When we think of leaving Australia of moving back, the most important thing (well, the only thing really) that we miss is our families and good friends. It's hard to raise a child so far away from his grandparents, uncles and aunts and cousins. And it's not fair to our parents to raise their grandchild so far from them. But will my son really have a better life there? What with the terrible education system and all? I look at Israeli kids and I see spoiled brats who walk all over their parents and teachers. I'm not sure I want that for my son.
I'm very, very keen to see with my own eyes what things are like "back home". I'm glad we have the opportunity to be in Israel for a much longer visit this time, because you don't get enough time to see and do much in the standard 2-week family and friends whirlwind visit tour.
I'm hoping that our visit later this year will answer a lot of questions, but I have a feeling that it will only create many new questions instead...

Saturday, June 10, 2006

Henna

Sometimes I get an idea in my head that makes me do slightly crazy things. hmmm must be the 'compulsive' bit of my OCD...

Anyway, the latest craze was that I wanted to dye my hair with henna. Some of my friends used to henna a lot in high school but I was never into it. I think it was my hairdresser who gave me the idea, she offered a coupon for $5 a semi-permanent dye job and I took one look at it and threw it away. I don't dye my hair.

One week later, I'm in the Indian grocery shop buying $1.90 worth of authentic Indian henna.


I mixed it all up yesterday based on some recipe ideas I got from this great site, with lots of black coffee, some tea tree oil, a bit of ground cloves, and chamomile tea.
After brewing all night I finally got my chance to spread the stuff all over my hair. Junior finally went to bed for his nap, and I got all my plastic gloves and saran wrap and other gear and proceeded to smear goo all over my hair, and also my face, hands, sink, mirror, floor, and the inside of my ear. I think I made it too watery cause the foul stuff kept oozing down my face and neck. I finally managed to get it under control with a shower cap, 5 meters of saran wrap, and 2 towels.

After spending an hour cleaning up the mess I finally had a chance to sit down and turn on the TV. At that moment Junior woke up, so much for the relaxing bit.

Anyway, I'm done rinsing and cleaning and laundering towels with Nappy San, and now have rather orangy tinted hair. Hubby can't see it at all cause he's colour blind. The orange stuff is supposed to fade in the next couple of days and then the final colour will settle in. Good thing it's a long weekend, I wouldn't want to shock anyone at work with my new orange look.

Ding Dong, the Murdering Scumbag is Dead

I don't usually gloat over people's death, even of "enemies", but I was mighty happy to hear that the Zark finally got a big dose of karma, in the form of 2 x 500 lb laser guided goodness.
The only thing I regretted was that he died so quickly he never knew what hit him.
But!
Turns out he did indeed know exactly what hit him, and had a few coherent, if blood soaked, moments to have a bit of a think about it and to look into the eyes of the Iraqi and American soldiers who got him.
So now I'm even happier.