Hello

It is funny the things you think of when you are sitting by yourself 3000 odd km away from your family.

Like a blog you haven't touched since mid 2012. Oh the things that have happened in the past three years........

I would love to tell you everything but that would take me a lot longer than my attention span can handle right now. So here is a quick round up, Dani and I now have three boys! Little Isaac was born on August 12 2013, pretty sure we have our hands full with this little fella. Dani is still working at Royal Darwin Hospital only two days a week though, her full time job is looking after the boys and holding our household together. I am still in the Army, I have been promoted and now work in the Mortar Platoon. Tennyson is almost eight and in year 2 at school and Naythan is five and in Transition. Both boys are playing rugby for Casuarina Cougars and making both mum and dad proud in so many ways.
Done very brief but I will endeavour to keep up with posting now that I have remembered about this thing. Talk soon..

I'm back!

It has been well over a year since I was on blogging. In that time a lot has changed. I am still a Territory boy but currently am in Singleton NSW five weeks out from finishing my training to become an Australian Infantry Soldier. Yes that's right I joined the Army! My family and I as a result sold our house (made a nice little profit to might I add) and became debt free. The last five months have been pretty hard as I have only seen my family for a total of one week in that time and considering that in the seven years Danielle and I have been together the longest that we have been apart is two weeks and the longest I have been away from my boys was a weekend it has been tough. Saying that it has definitely made me appreciate more what I have and realize how much I truly love my family. Selling our house was a big call, but joining the Army and not knowing where I could be sent as a result added to the reasons to sell the house. So when I received my first posting and it was Darwin we were very surprised and releived. We now can get cheap housing through defence and it is good cause I am not going to be uprooting the family. Another good thing about the sale was zeroing our debt. We also had enough to buy ourselves a new car (Ford Territory) and still have some to put aside for future endevours. There is so much I need to write but I will put stuff up but I will put it up bit by bit. Anyway I will blog again soon catch ya!

What the!

Hello.....

what the.....

My mind has been thinking too much over the last week and has been a bit all over the place. That is what happens when good mates pass away. The scary thing is that it is almost 12 months to the day after another mate died....and for what. Somehow these young men need to know that there are options available. Both lads part aboriginal....coincidence??? 18 months ago I also attended another mates funeral. It seems as you get over one, another tragedy occurs.
Yesterday morning my brother Josh and I attended the final goodbye for my mate Slade McElhone. I think myself and others have been holding together pretty well but we let everything out and nothing was left unsaid. We all had our own stories and memories of Slade. I found the day pretty difficult as did others and we arrived locked in arms as a guard of honour and left the same way showing to all that none of us are alone and with a couple hundred people at the funeral neither was my brother boy.

When you are confronted with these situations it does reinforce what you have and how lucky you are. My wife and my boys are my life, I would do anything for any of them.

See ya mate, I will see you agian in another life!

On the 5th June (Danielle's birthday) is judgment day for me. I have my Police fitness and theory testing. I had a practice run about two weeks ago at a Police open day and scored 91 out of 100, getting 11.2 on the beep test and receiving full marks on everything else except for the sit and reach. This is not just going to be another job for me, this is going to be my career and something I will do for the rest of my life. I have got alot of drive to smash this test and the theory afterwards, not just for me but for my family. Danielle is working four days a week. Two days at the hospital which she loves (nursing) and the other two days at a doctors surgery doing admin work. I know that the admin stuff is frustrating Danielle and I don't blame her. I need to get into the police to give her a break and not have to do admin work for a bunch of people who don't give her the respect that she deserves.

The hospital has been really good and I have been open to them about applying for the police. They have given me next week off and have just offered me a new job which will take me up to when the police training starts in October. Everyone has been very positive and supportive during this process. So I am currently 81kg and the fittest that I have been. Unfortunately I have had a couple of niggling injuries that hopefully I can smooth out over the next week.

So the countdown is now on, it seems like I have been waiting for this test forever and it is now here. I will blog regularly over the next week to keep everyone updated on how it is going.

9 DAYS TO GO!

Onwards and Upwards!

Things are looking up! I contacted the police recruitment office in regards to my eyes and there response was

"All medical conditions are judged on a case by case basis and if you are successful in the selection process you may be offered a position with the condition that you wear contacts or glasses at all times whilst on duty."

Talk about relief! I was worried there, but now back on track. This does mean though that I am going to have to so much better than all other applicants. In the process of cracking the shits I have slipped back a few steps in regards to my strength and conditioning. I have been eating crap, not doing nearly enough exercise and when I do get off my backside only going half arsed.

This morning I went to the gym and absolutely smashed my upper body....damn even after two weeks I had forgotten that rush of energy you get when you hit the weights early. Great start to the day! Combine that with a carefully measured amount of CSIRO Protein cereal for breakfast and a homemade pasta and chicken salad out of...yes you guessed it the CSIRO recipe book for lunch and I can't really think of too many day starters better than that. Considering on my last weigh in I tipped the scales at 83kg on the dot...which is a gain of 1.1kg from my low point of 81.9kg it is time go hard or should not even bother.

Police testing is now less than two months away and the count down is now on time for me to start finalising what I need to do and where I need to be, so for the next little while I will be posting regularly not just to let everyone know how I am going but also to give me motivation to keep going and so I can look back and know that I gave it my all!

Seriously CSIRO need to pay Danielle and I some form of advertising fee or something!!!!

Lighten Things Up!

I thought that it was about time that I brighten the @#$% up, so what better way than with a prayer.....

A Rugby Prayer
Our beer, Which art in kegs
Hallowed be thy Sport
Thy will be drunk, I will be drunk
At home, As it is in the pub
Give us each day our daily beverage
And forgive us our spillage,

As we forgive those who spillest against us
Lead us not into poofy wine tasting
And deliver us from Tequila
For mine is the lager,
The ale and the Rugby
Forever and ever.

AMEN

A Slap in the Face

Hello no bullshit just straight to it. I had an eye test on Friday last week (one of the requirements for the police) and they ask for not only your corrected vision test but also your uncorrected vision ie: no glasses or contacts. With my contacts in perfect vision 6/6 which is the same as 20/20 vision. It is my uncorrected vision which is the interesting part for entrance into the police you need to have an uncorreected visual acuity of 6/19 in the bad eye, which is equivelent to 1/3 of normal vision in the bad eye....here is the good part. My good eye's visual acuity is 6/24 which is the the same as having 1/4 of normal vision, my bad eye is 6/30. If you do the math that is 1/5 normal vision.

What does this mean? Buggered if I know if you use logic it means that there will be no chance of getting into the police. Unless we spend $10,000 getting corrective laser surgery with no assurances that I will get in anyway. The police do say that they take each application and judge it on a case by case basis so my only hope is that I do everything else at 100% and they decide to give me a chance. I have come too far for this to shoot me down. I have lost the 'most' of the excess weight I have been carrying around plus courses and getting fit all for the one goal and that is to get into the police.

No more half ass bullshit from me anymore so far everything physical I have done in the last 6 months I have been pushing myself but not to the extreme, for the simple fact that if I came out of somthing with an injury or the like that put me out of the testing for the police I would crack it big time.....well guess what I have cracked it  anyway. That means that the few rugby tournaments I have played in over the last few months, the gym and anything else physical I have definantly not gone up to that final gear.. well ch chink! (noise of changing gears) full throttle from now on with no backward step. Through my life thing generally happen which make the decisions for me not any more what ever happens from now on it is because I want it to happen not because other outside events or things have changed.......This is my life............



We all have our own life to pursue, our own kind of dream to be weaving. And we all have some power to make wishes come true, as long as we keep believing.

- Louisa May Alcott

I had a plan!

Yesterday I had a little spare time at work so I was having a scan across the net when I thought I would have a look at my wife blog to see if anything interesting was happening at home while I was at work. Something was happening and it was not good. It was a frustrated blog from my wife mixed with all other negative emotions you can think of.......read this seriously made me feel physically sick  in the stomach knowing that this was how she was feeling. Unfortunately we do not get to just sit down and talk much because of the boys, work, rugby and fitness. Here is our typical day. I get up at 5.30am to go to the gym from there I go straight to work sometimes I come home for lunch but usually I don't see my family until after 4.30 in the afternoon. Then at quarter to 5 Danielle goes to the gym and it is my turn to watch the boys. When she gets back it is a mad rush to get dinner boys fed, showered and bed. Danielle generally looks after my youngest son Naythan and I get Tennyson to bed unless he wants to go to bed with mummy. On the other days I am going to rugby or Danielle to work. Currently the weekends haven't been great family time either. Because money isn't our friend I find myself working Saturday and Sunday helping my dad with his gardening business. Any free time I get I am quite literally "Fucked" pardon the french! I know that all of our bills, lack of money and lack of time for each other are playing on both of our minds at the moment.

Anyway my plan. Mum was going to take the boys for the evening while I was at Rugby and Danielle was at work. So I thought after realising Danielle's frustration I would do the initial fitness training at Rugby then go home and give the house a bit of a once over. So I got home plugged in the ipod into the stereo, turned the music up and cleaned up. All I wanted to do was give the house a clean so when Danielle got up this morning all she needs to think about is breakfast and the boys, not the dishes, washing, floors, benches and multitude of crap that some amazingly appears before you know it. I am going to make a consious effort to try and make Danielle's life a little easier...Love you Baby.

Also I also read something about Danielle feels that she is cheating on me when she gives me a cuddle because I have lost so much weight and the good old squishy bits are dissappearing.....I have now created an alter ego aka: Enrique her latin lover.....