My weekend and associated politics

Went to Queenstown on Saturday. Good times. Umpired on the famous gravel ground - Devils intraclub game: north west v south. North west got up by 2 points after leading all day.

It was wet and muddy - not very inviting. But it made for a good run with heavy legs in the second half particularly.

Two negatives: the drive - seven hours stuck in the back seat of the Tarago and a bloody field umpire who wouldn't shut up about how it was the worst day of his life and that he was never doing this again, never coming to Queenstown, all the people must have no life whatsoever and that they must all be subhuman (didn't say subhuman, but that was essentially what he was saying).

So, let's get onto some decent umpiring politics. Yes, it happens, and I would ask you to come along to change it for the better...

Here goes... Major issues with the elite squad of young (17-24yo) umpires. The whole focus of all the coaching is on these field umpires (ok, only 80%, the elite boundaries and goalies get about 15% between them and the rest is for the rest). So, basically, if you have little potential, you will get little attention. It makes perfect sense, the reasoning isn't too bad, but in practice it is suicide.

I umpired at Channel on Sunday, and I saw two older field umpires who no longer umpire for the association. One was saying he rocked up to training, only to be completely ignored and fobbed off by relevant coaches. That is the last that I will see of him for a long time, I'd say.

Considering that we are about 20-40 field umpires short, it is those older guys that are the future of umpiring in Tasmania. That goes against all current logic of investing in the youth, I know, but let's think this through.

If you create a community of happy older umpires, you have the benefit of so many years of experience. Not only this, but these are the men who are reliable, who won't let you down (pulling out at the last minute unless due to heart attack). By growing this group, you create for yourself a group of satisfied guys that stick with it, they are replaced by young men who will all too soon be old with very little potential.

It is important to realise that most people are not elite athletes, but most people can achieve a high level of competency in a given task. To try to tailor a whole association towards such a minority of excellence you just breed egos among the talented, and discontent among the layman.

But don't go too far. That pathway to the top is still a powerful marketing tool for fresh young people to take up umpiring.

Football... the opiate of the masses

Well, I'm back at uni, working nights. It's sad when it comes to this...

Well, I was thinking about religion and what it is. Without rushing to any sort of bible, my definition of religion is "what you live for". I mean, since when did religion have anything to do with God? Religion only has to do with God when you live for God. (I don't think that contradicts what James has to say on the matter...)

I'd have to say that sport is one of the greatest organised religions of our time. It is a passion, a raison d'etre. I went to Queenstown on the weekend to umpire a Devil's practice match. There isn't much to do at Queenstown and the footy in the winter, cricket in the summer is it. The reason to live. They don't want to let down the club.

To stir up a bit of a hornet's nest, I was thinking about many of my mates from church who were playing footy for the local club. We had eight of them there last year. None have returned (as yet). So many good reasons for this, but it strikes me as really sad that the relationships might be cut short, that the Christian guys who were there last year, well they just didn't have the stickability. Couldn't commit.

There are two reasons that I have any sort of feeling about this. First, I see a footy club that is known as being home to a bunch of hillbillies who smoke way too much pot, just want to fight and are generally not people that you'd necessarily want your kids messing with. (Not to say that these are the down and out of society, that is clearly not the case, however, I dare say that it'd be rare to umpire a Channel footy club game without a decent melee.) So, these guys had a real chance to change that culture.

Secondly, I feel that it reflects poorly on us as Christians, as being people who are too busy to really stick with something - this is really noticed when Channel footy club is the religion for many of these people.

But I notice a general trend among my fellow Christians. There is a sense of shock when I reveal that I train two nights a week for my umpiring. Such a "massive" commitment is unheard of. I see it so often that people just want to play footy one weekend, go fishing the next, and then just mope around doing nothing for the rest of the time. I suppose that's fine, but you can't go into a team sport with that attitude.

This concept of commitment seems so foreign to Christians, yet, I'd have thought that if anyone would be committed, it would be a Christian.

It's Saturday...

I recently checked out some stuff on di-hydrogen monoxide. A rather impressive substance really. DHMO is a massive killer, and withdrawal is guaranteed to kill. Anyway, there are a whole list of rather interesting properties listed in Wikipedia. Very amusing...

Needless to say we just need to ban humans from using the stuff and we would solve all of the world's problems.

According to an old Tibetan proverb:

"You don't touch your nose by bringing your hand all the way round the back of your head."

So for anyone who is not familiar with the wisdom of guru Bob, get with the show. The footy season is virtually here. The coodabeens must have downloadable clips on the ABC website. Gold. What more needs to be said?

Anyway, I'm going to go soak in some DHMO.

Problems...Gone...Just like that...

I'm trying to solve the world's problems - climate-wise anyway. I am now green. Or maybe I should make it retro and spell it grean. Groan. Anyway, my big opinion for today is the we need to change the way parliament operates. We need more of them. We need a forum for environmentalists, where they are not going to impose their dubious social reforms on us. We need a forum for capitalists where they are not going to impose their dubious environmental policies. We need a forum for Family First where they are not going to impose their dubious health policies.

I'm not saying that anyone has dubious social, environmental or health policies, just that it would make sense that, by analogy, a heart surgeon works on hearts, and a tree surgeon works on trees and not vice versa.

Honours Project

Let me tell you about my uni project for this year. It's on HPV... no that's not human papiloma virus, it's human powered vehicles.

I have two ideas.

First, to get people, cut them up into small pieces and dry them out, and then burn them as fuel. We could easily set up a basic steam engine. To be able to say "This machine is running on Smith" or "Yeah, I only use Doe" would be kind of...

Ok, second idea is to harness the female jaw. I envision this machine creating land speed records. By placing a male in the car, it will ensure that he will not be able to get two words in edge-ways courtesy of the engine.

Very powerful.

Feel free to post any other ideas.

I was having issues.

Ok, not serious ones. In fact, issues that most people wish would remain.

I couldn't update my blog.

There it is.