Keeping your patience in a modern world.....

Patience (or forbearing) is the state of endurance under difficult circumstances, which can mean persevering in the face of delay or provocation without acting on annoyance/anger in a negative way; or exhibiting forbearance when under strain, especially when faced with longer-term difficulties. Patience is the level of endurance one can take before negativity. It is also used to refer to the character trait of being steadfast.

image courtesy of gregory-g-allen.blogspot.com

Try doing the above now days and see how that goes. The entire modern world is completely set to test the patience of everyone a Dad. It can be as simple as your son getting a gift that requires some time to set-up and once this lengthy process is over he/they proceeds to break it in the first minutes of getting it.

I'm blessed with moderately intelligent children so why do they keep asking the same question a thousand times  ?
If I gave them the answered the first time, I am not,  under a weltering barrage of the same question, changing my mind.
I've now started to pretend to think about changing my mind and watch the little spark of hope grow , only for me to stick to my original answer.

It's the same with their homework. I have to count to 100 each time between the insistence that they do their homework to a reasonable standard whilst they maintain "that's all the teacher wanted". That is not the point, I patiently explain while grinding my teeth down to their roots.

And it flows on further to why should I expect them to not questioning you when you ask them to do something. When I was a kid it was simple your parents asked you to do something and off you went and did it. No questions.
Now days you need a full description of why , what the outcome will be and a range of viable options to get your kids to do anything !

I blame myself.

I have to accept that modern society has taught all of us to expect everything instantly. Take Instant Messaging for example, it was invented because people couldn't wait the 7.51 seconds it takes an email to be delivered.

So you see - No one has to wait - you don't have to have patience any more.

Watch what happens in a line for anything where someone is standing behind the person in front who can't decide what they want. You can literally see their patience wear out.

And don't get me started on road rage. Just walk along any street with traffic and watch people safely ensconced in their shiny metal capulses spluttering in apoplectic rage at each other for no apparent reason.

So what do you do. How do you not go postal over the little things ? I do exactly that. I treat them like little things. It doesn't mean I don't get frustrated or angry - I still do that . But over time I just learn to let the world go about its business because I don't want to be the angry old guy yelling at kids to get off his lawn.

I also take the time to be thankful.

image couresy of happyclippings.com

I'm thankful that I can walk out of the house in the morning and the wife has to get the kids to school via the traffic and inter car debates.

I'm thankful that the beloved has a spreadsheet list for shopping, as nothing can quite explain watching people without a shopping list in the supermarket.
It's like babies in a room full of toys, they go one way then see something shiny and rush the other way only to be distracted again by something red.

So as you make your way through this day and the next, look around and you will be surprised to see people losing their patience.

Just try not to let it be at you.........

image courtesy of djibnet.com

The Ride home ( a tale of perception )

I think he picked up my slipstream as I came through Birrarung Mar , I heard the clank of his gear and his shadow was almost completely on top of mine but just enough of a line for me to notice. I'm on my mountain bike so I'm just not going to be fast enough for him to stay there for long.

I get quite frustrated with the riders who sit right in line with your rear wheel and draft off the slipstream your body creates. This because there's no need to ride so close (not to mention it's lazy riding, they're using the slipstream to get the same speed but for less effort)

Image courtesy of inhabitat.com

Under the bridge and up on tho the pathways opposite Olympic Park, I keep the pace steady,  as to shake him off I'll have to work twice as hard. Past AAMI stadium and the shadow is gone but the click and every now and then the echo's off the various things we pass - trees, fences, signs, is still there.

Down the hill we go toward Burnley wharf. Sitting steadily on 29kph

As I come off the floating pathways and up the ramps toward the halfway mark it's the Big Hill time. The pathway dips down hard and then climbs sharply, corners hard and then begins a long descent to almost the level of the river  (it floods after a heavy rain) and instantly climbs up to the freeway level again. All the way down I here the click of his ratchet as he stops pedaling and allows the hill to do the work. Momentum carrying us up to 41kph and then slowing us almost instantly to 20 then 19kph.

At this point I decide to try and shake him by leaving the path and going on to the road than runs next to this portion of the pathway. It's shielded by the 15 foot sound barriers that stop the freeway hum from offending the people who live across the Yarra on the waters edge.

I still can't see him properly but the sounds are clear - the click of the ratchets and the occasional squeak of the pedals. Up into 6th and the speedo reads 30kph

Along the road we sweep, the sweat is now tickling my eyebrows and I'm breathing hard.

Second last rise in the road and I watch carefully for the cross traffic, the cars don't look - they expect you to. I slow slightly as the incline steepens and I change down to 5th, I can't hear him but I can feel him tucked in behind riding the slipstream and doing 20% less work than me.

I've hit the last  straight now and I click up a gear again to 6th and the speedo reads 32kph. I can feel each part of the muscle in my legs and the sweat now resembles tears running down my face.

Last rise past the girls school, I often see them in the morning loading boats into the river and wishing they were somewhere else. But not now, the heat rises from the road and they are nowhere to be seen.

I can hear the click of the ratchet in the rear wheel again as we pass the walls of the school and the squeak of his bike chain. Its unwavering and now slightly to my right.

200 meters to go.

I reach the turn on to Bridge rd and stop to one side as I've won. He didn't pass me and I turn around jubilantly to claim my victory.

As I look back along the roads straight line , it shimmers under the suns glare and it looks like it's coated in a film of water but I know it's not.

Image courtesy epod.usra.edu

There's nothing behind me.

There's no-one behind me.

I check again wiping the sweat from my eyes. My heart pounding.

Nothing.

I've been chasing myself. The click of the ratchet, mine amplified as I ride past sold objects. The squeaky chain the one part of my chain with some slight rusting.

I turn slowly onto Bridge rd and chuckle to myself. You have to be careful what you think are competing for.

Why I can't be a spy

I really like spy movies.

I love the intrigue, the mystery of who is spying on who and the really big question - who are the good guys ? Spy movies tend to take us in to that perceived "underground " of our society. They show the threats we apparently never see and never hear about.

After all when you think about the agencies that ran the cold war during the 60's and 70's they were literally built on ensuring we were all afraid of something we couldn't see or had happened yet.

I would really love to be a spy, I mean look how glamorous it looks ! Cool gadgets, exotic locations, the positives around this obviously cool career are endless.

But when I sit down to analyse it , I have some, well, challenges........

#1- I can't drive - Spies seem to do a lot of driving. They drive to assignments, they get into lots of car chases and generally spend a lot of time in and around cars. My challenge is I am not a good driver. I like to look around constantly to see whats around. I also suffer from acute drivers rage, meaning I really hate everything other drivers do and the perceived wrong they have caused me.

image courtesy of ursispaltenstein.ch

I just can't see me riding to assignments on a bike......

#2- Not great with  Never used a gun - Hard one to over come  as I literally have zero experience with guns. I know you get training but it will be most likely that I shoot myself in the foot. I also have a slight problem with killing people.

#3- Couldn't have a separate life from my family - I cannot lie to my wife. I look in to those crystal blue eyes and confess everything. Our whole marriage is built around us talking and discussing everything that is going on. And then there's the boys, how cool would it be to go home and tell them I just added a virus to an evil lab that caused it to stop producing a super bacteria and instead made a popcorn tree that pops when the sun hits it.

#4- I love to gossip - Nothing better than a good solid gossip about the world. So I would just find it impossible to hold in that X diplomat is secretly enjoying the company of Y's wife. This would also be a problem if I was captured and tortured - my captors would pretty much run out of video tapes with all the stuff I'd be telling them.

image courtesy of newspaper.li

#5 I am quite forgetful - If I was to become a double agent who then got re-doubled, that's going to be a real problem. I once had to set an outlook reminder each month for 6 months of the year as I kept forgetting my wife's birthday.

#6 I see the good in people - I have a bit of a problem believing that people are all bad. I would want to keep giving people second chances, which could cause issues later down the track. Probably nothing worse than continually running into people you were supposed to "take care of " but didn't.

So I guess rather than become a spy and end up like the cast of "Spies like Us" that classic 80's comedy

Russian Interrogator : Every minute you don't tell us why you are here, I cut off a finger. 
Emmett Fitz-Hume:  Mine or yours? 
Russian Interrogator :  Yours. 
Emmett Fitz-Hume:  Damn! 


I'll just keep doing what I'm doing.........

Ever wanted to punish cars that park in the bike lane ? This guy does it !

I guess he really like to make sure no one is in his bike lanes.

Happy Friday! Hot Wheels cars are on the go......

 Today's video is from way back in 2009, with 000's of hot wheels cars in a kinetic scuplture......