Gaseous Emmissions from New Zealand

Seems as though Blogger has been doing crazy things with my email postings… Friday’s wasn’t published until Monday and yesterdays was eaten and rejected by Blogger – I got some sort of “gateway error message”…

But to business at hand… there are two things that have been in the news the past 24hrs that have gotten my attention.  Firstly, its John Howard’s heal digging exercise in not signing the Kyoto Protocol.  Driving home yesterday, the news played a sound bite of Howard saying the reason he wont sign is that its because India and Pakistan have more emissions than Australia yet the greater burden of responsibility to reduce emissions rests with Australia and until all nations under Kyoto have the same level playing field then he wont sign.

This may be true, but surely there is such things as “good faith” and demonstrating that Australia is part of the world community that is prepared to deal with this issue?  If India or Pakistan was asked to do the same as Australia, why should that make a difference to what Australia should do under the points of the agreement?  If Howard says we’ll meet the obligations of Kyoto without signing it and the signature is because of the obligations of India and/or Pakistan, why does it matter?  Just sign the bloody thing and get busy with fixing emissions!

The second item is this issue with Nathan Fien playing Test Match Rugby League for New Zealand.  Born in Mt Isa in Queensland and made his first grade debut with the North Queensland Cowboys, I recall it was Fien who was disappointed to be off loaded by the Cowboys due to salary cap reasons and was picked up by the New Zealand Warriors.  He then begrudgingly made the move to New Zealand in 2005 and said it would be a big change.  Now fast forward to the end of season Tri Nations and he’s playing for New Zealand in their test team claiming a Kiwi grandmother.  This rule on eligibility is always a tenuous one and if one of my grandparents were foreign born, I doubt I’d have an affinity to that country over Australia.  Hell, my father was born in QLD and I hate Queensland! (hi Dad!)  Now this second rate journeyman hooker has made his way into the NZ test team claiming loyalty to the Silver Fern and I watched him struggle in the match against Australia to sing God Defend New Zealand before the game.

Now it turns out that its his Great Grandmother who was the Kiwi and he isn’t eligible to play under the rules of national eligibility and that the Great Britain team may protest and have the two Tri Nation points stripped from the Kiwis.  And so they should!  Drafting in players that are ineligible strips a legitimate Kiwi of playing for his country.  Just because Fien is a decent hooker for his club side based in NZ doesn’t mean he’s instantly eligible for NZ Test football.  Strip the points, punt him from camp and send a message that this wont be tolerated.  Having said that, I do note we have had Tonie Carroll play for QLD, then Australia and then New Zealand and now Australia again.  Also Brad Thorn can play league for QLD and Australia and then get a run with the NZ All Blacks in Rugby Union and then return to league… Not sure where all that goes either.

Great Shakes! Its the Sheikh!

Our esteemed Mufti Sheikh el-Halawi has done it again with some completely stupid comments that

·       the cause of sexual assaults on women are women via the way that they dress,

·       that women should be married, dressed in muslim attire and remain in doors

·       that women dressed modestly (read: in standard western clothing) are portraying themselves as pieces of meat.

Charming isn’t it.  I am all for multiculturalism and I was appalled when Bronwyn Bishop tried to ban Muslim head dresses from school and the Muslim community was up in arms and rightly so.  Now we have the reverse and whilst it is good that the Mufti has apologised overnight (something that Bronnie never did), it doesn’t remove the fact that these sort of inflammatory comments were made in the first place.  Why cannot people on both sides of the divide realise that the other side has a right to their own religious and cultural beliefs and stop using high profile members of either community gaining access to the media to sprout their personal and yet highly offensive views.

I am sure there are racists and bigots on both sides, but do we really need to give them so much air time when the vast majority of people just don’t care?

Scully Scuppered

NSW Police Minister Carl Scully was asked to resign last night (which is political nice-speak for sacked) and he tendered his resignation effective immediately.  Now the NSW Government in my mind isn’t doing as bad a job as the media makes out.  I believe that Morris Iemma has been a decent leader since Bob Carr resigned and the Labor Party well and truly have the upper hand against the NSW Liberals.

But at the same time, Carl Scully has been a walking headline ever since he has taken up a seat in Parliament and you just have to wonder is this guy really that incompetent.  This latest gaffe is the fact that he misled Parliament not once but twice over the Cronulla Riot Report and I just don’t see the point as to why he did it.  Whilst the report may paint the police response as “poor” it is not unexpected and as a NSW citizen I thought the police did an OK job on the day.  Australia is a peaceful place and our police force are not as well drilled or equipped with military precision in a country that has a larger history of militants and violent demonstrations.  So, we were a bit slow off the mark, so the police were playing catchup on the day to restore peace and order.  So what is what I say.  The situation was a bunch of drunken red necks letting bigotry go to their heads.

I cant understand why Scully was so fearful of this report.  He is (was) the Police Minister and the police didn’t do a great job, but perhaps they did the best job they could given the funding and training they receive.  Big deal.

But Scully is not a stranger to controversy.  He was Transport Minister and had a role in the Cross City Tunnel and the fiasco that is CityRail.  CityRail have had to resort to 1930’s train timetables to cope and the Millennium edition train has been a big lemon.  All in all, I just think that Scully is a bit of a loose cannon and an idiot.  Well done Iemma for getting rid of him… the Labor Party will be better for it and I don’t think it will matter one brass razoo as to the outcome of the next election.

The Bear With A Sore Tooth

Mentioned yesterday that I had a 6 week wait to see a dentist re my wisdom tooth at the local Glenbrook dentist which I thought was pretty piss poor… how can a small suburban dentist have such a back log of patients?  Well yesterday at around midday I rang the dentist I went to in the city about 4 years ago and I was blown away that they could see me in an hour!  The receptionist was fantastic, she basically diagnosed me over the phone and said I needed to come in and have it looked at.  So off I went and was shown straight in and was ushered into the chair.  I had gone from thinking how I would go for six weeks to being looked at immediately.  This was fantastic!

The bad news though is that my lower left wisdom tooth has come up on an angle and crashed into my back molar and the tooth has become stuck.  This has meant that there is pressure there but what is worse is that the gum hasn’t sealed cleanly and the pain I am feeling is an infected gum.  Solution – course of antibiotics to get rid of the infection, an x-ray and that wisdom tooth will have to come out as well as potentially the others.  (Something about alignment and future issues).

The problem is he really got in amongst my infected gum and tooth yesterday with his surgical steel prodding stick (I am sure that’s the technical name) and he made the whole thing inflamed.  Nurofen every 4 hrs, and I have eaten a box already since Sunday.

The antibiotics he assured me will work their magic over the next day or so…

Happy Birthday Niki!

Today is my beautiful wife’s birthday.  Happy birthday sweetheart, love you heaps – have a great day!

xxx

Human Resources Performance Management Systems Are Evil

I did a bad thing.  Two people at work have become ill with the flu after I infected the office on Friday and my assistant was off yesterday and will be off again today and another guy in the office is cursing me as he’s booked into a 4 day business trip to Queensland and he’s crook as… I should have stayed home on Friday I think, but it’s a balance between meeting your deadlines and looking after your health.

The end of year rush also officially started yesterday when my boss at our fortnightly team meeting reminding us all that its only 9 weeks to the end of the year and that we should be looking at our own respective performance objectives and ensuring we’re on track.  “Performance Objectives” are the projects that in January look like good ideas and things you commit to complete by year end and then in hindsight in October realise that it was a shoddy thing to propose and that there have been a hundred and one things that have since become more important and that your objective now is to make it clear to your boss that that “special project” that was to go ahead was really a poor one and that you have done all these things instead.  This is all true of course, real working life ebbs and flows and things become more important whilst other things get superseded but when you go back to the very clinical HR system that records your objectives you need to justify your performance against them and in black and white terms, it may not look all that impressive.

In regards to my own, I know I have done generally well, but there is one project there that was pulled and sits there on my performance screen… blinking in the white box that says “Progress” and taunts me with how it is stuck in the system.

Geez, I am being a bit surreal today… must be all the Nurofen I am taking for my tooth ache.  Would you believe that I can’t get a suitable dental appointment for 6 weeks at the local Glenbrook dentist?!  Six weeks!  Don’t people drink tap water with fluoride in it anymore!

Bonfire of the Cricketers

Monday morning and a beautiful day today that despite not having the freezing temperatures of the weekend, is still a bit brisk – but the blue skies make up for that.  At cricket on Saturday it was perhaps the coldest day I have ever played in and to make it worse we spent the whole day in the field.  It was that cold that the opposing team actually built a fire on the sidelines…. We were playing at their ground and it was fairly scrubby outside one of the boundaries so they actually gathered fire wood and built it up and had a bonfire!  Normally on hot days we’ll have more frequent drinks breaks but on Saturday it was the first time I have known cricketers wanting extra drinks breaks to come in from the cold and stand around a fire!  For the record, Norwest finished 9/253 but the field is a very small ground and there were plenty of sixes hit.  Hopefully we can chase that down next week.

With these massive temperature changes, its little wonder that my flu just can’t be shaken.  My cough has moved from a dry cough into my chest and I am now coughing up lots of crap (hope you’re enjoying your breakfast) but I take that to mean its on the way out.  The sinuses are still blocked but getting better but the real pain is that one of my wisdom teeth is coming through.  33 years old and I feel like a baby need Bonjella! LOL.  I am not sure if this is normal and the tooth will come through eventually or if I should go to the dentist.  It seems to me that a dentist’s first reaction is to pull wisdom teeth out and he’ll probably want to do the same to not just the one coming through but perhaps to all 3 dormant ones.

I have no understanding about wisdom teeth.  Are they normally supposed to come through and only some people have them out?  Are they redundant bodily parts and should be removed once they cause pain?  Or is some pain, whilst uncomfortable, just a normal part of getting “wisdom”?  For the D&D players out there is this a +2 bonus to your Wisdom Score??  Hehe.

Anyways, I am battling on, feeling like an old man with the flu and sore teeth… now all I need are some crotchety old stories about “back in my day” and a surly disposition…

Day At The Fair

Spent today at the Landilo Public School Fair, which is my nephew Alex's school... they had a celebration for 140yrs which considering Landilo is a very small township between Penrith and Windsor, that's quiet a feat.

As with all country fairs, the swinging chairs were very popular...

And as well as face painting, we had a couple of goes on the Dodgem Cars... and in the background you can see a Haunted House... when I asked Kate what was in the Haunted House she said "poles for dancing on".... mmm, not what I was expecting!

And Kate also got to go on the Slingshot and did some somersaults!

The new thought police.

An interesting article in The Age this morning... I have felt this way with the media for a long time... If you're not Pro-Johnny, you're wrong. This article sums it up...

The new thought police - Michelle Grattan - Opinion - theage.com.au

Flaw found in new Microsoft browser - BizTech - Technology - smh.com.au

Firefox people! Can I not state it enough....

Flaw found in new Microsoft browser - BizTech (smh.com.au)

Global Warming

Apologies for the lack of posting yesterday, but I had the day off yesterday with the dreaded lurgy which continues to make my life a misery.  Ever since from returning from leave last week, I have been running like a tap and it escalated yesterday with sinus headaches and a bad dry cough.  So I took the day off and it has done nothing for me but make me stressed about the things that are going on at work.  So I am heading in despite the cough and headaches and blowing my nose continuously…

But what I want to write about is the whole debate on the environment.  I am all for the current initiatives that have been taken up by various media groups and the world renowned scientist David Suzuki continues to push the agenda and I think its probably the #1 issue in the world today.  But at the same time I cant help but think its all to late and the damage has been done.  I can recall David Suzuki being interviewed when I was a kid about the dangers the world faced and he was ridiculed.  Even today, John Howard has basically denied it as an issue and only when it starts to become a national issue that may have some impact on the election results, does he make positive statements.

I watched Channel 7 Sunrise this morning and they regularly have Liberal MP Joe Hockey and Labor MP Phillip Rudd on for a debate.  Now these two guys I actually have a lot of respect for.  Both of them would make great leaders for their respective parties and for me to say that given my left wing leanings of Joe Hockey, that’s probably the best compliment I can ever give a Liberal politician.  But Joe Hockey was there defending the indefensible and he knew it.

Do you know what the Liberal Party has done to relieve the issue of Global Warming?  They have since 2000 given a $4000 rebate to home owners should they take up solar energy in their homes.  Converting a house to solar energy by the way costs $15,000 so it still requires the average home owner to fork out $11,000.  What home owner has that laying around?  Where is the return on investment for the average punter?  And Hockey’s proposed alternate solution is to invite concerned citizens to plant a tree in the bush to assist with reforestation.

All fine initiatives at the local level, but surely a federal government should be looking at the bigger picture?  Desalinisation plants, nuclear energy, large scale infrastructure schemes to assist in transporting water to areas that require it – large cities and rural farmlands.  These are the things that are required.  Let the local green groups worry about “planting a tree” style initiatives.  The government needs to act on a larger scale and not get caught up in small householder stuff.  But we cant do that because we’re pumping cash into things like Iraq and the War On Terror™ and don’t have a dollar to spare…

Mister Kim and the Temple of Doom

Some sense of normalcy has returned today with work being a regular day after having two back to back 16hr days.  Whilst it may be nice to go out for dinner on a Saturday night it isn’t so great when you have to do it for work on a week night and talk “shop” and then back up for an early start the next day.  Having said that though, went to a nice restaurant last night – Coast at Cockle Bay – and I would probably go back there again with Niki.

Off work stuff, which I must admit must read pretty boring, I saw this morning on the news celebrations in North Korea in which they celebrated 80 years of “Freedom from Imperialism”.  The shot was taken at night in Pyongpang (sp?) in which legions of people (soldiers?) were marching in regimental lines carrying a flaming torch each and the long shot was incredible but at the same time chilling.  Reminded me instantly of Nazi Germany in which massive crowds of people marched in unison at the behest of a crazy dictator.

However, what is causing all this.  I think the regime in North Korea is perhaps the single most evil regime in the world today.  But what gets me worried is that whilst Saddam Hussein in Iraq was really a despot who ruled by fear and peoples genuine feelings were that they wanted him gone (not an excuse for the US to bomb the fuck out of everyone mind you) in Nth Korea, I have this feeling that the people are genuinely behind Mister Kim and that any military action there would be disastrous.

But why are we doing this?  What is wrong with saying “too bad too sad” and just leaving the Nth Koreans to enjoy their Communist way of life?  Do we have to forcibly influence them?  So what if they’re advancing Nuclear Technology?  We lived with the Russians for years as a totalitarian communistic state that spewed daily rhetoric about the West and our immoral way of life.  Do we really feel that threatened that Nth Korea may build A (yes singular) nuclear bomb?

How are they going to deliver it?  They cannot shoot it much further than Japan probably.  Do we really have to stir the hornets nest whilst the West has pretty much fucked the Middle East for the next 100 years?

But no, we have to put in sanctions – which will do nothing to Nth Korea because they are an insular society and will gladly close the doors on the world and play the martyr role – and then threaten to take “military action”.  But we do and we rattle the sabres and we follow our own crazy despot in George W Bush and our own elected leader laps it up like the well trained dog that he is and we move the pieces on the board one step closer to oblivion.  When will this end?  At what point will the US go, that’s it we’ve had enough and withdraw?  They say that history is written by the victors, but at the moment we aren’t winning and what will they say about the “Coalition of the Willing” in 100 years?  That they were a warmongering corrupt coalition of nations hell bent on taking all the worlds resources?  Sort of fits doesn’t it…

Work Would Be Move Productive If...

There was more work done….

Late finish last night with a work dinner on in which some of my departmental staff from interstate have come in for 2 days of presentations and training and therefore we had the obligatory dinner for them.  Trovata (sp?) in Stanley Street is a nice little Italian place and I thought the food was pretty good… a little too much wine though and I have a bit of a fuzzy head this morning.

I am on the early 6:22am train this morning I am heading straight to a breakfast presentation with lawyers on Directors & Officers Insurance... so they’ll put on a decent spread there… then its lunch today with the same people I had dinner with last night and which I will give them a presentation through the early afternoon and following this, I have dinner with brokers and underwriters at the Coast restaurant at Cockle Bay.  And late home again via a taxi.

It just doesn’t seem to stop and I’d love to have a day in which you just turn up, don’t talk to anyone, do your thing at your desk and then go home.  Ever since I have come back from holidays I have been sitting in seemingly endless meetings in which a lot of talking gets done but not a lot of doing gets done…

Maybe I should ask to hire a person to actually do the work that everyone keeps discussing but doesn’t get time to do it…. Hehe.

Monday Cricket Wrap

Another victory for Greystanes in the Parramatta District B10’s.  Sent into bat, Greystanes got off to a decent start on Day 1 only to see it crumble losing 4/1 to be in dire straights before Crazy Dave Mandic and Pete Nahlous steadied the ship.  Dave finished 66 not out as Greystanes was all out for 131.  Not very many.

In the field, Greystanes made early in roads and the wickets kept tumbling in the late afternoon session to have Wenty Leagues at 6/70 at stumps with Paul Brewster getting 3 of the 6 wickets.

Day 2, Wenty got off to a flying start and scored a number of boundaries as they tried to real in the deficit.  Wayne Agius however bagged 2 quick wickets to set Wenty back on their heals and in the end Wenty Leagues were bowled out for 105.

Greystanes were asked to bat again and make shift opener Angelo Buultjens was out for a duck but Pete Nahlous and Crazy Dave Mandic again batted beautifully to have Greystanes 1/63 at drinks in which the outright pursuit was ended rather prematurely.

Next week, Greystanes travel to play Norwest CC away at Kellyville Park.

Lunch Post

Late lunch time posting today as I was determined to finish reading my current novel, Dan Brown’s “Digital Fortress”.  I haven’t read any other books of Dan Brown since I read the Da Vinci Code.  I really enjoyed the Da Vinci Code but thought I would be disappointed in the other books…. This one though was enjoyable as it was easy to read and was a bit like one of Matthew Reilly’s action novels… flowed very quickly, short sharp bursts – basically read like a movie.

This is why I guess Mr Brown does get criticized because a lot of people say that he isn’t a “good writer” and that he is only on so many best seller lists because of the controversial material that was the Da Vinci Code.  But to hell with that, it’s a good story and was easy to read on a train!  That will do me…

Also watched episode 4 of Jericho on TV last night.  Car crash TV at its finest and again I wasn’t disappointed.  I kid you not this is the dodgiest show I have seen.  Highlights include a 16yr old boy restocking a supermarket with food that was on a locked but crashed goods train 5 miles away with nothing but a push bike.  Yes, in episode 3 we saw him find the train abandoned on the tracks (where did the driver go?) and next we see him surprise the old supermarket lady with fully stocked shelves.  Surprise!

We see the TV for some reason replaying home video footage of the blast in Cincinnati.  Who filmed it?  How did the film survive a thermo nuclear blast?  How come its on continual 24hr loop on TV that is able to be picked up in Jericho and nothing else?  We see the heroes hand pump 600 gallons (is that close to litres?) of petrol into a steel (watch for sparks!) pesticide tanker and drive it across town to refill the generator *just* in time before the baby in the incubator dies.

They find a radiation sick man and accuse him of murdering “Shep” (who I cant recall) and kill him during the “torture” session… nice one.  Then they cry when they find the man’s family dead by a lake all from radiation… boo hoo.

Crazy dumb show… make sure you watch it.

Ignore Free-to-air TV whingeing

This is exactly why Australian's should ignore the pitiful pleas of our free to air TV networks over the fact that Pay TV is taking over sport in this country. If the Networks stopped treating us as idiots and were more flexible in their programming, then maybe they wouldn't be in this mess. Get Foxtel people, its the way of the future - tell Channel 9 to "fark off!"

Anger over delayed telecast - League - Fox Sports

Holidays Aren't What They Used To Be.

Coming back to work on a Wednesday is a weird feeling and it has thrown my body clock out of whack – but a good kind of whack as I realise today is Thursday and the weekend isn’t far away.

Yesterday’s first day in the office was horrendous as I have a bad head cold and am stuffed up badly and I spent 5 hours in meetings with externals and another 2 hrs in meetings with my own department.  All I could think of was the ever building pile of emails in my inbox.  That’s the price you pay for holidays in the modern age.  Your incoming work remains unattended to in your inbox and “urgent” messages remain unanswered from 2 weeks ago and instead of the sender reading your out of office reply stating you wont be back for 2 weeks and taking their issue to someone else, they simply wait for you to return.

“Yes my message is urgent but I can wait two weeks”.  So you come back and there is a queue.  A queue of emailers and now because the office runs with VoIP, all my voice mails are in my inbox as well.  I had checked in on emails periodically during my holiday, but really it was for personal reasons – emails from friends and my Diplomacy games were the main reasons I would log in.  All the work stuff I left and now I had about 400 unread emails.

A quick cull of these by removing office notices, work related spam, meeting invites and some of the mailing lists I subscribe to saw this number come down to 180 – amazing how much crap you get.  Then I managed to deal with 30 or so emails during the day and on the way home last night I worked on the laptop and got that down to 103.

Today though my calendar is clear, and I plan on sifting through the remaining 100+ and of course the stuff that has come in overnight and clear up.  By then, it will be the weekend!

Next week, I should be able to start the week on an even footing, but I think I’ll need a holiday again!  LOL.

 

Nuclear Threat? Get a Barn!

Huzzah!  We’re back by popular demand and I write to you this morning from the 6:22am from Glenbrook.

Now as most of you, like me are scared to the bejesus by those Evil™ North Koreans and their nuclear test over the weekend I want to recommend watching the reasonably new TV series “Jericho” on Thursday nights.  This show, if you haven’t watched the first 3 episodes is set in a small US rural town called Jericho which is in the middle of nowhere in the Colorado wilderness.  Then one day (at the end of episode 1 to be precise) a massive mushroom cloud on the western horizon indicates that Denver has been destroyed by a nuclear bomb – was it the Evil™ North Koreans?  We don’t know this yet, but anyways the town gathers together under the leadership of a country bumpkin Mayor, his scone making Missus and his two dorky sons (the oldest of which is the Deputy Mayor, the younger the resident “Bad Boy”) and they set about “makin’ things right”.

It would have to be bordering on the most ridiculous show ever made.  This dawned on me when the town was about to be hit with a thunderstorm in the days preceding the blast and they have realised via some scratchy pieces of communication that basically every major city in the US has been wiped out.  Given that 50 nuclear warheads have gone off and the weather remains a pleasant sunny 25 Celsius the townsfolk realise that any rain will bring “RADIATION”.  Yee Gods!  So they scramble for shelter and the town sits in various cubby holes and tape up their windows with plastic sheeting and one bunch of people hide in their basement.

Then when the rain clears, they all come outside and have a BBQ!  Yes, no radiation (it passed in the rain) and their solution is to cook all the meat in the super market because its about to go off (shouldn’t it be glowing green??).  Amazing show… if this show was based on a semblance of fact you’d be asking yourself why are we so worried about North Korea?!  Surely if Kim Jong-Il drops the big bomb on the Western world, as long as it doesn’t rain we’ll be right.

If you want to watch some TV that is ridiculously bad, so bad that you have to watch it like a train wreck, then I highly recommend Jericho on Thursday nights… and make sure you take notes in case North Korea get antsy!

 

 

Lazy Holiday Posting

Hello all. Sorry for the lack of activity, but the holidays have kept
me busy and because I am not captive to the laptop on the train for 3hrs
a day, the blog hasnt been upfront in my mind.

But thats not to say it isnt at all and I will be returning to work next
Wednesday, so you can look forward to some dribble then.

In the interim, I have been in holiday mode and have seen 3 movies. Two
of them kids movies with Garfield 2 being rubbish, but probably better
than Garfield 1 if anyone saw that. We then saw Meryl Streep in the
Devil Wears Prada and it was quite good and despite it being a chick
flick, I found it a good story. Then Kate & I saw "Monster House" which
is a pretty good kids movie but would be pretty scary for littlies.

Also, played cricket yesterday and score my second golden duck in a
row!! Bowled both times. Most depressing. Still the team did OK, I
was the second wicket when we lost 4/1 but we recovered to post 131. We
have Wenty Leagues at 6/70 at stumps and look the goods for first
innings points.

Other news is sporadic, we spent the day gardening and I bought a boot
load full of Cow Manure and Garden Soil and fixed up some of our lesser
performing gardens and will be buying some new plants tomorrow. We also
spent a couple of hours at Springwood Pools where the kids swam and
played on the waterslide.

Other than that, not much. Niki and I are going out tomorrow to see the
movie World Trade Centre and have a bite to eat.

Day At The Beach

Spent today at Stanwell Park Beach down near Wollongong today and apart from being fairly blowy on the beach, the day was beautiful.

We drove down in the morning and watched a hang glider go off the top of Bald Hill and then headed on into the beach.

In the afternoon, we had lunch at the kiosk - seafood baskets - and then the girls played in the park. Kate had a go at the camera and snapped this picture - one of the rare pics of Niki and I together in the one shot.

Then the girls did some cartwheels!