3200 Qantas Frequent Flyer Points in 24 hours

Just a little update - I'm working in Western Australia now; on a gold-mine expansion project 2hrs drive SSE from Perth. It's in the middle of nowhere, and gets quite cold at nights - as cold as -3 degrees!


I fly back to Melbourne every 4th weekend for R&R. This weekend just passed was my July R&R, and so, for those who are wondering why I'm still in Melb... my last few days looked like this:

• Thu 24/07/2008 11:30pm (WST) - scheduled departure from PER airport

• Fri 25/07/2008 12:00am - actual departure
• Fri 25/07/2008 5:00am (EST) - arrival at MEL airport, took chauffeured taxi home
• Fri 25/07/2008 6:00am - arrived home, went to sleep
• Fri 25/07/2008 10:00am - watched "Children of the Silk Road" with Mum (great movie!)

• Sat 26/07/2008 - went to church, celebrated my 25th... woo!

• Sun 27/07/2008 - brunch, lunch - heaps of catch ups, dinner with Steph's family
  

• Mon 28/07/2008 10:00am – chauffeured taxi to airport
• Mon 28/07/2008 12:30pm - departed for Perth
• Mon 28/07/2008 2:30pm (WST) - arrived in Perth.... now get this: 3 voicemails on my phone. They wanted me in the Melb office urgently to do some work for a couple of weeks
  
• Mon 28/07/2008 4:00pm - arrived in Perth office, got the admin assistant to organise a hotel room for the night and flight back the next day (I need rest - no way I was flying immediately!)
• Mon 28/07/2008 5:30pm - hotel and flights confirmed
• Mon 28/07/2008 6:30pm - checked into hotel
• Mon 28/07/2008 8:30pm - dinner with Andrew, Vianny, Like, Daniel
• Mon 28/07/2008 10:30pm - back to hotel, heaps of email, sleep

• Tue 29/07/2008 4:30am - woke up, got ready, went to PER airport
• Tue 29/07/2008 5:15am - got to the check in desk, found that the travel agent booked, but did not issue the ticket!
• Tue 29/07/2008 5:45am - called the travel agent's emergency number, got the ticket issued, checked in
• Tue 29/07/2008 6:10am - scheduled departure from PER airport
• Tue 29/07/2008 7:30am - actual departure
• Tue 29/07/2008 12:30pm (EST) - arrived at MEL airport
• Tue 29/07/2008 1:30pm - arrived at Melb office (hehe - got a hire car), got briefed on what to do, got a workstation organised, started working, etc.

Nice.

Through the Eyes of the Homeless

I was at the Miracle Cafe this afternoon (that's Aflame's primary outreach avenue - sermon and food for the homeless) and spoke to a guy named Terry. He spoke of the only drug he ever used: LSD. But he's off it now.

When I asked how he got off it, he said it was because of his daughter. He used to come home drunk 6 nights a week and there was one morning when his baby daughter (at that time around 7 years old, I suspect) jumped onto his lap and said, "Daddy are you ok?" He replied, "Why are you asking?" Then she said, "Yesterday you were wobbling." So he must've been high the night before. Seeing his daughter’s face, he began crying and stopped taking drugs and alcohol.

The daughter's about 34 and married to a veterinarian now... but I didn't ask how come he was in a state of homelessness tho. But yeah he thanked me for "doing this cafe thing" and said that he looks forward to coming every week. "I'm sure you young guys have plenty more exciting things to do on a Saturday arvo, and it might not seem like much, but you guys are doing a lot more than you think." I ended the conversation by saying, "I look forward to coming each week to meet people like you, Terry." Amazing stuff....there's a story behind every face.....