Davey BoydHello, Hi, Bout ye! G’day, Shalom, Bonjour, Howdy, Hola

The magic continues!! From a distance I track the Green and White’s army. Feeney played a great game with a headed goal and thundering nearly-on-target volley, and David Healy was on fire! Good old Jackie Fullerton on the commentary. Lethal sham.

A pod of Orca whales cruised the Gisborne coastline Sunday 18 November and swum right through the New Wave Primary School Surfing Championships being held at Makorori Beach, New Zealand. Their presence put a hold on the event for at least an hour until it was safe to go back the water once they had moved out to sea.

Having earlier been warned of the pod of five to six whales it wasn’t until a 1.5m high dorsal fin broke the surface of the line up at a fast pace that everyone knew they were in the vicinity. A mere 30m separated the whales from the four contestants in the water and within no time the competing surfers were on the next wave safely heading to the shore.

The whales then proceeded to show everyone how to surf the waves moving at pace through the line up to the hooting and hollering of hundreds on the beach. Once the whales finally moved up the coast the event resumed with eight champions being crowned along with Gisborne’s Illminster School who took out the teams title for the second year running.

The well known and well loved “My King” oration by Dr. S.M. Lockridge.

 Only last night I was standing talking to a surfer at Pelican Beach about surfing and sharks. We were checking out the waves and discussing the practice of going in surfing late in the day or super early in the morning when sharks are most active. The guy was telling me about the sharks that you get out the back only a mile out when out fishing - port jacksons, mako’s, bronzers, hammerheads, and of course the Great Whites! Thankfully - and this is what I tell myself - the sharks are well feed and preoccupied eating the abundant fish and have no need nor interest in surfers. This is also why I make a conscious decision not to pee in the water when I’m surfing, as that would only attract sharks. Furthermore, I never go surfing on my own over here - the more surfers in the water the better! Seriously, on the beach, pre surf, I often pray that the Lord will keep me from harm when out surfing, me and all the other surfers, either from injury or attack. Thankfully I’ve never even seen a big shark in the water when out surfing. I’ve been in surfing around the corner at a different beach only a couple of hours after a local surfer was knocked off his surfboard by a Great White - it took a chunk from his board but not him. I’vc been in the water when other people have spotted a shark but been completely oblivious - probably much like this guy in the photo. Apparently (and I don’t know how accurate this is) for every one time you see a shark, there has been nine occasions when they have spotted you. Scary biscuits!

It was hot today, 34c and sunny! Its just the beginning of spring here. So, before lunch (in between working) I went for a surf at Simpson Ave, North Entrance. Run up this wee pathway and over the scorching hot sand to jump  into the waves. Small 1-2 ft waves and refreshing water temps kept me cool. The photo looks back down the beach to the town. I’m thinking of you all back home — Andy tells me its pretty murky.

Hello everyone! I’m researching for a talk I’ll be doing next month for our church’s youth group on Design, Doing Work, Purpose. I’m gonna be talking about this so I want to illustrate some points. So check out the photo above of the sand castle on the beach, its quite an elaborate sand castle - very impressive. The sand sculpture below here even more creative:

Both photos come from flickr.com with thanks to whoever took them.

Lynnie and I both watched this last night …. really enjoyed Purple and Brown.

When hoop stars try to become rappers, everyone laughs. But when pro surfers release albums, everyone buys them. It seems like there are two options for veteran pros these days - become a tow guy, or become a rock star. The latest convert is Timmy Curran, who’s transitioned from child prodigy to world tour campaigner, from aerial innovator to musician. You can download Timmy Curran’s new Album from Surfline.com at this link. Cheers Timmy for your cruisey surf music.

I’ve been meaning to blog about the new iMac since it came out recently - now I will. Lynnie and I both agree that the iMac looks “sick” after viewing them online and then on Saturday at the mall. I dunno if and when I’ll get one but if I did I’d be stoked for sure. Oh, and I’d choose the 24 inch model.

Now, I often wonder along the following lines and try to relate them to more important things. So, how about this for a crazy idea - the iMac displays all the hallmarks of creative, intelligent design. Simply, the designers at Apple took what was in their minds and skillyfully impressed it upon physical material to produce this product.

The iMac is the product of creative design. On the inside, the updated hardware (Up to 2.8GHz dual-core Intel processor, up to 1 Terrabyte of storage and Advanced graphics from ATI) is the platform for the non-physical software (Mac OSX) to ride upon and operate. On the outside, the sleek brushed aluminum case and new glass-over-LCD screen improves the look on the screen no end. All this didn’t come together on its own. Not only does the iMac display all the obvious features of design but consider this - only a few decades ago a computer this powerful would have taken up an entire room. Now, all of this computing power is packed into a flat-screen monitor! Such micro sizing of technology is a strong indicator of very intelligent design.

Herein, lays the duality of godless thought - on one hand to praise the creators of such products as the iMac yet on the other profess to be wise all the while denying the Designer who made the world which clearly itself bears the hallmarks of design. The iMac is an incredible feat of creativity, careful engineering and precision production…(plus some brilliant marketing) and yet its hardly a scratch on the design and creativity shown in the natural world all the way down to a molecular level. Would you let someone persuade you to believe that the iMac climbed “mount improbable” fueled by chance? I wouldn’t think so. Then don’t be inconsistent in your thinking when it comes to the world and you yourself.

We were created by an immensively powerful, intelligent, timeless, creative, rational, orderly and transcendent Creator. Thankfully, He has been so kind and gracious to reveal Himself to us. His name? Jesus. (John 1:1)

I found this presentation by EDGES TV to be a very careful and apologetic account of who Jesus was and is. Its a very good 10 min video clip that we might want to learn from and work into our own Biblical way of witnessing.