shmatt.com

shmatt.com
Feed on this!
Adventures in life and church planting.
In the third month of the year 2006 AD, Matt (a.k.a. shmatt) departed the lands that he had called home for the prior 30 years, set sail across the stormy sea to distant, unknown lands on an epic missionary journey..
The next day his family flew to Melbourne to join him.

Water Saving What?

April 19th, 2007

It’s about the last thing in our house (that I’m aware of) that isn’t too eco-friendly.  And with all the TV shows talking about how we should be replacing our shower heads with water-saving shower heads, I thought it must be about time to go into the bathroom and plumbing place across the road from work.

Now when the media started talking about CF lightbulbs, suddenly our supermarkets were sold out of them.  It become a boom industry apparently.  I was certain then that I would walk into the store across the road to be greeted with isles full of showerheads, to grab one and walk out with smiling salespeople beaming ‘welcome to the club’

Instead I was given quizzical looks.  “You mean one that uses less water”.  “Well, yes - that’s what the TV tells me”.  “Well, we’ve got this one”.

“This one” looks just like my current one, except they have stuck a limiting valve in there to meet the ratings.  “That’s no good” I complain, “wouldn’t that mean lower pressure?”.  “They are all lower pressure, mate”.

Now, I might be missing something, but couldn’t I get the same result by using my same shower head with the tap turned down?  What I wanted was a shower head that uses less water, because it is designed to use less water - meaning a decent shower.

Choice tells me that the best (low priced) head is the “Flexispray Bermuda II”.. That sounds like a shower head I want to wash under.  I try to buy it online.  I can only find it on a site that offers it to me for $15 (great!).  But wait, it’s Sydney Water, and they won’t sell it to me, because I’m in Melbourne and the reduced price is due to a NSW scheme.  Why don’t we have something like that?  Hang on, we do, but they won’t send one to me because I am a renter.

So after trying to get a water saving shower head, I go home empty handed.  It’s a good thing that we don’t have a water crisis at the moment.

Good, Good Friday

April 9th, 2007

We had some family and friends over for what could be called our first spritual gathering that we have hosted since moving to Melbourne.

It was a simple affair with 13 of us in all - we sat round in a group having great conversation until we pulled out the Easter eggs.  We were following a tradition that we thought was Bulgarian, but turned out to be following in most of middle Europe, where hard boild, died eggs are held in hand, and then an attempt is made to hit it against some-one elses egg, and crack theirs without cracking your own.  I lost.  Twice.

We followed this up with an idea stolen from Andew Jones where I read some words of Jesus over the music and video called Glósóli by Sigur Ros.  It was quite impacting, although I did skip over some of the verses accidentally.  We then broke some bread and drank some wine.

Louisa had prepared a big, big salmon, which we then shared, eating, talking and drinking into the night.

 

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My Friend, John, turned up with a copy of The Age, and on the front cover, leading into a full page was a great article on some Emerging Church happenings in Melbourne.  Featured was Urban Seed, a community that we have been a little involved in over the past six months.