Hot air baloon floats on water

At least five people have been found clinging to the floating wreckage of their hot air balloon after it fell into the Pacific Ocean off Peru.

The 6 passengers and the pilot were declared missing on Sunday morning after authorities believe the balloon fell into the sea about two hundred kilometres south of Lima in rough weather.

Interior Minister Wilfredo Pedraza told reporters on Sunday at Canete beach that he was relieved to find 5 survivors, but says that with 2 more passengers missing, the authorities job isn't over yet.

"Thank God, we have located five female occupants and we are continuing to search for the two missing men, whom we hope to find alive,"

The women were spotted at sea and immediately rescued by two helicopters and a navy
patrol, Mr Pedraza said. They are being treated in hospital.

"There is joy, but also still tension because we need to find the other two young people," the minister said.

This incident just goes to show that you win some and lose some, but that you can always win again.

Celebrate the everyday

Everyday people doing everyday things is cause for celebration, and I witnessed 2 events today that most likely won't rate a mention in world history, but for the people involved, they may have been profound achievements that help to mould who these people are.

Unless you're talking about Picasso or Trevor Hendy, painting and swimming at the beach aren't things you'd normally consider world beating moments, but if they're things you haven't managed to commit to doing, or were too scared to do it, they feel like conquering Everest.

My friend had been lamenting the fact that she hadn't been able to sit down for a day and paint. She had all the equipment, all the space, and all the ideas, but being an on-call shift worker, what she didn't have was time and conviction to take a day off to lock herself in a room and paint. But on Friday, she drew a line in the sand, took a day off work, and painted her very own masterpiece.

She doesn't think the National Gallery will be offering her millions of dollars for it, but she did it to feel good about her own personal achievement, not to potentially make a quick mil, so she was tickled pink.

Becoming the person you end up being isn't as simple as clicking your fingers and saying "I want to be THIS sort of person," it's a long series of experiences that shape what we love and what we can do without, our fears and dreams, and down at Freshwater beach I saw my niece's identity being shaped. The surf was pumping so hard it was scaring most kids on the beach, including 6 year old Charlie Rose Howarth, but when her Dad suggested they go out the back, despite the fact she was scared to death, she put her trust in her Dad, took his hand and headed out the back.

Charlie learned 2 things this morning - that she doesn't need to be afraid of the ocean, even when the surf is huge, and that she can put complete faith in her Dad and he'll protect her.

I hope both girls realise that even though their achievements won't make the news, they should be very proud. From little things, big things grow.

Heroes and mates

Frederick Smith was a Private in the 19th Infantry Battalion in World War one. There are no memorials in his name, he didn't win any bravery awards and there are no Frederick Smith statues at the National War Memorial, but it's men like him that made me rush to work early on a public holiday because I was excited to write a blog about playing footy with my mates - so in my eyes, he is a hero.

I haven't played a game of football for the Pennant Hills Demons since 2005, but this week, they reminded me of how important it is to have good mates around you. Since my playing career was cut short by a stroke, I've tried to stay involved with the club - I've been message runner, water boy, and co-coached the under 18 side, but it's been a while since I've been caught up in the excitement of the pre-game routine in the change rooms, so I asked my ex-team mate, current first grade coach and good mate Chris Yard if I could talk to the boys for 2 minutes before they run out to play Sydney Uni this Saturday to try and psyche them up. Asking a football coach to take their pre-game talk is like asking Corporal Ben Roberts-Smith if you can look after his Victoria Cross for a night, I thought I may have been kidding myself, but 17 years of mateship showed it's value when I was told I could have the honor.

I didn't become mates with Chris BECAUSE I thought there might come a day when he was the Demons first grade coach and I might want to address the boys before a game, I became mates with him because he was a sensational ruckman, a great football mind, and a really good bloke, and this weekend, the unexpected benefits of mateship will help fire me up before I try and fire the Dees up.

I'd like to thank the Frederick Smith's of the world for helping friendships like Chris' and mine to endure.

Money speaks louder than cows

In the middle of the night at Mandara Hut, 2715 metres up Mount Kilimanjaro, my mate and fellow mountain climber, Jason, woke to answer a call of nature, so left the hut and went and stood where the grass met the tree line to answer the call.

On a cold, foggy night, he was scanning the trees to make sure there were no lurking predators, but it was a rustling behind him that made his stream wiggle. He turned around to see a wide girthed, 4 legged furry animal with a long tail, and he started thanking God for the priveleged life he'd lived, As he closed his eyes and waited to feel a lions teeth pierce his skin, the furry animal didn't roar, it mooed - he had come face to face with a cow. 

Now the Tanzanian government are planning to deprive tourists of similar encounters with Africa's majestic animals with it's announcement to set aside 1500km² of land adjacent to the Serengeti National Park as a "wildlife corridor". Once the land has been taken from the Massai who currently live there, this corridor will be granted to a Dubai-based UAE luxury hunting and safari company for wildlife hunting. Creating this corridor will block the Maasai from accessing pastures within the designated corridor, jeopardizing the cattle-herding that serves as their livelihood.

According to a public letter from the Maasai elders, the government last week announced its plans to

"...kick thousands of our families off our lands so that wealthy tourists can use them to shoot lions and leopards"

This isn't the first time the Tanzanian government have tried to clear the Maasai from their land to open it up for foreign hunters. but those plans were halted through international protests in the latter half of last year. An online petition conducted by Avaaz currently has nearly 2 million signatures, and if this petition puts a halt to the governments land grab, people like Jason will be able to enjoy getting up close and personal to the fearsome animals of Africa.

Roscoe's comeback

After breaking his collar bone in a skiing accident at Christmas, my father (Big Roscoe) had a long lay off from playing golf which had been killing him, but yesterday he made his comeback, and hearing him talk about it made me proud to be his son.

My parents have always tried to teach my siblings and I that sport should be played for the enjoyment of being out competing with your friends, not for glory at any cost. When I started playing Aussie Rules at 8, my Dad taught me that before the first bounce of every game, I should look my opponent in the eye, shake his hand, and wish him luck. If I had heard someone else's Dad tell the story about his experience on the golf course the way my own father did, I would have been moved. But this was Roscoe, so if there's a level above just "moved," that's where I was.

My Dad played a good round of golf yesterday, he finished with 35 stableford points (which is good), but his enjoyment came not from the quality of his swing, but from the company he shared. Like a kid on Christmas morning, he said to me "I had SUCH a good day yesterday. I could have scored 25 points and I still would have loved it. Being out on the course with my mates was such a nice feeling. Scoring 35 points was just a bonus."

I feel like I've come out of Black Caviar's stud such is my pedigree.

My father is a champion.

Boston Marathon

Read this:

http://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20130415214103-5434591-the-boston-marathon

Why we have to keep going despite what's happened in Boston

Just keep going

First things first today:

Adam Scott - get him up here, I wanna boof him.

Now, let's move on - here's blog 34 about how I reached level 10 in the beep test yesterday:

On a basketball court in the Randwick Army barracks in 1998, during pre-season for Sydney Swans, the squad were doing a beep test, and the entire team watched on and cheered as ran a 15-11, the highest score for the Swans that season. I pushed my body further than I thought I could take it to get there, and yesterday at Thornleigh oval, I ran another beep test where I found a level I didn't know I had to reach level 10.

The beep test is a 20 metre shuttle run that incrementally gets faster as you climb to higher levels, the highest of which is level 23, and in my 1998 test, once I got above level 12, pushing off the foot of Stefan Carey at one end, and Greg Stafford at the other, every length I ran was more a mental challenge than a physical one, my body had nothing left, all I had was my subconcious telling me to "just keep going."

For the last two months I've been running beep tests with the goal of reaching level 10, but I haven't been able to get past levels in the low nines, but yesterday I found that same mental fortitude that got me to level 15-11 in '98. When I hit level 9, my legs felt like they had nothing left to give and I felt like I was getting close to the inevitable low 9 drop out, but I said to myself "just keep going," so I kept going until the recorded voice told me I was at level 10.

As a 33 year old, I'm proud to be able to say that I ran a 10 in the beep test, but as a 33 year old diabetic stroke survivor, the result vindicates the decision I made straight after my stroke to close my eyes and jump back into the life I'd been living before the stroke and see what I could achieve.

Cost-benefit analysis, cost-benefit aschmalysis

The Australian Government claim the "Coalition are a fact-free zone" when it comes to the National Broadband Network, but raw business facts have led to the shedding of 400 jobs in South Australia.

Communications Minister Stephen Conroy has disputed opposition claims that the total cost of the NBN could be as high as $90 billion, after initial Government estimates put the cost at $37.4 billion. The worrying part about the NBN debate is that this $52.6 billion discrepency isn't the biggest conundrum, that title can be attributed to the confusion over whether or not a cost-benefit analysis is required for a new business venture.

Speaking on ABC Radio's AM program on Monday, Minister Conroy insisted that a cost-benefit analysis is only required if it is expected that a venture will make a loss.

"The cost benefit analysis argument works if you claim the NBN isn't making money," Minister Conroy said, "and the NBN corporate plan clearly states that the NBN makes money over time"

To see the risks of operating a business venture without a cost-benefit analysis, Holden's Elizabeth production facility in South Australia is a topical example, where 400 employees face redundancies due to weakening demand. The struggles in the automotive industry are well publicised, but South Australia's opposition leader Steve Marshall doesn't think this is an excuse for the state not to do it's homework.

 "We have been calling since day one for a cost benefit analysis to be done," he said.

Despite Mr Marshall's calls, neither Holden or the State Government have provided any documentation.

The debate about whether fibre is better than copper, whether we should have fibre to the home or just to the node, or whether we should be aiming for 100 megabits per second or if 25 will suffice is one to be had amongst computer technicians, but the debate about business fundamentals should be had by all of us.

Map to stroke recovery

The announcement by US President Barack Obama to fund research into mapping the human brain might give me the chance to play my 100th game of AFL for the Pennant Hills Demons.

When I had my stroke in 2005, I was club captain for the mighty Dees, and when I came out of my coma after 4 days, the main motivating force that helped me give everything I had during my rehabilitation was that I had played 96 games for Pennant Hills, and my goal was to work hard enough during my recovery so that I could make an AFL comeback, play 4 more games for Penno and reach my hundredth.

That dream didn't come to reality, but Obama's announcement breaths new life into the possibility of me playing my hundredth game. The proposal, a public/private funding arrangement aims to study the billions of neurons and trillions of connections that make the brain function. If the venture is successful, it will change the lives of people with schizophrenia, Parkinson’s, depression, epilepsy and autism. It will also make prosthetic devices more responsive to human thought, and reverse the effects of stroke.

Scientists see mapping the human brain as something of a "last frontier" in medicine, America's National Institute of Health see this project as something that "will fill major gaps in our current knowledge and provide unprecedented opportunities for exploring exactly how the brain enables the human body to record, process, utilize, store, and retrieve vast quantities of information, all at the speed of thought."

According to President Obama, the "BRAIN Initiative" (Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies) will unlock the mysteries of the human body's control centre, "As humans, we can identify galaxies light years away. We can study particles smaller than an atom. But we still haven't unlocked the mystery of the three pounds of matter that sits between our ears," Obama said when he launched the initiative.

As a stroke surivor, I will be watching the developments of the BRAIN Initiative with great interest, but as an AFL footballer who still hopes to play his hundredth game, I will be glued to ABC News24 to see if this project can lead to the re-mapping of my brain and turning my dream of playing my hundredth game for the Pennant Hills Demons into reality.

Never too old to climb Everest

If you ever find yourself saying "I'm too old for that", look at 80 year old Yuichiro Miura who is preparing to climb Mt Everest for the third time, and think again.

Miura first climbed Everest when he was 70, and did it again five years later, when he set a world record for being the oldest person to make it to the top. His mantle was stolen when Nepalese man Min Bahadur Sherchan made it to the top at the age of 76.

If Miura summits Everst again when his expedition begins in May, it will be after negotiating some major obstacles. He had heart surgery last November and again in January this year, and he suffered a broken pelvis and fractured thigh after a skiing accident in 2009.

Miura's strength is in the blood, his father Keizo skied down Mont Blanc at age 99, and skiing down a mountain helped Miura Jnr win an Oscar for the producers of the 1975 film "The Man Who Skied Down Everest", a documentary about how he skiied from an 8,000-metre point down the South Col route of Everest.

So when you sit down to write your bucket list, keep Yuichiro Miura in mind, and don't rule anything out.

80 year old Yuichiro Miura will climb everest for the third time after heart surgery, a broken pelvis and a fractured thigh

 

Say it loud, just don't say it in Egypt

Free speech in Egypt has just been dealt a blow with the arrest of a television presenter for parodying the Islamist president Mohammed Morsi.

Government sources say Bassem Youssef was arrested after at least four people complained about his political satire. A senior aide pointed to the need to distinguish "freedom of expression and thuggery".

The opposition see the move in a more sinister light, activists say the Islamist-dominated government is clamping down on free speech.

If he was hoping for leniency, he did himself no favours when he arrived for police questioning in a hat parodying one Mr Morsi wore on a recent state visit.

In countries where free speech is an ingrained cultural expectation, a light-hearted joke about public figures is a form of entertainment practiced by mainstream actors and actresses. If restrictions on free speech were in place in the USA, this nugget of gold would never have seen the light of day. Former US President George W Bush was a leader who left himself open to public ridicule, and Will Ferrell took full advantage in this 2007 parody:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jOjfxEejS2Y

Whether you love Will Ferrell or hate him, his right to say whatever he wanted about his country's leader without reprisal is a privelege.

Mr Youssef was freed after five hours of questioning on $2,200 bail.