True commitment to goal setting (The Worlds Most Tattood Person)

Last weekend I witnessed one mans lifelong commitment to goal setting.

© The Ponder Room

While juggling fire, a machete and an apple, Lucky Diamond Rich relayed the story of his childhood.

As a boy Lucky flipped through the pages of the World Guinness Book of Records marveling at the accomplishments of the people there in.


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Dreaming about seeing his own name included in the book one day, his supportive mother told him.....

‘You can be whatever you want to be’

She was right, Australian Lucky Diamond Rich is now listed as the Worlds Most Tattooed Person.

Over the past 20 years Lucky has travelled the world performing to over a million people, one million and one if you count the encouraging eye of his lovely wife.

Sitting nearby I asked her something most of you probably want to know, which part hurts the most to get tattooed? While I would have put money on the tops of your feet, she replied ‘everyone is different, so I can’t say', then she added that if I was thinking about getting one 'it's a moment of pain, for a lifetime of expression.’

© The Ponder Room

While contemplating this I looked up to see what Lucky was up to, and found I really had to concentrate to see him.


© The Ponder Room



The thing about being blue is that you blend into the foliage, a definite advantage for a chameleon perhaps, but not so great for a street performer I thought.

Thankfully he opened his mouth and when the sun bounced off his silver teeth, yes silver teeth, it gave him away.



As Lucky finished his act and changed into his street clothes, from what I could tell there wasn’t a single part of his body not covered by the tattoo. Even both his feet appeared to be tattooed all over. If I squinted I could just make out a tiny bit of pink near the base of one heel. Now that’s a true commitment to goal setting.

  As he wandered off to join the Fremantle Street Festival Wrap Party, I was left with so much to ponder.....

1. Whether the Australian SAS had ever considered this option? They'd certainly save a fortune on laundry bills.
2. If, while editing Avatar, one of James Cameron’s animators broke the rules and went for a quick toilet break, thereby creating a tiny window of opportunity for a highly skilled, but minor character, to escape?
3. What it would be like to roll over in the morning and wake up next to the Worlds Most Tattooed Person? That's one of the questions you really wanted me to ask wasn't it?
4. If after years of living together the couple had finally realised that navy satin sheets were a thing of the past for them?
5. If this was what his mother had in mind the day she gave him that advice?

The Domino Project update

News has come through about The Domino Project competition. If you remember a friend entered me into the competition with a piece called Live Life Well.


Thanks to John Ashcroft


The entries have been assessed, the book produced and it’s now available on Amazon for free until May 19th. It’s called…

Tales of the Revolution: True Stories of People Poking the Box and Making a Difference

Here’s the link (I hope). Tales of the Revolution book 
You don’t need a Kindle or iPad you can download it to your computer. 

I haven’t read all of the pieces yet, but there are some great stories about people doing amazing things. One person lobbied congress for better veteran benefits, others helped to start schools, improve education, or raise money and give it away in unique ways.

What’s even more amazing is that the piece that my friend wrote got in!!

I don't mean that as a reflection of her writing, as she's a great writer, it's just the subject matter.

I truly can’t believe I’m listed amongst these stories. Amazing how things happen sometimes. Must have been all that lucky cabbage I was covered in during Chinese New Year.


Thanks to HaPe_Gera



A huge thanks once again to everyone who voted, I really can’t  explain what it means to me. At the very least it makes me think that perhaps I should stay on this new road I've been travelling down recently.

I think I’ll have to find somewhere quiet and have a long hard ponder about what this all means, and how I can pay it forward to help make a difference.

If you have any ideas at all about what I should do I’d really love to hear them.

ANZAC Day 2011

 As a Kiwi living in Australia....

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Waking to a crisp blue ANZAC dawn, and seeing 5 biplanes flying over head, it’s very easy to give thanks to all those who fought, and continue to fight, for us.

Some 45,000 West Australians made it to this years Dawn Service in Kings Park, the largest crowd in Australia.

Like the rest of the population I spent the day trying to make the most of the freedom we’ve been handed.

For me that meant surfcats on the South Perth foreshore in the morning, then watching the sun go down on the Fremantle Street Theatre Festival.....more on that later.

© The Ponder Room



In the meantime....thank you.

Lest We Forget.



Working Bunnies....really? (Segmentation gone too far)

While walking around the supermarket I came across another stand.
Is it just me, or does this one seem a bit well….wrong.
The sign read Working Bunnies.....really?

© The Ponder Room

I stood in front of the island display for quite a while, pondering….

‘Working’ as in Office Working Bunnies?

Well I guess they are boxed in a kind of high rise cubicle scenario, but don’t they look a tad too bright and perky for office dwellers? I mean where are the dark circles under their eyes, the three day growth amassed from chasing one to many deadlines, and what’s with the cheek to cheek smile? I’ve never seen any cubicle dwellers bordering on a state of cheap-coffee-induced delirium while toiling away. Well not unless the clock was approaching 5pm before a five day long weekend.

Perhaps they mean ‘working’ as in Street Working Bunnies?

I guess that could make sense, I mean they’ve already got inbuilt Playboy bunny tails. But where are the fishnets, the track marks, the lazy fag lolling out the left side of the mouth? Not to mention a going rate of $6.98?

$6.98, well that wont even keep an apprentice pimp in gold rings now will it? Okay, okay enough with the stereotypes, but I was left pondering…… 

1. What about the unemployed bunnies, or the street-kid bunnies where were they? Have they been left out of the marketing strategy altogether?
2. Or are they just around the corner lurking between the sardines and baked beans?
3. Can market segmentation go too far?

I’m almost too scared to continue on.

Happy segmented Easter especially to the Easter disadvantaged (Vegan, Lactose Intolerant)

If I’ve learnt nothing else in my 25 years working in consumer psychology I’ve learnt that society insists on segmenting itself over, and over, and over, again. Not a bad thing for market research consultants, but a bit of a problem for Marketing Managers trying to allocate dwindling budgets, and a huge headache for late night supermarket shelf stockers. Try and say that three times.

© The Ponder Room



In the late seventies Marketing Managers were screaming for segmentation studies that profiled married, and single consumers. By the eighties they were dipping their toes into the separated, divorced and single parent markets. In the nineties any CEO not discussing DINKS, and Empty Nesters would hover uncomfortably over their black high back leather chair waiting to be found out. A few entrepreneurial types took a closer look into the pink dollar, with an eye clearly on the bottom line (pun intended). Then the Ooo’s or Noughties, depending on your predilection, saw the brave venturing Indiana Jones-like into a myriad of multicultural segments.



©The Ponder Room



Consumers are no longer a homogenous mass just waiting to buy a vacuum cleaner from a fresh faced door to door salesman.

Easter provides a great example of this.

On Saturday while waiting in line, somewhat patiently, at the local supermarket, I was confronted by a wall of Easter eggs; dark, milk, marshmallow, and sugar, an egg to cater for every segment. Clearly the world is not only multicultural it’s now multi-dietary too.

What began with us daring to wrap our taste buds around cultural cuisines beyond sweet and sour pork, has developed into a range of commonplace dietary labels; Vegetarians, Lactose Intolerant and Vegans, well almost commonplace.

As the supermarket checkout beeped I contemplated the plight of the Easter disadvantaged. Dairy is kryptonite for Vegans and the Lactose Intolerant. Milk, ice cream and eggs are all out. So what do they do at Easter? Have they developed an uncanny knack of molding tofu into egg-like shapes? Anyone who’s ever cooked tofu knows this would require the concentration and patience of a Buddhist monk. Besides, somehow I just can’t see a tofu egg lasting long in the bushes during the Easter egg hunt. 

That’s when I saw it. There lurking on the back self was ….

A lactose free Easter bunny!

©The Ponder Room

I could almost hear the cries of delight from deep in the land of Lactose.

Incase you were wondering a dairy free Easter egg contains.. 

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Coca Mass,

Sugar,

Cocoa Butter,

Emulsifier (Soy Lecithin),

and Vanilla Flavour.

Evidently one serve provides 7% of your daily energy requirements or 582kj, 8.5g of fat and 5.1g of saturated fat. Which all sounds pretty good I guess, but then I saw a warning exclamation mark.

Aha I thought. What strange substance is lurking under the guise of ‘lactose free’ in order to make the egg actually edible. The Allergen warning stated that the egg contained…Soybeans.

© The Ponder Room

So there you go, another option for the adventurous amongst us. I should add that there were also 'Nut Free' and 'Sugar Free' options.

Looking back at this vast array of choice, I was reminded of an article in The West Australian where two kids were asked to taste test a sample of Easter eggs. Faced with dark chocolate, light chocolate, expensive and cheap options, they picked the cheap bunny even though the expert food critic questioned the quality of the chocolate therein.

As the last of my items were placed back in the trolley I walked away, but not without pondering ….

1. Whether the kids were so sugar laden by the end of testing, that the first egg simply tasted better because they felt less like throwing up at that stage.
2. Whether their choice had more to do with the familiar bunny shape, than the actual taste of the chocolate.
3. What the kids would have thought about the lactose free Easter egg with Soybeans.
4. Whether the Marketing Manager at the chocolate company that produced the lactose free eggs, will be spending the Easter break rocking backwards and forwards in a cramped white padded cell, while staring at his enormously complicated 2011 Easter Egg Budget spreadsheet, and screaming ‘I’m still over budget, why did the CEO’s wife have to be lactose intolerant, why?’

By the way if you have any Vegans or Lactose intolerant people in your family and want to know where I found the eggs just ask.

Playing Tennis With God (Motoring #3)

This article first appeared in Mazda MX5 Magazine.

Last year someone or something had really upset God. Maybe he’d heard that Australian criminals were being glorified in yet another Underbelly series, or seen some of the acts on Australia’s Got Talent, who knows, but this time he wasn’t joking.

thanks to mcdett

Striding towards the automatic ball machine on his oversized tennis court, he replaced the tennis balls with what looked like golf balls, turned the machine towards Perth Western Australia and let rip.

Meanwhile, having spent the past five days held hostage by my computer, it was time to unbuckle my body at the gym. Taking a much needed break from the stomach crunch machine, I noticed a pack forming at the window.

One by one six Arnold Schwarzenegger types moved towards the window as fast as their tree trunk legs allowed. Which, mindful that too much thigh on thigh action could potentially start a fire, wasn’t very fast.

As the sky turned black and the thunder kicked in the press of Arnolds (well what is the collective noun for body builders; a weight, a knobble, a snatch or clean and jerk perhaps?), and one very brave Peewee Herman type, pressed their noses against the window. Some were cooing, others laughing and a few even shedding a tear.

Curiosity outweighed trepidation as I edged over and slipped unnoticed under the collection of size 22 biceps. It was then that I saw it.

Damien Hobgoods early chances pay off in Telstra Drug Aware Pro 2011 Margaret River

In the end the final came down to US born Damien Hobgood and a local West Australian.

© The Ponder Room



But that local was Yadin Nicol, not Taj Burrow as a lot of people anticipated.

Hobgood overcame a string of injuries over the past few years and took out the competition using a strategy of taking chances early, rather than waiting for larger waves. Another great example of how making the most of even the smallest opportunities as they arrive, can led to amazing things.

© The Ponder Room



©The Ponder Room



‘When the waves are small it’s kind of like you either hedge your bet on waiting, or getting busy, and fortunate enough no big sets came and it paid off for me’ Hobgood explained.

Talking about the win he added...

‘This place is magical around here and I’ve always felt like connection with it, even when I first came here, and yeah she was good to me today’.

© The Ponder Room



© The Ponder Room

Yadin said he’ll be back next year and ‘try and go one better’.

Grey fins & the Kelly Slater, Billy Stairmand battle at Telstra Drug Aware Pro Margaret River

Today the Margart River surf looks cleaner, so clean infact that this morning grey fins were seen in the water while Paige Hareb and Courtney Conlogue competed.

Thankfully they were only dolphins enjoying the conditions. 

Yesterday Mick Fanning made it past the kiwi factor. Then in the next heat, with 4 minutes to go and tied with Julian Wilson he needed an 8.04 to win. With 14 seconds to go he got a wave but the score coming through was 8.03, just not enough to make it into today’s final. So that leaves Taj Burrow in a potential rerun of last year.

The competition ends today, a day earlier, due to the calmer conditions.

Some photos that didn't get posted yesterday...

Billy yesterday

© The Ponder Room

Billy Stairmand after his win 



 

Billy yesterday

© The Ponder Room



Kelly Slater yesterday...

Kelly Slater

© The Ponder Room

Kelly Slater

© The Ponder Room

Kelly Slater

© The Ponder Room

Billy Stairmand takes out Kelly Slater in Margaret River (Telstra Drug Aware Pro)

Breaking news

21 year old Billy Stairmand from New Zealand rode a perfect wave scoring 9.0. In that one moment he not only created the upset of the event, but also gave hope to thousands of surfers across the globe, showing that anything is possbile with hard work and good decisions.

With minutes to go Slater needed to score over 9 to win. Despite getting a great ride, that included the events first barrel, the judges only scored it an 8.0, and so Slate is out of the competition.

After the heat a beaming Stairmand said he was living a dream, 'I've got the biggest smile I've ever had'. Before being totally swamped by media he added 'I was just having fun with Kelly Slater, going man on man with him. It was a dream to have a heat with him, to win is a dream come true'.

A subdued Slater said 'it happens', adding 'I had a chance but it wasn't to be. Anyone who knows how to surf can go out and make the right decisions, it's not big news that you lose'

Mick Fanning paddled out next to compete against Richard Christie...also a kiwi...

More later.

Slater surfs it up at Margaret River (2011 Telstra Drug Aware Pro)



© The Ponder Room



It’s not often the biggest names in sport come to your backyard, especially when that backyard is the most isolated city in the world.

The 2011 Telstra Drug Aware Pro sees the return of ten times world champion Kelly Slater, who was last here in 1993. Joining him is W.A.’s Taj Burrow, two time title holder Mick Fanning along with a plethora of male and female competitors from France, Brazil, Hawaii, South Africa, USA, Spain and New Zealand.

©The Ponder Room

A sport that relies on Mother Nature is always going to be interesting, and after fairly quiet, sunny days, Thursday began in wild and wooly conditions with waves around 10 to 15 feet. In conditions usually associated with Hawaii, forget about winning, riders focused on making sure they didn’t land one on their head.

Slater swamped in 2011

© The Ponder Room 

No doubt the conditions brought back memories of 1993 for Slater who in previous interviews described that experience as....

‘It was wonderful’, joked Slater. ‘I lost my first heat, got last place, ripped my wetsuit open, broke my board and got my leash stuck on the reef – then my rental car broke down, it was all bad for me at that event and I haven’t been back to surf in it since.’

Slater 

© The Ponder Room


Today the challenging conditions were made even more interesting with some competitors not bringing boards for these conditions. Consequently the day began with frantic scrambling and texting as competitors scrounged boards off other each. In what other sports would you see that, competitors borrowing equipment from each other, now that's mateship? Some competitors rode boards they hadn’t been on for years, others on borrowed boards, and some even braved the sets on their smaller boards. I could hear Slaters comments of yesterday echoing in my head.

‘I don’t know what board I’m going to ride yet, I just show up and check the conditions. The sets could be 20 foot, but I might want to be on the 8 foot in-betweeners. I do generally try to ride the smallest boards possible though.’

Slater  © The Ponder Room



Still walking to his own beat, Slater paddle out into the rain squalled 60 km wind wearing boardies, a vest and on a 4 fin, 5 foot 9 board. The result….

...first in his heat and taking 8.67, equal highest score for the day at the time of his ride. Later while commentating he revealed his thoughts while out amongst it ....‘I was having a ball out there, I was laughing the whole time’, and when riding back on the ski ‘we were screaming and laughing we couldn’t see anything.’

© The Ponder Room

One glaring difference between this event and state competitions or events of old, were the jet ski assists. Each heat lasts 30 minutes, the rider aims to catch two to three good waves and then desperately signals for the jet ski to take them back out. However today even that proved interesting with some competitors getting blown off the ski. That ride alone would have been enough for me.

Even Slater can wipeout

© The Ponder Room

The competition continues through the weekend, and Slater has been reported as saying that Saturday looks like being the best day.

‘It should be a good finish. Each day I like to check the surf and go from there, if the surf’s no good I’ll play golf or go to a winery.’

 So as the day wraps and the sun finally shines I'm left to ponder...

1. If you’ve already got 10 world titles and this is a non-world title event, why would you go out in these conditions?
2. Is it wrong to sneak into the Competitors Wellness Area and make use of the chiroprator and massage therapists?

Crossing the line with Billy Connolly

The other day I witnessed yet another act of generosity, I love hearing about these. One of the girls behind the Cottesloe Lifeboats installation gave her mother two tickets to see Billy Connolly at the Burswood Theatre and unselfishly suggested she take a friend. How amazing was that, to have a ticket to a great show and not use it yourself, surely that’s pretty rare. Anyway that friend turned out to be me, and incase you’re wondering, no, all selfless acts do not have to end with me being the recipient. I was thrilled to put it mildly.…and then I heard the catch.


© The Ponder Room

 The tickets were front row.

Okay, okay I can hear some of you rejoicing, front row, woohoo, but not me. Most people associate fear with creepy crawly things like spiders, cockroaches and big bitey things like sharks. Well for me top of the list is front row seats for some reason. Freud would probably look back at my childhood and remind me of a time when as a bored toddler I’d decided it would be more fun to totter down to the front row of a theatre and flip all the empty seats down, thwack, thwack, thwack. Perhaps the resulting stares scarred me for life who knows. Anyway to this day I would much rather linger in the back row than risk being seen down the front. So nice as the offer was, I took time to consider it, and as the weeks counted down my anxiety rose.

Finally drawing on my new found ‘just do it’ attitude, I said ‘yes’. Arriving at theatre we were quickly ushered into our seats….front row...middle seats. This was the view before us.

Not so bad. Lulled into a sense of false security I made the mistake of turning around.



© The Ponder Room



You know that movie The Fly, where Jeff Goldblum turned into a giant fly well it was kind of like that. Like ten common house flies had gone down one back alley too many, sipped on some devilishly moreish mixture, morphed into skyscrapers and sensing motion, instantly trained all one million lenses on me. Stifling a scream I quickly turned around and sat very, very still, shallow breathing, my eyes averted to the floor, again employing the ‘if I can’t see them, they can’t see me’ childhood theory

It was then that I noticed the line on the floor. Looking along the row no other seats had this line only us. Great, x marks the spot I thought, well ‘T’ really but you get the idea. My companion decided to test the waters, suggesting a precursor to the events ahead.

Before I could set an exit strategy in motion the man himself arrived on stage, no turning back now.

© The Ponder Room

Grey mane flowing Billy paced the width of the stage, back and forth, a lion crossed with a fashion conscious zebra (vertical strips good, horizontal bad).

 

© The Ponder Room



For two hours he dispensed anecdotes and stories that crossed several lines of political correctness.

Then suddenly at the two hours mark he stopped for a drink.


© The Ponder Room

 By now my bladder, having made itself known at least half an hour earlier, was screaming ‘get me out of here’, but I didn’t budge. Especially not when the full force of a Connolly spray had just left spittle resting on my companions forearm.

Shortly after a couple of brave English lads behind us, who’d obviously had few ales prior to the show, couldn’t hold on any longer, so stood and made their way out.

‘I thought it was only ladies that went in twos’, an incredibly controlled Billy announced to the crowd before adding that he couldn’t remember where he was in the story, so that was the end of that anecdote.

Thankfully after another half hour Billy gave us a reprieve and signaled the end of the show.
And so while waiting for nearly two hours in the carpark exodus I pondered:

1. Clearly age is no barrier when a 60 year old can perform for two and a half hours without taking a break. Some younger performers who charge twice as much, for considerably less time, should take note.
2. Blinding lights, twirling acrobats and video screens are superfluous when the act simply has substance.
3. How did Billy maintain bladder control? Were his stripy pants a decoy, secretly hiding an adult nappy?
4. If blog readers will overlook fuzzy photographs given the deft slight of hand needed to take them under threat of being found out.