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  Phillip Michael Malone

  Progress Software

  pmm@progress.com

  Unit 5/78 Ellendale Road

  Noble Park , Victoria , 3174 Australia

  0419 309 828

  Jabber

  molly phillip malone

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  July 2009

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The Victorian Labour Government loves claiming that they don’t close schools, that they leave it up to the School communities (and more to the point) the School Councils to decide the fate of there schools! For those of you that have been through the process know, that although there is elements of truth to the story, the part of the story the forget to tell is that they have made the decisions behind the scenes and do everything in there power to make sure the out comes that they want are achieved and that the School Councils are the ones the when left with out any other decision, have to do the actual vote to close the school and therefor wear the blame (and thats what the government and education department do, blame the school council) for the rest of time, with the Government trying to wash their hands of the issue and remain clean so that they can bash the Liberal party and Jeff Kennett about the number of schools they closed.

Now I know some schools are probably redundant and that money can be spent better on one bigger school rather then two small schools, but my argument and goal is to have the State Government and the Education department to live up too their responsibility and own the decision to have schools close or merge (notice I didn’t say to make the decision? That’s because there already making the decision, they are just hiding behind the school councils to own the decision).

Now your school might not have been involved in a school merger and you might say, why do I care. With all the extra work and discussions that are taking place, it has to be more expensive to try to have the school councils talked/forced in to the decision then it is to just make the decision and live with the political backlash that might come!

So I will write more on the site in the coming weeks (assuming that there isn’t an about face by the government) but in the mean time, if you have been through the Building Futures program and been part of a school that has merged because of it and you have some stories to tell about the tactics and the process, either leave a comment below or email me at mollyfud@gmail.com.

Lets see if we can get the Government to come clean and be strong on an issue for once, instead of spending there time commenting on TV shows and Celebrities as they seem to be at the present time!

I am sitting here in LA Airport typing this post. I am on my way to Boston, Massachusetts (well Bedford, MA actually) for work. That meant getting up early and on the way to Melbourne Airport at 8:30am for an 11:25am flight that arrived in LA at about 7am (on that same Saturday, yes, freaky) after about 14 hour flight.

I have about an hour to wait till my Flight to Boston boards for about a 5 hour flight which will have me in the hotel at about 10-11pm. The plan is to try to stay awake the whole time (okay, I had a couple of small sleeps on the Melb-LA flight but pretty much stayed up the whole time.

On the flight I got to watch Get Smart which I really enjoyed. I think it was an interesting twist on the original. Also watched a doco on J.K.Rowlings and that was very interest. They had the Fugitive that is one of my Favorites movies of all time and I may have to watch it again on the way back (yes, that is hinky (little Fugitive reference)). Perhaps the best of the lot was Morgan Spurlock ’s latest film (you would know him as the Super Size Me guy that ate nothing but McDonalds for a month for a Documentary), Where in the world is Osama Bin Laden. The film is setup as Morgan going out to find Osama in order to keep the world safe for his unborn child. It follows the places that are related to Osama but ends up more looking at the reason Osama’s ideas have legs and how much and why those thoughts have any impact at all.

Anyway, need to start getting ready for the flight to Boston. Will try to talk to you them.

Molly

PS. Thanks to my wife Lidia and 8 (nearly) year old son, Patrick for sending me emails. Love you guys.

UPDATE on the UPDATE: They are releasing SingStar Queen on the PS2!

UPDATE: Bit late for this update, but I believe that Sony/PlayStation changed their mind and only released Queen Song packs for the PS3 singstar! Boo Boo Booo

I love SingStar! Its a karaoke game that you play on your Playstation. I have a lot of titles (80’s, Rock, Rock Ballards, etc) but I can see the next one that I am going to get! They have recently announced a version featuring Queen songs! I Can’t wait. Here is an ad for it!

Congrats to my Brother, Damien and his family on the arrival of heap of me family members. Dame has recently move to South West Victoria and is busy setting up his hobby farm (hope this is what it is Dame). They are farming Miniature Goats and Miniature Ponies (although I think this is more a labour of love (I am sure Dame or Shel (Michelle, wife) will put me straight on that one) on there property. They will be selling them to good homes when they are ready. Rather then read my attempt at explaining it, why don’t you check out there website, The Daeshel Lodge.

If you want to read more about the babies and see more photos of these cutes, have a look at the news of there birth.

Wake up dad, I can’t see Dora

We had staff photos at work. This is mine!
Scarey, hey!
Molly

So the day after the visit to see Dr Marks, the first stage of the process begins. It was a three step process:

1) Don’t change what you eat but keep a diary of what you eat

2) Get a pedometer and measure how many steps a day you are doing

3) In the same place, jot down your mood 3 times a day, at the major meal times.

This phase ended about two weeks ago. It was a bit scary/embarrassing to see how I was eating. Too many snacks, too many lunches out. The pedometer didn’t work 100% actuarially  but it showed that I wasn’t doing enough exercise. The mood also showed that when I was down, I tended to eat more.

So left me at Stage 2, and will post about this again soon.

Molly

In many ways its not easy to right the above heading but its not the time to sugar coat this! Over the last year, things have busy, things have been hard and I haven’t looked after myself very well. I have always been overweight but my weight ballooned up and got out of control. It was time to act. About 2-3 months ago in conversation with our doctor she suggested it was time act on this on two fronts.

Firstly, as a result of the weight gain I started to snore. Poor Lidia (my Wife) sometimes can’t sleep the snoring is so bad. So one of the first steps was to see a sleep specialist to see if I have sleep apnoea. My snoring started and got worst as my weigh increased. The doctor said this is probably because the fat increases around the throat and as the throat naturally gets small over night, the fat causes it to get smaller again and this causes the snoring. I am now waiting to do a sleep test and the doctor said that the best thing to do for now is trying to lose weight.

Secondly, I went to see Dr Sharon Marks, from Monash University. Dr Marks is the coordinator of the Obesity Clinic at Monash Medical Centre. She weighed me and took my height and gave the verdict that I knew was coming. I was Morbidly Obese! I don’t know about you, but that term does strike a cord in your mind that isn’t pretty. It extracts an emotion like wow but the fact is that its true.

Sharon went on to explain about how it is considered a disease and that people suffering from it are always going to have trouble losing weight for a number of reasons:

1) Your Metabolism starts to slow down.

2) Seeing you weigh so much, its harder to exercise. Not only is it hard at the time but chances are that your body is going to hurt more the next day.

3) Just general moral and environment issues.

For these reason, some medical intervention is normally needed to get back on track. One option is to have surgery. The two options presented where Laparoscopic Adjustable Gastric Band (better known as Lap Band) or Intragastric Balloon. The first involves using a band filled with liquid to block the amount of food that you can eat and make you feel fuller. The Balloon goes into the stomach and again makes you feel much fuller. Both of these options where to us (Lidia and I) last resorts and but definitely not out of the question.

The other option was to use drugs or food replacement supplements. The drugs do things like make your body less likely to absorb fat or suppress your appetite. The Food replacements are thinks like bars and shakes and the likes that you take to replace normal meals. Drugs might come into in the long run but the first point of call is the Food replacement in the form of Optifast. It is a program that has bars, drinks and soups that you have to replace your meals. It sounds promising and the option that we have decide to go down. This was decided about two weeks ago so tomorrow I will follow on with what the steps where from our initial consultation.

Molly

Well my holidays that started on the 11th January is coming to an end with me starting back on call this Sunday. During the holiday I have been to visit my mum and dad in Warrnambool and a 5 night stay in Lakes Entrance.

Lots of catching up on things including appointments, shopping and the likes. One of the highlights still to come is Patty and myself going to see the Aussies playing the Indians in a T20 cricket match tomorrow which we both are looking forward too.

Alex starts 3 year old kindergarten today and Patty started Grade 1 yesterday and had a great day. The holidays also saw Alex hurt his foot (we never found out the problem but spent 5 odd hours at the Royal Childrens Hospital making sure its not serious) and my cars antenna coming totally out (thats why I am in the office today waiting for it to be fixed).

I hope to have more posts on this blog in the coming months/year. I also am trying to work out what to do with the Mollyzine site. At this point I am probably looking at trying to set it up as a portal to my other sites.

Molly

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