So my wife and I had a chance to have dinner out with the boys last week. While out my wife noticed the size of the windows and explained she would like us to have larger windows. With this in mind I told her I would prefer to keep our windows as small and functional as possible. When she asked why I explained that I had a concern for Zombie attacks, and how smaller windows would be more easily defended. Needless to say this topic fell on deaf ears. But what happens if they do attack?

So please be aware of the following folks:

http://www.archaeology.org/online/features/hierakonpolis/zombies.html

http://www.archaeology.org/online/interviews/zombies/

So for you non believers, the day is coming, beware of the Zombie!

I found the following very useful:

1) Don’t save anyone, don’t even try.

2) The laws of man no longer apply. The Laws of the jungle is in full effect. That means you should screw over anyone you can.

3) Eat any kind of food you come into contact with. Food is hard to get in a zombie invasion.

4) Guns are worth a lot. Bullets are worth more than anything. If you meet a kind soul that has a lot of spare bullets, shoot him and take the bullets.

5) Find a two story building and block off the staircase. Then find a way to sleep on the roof. This isn’t a good long term survival method, but it will buy you some time. Take water onto the roof. Shoot any zombies that look like smokers. You don’t want that jerk burning your house down…or forcing his second hand smoke on you.

6) If traveling with a group, kill the crazy guy in your group. I think most zombie movies have made the reason for this quite clear.

7) If traveling with a group, and someone is injured, kill them without hesitation. If anyone in your group objects, kill them too. If you do this, you are now the crazy guy in the group, watch out for rule 6.

8) The military is not your friend. “Join the army, see the world, save people from zombies” is not their motto.

9) Zombies don’t care if its night or day. Limit your excursions to daytime. In fact, don’t have any excursions. This is a zombie attack, not a visit to Disneyland, you dumbass.

10) If you are well supplied and safe, for Godsakes, don’t leave your current position. Anyone that saw the new Dawn of the Dead movie surely must have realized that that entire group got itself killed using nothing but their own combined stupidity.

11) Boats are a losing strategy.

12) My Dad used to always say to me: “Remember aLs, in case of a zombie invasion, you never have to reload a machete.” It’s true.

13) Having a zombie escape plan not only saves time, it saves lives. Ask yourself this, do you know where you’re supposed to meet family and friends when the undead scourge comes? You are living on the edge my friend.

14) Wear lots of leather. Wear anything that is hard to bite through. Don’t wear so much that you can’t run. Girls: Skimpy clothing is a stupid idea. Your best bet is tight leather. Yeah. Tight leather. Wear that.

15) Stop shooting zombies in the torso, you jerk. Ammo doesn’t grow on trees.

16) Put your cellphone on vibrate. One ring at the wrong moment can spell disaster. Also, if it rings while we’re having dinner or I’m talking to you, and you answer it, I am going to invoke rule 2 and push you off the side of the building.

17) That scary looking dog is not your friend. Do not pet him.

18) If you are covered in zombie blood, take a shower. If someone were to cut you, and that blood got into the wound, you’d be infected. If you’re infected, then watch out for rule 7. Hopefully someone will avenge you with rule 6.

19) You will be encouraged to go to some kind of emergency shelter. This is the most suicidal suggestion you will hear all day. If everyone jumps off a bridge, are you going to do that too? You’re a freaking tool if you say yes.

20) There will be some people in your group that insist that their voodoo priest grandfather used to say, “When hell is full, the dead will walk the Earth.” Let me tell you, I knew that voodoo priest too, and he also used to say “I eat 3 tubs of mayo every week.” So take it with a grain of salt.

21) If one of the people in your group is a pilot or doctor, protect them at all costs. If you are a pilot or doctor, you will most certainly be killed by the zombie horde. They tend to kill the most useful people in the group. Absolutely, under no circumstances, should you teach the pregnant girl how to fly the helicopter. You were really asking for it when you did that, moron.

22) If you light a zombie on fire, you give it another way to kill you. Now it’s a shambling fireball. What was going through your head when you lit the thing on fire? It’s almost like you want to die.

23) Dead zombies may have useful things in their pockets. Search them. Stealing from the dead is not tacky, it’s profitable.

24) Don’t be an attorney. Remember what happened to the attorney in Jurassic Park? I know that isn’t a zombie movie, but I feel that it can be applied across the board.

25) Lie to the rest of your group and tell them you know where a secret underground base is where there’s lots of food and water. That way, if you end up in a scary situation, your group will sacrifice many of its number to save you.

26) If rule 25 comes into play, steal your group’s stuff and strike it out on your own. They are gonna be so pissed when they realize they fell for the old “I know where a secret base is” bullshit.

27) Keep an eye on the head scientist. I think he’s up to something.

28) Think of this whole thing as a vacation. Try to keep your morale up. The attacks will continue until morale improves.

29) Stop blaming God. This wasn’t his bad. Blame the Dutch. This is all on them.

30) Contrary to public opinion, zombies make horrible slaves.

These were found @:Link

So most people my age get jobs for the summer and maybe go away somewhere. This year I have failed to find a job, but I have been to Vienna with friends, and I hate to admit it at my age, but I’ve also been to summercamp. Out of the people that attended, we figured out that the average age was 20.4 years, so I was younger than most people there but summercamp was something I thought I had left behind in my childhood with jelly-sandels, touching hot-plates, corned beef and ketchup sandwhiches and of course the 90s.

We, the three Irish delegates arrived on Monday morning with enough time to acclimatise to our new surroundings before going to registration and the evenings events. The Irish Section

Over the past week, I have helped to run our Ice-Breaker exercise on Monday evening of making a human knot- where everyone in the circle joins the hands of other members in the circle making one big human knot with the objective of unravelling it eventually, and I ran the warm up exercise in Melanie’s Creative Campaigning workshop.
Between workshops and talks I’ve learned about Amnesty’s new global ‘Human Dignity’ campaign which will be launched next year, so it will focus on Economic Social and Cultural Rights, like the right to housing, education, nutrition, employment etc.

I’ve also gotten another insight as to the human rightrs violations currectly being committed in China in the run-up to the Olympics, which we had a flahsmob yesterday in Paris for. We focused on the case of Ye Guozhu, a Chinese restaurant owner who was evicted from his business without any compensation in order to use the location it was on for the building of infrastructure for the Olympics. In the same area more than 6,000 families have been evicted and this is by no means an isolated issue in the country, the number of people displaced is growing. Ye Guozhuwas arrested for requesting premission from the authorities to peacefully protest the evictions. He was sentanced to four years imprisonment and was due for release this month, but the datehas been pushed back futher til after the end of the Olympics. Because this is a case where several human rights were violated (right to employment, freedom of expression) we campaigned for Ye Guozhu.

Pont des Arts
From Marly le Roi, we took a bus to where our protest took place in the Paris city centre, on the Pont des Arts, where for some time we mingled among the Pariseans and tourists, before hearing the signal to don our yellow t-shirts, bibs, sashes, while covering our mouths with both hands to symbolise the violation of the human right of expression. We then rushed to the centre of the bridge where one group lined up against the railings unveiling a long yello banner coverd in our signatures and the message that every person has the right to freedom of expression. This banner stayed up during the entirity of our protest.
Ye Guozhu
Another group performed a short drama on the case of Ye Guozhu, while those of us left unoccupied sat in a semi-circle around the performers creating a stage space, before rising up with our placards in cries of ‘Freedom!’ in our own mother tounges before joining united in a chorus of “Liberté maintenant!”
The beating of Ye Guozhu
Protesting for Ye Guozhu
For a protest that was organised in under a week, I think it went fantastically. It was clear who we were and what we wanted so I think we made an impact with the shock tactic of the flashmob, and many people were gathered around watching the play of Ye Guozhu, plus we had good press coverage thanks to Adrian’s Press Release. So go team Amnesty! 🙂
Part of the banner

Apart from making friends, learning more and more about amnesty and our campaigns, and eating mainly salads and cheese for the week ’cause they were the safest veggie option, I had a nametag with “Jennifer Tope” on it ’cause she was the girl originally meant to go and they didnt make a new one for me. I’ve also managed to piss off my back again. Not sure how exactly. I reckon it might have something to do with dragging my bag over paris to the subburbs plus having what i reckon is a total of 20 hours sleep in four days probably just ticked off the back injury i got during the last fencing comp i was in….so It’s looking like a week or two of pain killers til it stops hurting.

I hear one of my nephews rang to thank me for the card I sent, but I missed it since I was away so tell him I said hello and I have a postcard from France for them.

paris-summercamp-121.jpg

So he is 9. DW calls yesterday and asks can he go to Lagoon with his friend, and his grandparents. I believe the only thing per say that I have as a concern are all of the overwhelming fears that I have as a parent in general and the need to protect him from everything.

So this morning I packed his lunch and sent him on his way to Lagoon. He was a butt, there were certain conditions I had and he wanted to argue them. But, we met them and he is away for fun today. He is also going to be gone until late this evening. I miss him when I know I can’t reach out and cuddle him.

It is very hard to be a parent and watch as your first hits certain points where they get more autonomy. Ah well. Life goes on.

Happy Pioneer Day folks! It is a UTAH holiday.

I can remember when my wife told me she was pregnant with our first. It was quite an exciting time. We were as poor as church mice and I was a hotel conference manager. Money was a common for us an politicians with integrity.There was a lot of turmoil and uncertainty in our lives, I changed job we moved, I lost a job, found a job, and my wife had full blown toxemia.  However there was also a certain sense of calm.

Out of the uncertainty and storms that were our life, this little blessing arrived and enriched our lives. He was born wide eyed with a look of pure enthusiasm. If he could have he would have run out of the labor and delivery suite. So how come he is the experimental child? How come as parents he gets to be the child we get to figure it out with?

With this little guy (not so little anymore) we get to go through hospitals, accidents, discipline issues, hygiene issues, and so many more than I can describe. He gets the brunt of it and continues to find the enthusiasm to find new ways to test our levels of patience and understanding. yet when his brothers do it – well life is a little easier, the lines have already been crossed and we are better prepared.

I love my experimental child! 🙂

So due to the 3rd level representative dropping out at the last minute, I will be going to a human rights summer camp on Monday til Friday in Paris….! I got told the place was mine on Wednesday night, I spent yesterday trying to get in contact with some of the Students Union Executive to suss out if we could get funding to cover the costs of the trip. Today I spent the morning writing our special events funding request and I’ll hear back about it on Wednesday when possibly I’ll be involved in a workshop with the rest of the Irish Section reps. Yay. Fingers crossed it goes well.

Won’t have time for sight seeing it appears to all be held in a very self contained environment, so our accomodation is in the same place as where the workshops will be and we’ll all be eating our meals together…..I’m really looking forward to it.

Visiting yet another country I can’t speak the language of, it will all be in English ….. but I’ll still feel like an ass for not knowing French

Dischordia

So Amnesty works in such fast and odd ways that might be going to Paris on Monday….lol
Watch this space….I’ll know for definite tomorrow by one…..

Also Uncle James’ Birthday is tomorrow (Thursday)…(49)

Okay second mention of explosives and residential areas on CNN in over a week. Starting to think we have bombed so much space we need to be careful where we build, park or go folks. http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/07/13/japan.bomb.ap/index.html

I don’t know if this is a universal thing that happens to everyone or maybe it’s just a characteristic of my clique..But do your friends as you out (not as in a date, to go out for a night on the town) by asking if you’re coming out. They just seem to automatically presume you already know what’s being planned. Even when you ask have they asked anyone else yet, I’m still the one who psychically knows. Sometimes I think it just happens ’cause the majority of them just finished school, so while I was in school with them I’d hear what the plans were in the same conversation as everyone else, but now we have the college divide, it’s like they presume I’ve already been told. I still hear about it eventually, generally after being asked am I coming out by someone…This is feeling like a very circular train of thoughts…

Dischordia

Okay one of the boys had an accident yesterday. He fell (BBW’s namesake) from a water slide at a friends house and ended up with a broken arm and eight stitches in his head. All is well, we had the afternoon in the hospital yesterday with him. No need for worry or panic. The hospital we took him too was excellent and we are good.

Okay well another day has passed here at the wonderful land of the — sorry nothing witty here folks. So another day anyways. So where to now I guess. I am holding out for confirmation of another place. There are obviously a lot of concerns right now as to how, when, etc, but you have to keep your fingers crossed and keep the faith!