30 Days of Me. Um. Yay? Day 9... Something I'm proud of in the past few days

I was kind of stuck on what to write about in this slot for the last few days. It had been a largely uneventful week, discounting my latest romantic interest that I'm not prepared to blog about just yet. Fortunately, Saturday night gave me some pretty good material!

On Saturday night, the Canterbury Sunday Soccer League held their annual awards night and dinner. I was dutifully invited by the President of the League, Shannon Gilmore to attend because I had been nominated for an award. I was pretty stoked about this because I've trained extremely hard in the last eighteen months. I've worked hard on my foul recognition, I've trained hard to get fitter and faster.

So I got dressed up: I put on my finest threads in order to impress my New Love Interest (NLI), the players and generally feel good about myself! I enjoy putting on cufflinks and a tie. And, in holding with the refereeing theme, I put on my favourite tie:

The referee is the Boss!

Once NLI and I had arrived at the glorious venue, the Prebbleton Tavern, we realised a couple of things:

1. The dress code was much, much more casual than I had expected. Jeans were de rigeur, t-shirts topped dress shirts and I dare say that I was the only one wearing cuff links on the night.
2. I was the only referee who had been invited. This lead me to believe that I might well have be the winner of the trophy...

Wayne Stapley, the Mainland Referee Development Officer, and his wife turned up. We chatted for a while leaning over a covered pool table - mainly discussing the earthquake; it had been a while since we had last talked. The whistles were wetted by pleasant, heavily-discounted (which made them even more pleasant) drinks, and the conversation flowed merrily between the four of us. This was interrupted by the dinner gong, and our ravenous party queued up for a remarkably delicious roast dinner with salads. Remarkable because it was just so darned tasty! I had to refrain from filling up the plate like some of the younger players did; Wayne assumed these ones were students. Good to see the old stereotypes are lasting well! Pavlova and fruit salad ensued. We dug into our desserts with vigour. Clearly the Sunday League was trying to bribe us with these offerings. I nearly fell for it, but I am more cunning than a pavlova. More cunning than all the tins of fruit salad in Lichtenstein. Then the awards started.

I forgot there were five divisions of Sunday League. Five listings of the final tables for each division. Five captain's speeches. Five teams that went up to the front and were awarded medals one-by-one as the captain read out their names. Five trophies to be handed out. It was a little laborious. Maybe it was just me with my nerves building? But then the moment came: the announcement of Referee of the Year. I was quite chuffed with myself, it's always a buzz hearing your name read out when you win a prize of any sorts, and this one was especially awesome because the teams had voted for me. So I went up and they asked me to speak... so I did!

I hadn't really thought about it, but I was determined to make a point about the treatment of referees. I said I really admired the work Sunday League had put in to improve the treatment of referees but there remained a wee bit to be done. I said that I hoped the teams there give referees with as much respect as they give me. Yes, the ego had to come out some time, huh?

Sweet smell of success!

There you go, folks. Something I'm proud of. Another form of recognition for my refereeing in a year that has been pretty bloody good!

30 Days of Me. Um. Yay? Day 8... Short term goals for this month and why

I have one goal this month. It's short, sharp and sweet and I'm already working on it.

My goal is to pass the FIFA AR fitness test that we're expected to do for the ASB National Youth League. A few sprints, 20 x 150 m runs. Piece of cake, right? Well there's a bit of bodily repair that needs to take place first. I've currently got a bad case of iliotibial band syndrome and it's going to require a lot of physio and massage to fix up. I've also got issues with my hamstrings, my right glute, and need to do a bucketload of core strengthening to get back to where I was at the beginning of the year. It's so frustrating!


Fortunately, I'm getting treatment for it already. Physio, massage therapy, and a specific programme from my personal trainer are all focussed on getting me back on the track running as soon as possible.

Here's hoping it runs smoothly!

30 Days of Me. Um. Yay? Day 7... A picture of someone/something that has the biggest impact on me

Late November, 1995, when I was 15 years old, I was listening to Christchurch's precursor to The Rock. Every Sunday night they played a blues show and I happened to be recording this one on tape. A tape that had massive repercussions for the next decade or so!

Anyway, the focus of that fateful show was the impending release of a Greatest Hits album by Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble. Sadly, this quartet of musicians was reduced to Double Trouble on August 27th, 1990 by a skifield that clumsily interacted with the helicopter Mr. Vaughan was riding in. By clumsy, I mean this reprobate skifield reduced the helicopter to a charred, consumed-by-a-fireball wreck that left body identification largely in the hands of dental records enthusiasts. A tragedy for blues enthusiasts the world over. A career truncated far too prematurely, as are many other blues legends such as Janis Joplin, Rory Gallagher, and Jimi Hendrix.

Alas, I never knew of SRV while he was alive, though I would have been too young to appreciate him. But, as an angry young teenager brought up on a diet of The Beatles and Queen, the Blues Show that night opened my eyes to a genre of music I had never realised was out there. Two songs off the new album stuck in my head and I played them time-and-time-and-time again.

First of all was the cover of Jimi Hendrix's legendary blues classic in pentatonic E minor, Voodoo Chile. The iconic (I hate that word, but it belongs in this sentence) track featuring the wah pedal, positive feedback, distortion, and every fret on a guitar drove Hendrix's original 5 minutes song to an awe-inspiring eight minutes of delicious blues infused with rock, jazz and that instantly-recognisable, gravelly Texan voice some of us have come to know and love. The rippling power, the intensity of the chords, the vibrato, the hammers, pulls, and liquid playing style captivated me there and then. It still gets me to this day. I love nothing better than cranking this track up as loudly as is possible and swaying to the rhythm, playing along on air guitar, or a real guitar, or sitting in a meditative pose savouring the overflowing passion I feel from this music. Bliss.

The second track was a slightly more sedentary original track by Stevie. From the last album he recorded with Double Trouble before his death, In Step, Tightrope is a track about his recovery from his days of excessive whisky and cocaine consumption that nearly killed him (ironic helicopter is ironic, you might say). It struck a chord with me and has remained one of my favourite songs since then. A few years later, I had a bit of a disastrous first year at university with alcohol that eventually landed me in hospital. About then I finally understood the meaning behind the lyrics and have been eternally thankful to my family for their support ever since.

But why has this man had such a massive influence on my life? That story starts less than a month after that radio show. In December, 1995, I stayed with my aunt and uncle in Blenheim to go cherry picking, something I lacked the coordination and cut-throatedness to pick cherries at a fast enough pace, and only picked the very best cherries for weighing, rather than any old garbage as the others would to get their volumes, and hence pay, up. This was my very first job and I bought two things with some of this money: my first Sony Walkman, and the tape of SRV's Greatest Hits album. This Walkman and tape lasted until they were stolen in a burglary a few years later, but I pretty much wore both into the ground anyway. One afternoon after a hard day's work, I was playing the cassette loudly on my aunt's stereo when she came home. She heard it and immediately recognised the blues. She gave me a John Lee Hooker tape that had been gifted to them a number of years ago which they didn't like. I loved it. It featured a number of other blues artists that started me on a journey of discovery that is still going. My blues collection has expanded upwards and outwards; SRV's influences, Kenny Burrell and Wes Montgomery, kicked off my enthusiasm for jazz culminating in discovery of artists like John McLaughlin.

Then came university. As I mentioned before, I got a little carried away with alcohol at university. Once I got over that though, I then found myself delving deeper and deeper into my passion for blues. I got my first guitar and taught myself how to play that. As I got better and better, I neglected my studies. Which is perhaps how SRV ended up being a big influence on my life. In retrospect, I didn't enjoy what I was studying and now recognise how important it is to be doing something I really, truly love. I take that approach with sports, life, love, friends, and the workplace. Earlier this year I made a decision to forgo money to make myself happier as my workplace back then was not what I wanted.

I think that explains why he has been such a great influence on my life. What a man. May he Rest In Peace.

30 Days of Me. Um. Yay? Day 6... Favourite super hero and why

This is an easy one for me. A superhero I've always held in high esteem is the 1989 New England Comics character, The Tick.

The cover of the DVD, available from Amazon

 His wild popularity as a piss-take of the DC & Marvel superheroes eventually earnt him three animated series and a live-action series, each with their own cult following. I can't claim to have seen more than a few snippets of the live series, but the animated episodes have more than fulfilled the need for the superhero or superheroine in my life. These three series of animated buffoonery in the name of superherodom have been truly tremendous and rank up there as one of my favourite animated series, alongside other firm favourites Animaniacs, Danger Mouse and Pinky & The Brain.

So why is he my favourite superhero? His superhuman strength, his blue antennae, his unnerving love of Santa, his love of the world "where I keep all my stuff", his gloriously tubby and cowardly sidekick, Arthur the accountant, Little Wooden Boy, the ludicrously evil Chairface Chippendale (who has a chair for a face), and even his wondrous battlecry of "Spoon" all endear him to me. He is the superhero I would want to be like. His bumbling, stupid attempts to save The City from disaster still end up in success, albeit with a few buildings damaged by his large, leaping mass.

He also has a strong appeal for the continuity shown over the episodes. When viewed in order, you can track the destruction of the moon. Laser tracks and bitemarks from large planet-eating individuals. The character development, the exposition of the origin of Arthur's moth suit. It gives this cartoon a lot of appeal to this "adult" (a title I rarely use and even less frequently earn).

30 days of Me. Um. Yay? Day 5... A picture of somewhere I’ve been to

Way back in 2007. I went to Iceland. I still regard this as my favourite holiday destination ever - I loved absolutely every square inch I got near, and would love to have seen every other square inch.

This was one of my first photos ever taken in the Arctic Circle. I love the puffins, and brings back the memories and awe I felt seeing the long, long cliffs covered in nesting birds. The howling northerly wind. I was lucky to share this with Kenneth, a volcanologist, and Paula, a yoga teacher and a fantastic photographer. I have another photo of us standing on Grìmsey's Arctic Circle monument, but I'm wearing a goofy beanie so won't be disseminating that to the masses any time soon.

My dream is to return to Iceland. A truly wonderful adventure dreamland. There are not enough superlatives in my thesaurus to do this country justice.

30 Days of Me. Um. Yay? Day 4 - A habit that I wish I didn’t have

So what's a habit that I have that I wish I didn't?

I don't smoke, I don't do computer gaming, I hardly drink, I exercise pretty regularly. Perfect guy really? Well, maybe not. I'll start by saying that I have kicked the habit that used to bug me. I was one of the great all-time nail-biters. And now I'm not. What was the cure? Well it was three-fold:

1. I bought a pair of nail clippers with a file so I could maintain them before they got too long.
2. I got my family to point out when I was biting my nails.
3. I stopped watching the New Zealand cricket team playing.

And that was it. Grim determination. Support of family. Adding positive tools and techniques for dealing with the motivators for the bad habit. Removing the bad influences from my life! A pretty good formula for solving any personal problem.

I need to apply those same principles now. Since I started refereeing, I've come to the realisation that there is a possibility that I could do very well at it. There's one major aspect holding me back. It spills over, literally, into other facets of my life and interferes with my goals. It's my diet. I keep making poor decisions about the fuel I am putting into my body. I keep eating the wrong things, not in small amounts, not in moderation: but in excess. Some of my best friends are supporting me on this, but others are not. Ones I usually rely on. My family does not yet fully support me 100% of the time and haven't been the same pillar of strength that I could lean on.

I have a problem eating junk food. McDonalds, Tim Tams, Toffee Pops, peppermints, milky coffee,... all delicious vices and often comfort food that I consume when I should be going for something more substantial that requires a little more effort to prepare.

That's my habit! I'd love to lose it.

30 Days of Me. Um. Yay? Day 3... A picture of me and my friends

This is something of a bummer. I don't have anything in my photo collection that would even come close to capturing me and my friends. It's also something of an impossibility. I have my friends from different jobs, football, high school, family and now some new ones from Twitter. How would you capture all that in one photo? Especially as a lot of them have now dispersed across the world and reunions are few and far between.

I suggest that my Facebook and Twitter accounts give a "snapshot" of my friends and me. Also, I'm usually the one behind the camera, so that stops me ever being in front of the camera. (I can hear you all shouting "Hallelujah" from here... bastards!)

So. If you want to see what me and my friends look like:

1. My Facebook profile
2. My Twitter account

 Simple, really.

30 Days of Me. Um. Yay? Day 2... the meaning behind my blog name.

I'm assuming they mean "Joffin". One might guess it's a somewhat childish pronunciation of my first name. Indeed it once ended up as one girlfriend's pet name for me. Sickening, I know. However, thinking way back to when I had to choose the name for this blog... I believe it's the dirty love child of the words "Jonathan" and "boffin".

That's all. Nothing to it really!

30 Days of Me. Um. Yay? Day 1... A picture and 15 facts about myself

Hello world. So this is me. This is 30 days of me. Thirty blog posts. Given my prestigious lack of blogging activity, I'm unlikely to get through to the end... But here goes!

Thanks to Jethro Carr (his blog is the Link of this post) for the list of things I have to post about...

Me tramping up Mt Fyffe, Kaikoura.

And now... 15 "interesting" facts about myself. Pay close attention identity thieves.

1. I am left-handed. So is Osama Bin Laden. So was Queen Victoria. Read into that what you will.
2. I grew up on Waiheke Island. My childhood was filled up roaming native bush and beautiful white sand beaches, fishing for snapper off the rocks, and sailing in my own sailing dinghy in one of the most stunning parts of New Zealand.
3. When I was ten years old, I spent hours sliding in firefighting foam covering a hill owned by Margaret Mills, who was on board the Rainbow Warrior when it was blown up!
4. I learnt the violin at intermediate school.
5. I didn't learn how to tie my shoelaces until I was 11 due to owning Bata Bullets (velcro shoes) for my primary school years!
6. I cannot swim. I grew up on an island, love sailing... but never learnt how to swim. I am now 30!
7. I captained the Canterbury Colts cricket team when I was 15. I scored a dismal 17 runs in three innings and never opened the batting again; nor did I play for another rep team again)
8. I trialled for the Otago indoor cricket team when I was 18.
9. I've played winter sports forever! I played football at primary school as a chubby centre-back. Played rugby at high school as a chubby prop. Was a slightly-less-chubby hockey goalie at Otago Uni. Played rugby for Sydenham on the wing when I was at Canterbury Uni. Now I'm a football referee and am constantly in the wrong position!
10. I had a crush on my French teacher at high school. (Hope she isn't reading this...!)
11. I have written quite a bit of poetry on scraps of paper I now cannot find. (A bit gutted about that)
12. My favourite poets are Spike Milligan, Ogden Nash, and Philip Larkin.
13. I use the "Oxford comma". (See Fact 12)
14. I was a child philatelist. Sorry.
15. There are only 14 interesting facts about me. (Some might say considerably fewer...)

More coming soon! And maybe a 15th fact if I can think of it.