Category: Non-car life

I know I said I wouldn’t mention it but just like the politicians themselves are prone to doing, I changed my mind. We have an election coming up in four days and I’ve got a few issues. I apologise to regular readers here, but I’ve got to get this stuff off my chest.

I’ve voted for both sides of the political spectrum over the course of my life but it’s fair to say I’m leaning one way much more than the other in this election. There are policy reasons and historical reasons for this. For what little they’re worth, here they are.

I’ll try and keep this as brief as possible (fat chance!).

The Wrecking Ball

Everyone wants to hold Labor’s record against them, which is fair enough. No-one seems to have any recollection of Tony Abbott’s record over the last three years, however. (Never mind his long-standing record as a Liberal Party back-room headkicker).

Tony Abbott presided over the most damaging wrecking-ball campaign ever waged by an opposition. He hid this behind mealy-mouthed words about “holding the government to account” but his actions were more akin to holding an elected government to ransom. As of January this year, Tony Abbott and Christopher Pyne attempted to suspend standing orders in the parliament 72 times. The time wasted means that more than 400 questions were not asked of the government. That’s the equivalent of 18 Question Time sessions up in smoke (with 150 reps sitting around, getting paid for doing nothing). All of those attempts to suspend standing orders failed. They were doomed to failure and Tony Abbott knew it. It was all bluff and bluster designed to do nothing more than make an impression.

Put short – Tony Abbott treated the parliament and therefore, the Australian people, with no small amount of contempt. It’s been completely overlooked by most but people should be mindful of this behaviour, especially as Abbott now demands that a future Labor opposition respect his mandate (should he win one).

The Debt Obsession

For the last few years, Australia has had a confected obsession with debt and deficit. Australia endured the global financial crisis that started in 2008 thanks in no small part to the government taking action to stimulate the economy via actions such as stimulus payments, the Education Revolution funding and the ‘Pink Batts’ scheme. That we continued to dig up our backyard for China didn’t hurt, either.

Those actions cost money – a lot of money – but they saved the economy. Australia has had budget deficits for the last 6 years and we do have a national debt where we didn’t have one before. These were the right actions to take, however, because we can afford it. It’s the duty of a government to borrow and stimulate when the circumstances call for it and the capacity to repay exists. It doesn’t mean you throw caution to the wind, but you do have to act.

Much is made in political press conferences of the government having to manage its finances just like a small business or a household has to. It’s populist pandering and a complete fallacy.

If a family wants to build/buy a home (like a government might like to build a highway or a broadband network, for example) then they can either save up for two decades until they have the cash in the bank or they can do what nearly every family does – they can borrow. Credit exists for two reasons: it makes money for the lender and gives freedom to the borrower to invest in parts of their life that they otherwise wouldn’t have had the immediate funds for.

The correct analogy would be that a government, like a family or a small business, has to borrow wisely and only when it can afford the repayments. Australia clearly can afford the repayments, which is why we’ve got all those AAA ratings hanging around.

This obsession with debt and deficit is a smokescreen. Sadly, it’s one that a majority have fallen for without questioning the underlying premise.

Asylum Seekers

I sincerely believe that the Liberal/National coalition (the Coalition) would cease all refugee admissions into Australia if enough of the electorate found that palatable. You can hear it in their language (illegal arrivals, when it is not illegal to seek asylum at all) and you can see it in their policy.

The conditions surrounding asylum seeker policy are undoubtedly difficult, but Australians became more and more sympathetic to their plight under the harsh rules imposed by the Howard government. It was a major issue during the 2007 election. Australians have hardened their hearts on this issue once again thanks largely to prominent media mostly in Sydney and I think we’ll regret this insular, xenophobic attitude as a country in years to come.

The Coalition plan to stop boat arrivals, which is a fair goal given the danger that asylum seekers take on when they travel that way. They don’t stop there, though. They also plan to deny the 30,000 asylum seekers already here any hope whatsoever of settling here. They will make them work for welfare in a form of indentured servitude with no indication as to when they might finally be shipped ‘home’ – and ship them they will, regardless of any threat of persecution.

The Boat People are apparently clogging up Sydney’s highways. Just try driving on the M4, says they Coalition’s candidate with sex appeal, Fiona Scott.

The Labor Party would like to raise Australia’s refugee intake to as much as 27,000 per year from legitimate camps in world trouble spots. This would mean we do more to pull our weight in the international community. The Coalition wants to wind the refugee intake back to 13,000 people a year. As mentioned, I think they’d go lower if it didn’t make their heartlessness on this issue more apparent.

The Coalition will also deny asylum seekers legal advice. They have also said that they will hide the number of asylum seeker arrivals from the Australian public. Transparency much?

These are real people and the vast majority of them have genuine reasons to flee the country where they live. Afghan Hazaras. Iranian and Iraqi minorities. Yes, some game the system and they should rightly be denied their applications. But we are a rich country that should carry its load. We are, and should continue to be, a compassionate country.

Both sides have got this area of policy wrong at different times and both seem incapable of entering into a proper regional solution. It’s a blight that needs to be fixed.

Climate Change

The Coalition will achieve little with their Direct Action plan. They know it. Just ask Malcolm Turnbull. Actually, you can even ask Tony Abbott, who has said publicly that they won’t put a cent more into Direct Action if it doesn’t achieve it’s emissions reduction goals. Even he doesn’t want to throw good money after bad. Once again, however, it’s a way of appearing to do something in the hope that eventually, the people who voted you in will stop caring about the issue and won’t notice that it didn’t work. I still find it astounding that the conservatives in this election are so opposed to a market-based solution to address this issue.

Tony Abbott once called climate change “absolute crap” and the carbon tax first used to address it “a toxic tax based on a lie”. The emissions trading scheme that should succeed the carbon tax was described by Abbott as a “so-called market in the non-delivery of an invisible substance to no one”.

Tony Abbott claims publicly to now believe in climate variation and the possibility of human contribution to it. Again, it’s a tacit concession to try and woo borderline Coalition voters with an environmental conscience. That some people can’t see through it astounds me.

Australia and Australians should do their bit to address emissions. Yes, we’re only a small part of the world’s emissions but it’s important that everyone plays their part. Building efficiency into our businesses and our lives is no bad thing (unless you own an electricity company).

The Labor Mess

I could write another thousand words on the Coalition’s duplicity, fear-mongering, straight-up falsehood and what I think is going to be a much different future than Howard’s golden years that Tony Abbott would have you believe are going to return. They aren’t. But those thousand words would hold off writing about the wreck that is the Labor Party.

It was wrong that Julia Gillard took over Kevin Rudd’s Prime Ministership in 2010. If he was to be sacked, he should have been sacked by the people who elected him, not by the party. Sacking Rudd led Labor into a minority government calamity and the national environment and attitude have both taken on a toxic hue. Julia Gillard opened herself to her fate when she took over the leadership. It is right that Rudd faces an election as Prime Minister so that the people can decide his fate.

Labor won a massive victory and an impressive mandate back in 2007 on the back of genuine progressive policy – classic Labor nation building. They then proceeded to shoot themselves in the foot so many times it made a mockery of the office that they held.

I believe in the importance of the National Broadband Network (the Coalition’s “Fraudband” policy is beyond laughable and will leave Australian households $3800 worse off, according to Deloitte Access Economics). I believe in the importance of tackling climate change. I believe in Australia carrying its weight in the asylum seeker issue and giving hard-up people a fair go. I believe in the education of our future workforce and fair pay and conditions for the current workforce. I believe in a robust healthcare system and more assistance for people with disabilities. All of these are progressive policies introduced or furthered by the Labor government since 2007.

Whilst I believe in their policies, I don’t believe in any of the shenanigans or stupidity that’s characterised the Labor Party in the last six years. This might be the one thing I agree with Tony Abbott on: for the good of the country, they need some time in opposition to sort themselves out.

I don’t support Kevin Rudd but I do support the idea of progressive government that advances the difficult decisions that benefit the most people. I think Tony Abbott and the Coalition bring with them a real risk of taking this country backwards. Australia has become a very ‘me’ oriented place in the last 3 years and the Coalition seem ready to feed that obsession by ‘protecting our borders’ (from what?) and giving us a paid parental leave scheme that is neither fair nor affordable (in a time when they proclaim we have a budget crisis).

Perhaps this election is best characterised by the fact that in Tony Abbott and Kevin Rudd, we have a pair of major party candidates that offer us plenty to vote against but very little to vote for.

It’s that time of the year again…..

Our Saab mate James Coggeshall (that’s Jim or Coggs to his friends) will be on his bike and riding in the Dana Farber Cancer Institute’s annual fundraising bike ride – the Pan Mass Challenge.

This will be Jim’s third tilt at the Pan Mass Challenge. He rode the last two as a cancer survivor, having beaten testicular and skin cancer. This year it’s different – Jim is once again a cancer patient and as he’s fond of saying at the moment: there’s no fooling around this time.

I’m now two and a half years out from being successfully treated for testicular cancer and a year from dealing with a couple of instances of skin cancer. While undergoing my regular post cancer surveillance visits at the DFCI a biopsy revealed I have prostate cancer. At this point the disease is in the very early stage. But there are some indications it could be agressive. I will be monitored through the summer rather than undergoing immediate treatment but in all likelihood I will have to deal with it this fall/winter.

Hopefully at that time advances will have been made which may minimize the all too common life changing side effects resulting from the current treatments of prostate cancer. I may not be as young as I used to be but not so sure I like the sound of bladder catheters, Viagra, and Depends.

You can read Jim’s full story HERE and I urge you to do so. Two years ago, with the help of the audience at Saabs United, we helped Jim raise over $9,000. We dont have that audience any more but we can still help Jim meet his $5000 target this year (around half still to go!)

The Pan Mass Challenge is a massive event, raising $37 million last year and when this event’s finished, they’ll have raised more than $400 million over the event’s lifetime. As the costs for the event are underwritten by corporate sponsors, every cent of that $400 million has gone directly to cancer research at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute (and they’re the guys/girls looking after Jim).

It’s a 200 mile bike ride so it’s not like Jim won’t be working hard for the money.

Jim is a Saab nut from way back and has one of the sweetest Sonetts you’re ever likely to see, as well as a Viggen convertible, Saab 9-5 wagon and a 900 Convertible. There might be two 9-5 wagons in the collection, actually. I know he’s a 5-Saab man!!

Of course, I wouldn’t ask you to contribute to this unless I was willing to do it myself. Last year I kicked in a couple of C-notes. Tonight, I’ve donated $250 of my hard-earned to this ride and I hope you can find some change down the back of the sofa to kick in as well.

My contribution’s not just for Jim, but also for the memory of my father, Donald Wade, for the memory of my Mum’s later partner, Alex Whammond, for the memory of our Saab advertising mate, Curvin O’Reilly and most recently, in memory of our wonderful Mad Dutchie, Nic Schellekens, who died of a cancer-related incident back in March.

This disease gets too many people. Please support Jim in both his quest to fight it, and to stop it. CLICK HERE TO READ HIS STORY AND CONTRIBUTE.

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The Essendon Football Club went to Perth tonight to play the West Coast Eagles. It was an extremely tough game. It should be a memorable game due to the Bombers winning away from home – a come-from-behind thriller for the ages played in hostile territory.

Unfortunately, that’s not what this game will be remembered for.

This game will be remembered for the West Coast fans booing Essendon captain Jobe Watson every time he got the ball.

Watson is universally respected for his hard play, hard work, his skill and his royal Essendon bloodline. His Brownlow Medal win in 2012 was a feel-good moment for every AFL fan. He’s the type of captain that leads from the front, puts his team on his back and carries them to the final siren, win or lose. He leaves nothing on the field. There is barely a sporting cliche that’s inappropriate for Jobe Watson.

Right: An emotional Watson after the West Coast game, receives the support of teammates. (News Limited)

So why did he get booed?

The Essendon Football Club is the subject of a massive scandal involving the alleged systematic doping of players through the 2012 season. The players thought the substances that were injected into their bodies were legal. The Australian and International doping agencies, ASADA and WADA, are adamant that they weren’t. The club has kept the facts close to their collective chest but last week, Jobe Watson came out in a TV interview and admitted that yes, he’d taken the banned peptide AOD9604.

This supplement is at the center of the scandal – a program intended to enhance the training and recovery ability of the team. It’s a program that is considered to have been beyond the rules, regardless of what the shadier characters involved believed about its legality or stated to their superiors.

Watson effectively confessed to being a participant in the program. He believes he’s an innocent participant (if such a thing exists) because he trusted the club’s medical and performance staff when they told him the supplement was legal. ASADA and WADA place the burden of responsibility solely on the player/athlete. The player has to do his/her own homework about what goes into his/her body. Trusting someone else is no excuse according to the ASADA/WADA code.

Throughout this scandal, the AFL press corps has done everything it can to defend the Essendon players. Many of the big-name commentators are former players themselves and the old-boys club comes into play here. They’re not going to dump on one of their own and tonight, to a man, they all decried the West Coast fans for their treatment of Watson. Innocent until proven guilty, they said, ignoring the fact that he’d actually confessed to using the supplement.

I think a lot of fans actually feel some level of sympathy for the players, to some degree. I felt uncomfortable with the booing tonight, myself. When you grow up in Australia – especially in Melbourne, where AFL football was born – these players are you, your brothers, your school mates, your friends. Everyone relates to AFL footballers because it’s a grass-roots community game and Australia is still a relatively close community. The degrees of separation are small here.

That communion between the fans and the game breeds care, affection, respect and passion. But passion can run both ways and there’s nothing an Australian sports fan hates more than a cheat.

We mock soccer players because of their soft fouls and bullsh** acting. We respect the capabilities of athletes but turn our noses up at their fat-headed posturing. We place our highest value on genuine effort, authenticity and the classic Australianism – not being a dickhead.

The booing of Jobe Watson wasn’t just a gentle jab from a hostile crowd on the other side of the country. AFL fans of other clubs haven’t had their voices heard but I think there is some genuine resentment about the fact that Essendon, as a club, allegedly undertook a program that their own investigation described as a pharmacological experiment in order to gain advantage.

AFL fans have paid silent respect to Essendon’s resilience under pressure this year because there has been no formal finding announced from the investigation as yet. But Watson’s admission last week gave AFL fans some confirmation of what everyone suspects – where there’s smoke, there’s fire. It also gave opposition fans a focal point for their opinions on this matter and the message is clear: it’s not OK to try and cheat the system.

We love our sport in Australia. It binds us, motivates us and forms the foundations for much of our local and national pride. It has to be clean. It has to be honest. To quote long-time football commentator, Rex Hunt – football isn’t life or death, it’s much more important than that.

Jobe Watson might well be football royalty, the son of a legend and an emerging legend in his own right. But tonight we learned that even the biggest legends can be brought back to earth if they cross a line and compromise the purity of the contest, deliberately or otherwise. Essendon’s resilience this year means nothing if it comes on the back of enhanced training in previous years. If they are benefitting from the use of banned supplements taken in the past then it’s not just character getting them over the line in these close contests, it’s quite possibly unlawful science and that’s not within the spirit of the game.

In many ways it’s a shame to penalise those who were probably unwitting participants in this program. The sanctity of the game demands it, however. Tonight, with the booing of a champion, a respected player, we saw the start of what’s to come. If the AFL/ASADA investigation into Essendon concludes with adverse findings against the club (which seems inevitable given Watson’s admission and the strictness of the WADA/ASADA code) and if it concludes with no real sanction against the club AND the players, tonight’s unpalatable display will seem like a picnic.

Commentators and ex-players can whine all they like. This is Australia and we don’t like (alleged) drug cheats in sport, deliberate or otherwise.

—

This is not something I plan to cover at length or on an ongoing basis. This is not something I want people to get into a big fight over in comments, hence comments are off. It’s just something I noticed after a few discussions with a friend. I wanted to make a record of Alex Jones’ dealing with the Sunil Tripathi story here, primarily because I don’t think there’ll be a record of it anywhere else.

I think Alex Jones and his website, Infowars, is deceptive to the point of being outright dangerous. As a web publisher, I’m interested in how he and his team weave their stories. What are their publishing standards? Sadly, I’d say they’re either non-existant or based on ‘whatever creates the most fear’.

For me, the saddest story from the Boston Marathon bombing – aside from the obvious – is that of Sunil Tripathi. He was the university student who went missing back in March who was mistakenly named as a suspect in the bombing prior to the actual perpetrators being identified. The amateur sleuthing that led to Tripathi being named was mostly conducted on social sharing websites 4Chan and Reddit.

Infowars took great delight in the online identification of Tripathi. For them, it meant that someone other than the authorities (i.e. their kind of people) had done the job quicker than either the police or the mainstream media.

Infowars shared their delight, giving the cops, the feds and the media a good poke in the eye in an article titled Sunil-Tripathi: 4chan beats out FBI, news-media in identifying Boston bombing suspect.

As news reports come in identifying FBI Boston Marathon suspect as missing student Sunil Tripathi, it becomes clear that major community-driven internet boards like 4Chan are actually light years ahead of the mainstream media.

Of course, that story was wrong. Tripathi wasn’t a suspect. The online vigilantes and conspiracy theorists identified the wrong man and put his family – who were already deeply troubled by his disappearance – through an even greater hell for a very short, but intense period. Sadly, Sunil Tripathi’s body was found in water last week near his university. He’d been missing for around six weeks.

The authorities used dental records to identify the body as Mr. Tripathi’s. They did not immediately determine the cause of his death, but said his body had been in the water for some time.

—

Infowars is a massive site. Their media kit (which is a good hint as to why they really exist) claims 3 million unique visitors a month. When they run a story, a lot of people see it.

So when Infowars furthered the story of Tripathi being the suspect, they identified an innocent man as a terrorist based on no authoritative evidence and they pushed that story out to millions of readers – and they took pleasure in doing so

When it was made known that everyone had got it wrong, you’d think there might be some concern for the hardship they’d caused. Any site with even the slightest grain of integrity would have stood up, acknowledged and then corrected its error with some sort of apology, right? The head of Reddit apologised, after all. What about Infowars?

Sadly, if you clicked that first link from Infowars to read the full BS story, you ended up on a 404 Error page – “Page Not Found”. Rather than standing up and showing some personal or corporate integrity with an apology, Infowars simply erased the erroneous Sunil Tripathi story from the archive.

Having spent some time in the web publishing business, I figured that might happen, so I took a screenshot when it was still live.

What’s even worse, however, is that they’ve now distanced themselves from the snoopy-dance they did in the first story by placing the blame with 4Chan alone. In the Infowars coverage of Tripathi’s body being found, they write the following:

One of the individuals identified by 4chan users as a possible Boston bombing accomplice has been found dead in the Providence River…..

…..Tripathi’s possible connection to the Boston bombing was first raised by users of the 4chan website when it was pointed out that his image bore a similarity to one of the suspects first named by the FBI who later turned out to be Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev.

Users of the Reddit website later apologized to Tripathi’s family for making the erroneous connection, with one moderator writing, “We cannot begin to know what you’re going through and for that we are truly sorry.”

That’s almost kinda nice. They nearly sound like they’re writing about Tripathi from a caring point of view. But note that they completely neglect to mention their own pushing of Tripathi as a suspect as outlined in the first article, a mistake they made worse when they deleted the article and again when they dumped the blame on everyone else.

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There are rules for evidence in a court of law for a reason. There are professional standards in journalism for a reason. The courts and the media don’t always get things right (especially the media), but I believe in the system. I believe the courts get it right more than they get it wrong and I believe there are still news sources out there that strive for factual reporting based on sound ethics and the substantiation of material.

Infowars? Forget the notion of editorial integrity. Their burden of proof seems to end at working internet connection.

The advent of the internet has been a good thing in some ways and a bad thing in others. The emergence of sites like Infowars is one of the more negative, even toxic aspects of the web. Sadly, I think the fear that Alex Jones and his cohorts peddle on that site – quite deliberately for the purposes of cultivating an audience to sell product to – that relentless fear will one day lead to some paranoid individual going over the edge and doing something terrible as a result.

Of course, they’ll cover it and report it as a ‘false flag’ attack perpetrated by the government in order to restrict your freedoms.

That’s just how they roll.

—

Regular visitors to this site will know that I’ve been in a contemplative mood in the last few weeks and in that spirit, I thought I’d share this video. It was released yesterday by the Australian Football League as the first part of a three-part series profiling one of the game’s most prominent coaches – Mick Malthouse.

A little bit of background for our non-Aussie readers…..

Mick Malthouse has just joined the Carlton Football Club – my favourite team. That’s significant because his last AFL coaching job was with our arch-rivals, the Collingwood Football Club. Manchester United fans could (eventually) forgive Sir Alex Ferguson for coaching in Spain or Italy, but imagine if he went across town to manage Manchester City. Mick’s appointment at Carlton was big news here.

It’s not just that, however. Mick was pushed aside at Collingwood to make way for one of the club’s favourite sons. Collingwood wanted to secure the coaching services of one of its most famous ex-players before another club got him, so they told Mick he was getting too old and put a succession plan in place. Mick didn’t like that.

Carlton’s part in the drama? Well, we sacked our coach of the previous 5 years, a man who happened to be one of our favourite sons and a former club captain when he was a player. So Mick’s coaching with a grudge against his old club and very high expectations from his new club. What could possibly go wrong? 🙂

Mick’s one of the most successful coaches of the modern era. His teams nearly always make the finals series (think: playoffs) and he’s won three premierships as a coach and played in one premiership as a player. His teams are known for being very tenacious defenders and consistently competitive.

So why am I sharing this video here?

I’ve been challenged in the last few weeks about my own life, where I want to go, what I want to do in terms of my career and the impact that might have on my family. My wife has her own goals to build her business and I’ve got aspirations, too. I want to do things that are quite different from what I do now in a field where I have no formal education or qualifications. I have some level of experience born from years of work and a genuine interest but I’ve never learned the right way to write or the real inside systems that organise and govern how the automotive industry works. What’s more, when you know a little, it opens your eyes as to how much more there is to learn. It can be pretty daunting.

In this video (only 8 minutes), Mick talks about challenging both his own limits as he grows older as a coach, as well as the perceived limits that some clubs place on players, which are usually limits implied by how far down the draft order they are (….and for explanatory purposes, “rookies” in the AFL are players who are contracted to a club, but not on the senior playing list – i.e. they’re paid a lot less and aren’t ensured much of a future in contractual terms. “Rookies” have to show a lot of promise and work pretty hard to get a place on the senior list so when a rookie ends up being the captain of a club, you know he’s done some hard work.)

I found this video be an inspirational little piece and hopefully there might be something in it for you, too.

——

I write mostly about cars, but this is still a personal blog. Excuse me while I think out loud, sort of.

I alluded to it in my previous post here: the abrupt death last week of my Dutch Saab mate, Nic Schellekens, has really rocked my puny little world. Nic was 52. My Dad was 52 when he passed away back in 1985. Nic’s passing has shown me just how young my Dad was when he passed away. I was only 15 at the time so I didn’t really understand. 52 was pretty old to me back then. At 42, as I am now, it doesn’t seem that old at all.

I saw Nic in person just last year and we’d chat on Skype or email with reasonable regularity. He was young and vigorous and whilst he had recently received some troubling medical news, my last correspondence with him just a few days before he died showed all the usual energy and determination that was Nic’s calling card. Cancer didn’t kill Nic. I’ve since learned that it was a pulmonary embolism, which explains why it was so sudden, so unexpected and so cruel to all his loved ones.

Stuff like this makes you think. It makes you sit back and take stock a little. Nic and I lived very different lives. His was one of service and skill, both in the armed forces and in the private sector. He lived and worked in places I’d be too scared to even fly over. He pushed himself, got the best from himself and gave the best of himself to everyone around him.

I’m not going to put Nic on a pedestal and myself in a pit. I’ve given of myself, too, but in different ways and definitely not to the extent that Nic did, but I have given. Some people have it in them to give everything. They have no fear. They’ve seen the other side – acceptance or rejection – have weathered its flames and the thought of going back there doesn’t sway them. Some find that harder. I’m one of them.

I treasure the true friends that I have because they’re few in number and I’m not very good at making new ones. I find it hard to give what Nic gave. I can talk about cars and football all day long but I’m not too skilled at small talk and I’m not very patient with people I see as being foolish (sadly, that’s more people than you’d expect (but it’s not you, I promise)). Some people care about everybody. Sometimes I wish I was one of them but I fall well short of that mark.

I guess the next thing is to contemplate what Nic’s legacy will be for me. Nic’s legacy in general isn’t for me to determine. That’s for his loved ones and his community back in Europe. But those of us who knew him personally can each make our own deliberations as to what his life meant to us individually.

My Dad’s passing at 52 put the fear of that age into me way back in my teens. Nic’s passing at the same age has reinforced that to some degree. I used to think that every day beyond 52 would be a bonus for me but with that age just 10 years away, those thoughts seem foolish. Bottom line: there’s way too much to live for and you’re a mug if you give the reaper a better-then-even chance. Shit happens sometimes and there’s absolutely nothing you can do about that, but you don’t have to carry a bucket of it with you, waiting for someone or something to tip it over your head.

Nic’s legacy to me, then, is to try and be a better person, like he was a better person.

My entire life has been an open invitation for either cancer or heart disease to come and do its thing. My eating habits used to be absolutely atrocious. They’re barely passable now, but they’ve improved remarkably and I’ve lost nearly 15 kilos in the last 6 months or so as I’ve added regular gym workouts to my regime. I’m going to keep that up in order to ensure that I’ve got enough time to complete my mission.

My personality’s not likely to change. I’m still going to be a grumpy old man right up to the time when I AM an old man. I’m still going to think critically and I’m still going to say what I think when the moment calls for it. But maybe I can stop saying what I think when all I’m really doing is trying to make noise.

I’m not going to be some sort of social butterfly all of a sudden but maybe I can be a better friend to those people who have the good grace to put up with my crap. It’s loose and undefined but I am part of a community of sorts and maybe I can play a better role in that. Carry my weight a little more. Let the people in that community know that they mean something to me.

The hardest part is going to be chasing the dreams that my wife and I have for our lives. We’ve both got secure and (relatively) stable jobs right now. I hate mine, however, and she’d rather be painting. It’s going to take a lot to cut the cord on those, but one thing I learned from thinking about Nic this week is that he ended up chasing – and getting – the life he was born to. He was true to himself despite what must have been some difficult times.

I’d like to chase my dreams and live my life with the same vigour, commitment and honesty that I saw Nic exhibit in his. I don’t know if I have the intestinal fortitude to actually do that, but I read somewhere once that life’s not a dress rehearsal and I believe that to be true.

I think PJ and I can live closer to our ideal and still live fruitful lives. We’re not rocket scientists or brain surgeons. We’re not going to save the world. Hopefully, though, we can contribute something to people who share our interests. Hopefully we can make real connections with the people around us and contributions to their lives because after all, that’s what it’s all about, isn’t it?

It sounds a little cliche but they’re only cliches because they’re true: I’m going to miss Nic more than I can say. I never realised just how much I liked the old bastard until he was gone and that’s a massive shame on me. The least I can and should do is take note of his example after his death – one that I should have taken while he was alive.

I don’t want to miss opportunities like that ever again.

——

It’s with a very heavy heart that I write today about the sudden passing of one of the pillars of the online Saab community in general and the Dutch Saab community in particular – Nic Schellekens.

Nic passed away on Tuesday morning. He had recently been undergoing tests for cancer in Holland and was still awaiting a full diagnosis, prognosis and treatment plan. I don’t know the precise circumstances surrounding his passing (update: apparently it was a pulmonary embolism) but suffice to say it was most unexpected and deeply tragic.

I first met Nic online in 2009 as GM were looking to sell Saab. He was pretty well connected and we cautiously shared information here and there about the sale of Saab and what was happening with it. I first met Nic in person at the Saab Festival in 2010. He was one of the Mad Dutchies who got up to all sorts of good-natured hijinks at the event.

Many Saab fans won’t have met Nic personally but would most likely be very aware of his work. Nic, along with others, put in a lot of the legwork to make the Dutch Saab Support Convoy – the first one organised – such a success in 2010. He was also instrumental in conceiving and organising the We Are Many, We Are Saab events in January 2012.

I can’t write with any real knowledge of his whole life. We were only recent but fast friends. What I can say, though, from my own observation is that Nic was a larger-than-life man with a larger-than-life personality and a seemingly endless capacity to care about and act on behalf of the people and things he held dearest. He was a guy who touched you by his example, whose self-giving compelled others to be as open with him as he was with them.

Nic was the first openly gay man that I formed a friendship with. I don’t mean to bring that up as if it’s part of defining Nic as a person. It’s more about defining me and my sheltered, phobia-prone upbringing. Nic didn’t know it, but he opened my eyes to a lot that had been wrong with my world, simply by being himself. He was obviously very much in love with and committed to his partner, Johan, but also cared deeply and demonstratively for his former wife, Pauline. I stayed a Nic’s place for a few days and met both Johan and Pauline in February 2012, and the depth of these relationships was obvious for all to see.

But that’s the thing about Nic – he was an open book, without pretence. He simply got down to the act of living and doing what he could to make the world a better place for the people around him. He and Johan had recently bought and renovated a guesthouse in France but trips back to Holland were a regular feature of their lives.

The three things I’ll associate most with Nic – his family and friends, his love for all things Saab, and his dogs. Nic, Johan and Pauline were all passionate about their dogs, which were all labradors including one retired and one working guide dog.

Trish and I were both absolutely devastated upon hearing this news earlier today (she’d also met Nic in 2010 and spoke with him many times on Skype). It’s fair to say I can’t really believe that he’s gone. Nic and I swapped emails just a few days ago, where he told me about his initial cancer diagnosis and briefly outlined what this coming week would entail. We hadn’t spoken on Skype for a couple of months, but as I think about it it’s like I can hear his voice – the most memorable and oft-repeated words being a deep, growling Coooobus! as he told his beloved black labrador off for doing something naughty 🙂

Nic, my friend, you have left a massive hole in the lives of people around you. You’d be embarrassed if you knew just how much you’re going to be missed. You’d be gracious and kind – and then you’d tell us to get on with it. A man of action, is Nic.

Rest peacefully, mate. Gone far, far too soon.

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