Negotiations with Google

I think it Googled up my head, damnit!! I can't work this out at all, I have two Google accounts (I think) one for email and one for blogger (initially I tried to create the email account through my google blogger thing but it wouldn't let me so I created a seperate account for email) where it gets really confusing is that they both have the same password and I seem to sign into both automatically and then am unable to distinguish which one is which or to merge them into one to end the confusion altogether!! Added to this it keeps changing my display name so that I'm really unsure of which account for what. I may have to invite myself to become a team member on my own blog to sort it thoroughly, possibly create an alter ego self... now that could really get confusing.

In the mean time, the cold from hell has gone, it engaged one last ditch attempt to destroy my body last nite with a fever and headache and general inability to sleep. In the midst of said battle I found a packet of paracetamol in my bathroom cupboard, which was only slightly annoying after spending most of one nite last week scouring the entire house for anything that even slightly resembled pain killers unsuccessfully (except for a disolvable kids panadol thing that looked like it was half a decade out of date and tasted like I pee'd orange into a cup) But I won the battle at about midnite and slipped into my most restful sleep in a week.

I'm happy today. Not really sure why. Just am. Maybe it's coz the colds gone. Maybe it's just a good day. I did have a hilarious back and forth series of comments with MEELLIS from the Nutters Gang this morning which has kept me in good spirits. I also spoke to my little brother Jordan on skype which is always fun too. It's a good day. I'm happy.

Shattered

Still Ill. As I described to a friend earlier today it's like the cold from hell crawled inside of me and is now being released in coughs, sneezes and general flows of snot from whatever orifice is available... thought it would have gotten over me by now but it just keeps mutating and annoying me in a new way every day.
The weekend has destroyed me. As usual I was a model of common sense and stayed out till 4am Saturday nite after working at Expo Day all day and then lending half a hand (the other half was occupied dealing with the fact that I shouldn't physically have been awake and functioning) at the Mosaic Talent Show before I headed to Andy's place to watch Pirates of the Carribean Two and hang out playing dumb games till 4am. Was worth the pain.
Pirates was good but I got really annoyed with either the DVD or the TV (still dont know which one precisely was to blame) for the fact that one of them had destroyed the graphics and so most of the movie looked incredibly fake and irritating. Was dissapointing after seeing it in the cinema, which was amazing!!
Needless to say I didn't make it to church Sunday morning, in fact I didn't make it out of bed on Sunday morning, but I did drag myself along to Mosaic Sunday nite (possibly a mistake) and am rather shattered as things stand (or rather; slump) at the moment.
Cell tonite!! (more sensible choices in store =D) Fun Fun!!

Ill

Woke up really crook today. Stayed in bed till 2. Still feel crap. Went to the doctors in the hope that the thing where you miraculously recover the moment you step into the doctors surgery would happen. It didnt. However the doctor gave me a script and I went next door to buy it and found I was a pound short, thinking I'd have to blag it or come back later I was suddenly blessed when a lady I know from the village church walked in and paid for my script and told me not to worry about it. Was a really nice moment in a mostly crap day. Have been reading a book called What's So Amazing About Grace? over the last few weeks and am really enjoying it (I also need to finish it so I can write my assignment on it!! -am loving being set an assignment I actually enjoy tho-) what was my point?, oh yeah- it was really great example of a little bit of grace. Most people would lend me the money or give it but with a subtext of "you owe me one", not necessarily in a nasty way but there is a culture of paying your own way and everything having to balance out. But grace is an undeserved favour that expects nothing in return. It is entirely unconditional. There is a similar concept in the movie Pay It Forward for those who have seen the movie.
HMMMMMMMMMMMM
That turned into a bit of a ramble... ANY-WAYS...
Got Expo Day tomorow. If you're in Thame come pay us a visit.
Ciao!!

Happy Birthday Paulie!!

It's my little brothers birthday!! I called home for the first time in a couple (read: i lost track of the number) of weeks this morning to say Happy Birthday to Paul Levi Ablet Holt who turned 9 on the 21st November. Paulie's ten years younger than me and we get on really well. I think the bigger age gap has helped me appreciate him (and the other siblings) more. He's an energetic kid who brims with life and is constantly playing, watching or talking about sport which has earned him the nickname Sportboy on the Holtpress (Dads blog). Personally, the only nickname I will ever have for him is PP, because of the interchangeable meanings behind the letters (Princess Paulie, Posing Paulie, Paulie Poo... you get the idea) and because of the reaction it never fails to evoke from him. Namely him trying to pummel your arse while you are dying laughing. It was very funny when he was six, it may be getting less so as he gets bigger and stronger and moves towards the sport of boxing as his next hobby. As this is still some way off Ill make the most of it while I have the chance =D
I remember the morning PP was born because I woke up and walked out into the living room (wearing jocks but nothing else) to find our pastor sitting in the lounge room and Mum and Dad absent. I took immediate advantage of the situation and turned on the morning cartoons (something we were never allowed to do) whilst innocently not realising at the tender age of ten that maybe i should have gone and put some more clothes on with a guest in the house. Later my aunt came round to look after us (I cant quite remember but I like to think that we blagged the day off school to mark the occasion). Later we got to go in and see the new bub.
That's about all I can dredge up from the memory (and its certainly more than I could remember about Jordan and Sophies births) but Paulie is a great kid (so are his brother and sister for that matter) who I love loads (and again Ill add in the brother and sister to that bit).
Happy Birthday Paul!!

Welcome to the Dark Side

Im gonna go with the whole Hebrew idea of the day lasting from sunset to sunset or sunrise to sunrise or whatever, and still call it Friday nite (tho technically its some time Saturday morning). I did drop-in tonite over in Risboro, which is becoming one of the highlights of my week, there's something energizing about being part of a project where there is that critical mass of team and young people to really kick it off and everybody is enjoying being there. I got soaked earlier during my venture to Thame for the CU at Lord Bills. Faithfully (read: stupidly) I wore a t-shirt and jeans and put my thongs on (flip flops for the english reader). It began to tip it down as I walked out the door but at that point I was running for the bus and so endured the soaking. So tonite before drop-in I was looking through my cupboard trying to figure out what shirt to wear, tried on a couple, had a look in the washing basket, no luck, back to the cupboard at which point a genius idea smacked into my head and I pulled out my drop-in team shirt =] not a word thankyou...

Drop in was good, street work and youth clubs can be awkward at first but you get some great moments when you've pushed through that initial awkward instant and managed to connect with young people. Makes it that much easier next time too. My list of Youth Work Skills is coming on and I made good use of the parentals contribution: remember their names. Communicates that you are genuinely interested and care. There was a moment tonite with a young guy I know pretty well, we were mucking about and wrestling over a football and I accidentally caught his headfones as he pulled away and ripped one ear plug out. Potential drama alert!! He handled it superbly, the legend that he is. He very adultly told me not to worry about it, despite the obvious importance of them to him (they never leave his ears), and said it wasn't an issue at all. He gave me a high five and I told him I'd replace them over his protests that I didn't need to. It was one of those moments that could have been awkward but instead was lovely because of the Grace he showed me.

Im now listening to Soul Survivor Live 2006: Love Came Down and The Kooks Inside In/Inside Out, which have just been given me by a friend. Loving the tunes and that someone is looking after me, I love music but very rarely have the time or money to spend in obtaining it. I've boosted my itunes collection up to a whole day of music with those additions!! Not much on Lucy's 72days worth of music but still I'm impressed with my collection so far. (It also pales in comparrison to Cris' 14thousand songs!! But he lost all of that when his computer karked it the other week... poor lad)

That'll do for tonite. I think I have managed to reverse my body clock so that I now need to sleep during the day and work/be awake at nite. Suits me. The rest of the world will just have to sort themselves out. Oh, and as you may have noticed; Beta Blogger is in operation as of tonite. Any suggestions on colour schemes and general layout will be taken into consideration by Posse House management.

Welcome to the Dark Side

See You on the Dark Side

Having completed a year of blogging and a hundred posts; it is time to tackle a new challenge... on to bigger and beta things!! Blogger has been informing me with increasing regularity of the benefits and upgrades that come with a switch to beta blogger, still a little unsure but two factors have tipped the balance and my curiosity: one, that beta is designed by Google (or so i gather) and Google happen to be the most recognised brand name in the world (they gotta be doing something right) and two, the parental and the grandparental (who by some bizarre reversal of modern culture both know FAR more than myself about computers and the internet) have made the switch. As it was their lead i followed into blogging, i shall once again put my faith in two balding old men (im taking the hippie thing as a comliment btw grampa so if you'd like to look upon the statement i just made in the same light... dad, you know the benefits your bald patch has had in the past, count it a blessing) and shall be seeing you, on the dark side...

P.S. I may return and add a link to my new blog if it is necessary to do so.

One Hundredth Post!!

Careful examination of the Posse House Chronicles will reveal that the Posse House has been on the Blogosphere for an entire year now. I began the blog mainly out of boredom and because it was an easy way of keeping my parents up tp date with what Im doing (they emailed my boss to see if I was still alive six weeks after I moved to the UK)And that has basically remained the purpose of the blog (with the occasional read from other friends; most of whom do not leave comments so I never know if they've been visiting!!)
It's been a bit of a creative outlet for me and interestingly a bit of networking tool as there appears to be a cyber-community of Oxfordshire Youth Workers centering around Youth Blog, but mostly valuably it has become a record of my stories and life over the last year. I will put some of the best stories and moments of the last year in the side-bar for anyone who's interested.
The blog once weekly contract has been violated in the suspense of this post, hopefully Grampa will forgive me when he reads this (or maybe its a bit like Karma seeing as the camera he gave me stopped working!!)
I thought a fitting Hundredth Post would be a hundred things about me. Here they are!!

If you have clicked through to this link, you should know that I have decided to edit this list slightly and include a few more interesting facts to replace the ones I put in as space fillers. You should also know that some of these extras are unknown to my parents and should you be my parent(s) you should probably discontinue your reading of this for my sake, or at least not read fact number 83.

1. my name is Zachariah Holt
2. last year some friends gave me the middle name "trouble"
3. im quite proud of this
4. I actually don’t mind being called Zachariah
5. ...but im not telling you that!!
6. some other nicknames I have had are zac, zaac, zackie, zacharias, zackdawowow, zee, holtie, wart hog, trouble, "the dread pirate drax"
7. im also quite proud of warthog but I cant tell my mother how I got it
8. she reads this blog everyday so I cant tell the rest of you either
9. my mums name is Carolyn
10. dads name is Marcus, it used to be Mark but he changed it before I was born
11. I considered changing my name when I was younger
12. now I wouldn’t change except to add in trouble as my middle name
13. the only thing stopping me doing this is the amount of hassle changing your name actually causes
14. my favorite sport is football (the real football) (aussie rules!!) (although I have begun to call soccer football... been in england too long!!)
15. I dislocated my knee playing footy two days before my first driving test in one of the best games I ever played
16. it was too late by the time I got out of hospital to cancel my test or to practice in my pastors car which I was borrowing for the test so I took it anyway
17. I failed
18. I passed the next time round
19. I passed my driving test without a single professional lesson, something I am quite proud of
20. I have had dread locks for the last year and a half
21. I have lived in England for most of the time I have had dreadlocks
22. in that time I have not once been clean shaven
23. the last time I actually was clean shaven someone tried to introduce me to a group of people I already knew because they didn’t recognise me!!
24. I have been to 9 countries since leaving Australia a year and a half ago
25. I am counting Tasmania and air ports in this …and Wales
26. I really want to go to Ireland and Prague and America before I go home
27. I love travelling and being in England
28. this was a surprise to me as I had no huge ambition to travel, the opportunity just came up
29. I have not paid for a single one of my air fares in that time, something for which I am incredibly grateful
30. I am a youth worker in Oxfordshire for an international organisation
31. I cant tell you who they are for “reasons of national security” but if you click this link you may just work it out
32. I didn’t tell you nothing tho
33. I can legitimately call myself an international speaker slash preacher slash teacher
34. I find this hysterically funny (as will anyone who heard me give an oral presentation at school)
35. I somehow blagged my way onto the leadership team of a youth church in Thame
36. I have not paid for accommodation or food since coming to england
37. I am realising just how blessed I have been over the last year and a half
38. my grampa peter lives in queensland and his birthday is the day before mine (my aunt lives in Perth and her birthday is the same day as mine)
39. this year he flew me across the country so we could celebrate our birthdays together on the sunshine coast
40. the actual date of my birthday is a closely guarded secret (people at my work make a big deal of birthdays which is annoying) if you know it: keep it to yourself!!
41. when he arrived to pick me up I was sitting in this pile of luggage
42. most of it was not mine but my dads and my uncles who had flown over with me to surprise grampa
43. grampas face when he saw the pile of luggage was entertaining
44. his face when two of his sons snuck up on him one at a time went well beyond entertaining
45. I have lived in eleven houses in Australia and nine houses in England
46. I have moved house ten times in Oz and Ive lost count of how many times Ive moved in England but it is more than ten
47. when I was two my parents found me standing on a stool in the kitchen buttering the bread board
48. somewhere I have some great photos of me as a kid, my favorite one is me wearing a bin lid over my head
49. I liked being a little kid, it was fun
50. I think if I could revert to a certain age it would be five years old
51. I feel younger than I am
52. I look older than I am
53. I must occasionally act older than I am because people often think I am older than I am
54. this has lead to some interesting situations where I act my age (literally) and surprised some people who have assumed or forgotten my age
55. if this has taught me one thing it is never take a Rav4 four-wheel-driving up a mountain with no fone reception in a great big sand pit
56. I am nineteen
57. twenty sounds old to me, in my head I am seventeen and have no intention of moving
58. I don’t want to grow up
59. I have supported the Geelong Cats as long as I can remember (growing up in my dads house there wasn’t that much of a choice)
60. I love playing football, whether that be aussie rules or soccer
61. I have dislocated my knee twice, it is the most painful thing I have ever done
62. I had never broken a bone despite many injuries until two months ago
63. I crashed a motorbike on a Greek island two months ago
64. I wasn’t wearing a helmet
65. I was very lucky
66. the first person to stop and help me was a vet, she patched me up with some of her kit in the back of her car
67. I had three stitches in my knee and one in my eye brow
68. I found out a month later that I have now broken a bone: my foot (in the motor bike crash) I discovered this when I booted a football and experienced a significant amount of pain
69. I have at least twelve scars, pretty much all of them have a story
70. I like my scars
71. I used to hate computers, all through school I hand wrote all my assignments
72. since coming to England Atari Man has been the cause of the gradual lessening of my computer hatred
73. I now use my computer almost every day for a significant chunk of time
74. I am a night owl
75. I think I have managed to re-set my body clock on the weekend so that I don’t need to sleep till 3am. this could be a problem…
76. I love to read
77. every now and then I think I would like to write a book
78. I also want to learn to play guitar and Jambe (bongo’s)
79. I really like Chelsea football club except for the manager Mourhino and their striker Drogba, if Mourhino leaves at the end of the season I will adopt them as my english football team (as well as Tottenham, stress less dad)
80. I have a series of random ambitions in life
81. like not cutting my hair or shaving for a year
82. and not wearing shoes for an entire summer
83. and hibernating for a winter (HA!! You think I'd make it that easy?!)
84. I think I may be a hippie
85. I was made to be a youth worker
86. when I was seven I got in a fight at school, the kid chased me around the whole school yard before I turned and jumped on him, I timed this beautifully: right in front of a teacher
87. I don’t think I’ve been in a real fight since then
88. sometimes I want to get in a fight just to see how I’d go
89. Fight Club is one of my favourite movies. I also like zoolander, the shawshank redmption, the chronicles of narnia, phillip pullman books (and I just forgot I was listing movies, not books)
90. I played some small role in the instigation of a riot a few years back.
91. I love Europe, I want to live there at some point
92. I like studying but hate assignments
93. one day I would like to teach
94. I hate air planes because of the recycled air and always wake up feeling really dry and ill
95. England has given me a permanent cold
96. I love doing dumb stuff like cliff diving and jumping over fires and playing with fire works
97. I tend to go and do dumb stuff when I am avoiding something else
98. my dad is my biggest hero
99. my mum is pretty awesome too
100. I have counted to infinity. Twice

*the list contains the obligatory untruth

There you go. I am going to bed now but I hope you enjoyed that. Shalom

WYNET WARS

I work with Sith Lord Ahkmed or whatever ona couple of different youth work projects. We get along really well considering the number of times he comes running to find "the kid" who's throwing sparklers in the air or water bombs off a roof and finds me there with a sparkler bomb in my hand (actually hadnt meant to write sparkler bomb but there's an idea). WYnet are the youth work side of Wycliffe bible translators. I loved the Skit. Told Akhmed Id join WYnet purely on the basis of this video. Its that good.

Speaking of things such as sparkler bombs; I jumped over a bonfire tonite!! When I figure out how to get the video off my fone Ill put it on the blog. Was an awesome rush. (granted the fire had burnt down a lot but it was still a good two/three metre jump)

Have discovered the awesomeness of YouTube. Many Videos to follow!!

See you on the dark side