The secret revealed

July 14, 2009
by Rodney Olsen
7 Comments

cadent_1_small.jpgI’ve hinted at it a few times and now I’m ready to say a little more.

Back in February I told you about a sad goodbye. My wife’s sister had just passed away at the age of 41 from cancer.

In the weeks leading up to her death I was throwing an idea around for a bike ride from Perth to Albany. The ride would take my morning radio programme on the road to broadcast from a different town each day. I wanted to give people who had been touched by cancer a chance to tell their story. Whether they’d lost a loved one or survived cancer, I wanted people to have the opportunity to break the silence and let people know that they’ve been through some deep waters. I wanted others who have been touched by cancer to know they’re not alone.

Plans for that ride are now well underway.

As well as giving people opportunity to tell their story we’ll be raising funds for Cancer Council Western Australia.

I have a number of cyclists ready to take part and I’m looking for a few more. Each morning I’ll broadcast my radio programme before hopping onto my bike just after midday to cycle to the next town.

Here’s the itinerary:

Saturday 17th October 2009: Perth to York – 97km

Sunday 18th October 2009: Rest Day

Monday 19th October 2009: York to Pingelly – 87 km

Tuesday 20th October 2009: Pingelly to Wagin – 100 km

Wednesday 21st October 2009: Wagin to Katanning – 55 km

Thursday 22nd October 2009: Katanning to Cranbrook – 80 km

Friday 23rd October 2009: Cranbrook to Albany – 91 km

TOTAL: 510 km

Where to from here?

The task now is to finalise the team of cyclists. I’m hoping that we’ll have around ten to twelve riders. We’ll be followed by support vehicles which will carry all our gear.

If you know anyone in any of the towns along the way who you think would be a good contact, please let me know.

If you’re part of a business that would like to partner with us on the journey, I’m looking for some sponsors for the cycling jerseys. There are different levels of sponsorship for various sized logos on the jerseys.

I also need your story. Have you been touched by cancer? Are you battling cancer now or beaten it in the past? Does a loved one have cancer? Have you lost a friend? If you’d rather not leave your story in the comments section of this post, you can go to my contact page and send me an email.

Sometime soon I’ll let you know how you can donate to Cancer Council Western Australia in support of the ride.



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Balancing work and play

July 13, 2009
by Rodney Olsen
2 Comments

stress.jpgDo you head back to work on Monday morning to get a bit of rest? Our society seems to have turned our weekends into non-stop action.

The two days that are meant to help us get back into balance seem to have become all about activity. We rush around between sporting activities for children, heading out for a spot of shopping, meetings, catching up with friends, catching up on the work we didn’t finish last week, jobs around the house, maintaining the garden. By Sunday evening we collapse in front of the television and try to stay awake long enough to see the end of the programme that we’re watching. Sound familiar?

Once we’re back at work the activity remains frantic. News.com.au is reporting on a recent survey suggesting Aussies’ stress is all work and no play.

NEARLY nine out of 10 Australians are feeling stressed and most blame work for the way they feel, a new poll shows.

Finances, health and personal relationships were also stress factors, a Newspoll commissioned by Lifeline Australia revealed.

I find it interesting that people are mostly blaming work for their stress. I tend to think that we can handle a lot of pressure in our work and private lives if we make sure that we have time out to look after ourselves physically, mentally, socially and spirituality. When we fill our downtime with frantic activity we lose the opportunity to recharge and the pressure becomes stress, which left unaddressed can lead to all kinds of health and relationship issues.

We certainly had a busy weekend but we did have times to relax as a family and with friends. I managed to wind down pretty well last night too. I sat in front of the heater with a glass of red, reading a good book until it was time to head off to bed.

How about you? Do you find time on the weekend to wind down or is it all about frantic activitiy for you?

Maybe it’s time we all took the time to change a few priorities.



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They're locking me up

July 10, 2009
by Rodney Olsen
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convict.jpgThe day has arrived. I’m about to lose my freedom.

This morning I’ll be broadcasting my 98.5 Sonshine FM radio programme from Karrinyup Shopping Centre where I’ll be a convict for a cause. I’ll be asking people to donate towards Cystic Fibrosis WA so that I can be released. I need your help to pull off my very own prison break.

I’ll be joined by fellow announcer Tim Long. Together we’ll broadcast at the shopping centre from 9:00 a.m. until 3:00 p.m. If you’re local I hope you’ll drop in and say hello. I’m told that I will be allowed visitors and you won’t need to be searched. (Bring a cake with a file in it.)

Cystic Fibrosis (CF) is the most common life threatening, recessive genetic condition affecting Australian children and is the second most common life-shortening, childhood onset inherited disorder in the United States. For such a serious condition it really doesn’t get a lot of attention.

What can you do to support families who are battling CF?

Firstly, you can help us by donating. Simply click here, choose how much you’d like to give, then fill in your relevant details.

Donations can be accepted on Visa or MasterCard. Please keep in mind that the amounts are in Australian Dollars and of course the tax deductibility is only available in Australia. If you’re not in Australia and you’d like to work out the exchange rate you can work it out through this currency converter.

The other way you can help is to get the word out. If you publish a blog please link to this post. Can I ask you to email people that you know to highlight what I’ll be doing? Please help me get the word out to as many people as possible. If you use social bookmarking such as StumbleUpon or Digg you can use the buttons at the bottom of this post to share this post with a wider audience. Tell your Facebook friends, Twitter a link to this post, please do whatever you can to highlight what we’re doing. It’s not too late to highlight this very important issue amongst your friends.

Thank you for your help with this. Together we can make a very big difference for families who can really do with our support and encouragement.



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Can Cadel Still Win?

July 9, 2009
by Rodney Olsen
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tour_de_france_logo.jpgI’m conflicted. Every fibre of my being wants to see Australia’s Cadel Evans peg back the three minutes he needs to stand in yellow on the podium in Paris but I know that it’s incredibly unlikely.

Being a few seconds outside the time of the leaders is one thing, but being 2:59 down from names like Armstrong and Contodor makes the task almost impossible. Cadel is a great climber but we’ve never seen any evidence that he is good enough to put three minutes or more into the other climbers that stand between him and the yellow jersey.

The wheels came off Cadel’s campaign to win the 2009 Tour de France in the team time trial where his team was well and truly outclassed by the teams of the other favourites.

Thankfully Cadel hasn’t given up on his hopes of winning and if there’s an opportunity to do something spectacular, he’s still in the right frame of mind to take advantage of whatever situation might arise.

I’ve never been in this position at the Tour de France ahead of the mountains stages, so we’ll see what happens, but I’m feeling good. The Tour is not over for me yet.

So to the question, can Cadel Evans still win the 2009 Tour de France, I’d have to answer it’s not a big possiblity, but there’s still a flickering flame of hope, and I’ll be cheering him on whatever position he’s in when the peleton reaches the streets of Paris.



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The Final Countdown

July 8, 2009
by Rodney Olsen
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newhouse.jpgThe end is finally in sight.

After so many delays we are now moving to put the final pieces of the puzzle in place. The final approval we needed to sell our home came through yesterday so we’re now about a month away from moving to our new home. You have no idea what a relief that is.

Selling our current home and buying another has been a long process. We’re not there yet but the light at the end of the tunnel is now almost blinding.

Once we made the decision to make the move it took us a lot longer than we expected to get our house to the point that we were happy to have it on the market. There were a few bits and pieces to fix, rooms to de-clutter and a garden which needed a make over. We have many generous friends and family members who helped along the way.

Once the house was placed on the market it sat there for three months without an offer. We then switched real estate agents and within three weeks we had rejected an offer which was too low and accepted one that was suitable. On the same day that we accepted an offer we put an offer on the home in the picture in this post.

The people buying our current home are first home buyers and so they needed approval through the government’s Key Start process. That took over 40 days. We were were 99% sure it was going to be OK but the sense of relief and joy when we had formal approval yesterday was amazing. From the time of approval, Key Start conditions require us to wait thirty days until settlement. So that’s where we are now. In around a month we’ll be deciding where the furniture fits best in our new home.



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