Sunday, July 5, 2009

Yankee Invasion

I have been watching the AFL match between the eastern states bullies and our Dockers. Dockers??? Dockers is an American word for waterfront workers which was never used here. Wharfies was the term used here, but I guess that doesn't sound as good as Dockers.

There are around 6000 US Navy sailors in town on R&R. I think R&R means Root & Rehydrate.
I wonder what they make of Australian football if they are watching in a pub somewhere in Perth. No helmets, no padding just footy shorts and a jumper...and a mouth guard. Not like that sissy Gridiron!

I went for a drive around the suburb of Bicton this afternoon as they have a 'Bring out your dead' collection on this week. I was hoping to collect a few computers to salvage the RAM (memory sticks) for my Mac donation project. No luck! There are stereos, TVs, microwave ovens, furniture etc but not a single computer. I belong to an internet list called WAMUG.....the Macintosh User Group of W.A. so I put out a request for old RAM that would suit the machines I have. I had several replies with the prospect of getting about ten sticks of RAM of significant size. Thanks WAMUG. The RAM for the latest machines is relatively cheap, both new and secondhand, but the older stuff, PC133, is still very expensive.

Our daughter Helen is teaching full time at a school in the northern suburbs on a six month contract (two terms). She has just received a letter from Education Department staffing saying that she has been terminated and will have to apply for her own position again during the school holidays. Say what???? She has a contract for the two terms. No need to panic though as the Principal and Deputy Principal at the school also got terminated at the same time. They have assured her that they will sort it out. I wonder if they would have been as keen to help if they weren't in the same boat. The Education Department couldn't organise a pissup in a brewery! A couple of years ago a friend who teaches science in a city school got her first pay slip for the year informing her that she was a gardener at a school in the south of the state. It took about a month to sort that one out.

4 comments:

Jenny said...

I don't think we Yanks use the term docker - it's longshoreman. I think it is a Brit term - but then you Aussies do have a "Docker's Union" don't you?
Excellent definition of R&R :)

Anonymous said...

On the visit by US warships to Fremantle, here's a link to an interesting story which I couldn't find in today's print edition of 'The West.' http://www.thewest.com.au/default.aspx?MenuID=77&ContentID=152873

Kev said...

Jenny,

Of course you are correct; it is the Poms that have the dockers on the wharves. I don't know anything about a Docker's Union? Perhaps you are thinking of the MWU..The Maritime Workers' Union.

Kev

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