Joan Lock

It is four years ago today that I lost my dear wife Joan.  We were together for 46 years, and I miss her every day.    We will share a bottle of nice Champagne tonight, as a celebration of our time together.  Daughter Helen will join me for a meal and no doubt, some tears.

                                       Joan in Bloom

Big Brother

As I look at ‘Sitemeter’, a program  showing where the location of readers of my blog are from, I see a major trend of readers searching for The Book Thief.   The hits for The Book Thief come from a wide range of countries.  Interesting!

Big Brother IS watching me.  I received this in an email from Woolworths' supermarket chain.  

I have a Woolworths reward card and so Woolworths have my details such as email address.   The items shown were purchased by me some weeks ago.  Do government agencies have this ability?

11th commandment

Yesterday I saw a small truck which had gone AO*.  I managed a snap with my iPhone as I passed it and noticed that it had a heavy looking small crane on its tray which possibly made it unstable trying to go around a corner.  Didn’t see an ambulance, so hopefully  no serious injuries.

Click to enlarge

I recently read about a famous neuroscientist, Vernon Mountcastle, who said that he will obey the 11th commandment....’thou shall not whimper as the darkness falls’.  He has not had to test his resolve yet.  I hope to obey the 11th commandment when my time comes.

*arse over

St John's Ambulance Service

Yesterday I had a visit from a nice ex-student of mine who has been an ambo for a number of years.  She had just come off duty and dropped in on her way home to have a sleep before recommencing duty at 5pm.   I asked her how she was enjoying her job.  

She finds it interesting, BUT sometimes dangerous and disheartening with the drunkenness and sometime violence of alcohol and drugs. Suicide and self-harm are not uncommon causes of callouts.

Paramedics are not in the upper levels of renumeration in dollars, however they are well regarded by most of the community.  She told me that weekends are the times when clients are at their most difficult. 

There is a Western Australian site on line where people can post photos of drivers who are poor parkers.  

An example I photographed a few days ago:  Click to enlarge.

I won't embarrass him/her by posting the photo.

Click here to visit the site on Facebook. It isn't too thrilling!

Australians to be executed

I use eBay for most of my computer bits; batteries, RAM, printer supplies etc.  When a product is supplied from within Australia there is usually no postage charged.  Even from China, no postage is charged, however if I order something from Britain or the U.S. a ridiculously high postage rate is slapped on even a very small article.  Can’t understand that and they get none of my business.

Example is a single DVD of a Mac operating system as shown here.....

click to enlarge

Two Australian men are soon to be executed in Indonesia for drug smuggling.  They have already served ten years and clemency has been denied by President Joko Widodo.  It is believed that the pair are making last minute pleas for clemency but the pres is standing firm.   Over the years other Australians have been executed in South-East Asian countries and the risks are well know.  In this case the Australia Federal police discovered the plot and told Indonesian authorities.  The Indonesia customs officials were waiting at Denpassar airport and nabbed nine people attempting to smuggle heroin out of Indonesia to Australia.  The two about to be executed were the ringleaders.  The other seven are still behind bars in Kerobokan prison which isn’t a Bali holiday hotel. 

I wonder who authorised the disclosure by Australian Federal Police.  Had they all been apprehended in Australia on arrival from Bali they would have faced jail for some years and not be in danger of execution.

I am confused as to what I should think about this death penalty. What these two young men wanted to do could have affected hundreds of families in Australia if the  drugs had been successfully imported into Australia.  I have close experience of the use of such drugs on a family.

Leg cramp medication

As a follow-up to my leg cramps story, my daughter Helen gave me some medication which seems to be working.    A couple of pics of the container, one showing the ingredients; so many that it looks as though they are trying to cover all the bases.  Something in there has got to work.

                                click pics to enlarge
I have just filled my car with petrol at 95.1 cents a litre, which included a 5c shoppers discount.  Hope it stays around that price for a long time.