A Trip to the Country

Joan (writing this) took on the job of organising the bulk purchase of some fabrics for a workshop in Bunbury early in October. There have been some problems, including slow deliveries to the reseller.

With the workshop now only a week away, I have been ringing daily to establish the status of the one of the fabric bolts. Jackpot today. The fabric was delivered yesterday and would be couriered today. I should get it by Tuesday. TUESDAY!! because Monday is a public holiday. The workshop starts next Sunday. All the fabric has to be cut up into smaller amounts and delivered to/collected by the other workshop participants.

So we took a drive to Lower Chittering to collect the fabric. We were told it was a two hour trip. Navman (GPS) was programmed and we set out.

Almost immediately Navman and I disagreed about the route. My idea would be Farrington Road to Karel Avenue , then Roe Highway to Midland. Navman had us onto the Freeway and probably then onto Great Eastern Highway. So we did a bit of disobedience, the GPS recalculated several times and we finally reached Midland. The rest of the trip was straight forward and we reached our destination almost exactly 2 hours after departure.

Coming home, we switched off Navman and got home in an hour and a half, including 10 minutes spent buying petrol and food in Bullsbrook.

Moral of the story? We would have had major difficulties finding our destination without Navman, BUT we knew a faster way for the major part of the trip than the one suggested.

Second lesson. Never leave home without a camera. We missed several great photo opportunities on the way.

Mobile phones

I drove to Huntingdale today to collect some software I had ordered. The software is Photoshop Elements. Looks good, but it is going to be another learning process for an old bloke like me. Some of the tools are Photoshop like, but it seems that a different team of developers built PS Elements and they decided to make it different to the original photoshop. I will sort it out.

This was the first trip using my new NavMan GPS. It worked really well. Most impressive!

Whilst driving I noticed a woman using a mobile phone in a car next to mine. At first I got a bit offside and thought of motioning to her that she was doing the wrong, and illegal, thing. Then I started wondering what the reasoning is for banning the use of mobile phones whilst driving. I am guessing here, but I think it is because the driver talking on the phone in flight cannot concentrate?

I then wondered if there was any loss of concentration when using the legal hands-free phone in the car. I don’t have one, but I figure one would have to concentrate on what was being said just as much as if using a hand held phone. What about the drivers with iPod earbuds blasting their eardrums? I hate those ads on the radio that have a car horn blasting or a siren. They scare the poo out of me!

Or is it the one handed driving that is the problem? If so, then truckies should be done for eating their breckie of a pie and choc milk whilst hooning along in a thirty tonne truck.
Or the ciggy smoker who is constantly waving his/her cigarette out the driver’s window; or the driver drinking a can of coke.

They could come down on those posers who have their lap dogs sharing the driver’s lap.