The road to Independence

Yesterday I was listening to ABC radio when a woman called in asking for advice about what to do with a Peacock in her backyard.  she didn’t mention her suburb, but it was obviously the Peacock I wrote about yesterday.  Call back resulted in many suggestions for the lady....stuffed and baked Peacock etc etc.

When we worked in Papua New Guinea in the 1970s I was Manager of a Vocational Centre in the East Sepik District at a place named Bainyik.  The aim of Vocational Centres was to train students in marketable skills such as building, mechanics, welding, concrete, small scale store management and animal husbandry etc etc, in fact anything which might make the student self-sufficient.  With a staff of four we worked with approximately 60 boarders for a full year.  We contracted to do work for different government departments building aid posts in remote villages, houses for teachers and village projects.  One project was to erect an Aid Post in a remote village.  The project was given to us by one Harvey Mack, a Patrol Officer at government station named Dreikikir.  Harvey was also a Western Australian and when Independence came to PNG we both (with families) returned to live back home.  My wife Joan and I went back to teaching.  Harvey started a trucking company which has grown from a couple of trucks to a 100 employee business.  He has bases in Fremantle, Adelaide, Melbourne and Sydney.

Yesterday I caught up with Harvey after 29 years.  I visited his base at Forrestfield and was very impressed with his business and his style of management.   We plan to meet again soon and reassess our time and achievements in our PNG days.    Both of us were adamant that we were most privileged to have been there and participated in building the road to Independence.  However, neither of us wish to go back and see how it is now.

Harvey's business page is here.

Suburban Peacock

Early this morning I had a call from a friend who asked me what I knew about Peacocks.  ‘.There is one in my back yard.’ he said.      I grabbed a camera and went to take a few snaps of his bird.   It is  strange to see a Peacock in suburbia.   We figured that it is someone’s pet and it had escaped.   It had been in James’ yard for a few days and when I was checking it out it flew out to a high wall.    They can be very noisy birds at times and could give neighbours the Heebie Jeebies.  

Heebie Jeebies is a term from an old American comic strip Barnie Google....from which the name Google comes.   Check out Google on wikipedia

Enough trivia!

Back to Bali?

Searching through some external hard drives I found a short story Joan wrote a few years ago.  She called it ‘Coming Home’ and is set in the Western Australian wheatbelt.  I remember Joan telling me of an adventure she and her sister Dorothy had when they were very young and Joan has woven that adventure into a Battlers story.  Great read.   Maybe I will see what others think and see if it is worthy of publishing.

My son is causing me much anguish.  He is in Melbourne and unemployed.  I desperately want him to get on track before I go.  He is intelligent and has ability, but the Ankylosing Spondylitis eating away in his back makes it difficult to get employment which demands even moderate lifting.  I want him to return home where I can help him. 

I recently talked with my cousin Valma and suggested that we make a short trip to Bali.   She seemed very keen on the idea and I will look for packages of fares and accommodation.  Four days is probably long enough at our age.

Ankylosing Spondylitis

In the last few days I have placed a number of computers with local people who saw my posting on a local shopping centre notice board.   I still have seven more machines three of which are up-market workhorses which were donated to my project by the West Australian Newspaper Group.  I will remove the notice from the shopping centre and re-target the better machines at Graphics Students at one of the local universities.

Our son Martin is starting to admit that shifting to Melbourne has not been successful for him and is talking about returning home to Western Australia.  He is thinking of shifting back to the unit we bought to house him, but that is leased out to tenants for the rest of the year.  I have offered him his own side of my house which includes a bedroom, study and bathroom.  Martin has Ankylosing Spondylitis and his back is degenerating badly and getting employment which does not tax his back is very difficult.  It may well be that he could get a disabled pension and I   will support him, possibly for the rest of my time. 

and now to lighten up.........

A  fellow sits on a bench next to another fellow.   He says...’Hello, how are you today?’  the other fellow says...’I’ve had a lousy day; my imaginary friend has left me and he took my air guitar.’

Enthusiasm wanes

Been busy lately preparing computers for distribution.   A notice at a local shopping centre in a needy area has seen a number of people coming to collect computers from my house.  Previously I had placed notices at the same shopping centre, but some nutter had been taking them down within a day.  That person has obviously not seen my latest notice or is in prison or somewhere else.     I still have around ten machines to distribute before I start on the thirty early iMacs which I will aim at placing, loaded with early childhood educational games.    I might not be able to place many of them as most folks these days want faster machines.    Landfill?

I am getting a little tired of the computer restoration project and may bow out soon.

Interpreting dreams

Helen and I successfully made a loaf of bread in the new bread maker.  I have since made another loaf and it certainly tastes OK.  The only problem with it is that it is very messy with lots a crispy crumbs when it is being cut.  Seems to be better after a day when it isn't so fresh, but I wanted to toast newly baked bread.  Must talk to the flour supplier and see if I am doing it correctly.

The fence saga at Helen and James’ place is ongoing.  The little shit mentioned before, has ripped off a couple of baskets containing prickly plants.  I have urged them both, Helen and James, to do nothing and see if he gets tired of his foolish antics.  I replaced the baskets with more secure fastenings so we will see if he caves in.  Of course he is not doing it during daylight hours and they cannot positively identify him as the culprit.  I need some Bikie friends to go visit him and his parents and have a chat.  Unfortunately I don’t have any Bikie acquaintances.

Over the last couple of nights I have been having the most realistic dreams relating to two schools, one in W.A. and one in Papua New Guinea.  The PNG school was at Bainyik, some 80 kilometres from Wewak on the coast.  I was last there 38 years ago and this dream has been a regular over all those years.  That school was a Vocational Centre training boys in small business, carpentry/building, agriculture and animal husbandry.  I was the manager there for four years.  The dream has us returning to PNG from annual leave in Australia and finding the pigs, cattle and fowls all gone and the centre grounds overgrown and students gone bush.  I have had that dream so many times I should know that it is not true as I’m having it, but I still wake up feeling a bit unhappy with the students and staff.  The W.A. school is the great school I worked at for many years and the dream has me fronting up to work on the first day of my appointment there, running late with the boss waiting out the front for me.  Strange stuff!

Taxing the old brain

I went out and bought a breadmaker...now I have to learn how to use it.  Daughter Helen is visiting this morning and we will use two brains to work it out.  I checked out breadmakers in three stores and decided on a Breville ‘Baker’s Oven’.  The first store, Harvey Norman wanted $130., next was Retravision @$136. reduced today to $129.99, but I bought from The Good Guys. @ $95..  Deal!

My old brain is getting a workout lately.  I bought a video camera recently and that  requires a good read of the instruction manual to get the video onto a computer.  I found that it is not Mac compatible and so have set up a PC in the workshop to try and download videos I shoot. The user manual has 56 pages in it.   Years ago I had a Betacam video camera.  Simple.....press a button and the door opens, put in a full-size tape. Close the door and point and shoot.  Open the door; put the recorded tape into a VCR and watch it.

My wife Joan’s cousin, Kingsley, gave me a very fancy HP printer/scanner.  I thought it would be easy to set up, but no, it has eluded me (or my brain) and I cannot get it to work properly.  There again, the handbook has 234 pages of complexity.   It is obviously a very expensive piece of kit and I will be looking for someone who can help me set it up.

Apple Store

Yesterday I visited the Apple Store at Garden City, a large shopping centre nearby.  I went early thinking that the school holidays would make it busy.  I was right, at 9am it was packed.     I was directed to a young ‘Genius’ who was arranging appointments on an iPad.  I keyed in my name, address, phone number and email address and was told to return at 10.40am.  I had a bit of a wait before a young fellow solved my problem with a password on my iPhone.   Good, efficient, free service.

Today I am searching for a bread maker.  When Joan was well she made bread every few days and I did enjoy it.  When she died I lost interest in bread and gave the breadmaker away. I buy bread of various types, but think I will get back into making my own.  My tastes seem to be changing.  Many foods don’t interest me much anymore.  I guess that is just a part of growing old.  A breadmaker can be set to finish the bake precisely at breakfast time.  Fresh bread toast sounds good to me.

Raining computers

The last couple of days have been raining computers.   A contact in Albany delivered another 5 eMacs to my house and my friend Rob informed me that he was cleaning out his workspace and needed to get rid of 30 perfectly good iMacs.   These iMacs are the candy-coloured all-in-one machines which Apple introduced back in 1999.  They ARE old, but still work well with their earlier operating system.   I am able to place these machines loaded with educational games without having the headaches of internet connection.  Usually the folks I give them to have another computer for internet access.  My daughter Helen has placed a couple at her primary school where the educational games are used as a reward to individual pupils.

        Some of the games which go with the iMacs.

On Monday, Helen and James are flying back home to W.A. from their family visit to Queensland. I think they will be happy to be in their own house again.  I know I will be happy to see them again.  Looking forward to some of Helen’s cooking.

The only semi-adventurous food preparation I have attempted over the last few weeks is making Biltong in Joan’s food drier.  Great snack food, but very easy to pig out on.  The recipe I am using has the beef sliced thinly in strips marinated overnight in soy and Worcestershire sauce, vinegar, with brown sugar, chilli powder and crushed garlic.  The drying takes around 6 hours depending on the thickness of the beef strips.  Google it for quantities.

Michelle and Jack visit

Today I had a visit from Michelle and Jack.  Michelle was one of my fav students when I taught at Willetton Senior High School and Jack is her 16 month old son who is at the stage of 'investigating' all things technical....TVs, computers etc etc.

Michelle is well after her Thyroidectomy, the only side effect is a scar which the surgeon says will fade over a few months.  She is still the Michelle I remember, a delight to have as a friend.

                                                    Click to enlarge

My neighbour had her father visit from Victoria and because his daughter, my neighbour, has asked me to shoot a few rats in her olive tree with my air gun, somehow we got talking about rifles.  He told me that he has a .22 single-shot rifle he bought when he was a 16 years old and still has it back home in Victoria.  I told him that I still have what was my grandfather's, then my father's Winchester 1892 .44 lever action repeater with an octagonal barrel.  He said that he would like to take a look at it and I then realised that I could not remember where I had hidden the gun cabinet key.  Over a couple of days I searched the entire house and workshop without success.  It looked like I was going to have to call on a locksmith to get the gun cabinet open, so I sat down and thought of where I would hide the keys so that they would be safe.....SAFE!!!!     And that's where I found the keys; in our safe.

I have finished the little shit fence.  The fence is not a little shit, I am hoping that what we did will stop the little shit neighbour of Helen and James walking through their property to jump a low fence.  James and I put up a solid lattice and I finished off fixing wall baskets along the fence. The baskets have been planted with the nastiest (bar Bougainvillea and roses) spikey plants.  They are called Euphorbia Milii Hybrid and when I was planting them without wearing gloves got a taste of their nasty spikes.    Hope it works.

Thyroid Cancer

My daughter and husband James are in Queensland visiting family and  friends.  I drove them to Perth Airport late Friday night.  They are away just over a week.  Their dogs are in a boarding kennel and I have a few jobs to do at their house which is around 500 metres from my place.  Not being there, it has made me aware how much they mean to me.    I will be looking forward to catching up when they return.   It has also made me realise how isolated some people can get when they lose a partner.  I am fortunate that I have Helen and James near me and also a small circle of friends to meet up with once a week; even if we do tend to tell the same stories over and over.

On Tuesday morning I am having an ex-student of mine visit for a coffee.  She is probably 35 now, married with a 16 month old child.  She was a wonderful student in my classes and we have kept in touch over the years.  When I talked with her last week she told me that she had had Thyroid Cancer and had the thyroid removed and chemotherapy. She will get the results of a final investigation next week.   Too young for that!

Bastard disease!

Bougainvillea

On Sunday last, I helped my son-in-law James, erect some lattice work on a wall in Helen and James’ front yard.  The lattice will soon have Bougainvillea growing through it and hopefully prevent the 15 year old pain-in-the-arse from further up their cul-de-sac using their front yard as a short cut to jump over their fence to get to the adjacent road.

From the time Helen and James purchased their house and moved in, this kid has been giving them strife.   It started with him kicking a football at their garage door.  Words were exchanged and James talked to his parents who seem to have no control over him.  During that conversation he told his parents to ‘F... off’.   It transpired that the previous owners shifted out because of ongoing trouble with this kid.   He has continued to walk through Helen and James front yard even when they are out the front and gives them a mouthful when they suggest he is trespassing.

Until the Bougainvillea covers the lattice,  Helen has planted some very nasty prickly plants in vulnerable gaps.

The lattice screen looks similar to the airbrakes use on some night-fighter planes during WW2.  Even though it is securely fastened to the wall there will be a lot of pressure on it with our strong Sou-West summer winds.

We await the next move by their nice neighbour.

Passwords

Yesterday a colleague from a past life called and wanted me to look at a computer I had set up some years ago.   It was for his disabled son and has served him well until now when it is got bit clogged up with downloads and attempted downloads.

When he delivered it, I remembered that a friend and I had configured it so that the operating system couldn’t be tampered with.    That set up included a password which neither Rob nor I could remember.  I had taken the machine around to Rob’s place and the IT pro that he is, came to the fore and he was able to get into it and change the password.   Yes I have written the PW down.

Paul, my colleague from Willetton SHS days, will be pleased that his son is back on line with a clean machine, also asked me for a speedy machine to go to Darwin where a friend is involved with movie making.  I gave  him a G5 Mac which is one of a number given to me  from a local newspaper.

I am past the complex issues of computing and am very lucky to have a friend like Rob, who I can lean on for some assistance with those brain-crushing workarounds.

I have recently ordered cheap PRAM batteries for the many Macs I rebirth.  Locally here they cost around $18. each and I can buy them from China for around $3.50.  I don’t know how long they will last compared to brand name batteries.    The word cheap means different things to different people.  Here in Australia ‘cheap’ usually means inexpensive.  I have noticed that in the U.S. ‘cheap’ means rubbish.     PRAM batteries keep the computer’s time and date correct and also maintains printer selection.  Not a biggy if the battery is flat, but Macs keep telling you if the battery is dead.  That can be a bit annoying.

Multi Cultural Mix

For the last 13 years of my teaching career I taught at a very nice Senior High School which was proud of its multi-cultural mix of students.  In all that time there was, at least to me, no evidence of any racial or religious discrimination.     The one exception was practised by a  group of students who were members of a sect named The Plymouth Brethren.  They believed that their members should not eat with non-members and each lunch time, cars came to the school and transported them away from the mob.  Later they purchased a house opposite the school and their kids walked to the house for lunch.   Then they opted out of the school system and got their education from Distance Education which caters for students in isolated locations.  I don’t know how they convinced the Education Department that they deserved special treatment.  These days they have their own schools as does the Muslim cohort.

I know I won’t be offending any Plymouth Brethren by writing this because they aren’t allowed to use computers.

Yesterday I offered to help my brother fix his toilet cistern. He had purchased a new flushing mechanism for $72 (plus the usual 99c).    When I tried to replace the new flushing bit it was obvious that it wasn’t going to fit into that model of the same brand.   I went to Bunnings Hardware and bought the whole tank with all the bits for $59.    A bit of mucking around drilling new anchor holes through ceramic wall tiles and it was all up and flushing in about two hours.      At 72 years of age I am starting to feel my age and felt pretty tired when I got home.   I had planned on an early bed, but bro turned up with a couple of bottles of wine and we bought in fish and chips.  I slept very well.

Rioting in the streets

Yesterday brother Graham and I drove up to Maida Vale where Joan’s cousin Kingsley and his wife Margaret live.    Kingsley had previously contacted me offering a nice printer which didn’t want to work properly on his computer.  Bonus; it works beautifully on mine!  I rang Kingsley and offered to return it to him, but he had already bought another and graciously told me to keep it.

Their property was originally 10 acres, but has been reduced to 3 acres with a nice large house and lots of trees, both fruit and natives.   Lovely semi-rural area!  Graham and I got the tour and a bag of oranges and passionfruit.

The local Muslims are rioting in Sydney town over the backyard movie which supposedly mocks Islam.  I cannot understand how the looney who made the movie didn’t think that it would not cause death and destruction throughout the world?   

It is only that we, in the Western world, generally live in democracies which cherish free speech which allows even the most controversial stuff to go to air.  The protesters, even the moderates, want the U.S. government to do all sorts of things to the film maker and I guess a few family members of the murdered embassy staff would also like their government to stomp on him.

I must say that the rioting thugs in Sydney look like a pretty evil bunch themselves.  I wouldn’t want some of them living in my street.

Top Shelf

I recently met a young Filipino (soon to become Australian) family.  I had advertised a coffee maker and they came to buy it. 

Colloquially, Top Shelf means ‘the best’.  In our case Top Shelf means it ends up on a top shelf through lack of use and that is what the coffee maker did and I thought I would get rid of it.  

The young couple were pretty interested, but I could see that it wasn’t going to suit their needs, so I talked them out of it.     They were astonished that I did so and couldn’t quite believe it.   Instead I offered them a near new percolator type of coffee machine at far lesser price and they very happy.     We got to talking and when they left they had a large bundle of my Swiss Chard (silverbeet) a bag of lemons and a nice computer loaded with games for their kids.   The next day I came home to find a message on my answering machine inviting me to dinner.  Unfortunately I had a previous engagement and drove to their place to apologise.  The food was being prepared and smelled delightful.     I felt bad as they had gone to a lot of trouble.   The husband is a FIFO worker in the North West mining industry and when he returns in two weeks is to be naturalised as an Australian citizen.  They have invited me to attend and I will take photographs of the event.

Rowena, the wife, asked me why I give away computers for free.   I introduced her to the word altruism.

I have the feeling that we are going to keep in contact.

Albany Road trip

Back from our road trip down to Albany.  It was a good trip although the weather was cold and windy for the first three days.    We crammed ten eMacs into Dennis’s ute and they seemed to survive a detour back to Albany along a bumpy track.  I have started the process of doing a ‘clean install’ of the operating system on each machine and loading them with appropriate software.  The school they came from is a small private primary school and the Macs were obviously bought configured for the lowest cost.  They do not have a DVD drive which means loading a more up to date operating system means a bit of a work around.   Enough techo-talk!

Albany has a population of around 25,000 and is very hilly in parts.  The city calls those hills mountains.   There are many colonial buildings and houses as well as modern houses.  It is a very pretty town which I have renamed ‘Roundabout and no right-turn City’.  Albany is the largest town/city in W.A. or even Australia. without any traffic lights.  There are hundreds of roundabouts and not one traffic light.

Some Albany oldies....

Roughly half way to Albany from Fremantle is the town of Kojonup.  Many South Western towns have an ‘up’ at the end of the name. ‘up’ is aboriginal for ‘place of’.  There is a small military museum in Kojonup which it is claimed as the oldest surviving colonial building in the state.  It was established in 1830s when a military outpost was established to protect travellers on the Albany/Perth track.  The building is in good repair, but unfortunately was not open when we passed through town.

I had some time to myself in Albany so went on an antique shop tour.   I spied an old cafe sugar dispenser and grabbed it @ $1.00.    I have always thought them to be very practical and it will stop me spreading sugar over the kitchen bench when I am adding sugar to a coffee.


And now for your laugh segment at my expense.

I have recently had my GP issue me a script for a more powerful cream for my rash on my legs and arms.  On Friday morning I opened the new cream and smeared some on my legs and arms.  During the morning it became sticky and stuck to my trousers.  I decided to wash it off in the shower.  I collected a bit of the cream on my finger, tasted it and realised I had medicated myself with toothpaste.  Lesson here; put glasses on before using medication.

Fathers' Day at Fremantle

Fathers Day was a biggy for me.  Helen and James took me to Fremantle City where we visited the Freo markets, a nice brewery/restaurant and a bit of a Freo pub crawl ending up at Little Creatures Brewery in the fishing boat harbour.  Quite a few drinks, good food and music.  I haven’t been to Fremantle for pleasure in many years even though my house is only 10 kilometres away.    Most enjoyable.

Tomorrow we are driving to Albany.  Dennis is delivering an antique drawing table to an artist friend there and I am collecting 9 computers to bring back to Fremantle.  We are staying in town for three nights and hope the weather calms down so we can do the touristy thing.  There is much to see in historic Albany.  Some pics when we return.

I have been looking at a vintage pocket watch I have.  To restore or not, that is the question.     It is an American Waltham Traveler made in 1890 or thereabouts.  It needs a Bezel and Crystal which in layman’s terms means, watch glass rim and the actual glass.  I have had a quote by an Australian repairer at $490.00 which includes cleaning the movement.  This watch has no family heritage attached to it, in fact I don’t know how it came into our possession.  Perhaps Joan, my late wife, bought it for me and never got around to having it repaired?  I will now never know.

I cannot image myself at a gathering, reaching into a waistcoat pocket, hauling out the gold pocket Waltham exclaiming  ‘Dear me, is it really 4pm?’

Two very brave Russians

Two political opponents of Russia’s President Putin have written and had published a book on Vladimir Putin’s excesses.  Brave fellas!  The all girl band of Pussy Riot got into a bit of trouble when they staged a protest performance aimed at Putin in Moscow’s main cathedral and the three of the band members were rounded up and sentenced to two years in the big house.

The book about Putin and all his goodies which are quite extraordinary by any ruler’s account certainly places him in a league of the animals of George Orwell’s novel, Animal Farm.

‘All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal that others’.

Vlad struts a bit of machismo....see here.

Some of Vlad’s riches.

Me and the Big C

I have thought of closing down Joan’s blog...’Me and the Big C’ and yesterday I had a look at the stats and was surprised to see a large number of people searching for Cancer topics on her blog.   By far there were two main searches...’The Silence of the Dying’ and Xeloda.  There were other topic searches of course and the blog has changed from one where people followed a journey to one for, hopefully, helpful information.

I also felt that I should leave it for myself and our family.  Later I will have it printed.

I have been offered some 25 Mac computers from a school in Albany.  It is about two years since we drove down there and so thought I would drive down and bring back at least 10 machines in my car.  My friend Dennis decided that we should both go down for a few days in his large ute and bring them all back.  Good idea!  Albany is a most pleasant small city at the bottom of Western Australia.    I have an ex-student teaching at one of the Albany schools and will make an effort to catch up with her.

Mobile phone fine

I am probably talked about in our cul-de-sac as the looney who grows vegetables in his front yard.  My Broad Beans have flowered and already small beans are abundant.  I don’t mind if the neighbours think I am an old Italian gardener...the front of the house points north into the sun and is the best place for vegies on our block.
A couple of times I have had to search amongst the Broad Beans to find the morning newspaper. I reckon the bean patch would present a nice target.

Talking about loonies;  in this morning’s newspaper there is a report about a Senior Police Constable in the seaside town of Mandurah giving an infringement ticket to a woman using a mobile phone whilst in control of a vehicle.  The fine for this offence is $250.00. and three demerit points.

Yes, the woman was using her mobile whilst in charge of a...wait for it...pram.  She was walking her baby along a footpath/sidewalk and foolishly answered her mobile.  Fortunately senior police officers recognised a problem with the infringement and cancelled the ticket an apologised to the woman.  The looney cop had mis-interpreted the law involved and probably shouldn’t show his face around town for a while.

Embryonic Diapause

I suspect that my mailing list has been compromised.  I am receiving a few emails from people I know; their names appear on the header but the email addresses aren’t theirs. 

Not a worry at the moment, but it will spook me if others start receiving emails purporting to be me.

U.S. Congress hopeful Todd Akin, a Republican candidate, has severely embarrassed Presidential candidate Romney with a wacky statement saying that the female body can shut down conception in the case of true rape.   He is a right-to-lifer and opposes abortion even in cases of aggravated rape.  His claim is that doctors have told him that in cases of true rape, the female does not conceive.  Looney and soon to be a loser!

I imagine that many a rape victim forced to carry the child of a rapist to full term might not afford it true motherly affection.

Maybe he was thinking of what Kangaroos can do in times of extreme drought.  Kangaroos can ‘freeze’ the development of an embryo in a process called Diapause if they are still nursing a previous newborn.

A big day in

Yesterday we had a luncheon at my place which went on until around 5pm. Beef roast, lots of vegetables and salads courtesy of Helen and James. Also along were brother Graham and Helen and James' friends and house guests, Scotty and Chrissie and their lovely 14 month old daughter Sarah who provided much of the entertainment for us all. Sarah is a remarkably smart and funny kid. I have yet to hear her cry.

                                       Sarah with her beer hat on.

Scotty and Chrissie have shifted back to W.A. From Queensland and have both secured well paying jobs. They have bought a house quite close to here and will move in around about 10 days. Their two horses (Great Danes) will come out of their boarding kennels and settle in at the new house. The plan is to remove a swimming pool in the back yard and grass the whole area for the dogs.

Keel haul them!

The Australian shock jocks and even ABC and SBS TV are running with a headline story about Pirates.

A Norwegian car-carrier ship en route to Singapore from Fremantle, MV Parsifal, responded to an Australian search and rescue organisation which had received a distress call from a refugee boat supposedly sinking. The Parsifal took the 67 refugees on board, but when they were informed that they were heading for Singapore and not an Australian territory (Christmas Island) they understandably became 'agitated'. The Captain decided to change course and take them to Christmas Island.  Christmas Island is a slight diversion from the Fremantle-Singapore route.

Then came the media beat up... Pirates story. The Captain later stressed that there was no piracy, the refugees threatened self harm. There was no threat to his crew.

It is most likely that the ship's owners advised the Captain to land them on Christmas Island as there would have most certainly been costly delays in Singapore whilst that government wrangled over who was to take them.

The Leader of the Opposition, Tony Abbott, said he would have sent in the SAS.

What a load of codswallop!

In this morning's newspaper there are letters suggesting such acts are pure piracy.
Keel haul 'em and hang 'em from the yardarm.

Bride Running Away

When our daughter Helen was about ten years old she painted this pic...

It's not bad at all..she hadn't perfected her human figures at that stage.

Just kiddin...it was painted by Arthur Boyd in the early 1950s and was just auctioned for the princely sum of A$1.68 Million. I am, even at the age of 72, a bit puzzled as why such art is so valuable. I guess it is investment value.

The Australian government has just caved in to the opposition about how to deal with boat people arriving at Australia's Christmas Island. Christmas Island is just a spit away from Indonesia from where most of the boats depart. Everyone (except the Greens) now agrees that offshore detention in Papua New Guinea and the small nation of Nauru will deter reffos who think they will get a quick trip into Australian residency. Not sure that will actually work.... but?

The government previously built expensive detention centres in Australia and now these will not be needed. Two of these in Western Australia; one at Leonora which is desert-side of Kalgoorlie and the other at Northam which is about 60 miles from Perth city will probably fall into disuse. The Mayor of the small town of Leonora is whinging about the fact that the town relies heavily on the detention centre for its local economy. The Mayor of Christmas Island is also saying the same thing. Both communities initially whinged about the establishment of the detention centres, but now have changed their mind.

Down and Up

Today I start my preparations for tomorrow's Gastroscopy and Colonoscopy. Low (just about everything) diet and at 6pm I commence drinking the four litres of 'Colonlyte'. I don't mind the actual procedure because I don't know it is happening. Brother Graham is delivering me into the hospital and collecting me when it is all over.

A friend Dennis, recalls having a colonoscopy in a clinic with maybe a dozen other people in line for the same procedure. He thought it unlikely that the medicos had a couple of dozen endoscopes and wondered how the autoclave would cope with a couple of instruments being used over and over in a relatively short time. I won't concern myself with that detail.

I have a colonoscopy every four years because of a family history of colon cancer. It is estimated that bowel cancers take around four years to present.

I recently had a Rotary Club sponsored blood-faecal test which came back as negative for a bowel cancer. The results cautioned that the test does not conclusively rule out a bowel cancer, as some cancers do not bleed into the bowel. My wife Joan also had a negative result with a test she did around three years ago, but sadly her bowel and metastatic liver cancer was not detected. GPs are cautious about the real benefits of this easy test.

Today I am 'Skipper' when Helen, James and I drive up to Hillary's to have lunch with Joan's sister Dorothy. I don't know what I will have to eat as I am instructed to abstain from.....'Milk or milk products, pulp. Pips or seeds, stock cubes, green, red or purple food colouring. No solid food, no chewing gum and no agar jelly. Looks like warm water for me.

For a humorous take on a Colonoscopy see here.

Postscript: Correction...it  is a Gastroscopy and Colonoscopy.    It went well and I have nothing but a small hernia in the oesophagus and some minor diverticulitis in the sigmoid colon.    The Doc told me to have another colonoscopy in eight years if I am still going.  Nice guy!

Grumpy old bugger!

So Syria's President Assad's Prime Minister and all his family have skipped the country. He says it is because the Assad regime is bad and he wants to distance himself from it. More like he can see the writing on the wall and knows what will happen to him and his family when Assad falls. Same goes for pilots and generals who have deserted. Ex-Prime Minister Hijab and 10 relatives and their families are in a 'Safe Haven and in Safe Hands'.

The West has been supporting, in words at least, the rebels. So what will happen when the rebels eventually bring down the government and it reverts to an anti-western regime of Muslim fundamentalists? Probably like other Arab Spring Middle East countries, Syria will not be so accommodating to Westeners as it has been in the past. The Christians of Syria have been pretty -well left alone by the Assad regime. A sectarian Muslim regime may not be so benign.

I am thinking of having my newspaper delivery stopped. I don't read it thoroughly enough and most of the articles are are of little interest to me. When the comics at the rear of the paper are the most interesting part, I reckon I can get the real news from radio, TV and the internet.

Grumpy old bugger aint I?

The Olympics

I am slightly underwhelmed by the Olympics. It always seems to promote a fair bit of Nationalism.

Watching a couple of events last night I was struck by the physical appearance of most of the female athletes. Are breasts a serious impediment to success? They don't seem to worry the Williams sisters. I am sure there is no hormonal treatment involved.

There are a few ads which pop up on web pages and FaceBook that deserve a bit of scorn.

There are the “Congratulations, you have won...' types.

'The Doctors Hate her' types.

The '"crazy old secret makes this so easy" ads.

And the overstocked iPads from $24.95 scams. 

Donations to Charities

Since my wife Joan died, I have made donations to organisations which support cancer sufferers. I was happy to give substantial monies to two organisations. I have also been giving a monthly donation to the another world-wide charity as a 'Humanitarian Partner' to support their various causes.

I am perfectly happy to donate to good causes, but resent the double-up they follow up with. All three organisations have mailed me; a couple, several times, seeking more donations for another of their projects. I know I am no orphan on this one...friends who have been good enough to support a good cause have also been hounded for more donations. 

There...I feel better with that off my chest.

 In yesterday's post I received a letter  from the funeral home which had done Joan's funeral service.
The letter was in collaboration with Curtin University.  It was a survey of partners of a deceased loved one assessing their physical and mental well-being.
The Study Title is: A population based approach to bereavement support: a Western Australian community survey.
There were a number of sections to the study. Most focusing on the health and bereavement process, with lots of questions on support offered by medical professionals and palliative care staff and the Funeral Director.  The questions had the usual check boxes rating all aspects of treatment and palliative care as well as postmortem follow up for the partner.
There were spaces for personal observations and I felt like writing that I was going along nicely until I had to go through all that pain again.    Still, I am glad that I was allowed to participate in the survey.   Generally I was well satisfied with the treatment and palliative care for my wife.  I wasn't happy with the outcome, but no one could have done better than the medicos who sincerely tried their best to save Joan.

Calcium batteries

Daughter Helen's car, a Ford Fiesta, is just two years old and the battery has failed. It is a sealed 'Calcium' battery. The dealer tells me that there is a 1, (that's ONE) year warranty on the battery. Gone are the days when a backyard mechanic like me could test the battery cells with a hydrometer and if necessary top up the acid levels with distilled water. A load test is required to determine if the battery is still good and that is what the RAC call out man determined....the battery is dead. This was late on Saturday and he suggested that I call the RAC battery replacement guy to fit a new battery. I didn't have much choice by then so I agreed and about 90 minutes later the van arrived and the battery was replaced. 'Just swipe your card here sir and $171 bucks will be sucked out'.

Older cars must have been less demanding on their batteries because I have had many batteries last 4 or more years.It is claimed that 'Calcium' batteries are expected to last longer than Lead Acid batteries.  BS!

The young fella who fitted the battery was a recent (4 years ago) immigrant from Afghanistan. He was pleasant, skilled and spoke good English. Not bad seeing he could not speak English when he arrived in Australia. He was not a 'boat person' and had come here through official channels. I asked him if he was Hazara, which didn't get the answer I thought and it became clear that there is a lot of religious conflict within Afghanistan and other Middle East countries and Hazaras are at the bottom of the heap. He wasn't one of 'em. I didn't ask him what shade of the Muslim faith he was.

                                                Goodbye old friends.

Colonoscopy

This morning I drove my brother to Subiaco, a suburb west of Perth city to St John of God hospital. I could have done it with my eyes closed as we drove that route some 50 times when Joan was undergoing chemotherapy there. Brother Graham was going for a colonoscopy and had fasted and drunk the 4,000 litres of PicoPrep to make sure his bowel was cleaned out for the 20 meter flexible camera which was to travel up his rear end. I'm not sure about those figures, but he probably feared they might be accurate. He usually has a large breakfast, so I decided to tell him about my sausage and potato mash fry up....not impressed!

When I was summonsed by the hospital in the afternoon to collect him, I parked in a spot near Joan's oncologist's office and through his window saw him smiling into a computer screen. I had an immediate small meltdown. Here was this pleasant man who tried his best to save my Joan. I wasn't up to going in to his office to thank him and his staff for their efforts. Maybe another time.

A fellow traveller on the cancer road, Gillian who lives in England, lost her husband to cancer. She has urged me to not look for what might or might not have been. Good advice!

Early the same morning I had an urgent phone call from my daughter Helen. Her car had a flat battery, so I raced around to their place and with Helen pushed her car up a steep driveway so that I could manoeuvre my car into close proximity to use my jumper cables. It started and I gave her my cables in case the half hour journey to work was not enough to start the car after work. It was as I thought and she had a colleague help her jump start the car to drive home. It is in my garage at the moment and I have charged the battery and will try and see what the problem is tomorrow. The battery is a sealed type and is just two years old. It may be that a light is on draining the battery and I will go into the garage when it gets dark and see if anything is actually on.

Leyland P76

Years ago I owned a Leyland P76 sedan. It was a much ridiculed car but I liked it. The Sydney Powerhouse Museum has one suspended from the ceiling in the main hallway. Whenever I drove out I would see them everywhere.   P76 story here.

Events and disabilities seem to present to me in the same way. I had two friends and a couple of acquaintances with Parkinson's Disease and since then it would seem that I hear of and see many people so afflicted. Mention liver cancer and people have a story about a friend or relative suffering the same.

I have a friend in Queensland who is running down to the end with Parkinson's. He has led an interesting life, but it is a sad way to go. Hope I go with a sudden flick of the switch. Getting old is a bastard.

 I have been placing a notice on a nearby shopping centre notice board offering free Macs to needy folks.  Had a few takers, but some dipstick is ripping the notice down.   A PC nutter?? Number 4 notice going up today.

Settling In

Yesterday I visited my cousin Edward (Ted). After a nice lunch he showed me his 3D capable TV. It isn't new; they have had it for a couple of years, but one of the TV channels has just started broadcasting in 3D. It was very impressive. The 3D broadcast is not in the jumbled colour system which most people would have experienced, but looks like the the 19^th century stereoscopes where there were two pictures of the same scene taken with a camera viewed through the left hand and right hand eye. The current 3D films appear to be in that format. Special glasses, battery powered, certainly make the picture 'stand out'.

Later I went to my local shopping centre to buy some blank CDs. The local Yugoslav bench sitters had already taken up their positions on every bench seat in the entire centre. They are all elderly blokes (like me) and they converse loudly... it looks like argument; and gesticulate whilst little old ladies needing a sit-down shuffle by. I haven't noticed if it is a daily thing or whether it is only a few days a week. In Fremantle city the main mall used to be the meeting place for old Italian fellas. There was a recent article in the daily newspaper about how immigrants tend to settle in certain areas of the metro area. This is not peculiar to Australia, every city in the world would have ethnic areas for one reason or another. Here in Western Australia there are large areas where British migrants live. South Africans, Vietnamese and now Somalian immigrants congregate in their own areas. The British and South Africans usually assimilate with an Australian accent after the first generation, but often the non English speakers take much longer.

Not a biggy. If one believes the movie The Adventures of Barry MacKenzie, all Australians in Britain live in Earls Court in London

Win some...lose some

Brother Graham and I had a boys' day out in Perth city. I haven't been into the city for a couple of years and we found Friday afternoon to be very busy and pleasant.

We bussed it to the train station after buying a 'Day Rider' ticket each. Graham's ticket cost $11.50 and mine, being an oldie, cost $4.40. Great value, as one can ride busses, trains and ferries all day.

In the city we dined at an underground (meaning below ground level) eatery and then sampled a few beers at a variety of pubs. That's where things got expensive....beers in Perth are dearer than most Australian cities @ $10.00 a pint. 

 It was rush hour when we headed back home and the train was full. Looking around our carriage I found that Graham and I and another young couple were the only passengers not listening to, or fiddling with, an iPhone.

From Graham's house I called a taxi for the $20.00 ride home. The driver wasn't interested in looking at my 'Day Rider' ticket.

Parking in Perth City is expensive, so the plan for future visits is public transport @ $4.40 per day.

Statutory Declaration

Yesterday I returned to the Aboriginal lady's house and asked her if anyone else had used her computer to rack up the excessively large bill from her ISP. She assured me that she was the only person to use it and the computer was disconnected and moved to another room a month before the last two billing periods. She showed me a diary she keeps which told of disconnecting and moving the computer into storage.

I suggested she ring the service provider and explain that to them and if they would not come to the party she would offer to make a Statutory Declaration stating the facts. She later rang the provider and was transferred to India and talked with Optus Billing. They immediately offered to cut the bill in half. It would seem that the Statdec had worked. I would have demanded the entire bill less the contracted service fee of $14.80 be wiped, but she accepted their offer. She is relieved and I have helped as much as I could.

I felt somewhat obliged to help more than I usually do with most people I give a machine to, as Joan and I knew her late husband when we taught in Papua New Guinea.

Clinical Trial

It is around 18 months since my wife Joan died. She was in a 'trial' to test the efficacy of combining chemotherapy and radiotherapy. The trial had two groups; one where radiotherapy was given at the beginning and chemo later and the other group where chemo was first. Unfortunately Joan drew the short straw and was placed in the latter cohort where chemotherapy was the main attack on the disease and radiotherapy as a last resort. Would the other group have saved my Joan?

I recently phoned the Oncologist's office to see if there were any published results that I could look at. They have been tardy getting back to me and I think I will have to actually go to his office ask ask them face to face. It may well be that the trial is still ongoing? I think it is worth pursuing.

Yesterday I collected a computer from an Aboriginal lady which I had given her some three years ago. She rang me suggesting that I take it back because she was not getting any use out of it and thought that I could pass it on to some other needy person. When I drove out to collect the machine she asked me to look at the ISP bill, which had suddenly gone from $14.00 to $86.00 in one month. I took her pile of bills to the Optus shop at a nearby shopping centre and a nice man rang up head office and found that loads of data over her allowance had caused the big bill. I know that she never did anything but email and play a couple of games loaded on the computer. I will talk with her this morning and most probably find that her niece who is staying with her has been looking at YouTube or similar.

On Monday my brother Graham had eye surgery in a day clinic. We went back to the hospital yesterday for a checkup and it seems to have been OK. He has three different eye drops to be administered four times a day for four weeks. He was warned that if he had a cold he would not be able to have the operation. As it happened he had a 'sniffle' when I drove him to the hospital, but he was confident that he could cover up the watery eyes and runny nose with 'death in the family' if the symptoms were noticed. It worked, but he modified the death in the family to 'just lost my girlfriend'......or that's his story.

Astro-nomical

Yesterday evening I was invited around to Helen and James' house for a BBQ, ostensibly to meet their house guests, Scotty and Krissie and Scotty's father Dennis. Scotty and Krissie have moved to Western Australia from Queensland and are staying with Helen and James until they find the right house to buy. Krissie already has a job to start on Monday and Scotty is a go-getter and should get employment very soon. The evening was cold, so the barbecue was moved into James' workshop and as well as cooking some huge steaks, warmed the workshop with a nice roast beef smell.

They brought their two dogs with them. The larger one, named Astro, is like a small horse. Picture of Astro with me in the workshop. He is sitting down!

During the week I received a letter from the W.A. Water Corporation advising me that I was selected to have a plumber visit to replace up to two shower heads for water saving ones, fix all the dripping taps and toilets in and around the house and supply aerators to taps, all for free. At first I was very impressed and pleased by my windfall, but since then I have wondered why/how I was selected. Talking to friends I find that none of them have received a letter with any offers. I am quite capable of maintenance on taps and toilets and I already have one waterwise shower head. Also I am not short of cash, so on Monday I will ring the Water Corp and suggest that they seek out a more needy person to help.

Another piece of mail was from the U.S. advising us that we had hired a car in California between January 1, 2007 and November 14, 2007 and a class action was in progress against some 7 car hire firms. If the card is to be believed it looks as though we would be in for a major award of $2 per day over the hire period of 15 days. Yaaaay!! I think I'll buy a Boeing 747. Can't be bothered.

                         Click to enlarge should you wish to read the details

QWERTY

There is a move to abandon the QWERTY keyboard on phones and computers. The QWERTY layout of the alphabet has always been a bit of a mystery to me. I confess that I have never bothered to find out why the letters were so arranged.

The QWERTY arrangement has been around since 1878 and was designed mainly to stop typewriter 'arms' sticking together when typists were typing too fast or using letters alongside each other on the keyboard. When you take a good look at the QWERTY keyboard, so called for the arrangement of the upper left hand row of letters, one can see that it would appear that some perverse designer has arranged the keys to frustrate two-finger pickers like me. Not so.

This attack on the QWERTY keyboard is aimed at simplifying two-thumbed texting on mobile devices. It won't help me speed up when I get around to texting.

                  The non-QWERTY keyboard designed by a Queenslander

Northam W.A.

Yesterday I drove with my cousin Val to Northam about 97 kilometres from Perth. We visited Val's daughter Anne and Neil her husband and their two kids. Anne is a police officer in the town and Neil is a long distance truck driver doing 5,000 kilometres a week delivering diesel fuel to an isolated mine site past Kalgoorlie.

Northam is a pleasant, colonial era town which has the Avon River running through it.  The Avon Descent is an annual white water race of all sorts of water craft over a grueling 133 kilometre race from Northam to Perth waters.  It attracts Australia wide and international competitors to this two day event.

We had a very nice lunch and later a coffee at a smart local venue. Before we left for home we visited a wonderful house on top of hill overlooking the town. Joan and I inspected this house maybe 25 years ago, when it was for sale for $85,000. It needed quite a bit of work to bring it up to standard and a number of other factors made us give it a miss. We did not know how we would go both gaining employment as teachers in the town; we had just bought a boat moored on the Swan River and our kids didn't want to move to a different school away from their friends...all good reasons not to shift from our own colonial house near Fremantle.

It was a nice drive and a most pleasant 'catch up' with family.

Here is that Northam house yesterday. Sitting pretty on about an acre of land I expect that it would be worth about $1M+ now.

Backyard pools

On the national news front there is a story about a child drowning in a neighbor's backyard pool in 2006.  The neighbor has just been charged with not maintaining a secure pool fence.

Every household in W.A. with a backyard swimming pool has to register it with the local council and regular inspections are made by council officials. Special childproof locks and fences ensure that kids cannot easy have access to the water and possibly drown. Our pool in Bicton was regularly inspected and we had to make some modifications to security over the years, but when we tired of swimming and converted it into a large pond, council informed us that we no longer had to stay on the register and security was not an issue. So kids can't drown in a pond?
I figured that every council has small lakes within their areas and to fence them off would be very expensive and certainly look crappy. And so that is how we had an unregistered pool/pond without inspections. Crazy??  The pond was at least a metre deep.

                                    Click to enlarge

A second in time

The so-called leap second was added to electronic clocks at midnight universal time on Saturday, with Atomic clocks reading 23 hours, 59 minutes and 60 seconds before then moving on to Greenwich Mean Time.....whatever all that means?

It seems that the Earth is slowing down from the effect of the tidal pull of the moon and so, periodically, timekeepers have to adjust the official Atomic clocks. Follow that?? No questions please.

There were some unexpected glitches soon after the adjustments were made...websites went down....QANTAS systems shut down etc etc.

The Millennium Bug, was supposed to create havoc with computers worldwide, but in fact nothing significant happened. In the midst of the scare, quite a few businesses were established offering fixes for the impending doom of January 1, 2000.