Where's.......?

What evil lurks beneath the keys of a Graphic Artist’s Keyboard?

I get computers donated from  an Australia-wide printing company and the condition of the keyboards is an indication of the work the graphic artists do when stuck in front of  a computer for a full day.  I imagine they snack, pluck nose hairs and drink coffee whilst on the job and a goodly amount of those waste products end up in the keyboard hiding under the keys.  

Click the pics to embiggen them.

This is a closeup of part of the board.  See if you can see a staple, some eyebrow hairs, odd bits of coloured paper and some aluminium foil resting in a soft bed of fluff.

When I get keyboards I remove all the keys and wash them in hot soapy water. The boards themselves need a solid brushing and a blast with compressed air.  Then finally, the glue (coffee/hair/crumbs), is wiped out with warm water and cotton wool buds.  The keyboard is reassembled using another board to remind me where most of the keys go.

At one school at which I did relief teaching after my retirement, miscreant youths would rearrange the keys in preparation for the next class.  I had to come down heavy on that practice.

Keeping the brain active

I recently supplied a computer to a woman for her daughter’s high school studies. For several days on my kitchen bench, I had given the computer a good run playing music and doing web searches etc.  It was running fine.  A couple of days ago she rang me to tell me it wouldn’t start and that they had been unsuccessful connecting to the wifi modem she had in the house.   I loaded up another machine as a backup, tested it on my modem which is identical to hers and drove to her place, around 40 kilometres from here.  The original computer started up OK and I figured that the power cable had been dislodged.  I could not get a connection by wifi as I believe one of the kids had changed the password.  I brought both machines back home and purchased an ethernet cable and will return this morning to make a wired connection to her modem.  This project can end up costing me.

Every time I think I have had enough of this project (it has been around 12 years now) I get offered some more Macs and I cannot knock them back when I know they would otherwise go to landfill.

This is an Apple eMac.  This model was destined for educational institutions only, hence the 'e' in the name.  It was very popular and was very soon sold to the public. It, like me, is getting a bit old in the tooth. But also like me, still works pretty well.

Driving to her place yesterday I experienced what thousands of daily commuters do....a major traffic jam.  It took me almost an hour to cover the first 12 kilometres.  I will wait until later in the morning when the traffic thins out before heading up to her place again.

Our son Martin is settling into his new job as a maintenance man at a hotel.  The range of repairs and general maintenance is extensive.  He comes home very tired, but satisfied that he is doing well.

Lance Armstrong

Thanks Lance for alerting us all to the fact that many sports people use performance enhancing drugs. Lance didn’t actually say that, but after all the publicity about LA coming out about his drug use, it would seem that all sorts of sports have had a serious dabble with drugs.  Football, rugby and soccer teams have fessed up.  Next, some disaffected lawn bowls player will blow the whistle on his/her team mates.  We all now know that cycling and horse racing is a bit dodgy and I seriously wonder how anyone could think that Championship Wrestling is real, but football codes being a bit naughty is something else.  What next...cricket?

Here is a pic of  a crow secreting excess food from my back yard in a pencil-pine tree.  He/she will return and consume it at the proper meal time.

I like the internet, but it is a medium open to abuse and untruths.  This story about KFC is so outlandish that it is hard to see how anyone could believe it...but lots of people do. A simple way to recognise a hoax is the line ‘please forward this message to as many people as you can’.     'Snopes' is the premium source to check out and debunk such messages.

Google Snopes and type KFC in the search space.  Worth a read.

A short story

During our week in Bali, cousin Val and I had many conversations about family and related happenings.   One was particularly interesting, wherein Val told me of some neighbours who went feral and created big problems for her family.  I urged her to write it up as a short story and she has done so, with names and places changed. Congrats Val!

LORRAINE

  She held my hand tightly and smiled at me as I said “ Do you remember me?”.She gazed at me and slowly said “ Yes I do, you were my lovely neighbour in Crew Street all those years ago” She had been quite beautiful back when I had first known her; tall and slender, brown skinned with lustrous black hair but now she looked ill and old. She also had a damaged eye. It looked as if she had been cut right across the eye and eyebrow with something sharp. I didn’t want to think of how that might have happened. 

      I worked in that hospital and had noticed her name on the inpatient list and I decided to visit her, not sure what her reaction would be. We had a troubled past Lorraine and I.

     We were both young married women with toddlers when she and her family moved in next door to us and although we never got to the coffee morning stage of friendship, we would chat over the back fence and most mornings her two littlies Susan and Kenny came into my yard to play with my 2 and 4yr old sons.  They arrived chubby and shiny and bubbling with excitement, because today might be the day I would take them on a picnic.  With no money and no car I was limited in what I could do to entertain 4 children but a picnic was do-able. It was walking distance to Queens Gardens and a much longer walking distance to Hyde Park but on a nice day, a very pleasant walk. Usually the children, mine and hers, would just play in the sand heap my husband had made and their imaginations turned the cartons and boxes I put out for them into anything they wanted them to be. But picnic days were the best.

      One washing day, while pegging out clothes, sheets nappies etc, she told me the news that would change everything --- and for the worse.  She was pregnant with twins. All was well until I offered to help, perhaps at bath time. But “No “ she said “ my sister is coming to help me, she was brought up in the Mission like me”   “ Lovely” I said. But it wasn’t lovely. Anything but. Her sister arrived with her own 8 children who I found were feral, little thieves. The very few actual toys my children had, gifts from my parents and grandmother, all disappeared within days, and I learned very quickly not to leave outside any object I wanted to keep. And although I knew where things had gone I didn’t complain or request a return, thinking that this state of affairs would not continue for too long and we would return to normal. However I was wrong.

     Her sisters  “help” degenerated into drinking, and as the drinking continued the downslide  into arguments and indeed, fights, began. The happy little ones who were such a pleasure, became surly and joyless and no longer came into my yard to play. At first Lorraine’s husband Bill, just complained angrily about the chaos and mess in the home and the state of the neglected children, but it wasn’t long before he started drinking too.  The sister eventually left, but we never returned to our previous easy relationship. In fact a lot of verbal abuse came our way along with rubbish thrown over the dividing fence, and I could no longer allow my children to play outside.

       One terrible Saturday, a day I would like to forget, I heard an odd sound at the front of our house and I went to investigate. To my horror Bill was holding Susan by the wrist and beating her across the lower back with a hockey stick and the sound I heard was the breath leaving her body in gasps. Running back into my house, I tried to get my husband to stop the beating, he refused to get involved but he did phone the police.

     The result was one I should have anticipated but in my ignorance of such matters I did not. The welfare of the children must have been uppermost in the minds of the authorities and they were all removed from Lorraine and  Bill’s care, and they had no doubt who was to blame for that. After one particularly savage night of abuse that went on for hours, we realised we had to move. We had been saving for years to buy our own home and although we didn’t have enough to buy what we would have liked, we bought what we could afford at that time. 

       Moving was difficult, my four children had been born there and although it was substandard housing, it was the only home they had known and we had been happy until recent events. We didn’t see Lorraine or her children for many years, but did read in the West Australian of Bill’s death and later of Susan’s engagement, that is until I visited Lorraine in the hospital.

     She seemed to have no memory of the bad times and we spoke of where all our children were now, who was married and who lived where, and I found Kenny was married and lived in the same suburb as my oldest son, and that Susan also was happily married  She held my hand  throughout my visit and when I got up to leave, she begged me to come again. I did go back and we talked again in the same easy way and I realised that I had not been wrong in my original high opinion of her, that she was a victim of circumstance and time. That by the grace of God it might have been me.

       She was discharged soon after my second visit and to my great sorrow I read of her death about a month later.  :You could say she was a victim of the demon drink, but it was more than that. The veneer of quiet capability and serenity she had, was not strong enough against the pressures of the world in which she lived. Even now so many years later, on thinking back over my part in her life, I couldn’t in all conscience say I would do anything different. That I was responsible for having her children taken from her is a burden I still carry and putting myself in her position doesn’t help. Also, I wonder if I should have admitted that fact to her when I met her again, but I have to say  I was so relieved that she did not remember that; it would have been impossible to bring it up and I was too cowardly to do so.

     So it is with mixed feelings that I remember Lorraine, but I will never forget the beauty of that lustrous long black hair and her tall slender form, and the quiet voice and the charm of the person I first met all those years ago.  

Vaccinations

Last night I watched a TV program hosted by the actor Ewan McGregor.  It was about a Unicef program to vaccinate isolated village children in rural India.  The program was called Ewan McGregor: Cold Chain Mission which referred to the chain of freezer stations designed to keep the vaccines cold and viable as the vaccination team moved into isolated areas.   I was impressed to see villagers lining up for life saving vaccinations for their children.   In Australia there are parents who refuse to allow their children to be vaccinated citing the chances of nasty side effects.  Oh darlings, remember Polio? 

In 1962, Indonesian President Sukarno ordered the invasion of Dutch New Guinea, which was the western half of the island of Papua New Guinea and Netherlands New Guinea.  The Dutch had conceded their colony, Indonesia, earlier and gave up their New Guinea colony without too much argy-bargy.   At that time I was Teacher-in-Charge of Arehava PS in the Gulf of Papua.  The Australian administration of  The Territory of Papua New Guinea was concerned that the invaders may bring smallpox to the Dutch side and that it could jump the border into T.P. &.N.G.  Areas closer to the border ( Arehava is about 350km from the border)were to be contacted for a vaccination program and a team fronted up to my school to vaccinate pupils and villagers.  To show that it wasn’t going to hurt, I went first, but not one other person would have the shot as they believed that it was an Australian mark and if the Indonesians invaded their village, those with the Australian mark would be shot.   The Indos didn’t invade and smallpox was not a problem.  I still have the Australian mark on my shoulder.

Private Health Insurance

Our son Martin starts work this morning in his new job.  He has me, and a friend who is in the house restoration business, to call on if he gets into a sticky situation with  a maintenance job outside his experience.  He starts at 7am and finishes around 3 - 3.30pm.  Being ‘on salary’  means he can be required to work outside normal hours without overtime payment.  Hope it all goes well today. 

Scrubs up pretty well hugh?

The state elections are running down to voting day next weekend.  In all the spin from both sides I have the most concern for the incumbent government’s plan to privatise some public hospital services such as dietician, physio, counselling etc.  During my wife’s specialised treatment for cancer at a large private hospital we experienced the drop-by visit by a dietician who had a short chat and later we received a largish bill.  ‘Not used to that and I would not like to see it happen in public hospitals such as the Fiona Stanley hospital which is to open its doors next year.  

In Australia, treatment at a public hospital is free.  The patient is asked if he/she has private health insurance, but there is no legal requirement to disclose membership of a fund.  Sadly, those who do admit to being in a private health fund will have to pay a gap fee on services provided.  People who do not have health insurance have no gap to pay.       We had and I now have, private insurance and in the end it paid off.  Immediate treatment and most services covered...one for $16,000 for a day surgery for SIRT treatment for Joan's liver cancer.

Private patients can get non-urgent major surgery such as hip replacement with a short wait for a hospital bed, but public patients join a waiting list and may be waiting for up to 18 months.

Altruism

Been very busy getting our son Martin outfitted for his new job starting Tuesday.  He is to be the Maintenance Man at a riverside hotel near Fremantle, which will involve cleaning, gardening, general maintenance and some technical stuff looking after any problems with the hotel’s TV systems.   We have spent some time looking into toilet systems and water tap repairs.  Hope he isn’t presented with a major problem that both of us cannot easily solve.

The Australian government is very nice to unemployed citizens and when they have eventually gained employment, support them with limited funds for clothing, tools, public transport costs and other personal items to ensure they can start work looking and feeling good with themselves.

I collected some good computer gear over the last week and some have already been placed with needy folks.   When I am given people’s discards I assure the donor (s) that I will do a ‘clean install’ of the operating system to wipe all previous data.  One machine presented with a dead DVD drive, so I pulled the Mac apart and replaced it with one of a pile of spares I have. It took three ‘tear downs’ before I found a good drive.  I can now do a ‘tear down’ of that model eMac blindfolded.   Last night a young African fellow came to my house to collect a laptop I had prepared for his family.

There are a couple of welfare organisations who lean on me regularly with requests for  computers and I am happy to help out where I can, but I have not fully explained who I am and how I work by myself.  I am not a registered charity and receive no funding or tax relief for the costs involved. A recent request was for three computers for a family who live at least 50 kilometres from my house.  Often the reception I get when I deliver a machine, set it up and give the recipient half an hour instructions with telephone backup, suggests that it is thought that I am employed within the government welfare system.  Regardless of that, I still think it is all worthwhile.  Altruism Kev!
There are a few other organisations, such as the 'Men's Sheds' which do similar work to me, but there is a cost, albeit small; around $60.00, for one of their refurbished computers and no deliveries, training or backup thankyou.

I have previously mentioned an old old pocket watch I have. It is a Waltham Traveller and it needs a glass rim and glass and a clean.  It was made in the U.S. in 1898. I found it in a drawer in the house and I am sure it is not from either side of our families.  Perhaps my late wife Joan bought it and was going to have it repaired and give to me as a present?  I will never know.    I decided to let a jeweller in a local shopping centre have a look at it and give me a quote on its restoration.  He came back with the ridiculous amount of $1,000.  When I said no and started to walk out he offered to buy it from me.  No further conversation there!

Crabbing in the Swan River

Early Sunday morning my son Martin went with his friend Ian into the swan River to catch some crabs.  Ian has a nice boat, but they weren’t too successful, catching only  a dozen decent sized crabs.  They were expensive crabs...fuel for the big outboard engine and some collateral damage to a trailer wheel bearing.  They barely made it back home here before one of the wheels made an attempt to fall off.

                        Martin with the male Blue Manna crabs

The boat was parked on my driveway and we commenced removing the bits that were left of the wheel bearing.  It took some time to determine the correct replacement bearing and when one was sourced we found that the wheel hub was severely damaged by the broken bearing bits and a complete new hub, seals and bearings had to be sourced.  All better now, but whilst that wheel was jacked up I spun No. 3 wheel and it too made an expensive rumbling noise.  The boat was towed to its home very carefully.  Haven’t heard whether that wheel survived the trip.  This was all a good lesson for me as I was considering buying another boat.   Forget the address!

I cooked the crabs and one of them was bold enough to reach out of the pot and try and turn the gas off.  We ate him first.

Good news, Martin has just been successful in his application for a hotel maintenance man.  He will have to brush up his skills in tiling, tap washer replacement etc etc.

Psychiatric silliness

Monday the 25th  is the second anniversary of my wife Joan’s death.   Somehow ‘anniversary’ seems like the wrong word?

The American Psychiatric Association's new diagnostic manual, DSM 5, which is used in many countries including Australia and New Zealand, suggests that if a person grieves over a partner’s death for more than two weeks, he/she could be told that they have a mental disorder and prescribed anti-depressant drugs.    Bonus for the pharmaceutical companies!  DSM 5 is out in May this year.

I would, according to that document, be severely depressed because I still, after 2 years, have a few tears when I think of my 46 years with Joan.

       Joan, when we met, teaching at Bridgetown High School in 1965

Past my 'Use By' date?

It would seem that I have reached my ‘Use By’ date. Today at the local pharmacy the checkout woman (maybe in her late 50s or older) pointed out that the paper bag containing my medications was fastened with a label upon which was my name and address.  ‘To make sure nothing falls out and your address will be helpful if you get lost’.    I know she was only joking.... but. 

  And yesterday I had to call a dentist and give my age and phone number, and the operator said..’I suppose you don’t have a mobile No.?’ Even past my Best-Before date I can still use an iPhone.

I am having my teeth descaled this morning.  I don’t have many teeth left, but guess the process is going to cost plenty.  The last time I had them done at the same dentist, the young Indian dentist was trying for the Guiness Book of records for the fastest descale in the world.  Must have taken 4 minutes!

Fluoridation of the water supply has saved many teeth over the last 50 years, but decay is creeping back and some attribute that to people drinking bottled water not containing flouride, and in an incredible move, the Queensland state government has legislated to allow local government councils to decide if their constituents should have flouridation of their water.  I don’t really see how individual council areas could control what goes or doesn’t go into the water delivered to their boundaries.

Bali retrospective

As Dorothy said...’There’s no place like home’.    I am home and whilst I really like Bali, I am glad to be home where everything works well; the paper appears on the front lawn every morning, all my appliances work and my local supermarket can supply me with everything I need from IT stuff to a side of beef.  And my bed is pure luxury!

In Bali the power outlets are not accompanied by a switch. When a power cord from an appliance is inserted in a socket (at least in our hotel) , a large blue flash and a ‘pop’ occurred.  It seemed that this ‘cooked’ my laptop battery and it would no longer accept a charge.  It still worked when I removed the battery and plugged it into the power outlet directly, however the power adaptor no longer showed a reassuring green light at power-up.

Since returning to Australia both the battery and the charger have decided they like it here and have settled back into their normal routine.

There are a multitude of adaptors for Indonesian power outlets to suit the many countries visitors arrive from. This one is a semi-universal adaptor, however it does not have a secure slot for the three-pronged Australian power cord and I had to tape the Aus cord into the adaptor to stop it falling out. 

The price on the side in Indonesian Rupiah is about $1.50 Australian

Whilst we were in Bali, cousin Val and I had numerous occasions where we were referred to as Mum or Dad; husband and wife.   We always replied with ‘we are just good friends’ which always elicited a response ranging from “Oh OK’ to giggles or winks.  One lovely young waitress at the breakfast area at the hotel couldn’t suppress laughter and an embarrassed expression every time we went for breakfast.

Val is a little older that me and she has looked after me before.  This pic, some 70 years old has me in the kids’ pram being supervised by Val.  It was taken in an era when photographers were advised to stand with the sun behind you which almost always made the subject squint and the photographer’s shadow appear in the photo.  Don’t believe me?..Dig out some ancient photos of the era.

                 Photo taken at our grandparents' farm some 150 miles south east of Perth.

I took some shirts to Bali which were no longer comfortable for me to wear.  I intended to give them to hotel staff and did so to a fellow who serviced my room.  He was very thankfull, and later that evening returned and as I opened the door walked in to my room to thank me again.  He didn't seem to want to leave and when he eventually did leave after a few minutes, I had the  feeling that he was thinking that I was 'one of the Girls'.  

Last full day in Bali

Penultimate day in Bali and we are ready to go home. Yesterday was not the best day we have spent here.  We travelled to Uluwatu to visit the temple on a cliff over the ocean.  The drive afforded plenty of interesting sights as we travelled through rice fields and minor towns and a couple of rural cities, however when we arrived at Uluwatu the scene was entirely different to when Helen James and I visited over a year ago.  Instead of just a couple of stores and a restaurant, now there are hundreds of stores selling all manner of tacky souvenirs.  What was an interesting site with its own miscreant monkeys is now like a showground fair. 

In the evening we took a cab at the exorbitant price of 20,000Rupiah (about A$2) to a nice restaurant we had previously eaten at.  On my last trip to Bali with daughter Helen and son-in-law James we had a couple of nice meals there.   We sat at a table the waiter took our order and before we had time to do anything our order of Nasi Campur was served.  We should have realised that there was no way that the platter could be arranged with hot portions, condiments and salads in that short time.  They were obviously platters left over from lunch and everything was cold.  We couldn’t finish our serves and I regret that I didn’t at least tell them that it wasn’t their usual standard.

At lunchtime today we are off to Legian to collect Val’s tailored clothes and a pair of lounge-about trousers I am having shortened (as I always have to do when I buy trousers).
The driver will drop us off at Hardy’s on the way back and Val is to have a manicure and I will have the full heavyweight foot massage.

Tomorrow we are being collected at 5pm for a transfer to the airport.  Checkout is mid day and we are paying an extra A$15 to keep Val’s room for us to rest before being driven to the airport.  Arriving in Perth at approx. Midnight and we will cab it to Val’s house where my car is parked.  Looking forward to sleeping in my own bed.

A few random pics.

         Cleaning staff.

                                    Mobile general store

                                       Temple

               The big Lobster; once described as a cockroach on steroids

                          Not too many power outlets in our rooms.

Bali scams

A bit more about our hotel at Sanur.    In my room with the aircon working well and a couple of bottles of Bir Bintang on board everything seems good, but everywhere one looks one can see shoddy workmanship and potentially dangerous electrical wiring.  A few examples...

                               Rusty metal cased hair drier

                                Power into my unit

                              Wall outlet hanging from wires only

In a pond near the hotel restaurant there is a fountain made from an aluminium kettle and in the pond are seven very hungry turtles.

When we ventured down to the beachfront at Sanur we visited the last hotel that my wife Joan and I  stayed in some 5 years ago.  The Segara Village Hotel is truly luxurious and if I return I will be booking myself in there for an upmarket holiday. The many beach restaurants in the gentle sea breeze were very attractive and we figured we would eat there one evening.

Today Val and I returned to Hardy’s, our favourite Department store.   It just so happens it is the only Dept. Store in Sanur.  There are dozens of staff wandering around and gathering in small social groups behind merchandise shelves.  They are young people, probably chosen for their looks rather than their ability.  One has to find a staffer who can speak English and keep them with you as you try and find things. Being pleasant goes a long way.  I now know a couple of young ladies who are pleasant and know where things are to be found.  The alternative is to resort to charades or draw a picture of what you are looking for.  I imagine Russian tourists have little chance of finding anyone who speaks Russian.

After making our purchases we adjourned to the tavern next door for a couple of beers  and then waited on a bench at the front of Hardy’s for a taxi to come by.   A young Balinese guy started a conversation and I didn’t realise it was leading up to a scam.  Eventually he claimed that Hardy’s was offering a promotion to advertise a new store opening.  He gave us each a sealed card and invited us to open them.  I had seen similar scams in past visits in which you won a dinner at a large hotel.  What was not mentioned was that you endured a spiel about Time Share.  Cousin Val’s card caused our man to almost scream with delight when she won a chance at ‘the top prize'.   On Val’s card there were three prizes...and when you scratched the magic square she was a cert to win either A$1,000; a week’s accommodation at a top class hotel or at the very least an Apple iPad.  Our man said all we had to do was come with him to his boss’s office close by and the taxi would take us back to our hotel. So we reluctantly got in the cab as we had nothing else to do for the afternoon and it soon became obvious that the ‘Office’ wasn’t close by and he admitted it was in Kuta which at that time of day could be a two-hour trip each way.  We started moaning and he assured us that all we had to do was verify our ID (without any documentation) and tell a white lie that we were not over 70 years of age.  At that we both told him to turn around and take us back to Hardy’s.  He kept telling us that he would miss out on his commission.  No luck mate!  And we were returned to our hotel and he was stuck with a 50,000 Rupia taxi fare.  That is only A$5 but these guys work on commission and he was five bucks down.  Tough!

Later when we were on the beachfront at Sanur I had a haircut and a short, but great head and neck massage for A$5. all up.  Best haircut I have ever experienced.

Bali is still good

Thursday in Bali and we are still getting along fine.  Val and I have never spent so much time together before. We have done the family histories....’remember when you...’ etc etc.  At our age, almost all our recollections are prefaced with ‘I don’t know whether I have told you this before?’   Both of us pretend that we haven’t heard the story before, even when we have.

Yesterday we cabbed it to Legian.  Quite a trip in very heavy traffic with trucks, buses and thousands of motorcycles weaving through larger vehicles.  Some of the bikes carried a family on board.....Dad, mum and kid(s).    No matter how frustrating the congestion was we never saw a single person exhibiting road rage.  We did see a first in all the times I have visited Bali; a minor road accident when a young woman was knocked off her bike by a truck.  She was helped up and was limping, but it didn’t look too serious.  I doubt there is anything like we would experience in Australia...police attendance, statements taken and insurance claims.

Legian is s major low level commercial centre with thousands of roadside stalls selling everything imaginable, from sunglasses to suits with touts for the stalls trying to coax you inside.  Sanur, where we are staying is much less commercial with the tourists here being ‘more mature’ in age.

Whilst we were having a drink in a roadside bar a fellow tried to sell us Australian newspapers.  When that didn’t work he flashed me packets of Viagra and Cialus.  He wouldn’t take no for an answer and continued to demonstrate with a vertical arm how they worked.  It was almost impossible to convince him that neither tablet would be of any use to me. 

Today we are off to our local supermarket to buy items requested by my offspring...knockoff sunglasses, movies etc. Movies sell for A$1 each and you can play them at the shop to verify they are not shot in a movie theatre with a hand-held camera.  I will also have a haircut by a gal who looks like a Bangkok mangirl  (is that the correct term?);  at $4.00 Au.

Lat night instead of heading up to the main drag for dinner we tried out a small restaurant a few metres from our hotel.  Good food at the right price in a nice clean setting!  The menu had a bit of class with one item being 'Gordon Blue'.

Checking my mail last night I found that my friend Joy had sent Tuesday's weather report from home in Perth.   Whilst  Bali doesn't get to 41 celcius, Perth doesn't have the oppressive humidity levels of wet-season Bali.

Day three Bali

Day three in Bali and we have done lots.  Yesterday we went to Kuta to take a look at the big department stores of which the Mata Hari is the largest.  As I recall, the Mata Hari was one large tall building with many departments on different floors. In the last few years it has been rebuilt and all those departments are scattered around the large shopping centre in different locations.  Not sure it is better.    Today we went to Ubud and en-route we took in a Barong & Kris dance.  The whole show took about an hour and the traditional story was updated with a bit of humour inserted for the tourists.  I was impressed with the dance and costumes but would have rather had the Readers Digest Condensed version over half an hour.  The Gamelan orchestra was brilliant and here is a small clip I shot of them playing. Forgive me for including a shot of my feet at the end.

Ouch sorry for the poor quality.  I forgot to take my camera with us and had to borrow cousin Val's little camera to take the Ubud pics and Video.  Sorry for the put-down Val.




In Ubud we dined at the Lotus restaurant.  The food was excellent and the dining area overlooked a large pond and temple.  Everywhere we have eaten the costs have been huge...roughly around 90,000 Rupia for two.   That is about $9. Australian!

This is the hot season here and there are not many Australian tourists about.  We have observed large groups of Dutch, some Germans and Russians; French and Spanish, plus a few languages/nationalities which escape identification.
Tomorrow we are off to Legian where cousin Val hopes to buy some fabrics.  I have ordered a pair of trousers from a small tailor shop near our hotel.  I will also try on some inexpensive trousers at the local supermarket, Hardy’s and get them shortened by the tailor who is making my trousers.

Our hotel is comfortable, but on closer looks it is shoddily built.  We bought the cheap holiday, so we cannot complain. Next time I will pay the extra and go upmarket.

Some pics of the tradesman standards...

We had a very nice snack meal at a tavern near Hardy's Dept store.  It is owned by a Dutch national and has some smart notices on the walls.

Steamy Bali

Well, here we are in Bali.   The hotel certainly isn’t like the web photos, but it is basically OK,   The humidity is very high and we will forgo any walks and instead take taxis everywhere we go.   Within the Sanur area (read oldies side) a taxi to just about anywhere is no more than $2.
We, and me in particular, had a passport/document overload.  In Perth Airport we filled in departure documents with needed birthdates, passport numbers, expiry and all the other stuff which has to be filled in before progressing to the Customs area.  I must look like a terrorist as I was selected for special treatment walking through a metal detector and then a full body X-ray.  I was shown the result of the X-ray  and I explained that the shoulder positives were from titanium screws from a shoulder injury I had. I couldn’t explain the positive in my groin area  and remembered that years ago a friend had called me ‘needle d***. Maybe he was right??    My bags, along with everyone else’s were X-rayed and I was pulled aside and my carry-on bag was again X-rayed.  I lost a small pair of nail scissors, a roll-on deodorant and a small can of foam shaving cream.  The customs bloke apologised when I asked him what I would now remove my nose hair with.
On the plane en route to Denpasar another two documents had to be filled out asking some different questions.  In Denpasar airport we purchased our visa @ US$25  and went through the baggage check again.    I am going to buy a girlie purse to hold my passport and documents to save opening my carry-on case 15 times during the return trip.
Once at the hotel we unpacked in our respective rooms and I found the aircon was not working.  Luckily, because it is the off season, there were plenty of vacant rooms and they let me go try the aircon in several rooms until was satisfied that I was not going to be broiled overnight.  All is well and cousin Val and I are happy with our accommodation.

We had a lovely lunch in a bar and this evening dinner at a familiar restaurant.

I forgot to pack a camera cord and will have to buy one before I can post any photos here.

Life for 'murder'

The law is (or was) an Ass.    A murder case some thirty years ago is being revisited in the hope of quashing a young man’s conviction and jailing for life.  During a house robbery an elderly man suffered bruises and fractured ribs and died from a bleeding stomach ulcer a week later.  The prosecution successfully argued that the stress of the incident caused his ulcer to bleed and the Jury found the young burglar guilty of murder.  Even if the prosecution argument were true, surely he should have been convicted of the lesser charge of manslaughter.  The burglar served seven years with hard labour before being released on parole.

At the trial the State Pathologist gave evidence saying that stress had caused the ulcer to bleed and the Jury took his evidence on board.

His appeal against the conviction has been under way since 2005 and now has the backing of Nobel Prizewinners Marshall and McClusker who maintain that stress is not a factor in bleeding ulcers.  Prof. Marshall and Malcom McCusker won the Nobel with their studies on the causes of stomach ulcers proving that bacteria and not stress causes stomach ulcers.

Surely the conviction must be overturned. 

Five days to Bali

Yesterday morning I had a phone call from daughter Helen en route to her workplace. She told me she had left her lunch on the table at home and suggested that I collect it and have it for my lunch.  When I asked her what it was I decided that it was deserved of a drive to her workplace.  I collected it and had a pleasant 30 minute drive to deliver it to its creator. And it was indeed a creation....Thai Beef Salad:  beef marinated with chilli, coriander, soy, garlic, fish sauce and lime juice. The salad was a full on affair too.  

Only five days until we depart for a week in Bali.  Our plane leaves Perth international Airport at 7.50am and we have decided not to park my car in the sun at the long term parking station, but I will drive to cousin Val’s place, park the car and her granddaughter will drive us to the airport.  We can get a cab back to Val’s house upon our return.  Another plan we had considered, was for me to drive to Val’s; park the car and order a cab.  There are many stories about cabs turning up late and we didn’t want that.  Recently the W.A. Taxi Board has placed a $9. fee on ordered cabs to ensure there is incentive for drivers to arrive on time when a cab is pre-ordered.  Still sounded dodgy and the grandaughter chauffeur is the best idea we have had so far.   Hope she doesn’t go partying and forget us early Sunday morning.

Red cars go faster

We all know that red cars go faster.  The colour of a car seems to be very significant to journalists as well as drivers.  I must do some research to see if the colour of a vehicle matches the circumstances.  This is a snippet from a news article is from yesterday’s news online......’The men were in a blue Commodore travelling east on Morley Drive.’  

Tomorrow is Parents’ Relief Day when kids return to school in Western Australia.  Shopkeepers too are greatly relieved at the return of the nuisance shoplifters to their place of education.   Our daughter Helen is back at her previous school in a southern suburb which has a dubious clientele.  I cannot divulge any of the problems she encounters with pupils and parents, but the Education Department acknowledges the problem and pays each teacher a nominal sum of $50.00 per week extra for their efforts in coping in a Hard to Staff School.

A coincidental blast from the past

My friend Dennis has been thinking of upgrading his computer for a few weeks and one came up on a list I belong to: The Western Australian Macintosh Users’ Group. It was advertised to the members by Ronni. I have not met Ronni face to face, but have corresponded with her and read her posts for a number of years. She is one of the group’s Mac Gurus and runs a professional Mac business as well as dispensing clear, precise instructions to members who post their Mac problems on the list. I told her that my friend is interested and she gave me her son-in-law’s address and contact details and yesterday we went to the address to pay up and grab the iMac. When the door was opened, a smiling Nikki welcomed us in. Nikki was a teaching colleague of mine at Willetton SHS and I had not seen her in the 15 years since I retired. Her mum, Ronni mentioned that a Kevin Lock was coming to buy the Mac. She didn’t think it was going to be me, but decided it had to be as mum had informed her that Kevin was a teacher at WSHS. A coincidental blast from the past. Lovely Gal!

 Today I am hosting a get-together of a few of 'we oldies' as mum would say. We all need a bit of cheering up! I have mowed the lawns, cleaned off the magpie poo on the outside furniture and am preparing my kind of food for this afternoon. It is quite hot outside (31˚C/ 83˚F) and so it will be inside in air conditioning. Another good reason to move inside is that blowflies can smell tacos from 300 metres away.

Bird of Paradise

Eeek!  Apple Computer shares took a tumble!  They are now worth only  $US458.30 each share.  Wish I had taken them up when Apple booted Steve Jobs out in 1985 when the shares were around $US 22.00 each.

The media seems to seize on anything that happens at Apple predicting doom.   On the ‘net’ one can find thousands of people showering invective on Apple and Apple users.  Nutters!

Although I taught in Papua New Guinea for around 10 years, I never saw a Bird of Paradise in the wild.  I have seen them in a bird park, but have never seen them do the various mating dances.  Here is a short  film courtesy of Cornell University showing the wonderful plumage and dances the males perform to attract mates.  

I have only crows, magpies and mudlarks in my backyard.   The magpies are unafraid and venture into the house if I leave a door ajar. Even though I feed ‘em they pay me back by crapping on the tiles.   The crows are very timid and seem to realise that they are not the world’s favourite bird.  Don’t think a crow will ever eat from my hand as the magpies do.

Jacob and Josef Kohn furniture

I have just done some repairs on an old bentwood chair.  The labels underneath the seat tells me it was made by J & J Kohn in Austria, probably about 100 years ago.  These chairs are not unique, thousands of them were made in four factories in Austria, Moravia (Google that one), Poland and Russia.  By 1900, J & J Kohn employed 6,300 workers in their factories producing 5,500 pieces of furniture per day.   When we returned from six years teaching in Papua New Guinea we had bought a colonial residence in the suburb of Bicton and a dining suite of Kohn chairs was in the house.  They are still in good condition.

                   I built the table to sort of match the chairs.

By the time Adolph came to power, J & J Kohn had long gone and their company had merged with a German furniture maker.  Wouldn't have been good to have a business name of Kohn then.

Good luck stories

Martin rode his bike over to a nearby suburb to get a script filled at the pharmacy.  Bit of a panic when he came home and realised that he had lost the house keys.  We jumped in the car and retraced his route home, but no luck.    The keys weren’t labelled with a name or address, so I had two new keys cut.  Later Martin went back to the small shopping centre and found that someone had handed them in to the pharmacy.  Amazing as there are lots of odd folk around there.  Thanks to whoever was the good Samaritan.

Yesterday I listened to a radio interview with a Australian Rules Football commentator.  This fellow is known Australia wide as probably the best commentator on the big game.  He mentioned that when he was still a footy star back in the 70s his name was pulled out of the barrel for the Vietnam draft.  When he fronted for the medical, both he and another star footy player were rejected because of a BS (read false) medical condition.   Both knew that they were given an out.  A couple of years ago a state cricketer drove drunk, ran into a couple of parked cars and ran from the scene.  In court he was about to lose his driver’s licence, but pleaded that he didn’t know how to read the bus timetables to get to cricket practice, so the beak let him keep his licence.   The magistrate was most probably a cricket tragic.
Lucky for some!

Old Geezer's walking Stick

I dropped in on Carole and Dennis this morning.  Den is pushing to buy an iPad and Carole has caved in and he is picking it up tomorrow.  I gave him a short intro on its use (I am also new to the iPad and am on a gentle learning curve).  I am a better two-finger typist on a regular keyboard than I am on the iPad keyboard.  I am also a slow texter (is that the correct term) on the phone.

I will take it with me to Bali.  

Dennis recently received a Xmas gift from his kids.  It is an old Geezer’s walking stick with a rear vision mirror, bicycle bell and foam rubber drink holder.  He reckons that if he had any real money he would disinherit his kids.

Yesterday I had a visit from an ex-student Mel and her mother.  Mel is over from Melbourne for her brother's engagement party.  She asked me to take the photos, but I begged off and loaned her my camera gear.  Too old for that stuff!

Mel and Mum in a photo pinched from Mel's Facebook page.

Housos

This morning I bought a two-disk DVD set of an Australian comedy TV series, ‘Housos’.

Housos are people who live in State Housing accommodation.  The series is very vulgar, liberally peppered with expletives, sexual references and a huge put down of people who live in public housing.  That being said, it is very funny.  It was created by Paul Fenech of  FAT PIZZA and SWIFT and SHIFT COURIERS, two similar non-PC series.

I thought it was a bit over the top, but when later I visited a local Shopping centre I  saw some local housos screaming obscenities at each other inside the mall. Both factions were young women wheeling prams threatening to ‘F...... kill that F...... kid of yours and then you...slut!’   As the two groups separated the war continued by mobile phone.  People were a bit concerned and shocked....I almost laughed out loud

Martin is home

Our son has returned from Melbourne and moved in with me.  I have appointed him my Tech Guru and he is converting LPs into Cds on a turntable I bought some months ago, but never got around to figuring the how part.   

Next he has the task of reading the 62 page instruction manual on a Sony digital Video camera and doing a few copying jobs converting Super 8 film to digital media.  He is pretty smart and probably won’t even read the manual.  Bad habit of mine too!        You remember Super 8 film, don’t you?

The way it was

I was considering trying to finish of a novel my Joan had outlined, but when I read a quote from Stephen Ambrose; a very successful author (Band of Brothers, DDay 6th of June, Eisenhower Biography et al)  I decided I didn’t have the necessary skills that Joan possessed.

Ambrose said..’The number one secret of being a successful writer is to marry an English major.’

At 73 I have just about seen it all evolve.  Mobile phones, personal computers, the Internet, large flat screen TVs, microwave ovens etc etc.

This is how it was back in the 50s

Animal cruelty

I am unsure how a people are determined to be civilised.  Is it through their system of government?  Is it because of their religion, arts and culture. Is it because of the way they treat each other and animals?

Australian exports of live sheep and cattle go to places which seem to care little about the treatment of animals. I surmise that those peoples assume that as the animal is to be slaughtered, it matters little how it is treated before being slaughtered.  More evidence of cruelty to Australian beef exports showed up in the local paper a couple of days ago. 

I wear sandals because of a problem I have with hot feet.   Every time I go out I manage to get at least one pebble in a sandal which requires a soft shoe dance or sandal removal to get rid of the pebble.  What did the Romans do whilst in the heat of battle, or road, viaduct or Colosseum construction when they got pebbles in their sandals?

                                    Roman sandal

47 years

Yesterday was the 47th anniversary of our wedding.  I had been transferred to a southern country town high school where I met my wife to be.  During that year we, or rather Joan, planned our wedding to take place on January 7th 1966.     Joan’s father wasn’t too well off so she sold her Fiat Bambino for the princely sum of £500 which paid for the entire wedding and reception for quite a large guest list....food, entertainment and many drinks.  Try that now!

                                I miss my wife dearly.

Joan in our Jeep in PNG.  This Jeep was a leftover from WW2 fighting in this area.

The photo is a Polaroid instant which had a fixer pad which had to be wiped over the print after it emerged from the camera, thus the streaky appearance

Our son Martin is returning home to live, at least temporarily, with me. His year in Melbourne was a lost year and I am hoping we can get along together and he can secure either employment or start a home-based business such as Webpage design.

Kitchen renovation

My daughter and husband have just finished renovating and painting their kitchen and lounge area.  The painting was a major team effort.  Greg and Claire came up from Busselton down south and spent last weekend at Helen and James’ house. Greg is a professional painter and he directed the team over the two days filling, sanding and painting.  Nice job!

Yesterday the Bamboo floor was installed.  It is tough material and should withstand the hard times their two dogs will give it.  A tiler gave them a bit of pain when he finished the job and left several tiles cracked and chipped.   With a bit of gentle persuasion, he returned and removed the damaged tiles and laid new ones.   The final touch is a small job for the electrician to mount the wall outlets in the new tiling.

Took a while, but it is very nice.

                                  Click to enlarge

At 73 years of age, I am not really into Facebook, however I was talked into taking a look at it by a friend.   It wasn’t long before I had registered and friends and ex-students were sending those  ‘Jo Blogs wants to be your friend’ notices.  I agreed to most of them and I have around 60 ‘friends’.  I don’t actually talk much with any of them on Facebook, but they are still people I like.

I got a bit of a shock when I received notification of a comment about me on one of my ‘friend’s’ pages.    The comment said...’Kevin Lock, continuing predator’.     I don’t know this person although when I went to his Facebook page I see where he is living and that he was a student at the same school as most of my ex-student ‘friends’.

This fellow may have thought he was writing it to just that one person, but the comment appears on all the ‘friends’ of that person’s pages.  I immediately wrote a comment saying that I hope he wrote that in jest.  No reply for two days, so I again wrote suggesting that it was defamation.  After a couple of days he deleted the comment and I deleted my two comments.    I was shaken by this throwaway remark and it reinforced what I have read about young people being bullied online and committing suicide.

The worst part of this is that it may have sewn a seed of doubt in some readers minds about my character and my entire teaching career.