Location, Location?

As I mentioned a few posts ago, I went to drive cabs in Newcastle after an abortive start at Toukley, and so had to pass a locality test, sit a safety lecture, and attend a training session run by Newcastle Taxis.  I did this in early 1983.  It was a good system, well thought out and organised.  The locality test was conducted at the Newcastle West branch of the RTA, and involved learning about 12 foolscap pages of locations, landmarks and shortest routes to and from about a dozen sample landmarks.

At the time I did the test, I had never lived in Newcastle, and had absolutely no idea where anything was.

I wasn't letting that stop me from getting my licence, however, so I memorised the sheets completely parrot-fashion, and could reel them off verbatim.  Except the churches...  I simply didn't bother to learn them at all (I was an atheist in those days, things have changed now, but that's yet another story).

When I went into the RTA, there was a young lady administering the test.  I had done the safety lecture and training session at the Co-op, and that part had been signed off on.  I had to demonstrate suitable command of the English language, which wasn't really a problem, had to pass an eyesight test (gee I wish my vision was that good now), and then do the locality test.  Since I already had a Class 2A licence, I didn't have to do another driving test.

I started well, naming most of the locations I was asked for.  I stumbled over the "Civic Hotel" which I had learnt was in Hunter Street, Newcastle.  "Ah, but Hunter Street is a long street, where is it near?"  "I don't know, I've only learnt Hunter Street"  (The answer is between Burwood Street and Auckland Street, I know that NOW, of course, but not then).  Anyway, she let me off on that one.  She then asked me where one of the churches was.  "I don't know, I haven't learnt any of the churches".  I was then asked for ANOTHER church, which confirmed her suspicions, and used up my two incorrect answers I was allowed.  "Better not ask me any more churches".  Fortunately she took the hint.

I got all the rest of the locations right, was able to list the shortest routes between A & B by reciting the street names in between, and about fifteen minutes later I had a nice blue taxi book in my name.

I still had no idea where anything in Newcastle was, of course.

But hell, you soon learn.  After three or four years I remember I had a shift where I didn't have to use the street directory at all for the entire shift.  I remember this shift well, because it only ever happened once!  I suppose the GPS is going to be well-used by taxi drivers nowadays?  I'm happy to say I still don't have one to this day.  Mind you if I were still driving cabs, I'd say I'd have bitten the bullet long ago.  I'd probably have a mobile phone, too!

Self destruction of a party

Well if I were in the ALP caucus in federal parliament, I'd be buying a number of lottery tickets at the moment.  With very little effort on their part, it seems their opposite number has inflicted untold damage on themselves, and in all reality have made themselves unelectable for another two terms.

"If you can't govern yourselves, how can you govern the country" is a question on everyone's lips.  Turnbull has come out, espoused logic, reasonableness and correctness.  Yet half his party want him out.  That's politics, I suppose.  Despite him being right, he's going to find himself out on Tuesday morning.

Why so?  It can't really be that most liberals DO deny climate change do they?  With a 38 degree day expected today in Sydney they are pushing it uphill to contend otherwise.  Maybe it's because it's just so inconvenient that for centuries, polluters have been able to cost-shift the real costs of their activities to anyone else but them, and now we finally want to price it into the economy.

To clarify what I'm saying for example if you are generating electricty and charging a pretty penny for it, it's really nice if a major cost of your activity: carbon emissions, is picked up by someone or something else.  Your Profit & Loss statements deduct most of the expenses involved except for cleaning up your mess.  Someone else can do that, and your profits don't reflect that REAL cost.  This is great for the shareholders or owners.

Now the government wants you to include the cost of carbon pollution into your accounting system.  Time to cry foul and insist the cost is passed on to anyone else but you like it has been for the last four hundred years.  Get real.

The accounting system is only a model of your business, and if it excludes ALL costs, and here we are talking environmental costs, then ipso facto, as a model it is a failure.  The liberals seem to want this status to be maintained: ie the accounting system simply omits a vast area of costs because it will reduce profits of industries that have been for years getting away with murder.  An analogy would be to eliminate some other valid cost from the accounting system: let's say as a company you'd like to exclude wages from your expenses!  It'd make a fantastic improvement to the bottom line, wouldn't it?  (Mind you I reckon some companies probably have tried this, too!)

I'll be sad to see Turnbull go, really, as he's one of the smartest Liberal leaders we've ever had.  But it just goes to show there's more to it than that.  You have to keep your troops in line and on side as well.  That's probably more important than being right in politics.  Doesn't politics suck?

The Hidden Unemployed

I've been signing into a few internet forums lately, and they often ask for your "occupation".  Well, I'm not too proud to admit it, currently I am unemployed.  I do no paid work for anyone.  I'd certainly LIKE to, but I'm not too sure I'd be able to, nor whether I could find anyone who'd actually employ me.  Mind you, I certainly am able to do productive work, it's just that my health precludes me from doing it at scheduled times, day in, day out.

My wife, bless her, works full time, in a reasonably good job for a government based organisation.

According to the federal government, then, I am actually NOT unemployed.  I do not appear in the statistics you hear on the news and in the papers.  Despite the fact that I am looking for work, would like a job and am not currently working in a job, by their definition, I am NOT unemployed.

I figure there are quite a few others like me in the same boat.  If your spouse works, and earns even minimum wages, you are not eligible for a vast array of assistance measures given to other unemployed people.  I am registered with several employment agencies, and I have a jobseeker ID.  However every time I apply for a job which has an employment agency screening applications, I do not get a look-in.  (I have applied directly for jobs and even gotten to interviews as a result, but if I apply via an agency I have never been so much as contacted by that agency about my application).  The reason for this is if the agency does find me a job, they will not get a cent from the government for doing so.  Naturally, if they are referring people to a job they will send someone on benefit so they get a subsidy for the job placement.  And if they send someone whose employment prospects are impaired (eg disabled, long term unemployed, ex-criminal) the subsidy is even higher.

As an employer, you are encouraged to use an agency to find you staff.  I can state to you that if you do, you are more likely to be sent a candidate who is difficult to find employment for.  IE the one with the highest subsidy.  This may NOT be your first choice, and you may simply be better taking an ad in the paper and screening the applicants yourself: you will at least get candidates who are keen to find work.

Even if I were eligible for unemployment assistance, the tendency is for the agencies to send candidates who have been out of work longer, and offer assistance programmes to longer-term unemployed.  Those of us who have been out of work for only a few months - the ones who are probably most employable and productive - do not qualify for any assistance at all at this early stage of our unemployment.

Crazy but true.  And take heed of the record low unemployment figures being quoted these days.  There is so much hidden unemployment (and indeed under-employment) I reckon the true figure is probably closer to double the headline figures.

Armed Robbery!

It was my second day ever driving cabs, and the most exciting thing that ever happened in a seven year career as a driver.

I started driving at Toukley, with restricted plates and a roster system whereby at most times only three of the four cabs were on the road, and at other times, only two.  This was done with a rolling four-week roster and gave the owners a great chance to get the cars maintained and repaired.  And if there were mechanical failures, the cab rostered off could easily swap the off day for an on day, etc.

It was a Sunday, and my cab was on standby.  This meant there were two working cars, and if needed the third car could come on to the road to assist a busy period.  As it was my second day ever driving a cab, I spent a lot of time sitting at home in the driveway listening to the two-way radio.

Well, about half an hour later a call came in from a very distressed driver driving a Wyong car.  Judy got on the two-way and said "base, I've just been at the BP at Tuggerah, and a couple of guys in balaclavas have left driving a red falcon, and the attendant has come out saying he's just been robbed at knifepoint.  The red falcon is heading north along the Tuggerah straight and I'm now following it as best as I can".

Eventually the pursuit progressed through Wyong, Wyong North and up to Kanwal, which is where I was.  So I started up the car and headed out to the Pacific Highway.  At this point in time (1983) there were two options for a car going along this road - either to continue north towards Doyalson, or turn right and head towards Toukley.  So I said to Judy on the two-way "I'll head north, you turn right and we'll be able to keep track of them".  Of course in the meantime the operator had called the police and they were out "in force".

Merely by keeping their location observed and transmitted over the two-way we were doing our stuff and making it easier for the police.

Eventually they turned right towards Toukley (not the way I had gone), and coming the other way from Toukley Police Station, of course, were several patrol vehicles who stopped the red falcon and arrested the culprits.  We made the local paper the next day or so (which referred to us as "taxi-men" which was a bit of an insult to Judy, I suppose, but typical of our local paper).  The money was recovered, and the crime had been solved within half an hour of its commission!

I got the sack.  I never drove a Toukley car ever again, and in fact made the move to Newcastle to continue my driving career, which involved sitting a locations test as well (country drivers do not need to pass a locality test, whereas Sydney, Newcastle and Wollongong drivers do).  But that's a story for another day.

My eyes are dim, I cannot see

... I have no specs to bring with me.

{ To those unfamiliar with the song, those are lyrics from a song (almost). }

One of the catastrophes that befell me during my hospital stay was damage to the retina in my left eye.  There are several techniques they use to inject liquids into your blood stream or to take blood for testing and I've had them all.  There is an arterial line (or art-line) which is mainly for diagnostic purposes (arterial blood can easily be taken for testing, and arterial blood probably tells a lot more about you than venous blood).  There is a central line (usually inserted into a vein in the neck), a PICC line (peripherally inserted central catheter) which normally goes into the arm and a simple cannula (which is a flexible plastic tube normally inserted into the wrist).

The differences are many, but the main thing to remember is that the cannula needs to be changed every three or four days, whereas a PICC line or Central Line can last even months.  Mind you, none of my central lines lasted more than a fortnight, and the PICC line, well, that's today's story.

My fourth central line was coming to the end of its useful life, and so I was taken to the procedure rooms to get a PICC line inserted into my left arm.  The process is reasonably painful, but nowhere near as bad as getting a central line put in which involves an incision into the neck while you are well and truly awake.  Lignocaine is used, but it only numbs the surface skin.  Anyway the PICC line was inserted in about 40 minutes and I was taken back to the ward.

Next day my left arm swelled up like a balloon.  The hand became so fat I had to get the identity bracelet replaced as it would no longer fit.  I had developed a blood clot in the left arm, almost certainly due to the PICC line insertion.  These things happen, so I was treated with Clexane (which is a blod thinning drug) which later was replaced with Warfarin.

A couple of days later I noticed a haziness in my left eye.  I would often get cloudiness in the eyes due to my eye drops for glaucoma, and I really didn't think much about it, as it generally clears up and I can see well in a day or so.  However this was still cloudy after four or five days, so an ophthalmologist was sent up to see me.  It turned out I could hardly see a thing with the left eye, with the doctor holding up fingers about three metres away from me, I couldn't make out how many at all.  I could see them moving, however.

A lot of consultations with the hospital ophthalmologist later, I was diagnosed with severe retinal damage due to the blockage from the blood clot.  The retina uses a lot of blood and it flows in and out very quickly.  With a blockage, the drainage stops, and damage happens very soon.  As he put it it was like getting "instant glaucoma".  And unfortunately, he said there was nothing he could do.

I have seen my local ophthalmologist since, and we have started a course of intra-occular injections of (at first) lumix and now avastin (which is an anti-cancer drug primarily used for colon cancer).  This multi-use of drugs intrigues me - for instance I am on methotrexate which is another anti-cancer drug, but I use it to treat my arthritis!

These injections into the eye are something yet again.  My eye is dilated with drops, lignocaine is applied in copious quantities, a sterile disposable fenestrated drape is applied over the eye, then in comes the ophthalmologist, normally tells me a good joke, and then whacko!  Into the middle of the eye with a needle.  It's quite merciless.

These injection treatments are quite expensive and they are not covered much by medicare.  However I am informed if I don't have them, I'll definitely lose what little sight I have left in the eye.  They do offer a glimmer of hope, and I have shown slight improvement after them for a week or two - but the vision reverts to its old ways.  It is slightly better now (I was injected on Tuesday last week) so I hope it will remain this way for once this time.

Strangeness on a train

Hell, I'm not a commuter, so if you are, you can probably skip this blog entry calling me a n00by big time.

Yesterday I got a train down to my rheumatologist at Chatswood.  The trains from Gosford heading up the line are not all too frequent in the middle of the day (maximum two an hour) but from Hornsby they are much more prevalent.  So we had the chance to take a train a lot earlier than necessary from Hornsby.  So we checked out the new Macquarie Park detour when changing from Hornsby rather than straight down the North Shore Line.

I wasn't aware that for the entire journey from Epping to Chatswood we would not see the light of day!  And it seems the three stations on the way (Macquarie Uni, Macquarie park and North Ryde) were all bought from the same shop.  Architecturally, looking from the train, they are almost identical.  I reckon so many people are going to get off at Macquarie Uni saying "Damn, I've done it again, I meant to go to Macquarie Park" as the stations look the same and the first word IS exactly the same.

But what really amazed me was coming home.  We entered a crowded carriage, and I observed almost half of the passengers were mucking around with their i-phones, calling up various apps, and I even saw a few of them googling various things.  My mind boggles as to why it is necessary to google things while sitting on a train?  Surely the cost of wireless internet access makes it far too expensive a prospect??  It cannot be so important that it justifies using Google RIGHT NOW???  Obviously, to some people, it is that important.

I would call myself a computer geek, having had one since the age of fifteen, but I draw the line at googling a word whilst travelling on a train.  I would wait until I got home (or better yet, back to work the next day so work would be paying for the internet access!)

Then again, you are also reading a blog from someone who does not own a mobile phone...  Am I a weirdo or are there any others out there like me who do not have a mobile (cell) phone as of yet????

Lost Largs Mountain Ruby Mine

Gee, I missed a day on the blog, but I do have a good excuse.  Sharon & I went to see the following show, and then the next day celebrated her parents' wedding anniversary with a lunch at their place.

It was a fun night out, with a fully catered dinner of quite a high standard.  The melodrama was written by a local author about local geographical features and local historical events.  The standard of acting and direction was very high.  The play itself was written by an amateur author, however, and was an excellent shell of a work, but could benefit from a few workshops.

When you buy a commercially published play or novel, what you are getting is the culmination of maybe a year or more work from an author.  You can be confident that you are reading probably the twentieth or even twenty-fifth draft of a book.  People have made comments, and editor has suggested certain areas need to be tightened up or even completely re-written, and it shows in the results.

This play was far too long.  The poetic doggerel sections although quite interesting at the start, just started to drag on and on.  They were intially being used as a device in order to cover the scene changes, and worked quite well with a woman reciting interludes while sitting on a dunny down right.  However when a parrot called Sid sitting on a perch down left later ALSO started off with the doggerel, it was clear that the author needed to be taken to one side and told enough is enough, make some cuts!

I hasten to add the actors and direction were very good, and it IS far better to see a bad play done well rather than a good play done badly.  If you're after a great Christmas outing yielding a lot of fun, and you're not a regular theatre-goer, might I suggest you get along to the show. It'd be great if you went along with half-a-dozen friends. I'll add Maitland Repertory Society's URL to this post if you want further information - click on the title of the post (above) to visit their site.

Foreign Currency

Years ago I used to write software for the Amiga computer (alas a dead platform now, years of software development have counted for nothing as no-one uses them these days except as a novelty).  The programming came about simply due to the fact that software was needed to do certain things, but it didn't actually exist.  A lot of my software is still out there today, for instance see the aminet comm/fido directory

Back in the early 90s shareware was a burgeoning industry, and had I been programming for an IBM PC I probably would have made twenty times the amount I did get from some very conscientious and generous users.

At one point I got a cheque from a guy in USA.  (Well, he'd spell it "check").  It was for $US35 and I proudly took it along to the local branch of the bank.  "Ah," the teller said, "It's drawn on a non-Australian bank and in foreign currency - I'll just check to see how much we'd charge to negotiate that."

He came back and the fee would have been about $AUD45.  Given the current exchange rate I would have gotten about a net payment of $2 had I banked the cheque.

Fortunately I was able to contact the guy who sent the cheque and let him know the story and he mailed me over some actual US banknotes which are always good in any country!  The fee for converting them was only a small percentage of the face value, and it made it well worthwhile.

One thing has changed: we'd get a lot more Australian dollars now for US dollars.

One thing hasn't changed: bank fees are still ridiculously extortionate.

Mind you my transaction account has been with a building society for going on fifteen years now.

The public

Me: "Hello, Taxi Service, Your pickup address please"
Caller: "I want a cab to 16 Elwood Avenue, Bar Beach"
Me: "Certainly, where would you like to go?"
Caller: "Oh.  I want to GO TO 16 Elwood Avenue Bar Beach"
Me: "Okay, well, I need to know where you are now, because that's where I send the cab to to pick you up.  You can tell the driver where you're actually going once he gets to your pickup address"
Caller: "I dunno, hangon, I'll just check. {pause} Hey Rob, what's the address here?"
 {Rob: wazzat? Caller: what's the address here, mate? Rob: Oh, hangon.  Hey Mike, what's the address here? Mike: 15 Smith Street, Mayfield East Rob: What?  Mike: 15 Smith Street Mayfield East  Rob: 15 Smith Street Mayfield East}
  Note that this has taken over a minute so far
Caller: "15 Smith Street, Mayfield East"
Me: "Okay, how many passengers?"
Caller: "Oh, hey, who's going?" {Rob: yeah, I'm going, and Shona and Linda, and Mike and err maybe Henry.  Mike: Yeah and Paul and Roger want to go too.}
Me: "So that's about 8 or 9 passengers.  You'll need at least two cars for that."
Caller: "What, can't we just fit in one?"
Me: "Well, taxis are just Holdens or Falcons, mate, so they seat four or five people"
Caller: "But My dad's got a Falcon with a bench seat in it and it seats six people"
Me: "Yeah, but a taxi has a driver, mate, so that's a maximum of five passengers.  And besides most taxis have bucket seats so if you want a five-seater car it might take a bit longer.  Can you find out exactly how many people are going so I can get you the right number of cars, and the right number of seats?"
Caller: "Yeah, hangon a bit"
  Let's wait another couple of minutes....
Caller: "Yes, there's 9 people going"
Me: "Okay, you're gonna need a five-seater car and a four-seater.  When the cabs arrive, make sure you fill them up completely otherwise you won't all fit and you're gonna need three cabs"
Caller: "Okay, thanks.  How long will that be?"
Me: "The taxis will be along as soon as possible" {HANGUP}

I don't have another fifteen minutes.  Policy is to state "your taxi will be along as soon as possible".  Basically we don't really have a clue.

Me: "Hello there, Taxi Service, Can I have your pickup address please?"
Caller: "This is Mr Yule at Tatt's Club"
Me: "Off to Merewether with one?"
Caller: "That's right"
Me: "See you next time, Mr Yule"

It CAN be as quick as ten seconds on occasion!

Fifteen Minutes Later

Driver: "Control how many cars have you got coming to 15 Smith Street Mayfield East?"
Me: "Just the two, you and 88"
Driver: "They're gonna need another two cars"
Me: "Righto..."

You learn not to question why.  And we started adding the "...your pickup address please" for obvious reasons.  A pity it didn't work 100% of the time.

The price of fish

I did study economics at Uni and Tafe, but I was always of the opinion you could just about argue anything, back it up with valid points, and hold two totally opposing views in the head whilst sincerely believing both of them (George Orwell eat your heart out).

For instance we have the economic stimulus being strongly promulgated now by Kevin Rudd et al, in order to give the economy a boost along, and we have the Reserve Bank gradually pushing up interest rates to slow the economy down and attempt to rein in inflation.  Doublethink if ever there was such a thing.

I have also noticed (especially today) pricing anomalies.  You know what I mean.  The classic example is if you're at the supermarket you can buy a big tin of baked beans for LESS than the price of a small tin.  Surely it is crazy to buy something and chuck half of it out, but pay less than buying the correct amount.

Tomorrow I am off to buy a big SATA hard drive.  (See yesterday's post for why). I have checked out several large technology retailers on the Central Coast and I can buy an external hard drive, in a case, with a power supply and with a USB interface for less than I can buy a naked internal hard drive.  In some cases the saving is 50%.  So I will buy an external one, rip it out of its case, and use the hard drive itself in the video recorder. I will then also have an external case, power supply and USB interface as a bonus, which may well come in very handy to retrieve data from dead-ish SATA HDs without having to mount them inside a computer.

Another amazing thing about this is that quite often, a 500 gigabyte drive is actually MORE expensive than a 1 terabyte drive.

As the late Julius would say: "Why is it so?"  I guess it's all to do with the economics.  IE you can argue anything you like and still be right.

PS: The hard drive in the personal video recorder has been officially pronounced dead after I connected it up to the computer in the 1 terabyte external drive case I have.  It was tricky to get the thing open, but finally it gave way, I took out the working drive, replaced it with the one from the PVR, and can declare life extinct.  I've had computers for nearly 30 years, and this is the very first hard drive I've had that has died on me.  Problem is I have lost 200 gigabytes of data (albeit video files) which is more data than I've ever lost in an entire lifetime to date.

Repairs Required

For the last couple of years we've had a Homecast Personal Video Recorder, which is a two tuner High Definition set-top-box attached to a 300 Gig hard drive, and a lot of outputs.  It does not have a DVD player inbuilt, but it has four USB ports, so you can hook it up to the laptop and export the files to there.

It says on the box the files are stored in mpeg format - well, technically it is a KIND of mpeg format - but at the start I wasn't able to do the simple process of writing a DVD with a picture.  However I discovered some free software called Mpeg Streamclip, and this program is a fantastic asset to anyone with a PVR or indeed a video camera.  The video camera uses a transport stream with a file extension ".TOD"; the PVR uses one with ".TP0" (that's a zero on the end), and Mpeg Streamclip can read them all and save out as mpeg.  It's also a rudimentary mpeg editor (great for chopping out commercials) and all free.  Once I had this software my DVD burning career burgeoned forever!

Digital TV transmissions ARE the way to go - they use less than a quarter of the bandwidth of analogue, and the quality is absolutely superb.  No wonder analogue TV is going to be knocked on the head in a few years time: digital is better for sure.

Except when there's a problem.  Drat!  The hard drive on the PVR has been very obtuse last week, locking up the system (yep, PVRs crash just like computers), and refusing to playback a show when recording another (as it is fully supposed to do).  It's also been issuing some very strange clicking noises.

Today, the hard drive has completely stopped working at all, and despite the tuner working, so we can get live television on it, the hard drive is just not being recognised as a device.  So reliant are we on this machine that there must be at least 40 hours of unwatched TV programmes on the hard drive.

I wonder what is going to happen, and whether we are going to ever get to see our unwatched programmes at all?  I'll keep you posted.

My RNS Stay

I've just managed to get access to my father's camera pictures taken during my stay in RNS this year.  I have uploaded 15 photos to Facebook of my hospital stay, here's the public link:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=9890&id=100000155416069&l=9518cb737c

You wouldn't read about it

How many of you have been involved in practical jokes in high school?  I was involved in a few.  It's surprising how often a lot more is read into pranks than the actual intentions of the pranksters, however, and this is one example.

Gorokan High School was a new school when I started.  There was a year above me, but it was progressively filled, ie in 1976 there was a year 7 only.  In 1977 there was a year 8 and 7 only.  1978 saw a year 9, 8 & 7, etc, etc.  So we were in the SECOND year, and naturally there was a great deal of rivalry between us and the year above.  To tell you the truth, we thought they were a bunch of unimaginative conformists, and sticklers for the rules.  They had their year twelve farewell on the Wangi Queen, cruising Lake Macquarie like a bunch of yuppies.  We had OUR year twelve farewell at the Lakes Surf Club, just being ourselves.

They did virtually nothing when it came to break-up time at the end of year twelve, so we decided to show them how it was done.  A window lock had come loose in a second storey classroom and we knew about it.  In the wee small hours of night I remember watching a mate climb a she-oak tree and accessing the room via the window and letting us in.  We were armed with newspapers, which we had brought in in a small station waggon.  Over the course of the next three and a half hours, we screwed them up into balls, and filled three classrooms (they had removable dividers which we opened) to the height of approximately one and a half metres with scrunched up newspapers.

Of course we weren't stupid about it: one of the first things we did was to get out the fire extinguishers and check they were working just in case they were needed.  And we left the rooms locked up when we went.

Although it was not to be, I would have loved to have seen the face on the first person to open the room the next morning, as it would have been fascinating.  All the desks and chairs were completely submerged in a sea of newspaper, stretching out across three classrooms.  We reckoned it was lesson enough to the year above us on how to commit a prank.

All hell broke loose.  The three rooms we had chosen were the very rooms the HSC examinations were to be held in!  And the HSC was to start on the day after our prank went down!  The acting principal got up at assembly and said he regarded the act as a direct threat to the holding of the HSC at the school, and goodness help the perpetrators.

Unfortunately it was giving us greater credence than we deserved as we didn't know these were to be the rooms for the HSC, and had no real idea of the dates of the HSC exams.  Honestly!  So we kept quiet about it for a week or so.

Interestingly enough, the newspapers we had brought in in the back of a tiny station waggon took several trips in a table-top truck to remove :-)

After a while the acting principal said he realised we were not threatening the HSC (which was true) and we visited him in his office and owned up.  I think it's still talked about today. It surely will be again now!

Get Stuffed

When you're in the radio room taking phone calls or despatching jobs it's quite an interesting environment.  For starters we used to be quite violent towards each other verbally.  This was probably a product of the hyped up feeling on a Friday or Saturday night.  One of our radio operators' favourite expressions was "Get Stuffed" and he could work it into conversation in a number of creative ways.

His favourite was to say it after a radio transmission to a car, in earshot of those of us in the radio room, but with his foot OFF the transmit button (we used a footswitch, which frees up your hands - a real pain in the neck when they used to break down).  The transmissions would be along the lines: "Car 88 to control?", "Yes Car 88 {get stuffed, you goose}" with the bits in { }s NOT being transmitted.  Occasionally his timing was out, unfortunately, and a few unsuspecting drivers were wondering why they had been singled out for an insult.  I assure them, they were NOT being singled out.  Everyone got the stuffing.

It's amazing how versatile an expression "get stuffed" actually is.  Not only can it be used as an insult, but a confirmation, a general greeting, a question of integrity, and an affirmation.

The practice was rather contagious.  Eventually we all were telling each other to get stuffed, and working it into general conversation.

"Oh, I had a bad morning, things didn't go right"   "Go on, get stuffed."

"I don't like this new procedure on hirings from Fanny's nightclub"   "Ah well, get stuffed".

"I put my order in for lunch across the road and they got it wrong"   "Get stuffed?"

We had a new general manager appointed after the retirement of a guy who'd been working there for twenty years, and he wasn't doing so well.  His position was transferred to the title "Operations Manager" and a new general manager was appointed.  Yep, he got stuffed.

Which was quite interesting for him, as it explained a lot.  A few days earlier he had been casually walking into the radio room and listening to all the "get stuffed"s being bandied around.  I suppose it prepared him for what was inevitably coming to him.

Not Fair, Not Fare!

I may have mentioned I used to work in a taxi radio room.  When I started we used a two way radio system, the calls were written on small (almost) square pieces of paper, and they were dispatched by "auctioning" the call to the car who was (basically) closest to the pickup point.  When I left, we used a modem-driven data feed system over the air, the calls were typed into a computer terminal (A WYSE-60 compatible terminal if anyone remembers them) and the computer issued the job to the car who had been booked into the zone the hiring occurred in for the longest time.  I'll go into details on this later, as the computerisation process was VERY interesting.

Today's blog is a story of injustice, back on the old 2-way radio, however.  It concerns a driver who was having a very bad night, but was cruising around, who happened to come across a street hail at Hamilton Railway Station at about 1am.  The passenger was a single middle-aged woman with a few items of luggage.  The driver stopped the cab, and helped the woman get her suitcases into the boot.  The driver then started to take the woman on her way.  Turns out she wanted to go north, and it would have been a $25 fare or so, and at that time of the morning, after a lousy day, it was in all reality a dream fare.  (Inflation has turned this into a seemingly small amount).

So the driver did the right thing and asked the passenger whether she had already phoned for a taxi, and was told yes.  So he radioed into base, and said, "Control, I have Mrs Smith from Hamilton Rail".  The response was NOT what the driver expected.  "I have already sent a car for that, put her out and let him pick her up".  "Ah, you must have called the job on the radio while I was out of the car loading her suitcases into the boot, can you cancel the other car then, please?" The operator returned with "No, I've issued the job to the other car, put her out and let the other car pick her up!"

Since the operator KNEW who the first car was, and knew which car he'd issued the job to, the driver had no other option but comply with this stupid command from the base.  This meant asking the passenger to get out, and unloading her suitcases from the boot and then waiting for the other cab to get to the pickup point and re-loading all the stuff.  The passenger would have been bemused, if not frustrated.

You guessed it:  I was the first driver, and the Radio Operator will remain nameless in this blog (although his initials were KW).  When I progressed into the radio room, I knew this was just the sort of thing I should avoid doing to keep the drivers on side.

A job to be done revisited

I have already commented on this <If theres a job to be done > but strangely enough I've just been hit by a classic example.

I was driving down to the shops, and noticed a rather large tree branch on the road in the opposite direction.  Coming the other way was a vehicle which actually had to stop, wait for me to come through, then proceed.  So I bet you can guess what I did?  Bingo!  I stopped on the side of the road, got out, and lifted the branch up on to the footpath.  (Hmm, I guess I should have been done for obstructing the footpath, but I figured it was the lesser of two evils).

When I used to live "forty miles back of Kempsey" (literally I actually did, back in 1987) we used to traverse the (dirt) roads from Taylor's Arm (home to the Cosmopolitan Hotel, better known as the Pub with no Beer and not much else) up to Millbank.  You'd often come across fallen tree branches.  And you'd often stop and shift them off the road.  No-one else would, and if you'd waited for Council it could take many months.  In fact where we were living was right on the boundary of the then Macleay Shire (Now Kempsey Shire) and Nambucca Shire, and the maintenance guys didn't get out there all too often at all.

We once ran out of petrol on the corner of Taylor's Arm Road and Baker's Creek Road.  We just stopped right in the middle of the intersection, prepared to flag down a passing motorist.  I thought it was a good spot to break down as we were right at the T-junction of two reasonably major roads.  The time was 9pm.  Johnno and I spent a night in an extremely cold Kombi van, and the very next car to pass stopped and had a 20 litre drum of petrol with him.  Problem is it wasn't until just after 6am the next morning.

As another aside, we paid $10 for the 20 litre drum we got from the guy .  And at that point in time it would have actually cost just under $10 to fill a 20 litre drum.  1987 as I said.

Is anybody out there

I think it's now time to ask the question - is there anybody out there???

PLEASE comment or follow the blog if you can hear this!  I need to know!

Someone worse off than you

When I was in Intensive Care at Royal North Shore Hospital there were a couple of incidents I should put in the blog.  One was about a young guy from the North Coast who had been in ICU for a lot longer than me.  He was a national junior champion at motorcycle racing.  The word "was" is operative, because unfortunately, he had been flung from his bike and broken his neck.  I think he was seventeen, with the rest of his life in front of him, and now he was a quadriplegic.

He could not even move his hands, let alone the rest of his body.  Life was pretty depressing for him and it was evermore going to be.  His parents, and his younger sister were frequent visitors.  At ICU there are no restrictions on visiting hours, you can drop in to see relatives at three o'clock on the morning if you like, and these guys often did!  The only thing they did enforce was a two visitor per patient limit.  When my Aunty and Uncle dropped down from Brisbane with Mum & Dad, they were sort of tag-teaming it to get to see me two-at-a-time.

The young boy had a portable DVD player which they cranked up for him a lot of the time.  He was on nil-by-mouth for his own benefit, however his visitors seemed to have other ideas, and would smuggle him in food and water reasonably covertly, but I certainly managed to observe it.  A very common practice was to grab a disposable rubber glove (there were boxes of them everywhere), and fill it with water at the handwashing basin (all visitors were specifically requested to wash their hands), and bring it in for the young fellow.

They cared so much about him, there was nothing they wouldn't do - including bringing in takeaway food - which is really quite difficult to conceal given its pungency.  When I was finally about to be discharged and spent a few days actually outside near the main entrance foyer, I saw the young lad in a motorised wheelchair operated by his mouth with a joystick.  His Mum was with him as usual.  And he was propelling himself with determination to make the best of his lot.  His Mum was so proud of how far he'd come.  Mind you he still would have had many more months to spend in hospital, but the end was getting closer.

It all just goes to point out who an injury or illness effects the most.  Obviously the actual victim is affected, but it's possibly easier for them, as you know what you can and can't do, and eventually acceptance comes around.  But for the relatives, there's always the hope that maybe something CAN be done, and they should be doing it, or making sure it gets done, and worrying about it if they don't, and worrying about it if it doesn't work.  Plus they have to get from home to the hospital and back umpteen times - as the patient at least you're in residence.  The one good thing to you, the patient, however, is the feeling that it's your responsibility to get better.  If not for your own sake, at least for that of your visitors.  It certainly gave me something to hang on to.

Medicine Man

As I've mentioned in my profile, my health is a disaster.  Up to the age of forty, I never had a regular GP, had only gone to see doctors when there was something fairly serious wrong, and this didn't happen very often at all.

For some reason, at forty, my best-before date obviously came up.  I developed glaucoma and psoriatic arthritis without the psoriasis.  A few years later I developed psoriasis itself, although only mildly.  I have high blood pressure, a bit of a gippy stomach and in 2008 I was diagnosed with testicular cancer.

Whilst undergoing radiation therapy for the latter, in February 2009, I felt REALLY crook.  I was putting it down to the radiation therapy, or a severe arthritic attack, and increased my dosages of prednisone and ibuprofen (prescribed for me, but purchaseable in half the strength at a supermarket).  On 6 February I came crashing to the deck and got Sharon to take me into Gosford Hospital Casualty.  Initially we thought it was the arthritis (which attacks a large number of my joints: toes, knees, ankles, elbows, shoulders, spine, sacro-iliac joints and my ribcage - the worst is the ribcage...).  After spending a few hours in Casualty dosed to the nines on morphine, and still in EXCRUCIATING pain, a doctor changed shifts and a new doctor came on.  He examined my CAT scan taken a few hours earlier and diagnosed a ruptured oesophagus.

This affliction is VERY hairy and scary.  Immediately he said, "We can't treat you here, we'll get you down to Royal North Shore via helicopter, to do that we need to completely sedate you, oh, and there's a twenty percent chance you won't survive this!"

For the next nine days I was in a medically induced coma, and I was in hospital for a total of 78 days all up.  Fortunately I did wake up.  And I know all about the medical system, which people frequently complain about.  Yes, things do go wrong, but hey, in the vast majority of cases you are in excellent hands and the technology available to fix you up is second to none.

I'll be blogging more about my experiences with the medical profession, as some of the events ARE very interesting.  I've seen a dermatologist and my ophthalmologist in the last two days, for instance.  Today I will need to see my GP, which makes a hat-trick I suppose.

It's big, isn't it?

I'm now editing a video file that is in two parts, both just a tad over thirteen gigabytes long.  27 gigabytes total.

To put this into perspective, the first hard drive I ever owned (1988) was 80 MEGAbytes in size.  And at that point in time, that was comparatively large.  These files I am now working on, would have filled my old hard drive 337 times over.  I'm not sure about you, but 337 half-height Quantum SCSI Fireballs would take up a hell of a lot of room.  And the hard drive I've got these files on now, is precisely the SAME SIZE as the 20-year old one.

My first hard drive cost $1,900 all up.  The 1 terabyte external drive I now have (which I bought for $249, but is now obtainable for $149) at these 1988 prices (ie $23.75 per megabyte) would have cost over twenty four million dollars.  And I shudder to think how big it would have been!

If I were paying today's prices for my first hard drive, it would have cost 1.2 cents.  The mind boggles as to what is coming next!

If there's a job to be done...

Speaking generally, if there's a job to be done, then I find it's best to do it.  I don't think that's the general attitude, however.  Often the mentality must be, if there's a job to be done, someone else will do it!

"They oughta do something about ...".  "Why don't they ... ?"  "If only someone would ... "

Have you heard them all before?  Who are "they" and "someone"?  In many cases you can replace these pronouns with "me" or "I" and with amazingly efficient results.

When I was a taxi radio operator, I'd occasionally get a transmission from a driver: "Base, there's a wheelie bin on the road in Darby Street, near Parkway Avenue".  When I used to drive, if I were vacant, I'd simply stop, get out of the car, and move the bin off the road!  Problem solved, job done.  Now as a radio operator, receiving such a transmission, all you can do is say "Cars show caution at Darby/Parkway there's a wheelie bin in the road" and at least half a dozen taxi drivers will know about it.  However as for all the other vehicles on the road??  And I doubt whether other networks would appreciate me ringing up and reporting the matter, I think the ambos and police might have better things to do!

Today I experienced a similar situation in packing up the hall after the show.  Whilst there were quite a few hard workers getting amongst the nitty gritty, there were others who didn't.  I think the difference is some people say, "they need to do something about it" whereas others say "we need to do something about it" and there's a whole world of difference in that pronoun you're using.  Who are they?  We are they!

Diversity

Sharon & I went to a dinner tonight at a local club which was also the annual general meeting for her credit union.  There were certain formalities required like adopting the annual report, and confirming the board members recruited.  There were, incidentally, four vacancies on the board, and three nominees, so a vote was not necessary, merely the meeting's acceptance of them.  It is normally also necessary to approve the remuneration for directors at such a meeting, however in this case, no remuneration was proposed, therefore no vote was necessary.

We had a three course dinner, with meals served alternately.  I always like going to a function like this with Sharon, as often something I detest, she loves, and definitely vice versa.  I have my steaks well done.  Frequently at this sort of a do, your steak is still actually alive on the plate, albeit bleeding heavily.

While I am definitely a well-done man, she is a rare woman.  Often it's necessary to swap to achieve the correct outcome.  Well tonight, I got the steak!  It was beautifully cooked (in my opinion anyway) to just the correct degree of done-ness.  I doubt Sharon would have been able to stomach it at all, and she had the chicken instead.

Isn't it wonderful that there is such a diversification of opinion on such things as basic as how your steak is cooked.  It must be a real problem for the caterers not knowing exactly WHAT to do with their steaks (I distinctly remember a few steaks that have been put in front of me that I have been incredibly grateful that Sharon has taken away and replaced with the chicken or fish).  But human nature is such that I have a different opinion than you, and you have a different opinion to that guy over there, and he has a different ...

If variety is the spice of life; life must be spiced with variety.

No Sex Opens

Just a line to say No Sex Please, We're British opened last night to a highly appreciative audience of 107.  I didn't catch much of the show owing to organisational duties, but we could hear the audience roaring with laughter on many occasions.  Well done cast, the first night is under your belt, and things can only get better from here!

Diminishing Driving Skills?

Ever notice that over the years, some familiar roads have had their speed limits radically curtailed?  I used to live at Kanwal, and on the way into Wyong, once you got past the Wyong Hospital (Golden Fleece service station for those even older), the limit used to increase to 100 km/h (well 60 mph even, before 1975).  Around van Stappen's corner at (now) Wadalba (but then, Korokoa, or even Wyong North) it was a full 100 km/h.  Honestly it was!

A few years later, in the late 1980s the limit was changed to 80 km/h.  And now in the 2000s, the limit is actually 70km/h.

It's the same road.  In fact it's quite a bit better now.  There probably is quite a bit more traffic, but really, is our general level of driving so bad that we need to have a limit 30km/h below what it once was in my memory?

This strangely applies to the old Pacific Highway at Palmdale.  Previously - before the Freeway was built - the road used to be two lanes in each direction, and a 100km/h limit.  When the Freeway was built parallel to it, the same road was reduced to one lane in each direction (but the paved surface was still two lanes wide, with a large concrete median strip).  And the obligatory speed limit reduction to (you guessed it) 70 km/h.  In this case, the road is used by substantially less traffic, is incredibly wide, and is in really good condition, but the limit is now 30km/h less than it used to be!

I don't know about you, but I think it must be that we can't drive as well as we did twenty or thirty years ago.  And hell, the cars are a lot better now, that's for sure.

I think this is a sad reflection on the driving ability of the general public, as the RTA only drop these limits based on general accident records.  What can we do?

Uncle Ben's (?)

Ever wondered about this stuff?  "Uncle Ben's" rice.  It's part of the almost total americanisation process happening here in Australia.  (Notice how I spelt it with an "s" to resist the americanisation itself?)

Apparently this has been a leading brand of parboiled rice in the USA for forty or fifty years.  The brand name is now like a common noun over there (eg vaseline, hoover, glad wrap, etc).

And I've been noticing it in Woolies and Coles over here of late.  It's owned by the multinational  giant Mars, and is yet another one of their brands.  But I doubt I'll ever be able to bring myself to buy it.

Hands up those of you who owned a dog in the 70s ?  And hands up those of you who used to feed it Pal?  And hands up those of you who remember the name of the company who used to manufacture Pal????

You can now see why I'm loathe to go anywhere near a brand like this...

The end is nigh...

On Thursday, No Sex Please, We're British actually opens.  Its at this point all the hard work is on display for everyone to see, and it's a bit hard to hide behind anything.

As production manager, I've had to do a lot of nitty-gritty stuff, such as buying in milk, sugar, coffee and such for interval.  I am picking up 1,800 biscuits today, for instance!  Even I couldn't get through that many on my own.

But my task pales into oblivion compared to an actor, who needs to front up to every rehearsal, or a backstage person who needs to work their guts out, or indeed the director, who needs to know exactly what's happening with everything.  And spare a thought for our bookings-taker who is going to have the phone line running hot tomorrow: our local paper's entertainment section has a full page photo wrap-around, and nearly a half-page article a few pages in.  This will result in several hundreds of bookings over the next few days.

So, we're all very busy at the moment, and my goodness, is this a recipe for tension!  Hopefully, though, everyone can work together to do their tasks and make it easier for everyone else to do theirs, and we get through it all.  We generally do!

Nitty Gritty

Ever wondered why you get sugar in sachets and not a sugar bowl in restaurants and cafes these days? And why there are portion-controlled individually wrapped things like biscuits, marmalade and chocolates?

The purpose of them is to reduce infection spreading of course, but they are backed up by legislation, and this is why they've been introduced.

I was working at the Beachcomber Resort when this legislation came in and we had to get rid of the sugar in our sugar bowls and replace them with sachets. Also the coffee jars had to be rid of, and individual servings of coffee went out instead. It is somewhat wasteful, and my claim is that despite it saying clearly "one teasoonful" on the sugar sachets, there is most definitely NOT one teaspoon. So determined I was to prove this that I was opening sugar sachets into a teaspoon and there was proof positive that the "teaspoonful" contained therein was nowhere near the full sized Australian standard cup-and-spoon measurement of precisely five millilitres.

So I always take three sachets of sugar in my coffee. If I was using a teaspoon itself, I'd only use two.

The reason for all this tedium is, however, is the Australian Food Safety Standards. These are quite involved specifications that describe how food is to be stored, handled and cared for. The relevant part is this:

8 Food display
...

(2) A food business must, when displaying unpackaged ready-to-eat food for self service:
(a) ensure the display of the food is effectively supervised so that any food that is contaminated by a customer or is likely to have been so contaminated is removed from display without delay;
(b) provide separate serving utensils for each food or other dispensing methods that minimise the likelihood of the food being contaminated; and
(c) provide protective barriers that minimise the likelihood of contamination by customers.
(3) Subclause (2) does not apply to food in tamper resistant equipment or containers.

[For a lot more info, see http://www.foodstandards.gov.au/thecode/foodsafetystandardsaustraliaonly/index.cfm ]

So if you are going to put out a sugar bowl on a table and allow people to use it, you have to supervise them, remove contaminated stuff, and ensure they use a clean spoon every time. If your wait-staff aren't watching everyone like a hawke every time they sugar their coffee, you're infringing the regulations. Alternatively, put the sugar in a sachet, and (3) comes into play.

A lot simpler that way, isn't it? And this is why we have the practice. Wasteful, tedious and bothersome, yes, but compliant with the regulations.