Monthly Archives: August 2012

Minnie dog

Minnie dog
Minnie is starting to worry me just a little. She seems fine, although the tumour near her right hip is protruding a lot now. Yet she lies on it. That says to me it doesn’t hurt.
But she’s slow to take her food now. She still eats it all, but she won’t take a piece of meaty bone from my hand. I have to drop it. She thinks about it, then picks it up a few seconds later. She even leaves a bit sometimes.
I’m slowly reducing the amount I feed her. Sometimes she doesn’t even come to the door looking for her dinner, so I don’t chase her.
But last night I went to bed late, about 1am. It was cold and had started to rain. I looked out the front and she wasn’t there under the verandah. She wasn’t out the back either. I didn’t want to go out in the rain so I shouted for her to come in. No response.
I started to worry a bit. I’ve been leaving the front gate open – she ain’t going anywhere. But she was nowhere to be seen. I shouted and cajoled. Nothing. Had she wandered off? Surely not?
Finally, I went out in the rain and round the side near the lounge room chimney. I know she likes to lie there, and there she was, in a sand depression, even though she was getting wet.

This time she got up when I called her and came in to the front, still outside but at least she was dry now. I tried to get her to come inside, but she won’t. No matter how cold, she wants to sleep outside.

Amazing

On the right track at last   Perth city station 2011
Wow, this is amazing. Hi Rach. Thanks very much for your support. How great that the web and computers have allowed us to be in contact like this. (Btw: I’m especially proud of 1 July, entitled One Kooka, Two Kookas, Three Kookas etc. I hope you enjoy it.)
For my other readers, this morning I followed a WordPress link and got into a fantastic conversation about 10 Things That Suck About Being a Guy. One thing led to another and I started revealing perhaps a little more than I intended about how I feel about being a guy.
My post attracted some very nice replies and so I’ve posted a link to this blog, where I’ve dropped some hints about how much better I’ve been feeling lately. I still can’t reveal exactly what it is, but let’s say it’s a natural remedy. 
I wish, I wish, I wish I’d done it 9 years ago when it was first suggested, but I was too scared then. The result is, I lost almost an entire decade of my life to depression, fatigue, loss of drive, loss of motivation, weight gain, suicidal thoughts, tiredness, and generally being angry and crapped off. 
Grumpy old man syndrome! It’s true! I know I’m hard to get along with, but I’ve been through a meat grinder. It has been hard going, very hard.
I’ve kept diaries luckily and now I’m documenting it all. If only I’d followed my own instincts instead of listening to doctors. False diagnosis after false diagnosis.
Mind you, sleep apnea from the early 1990s nearly killed me. Heart disease, diabetes, weight gain, depression, constant, constant fatigue were caused by it and took their toll.
Starting with the CPAP machine in July 2000 fixed me for a few months. It was a revelation.
But it didn’t last! My fatigue and loss of drive and general crapped off feeling returned. It wasn’t the sleep problem any more, I was sleeping well, but I was also having to sleep during the day, every day.
This has continued right through the past decade from 2000 to 2012. It’s all in my diaries and I’m now writing it out in a time line.
I won’t be posting it here – it’s too personal and too long, but you get the idea.
All I need say is that my mind is now clear and I’m getting on with the remainder of my life. I only hope I’ve got enough time left.
PS: I’m also developing another blog about CDs, with pictures. I’m totally restricting access at the moment until it’s ready. More anon. (It will be in WordPress, too, not this stupid bug ridden Blogger!)

Model Railways and President Obama

Again, without comment, my response to a short article on The Atlantic’s web site.

I see this:  The Atlantic’s articles, like this one, are short and superficial. The Guardian (UK) articles are long and rich.

US model railway magazine articles show ENORMOUS model train layouts, filling entire basements with complex, showy train sets made by men with too much money. More track = more show = better.

UK model rail layouts are so simple they often contain no more than a few feet or yards of track. Yet they are so detailed and elegant as to be admirable.

I’m neither: I’m Australian. I think you Yanks took the  wrong track several decades ago. President Obama is a good man. Listen to him.

Curiosity, Idiocity

I post this wthout further comment.

If they can watch this video and remain unmoved, check their pulse!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ki_Af_o9Q9s

Sean

On Fri, Aug 3, 2012 at 4:43 PM, Peter Croft  wrote:
Hi Sean,

Just an interested 65 yo retired former electronics tech who reads Cosmic Variance and once used The Feynman Lectures in Physics as text at UWA in 1965! CMB was not yet known, how about that?!

You do realise that the Mars landing will be Schrodinger's Cat in reverse?

Unless we observe it, the wave function will not collapse and the Lander mission will never have existed except in one of the waves. We must all concentrate.

I will be sitting in a cafe on the beach front in Trigg, Western Australia, my suburb, at 1.31pm on Monday 6th chomping on a seafood lunch with my laptop and 4G modem. With any luck, the sun will be shining on the sea and I will jump for joy. I can't bear to think of the other wave function.

Cheers,
Peter Croft
Perth, Western Australia.

PS: I've tried to introduce this landing to other friends. It's impossible to hold their attention! It's all a silly joke to them, about 5 seconds' worth of listening. Waste of time. Not to me!

-- 
----------------------------------------------------------------
Sean Carroll
Physics Department, Caltech
1200 E California Blvd, Pasadena, CA 91125
Office: 626/395-6830   Fax: 626/568-8473
http://preposterousuniverse.com/

Appalling Carpet Call!

Casual attitudes – sleeping lying dogs
The casual attitude of Carpet Call continues to amaze me. They know they’ve got an angry customer, but it took two days for the manager to come here to investigate. Then he arrived 25 mins late!
Yesterday he said a fixer would be here today to rectify the laying faults.
I’ve just had a call from them – the fixer guys will be here next Tuesday!! Another three days’ wait.
This is atrociously bad service. All the platitudes yesterday about how “we pride ourselves on our after sales service”. Bullshit!
Never again. This is Aussie business for you, casual, sloppy, near enough, couldn’t care less.
______________________________________
This reminds me of two more examples.
I wrote a few weeks ago about visiting Dick Smith at Karrinyup, how they were far, far too casual about showing me a Samsung Note, refused in fact, how the store alarm was going off, how there were no prices on things. I got out of there.
I wrote to them on their web site, detailing all this. Result? Nothing, no reply. Ha! Did I expect anything else from an Aussie company?
Then Nuance USA sent me details of a special half priced offer of Dragon Naturally Speaking voice recognition software for $49.95. I wanted it and tried to buy on-line from the US site, but they will only ship a box, and not to Australia. Contact the Australian Nuance site.
I did. Price in Australia, double, $99.95 for the same software!
I emailed Nuance in Sydney – no reply. I emailed Nuance USA and told them about this. They emailed straight back and said, sorry, we can’t do it for you, you must go through the Sydney site.
So I tried Sydney again. Result – nothing!!! No reply. Unbelievably bad service from Australian firms.

The Treacle Sea

Feel a bit twisted at times.
This is what it’s like to be depressed.
You find yourself trying to swim in a sea of black molasses. Light can get through, you can see the daylight, but mainly, all you see is a dark wall or horizon. No detail. You find it hard to swim anywhere and you don’t want to try. It’s easier to just float, or sink.
People can loom alongside you and you can speak to them, but it’s difficult and you really don’t care much if they hear you. You kind of want to speak, but it doesn’t really matter much – it’s all too hard.
You find it easiest to just float, or sink slowly. You know you might drown, but who cares? You’re down in this dark molasses where no-one else lives. No-one will miss you! You’re out of sight. Other people are probably better off if you’re not around, but you don’t care much.
You see the doctor and you’re prescribed a pill.
________________________________________________
It takes two weeks, but it seems to work. You slowly come to the surface and the light seems much brighter. You feel a few skin shivers and a bit of stomach upset, but it wears off. You can see a horizon and see people and it seems fine. You feel much better.
But you can’t seem to get anywhere. Swimming is hard. You strike out on some mission, but you forget in a few seconds what the mission was. You can’t quite think what you’re going to do today. It’s easiest to just read the newspapers or use the internet.You notice that you can’t even think about sexual things any more. It’s not worth trying. You can’t be bothered. You can hardly even remember what used to be interesting because you can’t hold it in your mind!
You end up on a wide flat boat floating on the treacle sea. The boat is stable and you don’t need to make any effort. The treacle sea is calm and so you float along, not achieving much progress, but you don’t care. You can see people on the shore, quite close, and communicate no problem. Things seem OK.
But you don’t seem to get anywhere. All is calm, all is bright, but something’s not right.

You know you have plenty of things to do, but you can’t get started because you can’t hold plans in your mind. You may start on a job, but you get so easily distracted that you never get anywhere. Hence projects never get done, jobs never finished or even half way. It’s very frustrating and a bit depressing. Ironic.

__________________________________
Then you slowly taper yourself off the pills, over a period of up to a month sometimes.
Within the first few days of stopping, your libido returns. That means you are able to concentrate again. You start to notice you can think more clearly. You start to make lists of things to be done. You can plan again. You can hold things in your mind.
This clarity of mind continues to slowly improve. You feel brighter, quicker to think. Especially, you’re able to work out what to do and what you want to do tomorrow. You wake up with a plan for the day, looking forward to it.
The boat analogy now is that you’re on a big launch, but the water is also quite rough. You feel the waves, and the wind can sometimes seem pretty strong. You’re higher up and you can see much further. You’re above the surface of that dark water. The shore is right there, brighter, more colourful, more attractive, more inviting. You want to pull into bays and coves and explore ideas, or power up the boat and go to another country again.
The people on the shore are attractive and you want to make contact. You want to renew acquaintance with the friends on the shore, so you pull in and engage.
But just like Captain Cook, you find the natives are not always friendly. They probably don’t mean to, but they are doing things you didn’t want to see, things you didn’t realise.

Other shore dwellers are seen to be thugs, wielding cudgels of sarcasm, blunt weapons of dull stupid jokes, nasty racists, intolerant of anyone they think might be a threat to them, especially any dark skinned foreigners in small boats.

You notice the insults, the abuse, the nasty people. You realise that many people are not friendly, that they are only seeming so for their own ends.

You find it easier to power away, embarking on a new course, staying away from the shore, setting new directions.

This better feeling continues and you realise just how badly you’ve been sucked down into that molasses sea. No more!

Now you can smell the sea air, you remember how it used to smell.  You recapture the sense of adventure and want to revisit the old places.

And you realise time is running out. The thing you fear is hitting a hidden shoal or iceberg and suddenly sinking, struck down before your time. Gotta be careful from now on. Priorities only. No time to waste on false friends or people who drag you down.

Power on. The horizon is very bright and inviting. Lots to do, so little time.

Carpet Called Again

A manager from Carpet Call finally came here today, albeit 25 minutes late for his appointment time!
He set off on his own, looking at the job, and I left him to it. Barry was here – we drank coffee while Troy looked at the job.
Finally he came into the family room and said, “Yeah, I can see the problems.” I said, “I don’t care about the defects, it’s the whole crap experience I’m upset about! The fear!”
Upshot: long talk, new installer will come tomorrow, fix it all, sorry, Greg is at the end of the line, hasn’t come to work all this week, says he injured his thumb, (bulldust!), won’t be working for them much longer.

Barry worked his negotiating skills and kept me calm. We ended up talking footy and shaking hands. What else, I don’t know.  That’s it for now.

This is crap!

Purple lilies   — copyright original photographer unknown
Everyone who knows me knows I like a drink. But alcohol companies have apparently started placing advertising near kids’ sporting venues and making ads targeting kids and youths with fast cars and sporting heroes promoting beer and alcohol products.

The Alcohol Advertising Review Board was formed in March by Western Australian health advocates amid concerns the alcohol industry’s voluntary regulation system was inadequate. (ABC News)

More than 60 complaints have been received about ads targeting kids! 25 upheld.

Board member Mike Daube says most companies were unrepentant.
“Most of the companies are saying we just don’t think you have any standing so we’re not going to respond,” he said. 
The board has no power to force the advertisements to be withdrawn. (ABC News)
Ethics? What are those? Morals? Get lost.   
I don’t like nanny state stuff but this is bad.

Use-by Bog Rolls

What is it?
I’ve seen everything now. Yesterday at my local supermarket there was a shopping trolley, next to the markdown/short-date table, stacked to the brim with big 8-pack toilet paper packages.
Yes, toilet paper with a use-by date! I can’t believe it.
I did believe it and grabbed two 8 roll packs for $2.99 each. I’m going to go back today and get some more. I, er, don’t think I’m worried about use-by dates on this.
This reminds me that several weeks ago, I picked up a cube shaped cardboard package from the short-date table marked down to $3.99 or similar. It was an elegant package, brown with swirly patterns all over it, called Super Thins. Oooh, goody, I thought, After Dinner Mints. Might have those.
NO! Super Thins are, er, ladies feminine hygiene thingys.  I dropped ’em quick smart. It happened again a couple of weeks later. No, not for me, thanks.
Ya gotta laugh.

Hypocrites!!!

I am writing, very frequently, to Dr Mal Washer, Federal MHR for Cowan, the electorate north of me. Michael Keenan, I am ashamed to say, is the member for Stirling which is my electorate.
Doctor Washer is a medical doctor, a GP, and we used to be at Kingswood College, UWA in 1965, at the same time. He graduated as a medico. I was on a different course. Boy, what a different course!
He relies on nurses. He is a member of the Liberal Party, the Conservative Party, the union hating party, the-no-apology-to-Aborigines party, the anti-refugees boat people, push-’em-back-to-Indonesia party. A Tony Abbott lover.

I have been sending him emails saying, Repudiate your leader or be branded a hypocrite. he has never replied. I say he is a coward.

DOCTOR Washer, Mr Keenan,

You bastards hate unions. You supported “Work Choices” and were roundly rejected by the electorate for that draconian legislation.

Nurses in Perth are angry and fed up because the state government is going to increase the parking charges at hospitals, which the nurses have to pay when they park at their workplace!

This is a tax on nurses’ wages.

In your philosophy, the nurses are not allowed to make a collective union led protest. Every nurse should have to go individually to management and make her/his protest about the parking charges.

You’re mentally ill!

DOCTOR Washer, I bet you don’t pay parking charges!


No need to say any more.