October 29th, Dad’s 99th birthday and the 22nd anniversary of my retirement. Next year will be Dad’s big one, the 100th. (He died in 2001 at age 78, but I will always remember his birthday.)

Also, my bone scan day. Someone thinks I should have bone density scans every couple of years. I don’t know why – I’ve never broken a bone and I’ve had a few heavy falls in past years (but nothing recently). Oh well, it costs me nothing and only takes about ten minutes, so what the hell?

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Busy day. A friend arranged to come here after his medical appointment at Joondalup. He’s got serious cancer, but the good news is that his treatment with chemo and radiation seems to have reduced the tumour by 70%. Wow. He’s quite pleased, obviously, and the treatment doesn’t seem to be affecting him adversely. He’s still got his hair and is not excessively tired and hasn’t lost weight. Things have come a long way.

Then we had lunch at the Dome, very pleasant, and talked for a couple of hours. We go back a long, long way.

Finally I had a podiatrist appointment at 4pm. No problems there. He rubbed my legs with a very nice oil.

Then I filled Evie with diesel at 162.7 c/l ! Ouch. But that’s the first time I’ve had to refill since about June. It’s a six cylinder but quite frugal, around 8 l/100km average, and I don’t drive much so fuel doesn’t cost me a lot.

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It won’t mean anything to anyone who doesn’t live in Perth but Russel Woolf, the ABC radio announcer, died suddenly during Monday evening/Tuesday morning. He was the 5.30am breakfast radio announcer and when I turned the radio on around that time on Tuesday, I was surprised to hear the other morning announcer, Nadia Mitsopolous talking in his place. She didn’t say why initially, but they announced the death at about 8.45am. I have to admire her, she held herself together and did a superb job on that morning. As far as I know, there was no warning, he just died in his sleep.

I didn’t know Russel but everyone in Perth held him in high regard and the tributes absolutely poured in all day and the next. I felt quite sad. I’d been listening to him for 15 years or more. I miss him.

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I’ve been posting a lot of my pictures on Facebook in the past few months and people seem to like them. I get a lot of feedback.

So I’ve been emphasising that I’ve done 13 books of the images, and the CD/DVDs above, adding that they are available for purchase.

I have not had one single enquiry about buying something. Not a whiff of interest. Pretty disappointing. No-one wants to pay for anything! Everyone wants everything for free. Every day I read The Guardian, WA Today, The Atlantic and Crikey and I subscribe! I pay for what I take.

Occasionally I get an appeal from Mozilla, the people who make the Firefox browser and the Thunderbird email client. You don’t have to pay for these, but occasionally (once or twice a year) they appeal for help and I donate $10 or $20. They say only 2% of their appeals result in a donation. Pathetic. Same for Wikipedia – since I use it regularly, when they make an appeal, I make a donation. They say the same, that very, very few, 1 – 2% of people, respond the the appeal with a donation.

As I said a couple of days ago, I also pay monthly for the photography blog I consume, and a Balinese website, and the ALP, and GetUp and other things that deserve support. Very, very few people pay for what they use. Pathetic.

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My diabetic medication was changed completely this past week and the good news is that my blood sugar readings have come down markedly. I mean halved. Still too high but it’s only been a few days so far.