North Western Australia   © PJ Croft 2017

I’m a bit quiet these days, I agree. Insomnia is a big problem. It’s reached the stage of sometimes not sleeping at all at night, making me feel awful by mid morning. Then I might sleep a couple of hours and feel better, but that’s not good enough. Yesterday was like that, and I resisted sleeping during the day, but by 7:00pm I was swaying, hardly able to stand. I watched TV until 9.30pm, not wanting to break routine, then took a sedative and crashed.

The sedatives work, but there’s a marked hangover the next morning, such as now. At 12:40pm I’m bleary eyed,struggling to type this and considering going back for more sleep, even though I supposedly slept right through last night. I was woken at 8.30am by a phone call from a friend wanting a phone number, and I could hardly read the computer screen.

Problem!

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Coincidences again. You’ve probably heard the news in the past few days with the tragic case of the woman in the NSW town of Moama who drowned her son. Then yesterday, Moama cropped up again, this time as the home town of our Eurovision entrant.

Then today, this headline:   Jason Momoa Goes From Superhero To Video Game Hero. I know it’s not the same, but to have Moama and Momoa occur purely by coincidence in the same week …

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You’ve probably noticed the news reports showing that the wages of ordinary workers are barely rising over a long period, and are mostly decreasing by being below the rate of inflation, small though it is.

Yet the salaries of managers are doing the opposite, increasing by leaps and bounds, far higher than inflation. How is this so? Because they set their own salaries, adding very large bonuses, simply for doing their jobs.

Ordinary workers have no such control. Their wages have long been set by an independent tribunal, with the cases being argued by the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU). As well, trade unions covering categories of workers bargain collectively for their members with individual companies.

But trade union memberships have been falling for decades, such that only about 20% of employees are prepared to support unions.

See any connection here? When union membership was strong, in the 1970s and ’80s, wages were good and rises were frequent. But when union membership fell out of favour, such as now, wage growth slowed and has gone backwards.

There was a good article in The Guardian a few days ago:

There’s an odd form of double-think in political and business circles when it comes to productivity. Each and every year, our corporate leaders explain the wonderful benefits of the bonus system. If they perform well, they often earn several times their salaries via the magic of incentive schemes.

Higher pay equals better performance in the executive suite.

But the opposite apparently applies at the other end of the scale. Our business leaders often argue, mistakenly, that lower pay will result in better labour productivity.

But if you cut someone’s wages, you can guarantee with absolute certainly that you won’t get a lift in productivity. In fact, there’s a good chance you’ll achieve the exact opposite.

Productivity, and the forces that drive it, are complex and not well understood. Partly, improvements are driven by better work structures or organisation. Mostly though, it is better technology.

I have experience of this. First, as union delegate at my workplace, I only had about 40% of my work colleagues as members. The rest weren’t prepared to join, the usual reason being they just didn’t want to pay the fees, which were about $120 a year I think (long time ago).

I couldn’t convince them that just one pay rise achieved by the union would repay their membership tenfold or more!

The other reasons were pure selfishness, seeing they got the pay increase whether they were a member or not; and some vague ideology, that they didn’t like unions. Yet they’d pay to belong to a health fund or the RAC.

It was also notable that around 2000 and 2001, when the Sydney management became aggressive about making people redundant (after I’d taken mine voluntarily, glad to get out), being a union member suddenly looked like being a form of protection. Most of the union members were left untouched – only non-members got forced out.

Boring, boring – my message is, why won’t people join the union when the union works for YOU?

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I had my appointment with Gastro-boy last week, and the result is that I’m set to have my gall bladder removed on Tuesday 28 March. Scans have shown “large stones” and although I’ve said I’m not having any problems, the message is I’ve been lucky, and leaving them in place is not a good idea. If a stone moves and blocks the bile duct you can be in emergency trouble, the pain is like stabbing knives and you wouldn’t want it to happen in Bali. So be it.

I was able to mention that I’ve noticed a good thing recently. I used to get a moderate pain, enough to have me squirming, in my lower left abdomen, just below my rib cage after eating. But since having my gastric band removed, I haven’t noticed it recently. As we agreed, it’s harder to notice an absence of pain than its presence. Good doogs.

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I made the trip into the city by train and bus as usual, and on the way back I thought to wonder how much credit I have left on my Smart Rider card. I remember putting $20 in a few years ago – how much is left? So I asked.

Sorry about the horizontal format, but turn your head and you’ll see the balance left is $27.46. As you can see, each trip costs me $zero. That’s because I travel after 10am and before 3pm.

But just as noticeable is that TransPerth has a complete record of all my recent trips, with destinations, dates and times. Big brother knows!

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Next job is to get a refund of my postage on a parcel back to Amazon in the USA. I bought one of these recently:

Not expensive, about A$87. But when it arrived it was very noticeable that the analogue and digital sections didn’t agree. The analogue hands were about 30mins out in three hours. They don’t have to be the same, of course, but they have to run at the same rate.

So I posted it back yesterday, at a cost to me of $15.85 in postage. Having used PayPal, I should be able to reclaim that. I’ve done it once before and it was OK.

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My phone call this morning was from a friend in the USA (Denver, Colorado), a former Northam High School and Hut Lad, still in touch after 55 years! He’s retired, of course, and he said the temp at 5.40pm his end was 52degF but clear, with a cold wind bringing it down to 19 degF wind chill factor. Ugh! He’s off on a cruise from Dubai, through the Med to Italy this month, to beat the cold. As well, he’s thinking of moving back to Australia to beat The Trump. He loathes the guy, just as we do.

My friend’s 27yo son works for Amazon in a suburb of Seattle. He works a 12 hour shift each day, 6am to 6pm, four days a week, and as he’s filling boxes, walks tens of miles each day. That’s a 48 hour week as routine! There are no penalty rates, it’s a flat hourly rate, and if things get busy such as Xmas, he can be required to work five days. No unions are allowed.

But he’s making around $100,000 a year for those 48 hr weeks, with three day weekends, and being allocated Amazon shares (“stock”), currently worth around $90 each. He’s a lower level manager, and has the prospect of rising to a $200,000 salary.  Hmmm.

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Phew, my mind is fuzzy. I think it’s the sleep. I’ll go back now for an hour and hope it helps.

Woo hoo, I went shopping yesterday. Why the woo hoo? Well, I only went to Office Works to get some cardboard luggage tag type labels and I found those. But I also bought a USB Port Replicator (which I got at a very reasonable price!):

and a label maker:

Why? Well, the port replicator (for a laptop) adds multiple USB sockets and an SD + microSD card reader. I’ve been running out of ports recently and it’s light enough (370g) to take with me when I travel.

The label maker jumped out at me because it makes labels only 3.7mm wide. This is the width (thickness) of slim CD cases, of which I have many! I’ve been looking for a way to make labels for them for ages. As well, its price of $29 was pretty attractive, even if a roll of 3.7mm tape was $24! It’s the old story: sell the razor for $1 but charge $5 for the blades. It can’t be helped.

Think that’s all?

Next stop was Jaycar Electronics to buy two watch batteries ($2.95 each) and while I was there, I had a wander around. Uh oh! Bargain at 5 o’clock, Cap’n.

I went away to Joondalup shops to think about it and guess what? I made up my mind – I bought the bargain:

Back in the 1980s and early 90s we would have walked over hot coals to get the company to buy one of these for us, so as to diagnose and monitor intermittent faults on the increasingly complex gear of the time. No way, the company never had money for new test equipment. In those days, an item like this would have cost in the region of $15,000-$20,000.

Now I’ve got my own. Price? $749, reduced from $1139. Why do I want it? I’ve been trying to get a 1980s vintage Betacam recorder/player going so as to digitise old tapes before they crumble to iron oxide. One of the machines plays in b/w but there’s no colour; to work on it, I need to look into the guts and that requires a gadget like this.

To think I have my own, personal, digital storage oscilloscope! It’s amazing.

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I filled my car up with petrol last week (the 18th). That was the first refill since 11th December last year – more than two months. Even though I only get fuel economy of around 12.5-13L/100km, I don’t do many kilometres. Those two months included three trips “south”, i.e. to North Beach and Scarborough, half an hour’s drive, but the rest was just around here. And I’ve also found that on a really long drive at high speed, my fuel economy can be as good as 6.5L/100km. So even though this car is not exactly economical on fuel, overall, it’s fine. Bagus.

See that line of dots with shadows along the median strip, right up to the intersection? Those are pine trees, in what I call The Line of Pines.

They look a bit spindly in this older photo, but until the past week, they were strong and beautiful.

Until last week —   they’ve been cut down, woodchipped and removed!! Not all of them along Marmion Avenue, but all as far back as that side road just past the truck.

The ones further south are not all gone, but many are. As well, a digger has been in and ripped up many, many square meters of the beautiful lawns near the roundabout.

I assume this is a road widening, to make two lanes in Marmion Avenue north of the roundabout, but to see those beautiful pines go … It looks as if the place has had a bald haircut.

One point is, how are they going to make two lanes around the roundabout? There’s too little room on the left hand (west) side. Maybe not.

Anyway, it’s the old story, that progress requires demolition. Pity.

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My neighbours’ dogs are barking again. They were going at 10pm last night, but with all the doors closed it was tolerable. Gee, 38C yesterday. I had to use the aircon for a while.

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I’ve finished sending out the email invitations to our next high school reunion on 1 April. This is the year all we former Northam Senior High School friends turn 70. It’s not so bad – I can make that statement from 8 days’ experience.  OK so far, as the saying goes.

1989 Me, Viv, Alex, Meryl

2004  I’m on the far left, as befits.

2007  I was behind the camera for this one.

It’s remarkable how we of the 1960-64 group have stuck together. We’ve had numerous reunions (about four so far, I think, and this will be the fifth) and we’re very much in touch, with many friendships now reaching nearly 60 years. Not many other years have stuck together as we have.

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The doctor has prescribed a different sedative medication to help with my insomnia. Boy, it works well. Even the minimum dose made me so sleepy that I couldn’t shake it off the next day, so I’m breaking the tablets in half. That’s working quite well, but I’m still quite sleepy for the whole morning after I get up, and I still  wake around 2-3am feeling quite alert. The difference is I can get back to sleep easily.

This is crazy. In my insomniac wakefulness this morning, I was looking at some You Tube video on my tablet. It was a video of a jet fighter cockpit when it had a failure.

This is the crazy bit: at one stage there was a countdown clock on the control panel of the plane. At the very time I was watching, 05:11am, the countdown clock in the plane showed 05:11.

Who is doing this to me??

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I only got about three hours sleep last night, midnight to 02:45am. Gave up trying around 5am. Consequently, when I had my shoulder ultrasound and steroid injection at 9:20am, I was swaying.

It went fine, and the injection was much less painful this time compared with May last year. As the guy said, maybe the needle touched the bone last year. Yes, I think it did, I thought I felt it.

He seemed to use a different technique this time, with a short needle that hardly hurt at all, then attaching a tube and pumping in three different (?) vials of juice. Easy.

Strange clinic. The GP sent me there saying it’s a lot cheaper than Joondalup – that’s for sure – it cost me nothing, compared with $276 last year. But the premises look like a 1960s building in need of repair. There was a thin power cord draped over a door. The ultrasound room was so small that things had to be moved around for the various stages.

And cheapest of all: the sonographer was a middle aged guy! Not good enough, I like the nice ladies.

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Lakes and oceans. Credit: xkcd

With the Marianas Trench being in the news for very bad pollution at great depths, and the Deepwater Horizon oil rig having a movie made about it, and the dodgy California dam at 230m high, this Info Graphic is timely. It’s a pity you can’t click on it to enlarge it, but it’s fascinating.  Look here: https://xkcd.com/1040/  This is a fascinating cartoon site – the guy has a very droll sense of humour. You might be able to see, left of centre, left of the words Abyssal Plain, two little blobs marked David Bowie and Freddy Mercury.

Considering I collected this graphic about five years ago, to show David Bowie down there in the depths is somewhat prescient.

It was my 70th birthday yesterday, hence the new decade. Many friends (I nearly wrote ‘fiends’) have said how hard it was to think, when we were young, of what it would be like getting old. Like thirty!

Well, the fact is, as we know now, it happens so slowly that you don’t notice too many changes. A few health problems crop up, some a lot worse than others, for sure, but I seem to have escaped relatively easily. I find steps and stairs a bit hard, and sometimes I carry a walking stick if I think it’s going to be uneven ground, but I actually feel a bit improved in this regard recently. Could it be that I’ve been taking CoEnzyme Q10 capsules daily for a couple of months? You can never be sure about these things, but that’s one change that I can think of. Or could it be that I bought a treadmill about 4 months ago and have been using it, moderately?

Dawn over the port for Saigon.  © PJ Croft 2017

The new dawn is that I’m hoping I was too pessimistic about my Bali friendship failing recently. There are signs of hope. Too soon to be sure, to be sure.

Dawn from Sanur  © PJ Croft 2017

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I’ve just noticed on Wikipedia: on February  12 in 881 King Charles the Fat, the third son of the late Louis the German, is crowned as Holy Roman Emperor by Pope John VIII at Rome.

Aaah, ya gotta laugh.

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What amazing weather. Roasting heat on the eastern side of Australia, and well below average temps, with record setting rainfall and flooding here on the west coast. This is climate change in action. I’d rather have our problem than Sydney and Brisbane’s. Their high humidity combined with the heat would be terrible. At least our hot weather is very dry heat and quite tolerable.

“President Trump, sir, you think you’ve got tiny hands? Check this guy out. This is your personal sheriff doll, Mr President, for you to play with in bed. He shoots Muslims on sight.”

This was on the web yesterday. At first glance, I thought the guy on the right was an admiral in the US Navy, but even an Admiral of the Fleet doesn’t have that many rings on his sleeve. It turns out that this is a gathering of sheriffs, i.e. police. Look at the guy’s uniform! Epaulettes with gold stars, star badge, those six gold rings on his sleeves, gold buttons and that big USA flag badge. Hoo ah. I’d love to see his hat. And he’s only a policeman. These Americans are ridiculous. Even ordinary low ranking soldiers have three rows of medal ribbons on their chests.

However, take a look at our Australian Border Force guys these days. Black uniforms, military style, with gold and silver fittings and badges. Black uniforms were all the rage in Nazi Germany, remember. The government is turning our former Customs and Immigration guys into a quasi-military “force”, with that psychopath Dutton at the head.

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The title above refers to my toaster. (Exciting subject, eh?) It’s a fancy Breville 4-slice machine, and I mean “machine”, because the lift and lower is motor driven. Lovely. I bought it in April last year, partly to impress my new visitor, I must admit.

But yesterday it refused to lift and finish, with the toast down there in the slots getting overcooked. It was just making clicking sounds. I had to hurriedly switch it off at the wall. Oh well, it’s still under warranty, but I’ll have to take it into Myer in the city where I bought it.

However, I tried it this morning after it’s been off for 24 hours and it’s come good. That’s good, but it’s also bad, because it means an intermittent fault which may be hard to demonstrate. We’ll see how it goes. It cost $135, not negligible.

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Another completely sleepless night last night, as is regular now. I was recommended to take melatonin tablets, as there’s no hangover effect, a big problem with the Phenergan I’ve been using. It didn’t work on my first attempt last night. I felt very sleepy and was nearly dropping off, but never succeeded. I felt very rested, but never got to sleep.

At least I got to hear a great talk on Big Ideas, RN, between 3 and 4am, on physics, particles, our universe and the possibilities of multi-universes, and what might happen if any of the many physics constants were even slightly different to the value we know. They pointed out that there are quite a few numbers in physics which are hugely important, such as the speed of light and the mass of the electron, but we have no idea why the numbers are what they are. Why is the speed of light 2.99792458 x 10e11 m/s? Why not 3.0000 exactly? Why not 5.00001? We have no idea.

[Actually, it could be 3.0000… exactly if the definition of the metre was changed. We define the metre as the reciprocal of the velocity, how about that? We could choose some other definition, as we used to until 1983. I think I dispute the basis of the question. Similarly, we talk all the time in terms of years, which is simply the time taken for one rotation of our Earth around our star. But to some other life form, our year might be exceedingly long, or short, by many orders of magnitude perhaps. We tend to think other worlds or galaxies must measure time in units like ours. Why should they?]

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So it’s back to the winter weather. What a strange summer. I’m not complaining, not at all. No need for air conditioning. I’m even having to use a bit of hot water for my showers on some mornings! No need for sprinklers either.

I’ve just been out to the garage at 5.30am to lift an IKEA box off the floor in case any rainwater gets in under the roller doors. If even a little bit of water gets into particle board, it swells and distorts and is ruined. I was lying there sleepless, thinking about things I have to do, and the IKEA Billy bookcase flat packs came to mind.

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I was talking to a mate about broadband internet speeds, i.e. lack of, and thought I’d check, just now. My speed is 1Mb/s or less. Not good.

However, I checked iiNet’s plans and found that they know about Opticomm, which pre-cabled this estate with fibre when it was developed in 2004, and I can get FTTH, fibre to the home! Hoo-bloody-ray. At last. And I can even have the 100Mb/s top speed, with a 500GB allowance per month (I presently have 20GB) for about the same price as I’m paying now for ADSL 1Mb/s. I think I’ll sign up asap.

I never got around to doing anything about buying that new phone that I mentioned last week. Another model caught my eye and seems better, and distracted me. Must do it.

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I had a very nice comment yesterday from a lady I don’t know, about my blog post on kookaburras at the Trigg house in 2012! She also has kookas coming to her back verandah and found my post about mine. Crumbs, the internet is forever.

The end of the world?   © PJ Croft 2017

When I heard Malcolm Turnbull’s comment on President Dump’s executive order banning entry to the USA for those seven countries, my immediate thought was, “You weasel. You watery apology for an Australian prime minister.”

The whole world is standing up in protest against this foolish, mean order, yet you say we don’t comment on other countries’ affairs. Yes we do! We protested to Japan over their illegal whaling. We told China to respect the ruling of the Hague about China’s annexation and militarisation of the South China Sea islands. We criticised Russia over the shooting down of the Malaysian aircraft over Ukraine.

But when big Daddy USA and big Republican (ie conservative) president Donald does something, we run and hide in case he thinks we don’t support him, and he might not help us when we need it.

This damnable Liberal-National Party government. Bloody cowards. Torturers, child abusers, offenders against international law. They have trashed Australia’s good name. Canada is now the light on the hill.

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Incredible. The Dump has only been in power for less than two weeks and already he’s brought the USA into international disrepute. This ban on Muslims will enrage the militants and increase the danger of terrorism.

He’s actually just continuing a long line of US atrocities. This from an article in The Guardian today:

In the period following the devastating 9/11 attacks, the US committed a number of acts that damaged the country’s global standing. They include

• the invasion of Iraq that was justified by the false claim that Saddam Hussein possessed an arsenal of weapons of mass destruction that endangered the US;
• the water-boarding, wall-slamming and other abuses of detainees from many countries at CIA “black sites”;  [i.e. torture PJC]
  
• the extremely prolonged detentions without charges or trial at Guantánamo;
• the poor administration of occupied Iraq that allowed the country to descend into chaos and helped to spawn terrorist movements in the region;
• and the torture and sexual humiliation of Iraqi detainees at Abu Ghraib.

To that list I would add the drone bombing of terrorist sites in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen, which has killed many innocent civilians; the deaths of tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians and the maiming and injury of hundreds of thousands more; and the forced displacement of millions of war refugees in the Middle East.

What a great record!

There’s an article in the Washington Post today written by Mikhail Gorbachev, who warns that with Trump and Putin in total power, we are in new danger of a world war, World War 3, and I think there’s no doubt it would go nuclear.

All this just in Dump’s first two weeks! What’s it going to be like after two months, or two years? This is frightening.

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What strange weather. It started raining on Sunday night and it’s hardly stopped since. I could hear it during my period of wakefulness around 3am this morning, and it’s still raining now, at midday Tuesday. I heard yesterday was, at 24C, the coolest January day in ten years or something like that. My fingers are quite cold now.

I’ve had clothes out on the line since Sunday – forgot to bring ’em in. Too bad, they’ve had a wonderful rainwater rinse, and when they do get dry, they’re like they’ve been ironed.

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I did 15 mins non-stop on the treadmill this morning, the last five minutes at slope 3. This thing is working. I’m finding it easier to do, and my walking in general feels easier these days. Bagus. I quite enjoy the treadmill, as well, watching the news on TV as I walk.

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I continue to be crapped off with my Sony phone. It was only a $230 “cheapie”, and that’s the way it performs, cheaply.

OnePlus 3  – gee, it’s different, isn’t it?

I’ve decided on a replacement, the OnePlus Three. It wins top spot for mid-price smart phones, giving most of the performance of the top models at half the price, apparently. I think I’ll order it right now. My review will follow after some time.

Sanur, Shanti Beach   (C) PJ Croft 2017

Nope. Now that I’ve read up on the Microsoft X-Box One S that I thought might act as my HDD video tuner recorder, I realise it doesn’t come close. It has no tuner(s) and no capacity for off-the-air TV. It’s definitely the cheapest way to buy a 4K Ultra HD Blu Ray player, but I want more than that. Scotch that idea.

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Aaaah, nice drop of rain today. Not heavy, but 2-3 hours of steady drizzle this morning, and it’s still spitting now. More please.

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My sedatives didn’t work last night, dammit. Asleep OK at 11pm, but woke at 12.30am and that was the last sleep I got. I think I must have dozed a bit as I seem to remember dreams, but I felt awful this morning and have had to sleep again during today. That’ll muck it up for tonight. This is awful, a real problem. I’m wide awake now at 6.45pm, but it may mean I don’t sleep again tonight. Grrr.

Crater lake storm, Kintamani (C) PJ Croft 2017

Wow, looking outside at the moment, the sky is heavy with cloud, pregnant with coming rain. The light is orange. The Bureau of Meteorology web site says tomorrow’s chance of rain is 100%, and I heard there could be up to 50mm over the northern suburbs. That’s me. Yay! Let it come. It was 42C on Thursday, 40C yesterday and 39C today. This leaves Bali with its 30, 31C temps behind. I think I prefer Bali, not sure. Humidity here around 50%, Bali 95-100%.

Aaaah, a flash of lightning and a roll of thunder. Love it!

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But after a very quiet week for dog barking, they’re at it again. I haven’t said a word of complaint, but for some reason the dogs were very quiet this past week. I wouldn’t be surprised if someone else has complained.

However, while I was moving around outside fixing the retic, a bloody dog was snuffling and barking at every sound I made. They can’t see me, but can hear me moving around, you see. They’re also whining and whimpering. The owners are out tonight, judging by the lack of lights. Now the dogs are barking just at the voices from my TV sound.

Aaah, more thunder. Maybe lightning’ll strike ’em.

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I’ve been having reticulation troubles and found my controller had somehow changed its settings. Hard to see how, unless someone did it while I was away. The controller is accessible from the footpath, so anyone can fiddle with it. It does have battery backup, but the display looks fine, so I don’t think it’s a low battery.

Anyway, I reprogrammed it (quite an easy job, there are only three stations and it’s very logical) and attempted to run the main garden bed station, which missed its Saturday cycle this morning. But the pressure was too low and once again I’ve found a blanked off piece of pipe has popped off. I fixed this just a week ago, but the snap ring is not strong enough. I’ll have to use a hose clamp. I used to have dozens, but I’m not sure where they are now. Moving! Never again.

If the rain happens as forecast, no watering will be needed, of course.

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Moving all my stored recordings off the hard drive recorder to DVD has happened much faster than I expected. I’ve done at least a dozen DVDs so far, probably more, and there are only about six major programs left to save. Not hard, A couple of days should see it finished. So much for my estimate of months of work.

Of course, if I didn’t watch these programs when they were on the hard drive, why am I going to watch them now? It’s just that I can’t erase major Shakespeare productions and the Queen’s Jubilee Procession, which will never, ever be repeated. Likewise the closing ceremony of the 2012 London Olympics. Every opening and closing of an Olympics I’ve ever watched has been marvellous, but they are never preserved. You will never be able to see them again. I’ve got this one.

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So what’s going to replace the Panasonic HDD/DVD recorder? Would you believe, possibly a Microsoft X-Box 1? Latest model. It has a 4K UltraHD BluRay player built in and is fully 4K enabled. I have a 4K TV now, you see. A 55″ LG OLED model.

Why 4K? Because when I’m travelling, I shoot video in 4K. All the video of the Balinese Kecak Dance at Ulu Watu was shot in 4K. I had to reduce it to 720p to edit and upload to Vimeo for the blog, unfortunately, so a lot of thequality was lost, but I can assure you, 4K video sparkles!

The X Box does internet program streaming too, and has a 1TB internal hard drive to record and store programs. The one thing it doesn’t do is record to external discs, so the hard drive will slowly fill up. Hmmm. I think some cable connection to an external DVD recorder might be needed at some time. Then again, do we actually need DVDs any more? USB thumb drives are now so cheap and have far greater capacity and reliability.

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Nearly time (8pm) to take my sedatives, Phenergan and Valerian. I find they keep me asleep, but have a morning hangover effect, so it’s better to take them early.

I’ve also just started using the insulin pens I bought at Kimia Farma in Jalan Legian in Bali.

What an idiot I was. I was so spooked at finding one of my packets of cartridges was empty while I was up there and thought I would run short, that I rushed out and bought some pens. A box of five cost me $125! And only now that I’ve been home for three weeks have I started using them. I needn’t have spent that money, in other words. Duh! Stop and think, next time.

(C) PJ Croft 2017

A reflection of my mood at the moment. I’ll get over it. It’s much the same as when I had to get the vet to put Minnie to sleep. I felt awful for some months, but I got over it.

(C) PJ Croft 2017

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I was amazed today. I went to buy a newspaper at Whitford’s City shopping centre, at a small kiosk on the west end.

It’s U-shaped with small counters on the three sides. I picked up the paper and stood at the left hand side counter with correct money in my hand. The guy was standing with his back to me at the right hand side counter. He finished with a customer but continued standing there with his back to me.There were no other customers.

Thinking he didn’t realise I was there, I said, “Excuse me” and held out the money. He turned and said, “No, that counter’s closed. Can you come around here please?” indicating the centre counter.

I was astounded. For his convenience, he wanted me to walk around to the centre counter so as to hand over my correct coins. Why? Why was my counter “closed”? There was nothing to indicate it.

I was not in a good mood so I just slapped my coins down on the counter and took the paper and walked away. He shouted after me, “Thank you very much, sir” in a sarcastic tone.

Bloody hell, what happened to the customer being right? I should have slapped the paper down instead and walked away, telling him I’d buy elsewhere.

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(C) PJ Croft 2017

Cool summer! There’s some hot weather forecast for tomorrow and Thursday, but I’ve been cold the last few nights, not even using the fan that I usually have blowing on me all night. Even my cold shower in the morning is feeling a bit too cool.

There was an excellent talk on the Science Show on Saturday. A WA scientist has written a book about the climate of SW Western Australia in the past century, pointing out the way the climate has changed, markedly, and the vegetation with it.Our SW area, comprising the Wheat Belt and the Darling Scarp, with the Perth metro area, has undergone a major drying effect since the 1970s. I agree! I have felt it. The south west forests are noticeably dry, stressed. Our dams, previously our major source of drinking water from winter rain, are now essentially useless, near empty all the time, even in winter.

He points out that land clearing for wheat farming has been very wrong, counter-productive, because the loss of vegetation has caused the rainfall to reduce over the cleared areas. Rain falls more over green vegetation, not over barren wheat land.

The reduced rainfall has also allowed the water table to rise, bringing salt with it, and large areas of formerly productive land is now too saline to use. Bad decisions 50-60 years ago.

He said you’d think the answer would be to re-vegetate the cleared land, and in theory that’s correct, but the area is just too vast, the job too big. Too bad.