Isle of Skye   (C) PJ Croft 2016

I had an echocardiogram last week at Joondalup and the sonographer’s name was Michelle.

I had another one yesterday at Hollywood Private Hospital in Nedlands and this sonographer’s name was Michelle too. Echo…echo…echo…

Yesterday’s was before and after an exercise stress test, the dreaded treadmill. Phew! The first couple of minutes at 10% slope and fast walk were OK, but the next few minutes at 20% slope, i.e. uphill, and very fast walk were hard going. No chest pains, but my muscles turned to jelly and I had to call a halt. Then it was quickly back onto the bed and another echocardiogram while I huffed and puffed and calmed down. No problems found as far as I know. But I felt very, very tired for the rest of the afternoon. Had to lie down when I got home.

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This warning is from the US CERT web site, so it’s real:

Norton and Symantec used to be highly respected in antivirus and system repair software. Yet now this government department is warning that their antivirus products are full of holes! You have been warned. This software is pre-installed on a lot of new systems and you’re pressured to pay to keep it running. Don’t do it!

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Kuala Lumpur    (C) PJ Croft 2016

This is from an ABC News web site article by Ian Verrender:

Our business leaders are focused almost entirely on the elimination of penalty rates for the lowest paid in society — ironically so they can boost their own personal bonus payments — while the Government tears itself apart battling an imaginary foe in the shape of rampant union power.

Industrial disputes are at historically low levels; at about 100,000 lost days during 2015, well below the average 172,000 during the [time of the] Australian Building and Construction Commission.

And the second is that despite scaremongering of a wages explosion just four years ago, wages growth is now the slowest on record, rising just 0.4 per cent in the first quarter of this year after decelerating through most of 2015.

This means that since inflation is about 1.1%, most ordinary people’s wages are going backwards. Except for the upper management types, the carpet walkers. Their wages are exploding at rates of 15 – 50% or more, with massive (~$million) bonuses for doing what most of us would call just their jobs. Why do managers need incentive payments to do their jobs?

Upper managers are ripping you all off! They are stealing from their companies in a giant con job. They moan and groan about penalty rates for ordinary employees, but pay themselves salaries that amount to robbery of the company treasuries. Why? Because they can get away with it. They are greedy thieves. Lying about having to attract the best talent. Continuing to take their massive salaries and bonuses even if the company profits are falling. Thieves.

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An example, from overseas, admittedly:

“Former chairman of the Board of Commissioners of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey David Samson, pleaded guilty to on July 14 2016 to bribery by using his official authority to pressure the parent company of United Airlines into starting a non-stop flight from Newark NJ to South Carolina for his personal benefit.

“… United executives were pressured into adding a flight between Newark airport and Columbia, South Carolina, near where Samson had a vacation home, knowing it would lose money.”

“… United implemented a weekly schedule. Samson used the flight 27 times between October 2012 to January 2014.”

At least he was found out, but he just had to resign. The report says nothing about any penalties. Amazing. From Airliner World magazine, September issue. I read widely 🙂

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Kyoto   (C) PJ Croft 2016

I got my Samsung laptop back today, after six weeks away being “fixed” from a Samsung BIOS update.

I took it to the lunch table at the shopping centre to test it, and it was completely dead. Wouldn’t power on. Terrific. I went back to the Samsung booth and we found that the battery was completely discharged, 0%.  Thanks very much! So I’ve had to bring it home and charge it (3hrs) to test it. Result? The fault is still there. You can’t put it to sleep using the power button. It’s either on, or powered off completely. I suppose I can use the Windows on-screen power switch, but this is a change from the pre-BIOS update. I wanted the BIOS update rolled back. They haven’t done it. I still have to check whether the intermittent boot up problem is still there. And I said the volume buttons are reversed from other tablets and I thought it should be possible to change this in firmware.

Not happy, Samsung!

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UN Secretary general Ban Ki Moon is “incandescent with rage” over the Syrian and Russian barbaric bombing of Aleppo, deliberately targeting civilians, hospitals, medical staff and aid convoys. I agree.

It occurs to me that (a) the RAAF would never plan and carry out air strikes of this type; (b) Australian pilots would refuse to carry out such strikes even if they were ordered; and (c) if anyone did do such acts, they would immediately be charged with war crimes.

What kind of barbarians are Russian and Syrian pilots? They are sub-humans. They are uncivilised criminals. Russia likes us to think of them as an advanced country. No they’re not. Russians are war criminals, barbarians.

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New neighbours have moved in. I wonder what they’re like. Not Russians, I hope.

At the place where I often buy lunch at Joondalup, I asked the woman where they are from, thinking I would hear Spain. But no, I was surprised to hear Iran. Very nice people.

Bangkok’s in the news. This was 1992  © PJ Croft 2016

All quiet on the Western front. The cold continues. We had one glorious 32C day last Wednesday, but it’s back to the 18-20C days and the feather doona’s still on. As is the wind cheater. Sick o’this.

Bangkok 1992, at the Temple of the Dawn. I remember with some sense of horror that I handed my camera to a couple of local boys to take this shot for me. They could have run off with it, but no, they were OK. It was a Nikon FE2 with 35mm Nikkor, K64, by the way.

The Temple of the Dawn, Bangkok 1992   © PJ Croft 2016

Phuket 1986   © PJ Croft 2016

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Busselton 1990  © PJ Croft 2016

It’ll never rain again, of course. I’ve noticed ads for Bosch Aero-Twin windscreen wiper blades recently, and being tired of the noise, poor wiping and vibrations of my present pair, I decided I had to have these new marvels.

I went to Repco last Friday and the first thing I saw on entering was a wide display of wiper blades, but every one of them was a Repco branded product. Not a Bosch to be seen. I nearly walked out on the spot.

But I went to the counter and stood there. Two guys were having a conversation behind the counter and they ignored me. I waited, but they just moved off. Another guy was on the phone and ignored me. I nearly turned and walked away again. Finally a guy said, “Are you being looked after?” NO! I wanted to say, no, does it look like it? but I stuck to being polite. I asked if they had the Bosch and he sucked his teeth, spent an age looking up the computer, asking what make, model, year and even engine size, and finally said to wait.

Amazingly, he came back with a correct pair, one short and one long. Caramba! That was the good news. The bad news? The price was $36.50 each, $73.00 for the pair!. I nearly backed out, but after all that …  So, they’re on, and I’ve done a short clean with the windscreen washers, commendably silently, but it’ll never rain again, now, I’m certain.

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I had an echo-cardiogram this morning, a surprise test ordered by the cardiologist. No problems found, according to the sonographer, although I won’t know the full story until I see the doc next Tuesday.

There was the usual chaotic parking at Joondalup Hospital. This place is notorious! Luckily I arrived in a lull and managed to get a spot within 5 mins, but when I came out to go to my car, the cars were circling like vultures, waiting for any spot to become free. Of course, as I’ve done before, I walked straight to my car and headed for the gates, forgetting to pay my ticket. Luckily I was able to reverse and go around to the pay station, parking on a No Parking sign while I paid. I got away with it, but this parking area is terrible! We are people with illnesses, yet we are forced to put up with this disorganised chaos.

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Since I was at Joondalup, I called in to the Samsung kiosk to ask the whereabouts of my tablet/laptop. It’s now the 6th week away for a repair that was supposed to take 3-5 working days, and my fourth visit to the booth to ask about it. They’re supposed to phone and/or text me when it’s back, but I hear nothing.

This is the fix for a problem that occurred after their BIOS+system software update of 3 September. The PC was sent to Sydney and I got a call after two weeks away asking for permission to wipe my hard drive! Why do you need to do that for a BIOS problem? “We need to do it to fix your PC, sir.” I said NO! Just send it back. I’m told it was despatched from Sydney on 4 October, but has not yet found its way from the Perth office to Joondalup in more than a week.

They tell me tomorrow or Wednesday. I’m getting sick of this!

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I’ve set the wheels in motion for the gastric operations, but just getting to see the surgeon to set a date to have the band removed takes a month. Everything takes a month with specialists! I first started asking to see him in February, and it took until 23 September to resolve my last query. Now I have to start again, as this is a new query.

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I admit to a morbid fascination with the Trump lunacy in the USA. What next for this embarrassing clown. Some words for the USA in general and the Republican Party in particular: shameful, humiliating, embarrassing, repugnant, stupid, cringeworthy, laughable. How Republicans can support this ugly, lying, incompetent fool is beyond me.

I watched the second debate with fascination and I’ll have to record the next one on Thursday.

Actually, not so laughable. This cretin, this fool, is dragging the US political system through the mud into disrepute. It’s almost inconceivable that he could become president now, but if he did, he would be the laughing stock of all civilised countries. Other more capable world leaders would be reluctant to deal with him. No-one could take the USA seriously any more.

I don’t have any problems with Hillary. She’s the only credible candidate and must be elected.

I went down to the iconic Fremantle on Saturday to the iconic RPYC yacht club on iconic Fremantle Harbour. It was, y’know, a, y’know, wintry, rainy, y’know, day, and y’know, I was a bit y’know, cold. But in such an iconicly great y’know, location, I doubled down on the food and y’know, drink, and met y’know, lots of iconically great friends, y’know.

And we doubled down on Alex’s birthday, y’know, ’cause she’s such an iconic woman, y’know? She knows how to y’know, talk without upspeak. Y’know? Yeah, no. It was … yeah.

I am so sick of these cliche words! Iconic has become the worst cliche of all time, I think. Double down is the latest, appearing in the last six months, and every journalist in the world has decided it has to be used.

As for y’know, y’know? Listen to people on TV or radio these days. They cannot speak without saying “y’know” every fourth or fifth word. It’s an epidemic, a blight, a worldwide infection, a pandemic of y’knows.

I try very hard to avoid using these words myself, but even as conscious as I am, I find a “y’know” creeping in occasionally. I manage to avoid the other two, though.

Upspeak? It’s the way young people speak with an upward inflection at the end of every sentence, as if asking for the listener’s approval. That’s when they’re not using “like”. Like, y’know, I was at the movies, like, and I saw my , like, boyfriend, and like, he was y’know, gross. Like.

Uuuurrrrrgh.

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I have more than 150 rather nice images of Fremantle, that historic city, taken since 1976. These are just a few. All images © PJ Croft 2016

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Having a bit of spare time recently, I’ve started the mammoth job of ripping all my CDs. When I moved house three years ago, to save weight and bulk I took all my more than 1,000 CDs out of their cases and put them into soft sleeves, then into plastic boxes or albums. I saved the case inserts so that I can refer to them.

That means I’ve got nine boxes of about 50 discs in each, plus another six large soft cases with at least 50 discs in each. That’s just the discs in the boxes or albums. There are many others on shelves and in stacks.

It’s become so bad that I no longer know what I’ve got and I can’t find discs when I want them.

So I’ve started the ripping process. I’m taking the tracks off as .wav files, unchanged from the CD format. If I want mp3s, I can just make copies. It’s all automatic these days. The thing is, you can go down in quality, from wav to mp3, but you can’t go up, from mp3 to wav.

I’ve done three boxes so far, 125 discs, occupying 65GB. That’s taken about a week of 2-3 hour sessions on a few days.

Two problems: what do I do now with the physical discs? And what do I do with the paper booklet inserts? I suppose I could advertise the CDs on eBay or something?

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I think I’m going to have to have the gastric sleeve operation. I’m finding it harder to keep my blood sugar under control, my legs are getting worse, and I can’t seem to get my weight any lower. I need to lose 20kg or better, and keep it off.

It’s a drastic step, but the fear of the ravages of diabetes is a good incentive. Besides, I’m sick of not being able to find decent clothes in my size.

This means I’ll forget about car changes and eastern states drives for now.

Busselton 1990   © PJ Croft 2016

I’m wrestling with myself. Guess what … I won.

What’s it about? I have a two month gap between now and my next Bali trip mid December. I feel like doing something with it, and my long delayed idea to do a driving trip on the east coast beckons. Using Frequent Flyer points, take a free flight to Adelaide, Melbourne or Sydney, buy my long desired second hand car and hit the road. It’s the best time of the year to travel (except in SA, maybe) and it would be good to have some warm weather.

The car? After long consideration, (forget Mercedes), I think it has to be a Honda MDX.

2005 Honda MDX

2005 Honda MDX

This was Honda’s first serious 4WD SUV, but they were only sold here between 2003 and 2006, when they were dropped in favour of the HRV and CRV. They are still being made in Japan and the USA, but we don’t get them, dammit.

I don’t need 4WD, but it has on-demand 4WD,  only kicking in when the car feels as if it’s losing traction. The engine is a 3.5L V6 and has a great Honda reputation. Only trouble is, fuel economy is around 14L/100km. Ugh. Still, I only get 12.5L/100km in my present car, but since I do so few kms, I only fill up about every three weeks. My car is 15 years old, nearly 16, and has only done 145,000km. It had done 72,000km when I bought it in 2003! It still drives beautifully, but I want a bit more lux as I get nearer the great exit door. Someone said, why not drive it east anyway? I would nearly do it, but the cost of fuel on the Nullarbor is so high that flying is way, way cheaper. And I want to change!

Back to the Honda: The problem is, people hang onto them and nearly all have done 130,000km and upwards, some up to 300,000km. I think this shows the durability of the engine, but I wouldn’t take on such high mileage cars.

I have my eye on a 2005 model that’s only done 104,000km, asking $10,999 in a private sale. It’s in Sydney. Private sale = buyer beware, no warranties. Hence my struggle. There are very few dealer cars, I’d say because dealers don’t want such old cars on their books. Dilemma.

I had an idea for a Ford Territory Ghia, and it’s still a viable prospect, but the Honda has more luxo for half the price. The Territory goes for around $20,000, the Honda for around $10,000. I like the look and feel of the Honda more, I think. Dilemma.

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One thing I’ve been considering is that if I want to drive the Nullarbor, I’ll have to spend one night each way out on the road, sleeping in the car. But I need CPAP, so how to do it? I wouldn’t want to risk flattening the car’s battery running the CPAP all night, even assuming I could adapt it for 12V power (it’s 240/110V only). Later: no, it’s 12V DC as well.

In Hardly Normal I saw the answer: it’s one of those new Lithium-ion battery packs that has enough grunt to jump start a car, several times. 20Ah I think. This one also has an air compressor, a powerful LED torch and several USB sockets. All in a carry case for $199.

So if I buy a 12V-DC to 240V-AC inverter, that should comfortably run my CPAP, I reckon. Plus giving me the peace of mind of a spare car battery, in effect, and a tyre pump out in the middle of nowhere. Good plan? I think so. Now to price 12v-240V inverters.

Later: hmm, I’ve I’ve just found the ideal inverter at Jaycar’s website, a 12V DC to 230V AC model rated at 150W for $59.95. Weight 400g.

I’ve checked the CPAP machine – amazingly no power figure is shown, just 110V/240V AC. But it also runs off 12V DC (separate socket) and that’s shown as 2.5A. So that’s 30W. Easy. I could run two of them, one for a partner as well <g>. I know a lady who uses CPAP. Ideal.

2,5A for 8 hours equals 20 Amp hours, the capacity of the Li-ion battery. Hmm, just enough, but a recharge would be needed next day. I’d better test this out before I go.

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Busselton 1990  © PJ Croft 2016

Quoting GetUp:  “In the aftermath of the South Australian blackout Malcolm Turnbull has called an emergency gathering of state energy ministers this Friday. In the lead up, he’s been spouting lies about renewables causing the blackout, and calling on states to abandon their strong renewable energy targets.

“Energy experts all agree that South Australia’s blackouts had nothing to do with the state’s leading renewables program (and everything to do with a bloody great big storm).”

This is me: Malcolm Turnbull, before he became PM, was all in favour of carbon dioxide emissions reductions, green energy, renewables. and so on.

But in order to become PM, he had to cave in to the hard right of the Liberal Party, the climate change deniers, the coal mining lovers, the anti-renewables, the anti-wind tower, anti solar energy Neanderthals. And that’s what he’s done! He’s switched from believer to denier, simply because he wanted to become PM. That’s why we call him Malcolm Turncoat. He’s a traitor, a self interested, self important, gutless, do nothing PM in the great Liberal Party tradition.

He’s also a bankster. Yes, that rhymes with gangster. He’s successfully stymied a banking royal commission to protect his mates in the big banks, because he used to be one of them! The results are there for all to see – the bank CEOs are just sleazing their way past the Senate inquiry, with slick, rehearsed, lawyer-vetted answers that satisfy no-one. Well done, Turnbull, you bankster.

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I spoke to someone on the phone this morning and he started coughing. He’s got the same thing I have, an endless, persistent cough that drives me nuts. I’ve had it for around two weeks so far and although the sore throat has subsided, the cough is still pretty bad. Keeps me awake at night. Deep down, almost no phlegm, dry tickle. Ugh.

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I was talking about lawn mowers a coupla weeks ago. Last week I bought a Ryobi line-trimmer as a first step. Someone said, with my small area of lawn, wouldn’t the line trimmer do the whole job? Probably would, I agree.

Anyway, I bought a 1000W 240V electric model. Too bad about needing a power cord, it’s only a short distance. Battery models are a rip-off. They seem cheap, but the cost of the batteries at around $200 almost doubles the price. This is an extreme example of the cheap printer/expensive ink rip-off. Not for me.

But on the first use, within 5 minutes the line had disappeared back into the spool, and I had to disassemble it to get the line out again. GRRRR! This is a universal problem with line trimmers. The bump feed works as long as you keep bumping, i.e. feeding the line out, but if you forget, you’re back to re-threading it again.

There’s a suggestion around to forget the line spool and just attach long cable ties to the spool holes. I could try this in a reversible way. No harm done. Must do it.

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I have to go to Fremantle on Saturday (birthday party at RPYC Fremantle clubrooms), so I thought I’d take the train, so I can drink. Hmm, what time, so as to get to the Freo station at 10.45am? Hah, Transperth, web site, itinerary all mapped out for me. Leave Butler station at 09.25am and get to Freo station at 10.44am. Not bad.

I think I’ll take the one before, at 9.10am, to get there at 10.29am to allow for foul-ups.

Dammit, I have to wear long trousers! I hate wearing longs. I’ve got so used to wearing shorts and sandals that anything else feels weird.

Poor thing. Koala in SA floods. From ABC News web site.

Amazing. It’s 4.35pm on Saturday afternoon, and my mobile phone rings. It’s Spec Savers at Clarkson. My new glasses are ready for collection. Would I like to make an appointment to collect them. An appointment?

I say, are you open tomorrow, not really expecting them to be open on a Sunday. Yes they are, what time would I like? Oh, surprise me, I say. She sucks her pen for a long time and finally says “Ten to two pm, would that be OK?” Checking my diary, I say “Oh gee, I guess so.”

My point being, making an appointment to collect some goods I’ve ordered for a Sunday afternoon. Amazing. Perth used to just shut down at 12.30pm on Saturday, didn’t it? The street lights used to go off at 1.20am every morning. Banks used to close at 3pm every day. We had to drive to the airport if we ran low on fuel outside business hours. Amazing.

Not knockin’ it, mind.

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Darling Harbour, 2000 Olympics. © PJ Croft 2016

It’s 4.45pm on Saturday afternoon, 1 October, second month of spring and it’s still blowing a gale, raining intermittently, and I’m cold. The forecast is for three more days of this, at least. This is very strange weather. I still say it’ll switch soon, quite suddenly, to warmer weather, I just wish it’d hurry up. I’m going to a 70th birthday party next Saturday and the dress code is “nautical flair”. I think I’ll be wearing my pea jacket and gloves.

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Don’t buy a cheap Sony phone! Mine is an Experia M2, I think, (you won’t find the model name anywhere on the phone). It cost about $250 so it’s not exactly cheap. But it’s crap!

It’s as slow as a wet week, can’t keep up with what’s going on, locks up so hard that you can’t even turn it off, reboots itself and changes its setting by itself. Not happy, Clive.

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Similarly, my Navman GPS has started locking up while I’m driving. The route display won’t update, although the voice instructions are happily talking to me and keeping up.

But I can’t even turn it off and on again. It’s locked so hard that the power button actually operates about 5 mins after I’ve pressed it. There’s a recessed reset button, but you need a paper clip to operate it! This is crap.

This only seems to have started after I did the latest system software update a few weeks ago. Grrrr.

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Also, HP have started incorporating small ICs (chips, to you) in their printer ink cartridges. If you buy non-genuine ones, it refuses to work. Lesson? DON’T BUY AN HP PRINTER.

Which reminds me, about five years ago the HP B9180 printer was supposed to be the duck’s nuts for a photo printer. The reviews were glowing. Marvellous. I nearly bought one. I think Mike Johnston of The On-line Photographer http://theonlinephotographer.typepad.com/the_online_photographer/blog_index.html did buy one. I think he actually returned his for exchange, but the new one was just as bad.

Then the fault reports started popping up on the web forums. Mechanical faults, paper feed faults, ink cartridge faults. HP kept up with it for a couple of years, then dropped the printer from their range and effectively ceased support. Lucky I didn’t buy one!

Hewlett Packard used to be one of the best electronics companies in the world. They were revered for their test equipment in electronics engineering. Top shelf.

Then a woman was appointed CEO and decided to change them to being a computer company. The test equipment division was sold off and became Agilent, and now it’s changed its name again to be Keysight. Confusing. I don’t know what their quality id like any more, because they have little visibility.

Likewise, HP printers used to be top wozza. No more. Not even mid shelf. HP computers? Just another brand, nothing special. How tragic.

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© PJ Croft 2016

Well, I’m complaining about the cold, wet weather, but this and South Australia’s storms and floods are just a consequence of the changing wind patterns around the world due to climate change. Make no mistake, this is global warming in action. It’s happening now, it’s not some airy danger in the future.

A report today says that after the Paris talks last year where governments agreed to take action to limit the global rise to 1.5C by 2030, almost nothing is being done. In fact, we are already on target to go above 1.5C by 2020, and the rise is now unstoppable.

Australia, of course, is doing almost nothing to mitigate atmospheric emissions of CO2. The Lord Rabbott and his ultra-conservative buddies in the Liberal Party have stymied all our efforts, little as they were, and Turnbull is caving in to them as well. Witness his attempts to shift blame for the SA power crisis (the bloody wind blew the pylons down!) to some kind of consequence of renewable energy.

Whaaat? This is just plain craziness. So much for Turnbull’s green credentials. He’s captive to the hard right and so he abandons his own principles.

It’s too late. This is how the world ends. Global warming is now unstoppable. Kiss your arse goodbye.

I used to be an optimist. I’m not any more.

Guess where?  © PJ Croft 2016

My Samsung tablet PC has now been away for 18 days being fixed, when I was told “3-5 working days”. I gave it to Samsung with the complaint that after their last system software and BIOS update, it was no longer possible to make it sleep using the power button. It was “put it aside and wait for it to time out and go to sleep”, or completely power it down. It was quite clear cut: before BIOS change, working normally, press power button briefly and it went to sleep. After BIOS update, no effect on a brief power button press.

In addition, intermittently, on power up it showed only a black screen with the mouse pointer, or a white screen with mouse pointer, and nothing else. The only remedy was to keep pressing the button until it finally powered down and restarted.

This only happened after Samsung’s system software update of Saturday 3 September.

I dropped it at Samsung’s booth at Joondalup shops on Monday 12 Sept and the sleep fault was quite evident. The intermittent boot-up problem was not, but I had no doubt it would show. I was told they’d call me or text me when it was ready. I emphasised that I wasn’t keen to have people poking around in my data. They should make themselves a new user. For that reason, I didn’t divulge my password.

Nothing happened until Tuesday 20 September when I got a call from Tech Works in Sydney asking me for my password to get into my computer! I was very reluctant but agreed under persuasion. Why couldn’t they just do as I asked at Joondalup, just make themselves a new user with admin permissions? Bit of a worry.

Again, nothing happened until Sat 24th when I missed a call from them. I phoned today and the guy said, “Sir, do we have your permission to delete your data?”

What? You mean reformat the hard drive?! No! Why do you need to do that?

“We need to do it to fix your computer sir.”  No! Would you let someone reformat your hard drive? No! It has stuff I haven’t got backed up. “Do we have your permission to erase your disk, sir?” NO!

“We need you to calm down sir. Do we have your permission?” NO! Just return it to me! Patronising prick.

So I went to Joondalup to speak to the guy I spoke to 18 days ago. He wasn’t there. I explained to another guy and said I question the competence of this mob. I said, if it comes back with the faults still present, I’m going to start asking for a return and refund of my money. Not happy. So I await a call to say I can collect it. Not happy!

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Sydney Harbour Heads from the Centre Point Tower.  © PJ Croft 2016

A month into spring and we’re still freezing, as if it were mid July. I’m sick of this cold. I reckon it will suddenly change in a couple of weeks.

This was rather nice. This US photography blog is generally regarded as the nicest on the web, because Mike Johnston is such an amiable guy. I comment reasonably often, maybe once a week, so to see this post this morning was quite a pleasant surprise.

http://theonlinephotographer.typepad.com/the_online_photographer/2016/09/180000-comments.html

It’s a bit like winning the lottery, but I’m afraid there’s no prize.

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I saw the gastric surgeon today, doing my usual train to the city and walking from Elizabeth Quay station via the freeway lakes to the Mount Medical Centre. Gah! A max of 16C but icy, arctic, easterly winds blowing along Mounts Bay Road. Brrrr! It’s spring, haven’t you heard? Marvellous, these lakes, and being spring, fecundity has broken out.

Yes, that’s a black swan nesting right near the shore, unworried by humans.  All images (C) PJ Croft 2016

Mama Swan, sleeping.

A mumma duck and her six chicks.

This is Dad, I think. What kind?

A Night Heron, (thanks Tom) He must have been sleepy because he just stood there.

Waiting for the showers.

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The surgeon says there’s nothing to be done about the vagus nerve, but if I’ve got large gallstones, as shown by the C/T scan, they could be causing my dizziness and faint spells. It will be best to have the gall bladder removed, as there’s the danger of (a) a stone blocking the bile duct, or (b) a stone moving down the bile duct. Both would be quite dangerous.

So there’s yet another pending operation. I shouldn’t complain, I’m reasonably healthy for someone who’s nearly 70. But everything hurts! All my joints and muscles ache. Urrrgh.

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It’s the last opportunity to fill out my census form before Sunday. I started to do it on-line just now, but no, it specifically says at the start that it applies to people who were in this house on 9 August. I wasn’t here, I was in Bali, and I can prove it, so I can’t complete the form.

I’ll bet I get a “please explain” letter.

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It’s now two weeks, more than 10 working days, since I dropped my Samsung Tab Pro S tablet PC off at the kiosk at Joondalup for a fix to a BIOS problem. I was told 3-5 working days. I dropped it off on Monday 12th and as of now, the 23rd, I still haven’t had any news of when I’ll get it back.

As well, I had to give them my password and I’ve been getting notifications from my internet security program that it’s been accessing the internet. GRRRRR! Not happy, Samsung. They didn’t even start work on it until last Tuesday. I’ll bet it comes back with “No fault found.” They should not have needed to go into my Windows desktop. It’s a BIOS problem to with the power switch. You don’t need to fiddle with the machine to fix that.

Uluru, 1993, from 10,000m  © PJ Croft

Another of my PhotoCD images that I haven’t seen for a while. It needs further colour balancing, this was a quick job.

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Millaa Millaa Falls, near Cairns, 1993  © PJ Croft 2016

Finally, finally, I have a dry shower recess floor. I took the hacksaw to the shower taps yesterday to replace those spiky monstrosities. It went well. The only problem is that there’s not enough thread to use the very nice chrome dress rings around the base of the tap housing.

So now I can turn the water off completely, without having to break my wrists in tightening to stop drips, and it no longer drips.

Now to do the six other tap handle sets in the house. Whoever designed those taps should be shot.

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Speaking of being shot, the Syrian and Russian governments have forfeited their right to live, in my opinion. Such savagery, such barbarity, such evil sub-humans who would deliberately attack aid convoys, hospitals and ambulances, and rain poison gas down on the civilian population, then deny it in the face of eye witness reports and photographic evidence, forfeit their right to life. Putin, I’m talking about you.

In my opinion, the US and UK should use their bunker buster bombs to bomb the Syrian presidential palace and government buildings out of existence. Do the same to the airfields the Russians are using.

Enough! The barbarity of this war is unprecedented. The laws of war mean nothing to Bashar al-Assad and his evil cronies. This guy is a mass murderer, worse than Hitler, almost, and Putin is the same. They must be killed before they can kill another child.

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Johnstone River Walk view from Palmerston Hwy, near Innisfail, Qld 1993. (Thanks Tom).   © PJ Croft 2016

Aaarrrgh, my blood sugar has gone out of control. Normal range is 4-6, usually I was keeping mine around 6-8 in the morning, 8-12 at night.

Now my morning readings are 12-13 and my evening readings are 16-23.

Why? My Toujeo slow release insulin pens expire this month; I’ve changed from the twice daily Byetta to the new weekly Bydureon; and I’m in emotional pain. All three are combining, I think. I’ll have to switch back to Lantus twice daily fast-acting insulin, and go back to the twice daily Byetta injections until this is sorted out. The third factor I can’t do anything about. Only time will heal that.

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It’s too late for climate change. Nothing can stop the death of the Earth now. It’s too far advanced and no-one cares enough. This is how the planet ends, folks.

In the news this morning, Greenland is melting far faster than was predicted, and we’re in line for sea level rises of 6-7 metres! Sure, it’s 50-100 years off, but there’s no stopping it now. Elizabeth Quay? It will be under water in 30 years. Barnett, you utter fool.

Tree dieback in Hawaii and in the USA is out of control. Whole forests are dead or dying due to beetles, allowed to flourish due to increased temperatures. It’s catastrophic damage, no less, and there’s no cure. And when whole forests die, the knock-on effects are also devastating, to wildlife and other biota.

The Barrier Reef has been largely killed off north of Cairns due to sea temperature rise. It’s happened this year! It’s not a slow thing, it’s happening right now.

Place your head between your legs and kiss your arse goodbye. Have pity on your kids. Tell them to buy land high up!

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I visited Aldi for the first time this afternoon. It’s only been open a few weeks. What a jumble of a shop. Vertical drill press? Near the feminine hygiene products, not far from the frozen foods and safety helmets and tool boxes. 4K UHD TV? Right next to the lawn fertiliser. Crazy jumble of products.

What did I buy? A packet of two German Rosti, ready to heat, a frozen Chinese dumpling soup, Aussie made for $3.69 and an Aussie Camembert cheese for $2.69. Their prices are certainly cheap.

There are many German made foods, of course, so if you’re inclined to need sauerkraut and rosti and weisswurst and so on, you’ll feel right at home. I used to know someone who might have liked this shop.

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Then I went through the big Masters hardware shop looking for bargains as they’re closing down in December. I took the opportunity to buy two more casual outdoor chairs for my patio, to join the two I had already.

I bought a big garden stake to hold my curry leaf tree up straight, a toilet roll holder and three pot plants, forget the name, for my garden beds. Things are looking very fertile and ready to spring into spring at the moment. I managed to spread green fertiliser on my verge lawn yesterday, and spray the weeds. I have all the time in the world to do this now that I’m no longer distracted by Bali.

Indian Ocean off Bali.  © PJ Croft 2016

A pilot has been posting photos on a photography blog I read regularly. I found them interesting, but not exceptional. These are some of mine.

© PJ Croft 2016

These were taken in the 1980s when we had room to swing around in the seat and shoot out the window. I can’t do that now. The plane was a 747 in those days, even to Bali. There was room to move.

A 747 wing, from Bali. The colour is from use of a polarising filter. © PJ Croft 2016

McDonnell Ranges, Central Australia. © PJ Croft 2016

The Olgas, Central Australia.  © PJ Croft 2016

The above two shots were from the inaugural flight of Compass Airlines’ service from Perth to Cairns in about 1993. The return fare was $200, I think. Great trip. These are all film, of course.

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I mentioned last week that I dropped my Samsung tablet PC off at a Samsung kiosk at Joondalup to have a warranty problem fixed. I was told, 3-5 working days.

Well, Friday came and went, yesterday, the 6th day came and went, and no news.

This morning I got a call from a PC repair company in Sydney, asking me for my password so they could get into my PC. I specifically asked the Samsung guy here to make a new user because I didn’t want someone poking around in my things. But this morning they insisted they had to have my password so they could do a backup.

Grrrrrrr! I gave it, but I have worries. It’s now 7 working days. When am I going to get it back? I find it odd that they can’t do a backup without opening my user name. Anyway, this is a BIOS problem. Why do they even need to access the desktop? Suspicious! Not happy, Samsung.

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Look at this!

It’s a little town called Punaikiki on the west coast of NZ. It’s in the news because a French hitch-hiker went ballistic after he waited four days unable to get a lift there.

Too bad about him, but wow, what a fantastic place. This makes me want to up sticks and move there. It’s inspiring, to me.

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I fitted my new gas struts to my car on Sunday. Yes, it was easy. Ball and socket joints. Prise off the spring clip and they pop off. Boy, that tailgate is heavy if one strut is missing!

Place the new socket over the ball, give it a tap to make it spring into place, and it’s done. Repeat for the other side. About ten minutes. Now the tailgate springs up and I have to haul it down. Good.

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In the 1990s, that once great firm Kodak came up with PhotoCD. It was film images scanned by Kodak for us and recorded onto the relatively new gold CDs, supposedly indestructible, with a minimum 100 year life.

The images were digitised at a highest resolution of around 4,000 x 3,000 pixels or similar, a seemingly fantastic resolution at the time. The files were about 30MB in size, and you could have 100 images per disc. They were compressed into the .pcd format, and there were five different resolutions in each file, ranging from thumbnails to the full size.

The discs could be played onto your TV screen by using a PhotoCD player, and I owned one at one stage (it was very cheap, because no-one wanted them). It also played CDs of music, but not DVDs because they hadn’t been invented then. (I think when I moved in 2013, I literally trashed the player because I couldn’t get anyone to take it.)

I got four PhotoCDs made, each one containing 100 of my images. I still have them. But I can’t open the files!!! No-one cares about PhotoCD any more. The discs will last me 100 years, but I can’t use them. Duh!

I’m sure I’ll find a program to open them, but I don’t have anything among my dozen or so programs at the moment. Grrrr.

PS: OK, no problems, I’ve found that the ancient shareware program Irfanview opens and converts them, so problem solved. I’ve just batch converted 50 images and found that although I had many of them, there are quite a few that were lost in my big disk crash in early 2014. I haven’t seen them for some time. Yay!

PPS: No, there are more problems. The .pcd files I have on my hard drive only contain the mid-sized resolution, what they call “base”, which is 768 x 512 pixels. This is far from the 3,000 x 2,000 pixel highest resolution.

I think I have to retrieve the actual CD to get the big files. I hope I can! I have the CD, that’s not the problem.

So much for Kodak’s 100 year life. So much for Kodak. A once great company, brought down by stupid, complacent, vain, arrogant managers.

That’s one month’s supply, 4 pens, with my 15″ laptop for a size measure.

I started a new regime of weekly injections of the diabetes drug Byetta this morning. This is a weekly injection, instead of twice daily.

Byetta is a drug that stimulates the pancreas to produce what insulin it can in the presence of food in the gut. It was supposed to be used 15-30 mins before eating, so that it had time to ‘prime’ the pancreas once we started eating. But using it twice daily was literally a pain, and judging the 15-30 min interval was very difficult.

This new one is a powder to be mixed in a viscous fluid just before injection, in a special pen. It apparently forms a bubble of the mixed fluid under the skin of the abdomen, to be slowly released over a week. Clever.

The weekly pens are much more bulky than the previous monthly pen, and I have to carry four per month (one per week) instead of just the one. They have to be kept cold, 2-8C, so travelling will actually be more difficult than before. (Not that I’ll be doing much travelling now. All my Bali plans have turned to ashes. Dust off, start again?)

I believe the main insulin injections are also soon to be available as a weekly, so that will be another welcome change. Not available yet, about another 6-8 weeks, I think.

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The census was held (or not held, depending on your point of view) while I was away last month, 9 August. When I got home, I found I have a census form and a bar coded number. I have until the 23rd to fill it out and send it in, I believe.

But if I was out of the country, I am not supposed to be counted, so I’m not sure what to do. I like doing these census forms and I believe in the usefulness of the data, so I’m tempted to just do it and send it in.

What a shambles that was. The Bureau of Stats says it was a denial of service attack that brought their website down, but University of Woolongong IT academics say there is no evidence from an analysis of net traffic on the night of any abnormal activity to indicate a DDOS. They say it was just poor software design that caused the breakdown.

We pay millions of dollars for this software, but it fails. Wasn’t it properly tested??!! Who’s going to take the blame? Someone must.

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I’m just starting to notice a change in the light, from winter to a spring and early summer look. Thank goodness. I’m still feeling cold, half way through September. Brrrrr.

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I’ve just finished reading a book, Can We Live Here? by Sarah Alderson, a British Londoner who, with her husband and three year old daughter, decided they’d had enough of the hectic London working life and set off on a round-world air ticket, trying to find a place where they wanted to live.

First stop was India, Mumbai, simply because they had friends there. Nope. Then to Goa, down south, where they liked it but found it incredibly hot, dry and dirty, and with limited things to do and not very nice living. She’s a freelance writer/author, so she needed to be able to relax and write for her living. Nope again.

Next was Singapore. Far too expensive, and far too glossy/clinical. I could have told them that, saved them the trouble. Nope again.

Penang? Sorta liked it, but dirty beaches. Not much else said about it, but they didn’t like it enough to stay. Move on.

Bali for a short stay. Aaah, that’s more like it. Nearly chose it, but …

Had to come to Perth for work reasons. Liked it, incredibly clean, beautiful beaches, great lifestyle, but far too expensive. I can’t argue with that. They liked it here, but couldn’t afford to live here. Move on.

A short stay in the USA, but fat people, bears, plastic grins, no thanks.

Near Ubud, 1980   (C) PJ Croft 2016

So they ended up back in Bali again, specifically Ubud, and rented a house. The husband was a freelance designer and did a lot of commuting to Singapore for his work, but the wife was able to integrate with both the expat community, weird as it is, and a lot of the locals. It’s a long story, but they ended up staying five years in Ubud. It makes a great read. It’s not a how-to book, most definitely not a guide to living in Bali, more a collection of her blog posts and random experiences, especially about her daughter growing up in the Balinese way, free of TV and advertising pressures, learning how to play and make friends, going to a Green School where the kids learn to live with nature, having their own rice paddies and growing their own vegetables.

Boys in the band, Ubud 1980   (C) PJ Croft 2016

But it’s hard for the woman to earn money, and she gets job offers, but they’re in London, and her husband gets a job offer he can’t knock back, again in London, so after five years she reluctantly decides the experiment is over and goes back “home”, in November 2014, to a British winter. It’s almost heartbreaking even to read about it, but she says it’s not permanent, that they will be setting off on their second quest soon.

It was noticeable that she feels Bali is being ruined by the swarm of tourism and people like us buying up land and building our retirement villas, but concreting over the rice paddies and jungle in the process. Having seen the traffic choked streets of Ubud recently, I can’t argue with that. Bali streets were never designed for the giant tour buses clogging them these days, nor the swarms of motor bikes, all angle parked. There are five million people in Bali, but there must be 10 million motor bikes. It’s awful.

The book is a bit hard to read. She’s a talented writer, very entertaining, but the language is fast, machine gun like, very English/London slang/colloquial. Worth it though. A memorable book.