This is the caption accompanying this picture from The Guardian:

An illegal shipment of horns, antlers, dried sea horses and tortoise shells destined for China was confiscated by Indonesian police, who later burned it.

Destined for China. This is the common theme. The destruction of the world’s wildlife is largely due to CHINA. In particular, due to the desire of Chinese men to have better sex.

I do NOT like CHINA!

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Speaking of wildlife, on my walk around the lake this afternoon I saw an ibis quietly having a sleep (standing on one leg) on a rock right next to the footbridge.

Ibises. © PJ Croft 1985, 2015

This is the first time I’ve seen one in these lakes. Usually it’s only ducks and coots and seagulls. (The above picture is one from the 1980s at Lake Gwelup, shot on Kodachrome 25 with the camera on a tripod.)

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This is also the first time I’ve ever known the Channel 7 Xmas Pageant to be cancelled today, due to the weather. It’s raining, flashing and thundering and blowing quite hard as if it were winter. Yet it’s the start of one of our long hot summers.

As I say, I’ve never known the Pageant to be cancelled before in more than 20 years. I think it’s a first. Very disappointing for all the people involved, apart from the kids. (Postscript: yes, according to the paper, it was the 44th, and the first to be cancelled. As it turned out, the weather was OK at 7.30pm on Saturday night, but cold and windy so it wouldn’t have been pleasant.)

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I was having a quiet pint at the pub last night when a guy tapped me on the shoulder and thrust his phone in my face, showing me a picture.

It was this one. It was George R. R. Martin. Apparently I look like him. Oh come on. Who’s George R. R. Martin anyway? And why would a mature bloke have a picture of him on his phone?

Game of Thrones. Apparently he’s the writer/creator or something. I said I had no idea what Game of Thrones actually is. They couldn’t believe someone wouldn’t know about it. Well I don’t.

Anyway, it was a reasonably friendly conversation, but there was a lot of ribbing about hair, or lack of it. Two out of the three were shaven headed, but when I took my cap off, I was ribbed about my receding hairline. What?

Oh well, I gave up on that and returned to my paper. I got handshakes when I left, so I suppose I was OK, but I didn’t know how to take them as all their talk seemed to be private jokes.

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I’m writing this at 4am on another night of insomnia. I got to sleep very easily but awoke at 1am and that was it. I’ve just had some chamomile tea and I’ll try again now. Damn, I never used to have trouble sleeping. Getting older, apparently.

8am update: nope, never got back to sleep. Lucky I never have to go to work. Oh well, I’ll crash at some time during today.

I’m on my hobbyhorse about tilted horizons again. Above is one of the worst I’ve come across recently. The yellow line is the horizon. It’s 6.3deg. off. The alternate picture shows the corrected version. Sure, the beach looks sloping once the horizon is levelled, but that’s how it was. How could the photographer have let this out in public uncorrected?

Here’s another one, not so gross but it offends my eye. Water is level. Repeat, water is level, horizontal.

These are animated gif files, by the way. I’ve known this can be done but I hadn’t tried it up to now. It turns out there’s a free web site to do the job for you, http://gifmaker.me/ so I might do it more often from now on.

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Yesterday I went to the Joondalup Medicare office to make some claims. I came away empty handed, after nearly an hour,  shaking my head in frustration.

First, I had to stand in a queue of a dozen or so people while a woman with a tablet checks you in. That’s not new, but I find any standing quite painful (back muscles) and tiring. There’s absolutely nothing to lean on. It took between 5-10 mins just to reach Tablet Lady.

I showed my Medicare card and she directed me to take a seat and wait. Ten minutes later, a woman came and asked me to move closer to a small booth, seated, luckily.

Then she called another lady over to ask me about whether I had an iPhone or an Android phone. Huh? Well, it turns out that we’re expected to make claims on our phone these days. Or on our home PC, of course.

But to do this, I have to set up a myGov account and a phone “app”. I don’t want to bloody do this, but it seems we have no choice. There was only one woman actually behind the claims counter. (This is after I discovered a few weeks ago that the Whitfords City Medicare office has been closed down. Grrr. This is obviously a part of the never-ending strategy to cut staff and get rid of people.)

So we moved to another desk with a giant vertically mounted LCD screen and the young woman proceeded to show me how to set up this myGov account. This involved an ID authentication (driver’s licence, Centrelink card, Medicare card), then some form filling on screen, then the issuance of my User Number, and having to enter another eight digit authentication number sent to my phone, and choosing yet another new password. (I use a password management program and I’d estimate I have well over 50 user names and passwords, which I back up assiduously, I assure you. Plus another 80 or so software and website key numbers, licence codes, user names and passwords. Holy cow!).

Then the woman attempted to download the “app” to my phone. No go. I have data and wi-fi turned off, of course, because I don’t want anything more than phone functions on my phone. I don’t want to do anything more than make and receive calls. I don’t want all my emails appearing and loudly beeping at me on my phone!

So I turned wi-fi and data on in the Medicare office, but still no go. She couldn’t get this app to download. I said in frustration, “Just leave it, I’ll do it at home later.” So I ended up empty handed, unable to make my claims. I said, “Can’t I just go to the counter?” OK, so she showed me over.

I haven’t made a claim in about a year so I had a small bunch of invoices and receipts. But the woman went through them and said they are not filled out correctly, missing an item number and so on. Grrr. They’re all for the same specialist and we’ve had this problem before, and I thought we’d sorted it out more than a year ago, but it seems not.

So after all this faffing around, I walked away empty handed. This is a series of claims for many hundreds of dollars, so it’s not trivial. What a debacle. Bit fed up with this.

I have logged on to my new myGov account at home, but I can’t see any “app” to download. In any case, to make any claim on line, I have to either scan my invoices and send .jpg files, or take a photo of them on the phone and send those pictures. All this adds time and complexity that I don’t want. I suppose it saves me having to drive to a Medicare office, but Whitfords was on my way to Trigg, so that’s why I was OK doing that.

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I paid for the travel insurance this morning. I went through the existing medical conditions checks again and it worked out OK. I’m not having any current problems and I haven’t had any hospital treatments for more than a year, so they weren’t worried about me. Now I’m covered if Garuda goes bust or my luggage catches fire.

When I notified my bank on-line that I’m going to be away, they invited me to activate free travel insurance on my Visa card. OK, I’ll be in that.

This company declined medical cover, which is fair enough, but they cover me, at a basic level, for the other routine events. Of course, you generally can’t claim on two travel policies, but since I didn’t have to pay for this one, well, why not do it?

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It’s pretty amazing to read that Jetstar has been severely criticised for two incidents which had huge potential to cause major incidents recently.

In one case, a plane was in the air between Brisbane and Sydney when they discovered they had 16 more passengers on board than they had allowed for in their manifest. What?! This totalled 1,300Kg extra weight. That’s pretty significant.

In the other case, a plane taking off from Melbourne was found to be way out of balance, such that they struggled to get off the ground. Once in the air, they had to get passengers to move seats to re-balance the aircraft.

For goodness sake, this is Jetstar, the subsidiary of Qantas, not some cheap overseas cut price carrier. As the aviation writers say, it defies belief that any pilots could allow this to happen, let alone on a major Australian carrier flying within Australia.

I don’t know for sure, but I’ll bet my boots this is due to Jetstar’s employment of cut price, low wage overseas trained pilots. Or due to working their pilots on too long shifts, so that they are too fatigued. Even so, any pilot should be able to recognise if he’s too tired to fly. Anyway, there are always two pilots in the cockpit. How come the second pilot didn’t catch this? It’s a worry.

I’m always amazed at airlines constantly trying to use cut price pilots, or to cut wages to the bone and get rid of people any way they can. This kind of thing is the result. People are going to die while the high wage big boss managements in their plush offices count their bonuses accrued for cutting costs.

Let’s hear it for the unions. Meanwhile, stop trying to get the absolute cheapest airfares! I’m paying full fare this trip. It’s not much more expensive (about $60?) and I get 30Kg luggage allowance with two checked bags, a meal and free drinks. I’m not going to put up with being packed into flying cigar tubes, even Jetstar or Virgin. It’s a pity my money will be going overseas, but …

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I’ve reprogrammed my reticulation to reduce the watering times. The retic guy set it to 15 mins for both stations, but with the increased pressure and the fixed sprinklers, I don’t think I need anywhere near that much. I’ve reduced the front verge to 5 mins, and the backlawn and garden beds to 10 mins. This is twice a week. That makes me feel better.

Blue prahus, Sanur, Bali © PJ Croft 1986,2015

Below is a country summary from a travel photography viewpoint by a photographer I admire very much, Ming Thein. He’s a Malaysian guy who spends a lot of time in Melbourne.  http://blog.mingthein.com/

Bali, Indonesia
Photo friendliness – 10/10
Photo opportunities – 7/10
As with almost all places in Asia, Bali is very welcoming to tourists and puts up with their photography; the challenge is going to be getting from place to place because most of the interesting sites like Tanah Lot require a vehicle to get to, and there’s not much in between. The more touristy areas like Kuta in the south are basically divided up into the usual tropical tourists traps of eateries and pubs, or compounded resorts. None of these afford much to shoot, though some of the resorts do have interesting architecture.

Hmmm. Dunno that I agree with that, Ming. Ten out of ten for friendliness, yes, and putting up with our photography, well, anything if it will provide a money making opportunity. Nothing wrong with that.

But only 7/10 for opportunities? He obviously hasn’t spent much time there. The photo above was shot from the sand on Sanur Beach just by walking from my hotel to the end of the street.

Barong dancer, Kuta, Bali © PJ Croft 1986, 2015

This one was a performance in south Kuta not far from my hotel. We were bussed there from the hotel, but it was still a genuine performance.

Funeral, Kuta Beach © PJ Croft 1985, 2015

Again, this one was a walk down Kuta Beach from my hotel. We were informed of this funeral scheduled for a Saturday afternoon by the hotel people.

Besakih, Bali  © PJ Croft 1985, 2015

This one required a bit more organisation. It’s the Besakih Temple on the southern slopes of Gunung Agung. Just drive or ride to Klungkung and turn left. I’m pretty sure I rode my motorbike there, although I’d never attempt that now. There are any number of organised tours, though, so getting shots would be easy.

Looking to the coast from Besakih. © PJ Croft 1985, 2015 I have no idea who the guy in the blue sarong was.

So for all Ming Thein’s undoubted expertise and talent, I think Bali still offers massive photo opportunities. All those shots above were taken in 1985 and ’86 so it was relatively uncrowded then. I fear the hordes of tourists (me included, of course) make photography less easy now, but it can still be done.

Kuta Kite © PJ Croft 2010, 2015

Sanur chores © PJ Croft 2010, 2015

Kuta Kid © PJ Croft 2010, 2015

These are more recent shots. They’re quite different from Ming’s style, but I think they’re OK. I hope to do better this trip, although it’s getting harder to get around.

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I’ve just had a visit from the police. My doorbell sounded and I said, “Just a minute”, and a voice said, “It’s the police.” Oh yeah? I opened the door carefully as I’m always wary that some low-life could say that.

Anyway, he stuck his card out and said, “Is your name Victor?” Nup.

They were looking for a Burmese looking guy and they had this address for him. How long had I been here? Did I know the previous owners? (I do, and they’re not Burmese.) How long had they been here? A couple of years, I think.

So it was a wasted trip for them, but it’s easy for someone to give a false address. Happily, they didn’t put the hard word on me to buy tickets in the police raffle.

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I have to buy a new “head gear” for my CPAP mask. This is the neoprene rubber strap that holds the mask on your face.

The cost of these straps is $65! This is an utter rip-off. I cannot see how they could cost more than $5 to make. I bought my last one in September 2013 and unfortunately they get dirty and tatty after a couple of years’ use (well, after one year, really). I’ve paid Resmed many hundreds, even thousands of dollars over the years since I started CPAP in 2000. It’s all a rip-off. How is it that Resmed machines and accessories are sold for half the Australian price in the USA, when it’s an Australian company and they’re made in Australia? If you try to buy on-line from a USA supplier, they won’t supply to Australia. What a surprise. I can’t be sure but I’d say Resmed puts a prohibition on them – they won’t get any stock if they sell back to Australia. Rip-0ff!

I’m well overdue to buy a new machine (we can buy a new one every five years and get rebated from HBF). My machine was bought in 2008.

The result is that I’ll almost certainly buy another brand that I can buy at a big discount from a USA supplier. Probably the NZ brand, Fisher and Paykel.

You don’t believe in poltergeists, do you? Neither do I. Well, another very odd thing has happened and so far I can’t explain it.

Last night at about 8.15pm I was watching TV when suddenly there was a loud noise exactly like a bag of rubbish, with cans and glass, being thrown over the wall separating my house from next door. The noise lasted two or three seconds then ended with a loud, sharp CRACK like a stone hitting my window pane.

It made me sit up quick smart and look around, I can tell you. What on earth … ? I thought I was under attack. This 2m high wall is only about 4m from where I was sitting, but unless this rubbish bag had been thrown by my neighbour, I couldn’t work out where it could have come from.

I looked quickly at my windows from inside, expecting the glass might be broken, but they were intact. So I went to the laundry, switched on the outside light to the “drying court”, the space between my house and this wall and went out. I expected to see a bag of rubbish strewn over the paving, but no, nothing.

My light going on brought my neighbour, Barbara, out and she said she heard it too. Yet neither of us could see any thing amiss. (We have conversations over this wall where neither of us can see the other. We just talk through the wall 🙂 like in that TV show a few years ago where you only ever saw the top of the head of the neighbour over the fence. Or like Howard’s mum in Big Bang Theory, where you only ever hear her voice.)

I went out to the back lane where the bins were out for collection, thinking I might find one of them pushed over or something, but no, they were fine.

So I left it as a mystery last night, thinking I might find something this morning in daylight, maybe something thrown from the street, although it would have been a prodigious throw to have reached this drying court. Again, in full daylight, everything’s fine.

So, what on earth … ? What made this noise? It wasn’t just me — my neighbour heard it too. Applying Occam’s Razor, it must be a poltergeist. I’m haunted! That must explain the missing letter last week too. Uh oh.

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It was yet another almost sleepless night last night. I dropped off easily at about 11.45pm but awoke at 2.30am for a pee, but although I was very relaxed and could feel myself on the edge of sleep, I never got back to sleep again. It’s not as if I’m having obsessive, racetrack thoughts, I’m not. My mind wanders all over the place, into quite weird and amusing corners at times, but just as I think I might be on the edge, something pulls me back from the cliff each time.

The result is, with only 2½ hrs sleep last night, I’m woozy and groggy. I’m using valerian and another mild melatonin type sedative, but they ain’t enough. Yet, on other nights I sleep right through.

Problem.

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It was the final episode of SAS, Who Dares Wins last night on SBS. Crikey, out of about 30 guys who started the course, only two made it through to the end. The instructors were deliberately strict in dropping people out in the early stages, on a quota basis at times, but at the end, three guys out of the five remaining chucked it in right at the very end. If they could only have held on for another few hours, they could have finished proud. It was the interrogation that got them. It wasn’t all that physical, they weren’t bashed and beaten, it was just the pressure of having to hold stress positions for hours while completely hooded, then being subtly questioned with the intention of breaking their stories. Three out of the five did break.

Gee, I wish I was that type. Fit as bulls, incredible physical endurance, able to run and run in any weather and terrain. Fantastic camaraderie. Back in my high school days in the army cadets, just occasionally I briefly tasted that feeling of being in a fantastic group, even though that was literally kid stuff compared with the SAS. Then we went home to our soft beds until the next year.

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Canning Dam, WA, January 2011 © PJ Croft 2011, 2015. Pentax K-5

It’s the first day of summer, it reached about 30C and already, before the season has started, we’re being exhorted to save water. We’re way, way down in rain this year once again and climate change is in full swing. The shot above of Canning Dam (Western Australia) was taken in January 2011 and you can see how low the water level was then. We’ve had four more dry winters since then and there’s no sign of anything improving. We’ve lost 40% of the annual rainfall we used to have 40 years ago. I remember what it used to be like. This is serious, Stan. (I wish I could make these clickable to full size, but WordPress changed the software last week and now I can’t find any way to let you click on the image as we used to. Annoying.)

Mid-west salt lake, January 2011. You get a sense of scale from the tiny farm buildings at the centre left edge. © PJ Croft 2011, 2015. Pentax K-5

Dalwallinu, WA. Strange coincidence – I met a very nice lady from there at a reunion last year, but she’s gone back to Melbourne now. Sigh. Another one bites the dust. © PJ Croft 2011, 2015. Pentax K-5

Fairy dragonfly, Malaysia © PJ Croft 1986, 2015

Well, this is very nice. I read a US blog called The Online Photographer, written by Mike Johnston, every day, and yesterday I added a comment in a discussion about blogging and diaries. I mentioned this, my blog, and how it’s my diary, really, stemming from a desire to write, and especially to leave some footprint of my life for posterity. We all need to feel we’ve had an influence on the world, however small.

I’m very flattered to discover that Mike has reproduced some of my rather long comment in his blog, along with one of my humorous images, and expanded on the theme of keeping diaries and lists, which I do. He linked to my blog in his entry.

The result is:

My blog stats, Monday 30 November 2015

Wow, I’m famous. It’s my 15 minutes, Andy. I’m sure it’s temporary but I’m happy. Maybe I’d better lift my standards and try to improve my writings, but as I said, I’m just compelled to write about all the major or minor things I encounter from day to day. I must admit I’m something of a ranter, but that comes from living alone with no-one to rant to. Sorry.

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Kew’ell (Harry Kewell is a famous Aussie soccer player) Denpasar, Bali © PJ Croft 2010, 2015

Perhaps I’d better write a bit more on the theme of photography. I’m at that delicious stage of being two weeks out from a trip to Bali and considering what gear to take.

Years ago, when I was slimmer and lighter and had a strong shoulder, I had it all worked out. I took a Nikon F801, maybe the Nikon FE2 as well, 28mm, 35mm, 55mm Micro, 70-150mm E and 200mm Micro lenses, all Nikkors. Perhaps even the 300mm f4 IF-ED in its separate container. Plus an SB40 flash, various rings and filters, and at least a dozen rolls of 36 exp. Kodachrome 64. The reason for carrying the second body was to have an alternative film type loaded, perhaps Ektachrome for its different colour rendition, or Kodachrome 25 for its super fine grain. ISO 25! We learnt to brace elbows to body and slowly breath out when squeezing the shutter.

Then I added the Olympus OM2 SP, Zuiko 28mm, Tamron 75-150 Adaptall, and one of the Olympus flashes, either the T20 or T32. Add in the cords and the back to back adapters to make the Nikkor 200mm Micro fit on the OM2 with its superior flash system, and I was weighted down as if I were going to be shot and dumped in the harbour 😉 Boy, that was a load, and I didn’t necessarily carry all of it at once, but I did most of it. Crazy, but this is the way I worked in those days. There wasn’t much alternative.

How different things are now. How much lighter are cameras and lenses. How great are the alternatives we have now.

The simplest solution is to take just one camera, but it’s a camera that can do virtually all that the above combination could do, arguably with higher quality as well.

The camera I’m thinking of is my Panasonic FZ1000. It’s a 1″ diagonal 20M pixel sensor with a 24mm to 400mm f2.8-f4 lens permanently attached. It’s not the pinnacle of lens design but it carries Leica’s imprint and it’s pretty darn good, at least as good as those film era lenses.

The camera has a built in flash, admittedly of limited coverage, but by shooting at ISOs in the range of 800 – 3200, way beyond what film could ever do, flash isn’t so important any more. I’ve come to prefer natural lighting most of the time, although I loved Nikon’s ‘Matrix Balanced Fill Flash’ on the F801. It worked well at adding that little bit of extra sparkle to the eyes and highlights, without being overpowering. I can’t seem to achieve the same thing these days.

The Panasonic also shoots miraculous 4K Ultra Hi-Def video as well. How good is that?! It has a macro mode, of course, although you need to be careful of lens shadowing if you want to use the flash, as you often do for closeups.

So there it is, an entire bag of equipment in one camera. No need to take anything else. Wunderbar. Need a different colour rendition, like choosing a different film? Just dial a different mode.

But, but, … I can’t leave my other goodies at home, can I? I have the Sony RX10 with its legendary Zeiss 24-200mm f2.8 lens, giving noticeably sharper pictures. It also shoots lovely 1080 50p HD video. That’s still high definition, still great stuff.

Then I have my Olympus OM-D E-M1 with its marvellous image stabilisation, beautiful sensor, and HD video too. Add on the Panasonic 28-84mm (eq.) as my walk around camera, and take along my Olympus M.Zuiko 150-600 (eq.) lens that’s smaller and lighter than the Nikon 75-150mm and the Tamron 70-150mm were in the 1980s, yet reaches further at higher quality.

I’ve also just bought a Rokinon 9mm fisheye lens for the Olympus. Ideal for inside temples and very crowded places. Can’t leave that behind, can I?

Perhaps I should also take one of the tiny Olympus m4/3 PL-2 or PL-3 bodies for pocketability in a restaurant at night when I don’t want to take a big camera?

My mind also keeps coming back to my Pentax K-5 with its bigger APS-C sized sensor. Whenever I go back over my shots from late 2010 and 2011, I marvel at the quality. They really stand out for low noise and sharpness, even with my relatively low end Pentax zooms, the 24-80mm (eq.) and the 75-300mm (eq.). Perhaps I should revert to that? It’s one of my absolute favourite cameras. Maybe I should buy the latest K-3 II for even better quality? There’s just be time.

Aaaaarrrrgh. See what I mean? My head says, “Only take ONE camera!” My heart says, “Oh go on, you could take two and several of those lovely lenses in a small bag. You can do it. Go on.”

At this stage I think it’s going to be the Panasonic FZ1000 and the E-M1 with 9mm, Pana 14-42mm (28-84mm eq.) and the Olympus 75-300mm (150-600mm eq.) lenses. The FZ1000 will be the walk around camera, the camera you take when you simply can’t leave the room without one. The OM-D E-M1 with its three lenses will be the tripod camera in the shoulder bag for the sunrises and scenics. Oh yeah, I’ll be taking the tripod as well, the Slik Travel model with a Manfrotto small geared head for video work.

Ha. Who am I kidding. I’ll probably leave most of this gear in the room most of the time. I don’t have the strength or energy that I used to have to carry a heavy bag. That’s why the Pana FZ1000 will do almost everything I want to do.

Two weeks to go to decide. I love this 🙂

Sanur sunrise Pentax K-5 © PJ Croft 2010,2015

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My friend Alan stayed here last night on his way back to Margaret River from Cadoux and the harvesting. He helps out on his brothers’ farms each season.

We had dinner at the Dôme cafe across the road, sitting outside overlooking the lakes with all the wild water birds, flapping their wings and settling down for the night under the trees. Marvellous. It’s great to be able to step outside my door, walk 100m down the street and there we are. This is a very pleasant area. A bit windy, but nice.

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Now to take out the travel insurance for my trip. I’ve heard a guy from the Insurance Council talking on radio about whether we’d be covered for delays caused by the Lombok volcanic ash. He was squirming around the subject, trying to avoid saying outright “No”, but that’s what he was meaning. I think we’d have to assume that we wouldn’t be covered if the flights were delayed.

I don’t think I’m bothered by this. Garuda seems to fly regardless, and even if I were delayed leaving Bali, I don’t think I’d mind another night or two there, as long as I had a hotel room. At $25 – $40 a night, it’s not too scary.

Going up is a different matter, as a no-show means you forfeit the room cost for the night. Too bad, I guess.

More important is that my medical history means the loading on my policy bumps it up from about $127 for a normal person to $405 for me. Too bad, can’t be helped. I just have to count it in the cost of the trip.

Which reminds me, that after a bit of a horror period in 2012 and 2013, I’ve gone two years in a row without a visit to any hospital! Chalk it up, Boris. Let’s hope it stays this way.

I’ve mentioned before about the repetition of episodes of the Big Bang Theory, now being shown on both Seven and Nine. I’ve had strong suspicions that they are showing the same episodes on successive nights, or even on the same nights.

Well, above is the proof of Channel 9’s careless attitude to we viewers. The same episode was shown on three successive nights 24.11, 25.11, 26.11 ! Sure, on different digital channels (Nine Perth, GO! and 9Go!), but it’s still Nine Network.

This is the only example I’ve picked up so far, but I’m keeping a diary of the episode names and the dates and channels they are shown on. I have no doubts there will be further examples soon.

In addition, Nine showed the movie Major Payne on Friday night. Bugger me but West TV, the community station, showed it again last night. What’s going on here, do they read each others’ schedules and decide to play games with us? This is crazy.

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Speaking of crazy, I was bumped from behind on Friday afternoon. My car was, I mean.

Coming home along Marmion Ave, going very slowly near Clarkson, I noticed a car several cars back behind me suddenly veer to the left so as to avoid running into a near stationary motor bike.

Then a few minutes later, approaching Hester Ave roundabout, BANG. We were going at less than walking pace, luckily, but that same car had come up behind me, failed to stop, and hit me in the rear.

Luckily the cycling lane is particularly wide at that point so I was able to pull over and get out. The other guy did the same and he got out looking very sheepish. Lucky, because he looked like a real low life. Hi-viz gear, navy work trousers, messy beard and hair and about a week’s worth of dirt all over him.

I said, “Thank goodness for plastic bumpers”, because I couldn’t see any damage. He said “Sorry mate” in a quiet voice and with his head bowed. I said I thought he needed to pay more attention and stay further back. No harm seemed to be done and he stuck his hand out so I shook it (ugh!) and we called it quits. He was obviously worried I might make a fuss and I think he might have been on the grog or something. I got back in the car and re-entered the traffic, leaving him behind for someone else to avoid.

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I’ve finished my latest book.

I bought two vouchers for 40 page versions, but I’ve only had one copy printed so far. It’s lucky, because having found all those photos in a box in the garage that I mentioned the other day, I want to completely revise it and add many more photos. I’ll have to add more pages I think. That’ll be tricky because all the discounted vouchers are for 40 page books. I might end up paying quite a bit higher price for the extra paged books.

The title refers to a joke I heard many years ago. A bloke’s working in an office in a skyscraper with the window open (I told you it’s a joke).

Suddenly he sees a bloke falling past the window on his way down. He yells out, “Hey, how’re you going mate?”

The falling man on his way to his death yells out, “OK so far.”

That’s the way my life seems: I’m falling towards my inevitable demise, but I’m OK so far.

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Two weeks today to Bali. I feel I need to take a test drive out to the airport some time this week because all the roads have changed. There was a map in the paper yesterday showing the new layout but it was hard to understand. I feel I need to see it for myself in real life. The GPS map won’t be up to date, I fear. It’ll make a nice drive, anyway.

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It seems we still have to pay US$35 for the Visa on Arrival in Bali, whereas most countries have had it waived. How embarrassing that Australia is still being treated as a naughty country by Indonesia.

Our AutoTour group in Brussels 1974 © PJ Croft

I said yesterday that I was quite pleased with the repair work to my reticulation system. I was quoted a rate of $85 per hour, charged in increments of  ¼ hr. I thought 2½ hrs was being charged, or roughly $200 plus parts.

Well, I’ve received the invoice today. There’s a “call out fee” of $100 been added, and he charged for 2¾ hrs (OK). Plus parts.

The final bill was $497.60! Bloody hell. I’ve paid it, but wow, that’s expensive. $100 call out fee??? He probably told me in advance but I hadn’t realised it. Nearly $500 for less than 3hrs work. Ouch. Gettin’ tired of this.

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I received a text message on my phone on Monday:

“I am a widow dying from cancer and i want you to inherit my 2,700,000.00 Eur since i have no relatives. Email xxxxxx@gmail.com”

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. I suppose someone might fall for that but not me.

However, this is the first time I’ve received a phone text like this, and I don’t think it’s a coincidence that I sent my mobile number to a friend in an email on that day. That means someone in Nigeria or Russia or somewhere has read my email. Uh oh. Worrying. Lesson: don’t put info in emails that I don’t want known to thieves and scammers.

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Another odd thing: I set out on my walk about 5pm yesterday and saw there was a plastic wrapped letter of some kind in my mail box on top of the local paper. It was obviously advertising junk so I left it there to clear when I got back.

I returned about 45 mins later, went to get the mail and this letter was gone. What the … ?! Wind? It was nowhere to be seen. It wasn’t lightweight, so I didn’t think the wind would have plucked it out and left the paper.

So, mystery. Was it a junk mail drop and they realised I have a No Junk Mail label on the box and came back to get it? Unlikely. I dunno.

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I forgot to mention on Monday: I was talking to a friend at the Rugby Klub and he’s split with his wife. That wasn’t news; I knew that was happening a year ago.

But what I didn’t know is that his wife, a practising accountant, has given ALL their joint superannuation money to a Nigerian scammer! Nearly half a $mill. Yes, that’s right, this supposedly smart woman fell for the scammer and sent him all their super money. Incredible, but true.

As you can imagine, coming on top of their divorce, he’s a little bit upset. The house had to be sold and he’s got half that, but he’s now renting and desperately trying to work harder to save for his retirement, about 10 years away.

Definition of marriage: find a woman you hate and give her a house. How very, very true.

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I’ve finally managed to get my contacts phone list transferred from my old Nokia phone to my new Sony phone. There are 125 numbers, so I was pretty determined to save them.

It’s taken hours and hours. Sony’s transfer software just doesn’t work. No way would it connect to the Nokia phone. I found another program on-line that looked hopeful, but the trial version only transfers five numbers. I only need to do this once, so when I saw the price for the full version was US$60, I bailed out quick smart.

Then I found a German program that only cost Eur4.99 or A$8.10, so that was OK. I bought it and after another hour or so fiddling with micro SD cards, I was finally successful. Thank goodness.

Wish it still looked like this. Freshly laid last year. Very dry now. Spraying with soil wetter, Lawn Rescue and a general lawn fertiliser later, plus better reticulation will, I hope, restore it.

I finally got a reticulation repairer here yesterday and no wonder my system wasn’t working properly. As he said, it doesn’t appear to have had any work done since the house was built in 2004.

First, no wonder there was little pressure. There was a broken joint on the far side of the house which was almost creating a pond. Once that was fixed, whoa ho, almost too much pressure. Oodles of it now. Thank goodness.

Second, the reason the mini sprinklers on the new garden bed I had built last year weren’t working is because they were all blanked off, except one, by the line being connected to the stopper point on the mini sprinkler. One the lines were switched to the open valves, away they went. So why did the landscapers leave my system in a non-operational state last year? Grrr.

Third, two of the popups on the back lawn were blocked, so it was only getting the centre popup at reduced pressure.

Fourth, a popup on the front verge was broken and robbing what little pressure there was from the others. Replace that and clear the others and I have a good coverage again.

Finally, reprogram it for the correct days (I thought mine were Wed/Sat but he swears it’s Tue/Sat) so I’m legal.

He did three hours and only charged me for 2½ so I was pleased. For once I wasn’t left gnashing my teeth at a tradesman. He’ll get more work from me, for sure.

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What goes around … I’ve just booked at the Aquarius Hotel in Sanur for a few nights, and it’s resonant with the Aquarius Hotel in Earls’ Court, London, in 1974. A bit different in style, that’s for sure. There wasn’t a pool at the Earls’ Court place.

That’s the beach at the end of the street above, about 250m. I seriously hope to get up before dawn and set my tripod up on the beach to get the dawn over the ocean and Lembongan, with Agung on the horizon.

That’s directly opposite the hotel entrance. I’ll let you guess where. I suspect I’ll be dropping in there from time to time.

Now, I still have two nights booked at Ubud. Will I try again for Kintamani before Ubud? Still thinking about it.

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I’ve just booked my rental car to get from home to the airport when I leave for Bali. I have no confidence whatever that a taxi would pick me up from here at 4.30am on a Sunday and take me to the airport, nor for less than $100.

I’ve booked a Corolla for Saturday 12th Dec, which I will collect in Adelaide Terrace, drive home (visiting friends on the way), then drop off at the airport on Sunday morning at 6.00am. Cost? $52. Neat solution, I think. Now, nothing could go wrong, could it … ?

I should add that my initial choice was Avis but when I went ahead with the booking at an advertised price of $55 for the day, I discovered that they add another $30 for a “relocation fee”, i.e. transfer from the airport back to the Perth depot. Bloody hell. As if they wouldn’t have any customers picking up at the airport.

Therefore they lost my business. I’m not putting up with a fee being hidden until you proceed with the booking. Get lost, Avis. I went with Thrifty. They add a fee, but it’s only $7 and it’s disclosed early.

Garuda seems to fly regardless of ash clouds. Erk.

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I was supposed to go to Tai Chi this morning but I had another of my nearly sleepless nights. Consequently I was far too groggy to drive at 9am. Pity. I’ll try next week.

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Next episode of Fargo tonight. I missed last week’s but I’ve got it recorded so I’d better watch it early. What a violent show this is!! This is America, glorifying guns and violence as if that’s what makes men into men.

So why am I watching it? Good question. It has a morbid fascination to it, is all I can say.

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I must admit I’m absorbed by Who Dares Wins on SBS as well. This is also tough guy stuff, but much, much gentler, surprising to say. I sure wish I had that toughness.

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But SBS are driving me mad!!!! with their promos. The same promos over and over and over and over again. This is repetitiveness overdone. It’s so bad that I record all the programs I want to watch and fast forward through the breaks later.

As for Channel 7 and Channel 9 competing with each other to see who can show the most episodes of Big Bang Theory, what the … ? Seven showed six episodes last night, I think, and Nine showed three. They even show the same episode on the different channels sometimes. I’ve started keeping a list of who’s showing what episodes. Even I’m reaching saturation point.

Talking to a couple of mates on Friday night. One has lost the sight in his left eye due to a detached retina. He said it started out as seeing a lot of floaters, which most people have, but these were big enough to look like flies buzzing around. He was bothered but didn’t act.

By the time he saw an ophthalmologist about it, the retina was completely detached and he was told it was too late to save it. He says he has a small amount of peripheral vision but the centre is completely dark. Scary. Be warned. Make sure those flies are real flies, or get to your eye specialist asap.

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I was at the rugby club. I used to be a member from 1999 to 2013, and it was fantastic. I knew a lot of the guys, apart from the TV station mates, I mean, and the girls … ! I got to know all the girls too, and it was a really friendly atmosphere. I really looked forward to Friday nights.

Then I moved up here, but at half an hour each way, it was too far to go. And you can’t drink and drive, so I stopped going.

Now they say someone’s made a complaint, there’s a new committee, so there are no girls any more. All the players are a younger crowd and a lot of the old timers are gone (like me). So that’s the end of that. I was thinking of rejoining last Friday, but no, even my TV mates are leaving too. So endeth the fun.

I tried to persuade my mates to come up here, just for a visit, but “Nah, too far.” Great mates.

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One of those guys has just come back from Bali. Very quiet up there, he says. Taxi driver saying he’s only had two fares all day. The volcano causing people to stay away, I’d say. Oh well, good for me.

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I was thinking of cancelling, myself, but no, it’ll be OK. I’ll stick to my plans. Garuda seems to fly regardless. I can’t say that makes me feel safe, but …

The story is that a new airport is finally ready to start building. I’ve heard that before.

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Me in history © PJ Croft 1945, 1994, 2015

The Guardian ran a story today about the tight rope walker who made an historic walk between the twin Trade Centre towers in NY in 1974. They invite readers to send in a picture of themselves in an historic photo.

I’ve submitted the image above, tongue in cheek. I did this as a Photoshop exercise in a class in about 1994. My kimono was from my trip to Japan in 1992. I wonder if they’ll use it?

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I tried my first session at a Tai Chi class last Tuesday. It’s at Currumbine, 15 mins away, so not too far.

It’s the first time I’ve tried it and even though it’s slow and not too strenuous, I still felt a bit of muscle strain and soreness afterwards. Not badly, but I felt as if I’d had a mild workout.

There were about a dozen ladies and only one other guy besides me. All of the elderly age group, of course. The next one is this Tuesday and I think I’ll go again, even though I have to pay to join. It’ll keep me up to the mark. Once you learn some of the moves, you can do it at home, of course, or in a hotel room.

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Phwooaaar. I saw this yesterday in Masters and I want!

I’ve never owned a drill press, mainly on size grounds. They’re usually pretty big and heavy, and not well made. Cheap, admittedly, when made in Taiwan and improving in quality, but I’ve never bought one.

But this one looks good. Probably made in China but to Bosch quality standards. It has a laser pointer to show the drill point, and a very smooth motion thanks to that wheel, although I’m not sure it’s any better than a spoked wheel. But the whole thing oozes quality, with a nice machined alloy surface on the base, with a sliding fence. It’s not cheap at $399, but …

As well, they’re selling a solid metal framed kit work bench with two slide out steel drawers for $79. I’ve got room now, so I might buy these two. I’ve got an immediate job for them.

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It’s our verge junk pickup this week so I’ve finally had the chance to get rid of some stuff. A lot of it disappeared before the truck’s come along, but that’s OK. Even aluminium framed outdoor chairs with torn and discoloured webbing were taken. People must renew the webbing, I guess. Good for them.

The 7 Crew l-r: Geoff McCann, Me, Geoff Mortlock, Danny Piccin, Tim O’Dea, Ross Argyle, Con Michael, Geoff Stewart. Probably a collective 250 years’ experience there.

As promised, eight of us had dinner last night at North Beach. It was partly to remember our former colleague Len, who died recently at 64, unable to enjoy the retirement he’d worked so hard for.

It was also to talk about the good times we had at TVW7 and to chew the fat about electronics and TV generally. Wow, the technology’s moving fast. Something that seemed amazing a year ago has been surpassed and we’re on to the next new thing. It’s exciting.

A general theme is that there are no new young guys coming up. The stations don’t train anyone, the old diplomas and certificates are not attempted any more, the Control Board is defunct and the BOCP and TVOCP are not required any more.

If doctors, nurses and dentists weren’t required to have qualifications any more, would that be OK? How about accountants and financial planners being allowed to practice without needing qualifications?

It’s upper managements causing this. They just don’t care.

Why does this matter? Because we are being left in the dust by the Asian tiger economies in STEM areas. South Korea is a giant in electronics, cars, ships, medical equipment, cameras and lenses etc. Taiwan makes much of the world’s PCs, laptops, semiconductors, motherboards etc. China is coming to dominate all these areas of manufacturing and it won’t be long before their cars are acceptable. Singapore is another giant in electronics, computers, medical and so-on.

Even Hong Kong is now making high quality lenses, among all the other electronics they make.

All these except China are countries with no natural resources. The one thing they all have in common is that their people regard education, particularly the STEM subjects, as an absolutely vital part of their maturation. They will sacrifice everything to get uni degrees, not just piddly TAFE certificates and diplomas.

We really are becoming the White Trash of Asia. We’re not doing well enough because we’re not trying. The standard of education is not good enough.

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Pictures in these posts are usually clickable to see the full sized image, but Word Press have changed the software today and the image above won’t enlarge. The one on the previous post will. C’mon Word Press!

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Holy smoke. I’ve just opened a box in the garage that I’d missed before. In it I found a plastic bag containing two trays of old photos. They’re mostly Dad’s, mostly prints but many with negs (hurrah, I can do high quality scans from negs), but also many of Uncle Darcey’s too.

Thank goodness, Dad was diligent and annotated the backs of the photos with names and places. You must do this for posterity if you make prints.

And among them are many of me that I recognise as having seen before, but for some reason I don’t have scans of them.

Kerrumbs, this means I’ve got weeks of work scanning all this new stuff, and it means my Croft History books will need to be revised. I’ll need to do a new edition of volume 1, The Sydney Years, I think. There are dozens of new photos to add.

I don’t mind. I love doing this.

I finished My Life yesterday and sent it off for printing, but only one copy so far. I think I’ll have to revise it before sending the second copy off.

This is very odd. I’m sure I’ve seen all these photos before, but I don’t have scans of them. I thought I’d scanned everything I had. Clearly not.