Aaaah, the day after. What a relief that it’s all over.

Our Northam Senior High School Reunion happened last night (Saturday night), and judging by people’s reactions, it was a triumph. I can’t count the number of times I was slapped on the back and congratulated, and my hand pumped, and hugged with thanks. People really appreciated seeing all their old friends and renewing friendships.

I received prolonged applause for my effort, which is very gratifying, I must say. I put in a big effort, especially in the last week, and it paid off, with everyone appreciative of the signage and the boards of old photos and the badges and certificates and the DVD and all. It’s OK, I wouldn’t have it any other way.

It was a long day – we, the committee, started at midday, which was after an hour’s drive from my place. Three times during that drive I was hassled and verbally abused by other aggressive drivers! One was for driving at 60km/h in a 70km/h zone. The guy sat 6” from my rear, weaved from side to side trying to push past me in the single lane plus bike lane, then put his headlights on and moved even closer when I tapped my brake lights. Then I got the finger signal as he sped off at well above the limit. Nice.

Another was where we had to merge down into one lane in Curtin Ave, Swanbourne. A guy in a huge black Land Cruiser 4WD tried to force his way in front of me, I kept my car’s nose ahead of him and refused to allow it. I was always the front car!! The result was, I got a torrent of abuse at the next lights. He was spitting with anger and rage and hatred at me. What kind of mind is that?

Anyway, I got here to the Trade winds hotel and began the setup, as well as occupying our room. I’m sharing with my friend Jan.

The next two hours slid by and at 2pm the crowd started building. Meeting and greeting, handshaking and good to see you’s. Some were long time friends, many were names without faces, not seen for 15, 25, 50 years.

We had a nice fine day, if a bit cloudy and cooler than we wanted. Big group photo at 4pm on the top deck and we worried it was going to rain! The light was constantly changing. I was on a stool in the front row and I look so FAT! Workin’ on it.

Drinks and talk until 6.30pm (we’d been told 7pm … huh?) then the dinner. Ten to a table, buffet food, supposed to move between tables as we progressed but it didn’t happen. I was pretty tired and just wanted to sit in my place. Getting up to get the (uninspiring) food was hard work. It was a pity..

One point was that our MC said Grace! This was a surprise to me and I feel I was ambushed here. I don’t want religion forced on me. To me, religion is evil. More on this in a minute.

To my surprise, two of the guys sang a song, with guitar, introducing it as having been written by me! It was Charlie Drake’s song actually, “My Boomerang Won’t Come Back”, with the lyrics altered to encompass maths and laptops (“My Lap Top Won’t Come Back”) and more. I don’t remember doing it, but I must have, although talking about laptops it’s clearly not from 1964. Anyway, it was nice.

We slowly wound it up at about 11pm – we oldies were too tired by then – beddy bumps. Then it was upstairs to a room for more drinks and raucous conversation. One of our guys was especially drunk, but in a happy, friendly way. I’ve never seen him this way before. He was stumbling and reeling. But it was all fun, talking about old girlfriends and incidents at the school and The Hut. Blokes’ talk!

We went on until 3.30am. I was hardly aware of the time, having imbibed a fair bit, but I was fine, if tired. Then it was bed and almost instant sleep.

Breakfast this morning (Sunday) was another gathering with much conversation until about 10am when the “leavers” had to go. I was staying another night so as to wind down and relax. I may go down to the Fremantle town later when the light is nicer. The pool is inviting too, but it may be too cold.

PS: I did go into the pool for about 45mins and did about a dozen slow laps of breaststroke. I was so frustrated to begin with as I couldn’t get the gates to open. It turned out they were all locked. It took the guy more than 10 mins and multiple tries to find the right key.

It was no worse than having a cold shower, but after 45 mins I was a bit chilled. Gee, it felt nice, though.

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I can’t move on without mentioning a potentially wonderful meeting I had. One of the former students came up and sat by me and we had a marvellous conversation. I hadn’t noticed her before, but I felt instant rapport. This must be followed through. I can’t stop thinking about her!

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Now I can get back to the cruise preparation. Yesterday I received an email from the cruise line asking me to log on for important information. But when I tried to log on using my booking number, “Error 5007: Your cruise has been cancelled. You cannot log on using this booking number. Please contact your travel agent.”

WHAT??!! This was a repeat of the March experience where the travel agent, the same one, failed to pass on my money to P&O resulting in my booking being cancelled. Surely it wasn’t going to happen again?!

I phoned the cruise line’s 1 300 number and asked what was going on. They said my travel agent had changed my booking to access a special promotion, resulting in this change/cancellation in my booking.

Bloody hell. Now I have to phone her tomorrow to demand that she fixes this. We have 10 days to go. I was told to log on using Jan’s booking number in the meantime. This works, but I’m not happy about that.

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What an odd hotel this is. The rooms are huge and set up as motel units. This room has a double bed and two singles – three bed places. It has a full kitchen with hot plates, sink, microwave oven, fridge, cutlery and plates and cups. You could live in here, not needing to go to the restaurant or bar. That seems odd if they want to maximise their cash flow. But I don’t care – I brought my own sandwich and salad.

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Now to head home to try to resurrect my main PC. I’m still operating from my laptop. Thank goodness I have one.

I’ll have to go right back to basics on the PC – disconnect all disk drives, format a spare drive (I have many!) and install Win 7 from scratch. Assuming that works, I’ll install Acronis backup and try to find the most recent backup, then try to restore to my last backup point. This will all take hours.

The drive I had that failed first was an SSD and I’m not sure whether I’ll trust that type again. I’ll have to buy a new one and that’s expensive. Still thinking about it. The speed gains with an SSD are very significant, though, and hard to resist.

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I left the hotel at 0930 and it didn’t take long … I wasn’t even out of Fremantle when I had plenty of time to come to a stop at orange traffic lights. But a guy in a 4WD (yeah) pulled out from behind me, planted his foot and drove through the red lights. When I blew my horn I got the finger. I’m sick of this.

Thursday morning 9am. Another loss of the hard disk C: drive! There must be a motherboard problem, I think. I can see my files using a backup program, but at the moment I can’t access them.

All the name cards are done, thank goodness, and I got as far as R in printing the certificates. No chance of finishing that, I don’t think. Too bad, can’t do any more at the moment. Tired, crapped off with certain people but have to hide it for  the reunion!

It’s now Wednesday and I did finally get the master disc to DiskBank on Monday, thanks to a good mate. But the stress I went through!! I only managed to get the master done at 10am Monday. Sitting in the waiting room at 7.30am at Silver Chain in Wanneroo, I still didn’t have the master ready and was almost in a panic. All because of this request to remove some group photos. Shit.

And now, of course, there’s rewriting of the story going on. It seems I was the one who wanted to stop production. No way! I would never have done that, Vietnam error or not, unless I was pressured to make that phone call. It wasn’t my idea.

There was a benefit, though. Because of the delay, I was able to incorporate two more biographies. But why can’t people understand deadlines??!! I had seven people submit on the very last day, at the very last moment and beyond. Bloody hell!

I’m still busy printing name badges and certificates, cutting the badges up, printing signage, paying the bills, answering late change queries. All the while worrying that I’m not keeping my legs above my heart.

Nearly done.

Holy cow, am I in stress! I’ve been up since 3am trying to recover my backups, with only partial success. Last Thursday I delivered the master DVD to DiscBank for duplication – 100 DVDs for $350. It was on time and I was feeling quite pleased with myself. I went to lunch with the rest of the committee on Friday in a relaxed frame of mind.

Then I had coffee in the city with a friend from school days. She had previously asked me not to use any of her photos from the school magazine (the printed one) from 50 years ago. No problem, I didn’t scan any and hadn’t used them. But what she meant was that I was not to use ANY photo of her from that time, no matter if she was in a group or what. The blood drained from my face!

Well, I used the original photo of the Avon magazine committee from 1963, I said. No! She didn’t like the way she looked in it. But, but … no, she was insistent. It could not be used now. I said, but it’s too late, the master disc is with the duplicators – it’s too late. “Can’t you stop it?”  No! That was yesterday, it’s already in production. “Well, can’t you ask them to change the photo?”  No, of course not. “Why not?”  Because it can’t be done. “Why not?” They don’t have the software, that’s why, and it’s not their job. “Well, can’t you ask them to blur my face?” Noooo, it’s not possible. “Well, can’t you stop the production?” No, if I do it’ll cost us another $350. “I’ll pay it.” she said.

I tried to tell her that she was worried over nothing, that the photo is fine. But no, I must stop the production. She wouldn’t budge. I must phone DiscBank right then and there and tell them to stop (she’s a lawyer, fgs) She insisted I do it from the restaurant! Handed me her phone so I could dial. I didn’t know the number so she called directory assistance and got it. Then she dialled and handed me the phone to talk.

So I phoned them. No,they hadn’t started it, and they would stop and wait for a new master disc. Not open Saturday, have to be Monday. The reunion is next Saturday. OK, that was bad enough and absolutely spoilt my afternoon. Why did she want this deletion so badly? She felt she looked bad and she’d never be able to show her children and grandchildren. For crying out loud!!! These photos are 51 years old and have been in print all that time.

But another thing intruded. We had been told one of our number had died in 1995, and he was on the roll call for his service in Vietnam. We’d since found he hadn’t died. I had changed the spreadsheet, but I’d forgotten to change the plaque. Yow!

OK, so I’m thinking I’ve had a narrow escape, even if for the wrong reason. But, driving home, I thought, “Hang on here, she’s only one of a group of eight in that photo. Why should she be able to have us all excluded just because of her?” So by the time I got home I was pretty upset. Then I started work on revamping the publication and realised there were actually three group photos with her in them, all groups of eight people or more. My stress levels rose further. I’m not going to delete them all, no way. I was originally going to demonstrate how clever I am by Photoshopping her face in the one photo so that it doesn’t look obvious. But not three! So I set about simply circling and totally blurring her face to unrecognisability in all three photos. They looked ridiculous! I’m angry because it spoils the photo for all of us. I’ve spoken to the others on the committee and they are gobsmacked, like me.

So that’s bad enough, right? Yesterday my computer crashed and I’ve lost the C: drive! It’s possibly recoverable, I think, if only I could remember how to do it. The message is Can’t find ntldr.com Press Ctl-Alt-Del.  I’ve fixed this before but I can’t do it at the moment. OK, I have backups, right? Of course! But the backup is from two days ago, so I’ve lost all the work of yesterday (there was a lot more besides). So at this moment I’m operating from the laptop, but I simply cannot get my Page Plus magazine project back. I’m just going to have to dig my heels in – NO! The master disc cannot be changed, and even if it could be, I refuse to delete these photos. It’s selfish and vain to insist. Bloody hell, these photos were published 51 years ago! They’ve been out there all that time. How can you object to them now?

OK, I still have the master files from two days ago, so I’m just going to have to say, “That’s it.” There’s another aspect – if she doesn’t want her kids and grandkids to see her as she was 51 years ago, then don’t take the DVD. Simple. Don’t show your kids, if that’s you want. In fact, I will make you a special one-off copy with your face blurred if that’s what you want, if you want to look ridiculous, but it will be after the reunion. Meanwhile this has totally spoilt this for me. I’m tense, upset, angry. I’ve just got home from Silver Chain from the IV antibiotic injection and they’ve INSISTED that I must keep my feet above my heart as much as possible. So, no long computer sessions. Ho hum. Bloody hell, from elation to despondent in 36 hours.

Why do the nations, so furiously rage together?

Ooops, 9 days since last post, sorry. Working non-stop on our reunion magazine, plus the name cards and certificates, the spreadsheet, the payments collection … on and on. Nearly finished now. The reunion is this Saturday Week, the 11th. I finally finished the magazine last night at 1230am. Add a bit, tiny change, test (15 mins each time to test), oops, do it again, over and over.

The final PDF file ended up at 468 pages and 586MB. The electronic “book” ended up at 285MB. I’ve burnt those to a Gold Master disc for delivery to DiscBank right now, but I’ve hit a snag.

I need intravenous antibiotic as my left shin is ulcerated. I’m waiting for the Silver Chain nurse but the 4hr wait has passed with no sign of them. I phoned, and they said he’ll phone me, but that was 40mins ago. I have to go. I absolutely need to deliver that master disc. Hmmm.

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I had the Vivaxim combined Hep C vaccination for our trip this morning, and was surprised to find it cost $155 from the pharmacy. Can’t be helped. Likewise, the Chinese visa cost $158.50 and the Vietnamese visa cost $140. We have no choice, like it or don’t go.

Similarly, one of my other meds costs $125 per month and the Byetta costs $120 per month. This all adds up.

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I succumbed and bought a tablet computer a few days ago, the Samsung Galaxy Tab S 10.5″ Wow! I can’t leave it alone. It may have to be surgically removed from my hands. All the ABC stuff! It’s all interesting, and it’s the stuff I listen to at 3am when I can’t sleep. I will have to resist taking this device to bed with me or I’ll never get to sleep.

The idea is to use it on the cruise trip. I hoped to leave my laptop at home, but I don’t think I can. It’ll have to be both.

To be continued.

Look at the name on the sign! I wonder if he got elected.

Phew, I’m busy. Our 50th anniversary school reunion is now only 18 days away and I’ve still got 15 people who’ve said they’re coming but haven’t paid. The deadline was last Friday. We have to pre pay the hotel for 80 dinners regardless, so we’re trying to get people to pay what they’ve promised. This has been going on since July or earlier. Some people just have to be pushed and pushed. I’m not happy.

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The magazine for the reunion is now up to 265 pages, with more being added daily. It’s a PDF file so the size can be anything and I can use as many images as I like. I’ve got 37 biographies so far, not a bad number. One guy has a great story to tell and writes really well in his emails, but I just can’t get his story out of him. He says he’s doing it, but nothing happens. Promises, promises. Oh well.

I’ve printed a preliminary copy of the magazine on paper and gee, it makes a thick book if you use good quality paper (semi-glossy for the images). It’s about 30mm thick. I’m getting a big buzz out of doing it.

And I have to say it – no-one, no-one – writes as well as I do. Even people who’ve been teachers for 50 years write prose full of spelling and grammatical errors, and just poor prose at that. One woman thinks she writes well and tries to pick errors in my emails, but she gets it wrong and her own writing is hurried and error ridden. This is clearly why younger people can’t write or spell properly. If the teachers can’t get it right and can’t take the trouble to try, how can they teach it?

I’ve written 40 pages on my life, another 22 pages on life at the Boys’ Hostel and another 14 pages on Life At School, with many, many pictures, more than 50. Oh, and three pages of “I Remember” one liners. But despite persistent pleas, I’ve had zero success in getting anyone else to write anything except very brief bio notes, usually a page or less, and many don’t seem to have any photos of their life. I can’t understand it. One was quite lively, but I’ve had to censor a couple of his references to teachers. They were very strong and well into defamation territory. I’d like to dump on a few people as well, but you can’t put it into print.

There’s no question that this has given me a passion for writing and when the reunion is over I’ll be getting back to my memoirs. My memory is fantastic. I remember so much, perhaps too much. I remember good bits, but I also can’t forget the bad bits. And there have been many bad bits.

The older I get the more I see how our lives and development are shaped by our early life experiences. The parents pass their problems on to the kids. Over and over, with each generation. This is not good.

Those poor kids in Iraq and Syria, frightened out of their wits by the war. They are scarred for life.

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The rain on Sunday night! I woke at 1.20am to the sound on the roof and it just got heavier and heavier. It was a deluge. It was so heavy that thoughts of roof collapse crossed my mind. I haven’t heard rain that strong for many years. It did stop after 15 mins or so.

What a strange weather pattern. Saturday was hot – as I understand it, the max of 34.2C was the hottest September day on record. Then next day and through the night of Sunday and into Monday morning, it rained, and rained, and rained. We had 31.8mm, another record for September, I think. And even now, I’m cold. Strange days indeed.

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I watched the TV series Broadchurch on the ABC last year and found it very good. They’ve re-run it in the past six weeks and I watched it again, even though the ABC pushed it later and later into the midnight time zone. I had to record the final episode on Sunday as it went to 1am.

I watched this final episode last night and I realised I hadn’t seen it before! Crumbs, this was the revelation of the killer. How could I have missed it first time around? Anyway, I’ve seen it now and at the very end, the credits said, “Broadchurch will return.” Good. This BBC drama is just superb. The Yanks just can’t match it. The first episode of the ABC production, The Code, was pretty good on Sunday too. I’ll keep watching that.

But I’m being driven mad by breakup (low signal) on the ABC channels. Only the ABC channels. All the other channels are fine.

I’d fix it, but I can’t see any external TV antenna, so it must be in the roof. I can’t get up in there, no way. It’s a metal Colourbond roof – how can a TV antenna work when it’s shielded by steel sheeting? I’m wondering what kind of antenna installation I’ve got, if indeed there even is an antenna. There are outlets in the lounge and all three bedrooms, so I wonder if they’ve done the splitting properly (there is a proper way to do it – you can’t just twist wires together). I’ll have to get a professional in.

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I’ll also have to get someone in to fix my garage roller door. Yesterday it wouldn’t close. The motor runs and the chain pulls, but it doesn’t grip the slider so it won’t pull the door. It’s not a problem to open and close it by hand, but you have to get out of the car, of course. Damn.

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I’m doing a lot of printing for the reunion at the moment, ten A4 sheets of name cards and about 100 A4 certificates. That’s using a lot of ink, so I had to buy a new set of cartridges yesterday. A set in a box cost $106, plus another $19 for a grey. I could buy a whole new printer for a lot less than $125! This is atrocious. How could I toss a perfectly good multifunction printer just because the ink has run out? Shame, Canon, shame.

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The cruise trip is also only 4 weeks away and there’s a lot of work organising that too. Luckily Jan just leaves it to me. He’s happy to accept my recommendations, so that makes it easy. I’m booked and paid for Beijing hotel, flight Beijing to Hanoi, Hanoi hotel so far. We’ve decided (I decided) to skip Bangkok. We’ll spend more time, a week, in Hanoi where the hotels are so cheap. I’ve booked a superior suite for A$76 a night. Nice.

Just the flight Hanoi to Bali and Bali hotel, then flight home to book. Hanoi to Bali has to be two hops, I’m afraid, via KL, with a few hours to wait there. At least you can stretch your legs.

I’m thinking that I’m looking forward to Bali most of all of this trip. I’m comfortable there. And I don’t actually have to return with Jan. He has to go back to work, but I could stay on if I want to. I don’t have to ask anyone’s permission or even tell anyone. I’m free to do whatever I want. If I could have Minnie back, I would in a heartbeat, but I don’t have to worry about my dog any more either. Freedom.

Of course, after five weeks travelling I’ll probably want to get home. Huh.

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I’m trying to save weight in my packing plans, of course,as I want to take a travel tripod on this trip. That’s about 1.5Kg. CPAP blower is another 1.5Kg. All my medications will add about 1Kg I’d guess. Yeah, that many and that much with all the dispensers and cold pack for the insulin pens.

That’s a win. The maker of one of the insulin pens provides a free travel cooler. Free! It’s a zippered pouch like a pencil case but with cold packs in the sides. You freeze it, and it keeps your pens cool for up to five hours. Neat. Hah! I say free, but the particular pen, Byetta, costs $125 per month. They get their money that way.

My eye was caught by the Sony Experia Z2 tablet yesterday. It costs about $550, + $90 for a Bluetooth wireless keyboard. My Sony VIAO laptop, although it’s fantastic, weighs nearly 2Kg with charger and power cable. The Z2 tablet weighs 425g. You charge it via a USB socket, afaik, and I’m carrying a very small and light universal+USB charger anyway.

But the Z2 is an Android device, and I don’t have any experience of that. I want three things – to write (ie type my blog and diary) easily, to do email and internet, to download photos and video from my two cameras and to read books and listen to music. OK, five things. Six things.

I’d be very nervous about leaving my laptop behind. I can make slideshows and edit and make video on that, and even burn CDs, DVDs and BluRays. Yes, it has a BluRay recorder in it. You can’t do any of that on a tablet.

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I write a lot on this blog, don’t I? I wonder many times if it’s worth it, if anyone’s reading. I know of one person for sure, but that’s all.

The thing is, I periodically download it as an xml (Extensible Markup Language) file for future book form. Or whatever. It goes right back to 2009 when I first started it and even in a small font there are over 1200 pages. Maybe one day some future historian might read it, like Samuel Pepys’s diaries became interesting to us now. Too bad, anyway. I like writing.

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If I hear the word iconic once more, I may explode!

Love the expression! A photo from the Commonwealth Games Closing © ABC news

Scotland’s big day and I sure hope they vote No. I don’t want to see the union broken up. They can have more autonomy without breaking away completely. This will have scared London enough to take notice and let Scotland have more self rule. Vote No.

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I got my three monthly blood test results today and they were bloody good, if you’ll pardon the pun. Nearly all right in the middle of the range. HbA1c 6.7. That’s excellent.

But she was concerned about one test. Apparently my cholesterol is too low! Overall 2.9, LDL 1.7. This is too low. Not many guys have that problem.

It’s a problem because we need cholesterol for bodily functions and too little is not good. So I’m halving my dose of the statin. No problem. I’ll be interested to see the results.

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Listening to the radio today I heard Ron Radford, the director of the National Gallery, talking in his high art voice about how exciting it all is for their latest exhibition. He said, “Is there anyone in Australia who hasn’t been to the National gallery? They must be in a minority, surely.”

No Ron!! First, where the hell is the National Gallery? I gather it’s in Canberra. Very convenient for Brisbane/Sydney/Melbourne and even Adelaide, but it may as well not exist as far as Perth is concerned. We don’t get a share of this hugely expensive edifice. I’m not excited. I can’t drop in and see your latest exhibition, Ron. Bugger off and go and have one of your highbrow parties in Sydney or Melbourne.

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More than 6 months ago I bought a magazine about model trains and it included a OO scale passenger carriage and piece of track on the cover for $8. Bargain, so I bought two more. But it made me realise that OO is going to be too big if I build my system.

Today I found another issue of this mag and this time it included a locomotive model, for $5.95! Wow, I thought. At least this will let me play around with powering and so on.

But when I got it home I found it’s not a powered model at all, just a plastic replica fixed on some plastic track. No motor, no metal wheels. Hah! Oh well, $5.95 for a pig in a poke won’t break the bank. How’s that for a double cliche?

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Very unusual night last night. I slept unbroken, right through, midnight to 7:10am. I can’t remember the last time that happened. I’ve discovered that the radio programs on Radio National between 2am and 5am are not bad at all. Worth staying awake for.

I’m sure you’re aware that the Rosetta spacecraft is now very close to the Churyumov–Gerasimenko comet and within weeks will land a probe on its surface. Until now I couldn’t visualise the size of the comet. How would a probe fit on a landing site on the comet? How would you find a flat enough site on what I visualised was a space only a few hundred metres square.

Well, the photo above puts it all in perspective. That’s the core of the comet overlaid on an American city. It’s about 4.5Km long! Here’s another view that’s possibly more familiar –

What an achievement this is!!! This spacecraft was sent off about three years ago on a path to meet the comet after about three trips around the sun. The probe was actually powered down to a minimum power state for a couple of those years, then re-awoken a few months ago. Everything had to reboot, power up and work properly, and it did. That alone is amazing.

Now it’s only a few hundred thousand km away from the comet, matching its speed and moving slowly closer so as to be in position to fire the lander toward the surface of the comet. That should happen within months. Meanwhile, both of them are moving toward the sun, as the comet’s path takes it in its big loop. Soon the sun’s heat will start to blast the ice and dust off the comet to form what we see as the tail. But this time, there’ll be a human built camera and electronics package on the surface to show us what happens.

What a magnificent achievement! This is all the European Space Agency’s work. Hats off to them.

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I never cease to be amazed at the coincidences. Some months ago I bought a door wedge with a built in alarm, so that I could leave the front door partly open in hot weather. But I found the door sill is so high that the door passes over the top of the wedge! I needed a rubber strip to raise the height of the wedge.

This morning I found it. Out walking to the shops, there was a 1m length of 75mm wide high density foam with adhesive backing lying on the footpath. Just what I want! Shazzam, another stroke of luck.

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With one week to go to the deadline for payment for our school reunion on 11 October, still 27 people out of around 85 who said they’re coming have yet to pay. This is after three email newsletters going back six months saying how and when to pay. Maybe there’ll be a rush to pay in the next five days, but I doubt it. That means we’ll have to chase them.

I get upset. Months of reminders, but they still don’t pay. We are seriously committed to paying for 80 meals at the hotel, totalling $5,200 outlay, but we’re way short of the money at the moment. Grrrrr!

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There must be something wrong with me.

• I don’t have a tattoo, not even a little one hidden away
• I don’t have a body piercing, not even one
• I don’t have a tongue stud, advertising every time I open my mouth that I suck …
• I don’t have a smart phone
• I don’t have a tablet
• I don’t have an mp3 player with ear plugs
• I don’t tweet. I don’t even know how to do it. Only twits tweet.
• I don’t spend any time on Facebook. I had to open an account, but I never waste any time on it.

I must be a real nerd.

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The magazine I’m doing for the school reunion is up to 250 pages now, and I asked at Office Works yesterday for a price to print a copy. Double sided colour, stapled magazine. Quote – $225 per copy!

It’s not actually meant to be printed. It’s a PDF magazine, and a cute page flipping on-screen book, but I want a paper copy for my shelf.

I reckon it’ll be cheaper to print it myself, even if I go through a full set of ink cartridges, five at $19 each = $95. Crumbs, it would even be cheaper to buy a new printer for about $49 or so than to replace the cartridges! How crazy, how wasteful is that?

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A few months ago I was all in favour of Scotland breaking away from the UK, but the more I thought about it, the more I realised the implications. Now I’m dead against it. No Scotland, don’t break away. You can still have your own identity while being part of Great Britain, as you’ve been for so long and in such a distinguished way. Vote No on Thursday.

Contrast this process with Ukraine. The east of the country wants its own identity and control of its own affairs. So what do they do? They start a war over it. They start shooting and bombing and shelling. Can you imagine that happening between England and Scotland? Eastern Ukraine people need a bit of civilising.

ASIO is thinking of raising Australia’s threat alert level. I thought you might like to know what Australia’s scale is:

5. Oooh shit!!

4. Struth!

3. Crikey

2. Y’reckon?

1. She’s right mate.

Just tryin’ to help.  Tip o’ the hat to Adam Hills on ABC TV for two of them.

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Former Reserve Bank Governor Bernie Fraser on ABC radio this morning: the government’s move to defer the compulsory superannuation for wage earners to 2019 dismays him. He agrees with my view that the idea that employers will pass that money on to employees in their pay packets is rubbish. It won’t happen. Therefore this is an effective pay cut and a regressive one, affecting the lowest paid worst. What a government!

Bernie Fraser is a man to be listened to. He’s now chair of the Renewable Energy Council. He says the trashing of the RET, the Renewable Energy Target, is a bad decision and will lead to a significant loss of jobs, both now and in the future, quite apart from the damage it will do to the climate and has already done to Australia’s international reputation.

But also, at a time when we’re being told over and over that there is a looming budget crisis, that we won’t be able to afford the age pension in a few years due to the baby boomer bulge, the answer to that is superannuation, If people save for their retirement, they won’t need to claim as much age pension.

So this nasty government has moved to reduce the amount workers save for their retirement! What’s the logic behind this? It’s crazy. This will worsen the problems in the future. But it’s just another move against the low paid and favouring big business and the management class.

Check out the taxation arrangements for super. They are a huge benefit for the highly paid and a big slug against low income people.

This government is bad! It must be defeated at the next election.

It’s a year now since my stay in Perth Clinic with severe anxiety and depression. The clinic was marvellous. I came out much the better for the clinic’s treatment. The treatment was nothing more than talking and being taught how to handle life’s situations. And being allowed to talk freely. And the interaction with other patients. It was great.

But it’s also the anniversary of the actions of a close relative who decided she would submit a three page dossier on me in secret to the doctors. She did it without my foreknowledge, definitely without my permission and behind my back. To this day I have not been allowed to see the letter, but I have had sections read out to me. These confirmed that it was a pack of suppositions, assumptions, misreadings of situations, mistakes and straight out lies. All dressed up in flowery expressions of love and support. Going back to the sixties!

Since she did it without asking or telling me – she knew she was doing something I wouldn’t have approved. She knew it was wrong. Otherwise why hide it from me! Yet she went ahead and ambushed me. To this day I haven’t been allowed to see the letter. Therefore I’m entitled to make my own assumptions, based on the bits I know about, on what was in the letter.

I was interviewed by a female doctor and asked about certain statements in the letter without warning and without being able to see the actual letter. I was then subjected to tests which I thought were tests of my sanity. Only later did they say, “Oh no. That’s just a standard set of questions for anyone over 65 to check for dementia.” I wasn’t told this at the time!!

The effect on me was shocking then and has been devastating since, both mentally and physically. I have been seriously harmed, both mentally and physically. The fact that I’m writing this now demonstrates the mental damage. It has reawakened memories I’ve taken years to get over and forget. Now they’re back. I can’t get it out of my mind. I lie awake at night wrestling with it. It’s on my mind when I wake for a pee at 3am. I have to suppress my rage, force my thoughts away to pleasant things. Like being far away from her on a trip. (I can no longer refer to any family members as Next of Kin on forms! I have to say None.)

The physical harm was a significant rise in my blood pressure, and a much worse condition of my diabetes. Before this episode, I was NIDDM, non-insulin dependent diabetes melitus. Tablets were enough to control things.

The blood pressure is mostly back to normal (with tablets), but my rage in the weeks and months that followed made my blood sugars go out of control and now I’m insulin dependent. I’m very slowly getting things back under control but it’s taken seven months of trial and error, with changes of drugs and injected insulin to finally start making an improvement. But in this time my lower legs have been severely damaged. The nerves and small blood vessels are dying and my skin there is paper thin. I wake at night, almost every night, in agony from itching that no amount of scratching will help. In fact it results in bleeding, which since I’m on blood thinners, is hard to stop. I’m having to take strong pain relief almost every night.

In addition, the insulin has resulted in weight gain, as it does, and I’m now 8Kg up on where I was before I started the injections, and I can’t shift it.

So thanks to this close relative’s actions, I’m now significantly worse off than I was before. Thanks very much, close relative!

Why did she do it? Because (a) she believes she has the right to interfere in someone else’s affairs – she’s told me this and she’s done it several times before; (b) she has an inflated view of her abilities and self importance; (c) she desperately needs to be seen to be GOOD, to seek praise and approval, to be needed, because of events in her early life. She can’t overcome the damage these caused and goes on perpetrating similar actions on others.

In this past year there has been no apology. She does not believe she has done anything wrong and she will never apologise, for anything. This was not the first time by a long shot. An apology would go a long way toward fixing this, but I have no hope of ever getting one.

Therefore I have lost a close family relationship forever, it seems. How can I ever talk normally to her again after this, knowing she’s filing it away? I have also had to cancel an enduring power of attorney. There’s no telling what she’d do if she had the power of this legal document. I was warned about this but I didn’t take it seriously. Now I do.

And if I ever go to hospital again, I’ll be asking the nurses to bar entry to her if she visits. She is unpredictable and dangerous.

What a result! Thank you very much! Not! The fact that I’m writing this, a year later, with such passion and anger shows the damage it’s caused.

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If there’s any good news, it’s that Byetta finally seems to be working. Injected insulin wasn’t working well enough by late July, with wild swings in my blood sugars. There was a downward trend from six months ago, but not enough. So we added Byetta injections. This is a new drug which adds the naturally occurring hormones called incretins, which are released near the top of the stomach and trigger the release of insulin from the pancreas when food is ingested. This is what the gastric bypass would have achieved naturally if I’d gone ahead. But what a cost – losing 90% of the stomach.

I started this in early August and at first it made no difference, but I think it’s working now as my blood sugar readings are much more stable through the day, without the wild swings. Still a bit high (around 10) but stable.

One of the side effects is supposed to be weight loss. I wish! No weight loss here, I’m afraid. Not yet anyway.

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The cruise is all coming together. Flights from Perth to Singapore and Beijing to Hanoi are booked and paid for. Hotel in Beijing booked and paid for. Cruise booked and paid for.

The Beijing hotel is called the Shichahai Shadow Art Performance hotel, and it’s in a hutong lane behind big black wooden doors, just like an old Chinese dwelling. Hutongs are the narrow streets of old, full of shop houses and stalls and old dwellings. Too narrow for a taxi, I believe. But the rooms are very up to date in a Chinese style, from the website photos. I’ve booked a Superior Suite to get maximum space. Looks good. $138/night for this room. Rave web reviews.

The Hanoi hotel is also old Vietnamese style, right in the action area (Hang Bac Street – we won’t hang back). Again, I’ve booked a suite to get a large room with armchairs by a large window. At $76/night, it’s very affordable. I think we’ll stay longer in Hanoi and less time in Bangkok.

But China and Vietnam require visas and photos with the visa applications. Have to get cracking.

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Aaaaaargh, it was a wild, windy night last night with lots of power bumps. These don’t worry me, but every time it happens, my neighbour’s alarm goes off! Ten minutes each time of the horn blaring. I’m sick of it! It wakes me up.

But she’s gone off on a trip to Europe, so there’s nothing I can do. I reckon the standby battery in her alarm is dead. That’s designed to handle these power interruptions. If she was there, I’d offer to fix it for her, but she’s away. Damn.

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I picked up my free treadmill on Friday and brought it back here. I’ve realised it’s an absolute basic model. No power incline, not even manual incline. Just the flat platform.

When I turn it on, the belt (i.e. motor) started immediately and fluctuated in speed, then settled down to a walking pace. But there’s no control – no stopping it, and no speed control, so I’m not prepared to get on. I’ve got the cover off the motor drive electronics and I’ll see if I can fix it, but it may end up going out on the verge anyway. I wanted a powered incline model, and this isn’t it. Still, it cost me nothing, so I have nothing to lose. Except weight.

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Panasonic. I used to be a fan of Panasonic appliances, but I’ve totally changed my mind, realised I was wrong.

Both my fridge and microwave oven are Panasonic and both are causing me grief. The fridge door rattles constantly and I can’t make it stop. It’s nothing on the shelf causing it. I reckon it’s something loose in the moulding inside the door. It’s been doing it since new.

The microwave oven has intermittently refused to start in the past few months, and I’ve realised the door switch is out of adjustment. I have to push hard on the door to ensure it’s closed.

But now it’s started powering itself off completely, intermittently. The cooking ends prematurely and the clock resets to flashing zero, power off condition. I have to restart it.

Both these appliances are about 17 months old, out of warranty, but I believe these days that you can press your claim regardless, according to Consumer Affairs. Must try it.

Another Panasonic device is my DVR. It’s so slow! It takes a full 60 seconds of “Please Wait” for it to power up, and all the operations involve a 2-3 second wait. Why? I’m sick of it. This is not a fault so I can’t claim on it, but I won’t buy Panasonic again. My phone is also Panasonic, but it isn’t faulty. Wish I’d bought another brand, though.