Disasters

taken from wiki

Katrina Aid Today Case Managers

Katrina Aid Today case managers take time with each client to understand how Hurricane Katrina affected them individually and as a family. Together the client and case manager explore how the client envisions life when recovery is complete. Based on the client’s needs and resources available, realistic recovery goals and a plan are established. UMCOR trained Katrina Aid Today case managers to appreciate the survivor’s capacity to take responsibility for their own recovery plan, but also to care for the whole person meeting the survivors where they are and walking with them to their own recovery goals.

I think that the best we can do to help is to put out money in our own pockets for our own future in case of our own recovery. If the above coblitigook is any indication as to where your disaster money is placed then I don't know what....

Ernie Dingo

Wana know my first sighting of a celebrity. Well you are gonna hear it.  I was an entrant in the energy challenge which is about environmentally friendly cars. So I enters this challenge with a car that I built at the local technical college for about $100. We left Sydney central and proceeded to Penrith at the western side of Sydney. The next day we were in Orange in the middle of the state and all the camera crews came to interview the teams.  Then it came my turn and this bloke turns up and he says his name is Ernie Dingo. So I says.... who?  Ernie Dingo came the reply...Never heard of ya before...By this time the blokes thinks I'm pulling his leg and I thinks he's pulling mine. Then one of my cousins says to Mr Dingo he don't have TV and he don't know who you are. Cause then this guy then has a laugh so me being polite laughs as well. Cause I'm a bit deaf as well. It wasn't til later I found out who he really was..So there you are I didn't recognize him even when I was introduced to him.. This is an older version of the following car and shows the wing on top so as to enter the energy challenge the car was red and pink, taken on Ameroo park raceway in the west of Sydney, the car survives and the track doesn't. I made this car out of sheet metal. It was beaten out of flat sheet it took about twelve months to make at Wollongong tafe college.It ran in the shell mileage marathon at Ameroo park race way in Sydney's outer west.Won the transmission award with a hydraulic drive.It also entered the Energy Challenge and got first place in the experimental section beating some large corporations in its wake :) if I can find more photos I will display them see later post.The last time I saw the car was at Tumberlong public school near Gundagai .Hi Ernie .Cheers Stewart

Work

I worked for
myself for years and did pretty well for myself. I started mowing
lawns and ended up with an excavator tip truck and bobcat which I
owned outright. I found staying small was the hardest thing to do.  If
the lady of the house gave me a cup of tea or a drink I knew that I
was getting paid at the end of the job.  Doctors were the hardest to
get money from. Then there was the Indians not the red type the other
ones from India,  who just didn't pay at all unless you had a truck
full of rubbish to dump on there driveway which I had to do only on
one occasion I think the word got around.    Then there was the
talkers "i have so much work etc"or "if you do the job at a gooood
price" Now these guys never paid at all ever.  Now about the Indians
I'm not racist Its a fact that they don't pay, My mate Cliff would
tell the Indian a time and he always wanted him there earlier, Cliff
would say it aint happening cause now you can do it with a shovel and
hang up. They always rang back ill give them that they are persistence
little buggers in the end I just wouldn't work for them. I think that
all nationalities have there qwerks.There was this Italian fella I
worked for and a nine in the morning tools down and the machine
switched off and he had a feed for all his workers even casuals and
other contractors that were on the job. He said a fella cant work on
an empty stomach and by gingers we all worked for that bloke and
always got paid.  some times he would pay you half way through a job
as well.

Pink ribbons the darnedest things

At the boat ramp.
Terry from Husky boat hire was attending two little girls and there father after there fishing expedition. The little girls were thrilled with there catch of two small fish. One of the little girls asked Terry if the fish were boys or girls. Terry's reply to my astonishment was "they are boys because the didn't have pink ribbons"

Terry and the crew can be found at

Aluminum Boats & Outboards

Husky Hire - A - Boat - 5369

Woollamia Boat Ramp, Woollamia
Ph:(02) 4441 6200 Mob: (04) 1319 2328
Email
http://www.tourismjervisbay.com.au/husky_hire_a_boat

My hat

I have this hat and have owned it for years and used it as my scout hat when I was a leader. The picture on the front is a warratah painted by my friends mum.

The other hat is a Chinese or Asian hat made from thin paper stuff and is light as a feather but some people don't like it .

 Hows that for workmanship.

(The felt hat hurts my neck if I wear it too long as it is heavy.) I nearly got into a fight cause of the Chinese hat. This bloke said they like Chinese stuff here in Cootamundra, bet you all his cloths came from China including his under pants and socks. They are every where!  Chinese and Caucasians and underpants :)
Look ya gotta have a laugh don't be so serious....

The badge is from a Bangladesh scout group that came to a jamboree at Cataract Scout Park.I swapped ten badges for this one. Its my pride and joy..Those little blokes had nothing we gave them heaps of Vegemite to take home with them along with other stuff. We probably fed there village for a month. I think they thought it was Christmas the look on there faces said it all. They were good times, telling this story brings it all back I nearly feel like crying with happiness. Fellas can cry, I do any way by myself sometimes. Its good for the soul and that's not the one on my shoe. Life's a joke and it is good to me.

Largest underground house in the world

 In Australia we have underground houses at  Coober Pedy, White Cliffs and Burra. But the largest of them all is in Canberra the national capital and I might add the largest underground house in the world. The photo above shows the building from the north with the old parliament house in front. It also has the largest flagpole in the southern hemisphere which is made from stainless steel.Note the earth berms to the right and left of the photo.

It is bigger than Bill gates house.If I am wrong please let me know in the comments section.

Cheers Stewart

 

This image is close to the front of the building which cost over a billion dollars

This image is further away and the reflection pool is behind the posts

NSW Housing

                                                                                                             

I have never been given the run around by a government department like this one. The service is non existent and the music played while you wait is from a tape has been mangled by the machine for years. If this is service then I had better chuck my hat in the river and leave it there. All I wanted to do was give them some money, they can chase me now.  I can bet you,  they must get some abusive calls and then they hang up so it is no good abusing them, Abusing them would  start the process over again.

Public servants when do they serve the public,  bet you. The boss gets a pay rise in the near future for productivity, Any productivity would get some boss a pay rise.

They have a low work load there as they don't answer the phones and this is why the boss gets a rise cause the department don't have any complaints.

We are sorry for keeping you waiting your call will be answered as quickly as we can,do you know that we are opened 24 a day the machine rattles on.
It took 8minutes to get this positive feed back line and they don't have the facilities to record the conversation I know now because I asked them to record it. I am on hold now  then I was put on hold for 7minutes and actually spoke to a person for 2minutes 73 seconds.

I was queried about this being positive feed back and I assured the lady that it was positive if they used the information in the correct way. I also gave them my blogg address and email address so they could give me positive feed back. I wait with bated breath. Just a thought its is probably a Indian call center sweat house  that I rang cause the lady didn't sound Australian.

 Your people are competent? Customer service people are treated like shit. The jobs are often low paying and the work isn’t easy. You need to empower these people to make decisions on the spot and respond effectively to customers.
If every “tough situation” results in escalation to managers, you’re going to eat the shit you have made for yourself and have more frustrated customers.Then you will have more abuse to contend with.
You will also have lost in my case, up to a possible  $100,000.00 in cash.

Just another point I haven't got onto the original people I wanted to talk to so I tried to give them positive feed back on another phone line.

I might also add at my expense and time. I will post the feed back as a special post to let all you people in computer land what the result is.You may wait with me with bated breath as well. Cheers Stewart

DoryMan: Sanpierotta Plans for DoryMan

DoryMan: Sanpierotta Plans for DoryMan

Sustainable sport fisherman

Sustainable sport fisherman

I was at the boat ramp today watching the terrorist boaters from Sydney launching and retrieving there boats while on holidays. I watched as one bloke showed off his catch to a bystander and then he hurled the dead sting ray back into the water. It was a funny colored fish so I suspect it might have been pretty rare,it is now rarer than before. They also caught some large fish and took a fillet from the fish leaving about a kilo of good meat on the bones they threw back,if this is you wake up to yourself  this is not sustainable and it is a waste.

The what if story

What if.
What if is the story of a lot of people and it controls there life in many ways. As I said before I was a diver what if I drowned?  which I nearly did.  I was a coal miner and was buried to my chest under the underground bins which held a couple hundred tons of coal,  what if it covered me?.  What if I crashed my truck and got hurt ?  What if I got killed when the bobcat I was driving slid 50 meters into a gully. What if the 40 ton excavator that slid down a hill with me on it which it did?  What if the company sacked us for going on strike?    What if you turned up at a union meeting at the end of the day fit and fresh ready to take on the organisers, which I did.  What if I got electrocuted in a pipe 60 feet under mud cutting steel?  What if some one turned off the compressor when I was diving for pearl shell?  which they did.  What if you just lived your life,  What if.

recycled boat part 26

Recycled boat part 26

Today we put the boat in the water and it performed well. This is the boat with my son.

It has a good turn of speed for a small motor. We went a couple of miles up this creek on a cup full of fuel and motored up to this lizard basking on a log.

Must put some fuel in next time .More of the story three posts below.