Asleep on a Train

I have finally built the shed and this note is to remind to re tell that tale...soon

I've always been a geek, but it must be bigger part of me than I want to freely admit. As I was reading my randomly delivered emails into one of my 4 active email accounts, on my Ubuntu powered hand-built desktop PC, I noticed an ad for a Geeky Christmas Gift for a 7 port USB device. Now, it shocked me to see this, as I have had one of these devices for a couple of years now (exactly the same) and I assumed that everyone would also have one. Why shouldn't they. It just makes common sense to have a device that takes one USB port and allows seven other devices to plug into it. OH Duh! I had to show you what I 'm talking about, so I dived into the Ubuntu Synaptic Package Manager, ran a search for a screen shot application (not an app but an APPLICATION -sigh- I'm so over the Apple istocracy laziness of certain marketing ppl - whoops I meant to type people) loaded the application, reopened the email, figured out what keyboard sequence I needed to use, snapped the port...

I don't like December. Christmas is in your face, people rush to get things done 'before the break', Australia goes on holiday for 6 bloody long weeks, the sun heats up the land and people's tempers. Basically, I'd be happier if we just skipped it straight into mid Feb. However, doing that means I'd miss out on my birthday. I guess I better just "Harden the F up' Ok This is me HTFU.

This short message is brought to you by letters H T & C. Cheers Android 2.2

I've never really worked in a job that is a regimented as the bus service. As a result, I've been told to reserve my holiday period for the coming year by tomorrow or I will be told when I can have my holidays. The thought of losing my free will to decide when I can or can't have a holiday has spurred me into action. After printing out a full year calendar from my Google Calendar, which is something I could only do once I'd enabled a Lab add-in for the calendar I might add, I broke out a trusty red pencil to mark up the calendar. But before I could do that I had to work out when the Public holidays were in 2011 in Victoria, and what rosters I could be on to ensure that I would be rostered on to work those days, because working on a Public holiday means Double & one half Pay and I could get a 24 hour pay/shift. Weird eh! To the calendar, I marked up the Public Holidays and cross checked them with my roster. It looks like I'm set to work most of them, so my ho...

It is time to buy a new mattress for the single bed. I currently have stacked 4 foam mattresses in a heap from our our guest beds, but it isn't a real solution. It's time to go shopping methinks. I'm on late shifts at the moment, finishing around 9:30 - 10 pm and Casey has me driving over to Monash to pick her up, so sleep is not an option, The dogs insist on waking me up at dawn for their breakfast so between late work and early starts, I'm finding a mid morning snooze is required. I tried to catch 10 minute power nap between bus runs yesterday, but a passenger decided to stay on the bus, knowing that my next run would take them home. I got annoyed at them just sitting there, when that was all I wanted to do (just sit there that is) so I kicked him off for ten minutes, swept the bus out, sat and read the paper for 5 minutes, and started my run 7 minutes late, which the very first passenger informed me of as soon as I stopped to pick them up. I politely thanked them...

Our rented double garage is too full of our boxy stuff to fit in any cars etc. I have a shed to build and that will take away some stuff, but I need to consolidate a heap of shelving into a working solution. Maybe it is time to draw up a 'to scale' plan.... I was called into work yesterday. That is a good thing, because although I only worked 5 hours, I think I get 10 hours pay...yah me! I mowed the block yesterday before the ''call' come from work. Gizmo played with me while I mowed. It is getting easier to do, but it still takes over 2 hours to push the mower up and down the land. I'm sure it will be easier once a giant house covers most of the dirt, and Dee has put in a couple of gardens. Speaking of gardens, I want a Silver Birch copse in there somewhere. I have seen a nice one on the bus route 436. The copse is made up of 7 or 9 trees (nature loves odd numbers) a few large flat volcanic (rusty coloured) type rocks that are all over this area, a hand...

I'm numbering this title, 'cos there will be more. Today, my rant is directed at all Green P plated drivers. When a bus has it's right hand indicator on (blinking) and is pulling into traffic from a bus stop, YOU HAVE TO GIVE WAY! There is a $217 fine waiting for you if you don't. Every other car on the road, Learners, Red P's, Trucks, Cops, ordinary other people etc seem to get it. Why the F! don't youse you idiots.... There, I feel better now.

After writing the last entry and kinda thinking that I'd do more, I was struck down by a 10 day man flu. It stopped me in my tracks. I struggled thru a couple of days driving, making sure that I coughed and sneezed on as many passengers as I could (joking!) but then I surrendered to the symptoms and took myself to bed. There were two days of misery, and the luckily I had a three day break from work, so I moped about the house until I felt better. By the time I was due to go back to work, the worst was over. This break meant that I'm still required to build the time shed I purchased several weeks ago, and my helper is soon to go on a holiday so the shed may need to wait a bit longer. Kirby has had a busy time at school, with end of school days and dinners and school trips all happening. Dee, Eddie (K's current BF) and I drove (and got lost) to her final class dinner over in Taylors Lakes, a journey of 34 kms just to get to a reasonable venue for 80 plus year 12 kids all ...

I've been on the job for six months now and I think feel like recording my day as I push a 16 tonne Volvo, Merc or Scania bus around the suburbs of Werribee, Hoppers Crossing, Tarniet etc, My week is pretty much predetermined because I am on a fixed roster of 60+ weeks. This week is run 42 I believe and it means that I work mostly afternoon shifts, with Tuesday and Sunday off. Last week I worked six days because I was called in for a shift, which is a good thing financially, but it does mean a shortened break that week. Rules are such that I'm not permitted to work more than six days in a row. Yesterday was Sunday, which is double time for me. It was also the day that the International Bike race whizzed through town in the morning, but I wasn't effected by that excitement. The day also marked the start of Victoria's Daylight Saving for the summer, and all the clocks were put forward one hour. Needless to say, I had it covered and I wasn't late for work. Dee...

I ended up with a near full shift on Friday, at long last. I was able to get my own money tin and Personal Memory stick. drove from 9am 'till 5pm and even though I got slammed by the Friday afternoon school rush to the Werribee Plaza, I was able to finish within about 30 minutes of my allocated time. It can only improve.

On the buses now for 20 days and while I have passed all my training requirements, the depot seems tobe holding me back while they sort out their equipment issues. I need to be given a box for my money, blank tickets, a memory card for the ticket machine, and a locker so the ladies in the office can clip notices on to it for me. Without these things, I am invisible to most of the system. That being said, they don't really need me until the 19th, when all hell breaks lose with the new routes and timetables. Many citizens are not very happy with them, and the main issue of getting enough buses on the road has still not been addresses. The general desire is for a bus every 20 minutes. Personally, I will suck it up and wait it out. On the home front, the girls are all busy, Dee's new job seems to be working out at present and I have my old car back from the dead, so I don't need to disturb her when I need to go to work, which I do right now (7am start) so I'll write m...

I've spent another week training on the buses with Brian. In his eyes, I'm ready to go solo, but after completing the 2nd part of the induction training back at the office, management are happy to keep me in training for another week, albeit shortened due to the Easter long break. I will get to drive the new routes coming into action from the 19th onwards next week, and then it is a few more days running the existing routes to become more comfortable with them, so but this time next week I should be good to go. I have taken the Magna to the mechanic at long last and it will be an expensive exercise to get it back on the road, but with the house move only 8 weeks away, I have to get it, and the trailer back into gear. I'm also trying to get the girls to drive more when we can so that they are ready for their driving tests as soon as possible.

Well now, I'm getting ready to head off to work (it's been a long time since I could say that with confidence) and today is the 5th day of 'training' for me. I lucked out with the driver/trainer assigned to me. He is an older guy called Brian (Brian told me! ) and he is an everlasting font of information regarding life, the universe and driving buses. In the past three days, I've managed to learn several main bus routes, gained a good understanding of the main parts of using the ticketing machine, seen how to handle a crisis such as running late on a bus route and missing out on a tea break, and I've also managed to start driving the routes. The driving parts is where I'm going to concentrate on for the next few days as I master keeping a good working speed, quickly stopping the bus, loading the bus with passengers (tickets, money, directions etc) and getting around the vast amount of roundabouts, 'go slow chicanes' and speed humps that we need t...

After many long hours of trials and tribulations, I'm please to announce that I'm now a Bus Driver, albeit a trainee one. Today was my first day "on the buses"! I spent most of it being trained in all matters bus like by Peter, and, learning alongside Matt, we learned about driver safety, passenger safety, cash handling and customer relations. Tomorrow I've been assigned a driver to train me on the road. I will be starting a shift at 6am and spend the full day driving throughout the district, finishing up at 8pm. Over the past week or two since I last wrote, I was sweating on my results of the ECG Stress test. I passed ok and I know this because both my personal doctor and the company doctor offices did not call me with warnings, a classic case of no news is good news. I still had to chase the report around a bit because the Cardiac lab sent the report to my doctor and not the company doctor, but once sorted, I got the word from the Bus Comapny last Friday to ...

We are needing to tap into all our resources to get through this period of unemployment. I'm writng to the bank to buy some time on the mortgage and I've asked Dave to help pay to have the car put back on the road. Dee is starting her own business and we will be running on faith for a little bit now. I've just completed an ECG Stress test for the bus driving role because my cholestorol was a faction high. It was an experience to be wired into the computer and treadmill. I even had a face mask so they could measure my breathing. I lasted 7 minutes and got my heart rate up to 180 and my blood pressure peaked at 220/100 or something like that. Needless to say, I'm still here and now I need the experts to analyse the results and if all things are ok, I may get to start work. I would like to write more about the whole 'getting a job driving a bus' but for now I will just cross my fingers and hope things go alright.

The family are all back from the land of the long lunch and rearing to go. Mum's 80th was really good and I was able to spend a bit of time with everyone there, but in hindsight I would have liked it to last longer. It was great to spend time with Paddy and Kirstie as they are extremely generous hosts and I don't know how Dee and I can repay them for them opening their home to us and and allowing us to use Kirstie's car as much as we did. Glenys's garden may never recover after the pounding Dee gave it, but there seems to be heaps of new plants popping up in it every day, so I suspect it will return to it's overgrown stage pretty quickly. The time we spent with Nicole, Pedy and the girls was fantastic and I was sad to see them head over the ditch for their next part of their holiday. Kirby had fun going through Mum's old photos, pulling out those that reflected say the first 30 years of my life. I now need to scan them and pop them into a digital album...

After a couple of muggy weeks in high heat, it was a relief to finally get a few cooler days. It's been a kinda busy two weeks with me getting a call from the bus company to have a medical check. It is no sure thing, as I'm not as fit as I used to be, but I have to try this... I scrapped through on my blood pressure and cardio, hearing and eyesight and I now need to know what my blood test turns up My brother Paddy and his wife Kirsty are in town for the ACDC concert and Dee and I caught up with them in town on Saturday afternoon. We spent the day at the Waterside pub, which is a lot better then it was when we came to Melbourne 20 odd years ago. A lot of water has flowed past in the Yarra since then. Super-14 rugby started again this weekend and my trusty Foxtel IQ record 6 of the 7 games including the Crusaders/Highlander game. I'm glad the Crusaders won and I managed to fast-forward thru the other games to pick up the highlights The other major event on TV was the...

Well , I had a busy and productive day on Friday, visiting the VicRoad office and finally getting my Bus accreditation paperwork. I then called into the bus company and made sure that they had copies of my police check, working with children application, driving record and of course, my bus driving accreditation. Fingers crossed that I get to earn some bus driving money to pay back all this stuff. I poured out my first batch of beer in the afternoon. Pretty striaght forward and now all I have to do is drink it, at a $1 a bottle. On saturday, I got a call from Mel, who might have had some work for me, but that fell through at the last minute. It was a hot weekend so I spent Sunday on the porch swing, reading and drinking. The cool change came through at about 4:40pm on Sunday, so we relaxed in the cooler air, and had a good nights sleep.

Today will see me bottling up the first 24 bottles of "Skinny" beer from my Brew barn micro brewery. I have 12 used bottles of Pure Blonde origins and another dozen generic VB bottles, cleaned and ready to go. I also passed my Police Clearence yesterday, so I'm not off tot he Vic Roads crowd to get my licence updated for bus driving duties. I was called by the bus people yesterday to see if I was still interested, so the timing was pretty good. I have mu Working With Children (WWC) paperwork in the pipeline, I have my medical report that says I'm ok to drive a passenger bus, so I should be good to go. I took the Magna (Greenwith) out yesterday to run Kirby to work, and dropped into Centrelink for my fortnightly checkin. The car is still broken, so I walked over to the library to find a repair manual but the last one they had had been stolen, so I called the Footscray library and they had one, so in the evening, after dropping Casey off at friends, I popped in th...

I've slipped a little with this journal, missing Friday and Saturday's entries. Friday was a stinking hot day and everyone stayed pretty quite. Kirby had sore muscles from having to ride her bike to work and back, a round trip of 14 kms or so. Casey had sore legs from her 1st cheerleading practice for the year. Dee had an injection which usually knocks her about for 24 hours, and she needs 3 of these needles a week. I took Gizmo for a small walk yesterday (the cool change came in late Friday evening) but Annie went nuts because she wasn't allowed to come as well. It is too hard to walk them both as Annie is pushy and keeps tripping me up. I'm struggling thru the GIMP online guide at present, trying to learn how to use it so I can make a nice beer label for my impending brew. GIMP is a free product like PHOTOSHOP but I'm determined not to use PHOTOSHOP if I can avoid it, even though I know Kirby is a wiz at it. Silly eh? I have several books on the go at pres...

...not quite I thought I saw a tall cold glass of beer on my bedside table this morning, but on closer inspection, it turned out to be a bottle of body wash, amber in colour and stored in an upturned curved container, that was the culprit. I must admit that my eyes were only half open at the time The Girls have all gone off to their morning tasks leaving me at home alone for the first time in a while. I tried to start the old Magna today to take Kirby to her work, but the battery was dead, so she had to ride her bike there. She was a bit pissed off methinks, but there wasn't much I could do about it. I don't let them down much, but I think this counts as a time. I tried to use the old Falcon battery but that didin't work either, so I left that battery on the charger and I'll try again this evening Talking of Beer, I have ordered my first batch of micro-brewed beer from my Brew Barn Club membership. I'm one of 5 members waiting for a batch of Skinny (Low Ca...

Dee and I reviewed the house plans again. some more changes and then they go back to the builders. I finished reading The Mote in God's Eye and I think it would be a good basis for AVATAR II but what I think is pretty restricted Woke up early today, which is the first time I've done that on purpose this year, and I was able to tidy the back yard and mow the lawn before it got too warm Dee is feeling a bit funny at the moment so I'm keeping an eye on her

I missed yesterday's post because I was really really sick, so much that my family called it a man flu, which is more deadly than most other illnesses you know. I stayed pretty quiet and had no energy, sleeping and reading and the girls carried on without me. Today is "shake off the cobwebs" day, and after 36 hours of feeling sorry for myself, with nil return on emotion from my family (well there was a little concern) I will return to the growing list of things to GET DONE Today we visit the house guy to find out where the contract is. and what needs to be done to get it on track Casey had the news she was waiting for, namely acceptence at Monash's Arts program so maybe she will shake off her blues as well. Well done Casey! I still need to visit my home brew club, and our friend Acky has saved up a whole lot of empty beer bottles for the cause.

Tick! Another year older and still none the wiser Last night I drove Casey to Geelong for a party. While I waiting for her I watched Avatar 3D, and I now own a snazzy pair of 3D glasses, in case I need them at another 3D movie. I really enjoyed Avatar, although I ended up not liking being a human, if we are all that destructive. I don't blame Jake Sully for switching sides. Loved the flying scenes. On the way home, we picked up Kirby from John's place and all got home at about midnight. This morning, my daughters made me breakfast (eggs on toast) and Dee made coffee so I didn't need to get my own breakfast today. I got presents!! :: socks (thick and comfy ones) from the dogs, a stripy shirt from Glynis, two DVDs, and big beer mug from Kirby and Dee got me a membership at the Beer Barn, so now I can brew my own beer (without trashing the house) Time to  take the dogs to the beach now for a dip, then the girls are going to bathe them, right?

Well, it is going to be another hot day so we will be keeping our heads down again. I'm working on a family Google calendar that shows the comings and goings of my clan, with the idea that a cooking/cleaning roster can be followed. I'm not holding my breath that it will be supported tho. I need to go play with my tools and reshape a pick handle to fit a pick I broke at Mundi last year. Time for breakfast first now

I managed to shake off  minor apathy today and visited the doctors to get a medical certificate for my application to the VTD to drive Buses. I was surprised to find that I had to pay, and no medicare or bulk billing could get around it. In the end it cost me $110 to show a doctor that I had decent eyes, no heart trouble, reasonable blood pressure, and no drinking problems. I then completed the application for a police check that needed a trusted citizen such as a chemist to witness my signature. It cost me another $32 to pay the police to check my honestly and $5.95 for the post office to send it and my id documents away to the Police. So far I've spent about $250 on the paper work to get a bus accreditation on my licence. It better be worth all this fuss. Now I wait for the Working with children card, the Police check and ID papers and I head off to the VTD to get my stamp Keeping the faith

After the heat of the passed few days, it is difficult to return to normal activities. Yesterday I managed to complete the mowing of Mundi but that was pretty much my lot. There are tons of things that need doing and I spent most of yesterday just sitting on my arse. Not good in the overall scheme of things. Paddy and Kirsty called in the evening to go over thier planned trip to visit us, and the trip we plan back to Mum's birthday. I still don't know the exect dates and times we are travelling - apathy right? I had a guilt filled restless sleep, waking up at 3am and needing an Enos and brief session reading the Mote of Gods Eye by Niven/Pournelle. I dozed off, but woke with my alarm at 5:30am, remembering then to put out the rubbish. I went back to bed, but again was awoken by the dogs barging in. I dozed off again, but then I heard Casey's alarm going off, and knowing that she was over at Kims, Ihad to get up to turn it off. I gave up trying to slepp after that. T...

The Change came thru at 6pm and life settled down again. I spent the evening in front of the TV, wasting time watching programs I can't recall even now, so I must have been just sitting there really. Kirby, John and Dee played Mastermind and Casey crashed out early, as she has work in the morning. Today, with the temp a very comfortable 21 degrees, I will return to Mundi to finish the mowing, and if time and energy and opportunity present themselves, I will also visit a doctor to get a medical certificate for my bus driving application I think I better also hit the 'Net and put a couple of job applications in for good measure

I pretty much stayed indoors yesterday, with the temparature hitting 50 under the pagola by about 11am and staying there until well after 6pm I did pop down to the chemist for Dee and then again with Casey to pick up "something nice to eat" for Dee and Casey (Macca's nuggets and a slushee drink for each of us) The rest of the time I spent avoiding getting too hot which was pretty unescapable. The night temp stayed at 30+ and this morning is still warm, with temps expected to reach 40 before the "Cool Change" comes through at midday A Victorian Cool Change is a fantastic thing and I suspect one of the reasons so many people live in Melbourne. It is hard to explain unless you have lived here a while and we took a couple of heat waves and cool changes to come to grips with it. The way it works is this. In the summer, the winds build up in the central, inner parts of Australia, getting warmer every day. When the north wind starts to blow, the hot dry win...

We have extreme fire warnings across the state today, with hot winds blowing in from the north. I enjoyed the BBQ at our friend's house yesterday. I was even brave enough to go for a swim. The food and beer made me a sleepy later in the evening I copped a couple of nicks on my hand yesterdy through simple stupidity. the first one when I was playing with the Bear cat, and he doesn't pull his claws in for anyone. result was bleeding from my fingers. On the way to the BBQ, I stopped into the bottlestore for supplies. I grabbed a 6-pack only to have it fall apart in my hand and crash to the floor. In trying to catch them (duh) the bottles smashed together and a bit a glass slightly cut another finger. No biggee, but my shorts got soaked from the beer and it required another trip home to change them. When we got home, I tried to watch Legend of the Seeker, but dozed off. In the evening, and after a cup of coffee, I dropped Kirby and John off at the movies, and I watched T3 a...

The expected hot hot hot day had it's chance but a cooler breeze from the south took the edge of the hot day, but we did get to 35 before 9am We spent most of the day indoors I was able to help Dee in the garden for a wee bit in the cooler evening. Another hot day today, with no hint of a cooler breeze to save the day, but we are going over a friends house and pool for a BBQ so that might help us cope. I made an early dash over to Mundi and managed to mow 50% of it, before picking up Kirby from home and running her into work. Off to the BBQ now

We are in the grip of a heat wave, ironically at the same time that the northern part of the globe is in the grip of a cold snap. Snap or Wave, it still means that the human body needs to operate outside it's normal design specifications. For me this means I sweat a lot and get tired. I still sleep like a baby tho. Yesterday I was going to learn how to run a dodgem car ride, but the hea drove away the punters so I'm chance to learn was diminished, instead I got to ride on a train. Melbourne is changing the transport ticketing system to a smart card that is topped up with cash. I enquired at the Myki stand if I needed to buy a Myki ticket of Werribee , only to be told to go the the regional train line - VLine - and when I asked why, the young lady at the counter said that it was a country station. She must not be aware the Werribee has been a part of the metro system since forever, and there is even a " werribee " line that the Myki system runs on. Jeez people ar...

Well, after 6 long weeks of to'ing and fro'ing with the the local Centrelink office, I have finally recieved a small dole cheque. At this time it all helps but I can't help wondering why it was so hard to get to this stage. I'm kinda glad that I've never had to do this until now. On to the daily recap from yesterday. I had a bit of an adventure while helping a friend move a computer. I discovered that there are four streets in the suburb of Sunshine called Marshall, and after my GPS showed (and took me to) three of them, I found where I was suposed to be. Working out how to open the front gate and dodging the junk yard dogs was my next challenge, but I was able to take it from there. Once the computer was setup in it's new home, I did a bit of tiding up, but while doing my vigorous weed pulling, my reading glasses fell into the bag of rubbish, that was in turn, thrown onto the back of the ute. Luckily for me, my friend then asked me to take the ute to the tip, a...

Another day of two steps forward, one step back. I did manage to complete my visit to Centrelink, without coming away with a new form, just one that I will need to fill out every day and bring back to them on the 14th -sigh- I'm taking it as a win, and my prize will be a drop of cash in my bank account in the morning. We shall see. I picked up the form to apply for Working with Children as part of my cunning plan to drive buses professionally I spoke to a guy at Dept of Justice regarding a new division they are opening up soon. There might be work there for me I spoke to a couple of places that might be able to give me part time work I spent a bit of time out in the garage, reading and dozying off until the girls found me I put the rubbish out Casey drove herself over to Kim's again Kirby drove Mum to her office to pick up some more work I didn't do as much as I had hoped for, but I did do a little bit, and that is important. Today I'm off to help someone move a compute...

Things I did yesterday: Fed the animals (this should happen every day) Emergency dash to the supermarket for important things like Milk, potatoes, painkiller tablets and CAT Food. Kirby has left me Post-it notes which I HAD not seen before the dash, I swear! Painted the desk top of Kirby's old Ikea desk. She needs to have a desk for this year's study plan (Year 12 is a tough year for these kids) This was interesting as I used the Air Compressor and the spray paint. I used an old tin of acrylic paint, thinned it out with a bit of water, and strained it before firing up the spray gun. It was a bit breezy out in the the backyard, but it was still fun to do. I was happy was the final result. Went to Centrelink to jump thru the latest hoop. I mixed it up a bit by also taking Casey with me, as she needs to apply for funding as well. Centrelink countered my arrogance by giving me another challenge, recording the daily hours worked by my wife for the past 40 days, Jeez, I will not let...