Rivers

The Store Rivers should be re-named the Chinese Emporium.
Everything in the store comes from China - and yet they call themselves an Australian company.
Ha
Importers more like it.

Obesity

An Article by Ross Gittins highlights what I have suspected for a long time.
The average person is getting fat.
While I lived in England I was constantly amazed at just how many over-weight people there were. I thought it was a English thing - and then I came home to Oz.


Read the article here:http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/opinion/politics/obesity-problem-is-bigger-than-we-think-despite-gdp-benefits-20101005-16630.html
Interesting how the over -weight population will provide a break to our economy, as their early demise will relieve any strain on health-care and associated services.


And what the two authors, Egger and Swinburn say about the "sweet-spot" which we have passed.
Bear that in mind with Peak Oil which we have passed also and things could be grim.
But hey - lets just go buy another house, or a car, or some shoes. Put it on debt.


It would seem that the discovery of oil could be seen as the demise of man as it was about this time that the human population started to increase and development of producing food took on a serious side.
Prior to the discovery of oil, food was produced more like a cottage industry instead of todays mass, high tech, pest free production.

Junket

Anybody - can anybody tell me why did our illustrious leader - Barge-Arse, and her side kick Tony Buck ears, see the need to go flying off half way around the world?
Like you can just imagine now the world leaders just pacing up and down waiting for them to arrive eh?
What possess these people to think it makes a difference?
People dieing in Pakistan, refugees banging on the door, salty water flowing down the Murray and they fly off to meet some snail munching tossa and discuss the price of cheese ?
And we all feel so much better now.

Death of the PC

I see on this weeks news, articles professing to claim within 5 years we will see the PC disappear?
Apparently we will all be using our mobile phones to do what we do on a PC!
What a load of rubbish
Yeah like I'll pull up a spreadsheet on  my phone - yeah right - and its oh so easy to see?
Where do these people come from?
What world are they living in?
While those of us who use our PC's for work are enjoying large flat screen monitors -there are wankers out there who are thinking we will all like to use our mobile phones instead?
Can you believe it?
I hate using my mobile phone at the best of times - and thats just for phoning people - why, why would I want to use it to write an email or use MYOB on?
Dead set - this world is populated with more and more wankers.

Discourage

If I were able to I would actively discourage people from having more than say one or two children.
I would penalize couples who had more than 2 children - make their tax rate higher, remove child endowment.
As for single mothers - I would actively remove all support from these people - in fact I would fine them.
We need to face facts and realize there is simply too many people in this world.
Its not good enough to expect people in 3rd world countries to toe the line and stop reproducing - we must all actively reduce our populations.
And stuff the economists and business people who all say we need population to thrive.
Most of us in the western world live beyond our means and this cannot continue - its time to face facts.
Its like the WWF, it has been said that if the WWF spent their entire budget on condoms  the result would be more beneficial to the worlds animal life! Less people = happier & healthier animals.

Too much?

With my background in Plumbing it comes as no surprise that I have been thinking about the worlds population and the amount of human waste generated by the worlds human population.
And I have derived at these amazing facts:
The average person's feces per day are around 85 grams in weight.
Multiply that by the 6 Billion people gives a figure of 5.1 million tonnes of human waste every day.
Or
1.8 billion tonnes per year !
Staggering
And to make it sound worse; if you take the fact that perhaps a third of the human population use a WC to relieve their bowels in and that this WC uses water - then the other astounding fact is amount of water wasted each day.
Allow 2 billion x 6 liters per person per flush (once a day) = 12 billion liters of fresh water per day are flushed down the drain.
The sewerage then has to be treated and disposed of ?
The fresh water to flush these WC's needs to be collected and pumped.
Is it me or are we doing something crazy?

My Country

Australia is my country; where I was born, and I am concerned that big business and government are going to ruin this wonderful, ancient and arid country.
There seems to be a common belief - mainly amongst recent immigrants, that as Australia's population is only 22 million and such a huge land mass that we can absorb or sustain a huge population.
A definition of "arid" is  lacking sufficient water or rainfall.
Humans are made up of 70% water. We cannot survive with out water.
So therefore isn't it logical that we have a finite population limit?


But of course, those who live in tall buildings with 3 piece suits think a large population means greater market share and bigger profits. Or putting it simply - Greed.
Governments of course see a large population as simply a large tax base.


With a larger population comes the need for more utilities and amenities; new hospitals and sewer plants, roads, schools and so on.
Many Australians would agree we are already behind the 8 ball with regards to all of the above inf-structure, so how can we afford more?


Yeah -sure there are many, many starving people in the world and I wish we could help them. We could simply open our borders to all and sundry, and help those millions of impoverished people.
  But where is the logic in trying to create something here that will only lower the standard of living here to the point were our whole sustainability could and would topple over. And  then we would be no different to the places where these people came from.


Isn't the better long term logic to help those people in their own countries and try to make it more attractive for those people to stay in their own native countries?


We cannot simply continue in the fashion we are accustomed to; we must change.


De-desalination plants are not the answer nor are creating shallow useless water storage dams which have masses of evaporation and destroy acres of productive soil.


I believe we have reached our sustainable population level.

Old Mate

My best mate Michael who passed away in 2007 died from Motor Neurone Disease. Michael had fought the illness since 1999.
He was a good friend and I will always miss him.
We both went to the same school and remained good mates.
I wish I could talk to his wife Pam, but she got the shits with me and won't talk to me.

Rudder-er less ship

Hey - we finally have a Government!
It only took almost 3 weeks!
They sorted out superannuation deals & pensions between themselves while the country just sailed on like a ship on the high seas without a rudder.
Speaking of rudders - can someone show that recent boat load of refugees were to bunk down for the night - I think all the motels are full.
Oh if only Monty Python were still around to do a sketch or two - "How many Sir?" "Two adults" - "down the hall and second door on the right"
 "Next"
Anyone for a passport?
ID cards?

Souls

We are taught by those that profess to be wise that one day when we pass away our soul will go to heaven or some other place ( a bar with endless drinks and topless babes)
It makes me think.... if you think of when man first stepped on this planet, back way back in time and think how many humans have been born on this planet since then?
How many would it be you think?
Billions & billions. Trillions

You can see where I am going here - all those humans have long since passed away - they all had souls apparently? Billions of them.
So where are they?
Is there a cupboard some where? Full of stacked up souls?
Can you imagine the congestion?  "OK - who farted" or "I need to pee"
Hmmm ...me thinks somethings not quite right here?

Oh yeah.. its easy for these Sunday preachers to rant and rant about God, this and Jesus that...words, words..so on and so on..blah blah blah.
But it just doesn't make sense does it?
All those people who died in the major wars, plagues, Phol pot's reign of terror (made Hitler look like a granny)- where are they all?
Technically there should be more souls about now than there are living persons, right now...so where are they? and why haven't we bumped into some of them?
Just maybe, this has something to do with global warming. All these souls are adding to the temperature of the planet?
Hmmm.. I could be on to something here..where's that phone number for Julia Gillard?

I blinked?

Its not fair?
No one said it would happen?
I'm 54 years of age - I thought I was always going to be young?
Were did those years go? I missed something I think - ?
When we were young we thought we'd never grow old and live forever -ha?
Just got to make the most of it now- where's that canoe, those walking shoes, that map, those flying lesson, those racing boots....those...?

Next Year

So, next year my partner (Liz) and I are planning on joining the Grey Nomads and beginning our adventure to travel around Oz. We're not placing any time limit on this adventure; if it takes 10 months or ten years then so be it.
We can't wait.
Neither of us are in a position to be able to afford to not work while we travel so we will be looking for work. But that's not a problem, working can be a means to meet other people and find out what the locals think and make new friends.
We plan on camping in free camp sites as much as possible and our rig will be as self sufficient as possible.

Mug?

As a plumber of some 34 years of experience in the industry I feel privileged to have been involved such interesting and diverse profession. Each day brings new and different challenges.

And then there are days when I wonder if I am a mug or if I should be wearing a charity logo on my shirt. Occasionally I come across a customer who thinks nothing of asking advice and I am more than willing to give that advice; but it would be nice if those people concerned would acknowledge that help by saying “Thank-you” – and yet there has been many over the years who never seem to consider any form of recognition at all.

The trade has changed a lot in many ways since I started my apprenticeship in the mid 70’s especially with the advent of PVC in the industry.

100mm PVC pipe completely blocked with tree roots

  

Our 'cruiser

Taken near Green Patch

Pretty Beach

A hard day

So where do we go from here?

I wonder what comes from keeping a blog, does anyone read them? Its a bit like keeping a diary but anyone can read it.


Things I observe about life today in general:

• why do so many people now when they are out and about on their own, like out for a walk for example, need to have an i-pod plugged in? What happened to listening to the birds or the wind or the surf or silence?
• Similar to the above, why do so many people need to carry a phone around with them? Why do we need to be so accessible?
• I think the first two above are linked in some way.
• Why do school children need to be conveyed to and from school? I use to walk or ride my bike, some 5 or 6 kilometers each way.
• Why do school children need a mobile phone?
• Why do push bike riders think they need to occupy a whole lane or ignore traffic lights or fail to give way to traffic?
• Years ago you couldn't wear a bike helmet into a petrol service station, yet we allow people to wear a Burka? Why? 
• If any religion is so valid, why is it then that this world is in such a mess? Surly if these beliefs are all what they claim to be then we don't have a problem. Or - if religion was a consumable product then Fair trading would be swamp with complaints.
• Isn't it strange how nearly all religions are based on some story that happened thousands of years ago. If man's intelligence is growing with each advancing century; then how intelligent was the average Joe back say 3,000 years ago? I'm sure someone out there could calculate this fact. 

Dedicated

Hi there
I'd like to dedicate this site to our cat Smokie who passed away a few weeks ago. 
He will never grow old, and we miss him dearly.
Smokie was with us for almost 3 years, a grey Persian cross male.
We miss you mate.