Category: Diary

Way to do business. I just called [I’ll name them if nothing happens] and asked to speak to someone about the damage they had done to one of our garden beds when they were concreting next door.

The response when I asked to speak to someone about what had happened was “Don’t be rude”. Nice. When I then pointed out I wasn’t being rude and that the real rudeness was doing what they did and just walking away hoping nothing would be said I was told “don’t you have a brain in your head, the concrete is still wet”. Nice.

I don’t particularly care if the concrete is wet, they shouldn’t have caused the problems in the first place. Let’s see what comes of this. Oh, and I’ve taken photos. Lots and lots of photos.

UPDATED 5:00PM Two Days Later

Despite being told they would send someone to fix up the damage by the weekend no one has appeared and there’s been no call back to either apologise or arrange for it to be fixed. The business that caused the damage was St John’s Concreting of 2 Mawson Cl, Taylors Lake. I’ll investigate what options I now have next Monday.

It’s street day. For the past two years I’ve taken a photo of our street on this day, so who am I to mess with tradition.

2010 – Every block built on, every house lived in and five changes of occupants in the past year including two new neighbours for us.

It’s getting to the stage where people have recovered from building and are now beginning to start working on the front of their houses. Still a long way to go but the street we hope to live in for a long time yet is slowly coming together.

(Not sure why I took the photo on this day originally, I really should have taken it in Spring or Summer when the street looks good.)

2009 – Every house built and lived in and one remaining block is underway.

2008 – Four houses under construction and empty blocks everywhere.

Ever since the twins came along we’ve been talking about getting a freezer. Over the past few months it’s become increasingly obvious we need one. Phee is eating like a teenager and the young one’s appetites are growing every day. The poor old side by side just can’t cope with the amount of food we need to store and with the price of food we going to have start buying in bulk. A few cheques arrived all at once this week and there was enough left over for us to head to Highpoint.

We started off at Good Guys. Great range, lots to look at then along came Sue. She was fantastic. Dragged the kids off to give them balloons while we talked, knew her stuff, pointed out things we needed to know, offered to match any internet price and knew when to drop back.

We then wandered across to Harvey Norman. It was the polar opposite. Hardly any stock and when a salesperson eventually came by she gave the impression she would have preferred to have been anywhere else but there. No sales talk, nothing to say about the products and when we asked about chest freezers she took us over to what they had and disappeared, just like we did shortly after. I’m also looking at a phone upgrade and made the mistake of thinking someone there may have been able to help me. Foolish me. While Rae went to get the kids a snag  I stood looking at their selection for a few minutes, then tried to spot someone who may have been able to help. I gave up on the phone too.

Any way, we went back to Good Guys and bought the freezer, delivered same day. Sue again was great, and smart. She heard us talking about eventually needing a new washing machine so she gave us her card “for when we want to come back”, complete with her shopping list on the back. We’ll go straight back to her when we need to, won’t even bother with HN next time.

One other thing Sue did was show me 3D television. i have to admit I’ve dismissed this as a fad, something that will never take off. Dear god I was so wrong. I watched two minutes of a rugby game, a sport I know nothing about nor care about, but I was blown away. It’s indescribable to be a part of the game like that. Once they start broadcasting AFL in 3D there won’t be enough factories in China to keep up with demand. And if it’s this impressive for a first generation product I can’t even begin to think what it will be like by the time we can afford it.

Hopefully Sue will still be around to sell us a set.

Winter time approaching means more lunch times spent inside and I’m trying to actually take a break during the day so I have a plan. I’m finally going to finish watching Battlestar Galactica. It’s been a couple of years now since I got stuck at the half way point of the second season so I’m going to start from scratch. I’ve got the entire series set ready to go on the Media PC (I knew buying that new 1TB drive would come in handy) so now when I have lunch I’m going to watch a bit and slowly but surely I’m going to watch every episode. Let’s see if I can get it done by this time next year.

Saturday morning. Fresh coffee and home made calzones for breakfast, paper (mostly) read so I guess it’s time. Time to think up another excuse to head off to MSY. For the non-initiated MSY is the geek equivalent if heading off to Bunnings tp pick up supplies for a bit of DIY.  It’s the cheapest place to pick up your tech bits and pieces and Saturday mornings you see the line up of 30-something dads who have dragged the kids along to pick up a new hard drive or power supply.

Only problem is nothing has gone wrong with any of my PCs in the past fortnight so I’m struggling to come up with an excuse that will get past the CFO. Media Center is the key, maybe I can convince her we need a second 1TB drive…

It’s getting so easy to make me feel old these days. The latest way came on the way back from our trip to Adelaide.

We had stopped off at Maccas in Horsham and while I was waiting for the order the young girl looked at me and said “My dad has the same shirt as that. It’s a nice shirt, my mum bought it for him.”

Oh great, now I’m viewed of being at the age where it’s perfectly okay to compliment me on managing to wear a ‘nice’ shirt. Sigh.

We’ve just come back from a holiday, a proper no-work, everyone together, go a long way (715km)  away and relax holiday. It’s the first proper break we’ve taken since our honeymoon four years ago and our first holiday as a family. It was only a short break in Adelaide but it was fantastic. We lucked out with the weather, perfect 23 degrees both days we were out and about, which made it even better.

We stayed on the beach at West Beach, just down from the Surf Life Saving Club. It was a great place for us – affordable, comfortable and right in the middle of all the things we wanted to do.

There were two main things we went for – the pandas and the footy.

The footy came first, and it was an experience totally different to going to the footy in Melbourne. It was amazing to see the number of bbq’s and picnics in the car park, something you hardly see here. We were also totally and hopelessly outnumbered. Walking from the car park to the stadium we didn’t see another Tigers supporter and with just a smattering of the yellow and black we had to cheer extra hard to be heard above the Adelaide mob. Then there was the funniest thing. Rae went to get a couple of beers but was blocked from coming back to the seat because the cups didn’t have a lid. She had to go back and get lids and when asked why she was told it was in case we accidentally spilt some on someone walking back to the seat. God knows how we’ve managed to cope in Melbourne all these years having to walk and balance beer.

My favourite moment came when the woman behind me asked her friend “do you think that sun is going to set?”. As I said on Twitter, given the sun’s history over the past several billion years…

The less said about the actual game the better, although for the first half we did look like we could play. It was a bit disorientating.

The second aim was to see the pandas at the Adelaide Zoo. We were able to get free admission with our FOTZ membership and Rae organised the tickets online so we were in the first group in that morning. The pandas were simply amazing. Such beautiful creatures. I could have stayed and watched for hours. Funi was sitting on a rock, enjoying the morning sun and some bamboo, Completely nonplussed about the crowds oohing and ahing over her she munched and crunched away, looking up at us every now and then.

Wang Wang was out for his morning stroll, roaming around the impressive enclosure. At one stage he decided to climb a tree to show off a little.

We went for a wander around the rest of the zoo and Bert was thrilled he finally go to see a flamingo. I have no idea where his infatuation with these birds came from but it was the highlight of the zoo visit for him. It was amazing to read the zoo’s two flamingos were 70 and 80 years old. Due to issues with importing birds they probably won’t be replaced when they die. It’s hard to believe when you see them that they are that old – they arrived before the start of World War 2, one of them pre-dates the Great Depression. If you get the chance go and see them you really should.

The best display, aside from the panda exhibition, was the tiger enclosure. The volunteer there (wish I had noted her name, she was great) explained that it had been constructed so the tigers would be on eye level with the zoo visitors. We were lucky one tiger had decided to sun herself on a handy rock and Moo was especially thrilled to see her so close.

We also visited the National Rail Museum. We thought we’d take a quick look and then go and check out some more museums nearby. Yes, good theory that. We spent an entire morning there, the kids were completely captivated. I could have spent hours more indulging my hobby of reading ever information sign. The kids weren’t in to the reading but loved climbing over everything and were thrilled with the steam train ride.

Throw in a stroll around Glenelg, spotting a seal frolicking in the ocean opposite our flat, good snack at the surf life saving club and some nice sitting in the sun it was a fantastic break. Sure, we had to spend two days in the car to get there and back but with all the preparation Rae had done even that wasn’t too bad.

We’d love to go back again. There’s a lot more we’d like to see and if we could we’d love to get away minus the kids to make the most of the wineries. After the drive though it may be a while before I feel like hopping in that car for any distance longer than the local shops.

Hopefully we’ll get away and have another time as good as this before another four years pass.

Overheard at AAMI Stadium.

“Do you think that sun will set?”

Hmmmmm. Well, if the past billion or so years is anything to go by…

It’s true, we all become our parents.

Case 1. Moo Moo

When it comes to actors and actresses Rae is a freak. No matter what the disguise they only have to utter one word, Rae will cock her head and two seconds later she’ll know it is. She really is amazing.

This morning Ricky Gervais was on Sesame Street. Bert called out “Dad, the man from Night At The Museum is on television. Moo Moo recognised his voice.”

Case 2. Bert

Two and a half hours on the computer just figuring out how things work. Huge wobbly chucked when it was time to turn it off.

Case 3. Me.

Mum and Dad ate dinner around 6.30 every night, which conflicted with the news on television. Dad would rewind the video tape and record it to watch after dinner, it must have been the thinnest tape in the world after all that use. I was reminded of this the other night after I set up the media pc to automatically record the news every night  because it’s on when we are usually sitting down to dinner.

I wonder what other of Dad’s habits I’ll develop and which of mine I’ll pass on to my kids.

Bert really wants to go to school.

With the G and Q down the bottom by Dad.