U3A Blogging Class

We've just successfully ran two blogging classes here at our house for the local U3A (University of the Third Age) and we're very pleased with the students of the second course. Six of them have taken to blogging with gusto and have their blogs up and running like they had been blogging for a long time. This is very rewarding for us, the tutors.

Naturally, we created the lesson notes on a blog.

The Lesson Notes on a special blog

So for four Wednesdays, we met with the students in our living room converted class room.

The Blogger is teaching the class C76 the ins and outs of setting up a blog.

The students are very keen to learn.

Sometimes with the help of a little individual attention.

The lesson notes were projected up on the screen.

The projectionist at work.

Blogging was also the topic during the coffee break.

We're travelling for the rest of this term but we've been asked to run the course again later on this year. It was great fun for us to introduce more bloggers to the world.

An Outing to Mt Coot-tha

Bernie's Mum and Dad are cruising around Australia. They docked in Brisbane on the Dawn Princess this morning. We picked them up and took them up to Mount Coot-tha. First to the Botanic Garden where, after a walk, we all had lunch, then up to the lookout for a few shots and coffee.

My family gave me a HDR (High Definition Range) program for my birthday, so I had a chance to try it out. All of the images here are in HDR.

The Dawn Princess where we picked up Helen and Neville.

We admired the star gazing statue at the Observatory first

We saw a funny chair in the Fern Garden at the Botanic Garden 

Not being a botanist, I just had to admire the plants

A bird of paradise plant

Bamboo

And a stone rose

Overlooking Brisbane from Mount Coot-tha

We had a good day and enjoyed Helen and Neville's company. They sailed out of Brisbane just after 6 PM and now on the way north to Airlie Beach.

My Perfect Murder Mystery

Over Easter, my favourite TV channel UK-TV, is broadcasting wall to wall crime dramas. I've been watching enough crime dramas on TV over the years that I'm sure I could write an episode or two of a new series myself. So, let's have a go:

I don't actually have a plot yet but I certainly have the charecters needed for my police drama. My police team is headed by Chief Inspector Joe Blowe, 45 years old, 6ft tall, dark hair, unattached, a bit of a loner, not a career officer, doesn't often see eye to eye with his superior, Chief Superintendent Roger Birdwhistle.

D.C.I. Blow is ably assisted by D.S. Susie Horn, 30 years old, blonde, recently separated from her recent boyfriend and now prepared to totally emerge herself into her job as a crime fighter. Then there is young D.C. Malcolm Short, who looks like he's still in high school, a bit slow when it comes to detection, but not complaining when he is sent out to watch a phone box for hours on end, by his D.C.I. or D.S. .

How am I doing so far?

Ok, here's where you can help me. Let's write a plot.

We need a bunch of crooks. We need Crook A to commit  a murder, which we'll show with the murderer in silhuette so that the audience is unable to determine who is committing the murder but is still being drawn it to watch the drama because they want to find out what's next. We need to introduce suspemse into our show, but first we need to set the scene where a member of the public nonchalantly aproaches the murder scene, accompanied by suspense music. Must remember to contact my son-in-law, David, he is a BBC composer. Our member of the public, finds the body, preferably a spinster woman who has the ability to let out a blood-curdling scream upon finding our victim.

Ok, now we introduce our police team, who need to assemble an incident room, somwhere in a disused hall or maybe the local police station. We need a whiteboard, a few Apple computers, an A3 colour printer to print the photos of victims, suspects, crime scene etc for the whiteboard. Ah, I forgot, we need pathologist, female, brunnette, witty, single and we need to give her a bunch of sandwiches to eat during the authopsy.

We need to throw suspicion on Crook B, who has motive, opportunity, no alibi and is a nasty character. The audience will be certain he did it. Or maybe Crook C could have done it for the same reasons outlined in Crook B.

We now need to stretch the next hour with friction between the team, sexual tention between D.I. Blow and the pathologist before coming to the chase.

During the chase, we need the suspects at one stage to crawl through an internal ventilation duct, which is spottlessly clean inside, well lit and not a screw prodruding inside. We get the suspects being chased to climb up and up preferably onto a roof with no escape ladders but still able to get away somehow.

We're now into the last 15 minutes of our show. So what do you reckon? Shall we assemble the whole cast in the local pub with D.I. Blow, cleverly pointing out that Crook B could have done it, or Crook C could have done it but after some more suspense (with music) announce that it was indeed Crook A who done it. OR:

Should we catch Crook A, who has been trying hard to 'do a runner' and simply get him to confess to the murder?

Maybe you have an other ending.

Have a great Easter!

Our wonderful ISP

Sometimes I think I live in Zimbabwe, Laos or some other Banana Republic. Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against Zimbabwe (oh maybe against the idiot who runs it), Laos or any other Banana Republic. I'm sure they're nice places on the whole. It's only lack of resources or wealth that keeps them  a little behind the rest of the world.

So when for the second time in as many months we lose our communications link to the electronic world, because we had a little rain, it just feels like we too live in a third world country.

Here, now comes the bit where we are trying to get some answers from Telstra, the fun begins. I phone the technical support in Mumbai, or New Dehli or wherever and try to explain to the nice gentleman that we have lost both broadband and Foxtel (Pay TV) and are wondering what's happening. I explain to the man that we also have a pre-paid Telstra modem, we use when we're travelling. I explain to the gentleman that we have two 3-G iPhones and none of the above devices allow us to read our email, or check on the weather report, let alone read the newspapers.

Oh my goodness me, do not worry, dear sir, he says, we will have this fixed in no time at all. That on Sunday evening. Within no time, I get disconnected. Oh well, we can't watch Downton Abby, so we might as well go to bed.

Monday comes and by Monday night, still no service, the Blogger then gives me a brochure from Telstra which is entitled 'Things are changing for the better.' This was obviously printed as a result of the terrible way Telstra treated it's customers under the leadership of the three stooges (Amigos) who ran the company with the sole purpose of enriching their lives and little else.

Smart move, Darling. The brochure goes on to say, ring us 24/7, making complaints is easier. So, back on the phone again, instead of watching Australian Story and Four Corners. This time I get Shane, a very nice Aussie lad, who checked and double checked and assured me by 11.00 pm, we would be back on line. Foxtel, Broadband and all. Thanks, mate, I appreciate it, I respond. So we watch a DVD and by 11. pm I try broadband again and hoorray, we're on line. Two days emails await to be answered, a quick read of the news headlines and off to bed. All's well again with the world.

Bright and early, the Blogger gets up to read her email, I hear a mutter emanating from her study. When I get up she informs me that the internet is still not working.

Back to the Things are getting better brochure and another call to Shane, who is still asleep. David answers in his place and is also very apologetic and after another investigation informs me it'll be midnight tonight before any action. All the neighbours on our side of the street are calling to say they too are without Foxtel and broadband. Except Kathy, who lives across the street says, what problems? My internet works fine.

I have a bright idea, we know the portable modem isn't working in the house, how about we try outside. It works. So we set up a table and a chair on the back bridge and we are on line, although with slow speed.

The Blogger works outside

In a fashion

with the WI-FI prepaid modem

That's when the neighbour calls, Guess what, we're on line! It's mid afternoon so a quick blog update and a read of the mail and we're leaving Harare back to Brisbane. Question is, we are having a U3A blogging class here tomorrow morning. Will the internet work?

Fingers crossed.

Why is Australia So Expensive?

Google 'Why is Australia so expensive' and you find lots of people posing the same question. One chap who recently returned from a trip to Paris, found a bottle of good wine there costs between $2.70 to $6.80 (or 2 - 5 euros) and can be purchased in every supermarket, you don't have to traipse to a bottle shop.  You're pushed to buy a good bottle of wine here for under $20 in one of those Supermarket-owned bottle shops.

The ABC recently reported that Australia has become one of the most expensive countries in the world. They quoted Dr Oliver Hartwich from the Centre for Independent Studies that we can thank the Australian Government for the fact that we pay too much. That means governments of any persuasion. Dr Hartwich concludes that governments need to remove regulatory obstacles.

Books, CDs, DVDs clothes and food are much more expensive here, in the lucky country, than in Europe and in the United States, especially in the United States, having been there twice in as many years recently we were surprised of how inexpensive it is to live there.

On our last trip to the US, I saw a CD, I wanted on the US App Store for $US9.99. I didn't have my laptop with me, only my iPad, so I decided I'd buy it back home. Back in Brisbane on the Australian App Store, the very same CD, 2 days later cost A$19.99. The exchange rate at the time was 1:1.

Just to let you know, I haven't taken a photo of the contents of my wallet here, it's from the internet.

So! What's the answer? I don't really know but I rather suspect it is because we as a nation are complacent. We see something we want, look at the price and say to ourselves, oh well, if that what it costs, who cares.

I think it is time to change our way of thinking. We need to do it, governments won't help us.

The Wonders of Technology

It's a way of life. Children grow up then they leave home. I did. The Blogger did. Inevitably our two daughters did. We accept that. In the 60's when I left my hometown and my parents to travel half way around the world, we first communicated by sending air mail letters which took 7 days to get there. In the late 70's we recorded our voices on cassettes and posted them and again they took 7 days to get there.

Of course now it is easy using Skype. My daughter, her husband and grandsons live in Los Angeles and we are regularly in instant contact with them, courtesy of Skype video calls. So we see the boys growing and developing their characters and they get to know us, their grandparents.

I've just learnt how to take screen shots with my iMac and grabbed some this morning. I caught them in the kitchen making 'smoothies.'

The picture quality is not always the best, but it's good enough to have a chat with them. Fox loves his smoothies.

And clowning around while his little brother Banjo, plays in mum's cupboard

Banjo is always very interested in Mum's iPhone when we skype and quite often presses a button and disconnects the link, but, that's what little boys do.

A Dilemma

It's good to be retired sometimes, you don't have to deal with dilemmas such as this.

In the Courier Mail today was an article about a young lady who was called into the office of her boss, and was told she would be promoted, including in her promotion would also be a pay rise. However this offer was withdrawn when it came to finalising her promotion. Here then is the dilemma. If you'd received that offer, how would you react? Would you take the promotion, just so it would look good on your CV? Or would you strongly demand the promised pay increase, thus taking a chance of being seen as pushy, greedy, opstropolous? Perhaps even loose the offer of promotion? Of course refusing an offer of promotion, for whatever reason, could be seen as not being ambitious. It really is a dilemma.

The article goes on to say that the young lady in question, at the time agreed to the offer but now a few years older, stated that at her age now, she would decline the offer.

What would you have done?