The study house

Dustin and I celebrate our 5th year wedding anniversary on Thursday and for the first time ever in our relationship we are both studying at the same time (both still working also of course). I am completing my masters in law whilst Dustin is doing his Bachelor of Mechanical Engineering.

Whilst I am sitting here on my couch listening to my lecture via podcast, Dustin is in the study doing a group assignment via an internet meeting between the members of his group.

It occurred to me when I logged into my uni website just how far technology has come for me to have a lecture each week that I can download into an ipod and listen to it anywhere anytime and where Dustin can study via distance and for his study group to not only consist of people in other states of Australia but also overseas. - lining up times for his study meetings is going to be interesting with the different time zones.

I know I am not as old as some but I very clearly remember when whiteboards just came in and our school got two, we all wanted to have classes in those rooms because they didn't get chalk dust everywhere and it was easier to read... yet now how far have we come... I don't think I could study without my USB stick and my laptop not to mention my downloadable lectures, online study materials and wireless internet anywhere on our property all at the click of a button... I fear the traditional library research session has become obsolete which is sad really as I do so much love the smell of old books.

If this is how far we have come just in the past 15 years or so... how far are we going to go in the next 15 years and what will people be using for study aides then? I have always looked forward to that downloadable data that I may one day be able to plug straight into my brain... I wonder how far into the future that is?

I Travelled to a Mystical Time Zone....

I figure that it's about time that I made a musical post again.  So, last week I made two cds for my guitar instructor.  Just kind of so he got the idea of what type of things I was wanting to learn.  One cd was a sampler with some Metallica, AC/DC, Jerry Reed, ect., ect.  The other one was all Smiths.  For some reason, I don't know if it's all of Australia, or just Brisbane, but it would seem that there is a musical imigration department set up.  Only a certain amount of a certain type of music can get through it, the rest are never allowed in.  The Smiths are ones of these bands that, unless "smuggled in", no one ever heard of.  

Last night, when I went to my guitar lesson, Steve, (my instructor) was sitting in there listening to the Smiths cd, and started going off about how he can't believe that he'd never listened to them, and how awesome they were.  Sweet.  So we then proceeded to attempt to learn This Charming Man and Ask.  I felt better about not having been able to learn them on my own when even he was having a bit of trouble with it, (I emphasize the BIT) and he has dual degrees in guitar from the Conservatory.  It turned out to be a good session though; quite enjoyable!

When I got home, Cindy's and my friend Kelly was over.  She's come back home from Ireland for a few weeks to visit.  When I mentioned what we were doing at guitar, she made the same comment on how she can't believe that she had never heard of The Smiths before she went over there, considering how big they were/Morrissey is.  She said her favorite song was Frankly, Mr. Shankly, and as such, That's the video that I have decided to go with this time around.  Enjoy.

Read

Frankly, Mr. Shankly Lyrics

here.

Minimum Wage, Ha!

So, for those fo you who don't know, or haven't been able to work it out, I got a promotion of sorts at work.  Granted, this was first offered to me back at the end of June, but it has taken till now to eventuate, due to circumstances created by other people, or lack thereof.  

I am now, according to the signature that was set up on my email, a Technical Sales Representative.  This means that instead of being outside in the heat, humidity, grease, dirt, and oil, standing on concrete all day, and lifting heavy things, I now get to wear nicer clothes, sit down in A/C, have a desk and computer, and slightly more flexable work conditions, and the heaviest thing that I have to lift all day is probably a stapler. (no, it's not a red one...)  

I've kinda been thrown in the deep end, with a half-eaten life preserver, and told what to do to tread water.  What better way to learn!  But I am having fun, and most of the guys upstairs are willing to give me a hand when I get questions that I don't know, (which at this point, are most of them!) I answer the phones/faxes/emails that customers give us, wanting to either just buy some fittings or design a whole power system for them.  I know it might not sound like much, but I'm enjoying it, and that makes a lot of difference.

If you don't know and want to see what we do, go here: http://www.southcott.com.au/  Ignore the Cycles part.  Our branch doesn't really do them, although I CAN get them if requested.  That's about it. 

Oh, Listen To The Music

Music has always been a major part of my life.  The last few years, however, due to working and other things getting in the way, both my playing of, and listening to, music has fallen a bit on the wayside.  For Christmas this year, Cindy got me a new guitar strap, the Best of The Smiths tab book, and 4 lessons to help improve, (or possibly even create) my guitar playing ability.  I start these lessons on Thursday night.  Also, for our Christmas Eve game this year, we got the Guitar Hero World Tour pack for the XBox.  Cindy is surprisingly good at the drums, while I love signing aspect; everything from About A Girl, to Up Around The Bend.

Now, reading my sister Sharon's blog for the last year or so, I've watched her Friday Flashback posts; a lot of times I remember the songs that are there, and sometimes I don't know them at all, but enjoy being exposed to things I would otherwise not have known about.  It's not like the radio stations in Brisbane play anything older than about 3 months...  and it's all that new crap like the Pussycat Dolls and such, that doesn't have a bit of real music in it. (my opinion, obviously. Sorry to those that actually like that type of stuff)  As such, hearing things that I don't know and that actually is music is fantastic.  

So what do these two things have to do with each other?  Well, I thought that I'd start trying to post on a simi-regular basis, some sort of Ode to Musica post.  To start it off, I thought that I'd dedicate this one to Sharon, in thanks for her involvment of music throughout her blog, both posts about it and random, sometimes obscure references to it.  As such, the video that I'm posting is of my favorite Smiths song (which I am currently learning to play, btw).  If it wasn't for Sharon, I would never have heard the Smiths, James, The Ocean Blue, They Might Be Giants, and so many more....  so, thanks Shaz!

Books books books...

A love that Dustin and I both share is our love for books and reading.

We can go wandering around the shops all day and not spend any money, but if either of us wander anywhere near a Dymocks, Angus and Robertson or a QBD bookstore we find our bank account quickly diminished and our arms weighed down with hours of reading material. Whilst we both have our differing preferences for fiction novels we have found we both also have a love for non fiction. We have reference books on all sorts of subjects from Astronomy to The Mysteries of the Mind and from Ancient Egypt to the Lipizzan Horses in Austria. 

While we both Google to find out modern facts and knowledge we find it is so much more fun sitting down and reading a book about all sorts of things. 

When we were first married we found we did not have a book case for the books that we had gathered before we met and so we went to Lifeline and bought a second hand bookcase for $20 that we thought would hold our books and the many more that we would buy during our marriage. As it turns out, we have not been married yet for 5 years and already our bookcase is overflowing and collapsing with our collection. We both hope that one day we will be able to have a library in our house with all the walls full of books with places to sit and enjoy reading them. I guess we will need another bookcase or two before that happens. Whilst we will eventually get more bookcases I don't think we will ever get rid of the first one we bought together even though it is water damaged and only holds half the shelves it is meant to as it holds sentimental value for both of us and symbolising a love and hobby we both share. Does that sound crazy to anyone else or just sappy and sentimental?

A second man hole

It all started with parents who were nice enough to think of Dustin and I sweltering in the heat and so they bought us insulation for Christmas. You need to have been here in summer to understand our house is like an oven, and all occupants are the turkeys baking away.

Dustin and I got up on New Years Day morning and decided to install it ourselves as that was my first day of leave and we can't afford to have someone else do it.  

After two hours of installing with me crawling into all the smaller places where Dustin couldn't get to and him passing me the insulation, we were covered in sweat to the point where we were dripping, my nose was running and full of black stuff from all the dirt and dust etc up there and who wants to know what else... and yet we had only just completed an area the size of what we think was the study (hard to tell in such a small space up there)

We came down for some air, by then my legs were cramping and my vision was blurry as my eyes were full of dust and sweat and alas when we gained enough courage to climb back up the ladder the pictures depict the result of what happened...

I was attempting to pull one of the bags along the roof, lost my balance, went butt first through our roof over our lounge room and ended up half in and half out of the roof hanging between our house and the roof right over our couch in the lounge room. After laughing at my predicament Dustin helped me out of the hole which I became stuck in due to me being bigger than the hole my butt created. The hole was actually a lot messier than it looks now... after laughing at me, my dad came over and cut the hole into a square along the beams so it can be fixed. As my parents started wishing they had bought us something else for Christmas we started working out the cost of fixing the roof and playing eeny meeny miney mo as to who was going back up in the roof to finish the job.

As it had gotten too hot to be in the roof by the time the drama was finished, mum and my sister Sam came around at 5am yesterday morning and helped Dustin and I finish the job. As Dustin is too big to climb around up there mum and I climbed around and laid the insulation and Dustin was passing us up bags, water bottles, towels and tools etc through our newly made manhole. I must say, whilst having a hole in your roof right in the middle of your lounge room is not exactly what we started out to achieve, I must say, it made the insulation installation go a lot faster as everything did not have to be passed through the manhole in the garage and then carried to the other side of the roof and it let in so much more light that we hardly needed torches! Not to mention it is so much cooler in our lounge room now with all the heat escaping though our new manhole... Dustin and I are now thinking that hole is the perfect spot to install a skylight!

Ahh.. the joys of owning your own home... so how did everyone else's holiday period go?

My car

So I put my car in for a service on Tuesday knowing that the front brakes might need doing as they had told me at my last service that the front brakes were getting low and would need replacing at the next service. Dustin wasn't happy with the job the previous mechanic did where it was serviced last so I took it to "Midas" in Beenleigh. And that is when the drama started...
I dropped it off at 7am on my way to work and had my dad pick me up and take me to the train station, once at work at about 9am I received a phone call saying that not only did the front brakes need replacing but the back cylinders needing replacing as well and also the front bearing. (I had noticed a noise that I asked them to check out and it turned out to be my back brakes) As it was brakes related I didn't argue with them and told them to do what they needed and so that took the total from $230 to $960. At that point I asked them to service it whilst it was there as I was planning on getting it serviced in the next 1,000 km anyway, which then took the total to $1,174. I was merrily working expecting to pick my car up after work when I received a phone call at about 4pm saying they couldn't get the bearing out of the hub because it had heated up that much that it had weilded itself in there and so the whole bearing, hub, cv joint and shaft had to be replaced... basically most of my front suspension... my only hope was if they could somehow get the bearing out of the hub... so it was soaked for a few hours and placed in the press with 50 tonne of pressure placed on it and still wouldn't budge. They took it to a store next to them which had 100 tonne press and it still did not budge... alas it was not budging and they would have to replace more parts.... for this they did not have the parts in store and so there would be a two day wait to fly parts up from Sydney. I caught the bus home and walked in the rain as it stops about 1km from our house and did the same thing the next morning to get to work (still raining). Once at work yesterday I received a call from them saying that the part that had been flown up was the wrong part and Sydney has said it would be a further 3 day wait for the right part. At that point the guys at Midas gave up on the Sydney distribution centre and called every wreckers they knew trying to find a spare part they could recondition. Luckily one was found, alas it was in another kia that had also seized. They collected that part and put it in the press, and it popped straight out so they reconditioned it and put it in my car. Then they replaced my front and back brakes, tightened my handbrake, gave it a service and a tune up and then told me I could pick it up at 5pm yesterday. I asked what the total was, and with the extra running around and second hand parts etc they said the total was now $1,603. I called a friend of mine who was a mechanic (who hates doing drum brakes and hence why I did not give it to him to do) and he said with what had happened that price sounded about right. And as I really need my only car I reluctantly handed over my credit card details and thought to myself there goes my Christmas budget and half my spending money for our trip! But alas I have my car back and I nearly put myself through the windscreen at the intersection on my way home last night because it stopped so hard and fast with new brakes front and back!

So that is the latest dramas of my car...  now off to work and then to go to the Thanksgiving dinner tonight... I am not sure what this pumpkin pie thing is all about but I will give it a go!

Also, am trying to do one blog a week to keep you all updated on our lives. Dustin already has two that he wants to do so we will see how we go...