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Nov 2010My MacBook had to go to hospitalA few weeks ago the MacBook spat the dummy on me. I was unable to recover it so I sent it to my son, Alain, at NextByte in Brisbane. The techs found that the computer was still working properly but the hard dish had a problem. Al found me a replacement hard disk and sent the machine back to Barraba. I picked it up yesterday and spent considerable time installing Snow Leopard and reloading all the files from my big backup hard drive. I also had to resolve some problems with apps which didn't want to work with the OS which is a few versions older than the one I was using recently which had been updated with a few software updates. I can't afford to do the software updates again because my Telstra modem account is limited to 400Mb per month so I will have to wait until I can use somebodies high volume connection, perhaps my favourite cafe in Tamworth or possibly my daughter, Sarah's, connection. I have had significant problems while the machine was away as I need all the databases to keep my life organised. Happily I can now get back to work on my many volunteer jobs. I do have a new job as the next secretary of the Barraba Branch of the Australian Red Cross which is now run by a new president who is a friend of mine. I had been thinking of closing down Towards Transition Barraba but this week I got a new book for the TTB the library. It is the Post Carbon Reader, a whole series of essays by experts in various aspects of the transition. My first skim reading took me to a page listing all the Transition Towns in the world and I was most impressed to see Barraba NSW listed with all the others. This and the really good information in the essays re-invigorated my enthusiasm for the Transition so I decided to try and resurrect Towards Transition Barraba which will create a major task for me in 2011. Posted: 30/11/10 9:34 PMMore support for one of my 21st Century ViewsRolls Royce are being required to do modifications on some of their aircraft engines. The inspection of the rest of the Qantas Airbus 380 fleet after the recent incident in Singapore was apparently provided as evidence of a recent Quality Assurance failure at Rolls Royce. I have a view that in the 21st Century many organisations fail to ensure proper Quality Assurance. My thoughts is that the managements tend to focus on money instead of the real stuff like products and services. I also think that they use their assessments of their customers' opinions of their product or services as all that matters instead of a proper technical system of Quality Assurance. Posted: 8/11/10 9:08 AMMore sheep in the back paddockMark came around yesterday morning to collect the Old Ewe who was going to someone else's property. That left Rambo on his own but he seemed OK. This afternoon Mark and Cathy brought the other two ewes and their two lambs because they are off on a ten day holiday. Our paddock has lots of feed in it and the fences are pretty secure so Mark was happy to bring them here. We will, of course, look after them all until they go home. Posted: 7/11/10 2:52 PMAnother Wonderful Night OutThe Playhouse was celebrating the first weekend in November even though the Barraba Festival had been cancelled. We went to a marvellous concert followed by a Gala Dinner. The concert, called Chopin and Champagne, was superb. The pianist, Ambre Hammond, is a world prize winning young musician. She played a selection of her favourite piano pieces and we were all mightily impressed by her talent. I spoke to her after the concert and congratulated her on following Roman Rudnytsky, a world travelling soloist of great renown, who was our last concert pianist in the Playhouse. During the concert she had told us that her ethnicity was Spanish, English, and German Irish. I explained that I was descended on my mother's side from a Scottish Marine Lieutenant, and a Jewish convict lady from London , both from the first fleet, and a Yorkshire Timber Merchant who live in Riga in Russia and on my father's side from an illegitimate Scottish boy whose parents migrated to Australia to get away from their parents who had refused to let the couple marry and who married on the way to Australia to legitimise the boy. He married an Australian born girl whose parents were Scottish migrants and they had eleven children, a significant number of whom, including my father, are listed in Who's Who books from various countries around the world. She was most impressed. It is so nice to have such a great cultural centre in Barraba and we have great respect for the proprietor, Andrew Sharp. Posted: 7/11/10 9:58 AMMy new volunteer jobsToday I attended my second Barraba Red Cross Branch meeting. I had joined the organisation to help the new chairperson, Mark McAlpine, who is a friend of mine (the owner of the sheep that live in our back paddock), At the first meeting I attended nothing happened that I could make a contribution to. Today's meeting was a bit different. There was a debate on how we should distribute the more than the $500 we had collected for support of the victims of the Pakistan floods. The meeting was asked to decide on divide the money between Pakistan, Indonesia, New Zealand, all three countries which have suffered natural disasters recently. There was a bit of discussion and I added the thought that we should do the allocation in a way related to the degree of the disasters, I suggested 90% to Pakistan and 10 % to Indonesia. The meeting agreed unanimously. Later my friend Mark complained that he had had no positive responses to his request for support in material or labour for his school breakfast programme. I put my hand up and became a volunteer. He asked me to have the school Principal arrange a police vetting of me to ensure that I would be certified as fit to work with children. The last thing that happened was the resignation of the Secretary from her job. I was asked to volunteer to take over and I agreed. Posted: 5/11/10 5:40 PMMy recoveryI am rapidly getting over both my recent medical problems. My chest and sinus infection is now almost totally cured. The painful side effects from my haemorrhoid banding which occurred last Thursday is now getting much better. I had to look up the operation in Wikipedia and found that I could expect the process to be complete in 2 to 7 days so I am looking forward to a complete recover very soon. I will now be able to get back to work on four of my volunteer jobs. Posted: 1/11/10 7:07 AM |
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