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Tuesday, 04 December 2007 |
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I receive an email every time someone leaves a comment on Tasweb, but I hadn't seen any email's for a long time. I've only just discovered them all sitting in my gmail spam folder. Sorry to those people that have commented on stories that aren't on the front page as I simply haven't seen them. Sorry also to those people that may have read some dodgy comments. I usually clean up anything unsavory straight away.
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Monday, 03 December 2007 |
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I've hit a few pot holes lately. We organised a BBQ at the school for federal election day as it is a polling place and heaps of hungry people come in and out all day. We were hoping to make a few quid for the school so Lisa and I put a lot of effort into ensuring that everything was sorted and ready to go. I turned up at 9am on election day to meet the groundsman so that he could unlock a few doors and get the school's BBQ out for me only to find the local footy club already setup and selling what looked to be very tasty egg and bacon rolls. Apparently the school had forgotten that they had given them the OK to setup in the same spot a few weeks before we asked. There was no point in us setting up beside them as we would have been out in the full sun and no one would have walked past us so we pulled the plug and went home. What a waste of effort! We split most of the food and drink up between us at cost and ended up loosing only about $40 on the day. Then I was invited to represent the P&F at the grade 10 leavers assembly. I asked if I would be presenting any prizes and was told no. Twenty minutes before I was due to arrive I decided to iron a business shirt as I had been invited to the special morning tea for invited guests, politicians and so on and thought I should look presentable. When I arrived someone mentioned that I was in the order of service as presenting two awards. Hmmmm, someone must have got their wires crossed. No problem, at least I had a half decent shirt and tie on! When it was my turn to present the first award I made my way up on stage in front of about 800 people only to be shooed away. Senator Carol Brown had been given my presentation but nobody had bothered to tell me. I walked back off stage with all 1600 (I assume they all had two) eyes following me. It was a bit embarrassing to say the least as most people would have thought that I had stuffed up. I had no longer sat back down again when I was called back up to present the next award. At least that was it as my name was nowhere else to be seen in the order of service. Imagine my surprise when I was called back up a few minutes later to do yet another presentation. I did the whole handshake, chat, smile, turn, walk back off stage thing, only to be waved back on stage because they wanted me to do another one!!!! Aaaargghhh. Emma was sitting down the back of the hall and must have been laughing herself silly watching her silly dad walking back and forth with no clue at all what was expected of him. The purpose of the day was to celebrate the grade 10 leavers and that was certainly done. I was amazed when the two SRC captains gave an awesome speech about their grade 10 supervisor and the whole place stood and cheered. They obviously think a lot of Miss Michelle Graham. At the end they all walked out to a standing ovation led by a Scottish guy playing the bagpipes. Apparently it's a KHS tradition.
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Monday, 03 December 2007 |
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What, another Birthday? I can't believe how quickly these guys are growing up now. Emma scored fairly well with presents, however her main Birthday present this year is her trip to Canberra with Kingston High School next year. Emma and a bunch of her mates celebrated her Birthday at Woodies Roller World at Glenorchy. I booked a kids party during a public session on the Saturday night and can you believe that apart from us not a single person turned up. Emma's party group had the whole place to themselves. Tegan makes a habit of hurting her self, so guess who did a big flip and landed on her head! I was just putting my own blades on when one of the guys came rushing over to tell me that Tegan was hurt. I had one roller blade on and the damn buckle got stuck so I had to rush over on only one blade. It was a bit like riding a scooter without the handle! Actually I probably had one of the biggest crashes of the night. I need to realise that I'm too old to enter limbo competitions on roller blades.
The next day Emma and a few other friends walked down to Kingston Beach
whilst Brad and I entertained Jake at my place. After lunch we met up
with Jake's dad Jon and took our kayaks down to the beach and paddled
up Browns River as far as we could go. Brad and I had a bit of a
flotation issue at first as our kayak is really a sit on top meant for
one person and Brad weighs a lot more now than he did last summer. The
old couple eating their lunch by the banks of the river must have been
laughing as they watched us try to get back to shore without tipping
over. We made it back and worked out a safer way to distribute the
weight before heading off for what was a very enjoyable trip up the
river. We were very low in the water which made the paddling a bit hard
so I'm feeling a tad sore today. Tennis tomorrow will be interesting!
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Monday, 03 December 2007 |
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The months seem to come around way to quickly at this time of the year. The gains I made towards the end of last month have been eroded somewhat towards the end of this month. To be honest the whole stock market thing is confusing me at the moment. It seems as though all the Australian market does is follow the American market and they can't seem to work out if this whole sub prime mortgage thing is really that bad or not. The American market had a day off for Thanks Giving, and the Australian market did nothing the next day because they didn't have anyone to follow. I still don't understand why someones dodgey lending practices in another country affects the share price of a mining company in Australia. I've moved almost half of my portfolio into cash this month as it's all a bit too hard to follow at the moment and there is talk about another fairly large drop.
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Friday, 23 November 2007 |
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I've been working on something for months now and it has finally paid off. The Examiner newspaper published a list of Tasmanian Olympians a while ago that left out my Grandfather. Thomas Darcey represented Australia in rowing at the London Olympics in 1948. He was my mum's father and we were all a bit miffed that he wasn't on the list. I did a bunch of research and found a number of issues that could have led to him being omitted. Whilst he was born and died in Tasmania, he was serving in Melbourne with the Australian Air Force after returning from PNG during World War Two when a local rowing club at the time decided to enter their coxed eight in the Olympic trials. As Tom had been rowing with that club whilst he was in Melbourne he competed with them. Tom's team won the trial event and went on to represent Australia in London, however since it was a Melbourne club that entered the selection trials there could have been some confusion over Tom's allegiance. Another issue is that there are three separate "official" lists of Tasmanian Olympians kept. The Tasmanian Olympic Commission have the Role of Honour and the Olympians Club. One is a list of all Tasmanian Olympians and the other is a list of living Tasmanian Olympians. The Tasmanian Institute of Sport also maintain a list, but from what I've heard, that one contains mainlanders who moved to Tasmania after the Olympics. Tom Darcey was only listed on one of the TOC's lists and not on the others. Once I got all that sorted out I asked the Examiner to correct their omission on the public record. That resulted in the following story. Many thanks to Rob Shaw the sports editor at the Examiner for taking this seriously and writing the correction.
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Wednesday, 21 November 2007 |
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I think this is funny. I'm not trying to make a political statement here ( I used to hold Gunn's shares and I was at the anti pulp mill protest last weekend so I've had a foot in both camps so to speak) I just find this amusing. There must be more to this guy than meets the eye.
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Monday, 05 November 2007 |
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I have to share this photo. I feel a bit like that lady some times!
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Monday, 05 November 2007 |
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I got to spend some time with my brother Stuart and his wife Sharon on Saturday. It was great to catch up and very civilised as well since we met at Sal's in Salamanca and had a very nice lunch and a few beers whilst our children did their thing at the market. Aren't mobile phones a wonderful thing! Mel came around for tea that night and we tried to cook spinach and ricotta ravioli from scratch (as in we made the pasta as well) but it was a bloody disaster! I just couldn't get the pasta right and I didn't have some stuff so we ended up eating sometime after 9pm. At least the wine that Mel bought was good. It was a Spring Vale Pinot Gris from the Freycinet area on Tasmania's East Coast and it was most yummy. Are you wondering who Janice is? My desk at work is on the 7th floor over looking the Derwent River. The view is awesome and this morning the most amazing yacht I have ever seen in Hobart came up the river. It's called Janice of Wyoming and was made in New Zealand in 2005. I was working in Auckland during one of their America's Cup's so I've seen my fair share of super yachts, but this thing is just beautiful. I went down to the wharf and took a photo with my phone, but it doesn't do it justice. The size is mind blowing. It's 130 feet long. The boom is about as thick as I am high. The furling gear on the fore stay was about as thick as me. The photo I took is below. As I was watching a very pretty girl came onto the enclosed cockpit area with her tea and a glass of wine. I gave her a big smile which she returned, but unfortunately that was all I got. I'd give anything to have a look on board. I did a bit of digging and it looks as if it is owned by a very rich, but very private American. I think his name is Larry Finch, but I'm not too sure how he makes/made his money. I did a bit more digging, and I think this may be the guy here (I've looked a bit further and I'm now pretty sure this is the guy). If anyone on board reads this whilst you are still in Hobart, then please, please, please leave me a message so that I can get in touch and have a quick look on board. I'm not interested in the owners private areas, I just want to talk to the crew that sail it! There is a good story about this beautiful piece of work here and a second page here. One day I will be able to afford a yacht like yours Larry, and you will be welcome on board anytime!
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