Intermittent update
Sep. 28th, 2008 06:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
skyringThe difficult part about being a cabbie is the vast amount of time it consumes. Once I take out the sixty hours or so, and make room for sleep, there's really not a lot left over. I catch up with my friends on LJ or do something else online and I'm outta time.
I'm also outta room on my hard disk. The Macbook Air only has 80 gigs, and loading up more photographs isn't something I can do for a little while. I'm moving them across to a pocket drive, but that's another fourteen hours yet.
So no pix for the moment.
DD and I picked up the car on Tuesday. A Mazda 2 in silver, it replaces the rattly old Magna, which has been a fine family car for thirteen years, but is getting to the end of its useful life. We agreed to trade it in for five hundred dollars, but on reflection decided that the long registration was worth at least that much, and we'd keep it going until it dropped. This way we have four cars and four drivers.
The car is a little sweetie. Three doors and a small footprint. The rep ran us through a checklist, pointed out the free tank of petrol, the free floormats and handed us the free picnic blanket and the keys. For the first time in my life, I've bought a car without bothering to read through the owner's manual. All the controls are clearly marked and their functions are obvious. There are no features that I don't know about. Possibly the only really new thing is the auxiliary input to the sound system, allowing an iPod or similar to play.
I didn't get to drive it home. DD muscled me aside. In fact, in the five days we've had it, I've only managed to get the controls once, when I moved it a short distance in the driveway. This may change when the petrol tank empties.
Our other cars: the big Falcon, the rattly Magna and the yellow Getz, I drove one after the other on three successive nights, filling the tank each time. Hmmmm.
Misty the kitten is a sweetie. She and Coomie the terrier are gradually becoming comfortable with each other, touching noses and being civilised around the food bowls. Not quite curling up together in the afternoon sun, but getting there. In November we'll have her long term companion - a Bombay kitten - and a lot of fun.
Playful and noisy, Misty can be a handful, but all is forgiven when you look at her beauty. She should be a snow panther, with that soft white fur. Or a harp seal with the big green eyes.
Friday was the monster rally for taxidrivers. The government is releasing twenty-five more taxi plates in an attempt to get more taxis on the streets. In theory, this should cut delays, which can be horrendous at peak times. In practice, the problem isn't taxis per se, it's taxidrivers, and if there are twenty five more cabbies on the streets, that thins out the income stream for the existing cabbies, especially at off-peak times when every cabbie is hurting for work.
The way to fix the peak hour problems is to use the existing cabs more efficiently. If a plane arrives on Monday morning with a dozen staffers all heading for Parliament House, it's no good the dozen passengers queueing up and taking one cab each - a couple of maxi taxis would clear them quickly away. But there's no mechanism in place to organise that.
Anyway, enough of cabs - the idea is to vote out the current government, who have reached an elite level of arrogance and incompetence and shouldn't be trusted with another four years. Or at least give the balance of power back to the independents and minors, which is how it usually is here.
Seeing I was so close to Commonwealth Park, I dropped in on the spring flower festival of Floriade. Not usually my cup of tea, but it certainly is spectacular. A beautiful clear warm day and the show was being well and truly enjoyed.
And then to get my hair cut. Twenty dollars buys a lot of happiness, every time I glance in the mirror and see a neat trim, rather than the shaggy look I've been developing. And eyebrow(s) that don't look like a shrubbery.
Best to get the haircut done before going overseas. Only a few days away now!
I'm also outta room on my hard disk. The Macbook Air only has 80 gigs, and loading up more photographs isn't something I can do for a little while. I'm moving them across to a pocket drive, but that's another fourteen hours yet.
So no pix for the moment.
DD and I picked up the car on Tuesday. A Mazda 2 in silver, it replaces the rattly old Magna, which has been a fine family car for thirteen years, but is getting to the end of its useful life. We agreed to trade it in for five hundred dollars, but on reflection decided that the long registration was worth at least that much, and we'd keep it going until it dropped. This way we have four cars and four drivers.
The car is a little sweetie. Three doors and a small footprint. The rep ran us through a checklist, pointed out the free tank of petrol, the free floormats and handed us the free picnic blanket and the keys. For the first time in my life, I've bought a car without bothering to read through the owner's manual. All the controls are clearly marked and their functions are obvious. There are no features that I don't know about. Possibly the only really new thing is the auxiliary input to the sound system, allowing an iPod or similar to play.
I didn't get to drive it home. DD muscled me aside. In fact, in the five days we've had it, I've only managed to get the controls once, when I moved it a short distance in the driveway. This may change when the petrol tank empties.
Our other cars: the big Falcon, the rattly Magna and the yellow Getz, I drove one after the other on three successive nights, filling the tank each time. Hmmmm.
Misty the kitten is a sweetie. She and Coomie the terrier are gradually becoming comfortable with each other, touching noses and being civilised around the food bowls. Not quite curling up together in the afternoon sun, but getting there. In November we'll have her long term companion - a Bombay kitten - and a lot of fun.
Playful and noisy, Misty can be a handful, but all is forgiven when you look at her beauty. She should be a snow panther, with that soft white fur. Or a harp seal with the big green eyes.
Friday was the monster rally for taxidrivers. The government is releasing twenty-five more taxi plates in an attempt to get more taxis on the streets. In theory, this should cut delays, which can be horrendous at peak times. In practice, the problem isn't taxis per se, it's taxidrivers, and if there are twenty five more cabbies on the streets, that thins out the income stream for the existing cabbies, especially at off-peak times when every cabbie is hurting for work.
The way to fix the peak hour problems is to use the existing cabs more efficiently. If a plane arrives on Monday morning with a dozen staffers all heading for Parliament House, it's no good the dozen passengers queueing up and taking one cab each - a couple of maxi taxis would clear them quickly away. But there's no mechanism in place to organise that.
Anyway, enough of cabs - the idea is to vote out the current government, who have reached an elite level of arrogance and incompetence and shouldn't be trusted with another four years. Or at least give the balance of power back to the independents and minors, which is how it usually is here.
Seeing I was so close to Commonwealth Park, I dropped in on the spring flower festival of Floriade. Not usually my cup of tea, but it certainly is spectacular. A beautiful clear warm day and the show was being well and truly enjoyed.
And then to get my hair cut. Twenty dollars buys a lot of happiness, every time I glance in the mirror and see a neat trim, rather than the shaggy look I've been developing. And eyebrow(s) that don't look like a shrubbery.
Best to get the haircut done before going overseas. Only a few days away now!
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