One day to go ….

Posted on December 6, 2012 by Mike

Tomorrow, Friday 7th, will be my last day at work. I had hoped to sneak away quietly without any fuss, but my boss has organised a farewell for me. I threatened to just take a sickie tomorrow (I do have 223 sick days credited to me!) but to no avail, I just hope she does n’t expect me to make much of a speech, that’s not my thing.
I have n’t really got time for that sort of crap tomorrow morning either, got lots to do in the morning !
Been really busy lately, racing around getting all my personal stuff done, fixing up my ute for the trip. One of the girls from work bought a lot of my gear the other day, so I quickly spent the money getting the aircon serviced, and the windows tinted…..going to make the summer driving a lot more pleasant !
The final garage sale will be on Saturday, so I’ve been cleaning up my garden tools, the lawnmower, and some empty plant pots…the garden is on it’s own from now until I move out. It really is amazing how much junk you can accumulate without noticing it, there seems to be an endless supply of odds and ends that I had not used, or even seen, for a long time.
And to think that I spent most of my 20 years in the army living in barracks , in a small room, smaller than just one bedroom of this house. Now I have to reduce my wordly possessions down to what will fit into the ute. After the essentials such as camping gear(tent, stove, food,12v fridge, etc), laptop, camera gear and a few guidebooks there might be space for 2 bags of clothes ! So anything else gets sold or thrown out……

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Garage sale time.

Posted on November 24, 2012 by Mike

Well, I got rid of some of my junk today, and made about $500 in the process. This morning my garage was chock-a-block full, now it is almost empty (while the opposite is true for my wallet LOL). I still have plenty of gear to get rid off though, but not yet … it’s too soon to get rid of the fridge and washing machine etc. The final clearance will be in 2 weeks, anything not sold then will be offered to the Salvos, and if they don’t want it, it will be going to the dump.

My advert in the local paper said from 8a.m., but the first guy arrived at around 6.30 ! At that time I had only just started getting the outside set up, so I had to stop work and keep an eye on him. In fact most of the items were sold by the scheduled starting time of 8.00.

G.A.S. part 2

The lens I recently wrote about turned out to be broken when it arrived, I had been waiting for my camera to come back from Nikon after a sensor cleaning so when it did arrive I tried out the new lens and could n’t work out why every image was over exposed. Then when I held the lens up to the light and looked through it I saw that several of the aperture blades were missing. It seems the lens must have been damaged in shipping from B&H. They were quick to authorise a return though, no questions asked, so kudos to B&H.

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Good news, and bad news….

Posted on November 14, 2012 by Mike

The good news is that my house is sold ! And for quite a bit more than I was expecting to actually get, and more than the unit next door sold for a few months ago. And a LOT quicker too !

The bad news is that some idiot at the Passports Office has entered the wrong data into my file. I tried to renew my passport the other day, and the security question is “what is your mother’s maiden name?” They tried to tell me I was wrong about my mother’s name …no mate, YOU are wrong ! So instead of a simple renewal, I now have to apply for a new passport, which means I have to get a certificate of citizenship first, which requires certified copies of paperwork and up to 8 weeks processing time, then I can apply for the new passport. The problem is that I will need a residential address, but I will not have one by then ! Because the house sold so quickly I am going to be of “no fixed address” sooner than anticipated….

It will be too early to head up north as it will be Wet Season, so I am thinking about just renting a cheap place in Cooma as a home base for a couple of months. Rents are dirt cheap there, it’s a nice little town (I’ve lived there before) and has easy access to the mountains to go fishing or hiking, up to Canberra or down to the coast. I reckon I could easily spend a couple of months there, then start to make my way up north.

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G.A.S.

Posted on November 8, 2012 by Mike

G.A.S….(.Gear Acquisition Syndrome)… an addiction often caught from visiting Adorama or B&H Photo   websites.

I’ve had a relapse.

I’ve bought another lens.

Nikon AF Nikkor 85mm f/1.8D Lens

Just when I thought I was kicking this case of GAS, I went and bought an 85mm lens , the f/1.8D model as it is just a smidgeon smaller. I want to try some more rodeo photography, this should give me a little bit more light for the later rounds in the evening. Most of my shots at the local rodeo  recently were taken with a zoom at around 70 to 80 mm mark (as I use a DX camera, that’s equivalent to about 100mm).

The parcel arrived from B&H this morning, now I’ve just got to wait for my camera to come back from Nikon’s service dept in Sydney …..

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The first potential buyer ?

Posted on November 1, 2012 by Mike

The first potential buyer came around for a look at my home today, apparently she liked the look of it, but we will have to wait and see if she makes an offer….. a reasonable offer that is !!

Now, either I’m getting old, or real estate agents are getting younger, but the agent that came out looked like he should still be at school. He certainly looked too young to be wearing a suit and tie ! Still, if he can seal the deal who cares how old he is or looks. My place has only been officially on the market for about 10 days, so I am not really expecting anything concrete from the first person to look at it. I don’t need to sell immediately, I’m not under any financial pressure or anything so I am quite prepared to wait for a decent offer……so stay tuned!

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Discovered – more blogs to read !

Posted on October 27, 2012 by Mike

After a busy morning spent tidying the garden, and sorting out definite household rubbish to be thrown out now from mere probable rubbish (that will get thrown out later) and potential garage sale material (that will get thrown out if it does n’t sell), and taking the consequent 2 loads of said rubbish to the garbage tip, I rewarded myself with  chocolate and a can of Coke and decided to spend 15 minutes or so on the ‘net. 3 hours later, I’m still here ……

Nothing much new on the usual blogs and websites I read, but I did discover a few new ones to read, in particular http://bangkokiloveyou.com/ and http://www.krungthep101.net/ , both worth looking at if you are interested in Thailand or expat life.

Claire at “Bangkok I love you” talked about stuff she had left at home : “We store all these mementos that will sit for years in boxes and when we finally pull them out we feel nostalgic for about ten minutes then forget about them again.” (http://bangkokiloveyou.com/2012/10/17/1281/)  I’ve accumulated many souvenirs and sentimental momentoes over the years, but I will not have room to take them with me when I eventually move to Thailand, and nobody to leave them with, so out they are going……

Willy at Krungthep 101 is a keen photographer like myself, so I was interested to see his take on some familiar places. He also has some posts on some rather unusual attractions … check out thePapaya vintage shop story ! ( http://www.krungthep101.net/2012/01/papaya-vintage-shop.html )

My own photography will have to take a short break, as my D7000 has to go into the Nikon service for a sensor clean. I do have several hundred slides to look through, scanning some of them into digital memories. They are mainly from my trips to Nepal and India, and I am loath to completely discard those memories. Of course there is always the other option, that of going back again, with a digital camera this time ……

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