Operation New Stove Complete

Two more weeks to vacation !! Wendy arrives on 7 July and we are off on our big adventure on 9 July.

The Stove (Continued)

I was in the middle of a meeting when I get a call from the discount electronics store from which  I bought my tenant's new stove.  The gist of the conversation was that they were about to deliver the stove.  This would be good if I had arranged that with the tenant and the electrician.  (Note:  here in Australia stove are not plugged in but rather wired directly into the electrical system of the house).  I said that was not convenient and I would call them back.  A minute later I get another call saying that the stove needs to be delivered because it was scheduled to be delivered.  I said that was crazy as I never spoke to them about delivery.  Needless to say after the meeting I got on the phone and organised with the tenant and the electrician for delivery the next day after work.  When I called the store they were unable to say whether or not they could deliver.  I was glad to see that the stove was there when I got home the next day.  The electrician disconnected the old stove, we moved it and unpacked the new stove.   Unfortunately there was a big dent and scratch on the side of the stove.  I called the store.  There advice was for me to bring back the stove.  That was not really possible on my bike and they didn't have another stove except for the floor model anyway.  We negociated a discount on the stove.  We installed it and then the really bad thing happened.  The oven racks wouldn't fit in the stove.  After a trip to the electronics store we determined this was due to the dent.  The stove would need to be disconnected and returned.  

Long story short - the stove was returned (picked up by the store) and I organised for the stove my friend offered me a few weeks ago to be installed.  It turns out that it is a better stove and my tenant is happier.  It as a lot of hassle and I don't think I will buy anything from that shop again.

Travel back to the USA

Well apparently due to flight changes due to fuel costs my flight back to the US has been cancelled.  I am currently working with the travel agent to reschedule.  It looks as though I will be arriving earlier on Christmas eve.  When I have more definite plans, I will let you all know.

The Wood Duck

I have previously mentioned about the wood duck.  It is the award for doing the dumbest/ funniest thing at work.  Last week Dave from my department played a game of soccer at lunch.  Three of us were all in the office afterwards with all three doors open.  He says "Kris I hope you don't mind if I change my shirt".  Then as we are talking about various work related things and he says "Don't look I am changing my shorts".  Needless to say I was a tad bit surprised.  After he got the wood duck he said "at least I kept my boxers on".  It was a good laugh for us all.

Winter is Here?

June 1 signals the official start of winter here in Australia. However, it is winter at its absolute mildest. This morning I had to wear a long sleeve shirt at 9am - very chilly (ha, ha). Every day I walk or ride down the bike path. Last week they built a cute little gazebo by the bike path near my house. Here are a couple of pictures of the gazebo and bike path.

Events of the Week
New Stove
My tenant brought of the remains of the rounded things that go under the heating elements in an electric stove. Hers had rusted out. I thought "No problem" just order an replacement. It is not quite that easy. I called Westinghouse (the manufacturer) but they said without the model number it is impossible to send replacements and if it is an old stove it is unlikely that they make them anymore anyway. Well the model number was unreadable on the stove. I went to a stove repair place and got the same story. After thinking of having them made and thinking of trying to get out to the tip (the Aussie term for the dump), I decided that buying a new stove was the way to go. I found one on sale but then decided to buy an extended warranty and have it delivered so I ended up paying more than the ticket price anyway. I don't have it yet as they had to order one in unless I wanted to take the floor model.

Then in Australia all the stoves are wired into the electrical system (verses using a plug) so I need to get an electrician to disconnect the old and reconnect the new. I lucked out there as one of the people who are taking my foster dog is an electrician and he has said he will do it for me. Now I have to pay to have the old stove taken away. Is there no end to this I ask myself?

A bit of belated good luck on Sunday - a friend offered to give me a stove.  I guess I will replace both stoves (the one in my rental unit and the one in my unit).


Theft vs Prank
Many of you have heard stories of people I work with and will know immediately who I am talking about in this story. Last week we had a raffle at work to support Beyond Blue. One guy won a six pack of Corona. A couple of pranksters swapped out two of the Corona for Hahn Light (comparable to Bud Light). The guy flew into a rage and went off about the theft of his beer. The next work day (this was after the weekend and holiday monday) he complained to the principal about a thief at work. Needless to say that several people thought this was quite funny. He then got the Wood Duck award (given out weekly to teachers doing a stupid thing) which, of course, set him off again.

Harriers
Sunday was a great morning for a bit of a walk.  I did 7km with Harriers.  I took a few pictures along the way with my phone.  It was a dual purpose activity.  I wanted a few photos for here but I also wanted to be sure that I know how to use the bluetooth functions on the phone and on my macbook.  Here are a few photos of the beach and the iconic Geraldton lighthouse.

Won the Footy Tipping

Footy Tipping

I set up the work online football betting competition (called tipping here).  Since I set it up, I decided that I should enter despite the fact that I have little interest or knowledge of Aussie Rules football.  There are sixteen participants and throughout the comp I have been at the bottom (14, 15, or 16).  Last week I won the weekly picks.  I moved up to 8th position.  I would love to chalk this up to skill but it is more like one guy at work said "only someone with no knowledge of football would have done well this week".  I believe that I have moved up again this week.  I got six out of eight correct.  However, the site is currently closed while they update the comp.

Greenough Walk

I did an 8.5 km walk with the Geraldton Harriers club.  The walk was in Greenough south of Geraldton.  It was very green due to a decent amount of rain this year.  However, this morning it was dry which was good for walking.  The walk started at the Pioneer Museum and went along a road into the sand dunes.  You can check out some photos here.  I took them with my broken camera.  I had to go into school and use a card reader to get the photos off the camera.  It was a good thing I walked in the am because it poured in the late afternoon.

Foundation Day

Monday is Foundation Day and a holiday here.  I would to say that I don't have to go to work but being a bit of a workaholic I am going in.  I went in yesterday to do the computer stock take.  Tomorrow I need to review my staff's reports  (I started this yesterday but found numerous typos, spelling and grammar errors) and clean up the server.  I hope it won't take too long.

Wood Duck

Each week the person who does the stupidest or funniest thing at work gets an award called the Wood Duck.  I was the lucky recipient last week.  I was trying to show this new Hungarian teacher how the school internet filters work.  Figuring that if I typed "porn" into a Google search I would get the filter message, I demonstrated this.  Unfortunately, it didn't work.  Luckily, I only got a list of results and no images.  It still somewhat astounds me that putting in myspace will bring an immediate filter block but porn will not.  One of my coworkers volunteered to check out the porn links.  What a guy! (ha, ha).  It did come up as blocked once you clicked on the porn links.  I am glad to hear that we are protecting our young charges at school.

Reading

I am currently reading The Prisoner of Guantanamo (Fesperman) and listening to London Bridges (Patterson).  

Movies

I haven't seen much of interest lately.  I saw Elizabeth which was okay.  I just saw a quick overview of Blindness and that looks interesting.  However, I doubt it will make it to Australia before I leave.

Bowling

The first week back to school has been very, very hectic.  It started out well with a day of professional development.  I organized the day for the Business and Computing staff.  We did quite of bit of curriculum improvement stuff but also some technical skills.  The last hour of the day was devoted to team building.  We went bowling.  It was a lot of fun and seemed to further develop the department collegiality.   The rest of the week was crazy with the new teacher notebooks arriving and an array of computer / network problems.  

No one has called to see my foster dog that I am keeping for Geraldton Dog Rescue.  He peed on the carpet so I am keeping an extra close eye on him.  I keep him in the laundry room at night but the last two nights he locked himself in the small bathroom (which only holds a toilet) off the laundry room.  Dad theorizes that the dog was chasing something behind the door so I need to prop it open with something heavy.

Tomorrow I am off to Harriers to do a 7km walk at the Greenough River.  I think it will be pretty challenging as I have heard that it is through the sand dunes.

Whale Sharks

Dad let me know that there is a program in Georgia where injured Iraq veterans swim with whale sharks.  While searching for information on that I came across this video about whale sharks. 

Mission Whale Shark Accomplished

UPDATE: Photos Here

After ten long weeks of work I headed up to the Ningaloo Reef with Tanya (a fellow teacher). We stopped for the night in Carnavon to visit with her mom and then went up to Exmouth the next day. As it was a 900 km journey the stop was welcome. Our first day in Exmouth we went to a small beach called Bundegi and did a snorkel. Although the conditions weren't ideal it was just what we needed after driving so far.

The next day I went on the whale shark tour and Tanya went out on a dive boat to the Murion Islands. There were 18 people on my tour. We headed around to the west side of the cape and took a boat to the outside of the reef. We saw some dolphins on the way. There we had a snorkel. It wasn't spectacular but I saw a couple of turtles.

The whale shark spotter plan went up and we headed south to snorkel with the whale sharks. Each boat can only stay with the whale shark for 90 minutes and swimmers can only be in the water for 60 minutes. The company that I went with (Ningaloo Reef Dreaming) uses its own spotter plane so we were not going to have to share any shark sightings with other boats. There are also rules about where you can be in relations to the whale shark. You need to be 3 m from the shark on the sides and 4m from the shark around the tail. You are not allowed to be in front of the shark.

The plane did not immediately find a whale shark so we had a bit of a swim and later another snorkel. Then right as we sat down to lunch the spotter plane found two whale sharks for us. The first group finished eating and geared up. When we were near the area the whale shark had been seen one of the guides jumped in and located the shark. He swam along side and then the other swimmers jumped in. They were supposed to immediately look for the shark and then swim to the side of the shark (as opposed to the front of the shark). In the excitement they forgot.

Our group got their chance in a bit. It was really exciting. I got quite a few photos. The groups swapped back and forth. On my second swim I was getting a bit tired. I then realised that it was only me, the guide and the shark. The rest of the people couldn't keep up. When I got back to the boat the skipper and the deckie were really impressed. In their words "Girl you can swim". It was a great experience. I got another two swims. It was really great.

The only down side of the day was that somehow I lost my sunglasses. The crew said that we swam with the shark all up for 51 minutes. The average swim time of the other tour operators in 2007 was 6 minutes. For the operator that I went with the average swim time in 2007 was 48 minutes so we had a great swim. The whale shark wasn't huge. It was 3.5m. The big ones in the area run around 10-12 m. The largest one seen is 18m.

Tanya had a good day diving. She did three dives and was quite pleased.

The next day we drove into Ningaloo Reef Marine Park and snorkeled at a couple of places. The best was Turquoise Bay. We saw a few dolphins as we walked down the beach. I did two snorkels there. There were heaps of fish. On the first snorkel I also saw a reef shark. On the second snorkel I found a turtle that let me swim with it for about 15-20 minutes. It went up for air twice, swam gracefully around and ate a bit of something from the sea floor. It was really great. Unfortunately, my camera quit working.

Later we went back to Exmouth and I read by the pool for the rest of the day. Later I found that I had really sunburned my back and bottom. It was very, very painful.

The next day we drove down to Coral Bay. Tanya and I did a nice snorkel there. The corals there are so great - a great variety of color, size and shape. My favorite is the lavender coral. Due to my sunburn I spent the rest of the day in the shade. Tanya did a ATV tour and had a super time.

Just before sunset I spread some of my mom's ashes in the bay. She very much enjoyed her visit to Coral Bay several years ago. Amazingly my camera came to life just to take a photo of the area I put the ashes. I am not sure if that was heavenly intervention or fate.

Today we drove back. It took about 8 hours so I am a bit done in.

I tried to get the photos off my camera. I think it is only the display that is broken. However, I couldn't get them. I am going to try to use a card reader to get them directly from the memory card. I will post them if I can.

All in all it was a really great trip.

Do these types of things happen to others?

Plans to return to the US
Last week I went checked into the frequent flier site to try and book a flight back to the US in December. I waited a bit too long and the only one available was after Christmas so I looked around for other options. I found a round the world fare that looked interesting but it didn't work out. I then found a fare with Thai Airways that was okay. The travel agent said that I only needed to put down a deposit but that I needed to pay for the flight within 30 days. I actually had two reservations - one on Dec 19 and one on Dec 23. (My last day of work is Dec 18). The Dec 19 one seemed a bit of a push but I thought that maybe I could swing it. I wanted to check out a bit more as far as shipping my stuff back.

Then on Tuesday (six days later) I get an email saying that I had one day to pay (and decide on which day to travel).  That was a bit of a shock.  I ended up buying the ticket.  I didn't think I could find a better fare.  I am taking the Dec 23rd flight.  I will arrive in the US on Dec 24 at 7pm.  I will book a flight to PHX on Southwest.  Unfortunately, I can't yet get that ticket because Southwest doesn't book that far ahead.

Dog Rescue

I got another dog rescue dog - a small Jack Russell named Molly.  However, I got home on Thursday and she was gone.  I just couldn't figure it out.  Then I realized that part of my back fence was pushed in separating it from another section.  Both dogs must have escaped through there.  I am not sure how the fence was broken - perhaps it was the wind or the neighbors.

Work Clothing disaster

Generally I ride my bike to the gym before school and shower and change at work.  Friday I didn't pack my work skirt by accident and spent a hour trying to round up the school car.  I was walking around in my small and smelly workout clothes.  No one seemed to know where the car was and when it would be back at school.  In the end I borrowed a car and went home and changed.  Not the best start to the day.

More Positive Note

One more week of work and then I have two weeks vacation.  I am heading up to Exmouth for several days in the first week.  I hope to see the whale sharks.