I Quit!

I quit my job. That is, I reverted to my previous role as a casual RN in the mental health system. I found that working as I had been had become completely untenable for a number of reasons, not the least of which was the fact that I had burnt out. I don’t mean that in its lighter sense, being sick of the job (though there was that) and the environment (which played a massive role)… I am talking about the burnout that creeps up on you and you don’t even notice. The kind that makes you think you are the only one who can do something, who’s right for a particular client, who understands better than anyone. I was forced to face my shortcomings and realised that there was no alternative… I reached my physical and emotional limits.

I will be retiring from the workforce entirely, once the mortgage is paid off. I’ve been wrecked for way too long.

Moved again

Glad I kept this subdomain. I’m giving up the hamarana.com domain and the hosting. 10 years is long enough and I’m just… over it… I’ll put a link into the current webspace and over the next 8 months or so people can change their bookmarks and google can find me again.

Its enough to be here, now.

‘Nuff Said

Cartoon by Dave Walker. Find more cartoons you can freely re-use on your blog at We Blog Cartoons.

The Spam is getting Nastier

I trawl through my spam trap from time to time to see if anything worthy has been wrongly tagged, and found some spam-tagged comments which included links to what would appear to be innocent on the surface (or not quite so innocent.. ), and underneath the html is an executable which would download to a windows computer and execute code without so much as a by-your-leave.

I hope all you Windows users are well protected.

Warning! Rant Ahead!

My day started fairly well, I was awake at a ridiculous hour, having crashed at 7pm last night, so I thought I would take myself down to the ocean as I so often do, and see what the sunrise would bring. As it happens, it wasn’t a lot, but it was quite pleasant down there, watching the ocean and the early surfers, and taking a few shots (which it turns out were a complete washout but thats for another story, maybe)…

I headed for home after an hour or so of pottering about, and this is when I began to experience extremes of irritation. I do understand that bicycle riders need to be given a chance on the road. They have barely any protection, and in collision with a car, will always come off second best, if they should happen to survive. Its only 12 years since I quit riding on the road, and I do remember how fraught it can be.

HOWEVER (here it comes!)

I get really ticked off with bike riders who refuse to take any responsibility for their own safety. There was a boy of 20 or so, racing along on his mountain bike. He was wearing a helmet and runners, shorts and a jacket. He passed me at a set of traffic lights and then I passed him further along. I had to stop at a T interesection and wait a bit before being able to make my left turn for an immediate right turn. I began the turn as soon as the road in front was clear and at this exact moment, this complete IDIOT raced past me on my left, cut across in front of my car (I had now had to brake suddenly, praying the guy behind would see what was going on) and then into the lane ahead of me where I wanted to turn. Apart from being completely illegal, the guy is dicing with death. But you know whats the pain in the ass for drivers? If perchance I had not been able to stop in time, and had knocked him off his bike, *I* would have been considered to be in breach of the law, and would have been charged at least with negligent driving. How the hell does that work???

Then I went past him again, and unluckily was unable to get through the next set of lights before they turned red again, so was sitting in a line of traffic… the bike guy caught up with the cars again, and went to the head of the queued vehicles… as the pedestrian light turned green (but not yet green for cars) this fool raced across the road on the bike and on into some bike paths, which is the last I saw of him. As far as I could tell, from when I saw him the first time, he broke at least 3 different laws, one of them twice, and still, had anything happened to him, he would not have been held to blame.

Something needs to be done about these fools, they are just as bad as any road hoon, as far as I am concerned.

Council Cleanup and Scumbag Scavengers

You might think I am over-reacting, but I am totally amazed at the behaviour of scavengers. I put a bunch of stuff out on the street in readiness for council cleanup. You know, old broken office chair. A stereo thats elderly but not totally past it, I just dont want it anymore and its not sellable. A couple of perfectly good bedside lamps which might have served someone well. A coffee maker. Two heaters, getting on a bit but still useable, I just don’t need them now. Two water filter units, both still serviceable.

I expected people to come by and pick stuff they wanted. I expected that most of the stuff would be gone by tonight (I put it out this morning around 9am). But that is not what happened. Within an hour of my putting the stuff out, scavengers had been by.

They cut all the electrical cords from the items mentioned above. In the case of the lamps, they didnt take the plugs, they just threw them on the ground. They cut off the metal spouts from the filters, and they took the old metal kettle, and an office chair which was broken, obviously for the metal. They have left everything in a state where if someone comes by now, there is nothing retrievable. What completely selfish bastards.

I’ve been out tonight and tidied up the mess they left, because they scattered it around: as they were finished with each item, they just threw it to the ground. The council may not even pick up my stuff now, its in bits and pieces, not all neatly stacked as it was.

I am bloody furious. And there’s not a damned thing I can do about it. One thing is for certain… I wont be doing council cleanup again, anytime soon.

Heat: Over it.

I was awake half the night. It was hot, my airconditioning doesn’t cope with extremes of heat, and the cats were restless. So, came the morning, I decided to head to the beach before dawn. The following photograph is of a promise. Of more heat, of oppressive humidity, and a day so hot it felt like the atmosphere was on fire.

A thunderstorm later in the day has helped a little, but not much. Tomorrow, more of the same.