On Sunday (that bloody hot day !) one of my brothers and my dad and I climbed the Harbour Bridge ! 'Twas excellent !

All the details plus pics are on my website web.me.com/terri.parkinson/Terris_Adventures/Welcome.html

Tags: adventure
Current Location: Home
Current Mood: busy

It's been so long since I did a general update that it's about time I did :)
This year has been so insanely busy....... I can't believe it's the end of October already !  WTF happened to April through October ?  I demand a recount *lol*.

I've been doing a course on NLP & Hypnosis, that has been intensely busy.  I have a week away doing Presentation & Platform skills next week.  I'll be learning how to be a compelling speaker on a stage - to groups of a couple of people to thousands of people.  I'm a little bit nervous *lol*

I have another one at the end of November and then a break until mid next year, when I'll be attending another week-long course in Portugal :)  I'm looking forward to that.
 
My iMac is at the doctors - I miss it so much, which is a bit sad.  I've got to say that Apple is absolutely brilliant when it comes to service.  It's a couple of years old and the repair is free :)  Just my type of price !  It has a couple of lines going down the screen, which considering it's age and usage is really minor.

Work has been insanely busy.  My co-worker is away for 2 months.  He gets back at the end of November.  I've been doing both our jobs, and my boss has had a few days here and there to go and watch car races, so during those times I was doing some of his stuff too.  It's been intense and stressful.  I showed him a few things that he'll need to cover during my absence next week and I think he was a little surprised at it all.  I'm counting the days until Fred's back !  I'll be taking my macbook with me to the hotel this week and dialling in at night when we finish to check a few things and hopefully take some pressure off my boss.

I also had my birthday this week, which was nice.  Went out for lunch with the family on Sunday in the pouring rain :)  My brother's birthday is a few days before mine so we usually have a combined lunch which makes it easier for everyone to get to.  For our pressies we received adventures.  We're going to do the Rocks Ghost Tour on the 5th December, all 6 of us, and Dad, Jay and I are doing the Harbour Bridge climb on the 22nd November.  I'm looking forward to it.  Then another friend and I are doing the Canyoning and Abseiling adventure tinyurl.com/yjgg4dv in December.  My website web.me.com/terri.parkinson is going to be getting some updates !

At the moment I'm supposed to be doing research for the coming weeks training and am procrastinating a little bit, I think my brain is on overload - It'll be completely fried by the end of next week !

Happy Beltaine for those who are celebrating .........

Current Location: Home
Current Mood: busy

Today I went to pay for my Green-slip. I got out the renewal from AAMI and was gobsmacked to find they wanted to charge me $681.00. I thought – That’s absurd !

I got online and checked out the prices using the price calculator. I ended up going with GIO for $397.85

I rang AAMI and apparently the reason is they don’t like Real Insurance for my comprehensive insurance therefore I don’t get credited for 60% No Claim Bonus which would have brought the price down to $424.00.

I’m thinking this is a sneaky way of trying to eliminate a new competitor from the market – or am I just a cynic ?

They have lost this customer - for good !

Current Location: Work
Current Mood: amused

With all the news about Swine Flu vaccinations now being available and countries across the world trying to vaccinate most of their populations it got me to wondering.  How many people will be getting vaccinated ?  

Poll #1467605 Swine Flu Vaccination
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 4

Will you be getting vaccinated against the Swine Flu

Tags: swine flu
Current Location: Work
Current Mood: curious

I don't often post - I'm not a very good blogger - sorry :)
 

Next Tuesday night I'm going to a talk by Malalai Joya.  She was the Afghan Parliamentarian that they booted out of parliament because she called the current puppet government officials warlords and called for them to be charged with war crimes.
 
She's here to launch her book "Raising my Voice".

If you're interested I'd love to see you there :)

This is the Blurb:

Malalai Joya was elected to the first Afghan parliament but evicted for speaking out against the warlords. For the last five years she has lived under constant threat and moves between safe houses daily. The BBC calls her the most courageous woman in the world. Her book will resonate around the world; hearing her speak will be a lifetime experience.

Joya will speak and sign her book in Sydney, Brisbane, Perth, Adelaide and Melbourne. Dates and venues are announced on the SAWA web site at

www.sawa-australia.org/events.htm

and are also listed here:
 

( Read more... )

Tags: rawa
Current Location: Work

Has anyone heard that Australia is soon going to insist that all millers add Folic acid to their flour for bread making purposes ?  This will come into affect by the 13th September this year.

It all sounds nice and fluffy - ensuring that women who are likely to get pregnant get enough folic acid, reducing the risk of miscarriage and making babies healthier.

However, it also doubles the risk of Prostate cancer in men and is linked to an increase of respiratory complications in babies. It also increases the risk of colon polyps in people who are prone to them.  In people who have colon cancer cells then research has shown that taking folic acid supplements feeds the cancers and helps them spread. It's also linked to Neurological damage in the elderly - great stuff *not*

It's also been linked to a higher incidence of twins.

What really pisses me off is the Food Standards Australia website justifies this ludicrous decision by writing:

"High doses of folic acid are not known to have any adverse effects on healthy individuals.   Based on the best scientific evidence, there is no apparent risk to public health and safety from the estimated increase in folic acid intakes due to mandatory fortification.   Health authorities will be monitoring the effectiveness of the increased levels of folic acid in the food supply."

This is complete and utter bullshit !  There have been numerous articles in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute (US); Archives of Disease in Childhood (US) ; Medical News Today (US);  Journal of the American Medical Association; Insider Medicine (Norway) ; Cancer Epidemiology Biomarkers & Prevention - journals that are not exactly schlocky !  How can they do this, without any education, discussion, or even letting people know the facts !  They just lied.

Apparently you will be able to get around this by buying organic bread. - Blech !  It tastes like cardboard that's been recycled about a dozen times, then treated with concrete !

I'm really ticked about it.  I wonder how much the people who made this decision were paid by the vitamin lobby.


gggrrrrr
 

***Edit 16/03/09****
Just found this:

The incidence of prostate cancer varies widely around the world, with by far the highest rates in the USA and Canada.  EUROPREVAL study

Guess which 2 countries have fortified their bread with Folic Acid for over 10 years ?

Bah-bloody-humbug !

Tags: bloody lying government !
Current Location: Home
Current Mood: pissed off

What a fabulous weekend ! Beltaine 08 was a brilliant success. I enjoyed it immensely even though I worked my butt off. Richard and I drove down and arrived just after 2. We were the first and I took the opportunity to get out of the car, stretch my legs, and take heaps of photos of plants and rocks and flowers and the view. It is such a stunning area.

( Read more... )

Tags: beltaine 08
Current Location: Work
Current Mood: complacent

It's been a very long week.  Work is insane but what else is new ?

Both my parents are in hospital - but for different things.  Luckily they are in the same hospital which makes visiting easier.  Dad went in last Monday for an op and might be allowed to go home tomorrow.

Mum went in Thursday but  there's no indication yet of when she'll be released.

Yesterday I was supposed to go to a fundraiser but didn't get there.  Another friend is quite ill and house-bound so I went and spent some time with him, dropping him in a DVD I'd ordered for him from the US.  I thought I'd only be there for an hour but it didn't quite work out that way.  I then had to go find something for Fathers day.  After running around all day I totally flaked and completely forgot another friends house-warming party.

Today I went and visited the olds - in the city (which I hate) in the hospital (which I hate - they give me the creeps). I caught up with one of my brothers and he's going through a nasty time, poor bugger.

I finally got home tonight and decided to catch up on most of this week's email.  That's when I realised that I'd forgotten to do half of what I should have done this weekend.

I don't feel like I've had a weekend :(

During last week there was a baby bird at work who didn't have any tail feathers.  He was such a cute little thing.  I thought he was one of those Indian Miner birds.  I kept picking him up off the ground and putting him in the tree so that he wasn't eaten by the cats that wander through.  On Friday he looked so sad and I knew that if I didn't do something he wouldn't be there on Monday.

I looked up the closest vet and gave them a call.  The lady said that because it was a "pest" that Wires wouldn't take him but if I brought the bird in they would take care of it until it's tail feathers grew back.

I caught the poor little thing which took all of 2 seconds and put him in a box and drove him there.  The vet looked at him and said that he wasn't an Indian Miner but a Noisy Miner which is an Australian native.  They were going to check him out and then pass him on to Wires.  

I didn't even know there was an Australian native Miner bird.  I thought they were all imports.  So my little baby birdy now has a chance to get better and be released.

The Noisy Miner has a little yellow mark on his wing and the pest Indian Minor has a white mark on his wing.

Learn something new every day :)

*Edit*
This is the wiki entry for Noisy Miner http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noisy_Miner
This is the wiki entry for Indian Miner http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_miner

Just in case anyone wanted to check them out.

Current Mood: blank

Today was the first day back at work since our "Not a housewarming" party.  I got  the flu the next day and spent most of my time asleep until finally today I ventured into the office.

Some of my work colleagues had come to the party and today was the first time I could ask if they enjoyed it.  On the day I wondered (briefly) why one of my colleages had left early.  I just put it down to her and her partner wanting to get to a meeting they were going to early.

Today i found out that she'd been royally insulted by one of the other guests.  I heard snippets from others about the sorts of things that were said but didn't realise it was to the point that people left because they were uncomfortable and didn't want to cause a fuss.

I apologised and now I feel really bad.  They drove for 2 hours to come to the party.  It's disappointing.

All this got me to thinking about my propensity to cover for other people.  I made some excuses for the person making the comments, and I started wondering this afternoon why I always feel the need to cover for other people.

A couple of years ago another friend of mine went off the deep end at an event and caused all sorts of problems, with people leaving an event before it even started !  I got home and a day or two later received a phone call where the opening line was "What the f*ck happened ?".  I made excuses, apologised and to this day my friend has absolutely no idea how much of a problem she caused.   Should I have said "Here's her number - ring her and ask her" ?

Should I have given my work colleague the other persons contact details and suggested she ring her and demand an apology ?  Should I ring this other person and tell her how upset my colleague was by her comments ?

Is smoothing the waters for everyone some kind of character flaw ?

My head hurts ........

Current Location: Home
Current Mood: contemplative