Planes Trains Boats and Automobiles

PLANES: we just got back from a trip to Queensland. We flew up there on a direct flight from Launceston to Brisbane on Jetstar

TRAINS: we caught the Air Train from Brisbane airport to the City centre.

From the Roma St station we got a taxi to our accommodation at the Marque Hotel.

more Trains: Next day we caught the Cairns Tilt Train from Brisbane to Bundaberg.

What an awesome trip it was. Very comfortable, great scenery, we were well looked after by the staff of Qld Rail, they come around and offer you drinks and take your lunch orders. We both had Chicken Caeser salads and they were delicious. Took me nearly the entire 5 hour journey for me to eat mine, so great value for money there!

Automobiles: We were picked up by my friends ex husband Gary at the train station in Bundaberg. Luckily I had met him once before or I wouldn't have known who to look for, the platform at Bundaberg was crowded with people. Gary, I'm sure had forgotten what we looked like, last time I had met him I had just lost 40 kilo's after surgery so he knew me as a size 18, not a 24 like I am now :)

My friend lent me an old car to get around in for the two weeks we were in Qld. It sure was old, it had been in an accident with a train and a front end loader, there were huge scratches up the bonnet, it looked like a giant cat had clawed it. The drivers side door was all bent and the window didn't do up properly. It had also hit a kangaroo so the front grille was missing. It also made screaming noises when you started it up, maybe the big cat or the kangaroo were still under the bonnet? Or maybe they were both there scratching and fighting each other. Luckily the screaming stopped as the car warmed up. I think it was most likely a loose fan belt or similar!
The main thing was, it got us from A to B without breaking down. It was an old Laser and very econonomical on fuel. I think we did about 900km's and only put about $150 worth of fuel in it.
So, thanks to my friend, we saved about $600 in car hire, she also gave us free accommodation in her caravan park which we used for half of our trip (another huge saving which enabled us to stay in some flash accommodation in Hervey Bay and Rainbow Beach on the second week)

OCEANS THREE RESORT at Rainbow Beach

BOAT: The only boat we went on was the barge type boat that goes to Fraser Island from River Heads at Hervey Bay. We were actually picked up by bus from the Riviera Resort where we were staying, and taken to River Heads to meet the Barge.

This is the Riviera Resort

We walked on to the barge and up a flight of steps to a lounge area for the crossing to Fraser Island.

On the island we just did some walking trails on Kingfisher Bay and hung out on the beach, waiting for the gorgeous sunset. Then we had dinner at a bistro on the island and a bit more of a look around before catching the last boat back to Hervey Bay.

There were a lot of young people/backpacker on the boat who work at the Kingfisher Bay resort.
Next day we visited places like Burrum Heads and Woodgate Beach before heading back to Burnett Heads to pack all the parcels for the things we sold on ebay for my friend while we were at Hervey Bay.

PLANES: We didn't catch the train back to Brisbane this time, instead we caught one of those little Dash 8 prop jets that Qantas fly into Bundaberg. After being really afraid of flying, I found the Dash 8 great to travel in, an awesome experience. Only downside was the hostess asking me to lift my belly so she could check that the seatbelt was done up. It was great to not have to ask for an extension belt anymore, but on second thoughts I should have got one, just to slap her around the head LOL.

We only had an hour or so wait at Brisbane airport for our connection to Launceston. This too was a great trip. I think it helped that I had found You Tube movies of planes taking off and landing, which seemed to help desensitize me and remove some of my fear of flying.

SO.... home again .... and my feet have hardly touched the ground since. Only home for a few nights then we had to go to Hobart for my husbands work. The weather was dreadful and we had to drive thru floods on the highway getting home. Good ole Pajero!
And then we were only home a couple of nights when we managed a four night weekend away at St.Helens.
Back home on tuesday and I've been studying madly for my new job with Origin Energy.

I've also scored a part time job with the Australian Bureau of Statistics doing the upcoming Census. Thats why I want to get the Origin Energy training done and dusted so that I can get a handle on that before I begin the census training.

I think I've got a busy couple of months coming up. And somewhere in all that, I have to fit in a trip to Sydney (flying to Sydney, then picking up a car and driving it via Canberra to Melbourne, then home on the Spirit of Tasmania) Holy Crap. Why do I put myself thru it.

But I guess I wouldn't have it any other way.

Oh, and did I mention, I'm going to be photographing a beautiful wedding next weekend? Can't wait !!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

PLEASE RELEASE ME

I finally resigned from my job

I've been going to do it for the last 6 months, but have hung in there till now (I actually finish at Easter)

First and foremost, I hated the commute in the fog last winter. Its a 120km round trip commute each day for me, on a road where there are log trucks every 20 seconds on the road. People don't slow down in the fog anymore. I don't understand overtaking when you can't see if theres anything coming? Scary.

I don't get paid enough danger money to put myself through that again. No. They only pay me a miniscule $249 a week (take petrol out, and I'm left with less than $200 a week) So thats another reason to leave too. The nature of the job meant that I had to take work home with me too. Which made it hard to find the time to earn any additional income .

When I took this job on 16 months ago, it was advertised as a 15 hour a week job with the possibility of increasing the hours. I chose this job over a temporary full time job I was offered as a tour guide at the Beaconsfield Mine Museum. Basically because this was an ongoing job with the chance of increasing the hours. But, reality soon set in, they were never going to increase the hours. The workload was huge and as I said, I ended up taking work home and found myself working 7 days a week.

And because this place sold second hand goods, it was against company policy for anyone to buy anything from work and sell it on ebay. Well, ebay is how I have always generated some income between jobs, but I never bought anything from work and sold it on ebay. But I did feel that if I sold something of my own from around the house, that it might be misconstrued that I'd got it from work. So this always held me back from selling online for myself while I was working there. Thank goodness for Facebook and my lovely Vintage Queen customers!!

I'd really love to have the time to expand the vintage queen thing, so now that I've resigned, perhaps I will do a bit more of that?

Another thing, I had a fall down the stairs at work last November and the lasting effects from that, is that I have a torn Achilles tendon, which has limited my mobility immensely. If I was looking for another job that required me to stand on my feet all day, well, that is just out of the question now. Grrr. Its going to take a good 12 months for the Achilles to come right.

I used to play lots and lots of tennis years ago. I was keen to get back into it too. I'd just purchased a new racquet and tennis shoes and was about to join the local tennis club the week after my fall. Well, its not going to happen any time soon now. Bummer.

Why else did I need to leave? I have to write this down because I soon forget the bad stuff. Money, yep I'd like to earn more for the time I put in, thats for sure. It was never going to happen in that job. As much as it was great work, the bosses were awesome, the other workers all became great mates with me (everything I'd missed since I worked for Australia Post in Launceston years ago)!! There was one worker here tho, we got on fine and worked well together, but she sorted the books, and had unreal expectations of what they were worth, and was always on at me for selling them too cheap. On one hand I wanted to generate sales to keep my bosses happy, and on the other hand I wanted to keep the book-sorter lady happy too.

The bottom line was that I got sales on the board and sold items online for them for greatly more than they would get in their retail stores. But then this womans nagging got the better of me, and a few months ago, I decided to list the books for sale at the prices she told me to list them at.

Well, can you guess what happened? NO SALES. Hmm, we were suddenly not even making enough to cover my wages. This lady didn't think this was anything to be worried about.

By this stage I was buying time at work. I was ready to leave, as long as I was finished before for the foggy weather returned. (I look out my window as I write this, I live near a river, and its foggy as. First one for the year. I have 6 more days to commute before my last day, hopefully I can crack some fine weather on those days.

Anyway, it just showed that the formula I had been using previously was working, but this womans nagging was getting to me, so as a little exercise I tried selling the books at her price, and it didn't work. I think I just had to do that before I finally quit!!

So, after Easter, I can put some more time into my own little business, I have boxes of jewellery that I must take to the market and sell, plus I have a ROOM FULL of Holy Clothing items that I have imported which I need to figure the best way to get in and sell. Markets ? Party plan? Online selling? Not sure.

Also, I've been going thru interviews for the last few months to work at this place http://www.salesforceathome.com.au/ Training should start soon. I will be able to work my own hours and for the first time in 10 years, I'll finally be able to earn a REAL INCOME, I know someone who works for this place already and there is seriously good money to be made here (not mega millions, but compared to the pittance I've been earning for many years, I will finally be able to make ends meet again - YAY) bring it on I say.

I'M GOING ON A WORKING HOLIDAY

I'll only have just started out in my new venture when I will be taking two weeks off and going to Queensland. Every year my friend Lorna sends me her surplus clothes to sell on ebay for her. She has great taste in clothes and her stuff usually sells really well. We split the takings 50/50 each. Usually we make a couple of thousand bucks out of each little exercise, so its well worth it. Last year when she sent her stuff down from Qld, the postage cost HUNDREDS (I think it was close to $400) Well, I decided that next time, I would get cheap airfares and fly up there, have a short holiday and sell the clothes up there for her. Lorna runs a caravan park on the coast outside Bundaberg. So, as long as its not school holidays, she can give me a cabin to stay in. I cashed in my frequent flyer points which paid for the airfares. I'm flying to Brisbane, then the next day, will be catching the TILT TRAIN up to Bundaberg. How exciting, I've never done train travel on the mainland other than inner city commuter trains and once got the train up to the Blue Mountains (and can I count the Karanda tourist train in Cairns?) No, this is going to be something different, I think the tilt train is supposed to be one of those FAST sort of trains. Anyway, it will be better than driving the 5 hours up the Bruce Hwy with all the traffic and trucks. Its a horrible road. We usually go up the coast to Noosa and then link up with the Bruce, but its still a yucky drive from Gympie to Bundaberg, so very happy to be taking the train. Lorna also has a car we can use while there, apparently its a bomb and its been in an altercation with a Cane Train, but what the heck, no-one knows us up there, and as long as its got wheels and moves, we are happy. When I get there, I'll quickly photograph her lovelies and pop the pics on Vintage Queens Facebook. If they don't sell on there, they'll go straight onto ebay for a week. Once theyre on ebay, we are going to sneak off to Hervey Bay and Rainbow Beach for some relaxation time. Then it will back to the caravan park to post the goodies to the new buyers.

I'm flying home from Bundaberg airport and I think that I have some checked baggage allowance on the return flights, so I can bring home anything for Tassie buyers and things that don't sell, if I think they are worth re-listing, I'll bring them back too.

Lorna is a busy lady and doesnt have time to do this herself. She was inspired by my initial weightloss in 2007 and went and had lapband herself after a lifetime of yo-yo dieting. She has had great success and now wears around a size 16 and is absolutely thrilled with that. So, I don't know what size her clothes will be that I'll be selling this time, probably size 22-24 on average I'd say? Can't wait to see. She loves funky gypsy hippie styles, and is a big lover of purple. All the things that other buyers adore! Stay tuned. They'll be on Facebook at the end of May

As far as I go, not much has changed, still fluctuating around the same weight. Can't eat anything less than what I already eat, I know I just have to get moving again, after I hurt my ankle at work, this has not been easy, so I'm trying to get back into the Wii again. Love the Tennis game on Wii Sports. I also have a Zen Chi massager that I'd forgotten was in the cupboard since we moved here two years ago. I must get that out and use it. I used it religiously twice a day when I was losing all my weight after the banding, not sure if it helped, but it claims that 30 mins on the machine is equivelant to running 4km. Now I have no hope of running 40 metres, let alone 4km. I couldn't even walk 4km with my torn Achilles. So, lets see how this goes!!

BELOW IS A PHOTO MONTAGE OF LORNA'S JOURNEY WITH THE BAND

Weekend of Weirdness in MO-Bart

An Art Attack at Mona followed by a spooky late night experience in the old execution yard at the Hobart Penitentiary Chapel.

Some of you may not know that I am an artist and photographer. Always have been. In the early 2000's I actually made a living from the sale of my artworks and photography. But that was before the global financial crisis. Not anymore, the first thing people stopped buying was art.

I'm not sure how long David Walsh has been buying art for..... Last weekend I visited his impressive collection at his mega million dollar Museum of Old and New Art (MONA)

WOW.

The idea of Mona is so radical and new it will be very carefully looked at in the international art scene. Hopefully, it will establish itself as one of the major museums in the world bringing people from all over the world to view it, as they do with places like the Louvre in France and the Tate Museum in London.

Upon arrival, we were given a quick lesson on how to use our iPod device, which can sense your location and give you information about the works around you in the building. Then it was down the glass lift to view this amazing and sometimes confronting collection of art.

(Above) "the Poo Machine" Wim Delvoye’s Cloaca Professional, a machine built to imitate the human digestive system

*

Mona is full of works by many well-known artists. There are pressed plants and stones from a railway station in Hiroshima that we all get to make rubbings from that are then archived, there are many drawings including delicate charcoal drawings by less well-known artists like Dutch artist Juul Kraijer, or Belgian artist Berlinde de Bruyckere, whose cast wax horse and man sculptures are cleverly made with coloured wax behind pale wax echoing the pale human flesh in old Northern European paintings. There is the X-rated section that parents are warned about.

And Janis Kounellis’ Untitled, a great steel frame built in the dimensions of Picasso’s famous painting Guernica, from which huge real sides of beef hang looking like oil paintings by Rembrandt as well as simply spectacular butchered flesh.

But there is also a small casual work made by Kounellis when he was in Hobart to install his big work – a wooden chair on which sits a bowl of water with two goldfish swimming in it and a cook’s knife resting on its rim. Then there is the tattooed pighide by Wim Delvoye that is displayed in a case like a shaman’s cloak.

Walsh has also rescued Sidney Nolan's 46-metre-long Snake from obscurity. As long as an Olympic swimming pool, and composed of 1620 individual drawings, Snake dominates one of MONA's subterranean galleries and speaks of myth and metamorphosis. The work has only been shown twice before, in England and Ireland, and it is the first time it will be seen in Australia. Nolan's widow, Mary, had been trying to sell it for more than a decade. Walsh, who is a great admirer of Nolan's work, bought it in 2005 from Sotheby's, paying more than $2 million. There are many other Nolan works on display, alongside Brett Whiteley and many others that have for years inspired me.

The entrance - is the tennis court also a work of art?

Thank you David Walsh. it’s mind blowing. It’s thought provoking. it’s scary. It’s confronting. It’s beautiful. It’s ours. What a breath of fresh air to visit a gallery that really expands the mind and enlivens the senses! 4 hours flew past and we did not see half of it. I spoke to people who were on their 11th visit to Mona! I want to shout and scream and jump up and down and tell everyone to GO THERE! Tasmania is on the cusp of becoming the avant garde art capital of Australia!

• Now comes the really weird part : We (my daughter Angelina and nephew Shaun, and I ) went on a GHOST TOUR at the Hobart Penitentiary Chapel.
  Now, I am not interested in seeing ghosts, I'm the biggest chicken and biggest skeptic around, but..... If they do exist, I want to capture one on a photo. I'd feel safe back in my motel room viewing the photos I've taken!!

Anyway, we were shown around the site, including the old execution yard and gallows and told stories of people hearing bangs (its in the city centre, theres noise everywhere) the tour guide was very creepy without even trying, that was enough to spook me. He also mentioned people seeing mist occasionally. Ho hum.

Well we were in the final few minutes of the tour, making our way upstairs again, Shaun opened the door at the top of the stairs and went into the room, I was standing halfway up the stairs waiting. The guide was at the bottom of the stairs with the lantern. While I was waiting, I felt something tap me twice on the top of my leg. I looked down to see if anyone was near me, there was only the three of us plus the guide on the tour. The tour guide was still at the bottom of the stairs. I didn't say anything. Then I felt the tap on my leg again. Still no-one there. Then it was my turn to step out of the stair well. Once out, I pointed my camera down the stair well to where I had been standing and fired a shot off using the flash. Well, well, well, there was some mist in the foreground!!!!!! Golly gosh! I've since had the photo verified by Paranormal Australia and the mist is what they call ECTOPLASM - a spirit materialising or something. WOW.

I still don't want to beleive tho', coz I'm a scaredy cat.

After the tour we went and had some fun outside taking pictures in the floodlights against the buildings. Heres some of our pics below........

Below is the zombie-like tour guide

Below is just some silly-ness ....... (helped to take out mind off the haunted building)

Forgetful me?

Can't wait till Easter to catch up with everyone at St.Helens. Looking forward to some Karaoke at the Bayside and a Seafood Feast at the golf club on the Saturday night. Really can't wait till Easter gets here actually. I went to St.Helens on business the other day and stayed overnight in our cabin at the Big4 holiday park. Now, normally I only take a change of clothes with me to St.Helens for an overnight stay, we leave everything else we need down there, like toothbrushes, deodorant and some other basic necessities. But....... I had a special party to attend in Longford on my way home the next night and wanted to look my best. So, on this last trip to the east side, I took my good Hair straightener, my expensive hair spray which glues every single strand of hair in place, all my good make up, my favourite deodorant and my Kylie Minogue showtime perfume. AND I LEFT THE WHOLE LOT BEHIND IN ST.HELENS !!! Talk about a frumpy-fortnight coming up I know I packed everything to come home in a bag with my library book that I was half way thru (Stars over Shiralee by Sheryl McCorry) I was so looking forward to getting back into that book. Oh well, at least I won't have to remember to take a book with me at Easter (actually if anyone is looking for something to read at Easter, I do in fact have a pretty good library of my own at the caravan park!!) I think I've read each book half a dozen times already (insomniac much ) Anyway, I'm really looking forward to seeing all the girls at Easter, Lisa, Margie, Sarah, and I get to meet Meegan for the first time and lots of others. So excited. I will be leaving home on Good Friday to drive down there with my Krissie and her dog, Maxi. Peter is going on Thursday afternoon as he has half the day off work. I can't go until Friday as we have booked Krissie into Warrawee B&B because she can't bring the dog to the caravan park. We will stay there with her Friday night (get to use the spa)!!

(photo below : Krissie when she was little)

Then on Saturday my other daughter, Angelina is coming down to St.Helens and she will stay at Warrawee with Krissie for two nights (till Monday)Peter will go home on Monday and take Krissie and Maxi as they have stuff on back home. As I don't have to work until the Wednesday I'll stay until then and leave early to get me back to work in Launceston by 10am. Won't matter if I'm late, they can't sack me, I resigned and this will be my LAST DAY!!!

Thats me below, when I was growing up on the farm in the St.Pauls Valley

The weekend after Easter I also have another 'reunion' to go to at St.Helens. I'll be catching up with some people I went to primary school with at Avoca Primary School in the 1960's. We all recently became reacquainted with each other on Facebook and this weekend after Easter we have all arranged to catch up on the east coast. None of us live on the east coast, in fact none of us live near Avoca anymore either, but St.Helens seems like a good place to meet up!! John lives at Devonport, Danny lives at Deloraine, Veronica in Hobart, Mandy lives in Perth. Apart from John who lived with his Aunty in Avoca (she was our school teacher), the rest of us grew up on neighbouring farms up past Royal George.

My familys farm was called Merrywood. Down the road was Red Rock, Veronica's family owned that, and Danny's family lived and worked there. Across the river from Red Rock is Lewis Hill and Mandy's family lived and worked there too. So its all been great to reconnect again after all this time. I'm sure there will be lots of reminiscing

Thats me on the Tractor on the farm

Calvin

I just heard that an ex-employer of mine, James, was fined in court the other day in Melbourne for importing counterfeit brand name clothing.

I helped the federal police get this guy to court!!

Back in 2007 I was recruited by James to manage his website. He had a shop in Melbourne and wanted to put his products online.
At the time, James was 23 yrs old and wanted to be a millionaire by the time he was 25.

I answered an advertisement on the Internet for someone to work at home managing his website, applied, and got the job.
He sold homewares and kitchenware, soft furnishing, home decor and ornaments. He also sold Calvin Klein underwear. He sold it very cheap.
I think around $5 for a pair of mens undies or a singlet.

The Calvin Klein items were his biggest seller, we would sell them to buyers all over the world in bulk, hundreds of dollars worth at a time.
I think most of the buyers were buying them to resell in menswear stores.

Basically what my job entailed was: James would photograph the products and email the pics thru to me with a short description of the item.
I would edit the photos and make the ads for each product to go onto his website. I would also manage any email enquiries from buyers, plus track payments for items when they were sold.

Once items were paid for, then I would email James with the buyers postal details and a list of what they had purchased. He then would get his staff in Melbourne to package and post the goods.

Firstly, he overcharged massively for postage, if for instance an item cost $5 to post, he would charge the buyer $18 for postage!!
So I would get a LOT of complaints about the cost of postage (even though the price was set out before the buyer purchased anything)!
Anyway.......

I had never physically seen the products, I'm in Tassie, his shop is in Melbourne. But it didn't take long to work out that the Calvin Klein mens wear he was selling, were not the real deal. Complaints were coming in thick and fast from disgruntled buyers when they received the goods, they could tell they were cheap imitations. The workmanship for a start was a dead give away apparently (I also would have thought that the cheap price would also have been a give away - but plenty of people got sucked in)

Some people emailed and asked for comfirmation first that these were genuine items, I checked with James and he said they were definately genuine and that they were a 'parallel import' (whatever that is )! So, I assured the buyers they were buying the real thing. So you can imagine the tone of their emails when they received the items.

They were NOT HAPPY JAN!! They wanted refunds. I told James and he said yes sure, tell them to send them back and he would do a refund in full.
Great. No worries.

So they did. It was not only the Calvins that people returned, the home decor products were never packed adequately for postage and most got broken, James said he would refund.
Did he refund? Ever? NO!! That started another wave of abusive emails, people had returned shoddy goods for a promised refund, but he never once refunded anyone. I couldn't action a refund from his bank account.

Talking about bank accounts..... James had never had a credit card, when I set up his website, he needed to pay the webhost by credit card, plus we sold a lot of his items on ebay too (which I also managed for him) he paid ebay something like $5,000 a month in fee's because he was selling massive amounts of goods on the site. He did not want to get a credit card, didn't like them. He talked me into using my credit card to pay his fee's.

He transferred the money to my bank account first and then I paid his fees. The great thing about this is, I had a credit card with Reward Points that I could use for travel. You have no idea the amount of points I racked up in the time I was working for him - it took us years to use them all up!! (free holidays)

But, I could see the writing on the wall with this job, he was going to come undone eventually because his customers were now threatening to take him to court. I knew that flogging counterfeit goods was a federal offence, I also knew that you could be tracked via your Internet Service Provider. Which means that my ISP would be recorded against his website everytime I log into his page. I knew I was gonna go down with his dodgy business.

In the meantime, I was planning a weekend in Melbourne. James said he would take us out to dinner at a flash restaurant. I was helping him turnover 30k a month with his online sales, so thats the least he could do!
During the day we went to his shop in Melbourne, he wasn't there and none of the staff knew us.
That night he picked us up in his Audi sports car and took us to dinner at Crown Casino. His girlfriend Alana was with him, she was very very thin and went to the bathroom after each mouthful of food
We had a nice evening and when he dropped us off later he took off screeching his tyres, being a show-off.

I had been trying to talk him into getting his own credit card so that I could remove mine off his ebay page - because I needed to resign to get away from his dodgy business practices. James banked with the Bank of Melbourne, and as I'd been recently working for Westpac, I was able to advise him to get a visa debit card - Westpac owned Bank of Melbourne and the BOM had a visa debit card, where, at the time, westpac didn't have that product, you could only get one if you were a resident of Victoria. I was quite pushy about it and he finally got around to filling in an application and he got one. Once I'd put his card number on to his website/ebay and removed mine, I wrote my resignation letter to him. I told him I could no longer work for a company that was ripping off their customers like he was.

But there was still the problem of all those customers who said they were starting legal action against him. My ISP would connect me to his business once investigations began.
So, I decided that I had to be one of the first to report his fraudulent activity to the authorities.
The federal police contacted Calvin Kleins reps and they got a private investigator to follow it up. I had lots of phone calls assisting them in their investigation.
They did an anonymous visit to James' shop and came back to me for confirmation about a few things, like who owns the black Audi out the back and whats inside the shipping container out the back.
Next they set up a sting on his shop. The investigator rang me afterwards to let me know that James was a very terrified young man and agreed to dob in his suppliers!!
They said I would not need to give evidence in court and James would never know that I helped them in their investigations. There were plenty of other people who could have dobbed on him.

He is still in the import business apparently. I just hope he is not falsely representing his goods and giving refunds where refunds are due.