Swanning Around (aka Resistance Is Futile)

Let me just start by saying that we already have a perfectly good soft floor camper trailer.  It's not new by any means, but it's still in great condition and does the job well.  It's also compact and fits nicely in the garage under our house, behind our second roller door.  We've had some great camping trips in it over the years.

For a while now, Steve has been wanting to get rid of our camper and buy another wind-up camper van.  I say "another", because we've previously owned two of the same sort - where you put up the roof and pull the beds out at each end.  We've owned one which was wind-up and the other had a stupid hinged arm setup for lifting the roof. The less said about that one, the better, although it did make it to Uluru and back in one piece, which is about the nicest thing I have to say about it.

Now, when you question him, Steve has tried to give rational reasons for wanting to replace our camper with one of these. It takes too long to set up, Cheyenne doesn't have a built-in bed of her own, blah, blah, blah.  His real reason (which he won't admit to) is that everyone else - all of his brothers, his parents and most of our friends - have either wind-ups or full caravans, and he's been feeling left out.  That, and we've owned the current one nearly five years and he's reached his boredom threshold.

Here's the thing: they go to caravan parks! We don't. We usually go bush or beach camping, on unpowered sites, so there's really not much point having a caravan.  

There's also the fact that we don't really have room to store a van. And, we already have a perfectly good camper trailer. And, a wind-up isn't exactly a top priority in our budget when there are a million and one things that should be fixed around the house.  And, I could go on.  In fact, I have been holding out against this idea for a long time now.  Steve needed reinforcements, so he convinced Cheyenne she'd be better off with a proper bed rather than a stretcher, and the pair of them ganged up on me. Two against one.  He has not-so-subtly been leaving Gumtree ads open on the PC so I will see the photos and I've been getting "Don't let it get away" reminder emails from eBay about the ones he's looked at there.

Resistance is futile, though.  Regardless of all the reasons why this isn't really a good idea, he wants, so ultimately, he gets. In the end, I gave up fighting. It's not worth the effort.  As with his cars, and boats, change is inevitable.

Last weekend we picked up our "new" camper. It's a 1998 Jayco Swan.

The plan was to bring it home and set it up in the backyard to give it a good clean out. This would require a bit of "trailer shuffling" (take boat trailer out, put Jayco Swan in, put boat trailer back in), but luckily we have two vehicles with towballs.

Here's where accurate measurements would have come in handy!  It's all very well to say it's 2100mm wide, but you also need to remember to include the clearance lights, roof clips, handles, and anything else that sticks out.  Especially when you have less than 2400mm clearance between the house and the side fence!

To say that it was a mission to reverse it up the slope of our yard and under the carport without hitting anything would be an understatement.  It's a mission of epic proportions. Think "search for the Holy Grail" epic. It is a very tight squeeze, with only a few centimetres on either side between the Swan and the house and fence. I wouldn't even dream of attempting it, but luckily Steve is extremely good at reversing. As it was, after we'd unhitched it from the car (because the car is too wide to fit up the side of the house) and were pushing it back by hand, we managed to break the plastic cover on one of the clearance lights by hitting it on a carport post.

"It's ok," he says, "the garage door is wider, so when we put it under the house it'll be a lot easier."  "Are you sure you won't hit the steel shelving inside the garage?" I ask.  "No, it's all good, I'll just have to move the cupboard back a bit behind it because it's a bit longer than the old camper."

We gave it a good scrub, inside and out, including the canvas, and transferred all of our cutlery, crockery, pots and pans, and cooking utensils from the old camper. A few minor repairs to the door lock and step and a bit of paint on the drawbar and chassis rails, and she was ready to go under the house (so we can leave it opened up while packing for a weekend away this coming weekend).

Cue the trailer shuffling, only this time, add the old camper trailer to the mix.  Oh, and the old camper has a completely different type of towing hitch that doesn't use a towball, just to add to the "fun".  Boat trailer out, Swan out, boat trailer back up the side of the house, change towing hitch, old camper out from the garage under the house and put up the side of the house in front of the boat trailer (so it's easy to get at when potential buyers come to look at it after we advertise it next week), Swan into garage under the house. Phew!

All this, we did last night after Steve got home from work. The drama we had getting it up the side of the house in the first place?  Imagine that at night (with only a single fluoro light to see the minimal clearance available). In the rain. With a sloped yard, full of wet grass. 

But wait, there's more...

I'll say it again. Accurate measurement is key. Measure twice, cut once, as they say.  Did I not suggest the steel shelving along the wall of the garage was going to be in the way? Were my concerns not ignored? (see previous conversation mentioned several paragraphs above)

Was I not, in fact, correct?  You're damn right I was.

Much swearing from Steve when he realised his error. Lots of eye rolling and "I did tell you, but nobody ever listens to me" from me.  

After some creative angling and decisions to cut and re-weld not one but two entire shelving units at some point in the near future (because the Swan is longer than he'd thought, as well as wider), it's in the garage.  I may now be down 4 washing lines (the Swan is also a lot higher than the old camper) and can no longer see the screen on our solar inverter (to keep an eye on it to check it's functioning correctly), but it's in and we can close our roller door.

If our mate Jason hadn't come over to help us, I'm positive Steve and I wouldn't be talking to each other right now.

A Whole New World

It's been a while between posts.  No surprise there.

Things have changed though. (Well, not on the job front. I'm still searching, but that's another story.)

I'm now the mother of a High School Student !  Yes, it's true.  I'm getting old.

High School. I've had a whole term now to let that sink in.

Cheyenne seems to have adjusted well to the new routines and to reading timetables (both school and bus). She's joined the choir (she still loves singing even though she's given up on playing the flute), tried a new sport (beach volleyball), and she brought home a much improved report card at the end of term.  She even got an A for Japanese, which is one of her favourite subjects.

She has some of her old primary school friends at school with her and she has made a few new ones.

The only blip on the horizon is a certain girl from primary school - who shall hereafter be referred to as X - a toxic little Narcissist who, for the last three years, used to be one of her "besties", although I use that term loosely.  Her particular brand of friendship includes emotional blackmail, manipulation, hot/cold mood swings, "boyfriend" (another loosely-termed label) stealing and just plain bitchiness.  The original Mean Girls have nothing on X.

That girl needs a good slap. Across the face. With a Besser block !

The problem is Cheyenne is too kind-hearted and kept giving X chance after chance to redeem herself as a good friend.  Yet every week or so it would blow up in her face again.

For the past year, I have been consoling Cheyenne with the idea that when she started high school she'd have the chance to make a whole new lot of friends from other primary schools and never have to deal with X again (unless they were in the same subject classes).  The year started out well. The grade 7s had their camp in the fourth week so they could get to know each other.  Cheyenne made a few new friends and things were going great until X broke up with her latest boyfriend and started running him down on the group chat they have on iMessage.  Cheyenne had the - gasp - audacity to stick up for this boy (since he was one of her new friends) by telling X that she shouldn't be so nasty about him.  X decided this was the ultimate act of betrayal - "I thought you were supposed to be my friend!" - and has doled out her usual revenge.  She has systematically turned most of the new friends Cheyenne had made, against her. X has manipulated them all with rumours and/or her fake charm.  Even the nice girl who invited Cheyenne to her birthday sleepover now looks through her as if she doesn't exist.

The sad fact is that none of the new friends know X well enough to know who/what she really is, so they've been sucked in to her web, and by the time they finally realise the truth, it'll probably be too late for Cheyenne.  She's nothing if not resilient, though.   At least she does still have a few loyal friends from primary school who have stuck with her (because they know the truth), and she has overheard some girls in one of her classes complaining about how rude X is, so it seems there ARE still some people out there who don't think the sun shines out of X's arse. Maybe Cheyenne can become friends with them too.




In the meantime, Karma had better hurry up!

Seek and ye shall find...

...lots of jobs that you probably won't get.

Well, that's what it feels like to me, anyway.

I applied for 13 jobs during February.  Along with several hundred other applicants, no doubt.

How many of them have I heard back from?  Two.  Both replies were of the "Thanks for applying, but unfortunately..." variety.

Apparently, despite my having 4 functioning limbs, a heartbeat, reliability and near-full availability, and the fact that, in their words "your skills and background are impressive", Woolies found someone who "more closely matched the current requirements" for a store replenishment (night fill) position. Seriously?  Yeah, I'm reading that one as "we found someone cheaper".

The other rejection (for an admin assistant to a property manager) was still quite positive. They received a huge number of high quality applications and I am to be commended for being one of only 10% of applicants who actually followed the unusual request for a hand-written cover letter and a posted application, and as such, they are going to keep me in mind if anything further becomes available.  That would be really lovely, but I don't think I'll hold my breath.

Do I expect to hear back from any of the others?  Probably not.  These days, even the ones that don't specifically say "Due to anticipated large number of applicants, only those shortlisted candidates will be contacted" won't bother giving you feedback, more often than not.  It's a rare few who actually do.

In the meantime, I could try to upskill.  That's the buzzword of the moment, isn't it?  Seems like everybody wants a piece of paper these days, on top of your experience.  The problem with this is that, without a job, I can't afford any of the certificate courses that are available.  Even a 6 week basic MYOB course is upwards of $1500.  It could be a while before I can save up enough for that.  Luckily TAFE has several intakes per year for that one.

The whole thing is incredibly soul sucking, but I won't give up.  For every job that I don't get, it should mean that one less person is competing against me for the next one, right?

If only that were true.  *sigh*

Rollin' Rolllin' Rollin'

Don't look now, but it's another natural disaster... and you all know what that means.

Yep, that's right, Tropical Cyclone Marcia has reached a Category 5.  

Cue the 24 hr rolling television coverage.  

Networks 7, 9 and 10, I'm looking at YOU. The ABC is also guilty of this, albeit to a lesser extent.

While there's no denying that TV coverage is essential in getting warnings out to those in the "at risk" areas and keeping the rest of us up to date with developments, there is nothing more irritating than seeing the same video footage playing on a constant loop.

Remember the Cyclone Yasi reports?  How many times did we see the same piece of awning ripping off a building and flying up the main street?   Or how about the 2011 Brissie floods?  I swear, if I'd seen that loop of that same wheelie bin floating down the river, just one more time...  OMFG!

Sex sells, as they say, but obviously it's natural disasters that get the TV ratings.

But honestly, if nothing new has happened in the last hour, I'm really NOT interested in seeing footage shot last night (AGAIN), combined with a scrolling news ticker and a misleading "Live coverage" label in the top corner of the screen.

Please return us to our regularly scheduled programmes.

I'm more than happy for you to cut into a show with "Breaking News"... so long as it's actually breaking news and not another rerun of events that happened yesterday, that you've already televised ad nauseam.

In the meantime of course, it's Marcia, Marcia, Marcia.  (see what I did there?)  

I have family and friends in the path of Marcia, and I can only pray they will be safe.

It does seem like the media has forgotten all about the NT. They're facing Cyclone Lam, but if the networks are to be believed, it seems to be only a second thought to Cyclone Marcia.  I hope everyone in the NT stays safe too.

Oh well, I have a portable hard drive full of movies I can watch. So. Very. Glad.

Collection or Obsession?

Ah, Lego. You never really grow out of it. In fact, I still have an ice cream bucket full of random Lego from my childhood.

Back then the Lego men (there were no women) came in city characters or space men (they may have just started to do a limited range of knights as well). They ALL had the same yellow heads with the same smiley faces, and that wasn't really a bad thing. It was just they way Lego men were.

Somebody at Lego finally came up with the idea of updating the figures. They now have awesome facial features. No more boring smiley face, lol.

Last year I was waiting in a checkout line at Target and saw a box full of packets of individual Lego figures in what appeared to be a “lucky dip” type arrangement. I bought one just to see which one I would get. That was Series 1 of the Minifigures. Had I known that in Series 1 each of the 16 different figures had individual barcodes, I probably would have gone back the next day to find the ones I wanted.   I didn’t.    I never saw another box of that series again.

Earlier this year I noticed a box or two of what turned out to be Series 3. (Not sure why I never saw any Series 2 figures.) This time I was determined to get several of them. I guess you could say I became obsessed, lol.

I spent a lot of time, in various stores, squeezing foil packets to try and figure out which figure might be inside. Random shoppers would give me odd looks (naturally) but several were intrigued enough to actually stand there and help me squeeze packets! (Lego had wised up that the identifying barcodes reduced sales because people only bought the ones they wanted, and they now had no obvious identifying marks). After many wasted hours a nice lady told me that, although they all looked the same, there were apparently some Braille-like dots on the back of the packs which would help. Five minutes on Google and I had the code breaker, so I managed to get the Fisherman, Biggles, Snowboarder and several others.

Series 4 has been harder to find. They were released in April but don’t seem to be stocked at the usual places.  The Braille dots are a wash this time round (damn you Lego), so I have gone back to squeezing packets again.  sigh...

At long last I have FINALLY found the Hazmat Guy that I’ve been searching for.  The expression on his face is priceless.  

Now I just have to find the urban skateboarder…

...sigh.

This could take a while.

"X" Marks the Spot

The council is holding a "tree planting event" in our neighbourhood. According to the leaflet, we are "invited" to make our neighbourhood "a cooler, shadier, greener, more beautiful and carbon-friendly place by planting street trees."

Oh, really?

When I saw that ours was one of about a dozen streets in the area to be receiving trees, I was not excited by the prospect. To say that I was unamused would be an understatement.

Let me put it into perspective. The council has clearly gone this route before around here. Several streets around here, including ours, have large Leopard trees. They drop their seed pods all over the footpaths and make a mess, but at least they are useful as shade trees. Most of these are fairly well established, so they were obviously planted years ago. The most recent round of plantings occurred not long before we bought our house (9 years ago), and they appear to be some sort of Lilly Pilly, although I've never seen any of them in flower or growing berries, so they're not providing any "beauty". Most of them are no more than about 5 feet high, so they don't provide much shade either. There was a half dead specimen planted outside our place when we moved in, but we soon sorted it out. I've no idea what species they intend to plant this time, but we already have enough trees in our street.

Two days ago they marked out the spots where the holes will be dug in preparation for the planting this coming Saturday. Every house that doesn't already have a tree or shrub out the front, was marked with a blue cross. This means they plan to have a tree in front of every house. Every single house! (So much for being "invited") We already have less than average visibility in our street due to the curve in the road and the fact that people who live on the bend, park their cars outside on the street. We don't need the visibility restricted even more by all these new trees.

Apparently this planting is "part of a neighbourhood enhancement project, identified by the community". Well, as rate payers, we are part of the community and nobody asked us if we wanted a tree planted outside! If they're so hell-bent on greening up the city and creating an "urban forest", maybe they should start in the new estates that don't have any trees! Council is committed to plant 2 million trees in Brisbane over 4 years to grow this urban forest, as they put it. Great for the environment, sure, but living in an "urban forest" didn't work out so well for the residents of The Gap during those huge storms, did it?

Turns out though, that you can phone the local member and have your name and address put on a list to not receive a tree. Apparently they would rather people who objected didn't get a tree in the first place, than have people digging them up later on.

If that's the case, they should have printed that fact on their leaflets! Not everyone will realise this, and since a lot of people won't want the trees, my guess is there will be a lot of trees getting dug up in the coming weeks.

I'm off to scrape blue paint off my footpath.

Imaginary Car Strikes Again

Armed with the knowledge that my car is actually a Protegé, we mistakenly believed that this would solve all my problems with regard to ordering parts for my ’95 BG.

I knew it was too good to be true!

Steve dropped in to his favourite auto parts supplier and ordered a full set of Ultima shockies. Yes, they make them to fit a ’95 323 Protegé, they’re made in Australia, the distributor is local and they’d be available the next day, and they are considerably less expensive than other brands. I went in, paid for and picked them up on Friday. $500 for the full set – thanks Mr Rudd!



Next stop, the library. After applying for a whole new library card – apparently my previous one was too old to be reactivated, even though my details hadn’t changed (WTF?), I borrowed a repair manual that covers Ford Lasers from 1990-1994 and Mazda 323 Sedan and Astina (hatches) from 1989-1994. Now, I know I’ve got a ’95 323, but I figured that, as the repair manuals from ’95 onwards seemed to only cover BA and later models, I’d take my chances that my ’95 BG was pretty much the same as the ’94 BGs. So far, so good.

So, after reading the manual and explaining it all step-by-step to Steve, he removed my front shock absorber and spring. It really was as easy as the parts guy said it would be… until we took the new shock absorber out of the box and discovered that the diameter of the spring seat was not as large as my original, so my spring wouldn’t fit! It was clear to me that, although they were for a ’95 model, they were probably for the BA and not the BG. Here we go again...

Damn Mazda and their 18 month model crossover period! I’m seriously over this! If I ever find the person/s responsible for compiling after market parts databases and leaving out my year model, I will belt them over the head with my old struts!

Well, the first lot were going back to the shop! To be on the safe side, we also removed the rear shock on the same side, so that I could take my originals in to compare them. Just as well, since the brackets on the rear shock they’d given us weren’t the same as my originals, either! I was more than prepared, if all else failed, to go directly to the actual distributors at Albion, show them my originals and refuse to leave until I had the correct replacements!

These are supposed to be the same diameter!

That's more like it!

First thing Monday morning, Steve got onto Robert, the parts guy, who said he’d order some to fit a ’94 model and we’d see if they fit my ’95. A few hours later they’d arrived so I took the first lot back (along with my originals) to swap them for a second lot. I walk in, carrying the boxes and he looks at me and says “Ah, shock absorbers for a car that doesn’t exist” Yep, you said it mate!

Second time lucky, I hope. At least this second lot look exactly the same as my originals and my spring fits nicely into the spring seat! Promising start… now let’s see if they go back into my car properly!

Monday night, Steve’s Dad came over to give him a hand to fit the shocks to my car. It all seemed to go together smoothly, and after a test drive, Steve labelled it a job well done.

Finally, success!
Now I just need to get new tyres and a wheel alignment…

My Imaginary Car

I need new tyres for the Mazdabator. The ones I currently have are incredibly noisy due to being scalloped. Yes, you can hear them over the stereo (which is saying something, considering the volume I have it at). Of course, before I get new tyres I have to replace all four shock absorbers because they are all badly worn, and the rear shockies are leaking. Mr Rudd has kindly offered to pay for new shockies and tyres (Thanks, Kev!) - all I have to do is buy them.

Herein lies the problem. It seems there is a persistent theory amongst suppliers of after market vehicle parts that my car simply does not exist. It is a theory that appears to be supported by my extensive research on the internet.

Let me explain. When we first bought my car I wanted to order a dashmat and some weather shields. Now, according to the compliance plate on the firewall of my car, I have a Mazda 323K, BG model, paint colour 11R (Sparkle Green), built in September 1995. You'd think that would be sufficient information, wouldn't you? I don't know what the "K" stands for in 323K, but I've found absolutely no information about this anywhere, so this just adds to the mystery.

Well, off I went to Supercheap, Autobarn, etc, etc to try to order a dashmat. I wasn't expecting to find one in stock since my car is more than 10 years old, but I did think I'd be able to order one. Apparently not. After checking various catalogues it seemed like the manufacturers stopped making dashmats to fit BGs in 1994 and the only ones they made for 1995 were to fit the Astina (hatchback version of the 323, which has a completely different interior) and Protege (the top-of-the-range version of my car) models. I ended up getting one through GrandPrix Mazda at a higher price... when it arrived it turned out to be for a 1994 model (!) but at least it fits! Same deal with the weather shields, however Stoneshield (who actually manufacture them) assured me the ones for the Protege would fit because it is the same body shape, so the doors would be the same.

Now all the info I can find says that the Protege had a 1.8 lt engine (and maybe had electric windows, being the "flash" model), so clearly mine is a standard 323 because it only has the 1.6 lt engine. Then again, apparently Mazda had something like a dozen different models available globally, all with slight variations, so who knows for sure?

Back to the shockies. Pedders want $424 for the front pair and $424 for the rear pair, plus an extra $300 in labour to fit them. Um... no thanks! There must be a better price out there! So we ring around. Repco sell Monroe shocks and Autobarn sell some American brand I'd never heard of... but not to fit my car! You guessed it - the same old story! It doesn't exist.

Conversation goes something like this: "Hi, I'm after a price on shockies for my Mazda 323" "What model and year is that for?" "It's a 1995 BG model" (pause, while they search for the details in their parts catalogue...) "Was that for an Astina?" "No, just the 323" "Not a Protege?" "No" "Well, the BG model wasn't manufactured after 1994, are you sure it isn't a BA?" "It says BG on the compliance plate" "Well, if it's 1995 it can't be. Are you sure it isn't a 94 model?" "I'm sure, never mind"

In desperation I go to GrandPrix Mazda and do my best "dumb blonde / female driver" impersonation. Well, not really, but I'm positive that's what they think. I hover between the Parts and Service counters. "Hi, I'm not quite sure if this is a parts or a service query... I want to know exactly what model I'm driving." (Condescending looks.) "I know it says it's a 323K BG, built in Sep 95, but if I give you my VIN can you please double check that, because I'm having a hard time locating parts for it" The same guy who ordered my dashmat looks up and says "You again, what's wrong this time?" "Well Paul, apparently my car still doesn't exist" He chuckles. I'm so glad to have brightened his day. Really I am.

Turns out that the BG was produced from 1991 through to May 1996, so all these after market parts databases are wrong! He says I should tell them that Paul from GrandPrix says they are "boofheads" if they want to argue. I can, and do have, a BG. Knowing I'm right doesn't help with ordering parts, though. Paul says to tell them I've got a 95 Protege. "But it's only a 1.6 and I thought Protege's all had the 1.8 ?" Apparently not all of them. "It doesn't actually say Protege anywhere on it..." He can sell me a Protege badge for $3, if I'd like. No, that's ok.

Hmmm. I'm still not entirely convinced my car is not a figment of my imagination, but at least it will now (hopefully) be easier to order parts. I still don't know what the K means...


ps. Have found a better price - Ultima shocks, Aussie made, $250 for front pair, $250 for rear pair... and the plan is to replace them ourselves to save labour costs. Have the right tools (including a set of spring compressors)... just need a workshop manual!