dale's thoughts

Nearly there...

OK, so no baby yet, but very nearly there. The obstetrician says Cassandra will be induced on Monday if labour doesn't occur naturally this weekend.

So, what have I been doing since last time I updated this thing? Well, between work as usual and life as usual not a lot. Last weekend was pretty quiet - I got stuck into the pruning and got a little hedge trimmer happy. Plenty of hacking and slashing in the front yard until the bushes looked like they had been hit by a cyclone. It wasn't pretty but will hopefully go some way to keeping the spiders away from the house. Oh, I did the lawn too, and put out way more green waste for collection than we are allowed, but luckily they still took it away and only left a warning note. The remainder of it is about a trailer load and I've arranged for Dad to come and help me take that away this weekend.

Sunday afternoon we went swimming at Kiama Leisure Centre which has a really good indoor kiddies pool. Callum swam and had fun and Cassandra got some brief belly relief.

The past week at work was pretty hectic, trying to tidy up things to leave them in a reasonable state for the others that need to cover for me. From Wednesday I started leave and have been doing odd jobs in between the relaxing. On Wednesday we even got to go out to lunch by ourselves to Angelina's Pizza Restaurant in Shellharbour since Callum had an extra day of day-care we needed to use by the end of the year. It was nice to be able to sit and talk with no worry about anyone else, no-one needing to go anywhere or anything needing to get done. Eating there reminded me of how nice a location we live at - close by to the beach and plenty of nice restaurants, whilst not being in the big city and having to worry about huge house prices and traffic.

One job of which I'm very proud was to fix the 'poverty' fridge by putting two bits of poly-pipe where the old rack was. No more shall my family live in poverty - no more shall our milk fall out of the door! I was motivated to fix it because after calling it the "poverty" fridge for so long, then seeing the plight of the people in Darfur on a documentary on TV, I really appreciated just how well off we are. I know where my family is, I know they are alive and well, I can see them - I don't need to worry about my government burning down my house and trying to kill me and my family. I don't pass dead bodies when I go for a walk and I have all the food and drink I could possibly want. To call it the "poverty" fridge is plain ignorant/bigoted and takes away from the people who are really suffering. I know I can't change what is happening there, but I can change my attitude about my own situation. So I had to fix it.

Oh, the other thing that documentary made me realise is that even though the U.S. sometimes does evil things, they do sometimes also do some very good and noble things, and do a lot of humanitarian and peacekeeping work that makes the world a better place.

On a completely different note, I finally worked out what was wrong with Callum's spider man car, apart from a 6V charger for a 6V SLA battery (which should change at >7V) actually outputting 12V. There was also a completely broken connection from the charging 'circuit' (diode + resistor rather than something useful) to the battery. After re-soldering that and buying a new power pack, I got it to charge - well, I also had to constantly wiggle the power connector as there seems to be a dry joint there. I can't believe these toys pass Australian standards as the several things I have found wrong with it are all severe hazards and fire risks - in a child's toy! Now to put it back together and let him drive it again before he gets too big for it!

Anyways, better head of to bed in case today's the day our daughter decides to finally grace us with her presence. I can only hope...