The week has gone already

Wednesday, March 3, 2010


It was an interesting week, starting on Monday we went to the Rockhampton & District U3A Inc AGM. Professor Scott Bowman has become our Patron and what a wonderful knowledge this young man has. He is an assett to our Central Queensland University and I'm sure our University will grow under Scotts leadership.  Professor Bowman is also a Blogger at this address and a proud Granddad too.  You will find this information if you look at his Jan 2010 blog.

The AGM saw a few changes and additions on the executive. One new member John E was elected Vice President after only being a member for about 6 months. John brings with him a knowledge of leadership and new ideas.

During the weekend and into the week I worked on a computer problem caused by a software glitch. The PC had been bought with software LOADED. This means you get the computer BUT no disks of operating software. So if you have a drama.... that's right you don't have a CD to fix things up. So I carefully worked on it to ensure the families photos and iTunes were safe. I removed all the log on passwords, made up folders for the four users and filed their photos under their folders. A couple of drivers had to be downloaded from the web and I found that HP has a great site for those with a reasonably modern HP computer. By typing in the model number, HP can provide the drivers for that model.

Looking at the notes for Week 5 of Computer Club we may have to slow down a bit so that some members can catch up. I hope you all have done some homework?

Jessica Watson is sailing on and now well around the Cape of Good Hope on her last leg back to Sydney.

I have linked her progress to my Facebook site, so I always know how she is going.

When I returned from Vietnam I visited home in New Zealand for Christmas. I still remember flying into Auckland on Guy Fawkes night (5th November) and watching the "friendly" rockets heading up to toward the plane. It was a lovely clear night and we could see fires and crackers going off all over the place.

It is hard to believe that the military can post a person to a war zone for 12 months, then return them to Australia and discharge them back into the civilian side without any debriefing after only being back 3 weeks . It is not hard to remember arriving back in Australia at 2330Z time and having no one to meet us at the airport. We were given three choices, spend the night at the barracks, go home with family or find your own accommodation for the night. Three of us took the 3rd option, not knowing that it was going to be nearly impossible to get somewhere to stay. The word was " ...we don't take servicemen..." how's that for a stab in the back.

Anyhow to the left are my two sisters Elizabeth on the left and Amanda on the right taken on Christmas Day 1969.

Who can remember this style? Two lovely ladies I know spent a year on a working holiday in New Zealand in 1969. Here we have Merilyn and Helen ready for a night out.

We have been through our photos looking for pictures of Merilyn who died in a house fire at Alpha. Geoff has lost everything and everyone is rallying around looking for memories.

Andrew rang last night and said it was rather wet at Chinchilla. The river is 30cm over the bank and they don't want anymore rain.

TV tonight is all about the Charleville floods, but I think they'll have to add a few more towns after looking at this weather map

So that is it for today and I hope to see you all at class tomorrow.