Thinking back about it and it all sort of fits in, our head company purchased a company in the US similar to ours here (similar but also very different). The talks very early on were about integrating the 2 companies and how this would go. So I put my proposal up about how this would occur and it was basically shot to pieces and they didn’t want to spend the money. No one had a better idea and basically 6 months on we have gotten almost no where down that path.

However, thanks to some major prompting over the last few weeks approval has been granted for my project to go ahead. It doesn’t mean a lot of work for us, however it does mean a little but it is my project and I am looking forward to the odd hours I may have to work to communicate with the guys in the US.

They have fairly regular “competitions” to win something, the most recent was to win a chance of winning a Million Dollars. I entered knowing that I would receive a phone call about getting their services – this didn’t bother me because I wanted to know how much roof restoration was going to cost anyway.

I received a phone call from them telling me I hadn’t won, but I was one of the lucky consolation prize winners and I had won $500 off any of their products (I think everyone would be offered this I am sure). I told them I would be home the next day with another contractor coming around and if someone could come around then they would be able to other than that it would be too hard to organise.

Eugene came around they got up on the roof and inspected the roof and said it was bad. He did a few measurements then came inside and started the whole sales spiel – how their product was better than everyone else etc. I told him I was just after a price – he proceeded to give me a price of $8,400. I said thanks but I wasn’t prepared to spend that sort of money. So he started the push and talking about making it into a display home with a sign up for 20 weeks and that I would have to provide names of 3 people and 3 before and after photos as part of the deal, for this they would knock off $1,500. He rang his boss to confirm that and it was fine at their end.

I told him thanks but I was just after a price and it was still too high to proceed with anything today. He wasn’t happy with no for an answere, so he rang his boss again to see if they could do anything else for me in regards to the price. I mentioned $4,000 (thinking there was no way they could offer it to me for half the price) as a decent figure, he told his boss that also. They managed to get the price down to $4,400 – the display home sign had to be up for 32 weeks, I had to provide names of 6 people and 6 before and after photos. I said its a good price but I am not signing up today it was never my intention too I was after pricing and that was all. He wasn’t particularly happy but he accepted it in the end, he rang his boss to inform him and this is where the fun really ramped up.

His boss (Phil Brooks) wanted to speak with me, he explained rather rudely that he had gone to extreme lengths to get the discounts he got for me (extreme lengths in 2 x 30sec phone calls is interesting) and proceeded to ask me why I wasn’t signing up today. I explained to him that I told the initial call operator I was only after pricing so I knew how much I needed to budget and that I wasn’t ready to put $8,000 on the table today. His rudeness then went to the extreme by telling me that he no longer wanted to deal with me and the company did not want my business – not sure what he said after that because at that point I hung up and nicely asked Eugene (the salesman who attended my house) to leave.

It actually gets better – about an hour later there was a knock at my door (I still haven’t got a door bell yet). It was a lovely lady with a Bramalco shirt on – what was she doing here I thought. Well she was actually from Bramalco Streamline (or Streamline Bramalco not sure which) trying to sell me a different Bramalco product – I told her my sob story about Bramalco then asked her nicely to leave because I wanted nothing to do with Bramalco ever again.

Since all this occurred my brother in law came over and doesn’t reckon the roof is too bad and says there are probably better things to spend my money on around the house than doing the roof at this stage and I would take his word over some Bramalco salesman any day.

With no one in the house all day a get home to an oven and have to try and cool it down before I go to bed. To make matters worse it appears my air conditioner isn’t working properly.

It appears that the main area is working but I don’t appear to be able to switch any of the bedrooms on

I hope to get some to look at it but I am sure the techs will be very busy so I might have to wait awhile.

We still have another 6 days left of 35+ degree temps so hopefully I don’t get too hot in that time.

I have a good panorama photo I took at work Friday that I will post up if I get permission.

Now onto some other notable events during the year:

January

February

March

April

India fills the sky with more junk 10 satellites launched at once – I guess they need to keep up with the demand for call centre bandwidth somehow

May

June

July

August

September

October

November

December

2008 Notable Deaths
Stephen Walker
Ashley Cooper
Clinton Grybas – an awesome TV and Radio commentator – his knowledge of his subject was superb, to bring a man such as Rex Hunt to tears whilst doing a tribute to him on radio shows the respect he had earnt at such a young age.
Sir Edmund Hillary – we claim him to be an Aussie, but he is a NZ Adventurer
Heath Ledger
Roy Scheider
Charlton Heston
Isaac Hayes
Michael Crichton
Mark Felt
Kerryn McCann
Richard Marsland
Jane McGrath
Mark Priestley
Allan Scott

I may add to my lists over the coming days if I can think of anything else.

If I don’t see you over this festive season, I hope you have a great Christmas and happy new year, stay safe but enjoy yourself.

Well I am just glad that I have a job and don’t have to put up with day time tv.

It was a fairly quite one for me really – I think the older I get the less interesting things I do – I really need to change that.

Some of my highlights
DSLR Photography course – through WEA it was a great course, learnt so much about my camera and how to shoot in manual
Port’s 119 point lose in the Grand Final – that was GOLD
My first MotoGP event at Phillip Island
Casey Stoner being MotoGP World Champion
Got to see a Ferrari F430 up close and personal
Winton V8s and a week away in Yarrawonga
Phillip Island V8s – great weekend
Clipsal 500 – 40° gotta love V8s

I am sure there are others but they are just a few highlights – see I really don’t get up to a lot these days. Hopefully 2008 will be a better more interesting year.

Other Notable Events of the Year
Labor winning the federal election
West Coast Eagles drug problem

Notable Deaths – well notable to me at least
Billy Thorpe
Bernie Banton – asbestos campaigner
John Ilhan – My Crazy John
Charmaine Dragun – such a waste of a beautiful life
Norifumi Abe – died riding on the road, shame he was no longer on the track
Kevin Crease
Marcel Marceau
Chris Mainwaring – I hope Ben learns something from that
Colin McRae – a wasted talent should never have stopped rally driving
Boris Yeltsin
Evel Kenivel
Stan Zemanek – obnoxious bastard, but shouldn’t have suffered as he did
The many soldiers and civilians that have lost their lives in war torn countries – particularly Iraq and Afghanistan

Well here is too another year – lets hope it is as interesting as this year. There looks to be a stack of changes ahead for me in the very near future – lets hope they are changes for the good, they have potentially to be changes for the very bad.
Make sure you have one for me

I really thought I was going to get sick with my Lymphedema again, the early symptoms are feeling really cold and aching all over. Well a couple of Saturday’s ago we were baby sitting Chelsea and I was out the front helping mum & dad and Chelsea weed the garden and I was starting to feel a bit sick. After a little while I went back in the house and was sitting around thinking I was quite cold despite having a jumper on, so I had put an extra layer of clothes on – but it didn’t do anything, so I put more clothes on and gloves, it still wasn’t right. I was also starting to get a sore neck – it was looking good, I decided it wasn’t worth me trying to hide it from mum & dad so we tried to warm me up with a heat bag and soup. This helped a little but not much, at about 7:30pm I decided to head to bed, I wore a tracksuit to bed and used 2 quilts and was still a little cool. But I prayed and managed to sleep fairly well actually.

When I woke up Sunday I was surprised that I didn’t feel too bad, except for my neck aching. I did stay in bed for quite a while that morning but once I got up about 11am I was feeling ok – praise the Lord.

I have also had gastro for a few days which really hit hard, the worst part about it was in was over a weekend so it destroyed the weekend. So once I got over that the weekend after I had a headache for the rest of the weekend arghhhh!!!1! Luckily this last weekend was Rally SA and I was actually feeling pretty well, but didn’t sleep too well Friday night but I still got up Saturday and went up and took some photos of one stage and saw another stage – actually caught up with an old friend I haven’t seen for a little while which was good.

A couple of photos from Rally SA are up in my flickr account

Well hopefully I can update a bit more regularly.

I see many people around the place today with disabilities and it reminds me to be thankful for what I have. In general I am healthy, ok I am over weight, have Lymphedema in my leg, so I have to wear a compression stocking on my leg, I have sleep apnea which means I have to wear a mask pumping air into my nose when I sleep or else I don’t sleep. Apart from this I am actually quite healthy – I think everything else is ordinary, all my limbs work as they should, my brain works (most of the time) so I am lucky. I come into contact with people on a semi-regular basis who have a disability of some sort, from being in a wheel chair and have little control of themselves to people who just have a speech impediment. It breaks my heart to see people like that and it reminds me to be more thankful for how good my life really is.

In between times however I become slack and forget to be thankful what I have, even down to the simply things in life like the freedoms we have in Australia, and the fact that I wake up every morning. I think we in western societies in general take things for granted and expect more and more should be just given to us with nothing extra from ourselves.

Well I think that is enough of a rant from me for today, I should get back to uploading my photos to flickr & being thankful