Oh the Maggies.....

The curse of Chiron continues..... with just another 5 correct picks, I seem to average about 5 correct picks per round. But oh those Maggies, I did pick them and for a while I thought I would regret it..... oh what a massive comeback..... made up for the fact that I also picked the Bombers ;)

Here now a holiday weekend here on the west coast, "Foundation Day" which they now call "West Australian Day"..... whatever name one calls it, its the last of our holiday weekend until the distant future of September. And now three weeks without rain, and more freezing cold mornings.

Well I did finally get my new phone. One normally shouldn't make new major purchases during a Mercury retrograde, especially electronic products, but my old phone had failed once again.....

So Wednesday was the day, when I was off work, and despite some Mercury moments I did finally managed to get the phone.

First thing was my groceries delivery. I always have my grocery order delivered on Wednesdays cos it is when they offer free delivery for orders over $100 - and here in Perth the most expensive city in Australia it is very easy to rack up $100 worth of groceries just for the week!! And well since I was off work I'd booked the delivery for first thing in the morning - 6am-8am. On the day of the delivery you can log into the website to get a more precise estimate on when the groceries would arrive. And this would leave me enough time to make it to the telco shop for their extremely early opening time of 9am..... here in Amish-like Perth LOL

Nothing should surprise me during a Mercury's retrograde.... so when I logged onto the website, it told me that the groceries would be delivered LATE, indeed 9:30am! In all the years I had my groceries delivered this was the first time it be so late. A couple of other times it had been late by less than 30 mins. This time it be at least 90 minutes late!!! This would seriously throw out my schedule for the rest of the day - just as expected for a Mercury retrograde.

So change of schedule..... might as well start making my garlic potatoes for the week. I always have my garlic potatoes, it keeps the cold and flu at bay. I don't do flu vacs, indeed I don't do any vacs. The flu shot is offered for free at my workplace, and everyone else gets the flu shot except me, I choose not to. Everyone else at work always ends up getting the flu and taking time of work. I never get the flu, indeed over the past several years the only time I had gotten the flu was during that fateful September from Hell in 2011 when I took my wife to the hospital - I caught the flu FROM THE HOSPITAL!!!! So except for that one time, I had never gotten the flu.

Meanwhile back at the ranch..... I was about to start making my garlic potatoes when the groceries truck turned up!!!! At the ORIGINAL time!!!! So while the website said the delivery would be 90 minutes late, the truck turns up ON TIME at the originally arranged time!!! Moral of the story, never believe a website especially during Mercury's retrograde!!!!

Now I was back on my original schedule.

My first stop was Bunnings..... needed replacement items for my gardening, such as, the replacement nylon cutter wheel for my edger. Long gone are the poverty days when mother would make me cut the lawn edges with an axe cos we couldn't afford an edger. Those days are gone..... thankfully!!!! I get the best of gardening implements for my gardening, including an electric edger.

So I was at Bunnings.... and was about to pay for my purchases when I saw there were no manual checkout operators, only the self-serve checkouts!! EEEK!!! It's not that I'm a techno-phobe, I am just a Mercury-Retrograde-phobe, I don't like trying anything new during a Mercury retrograde period. Also I am phobic about trying to learn anything new in a public setting. If I needed to learn anything new I prefer to do it in the privacy of my own home where no one would know of my mistakes - a part of my Chiron wounded healer in my natal Ascendant sign. For many years the stores and supermarkets had those self-serve checkouts, obviously a money-saving gesture, more self serve checkouts means employing less checkout sheilas, so save money. However in the past there had always been manual operators available, though they deliberately use less of them, you always wait longer at manual checkouts than at the self-serve checkouts. This is true even for the "express" manual checkouts. The reasoning being that people don't like to wait too long in queues so out of frustration they'd at least try the self-serve checkouts. However my phobic for learning something new in a public setting outweighs my frustration at waiting in queues. But now at Bunnings I was for the first time confronted with the ONLY option of using the self-serve checkouts, there was no manual operators available, and this during a Mercury retrograde!!!!! Most fortunately there was a very helpful sheila who guided me. Employing one sheila for six self-serve checkouts is way cheaper! LOL! Anyway it was indeed a very simple process, indeed most painless for a Mercury retrograde period. I am by no means a convert for self serve, but at least I now know how to use them, at least at Bunnings!! I'm not sure if they're all the same at other stores and supermarkets, and not willing to try yet, though am wondering how long it will be before the supermarkets uses the tactics of closing all manual operators?? Also it makes me wonder how one could use them without a credit/debit card. Could one use them with cash. I always use my card anyway so was not an issue, but there are still those who uses cash only.

Now to the telco shop..... and more Mercury retrograde moments. Despite being the 2nd person to turn up I was told I would have to wait for 90 minutes because they were short staffed!! Ironically it was one of the scenarios that I predicted would happen due to a Mercury retrograde!! However since my request was relatively simple - I already have an account with the telco so all I needed was to upgrade my phone - the helpful sheila suggested I go visit the smaller alternative shop, still located in the mall, but designed for more simple requests.

So I went to visit the smaller alternative shop, and well they were indeed able to help me immediately. However this was not the end of my Mercury retrograde moments!! The particular phone I wanted was out of stock!!!! Ironically another prediction came true, I also predicted that the phone I wanted would be out of stock due to Mercury's retrograde!! I wanted the 128 Gigs model. A geek like me can never have too many Gigs of storage space for all my many apps, files, and other data. The 128 Gigs model was out of stock, and it be another MONTH before they would get more in stock!!! EEEK!!! But they did have the 64 Gigs model in stock. OK its only half of what I wanted, but still way better than my old and now non-functional phone which had only a very meager 12 Gigs. So I figure I'd settle for the 64 Gigs. Still a brand new Samsung Galaxy S6 which had just come out, it is the latest model. It comes in 32 Gigs, 64 Gigs and 128 Gigs, so at least I gotten the mid-range model of 64 Gigs. Now just have to get it all set up...... nearly finished it I think...... it did work on my walk this weekend!! I went on the same walk as last week when my old phone failed on me, so this time was able to record my GPS and how far I walked! Another thing, the phone charges up way quicker, less than a couple of hours with the new fast-charger device that came with the phone, but even with my old chargers it still charges up way quicker. No more waiting for half a day for my phone to charge up!!!!!

Now just another week or so before the end of Mercury's retrograde..... uhhh a lovely Full Moon tomorrow night, I love Full Moons, its my favorite time of the month........

Speaking of dealing with stores.......

....and using self serve checkouts.....

um.... yes..... ;)

Now speaking of phones....... its seems it was like it was on another planet when back in my teen years there were no cell phones, only those rotary dialers and you had to wait until mother went out before calling my secret lover.... hehehe...... these days I'm too old for secret lovers, even non-secret lovers! LOL!!!!

Oh what a weekend !!!

Well it is said that during Mercury's retrograde there are often unexplained failures with electronic devices such as phones. Well that is exactly what happened with my phone during my walk last Saturday!!

OK another quick lesson in Astrology. What is meant by a planet going into "retrograde". Well from here on planet Earth the planets usually moves "forward" through the Zodiac as they revolve around the Sun. However at certain times the planets seems to move "backwards" in the sky. This is purely a function of relative orbital velocities when the Earth comes into a certain position relative to the planet in question, much akin to when travelling on the highway, when passing a slower car, the car seems to go "backwards" relative to those in the faster car although we know that both cars are moving forwards relative to the highway. However according to Einstein's theory of relativity, it is the relative motions that makes the difference, hence from planet Earth when we see planets moving backwards it does affect the energies involved. Astrology is nothing more than the study of the various energies of the planets and other celestial objects, and how they interact with each other and with us on planet Earth.

Mercury is named after the Greek messenger god, hence the energies associated with Mercury involves communications. Therefore when Mercury goes into retrograde, communications seems to go backwards, we experience more relationship upsets, more arguments, and more problems with communication devices such as phones. Mercury is currently in retrograde, so its no coincidence that my phone had suffered an unexplained hardware failure!! Mercury is my ruling planet, it was also in retrograde when I was born, furthermore it was in my star sign Virgo when I was born, therefore it would affect me more than someone else without such planetary configurations in their natal (birth) chart.

So it was only 10 minutes into my walk when the touch screen on my phone stopped responding, meaning effectively I could not use the phone. Resetting/reboot of the phone did not solve the problem, therefore I deduce the problem to be hardware related. Thus I currently have no phone. My phone is relatively ancient, being approx three years old, and most importantly, my two-year contract on the phone had since expired. This makes the task of acquiring a much overdue new phone much simpler. I already have my account with Telstra with a data plan, so it should be relatively straight forward to simply replace the current now-disfunctional phone with a brand new superior phone. And my own research have worked out that I should be able to get a new phone on a similar plan for only a marginal monthly increase. I already have the phone picked out on the website.

Now it's just a matter of visiting a Telstra shop to effect the changeover and getting a new phone. Here in this sleepy Amish-like city of Perth it is difficult to visit a Telstra shop during opening time while also having to be at work. Visiting during my lunch hour is not an option as this is when everyone else visit the shop, which I found out much to my extreme annoyance back in my days with Sally when she wanted me to visit such a shop - I can't remember why now but something to do with her phone - and the salesman informed me it would be a 90 minute wait before being served, longer than my available lunch hour even in the public service!!!!

However as fate would have it, last week I already booked myself a day off work this coming Wednesday. I had other plans for the day, however, me without a phone is almost as bad as me without a computer, so a visit to the Telstra shop will be my first task for that day, hopefully avoiding the rush when I go in the morning soon after the shop opens.

As for the football..... a mixed result though the curse of Chiron aka the curse of Mother's death is still very much evident. At least the Maggies won, well they were playing Gold Coast so not making a big deal out of it. I do accept reality of the situation, Gold Coast is not exactly crash hot at the moment so the Maggies were expected to win. And I did pick the Bombers. And I extremely grudgingly picked the Weevils, well they were only playing the lowly Saints. How the Weevils managed to get 2nd spot on the ladder is beyond me, I didn't know the umpires could be so easily bribed! OK Mother also said to give credit where credit is due..... and I don't always take her advice..... if the Weevils by some extreme stroke of utter fortune ever manage to make it to top spot we will never hear the end of it here. The only reason why not too much is crowed about the Weevil's unexpected rise to 2nd spot is cos our other local team Fremantle is on TOP of the ladder, and I am kinda glad about that - far better Freo to be on top than those Weevils!!!!! grrrrrrrrrrrrr........

Anyway I did manage five correct picks...... better than some weeks but not as good as other weeks....... Well next week lets hope Geelong will give them Weevils an extremely much needed reality check!!! The Maggies against the Kangaroos, not liking the feeling about that one. The Bombers against Richmond.....um.....no comment.... I don't finalise my picks until the Friday prior to the first match ;)

This first cartoon..... um..... yes.... hehe.......

OK why didn't my education work out for me!!!!???????

Yes that would be Heaven indeed..... hehe.......

I love this one..... hehehe.....

The disaster area that is football......

The dismal football results capped off what was another dismal weekend. Nothing major happened, just many little things all turning pear shaped. So won't be talking much here. I did manage 6 correct picks in the football but most of them were easy picks with many one sided matches. The curse of the close matches happened with those Maggies losing by just 5 points. I think my prediction for a dismal year for the Maggies are coming true, it is not going to be their year in spite of a promising start prior to this round. My feelings always proves to be correct sooner or later.

So nothing more worth sharing as I face another very long week at work with hope of at least a slightly better weekend next weekend.......

Perth is so expensive that there are no Dollar stores here.....

Meanwhile at a restaurant in Perth.....

The Perth dating scene......

At a repair shop in Perth.....

The Wounded Healer

This has been a terrible day so this will be a short and not so sweet blog..... the disaster area that is the football and tipping competition. Just a dismal four correct picks, and the catastrophic Friday night match..... and to add insult to injury, the bloody Weevils won, and I did not pick them.... uh well such is life.......

I often refer to "the curse of mother's death" in regards to my football tipping, that is, prior to mother's death I had always won prize money each year in our tipping competition, but since mother's death, I hadn't won any prize money and my ranking seems to be sliding.

Well there is a reason behind this that I discovered in my study of my natal chart. A quick astrology lesson. We traditionally refer to our Sun sign when we identify ourselves with a star sign. I was born when the Sun was in Virgo, hence we say I am a Virgo, so would traditionally read the Virgo entry in any horoscopes. However there is also the Ascendant sign that we all have, the sign that was "rising" above the horizon at the moment of our birth, much like sun rise, and is actually our most important sign. For me this sign is Pisces.

What I discovered in my natal chart, that is, the chart showing the positions of the planets, etc, in the zodiac at the time of my birth, is that Planet Chiron was in Pisces at that time. Chiron is known as the "wounded healer", and to cut a long story short, it explains why I had such a difficult childhood. Chiron being a slow moving planet it spend several years in each sign, and so indeed it turns out that my diagnosis of Autism happened near the end of Chiron's transit in Pisces. Chiron moved out of Pisces in my 5th year of my life, then the 8 years of Hell happened when Chiron was moving through the next sign Aries which is opposite my Moon sign Libra. Interestingly Aries in my chart represents money and material possessions, so with Chiron the "wounded healer" moving through Aries when the abuser came into my life, he helped us with money and possessions but he also abused me badly. The abuser left just after Chiron moved out of Aries. The Xmas from Hell, the "knife incident" and my worse years with Barbara happened when Chiron was in Virgo..... I say no more about that!!!!!

Now Chiron takes about 49 years to travel around the Sun, so it is now back in my Ascendant sign Pisces. And I discovered some interesting "coincidences". Mother's death happened when Chiron entered into Pisces, and my wife's death happened when Chiron was in the same position in Pisces as in my natal chart. Chiron is still moving through Pisces and is due to move out of Pisces at the start of 2018, so a little while yet!!!!!

So the "curse of mother's death" seems to be linked to Chiron's entry in Pisces, the time of mother's death, and so since then while Chiron travels through Pisces I haven't been able to win any money in the football tipping. So  maybe I should wait until Chiron moves out of Pisces in 2018 before joining the tipping competition! LOL!!

Anyway.........

Yes indeed.......

My relationships.......

At a govt dept at the govt announcement of cuts in the public sector......

My Job is Safe......

Maybe its me being a Virgo with Chiron the wounded healer in my Ascendant sign..... either me thinking the worse or just preparing for the worst..... In any case, our staff meeting with the big boss last Friday turned out way better than the similar meeting in the dept next door. That meeting they were told the dept would be shut down and so all their positions would be made redundant...... so Virgo me thought the same would occur at OUR meeting..... but not to be..... In fact there are no immediate plans for any job cuts and indeed our dept will not be shut down in the foreseeable future - this being the warehouse "Product Supply" for Distance Education, where we send learning materials to correspondence students. They are still continuing in their plans to convert all of the courses to online courses meaning eventually there will be no more dispatches of  books nor most other items, but its going to take a while yet before the process is completed. Of course there will be some job cuts once the process is completed cos the volume of postage will be drastically cut, but not for at least 12 months.

Furthermore, they acknowledge that certain things such as Science kits for the performing of Science experiments can never be converted to online, the student still needs the hands on experiences, so no plans to cut down on Science kits. And well it happens since a few months ago a part of my change of duties is to spend half day each day in the Science kits area making up Science kits. So even when there are job cuts, my job will be one of the safer jobs. It will be those exclusively working in the mail dispatch area that will lose their jobs first - and well I do work in the dispatch area but only 1/2 day now and that is only because there are still SOME mail that needs to be processed and sent out, there's still some books being printed, not all of the courses are online yet, and even some online courses still have some books. The ultimate goal of management is to remove the books altogether and for all learning materials to be online only, but will still be Science kits being sent out minus the books.

A lot has already changed since I first started in this job 16 years ago this month. Back then EVERYTHING were sent out by mail. The books, the CDs and DVD's and indeed in those days they still had cassette tapes that were also physically sent out by mail. And many of the courses had kits with them, such as Science, Maths, Art, Home Economics and a few others. Furthermore the work that the students completed were processed by us, part of my job was to send the work back to the students after the teachers had marked and graded them.

Then one of the first things to go were the cassette tapes, most of them were just converted to CDs. Then many of the kits were cut out except for Science and Arts. The kits for the other courses were deemed to be unnecessary. Next to go were the CDs and DVDs as they were most easily converted to online format, though even this day there are still some DVDs that I send out, just not nearly as many as a few years ago. The student's marked work then drastically decreased in the last few years as more students were compelled to submit their work online, at first via scanning, then the format itself were converted to online.

However the major step which sent shivers down our job spines happened two years ago when all of the English courses were converted to online. That is books, DVDs, everything! This effectively cut out the English courses from our dispatch list. We knew then that our days in our current jobs are numbered!! Then last year more of the courses were converted to online only - such as the Accounting and Business Ed courses, and some of the Career Ed courses, Photography, and some others. This had significantly cut down my workload to the point where I often spent hours each day with nothing to do. This year, more courses were converted to online, such as all of the Humanities courses - Geography, Economics, Politics, and History, and also all of the LOTE (Languages) courses were converted to online except for Japanese. Indeed the only other courses I have left with stock on the shelves are the Science, Mathematics, Arts, Health Ed, and Woodwork. However in the Science courses many of the books have been converted to online, only the Science kits were to be physically sent out, and there were no books in the Arts courses, only the Art kits. And next year it is likely that most of the Mathematics courses will be converted to online.

So it was this year that my boss decided on some change of duties for me to keep me occupied, basically I spend the first four hours of the day in the dispatch area, then after Morning Tea break I would spend the rest of the day in the Science kits area. I get to revisit my passion in Science, remembering all those Science experiments I used to do at school !!!! Science was my favorite subject and I gotten my best scores in Science, indeed I won dux in Physics every year at school. Anyway it seems to be a most wise move on my boss part to move me to the Science area, a move that is most likely to save my job when the time finally comes for job cuts in our dept.

Now the football and I managed to get a massive 7 correct picks!! My best result yet. Of course I picked the Maggies but I didn't expect them to win by quite THAT much, I though Carlton was better than that, so being a first match of the round my points variance is shot out the window, but at least the Maggies won. And I did pick the Bombers though I thought I would deeply regret that decision, it is a VERY good thing that they managed to get over the line. I guess when it comes to tipping a win IS a win even if it is only by two tiny little points. And I did extremely grudgingly pick the Weevils, well it was only the Giants, its not as if they were playing some top team. True enough the Giants are doing better this year but being still a young team.... I judged that their trip to the distant reaches of the west coast would take a bit out of them, and well my decision was vindicated, the Weevils did manage a win..... ok it was a thrashing but then again it was ONLY the Giants and they still are a young team in the very unfamiliar environment of isolated Perth!!!

So next week the Maggies are first cab off the rank again with another Friday night match, and well its Geelong so am gonna back the Maggies again though I don't think they'll win by quite as much, so my points variance won't be so catastrophic. As for the Bombers, well after almost losing to the lowly Saints I'm going to have to back the Dockers especially being here in the distant reaches of the west coast. And the Weevils with their massively swelled heads will be brought back to reality with a THUD when they travel to meet the Port Power.

Anyway that were the major news...... hopefully this week will be far better than last week with no more mishaps nor close calls.........

Now some light heart look on spiritual topics.....

If Moses had a phone with GPS......

My energies after dealing with last weeks' near catastrophes......

The real reason why Stonehenge doesn't seem to be complete..... must have been from Ikea ;)

The never ending fight against ego..... the religious call it "sin", the spiritual community calls it "ego".... the irony in this cartoon should be apparent.... ;)

Now speaking of my job..... well I'm gonna be on the Chain Gang for some time yet...... for me it is in more ways than one as the song kinda suggest......