Long time no write..

Yeah, it's been ages, almost 2 weeks, and the only excuse I can think of is that it must be a viral "no-time-to-blog" thing, coz everyone seems to have been a bit slack lately.

I'm settling in to my job. I am afraid that I tend to want to put quotation marks around the word "job" (yep, I did it), because it's an inaccurate description of what I do. I do virtually nothing. After spending the last 3 years going home every day feeling guilty about unfinished tasks, I now go home every day thinking about how many games of spider solitaire I completed and what the hell I am going to do the next day to keep me occupied. We have a very small clientele, and I have two staff members who very capably handle everything that needs doing (except the paperwork, and I guess that could take me an hour a day if I work veeery slowly).
When one staff member is off work, and remember, my staff are indigenous, so they certainly don't work 5 days a week, probably an average of 3, then the other one can handle the work by herself without a problem. Last week both were away, and I did the work that they would normally do in about 1.5 hours. Don't for one minute think that I am being racist with those comments about staff not coming to work, remember that I have worked out in remote areas now for over 4 years, and that's just a fact of life. Most of the indigenous staff I have had have been great; caring and lovely women (and men), but the reality is that culturally they don't have the inbuilt regimentation that we do. Why should they? Without going into that too deeply, my guess is that it works for them, so why change it? I certainly don't get my knickers in a knot over it, and have learnt over time that it's counter-productive to play the big boss - much easier to ensure that there are always people who can be called at the last minute if necessary. In this "job" however, it isn't.

That pic is one of the flooding here, taken last week. Nothing very remarkable about it, just that it's the only one I had on my phone. The other one was taken by Tom on Friday morning after the cyclone hit Port Hedland. (sorry it's not really clear, Tom took it on his phone). He's there at trade-school, and weathered the night out with a good mate and a slab of xxxx gold. He admitted the next day that it was one of the most frightening nights of his life, and then when he went out the next morning to have a look at the devastation, I think chills went down his spine. To think that it was the same category as cyclone Tracey, and the winds recorded were the highest on record so far, it's amazing that there was any town left. Now he's braced for Jacob, but it looks like he's gonna be pretty mild.

How do you get the pics to come out in the order that they are uploaded???

OK, gotta put in my final bid for a new karaoke CD on Ebay...

Catch ya.