December the 18th or thereabouts

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...
Hot weather, extra stress at work, school uniform production at a peak, loss of appetite causing me to pull my belt in a notch or two just to keep my pants on (back to the minimum of my weight range) must be getting close to Christmas. Children at Christmas is way over-rated. Seeing their eyes light up as they open their presents is nothing compared to when they first smile, or start taking their first steps, or watch them sleep peacefully. It might be my upbringing, but I actually dread Christmas with children. One cannot give any one child enough attention through the day, for them to get any fun from their presents, because we are just too busy with getting everything organised. And the one thing that I want for Christmas is the one thing I know I'm not going to get - some peace and quiet relaxing playing some computer games by myself - even 5 minutes would be good. I would try and get up really early to get 5 minutes but that's just cutting back on my valuable sleeping time.


Back to blogging -

Work - The continuing saga of employee-employer relations continues. With the Union man involved it inevitably becomes more like war over the imaginary spoils that are left, than a team effort to improve the viability and success of local manufacture. Employees (and some in management for that matter), become mere pawns in a power game which is as much what the unions can screw out of the employers, or what the employers can screw out the employees as it is what we all want as individuals, compared to what we want collectively. I still believe in myself to have the moral high ground (even though nobody else thinks I do) in that I am trying to steer the whole process in a general direction which is better for the company - in which turn will also benefit employees in the long run. Strangely, what I think is the best strategy often conflicts directly with other management ideas.

Volleyball

We have won back to back first division competitions now. This season, there are a few more good teams, so it will be a lot more interesting from week to week.

Solomon Islands

The Australian peacekeeping mission in the Solomon Islands once again proves to me the superiority of our ADF tactics, efficiency and exceedingly high standing especially in the Pacific. Just a few points:

Gun control: One of the first things done in Bougainville, East Timor & Solomon Islands, was to confiscate as many weapons as possible. In contrast, the Americans in Afghanistan and Iraq, like in their own country have made it a personal right for anybody to have them.

Society: The inclusion of considerable civilian personnel, especially in the Solomons where it is almost entirely a civilian type mission, and in general, the civilian type duties that so many soldiers perform as well, being inclusive of local populations. The US military seems incapable of any meaningful relationships with the local populace in the countries it has waged war upon, seeing them all as potential terrorists rather than as people they could try to win over. This is clearly a problem with the US military attitude, training and culture, which although capable of winning wars, is incapable of winning the peace, or winning over the populace. The US has seemed to fail in the Phillipines or Liberia, where clearly they are easy missions, while even in Indonesia, Australia has been able to fight terrorism without confrontation with the Indonesian government.

I've got an idea, why don't PNG, Fiji etc.also ask Australia to improve their policing/security issues.

Novel reading month

Since Dave and Andrew seem to be writing more novels, I have decided that this will be the month that I start reading them!

Please don't try to understand this

Since the tube got inserted to the arm, Karla has gone missing, as well as Lexy. Poor Felicity has no-one to take her to uncle Ferdie's (Ferdinand) Castle to play. Isabella is no help, because all she does is babble in Italian. Mr. man will play marbles with Felicity sometimes, but otherwise he's no help either. Maybe mr. man has lost his marbles too!