Tuesday, December 09, 2008

I am currently performing the duties of three different jobs at work. I tend to think of these jobs in terms of how many people would be required to do a day's work in a day, and thus my workload is broken up as follows:

EOR's, which requires about a person and a half, or sometimes two people. Which works out well, because Kerry does the bulk of that work, and I'm her extra half.

Examiner certifications, which is about half a person's work.

Processing payments, which varies between half and a full person.

So on any given day, I am required to be at least one and a half people, or up to two and a half people. You may well wonder how I have time to blog from work, as I am currently doing... the answer is, I don't actually have time. But I've worked damn hard and I deserve a few minutes to goof off, right? :)

Friday, December 05, 2008

I've found my newest hero. Ron Williams, of Toowoomba in Queensland, is violently opposing religion in state schools, and I think it's about time somebody did what he is doing. Anything related to religion should be either removed from non-religious schools, or made very clear to the children that it is myth, untrue, just like Santa and the Tooth Fairy. Ron Williams, should you ever come across this blog entry - I admire you, and I hope that your actions will mean that by the time my fetus is going to school, some worthwhile changes will have been made!

Wednesday, December 03, 2008

Ok, it's ranting time.

Everybody in Australia has, or has a friend who has, a horror story about the telco Telstra. This includes me. I have, no doubt, blogged at least once before about my problems with their broadband arm, Bigpond.

Telstra Bigpond is the biggest ISP in Australia. Whilst they do not have a monopoly, far from it in fact, they would certainly be the first considered ISP in most people's minds when first getting online. They are well-marketed, and their set-up process is easy for any beginner to follow.

Assuming you have no problems with your bundling or billing, and assuming you change nothing such as address or phone number mid-contract, their actual service is fine. I've never experienced a dropout, or significantly slowed speeds, while using the internet with Bigpond.

But the moment you come across a problem, the moment they make just one mistake, it escalates. Their customer service and complaints resolution process is unweildy and ineffective. Their right hand does not know what the left is doing. It is the problem of large companies that they have too many departments, none of whom communicate internaly, and all of which have long wait times to speak to an actual person.

This is what happened to me:

Late last year (ie, over 12 months ago), I received a phonecall from Bigpond offering me a great deal on my broadband and phone, bundled. I liked it, I accepted it. However, a couple of months later (although the service was active) I had not received a bill. They called me to advise that my account was in arrears, and advised me how much I had to pay immediately. The amount was far more than I had expected, given the deal I had agreed to over the phone, but I paid it anyway. I queried why I had not received any bills, and was told that my billing address was incorrect in the system.

Now, read this bit carefully, it's confusing, but very important: The billing address they had in the system was their own back-of-house operations area. My bill was actually supposed to be sent there, to be cancelled and re-issued to me with the correct charges and reflecting the bundling I was supposed to be getting.

Upon realising that this was not happening, and that I simply wasn't being billed, I pressed to get the bundling applied, so that internet and phone were charged as one amount on one bill. When speaking to them about this, it was determined that I had been being charged far too much, and was given a huge credit - actually I'm almost sure the credit was more than I had ever paid them in the first place, meaning that technically I still owed them money. However they apparently overlooked this, so I did too.

Despite this, bills still failed to arrive or be charged correctly. I finally went to the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman, who gave me the phone number for Telstra's own High Level Complaints. Upon calling this number, I finally reached somebody who appeared to have some control or authority to do what I was asking - which was what they had offered me in the first place. So, about six or seven months into my twelve month contract, things seemed to be fixed up for the first time.

BUT. Yes, there is a but. We went quite a while again without receiving bills. Now, as I'm sure you'll understand, being pregnant and having quite a bit going on right now, I really didn't think of calling them to ask for the bills. It didn't quite register how long it had been between bills. So, when our internet service was cut off yesterday, I had to call them to find out that it was for non-payment of three months worth of bills. Bills which, once again, had been sent to that back-of-house operations area, and not re-issued to me at all.

There wasn't much I could do about it; it had happened, and that was that. I paid the outstanding amount (which actually seemed about right) and called Bigpond back with the receipt number, just as they had asked, expecting to be re-connected almost immediately. However, upon calling them with the number, I was advised it may take up to 48 hours for the service to be re-activated. Possibly sooner, but probably not before Thursday morning. (This was Tuesday afternoon.)

And so, the last thing I asked Bigpond about yesterday was "When does my contract expire?"
I was told, to my very great relief, "You are no longer on a contract, ma'am."
"Does this mean I can cancel at any time with no cancellation fee?"
"Yes, ma'am", says Ryan on the phone.
"Fantastic," says I, "I'll be doing that in the next couple of days!"
He asked why. I told him if he had access to the notes on my file, and a few spare hours, he could certainly figure it out for himself.

Sunday, November 30, 2008

Thursday, November 27, 2008

Well well well, what a surprise. Australia's biggest outdoor advertising agency has refused to display ads for the Australian Atheist Foundation. Christian organisations get to advertise, why can't the Atheists? Is this not making sense to anybody else? Naturally I'd like to hear the other side of the story: this article is all from the point of view of the Atheists. But the advertising agency has so far been unavailable for comment regarding the refusal. Interesting, ja?

Friday, November 21, 2008

Well, I had my first ultrasound this afternoon! A little earlier than originally scheduled, due to some slight bleeding. But all is fine! I saw the Bean! The Bean is currently an indistinct blob, with a tiny flashing white bit indicating a heartbeat, or so the ultrasound tech said. It was just a flashing white thing to me. She estimated its age at 6 weeks and 6 days, and my due date is 11th July 2009. "No abnormality was demonstrated", which I think in doctor-speak means things are fine.

Sunday, November 16, 2008

Ok, Jewel has tagged me, and I must put here "15 things I'm not afraid to admit". It could be difficult to come up with 15 things you don't already know, but here goes...

1. I love Meat Loaf. The musician, not the meal. I saw him in concert a few years ago, it was awesome.

2. I have attempted to lick my own elbow.

3. I don't like Dan Brown, for literary reasons.

4. I'm enough of a geek to love text-based online games. No fancy-schmancy visuals for me!

5. I'd much rather read a book than go to a nightclub.

6. I had a crush on David Tennant ten years before anybody else. By the time he was Dr Who, I was over him.

7. I neglect my fingernails terribly. What's a nail file?!

8. I don't care to have matching furniture or a tidy house. I LIVE here, for goodness sake, it's not a show home.

9. I'm clumsy. But I have a medical excuse. Labyrinthitis. Never heard of it?? You're lucky.

10. I don't get the hype about Guitar Hero. It looks lame, and I'm not even slightly tempted to try it.

11. I still wish I could go to Hogwarts. I would totally be in Gryffindor.

12. My idealism constantly battles with my cynicism. Sadly, cynicism usually wins.

13. I have three thick dark hairs growing near my belly button. No matter how many times I pull them out, they always seem to grow back!

14. I hate shoes. Shoe-removal is the first thing I do when I get home.

15. I hate the colour orange.

Friday, November 14, 2008

Wow, last night was panic time. The tiniest bit of old blood, and I was certain something was wrong. However, upon calling the healthcare hotline, I was assured this was perfectly normal, and this morning my GP sent me off to the hospital for a "just-in-case" injection of anti-D. Aidan (who was on duty, in uniform, armed, etc) came to collect me from work to take me out to the hospital, and we spent about two and a half hours waiting in the emergency department to get this little jab... admittedly we were hardly a high priority - I wasn't about to die or anything! They were pretty busy, poor things. The medical registrar seemed run off his feet. So anyway, by the time I got back to work, it was lunch time, and then after lunch I finally did some work! And that's my story, wasn't it exciting?!

Friday, November 07, 2008

hehe Thank you all for your comments below. Cazzie, you're slow off the mark ;)

It's nearly six weeks now, my baby is the size of a raisin (they always measure it in foods), and has a heartbeat. How cool is that?! There's a tiny person inside me. In a week or two it'll have its own blood type - that's something I have to watch out for; my blood type is O-, and if baby's blood type is positive, there's a chance my immune system may react against it. However, we'll cross that bridge if and when we come to it.

My writing is also going very well - I have just over 15,000 words now, and I think they're rather good words. Whilst this month is more about quantity than quality, I'd still like to end up with something a little bit good!

I'm catching up with the Canberra writers again tomorrow, even though I can't stay for the write-in as I don't have a laptop. But it's good to get together and kick around ideas and stuff.

Here is a short extract from somewhere in the middle of my "novel":

Her wanderings that morning were aimless, indecisive. She simply felt that any direction was better than none at all. The rain had stopped, but the clouds were low, dark and menacing. She tried to keep moving quickly, but was frequently distracted, and forced off-course. A rat-surrounded corpse would make her hesitate and change direction, or a blocked street might send her retracing her footsteps to find another way around. In one place, an entire section of the street had given way and only a flooded hole lay at her feet. Before long Susan had lost her bearings, her sore muscles and tired mind only adding to her confusion. Only when she stopped for a moment and saw a droplet fall to the ground at my feet did she become aware that she'd been crying.

It was at that moment that she looked up, her eyes seeking further ahead than simply the next laboured step. She had reached the suburbs, where once houses had stood in neat rows, painted cheerful colours, with well-tended gardens. The houses had long-since been burnt; only charred black piles of wreckage remained. But the gardens remained. Overgrown, untended, but there still. Susan wept and silently thanked those with the foresight to grow vegetables, fruit trees, and herbs. The quality was poor; vegetables were choked by weeds, fruit had been feasted on by birds and insects. But it was food, it was fresh, the two runaways could eat.

Monday, November 03, 2008

Five Weeks


Feeling:

    Tired, very tired

    Irritable

    Weepy

    Sore bosoms

    Flatulence


Fortunately no morning sickness to speak of, I suppose I should count my blessings!



In non-pregnancy related news: What I Did On My Weekend

The local NaNoWriMo kick-off lunch was held at the Pancake Parlour in Civic, so I went along to that. There's always something weird about a gathering of people who, almost be definition, are anti-social nerds. (Who else would volunteer to write 50,000 words in one month?) But it was a lot of fun, and the ideas being kicked around really helped me with my "novel". So I'm glad I went.

Also, I wrote a lot. I've got just over 8,000 words now, and a public holiday tomorrow on which to do a whole lot more. Hooray!

Thursday, October 30, 2008

My wonderful friends.


You have read this blog and been part of my life, and Aidan's, through highs and lows, through engagement and marriage, moving city, changing jobs, almost everything momentous that can happen in a person's life. Now we are honoured that you join us in this next momentous occasion, and I hope to bore you extensively over the coming nine months by writing about almost nothing else. Yes, I'm pregnant. Four weeks and three days pregnant, to be precise (counting like the doctors do, not from the actual conception). Early days, but I couldn't wait to share the news! We had our first visit to the doctor today, she ran me through all the stuff I can't eat anymore, and said a few other things about hospitals and midwives and blood tests, but I was too busy missing salami to pay attention to the fine detail.

I hope to keep you all updated over the coming weeks, and here is a cool little countdown thingie so you know where we're up to!

pregnant

Now I'm going to go and stare lovingly at some soft cheeses and wines, until this thing pops out and I can eat them again!!

Saturday, October 25, 2008

Ok, the first 2,500-ish words are over at Stace Writes. Enjoy.

Friday, October 24, 2008

In the lead-up to National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), my nerves won't settle down. Writing 50,000 words in the space of one month is a mammoth task which I'm not sure I'm up to - especially while working full-time, trying to see my husband every once in a while, and playing computer games. I may have to sacrifice the computer games. And some work. (Not time at work, just doing the actual work. That can wait till December.)

I've actually cheated a little and started writing already. I'm fairly sure most participants will do the same. You see, I had a lot of trouble figuring out what to write about; if I could have figured that out I would have just started on a plot outline now, and not started writing properly until November. However, with no real clue... I just wrote a sentence. And then another one. And another one, and so on. So my novel will go wherever the next sentence takes it, with no plan in my own mind. This novel will surprise its writer at least as much as any reader!

Fortunately it doesn't have to be good, it just has to be 50,000 words. If you're unlucky, I might post it (or some of it) here (or over at Stace Writes, my other long-neglected blog) when it's done. If I ever finish it!

Thursday, October 16, 2008


Canberra is covered in white.



No, it's not snowing.





The trees are sending out their seeds in a haze of fluff - it carries beautifully on the wind...




What may appear to be poor quality photography up in the top left is, in fact, seed-fluff. (That's a technical term which I made up.) It gets everywhere. Up noses, down throats, into houses and cars.

I've never seen anything quite like it. Although I've seen some weird things.

What odd natural phenomena have you witnessed lately??

Sunday, October 12, 2008

Somepeople expressed a desire to see me with purple hair again. Sadly it's a little difficult to tell that it's actually purple in this photo, but I can't be bothered taking another one. Just trust me. It's purple.
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It's a glorious day in this big country town also known as our capital city. And what does a lazy Stace do with a glorious day? She sits out in the backyard (well, what passes for a backyard when you live in an apartment block; that's half of it in that photo) and reads and eats strawberries!

I forgot to close the screen door, and now there's a fly buzzing around inside... at least it's only one. When this town gets hotter, in mid-summer, the air is like a kind of fly soup.


Canberra really can be lovely sometimes. It's the Spring weather that I like. The Summers are far too hot, and the Winters are far too cold. And it's not just the hot and the cold, it's the type of hot and cold. Sweltering heat that makes you wish you were in Antarctica, and biting cold that makes you wish you were on fire. But today, so far, is just perfect. I'm going to sit out in the yard and read some more, and eat those strawberries!

Tuesday, October 07, 2008

"Ugh" pretty much sums me up this morning. It's Tuesday morning and I'm back at work after a long weekend... my back and hips are killing me, I'm still about three-quarters asleep, and I just want to go hoooome!!!

However, having had that gripe, it was a nice weekend. We went geocaching on Sunday morning, found 4 in one morning, which we were quite pleased about. We did our first multi-cache, too. That's when the original co-ordinates given aren't actually the location of the cache, but a location with a hint to the cache site. Or, as in this case, a hint to the site of another hint which finally led to the actual cache. Lots of fun! And I saw a snake.

Other than that we didn't do much. The weather had closed in again, and was rather anti-outdoorsy stuff. Rain and wind and thunder. Nice weather for staying in and playing computer games, so that's what we did for most of yesterday.

And I've dyed my hair purple again.

Wednesday, October 01, 2008

As promised, some photos of our Sydney Trip!

The outside of Star City, the casino in Sydney. What can I say? It's a casino. My experience of casinos is limited, not being much of a gambler, but I hear Star City is pretty good as they go... Apart from the really tacky fake rocks and waterfall just inside.

The grand and graceful Sydney Town Hall at the fall of dusk. As you can see, we had beautiful weather while we were there.


This, I photographed for Aidan's sort-of-cousin Steven. He's a big fan of Hummers, and we figured he'd be a bigger fan for a bigger car. Isn't it cool, though??


Aidan putting a geocache back where we found it.




Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Ok, I haven’t blogged in a while. Again. There are several reasons for this. Donnnnnnnn, firstly, was correct: I have indeed been traipsing. Geocaching is teh uber fun, and takes up most of the daylight hours that I’m not working. Yes, I’m working. My temp assignment has been sort of extended – I’m still at the same company, in a different area of the business, until at least the first week of November. Yay!

Also, Aidan and I spent last weekend in Sydney! Neither of us had been there in years, and never together, so we spent a very nice weekend wandering the city (being in a city again, yay!!!!), geocaching, and generally having a good time. I’m blogging from work right now, so I don’t have photos, but I’ll put ‘em up later if I remember. It was wonderful to be out of Canberra, to be together, to be away from distractions like books and computers, and just “BE”, you know? We really haven’t been able to do that in a long time.

For anybody in Sydney reading this, I do apologise we didn't inform you and try to catch up, but we really just wanted some "couple-time", so maybe next time :)

Aidan has this weekend off too, so we're thinking of going away again, or at least spending as much time as possible out of the house and together. Fancy that - time together! It's something of a rarity these days.

So anyway, I'm at work now. Almost everybody is in a meeting, but the few temps don't go to meetings, so it's really quiet in here right now. The guy who's meant to be training me isn't here today, and wasn't yesterday either, so I really don't know what I'm meant to be doing... I've taken a few guesses, and done some stuff, but for all I know I'll have to undo it when he gets back!

And that's the news. All the news that's new and approved!

Sunday, September 14, 2008

Weeeeeeeee I had my first successful geocaching expedition today! Up Red Hill, found two of them, what fun!! Plus a good excuse to get out in the fresh air :)

Saturday, September 13, 2008

Ok, update time again.

I have a temp job right now, data entry, which I'm scheduled to be doing till Friday but I think I'll have the work finished by Wednesday... I hope they find something else for me to do, else I'll miss out on two day's pay! Anyway, it's tedious of course (data entry always is), but I'm glad to be employed.

I've finally bought a GPS unit for geocaching. I went exploring with it today, I found the site of a cache but couldn't actually find the cache itself. FAIL! Oh well, next time :) It was fun, anyway, a good walk.

I've been feeling a lot happier. I think I may have been suffering from good old SAD. Seasonal Affective Disorder. You know, some of these acronyms, I swear somebody comes up with the letters first, and then figures out words for them to stand for.

My mum has decided to run in the elections for local council this year, down in Euroa. That is totally awesome. I'm fairly confident she'll be elected; she's pretty well known and respected; and she's nearly a local, having lived there for 30 years now. (It's a country thing.)

And, in a nutshell, that's my life right now.