It's my life, it's now or never ...

Christmas 2013

noreply@blogger.com (Balazs) — Tue, 17 Sep 2013 01:21:00 +0000

That went quickly, didn't it? Christmas spirit usually seeps into every day life usually at the beginning of December. In the past few years you could notice it in around November. Christmas Carols started to fill the shopping centers, chocolate Santa and all the Christmas themed goodies appear on the store shelves. Every shop appears on the TV and billboards, having the biggest Christmas sale ever. But I think this year they went a bit too far, or actually too early. This is what I've seen at the local hardware store.

Yes, the Christmas light are already there. I haven't even had a chance to test my Father's day present, it is 17th of September for Cod's cake - staying politically correct, not to hurt the feelings of those who don't believe in God.

I think it is time for me to wish everyone - to those 3 readers including my wife who happen to stumbled upon my blog - a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

Election 2013

noreply@blogger.com (Balazs) — Mon, 02 Sep 2013 02:00:00 +0000

There were some interesting events during the last 3 years since the last election. Some things were nice, some things were no so. But that is the past. Let's talk about the upcoming one. As always we prefer the early voting, which means we don't have to queue up, with thousands of others on Election day to hand in our ballot paper at the local school.

This early election is a perfect system, since voting is compulsory. We have a chance around 2 weeks prior to election day to make our choice. We are still puzzled how honest this country is, we still have to fill out the papers with the pencils provided in the cardboard polling booths. Pencil, right?. C'mon. I'm pretty sure there are no well paid "helpers" at the back , armed with rubbers to make some "adjustments" on the papers we placed in the envelope according to the current government climate. How hard would that be to make some corrections? Not too hard, I assume. But Australia is an honest country, and let's believe everything is black and white.

So I went out to one of those early voting centers at lunch time, handed over my drivers licence and received a sheet. Yes it is literally a sheet, which would fit perfectly to a single bed. On the top of the sheet, there were the political parties in random order. Below each party there were the candidates. I had two choices. The first one to select my preferred party and put number 1 into the box, next to the party's name. Or, If I'm retired and have nothing to do, and I promise, I'm not going to die in the next 2 years, I can place numbers from 1 to 82 next to each candidate in preferred order. Of course missing one number or leaving out one candidate makes my ballot paper invalid. Hmmm... I have a holiday booked in March next year, so I opted for the easy option. While I was looking for the party I decided to vote for, I found a few odd ones I've never heard before. Quickly looked around to find the hidden camera and was waiting for the famous TV show presenters to show up, laughing at my surprise. But nothing happened in the next five minutes, so I settled down that this must be the real ballot paper.

There are the parties you can hear about every day on this sheet, like the Liberal, Labor, Greens, Democratic Labour parties. Then there are the ones which I've never heard of. Here are a few them.

Animal Justice Party - This must deal with some animal rights issue.
Australian Christians - Yes, to mix the religion with the government makes perfect sense

And here are the saucy ones, starting with my runner up:
Australian Sex Party, Stop the Greens Party, Pirate Party Australia, Help End Marijuana Prohibition (HEMP) Party, Rise Up Australia Party, Shooters and Fishers Party, Smokers' Rights Party and my favourite, No Parking Meters Party.

You are kidding, aren't you? Are these real political parties? It must be a joke. No it is not.

So what will happen when let's say, everyone voted for the No Parking Meters Party? Will they remove all the parking meters from all the cities in 2 years, and then they would say that they kept 100% of their election promise? Great job, go for re-election, or what?

Dinos again...

noreply@blogger.com (Balazs) — Thu, 29 Aug 2013 02:00:00 +0000

Has anyone ever thought about what colours these dinos were? The answer is extremely simple: Yes. I'm pretty sure someone else asked this question before, whether the T-rex was bluish-brown or greenish-pink. As far as I know not a single black and white photo remained containing dinos. I think all the ones what were taken was damaged by the freezing temperature during the ice age. And by digging out some old bones, will give you not even a hint about the colour of their owner's skin.

I assume if there were any photos left, they would have looked just as good as the ones below. Some artists decided to add some colours to old historical photos. I think they look quite amazing as they are filled with life again.

Historic pictures in colour: Albert Einstein, Summer 1939 Nassau Point, Long Island, NY

Here is the original article: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2401926/Iconic-images-Library-Congress-brought-life-group-artists-historians.html

School at Down Under...

noreply@blogger.com (Balazs) — Mon, 26 Aug 2013 12:00:00 +0000

How is the school in Australia? I have no clue because I went to school in Hungary, therefore I have no idea whether it is better or worse than in Hungary. It is always a good topic to start a fist fight about the low or high level of education in Australia among my Hungarian friends. We always have a debate about how much more we learnt in Hungary. When this comes up as a conversation we always say that "Google is my friend, and I always hated to learn how much was the annual yield of bauxite in Poland in 1980.

But this is not what I want to tell you. My son who is 5 and half year old, and goes to pre-school, saw a dino at the front of his books and said: "Daddy, that is a Brachiosaurus". "Great" I said, I've never heard about it in my past 38 years. So I told him that he has to teach me the names of the dinos they learn about at school this term.

After school, just like a good puppy, he came to me and said, that it is dino time. So I took my computer and said "Google is my friend, then I showed him this image.
He named all of them, except the Ichtyosaurus and Saber-toothed Tiger with perfect pronunciation. Even though I've never told them or never showed them any dinos before. He couldn't read their names because he hardly can read and the fonts are quite small as you can see. They started this topic in school only 6-8 weeks ago. I have no idea how the teachers teach them, whether they queue them up in front of their whiteboard and make them tell the name of the dinos until they collapse and beg for mercy or just simply tell them once. Either way, it is a big achievement. I know kids are into dinos at this age, but I would rather name them all T-rex or Bruno or Alex if I were 6.

I don't think my kids are exceptionally smart but I can see they've learnt something. If the only thing they can name in year five is some old dusty bones, I'll come back and write an other post about the education system. Until then, thanks for reading.

Holiday like a King

noreply@blogger.com (Balazs) — Fri, 21 Dec 2012 03:53:00 +0000

Imagine a 14 storey building, around 300 meters long, floating on the ocean full of 2000 people, pushing down the earth with 70000 tons (Which is equivalent to around 70000 cars). How long is a car, around 5m? Let's say you put all those cars in front of each other and you will get a 350 km long queue of cars. Impressive, isn't it. What is more interesting is that this 70000 ton which is emerges around 25 meters above the water only sinks 8 meters into the water.

So I was fortunate (it is a bit mystified - It rather happened by working my ass off for years) to spend 7 days with the family on a cruise on Pacific Ocean. I've never even seen a ship so huge before only on TV, so when I arrived at the port I couldn't believe my eyes, that the 14 storey high building in front of me is actually the ship. It is massive. It is ginormous. Getting onto it is the same as boarding an airplane, with security checks, custom officers, baggage check-in and walking through long corridors.

The ship has heaps of facilities, bar, shops, restaurants, gym, pool, theatre, lots of deck chairs and the best thing, childcare. I was looking forward to leave my 3 kids in this facility and enjoy at least a few hours of uninterrupted quality time with my wife when we could have a cocktail, maybe a decent meal, or have a nap on one of those nice deck chairs. We really needed a break after 3 years constant babysitting.

With the kids, we preferred the buffet style eating, which gave us plenty of options to choose from and to please the kids. It was a bit of an adventure to take the two 3 years olds and the little 1 year old to the restaurant, hold their hands while try to balance 2 trays each with 3 plates and around 20 types of food on it including the dessert. The staff was really helpful and that was good.

Second day we shoved the kids into the childcare centre and they were really excited about the playground and the lots of toys. Until we told them we need to go for a while, but we will be back shortly. They said they needed to go as well and started to put their shoes on. Okay, okay. Let's spend a bit more time together in the playground and by the time they will get into the heat of the games, won't notice our departure. They did, and put the toys back neatly and started to put their shoes on.
We tried it in the next 2 days then we gave up.

Seven days past very quickly. We were up at 5:30am, we tried to entertain the kids with some books and toys while we were half asleep. So it was around 6:15 by the time we hit the restaurant. After the breakfast we walked around the ship and got back to the cabin by 8:30 Those days when we stayed on the ship, first 2 days and the last 2 days, we walked around the ship, watched the never ending entertainment, ate, then watched some show, then ate, then tried the swimming pool then ate then had a short nap then ate then watched a show, then dinner then sleep. Watching a show really meant that we walked in with 3 kids, they sat down, they enjoyed themselves, then after around 7 to 11 minutes they lost interest and started to crawl around. So we were collecting the kids under the chairs, make sure they don’t get addicted to bubble gums found under the chairs. So after 5 minutes crawling on all fours in front of the seats and apologizing to almost half of the audience, who were smiling and tagged the kids as cute, we left the theater and we had look for some other entertainment for the kids. We took them to the lifts, to the front, to the back, to the top deck, to the pool, to the nightclub (strictly during the day when it was quiet and it looked like a normal restaurant with beautiful view to the front.) However the view was almost the same in every direction, water and water and more water. It was a full day exercise, it was more like a boot-camp with Fleurs-de-Lis, so we were so tired at the end of the day, that we fall asleep earlier than the kids.

At least we holidayed together, serving their every wish and needs and they enjoyed it, like a king. We enjoyed it too, especially the afternoon nap.

March 2011

How long should a pair of shoes last

noreply@blogger.com (Balazs) — Wed, 11 May 2011 05:42:00 +0000

I'm talking about semi decent work shoes, black, leather, with rubber sole, not the fancy dress shoes. They are not even the crappy cheap $29 ones! I know it depends how you wear them. Thanks. So, here is what I think. If I spend $150 dollars on a pair of shoes, I expect them to last for at least a year when I only wear them on weekdays and walk only to and from the train station , altogether 20 minutes a day. Is it too much? It certainly seems so.

After the sole got cracked of my old shoes I went to Myer and said to myself: I rather spend a bit more but then I will have quality shoes which will last longer. It's worth the extra money. After 5 months of wearing my fancy new more expensive shoes, I was really disappointed to see that the sole got loose from the top part ... So I took it back. The guy who I bought it from said that they can send it away to repair it. I said what? C'mon, you can't be serious... This company makes bigger profit each year than I can imagine, and yet you are about to send my shoe probably downstairs to Mister Minit on ground floor of the shopping centre to have it repaired instead of replacing it? They're not even 5 months old and I used it moderately. Sorry, said the guy, it is worn off, I can't replace it. 'Yes, it is worn off because I used to walk in them. ' 'And you should have looked after them better anyway ' , he said. Like what, pour some glue between the sole and the leather every week or what? Obviously I couldn't deal with this guy, so I tried to find someone else, of course no manager in store, and if I want to talk to her I have to come back another day. Yes, it is the 21st century and phones don't exist yet. Neither good customer service. So I left the shoe there, then went back home and wrote a letter to the store manager and explained my concern. No response for days, then I received back my shoes repaired which lasted for another 3 days. So took it back and found the manager who apologised and gave me my money back. So the company cleared itself but I still not convinced that more money gives you better quality.

So my next pair of shoes came from the little corner store. And it wasn't even $50 after some discount and it looked just as good as the expensive one. Also leather and everything. And guess what , the sole came off after 4 months. Maybe there is something wrong with the way I walk, yes that must be it. This time I didn't argue whether I used the shoe extensively, I just simply left it there. In 2 hours time I got an sms from the shop, shoes cannot be repaired please go back to the store for replacement. Great. That's what I call customer service. But the shoe model is discontinued, no similar model, only ugly ones , and thanks to the change of the season only boots are available and a few cheap looking work shoes, but of course no money back, only store credit ... So this time I ended up with a shoe for $100, and time starts now.

At the library

noreply@blogger.com (Balazs) — Tue, 03 May 2011 06:44:00 +0000

Today my workteam gathered at the library - instead of the office - to plan the next 6 months at work. The library offers nice meeting rooms for free and it has a good atmosphere to open your minds. Or so they say. Breakfast was included , thanks to the BigBoss,. Whohoo, free breakfast therefore I skipped the breakfast at home and I decided to pop in for a blood test, which I should have done 6 months ago .

I turned up at the library cafe early to wait for the rest of my team. Because I'm a big kid when it comes to needles, I still had my ugly cotton ball under a band-aid on my arm hiding under my jumper. I reckon those cotton balls are out of fashion because they always stick into the wound for 3 days and why don't they just use some good band-aids, I can't comprehend. Anyhow, they are still in use. So there I am, sitting at the corner of the cafeteria, trying to administer my daily multivitamin from my little alufoil sachet. My so called band-aid is forming a white cross so huge that even a Apache could land on my arm. Then suddenly I realised I looked exactly like the guy I've seen one day on the train who tried to hike high giving himself a shot and sipping some transparent fluid from the cup of a bottle. I expected the security guard to turn up next to me at any time with teasers and take me to the basement of the library, smash me into pulps then hand me over to the cops.

As no guard appeared, once everything settled down in my mind I took out my Kindle ereader and started to read. I like gadgets and I like my kindle.
Honestly, if you asked me 2 years ago how many books I have read since I can read, I would have said: eight. And this would include all the books we had to read during the vacations at school. The whole "loving and enjoying reading" started probably 2 years ago when my new colleague disappeared for lunch every day with a book in his arm and I started to get a bit jealous about it. He could be spending his lunch time in a totally different world, flying spaceships to worlds what I couldn't even imagine before, meet with creatures with incredible skills, etc. My wife in fact was reading all the time too, but for some reason I didn't catch it from her. So I got my first sci-fi book from this guy and I enjoyed it. Enjoyed it so much, I started to borrow my wife's books . I most probably was the last person on the face of the Earth to read the Da Vinci Code from Dan Brown... And I quite liked the experience. So, now I like reading and it is all good.

So, back to the library. That morning, I took out my kindle, then I came to the realisation that what I'm doing is not quite right, or is it? Library is like a sacred place, you have to be quiet, walk slowly, and not throwing books around, just take a book from the shelf and read it or take it home to read.

And here I am, reading on my gadget, which was similar to walking into a church and start listening to the Bible on my MP3 player...

Or maybe I'm just scared of places I don't attend too often and mystify them too much... I shall try the MP3 player experience in the church one day to see if it is just me or it has become perfectly okay to keep up with the technology...

It's my life, it's now or never ...

noreply@blogger.com (Balazs) — Wed, 06 Apr 2011 14:11:00 +0000

I think you can hear the tunes from Bon Jovi as you read the title. And if you think about these two lines, they are so true . We live only once, or at least some of us think that, until we reincarnate in an IKEA Billy bookcase and realize that no need to rush, just wait for your turn and you will see everything you need to see. I believe you need to do whatever you feel like doing otherwise you will never have a chance to do it. Just a note, I'm talking about doing something creative and don't propose to do thing what the society doesn't tolerate. So, be sensible.

Growing up in Hungary and learning English only in school, we never understood the lyrics of pop songs, when we were kids, but we always tried to sing them , trying to guess the words by copying the sounds we heard. I remember, I quite liked this song when I was a kid but never quite knew what it was about. So when I picked the title of my blog, I was thinking: What am I going to write about? Maybe about my life as so many of us do it these days. Nowadays, we have the urge to leave something behind for our kids, for the people around us, some sort of a legacy, leave a mark in the history, to yell out to the world: 'Hey, I'm here' , or ' I was here ' . When I was a kid, there were the treearvings on school trips in the woods, saying 'I was here' , then the who loves who carved in a heart, which looked like nothing like a heart because it was so hard to make round lines with a swiss army knife. What do we have today? The most obvious example would be the grafitti all around us, or the modern days' online graffiti: YouTube. Why do we do that? Why do we need to emphasize our existence? Is it just a natural human behaviour to stand out in the crowd or only a few people feel like they have to leave marks to the world before they go away forever or for awhile - depending on your belief. I'll google it tomorrow.

I wrote a 3-page short story once, I like to call it a novel but it was so far away from a novel. Then I started to do some paintings and occasionally I still do it. So what else can I leave behind? A few piece of furniture I made, ticked. Maybe a memoir, a book, that would be awesome. Let's start it here. Welcome to my world, it's my life...