Going Solar And Male Prowess.

The third one up is my place.

Hello Gerard Oosterman,Your Electricity Distributor, Endeavour has approved your installation.We can now send your solar install request to your installer.An installer will be in touch soon to work out a time and date that suits you.

Speak soon,

Origin Solar

The above I just copied and pasted from a letter I received 5 seconds ago. There you go!

For many years, Helvi and I used to ponder about installing solar panels. It first cropped up on our farm well over 20 years ago when solar panels first started to make their appearance. We had lots of roofs but somehow the costs were not as they are now and we were advised to wait for them to come down. Of course, now with Government rebates and the cost of panels a fraction of what they were it doesn’t make sense not to do it.  The quality of the panels have also improved. Even so, one has to be careful, we were told there are a lot of shonky operators out there trying to sell you a donkey for a horse.

I remember getting very annoyed with endless phone calls trying to lure you into getting solar panels. I ended up with a perfect solution by telling them we had no roof. You could hear their astonishment being told we lived in a house with no roofs! Another ploy I used was reading them a children’s story in Dutch. They soon hung up and it amused Helvi and I for a while. Such memories I tend to stick to. Laughter and a smile is good medicine and lately I haven’t been happier than right now. I made friends and I meet her, and others almost daily. In seems odd that during this Covid-19 pandemic, people seem to be keen in meeting each other and perhaps also make the time available to talk and give smiles.

Distances are still required and most seem to adhere to that. I haven’t as much as shaken hands with her, or others, let alone try and get intimate. Couples must be busting to get to each other, but… distance please…, eat a carrot instead. At my age, my masculinity is waning ( if you relate masculinity with sexual prowess)  and I have yet to consider asking the doctor for any help in the form of Viagra or other stimulants.

Years ago, that wasn’t an issue with me, but now with  getting older, some still seem to want to stick to what once was. I now avoid coffee, tea and other stimulants after 8pm as my sleep does need careful planning, and I do appreciate that more than a possible feeble rump about, under the doona.

In any case, lets stick to the solar panels for generating electricity. I was told that it takes about three to four years to regain the initial costs of the installation. That is a pretty good return and it would be foolish not to do it. I also bit the sour apple and bought the place next to mine as well. I am not sure but will probably rent it. A bit of a capitalist, and that, at the fag-end of my life!  Where did I go wrong, daddy? Of course with two places now, I also double my joy in gardening efforts in both places, and that balances the capitalist and the botanist (kasvitieteilijä in Finnish) nicely.

I am so excited.

Is the world becoming irrational or is it us?

It just doesn’t let up. As each day passes the madness grows. A perfectly normal day brings news that would normally be seen as grotesquely unbelievable if not untrue as well.  The latest is that in order for Australia to pass the expected summer heatwave the Australian Government urges us we should think of saving energy by switching off our air-conditioning cooling systems or anything else that might save electricity. The Government will subsidise the customers by paying those willing to save energy handsomely with $ 250.-, and could even include tickets to the cinema or visits to Dreamworld with free water- slides as an extra bonus.

With Australia having the world’s largest reserves of gas, coal  solar, wind and everything else to produce energy, it has all been sold overseas and we are now  running short of electricity. That is the sort of ‘freedom’ the market gives when given unfettered reign. We can buy back our exported energy cheaper overseas than locally! The Government is in a blind and groping around like an amok running Weinstein in a hotel corridor.

Pensioners who want to stay cool could do so by gathering in the coolness of air-conditioned shopping-centres. Others are provided with handy hints on how to stay cool. Included in the list is using wet sheets before retiring to bed. It is suggested in real scout-master science that with the open windows, an air flow over the wet sheets might blissfully give some cool relief to the hot, bothered, and profusely perspiring resident.

It looks totally mad to me but then so much is madness. We have a ‘normal’ man going through a terrible killing spree for which a motive has yet to be found.  Apparently gambling on a daily basis is seen as ‘normal’ now. A President who is  unpredictable, irrational and impulsive and like madman throws tweets about, risking fire storms and annihilation in order to appease his own monstrous need for grandiosity. Not a day goes by without another show of madness on the news.

A film producer who made brilliant movies, has five children, and has now locked himself up in a sanatorium for sex-addicts. As if it wasn’t his doing, raping and groping around the corridors of power!  Mr Harvey Weinstein promises to come good and repair the damage after being healed of his addiction. A true to form trick of wanton Psychiatry giving an escape from taking responsibility by blaming a ‘condition’ over which they have no control.  The poor man!~

We have almost reached the stage of watching re-runs of Seargent  Bilko or Steptoe and Son, The Flintstones.  At least it was a real world.

Renewables, Wars, and Same Sex Marriage.

Indeed

Isn’t it amazing that no matter what the science is telling us, there will be people denying the truth that coal fired power is now as outdated as the horse and buggy were in earlier days? The Australian government is beholden to some that just will not budge and will stick to the past, forcing up the cost of energy. They do this with the fervour of an 1810 Leicestershire luddite destroying anything and everything progressive or forward looking in their paths.

Just read this latest from ABC News; http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-09-25/the-truth-about-soaring-power-prices/8979860

We live in a townhouse sharing a joint roof but are considering going the whole hog and install solar panels with the Tesla battery back-up. The cost of doing that will go down as time passes. My guess is that with power bills reaching stratospheric heights there will be a tsunami of home-owners doing the same. It just doesn’t make any sense not to do this. The energy companies are shunning coal power stations like the plague and no one wants to invest nor spend money on maintaining the old ones except our Government staunchly defending anything that doesn’t move forward.

With a keener more forward Government the renewable technology could be hurried along by local shires to install complete off-grid power stations on vacant land that Australia has so much of, and bring affordable cheap energy to those in units or apartment blocks without roof space for solar panelling.

The transition period between the old and new technology could have been made   easier and economically more efficient if we were not burdened by the Neanderthal fogeys in our present Government. Where do they come from and who puts them there?

It is the same with this referendums on SSM. Some of the same parliamentarians taking great delight in venting their hate and torture on refugees are now venting their rage on those who want the chance for love to stand a chance, and pass laws making choice of marriage equal to all, no matter what orientation. They twist and turn to try and prevent the law from becoming kinder and more just towards those who might be different.

Some of those same Parliamentarians take great pride in the bombing of foreign countries where we have no right to be involved in, and do so without asking permission from its citizens by holding referendums or postal polls. Billions of dollars spend on keeping a few thousands refugees in jail, billions on fighting in stupid wars, and now even more billions in propping up old coal powered technology. Were any of us asked our opinion or approval to do so?

So why the idiocy of holding referendums on SSM in the first place? Is SSM more dangerous than fighting wars or holding refugees in jails. Sorry, to be meandering so long about this SSM subject but rest assured I am just as keen to write about much more positive stuff. I suppose the return of Germany’s Angela Merkel is something to celebrate but…, the extreme right has also done well which is not so positive.

Was our previous PM Paul Keating right, when he predicted Australia could end up a ‘Banana Republic? I need a good carpet bowling session at the local RSL club.

 

Move over Rover, the renewables are coming.

Milo

The Prime Minister of Australia is twisting and turning to appease the extreme right in fighting against renewable energy. One  climate change sceptic, Mr Morrison, even took a piece of coal to parliament. He wanted Australia and the Government to acknowledge that coal will remain our prime ingredient for affordable energy.  “This is coal, don’t let it frighten you,” he said. “The more coal the better.”

It was well received. Lots of fun by the right. Our PM. Malcolm Turnbull, a previous fervent believer in climate change, guffawed with the rest of them. His vanity politics now running supreme. He wants to remain PM and so does his wife, Lucy. Through hook and by crook. The crook getting stronger as time goes by.

But, it will all be to no avail. The renewable energy is running at full steam. Nothing will stop it. It is the money that will finally overcome all the objection to change from coal to sun, wind and whatever else. You can’t stop it.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-02-14/solar-batteries-like-tesla-exploding-in-popularity/8259830

Australia is notoriously reluctant to change. We still have a foreign Queen as head of state and  love the status quo. Taking it easy is still one of our most revered ambition. But no amount of taking it easy or hugging pieces of coal in parliament will stop this revolution of change into renewables. The sun shines for free and the winds will keep blowing

The next wave of change will come in the form of electric cars. Anyone who has been to Hong Kong would know that the Tesla all electric car is hugely popular. Holland is planning the ban on sales of petrol and diesel cars within a few years. Last year the new Tesla, Model 3, took 10bn in orders in just 2 days.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/apr/04/tesla-motors-sells-10bn-model-3-two-days

You can see why both oil and coal prices have dropped worldwide. Can you imagine the problems facing resource rich  countries? Many including Australia are getting a bit nervous. Perhaps, that’s why our government is so defiant?  We could have picked up the cudgel years ago and be the worlds biggest and best producer of solar equipment and technology. We did produce some of the best brains working on it. But unappreciated, many left to greener pastures.

Even a large coal lover and producer is now saying that the only way forward is to embrace the new renewables. With the recent heat waves people will receive enormous power bills.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-02-14/energy-australia-boss-worried-about-power-bills/8267070

The cost of coal fired electricity will be going up as the solar and wind generated households and industries are disconnecting from the grid. There will be fewer and fewer people left to carry the cost of maintaining the coal fired energy infrastructures. ( Poles and wires)

I do hope I will live to see all the faces of coal lovers drop as the tsunami of renewables will overrun everything in its way.

Last year I  (oops…more to come, gone for a walk with Milo, he is being difficult.)

A Country Town ( Goulburn)

Most local people would know Goulburn as the town that holds a high security prison. The notorious mass killer Ivan Milat is serving his sentence there together with other high profile miscreants.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backpacker_murders

Please try and read the above link. It is almost as good as a Wallander Mankell thriller.

In its heyday Goulburn was the hub of Australia’s wool industry. Australia from the early eighteen nineties till the nineteen seventies was ‘riding on the sheep’s back.’ One of its main export income was wool. With cheaper cotton and synthetics entering the market, wool became much less competitive and growing wool now is a minor part of agriculture. A reminder of this wool Empire of Goulburn is a very large concrete sheep near the Sydney-Melbourne highway turnoff to Goulburn. Inside this large sheep one can buy Chinese made wool trinkets, whistles, scarfs, and Australian made socks as well as aboriginal artefacts.

Goulburn as a result of the collapse of wool became a town looking for its former but lost glory. We bought a farm in 1996 not far from this town, about 20 kms away. At that time one could have bought a 4 bedroom freestanding house for about $350,000.- and today the same house is still selling for $350,000.- It’s a beautiful but a stagnant rural town. I am sure it would provide an amazing opportunity for Sydney siders to cash up on their $2 million house and whoop it up in Goulburn. It houses an excellent library and an even better Art Gallery. In winter it can be a bit cold and bracing, but with central heating and a roof full of solar panelling it would be a most pleasant town to live in. It also has a very nice ‘Workers Club and RSL.’ ( Returned Soldiers Club)

A few days ago we went to re-visit our former country town. We usually like to go back to past lives. Reminiscing about places and lives of the past is the prerogative of growing old, especially while it is still possible. One never knows when the time will arrive the mobility scooter or ‘Eventide Care-Home’ beckons!

After arrival, and being hungry we popped into the Workers Club. I ordered curried sausages with peas and mashed potatoes. Helvi ordered roast chicken with vegetables. Both were terrible. I never thought that mash and sausages could be so failing. Helvi’s chicken was some kind of muscled thigh that belonged to a very scrawny old chook looking for a long gone rooster. My curried sausages were chopped up bits of something drowning in what I assumed was a curried flavoured sludge sobbing to be rescued. The peas were absent or fled somewhere else. The mash was lumpy.

In Australia we are the world champions in gambling. All clubs provide subsidised cheap meals paid for by the poker machine addicts. You can see them on the way to the toilets. Elderly or not so elderly people, transfixed by the ghoulish lights of the poker machines. Sometimes plastic shopping bags next to the players on the floor. A sad sight, if ever there was. After a couple of beers drowning the half-eaten lunches, we left for a solid walk around Goulburn.

On the walk back to the car we came across a man sprawled out on the pavement. We had walked past him previously and noticed his dishevelled appearance, but he was seated on one of those updated modern square public seating arrangements surrounded by pretty greenery between the pavement and the road. He must have slumped off his seat. People walked past this man. We stopped and thought of finding out what might be the matter. He looked to be in his mid thirties and appeared motionless. I asked if he was alright but no response. I then decided to phone triple zero for emergency. By that time a few passers-by had stopped too.

As I was giving information to the emergency number, the man moved his hand and showed therefore to be alive. He picked himself up and mumbled a few words. The emergency phone lady decided to cancel the ambulance. The man went back to his previous seat and grabbed his tobacco that had spilled on the pavement. He mumbled something that he was alright and no help was needed. We felt sorry. How does it get to that state? He would have been a healthy young man once. Did he take some tablets or did he have a health problem?

We hope to have a better visit next time. Perhaps we will give clubs a miss seeing that gambling gives us cheap meals. A bit like being hypocritical of an industry that causes so much harm.

Vapid verbiage from Government. ( and seniors)

Put and call options.

The problem with old and ageing retirees. They have so much past and much less future. Till some magic pill is discovered that will make us go to two hundred, at the moment the bell tolls for those over seventy. Time is running out. Yet time is also most in supply. There is so much of it. It is no wonder they take to vacuuming and mobility scooters. Their engagements with bowels and Aldi become more important as years go by. It gives us something to talk about.

But, given the latest on the Australian News, Parliamentarians are not any better. While the old might bore us to tears about their toilet plights or daily routines, the Government’s endless drivel about the advantage of five over seven bullet Adler guns is not giving us much relief either. Watching TV News is what drives us more and more to drugs, reading books, scrabble and eating chocolate.

I was surprised when someone knocked on our door. It’s not all that often we get visitors. I opened the door. A girl stood there who kept looking nervously over her shoulder. Was she going to sell me heroin? It turned out there were two of them. She asked if I would look at a magazine. By the look of both of them I was sure it wasn’t a dirty picture book. It turned out to be ‘The Watchtower.’ ‘God is here to save us all’, she started boldly. I smiled friendly and this encouraged her to read something from a biblical St.Paul. I stepped in. I thanked her for the visit and told her I was hard of hearing and strengthened my argument by also telling her that both hearing aids had flat batteries. It was half true. One of the hearing aid was giving me the familiar beep heralding the end of the battery. They left after that unconvincing excuse. My guilt went into automatic.

I have an unfriendly sticker on my door as well: ‘do not knock.’ We used to get so many Foreign Students trying to make us change our Gas and Electricity accounts. We relented a couple of times. Our British neighbours are forever blaming ‘foreigners’ As a general rule, the darker the skin, the more they are suspect. A few weeks ago some plants were stolen. This caused great consternation in our housing compound. Some reckoned it was (dark) Isis, others claimed we stole them ourselves. There is just nothing about some elderly people’s fantasies that eggs them on to the most absurd conclusions. They have all that time. I put up posters stating ‘Thieves About.’ Since then we have installed a CCTV camera and a solar movement device that lights up each time movement is detected outside our front door. I have tried the device out night after night and it works brilliantly. Even after a couple of dark days.

I decided to take one of those Google psychological test to find out if one was still within a range of being normal. The first one came out with a score of 33 which took me to a dangerous level of being psychotic. It urged me to talk to a councillor which had her phone number at the bottom of the test. I was flummoxed. I went downstairs to reflect or relish on the latest gloom. After a disturbing nap, I took a different test. It came out worse. It even had a little red flag. I had apparently mused over the word ‘suicide,’ as a result over a question, ‘have you ever thought about suicide?’ You were to answer; never, sometimes, often or always! I answered ‘sometimes.’ After many question I was urged pronto to immediately seek a good shrink. No guessing their phone numbers were well advertised below. I could understand ‘always’ but just ‘sometimes?’

In any brain are embedded all sorts of possibilities of thoughts. Life, death, birth, young and old, car driving, walking, bungie jumping and…suicide. Not as a desire but food for reflection. I prefer not to restrict my thoughts.

It seems that using a word raises red flags. I would have thought the idea of importing Adler rapid self loading Guns to be far more indicative of the mental state of our Government.

They are the real nuts.