IBM, iRiver & 1 Bolt

Yesterday was a very eventful day, for 3 reasons. Two I had planned, 1 I had not.

1. I worked my last shift at IBM yesterday. It was a gracefull departure with hand-shakes and well wishes from my bosses. As I said in my farewell email to everyone:

   My time at IBM has come to a close today! With the end of my B.I.T. at Uni just 35 short days away it’s time for me to leave and concentrate on my final assignments, as well as exams. As well as celebrate during Week 13.

   Being a tech support person definitely helped my communication and confidence in dealing with people. I now know that in whatever job I do I need to be learning and being challenged. The challenge had been lost in my tech-support role, and I was starting to find it repetitive.


2. 
   After work I shopped around for and purchased an iRiver x20 4Gb MP3 player for $184 from JB Hi-Fi. Which is the coolest shop in Ballarat, since it opened earlier this year. The reason for purchase was that I was sick of only having the radio to listen to in my car, & it would be cheaper to buy a portable MP3 player than get my CD player fixed/replaced. I've had a play with it & it also has an FM radio & can play Video and display photos. Oh, it has an inbuilt-mic & a line in port & did I mention a Micro-SD slot for extra memory! You can't get that functionality in an iPod.


3. 
   I was driving back to res after buying said mp3 player, when my clutch pedal broke while attempting to slow down to turn into a supermarket. Later inspection would reveal that the clutch itself isn't broken, but rather 1 bolt very similar to the above has fallen out of the clutch pedal housing, so now the pedal won't push in far enough to press the clutch. Just because my 4 assignments due this week arn't keeping me busy enough, I now need to get my car fixed.

All in all it was an interesting/ fun day!

150,000

My car turned over 150,000kms while driving back to Ballarat on Sunday. This means I've driven approx 56,000kms in the 2.5 years I’ve had my licence. My statistical analysis indicates then, that I’m averaging 22,400 kilometres per year, which equates to approximately 430km a week, or 61 kilometres per day. To take this analysis a step further, assuming an average of 550km per tank of fuel, which seems to be about what I get on highway driving, I’ve burnt 101 tanks of fuel. A 40L refill at $1.15/L would indicate between $4,500- $5,000 worth of petrol in that time. The cheapest tank of fuel I brought was 95.5c/L, the most expensive $1.399/L. In that time I've owned the car I've had to replace the tires, windscreen, timing belt & some drive thing in the steering.

You don't have to live in The Matrix to be dependant on machines.

A loophole?

As of yesterday I have my full Heavy-Combination Drivers license. To the un-educated: That means I can drive Semi-Trailers (but not B-Doubles) anywhere in Australia. I still have 1 more year on my P's before I get my full car license.

Good Cop, Bad Cop

So, I've lived in Ballarat for about 4 years & I've had my license for about 2. In that whole time, I've never been pulled over by the police or random breath-tested, or even been in a car when any of those things have happened. Likewise, I've spent most of the rest of my life in Kaniva (& lately around Bordertown lol) & never been pulled over or breath-tested around home.

BUT, last weekend on the way to Melbourne I was pulled over just as I was about to drive out of Horsham after checking out a bike part for Colin. I wasn't worried as I couldn't think of why they where doing it. Anyway the officer comes over and says something like "The reason we pulled you over was because of your back number plate." He then did the standard license and breath check. He was the good cop. He treated me like a person and explained why I needed to change the plates. The other one who was there went right around my car and started giving me the 'you're a P-Plater & therefore not human' attitude. He asked me questions like "How long you had the crack in your windscreen?" (What sort of a question is that?) & said "You're taking your life into your hands driving on those tires." He told me how it was a $130 for the poor numberplates & there was a recall from Vicroads 5 years ago for those plates etc etc.
In the end they gave me a minor canary (doesn't include a roadworthy thankfully) for the windscreen and the tires. Now, $360 later it's all fixed up again, kinda annoying, but money I had to spend eventually I guess.

My main issue: Police often get frustrated by the lack of respect given to the law by young people. Some officers then treat these young people the way I was treated by the 2nd Officer, showing little or no respect. Police then wonder why they in-turn are shown little or no respect by these young people who will often take this attitude towards Police for the rest of their lives.