In transit, potential conversations around the water cooler.  How are the office converstations in a Google workplace? Is the water in its original state? According to the Sunday newspaper, Google is voted one of the very best workplaces. Now that's good advertising.   

Demolished.  The small family business, Stotts Mowers in Waratah has moved away and, probably, homes will take its place. 
The business was once well known and some thirty years ago could be seen taking part in city processions with a stunt in which a little lawn mower towed big heavy things along. Gender equality was there and the daughter was a competent mechanic.
The business had grown like Topsy with a workshop on the rear of the house.  Later, the house burnt down and the shed was reorganized.
Most of the homes in the vicinity have changed hands a number of times in thirty years. More and more, homes have only become an investment, a negotiable item, two incomes became mandatory, salesmen love the situation which inflates home prices and keeps many on a treadmill.

Take a break

Peters Milk Factory, Taree, with echos of butter churning, dried milk processing, steam cleaning and gum boots  from those days when it was a hive of industry (and sold Peters Ice Cream).
The rail line went past its doors and then to the nearby Co Op milk factory (home of Peerless Ice Cream) where, as well as rail transport, milk cans arrived by conveyor belt from the wharf on the Manning River.
Trucks collected milk twice a day from the dairys before refigeration and bulk handling.

Grass grows over the old rail lines.

At work in Wickham

High achievement pays off. The University of Newcastle Chamber Choir conducted by Philip Matthias is simply the best and was heard in their first Christmas recital last night. Every song was notable and perhaps the earlier numbers were most worthy of comment but Christus est stella matutina, Alleluia was outstandingly beautifully done.
Over the decade the ambitious choir has won popular contests and awards and has toured overseas and the hubris must have spurred them on. The conductor is at the heart of their success I would think.

The best in any establishment has to come from the top, I've decided, be it group, institution or whatever. Not hierarchial yet still have influence from the top. Managers need to have some involvement in day to day core activities and lead the way in a practical manner. It means more than a mission statement. Staff are professionals often times, yet can still be led to aspire to be competent, yea, even to excel.

The key staff in an organization are the cleaners!  These were on night shift at the building society. Research from the UK, finds that the CEOs are outdone by the cleaners. What's new? Even Obama is putting pressure on the financial CEOs. What are his chances?

Sanitized consumers would be shocked by the book from Mary Ruebush: Why Dirt Is Good. 5 ways to make germs your friends. This writer is an American professional into immunology, infections and microbiology. Her thesis is that our immune system gets better and stronger the more it is used and needs exposure to dirt and germs from a young age.
Also, low level anti-bacterial products kill off  weak strains and an advance of potentially deadlier resistant bacteria is possible when our lives become awash with anti-bacterial commodities.
The more you use anti-bacterial soap, the more deadly the bacteria get and the less effective that soap is.
Hence, soap and water is the recommendation and wash the hands for 20 seconds. 

Copenhagen Update on these sites:   Sbs Television World News Australia. 
Green tv video blog.
United Nations.
Australian Broadcasting Corporation Portal. 

The Muster Point landmark, is a tribute to steel industry workers and has a cat and a pigeon at the window of the workshop.

The Rainbow Bridge Story, a piece from the RSPCA Animal Shelter is mailed to animal owners after the demise of their pet.  Outrageous schmalz but it brings a tear to the eye when the pet is your own.  
Save the tears and act now to foster conservation and halt the loss of endangered species.

 

A new water main is installed via lots of little excavations. Is cool clear water our most precious asset?

Inside the woolshed or shearing shed in the afternoon sunlight of spring. Close to the shearers were small holding pens where the floor was of slats.
So behind each shearing stand were these catching pens enabling the shearer quick access to the unshorn sheep.

Smoking is banned inside the building.

Regulations have got tougher so as to protect building workers from accidents.
SafetyLink, at this site: http://www.heightsafety.com, is a local company and a manufacturer of Height Safety Equipment to be seen on ABC TV.
In non-technical general terms, those who work on the top of a building, are now held on the end of a wire, attached to an 'archor', and the small archors are permanently installed across the roof-tops. This together with a safety fence or scaffolding, with a fence, provide a safer place from which to work.
SafetyLink has made an eyebolt and anchor with outstanding properties and other safety products that lift the standards of quality and safety to new heights.

All from the archives. Above, live improvised sound and outdoor cinema

Filming at the corner King and Watt, Newcastle.

Former Victoria Theatre, Newcastle
Filming at Nobbys Beach, Newcastle.
Former Regal Theatre - a 'one man band'

How many men does it take to install a drain?

I want to see on the computer the Australian protocol for the written date, ie: day, month, year every time. Is there any group in existence that tries to save the day-month-year method?
I want to see a good selection of web sites without Google defaulting to American sites so much. Imagine all the other countries subjected to this as well. (notwithstanding the Google option for Australian content)
I want to see Australian spelling in the web content. I want to see Australianisms.
If I sign up and give my address I don't want a request for a zip code either.
Some degree of choice exists and one can change the details on programs and search engines. Protcols from other places could be seen as part of life's rich pagent but other times they are just something I could do without.
Thanks

These storage tanks are getting a big facelift. Petroleum products are held there as is usual.
It's not art unfortunately. They are wrapped, of course, to contain any pollution created by the work.

A context or good composition or somesuch is part of a good photo. One can 'do battle' with the traffic and one way streets and 'no parking zones' so as to reach some unlikely subject for a photo and just go for it and a scene becomes digitalized just in a matter of fact way at first sight and history (or herstory) is recorded. I'm afraid that's it.

Crazed by the heat-wave had I stumbled on the Alhambra or was it only a mirage?
No. An oasis, cool and palm-fringed stood in the park in Hamilton. The air was heavy with the scent of the fruit of the fig trees and the earth was thickly covered with the 'berries' from off these large old shade trees. .

A group of city council gardeners was/were busy working there. Many other council workers were on strike today over an issue. Council workers don't strike very often at all.

These documents are in poor condition but relate to injustice over the "Stolen Wages" where the Aborigines, in all of the states, went unpaid or underpaid for their employment.

Below is a form from the Protector of Aboriginals which is an agreement about an Aboriginal stockman from Woorabinda Aboriginal Settlement who went to a grazing property in 1942 to work for two pound per week of which fifteen shillings was pocket money and one pound five shillings was paid, in trust, to the Superintendent at Woorabinda. A receipt covers those payments made by the employer in instalments.

However, Aborigines found that it was difficult to claim such wages. They did not necessarily understand the procedure and it is claimed that deposits were siphoned off. Thumb prints and pass books were unmanageable They feel cheated.
They worked in many roles such as those of domestics and farm hands. As young teenagers they were ordered out of the missions into the workplace to fend for themselves in instances that are reported and were heard recently on ABC radio. This occured up until the ninteen sixties and beyond.
The Woorabinda settlement still operates in Queensland; we looked last time we were in the area.

A passage way makes a very small kitchen by Sydney standards.
Imagine a temperamental chef let loose in there. We know what four letter word Gordon Ramsay would use.

?woleb oihcconiP siht sI ! ol dnA

Flurofriday at Honeysuckle, Newcastle, focused on safety in the workplace and I saw fluro work clothes, hard hats, b-b-q and NXFM during the lunch break.

Council Work vans. The stranded Pasha Bulka recorded in the folk art above.

Local Government elections, with compulsory voting, take place on (this) Saturday Sep 13. Will we have a new Lord Mayor or more of the same? We expect the councils to give us services that help make out lifestyle better but they probably don't have a massive budget to play round with.

The Federal Government makes nice little statements about specialized fields that are beyond them and receives constant publicity. For example, of course, a national curriculum would probably be a good thing, blind Freddie could see that but does it take a massive, nation wide, duplicate tier of government to say as much?
All of that deflects attention from the State Government who get up to all sorts of ticks on the quiet but has to do the hands-on work. Who cares about a five star rating from some distant suspect instrumentality?
We always have to strive to improve; our services have shortcomings, they are uncreative, yet are pleasing, some things are just slack enough to be strangly reassuring except for hi-tech medicine, which is scary, and investment funds.

The narrative was in the windows of old.
The narrative is that the Fourth Estate is revolting. The Herald newspaper is under threat. It is said that Fairfax Press is about to sacrifice indepth journalism for economic gain with the sacking of essential staff members on the major city press and elsewhere. It is reported that staff are about to take strike action.
Our local newspaper has an important role that many of us appreciate. The associated major city Fairfax newspapers also provide commentary and good reading from the best journalists. High class journalism - that's what it takes.