We both asked the same question of ourselves, how did we not realise it was so terrible, were we that busy with our own lives that we had just missed how enormous it is? We both agreed that it was likely the recent elections here had overshadowed the impact of this disaster as there had been relatively little news coverage about it that we noticed.

Here are some upleasant statistics;

• 62,000 square miles have been flooded — an area larger than England.
• The United Nations estimates that more than twenty million people are injured or homeless as a result of the flooding, exceeding the combined total of individuals affected by the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, the 2005 Kashmir earthquake and the 2010 Haiti earthquake.
• 20 Million peolpe! If you are an Australian, that equates to our entire population.
• The facts are that the people affected do not have clean drinking water or basic sanitation which, if not dealt with immediately, will cause another wave of vicims through dysentery and disease.

The flood has also wiped out 17 million acre of Pakistan’s agricultural land.

I am hoping that I will never know what it’s like to go from having a home, a job, a stable life to be in a position where all of my even most basic needs have been swept away.

Last night when I got home I went to the red cross website and made a donation, the money we donated, in comparison to the need currently in Pakistan, won’t make a substantial difference to my own way of living…. I am hoping the combined donations will make a difference to the people affected in Pakistan.

RedCross

Oxfam

2010_Pakistan_floods

The declaration was adopted and proclaimed on 10th December 1948 by the general assembly of the United Nations.

62 years ago, 30 Articles were written about the rights of every one with out distinction to race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinions. About the right not to be enslaved, tortured, degraded or traded.

62 years ago, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights spoke about being able to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution, that everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association and Marriage shall be entered into only with the free and full consent of the intending spouses.

62 years ago the Declaration covered 30 points to protect the rights of ALL humans.

62 years later, where are we in regards to minority groups, different religions and colour of a persons skin.

62 years later, do we only see illegal immigrants as some one of a different race or religion.

62 years later, do we not treat a person of a different race and religion with disrespect.

62 years later, are people detained because of their race.

62 years later, do people have restricted access to education and social rights due to their race.

62 years later, I am hoping that we can look at the statement “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.” and understand what that means.

View a presentation by Geoffrey Robertson QC in regards to the History of Human Rights.

The dictionary meaning of Addiction: Habitual psychological and physiological dependence on a substance or practice beyond one’s voluntary control.

Do we have that habitual dependence, both psychological and physiological on oil. YES

I am going to run you through a typical morning routine just to demonstrate how dependent we are on oil and the products made from oil. The alarm sounds, wake up and get out of bed, have breakfast and enjoy a cup of coffee. Shower, wash hair, shave, brush teeth, get dressed for work, jump in the car and head to work. I am guessing this is a fairly typical morning for most.

For most I will go through the list of products that are oil based that we encounter during the morning ritual. That blasted digital alarm, mattress, pillows, bed clothes and furniture.
Making breakfast there will be utensils, fridges, containers, cabinets and bench tops. Sitting down having breakfast it could be your chair, table, placemats.
Into the bathroom and there is the sink, bath, towels, toothbrushes, tooth paste, shaving cream (I am a male, worse for females with cosmetics), shampoo, soap, body wash and razors.

As you can see just in that morning ritual we have used a copious amounts of oil products. Just recently we have watched 92 Million Gallons (348 Million Litres) of oil spew into the Gulf of Mexico, a huge environmental disaster. We need to feel anger at BP for letting one of the worlds worst oil spills happen.

Unfortunately BP are supplying the world a product for which there is a colossal demand, I would be surprised if a single human could live a day without using directly or indirectly a product which has been made from oil.

If you were saddened by the effects of the Gulf Oil Spill, don’t just blame BP, take time and examine your own contribution to the Gulf Oil Spill. We all know what we should do, but are we being accountable for our own actions?

This weekend consisted of moving the piles of concrete from the room to the hired skip. We have the plumber coming in on Monday to lay the drains for the shower, sink and toilet. Wahoo the bedroom is starting to be built.

Having seen media players before and knowing how they work it was the prompt that was needed to start my investigations. I recently upgraded my AV Receiver to enable the use of HDMI for inputs and outputs and was keen to get a media player that had HDMI incorporated.

My purchase is the Western Digital HD TV Live, this media player displays photo’s on the TV, playback music and video files, it also has the ability to connect to the internet. The internet function wasn’t something I was looking for, but at the place of purchase the internet enabled player was on special and was substantially cheaper than the non internet version.

The media player needs of course, storage. An one terabyte external hard is connected via a USB, the WD TV live has 2 USB’s so there will be no need to worry about space. I don’t use any compression on the movie files as I prefer quality to saving space, the average movie uses about 5 GB of  space, so on a terabyte HDD that is about 200 movies. If I need more space then 2 & 4 TB external hard drives are an option.

The software that I use to back up my DVD’s to the hard drive are DVD Decrypter to take it from the DVD and store in a folder on the hard drive as DVD (vob) files. Then I use Avidemux to take the multiple DVD (vob) files and make a single mpeg file. I prefer not to have any compression so the quality of the movie remains the same, Avidemux performs this task well.

I have watched both hi definition and standard definition movies via the WD TV Live and am pleased with the sound and picture quality.

As the new bedroom includes an en-suite, the first job is to dig a trench so that the drains for the bathroom can be laid. Over that last couple of weekends I have visited Kennards Hire on a regular basis, the first being to hire a brick saw to cut the edges for the trench that needs to be dug.

This weekend it was back to Kennards Hire to pick up a jack hammer to start breaking up the concrete between the previous cut edges. Hoping to break up about 6 inches of concrete, and then dig down through dirt to the required depth for the drains. Well,  I totally wrong, apparently before the current room was built a carport was there before.  So not only do we have a layer of new concrete we also have a solid foundation from the old carport. In all about 500 mm of Concrete.

Day 2 of the digging proved to be more fruitful, have now a about 3 metres completed, at this rate I have at least 2 more days to go. This job may take a while, we are looking forward to the finished room.

We have prepared a mud map thanks to www.planningwiz.com of the look of our new bedroom.

Why did we decide to purchase the solar panels, guess there are lots of reasons, the main is that we are environmentally aware.

A kilowatt of electricity generated on our roof means that a kilowatt of power can be used at our house, where as a kilowatt of power produce at the power station means that a lesser amount of power reaches our house.

Currently in South Australia the Government is buying back electricity from homes that have solar panels installed at a higher rate than what the electricity is sold for. My electricity provider with the Government incentive pays me 50 cents per kilowatt generated which is sent out to the grid. I pay approximately 20 cents per kilowatt that I use from my provider.

Adelaide is an ideal spot for having solar panels, it has a low 87 days a year that it rains. At the time of writing this blog it is mid summer and the panels are generating more electricity due to the longer and clearer days. Currently more than 55% of the electricity generated is going back on to the grid and earning 50 cents per kilowatt. The size of our system means that we may never need to pay another power bill, and hopefully we may be refunded from the electricity service provider.

Solar panels have a guarantee of 20 years, based on that many years of use our outlay and the anticipated daily kilowatt generation means that we have prepaid for our electricity consumption. We paid about 29k for the system, and we anticipate that over 200,000 kilowatts of power will be generated over the next 20 years, based on those 2 figures we are paying 14.5 cents per kilowatt generated. Well below the current market rate of electricity and our rate will not be influenced by any price increases.

Apart from being busy at work, finalising clients tax returns before Christmas, we have been so busy at home preparing for Christmas day. We decided to have Christmas lunch at our place this year for our families.

As Marion is German, Christmas eve  is the time for celebrating and opening presents. We had dinner at Marion’s mums place and then it was over to our place to open the presents. Some close friend called in as well later in the evening to exchange gifts.

Christmas day, Marion and I was on the go from the moment we woke up,  Marion and I needed to prepare lunch for 17 people, the day went reasonably smoothly, almost. A minor issue when I moved the roasting vegetables about in the oven. I had moved the potatoes to the top of the oven where it is warner and the tray of pumpkins and sweet potatoes to the bottom of the oven. Marion had put baking paper on the bottom of the tray, and when I put the tray in, I had pushed it to close to the flame and consequently it started to burn… the kitchen filled with smoke setting off the fire alarm.

The second incident occurred while the roasts were cooking in the BBQ, Marion thought it would be a good idea to turn the heat up on the BBQ to brown the cooking roasts, had I before cleaned the excess fat from the drip tray all would have been fine! What resulted was a fire in the BBQ, the veranda filled with smoke. Luckily the roast came out unscathed and was able to be served.

Every one enjoyed the day, Marion and I were totally wasted. The following day we spent watching videos and being lazy. One of my gifts from Marion was a Bluray pack of the 3 Bourne Identity movies, which we watched them as well as the Lord of the Rings, movies one and two. Watched the third Lord of the Rings movie the following day.

Over the next couple of days we have my Nana’s 90th birthday celebration and we are getting ready to go camping at Butlers Beach on the York Peninsula. I am seeing myself doing very little for the week that we are there.

While we were working on the bedroom, Bramalco were repairing the tiled roof,  freshly painted and repaired, looks great. The only trouble with the new roof is that the gutters now need painting. Mission Brown they are,  what an ugly colour, and how prolific was the spread of it in the 70′s and 80′s. Somebody was definitely on a MISSION!

Our focus now is to get our act together for Christmas, haven’t done any shopping, sent out any cards, put up any decorations….. wow what a busy couple of weeks we have.

Our electricity service provider installed the new 2 way meter for the upcoming solar panel installation, the meter will read both incoming and outgoing usage. The measurement of the electricity sent to the grid is most important as the South Australian Government pays 44 cents per unit.

Also managed to get another coat of paint on bedroom #2, hopefully this weekend we will have it finished. Need to tick  it off our to do list so we can spend time getting organised for Christmas. We have so much to do with so little time.