Categories
Boating

I Guess I Own a Boat Now

Melbourne anchor winchI’ve never owned a boat before. Now, all of a sudden I do, and I’ve come to realise that there’s a bit more to it than just pushing it out into the water, rowing for a bit and then tying it to the docks once you’re done. There was something about a sail? Anyway, this is a proper big thing with a motor and a cabin, so it’s way beyond my ability to keep running.

There was this uncle I had back in Albajeria, one I’d never met but heard about quite a bit. Apparently he was pretty pleased that I’d gone on to be a nurse when the rest of my siblings wanted to be businesspeople and make money. The downside? I’m frantically searching for outboard motor servicing in Melbourne somewhere, and I haven’t a clue where to start. Well, apart from the coastal areas, the docks, marinas and places where you’d find boats.

Uncle Byrav must have had a sense of humour, since he rewarded me for not chasing after money…with a massive investment that needs a whole lot of money. I was given an upkeep allowance, but boats are just a bit more complex than cars. I have to get a sailing license, proper gear, keep up with maintenance, pay for a place to keep it once it’s sailed over from Albajeria and probably more things. The list goes on, and on, and on, and I’ve never owned a boat so I just wouldn’t know most of it.

Will the allowance be enough for Melbourne’s anchor winch expenses? Doesn’t matter at this stage. What actually matters is that I don’t know if I’ll even have time to sail. There’s a kid on the way, work keeps me snowed under and I don’t know that many people into sailing. So yeah, great gift, Uncle Byrav. Maybe I’ll just sell it once it gets here. See what you think of that.

-Jameson

Categories
pest control

Bugs Just Want New Experiences

Berwick pest controlSo I just saw a movie about giant bugs from outer space that came to our planet to drink all of our salt water, and the brave humans who repelled them with massive cans of bug spray. You know when something straddles the line between serious and spoof? It gets really confusing around Halloween when all these cheesy, intentionally B-Movie movies come out and you’re left wondering what the heck you just watched.

Like, so many questions. Why do the bugs want to drink our salt water? Is it such a bad thing that we let them have a little bit of it? The planet is mostly covered in the stuff, I don’t think there’s a shortage. And why big cans of bug spray, when missiles would probably get the job done? ‘All in all, I think it gave me a new appreciation for people who do pest control. Berwick companies are kept busy this time of year, what with all the damp wood and falling leaves. Bugs get in the house, in the shed, in the…wherever. Though those are normal sized ones, so I really don’t know what all the fuss is about. Like, I saw what those giant bugs did in that scene where all the people were sat around the big conference table and the world leaders were trying to reason with the bug queen. She seemed really interested in the offer of a 2-for-1 deal on saltwater mixed with some delicious Earth-made Wensleydale. I guess they’d travelled a really long way from the reaches of deep space, and they wanted to sample a bit of the cuisine. You know, like you do if you go to Bali, or Beijing. But then things broke down when one of the delegates squashed a spider running across the desk. Bummer.

So yeah, I guess it’s a lesson to all pest control experts in Dromana and wherever. If you don’t get the results you want, remember the distance from the tree at the back of the garden to someone’s house is a great journey, and maybe they just want a bit of the local cuisine. Which is sometimes the food in the cupboards, and sometimes, like…the actual house itself.

-Ben

Categories
Home

The Ultimate Aluminium Treehouse

mobile aluminium platformsTreehouses are nice, but I didn’t want the kids to have anything too ordinary. Maybe I’m just a competitive parent, but I couldn’t stand the thought of them having a few bits of wood tied together by string up in a tree. It’s unsafe, for one thing. And I’ll tell you another; it’s not much of a ‘fort’.

That’s what a treehouse is supposed to be, in my opinion. We always grew up with one in the back garden way out in the country, made of wood, and while it was alright for a time, I got bored quickly. It just didn’t feel like a hidey-hole. More like just another room in the house, with windows big enough for Mum to see what we were doing at all times.

So I’ve gone industrial. Piles of aluminium trestle ladders now fill our back garden, because I’m going to build a fortress that would make supervillains jealous. I’ve even done the calculations, and with the weight I’ll be hefting up there, the oak should be able to support it. In fact, it would support double, and kids certainly don’t weigh anything near that amount. They can have as many friends as they like up there and my engineering skills will make sure it stays. I guess it’s just a really good tree for the project, as well.

Also, I’ve got some really sturdy aluminium ladders and platforms that should get the job done nicely. I’m not about to go for the cheap option; this is as much for me as it is for the kids, so I made some investments! Hopefully they’ll be able to enjoy this tree fortress for years to come, while I can sit in the garden and admire what I’ve built. It’ll be made of aluminium platforms, so a bit hodgepodge, but…I can work with it. We’re going for substance, not style.

-Greg

Categories
makeup courses

Finding your niche in makeup

Brisbane makeup coursesI believe everyone should find their niche. It brings great fulfilment in life. Forget about being bored and lonely, everyone should meet the people that they really truly get along with and share interests with. Life is all about having fun anyway

I found my niche in the most unlikely of places. I started dating this girl that I thought I had nothing in common with. I just met her at a bar one night and thought she was cute so I started talking to her. Then after a few minutes of mediocre conversation, I realised she was actually smoking hot. She also had a unique style and makeup mad skills. I asked her about that and she told me she had taken a few makeup courses in Brisbane in her twenties but had decided it wasn’t for her. We started seeing each other. Still, she wasn’t perfect for me as we had little in common but we did have chemistry in the bedroom so we had an extended fling. One day, we had a bit too much fun and she sprained her wrist on her right hand. I had to do pretty much everything for her, including apply her make up.

When i started, I was a bit shaking and she scolded me a lot for getting liquid eyeliner all over her face. But  I started getting the hang of it. I wasn’t as good as her (it’s hard to apply makeup to someone else!) but I found myself enjoying it. I was also getting creative, and although my technique was clumsy, she liked my instinct for colour and style.

That’s when I started looking into beauty courses around Brisbane for myself. I know, it’s a little uncouth for a man to get into a traditionally female industry. But as soon as I started the course, I knew I’d found my place in the world. The girls and I hit it off immediately. We were chatting at like a hundred miles an hour and going out for drinks after every class. That’s why I recommend everyone find their niche

Categories
property styling

Styling for the open house

home staging MelbourneI don’t think people can really comprehend the process of selling a home unless they’ve been through it. I’ve done it six times in the last ten years, so trust me, I’m basically the wise home-selling guru. Throw in the fact that I’ve done it while raising three boisterous sons and a husband who works most of the time and you can just call me the grandmaster.

I don’t blame Ted, of course. He’s out there working to support the family and he works so incredibly hard, but it when we have to move for the umpteenth time it’s mostly up to me to make sure the place is spick and span. I know of services in Melbourne that offer home staging, and I will admit I’ve thought about it a few times. Just to have someone come in and do up the place to make it sell-worthy would be just lovely. I’ve never actually called them as yet, however. I don’t want to inflict my boys and their mess on an innocent interior designer. That’s my problem to deal with. Sometimes just getting them to pick up their toys or wind up their game console wires for an upcoming open house is a nightmare enough without having someone in telling me that the wallpaper is a bit drab. It probably IS drab, but more people in our home is stress I really don’t need at the moment.

Maybe it’s a career I need to look into. I’ll admit, I’ve got quite an eye for what people want, purely from all that lovely experience. Some weeks I talk to real estate agents more than I talk to Ted, so I know the industry pretty well. And if I ever had the time to start my own home staging based in Melbourne, I think it’d be quite satisfying to step into someone else’s home selling nightmare and direct them to profits and success. I won’t, though. I’ll leave the home staging to Melbourne people who actually have the time for it.

Categories
safety signs

Car decal? Give me a sign!

signwriters MelbourneI can’t work out if I should get a car decal. It’s times like this I look to our lord. Dear god, give me a sign! Should I get a car decal? It could help me promote my business. Or it could damage my car’s paint job. I don’t know which option is better or worse. Anyway, that’s the least of my concerns right now, because my business is floundering and I need to think about my advertising campaign. I’ll think about the signwriters in Melbourne later.

I think I’m going to hire a digital agency to help with the marketing aspect of the business. Being a car wash business, the only promotion we get is people driving by. I doubt we get any word-of-mouth references because the car wash doesn’t particularly stand out or anything. It’s pretty generic. Perhaps I need a marketing strategy to make it stand out among the rest, make it unique you know. Like we could be an all-inclusive car wash for all people. Or we could have cafe there so people can recaffeinate and have a bite to eat while their car is being hand washed. Or I could dress the car wash guys in costumes and turn it into a kid friendly car wash, with a very happy upbeat kind of vibe. Hm, that could be good. If I did go with this idea, I’d have to get some safety signs. Near Melbourne, car washes can get quite slippery, so if people are distracted by the costumes, they are at risk of falling onto the cement. In the end, I’ll be praying to our Lord every time I go to church to keep our patrons safe and sound, no matter which way they swing. All I know is that I’m going to have to take a new direction with my signage.

Categories
custom shed

Disco Shed

custom built sheds TamworthMy husband and I were having marriage troubles recently. It’s our lifestyle differences. He loves to sit at home and vegetate after work, either in front of the TV or the computer. He loves his own company and is also introverted. Me, on the other hand, I’m always having people over. Dinner parties, weekend barbecues. I love going out to bars and nightclubs too but the after-party always ends up at my place. Jason doesn’t like this. He’s usually in bed by about 10 pm even on weekends. We were slowly growing more and more impatient with each other, until I had a brilliant idea for a solution: custom sheds, Tamworth.

Basically, there’s not enough room for the two of us. I need space for my social needs, and he needs space for his solitary quiet time. We’re different people, doesn’t mean we don’t get along fantastically when we’re together. We just needed to find a way to accommodate both of our needs. I realised we could achieve this with a custom built shed. This would serve as my “play pen” where I could have parties and drinks, and it would be sound insulated and well away from the house. All we had to do was call about carports in Tamworth, because we realised my little party pad would serve as our garage to protect the car from the elements.

Ever since we got the party room on our property, things have improved at home. Jason has been sleeping well and I’ve been getting my social fill. You can tell that things are going well in a our marriage. As soon as you stop communicating for any significant amount of time that’s a sign there’s an issue that needs to be addressed. Now that everything’s sorted, I think I could do with a little more sleep.

Categories
hyperbaric chambers

Winning the race with hyperbarics

hyperbaric chambers MelbourneLast Christmas in July, we had a party at work. It was pretty loose — there was plenty of Elaine-style dancing and even the boss got a few drinks in him. By the end of it, we were all having playful digs at each another.

I was accused of being “sedentary”, which of course is a euphemism for lazy, at which point I turned around and said, “I bet I could beat all of you in a race!” My drunken colleagues were foolishly up for a challenge that their sober minds would promptly cower from.

I may not be the fittest nor the fastest in the office, but I do have a secret weapon — a hyperbaric chamber. Melbourne workers are generally quite disinterested in exercise and do not keep in shape, but as I was putting forth this challenge, I thought back to my grandmother’s hyperbaric chamber which she uses to treat her diabetes injuries. I knew that with this secret I could beat any of my overfed and under-walked colleagues in a foot race.

The challenge was a 2km run on the athletic field. We were to make a day of it, and organised a month after the Christmas in July party. It was a Saturday. The non-participators stood by with the sausage sizzle, and the smell of slowly charring beef made my stomach rumble. While the others had been going for jogs every morning for the past four weeks, I had been “training” by spending 45 minutes every day in the hyperbaric chambers. Melbourne doesn’t have that many good jogging routes that are near me so I was quite content to be snug in my little chamber receiving my oxygen therapy. I was also feeling quite smug in the knowledge that they’d been working their butts off, pathetically, while I did nothing and won the race. I had my sausage afterwards and also won a “Least sedentary employee” medal. Woo.

Categories
arborist

When the tree loppers came

tree fellingIt was a beautiful day in inner city Melbourne when I’d organised to have the arborists come to get rid of our troublesome tree in the front yard. Its branches were interfering with the power lines and the roots were tearing up the foundations of the house. It just had to go. Anyway, this tree was actually right on the nature strip, so several paced from the house, just to give you some idea of how massive it truly was. Anyway, the guy pulls out his chain saw, ready to cut the darn thing down, when my neighbour rushes out yelling Stop at the top of his lungs.

Now I never thought that tree felling in Melbourne could have amounted to a stouch, but that’s exactly what happened. He came out yelling, “How dare you cut down my tree!” I go, “This isn’t your tree, tis’ my tree.” But this irate neighbour pointed to the tree stump and said that it was actually on his side of the nature strip. That’s when I realised that it was close to the border of our two properties, but nevertheless it was clearly my tree because I’m the one who had had to invest all of the time and money into pruning it and taking care of it all these years. I asked him, “If it’s your tree, then where have you been this whole time?” He just grumbled and started rambling about the tree being his again. Not the most coherent argument I’ve heard…

Anyway, the neighbour and I got into a fracas right there in front of the arborists. Close to Melbourne there isn’t a lot of fighting so I guess they were in for a real show. The poor blokes were probably just sticking around to see who would pay them the call out fee.

Categories
arborist

Getting our tree lopped for good

Melbourne tree loppingThe tree had been an eyesore since the day we moved in. That was twenty years ago. I wanted to get rid of it but there’s always been something in the way. At the beginning, it was my first wife who really loved it. I had called tree removal in Melbourne and the guys rolled up with their trucks and equipment. They were about to lop the darn thing down when she ran out screaming and crying, tears streaming down her face. She begged them to stop. They looked at me and smiled, knowing that I still had to pay the bill.

I couldn’t cut it down so long as we were married. In fact, I think it might have had something to do with the break up of our marriage. Not the tree obviously but just her uncompromising nature. There was no way I could talk her out of it, or anything really.

The next time I tried to call in the arborist, Melbourne based tree doctors are all over the place. The tree loppers came by, ready to cut down the hideous tree which was getting in the way of the power lines and even starting to dig its roots into the foundation of the house. This time it was my second wife’s mother in law who stopped the whole thing. She ran out declaring that the tree was an apricot tree and why would we cut it down when we get so many free delicious apricots. I looked at the floor where all the squashed apricots were stained into the paving, and I shook my head. Yet another tree felling mission delayed. Needless to say, that marriage didn’t last either. Can’t be stuck with a woman with a domineering mother in law.

The third and last time I tried to get rid of the tree, my new girlfriend tried to stop me. She said that she really liked the tree and could we please keep it? I told her, “Of course, anything for you, darling.”