When planning the costs associated with these travels, we had to factor in costs for the pictures we would take over the course of our adventures. Basing our calculations on past travels (ie: roll of 24 exposures every three days), we worked out that at the end of purchasing film and developing film and sending film and negatives back in the mail to Australia, we would be up for about $1800.

This was obviously a matter of some concern. After all, we already own a 35mm camera (Pentax Espio 140M) that has done us more than adequately on past travels, so we had two options - take less photos to cut costs, or go to the world of digital cameras. There was, of course, one small hitch with the digital camera idea - it had to be a Sony Mavica since they are the only ones that take floppy disks.

We emailed about fifty internet cafes around the US, in cities we’d be visiting, and asked whether or not they would allow us to download driver software for digital cameras or not. Some were very well set up for travellers with digital cameras and had machines with all the relevant software on them. Others simply stated that they would not permit any software to be installed, and the computers were set up to prevent that. A few places said that they had no objections to installation of driver software, but that they had no CD-ROMs in the machines, so the software drivers would have to be on disk.

We considered going to cameras that use Clik drives, but there were so many parts involved, they would be ridiculously heavy and bulky. So, we fell back to the Sony Mavica range, because - as stated above - they are the only cameras being made that accept 3.5″ floppy disks directly into the camera unit.

Due to the prices involved, there was no way that we could afford some of the higher end models in the range. Trav tried an FD73 model and found that it would do the minimum required (ie: get pictures of website quality, but not good for printing), but that still cost $999 (Australian RRP, Nov 2000). Still, since the next model up was heavier but of no real use, and the models further up were too expensive (~$1800 - $2000), it would be cheaper to go with a film camera.

So we decided on the FD73 since we decided printing was not that big an issue, and even though it would be nice to have pictures to put on the wall at the end, it was not an incredibly major point. Finding the cheapest FD73 to be $820 retail, we checked out a few online auction sites. The first auction we found was to win one of five brand new FD73’s through www.gofish.com.au but that one was lost in the dying minute. Sadly, we actually had the same bid as three of the winners ($735), but because of the timing of the bid arrivals, we lost. A week later, another auction came to an end, but since the winning bid went over the accepted limit we’d decided on ($773), we did not win that one either.

Finally, harking back to a earlier time (pre-internet…*gasp*), we decided to check the phone book and see what stores were listed that were not found on the net in the various searches we’d done. We came up with a few new ones, although all but one of them did not stock the Sony Mavica range anyway. The one that did actually had a website and evidentally needed to work on their search engine promotion, so I’ll give them a free plug - www.camerasplus.com.au

They had the FD73, but it was not the cheapest price of the quotes we’d received. While speaking to them about other Mavica models, it came up that they had an FD91 model they might be interested in giving a discount on, as it was an older model. I went and checked the specifications on the net, and found it to be a lot better than the FD73 but since the price was open to bargaining, the smaller difference in cost made it a lot more attractive.

At the end of the day, we ended up coming out of it with the FD91 for $909 (duty free) instead of the $1320 (duty free) it had been listed as on the price tag in the shop. Given the price of the same model is still about $649-$1217 US dollars, it seems like we’ve picked it up at half price compared to the people in the place we’re intending to use it mainly. Hurrah! What a stroke of luck we lost those auctions or else we would have given up the search right there and then, and used the much lower quality FD73 instead.

You might be wondering why the price was falling so fast on the FD91. It was mainly because the FD95 had replaced it as the newer model, and the new Mavica 1000 had recently been set upon the world. The reviews for the 1000 model are not particularly good, so we are not sure why people would buy it, but it pushed down the FD95 price just by being on the shelves. Note that when we say “pushed down” the price, we don’t mean much - quotes were still scary, ranging from $2089-$2270 (duty free!). The FD95 had a few features more than the FD91, but the main one was that it took floppy disks AND Sony Memory Stick, compared to just floppy disks. However, since we only wanted the floppy disk storage option, it simply pushed the price down on the model we wanted with the features we wanted, and was generally a good thing for us.

To give some idea of the difference, an image I took with the FD73 toward the opposite corner of an intersection showed the people clearly, but the detail of some sign wording was low, due to the sharp edges being affected by JPG compression heavily. The FD91 was tested over the same distance, except that when I checked the photos to compare, not only was the lettering on the sign I focussed on clear, but the small label listing the contact details for the company that made the sign was legible (albeit just). Still, to be able to read a 4″ square label from across the street is no mean feat, and I could not even read it when I was standing there using my own eyes.

So there you go. We are roughly $900 under budget compared to film costs at the moment. This difference will diminish since we need to buy a second battery (~$90) and a protective bag (~$30), but we should still be well under budget, saving a lot of money to actually getting to see stuff worth taking a picture of.

Categories: Travel, Odyssey 2001
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It’s our neighbours again! Yes, they’re at it again. This time it is not the clapped-out car, but the shiny one. The fellow that owned a yellow car back on the 27th March 2000 managed to get it stuck in the driveway because it had been lowered too much. Since then, he’s sold that car and bought another one, then sold that one and bought another newer car. We’re not quite sure what they do for a living up there, but the only thing we can think of which has that sort of disposable income is hardly legal…

Anyway, the number plate of the old yellow car was transferred between cars, since it is a personalised plate (”GREDDY”). By the way, anyone that can make sense of that plate, please let us know. We have two possible thoughts about it. The first is that it is a different spelling of “GREEDY”, but that does not seem quite likely. The other is that it is an abbreviation of “GET READY” as in “READY SET GO!” because it has always been on a fast, hotted up car, likely to race around. Still, there might be some other interpretaton you can come up with, and if you do, we’d like to hear it.

I was working on the computer when I heard it going down the driveway, out into the street. The SPOTD report on 27th March 2000 explained how our driveway angles down to the street, and the street angles up to the camber in the middle of the road, causing lowered cars to have some problems. The new white car they’ve got now is lowered, but not to the same extent as the yellow car was - seems that they have learned their lesson slightly.

However, I heard the thumping bass of the stereo system in their car paused outside my window for a couple of minutes - much longer than it usually takes them to inch out of the driveway so they don’t take the front of the car off. I opened the blinds to see what the problem was, just in time to see everyone getting out of the car. Turns out there were four people in the car, and the combined weight was just enough to bottom it out on the driveway, so they could not get out with the people in it. The driver then got back in, inched his way out, and the three passengers walked the last part of the driveway, then got back in the car and they drove off.

Now, they have to win the SPOTD award because they seem to have bought a car that you can’t have passengers in. After all, if they can’t get out the driveway, what are they going to do when they are driving around the city and have to cross a railway line in the road? They’ll have to almost stop the car, possibly get the passengers out and then proceed over the lines, before getting back into the car and driving again - utter idiocy.

Categories: SPOTD
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I entered an online competition through ninemsn.com on Thursday 16th November 2000 for a $1000 travel voucher from www.travelshop.com.au and won! Yes, the competition was valid for one day only, and it said you could enter as often as you’d like to. I decided I’d like to enter as often as I liked, having always been a sucker for that sort of competition.

In fact, a couple of you might recall me liking that style of competition so much that I once lost email access for a week since someone set up a cycling survey that said “vote often”, but then turned out to have set all incoming entries to their email address, so they complained I was using my Uni email for non-research purposes, and the people in the IT department shut down my email account as a result. The irony of the situation? The person who complained was a lecturer at a University, and had set up their Uni email account to be the one where all survey results went to. Still, being a lecturer, their behaviour was perfectly acceptable, whereas I the postgraduate student was clearly in the wrong…*mutter mutter*

But I digress.

The ninemsn competition seemed to be a good chance to pick up a hefty discount off the travels, and so I spent 35 minutes sitting in front of the computer with two browser windows opening, entering the competition with one, while pressing the “back” button on the other, before pressing the “back” button on the first window, and entering the competition again with the second window. All in all, four hundred and nineteen entries were lodged in quick succession. Assuming maybe 1000 other entries were lodged for the day, there would be a 1 in 3 chance of me winning.

And I won!

So, let this be a lesson to you kiddies. Pay attention in statistics when the lecturer describes the odds of winning, and the sorts of lotteries one should enter into. Pick the ones you can win, and not the ones that are not worth taking part in.

Categories: Travel, Odyssey 2001
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Following on from my SPOTD experience only a few hours earlier, you can imagine how delighted I was to find that the camera I needed to take a few pictures with for my research (to calibrate some image measurements) turned out to have a flat battery. Having sat in the cupboard for a few months, the little LCD screen that states how much battery is left, basically ran the battery down to zero. What a fantastic design flaw. Perhaps the SPOTD should go to the folks at Canon for that one?

Anyway, in order to take my images, I had to then go and buy a $25 battery. In order to make it to Glenormiston before midday, I decided to go via Geelong and stop at a camera store there. Now, for those that don’t know the area, Geelong is what Victorians would unanimously agree is “Bogan Ground Zero”. If you have a need to see young men get excited over a motor car, wear flannelette and tight black jeans, go to Geelong. It’s the second largest city in the state, and probably not a great loss if the whole lot fell into the ocean. Oh, and Diana comes from Geelong, and will completely verify everything I’ve just said…*grin*

I found the camera store, parked the car just around the corner and walked back down the street to buy the battery. Naturally, I was wearing my hat, and as I rounded the corner, this proved to be like a nice shiny object for two Geelong lads. Their simple brains started to get excited about it and they decided they wanted to talk to me. Given I was still seething inside at the SPOTDs in my faculty from the previous day, I was in the mood for a good conversation with a pair of bogans, as you might imagine.

The first (“B1”) was attired in a black T-shirt and tight black jeans, as is the wont of bogan fashion. The other (“B2”) was wearing a dirty white T-shirt bearing a caption like “North Queensland Shark Hunters Club” (it may have be “Crocodile Wrestlers Club” - I’m not sure) which had designer rips across it, exposing the scrawny white flesh of his belly. The rips were in the shape a big bite mark, so you could see he was *really* in a club that dealt with dangerous animals. His jeans were also black, but tighter, to the point where I was not entirely sure how he had managed to squeeze himself into them. At least his wedding tackle was being compressed severely also, hopefully preventing his likelihood of breeding.

Both young men were sporting the footwear of choice for any real bogan - moccasins. Yes, nothing says “f**k you!” to the authorities more than slipping on a pair of moccies and going down the street to the welfare office. To complete the picture, the first had a cigarette behind his right ear, while the second had an entire packet of cigarettes lodged under his shirt, perched on his left shoulder, creating that distinctive cigarette box shaped lump that one tends to find on the shoulders of bogans. And, like so many people who smoke, they shared a trait I will never understand - no source of fire for lighting the cigarettes.

B1: Got a light mate?

Me: I don’t smoke.

B1: Why not? Is it bad for your horse? Hahaha!

Ah yes, the old classic “there is a guy in a hat, he must be a cowboy” routine that just *never* wears thin… I decided to just confuse them, since I had the upper hand in this battle of wits - they were obviously unarmed. 

Me: What horse?…*looking around*

B1: You know, like, your horse, mate…

Me: I don’t see any horse…*puzzled look*

B1: No, mate, it’s ‘cos, like, you look like you’re ridin’ a horse.

Me: Hmmm… Look, I happen to know that if you go two blocks up and one across, there’s a good optometrist there. Go have a word to him. It does not look like I’m riding a horse. It looks like I’m walking. But, if you think it looks like I’m riding a horse, you should probably just go have an eye check, I’d say.

B2: Get f**ked, mate.

Me: Ah, a witty rejoinder. It’s a pity we don’t have more eloquent people like you, isn’t it?

B2 (aggressive tone): Get f**ked!

Me: Personally, not a bad idea. Given the choice between talking to you two and having sex, I’d rather be doing the latter. But if we go with that for a second, you’ll be aware that there’s more to a bed than just sex. There’s sleeping too. And, just before people go to bed, they often put on some moccasins. Of course, the more intelligent people actually remember to take them OFF before they leave the house the next day. This might be a difficult concept, but you might like to try those new-fangled “shoe” things. They’re really good, you know…

B1: Hey mate! You want a f**kin’ go do ya, f**kin’?

Me: I don’t honestly think either of you are worth my time, my effort, or in fact oxygen. I’ll just take my imaginary horse up this way, go about my business. You go check out the optometrist and footwear stores - you might be pleasantly surprised at what you find.

B2 (more aggressive tone): Oi mate! Get f**ked!

Me: And on *that* intellectual note, I’ll bid you farewell.

As I was walking up the street, I decided it had been actually kind of therapeutic to play with them, allowing me to rid myself of some ire over yesterday’s SPOTDs. I don’t know why I attract them, but I do. There seems to be nothing I can do to avoid them, so I might as well try to enjoy the experience.

Still, you have to wonder about the sort of person that can use the word “f**kin’” as punctuation…*grin* The most annoying thing I had a camera hanging off my shoulder but could not take a picture of them because the battery was flat…*sigh*

Categories: SPOTD
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Normally I avoid writing SPOTD reports about people within my faculty (predominantly for safety reasons…*grin*) but this one was stupid enough that I am going to break that rule. Not outright, since I will not be identifying who the individuals were, but then, if you are in the ILFR system, you can probably guess who I am talking about.

On the evening of Thursday 16th November, I spent an hour and a half trying to organise a replacement vehicle for my booking to Glenormiston the next day. I had booked a vehicle on Tuesday (Falcon sedan) to travel to Glenormiston for field work on Friday, and the booking was clearly on the board for all to see. I had made arrangements to pick up the keys at 4:30pm Thursday, but as I was not able to get to the campus at that time, rang reception and organised the keys to be left in the Reception pigeonhole for me to pick up after 5pm, when I could get to campus.

I arrived at 10:30pm to pick up the keys (and renew several books through the library internet site), but the keys were not in the Reception pigeonhole as I had organised. I suspected that the receptionist had not left the keys out for me, until I saw a note slipped under the reception window by a staff member stating she had taken the Falcon vehicle home.

The reason for this was apparently that someone had parked the silver station wagon (another vehicle in the Uni carpool) in the middle of the underground carpark, trapping their vehicle, which was indeed the case. However, rather than simply calling security at 9:00pm when they apparently departed, they chose to take the vehicle I had booked instead.

I asked a couple of postgrads working late if they had any idea what the home phone number for this husband and wife research team was, but they did not know. It was suggested that they lived in a certain suburb, so I checked the White Pages and turned up the right name in the right suburb. I gave it a call, but it turned out to be the wrong person with the same name and suburb. I then checked a few more names without ringing, and established the correct number.

They stated again that their car had been blocked in, and that since it was 9pm and since they could not read the booking board, assumed it would be okay to take the keys in the pigeonhole. This was, as you might imagine, a rather irritatingly stupid conclusion to make, since it deprived me of my booked vehicle. When I looked at the board later through the window of reception as they had done, I had to agree that I could not read the name who had booked it (written in pencil, poor lighting). However, it was very clear that there was a name and a destination in the booking area, so they should have been able to tell the car was indeed reserved for use by someone.

I was told that they were not willing to drive the car back to the campus for me, despite the fact that they had used it for personal needs, and I had made a booking three days previous. I was even advised to check and see if another set of keys (left for another lecturer) was to be used early in the morning, and if not, to take that one instead. I was not happy with this suggestion from her, because it did not solve the problem, only possibly increased the level of inconvenience.

However, as it was blatantly obvious that they would not be returning the vehicle in time for my 4:30am departure, I had to ring security and get an officer to let me into the reception office, in order to get the keys for the station wagon. The wagon was fortunately not booked, so I took that vehicle to Glenormiston instead, but if this vehicle had NOT been available, it is clear that the staff members valued their personal use of the vehicle more worthy than my University field work and official booking.

When speaking to the staff member on the phone, and stating why I felt they should return the car to the Uni and take a taxi home (before I’d determined the station wagon was not booked) on the phone, she was adamant that the person who had done the misdeed was not her, but the person who had parked behind her car. I agreed with her that the other person should not have left the car in the middle of the carpark, blocking her car in, but that taking my pre-booked vehicle left me without transport for fieldwork. She could not see this point, telling me that when she came in the next day, she was going to have a go at the person who parked behind her car because they were the ones in the wrong.

The security officers took very little time to arrive, and when they did, asked why the staff members had not simply requested them at 9pm instead of causing the problems. I am at a loss to explain this myself. I was told that when they left, “it was late, and there were children at home and they are 9 and 10 and 12 years old and she had to go home and she could not read the booking board to see if it was a problem”. To my way of thinking, that last reason is the main reason NOT to do what they have done.

Then again, to my way of thinking, if the children were so important, the parents might consider going home before 9pm and giving them dinner, since they had apparently not been able to eat their evening meal before the mother got home to cook it. But I’ve learned that some people take great offence when you imply their parenting skills are lacking (based on a couple of SPOTDs from a couple of years ago which I never wrote up), so I did not express those sentiments at the time.

What makes this even more irritating was that, in all the confusion about trying to get in contact with them, and organise a replacement vehicle, I forgot to renew the library books, resulting in a fine of $23.50 all because I got distracted by the SPOTDs. Not only did they cost me time, but they cost me money as well, and inconvenienced me for so long that it was after midnight before I managed to secure a vehicle and go home for four hours sleep before hitting the road.

And there is nothing worse than a SPOTD that costs me money…

Categories: SPOTD
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There have been so many SPOTDs recently, I set aside some time to write them up. So, the sudden flood of SPOTD reports does not indicate there are more SPOTDs than usual - just that I’ve written them up. Trust me - there’s one every day…

This one concerns our neighbours - those wacky young people with the fancy cars again. The last time they featured in a SPOTD report, it was because they left a Jeep Grand Cherokee with two flat tyres for 24 days in a row, rather than spend the money to fix them. Well, as it turned out, they must have only fixed them to leave the flat, because the Jeep was there for another day or two, and we’ve not seen it since.

In it’s place, there is a clapped out second-hand hatchback which has obviously seen better days. It is actually quite odd to see all of the new cars being washed, all gleaming and shiny, and then one car which is not looked after at all. The new neighbour seems to have replaced the Jeep driver, and was in the circle of friends before that, since we’ve seen him many times before. It’s hard to miss him - he always comes into the street approximately 20kph over the speed limit, then locks on the brakes and spins the car sideways to produce large skid marks on the road. Lately, he’s taken to pulling into the driveway (which is obviously a right-angle from the road) in the same fashion, sliding the car into the entrance, despite the fact there are cars parked just on either side of the entrance.

As the tail of the car swings out, they miss the parked car on the far side of the driveway by very little - less than six inches one day when I happened to be on the balcony as they slid to a halt. It seemed like they’d had a bit of a scare, but the next day they did it again. In the rain…

So far they’ve not hit the parked cars, but they cannot get away with this forever. One day they will have to mess up, slightly overestimating the amount of tread on their tyres, and will end up slamming into the parked car with the side of their vehicle. In a way, I wish it would happen - at the moment, there is nothing anybody can do to stop them. On the other hand, that means someone gets their car trashed, just to prove a point, and there is no guarantee it will prove a point.

What I am truly hoping is that the SPOTD who insists on sliding out his car to come to a halt is going to slightly overshoot and slam into the car that is usually parked on the far side. That car belongs to another SPOTD (see an upcoming SPOTD report), and frankly, I’d love nothing more than to see his car off the road. If it was a really good accident, it might even be able to take them both off the road at the same time. What I truly hope most is that if a collision does happen, I am awake and able to go out on the balcony and laugh and point as they survey the damage.

Categories: SPOTD
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