REverberations - SES

SES Ten Year Service Medal

webmaster@reverb.com.au (reverb) — Sat, 31 May 2008 14:04:55 -0500

I am now officially a decorated serviceman.

Actually, I was about three years ago, but due to my choice to spend more time at bands and with my family than SES, I hadn't managed to be presented with the medal for a long time - until a couple of weeks ago. Heavily pregnant local MP Cherie Burton was at the headquarters presenting medallions to those involved in last year's Hunter storms, and I was invited back to get my medal while she was available.

It felt a little weird returning to SES and being presented with a long service medal when I haven't actually attended for several years, but the fact remains that I did put in the hard yards for many years, sadly much more than many other people in the community.

The petty politics that was a factor in me spending less time with the organisiation seems to have improved immesruably. I'd consider going back if only I could find a couple more days in each week.

Again with the famousness by proxy

webmaster@reverb.com.au (reverb) — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 12:44:08 -0500

A little birdy pointed me at this telegraph article. The "friend" referred to in the first paragraph is someone you know if you are reading this blog...

Oh, and nice work Dave :) We used to have a rule in SES that if you got your mug in the paper you owed everyone a beer, I think it's time to resurrect that.

An extended version of the story is in the current issue of PushOn, too.

Happy Missing Tim Day!

webmaster@reverb.com.au (reverb) — Thu, 26 Jan 2006 09:37:23 -0600

Eight Sydney hospitals, one police station, several parents, two band members from last night's rehearsal and other assorted friends have been on a hunt for me this morning.
Liz came home from work about 7:10am to find me not there. She rang my phone but couldn't get through. Parents were called over, friends last contacted last night were rung for information (I was last seen about 10pm) and many many voicemails were left on my two mobile numbers. She drove down to SES to see whether I was there for the Australia Day celebrations as we usually do, but they hadn't seen me.
Dad asked her to see whether anything was missing. My laptop wasn't, but a count of my instruments found a missing flute. Not noticed missing were a music stand, four microphones, a large brown bag of cables and two microphone stands.

You see, I had gone to a gig. An Australia Day citizenship ceremony gig at Hurstville. I had told Liz I was going to do this a few days ago, but in her night-duty-clouded brain it didn't get filed correctly. Oh, and answering your phone in the middle of a performance is not really the done thing, so I had switched my phone off as soon as I got there.

My apologies and thanks to all those who were woken up early this morning and helped Liz out. It's very nice to know I'd be missed if I weren't around. Next time I'll have to tell her AND write notes for everything!

So Happy Missing Tim Day, 26th January. We'll be sure to celebrate it each year :)

PS: My lift had picked me up at 7:08. We probably drove past each other.

Infrequent posting: B-

webmaster@reverb.com.au (reverb) — Tue, 15 Nov 2005 07:20:00 -0600

Bean has prompted me into action by noting that my blog has interesting content but I don't post often. I appreciate the first part and couldn't agree more with the second.
Except for one major problem - I do too much stuff. Here's a short listing of some of the things I've done since last posting:

Had a gig with Jersey Kerb down the coast. Great fun, not many people turned up due to awful weather but can't have been all bad as we got about four gig offers as well as a semi-permanent spot offered. Not sure what will come of that but we have another gig in a month or so where I have changed instruments and will now be playing keyboards/sax/flute/bass. Oh dear.
Got our good car serviced and bid the old one farewell. It was interesting to note that the amount we got for it is what we typically withdraw once a week or so to use as spending money. Better than the wreckers, it went to our mechanic's apprentice who is going to make it betterer and hence not get to work wet from riding his bike. An improvement!
Didn't care much about the Melbourne Cup.
Went ring shopping where Liz ordered the wedding band to match her engagement ring and I selected mine. Both should be ready in a week or so.
Had coffee with the folks and their folks at Short Black café at Penshurst - our local café and good enough to win the Leader Small Business Awards. Pretty noisy for a family get-together inside though. Outside means the heat plus eating other people's nicotine.
Went in yet again to James Squire Brewhouse for Jane's birthday beers. The food was still great, the service excellent and the prices, well, let's not talk about those. Governor King is a great beer brewed on site.
Mowed the lawn a few times - have to do it every week! Remind me never to fertilize it again...
Had three-day weekends. Very good to get house work done, but after the blitz of a week Mon-Thurs I typically don't want to touch computers all weekend, hence no blogging there.
Went searching with SES for a lost/abducted little girl out at Lurnea past Liverpool. Drove trucks around and did land searches operating with the Police. Quite a good experience but no trace of the girl.
Walked from Circular Quay to Town Hall as part of the SES 50th Anniversary Parade. There were more people out clapping and whatever than I was expecting, and it was good to be part of such a big thing.
Had dinner at Kelly's place Saturday night, meeting up with old friends and watching other people try tuna tacos. Couldn't quite drum up the enthusiasm myself, sticking to the more reliable bean variety.
Walked all the way to Como and back for morning tea with Liz, Jono and Penny on Sunday, after they came over to watch the first leg of the Socceroos world cup qualifiers vs. Uruguay. Well, Jono and I did - the girls went back to sleep. What a rip off that penalty was.

We have tickets to the next qualifier tomorrow night out at Telstra Stadium, which should totally rock. Don't have any green/gold gear to wear though, and apparently it's quite expensive. Might just wander around the city and buy some tacky tourist version.
We're off to the Hunter this weekend to hopefully talk with the wedding cake, hair, photography and flower people. No, not the same person, although that would make life much easier.

You know you're getting old when...

webmaster@reverb.com.au (reverb) — Tue, 18 Oct 2005 00:07:24 -0500

You know you're getting old when you get an award for ten years service at something, as I did at the SES Sydney Southern Division presentation night on Saturday night.
Yep, I've been clambering on roofs and cutting down trees for a whole decade, have learnt some great skills, but now spend most of my time with them helping out with stores and IT.

AWOL Explanation

webmaster@reverb.com.au (reverb) — Fri, 25 Mar 2005 22:21:30 -0600

So where have I been hiding recently? Well, a few things have been taking up our time settling into the new house, plus work is pretty crazy with some less-than-realistic deadlines starting to get people... shall we say... motivated.
I'd completely forgotten that today was a day off until yesterday, so that left me with a day to do pretty much nothing. I actually stayed up all night watching movies to try and get my body clock even a little in sync with Liz, who is doing night shift at the moment.
It looks like we might have a customer for Zeus, so if that plays out then we may have a new dog in the next couple of weeks. Always good news, as that would mean one less that needs to be put to sleep.
Heading down to Canberra for a week for linux.conf.au, which I have been to twice previously. There's always quite a bit to learn from the gurus of the Open Source movement - the way these guys keep coming up with new cool stuff constantly amazes me.
There's been quite a lot of SES work recently - a funeral for our local controller of many years where Liz and I were the guard of honour at the front of the church, and also plenty to keep us busy with the recent stormy weather Sydney has been battered with. If only it would get the dam levels up a bit more. Liz is proudly telling everyone that she was chainsawing a couple of stories up hanging off a ladder the other night - something I usually balk at so good on her.
Finally, good news came through recently that long-lost friend Meaghan who has been living in Milton Keynes, England for the last few years is coming back to Sydney for good next week! For a while she was planning on moving to Perth of all places, but that seems to have sorted itself out now.
She's been missed and now we're going to have to try to beat that English accent out of her - sure took me a while to get rid of mine and we were only there six months!

Radar: A near disaster

webmaster@reverb.com.au (reverb) — Thu, 10 Feb 2005 11:19:16 -0600

There's a very interesting story over at SMH's Radar, which was written before and due to be published shortly after 11th September, 2001.
The editor and author decided to pull the story based on the content - a review of large-scale disasters which could possibly affect Sydney.
I'm not entirely sure what scares me more - the fact that plenty of these things could happen (actually, due to SES training, I'm quite prepared for such things actually), or that the editor and author decided that intelligent adults couldn't deal with such an article.
God bless the Internet, where we get the "real" content rather than the censored, filtered versions mainstream media choose to serve up to us.

Want to help your community?

webmaster@reverb.com.au (reverb) — Mon, 07 Feb 2005 08:17:50 -0600

Tomorrow night (Tuesday 8th) is the second recruiting night we are having down at Kogarah SES. We meet at Harold Fraser Oval, Princes Highway, Carlton. That's just a little more towards the city than Carss Park shops.
Everyone and anyone is welcome to attend - no obligations. You might just want to have a look at what we do, and how we do it. You can take any task from hands-on climbing on roofs in storms through to paperwork and store tracking. Even people to help out with a BBQ now and then are much appreciated.

The reason that I personally joined SES was because I finished Scouts, and I was being encouraged to move to Venturers. Instead, I jumped across to SES and did roughly the same stuff, got recognised qualifications, and helped out the community in the process.
It wasn't long after meeting Liz that she decided to see what all the fuss was about, and she's be attending ever since also.
In fact, she was featured in the latest (not yet online) issue of The Lamp, the NSW Nurses Association magazine, in the middle of a lake in her SES gear. They are doing a set of features on what nurses do when not at work. I'll scan it in and put a copy of the interview and picture up here soon.

Australia Day

webmaster@reverb.com.au (reverb) — Thu, 27 Jan 2005 08:52:38 -0600

Reflecting with Liz this morning, we noted that two years ago was the only time in recent memory where Australia Day meant anything of interest, or even Australian, to us.
You see, when not travelling around the world, Australia Day means donning one of our respective "hats" and helping out with the State Emergency Service. We've been members of the Kogarah unit for many years (me almost ten, and Liz most of the time she's known me).
Australia Day means going down to Carss Park and helping out with the fireworks extravaganza that Kogarah Council puts on. Most of this helping out means directing cars to be parked in the huge ovals we need to fill up to deal with the vast quantity of people who couldn't possibly walk.
This year we had perhaps close to double the number of cars around that we usually do, and that means tempers flare when it is time to leave, or when people want to park somewhere that they aren't permitted to.
I narrowly avoided getting physically assaulted by one muscle-mass-higher-than-IQ gentleman who couldn't understand why he couldn't park right in the exit lane. No dodging the verbal assaults though.
This is all very nice for those of us who give up an entire day, at no pay, missing out totally on what Australia Day (or, if you prefer, Invasion Day) is all about. We stood in the sun from about 9am until the sun disappeared, then some more. Liz got home about 1am, joining me who had left about 10pm due to a chronic headache brought on by too much sun and not enough water.
So, thanks very much to the about three people each who said "thanks" or "Happy Australia Day" to either Liz or myself.
Have you thanked a volunteer recently?