Public Holidays

I am amazed to see that there is a significant amount of discussion regarding the fact that in 2011 the Easter Monday holiday and Anzac Day fall on the same Monday. For the non-Anzac of you reading, ANZAC day is the day we remember our war veterans here in Australia.

I was watching a morning show today and two of the presenters stated that the Anzac Day holiday should not be moved to the Tuesday; that we should lose that day completely. Now our wages are set knowing how many public holidays there are and how many days off we get a year so the net result of this would be to add an extra working day to the year for zero extra recompense. Every time Anzac or Australia Day fall on a weekend, we get the strident calls from business hoping to get something extrra for nothing.

Therefore I propose that in 2012; as Anzac Day lands on a Tuesday, and there's really little point in us all wobbling into work for one day, the Monday should be added as an extra day off - call it "can't be arsed day". Lets see if business gives us a thumbs up for that one. After all its in the same vein as their idea...

Slacker

Sorry guys. I've been really slack about this blogging lark. I haven't really decided what I want this blog to be. I've considered history posts, family posts, political posts and humorous (well hopefully) posts, but so far it has all come to naught. I know people don't want to read about me beetling along about my health and the weather so what to do?

Introduce myself perhaps?

I was born here in Adelaide in 1965 at Calvary Hospital (back when they still had nuns for nurses) to an Estonian mother and English father who were both migrants. We moved to Darwin in 1971, to Alice Springs in 72 and back to Darwin again in 1974. For some reason for a short time, I became a bit of a harbinger of doom. In December Darwin was flattened by a cyclone. In 1975 we went on holidays to East Timor which was promptly invaded by Indonesia. I decided I had better not visit Yugoslavia any time soon.

I completed my education in Darwin, but as there were no tertiary institutions in the Northern Territory at that time, had to come to Adelaide to study. After two quite surreal years at the South Australian Institute of Technology, I became a drop-out and my father (who was apparently quite furious with me) told me that I should find a job in Adelaide.

Got a job in 1985 with the same company I work for now which pretty much makes me a relic of a bygone era. Shortly before I got my current job, I was offered and eventually after much soul searching, turned down a job with a security company as a clerk. My reasons for turning it down? They wanted me to guarantee to stay for a year and that seemed such a long time. 25 years on, I laugh at myself an my immaturity.

After 9 years of pretty much drifting along, I met my wife S who caught me rather than the other way round. She moved in and I discovered love (much to my surprise). We bought our first house in 1995 (for a massive $89k) and were married in July of that year. My daughter T came along in 1997, son L in 2000 and in 2001 we moved again. I sweated bullets at the time as it cost $160k which was $40k over what I'd intended to spend on a new house. Again I laugh as it would cost three times that to buy today. They're wheeling me out of this place when I'm on the way to my nursing home.

Anyway enough of my banality for now. Hopefully I'll think of something better to talk about soon.