OK ok I know it's been a week since my last confession! I have been very busy thank you Peter, Steven and the rest of you...
Gosh I was babysitting the Foxtel across the road last weekend, it was pouring with rain and I had to have 3 attempts to get a parking spot at the local supermarket. And that was just Saturday! And I got ANOTHER huge phone bill - this time for Robin's global roaming for $638 for a month. So I've had $300 odd, $800 odd and $600 odd in just 2 months. I'll never save a cent at this rate!
In view of the problems with communicating with Brave Sir Robin and Bob (I've not heard a peep since last I blogged) I got Robin a SPOT GPS Messenger doover on Monday. He had asked Bob if he could find one to bring, but Bob was in Taiwan by that time and unable to get one. Anyway, it works by sending pre-programmed messages to pre-programmed people (if you get what I mean) when you press the button. It also has an SOS button if you are really up $hit creek.
So on Monday evening I jumped on the website to activate it and programme in the messages and recipients before sending it to Maninder in Delhi who will get it to BSR & Bob wherever they are. How hard can it be? I thought - just a few details, credit card number and Bob's your trekking partner....
Name & address of registered operator - easy
Select what services you want - easy
Now the hard part: If you are not the person who will be using SPOT tick here - ticked - fill in their name and contact details - done - OK now list your primary and secondary emergency contacts - OK me in Australia and Sumit in India- ENTER. Oh dear...' Primary and secondary contacts must be different'. But they are??? OK, hit ENTER, hit ENTER, hit ENTER, shout at computer, repeat. Put in someone else's name and phone number. No. Untick I'm not the person who will be using this. No luck. Go back to the start, try again. Same result. Google 'why can't I register my SPOT' and find forums with comments like ' this is the most stupid website ever' and 'took me 2 weeks to do it' with special note made of 'don't email their customer service cos they never get back to you'.
What's a girl to do? Well, I made dinner and poured a glass of wine. Later that night I got out the laptop (I had been trying before on the desktop) and got straight through. Go figure. Must have been the wine.
So then I wrapped SPOT and wrote a card and got it all ready for the Post Office to do their worst. Oh no, you can't mail anything with lithium batteries so had to unpack the blasted thing and email India to let them know that assuming it turns up they need to get lithium AAA batteries. At least it was only $19.50 to post. I'll be amazed if it actually arrives without having been pilfered. Watch this space. As far as I know the boys are somewhere near Nanda Devi in Garhwal but I can't be more specific than that right now.
So now I have 5 days away from the fabulous workplace thanks to Easter and ANZAC day. The sun is shining and the planes are thundering over, so it's a great day to do some laundry (of course) and maybe later on some more zumba. Hopefully I'll also get to tidy up my messy house - burglars would think they were too late (which may not be a bad thing).
Meanwhile things just get worse in Nepal. They have now run out of fuel and the NOC (Nepal Oil Corruption) can't pay their bill to Indian Oil. Their main problem is that they buy oil from India for say 50 rupees a litre, but sell it for 45. Which would probably be OK if they had a budget surplus, or sold anything to the rest of the world apart from manpower. But they don't. So then India says 'you can't have any more oil'. Or, the Nepal government increases the price of their petrol, diesel and kero but the students protest (what is has to do with them is anyone's guess) so the government, which is so spineless it's almost unbelieveable, just backs down and continues to 'subsidise' fuel. Which it cannot afford. If they were a proper business instead of government run they would have been closed years ago.
Here's a GREAT video of a plane landing at Talcha airfield in Nepal - if you want to see more just go to Nepali times on youtube for a scary take off, and the view of landing from inside. I love it!!!
Gosh I was babysitting the Foxtel across the road last weekend, it was pouring with rain and I had to have 3 attempts to get a parking spot at the local supermarket. And that was just Saturday! And I got ANOTHER huge phone bill - this time for Robin's global roaming for $638 for a month. So I've had $300 odd, $800 odd and $600 odd in just 2 months. I'll never save a cent at this rate!
In view of the problems with communicating with Brave Sir Robin and Bob (I've not heard a peep since last I blogged) I got Robin a SPOT GPS Messenger doover on Monday. He had asked Bob if he could find one to bring, but Bob was in Taiwan by that time and unable to get one. Anyway, it works by sending pre-programmed messages to pre-programmed people (if you get what I mean) when you press the button. It also has an SOS button if you are really up $hit creek.
So on Monday evening I jumped on the website to activate it and programme in the messages and recipients before sending it to Maninder in Delhi who will get it to BSR & Bob wherever they are. How hard can it be? I thought - just a few details, credit card number and Bob's your trekking partner....
Name & address of registered operator - easy
Select what services you want - easy
Now the hard part: If you are not the person who will be using SPOT tick here - ticked - fill in their name and contact details - done - OK now list your primary and secondary emergency contacts - OK me in Australia and Sumit in India- ENTER. Oh dear...' Primary and secondary contacts must be different'. But they are??? OK, hit ENTER, hit ENTER, hit ENTER, shout at computer, repeat. Put in someone else's name and phone number. No. Untick I'm not the person who will be using this. No luck. Go back to the start, try again. Same result. Google 'why can't I register my SPOT' and find forums with comments like ' this is the most stupid website ever' and 'took me 2 weeks to do it' with special note made of 'don't email their customer service cos they never get back to you'.
What's a girl to do? Well, I made dinner and poured a glass of wine. Later that night I got out the laptop (I had been trying before on the desktop) and got straight through. Go figure. Must have been the wine.
So then I wrapped SPOT and wrote a card and got it all ready for the Post Office to do their worst. Oh no, you can't mail anything with lithium batteries so had to unpack the blasted thing and email India to let them know that assuming it turns up they need to get lithium AAA batteries. At least it was only $19.50 to post. I'll be amazed if it actually arrives without having been pilfered. Watch this space. As far as I know the boys are somewhere near Nanda Devi in Garhwal but I can't be more specific than that right now.
So now I have 5 days away from the fabulous workplace thanks to Easter and ANZAC day. The sun is shining and the planes are thundering over, so it's a great day to do some laundry (of course) and maybe later on some more zumba. Hopefully I'll also get to tidy up my messy house - burglars would think they were too late (which may not be a bad thing).
Meanwhile things just get worse in Nepal. They have now run out of fuel and the NOC (Nepal Oil Corruption) can't pay their bill to Indian Oil. Their main problem is that they buy oil from India for say 50 rupees a litre, but sell it for 45. Which would probably be OK if they had a budget surplus, or sold anything to the rest of the world apart from manpower. But they don't. So then India says 'you can't have any more oil'. Or, the Nepal government increases the price of their petrol, diesel and kero but the students protest (what is has to do with them is anyone's guess) so the government, which is so spineless it's almost unbelieveable, just backs down and continues to 'subsidise' fuel. Which it cannot afford. If they were a proper business instead of government run they would have been closed years ago.
Here's a GREAT video of a plane landing at Talcha airfield in Nepal - if you want to see more just go to Nepali times on youtube for a scary take off, and the view of landing from inside. I love it!!!
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