Starting to feel sick on the stomach

I haven't had time to post about this before but I am starting to feel sick on the stomach about the execution of Van Nguyen on Friday. I was listening to the radio this afternoon to someone that witnessed the Ronald Ryan hanging and it made me cry.

I don't condone one bit what Nguyen did, he was stupid and he should pay a price, but not his life.

Checklist

Arrived at Hume City Council on time today. Met the other new councillors, White, Stock and Porter (I am sure that the Potter/Porter names will confuse people). I was so tired from not only the weekend but from the whole campaign that the day felt extremely long.

Most of the Councillors had a good day with lots of learning to be done, one Councillor I think felt a bit uncomfortable and left the breifing early.

More to follow one day!

I won

Be back when I am sober and have time.

Thank you everyone that has helped me, thank you to my friends and family, in the words of Jeff Fenech I luves you all.

Still Waiting!

Only a bit under 24 hours till the final count is conducted. I had scruitineers out today looking at the opening of the envelopes and if the same pattern of voting remains, it's looking reasonably positive. Jack Ogilvie will get re-elected however according to the figures I have unofficially from scruitineers he will need to seek preferences to get back in. In the wards counted today the successful candidates are

Airport
Gary Jungwirth
Geff Porter

Aitken
Drew Jessop
Adem Atmaca
Moya White

So at least there is one woman on Hume and hopefully after tomorrow there will be two.

4 days to go!

Till counting should be finished, the VEC are saying we should have a result by about 4.30 on Sunday afternoon. They will then declare the official result at 9.30pm on Sunday night, so I suppose that means no drinkies at home that evening maybe.

Bought a new DVD player from DealsDirect last week (bargain $49.00) and it was delivered today, so we now have a fully functional DVD playing in the family room, which is just in time taking a look at the woeful TV programming comming up.

Take the time to sign the petition to Senator Barnaby Joyce to try and convince him to vote against the IR reforms. Great to see that over 55,000 people have signed it so far.

Stir Crazy!

What's the saying a week is a long time in the life of Politics. I think that the next week will feel like a month. Yesterday was OK, I could occupy my time with Mr J's sporting persuits (his baskeball team won it's first game). Today was a different story, even though it was a fairly pleasant day, my original plan to head to Williamstown didn't eventuate as it wasn't quite warm enough (I like it hot). So I started the annual activity of putting up the Xmas Lights.

Firstly I had to head to Bunnings to buy a hedge trimmer so that I could trim some of the shrubs that would hide the lights if they weren't trimmed. Then I started, and as in every year, I decided that I didn't have enough, which is rubbish of course, I just wanted an excuse to spend some money. So I headed to the Warehouse and a lot of money later, we now have reindeers and a a moving Santa. At the moment these are set up in my loungeroom and will immigrate to the front lawn during the week.

Tonight was spent parenting my very challenging teen, he keeps testing the boundaries, and I be resilliant in enforcing them, so sorry mate but the mobile phone has gone for 24 hours.

7 Days to go

Today I did a rare thing

I bought The Age and actually read most of it. It helps to be watching an Under 14 Cricket game and seeing your son get 2 quick wickets. I did have a chuckle at the following letter to the Editor

Men have no idea

HOW can someone who lies so openly and blatantly become a minister of the Crown? Here we have Tony Abbott running an obviously Christian ethos against the will of the vast majority of women in this country by banning the abortion pill, saying it is because of "medical advice"! What a twisted man he is, especially as his own life was once so wayward that he can't even remember which kids are his. For any man to be allowed to have any say in a matter so critical to the quality of life and so deeply emotional to women is a travesty in itself; to have a male self-proclaimed ethical adjudicator who would not have the faintest idea what goes on in the hearts and minds of women to make critical judgements for them to boost his popularity with the Christian community is abhorrent.
George Pike, Launceston, Tas

Tony Abbott you are a disgrace!

The wait gets longer!

The ballot closes on Friday evening 25th Nov, votes would normally be counted on the next day, however the VEC have decided that they will conduct the count over 2 days and my ward will be the last counted. So counting starts on 2.15pm on Sunday 27th Nov, I anticipate the result will be known sometime that evening if I am lucky. So it's back to 10 days until we know. I have postponed supporters drinkies to a date in the future, will think about that tomorrow.

A friend posed to me the question about how I feel at the moment, this was my reply

Not too nervous yet, been too busy catching up on stuff that has been left neglected over the last 6 weeks (washed the car tonight). It's a terrible waiting game and I was all psyched up for knowing something on Sat nite, now I have to wait till Sun nite, the Sunday will probably be the worse day. It's always in the back of my mind, questions like could I have done more..........

A big positive is that I can watch Mr J play cricket and basketball on the 26th without being a nervous wreak.

10 days to go...........

We Won!

Never a big one to watch Soccer but tonights game was fantastic, even if I think I have broken my toe. Well done Socceroos!

Laptops and Toes

Word of warning, whilst watching the World Cup Qualifier, don't drop a laptop on you toe, it really really hurts.

This is an interesting take on the Hume Boundary's

I always did wonder why JO was so keen on one big ward, but this reasoning would astound me, anyway it makes an entertaining read.

A few people gathered!

Reports have it as about 150,000. From the arial shots, it was a hell of a lot. I didn't get there due to sick kids Anon Lefty did, however I think there were more than 47 people there. I watched the proceedings on Sky News with great interest, I somehow think that this will be the beginning of the end for the Howard Government, a lot of the 150,000 people there today would have been the aspirational voters that got them elected at the last election, I am pretty sure they will think more seriously about their vote next time.

Had to pick my mum at the airport today and got to meet Tim from Big Brother while he was waiting for his plane back to Sydney.

Council Meetings

They always seem to be more interesting when you are taking part in them rather than watching them. JAKAS still hasn't learnt to debate the recommendation not the person putting forward a recommendation. I reckon that I even saw Ogilvie cringe tonight whilst JAKAS was waffling on. I must say that JAKAS gave a wonderful final speech (I hope), he just about managed to alienate most of the other councillors.

Apparently Ogilvie was mentioned in the back page of today's AGE, somthing about him not being able to spell.

12 Days to go!

My friends

The private blog has been added to, nothing too exciting just some amusing commentary.

My Weekend

Has been fantastic, flew up to Sydney yesterday morning, went to my little cousin's wedding (she is 5 months younger than me) yesterday afternoon, it was just so fantastic to be able to catch up with all of my family, the wedding was fantastic, very relaxed in a amazing house one street up from Sydney Harbour, something I will never be able to afford. Flew back to Melbourne this afternoon and took the kids to their other Grandmothers 80th Birthday celebrations, once again a lovely afternoon, catching up with people I haven't seen for quite some time.

I didn't take as many pics as I should have but what I did take are available here

I think this is OK!

Except for the love life bit, well that's on hold until I either find the right time, the right man. Kids come first.

This Is My Life, Rated
Life:	6.1
Mind:	5.6
Body:	5.7
Spirit:	7.7
Friends/Family:	4.7
Love:	1
Finance:	8.5
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Where were you!

30 years ago on the 11th November, hard to believe it was 30 years ago, makes me feel old. I can still remember vividly sitting in my Grade 2 classroom and a teacher ran in to tell my teacher that Whitlam had been sacked. As a child growing up in a household that was very politically aware this shocked me, but most of the other kids didn't know what it all meant.

So off I trotted home to a distraught mother who was watching every news report and listening to the radio at the same time, this was 1975, no color TV and very delayed TV coverage. Being a kid, I did what kids do and went out playing. What better way to pass the time but to climb fences, and fall off them. In I went with a very painful arm knowing that I had done something a bit serious, so off we trot to the local hospital.

Mum wasn't all that impressed with me, but at least they had a TV at the hospital and due to the big news of the day the hospital was very quiet. I was seen pretty quickly and a sprain rather than a break was diagnosed.

As well as 11/11 being Rememberence Day, and I acknowledge that the 11/11 should be firstly though of by remembering the fallen, I will always have quirky memories of the 11/11/75.

I regard Gough Whitlam as a great Australian who in his term brought about great social change, the National Health Care System (Medicare), free University courses (which has now gone), Land Rights amongst a few of the great things he did. I still remember being at Drumoyne Town Hall in 1972 when I was 7 in an "It Time" T Shirt, Margaret Whitlam was so nice to me.

So Lest we Forget, and lets hope what happened in 1975 is never allowed to happen again.

Priorities

this is an excerpt from Sunbury Online

But my concern is that if you are t00 busy to contribute to a public discussion now how will you go if elected?

No problems there, I try to lead a balanced life, I am campaigning and over the last week I have personally letterboxed about 2000 houses, whilst running a household and attemtping to hold down my day job. When I was on council previously I never missed a meeting, sorry I may have missed one whilst on a family holiday, I can't recall exactly.

Never hidden the fact that my family come first and always will, as I expect that people would appreciate.

Today saw me finishing the last of the letterboxing, I really have empathty for "posties" now. The number of houses that have letterboxes with hinged letterbox slots that I have jammed my fingers in over the last 4 days is amazing.

Anyway it's all finished now, I can now eradicate my house of numerous boxes of crap and try to get my life back to normality, whatever that is.

Off up to Sydney on Saturday for a wedding and catch up with the family, it will be a welcomed break.

Life!

Today I went to a funeral, a guy I have known for about 12 years unfortunately took his own life last week. Paul was a real character, he was the chef at the Local Footy Club and just a all round nice guy with a heart of gold. I am so mad at him, he has left behind so many people that cared for him deeply, I would estimate over 500 people at the funeral today and Paul touched them all.

Paul Daszek, may you rest in peace, but that won't stop me being mad at you. If anyone has any thoughts of doing something similar please seek help.

Rain Rain Go Away

Come back on Thursday please

Standing in the hot sun for too long does strange things to people!

JAKAS is getting more erratic on Sunbury Online. I no longer bother to participate, as firstly I have little time on my hands these days and of the 12 people that read it a lot of them know me and know the true story, however it provides an amusing diversion from letterboxing.

His allegations, are: that I have used MP's offices to print my election material, WRONG! Not that I really have to justify it to anyone but my first drop was done at Diverse Printing in Sunbury, my second was done on my own laser printer and my third was done at Diverse Printing as well, I would recommend Tracy and her team to anyone, they are great.



He has finally worked out that mothers name is Frances Joyce Wallace, not hard to do when you have access to an electoral roll, but is it appropriate usage. Guess what she has been in Sydney for the past month and has little internet access, just enough to email me with updates on family matters, he is accusing her of being Joyce W, which she ain't sorry folks another conspiracy theory out the window. I don't know how many Joyce W's there are in Sunbury, a few I suppose, maybe he should look up the Electoral Roll.

Next one is that I used distributors in Tullamarine to do my letterbox drops, GUILTY. Why? Because the local distributors have been known to get my mailouts to my opposition prior to it getting out to the public. I called them a about 6 weeks ago to get a quote, they didn't return my call. So I went to Florida, once again a great company just based on the border of Hume.

One posting I find particulary alarming is his admission of trying to set up certain people

Is it true that she was the only one to get one before Wednesday evening. OOPS Jenny T got one but she knew it was a set up, and she didnt reply.?

The last word should go to the Sunbury Residents Association, LEARN TO SPELL! And did they get authorisation from the Mayor to use his speech in their leaflet, maybe they did and maybe they didn't.

Spent 2 hours at the Post Office today handing out leaflets, printed on my laser printer, and got a good reception. Letterboxed Jacksons Hill this afternoon, it was hot but it all got done.

Tomorrow, 6 hours of Calistentics!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The hard slog!

It's getting to nail biting time, many calls from residents and the press, trying to work, and co-ordinate a campaign is taking it's toll. Those who know me personally know that I don't need to lose weight, but I have, my clothes are looking very loose.

Tonight was Calastenics dress rehersal for Sunday's big concert, and today I spent at a work planning day where we were informed that it is most likely that 6 out of about 50 of us will have to not be employed in 2007.

I am dealing with a massively hormonal teenage boy, who is really testing the boundaries, but I am being firm but fair in my treatment of him.

To say I am tired is an understatement, but I will not waver in my endeavour to see the end of JAKAS.

I have a great band of people helping me one in particular is my rock, I can depend on him no matter what the menial job is, he know who he is and I thank him so much. Another mate is fantastic with design and words and has helped me when I can no longer help myself. Everyone that has assisted me in this campaign will get a massive thank you personally, you are just all so special and I really value your help and friendship.

The nastier side of Elections

I have always been a clean campaigner, I won't stoop to the lows of what are known as "shit sheets", it seems to be happening down the other end of the City though according to the OC, this is very nasty and the claims are untrue. Has never ever been criminally charged or convicted of any offence. This is a cowards way of doing things.

The Diva does it again

Makybe Diva will go down in history as one of the greatest racehorses ever, 3 Melbourne Cups in a row, not seen before and probably not for a long time in the future.

I had to work today, as as history has it, Universities don't close for cup day, we get the day off between Christmas and New Year in lieu. By working I mean I attended the workplace, and spent the morning moving office, then we had lunch in the park across the road, then ventured into a Theatre to watch the big race. Miss R backed 3rd place, so she was happy.

Congrats Diva!