20 Years Later on the Internet

These are accounts I found more recently (20 years latter) on the Internet ...

Extract from http://murseamissions.entryhost.com/newsletter10.htm

34' sailboat "BANSHEE from the USA

On "June 9, 1990 at 0500GMT the announcement came over the Pacific Maritime Net, " "BANSHEE" ABANDONED! CREW PICKED UP BY TAIWANESE SHIP. TRANSFERRED TO AUSTRALIAN HELICOPTER. EN-ROUTE TO AUSTRALIA."

Joy Smith and Jeannine Talley had set sail from Australia headed for Fiji. About 400 miles out they were caught in a severe storm of hurricane strength and their yacht "BANSHEE" was rolled over and dismasted. We received a call from Joan Anderson in Australia informing us that a distress signal had been heard from "BANSHEE" and would we pray for their rescue. We joined our prayers with many others and they were shortly spotted and rescued. While in Mooloolaba we were able to renew our friendship with Joy and Jeannine and had the pleasure of assisting them with the installation of the new mast for "BANSHEE'. A fisherman friend of theirs had gone out and located their boat and towed it back to port and presented it to them free of any charge! They have been rebuilding and are preparing to sail to Guam yet this year where they hope to find teaching jobs to add to their cruising purse.

The week has gone already

It was an interesting week, starting on Monday we went to the Rockhampton & District U3A Inc AGM.  Professor Scott Bowman has become our Patron and what a wonderful knowledge this young man has.  He is an assett to our Central Queensland University and I'm sure our University will grow under Scotts leadership.

The AGM saw a few changes and additions on the executive.  One new member John E was elected Vice President after only being a member for about 6 months.  John brings with him a knowledge of leadership and new ideas.

During the weekend and into the week I worked on a computer problem caused by a soft ware glitch.  The PC had been bought with software LOADED.  This means you get the computer BUT no disks of software.  So if you have a drama.... that's right you don't have a CD to fix things up.  So I carefull worked on it to ensure the families photos and iTunes were safe.  I removed all the log in passwords, made up folders for the four owners and filed their photos under their folders.  A couple og drivers had to be downloaded from the web and I found that HP has a great site for those with a reasonably modern HP computer.  By typing in the model number, HP can provide the drivers for that model.

Looking at the notes for Week 5 of Computer Club we may have to slow down a bit so that some members can catch up.  I hope you all have done some homework?

Jessica Watson is sailing on and now well round the Cape of Good Hope on her last leg back to Sydney.

I have linked her progress to my Facebook site, so I always know how she is going.

When I returned from Vietnam I visited home in New Zealand for Christmas.  I still remember flying into Auckland on Guy Fawkes night (5th November) and watching the "friendly" rockets heading up to toward the plane.  It was a lovely clear night and we could see fires and crackers going off all over the place.

It is hard to believe that the military can post a person to a war zone for 12 months, then return them to Australia and discharge them back within 3 weeks into the civilian side without any debriefing.  It is not hard to remember arriving back in Australia at 2330Z time and having no one to meet us at the airport.  We were given three choices, spend the night at the barracks, go home with family or find your own accommodation for the night.  Three of us took the 3rd option, not knowing that it was going to be nearly impossible to get somewhere to stay.  The word was " ...we don't take servicemen..."  how's that for a stab in the back.

Anyhow above are my two sisters Elizabeth on the left and Amanda on the right taken on Christmas Day 1969.

Who can remember this style?  Two lovely ladies I know spent a year on a working holiday in New Zealand in 1969.  Here we have Merilyn and Helen ready for a night out.

We have been through our photos looking for pictures of Merilyn who died in a house fire at Alpha.  Geoff has lost everything and everyone is rallying around looking for memories.

Andrew rang last night and said it was rather wet at Chinchilla.  I looked up the BOM site and looked at Dalby witch is 40 minutes toward Toowoomba from Chinchilla and believe it or not, Dalby had 1100mm plus from 28 Feb to 4pm 2 March 2010.

TV tonight is all about the Charleville floods, but I think they'll have to add a few more towns after looking at this weather map

So that is it for today and I hope to see you all at class tomorrow.

Communications

We do live in a lucky time.  Remember the days when you had to make a toll call booking to ring someone more than 10 kiliometers from home.  Party lines, analog phones, relays at the exchange getting stuck and it was not possible to instanly keep intouch.
But today we all enjoy digital TV, mobile phones, instant messaging, SKYPE just to name a few.
My mother has had a fall and my NZ sister keeps me informed via mobile text.  It doesn't make it any easier to bear the news but it does keep you in the loop.  Where years ago we would have got the news a couple of days later by Telegram

Merilyn Johnson

This was a happy Birthday 5th March 2009.  Merilyn will not see here 60th birthday and Helen who has known Merilyn for 55 years will never see her best friend again.  Merilyn was killed in a house fire on her property at "Zeta" in Alpha western Queensland. 
Merilyn was looking forward to her 5th Grand Child to be born in a couple of months time
Read more on the The Morning Bulletin site

About doing what you want to do

Everyone has a dream, be it tangable or just a dream.  Years ago we were encouraged to set goals and reward ourselves when we got there.
Nothing is different now....we can all set a goal to learn as much about our computers, tap into anyone who we think can help.  Ask questions on the web, because what we have at our finger tips is the biggest electronic encyclopedias called the WEB.
Ask yourself why does it work?  Write a question into Google, like " how does the WWW work", how does a biro work, why are leaves green.

Why do we need to Learn how to use a Computer

As we get older our kids and grandkids are entering a technilogical world.  The grandkids will text by phone or send an Email, but very seldomly would they ever think to write a card or letter.  Nearly a thing of the past.
So we older ones must learn how to communicate with the young ones.  In doing so we must learn how to use the new technology.