Snoskred Opinions

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NaNoWriMo – I Did Not Expect This.

11 Comments Posted on by Snoskred

So, when I signed up to do this crazy NaNoWriMo thing, I had no idea what I was letting myself in for. I just had this story idea in my head and it’s been there for a while now – I thought I should try getting it out. So I made the commitment to do it.

You know all that negative self talk you get in your head, like “You can’t write, what are you thinking, doing this” “You won’t be any good at this. You should give up before you start” etc. I thought I had done a lot of work in shutting those negative voices up but NaNoWriMo brought them out by the dozen.

The first day I wasn’t prepared. I hadn’t installed any kind of word processing program on the computer. The Other Half had gone to work and I couldn’t seem to find an easy way of downloading the latest version of Open Office. It was torrent this, torrent that. I just wanted the darn file like a normal person. I’ve never understood torrent. By the time he got home I’d managed to find somewhere to download the file I needed and I got it installed, but I was tired from a long day. I thought – tomorrow is still November 1 in many parts of the world. I’ll get up in the morning and get a fresh start on it, and I’ll write 2 days worth. It’s 1667 words a day, apparently. I wrote it on my to do list.

The next morning I woke up, got the other half out the door fed and clothed, and arrived in here ready to write. And write I did. It all came spilling out, so easily. They tell you not to edit and I haven’t, I am just writing the story. 3398 words tumbled onto the page – and two hours vanished. I woke up at the end of it sort of like waking up from a daydream. Have you ever read the Stephen King book Misery? The writer in the story talks about falling into the hole in the page and that is exactly what happened.

I ended up being happy I missed day one, because it was easier to write that part of the story in one sitting. Now the basis is there. A beginning is made. The hardest part is over – the hardest part for me at least which was starting the story.

So I got up today and The Other Half is having a day off. I thought this would get in the way of my writing but I found out that the story has a life of its own. About an hour later there were suddenly 5176 words. And the story had made me emotional. And a character appeared who I had never imagined being a big part of the plot. Again I woke up like out of a daydream.

I have no idea whether it is any good or not, and when the month is over I will want to give it to someone like Cugat who can read it and tell me yeah it stinks, or actually this is quite good. I can trust him to tell me the truth. :) Unvarnished and unbiased.
I never thought I would enjoy writing anything more than a blog post, but I am loving it. I remember other bloggers who said they wanted to write but they didn’t think they’d be any good at it. All I can say to you is – you will never know unless you try. Give it a go – you might be surprised like I have been.

I have a vague idea of where the plot is going, but this thing seems to have other ideas. We’ll see. All I know is it feels ok. Better than ok, to be honest. It feels fantastic. Those negative voices have shut up for now. I’m sure they’ll be back, but I have news for them and it is all bad. I’m not listening. I’m giving this a go.

I am sure days will arrive when I don’t feel like writing. I have to push myself to sit down and do it anyway. I might not feel like writing but the story wants to be told. I am just the typist at this point.

challenges, writing tips

Making Progress – Accentuate The Positive

Leave a comment Posted on by Snoskred

All of the communities near where I live have their own progress associations. I was recently talking to someone from the local progress association and I was amazed to find out the real story behind a local road which used to be a dirt road but was closed for about a year while it was made into an asphalt road. It has completely changed the way I view this road.

We drove down the dirt road when we first arrived in the area. It was kind of spooky. A huge amount of dust would be kicked up by any passing cars even though it had recently rained. In some places the water had eroded the road making it a bit dangerous because people had to drive on the opposite side of the road on blind corners. When we got back to my parents place the car was absolutely filthy.

The progress association had been trying to get the road fixed for 10 years. This road was the only way for several towns to access the main highway if the other road became flooded. One year right before an election, one of the candidates made an election promise to have the road “sealed” (changed from dirt to asphalt) if they were voted in. The election happened, they were voted in and just two weeks later the president of the progress association was on their doorstep reminding them of the promise they had made.

Some time passed before work finally began. The road was completely closed to through traffic and we looked forward to it opening even though we weren’t residents here.

The new road opened in early 2007. I believe they got one of the best pieces of road I know of anywhere in New South Wales. It is my favourite road. It is smooth and beautiful to drive on. Here’s a picture of it from Google Earth. I’ve put little pink lines around it so you can see which road it is.

road

What an accomplishment – what a thing to get ticked off the to do list! 11kms of road, costing just over 4 million dollars. I didn’t know about all the hard work and effort that had gone into getting the road before I went to the meeting. Now I am just amazed by it every time I drive down that road. I’m only a recent newcomer to the town but I feel so proud of them – and I can’t imagine how happy they must feel about it after working so hard for so long..

Some places in this country, progress associations are the exact opposite of their name. They try to stop anything they don’t personally approve of. I am so thrilled to be living in a place where the progress association is all about progress. I have joined the local association myself. Last month I attended the first Progress Association meeting and met some wonderful people. I intend to get involved in the excellent work they are doing.

Each little step they take, every bit of progress they make is the result of a lot of hard work by a lot of people. But as this road proves, when you work together amazing things are possible.

life lessons, power of positive thought

The Echo Chamber Effect.

18 Comments Posted on by Snoskred

There is something called the echo chamber effect. Some people might say that me writing this post contributes to it. I suppose that’s a fair call in some ways.

I have 172 blog subscriptions in my reader. That does not count my Bumpzee communities – the ones I read have well over 600 blogs if you add them together. The week Blogrush was launched was such a horrible week in my Google Reader. I hate to think how many posts used the word Blogrush. It seemed to me like every blogger on the planet was promoting them.

Imagine you are reading 700 blogs. Imagine 650 of them wrote about Britney Spears at the MTV awards and how she blew her performance. Just how many of those blog posts are you going to sit and read before you want to hit mark all as read? How many different opinions on *one topic* can you handle in one week?

I tell you what disturbed me about Blogrush –

– It wasn’t that it seemed like every second post talked about it.

– It wasn’t the fact that it sounded like some kind of scam to me due to the whole pyramid thing.

– It wasn’t the hype.

– It wasn’t the fact that some bloggers made it sound like a cure for the common cold and everything that ails you as a blogger, up to and including cancer.

– It wasn’t the fact that I’d never heard the name John Reese before and now all of a sudden every man and their dog was pretending they went to school with him and/or wanted to bear his children and/or thought he is the marketing guru of the century.

– It wasn’t that at least half the posts sounded like they were written by people brainwashed in some kind of bizarre cult. I began to wonder – is this John Reese the next Messiah and the reason I had never heard of him because he’s been stockpiling weapons in an underground school bus which doubles as a nuclear fall out shelter and a handy basement while collecting himself a posse of brainwashed followers willing to donate all their funds to his empire and do whatever he says?

All of the above were annoying, certainly. So if it wasn’t any of that, what was it that disturbed me?

It was the fact that bloggers I once had respect for and once believed in were suddenly trying desperately to get me to sign up using their referral link. Even when they made it sound like they didn’t want you to use their link – they were all “you don’t have to use my link, just go to the blogrush website because it’s so brilliant”. Yeah right. But they knew a lot of people *would* use their referral link just based on the fact that they are so respected.

None of these leader bloggers involved knew anything more than the sales pitch of what blogrush *might* be able to do for them. The service was new. Nobody knew how well it was going to work – but you had to get in on the ground floor to get any real benefit, so they said. Isn’t this a tactic often used by scammers the world over? The Nigerian 419 scammers use this tactic. The Multi level marketing people use this tactic. Ponzi and Pyramid scams use this tactic.

Even worse is the fact that I’ll never trust some of those bloggers as much as I used to again. They could tell me the sky is blue, and I’d want to check just to make sure. Because maybe they’re trying to sell me blue. Maybe they’re being paid to write about blue but they’re not telling me. At least many of the pay per post and sponsored post people make it very clear – this is a paid post, this is a sponsored post, etc. I prefer that. I think it is much fairer to the readers.

Now, some time later and we’re finding out how UNbrilliant it truly is and how much of a lie we were sold by the bloggers many of us considered leaders – people we trusted, people we listened to, people we believed in. It makes me wonder – how much of the other stuff they told me was a lie?

It was also the fact that now, long after the fact, I see Blogrush offering to pay $5 for a positive post on some of the pay to blog services. I would never post about something for just $5. I’m worth more than that as a blogger. But it makes me question – were any of these well known and much read bloggers paid for their posts – and they didn’t say anything?

Many bloggers this week received emails advising them that their blog did not fit the “quality standards”. They told their blogs were of an unsuitable quality to be members of Blogrush and their blogs would be made “inactive” until they fixed whatever the problem was.

Except, of course, Blogrush forgot to bother to tell anyone specifically what the problem was and there was a long shopping list of options to choose from. I imagine for many bloggers receiving this email must have seemed sort of like –

Dear Blogger,

You suck but we won’t bother telling you exactly how you suck so you can learn *not* to suck in the future. Here are some of the ways in which you might suck, check these out and see if any of these apply to you and your suckiness.

Best Wishes,
BlogRush
PS if you somehow manage to learn how not to suck, let us know so we can let you sit at the cool kids table again!

Another complete botch up and yet another reason why I am glad I never bothered with it myself – despite the large amount of bloggers telling me I should get in on it now before it’s too late!

I certainly hope a lesson was learned by all. The lesson I learned – there’s several. Never jump on the bandwagon just because bloggers you respect tell you to. Wait and see. Make up your own mind. Don’t insult your readers intelligence. If you want to post about something new go right ahead, but don’t make it sound like a paid advertisement – and always always disclose within the post if you got paid so that everyone knows what is going on. It is only fair to your readers.

I suspect the final blow to these Blogrush outcasts might be spam. Everyone who signed up but was kicked out provided an email address. I had a quick look at the terms of service and the privacy policy and I hate to tell you – nowhere does it state specifically that your email address will never be sold or given to other parties. The reason for that might be because they *intend* to make money by selling your email address. Perhaps Mr Reese can drop by and clarify this – and then amend the privacy policy to specifically state this?

There is also a HUGE lesson to be learnt here by the “big boys”. Google, heads up, pay attention – this kind of bad press seen below could be coming to YOU as a surprise if you continue your page rank lowering ways. In fact it’s already started a while ago with big name bloggers like Andy Beard not being afraid to say what they really think – and today Problogger took a hit as well as others.

Perhaps Google think this is a good idea but they are underestimating the power of the blogger. And they forget that many of us are now waking up and smelling the coffee. We’ve given them too much power and it is time to take it back. Use a different search engine. I’m investigating other rss readers and other services I use Google for over the next few days because I intend to move away from Google as much as I can. I need to find a good search plugin for WordPress so I can get rid of Google – any suggestions?

If you’re interested in reading more about these “banned” or “inactive” blogs and what they have to say on the matter, here’s some linkage for you. All of them are fantastic blogs with amazing content – I found a few new reads here. If they’re not good enough for Blogrush – then Blogrush has serious problems. 10,000 blogs were apparently affected. That’s an enormous chunk of the blogosphere These are only a small selection – if you were banned and wrote a post about it, leave a comment with a link..

– this one above is a must read because apparently people can earn $12 an hour “reviewing” blogs for Blogrush.

what not to do

Humans Let Us All Waste Water.

31 Comments Posted on by Snoskred

This might be the most important blog post I will ever write here on the blog. I ask everyone to link to it, stumble it, digg it, do anything you can to get this post in front of people – the more people who read it, the more likely they will throw out their old – and NEW – top load washing machines which are wasting an incredible amount of water – and hopefully some of those people will begin to pester their political candidates about outlawing these machines entirely.

The Truth Hurts –

I’m sure people who own top load washing machines will be upset when they read this. Don’t blame yourself – you were not educated properly – you did not know most of what I am about to tell you. I’m sorry that you bought a top load machine. I’m sorry that it is *legal* for you to buy a top load machine. It should not be, and I’m about to tell you why.

Many Salespeople Take The Route Of Least Resistance

I’ve mentioned before that I worked in sales for a long time. Over the years I would have sold over a hundred thousand washing machines at least. As the years went by the percentage of machines which were front load became higher and higher – yet there were still people who wanted to buy top load washing machines. A lot of salespeople would simply ask “what kind of machine do you want” and if top load was the answer they never mentioned anything about front loaders.

But Not Me –

I never took the easy road on this topic because it did not sit well with my conscience – I always pointed out the following –

  • Top load washing machines use 2-3 times the water a front loader uses.
  • We’re not talking a small difference – the average top load uses 150-200 litres of water per wash. A front load uses between 40-80 litres of water.
  • Front Load washers are less harsh on your clothes.
  • Front Load washers clean your clothes better.
  • Front Load washers use less detergent – and there are models on the market where you DO NOT NEED to use detergent AT ALL, though you rarely get that information given to you.
  • Top Loader manufacturers do some tricky things to make their machines seem to be using less water than it truly does.

And yet after all that some people still wanted to purchase a brand new top load washing machine which would sit in their home wasting water for the next 2-20 years. Is it any wonder we have a water problem here in this country?

This Allergy May Come To You As A Surprise –

If you have a family member who is allergic to “detergent” and you’re washing with a top load? Chances are they’re not allergic to detergent at all. They’re probably allergic to the dust, dirt, pollen and various other particles which are trapped within the fibres of your clothes. They’re getting a rash because their clothes are not clean – even though they *look* clean to the human eye.

How Top Loads Wash –

Your top load machine takes your clothes and “agitates” them around, trying to get the dirt out of the clothes. Once it has done this, it drains the water – complete with dirt and detergent – back through your clothes, essentially using your clothes as a filter. All the dirt and detergent ends up back in your clothes. It then fills up for another rinse – and then does the exact same thing. All that machine does is move dirt and detergent around, breaking the dirt up to make it smaller so you can’t see it. You are essentially wearing filth. How do you like them apples?

The “Eco” Option –

Some top load machines now offer an “eco” option. The eco option usually means that once the wash water is spun out, it keeps the bowl spinning holding the clothes against the side of the bowl while spraying water onto the clothes from the inside. The theory of this is the water then gets pushed through the clothes due to the spinning action and rinsing out the dirt and detergent.

Of course this theory may fail if you have items of clothing that don’t allow the water to flow through – clothes stuck behind those articles would not be rinsed at all. This option uses 1/3 of the water normally used to rinse the clothes. I’ll leave it up to you to decide whether this option is something you would want to use – it is not very realistic to expect consumers to use it if their clothes don’t come out clean.

Excuses, Excuses..

Some of the excuses people give for not buying a front load are simply laughable. People say things like –

It’s More Bending For Me And My Back Can’t Take It

Actually, it is LESS bending if you purchase a stand for the machine to sit on. If you place the machine on a cupboard (usually around $199-350 from most electrical retailers) you can stand straight, put your clothes basket below the opening and simply pull the clothes out, letting them fall into the basket.

Alternatively, you can do what I did almost for free, put a fluffy rug on the floor and get down on your knees to pull the washing out. Your back will be perfectly straight. The only thing bending in both the examples I just gave will be your arm as you pull the clothes out.

To get things out of your top load you have to reach down into it, which is a different kind of bending all together. You then have to lift wet, heavy items up, out, and into the washing basket. Ask your chiropractor how good that is for your back!

A Top Loader Is What I’m Used To –

Battered wives are used to abuse. Does that mean they should continue to take it? You have a responsibility as a resident of this country – and a resident of this earth – to do everything you can to reduce your water use. To waste water because you are “used” to a top load is a poor excuse, no?

Will you be used to water restrictions? Will you be used to not being able to water your lawn and having to rip it up and replace it with paving? Will you be used to dead plants on your patio? Will you be used to brown golf courses, football ovals and parklands because nobody can afford to water them? Will you be used to empty dams? Will you be used to paying higher prices for water – and everything that needs water like crops, meat, fish, wood and the list goes on – in years to come? All of those are direct results of your reluctance to change.

I’ve Heard Bad Things About Front Loaders –

I’ve heard bad things about the drought. I’ve heard of the heartache it is causing farmers to have to go out and shoot their livestock. I’ve heard about crops lost due to not being able to water them. I’ve heard about increased salinity in our vital rivers. I’ve heard farmers want to increase the price of milk because it is more expensive to feed their livestock due to drought affected crops. I’ve seen the Murray River with my own eyes. I’ve seen dams at half their capacity.

Yes, when front loaders first arrived in this country over 20 years ago we got Europe’s off casts. They were not the best of machines – yet many of them still lasted 20 years or more. The machines today are a huge improvement. Don’t let an offhand comment at a dinner party years ago influence your decision *today*.

I Can’t Understand The Cycles –

That’s why manufacturers invented instruction books. Did you know my other half can tell me exactly how many rinses there are in each cycle of our machine? He read the book. He always reads the book. Everything you may ever want to know about your machine is inside the book. If you can’t read, ask someone to read it to you.

I’ve Heard About Over-Sudsing –

Front load washing machines do not need much detergent. Of course precisely because nobody reads the book, people just throw exactly how much powder they are used to into the machine. Strangely, this causes a SHEDLOAD of suds to appear! It is easily fixed – use less detergent in a front load machine. I use about a teaspoon of detergent, that’s all that is needed. But detergent manufacturers will tell you otherwise.. hmm, could it be they want you to buy more detergent?

If you’ve bought yourself a Miele front loader, don’t bother with detergent at all. Where you would put detergent, you can squeeze in half a lemon, or use a teaspoon of vanilla essence just to give it a nice fragrance. Your Miele washes so well it doesn’t need any help.

I Don’t Want To Buy It Without Trying It –

No problem. Give the manufacturer of the machine you are thinking of buying a call and ask if you can drop by and do a load of washing at their office. Many manufacturers welcome people with open arms and have machines set up there specifically for this purpose – Miele is a good example. If you ask really nicely they might do a special trick for you – they will let you see what is being washed OUT of your clothes. I have seen it with my own eyes – filthy, soapy, terribly dirty water. That is what made me change to a front loader.

If the manufacturer is too far away, contact your local retailer and ask if any of the manufacturers are running a “Money Back Guarantee” where you can try it for a certain amount of days and return it if you don’t like it. I’m certain you will, but if it gives you peace of mind to know you can return it, I’m all for that.

I Can’t Throw Something In –

Some people use the excuse that they can’t open the door once the machine starts washing to throw in a sock they missed as an excuse not to buy a front loader. I’m not joking. I wish I were. So in essence, their lack of organization is lowering the levels in our dams. I have two things to say about this –

1. Many machines now allow you to open the door once the wash has started.
2. Put the sock aside for the next load. If you can’t live without one sock you don’t have enough socks. Buy a few more pairs. Rivers have socks for about $2 a pair and they’re excellent socks, they last ages.

They Take A Long Time To Wash –

These days most front load machines have a quick wash option – mine does a 15 minute express 2kg wash, the Miele does a 40 minute full load wash. All top loaders are now taking longer to wash than they used to – some are up to 45-50 minutes – due to trying to lessen the amount of water used.

They Don’t Do A Big Load –

You can now get front loaders which will do anything from a 5kg load to a 10kg load.

They Are Too Expensive –

These days most front loaders start around the $650 mark – a lot cheaper than ever before. There are top loaders which are more expensive than that.

How Front Loaders Wash –

The explanation is a little more complicated. I found a great site which explains it better than I can – How Do Front Loaders Wash – your clothes will be a lot cleaner and also not “agitated” which means they last longer. Front loaders can spin at higher speeds, meaning your drying time is lower. They also use a lot less electricity – even though they heat the water to the exact temperature they want to use. They are water efficient, energy efficient and tend to be more reliable – less breakdowns because of the way they work.

Front Loaders Use –

  • Less water
  • Less Electricity
  • Less Detergent

Can any of those excuses above truly justify wasting water, electricity and putting more detergent into our environment?

So How Much Water Can It Save –

Let me blow your mind with some staggering figures. If you took a street of 50 houses with washing machines, what would the water usage be for top loaders VS front loaders? Let’s say our street all does one load of washing today.

Top load – average 160 litres water per 7.5kg wash. (the older machines use more than this)

160 x 50 houses = 8,000 litres – in one day.

Front load – average 60 litres water per 7.5kg wash.

60 x 50 = 3,000 litres – in one day.

Now let’s say our street does one load of washing a day, every day for a year.

Top Load – 8,000 litres a day.

8,000 x 365 = 2,920,000 litres of water

Front load – 3,000 litres a day.

3,500 x 365 = 1,095,000 litres of water.

2,920,000 – 1,095,000 = 1,825,000 WASTED litres of water.

How Many Homes In Australia?

At the last census in Australia, there were 8,426,559 homes. Queensland is currently on level 5 water restrictions. They have 1,660,750 homes. Imagine the water wastage if even half of those homes are using top load washing machines. The figures we spoke about were for 50 homes.

Why Isn’t Something Being Done?

  1. Manufacturers are playing tricks to make their top loaders seem like they use less water – thus tricking consumers into thinking they are water efficient.
  2. Nobody is aware of the facts of how much water these machines actually waste. Yet people are encouraged to spend less time in the shower!
  3. People believe in personal choice. As yet, no government has the balls to say we’re outlawing top load washing machines. So it is up to you the buyer to make a good choice.

America, You’re Next –

America is the country with the most top loaders in the world. Front Loaders have not been presented as an option to most consumers – it is time for consumers to step up and ask for the product. There is now a drought in Atlanta – they could probably stretch that three months of water left to six or more if everyone had a front loader.

What You Can Do –

  • Spread the word about this blog post.
  • Contact your local politicians – it’s election time. Email them a copy of this article. Ask what they are going to do about it.
  • Ask your politicians why there isn’t a rebate for purchasing a water efficient machine (Sydney Water offer it)
  • Ask your politicians to commit to holding top load washer manufacturers to a higher standard of truth about how much water their machines use. The “eco” function should not be what their machines are rated on.
  • Throw out your top load machine TODAY and buy a water efficient front loader. Yes, this costs money. Yes, this takes effort. It is worth it in the long run. Stand up and refuse to waste any more water.
  • If you can’t do the above right now today, make a commitment to purchasing a front loader the next time you need to buy a washing machine
  • Start putting aside $1 a day, $1 a week, whatever suits you, so that you’ll be in a financial position to buy the front loader when the time comes
  • Also commit to not fixing your top load machine when it breaks down – take the money you would have used to do that and put it towards a front loader
  • Encourage friends and family to make similar commitments.

Further Reading –

Stumble, Link, Discuss –

Can you take a moment to do anything you can to get this post in front of people. Mention it in forums you belong to. Stumble it. Post about it on your own blog.

People might not like what they read, but it might be the start of change for the better. If just one house that washes daily goes from a machine that uses 200 litres a wash to a machine that uses 60 it will save 51,100 litres of water. That alone is worth me writing this article. I am hopeful it will be a lot more houses than that, so help me get the message out there.

The Time For Excuses Is Over, It Is Time To Make Real Changes –

Before our dams run dry and our lives change forever. I’m not kidding. If you want to see what life would be like without water, try it for just one day. Don’t use a single tap. Don’t flush your toilet. Don’t wash clothes. Don’t water your plants. Now imagine that every day, and think about whether the cost of buying a front loader right now today is worth it compared to the option of running out of water. Some places in the country are close to empty dams. Lakes have dried up. Stock has been killed because farmers can’t afford to feed and water them.

Water is essential for everything we do every day –

Stop and think about it for a moment. All the food you eat needs water in order to survive – even grain and vegetables. Our bodies need water. Our cars need water, though you can use coolant but how environmentally unfriendly is that? We need water for wood to grow, for industries to function, for wild birds and animals, for tourism, for ecosystems. Our earth needs water, and we need to be more careful how we use it. Wasting large amounts of it on washing.. seems crazy to me.

Your Thoughts –

What do you think about all this? Is this article eye opening to you? Were you aware of these facts? Will it change what you do? Will it change what you buy the next time you want to purchase a washing machine?

The comments section is open. I welcome all discussion – I do not welcome personal attacks and will delete any comments which cross that line, you have been warned. Discuss the issues, don’t attack people. ;)

Angry Snoskred, country life, electrical appliances, environment

Goodbye To A Good Thing.

19 Comments Posted on by Snoskred

There was a day in May, 2005 when I simply could not get out of bed.

I thought everything was fine in my life. I had a great job, one of the highest paying jobs I’d ever had. I got that job after I was treated very badly at a previous job. That’s a story in itself. The bottom line was, without knowing it I was very depressed and also without knowing it, I was suffering from post traumatic stress disorder. That’s what my psychologist diagnosed, several months later when I finally managed to get some help for myself.

The day after the day I could not get out of bed, I found I could not get out of bed again. This went on for three weeks, until I finally had to admit I couldn’t go to work anymore. I resigned, and the dark hole I know as depression sucked me back in for the second time in my life. It is painful to think about that time, and it is painful to think about how I dealt with it.

I needed something to make me feel good about myself. I looked for reassurance in the wrong places. It was a huge mistake. It went on for several months like a roller coaster, until finally I hit rock bottom. I made up my mind. I was going to complete the one task I had to do, and then I was going to return home and take my own life. Whoa, that is hard to admit to you guys.

Please note, I am fine right now. ;) Though I am well aware that I could find myself back there again in the future I am better equipped to deal with it now, and I would seek help rather than keep it to myself in the future.

How it is that I am sitting here now? A very good online friend of mine from Ireland who knew what I was going through and what I intended to do had the guts to call my family and ask them to get me some help. My family was shocked and I don’t think they believed how bad it was, because on the surface I seemed to be functioning fine. I was just keeping up appearances – and there might be someone around you right now who is doing exactly that.

After that happened, I got help. I started seeing a psychologist often at first, then dropping back to once a week. Another good friend of mine saw that I was in trouble, and thought that asking me to help with a project might be a good way to drag myself out of the hole I was in. He asked me to help out with an internet website, and I threw myself into it, heart and soul.

Honestly, that person literally saved my life at the time – though they did not know it – by giving me something outside of myself that I could concentrate on. I firmly believe that, and though they won’t like me saying it, I credit them with saving my life.

Looking back on it now, this was not a wise idea for me. I needed to take care of myself before I took care of anyone else or anything else. It was easy to bury my own problems and issues in order to worry about the problems and issues of a new website. I wasn’t well. I should have said no but it was something I believed in and something I wanted to be involved in. So I said yes, and got to work.

My life started to improve and one thing that helped greatly was The Other Half and I making the decision to move interstate. We had been stuck in a rut for a long time and we needed to shake things up. We began to look forward to that. The new website had been launched and was a big success but I needed to take some time for me and moving, and so I tried to get other people to fill the hole I would leave while I did that. Unfortunately people felt I was being pushy – well of course I was, there was a lot of work to be done and I knew I could not do it, so I had to ask other people to make a commitment to doing it.

It is infinitely easier to do something yourself rather than ask other people to do something. If I could have done it all myself I would have. Simply because to ask someone – can you do this by this date – and then watch them NOT do it, and then have to ask them if they are going to do it and if so, when will they have it done by is one of the most difficult things to do. I sucked at it.

I won’t lie to ya’all. There were a couple of times I honestly went way over the top in how I reacted to people not doing things they had promised to do. It would be easy to say – it wasn’t me, I was sick – but that isn’t the truth. I have to own my part in this. I have to take responsibility for what happened. I was at fault.

It *was* me – me under a lot of stress and pressure, me in the middle of a move interstate which I had never done before, and me not in the most mentally healthy place. Me also – who in early December right in the middle of all this stress and pressure – got kicked off a website I was a huge part of. Me who was trying to deal with that on top of everything else. I did not have the tools to deal with things in an appropriate way.

So I was told by my life-saving friend – go and move, we’ll deal with everything, when you come back everything will be fine – and I trusted and believed them, and did as I was told. However when I did return, nothing was fine. I soon found myself kicked off that site as well, none of the people I thought were my friends would talk to me, including my life-saving friend.

In fact many people had changed their contact information so I couldn’t even get in touch to ask – what happened? I couldn’t see what happened. Once I’d moved didn’t have a new psychologist I could see right away, I had to wait, so I couldn’t talk about what happened to someone who knew the situation like my old psychologist did. It was too fresh, too open a wound for me to see it with any clarity at all. I could only see that I was bleeding and in pain. It was only later that I was able to see my faults.

I was hurt, upset, angry, confused, so many things. It set me back quite a bit as far as getting better was concerned. I said some things out of hurt and anger which only made the situation worse. Then one friend said to me – forget all that stuff. Focus on scam-baiting. You’re good at it. I took that advice and ran with it. I got involved in a few baiting projects and this time I wasn’t so pushy. I didn’t ask anyone to do anything, if I couldn’t do it myself it did not get done.

Time passed. A lot of time. I got over it, got better, got plenty of therapy, got healthy again. I thought other people had built the bridge and walked over it but they had not, and they kept proving it to me by writing some very hurtful things to me that had nothing to do with what was being discussed. When they wrote their words were designed to wound, to hurt. However it didn’t wound or hurt me because in the wounded place I had a healthy scar.

It seemed to me that a lot of people were stuck back in January 2006 and instead of becoming less angry with me as time went by, they became more angry with me. It also seemed that some people were taking delight in playing people off against each other. They would tell me something that someone else said, which I would later find out that person didn’t say – and vice versa. Only nobody ever came to me and asked me – did you say this? They just assumed it was the truth.

I became the person who caused all the problems. Anytime something went wrong, the blame was put on me though most of the time I wasn’t involved in any way! At first I tried to fight it, defend myself, but after a while I realised there was nothing I could do about it. I just let it go over my head and I kept baiting.

Other friends of mine were upset by it, and many of them walked away from the websites where it happened as a result. They kept telling me – leave, you don’t need that kind of stuff in your life. But I hung in there, hoping that by showing these people I was not angry at them, that I didn’t hold a grudge, that I had built the bridge.. maybe one day they would forgive me for my past mistakes and accept me as a useful member of the community. After all, I never killed anyone, right? Everyone makes mistakes, right? Surely people would get over it in time.

Early this week something happened that I did not agree with, and I said so. The amount of anger that came to me as a result of expressing my opinion totally shocked me. It should not have shocked me because it had happened so many times before, but each time I was naive enough to think “It will be different this time – more time has passed, surely they have got over it by now, surely they can see that it is not them personally I have a problem with but their actions”.

It was then that I decided the only way these people I once loved so dearly (yes, loved, though I never told them so) were ever going to get over this was by me removing myself from the equation. So earlier this week I said goodbye to a website I believed in and loved as much as I would have loved a site I owned myself – a site I had promoted, driven traffic to, and a site where I wanted very much to be an active part of the community. I will not deny I shed tears over it. I asked them to close my account, and they did so.

It was not an easy decision to make, but I had to do it because I couldn’t stand to see the people I once respected so angry at me. Still, after all this time. And if any of the people from that site are reading this now, I just want to say – I’m sorry. I hope my leaving means you can heal that anger and hurt that clearly I caused you to feel. I hope one day you can see that I cared about you and I miss you, my once-good friends. I wish you all the best but most of all I wish you peace. I wish that you will take that anger and throw it away, rather than transferring it to the next person who makes a mistake.

I remember the good times, not the bad. It was a good thing for a while there. I have forgotten every unpleasant thing ever said to me, and I forgave the people saying those unpleasant things a long time ago.. As it says in Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice – “But in such cases as these, a good memory is unpardonable. This is the last time I shall ever remember it myself.” – And this is the last time I will mention it here on the blog. The book is closed, and I won’t open it again.

I’m not the same person I was two years ago. In fact it is almost the exact anniversary of when I made my decision to take my own life. I am so glad now that I did not, and that is one reason I have written this, as difficult as it was – because if there is anyone out there having those thoughts I want you to know that help is out there, you only have to ask for it. And it does get better. Honestly, it does. You just have to keep putting one foot in front of the other.

It is time for me to move forward. I’ve put the depression firmly behind me now and I know the warning signs to look out for so I don’t go back there again. It is time to look to the future, and I do that with open arms and an open heart.

It is time to focus on the good things I have in my life, and there are so many of them – including all of you who read this blog. I thank you for being here, it means a lot to me.

It is also time to begin the work to move this blog to WordPress. I have put aside next week for learning to use it, basically a week of WordPress training. Hopefully within two weeks I will have made the switch, but I’ll let you all know more about that as the time gets nearer.

embarrassing stories, people talking about you, scambaiting

The Much Awaited Miele Condenser Dryer Post..

14 Comments Posted on by Snoskred

Thanks everyone for all the emails asking where is the Miele post! The truth is, I was too busy using the new appliances to write about them. So what is a Condenser Dryer, how does it work, and what good is it? Pay close attention because I am about to tell you all the secrets and why it is worth buying one. Most of the images in this post can be clicked on to see a larger image.

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It works by taking the moist, warm air from inside the dryer to this little unit you see below – it looks a bit like the radiator from the front of your car.

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Air from the room the dryer is located in is on the other side of the fins and the difference in temperature magically makes the moisture turn into water droplets.

What Does It All Mean?

– It means the drying is done at much cooler temperatures

– Fabrics you would not normally tumble dry can be safely tumble dried

– It is less harsh on your clothes, which means they last longer

– There is no need to vent the dryer at all – in fact our dryer not have a venting kit available to purchase. I have one word of caution re this point – you may find the dryer does heat up the room it is in, especially if that room does not have a window you can open. It will not heat up to the extent it would with a regular dryer.

– There is very little lint produced

– You get some water back which you can use to water your plants.

– You do not have moisture and lint covering your walls – you can sometimes get that with a normal dryer if you don’t have it vented.

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Where Does The Water Go?

You have a few choices with the Miele – you can choose to drain the water down the sink – you can choose to have it drain into a bucket – you can choose to have it collect in the water reservoir shown below.

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The water reservoir is actually quite large. Here’s a couple of pics of it pulled out and on my kitchen counter.

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Each load in the machine produces between 2-3 litres of water. If the reservoir fills up before the load is done, the machine beeps until you arrive to empty it.

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The Stacking Kit –

If you have a front load washing machine, Miele’s stacking kit will generally fit on top of most other washers. The stacking kit includes a pop out tray, to make it easier to load the dryer.

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Oh look, a kitty snuck into that pic! The pop out tray includes a waterproof space for your washer and dryer instruction manuals. How sweet is that?

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Here you can see a load of washing waiting to go into the dryer.

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Why Use A Dryer?

I think I mentioned this once before but in Australia we have some nasty creatures called spiders, who tend to like clotheslines a lot. When I first moved in with The Other Half, we had washed our quilt cover and hung it on the line.For the next two weeks both of us would wake up with what looked like mosquito bites but we could never find any mosquitos. It was odd, because it looked like a trail of bites. I’m itching just typing about it.

A small spider, a very close cousin of the White Tail Spider, had crawled inside our quilt cover without our knowing it. One morning I saw it crawl out of the quilt cover and it just sat there looking at me, seeming quite pleased with itself.I was looking for something to dead it with and thanking all the deities it was not a white tail because those can give some very nasty bites where your skin peels away.. Once it was squashed I swore we would never hang anything out on the clothesline again. And we never have.

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What About Energy Use?

We use Origin Energy’s 100% wind power product. That means I pay a little bit more per kilowatt of electricity. Origin then purchases the amount of kilowatt hours I use from wind power.

Why Wind?

I’ve personally seen the wind farms in action and I liked what I saw. I believe in all forms of green energy and I also like solar quite a bit. You can choose solar as an option also.

How Much To Go Green?

Depending on where you are green electricity may cost you as little as $1 extra per week – I recommend you give Origin a call, or talk to your current electricity company if you are interested in going green. The more of us who switch to green, the better.

Because I Use Green –

I don’t feel as guilty about how much power we use. Of course I do try to cut back usage everywhere we can by using power saving globes and turning things off when we’re not using them.

No Dryer Gets A Good Energy Rating

The best energy rating for a dryer that I have seen is a 3.5 star. Most people are completely baffled by the energy ratings and it is no wonder, because the way they measure them is very complicated. Dryers all use electricity. There is no getting around that. If you want to reduce your greenhouse gas emissions and use a dryer, your best choice is to choose green electricity.Your second best choice is to choose an “auto sensing” dryer rather than a timer model, because these will stop drying once the clothes are dry.

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How Much Is A Condenser Dryer?

Are you sitting down? You might need to be. These are not cheap to buy. However, they will last 3-4 lifetimes of a normal dryer, they give us water deprived Aussies the chance to get some of the water back from our washing, and they do increase the lifespan of your clothes. Condenser dryers are generally $1500AUD or more to purchase. The Miele is available at $1799, unless you purchase it with a front load washer, in which case it is $1499.

As With All Purchases Snoskred Makes –

I’ve done my research thoroughly before I buy anything, and because I worked in this industry I know this product is worth the money. These machines are some of the last 20 year lifespan products available on the market.

Why Do We Have A Bosch Front Load Washing Machine?

The Other Half built our front loader himself on a visit to the Bosch factory in Thailand just over a year ago. It was then packed up and shipped to us here. He did quite a good job because it is still working. ;) Otherwise we would have purchased ourselves a Miele.

Any Questions, Thoughts, Comments?

The comments section is closed because this post was written in 2007. You can always use the Contact Form to reach me if there is anything I didn’t explain clearly, or anything you want to know more about? Click here for the contact form.

Update January 2015

It is just over 7 years since we first got our Miele condensing dryer. The dryer is still going strong and we are still just as happy with it as when we first purchased it.

The biggest benefit for us has been the extension in the life of our clothes, especially clothes that you can’t normally dry in a dryer. I have a lot of outfits with sequins, beading, and glitter. I always wash these clothes inside out to prevent any of the sequins or beads getting caught on another piece of clothing.

I dry them on the low temperature setting. They come out of the dryer just as gorgeous as when I first bought them, and I know these clothes could not be dried in a regular dryer at all.

Update August 2015 –

A reader of this post sent me an email with some questions, in particular about sharing an office with one of these units. I thought I would put my answers here, in case anyone else is having the same questions.

Your post seems to indicate that these dryer CAN be vented. Is that the case?

I’ve checked with my other half who used to sell them – our dryer does not have a venting kit available and it cannot be vented.. I’m going to have to go back and re-read my post to see what I’ve said and fix that if I’ve said the wrong thing. Each brand and model are different – you might find one that does have a venting kit but the Mieles do not, though some of the models if you got creative you might be able to “create” one.

I noticed you said they give off heat into the room. Can you give me an idea as to how hot the room might get?

Our laundry at present is quite a cold room and the dryer does give off enough heat that it warms up quite nicely. If you were working in the same room you would want some air flow I think. A fan might do the job. In winter time if it gets very cold where you are, you might find this unit does a decent heating job.

More annoying than any heat would be the noise. If I had to work in the same room with it, I’d want noise cancelling headphones. It is like a constant whirring sound, and regularly, it stops and reverses. To me the stopping and reversing is the most annoying par

Does the dryer give off moisture? I know you say it isn’t like a normal dryer unvented (where you would have moisture and lint all over), but is the air coming off the dryer moist or actually dry?

The dryer does not give off any moisture at all. All the moisture is condensed internally. The only lint in our laundry room is what we remove from the machine when it is finished drying.

Lastly, I’m not sure how the weather is by you, but I am wondering what might happen if you need to run the dryer in the summer if the air in the room might be hot and might have some humidity. Would the dryer not work well?

I live in Australia. Our hottest summer days are 40 degrees C which is 104F, and we can have those hot days every single day for 2-3 weeks or a month at a time, plus, being coastal, humidity can get quite high here. The dryer works just as well in the summer as it does in the winter and I want to make it clear that we never dry our clothes in any other way because clotheslines = spiders here, so we use the dryer all year round.

The air in the room does not really seem to get much hotter in summer, but I am thinking this is because that room is in the middle of the house on the shadow side, so it gets no warmth from any location other than the temperature of the air.

These dryers were originally invented for the European markets where all the appliances live in the kitchen, plus there you generally don’t mind a little heat added to the room, especially in winter, but even in summer it does not get hot there like it gets here.

All condenser dryers work on the same concept, not all condenser dryers have the same quality, and not all the dryers can have the condensed water drained out by a hose like our Miele can.

If you have to share an office with a dryer, the humidity from a regular dryer would be terrible, so a condenser is probably the only way to go.

electrical appliances, environment, green electricity, Home

This Snoskred Update May Come To You As A Surprise.

9 Comments Posted on by Snoskred

Is it possible to have the best week in ages and yet still be moving house? The week did not start out quite as we imagined, we discovered that these places have been refurbished, they’re not new, they were lived in before and the state of the appliances leaves a LOT to be desired. Major fail whale!

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In fact I’m not cooking in that filthy oven. I refuse. Either the landlord replaces the oven, cooktop and rangehood – all of which are filthy and the cooktop is actually rusted or we will just replace them ourselves. We didn’t spot it on inspection because the electricity was off, it’s dark in that kitchen without the lights on, it said *clearly* in the advertisements that these were brand new, and we made the mistake of assuming that meant the appliances would be brand new as well. Note to self, remember that rule about never assuming? :) We did feel a bit like we’d been lied to, though.

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However that has been the only cloud on our horizon this week, other than real actual clouds, which there’s been a few of as well as some rain and neither of us mind real clouds or rain, so that’s ok. ;) We’ve contacted the real estate agent and asked them to let the landlord know we’re not happy with the appliances and we’d like him to replace them or reduce the rent. I’m not going to let it bother me because either way they are being replaced. We’ve never used the oven in this house because the first time we turned it on, the smell! Ugh!

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You’ll note I put pictures from my hour long beach walk on Thursday in between the above. This is meant to demonstrate how appliances are of little importance in the face of so much beach beauty. ;) Yes, I walked for an hour, after spending an hour vacuuming and cleaning the new place, then I went home and packed more stuff before returning to the new house with the other half, to carry potplants upstairs to our balcony.

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I would have been walking on the beach every day, but I have been getting more than enough exercise packing, moving boxes, and carrying heavy things up the stairs. The beach walk on Thursday was actually a reward for myself for all the hard work I’ve been doing over the past couple of weeks but soon enough it will be a daily event, rain or shine..

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There’s a reason they have stair climbers in gyms. I have missed stairs while we’ve lived in two houses without them. Carrying heavy potplants upstairs was surprisingly fun for me as well as being great exercise. That sounds like I have gone completely round the twist, but I have found every small thing I do is one step closer to being moved in and ready to start new things – a new business, a new lifestyle, and much cookery. ;) I’m excited and getting stuff done fast!

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The ute ended up being pushed into a table we had in the garage quite by accident. My parents came to visit and I asked my Dad to back the ute in so I could close the door, but he thought it would be better to push it. I was told to pull the handbrake when they said to. Unfortunately it didn’t do anything like.. well. braking. The ute kept going and there was a crash.

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There you can see some of the glass left on the table. I would have taken pics of the ute but odd people are having a party next door and I was a bit.. freaked out. So, I just have the above for now.

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The pool table successfully made its way up the stairs on Monday. As you see. Below is a photo looking back towards the kitchen from near to the balcony door.

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I have one other thing to mention in this update. Below is a screenshot of my desktop as it looks now, today. The cluttering up as mentioned in this post – Snoskred Is Getting Organised – Are You? – is a thing of the past and this new system is so simple and so easy that I don’t even have to work at it. It magically happens all on its own.

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If you are like me and want to get your desktop organised, I have to recommend the article that started it all for me – How to Keep your Desktop Organized (without getting insane) – if you take the time to put the system in place, and learn how to use it believe me this will work for you too. I am stunned by how well it has worked for me.

beach walk, customer feedback, Fail Whale, moving on

The Worst Year At School

17 Comments Posted on by Snoskred

When I was 9 years old, I was very excited about the next school year. Two weeks before school starts they would put up the lists of which kid was in which class. There was a teacher who I adored and I had been assigned to his class. For the next two weeks, I was floating in a happy daydream of the school year ahead of me.

On the first day of (Grade) Year 5, I was nervous and excited and I had butterflies. These had settled down somewhat by 10:30am, which was recess time. I happily headed out to play, not knowing what unpleasantness was looming like gathering storm clouds.

When I returned to the classroom, the headmaster was in our room and he said “I need these 5 students to follow me to my office”. My name was one of the 5. Not knowing what was going on, I was very surprised to find my Mother waiting in the office, with 4 other parents. We were told as a group that the Sunney Twins had enrolled late – on the first day of school, and this meant they had to do some shuffling of classes.

The five of us were considered the most “brainy” in the class, so they wanted to bump us up to make a Year 5/6 class. The tears began not long after this – for all five of us. None of us wanted to change classes but our parents were then told – in front of us – that if we refused to change classes we would be expelled from the school as they would be unable to fit us in as students.

Even worse, we would be made to do homework – Year 5 was the last year of freedom in this country back then, Year 6 was when they started sending work home after school. This made me fall to a crying lump on the floor and not long after that I was utterly hysterical.

The headmaster was not impressed or sympathetic, and he said we had to go to our new classroom now. The parents told him to wait until the kids had time to get used to the idea, or even let them take us home and start fresh tomorrow but he was stony faced and said no. All five of us were still in tears.

I do not recall anything about leaving the office but I do remember right in front of my new classroom there was a fence. When I got near it, I grabbed on to it for dear life and refused to move any further, crying, screaming. When the headmaster came over to dislodge me from the fence, I kicked him square in the face. Yes, you read it right, ladies and gentlemen. I kicked the headmaster in front of all my new classmates. This I did not live down.

The girls in the new class were pure evil. Beeyotches of the highest order. I hated all of them – and they hated me equally as much. I only had one friend in that class, my Chinese best friend Ellen. We tolerated the other three only because we were forced to stick together – they were boys and therefore not the kind of people we hung around with. Everyone else was an enemy.

Even the kids I used to be friends with became distant – we tried to play with them at recess and lunchtime but they were talking about things that happened in their class and we were not included in that – we had not been there. The frames of reference were completely different.

Homework was an enemy too. I refused to do it at all. When the teacher gave me homework assignments, I would scribble all over the page as soon as she gave it to me, grade it myself with a fail mark and hand it back to her with a smirk.

Mother was called in many times to discuss this, and she was enlisted in the war to make me do homework – so she soon became an enemy as well. I felt she should have told them I wasn’t going to do it and they should not expect any of us year 5’s to do it when nobody else in the other Year 5 class had to do it.

I remember many nights where she made me sit in my room until I finished my homework. I never did any of it. Not once. I would just sit there and scribble holes into the page. I was so angry. With her, with the school, with the beeyotches, with the inferior teacher I hated, with everything. I believe now this is the point at which I just gave up on caring about success or good grades – I hated everything about school. The only thing I liked was reading and the minute my Mother would leave the room, I would open a book and escape.

Mother said to me years later that she felt she should have taken me out of that school that day – I wish she had – but she didn’t know what was the right thing to do. The results caused long lasting effects in my school life, my relationship with her as a parent and my personal life. My grades went downhill and never recovered. I became angry with being smart, and decided I would simply refuse to be smart. I ignored maths completely because that was supposed to be a smart subject – and four years later in Year 9 I failed maths because I never had that solid grounding in the subject.

I was one of the brightest kids in that school but I decided to become unbright. You know what they say about use it or lose it? I lost a lot of my skills in various areas. Art was another one. Sport was when the year 6 kids got to push us around and beat us up without getting into trouble and they took great delight in it so I found excuses not to play. I began to put on weight as a result of this – and the long nights spent refusing to do homework when I should have been out playing with all the other kids my age.

The next year, I thought we would be placed back in our normal years – but no. They put us in a split 7/6 class – the five of us who clung together like rats on a sinking ship, and the same people I’d hated for the last year. This caused already shaky friendships to become non-existant with the students of our year level – so the following year when we were all in the same class, the five of us were outcasts, ignored, and teased.

This post has been a Hump Day Hmmm post. Feel free to join in the Hump Day Hmmm anytime!

bitches, embarrassing stories, family, growing up