Letting The Hooks Do Their Work

We often read about how complex things should be to work well. The endless choice of fashion and fad –  together with tech and toy – will have us doing 5 procedures to maximise our pleasure, safety, or monetary return…and in many cases we will have wasted all the effort. A simpler solution was there on the counter, or in the drawer all the time.

No sphere of activity sees this more than the photographic world – except the self-publishing weblog one. We are continually being bombarded with must-do extra steps. We are looked upon as fools and dinosaurs if we do not do them. I saw one instance yesterday of this sort of built-in confusion but I saw that it has been disabled – and by the people who set it up in the first place. This gives me hope that there may be light at the end of the tunnel and that it is not an oil fire…

The car parks of Perth that are run by Wilson Parking have had a variety of operational systems over the years – from grumpy old men in little hutches beside the gate to massive ticket machines in the multi-storey parks. These machines started out simple, got complex, then more complex…then I stopped going to the multi-storeys because I feared for my sanity. The outside parks got a new wrinkle a few years back – a machine that demanded your license plate registration before it would accept your cash or credit card entry for parking.

I was always having to restart the procedure to key it in as I either forgot a number or hit the wrong key. You could see lines of people doing the same thing and getting frustrated and angry. Added to this the practice of wheel clamping to extort money and the whole idea of going into entertainment or city areas became untenable. I stayed out and so did others.

Yesterday the Wilson outside machine was one of those license plate jobs but they had disabled the function and turned on one that just issued you a ticket based on the time you paid for. The charges weren’t excessive and as it was a pay-wave job your card stayed in your hand. Finally the automatic features were allowed to run unhindered and the experience was good.

Either someone came to their senses or the machine was broken…

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We Need To Rip Up The Roads

Not all of them – just the ones that go conveniently and sensibly between important points in the metropolitan area. The asphalt paving should be ripper-toothed, bulldozed, and loaded into trucks. Then it can be hauled away and dumped into the river or on the children’s playgrounds.

This would clear the way for a series of deep ruts, boulders, and impassible slopes to be constructed, along with the planting of tens of thousands of tangle bushes. A few clay pits and chemical sinkholes would not go amiss, either. Surely there must be enough PCB’s and  industrial waste to ring the city.

Of course this will strangle all commerce and movement of people and goods throughout the city. Thousands will be injured and/or lost as they try to make their way to work, schools, or shops. No ambulances or firetrucks will be able to move.

But think how glorious it will be for the owners of the suburban SUV’s. Finally they will not be the butt of contempt from their neighbours for parking an urban Patton Tank in the driveway. They can wear adventure gear and drive at nauseating angles all day. There will be deep water courses that they can splash through and if they get swept away, all the better. Perhaps we can import crocodiles.

It will still be less dangerous for the average motorist than parking out the front of the shops in Leeming and Winthrop.

Ultracilious Beats Supercilious

Blockages are interesting. Whether it is in a Post office queue or a digestive system, slow-down speeds up the natural bad manners of people and their organs and then reveals it to all about the place.

Yesterday in the servo ( Australian for service station ) I put $ 20 of petrol in the Suzuki. I was at the front pump of the line and went in to pay. The person in front of me in the pay line was a pink-haired RBF who waved a card vaguely in the direction of the machine and dashed out again. I paid in cash with the correct change. Then I walked back out to the Suzuki and got flashed.

No, not that kind of a flash. Not at my age. Flashed with car lights from the large 4WD behind me. Guess who…Pink Hair. I was blocking her passage. And yes, I do know that joke…

You are required to wear seat belts in Western Australia and to have your mirrors adjusted correctly before you drive. Also you must use indicators to signal the other drivers of your intention on the roads. I made sure mine worked. Pink Hair’s car lights apparently worked, too. A lot.

As I pulled away – correctly – I noted that she turned into the path of another 4WD approaching from the other direction. I heard no crash, but then my ears are not what they were. I do hope she calmed down before she got to her next appointment at the morgue. No-one likes an angry corpse.

When You Lose Sight Of the Ball

Went to a local petrol station last week -a 24 hr place – to get a couple of hose clamps to repair something. The sort of clamp that you tighten round a rubber hose with a screwdriver. Standard repair part to get you on the road again.

I might as well have asked for mortar bombs or flea boots. The pleasant chap behind the counter could point me to a coffee machine, glazed doughnuts, teddy bears, or bargain packs of toilet tissue. Bottled water, chocolate bars, magazines, or prepacked sandwiches.

But a car repair item in an automotive service station? Unheard of…

I suspect this will be the trend of the new shops that open up – Chemists that cannot sell you aspirin but that can retail fire logs and water pump impellers. Newsagents that don’t actually sell newspapers or magazines but who can do you a nice line of decorated coffee mugs. Lingerie shops that will sell you the knickers but not the girls to go in them. Dang.

I got out of dentistry too early. I am sure that if I opened another surgery I could sell bags of peat moss and live puppies.

Note: went to Bunnings next day. All the hose clamps that you can eat. Hot, fresh, and tasty.

Yup. It’s A Car Wash.

And not just any car wash. A hand car wash. As opposed to the ones that they operate with their feet or ears…

Our local shopping centre has used up one of their limited car parks for the hand car wash. The building’s being finished and the signage is going up. Soon employees in rubber boots will be standing in the winter rain washing cars. Or not, if the state of the other hand car wash facilities in the area are any indication…

The proliferation of car washes has been an interesting phenomenon here in Perth. I remember the establishment of one of the first ones on the site of an old petrol station. It straddles a major highway and a busy feeder road and stands opposite a 24 Hr McDonalds. ( for our North American readers, McDonalds is a franchised fast-food restaurant. ) It was probably a good choice of location as it gives the people who leave their cars to be cleaned a place to go during the process. Interestingly, the owners of the car wash also put up a café on their site. This, and the stated prices on the signage, indicates that they would like each post to be a winner…

I suspect this is the case, as well, for the owners of the shopping centre. They have already leased out a great deal of their land to a tavern, Asian restaurants, and…a McDonalds…but would seem to want to cram more on the area. I’m betting that the rent they demand from the car wash owners will make the washing fees pretty remarkable.

I mourn the loss of adequate parking, but as I own a bucket, a sponge, and my own hands, I am not too frightened by the car wash.

 

Thank You, Tourist Driver

And I am not being sarcastic when I  write this – thank you indeed for being who you are, doing what you do, on our freeways.

You are slower than the rest of the entitled aristocrats in their Audis and angry tradies in their tray top Toyotas. You are in the left-hand lane, and about 10 KPH below the speed limit. You are doing the sort of speed I want to drive at, and you are a convenient haven.

I can tuck in behind you and look as if I am caught by your slow speed. In reality, I am slipstreaming you and would not pull out to overtake for quids. You are doing what I want to do. If you are driving a Bayswater Hire Car, so much the better. Your inexpertise advertises itself and takes the blame off me.

Please continue. I shall not flash my lights or toot my horn.

Hot Rod Tow – Hyde Park Part Four

I reviewed my car pictures shared in this weblog column for the last few years and discovered that I had never shown you Brighton Towing. I can’t say whether this is because it is new or I am just unobservant. Thank goodness it was sunny at Hyde Park and the truck was parked in a good spot.

It is a hot rod, as evinced by the GMC blower on top of the large engine. But I should say that the power it develops is not wasted on a race track – this is a period hauler supreme.

It can, and undoubtably has, hauled many a motorist out of trouble over the years. The winch and crane may not be the modern electronic marvels that the towies deploy at the side of the freeway or in your driveway, but they have enough leverage to raise a car on a cradle and away you go.

I suspect the red esky is a recent addition but we’re not going to be super fussy.

It is wonderful to see a hot rod that is not too much nor too flashy. Let’s hope others go down the same route. Note: Here is a COE seen a few years back at a Rust And Shine that also fits the working rod bill.