Now for something completely different

[possum52]

4 minutes ago, Blackduck59 said:

So I was at work today and was getting a little angry, I am 60 years old and highly skilled at what I do (40 years of experience does that). My boss was very proactive and ordered 15 lifts of sheet goods well in advance to keep us going. We are booked with work well into next year. So the very day the Government announced the relief funding a couple of our labourers decide that the world would stop turning if they stayed at work and risked infection, so off on the dole they go. Then some of our skilled guys jumped ship. Now it is 4 weeks later and my boss has made every effort to accommodate these guys, work late hours when the shop is empty, weekends anything to get the product out the door. Still no dice. I am getting really tired of working and paying taxes while the millennials are sitting on their duffs collecting my tax dollars. We have work, we are essential service (all building trades are) and we have lots of ways to socially distance. Our benches are at least 2 meters apart, we have sanitizer and my boss is willing to do almost anything to help. He has even advertised in the job sites...no takers.

So i'm working and the rest of the crew that are working are in their 40s and we have 2 in their early 20s the 25 to 37 bunch are strangely absent. It's very disheartening.

I would be angry too. We are retired and fortunately our son, daughter and daughter in-law are able to work from home. But our son in law a police officer of course has to do his normal shifts. 
 

Hang in there! 
 

Leigh

[mr walker]

There will always be people who seek to take advantage of any situation.

 

There are stories here of tradies applying, as sole traders, for the government wage subsidy on the basis of substantial loss of business, who are now only doing cash jobs & getting the government money as well - windfall!

[Blackduck59]

4 minutes ago, mr walker said:

There will always be people who seek to take advantage of any situation.

 

There are stories here of tradies applying, as sole traders, for the government wage subsidy on the basis of substantial loss of business, who are now only doing cash jobs & getting the government money as well - windfall!

 

Windfall not so much, Fraud absolutely.

[lyndarra]

38 minutes ago, Blackduck59 said:

 

Windfall not so much, Fraud absolutely.

And tax evasion - income and GST.

[Kiwi Kruzer]

1 hour ago, mr walker said:

There will always be people who seek to take advantage of any situation.

 

, who are now only doing cash jobs & getting the government money as well - windfall!

Cash jobs are becoming very rare nowadays .

 

[mr walker]

I am not in the business, nor a tradie by any stretch of the imagination. Cash remains king in tradie world. There was a story on TV a little while back about a guy who was renovating his house in Sydney. He couldn't get a single tradie to work for anything other than cash.

 

I have had it myself. The guy says "it will be cheaper for cash as you will save the GST" I say "I'm fine with paying it" - incredulous looks! So he explains further "the job is $1000, so with GST that $1100, so let's just do cash". I end up saying I need a tax invoice so he agrees (not happily) on the full amount, as long as it's a cash deposit into his account??

 

 

[MicCanberra]

3 hours ago, mr walker said:

I am not in the business, nor a tradie by any stretch of the imagination. Cash remains king in tradie world. There was a story on TV a little while back about a guy who was renovating his house in Sydney. He couldn't get a single tradie to work for anything other than cash.

 

I have had it myself. The guy says "it will be cheaper for cash as you will save the GST" I say "I'm fine with paying it" - incredulous looks! So he explains further "the job is $1000, so with GST that $1100, so let's just do cash". I end up saying I need a tax invoice so he agrees (not happily) on the full amount, as long as it's a cash deposit into his account??

 

 

I was a tradie for many years and while I didn't mind being paid in cash, but I didn't do cash jobs (tax free). There was no benefit for me, and only benefit for the customer, unless the tax was withheld and it was off the books. If it was off the books, I was the one taking the risk not the customer.

[ilikeanswers]

On 4/20/2020 at 9:47 AM, SeaDog-46 said:

It is now just over 250 years since Cook first arrived in NZ.

I thought the attached photo of a plaque on a memorial in Gisborne was well done & correct.

It states :-  "A fine seaman an outstanding Captain & an honest man. Capt Cook was one of the last of the great explorers - navigators & the first of the scientific expedition leaders.  After the 3 global voyages of 1768-71,  1772-75, & 1776-79 the map of the world was substantially complete.

Here on the 9th & 10th of October 1769,  Cook walks with men from HM Bark Endeavour seeking fresh food & water.  Nearby on the river rock Toka-a-Taiau, Maori chief & English Captain greeted one another. When traditional challanges were misunderstood, Maori were killed, the ship sailed without provisions and thus Poverty Bay received its name.

From here Endeavour circumnavigated New Zealand & Cook plotted the first map of the country.

This meeting of the two peoples marked the beginning of the New Zealand nation".

 

If you are interested in things related to Captain Cook I would recommend the documentary series The Pacific: In the Wake of Captain Cook. It really brings him to life as a human being focusing more on his mindset and personality. He was far more interesting than what my school books made out and we really got censored on Joseph Banks😂, though I suppose his antics were not exactly suitable for a teenage audience😜. 

[MicCanberra]

There is also a nice show called the Cook and the chef, very interesting how they differ.

 

[SeaDog-46]

North Island sights away from the usual ports.

 

1/ Mt. Egmont / Taranaki near New Plymouth.

2/ Cathedral Cove Coromandel.

3/ Papids Jet, Taupo.

4/ Lake Taupo & volcanoes in background - below.

5/ Mt. Ngauruhoe erupts 1-1974.

6/ Mt. Ruapehu - erupts 1995.

7/ Huka Falls, Taupo.

[OzKiwiJJ]

That 1995 Ruapehu eruption completely ruined the ski season there. The area where those mud flows are in the picture is right in the Whakapapa skifield, I think.

[SeaDog-46]

Is this the same mountain that derailed the train in the 1930's?

[SeaDog-46]

Wellington to Auckland train went into the Whangaehu River at 2210-15 on 24th Dec. 1953 after a lahar damaged the rail bridge.

151 of 285 onboard died.

[Blackduck59]

Thanks for the photos Sea Dog, they are beautiful. I wish we had unlimited days to explore New Zealand and Australia. We have so enjoyed the "Virtual Cruise" and the itinerary that OzKiwiJJ has put together, it is almost exactly the same as our actual cruise, scheduled for late January 2021. We have enjoyed the photos and been able to firm up some of the things we want to do. Our vacation if it happens will be about 4 weeks with 2 days in Auckland pre cruise and then 11 night cruise ending in Melbourne and the rest is land based with the flight from Melbourne to Sydney for 3 days. Our flight home from Sydney is via Auckland. It would be nice if we could do some extra explorations in both countries but we only have so many vacation days.

[Iainmac]

I would like to mention that here in NZ that Air New Zealand have said that they will not be flying internationally anytime in the near future and even that they may never fly long haul ever again.

Here in NZ and I believe in OZ they will not refund any fares for flights they can no longer provide, playing some Montreal Agreement made by airlines that says they are not liable for anything beyond their control.  However, laws in America, UK, UE and possibly also Canada say that they have to refund any fares to or from these countries and they are doing so.  Apparently they are also saying they are actually broke and do not have the money to refund 100,000 airfares.

They owe me $2000 and being 80 years and over I might never be able to fly internationally again so a credit would be useless to me.  The above fares were for my wife and I to join Regal Princess for the 16 Dec. cruise out of Sydney.  Even if this cruise does go ahead we Kiwis have no way of getting to Sydney so we are now faced with canceling our booking and not paying the final fare in September.

Iain

[OzKiwiJJ]

2 hours ago, SeaDog-46 said:

Is this the same mountain that derailed the train in the 1930's?

Yes but I think the lahah went down a different way that time.

 

It's also one of NZ's major ski areas with two big skifields, Whakapapa and Turoa, and a smaller club one off the Desert Rd - I forget the name of that one but I skied there once.

[valantine80]

Daughter was there on a school ski trip when Mt Ruapehu erupted in 1995. A bit of unexpected excitement.

[OzKiwiJJ]

I remember stopping at the Chateau Tongariro for a night in May 1995, on my way down to Masterton for a conference. As I drove away the next morning I saw a large plume of smoke or steam at the top of the mountain. I'd skied on Ruapehu many times before that day and had never seen anything like that there, so I wasn't too surprised to hear it had erupted. During the days of the eruption the world's first volcano cam was set up to capture the action live. The internet was still in its infancy then so that was a really big thing.There were more eruptions in 1996, 2006 and 2007.

[Blackduck59]

Thanks everyone for so many wonderful ideas, they have been most helpful.

OzKiwiJJ, your virtual cruise is magnificent! So many helpful suggestions and photos to help with my real life cruise next year.

I hope to continue through the circumnavigation but alas I may end up getting myself punted from this site because of some blunt comments on another thread. So for all my new friends down under if I disappear from the site I got punted for calling out the OP on another thread.

On that note is there any reporting down there as to numbers of Australians and Kiwis who returned from Celebrity Eclipse that have come back as positive for COVID 19 or are they just as happy to pile on Ruby Princess?

 

[By The Bay]

1 hour ago, Blackduck59 said:

Thanks everyone for so many wonderful ideas, they have been most helpful.

OzKiwiJJ, your virtual cruise is magnificent! So many helpful suggestions and photos to help with my real life cruise next year.

I hope to continue through the circumnavigation but alas I may end up getting myself punted from this site because of some blunt comments on another thread. So for all my new friends down under if I disappear from the site I got punted for calling out the OP on another thread.

On that note is there any reporting down there as to numbers of Australians and Kiwis who returned from Celebrity Eclipse that have come back as positive for COVID 19 or are they just as happy to pile on Ruby Princess?

 

It would be sad to see you go. As for numbers, just piling on Ruby.

[OzKiwiJJ]

Thanks, Blackduck59. Hopefully you will be able to stay here.

[Blackduck59]

Well I already have 2 reminders and I'm not sure how many you get before getting gunned. It revolves around a passenger from Celebrity Eclipse that is bent out of shape at Celebrity cruises and Captain Leo. Basically he and his wife contracted COVID 19 at some point on that cruise and he is saying that the Captain is responsible. I kind of offered him a chance to tell us what he would do and then proceeded to point out the flaws in his plan in a very blunt fashion. It kinda got personal.

The thread is Celebrity Eclipse exposed passengers to COVID 19. It's kinda been a long thing and I have been pretty strong defending my point of view.

[OzKiwiJJ]

It might be a good idea to retreat down under (ie our forum) for a while. 🤣

 

 

[Blackduck59]

Cheers OzKiwiwJJ I think I should.

I suspect that the individual in question is pointing fingers because he was the guy at the martini bar scrum every night and felt COVID was a hoax like so many Americans. His solutions were certainly naive. He seems to cling to the idea that Captain Leo could just isolate the the respiratory patients and carry on as if all was well; just remind everyone that there could be sickness aboard and you should socially distance. He didn't seem to understand that wasn't an option. Once you call probable COVID 19 then the crap hits the fan and life aboard as you knew it is over.

[Bubbeh]

2 hours ago, Blackduck59 said:

So for all my new friends down under if I disappear from the site I got punted for calling out the OP on another thread.

Crikey, that would be a sorry day.  😭