The weather bureau here in Victoria issued some wind warnings today that would accompany a severe cold front that will cross the state. They are predicting gusts around 100-150kmh in some regions and have advised that people take due care and precautions to secure their properties.
The front is still many hours away from my place, and the weather is still warm but by fuck, the wind is already atrocious. I’ve lost a fence (covered with a climbing bouganvillia in full bloom) and one big bough from my massive (35m) gum tree has come down across the garden in the last 1/2 hour alone.
Victorians out there, you take care on the roads and keep yourselves safe as the day wears on.
Down here in Maryland, too. It was gorgeous today, warm and sunny, and then around dusk it got rainy and incredibly windy.
I had planned on sleeping with the windows open, but the wind howling outside is just too much.
I live in Blacksburg. Not so much with really strong winds, but there’s virtually always a wind of some strength blowing. All the goddamn time. I’m quite used to walking to and from class sideways just so I’m not facing directly into the gust.
Heh. Wondered why the sky was looking so muddy down here. I’ll happily send some of the squillion cubic metres of topsoil back if you pay the postage DellieM.
Anyway, mustn’t complain. At least I’ve got power on again. And it IS raining wheeeeeeeeee.
yeah, I heard about that on the radio (while driving past Princes Park and the cemetery with downed tree branches on the road all around me…). The report started off something like “Twelve members of XYZ construction company are receiving counseling today after a forty-year-old worker was crushed to death by falling scaffolding”. Which I found kinda weird. I mean, the fact that the guys fellow-workers are getting counseling over the incident is a great thing and all but I wouldn’t have thought it was the most significant thing about the incident.
I heard a similar report, and started giggling trying to imagine twelve beefy, blue-singleted, Blundstone-wearing builders labourers undergoing ‘counselling’.
All laughter aside though, geez, give the fellas a couple of hundred dollars out of the company kitty and send them to the pub to chew the fat together and to deal with the grief and shock in the way most normal blokes do. :rolleyes:
This counselling phenomenon has gotten way out of control IMHO, especially after tragedies like this. It automatically assumes that people who witness accidents are equally traumatised victims in some weird way, and it shifts the role of listener and caregiver from family and friends (who are mostly perfectly able to fulfill that role) to a paid professional who really doesn’t give a ‘personal’ shit at the end of the day.
Sure, if after a few weeks the witnesses to such events are still finding it hard to sleep/suffering anxiety issues/having flashbacks or feeling depressed, THEN get them to a counsellor by all means. But in the first hours and days after an accident…leave it to the natural coping mechanism/s of the individual and his/her family and friends to help take the edge off the trauma.
Okay… I posted the dustorm update at work. I get home to find that there’s dust on and in EVERYTHING. Because someone left the windows open in the loungeroom, didn’t they son? It’s not the worst I’ve seen - we had a ripper about 5 years ago that plunged the town into darkness at 11.00am. It gets into your teeth, your clothing, your hair, your nether regions (it seems). Stupid mallee topsoil. I am currently sweeping it up off my kitchen floorboards and will be happy to send it back to you Kambucta - and rather than pay postage, please collect it from the front desk at Parliament House at your leisure (I’ll send it down with my boss).
Ooops - meant to add, in a serious note regarding the counselling thing, I could tell a thing or two about the closure that SHOULD come about from the trial closure this week. But I can’t. But I think you get it.
Think the dickweed should’ve got a longer sentence? You’re not alone there…there’s lots of folks who believe that he got off far too lightly considering the carnage and grief and loss he caused.
But as has been mentioned , the judicial system can never bring the dead back to life, and no sentence, however harsh or long is ever enough to allay the pain and suffering of those left behind. IMHO, the jury did the right thing, and the sentence handed down might be long enough (and short enough) to give the perp some time to reflect on what he’s done, and time in the future to make right some of the terrible wrongs. Hopefully.
