Shouts From Down Under

8 days since you read such noisy nonsense. (No Trekky jokes)

There is gold in them there entries. Did you ever wonder what gold feels like, or how to tell real gold from fools gold or beach rubbish?

A few weeks ago I went gold panning with a client who has mild disabilities. We didn't find any. I don't think.

You see, neither of us knows what gold looks like out in the dirty, real world. We have no idea how to pan, either. We don't know exactly where the place is you can pan for sea gold. It's on a point off the coast near Wynyard Tasmania. We went there. We both fell in a creek trying to jump across it. We both got wet shoes. And we drove away having inhaled some sort of bad smell on the beach, but better for the outing even so.

The gold we took was being cheered up, having a laugh, having a sort of Bro time on a deserted beach, and wondering what the heck gold really looks like.

A couple of months ago, I found a couple of largish pieces of rock-like material on a beach near here, and I'm going to get someone to check and see if it really is gold, any of it. I'm fully aware that quartz and whatever, Iron Pyrites, glitters but isn't any closer to being gold than a whole grain piece of toast with Vegemite on it.




Laugh all you will. We'll see. And just in case it is gold, don't bother rushing here thinking you'll line up with the other thousands who will suddenly be my best friends. When our bills all get paid, the nuggets would have to be a fair old size to be any left for you lot. And you already know how it is.

Authors are mostly a poverty stricken, skinny, bedraggled lot with that hungry, vitamin and protein lacking visage.

Aren't we?

My pot belly argues against that tidy theory. But still, more about the gold of laughter.

We can all use it up to a point. There is such a thing as too much mirth. Seriously now - no joke. Most clients I support, the physically and / or mentally impaired, most all of them like a joke or two. Up to a point.

Recently a client let me know that my humour was unwelcome. Not even up to Dad Joke standard. My jokes and laughing annoyed the person. I stopped being a douche and became attentive to that persons irritation.

I stopped joking...

May the 4th be with you is a somewhat annoying type of joke. My wife mentioned it today and yes, was annoyed.

President O even had a bit of a grab at some laughs with it back in 2013...

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/obama-jokes-star-wars-star-427161

There are the Chuck Norris jokes I've referred to before. Only the ones approved by him, of course. (*nervous swallow)

Even though it isn't magnetic, my mind seems to be attracted back to that shiny yellow substance as if a May the 4th force did drag it.

I wondered just how much gold there would physically be in an ounce. A troy ounce I guess?

http://www.usagold.com/reference/properties.html

I find I'm none the wiser as to roughly the physical size I could picture, in reference to an ounce, which I believe to be valued around AU$1500 - $1700 per ounce at current prices. A tidy sum of our mortgage if one of these "rocks" I found turns out to be real gold.

I plan to go back to that beach and search some more too. Plus go gold panning again.



But, you know, gold could easily deceive us, and our (my) greedy festering grasping snatching desperate slobbering mind. We could start thinking that gold would bring us the deeper happiness and satisfaction we sometimes feel.

Yes, it sure helps, a wad of the old cash, get those bills a paid, get those groceries a bought, get the holiday a booked, and get rid of our allergic reactions a choo!

Real gold, is love. That's my take on it. That's what I thieve out of experiences.



The worst situation we can be in can still be harvested by our minds for those nuggets of purpose, those little moments of grim victory, those times that make the rest of it, the rest of the painful terribleness and nightmares null and void. We forget the pain when there's the pleasure, so quickly and easily.

We mustn't be deceived though. Pleasure can be an easy quick fix, and lull us to a short term sleep.

Long term happiness, satisfaction and most importantly, peace, usually only comes when we pay our dues consistently.

How thankful am I, after helping a couple of clients lately whose early life has been hell on earth, after supporting these, I've realised humans can bounce back from the worst possible situations and still find gold. These people show us that we don't have things so bad. Their life has been destroyed equal to a heap of fools gold nuggets, and yet they find real gold within those terrible experiences.



Humour can be a type of fools gold, but some is still needed.

Some stuff I've spotted recently with traces of humour through it...



Trailsharft
http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Econovan-Manual-Trailsharft-Lwb/281673521290?_trksid=...

Fresion Calve
http://www.gumtree.com.au/s-ad/exton/livestock/wanted-fresion-bull-calve/1077278...

Beer...Kind-a
I'm hopping off the ferry in Devonport Thursday morning (30⁄04⁄15) and will be driving around Tasmania until the 17th. Looking for someone to join me for either a few days or the whole 2 weeks. I plan on doing some hiking such as cradle mountain and wineglass bay, while also checking out Hobart and Launceston, and having a drink or 2 on occasion. If you like to hike, like adventure and don't kind a drink or 2 send me a message, I can pick you up from anywhere in tasmania.

Working Toilet (not for relaxation) Used. Pick up only.(ewww)
http://www.gumtree.com.au/s-ad/devonport/other-home-garden/toilet-devonport/1077...

Garden Rocks- not to be used for wheel chocks, vandalism or ornaments. Or pets. Not to be thrown by glasshouse owners.
http://www.gumtree.com.au/s-ad/ulverstone/pots-garden-beds/garden-rocks/10770874...

Stressed out huh?


Speaking of stressed out, a friend of mine was recently in an area of greater possibility of snake bite. He had no reason to be thinking of snakes however.
And there was this problem with his leg for most of the morning of that day, and when he arrived home hours later, and as we all probably do, he hit the shower for a relaxing dip, that was when he noticed a stinging sensation on his leg. On inspection of his by now wet leg, he noticed a couple of puncture wounds. Fang puncture wounds, to be exact.
Tiger Snake puncture wounds. (I'm not sure why or how that fact was established, but perhaps the rest of the story lays the foundation)
Once out of the shower (quicker than he'd anticipated) the concerned friend rang our local snake handling reptile expert to ask if people always know when a snake has bitten them.
The answer was NO. People don't always know when one of these serpents sinks in the incisors and squirts some nasty stuff into their skin.
The expert was quite alarmed and said, you've been bitten! get to a doctor immediately. My friend said well that was hours ago, this morning in fact.
So he, my friend, did go to hospital, his wife taking him along, and yes it was snake venom splashed on his jeans leg, and yes it was venom which was stinging, but lucky for him, very lucky, he didn't have any venom in his system. By now.
What he said was,
"I'm tough, just like Chuck Norris. When I see snakes, I let them bite me..."

Who the h... is Chuck N..? OH. G'day Mister Chuck Norris, SIR!
http://www.chucknorrisjokes.linkpress.info/top-100.php

Whatever our lot in life, we have to find it in us to laugh at ourselves. If we can't, then our learning, our future, our end will be stifled, stagnant and profitless.

Pride is a nasty false gold nugget that seems to show its shiny face to us and everyone else until the real value of our merit is tested. Then ugliness comes, destroys, and we are left holding a brown, smelly nugget of something that shouldn't be mentioned in a good, clean blog entry like this.

Nobody likes their pride being show for what it is, myself the least.

A man has just walked through the library here, with filthy feet / boots. The librarian was quick to search for him, and followed the boot prints of mud.

Perhaps some gold looks like mud, but is really the fruit of hard work and diligence. It pays not to be too quick to decide who or what is gold, until a proper longer term and educated assessment is done.

And for a quick reference test? Bite it. That's the advice. Bite it.

http://www.homegrownfun.com/difference-real-gold-fools-gold/

8 days since the last blog entry here. 8 made me think of a biblical direction of gold.

Here's a small project if you feel inclined.

Find in the Bible things that happened on the 8th day.

No, its not a test and nothing to do with gold, humour, or this blog entry. Just a last moment thought before the library here shuts, and the computer turns off!

Sparky