Video of the Week- El camino del Ray

Originally built in 1901, this walkway now serves as an aproach to makinodromo, the famous climbing sector of El Chorro. About a minute in to the video you wonder why people do this. Talk about a sickening walk! Not for me! (6 minutes)

The new 'me'

Had a really slow day yesterday so decided to break loose from the chains that bind me to the desk and go to the hairdressers. I was feeling really daring yesterday so decided to ditch the blonde that I've had for years and years and instead go back to my natural colour (with some stripes thrown in for a little blonde interest). Here's the new/old me and my bold stripes.

A New Credential for Me!

Hooray for me! See below.

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Dear Gayle,

I want to offer you a BIG CONGRATULATIONS on your latest achievement -

earning your place among the World's best resume writers as a Master

Resume Writer (MRW)!

I really enjoyed reviewing your outstanding portfolio of work. Each

submission is beautifully and strategically tailored to your client's

objective and industry. Moreover, each presentation is formatted in a

distinctive and sophisticated way. Your attention to delivering both

outstanding content and visual appeal is evident.

You will receive your MRW certificate in the mail and The Career

Management Alliance web site will be updated shortly to list you as an

MRW! Your achievement will be shared with The Alliance Community in an

upcoming issue of the E-Bridge.

Again, congratulations, Gayle!!! 

Best regards,

Bill

Bill Kinser

Credentialing Master

Career Management Alliance

www.CareerManagementAlliance.com

Larry under Stress

Larry's situation at work is getting to be untenable and he's under extreme stress. Don't be surprised if his association with these people comes to an abrupt end soon.

Dr Cynthia

Quite a few years ago, Larry had a laser procedure on his lip. He was impressed that he was lucky enough to get a pioneer of laser surgery who was considered the 'next big thing'. She was presenting to boards, was a sought after guru in her field. Somewhere along the line, it all fell apart as today's paper shows.

I present Cynthia W and excerpts from today's paper. 

Medical board told tales of blood, passion and botched facial procedures to rival Nip/Tuck

THE ALLEGATIONS

■Performed inappropriate procedures on six patients in 2000-05, sometimes with "poor outcomes".

■Repaid a dissatisfied patient $3300 on the condition the patient not complain.

■Exposed staff to lasers, resulting in eye injuries for one nurse.

■Asked staff to clean a device containing needles for re-use after it had been used on a patient with hepatitis B.

■Did not dispose of hazardous material correctly, resulting in a nurse suffering a needle-stick injury from a syringe used on an HIV-positive patient.

This was a particularly "nice" piece: "The same therapist said she was told to clean the Roll-CIT device, which contained tissue, blood and skin, to be re-used. She said the device was re-used so often that needles started getting stuck in people's skin."

ewww..... don't know what happened to contribute to her downfall, but thank goodness Larry was exposed to her "expertise" early in her career!

Some Days I'm Just a Clutz

I’m just back at work after lunch — did a stupid thing (there's a surprise right?). Decided not to have coffee with lunch so had a Diet Coke instead. Went to put the cap back on the bottle, it slipped, the bottle slipped on the desk, and half a bottle of it spread all over my new aluminium flat keyboard. Ugh. Raced into the powder room and got a hand towel and turned the keyboard upside down and belted it. Half the coke poured out the keyboard while the rest of it sprinkled over my glasses, on the client folder I was working on, my pens and on my lunch which was a fried egg on toast — it ran straight into the toast making it coke toast. I'm not that fat that the prospect of that sounded appealing. Amazing how half a cup of liquid can make so much damage and go so far--a bit like a Diet Coke tsunami. I cleaned up for about half an hour and I just hope that it doesn’t have long lasting effects on my keyboard. That was expensive and I love it. Mmm, maybe I could sue Coke for the company's stupidly designed bottle. I mean slippery is bad, it could have killed someone right? ;-) 

Petty Annoyances

Yesterday we had a thousand-and-one petty annoyances. Funny how some days go all your way and other days if feels like they're all out to get you!

Went to Linen Avenue at Eastland looking for doona covers and sheets for our soon-to-be-coming king-sized bed (delivered Friday). They had a closing down sale and hardly had any stock, so go to Adairs--nah nothing there; too expensive and not nice enough. Go to Myer.

Myer has a sale on. Walk around and around and around looking at a thousand different sheets, examining thread counts, feeling inside the pack to gauge how nice they are. Finally settle on sheets that were $219 (good grief) and reduced to less than half price on sale. Take them to the counter — "oh sorry, these are full price. These are not a sale item — that sign doesn’t say “Cocoon” it says “Elite”". Well we're not paying $219 for those sheets when they're sitting right underneath a sale sign, so we leave. Don't have the heart to start reading the print off them again.

Schlepped around Eastland for ages looking for a gift for Mike's 21st (Oops hope Robyn's not reading this). Finally got a XXX XXX (can't say it's a secret). Went to get it engraved at Mr Minute as we were leaving— sorry too busy can’t do it now, can you come back? No, just leaving. It's late and we're starving and I've had this brilliant idea to go to KFC for lunch. Taste buds all ready for it.

Go to Ringwood KFC for lunch, order via the drive thru. Get to the window — Oh I’m sorry, there’s a 7-minute wait on the chicken would you like something else? (a chicken shop that runs out of chicken excellent).

No we won't wait -- 7 minutes is never 7 minutes. Decide to drive to Bayswater KFC instead. Get there and we walk in only to see a line of people almost out the door (in fact we squeezed in to just fit in. the door keeps opening/closing/opening closing everytime we breathe). We move slowly up the line. There is a line of cars through the drive thru as if somebody has just called the end of food. After 10 minutes in the queue I hear the girl saying to a customer “I’m sorry, we ran out”. I say to Larry — "I think they’ve run out of chicken too!" By the time we get up the front of the queue they’re telling people there is a 14 minute wait on the chicken. They only have burgers and crispy strips. It is about 2pm by now, we get burgers. 

Unsatisifed but at least full, we drive to Chirnside shops. Larry goes to drop off his dry cleaning. The girl hasn’t done dry cleaning before and it appears she really isn't old enough to work. Larry tells her how to do her job. Larry then asks to pick up his dry cleaning from last week. Same girl returns to the computer 2700 times over 15 minutes because she can’t find his shirts. Over and over and over and over. ...until she finally asks somebody. He looks around the corner of the rack— voila. It’s all there.

We take the XXXX (Mike's gift) to Watchworks to get engraved. I’m sorry, the guy who does that is sick at the moment. He’ll be back Tuesday — we hope. Go to Prouds, Michael Hill, Zamels — no they don’t do engraving but the guy at Watchworks does! Yeah, thanks we know.

Come home with the XXX now will have to go out during the week. Just what I wanted. Sigh....

Just one big long set of being messed around. Here's to a smooth and flawless Monday! 

Guys and Dolls

Went to see the new stage production of Guys and Dolls last night at the Princess Theatre here in Melbourne. What an incredible performance! So many top Australian stars (for those of you in the know Lisa McCune, Marina Pryor, Ian Stenlake, Magda Szubanski, Gary McDonald, ,  Shane Jacobsen...the list goes on!)

Prior to that we had a lovely meal at Pizza Napoli on Russell Street. I had Risotto Con Pollo (risotto with chicken, sun dried tomatoes and spring onions topped with parmesan cheese). Larry had lamb cutlets, mashed potato and vegetables which he said was gorgeous. 

We were really fortunate to have great seats -- Row F so we had a brilliant view of everything. Lisa McCune was incredible -- and funnily I've always wondered what people saw in her. Now I know. Definitely my kind of show. On a down note the city around that area has just deteriorated so much and it's very scary to walk around. Despite our police commissioner Christine Nixon's assurances, I didn't see one foot patrol policeman -- or for that matter any police. It's dark, there are lots of groups of ethnic men roaming around and nope, not my cuppa tea at all. This is no longer a good part of the city and if I had my druthers all entertainment would be moved to the area of Crown Casino where it has nice clean underground parking and instant access to the casino's entertainment precinct. Melbourne in the Princess Theatre area just isn't what it used to be.