The book, An introduction

**Blknight.aus** · 26th August 2008, 10:08 PM

In order to do this introduction I need to start with a short tale about a man, The kind of man who when musing something technical for a sawmill for one of his friends will notice that the front end loader that his friend is driving is leaking hydraulic fluid from one of the main lifting ram hydraulic hoses and tell him... When his mate starts swearing and cursing he'll climb up on the loader and take the cap off of the hydraulic tank when the sawmill owning mate looks at him like hes lost the plastic thing thats holding the 6 pack together this man will start a short conversation which goes something like this..

the man "fixed, just like a rover"
the mill owner "what?"
The man "you know like when you split a hose on a radiator, take the cap off to depressurise the system and then wrap the hose in electrical tape."

a strange silence will follow as the mill owner tries to work out if this man has actually said what hes said, if hes just dreaming and if hes not what happened to the usually intellegent bloke that used to be his friend... when the man can no longer maintain a deadpan look of seriousness laughter ensues and the problem and stress of the leaking hose is no longer so bad..

now thats not the story of this particular man that I need to tell but I think that story needs to be told so you get a feel for the character of the man before I tell the story. So that your on par with the timeline this particular story happened about 20 years or so after the story I need to tell you This is that story...

Picture a man... put him in a landrover and make him a PMG liney... now in the back of that landy (and several other trucks) lets put an automated telephone exchange. The kind of tecnological advance that put the nice ladies who knew all the goss of the town from the snippets of conversations they managed to glean when they interupted the phone call to say "Your three minutes are up,,, are you extending?..." now lets send this man to do his job and install an exchange and put say 5 nice ladies out of work... when his job is done he'll pack up his gear and leave..

Now under any ordinary circumstances that would be the end of the story of this introduction but the man involved managed to not only put a certain lady out of a job but also convince her to marry him... I like to picture it as happening like this...

A man rolls up in his puke carrot orange Highside PMG Landrover Ute, leans over the windowless door, resting on his elbow and looks at the young lass sitting outside the local exchange on her morning tea break and says "Gday darl Im here to put you out of a job, wanna get married?"

This is more or less the story of how my parents met and I tell this story so that you can see that some of the wierd stuff you might read in here was more or less destined to happen to me and I say that based on this principal, Im the product of the marriage of a technician and a gossip from a time when getting good work done was more important than making it look like you were doing something important and infulential, I grew up on the road for a while traveling around Australia with Mum and Dad and ultimately I came into existance becuase the woman my dad put out of a job married him. You can see how the trend for general wierdness in my life started long before I was even born... (Thanks Dad...)

Now Im no shakesphere or Mathew Reilly, I cant write you a love story with fine interwoven sublties nor can i write you a thrill a second novel that you wont put down till your running late for work the next morning neglecting to shave, eat dinner from the night before or your breakfast as you forget to grab the keys to the car as you lock the door behind you on your mad dash to try to be on time for work. What I can do is glean out some of my life experiences to the written word, I'm not going to tell my life story in its entirity, for starters I dont remeber all of it and secondly Im hopeless with names and dates so it would read like a word a day calender as presented by a Dyslexic printer.

Some stories I will tell that have been told to me, and I'll introduce some people IVe met in my life that either deserve a good word or a lambasting, which they get will depend on how you interpret what gets written...

But first some Things about me...

I'm a little paranoid... Im always thinking "what IF" I think its a good thing, It keeps me prepared by using some of the things Ive been taught, some of the things Ive learned and some guesses the little "what if" voice has kept me prepared for most things that life throws at me

I'm not a great socialite... I dont get groups of people. I can interact with almost any one one on one and I can handle small groups but large groups of people intimidate and worry me theres too much dynamic and I cant handle it well so I do one of a handfull of things that works for me I leave, I get engrossed in something, I eat, I drink or I get sarcastic. (sometimes more than one at a time)

A word on sarcasm... This is my key defence I'll use it to buy time, to put people off guard, to be funny or to put people off so they will leave me alone so I can get on with getting something done.

The last words on me for the intro..

Im an atheist I dont believe in fate, god, or anything else that I cant kick or experiment with to prove but Im happy to draw reference to them if it helps the situation. I believe that I was born at least 30 years too late I got a taste of old school living when i was younger and I like it life was simple and people were out to help each other not go at society like a psycotic bang heister to get everything they can out of it... you start at nothing you go back to nothing and you only get one roll of the dice. Its not about how much you gather to leave behind its about how many people will smile when they remember you.

There's some insite to me make what you will of my musings as i write them...

I dont mind if you want to post in the thread or if on the journy down the line of my life you think I need to stop, back up and give you a tour of a bit of my life that you think might hide a particularly interesting snippet of scenery that branches away from the main line Im following...

I figure that thats how my lifes moved on thus far why not let it be told that way....

Enjoy.

**JDNSW** · 27th August 2008, 06:26 AM

Interesting. I look forward to more from you.

But weren't PMG vehicles red? I thought the change to yellow came with the change of name to telecom when it was corporatised and separated from the post office.

John

**Frenchie** · 27th August 2008, 06:53 AM

Originally Posted by Blknight.aus

some of the wierd stuff you might read in here was more or less destined to happen to me

I dont believe in fate

Don't mean to be picky.........

**Bigbjorn** · 27th August 2008, 06:56 AM

Originally Posted by JDNSW

Interesting. I look forward to more from you.

But weren't PMG vehicles red? I thought the change to yellow came with the change of name to telecom when it was corporatised and separated from the post office.

John

PMG fleet colour was Mercury Red. We delivered a swag of Series III 109's with PMC aluminium dropside bodies to the PMG in the seventies.

**DiscoStew** · 27th August 2008, 08:30 AM

Gotta love being Australian (and I am not being sarcastic).

After several requests for a book The son of "A man" opens his soul just a peek to see what happens and we start discussing if he got the colour of his Dad's work truck right

.

Dave, please go on, I want to see what the proof-readers come up with next.

**paulthepilot_5** · 27th August 2008, 08:59 AM

Originally Posted by DiscoStew

Gotta love being Australian (and I am not being sarcastic).

After several requests for a book The son of "A man" opens his soul just a peek to see what happens and we start discussing if he got the colour of his Dad's work truck right

.

Dave, please go on, I want to see what the proof-readers come up with next.

ha ha, i was thinking the same thing

**ivery819** · 27th August 2008, 09:13 AM

Quote:
"Its not about how much you gather to leave behind its about how many people will smile when they remember you."

Classic quote.........well done Dave !

Looking forward to the next installment.

**Blknight.aus** · 28th August 2008, 09:50 PM

Dick, Irony, and jaffles served with a touch of revenge... AKA who said revenge is a dish best served cold...

Well Ive taken the step. and IVe started what I hope no-one else will have to finish for me and i spent a while trying to sort out where I should start this next chapter, well mini chapter... I needed somewhere that I could introduce someone, a subject that ties into the introduction and opens up some more threads into the rich taperstry that is my life.

So let me introduce Dick, now thats not his real name and I dont actually remember, and If Im honest probabley never knew, his first name. In reality he was Trooper Tracey.. how he got his nickname of Dick should be immediatley apparent, Dick Tracey, Dick, just like the comic book detective... And here I digress...

Now most of you will know that I did some time and again am still doing time in the military, Its common that no-one ever gets called by their actual name but some arbitrarily thought up nick name and this is going to lead us to irony eventually but the links are sometimes obvious as in the case of Dick and sometimes very obscure baed on some one off event that no-one ever rememers... ADF service generally not needing einstinian levels of intellegence its usually something obvious, some one named bull becomes bully, elverson becomes elvis and mariofrdgutczklivy wedjtdza would become alphabet.

now My surname is Fare... I'll give everyone a few seconds to dump some IQ points and see if you can guess what my nick became, dont worry you wont miss anything I'll just ramble aimless ly, wiat is amble the right word, no, its not ummm, err... does anyone know a word for rambling on when you do it in type, no dont answer Ive already written this and anyway the few seconds are up so its time to reveal the answer to the question what was my nick... My nick became Farey for quite a while and it is again now but here comes some irony..

What a lot of you should know is that Im married, yes I have a wife and at the time of this particular bit of irony she had my name as her surname (and still does bless her tolerant soul) and was working as a dental technition for the Army.. anyway when she completed her course in fang merchantry I got posted to a new unit in the same area and when asked by some of the guys what everyone called me, some guys are so lazy they wont even bother to think up a new nickname for you they just call you what everyone else has previosuly and yes before you ask it is better to just tell them cause they will usually find out or come up with something worse so you save time and effort on everyone behalf by just introducing yourself by your name and nick name. As in

"Gday Im David Fare but everyone just calls me farey" and then someone will introduce everyone else by nickname as thats how your going to adress everyone untill the day you or they leave... anyway Ive done the "Hi, Im farey, no not that kind F,a,r,e with a Y on the end" intro and smart ass has just gone Tooth. Great, new nickname in that unit I wasnt Farey anymore I was tooth... Ironic isnt it...

what do you mean you dont get it... ahh I see I forgot a bit. My wife in a dental unit, and has been since I married her 11 years ago has never ever been nick named tooth although shes been called MS Farey, CPL Farey and Farey no-one ever worked out to call her Tooth...

See Irony in action.

now where was I, oh yeah ,Dick.. Now Dicks a nice guy, not the kind of guy Id want to have to be partnered with in a sleeping shelter, he snored, but definatly wouldnt say no to being alongside in a gun pit or crewing the same armoured vehicle with.. Did I mention I was also in Armoured Corps? dont worry I will later I promise. Anyway, Dick was a little overweight not Oprah Winfrey over weight more Jay Leno overweight and he was a little shorter than average so he seemed bigger than he was.. and his stature was a consistant source of merriment to lots of people me included...

we always joked that he used to get into his car, he drove a small hairdressers car, the same way as professor sumdemiller got the egg into the milk bottle but instead of the flaming paper he just hooked a vacume cleaner up to the aircon vent. Or that his car was the originally manufactured with a full chassis but they changed the design after the maker saw his vehicle and how that as hed crushed the chassis down with his weight to a paper thin set of sheets that they could build them that way. or that his front right tyre looked flat and then when he got out of the car wed comment about how it was wierd but it didnt look flat now.

we hung it on him and usually he had a come back, hang onto that word usualy because its going to lead to a bunch of laughter and humility later, when I was insulting him hed usually pick on my rovers saying something like "yeah and the reason you like rovers so much is becuase the leaks in the seals let the torrent of ****e you drivel leak out so you dont drown" but one day the indian bloke who everyone used to hang on becuase of his nationality (amazing how everyone picks on the obvious) who was normally very quiet got to asking him about his uniform and how it wasnt like everyone elses... I should add that our indian bloke wasnt regarded as being the most together guy but thats more to do with him not fitting into the social clicks than his ability.

And again I digress Tpr Tracy was a Trooper, thats what you call a private who is in the Armoured Corps, and like all good troopers wore a slightly different uniform to the rest of the ADF... the uniform is re-inforced and generally heavier duty and far more practical when crawling in over and around armoured vehicles and the thicker material offers better resistance to heat so you dont burn yourself when trying to scoff a jaffle. As part of the change where the epilets on the shirt are there is a second piece of cloth that is stitched permanantly in place like a carry handle... its puropse in life is exactly that if you get caught in your sticken A vehicle they can grab you by these straps of fabric and pull you out if your out cold... anywho...

the indian bloke having never seen the double epilete thing on an ADF shirt before asks what they are for and recieves the inevitable answer of "they are so someone can lift me out of a vehicle if I am injured out out cold" to which he replies in that great indian way that you can never quite imitate correctly "no no no, there is no way you can be lifting that much weight with 2 pieces of cloth." youve seen the adds where rebeccas not drinking right the one where "not drinking" echos around the world and everything grinds to a halt including the planet yeah well thats what happened everythign stopped, no one said anything, birds stopped tweeting ,crickets stopped chirping there wasnt a sound to be heard, you could have dropped a pin in africa and you would have heard its sound echoing in the workshop and then realising that hes just been gotten by the guy with the lowest standing admits... "nahh I got nothing" the workshop broke out laughing. inevitable humility at its best....

Dicks a good guy all round tho and usually gave as good as he got and sometimes better and everyone appreicated that he took all we could give and gave some back cause it was good for stress relief (and how we needed that to keep our sanity down there) but that one moment where it all came undone Im willing to bet that even now in his new unit somewhere someone will come up to him and ask him about the incident with the epiletes and the indian...

now not long ago someone mentioned jaffles... wait, that was me... In the ADF every corps and trade has something of a traditional characteristic and some are shared a few examples

Reccy mechs have beer IF you cant find a beer find a reccy mech, he'll find beer
RAEME have jaffles and cold canned drinks
Clerks have computer games and coffee
Termites have recreation gear
Armourd corps have something that passes as coffee and jaffles

let me tell you of jaffles, they play a big part in my life, and a good jaffle iron is almost as important if not more important than your towel in some circumstnaces. I kid you not...

Jaffles are wonderfully simple creations, to pieces of bread something between them crushed in two cast iron trapesoid shaped skilets and toasted till golden brown and hot all the way through. They start as simpley as just cheese and get inventive from there generally tho you max out at about 5 fillings and 2 maybe 3 sauces and spices but ooohh what you can do with a jaffle iron, a loaf of bread some spices and a ration pack. The picquets you can get out of when everyone realises that you seemed to be carrying your pack so well because you abandond all the crap you didnt need and put more bread in to support your jaffle habit and that your happy to make jaffles for all who take a slice out of your picquet time.... ahh a peaceful nights sleep in the middle of summer under a million stars with a belly full of tobaso'd cheese n chicken jaffles. It even works on deployments...

Under the right circumstances they can be used for revenge....

every single unit has one annoying officer I usually manage to find them and wind up working for them... The ones I hate most are the "make me a coffee" and the "make me a jaffle" ones... I have ways of dealing with them....

the cofffee ones easy... he gets double strength "whack a tin and zinc plate in it and use it to jump start your tank" percolated condensed and sugared coffee for about 3 weeks and its habit forming and I feed it to him in stronger and stronger doses untill you can hear him coming from 30 feet away because hes twitching so hard hes humming and then on the day of the big Commanding Officers brief for the final battle of the exercise I switch him to unsugared decaf with plenty of milk and a shot of milo.

and the jaffle guy get the jam jaffle you take the condensed jam from a 10 man ration pack and you start making a jaffle with that as the filling now this stuff is great because its liquid as it heats up the steam coming out of it softens the bread and stops it from burning so you can heat it up to about the temperature of Lava without burning the jaffle. Then you let it sit for a minute and pass it over an open flame, this dries the bread on the out side and makes it look like a normal jaffle and given a minute the bread cools down and being insulative keeps the filling roasting hot... yeah you know where this is going dont you.... on his first bite he's going to swear hes just taken a bite out of a volcano and as it usually explodes out of the jaffle and gets down the sleeve and front of the shirt then sticks like napalm you get some wonderful seconday effect.

that should do If something in there catches your eye and you want to know a bit more in the area of the subject ask away... but I think, for the moment that next time I shall tell you of one of my favorite holiday places in Australia and of how I came up with my favorite jaffle recipies...

**carjunkieanon** · 28th August 2008, 10:09 PM

Thanks (Tooth) (Farey) Dave,

Will you tell us where the Blknight.aus comes from? Is this the nickname you'd choose for yourself?

r

**Hymie** · 28th August 2008, 10:53 PM

I love how the Brits call Jaffles BANJOES.
Cos when you bite into a really hot runny one the victim resembles a Banjo player, with said molten Jaffle in one hand at arms length and the other furiously fanning the mouth.

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The book, An introduction

Dick, Irony, and jaffles served with a touch of revenge.

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