Centrelink Business

Posted on March 22, 2012 by Sam Heathfield

It wasn’t much pleasure to get up to early this morning, but I had my Centrelink appointment at 08:00, and they were ever nice enough to call me yesterday to remind me, not that I needed to be reminded.

I wasn’t actually seen till 08:15, but was out of there by 08:30. I was seen in a private room, where I answered some questions on a checklist, yes/no type stuff. I don’t know how many questions were on the form but we didn’t get all the way through it as my interviewer agreed I would probably be stream 4.

That said, I wasn’t told anything else and I’m just meant to await notification in the mail. So I’m not sure what the next step is, other than waiting for them to make the next move. Boring!

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Autumn Equinox

Posted on March 20, 2012 by Sam Heathfield

From here on in it only gets darker… or supposedly, as today is the Autumn Equinox, a day of equal day and night. While tomorrow, there’ll be slightly more night every day moving in to Winter.

I’ve been neglecting this blog, and have considered writing entries for the week that was, but can’t be stuffed. Instead I’ll attempt a quick summary.

Mum flew into Australia last Wednesday and left on Sunday. Tae stayed over on Thursday and Friday nights. I went to Movieworld with Andrew, Tahia and their kids on Saturday. I also had St Patricks Day drinks with mum at a bar on Cavill Avenue on Saturday night. Managed two pints of Guinness in half an hour before going home.

There’s been equal rain and sunshine lately, and at least today, I’ve had the sun out, rain falling heavily and the wind blowing at the same time. The weather is odd, but it’s cooling down, I’m enjoying the breezes and snuggling up in bed at night. About time I found someone to snuggle up to.

I’ve got 5 trips booked, with the first coming up next month. I even found a killer deal to Queenstown for this year, and have already booked it, hoping I am given permission to go on my yearly family holiday. The rest of the trips are inter-QLD.

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Centrelink Woes

Posted on March 12, 2012 by Sam Heathfield

I thought tonight I might provide an update on my application to Centrelink. As I’d mentioned previously, I had a telephone interview with Centrelink coming up, and that didn’t go too badly. I told them everything I could think of.

From that I was given an appointment at their Nerang office two days later. That also went well, though nothing really happened other than singing papers and being told when to log in and what to do.

Following that appointment, I was told to go to a job agency, Tursa in Southport, the following day. Everything was moving very quickly, and I went along with it and filled out more forms, but after talking to a guy there he figured I had been placed in the wrong ‘stream’ and suggested I go for a reassessment at Centrelink before he could help me. Naturally I went next door to the Southport Centrelink office, but they told me to come back another day with the appropriate documents, such as a note from a doctor confirming my Aspergers diagnosis.

So, this morning I went back to Centrelink Nerang with the right documents, where they told me I’d need to come back for yet another appointment, but didn’t tell me when. It’ll probably be a week or so before the next one. Who knows where it’ll go from there though.

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Protected: Papers

Posted on March 12, 2012 by Sam Heathfield

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Autumn Weekend

Posted on March 6, 2012 by Sam Heathfield

As March rolls around, so does Autumn. The leaves have already begun to fall… into the pool, but the weather isn’t doing what’s expected and cooling properly. That said, the afternoon breezes through the house and the air temperature at night has dropped a little. I certainly find no reason to go swimming anymore… though my green hair turning yellow also worries me.

Tae came over on Thursday to relax with me, and make good use of the pool. We cooked together on Thursday night, a linguine dish with a tomato and chorizo pasta sauce. For dessert, apple baked in puff pastry, but for a twist, we ate dessert first as it cooked faster than the sauce!

She stayed the whole weekend with me, which was fine by me as I wasn’t going to be doing anything anyway. So for a change I ate well, and learned some basic dishes to cook. Friday night was chicken marmalade, Saturday night was leftovers and Sunday and Monday night we had ratatouille. All very healthy food.

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Leap Year

Posted on February 29, 2012 by Sam Heathfield

The draught has been broken, for tonight I sat down with Yvonne and had a bottle of delicious Rekorderlig Pear Cider. My reasoning behind missing out on a complete month alcohol free (though I did have over 5 weeks in any case) was that it was a Leap Year, and as such I wouldn’t get another opportunity for another 4 years.

And now for an interesting fact. Leap years happen on years divisible by 4, except on century years that are not divisible by 400. Thus the year 2000 was a Leap year, but the year 2100 will not be a Leap year. What a crazy world we live in.

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A Sobering Thought

Posted on February 26, 2012 by Sam Heathfield

As of today I’ve been sober for 5 weeks. To clarify, it all started the morning after Mark’s 30th birthday party, where I had way too much and felt really awful.

Following that night, I attempted on a couple occasions to just enjoy a beer or glass of wine, while flying in QLD, but each time I felt dizzy and sick almost immediately.

So since then I’ve stuck to anything non-alcoholic, simply to give my liver a chance to recover from what I perceived to be a little too much alcohol.

I guess the biggest benefit to me is that I haven’t needed to keep replenishing alcohol supplies, which can become quite expensive, but I’ve been about as productive as ever.

Now it’s getting towards the end of February the urge to drink is getting stronger. I wouldn’t say it’s an alcoholism problem. I certainly don’t wake up in the morning craving anything alcoholic, but I’d just like a beer while I watch the cricket, or a cider to chill out at the end of the day.

Eventually I’m going to have a drink. I will of course try keep myself from drinking too much, but with St Patricks Day in 3 weeks, I may not manage it on that one day.

I’m not sure if I’ll have a drink tonight. I am thirsty and tea and juice is getting a little boring.

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Birthday Weekend

Posted on February 25, 2012 by Sam Heathfield

As I wrote yesterday, I managed to spend a little more than I’d budgeted for myself on flights. This isn’t too big a problem as it only reduces next months spending money by about a quarter, however having a little extra is always good.

Along with booking flights yesterday I also made a call to CentreLink to sort out my lack of a job. I have an interview scheduled for Tuesday March 6th and in that I hope to give the government all they need to help get me employed. In the meantime (but after the interview) I should have an allowance from the government, and that will hopefully help me not to starve next month through spending too much this month.

I’m not sure how much I’ll get but any help will be appreciated.

Moving on, this weekend is a big birthday weekend. Mum celebrated her 57th birthday yesterday, while dad will celebrate his 57th tomorrow! So it’s a big Happy Birthday to them both from me!

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Forward Bookings

Posted on February 24, 2012 by Sam Heathfield

Working in partnership with Tae I have today sorted 3 future trips in QLD for April, May and June/July. Each trip is on a weekend, thanks to the Dash-8 sale currently on.

The first trip is to MKY via ROK for Tae’s birthday. Apparently I’m in charge of the wine that weekend. I’ve never really stayed in Mackay, so I’m not sure what we’ll get up to or what there is to do there, but I’m sure I’ll figure it out.

The second trip is to LRE, so Tae can check out the Qantas Founders museum, and so I can start to use a future purchase I have planned, a lifetime membership to the museum. I’ve decided to purchase a lifetime membership as I like the museum, want to see it continue to expand, and want to keep experiencing it as it does so.

The final trip booked is to MKY via ROK again, however I put my new Platinum membership to the test, booking over the phone to the premium desk so I could get what they call ‘comfort seats’. Essentially I’ve bought 2 seats for each flight on this trip, so I can spread out. The advantage of doing this is that the seats continue to earn status credits and points for me, but are priced less as taxes aren’t applied to the seats.

Total price for the day was a little more than I’d budgeted, but I’ve got a plan for that.

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QantasLink Dash Sale

Posted on February 21, 2012 by Sam Heathfield

In my goal to re-qualify Platinum I have to fly a lot. Unfortunately the majority of my flying is now limited to QLD, which creates a bit of an issue considering the price of most QLD destinations by air travel. That said though, there are a lot of regional destinations and today a QantasLink Dash-8 sale launched that lasts until Friday.

There are some destinations I want to visit, to cross off my list, and others I’d like to revisit because I like them, and then there’s also good places to travel to rake up the SC’s earned from flying. To it my conundrum is between a place I like to travel and a place that has a good $/SC value.

For $168 I can fly to MKY (Mackay) via ROK (Rockhampton), and return, earning me 40SC. This gives me a $/SC value of 4.2. Admittedly pretty good for Australia. I don’t know what I’d do in MKY though, and reaps I need to look at some tourist information before making a decision on that.

On the other hand, I have LRE, which despite having visited twice, most recently over Christmas, is starting to become a place I really enjoy. I’m even considering purchasing an annual membership to the Qantas museum, or going as far as a lifetime membership (it’s only $350)! The cost for flights there is $218 and I’d only earn 30SC, giving a $/SC value of 7.26. It’s no where near as good, but I do enjoy the museum.

So I put it to you, my readers, comment and tell me which is the better choice? Or suggest a better choice for me, with flights in QLD. Preferably Qantas. Haha.

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