Category Archives: 12 of 12

November 12 of 12 …

November 12, 2013 Scott Leave a comment

It has been not quite a week since getting out of hospital after the “heart attack” and today I needed to go to a funeral of a motor racing identity, Peter Hall, who has driven his last race.

Of course, as I haven’t been driving, the car had a flat battery. Lucky this morning was sunny and the solar panels were soon connected and there was enough charge to get the motor going.

The turn out for the funeral was enormous, filling both chapels, the auditorium and outside. It was a fitting send off for an Aussie Legend.

Part of my rehabilitation involves a lot of exercise to get the heart ticking and the blood flowing. This afternoon, I took off to Belair National Park to grab some of the geocaches that involved a bit of walking near the Upper Waterfall and the old Fire Spotting Tower.

The beauty of this area is that you will always spot a koala or two and today was no exception as well as lizards but luckily no snakes.

Until next month …

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12 of 12, Geocaching, Out and About

October 12 of 12 …

October 12, 2013 Scott Leave a comment

After a week away 4WDing and geocaching up Googs Track and back through the Gawler Ranges it was time to head home. We had spent a couple of days trying to clear the map around Whyalla but failed even though we found 200+ there still are plenty still to go.

Before heading north, we spent a couple of hours getting a few of the picturesque caches mainly along the coast, doing a mini power trail as well.

Arriving at Port Augusta heralded a milestone of 12000 geocache finds with a find of the cache, Dead Boats Don’t Float Two. This is the third attempt on this one and good to get it off the list.

There were some interesting caches including a Japanese puzzle box and one near a giant thong.

That’s it for this months 12 of 12 …

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12 of 12, Scott at Work

September 12 of 12 …

September 12, 2013 Scott Leave a comment

Today was a average sort of day and for once I was ready for the 12 of 12 🙂

Usual ritual to start with a 7:35am wakeup and how many times did snooze get hit 😉

Called in on the postbox en-route to work (but it was empty) and negotiated a few back streets to get away from the traffic although I had to drop off the Nissan Patrol for its 80000km service at 85000km. I must be coming a familiar face at Unley Nissan as they asked me if I wanted a ride into work and I didn’t have to tell them where I worked.

After starting up the computer, down came the updates so 1/2 an hour later I could finally get some work done.

Around 11:00am the sky was starting to get darker and checking out the radar, there was some heavy rain on its way.

Since I didn’t have a car, an early lunch was in order so that I could still do my 2 km walk to the lunch shop without getting drowned. Managed to make it there and back with only a few drops of rain even with a holdup at the new Victoria Square redevelopment.

The rain held off until around 4:00pm and down it came. It was somewhat amusing to see the Deputy Chief as a drowned rat after walking back from a meeting. He had rang for me to pick him up but without a car it was not possible.

A ride to Unley Nissan had been organised but of course he forgot me so Plan B was put in place with one of the On Shift Commanders dropping me off. We only just got there in time as they were about to lock my car up for the night.

After the initial downpour at 4:00pm, a second and heavier one happened around 8:00pm with 21mm of rain falling for the day following the second front.

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12 of 12, Firefighting, Geocaching, Scott at Work, Work, Work Life

August 12 of 12 ….

August 12, 2013 Scott Leave a comment

Another day when I nearly forgot. You would think that I would have put it in my calendar by now. 🙂

This month I am doing a stint back on shift work as the Metropolitan Commander North on C Shift. I spent 17 years on C Shift as a firefighter and senior firefighter so it is good to get back to my roots but gee I don’t recognise a lot of faces. I guess that is understandable as we have hired over 1000 personnel in the last 28 years.

The day started out in my office overlooking the Engine Room of Adelaide Fire Station but I wasn’t there long as I was due out at my northern office at Golden Grove Fire Station.

After completing a formal visit with the crew at the Station, there was time to grab a cache on the way through to our Engineering Workshops.

During August there is a Geocaching Challenge to find at least one geocache a day. So far I have found one on every day so far. Today’s find was GC2JRQ0 – the Wreck Centre. 31 days should be a breeze as I have had a streak of 333 days a few years ago. 🙂

It was time to head back to my Adelaide Office to get a new rechargeable light fitted to the Command Car (always like new toys).

Lunch today was a “dog roll” which is our name for a Vietnamese roll as you never know what the meat really is. 🙂

And there goes another 12 of 12 ….

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12 of 12, Firefighting, Scott at Work

July 12 of 12 …

July 12, 2013 Scott Leave a comment

This month is certainly a contrast to last month.

Firstly, I am at work (I know many of you are shocked – I do have to work some times 😉 ).

Secondly, the temperature was about half of what it was last month when I was in the Northern Territory. Today was around 15C whereas a month ago I was enjoying 28C.

Not only was I at work but also “On Call”, and it didn’t take long before getting my first callout for a 2nd Alarm house fire out north in the “Badlands”, but never made it there as the alarm was downgraded before arriving.

Overnight, our IT Department decided to roll out Windows 7 (we have been using XP forever). It didn’t go all that well with only one IT Guru left today to assist with getting things back to normal. I finally got email by lunchtime and printing around 3:00 pm.

The boys downstairs were pretty busy with a number of Motor Vehicle Accidents due to the wet weather but it slowed down by afternoon.

As is usual on a Friday afternoon, there is always a late email that requires action before walking out the door and today was no different. After poring through the last 5 years of Annual Reports, I soon had the answers and was on my way.

We are currently getting one our bathrooms remodelled and it always exciting to see how far the builder has got each day. By the time he left tonight, the walls and ceilings were in and we are now awaiting the gyprock flusher tomorrow.

Until next month when I will be back “On Shift”.

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12 of 12, 4WDing, Geocaching, Holidays, Out and About

June 12 of 12 …

June 12, 2013 Scott Leave a comment

Once again, another month and on the road again. This time in the Northern Territory. We had a big drive today from Alice Springs through to Mataranka (1075 km).

Camp was broken on daybreak and after a brief stop in Alice Springs getting fuel and supplies. we headed north on the Stuart Highway.

We made a few stops for geocaches but not for me as I had found them all last year. I was travelling with a mate that had never been to the Northern Territory and I had him on rations with some cache finds each hour to break up the drive. It was 800 km between cache finds for me. 🙁

Some of the stops included the Barrow Creek Telegraph Station, Native Gap, Wycliffe Well (the UFO Capital of Australia), Tennant Creek then onto Mataranka.

Unfortunately we didn’t have time to stop at Devils Marbles, but you always need to leave something for next time. 🙂

A few more stops at some memorials and we arrived at Mataranka just on sunset and it was spectacular with the moon and stars appearing as the sun set.

A quick meal at the homestead and then it was into the Thermal Pool for a well deserved 1.5 hour soak. A great finish to the 12th of June.

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12 of 12, Geocaching

May 12 of 12 …..

May 12, 2013 Scott Leave a comment

After a very interesting and busy day yesterday as the Deputy Incident Controller of the Cherryville Fire, today was going to be a lot quieter and possibly not be able to even get 12 photos.

Instead of breakfast, I had more of a brunch after a much deserved sleep in after 3 days including a night shift at the Cherryville fire.

With the new purchase of a Garmin Oregon 600 pending when they came into stock, I took the time to watch a few videos going through the new features of the unit.

Jenny even discovered how to use a new vacuum cleaner that was purchased during the week – I know vacuum cleaners and Jenny are an unusual occurrence.

Much of the rain we received last night continued but it didn’t stop me heading out during a break in the rain to get some local geocaches.

I took Molly the geodog for a walk and of course as soon as we reached the first cache, down came the rain. It gets to a point where you can not get any wetter so we continued on to another couple of caches in the Blackwood Forest Reserve.

By the time I got home, there was one very wet and sorry looking dog. This was soon remedied with a hot bath and blow dry. Molly was again a happy dog.

A bit more time this afternoon to actually get around to doing the May 12 of 12. Certainly not as exciting today as a month ago.

Next month I will be on the road to Darwin so some more interesting photos then ……

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12 of 12, Firefighting, Out and About, USA 2013

April 12 of 12 …. Last Day in the US

April 12, 2013 Scott Leave a comment

Lucky I was still in the US this month as it gave me an extra day before having to remember the 12 of 12 as I forgot last month.

Today was my last day after a month flitting around the US from Reno, Los Angeles, Orange County, Oxnard, San Diego, Las Vegas, Austin, Port Aransas, Corpus Christi and San Antonio.

Not a lot on the agenda today which started with a couple of LPC (Lamp Post Caches) geocache finds around Anaheim before heading over to Signal Hill near Long Beach.

My visit to Signal hill was to see the private Fire Collection of Chan Brenard. Chan has been collecting fire related material for a long time and it is an impressive collection from helmets, fire truck models, books and a large amounts of fire equipment catalogs from over the last 50 years.

Another interesting thing about Signal Hill is that it is a small city of around 3 square miles that has refused to be annexed into the much larger City of Long Beach that surrounds it because of oil. There is a huge amount of oil underneath the hill providing good revenues to the city.

There are bobbing oil pumps everywhere including backyards of houses and even the drive thru of the local McDonalds. After having lunch at the Black Bear Diner at the bottom of the hill with Chan and Gill it was back to check out more of Chan’s stuff.

Time was getting on and I had a hour or so to drive up to LAX for one last time. Traffic wasn’t too bad so there was time for a meal at In ‘n Out Burger and watch a few planes land as the sun set on Los Angeles.

Dropped off the car then headed to the Qantas check-in with no issues regard to weight. I might have been saved as I upgraded the Melbourne-Adelaide leg to business which gave me extra privileges here as well. 🙂

Still had some time to wait so went outside and walked the terminals grabbing around 20 Munzee’s that were located here.

Managed to get through the TSA checkpoint OK and it was off to the gate which of course was the furthest away. It was fairly quiet here and it wasn’t long before it was announced that we were going to another gate – which was the one with the plane parked alongside I had passed on the way to this one.

We were all on board when the power started doing weird stuff with drop outs and the screens resetting and all this before the push back from the gate. An announcement came that there were issues – I guess we already knew that. Supposedly it was some sensors on the doors were not working properly and engineers were working on it.

An hour later and we were pushing back but it wasn’t for a further 30 minutes that we joined the queue to take off. At this point we were 1.5 hours late from taking off. It was going to be interesting at the other end with connecting flights if they don’t make up the time over the pond but that is another story …….

$Chan Brenard\'s fire Collection$

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12 of 12, Home Life, Scott at Work, Work Life

February 12 of 12 …

February 12, 2013 Scott Leave a comment

After forgetting the 12 of 12 in January, I was not going to miss this month.

Today was an average work day with just a few meetings (even with a wrong date on the agenda) and some paperwork and no exciting incidents to attend. I did manage some exercise up and down the stairs between meetings. 🙂

There were some noises coming from the front of the car. One ended up being the siren speaker having come unattached from its mount which was quickly fixed by our work electrician. The second noise is a little more serious and will hopefully be fixed tomorrow by Nissan.

Once at home, it was time to get the recycling ready for tomorrows pickup and check that the parrots had left us some peaches (we netted the tree last night).

A giggle to finish the day with some Engrish instructions that arrived with some waterproof phone/GPSr pouches I received from an eBay seller in Hong Kong.

Another 12 of 12 is over …

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12 of 12, Geocaching, Work Life

December 12 of 12 ….

December 12, 2012 Scott 1 Comment

Today was a special day, in that as well as being a 12 of 12 day it was also the 12/12/12 – this won’t happen for another 100 years and I don’t think I will be here for that one …

Wednesday is bin day and they came around early today – it was going to be a hot day with a top temperature of 37C (99F).

The pool was ready and with the kids on school holidays, it would get a work out today.

What wasn’t working was the airconditioning on the Nissan Patrol. It had died slowly last night coming home from work but had nothing but heat this morning.

After calling into the post office to check for the mail, I was starting to get hot under the collar by the time I got to work.

Called the Nissan dealer to explain the predicament and they said bring it in – great.

After lunching across from Unley Nissan, it looked to be taking a bit longer than they expected so back to work for a few more hours.

Adelaide was subject again in this time with more of the tropical weather we are becoming accustomed to, with more thunderstorms and floodings. High humidity and high temperatures soon takes it out of you.

The car was ready by the knock off time but there was no one around to drop me back to the dealer. Time for a new experience (not that new – just haven’t done it for a while) with taking public transport to pick up the car.

Being the 12/12/12, there is of course a geocaching event and tonight’s was in the Badlands (north of Grand Junction Road) – 12.12.12. – The end of the Flippen ‘Numbers. It was a good turnout with a BBQ and good company.

My plan today was to find 12 geocaches today but lost count and overachieved with 13 finds. 🙂

Made it home around 10:30 pm and that finishes a very different 12 of 12 ….