Diving Mactan's walls

Returning to dive Mactan Island, I have to check my memory as it was some time ago, the best way is to check some old certification cards. I was passed out as competent based on the dives I did back then for the cost of PADI registration.

The walls are pretty much vertical, there is nice soft coral growth and some pretty decent gorgonian fans. The grey sky encountered on every dive really didn't allow the walls and corals to light up as well as they could.

That being said, the walls were pretty good, the marine life was pretty decent and the currents not too savage. What I did see was a build-up of silt on the wall, corals and fans, there were suspended particles from the water movement that clouds visibility but I still found it fairly decent.

As Mactan Island is the site of the international airport, flights from Asia are landing on a regular basis. Chinese, Hong Kong, South Korean and Japanese tour groups are regulars on the Mactan walls after arriving on short haul flights, spending a couple of days in a resort diving before jetting home.

Mactan Island is a fairly decent place to dive, it is not really world class diving, but more than acceptable for a short-term dive holiday. The Mactan walls are well preserved, there are numerous dive boat operators moored in the bay and from what I experienced, they don't have to travel far to drop divers on a decent site and they use moorings.

Getting back into shape

I was pretty athletic before, mind you I had a couple of things going for me. I was young, I trained like a semi-professional athlete and I had very active employment.

I am older now, I traded the outdoor lifestyle to study and I have an office job. That being said, I completed my study over a year ago yet I haven't regained my fitness. I was working full-time, studying part-time and trying to get some fitness activities in where I could.

Even though I was studying I got to the gym twice a week, ran 5 km twice a week and did some extra weight sessions at home. That wasn't enough, the study commitments got the better of me and I reduced the weights to one session a week before finishing all together.

Weekends were about study and writing up assignments, there was no social time and what time I did spend out was always getting done quickly so I could return home to work. I stopped driving to work so I could use my time more efficiently by catching the train to work so I could read required text and note take.

So now I embark on a career change, a new job includes a new lifestyle and I am positive I will change my lifestyle and regain fitness. I will be back in the gym, back running and I have purchased a new mountain bike to start cycling again. I am really excited about my renewed vigor and outlook.

The coronavirus financial meltdown

Our retirement savings are taking a beating, I haven't lost my life and so far none of my family have and that is the primary issue. What has happened in Italy is just terrible, while I don't know anyone who lost their life, I cannot imagine how their families feel.

At some stage we are going to have to take a look at the financial ramifications of this mess, my and everyone else's superannuation fund is looking very sick. Sure, you don't make a loss until you sell so I am in no distress in that regard.

What gets smashed is earnings and dividends, I will seek to buy quality blue chip shares with the cash saved over a long period. I thought the market was overpriced and coming to the end of a long bull run.

I can't say I predicted this financial meltdown, I thought there would be a slowdown and a six to eighteen month bear market. There is a US presidential election this year, I expected the bull run to continue throughout the 2020 election year and into 2021 before the inevitable correction.

But this has all changed, I will follow this market down and look to buy. This time I will be all in and although I won't find the bottom, this could be the buying opportunity I have been seeking. We have mass unemployment, people will be glad to go out again so restaurants and bars could pick up.

The international economy will be depressed for some time, growth will be slow and I am sure some economies will seek to rebuild their manufacturing base. We have binged on cheap imports from China too long and neglected national supply chains.

The world was in a slow growth phase, wages were stagnant across the world fueled by debt and the growth of money. What we have seen from this virus pandemic is more sovereign debt so unless nations engage in infrastructure investment I just can’t see any changes in the short term.

Mack fashionwear

One of the great American trucking brands, Mack is a robust, no-nonsense prime mover, the Americans call a tractor, built on a foundation of rugged Allentown engineering is undoubtedly the best known truck brand.

So Mack is now in the fashion wear business moving from industrial themed advertising Mack branded caps, jackets, shirts and boots into more mainstream fashion - they call trucker apparel. I have lightweight Mack safety footwear with protective top capping so I can wear in heavy duty workshops.

These were once built steel caps but with technology flowing into safety products, a carbon fibre protective toe is both strong and lightweight. We all once wore heavy duty work boots and this added to the fatigue at the end of every shift.

I'm glad Mack is moving into fashion wear, Mack clothing is no longer restricted to the Pennsylvania heartland. Mack products are being identified as cool by the young set and worn out as casual wear - a great product is now moving mainstream.

Zoom meetings

For those of us who are office jockeys and able to work from home, Zoom is the new program we are all using. Actually, it isn't bad as you can have everyone loaded on screen and have a meeting so information does not need to be repeated.

While I have only been involved in a couple of Zoom meeting so far, using the program on my laptop computer was relatively straightforward. So far we haven't been Zoombombed, then again, the level of meeting I was involved in wouldn't be up to a hacker's standard - these meetings were really a waste of time.

Major organisations such as Google, NASA, SpaceX and Australian universities and beginning to stop Zoom meetings citing security issues. When you get Zoombombed hackers jump into your meeting and sprout hate speech or post pornographic pictures - I can safely say none of my meetings have been so exciting.

No damage from the fire - we dodged one here

In Western Australia we escaped the bulk of the bushfires, the major cause was the dry conditions caused by the Indian Ocean Dipole and was more severe in Central Australia and the East Coast.

There was still bushfires in Western Australia, it is bushfire season after all and a  fact of life for many of us. The week before Easter saw some great autumn weather, 36 C on good Friday with stunning weather over the Easter break so the fire that raced through our area on the Monday/Tuesday befor Easter was a concern.

People were told to pack up and leave immediately, their lives were at risk so we followed the fire via newsfeeds, our block is long and backs out into thick scrub. Only just in 2019 we had a fence put on the back to stop motorbikes riding through our property and a gate was erected. 

We have kangeroos feeding on the grass at the back, there is possums up in the trees and bandicoots all in the area. When a fire races through, you first think of human life, then your property and then the wildlife in the area. 

While it is too early for us to survey the wildlife lost as we are still locked down, it was interesting as the bush at the back of our property was too thick to walk through, the fire took out all the scrub and left the trees. This is a usual occurrence, Australian trees seems to grow better with fire sweeping through.

The whole idea of burning off is to remove all the debris, low intensity firs lit under the right conditions remove all the fuel and damage to wildlife is minimal. We were lucky, the fire pretty much burned past our back fence and while it did burn on our property, there was minimal damage with just our wood heap burnt. 

Working from home

For those of us lucky enough, we are now able to work from home, we set up our home offices and we get to work. We save on fuel, avoid traffic and travel time - this will be the new way of working into the future once this social isolation is over. 

I was fortunate enough to be able to work from home one day per week as it was, now my full 5 day week is from home so I am loving it. I work from an open plan office so while they try to say it is great for collaboration, it isn't - it is great for distractions.

So, I have YouTube playing all day in a minimised window with music, when they upgraded my computer and I lost my sound then I brought my tablet in and connected to the office WiFi. With my headphones onI can drown out all the background noise, whining, complaining and useless discussions and just get on with it.

At home I am more productive, you have to be disciplined so I get up at 6 am like normal, as it is now autumn, it isn't really light early and I go for a 7.5 km run, water the lawn and garden by hand, a quick weights session, shower off and still start before my standard 8 am official start time.

You get more done, you set goals, create a tracking sheet to monitor progress and go. I am coordinating others from home so emails, zoom meetings and phone calls are common practice without interfering too much with my personal goals. 

You end up working more, that is a given and can end up working well into the evening as the distractions are gone. As businesses see the benefits and increased productivity, there will be more of home offices. For those who lack the personal discipline, they will still have to trundle off to work every morning - for the rest of us, this is a new beginning.   

Still working

As I am still working, there is no social distancing and no extra cleaning of classrooms or work areas - they don't clean at all. So I have Pine O Clean disinfectant to clean my desk and the two desks near mine.

I then go up and clean the classroom before class, there should be people cleaning all the door handles, hand-rails and other shared areas. Unfortunately, there wasn't so I had to do myself during the day.

They pretty much aren't cleaning, the rooms are not even cleaned at night as I notice the students leave their books and papers on their desks overnight and they are in the exact same position in the morning.

There should be hand sanitiser issued to lecturers and they should ensure the class sanitises their hands and there isn't, the management is negligent, they should be all over this and they aren't. I was pretty concerned, this is how the virus is transmitted. 

They go attend meaningless meetings like normal and achieve very little so it is business as normal. Needless to say, you don't see them down in our area, they have made an art form of social distancing and invisibility.

So I push on, three lectures have taken leave, I have my hand sanitiser and I have trained myself to not touch my face with my hands. My motto now is be careful not careless, tomorrow I will be down the workshop teaching electronic control systems sharing laptop computers and tools. 

We have staff walking around coughing and not covering their mouths, to be fair, he has apparently had this illness since last winter so it can't be China virus and he just makes us sick with the standard flu instead - I think that's fair.

Then that all changed, the education unions met with the state government and they called an end to classes in the lead up to Easter and school holidays. This was a good move and not unexpected, hence why I rushed to finish my class early, it was final year apprentices and now they are ready to be signed off as they come out of contract.

I have no issues with working through the coronavirus pandemic. All I ask is the management procure the required safety equipment, create proper procedures for running classes and ensure the required products like hand sanitiser is available to everyone. 

Don't forget the cleaning, that means getting out of their offices and walking around to see how everything is working. This is the role of management, they cannot offload their responsibilities anymore. 

The National Cabinet assembled for the COVID-19 emergency

The Australian National Cabinet is a governing body devised at federal level to provide bipartisan leadership to address the national emergency of COVID-19 consisting of the seven state Premiers, two territory Chief Ministers and Prime Minister as chairman.

The National Cabinet was assembled out of necessity to provide the leadership from a state perspective. Australia is an assembly of states with state governments each running their state receiving funding from federal tax collection.

Services such as health, education, transport and emergency services are run at state level. The federal government runs immigration, quarantine and the military is a federal jurisdiction. There is a federal health minister

On the recommendation of the state Premiers, there was no requirement for Opposition Leaders at the meetings including the Federal Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese. This was to not to become a political vehicle racked with infighting and indecision.

This is a new model of emergency decision-making, the states have jurisdiction over their states and territory whilst still following a national strategy. Each state has the ability to act in their best interest without political power struggles, conflict and blame-shifting.

This is an extraordinary Cabinet insofar as both political spectrums are represented with state Labor governments working with a federal Liberal leadership. So now the Chief Health Officers meet without political interference from State Health Ministers then provide their advice directly to the National Cabinet.

The Chief Health Officers receive advice from sources like the AMA (Australian Medical Association) as well as the state branches of the AMA. Leading experts in their respective fields advise the Chief Health Officers who then advise the politicians but only elected officials form the National Cabinet.

Never trust the Chinese

There is a saying I have just learnt working for a Chinese company, never trust the Chinese and based upon my personal experiences, I have to agree. I would like to add to that definition, the Chinese are devoid of ethics, values and integrity.

You only have to look at their trademark infringements, counterfeiting of products, theft of intellectual property, currency manipulation, forced transfer of technology, lack of access to Chinese markets and lack of safety standards for counterfeit products.

So where does this leave me? I have Chinese friends so I can't be accused of hating on Chinese, I certainly distrust Chinese corporations and Chinese managers in general. When it comes to Chinese corporate ethics, I have no respect for Chinese corporations and the people in charge of them.

Red Balloon tea

It's hard for me to purchase TWG Tea in Perth, usually my best option is to make my acquisition at Singapore's Changi Airport where I was a frequent traveler.

I am able to purchase a narrow selection of TWG Tea from the David Jones department store in the city, although this is a fairly expensive way to purchase an expensive product. This doesn't mean it will break the bank, I just don't like paying way over the expected retail price for what is basically a cup of tea.

I was able to purchase TWG Tea from David Jones at Karrinyup shopping centre, whilst that was a limited range it was convenient. That all changed when they took the product off the shelf and I was left with going to the city as my only option.

Due to their limited range I had to try Red Balloon tea, not a first choice for me but since Red of Africa and Eternal Summer tea was not available I wasn't left with too many choices. Red Balloon comes in a rather strange container, a light blue box with of course a red balloon as the design feature.

Red Balloon tea is made from red rooibos tea, an African tea blended with blueberry, you can actually see the blue pieces in the mix. Naturally, this accounts for the blue container although I am a little unsure where the balloon comes from but is pretty good for a change.

Are the Russian and Chinese governments spreading misinformation on coronavirus?

I had heard rumours on Chinese social media that they were holding the US responsible for the coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan a number of weeks before the story broke. The story goes that a US military team spread the virus during the Military World Games in Wuhan in September 2019.

Chinese Foreign Ministry Deputy Director General Zhao Lijian had tweeted an article authored by Canadian writer Larry Romanoff that the Americans were responsible, so this sparked my interest, I now follow him on Twitter.

The Montreal based group named Global Research claims to be a think tank, but appears to be nothing more than a conspiracy theory webside. Based on some basic internet research, Romanoff appears to not be as well credentialed as he claims to be.

No long after, The New York Times ran an article co-authored by Julian E. Barnes, Matthew Rosenburg and Edward Wong regarding Chinese and Russian disinformation. Rosenburg had been awarded a Pulitzer Prize in 2018, Wong was awarded a Livingstone Award and a Pulitzer Prize finalist, so they are all well credentialed journalists.

I read an article on Singapore’s The Straights Times that the residents of Wuhan were starting to emerge from lockdown and the general feeling was happiness. They have endured a long two months; however, their attitude seems very blasé and indifferent about the effects of this disease on the rest of the world.

So I decided to comment on the article, I had planned to write a post about this very issue and the replies (if any) would form part of my response. Boy, did my comment cause some aggressive replies, whilst I wanted to gauge responses, this was certainly an eye opener.

As a duty of disclosure so people can form their own opinions, my initial comment was "Pride? That's a new take on national pride... Pride that they infected the whole world with the coronavirus from their unsanitary wet markets but they are doing ok now because Italy and Spain are losing lives on an unprecedented scale." 

I responded to the first comments with this response before shutting down the notifications. "There are horrible rates of infection and death in developed nations. What is looking likely will be truly horrific rates in the undeveloped areas of Africa, Central Asia and South America."

I had read that Chinese trolls were attacking individuals commenting about China’s culpability in regards to the coronavirus outbreak, subsequent mismanagement and poorly executed cover-up, so I decided to see for myself.

Known as the 50 cent party, as it is claimed these online trolls are paid fifty cents for each online comment. There is also chatter they are just government employees seeking to gain influence within their department for promotion.

I am glad I take these responders as fools, these responses are certainly acidic using fake accounts and personal attacks to push their agenda. Fortunately they don’t bother me, I could well understand why a person who is a little fragile could really come apart with disastrous consequences.

After an hour or so, I had turned off the notices linked to this article, I wasn’t engaging these angry, nasty people although I wanted to read their responses at a later date. The individuals interviewed were proud of their country and how their superior system was better than the west.

Responding to these people is like stepping in dog shit, you can choose to walk around or you can step right in it. They are all angry and bothered and I am laughing at them, they provide some of the research to the theories I am following up.

So the early responses were along the lines of these countries should have followed WHO advice so they will get what they deserve. The Italians were the source of the virus and brought it to China, Italian doctor Giuseppe Remuzzi states he was misquoted in a textbook example of propaganda.

When they worked out I was from Australia, they started on the indigenous angle not knowing my personal background. What these idiots clearly do not know is indigenous communities in central Australia are being heavily locked down to protect these vulnerable people, they are at greater risk than mainstream Australia and this virus could devastate these communities.

There was of course the race based comments, there is no such thing as reverse racism, this will be the topic of a later post. After my initial scan of the comment section, there were no comments about being an ang mo - let’s see if this changed when I check on the weekend. I need a good laugh and the angrier these fools get the better.

People are dying in Italy and Spain, the UK is looking in serious trouble along with France and Germany. The rest of Europe is the new epicentre of the virus outbreak and the US could eclipse them all. How could they be so callous, instead inciting national pride in a disaster of their creation, at time of publishing, there are more than 1 million infections and 50,000 deaths.

I worked in Africa in 2019 so I feel some affinity with the plight of the people of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, it is a harsh life for these people. My concern is the medical systems of developed countries can’t cope with the sheer number of patients, people living in developing countries.

This time last year I was riding my mountain bike through their villages so I have a bit of an idea of what life is like for them there, these people were my colleagues and friends. Fortunately I am able to keep in contact with them on Linkedin.   

Boy did I hit the jackpot with my comment. I latched onto the Chinese nationalistic feeling and the misinformation they are engaging in. When I post, I will be sending them a link thanking them for their input - you proved correct what others were saying. Then I get to use google analytics to trace their point of origin so I get to test my theory.

Don't you lecture us

Xi Jinping, the General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party is a nasty piece of work. I cannot believe the bullshit he tried to pull at the G20 meeting, give it a rest dickhead - you caused this mess. 

China is not the world power they proclaim to be, this pandemic sweeping the world is a result of lax standards, poor hygiene and a totalitarian society that cannot even enforce their own markets. This is not the first time the deplorable conditions of Chinese wet markets have spurred toxic diseases, this is a common occurrence.

What a bunch of losers, they are either a mob of incompetent idiots unable to run their own country or they are so corrupt they only survive due to their insistence on the reprehensible behaviour they encourage.

Had China been proactive instead of implementing their usual pathetic communist policies of secrecy and denial, this world pandemic would not have occured. Don’t you ever lecture us on how this pandemic could be contained, Xi Jinping and his bunch of bumbling incompetent fools are the cause of this mess - this is on Xi Jinping.