D.A. Cairns's Blog, page 2

A Dog's Eye: Freelancer v Upwork

Starting a new business is not easy, especially when you're not a business oriented person. For me the 'business' of writing is nowhere near as fun as actual writing. It has its moments of course, but rather than being 'writing' moments, such times are the fruit of writing and/or the fruit of the business of writing.

As a 'nobody' novelist, the business of writing is all about selling books: marketing, to find readers, while as a short story writer, it's all about the search for markets, trying to find publishers. On the other hand, the business of writing for a freelancer is all about getting clients.

Irrespective of the specific target of my writing/business of writing endeavours, the bottom line goal is to meet needs, to satisfy demands.

Which brings me to Upwork and Freelancer. How have these two platforms met my need to find clients? How are they supporting me to build my freelance writing business?

Profile creation 

Not much difference between the two. It's relatively straight forward to create a basic profile on both. However, the Upwork website looks cleaner, more professional, and is easier to navigate than Freelancer.

Membership 

Freelancer charges a monthly fee for membership at different levels. I'm on a basic membership plan which allows me to bid for 50 jobs per month for $13. For an additional fee, you can take a grammar test which if you pass adds 20% value to your profile. I refused to do that. They also offer to boost your proposals for a fee. There are a number of other allegedly useful services which also requirement payment.

Upwork gives you Connects to use to pay for bids when you sign up. Proposals cost from 2 to 6 Connects. When you run out of Connects, you can purchase more in packages starting from $3 for 10 Connects. If you respond to an invitation or interact with a client, Upwork also gives you free Connects. In other words you get rewarded for being active. It's been two months since I purchased any Connects on Upwork.

Bidding

Freelancer has two channels for finding jobs, one of which is a drop down of the very latest jobs. Initially I thought this was great. As there is a lot of competition for jobs, it makes sense to bid on the most recently advertised jobs as soon as you can. In practice, it is not as useful as it seemed. When doing a traditional job search, you can't save jobs. You can't attach any documents to your bids and Freelancer also limits how low you can bid which means in many cases you won't get the job because obviously clients will select the lowest bids. The other problem is Freelancer doesn't tell you when you've already bid on a job. It's difficult to keep track of what you're doing, and what you've done, on Freelancer.

Upwork only has a traditional job search, but you can save jobs you like, then go to your saved jobs and work through them one by one, to send a proposal or not. Upwork also limits your bottom bid, but on some jobs you also have an option to bid an hourly rate or a milestone rate. For example, it's $40 an hour or $250 for the job, divided into three milestone payments of $50 + $100 + $100. Upwork notifies you when a job you have bid on is no longer available. It's very easy to keep track of what your doing in terms of job searching and bidding on Upwork.

Next time, I'll talk about the communication functions of the two platforms, payments, dispute resolution, and the quality and volume of the work.

A Dog's Eye: Freefaller

I stepped off the edge, but I didn't fall. Was it a miracle? Was it luck? Was it, in fact what I had suspected all along? That if I surrendered my right to financial security based on working 9 to 5 for a wage, I would survive? 

On April 8 this year I was made redundant. My role as lead teacher was identified by management as one which was unnecessary. I was no longer required. I couldn't help feel, as I still do, that the decision to deem my position surplus to requirements cast a pall on everything I had done during my two and half years with the company. It doesn't mean my contributions had no value, but it's difficult not to see it that way.

Losing my job was a good thing. Even though I enjoyed most aspects of the work, and of course I loved the regular pay packet and the associated tax benefits of working for a not-for-profit organisation, I wanted to leave. I had been praying for a way out.

Ever since I was gifted an old 486 computer, in 1998, and made the subsequent decision that I wanted to be a writer, I have been dreaming of achieving that goal. Of course, I could never pursue that dream full time. For mostly financial reasons, my writing remained a hobby, until April 8, 2021.

The time had come. I once dreamed of being a professional writer, of earning my living exercising my brain and my imagination by tapping on the keyboard of my laptop. Now I dream of more. I am a writer. Although it has taken some time to get used to, I now tell people when they ask what I do. I tell them I am a writer. Thanks for asking, I say then I give them one of my business cards. I'm a writer, but I'm not earning a living...not yet. I'm in a kind of freefall. Financially untethered.

I have six novels and scores of published short stories under my belt, but I've only made pocket money from these works. I have a memoir which is nearly ready to be published, and I've almost finished the first draft of what will be my seventh novel. My most recent short story will feature in an upcoming anthology. This is one aspect of my writing, one half, if you like, of my work as a writer. These are my projects. They bear my name. They carry my hopes. These are the projects will fuel my creative fire.

The other half is the new world of freelance writing: content articles, short stories, longer works of fiction, non fiction books, and even speeches. I get paid for them but none of these works bear my name because I'm a ghostwriter. Someone else gets the glory. I do get paid way more than I've ever earned from those pieces which bear my name though. It's not regular pay either, and mostly it's not big money and a lot of it is just work. The passion I feel for my work is missing with this ghostwriting work. It's just work.

The two platforms I've been using to find freelance writing work since I began my freefall are Upwork and Freelancer. Yesterday I made the decision to leave Freelancer. I apologize for teasing you. I did say in my previous post that I would discuss the differences between these two platforms in this post. However, when I sat down to write, I was carried away to another place. Not far away mind you. Not the bottom of the cliff from which I stepped off. I'm not going to reach the bottom, by the way. I'm on the way up because God caught me soon after I yielded to gravity. I'm safe, even though I don't always feel safe, I am.

I'm a freelancer. I'm a writer. My decisions are based on that fact now. How does this or that support my quest to return to my previous income level, or higher, on the back of my writing? That's the question.

Why have I dumped Freelancer? Why do I much prefer Upwork? How is my journey from hobby writer to professional going? Next time, I promise to lay it all out for you.

Snake Oil: Filthy Rich Writer

Right off the bat, I have to say I am not a fan of the expression 'filthy rich' because it suggests that riches are dirty. That being rich is a bad thing. Wealth is a tool, and tools can be used for good or bad purposes. Generally speaking, I think wealth is good and I suspect it would be a losing and futile search for me to find anyone to disagree.

My post today is inspired by an ad which appeared in my Facebook Newsfeed. (I'm aware of the contradiction. A slightly oxymoronic use of ad and news together.) The headline of the ad is 'Filthy Rich Writer' and it's an invitation for people with spare time on their hands, stuck at home due to COVID lockdowns or some other reason, to write content for websites and make a lot of money.

Snake Oil.

If you've written anything, then you know why this ad is obviously false. It's especially false for ghostwriters, who can make money, but rarely heaps of it.

Since losing my job as Lead Teacher with a not for profit Registered Training Organization, I have been concentrating on establishing a new career as a freelance writer. With six novels, and scores of published short stories under my belt, I'm not a novice writer, but as a freelancer, I'm starting from scratch. Freelancers mostly ghostwrite articles, stories and books for their clients. Most of these clients seem to be 'middle men' who sell content written by others to their own clients. Pay rates range from around half a cent per word up to 2 cents per word. So, a 1000 word article at half a cent per word pays $5. Do you know how long it takes to write a 1000 word article on a subject with which you are unfamiliar? Even at two cents per word, you're talking about an hourly pay rate of about $15. Filthy rich? (writer chokes on a mouthful of tea).

For my next post, I'm gong to write about the two platforms that I currently use to find freelance work. Upwork and Freelancer. My experience with these two has been mixed. I'm getting work, but I'm missing out on a lot of jobs as well. Why? I have no idea, but I suspect it comes down to money. Doesn't everything, come down to money in the end.

Platforms like Freelancer, Upwork and Fiverr are not charities. They are businesses. The primary aim of most businesses is to make money, not to help people. Not to make other people rich, but to make themselves rich.

No one who bought and read the book Three Easy Steps to Unimaginable Wealth got rich. You know who got rich? The author of the book did, because he preyed on people's laziness and greed, making ridiculous promises about how easy it is to get rich, in order to make money for himself.

Wise writers, who've been around for a while, know that 90% of services offered to writers to help them write and sell books, are, in fact, only designed to make money for those providing the services. That guy on Fiverr, who's a book marketing genius, makes extravagant promises about how many people will find out about your book. You pay your $20, which covers hidden costs only added in after you're committed, and get nothing but a screenshot of an anonymous Twitter account which mentions the title of your book but doesn't have a purchase link.

Less than one percent of writers get rich, and they don't even have to be good writers to do it. Lots of good writers do earn a reasonable living though, and I aim to be one of them. I love writing, and am enjoying the challenge of a being a freelancer which offers many opportunities to write in genres apart from those with which I am comfortable. It's stretching me, improving my skills, but I'm not going to get rich.

Honestly, a think the ambition to get rich is unworthy of humanity. If riches come, thank God. If they don't, thank God. It's not my goal to get rich. Of course I want to earn a good living and consequently have a degree of financial freedom, but wealth is not the goal. My goal is to connect with people and to make a positive contribution to the world. 

I reckon if you make love your goal, you will always be richly rewarded.

The Mirror: Gullible's Travels

Three hundred years ago, Jonathan Swift wrote a fantasy novel which his protagonist called a travel diary. He visited five fantastic lands during his travels, describing them in excruciating detail. He also recorded the ill fated journeys which took him to those places. The novel is a traveller's journal which the writer asserts is completely true despite the absurdity and impossibility of those places existing. When he told people back home in England what he had seen and experienced, some people believed him, but only because he presented physical evidence. Some who heard his tall tales might have simply humoured him during his recounts, privately dismissing him as a madman.

We basically only have two sources of knowledge. First, what we have personally experienced involving input from our five senses, six, if you want to go there, Secondly, we have what other people tell us. We might hear or read the knowledge of others. Now without diving into the deep ocean of epistomology, the bottom line is that we accumulate knowledge either from ourselves or from others, and the acceptance of what others tell us depends on authority. In other words, we incorporate other people's knowledge into our own if we trust them. Theories of knowledge are much more complicated than that, but I'm a simple man, and that's how I nutshellize the concept as I understand it.

People often tell us things which contradict our knowledge which means that someone is wrong and someone is right. The local bookshop either sells my book or they don't. Rain is either wet or it's not. This isn't such an issue because most people happily adjust their thinking when confronted with fact. Knowledge is one thing, but experience is a different beast altogether. The biggest challenge we face is when someone tells about something they experienced, something which from our experience we know can't happen. For example, my friend tells me he saw ghost. I've never seen a ghost and I don't believe in them, but I trust my friend. That's when it gets tricky.

When Gulliver told people he lived among the thumb-sized people of Lilliput for two years, they would have thought he was insane, but what about his wife? She who was in effect Gulliver's mistress, because he was married to adventure, and spent most their marriage in foreign lands. What did she think when her husband regaled her with stories of a land inhabited by giants, and another ruled by a race of necromancers?

On Gulliver's final journey, the one which arguably had the greatest impact upon him psychologically - for of course he always managed to maintain his physical health in all these strange, mythical lands - he arrived in a land where horses where at the top of the societal hierarchy. They were the most intelligent, wise and benevolent race Gulliver had ever met. When Gulliver told them about how it was at home ,in England where horses were dumb, subservient beasts, his words were greeted with not only indignation, but disbelief.

I'm not sure if Gulliver's Travels is intended to be read as satire or not, but it sure came across that way to this reader. In any case, many people (tiny and enormous), and horses evidently believed what he was saying. Well, I said as I got to the end of Gulliver's Travels to discover that Gulliver was disgusted by people, even his own wife, when he returned to England, some people will believe anything.

Knowledge must be tested. If you believe everything you hear and read, and one day you write a memoir, you'll have to call it Gullible's Travels.

relationDips: triple cheese spicy vegorama

With apologies to Dominos, whose pizzas I enjoy periodically, I present the histories of vegetarianism, pizza and vegetarian pizzas. I will then explain how all three are intricately connected with, and reflected in, our relationships.

It seems the earliest record of vegetarianism, which is the choice to not eat meat, is in the writings of ancient India. Unless you read another article which says it was Pythagoras, the great Greek mathematician; he of the famous theorem we all studied in high school. It does seem clear though from the Biblical record that Adam and Eve were vegetarians. Next level vegetarianism is veganism, under which philosophy, practitioners do not eat or use animal products.  The term veganism is a 20th century construct, but this extreme form of vegetarianism, appears to have originated around the same time, in the same cultures. 

Of course in Western societies, with their focus on the individual, vegetarianism has mostly been a choice; either a health choice or an ethical choice, or both. In eastern cultures, so bound with the religious beliefs of Hinduism and its offspring, Buddhism, and very much collectivist societies, such choices have not been, and are still not available.

Pizza was also born in ancient times, although the first use of the word only dates back to first century Gaeta, now contained in the modern nation state of Italy. While ancient Egyptians, Romans and Greeks ate various flatbreads with toppings, the pizza, as we know it today is said to have been created in Naples, in the late 18th century. 

You can travel to almost any country in the world and find some version of pizza, including vegetarian pizzas like one of my favourites, that I mentioned in the title of this post. However, it is only recently, over the last 10-15 years, that major western pizza chains like Pizza Hut and Dominos have begun offering vegetarian pizzas.

Also dating back to ancient, even pre-historic times, are relationships, and it is here that I wish to sharpen the reader's focus.

The issue of eating animal products, or not, can be an issue in relationships, but it generally isn't. Of all the problems and disagreements a couple will face, food has rarely directly caused a relationship breakdown. Eating maybe, but not food itself.

Perhaps because it is so vital, the question of what is eaten by who and where and when, seems to be an aspect of relationships in which compromise is relatively easy. As part of her Catholic practice, my wife chooses not to eat meat on Fridays. Although this prohibition is not a part of my religious practice, it has been an easy thing for me to simply not eat meat on Fridays. It's a simple way for me to demonstrate respect for her. She doesn't eat chicken because she doesn't like it, but she cooks it for the rest of the family, because we do.

If vegetarianism was a big deal for a particular person, it would certainly come up in the early stages of a relationship, and be dealt with. Post marriage or post relationship commencement vegetarianism might present more of a challenge, but as I said, it is highly unlikely to destroy the relationship.

What can we learn from all this? Pizza is good, choice is good, and compromise is not only good, but is also an indispensable ingredient for healthy relationships. Meat, on the other hand, is not an indispensable ingredient for a great tasting pizza.

Snake Oil: Bells and Whistles

Some time in everyone's life - multiple times throughout life in fact - difficult choices will present themselves. There are moments when decisions have to be made, important, pivotal points in time. The consequences of these decisions need to be considered when there is sufficient time for proper consideration. On occasion, we are forced to act quickly without proper deliberation.

Here's an example of a watershed moment which occurred recently in our lives. Everyone knows air fryers are a safe and healthy alternative to traditional oil frying. Having had countless hairy cooking sessions and suffered injury as well, my wife wanted to ditch the oil and go for the air.

So off we went to The Good Guys. The Good Guys at Warrawong are situated in a row of large homemaker stores. All the major furniture and appliance retailers are there, except Bing Lee. We chose The Good Guys for two reasons. First, our last appliance purchase had been there, albeit at the Millner store in the NT, and secondly because when you are travelling southbound on King St, as we were, they are the first appliance store you come to.

To cut a long and dull story short, we narrowed the choice of air fryers down to two; both Phillips brand air fryers. (Phillips invented the air fryer). The two fryers were identical in all but two aspects; colour and instrumentation. It was literally and figuratively, a black and white decision whether to chose the white fryer with a good old fashioned dial, or the black fryer with a digital control panel. The black fryer with it's numerous settings and bright lights was significantly more expensive. For me it was a no brainer. If the two appliances do the same thing, why pay extra for electronic controls?

It won't surprise you to hear, that my wife, as the chief cook in our home, had the final say and she chose the black one.

I'm totally okay with that. It's a great appliance which does what it is supposed to do and has certainly reduced the incidents of burns from splashing, spitting oil. I've even used it to cook pies because the gas oven we have, sucks.

My issue is the electronic component. All modern appliances have them. They have all the whistles and bells, including the twin musical dipsticks I used to joke about in relation to cars when I was young enthusiast.

The trouble with all these fancy electronics is they are noisy. Really noisy. They're intrusive rude, and a bit of a nag. Where one beep might suffice to tell me the microwave has finished it's job, several beeps insist I take action. I can't touch any buttons without loud beeping. I can see the display so the sound seems redundant. I suppose if I was blind, I would appreciate it, but come on. Why is the sound necessary? Why is it so loud? When you turn a thing on. BEEP! When you adjust the time, temperature or other setting. BEEP! When you switch it off. BEEP! I don't see the need for it.

Maybe it's how the appliance asserts itself, signalling its obedience, declaring its efficiency. Maybe, it's intended to be reassuring. It's making a loud noise, so it must be good. It cost a lot of money so it must be loud, and the display must be bright. There's a light on the USB charger in our car. At night, it's so bright, it's distracting. What is the real purpose of all these lights and beeps? Do we really need the bells and whistles?

The popularity of electronic controls on appliances suggests their desirability, if not their necessity. Or have we been fooled? Have we been seduced into believing that appliances with electronic controls are better? More powerful? Easier to use? More efficient?

In the opinion of the writer the whistles and bells only serve to make appliances more annoying. I'll continue to use them of course, including my second choice air fryer, but I'll also vainly tell them to 'keep it down' while lamenting the intrusion of yet more unnecessary noise.

A Dog's Eye: Life's a Funny Thing

The day had not gone at all according to plan, and as I sat in the taxi, I was contemplating how unfair it all was. For a fraction of the cost, I should have been riding a bus. My intention was to test the route for the children to get to and from school. Alas, it was not to be. What now I wondered? And this on top of everything else.

We arrived in Wollongong on June 1, after an eight day road trip from Darwin. We spent three weeks at mum's place, looking for work, looking for a place to live, praying things would work out, fighting the doubt which naturally arises following each disappointment. Each closed door, each rejected rental application, providing opportunity for us to allow despair and regret to run us over, or to praise God for the opportunity to trust him. Remember, prior to our departure, we had confidently stepped out in the deep ocean of uncertainty and insecurity to trust the God who called us.

We did all that we could. The children started school, and I continued to apply for jobs, as well as pursuing my dream by writing. When we finally received a 'yes' from an estate agent, we were naturally elated, but soon after began to worry how we would pay the rent. My wife and I took turns encouraging each other to keep the faith. Why would God help us get a place to live, then not help us to pay the rent? That was absurd. I kept applying for writing jobs and many others, some in my professional field, others not.

The house we got became yet another test, as many unsatisfactory elements only became apparent after we moved in. We struggled at times to stay thankful in the face of so many irritating little problems. Some, like the lack of functional TV antenna, and missing locks on the windows in the main bedroom, were serious, others less so.

With my redundancy payout now exhausted, no income, and no prospect of paid employment, an unexpected and avoidable taxi fare was nearly the straw which broke this camel's back.

So I sat in the cab, feeling sorry for myself, wondering when this season of insecurity would end. I had a feeling I should talk to the driver. I'd said hello, and asked how he was when we boarded, but had maintained silence since then. I didn't want to talk to him, but the thought persisted that I should. Three times I felt the urge, and each time I was given the exact words to use to open the conversation. Finally, I relented.

'Life's a funny thing, isn't it?' I said, turning to the driver.

We chatted for the remaining fifteen minutes of the trip, after which I realised how talking to him had lifted my spirits. Either by functioning as a distraction, or releasing a blessing because I responded, albeit reluctantly, to a prompting to start a conversation, doing it had made me feel better. Much better.

When I related this story to my wife, I became aware of the fear which had insidiously crept in and was negatively affecting everything. Our feelings, our words and our decisions. We talked it out and agreed to reject that fear and continue to walk in faith.

Then COVID joined the party and the city in which we live was ordered into a two week lockdown. 

Yesterday, looking resplendent in our face masks, and rugged up against the cold to which we are still adjusting, we caught a bus to the mall to do our grocery shopping. Did I mention we don't have a car at the moment? It's at the smash repairer because we hit a kangaroo 50km west of Renmark, South Australia.

You gotta laugh. Really. Life is a funny thing. I have even more time now to write and work on things writing related. I feel quite relaxed, even though we will soon be pillaging our nest egg to pay the rent and everything else. Externally, nothing really seems to be happening. We're quite stuck, but internally, we are growing stronger together, and continuing to laugh, even when we feel like crying.

A Dog's Eye: Trust without borders

It's truly surprising how busy you can get when you lose your job. Nearly six weeks ago now, my position at work was made redundant due to restructuring, and my employment was terminated; effective immediately. Contracted until June 2022, we (my wife and I) planned to leave Darwin to return to Wollongong to be close to my family. My redundancy was simply God changing our timetable, and demonstrating his goodness, yet again. Had I stayed on and left work on my own terms, I would have walked away with nothing. Being made redundant meant that I walked away with a tidy payout which has provided a financial buffer for us as we wade into a deep ocean of uncertainty.


Financial buffers and the security of permanent full time employment is exactly what God is calling me out from. He wants me to get out of that boat and walk on the water with my eyes on Jesus. Clearly, another watershed moment in my life, losing my job has given me a chance to do something new. To stretch my faith and change direction. 
Since I was gifted that old 486 computer in 1998 and I wrote the manuscript for the never published What's Your Problem?, I have dreamed of earning a living by writing. I've never had the time to go hard at that dream. I was never willing to leave my wife and children struggling with the consequences of my artistic pursuits. I had to be an ox, not a unicorn.
Over the years, I've had six novels published, as well as a collection of short stories and scores of short stories published online and in print. I've made some pocket money and received a huge amount of satisfaction, but always lurking, ever present, was the dream to work full time as a writer. I've decided to take this opportunity to do that, to chase it like I've never chased it before.
We didn't decide to leave Darwin immediately. We chose to wait a few weeks to let the dust settle and then make a call. I felt we needed to time to pray and properly consider our options. Ironically, my wife felt more strongly, at first, that we should go than I did. Fast forward five weeks and I'm now the gung ho one, certain the time is right. My wife, who has built a tremendously successful hairdressing and beauty business in only six months, is having a few sleepless nights though. She'll be able to rebuild her client base in our new location because she's great at what she does, but the thought of moving, of starting all over again is understandably daunting.
'Daunting' doesn't quite reach far enough to describe the thought of moving to another state with nowhere to live and no job. We are applying for rentals in the area, but we will need divine intervention to overcome the fact that neither of us have jobs. How will we pay the rent? Until we find a place, we'll stay with mum. Our rent will be at least $50 higher than we're paying here, maybe as much as $150 more. My wife has no clients. I have no job. It seems like a bad situation, but we have absolute trust in a good God.


My whole life is a testimony to God's faithfulness, but especially over the last few years, we've seen God do great things for us. Even our meeting on eHarmony in the first place had God's fingerprints all over it.
One week from today we will be having breakfast, preparing for our road trip to Wollongong. The furniture and most of our possessions will have been loaded in to the back of an Allied Pickford Container the day before. After we leave, the cleaners will come in. I've compiled some awesome road trip playlists on Spotify and upgraded myself to Premium so we can enjoy the songs without interruption. Packing is under way. We've bought sleeping bags and a gas cooker for the trip. The car has had a full service. It's all happening.
My wife has continued working, and around her schedule we've fit in a number of farewell dinners with our many friends in Darwin. We're now doing an number of things for the last time. We ate dinner and watched the sunset at Mindil Beach Night market. Attended mass at St.Mary's. Over the Fence, the radio show I did on Monday nights with my good mate Trev, has broadcast for the final time. As I drive around, I can feel myself disconnecting. There's a tinge of sadness, but mostly what I feel is excitement.


My friend Mark, has given me some casual work in his office and I've scored a couple of freelance writing jobs, so things have been ticking along, but leaving the security of full time paid employment, a regular paycheck, is both exciting and scary. It's a new chapter and we are ready to answer God's call to walk out on the water where our trust is without borders.
Stay tuned for a special Road Trip series on Square Pegs. I'll no doubt have plenty to share about this eight day, four state, 4300km trip, not the least interesting part of which will be how my wife and daughter deal with all those hours on the road; especially camping. We're all pretty pumped right now.

A Dog's Eye: Letterbox Bomb

I need to confess, right off the bat, that I only used the word 'bomb' to grab your attention. Although I do have experience with letterbox bombs during my wayward and rebellious teenage years, I actually want to share with you some reflections arising from letterbox drops. I'm not sure if that's the official name for what I was doing for four hours this morning, but that's what we'll go with.

If you've spent time walking around delivery advertising materials to people's letterboxes, or, as in my case today, addressed mail from the local member of parliament, or if you've worked as a postie, then the following observations will certainly ring a bell. If not, then perhaps it will give you some insight into the trickiness of what would appear to be a very straightforward task.

Here are the three major problems which arise during a letterbox drop.

Corner blocks.  If I told you that three adjacent houses on one street could be numbered 14, 65 & 9 you might be surprised unless you live in a house so numbered. When I arrived at a house on a corner, I had to figure out which street it belonged to. The letters in my hand were all personally addressed and in order, so the confusion caused by houses on corners resulted in quite a bit of extra investigative walking and backtracking. Adding to my befuddlement this morning was my uncertainty about which street I was in and where that street started and ended. You know any street called a Circuit is going to present some challenges. I was literally going aorund in circles.
Letterboxes . A few houses had no letterbox at all which sent a very clear message. Many letterboxes contained the warning not to insert advertising material which is something I always respect. Today's letter box drop was important information, not advertising. Most letterboxes were welcoming, at least superficially. I consider the ultimate invitation to be an appropriately sized open slot. However, such accommodation is not so common, especially with modern homes. Most of the houses I delivered to were built relatively recently and the letterboxes, like the homes behind them, are quite stylish. Good looking they may be, but user friendly they are not: the majority were not easy to access. The main problem was the covered slot which unless you have a thick letter or a wad of letters can't be pushed open by paper. You need to use two hands, and as my left hand was full of folded letters, this proved quite awkward. Many other boxes had a flap which needed to be lifted to reveal the slot which was also tricky. Letterboxes hidden behind frontyard shrubbery or positioned at ground level also negatively impacted efficient delivery. Despite these difficulties, I can happily report only spilling my lollies once.
Dogs. The burbs should be and generally are very quiet and peaceful. With only local traffic and most people either out or settled comfortably within the air conditioned walls of their modern homes, the hot air is silent apart from bird song and the occasional waft of music or conversation. It's quiet, that is, until you walk past and the dog goes off. Darwin has the highest per capita dog ownership of any Australian city or town. The dogs in Darwin are all contained behind fences. I'm not frightened of dogs and felt no threat from even the larger and more vicious looking beasts. They couldn't have got me even if they wanted to, so I felt safe. There was one exception: a scary little Daschund escaped its domestic confines, yapped growled at me, chasing me down the street for a few metres until it was satisfied I wasn't going to invade it's property. Most of the dogs will do that. They'll just bark at you until you have passed their territory. The problem is one dog barking sets off all of the other dogs, and not all of these vociferous canines know how to control themselves.Despite these challenges, the irritating noise of barking dogs, and the heat, I enjoyed my work/walk. I said G'day to a few people, chatted with one lady about the crazy numbering, admired the well manicured gardens, appreciated the sleek architecture of the houses and I prayed for the names on the letters, for the people who live in those homes. I prayed for them, although I don't know them and will probably never meet them. I thanked God for the work and for the exercise.

relationDips: Crabs

It may be hard to fathom at the outset how a post about relationships would involve crabs other than the obvious allusion to sexually transmitted parasites, aka pubic lice. Let's therefore have a close inspection of the crab as one of God's creatures.

Crabs are decapod (10 limbs) crustaceans of the infraorder Brachyura. Found in all the world's oceans, in freshwater and on land, they are generally covered in a thick exoskeleton and range in size from the Pea Crab (just a few millimetres wide) to the Japanese Spider Crab which has a leg span of up to 4m-yes, I said four metres. There are 850 species of crab worldwide. They walk sideways because of the articulation of their legs, use very complex communication systems and are sexually dimorphic. I love sexual dimorphicism. Humans likewise display obvious physical differences between the two undisputed genders. Calm down. I'm not here to debate that issue. I'm talking about crabs.

Pubic lice are small, flat light brown parasites that cling to pubic hair and suck blood for nourishment. It goes without saying that if you have sex with someone who has these crabs, you will get them. It goes without saying that if you only have one partner who also only has you, and the two of you practice normal hygiene, pubic lice won't be a problem for you. Relax. I'm not here to sermonize about sexual immorality. I'm talking about crabs.

My wife loves seafood so the other day while shopping at Mr Barra she had to have one of the live mud crabs they were selling. I think crabs are more trouble than they are worth. They have so little meat on them, and it's so difficult and time consuming to extract it that I can't see the point. Furthermore, the price was alarming: $65 per kilo. I said nothing as my wife chose her crab, then finished her seafood purchases. I said nothing when said purchases totalled quite a sum of money. I just paid because she works hard, she likes crabs and I thought she deserved a treat. She was thrilled; both by my silence and on the appearance of my card to pay.

Crabs can be quite aggressive and are considered to be ill humoured and selfish creatures. Hence someone with a negative and selfish attitude is said to have a crab mentality. We also describe someone who is angry or even grumpy as being crabby.

What conclusions can be drawn from all this information? Certain crabs are good for relationships while others are not. Most sane people would eschew all contact with pubic lice. Many people of varying degrees of sanity like to eat the feisty crustaceans. We may not admire much about their behaviour, but here's the take home lesson: don't get crabs (pubic lice), don't be a crab, and be willing to overcome your negativity about eating crabs if it proves to be a blessing to your partner.

Finally and most importantly, good relationships do take a lot of hard work, but unlike eating, crabs the effort is absolutely worth it.