Now I have forgotten what it was I was going to write. I had an opening for this and was then going to just wing it, but I can't remember the opening. It was probably a complaint, I do that a lot lately, but it was clever and now it's gone. I hate this. Especially since the doctors tell me there is nothing wrong with me. So live in fear. If my brain ever snaps back into place, I have a lot to say and I will not hesitate to say it. Mainly because I will probably start forgetting again no one wants to miss out on my rants.
Getting close to the Tasmania trip. For Juanita's birthday. We have Williams birthday first but I don't really have anything planned at this point. I haven't even gotten him a present yet. I was thinking the Nintendo Switch 2, but he said he didn't really want it. I am thinking he is saying that because it is expensive and he doesn't want me to spend the money. He's probably right, but I might get it for him anyway. My other main option is an electric scooter. They have one at Costco that might be good. Just on the limit of how much you can weigh to ride it, and there is the issue of how tall he is. Might be hard to ride bent over all the time. And, he cannot really ride a scooter. Not that he can't, but an electric one will go faster than he has ever been and he might fall down a lot and possibly break it. I worry that he will not lock it up when he takes it somewhere, or his friends will make him do stupid things on it and he will crash. But it's another possibility. Cheaper than the Switch, but it does not go real fast, so it might not be that great. Would have to spend a whole lot more to get him a good one, so it might just stay as an alternative.
I think he will like the Switch. It is kind of a replacement for the Nintendo Wii. He can hook it up to the tv and play a lot of games. He and his friend recently bought an old Wii and they play the sports games on it. The Switch has the same games so he could play them on it instead. I don't know how his friend would feel about it, having spent whatever the money was they spent on the Wii. But that's not my problem.
If I don't go with either of those, I am at a loss to figure out what to get him. Needs to be something special, since it is his 21st. Not sure a game is the right thing, but what else is there. A car? A motorcycle? Jewelry? None of those are really an option, but they seem to be the appropriate gift for that age. I don't know what I will end up getting, but I only have a few days left to decide.
By the way, is today Wednesday or Thursday? Seems it is time for morning tea and there are no students here. they usually congregate in here for morning tea, and lunch, and before school, and anytime they want to not go to class. No one here how. Wednesday and Thursdays have different schedules, but it's almost 11 and no one has shown up. Might be because the teachers yelled at them yesterday. There has been an effort to stop the students from congregating in this room. Not my idea, but a lot of people think this is an actual office and it is not appropriate for students to hang out in here. I have always allowed them to, but there has been more and more opposition to it lately. A lot of it coming from the IT department. I guess I am being overruled. I am through fighting it, so it is going to happen. I say it is a horrible mistake, but no one will listen to me.
Now there are students starting to show up. Wonder why it is so late. Might have been an assemble or something but I haven't heard of anything. I have to hide my snacks. That is the other thing, no food or drinks in here anymore. I agree with that, but it means I can't snack on anything while I am here. Since I do not get a break or a lunch, it makes it kind of hard for me. I have to get it during classes and then hide it before they come in again. Now someone just screamed outside the door, so I have to go check on it.
Wasn't as many as I normally have. We will see how long that lasts. Students will keep hanging out until I actually start to enforce it, and that is not going to happen until someone tells me directly to do it. And even then, I may resist for longer. I am tired of the compromise, but I won't go into that now.
Headed for Tasmania in two weeks. Hopefully, I have the money by then.
Got a real scare yesterday when I got a news report that my Super company had just filed for bankruptcy. That put a crimp in my skedaddle. And as an amazing side note, typing that, it did not flag it for misspelling or anything. Just accepted it as an everyday phrase.
I started looking into it immediately. I cannot afford to lose my super this close to retiring. I have enough worries about how we are going to live without trying to do it with nothing. I looked up Mercer bankruptcy an found several stories from about eight hours before I heard about it. It was saying it was going into receivership, whatever that is, and they expected premium stake holders to receive 90% value and regular stake holders to receive about 60%. I have no idea what kind of stake holder I am, but I am sure it is not premium. I then saw that members in the United States, Canada, and a couple of other countries were fully funded and they would lose nothing. Australia was not one of those countries.
So, as you can imagine, I was pretty worked up at this point. I started asking Google, or whatever the AI is for Google, what it means for Australian Super holders. That's when I got some relief. It said the Australian branch of the company was a wholly separate entity and it was not effected by the bankruptcy. And, the actual company that went bankrupt was not actually the Super or retirement part of the company. It would seem that Mercer owns several other companies. The one that went bankrupt was the Mercer International Finance company. That put another scare into me as that seemed to point directly at my Super, but it turns out, that is the parent company of several other companies that did things like lumber, milling, manufacturing and lots of other smaller companies that were financed by Mercer International Finance. It wasn't me.
But, I am still worried about it. If they are financing other companies, and they went bankrupt, what does that do to the shares my Super might own. I would assume my Super buys shares of the some of the companies that this finances, so I would also assume them going bankrupt would make my shares go down.
But that really has nothing to do with this blog. I did get a quarterly update on my Super and how it is doing. It is not doing well, although they seem to think it is. They said it was meeting industry standards, but then said I had 0.36% growth in the past quarter. Since I take 5% out a year, the minimum I can take out according to Australian rules, only making 0.36% would put me at a greater loss that it should be. Especially, since they said I should average 7% growth each year. I should be making money, but with this math, I am not. I know there are circumstances and a Super is for the long run, but I don't have the long run. I am retiring. I need to keep my money or I will not be able to afford housing in a very short amount of time. With no help from Juanita, this is a really big problem. But again, not appropriate for this blog. Expect to hear more about it soon.
Going to be closing this now. I spent way too much time on trivial things and not enough time on the good stuff. As soon as I have any good stuff, I will make another entry.
Until next time,
Later
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