Parking at ANU

Does anyone else find the parking situation at the ANU simply ridiculous?

I have recently purchased from the ANU a student parking permit (cost me $68), last month I parked in a rather shameful manner (30cm over the marked line and only because i could not find any other park and was running late for a lecture!) and to my despair was fined…..$72! (Which i dutifully paid btw!) On Thursday after leaving home 1/2 hour early, just so i’d have enough time to find a park, i found a spot outside the BPBuilding (Language Building). However i was immediately harrassed by the parking nazi for having parked in a staff carpark!!! STAFF CARPARK??? But i had parked in this same carpark on numerous occasions previous to this and had never noticed the “Staff Only” sign!!! Why??? Why??? Am i blind? NO! Because they JUST  put it up!!! Making all of the carparks in the BPB and AD.Hope area Staff Parking….what a joke! How unfair!!!  I spent 45 minutes scouring the various carparks searching for a spot,  and ended up in the Law School Carpark having to spend another $5 for a pay and display voucher all on a student budget!……this situation has become seriously annoying. I think it’s unfair that students have the last option in parking when the university is supposed to help educate us, not to send us broke!…..not only do we have to pay HECS, we have to pay to park on our own university and we also get fined and have to spend hours searching for a park….and lecturers wonder why some of us don’t come to class!!!! And yes, i know there are student carparks around the uni but i am still to get to uni and find a free spot in one of those carparks….they are always full! I have also heard rumours that public servants working in Civic bribe ANU students for their permits so they can park on campus…..it really has become a joke and i am sick of it! Someone, somewhere needs to sort this shit out!

Mountain Bike Racing at Stromlo Tomorrow

Tomorrow, Sunday 11 May, CORC (Canberra Off-Road Cyclists) will be running a cross country mountain bike race at Stromlo Forest Park. The weather looks to be another great day, and they have a few great courses planned. There’s a little fun loop for the kiddies, a 2Km easy loop for the novice riders, and a 6.1Km loop which is more technical (FUN!) for the keen mountain bikers. Registration opens at 08:30 and racing starts from 09:30. So if you’re not stuck making tea and toast for your Mum tomorrow, get out there and have some fun!

More details are available on the CORC XC events page.

Canberra Centre wants to close Ainslie Ave

Although submissions have closed, people might be interested to know that the Canberra Centre has lodged a DA to put doors across the mall between Cooyong and Bunda Streets.

I understood that this was left open because it was building over a gazetted roadway, and that there was a lot of disquiet about them being allowed to ruin one of the visual axes from City Hill (a Burley-Griffin principle).

If you have a look at the DA plans, you can see the doors are quaintly described as “temporary sliding glass doors”.

The staff at Michels been complaining about the cold?

Daramalan and Marist College - Child Sexual Abuse.

[Ed. CG has kindly kept us in the loop on this one with further updates on the case from ABC online here]

I have been watching the posts about the Daramalan and Marist College sexual abuse by Paul Lyons and Brother Kostka for some months now. I have been watching the news and reading the reports, and also doing my own research for nearly a decade. (google “kostka” “marist”) There are some interesting opinions shown here on the RiotACT about this issue and I have appreciated reading them all……albeit sometimes difficult to keep an eye on all the different streams of comments.

Although I have been wanting to comment for some time…..I have found it difficult to post…..as I am also trying to come to terms with being a victim of that dirty pedophile Paul Lyons……(actually….I have being trying for 19 years).

I think I have finally realised that now it’s time to sort all this out once and for all, and start dealing with it rather than keeping it in the bottom drawer.

Firstly I would like to say a few things……. (more…)

DIY Wotz on Guide for the weekend of 10 May 2008

Its that time again, poets day. Where thinking of what is going on tonight or tomorrow override any thoughts of doing constructive work. I will up late tonight hoping the Brumbies salvage some hope in the republic with a win over the bulls at loftus versfeld and probably sleep through the rest of the weekend. What will you be up to? let us know in the comments.

Gungahlin teenage burglary gang nicked

Just been called by ABC Radio for a comment on news the wallopers out our way have nabbed some 20 kids aged 12-17 for 55 break and enters. Apparently it’s been a 10-month investigation.

Very timely given the recent story on this sort of crime, and my own comments on the impact it has on so many people, and the need to focus on the few people responsible for large numbers of crimes.

Have to say this was somewhat under the radar for us, whereas thefts from building sites seems a big issue.

Well done Bob Muir and the crew of the Gungahlin Station.

Stanhope Continues to Cop Daily Telegraph Spray

The front page of today’s Daily Telegraph is titled “Stanhope’s Poll Shock: Mean-Spirited Labor to lose control of ACT”

I tried to find the article on-line to link to, but I can’t find the electronic article amongst other Daily Telegraph headline stories including “How is that possible? I’m a lesbian”, “BB’s Michael furious over stripper” and “A f**king disgrace - olympians fury over road rage”.

The article reports an unreferenced ‘internal document’ that drove the coverage: “In a major embarrasment for the ACT Government, the panic-stricken Labor heirarchy has confessed support for John Stanhope’s regime is haemorrhaging and remains in decline”.

I didn’t notice any ‘panic’ from ACT Labor during yesterday’s budget announcement - which was not even mentioned in the article.

Apparently an unreferenced intenal document is more important than a near $1 billion ACT budget?!

The only conclusion I can come to is that the Daily Tele has still not forgiven Stanhope for trying to lure skilled western Sydney residents to live in the nation’s capital, and is determined to rubbish him at any opportunity.

Whether you support ACT Labor or not, am I alone in wishing the Daily Telegraph would piss off our of the ACT’s affairs?

Canberra - too far from anywhere

Last week, my wife and I purchased a 7-seater lounge suite from ebay. No problem. we then found a courier that wasn’t over the top in costs to ship from Sydney (Casula) to Canberra (Kambah). Again, no problem.

Then the fun started. The courier picked the lounge suite up after around 20 calls by us all week - finally completed on Saturday. Now, I may be wrong, but if it was picked up from Sydney and started its way to Canberra on saturday morning,  we should see it about monday. Wrong.

I was advised by the courier every day this week so far that it was in transit. I received a call from my wife today that it was in goulburn at 9.15 am this morning.

Has Canberra moved to Perth? is there something I don’t know about in regards to shipping from Sydney? I was starting to think that I had magically moved to central australia. Why is it that couriers I deal with at work can ship overnight, but the average citizen gets the run around?

is Canberra just a regional centre, not the “Nation’s Capital”?

Police Raid at Piallago

Driving through Pialligo this afternoon at 2pm and there were around 12 police all riot-geared up walking in a tight formation with shields, batons and guns at the ready. They were walking right up the middle of a driveway of one of the houses opposite the nurseries.

 It looked like a very seriuos raid/bust.

Anyone know what was going on?

Health clinic opens at UC

ABC online is reporting that a new health clinic will open at the University of Canberra (UC) today, offering a range of services under the one roof. The clinic will offer physiotherapy, psychology, nutrition and dietetics, exercise physiology and sleep apnoea therapy to the public.