the forum is very quiet

[ausjack]

:dodgy: jesus I take a few days off and the forum goes very quiet so what's goin on, besides "not much" :huh: I was thinking it would take me a week to catch up :angel:

[Triggersmob]

Don't worry, it will soon liven up, now that you are back.

[robbiegal]

yeah Steve
he adds sparkle to the place

[Greg McDonald]

Hi Ausjack

Sometimes "quiet" means "busy".  As I recently mentioned I have been in Surfers Paradise with my son Lachlan who raced around the streets of the Gold Coast as a support class for the V8's.   What a buzz that was!

He races Aussie Racing Cars and this was the first time he raced on this circuit which was basically three cars wide and nothing but concrete and steel. If you saw the TV that weekend you might have seen a bright yellow car hit the wall so hard that the fiberglass body of the car was ripped from the steel car frame.  It looked horrific but the driver walked away from the accident.  As it was, the owner of the car was pitted next to us and in the two days leading up to the race we exchanged spanners, duct tape and sandwiches.  He proudly mentioned that he had just taken delivery of the car three days before the race. Cost ..... $60,000  -- give or take. Two days later it was totally....TOTALLED!!!  Not even the seatbelt harness ($400+) would be allowed to be used in a rebuild.

In the first race Lach started 31st of 48 cars (way too many in such a tight circuit in my opinion for what it is worth). He finished 25 and had the 15th fastest lap.  That's the end of the good news.  In the next race he was one of 11 cars that crashed out. Lach hit a concrete wall at 150Km and while the front end of his car was demolished he walked away with only his wallet badly damaged.  

As a Dad I just want to say at this point is that while I have the job of strapping him into these 230km missiles I always worried about him more when he played AFL... Three months off school with a broken leg, sprained ankle, knocked out and a broken wrist.  

In comparison he has raced around the street circuit of Adelaide, two race meetings at Winton, and one each at Warwick and Surfers without a scratch!

When Lach and I got back to our hotel room he was totally gutted. He's 21 and desperately wants to be a professional car racer. He works 6.5 days a week to pay off a $50,000 loan to buy his car. In the 18 months he has worked as a used car salesman he has never had a day off sick and the only holiday time he has taken is to go racing.

What is an important part of this discussion is what happened next and it is important that Ausjack and other bloggers who have gone through tough times read on.

We were in the hotel room less than an hour when we got a call from one of the drivers who had raced against Lach about two hours beforehand.  The guy on the phone was a very wealthy trucking company director who was the friend of everyone in the racing series.  Remember that he is close to retiring age and my son is 21.  This guy rang Lach up while he was back in the hotel to tell him that he and a few other drivers had a look at Lach's car and between all of them they reckoned they had enough parts to rebuild his car so that he could race the following day.  How fantastic is that.  Imagine if your kid played any other sport and you went into the changing room of the competition asking for a few pointers or the loan of a pair of footy shoes.....doesn't  deserve thinking about it.

We immediately ran back to the pits to confront at least a dozen blokes who already had the engine out of the car and were working on rebuilding  the car.
All the parts that went into Lach's car were either a gift or something you could return "next time" we met at the race track!

As we went into the fourth hour it was evident that many of the people involved in the rebuild had missed pre-arranged dinner dates with family and friends.

OK, None of this has anything to do with coins and banknotes but I hope what I am about to say will be of some benefit to Ausjack and the other very brave forum members who opened their hearts  and souls to talk about the dark sides of their lives and how they cope...... Very brave of all of you to open your hearts and take a big punt that no-one told you to re-polish your handbag.  

My old man was a survivor of the original "power - walk" over the Kokoda Trail. I was very proud of him even though he never talked about it.  When he died I hardly knew him..My Dad a complete stranger.

Aus..You have done a great service to anyone who finds it hard to come to grips with the problems life throws up to all of us at some stage.  I have an older sone who had two suicide attempts at 15.  He's now 25 and has a high powered IT job and the world at his feet.  When he was at his lowest I reminded him that suicide was a permanent solution to a temporary problem.

If anyone reading this has problems,  please contact "Beyond Blue" --- or better still,  share your thoughts with us.  I promise you that one or the other will lift a load off your shoulders.  

If you feel happy about opening up in this forum, make a special mention to Ausjack.   I think you have opened up a very important chat file here mate and I applaud you for having the guts to get it started.

Regards to all collectors who take up this hobby to forget or cope with life.

Regards


Greg

[jozk123]

Beautifully put.Thanks for being so open and sharing Greg.

[Fulvio]

Sometimes "quiet" means "busy".

Y'got THAT right... and y'got all the rest of it right too, mate.

Y'know, being the gregarious sort of chap that I am, I've met an awful lot of people and made friends of many of them over the years. And they certainly run the gamut... from people you could drop naked in the Simpson Desert who would be sipping champagne in a Rolls Royce outside your place before you got back home, to people who, not content with being at the bottom of the barrel, do their utmost to dig the hole even deeper.

And while luck may play a small part in things, I've found that the difference between these two extremes is almost totally down to attitude. One of my exes used to say that anything was possible... (except skiing through a revolving door). And she pretty much proved it every day. Not that she was without faults or problems... far from it. But I never saw her handed a problem that she didn't grapple to the ground and beat to death. While other people shook their heads in dismay at how difficult it all was, she just rolled up her sleeves, leapt right in and fixed it. If she didn't have the knowledge or skills, she went and got them. Absolutely nothing was impossible.

And this is a common thread that seems to run through all the upper echelon. The kid I grew up with who despite being as thick as a brick, went on to become a surgeon through sheer bloody-minded determination. The businessman who was bankrupted by his first customer who came back and rebuilt, bigger and better after every setback. The guy with MS who put his heart and soul into rehabilitating drug addicts. And so on and so forth.

And of course you lot. Starting with AJ, but pretty much everyone else here as well. I don't think I've ever looked in here and not felt better for it, whether I've had the time and inclination to get involved or not. And that, I think, makes this a special place, populated as it is by special people. :yahoo:

[jozk123]

:agreed:

[humpybong]

Me 2!

[Robster]

I never forget how much my parents helped me through life, despite my protests and I miss them everyday.!! Wonderful to read that your boys have a good role model in their lives.

[Goldseeker]

I don't know how I would cope without my daily rush at this forum.   The comments, although not always agreeable with, makes one think and I am greatlful for that.

Stories that some of us put up are really tear jerkers.

I like this place and all that contribute.

[interest]

Regards to all collectors who take up this hobby to forget or cope with life.

Regards


Greg

Gee Greg it's good to see you here posting, I for one are looking forward to your next book but a little worried about the fall of prices .

Would you mind reading the thread about 3-1/2 claw 20 cent pieces
& giving your view about what I'm trying to find.

Lots more posts please Greg
Cheers

[ausjack]

What a team, some fantstic people alright..I love it and thanks for sharing :heart:

Yes there's some good books around but also some that aren't so good, "Taming the Black Dog" wasn't too bad and some others that are more for kids with pic's and small captions are "The Blue Day Book" and "The Book for people who do too much" I like them as they are quick and as they say 'a picture tell a thousand words' but one unless the person is really bright DO NOT get "Your Erroneous Zone" I think it was called as it was just way to hard for someone that was trying to recover from a brain op as it gets depressing when you have to look every second word up to see what the hell he's talking about so yet again go with K.I.S.S :winkextra:

I think it's important to let people know that "your not alone" and others even though they might not have the same problem can help by talking and just knowing that someone cares enough to take the time to..well it's how I feel, very special and privileged when people take the time even just to say G'Day :friends:

[Unicorn]

Very nicely put AJ.
You just make sure you keep popping your head in here ...... I'm sure you put lots of smiles on many faces.

[ausjack]

Thanks Uni, will do mate :good:

Been getting a few jobs done so slowly getting there, might even pay you a visit mate..if ya lucky :winkextra:

So do ya feel lucky, well do ya..PUNK :laugh2:

[Unicorn]

...... was that 6 shots or only 5 AJ ......