CollinsPlus
E-news
Edition 5. July/August 2007
Editor:
Barbara Collins
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Website news
The CollinsPlus website and newsletter are now three years old. They were launched in July 2004. When I semi-retired, I thought this project would be a good one to keep my mind active and also produce something that would be of value to the family both now and as an historical/genealogical record. I knew I couldn’t do it alone and that I would be relying on the family and extended family to provide their news, or, as I like to think of it, their living history, to make it work. And you have all done just that. You have entered into the spirit of sharing your news so that even though we don’t all see each other a lot, we have a sense of what is happening within the family and the extended family – a bit like the family grapevine that we used to be able to tap into via Bridget. So, thank you everyone for contributing to the newsletter. And, of course, I really need to thank Con for his financial support as the patron of the site. Running a website means a number of reoccurring costs which mount up over the year and Con has covered those costs.
It was certainly a challenging project. I had to find a simple course to learn how to create a website and then I learnt the hard way that things can go badly wrong (and how frustrating is it when you have no idea how to fix a problem – thank goodness for chatrooms!). But that is how we learn and I think I have learnt a lot over the last 3 years – and I’m sure I have not finished by a long shot. I guess, the longer I live, the more I find out how much I DON’T know!!!!!!
My personal major memories over the last 3 years have been semi-retiring from work, Paul turning 60, getting married, Bridget and Wasyl (Paul’s dad) passing away, becoming a step grandmother and going on lots of great holidays with Paul. I also enjoyed vicariously following Tyson’s journey overseas, watching Jessica bloom as an actress and budding journalist and discovering Con’s letters to Bridget during their long distance courtship during World War 2.
Collins Family News
Go to Collins Family in CollinsPlus
Website
Con Collins
Con Collins is the Ground Zero man for this website.
Bowling
Club Lunch
On 24th June, Con, Judi and Renato and Barb and Paul enjoyed
lunch, music and dancing at Con’s bowling club at West Coburg. This was a
special fundraiser lunch and was still great value!
Con's news is that he had to go to hospital because
he was so very short of breath and very wheezy, putting off going to the
doctor's because he says they don't do anything for you and thinking that it
was a cold or a bit of a cough. It got too bad and it turns out that he had too
much fluid and this was placing pressure on his heart and lungs. So they
fixed all that up and he now says that he is feeling the best he has for a
very long time, even his walking and weakness in the legs has improved, but
maybe that's because while in hospital a walking frame was order for him by the
physio, but he refuses to use it!!!!!! More news is that Con had a fall
on his way to a doctor's appointment, he was very lucky that he did not break
anything, but ended up with a bruised chest when he fell on his walking stick,
and grazed his forehead and knee quite badly when he hit the cement. That
will teach him to use the path next time and not take short cuts through flower
beds!!!!
Con is that he has given up his bowls for
the rest of the year.
Barb and Con have continued to explore the
underlying cause of his unsteadiness. The Geriatrician sent him for tests to
see if it is caused by the middle ear which is responsible for balance as well
as hearing. However, the physio who tested for this said Con was the best she
had ever seen in this regard with no sign that the middle ear is at fault. So
far, it looks like Con has a weakness on his left side, possibly as a result of
an undiagnosed stoke and strengthening exercises may be a part solution. The
other thing that has helped him is not getting up and walking straight away. As
blood pressure can increase with age – as it has in Con’s case - if you get up and move too quickly, the
blood does not have time to get to the brain – and dizziness results. So now he
sits up and counts to 120, then stands up and counts to 60 and this has greatly
reduced his dizzy spells. He has passed this on to a lot of his mates who have
tried it also with good success.
Graham Collins
(Graham Collins is the first and only son of Con Collins who is the
Ground Zero man for this website. Graham
Collins Family)
Wade
I passed all my first semester Uni subjects and will graduate at the end
of the year if all goes well. Footy is going great, we are on the top of the
ladder still with only 3 weeks till finals so it is an exciting time for us.
Other than that, just having a good time and going out a fair bit.
The Zoch Family
Catherine Zoch is the 4th girl in the Con and Bridget
Collins Family. She is married to John Zoch. Go to Zoch Family
page.
“This is the police put your hands up!”
The searchlight rests on me, it is far away
yet I feel its heat, I raise my hand to block out the light, I take a break and
speak to the light; “Please, don’t shoot, I’m innocent, you’ve gotta believe
me…this crazy woman, she tried to kidnap me and there’s been the most terrible
accident, but I’m innocent I tell you, innocent…innocent I tell you, innocent!”
Jessica’s character in her last school
production, “Shadow on the Lake”, was a naïve Betty White. Jessica has written
a terrific reflective piece on her acting career to date for the newsletter. Read it here!
The Cabrera Family
Judith
Collins is the second girl in the Con and Bridget Collins Family. She is
married to Renato Cabrera. Go to the Cabrera
Family page.
Judy & Renato are please to report that
it looks like our Insurance company is going to pay the claim for the damage to
our house, which was caused by a storm water pipe belonging to the house next
door, that was broken before it got to the drain. We are certainly very
glad that we discovered this broken pipe and managed to get photos of it before
the neighbours had it repaired. However it looks like they are only going to
pay for the repair to the southern wall and not to other area's that we believe
have been affected by the same cause, anyway we will see, the builders are
waiting to put in their final quotes once they have the engineers design.
It's going to be major works, they have to pull up carpet, crank up the roof,
pull down the southern double brick wall of the house, restump (underpin)
rebuild the wall and ceiling, render, replaster, fix the flooring, paint and
relay the carpet. So we are very happy that for once we have a story
about an Insurance company that pays a claim. Which Insurance company? Allianz.
Since the last newsletter we have picked up
our new car, It's a Honda Civic, what a little beauty, nowhere near the power
or prestige of our previous car, but it rides quite well, hardly uses
any petrol, and is easy to park, oh and that new car smell, it's the first
brand new car that Judy has had and she's excited.
We have had a few outings and catching up
with friends over the last couple of months and that is always fun. One
Chilean function, oh Judy thinks she's getting too old for all the energy
needed to attend, those Chileans sure know how to party. Been out to the movies
and dinner a couple of times.
Judi's been for a couple of interviews with
the salvation army for part time office administration work, but to no avail,
however she is being very fussy and only wanting a certain amount of hours and
days and close to home, and believes when the time is right, the right job will
be available, looking after dad (Con) is becoming a little more demanding and
that is really the first priority for now. So she's still at Coles and
has changed from being a checkout chick to stacking biscuits on shelves.
We had a luncheon at Dad's (Con) bowling
club, set menu and live entertainment, Barbara and Paul came too, it was a
pleasant afternoon and a good way to catch up on each others news, Barbara and
Paul, put the live entertainment to good use while Dad watched on.
We attended Jessica's school production as
we do every year and this year Jess had the lead role, she is a star in the
making, real professional and maintained her Yankee accent all the way through
without a single hiccup, we are so proud of her. I'm sure she will tell
you all about it in the Zoch's news, we captured a couple of photo's of her
after her dad gave her a bunch of long stemmed yellow roses after her
performance.
We were going to a Xmas in July at Dad's
bowling club and on that very same morning we had to take dad to hospital
emergency, he said if we did not continue on to the bowling club he would not
go to hospital, so we had to fill his seat as tickets prepaid, and Cathy came
to the party, it was a nice lunch, but with dad in hospital we just ate and
then left, to go back and see how dad was.
Last but not least Bear's news is that he is
losing weight, still very slowly, but he eats anything now, he's having a lot
of fruit and veg, dry noodles, rice and tit bits have been cut down, his leg is
very much improved, but it does give way on him now and then. He thought
you might like to see how he was a pink dog for about two weeks. Somehow after
being out the front and rolling around and basking in the sun on the red bark
in the front garden, he appeared at the front door looking like this.
The Deacon Family
Peter
Deacon
is the son of Mary (Molly) Deacon (nee Lennon) who is the youngest sister of Bridget
Collins (nee Lennon) who is married to Con
Collins
Judy is currently
visiting her family in
Judy and I are
planning to attend the 2008 Beijing Olympics, which is now only 12 months away.
It should be very exciting!
Meanwhile, I’m
keeping busy on the
Well that’s all my
news. Take care and give my warm regards to everyone.
The Teres Family
Paul Teres is husband of Barbara Collins,
daughter of Con Collins. Go to Teres Family
page.
Magnetic Island
Barb and Paul went
on a terrific holiday to Magnetic Island – 8kms off the coast of Townsville. Read Barb’s report on what they did there for
2 weeks including Paul’s accident/s.
New baby
Andrew and Sophie’s new baby is nearly here.
Sophie goes in to have the baby delivered on September 19th. Paul
and I were invited to go to a 7 month ultrasound viewing. We all sat in a warm,
darkened room, in lounge chairs, and watched the new baby inside Sophie’s womb,
on a big screen. The baby was not in the right position for good viewing on the
first attempt, so we all went for a walk in the hope it the baby would move
around – and he did! The ultrasound experience was recorded on DVD for the proud
parents to take away with them. Paul thought the baby looked a bit like Wasyl –
but we all thought Paul has a vivid imagination.
Happy birthday to
Max in July and Brenton in August: (sorry – no card this month – something
weird is happening with my card site).
If your birthday
falls in July or August and you are not on this list, email admin at
collinsplus.com and send in your birth date.
I don't normally pass these feel good
stories around but this one is special.
In 1986, Mkele Mbembe was on holiday in
Kenya after graduating from University.
On a hike through the bush, he came
across a young bull elephant standing with one leg raised in the air. The
elephant seemed distressed, so Mbembe approached it very carefully. He got down
on one knee and inspected the elephant's foot and found a large piece of wood
deeply embedded in it. As carefully and as gently as he could, Mbembe worked
the wood out with his hunting knife, after which the elephant gingerly put down
its foot.
The elephant turned to face the man, and
with a rather curious look on its face, stared at him for several tense
moments. Mbembe stood frozen, thinking of nothing else but being trampled.
Eventually the elephant trumpeted loudly, turned, and walked away. Mbembe never
forgot that elephant or the events of that day.
Twenty years later, Mbembe was walking
through the Chicago Zoo with his teenaged son. As they approached the elephant
enclosure, one of the creatures turned and walked over to near where Mbembe and
his son Tapu were standing. The large bull elephant stared at Mbembe, lifted
its front foot off the ground, then put it down. The elephant did that several
times then trumpeted loudly, all the while staring at the man.
Remembering the encounter in 1986, Mbembe
couldn't help wondering if this was the same elephant. Mbembe summoned up his
courage, climbed over the railing and made his way into the enclosure. He
walked right up to the elephant and stared back in wonder. The elephant
trumpeted again, wrapped its trunk around one of Mbembe's legs and slammed him
against the railing, killing him instantly.
Probably wasn't the same elephant.
(Sorry – should really have been in
“Funny Stuff” – but I couldn’t resist!)
Batman and Robin
Batman and Robin go camping ……………..
All websites featured in this newsletter are archived on the Links Page of the CollinsPlus site for future reference.
Real
Age
Love this site.
How much exercise do you need to burn off calories eg
how much to burn off an apple on a treadmill, lifting weights, doing Tai Chi
etc? Check out the
calculator here.
Magentic
Great screensaver site
– thanks Judi
Blackle
Your computer screen, when white, (i.e. reading a word document for example)
consumes more energy than when black. Mark Ontkush recently wrote an article on
energy saving and calculated that taking into account its huge number of page
views, if Google changed its screen from white to black, 750 mega watts/hour
per year would be saved. In response to this article Google
created a black version of its search engine, called Blackle, with the
exact same functions as the white version, but with lower energy consumption. Check it out at www.blackle.com
Congratulations
this month to ….
ü Graham
on his retirement
ü Jessica in her lead performance in “Shadow
on the Lake”
ü Paul for surviving his rock climb on Magnetic Island
ü Wade for passing his first semester uni subjects
ü Peter for preparing to walk from Perth to Broom (well, virtually,
anyway!)
ü Judy and Renato getting a brand
new car
ü CollinsPlus website for reaching 3rd anniversary
Passing on
this newsletter
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