Scrotes

If you're a fan of the old TV show "The Bill", you'll know what the title of this post means.

Because I'm training as a tower controller, I have to qualify as a weather observer as well. This week several of us have been doing the observers course at the Bureau of Meteorology's training centre in Broadmeadows.

Now, there's a couple of things I should mention here. For two years running I applied for a job with the BoM as a trainee observer. I only just missed out last year, in fact the guy that let me in the door on the first day of the course on Monday, was on the interview panel last year. And yes, he did remember me and was nice enough to say I got very close to being offered the job. The other thing to mention is that when we were researching where to look for accommodation before we moved down to Melbourne, everyone said avoid Broadmeadows.

Day three of our course ended this afternoon and as I was walking up to the car, I couldn't help thinking the driver's side window looked like it was open. You know that sinking feeling you get when you just know something isn't right. Then I got closer and realised the driver's side window didn't exist anymore.

Well it did, it just happened to be spread all through the car.

What really pissed me off, was the fact that the only thing they stole was the $200 GPS stuck to the windscreen. Even though it's brand new, it's probably worth less than the window they broke to get at it. The inconvenience of having to: a) clean out the glass before driving home, b) drive home during a Melbourne winter with drizzling rain* coming in coming in the window, c) make an insurance claim, d) get the window fixed, that's what pisses me off more than the missing GPS. To top it all off, I have an exam tomorrow morning to finish off the course.

I'm sure my colleague Matt wouldn't agree, but it's some consolation that I wasn't the only one robbed. Matt was parked next to me and had his iPod and sunnies nicked. Unfortunately, the value of them was over $500, which means his insurance might not cover them for the full value.

I've got to say, the BoM staff were great in the way they helped out, what with calling the police, helping to clean out our cars, etc.

My instructor on the course said to me before I left for home, "lucky you didn't get on the trainee observer's course, you'd be parking here every day for a year".

See, there's always a silver lining. Since we've been studying clouds this week, I'll be asking him tomorrow what the code is for a cloud with silver lining.

* drizzling and rain are actually two different things, meteorologically speaking, as are showers. I'm using a bit of artistic licence here.