Hello from Canberra, Australia!

harmo · Mar 3, 2026

Hello everyone,

My name is Hamish, but I've been called everything from Ham to Hammer (good for a garage forum nick name, right?) When I'm not DIYing our "renovator's delight", I'm currently rebuilding my workshop/garage's whole internal setup from scratch, so I'm always looking for inspiration, and happy to chat about anything really.

While I may live in Australia's national capital (Canberra) I'm one of the few not part of the public service... I applied for a few Government jobs when work's been lighter than average over the years. Yet, on one occasion, I was deemed (no joke):

"Too obsessed with achieving tangible goals to be compliant with Governmental policies and procedures". (Because I fixed my interviewer's laptop during the actual interview without their IT department's permission beforehand... <sigh>). My mother not only kept, but framed that rejection letter. It's right next to a framed copy of my home town's newspaper with the front page headline "Local researcher suggests everyone should be on low fart diet" Which for the early 90s, was the funniest and best selling copy the local newspaper in all of it's 114 year history... stemming from a simple lapse in proof reading.

Ok, it was a small country town before the Internet was "main stream" and entertainment was hard to come by, ok? But if you appreciate this kind of quirky humour, you're my kind of people, and if you don't like it, I'm sure we can chat about something else.

Anyway, I hope I can both offer my quirky perspective and learn from others here. Feel free to say hello.

Harmo/Ham/Hammer/Hamish.

nadogail · Mar 4, 2026

Welcome to the Forum from Southwestern California. If you study maps, we are between the San Diego Bay and the Pacific Ocean. There is a bridge between the city of Coronado and the city of San Diego.

I am a Retired US Navy Chief and a retired Marine Electrician.

harmo · Mar 4, 2026

nadogail said:
Welcome to the Forum from Southwestern California. If you study maps, we are between the San Diego Bay and the Pacific Ocean. There is a bridge between the city of Coronado and the city of San Diego.

I am a Retired US Navy Chief and a retired Marine Electrician.

Hi Nadogail,

Thanks for the welcome. When you say "Southwestern California", you weren't kidding. You could almost say "I can't believe it's not Tijuana". The closest I've ever been to San Diego/Coronado is L.A. Unfortunately, that was an unexpected detour due to poor weather in Chicago at the time. It was a bit stressful, I was heading to a friend's wedding at the time.... and I'd already been delayed 31 hours across three different continents at the time. So I don't remember much of it.... sorry. Somewhere, my suit had been lost in transit, but I barely made it even after finding a rental suit.

While I don't have any Navy in the family (that I'm aware of), my ancestors (more than a few generations ago), were famous enough to get an Australian submarine named after them. HMAS Onslow.... which if memory serves, was an Oberon class. (I think they made about half a dozen or so, which for the Royal Australian Navy, is more than I expected). While the long-retired sub class is nothing as intimidating as modern subs, the sub itself is now an interesting museum piece in Sydney Harbour, and where I learned all about it.

An electrician! Your timing is quite impeccable (don't worry, I'm not asking you to fix stuff for me).

Since I'm battling the awful/no-longer-compliant wiring in our "renovator's delight", and just had an electrician in this morning, I truly respect the electricians that have helped with our power woes. I'll be adding some new circuits to the garage/workshop once I've finished building a CNC router. However, we just installed a solar system which is already making a huge improvement to our power bills once it was finally operational. As a bit of an IT tech head, if I had gone down the "trades" route, I'd probably have ended up an electrician, or a machinist.

Thanks for reaching out and introducing yourself!

Kind Regards,
Harmo

nadogail · Mar 4, 2026

harmo said:
Hi Nadogail,

Thanks for the welcome. When you say "Southwestern California", you weren't kidding. You could almost say "I can't believe it's not Tijuana". The closest I've ever been to San Diego/Coronado is L.A. Unfortunately, that was an unexpected detour due to poor weather in Chicago at the time. It was a bit stressful, I was heading to a friend's wedding at the time.... and I'd already been delayed 31 hours across three different continents at the time. So I don't remember much of it.... sorry. Somewhere, my suit had been lost in transit, but I barely made it even after finding a rental suit.

While I don't have any Navy in the family (that I'm aware of), my ancestors (more than a few generations ago), were famous enough to get an Australian submarine named after them. HMAS Onslow.... which if memory serves, was an Oberon class. (I think they made about half a dozen or so, which for the Royal Australian Navy, is more than I expected). While the long-retired sub class is nothing as intimidating as modern subs, the sub itself is now an interesting museum piece in Sydney Harbour, and where I learned all about it.

An electrician! Your timing is quite impeccable (don't worry, I'm not asking you to fix stuff for me).

Since I'm battling the awful/no-longer-compliant wiring in our "renovator's delight", and just had an electrician in this morning, I truly respect the electricians that have helped with our power woes. I'll be adding some new circuits to the garage/workshop once I've finished building a CNC router. However, we just installed a solar system which is already making a huge improvement to our power bills once it was finally operational. As a bit of an IT tech head, if I had gone down the "trades" route, I'd probably have ended up an electrician, or a machinist.

Thanks for reaching out and introducing yourself!

Kind Regards,
Harmo

You have a Sportsmanship award in your football league with my family name on it, details if you PM me.

Geoff289 · Mar 8, 2026

HI Harmo (of all the options you provided I'm going with that one). Welcome aboard from a fellow Aussie. You'll like it here, it's a great community.

While you've avoided it I spent 37 years, 2 months and 9 days in the service of the Australian people as a member of the APS. I spent a lot of time in Canberra and lived there for a few years in the '80's, my second child was born there.

I'm curious to know more about your fixer upper. What suburb? Is it an old Govie? What's the garage situation? Tell me everything.

Cheers,

Geoff

Hello from Canberra, Australia!

harmo

Member

nadogail

Well-known member

harmo

Member

nadogail

Well-known member

Geoff289

Well-known member