Chapter 06

Car Capers

One Thursday in mid January Helen and the kids take a trip to Melbourne to do some shopping and visit a few places. Mack pays for the fares because it’s for his benefit and he needs Helen to go along. This means the other kids also go because it’s an overnight trip. To make time for some shopping Helen wants to do it becomes a three day trip with two nights in Melbourne after they travel down by train.

They leave on the Thursday morning and arrive in the afternoon. A visit to a few shops in the Melbourne Central Business District then go to the hotel to get organised for the night. Since it’s only two nights the boys have backpacks with the clothes for everyone, the bulk of it being for the ladies. That night they see a new release film they want to see.

Friday morning they’re up early and go to a specific car sales yard. Mack ordered a special vehicle some time back and it’s now ready for him to collect. There was some delay because they had to organise New South Wales registration and the car agency is in Melbourne, Victoria.

Mack passed the test for his learner driver’s licence at the start of the week and he wants to do his learner hours in his own vehicle. He’d done the research then made the selection months ago, so he ordered it then because it’s an imported one. He also wanted more than a few of the available accessories fitted.

At nine-thirty in the morning they walk into the showroom of the car yard as a group. While the others look at the range of large cars and trucks on display Mack seeks the woman he’d been speaking to on the phone at the time of placing the order. He spots a likely suspect and he approaches her. He asks, “Excuse me, are you Janice Howard?” She turns and smiles at him while she nods yes. He holds out his hand, “Mack Dean, come to pick up my new truck.”

“Good morning, Mister Dean. I was expecting someone a bit older. Your vehicle’s nearly ready. There was a delay in getting the accessories fitted so your truck’s being detailed as we speak.” She leads him over to where the new truck is standing in the workshop area. They watch while two men finish polishing it to a mirror shine.

A few minutes later it’s being driven to the dealership’s front yard, ready to go. While one of the mechanics does that Janice takes Mack into her office to hand him all of the papers. “Here’s your registration, receipt, the insurance with the company you asked for, and the list of approved mechanics in the Canberra and Wood Valley areas. It’s all paid for, has a full tank, and is ready to go.” He smiles when he accepts the papers as the truck was paid for when he ordered it. “Mister Dean, I’m curious, most of the people who buy this model this well done up also order the Captain’s chairs for the front two or four sitting positions because they’re more comfortable, why did you specify bench seats?”

Mack’s grin widens a lot, “It all comes down to your definition of comfort.” She half frowns at him. “Look, let’s go sit in it and I’ll show you.” They walk outside to find Helen and the others looking over the brand new car with NSW registration MCK 777 as they figure this is the car they came to get. “Janice, I come from a country area up in the mountains. It doesn’t matter where we go, it’s a long drive. Twenty minutes to town and another hour to the city for a film. So we spend a lot of time on the open road. Out there you get up to speed, turn on the cruise control, and sit back while the road goes by. If you’ll get in I’ll show you all about car comfort.” He opens the door and she sits in the front passenger position. Mack walks around and sits in the driver’s seat. “I want you to imagine you’re with me and we’re on our way to the city for the afternoon and evening, that’s well over an hour’s drive. We just got out of town and we’re all set for the long cruise.” She nods her understanding. The others are listening to him as well, so are a couple of customers looking over the nice truck. “This is how we’d be with the Captain’s Chairs. But with the bench seat it’s different.” He lifts his left arm and places it on the back of the seat, saying, “Now slide over and snuggle up close like I’m your boyfriend.” She slides right over and snuggles into him with her head on his shoulder. He drops his hand to rest on her left breast. He says, “Now, isn’t this a lot more comfortable?”

She laughs, “OK, I can see your point. I agree, it’s a matter of your personal perspective and intended use.”

“Another thing. In the long-term I’ll be using this on a working farm that includes a lot of logging. With the capacity to carry nine adults I can carry a crew and our personal gear with space left over for others.”

They get out of the truck and she points out all of the accessories to show they’ve been fitted as ordered. She names them as she goes, “I’m sure you realise this is not a standard package and it cost a lot to do the mix of accessories you wanted: the six litre hybrid motor gives you great fuel economy and is also environmental friendly, the trailer package is the heaviest we can fit to this, off-road suspension, heavy-duty battery, ten speaker surround sound system plus headphone jacks, all of the air bags that can be fitted, skid plate pack, recovery hooks, fog lights, luggage rack, assist steps, sunroof, power windows, remote start, the special shape nudge bar with the extra driving lights, parking camera and mirror. A lot of that stuff is not supplied in the same packages and the factory people weren’t happy to provide the gear for us to put it all on the one truck. That makes this a very unique GMC Yukon. I do like your choice of the light titanium interior with the silver metallic exterior. You surprised one of our mechanics! He’s from Ryan’s Ridge and knows how cold it gets up there, so he wonders why the large sun roof?”

Mack smiles at her, “Extra safety feature. If I ever manage to roll it so it ends up on its side I can open the sun roof and get out that way. It’ll be a lot easier and quicker than trying to climb out the side.”

“Damn! I never thought of it as a safety feature.”

They stand and look at the large silver SUV for a few minutes. With a sigh Mack slips the learner driver ’L’ plates into the plate holders put on the truck at his request and climbs into the driver’s seat. Helen and the kids load up then Mack is driving down the driveway. A few of the customers migrate over to Janice to discuss the truck since they’re now interested in looking at buying something similar after seeing Mack’s.

Diane asks, “Mack, for someone who’s just got their learner’s permit are you sure it’s safe for you to drive this big thing.”

“I used to drive the utes and trucks about the forest at home for a few years. This is a lot easier than the four and ten tonne trucks we use in the forest.” Not much to be said on driving after that. The rest of the trip is a lot of fun for them. The next afternoon Mack drives them home.

Keeping Fit

The Monday after returning from Melbourne Mack visits a local gym. After looking over the equipment he asks about the membership options. The personal fitness instructor speaking with him is amused a mid-teen boy is looking at a fitness gym membership. In the end Mack signs up for a three month trial period of the top level membership at a discounted rate as it gives him access to the two swimming pools and all of their equipment. He can also attend any of the aerobic classes that are on; he can book for a class or just join in one that isn’t full. The top membership card allows him to enter personal programs into some of the equipment like the top end treadmills that can be programmed to adjust the speed and angle of the level at various times during the plan.

On his walk home he stops to buy some of the recommended gear to wear while training. They have rules about what you can and can’t wear there, and about other support equipment like drink bottles and bags they allow into the facility.

Mack arrives at home in time for a late lunch. When he walks in Helen asks, “Do you want me to cook you something for lunch?”

He smiles as he replies, “No, I’ve got a craving for a particular lunch, so I’ll cook it myself.” Helen finds the idea of a teen boy cooking an odd one. On reflection, the idea of Mack cooking isn’t that odd as he’s that self-reliant he would’ve made sure he can cook. Diane and Mary hear this exchange so they wait around to see what he does.

Mack takes a moment to open cupboards and drawers to see what’s there. He notes where the various implements, pots, pans, and other equipment are as well as what foods are on hand. He soon has a bowl, a medium sized fry-pan, a whisk, and six eggs out. He puts a pat of butter in the fry-pan and sets it on the stove at a medium setting. The eggs are soon broken and in the bowl. He adds some salt along with a bit of a few spices and some diced ham from the fridge. A good whisking then a check of the butter in the pan. He picks up the pan and moves it about to spread the butter all over it. Another moment and the contents of the bowl are being poured into the pan. In a few minutes he flips over the thick omelette he’s making. Fifteen minutes after starting to cook he’s eating an omelette.

All three watching females are surprised at his competency and the speed at which he prepares the food. They can’t help themselves as they have to know, so they grab forks and cut a bit off to try. They like it, and Helen says, “Damn, that’s better than any omelette I’ve ever made.”

Mack smiles at them while he eats it. After he finishes eating he surprises them again by cleaning up everything he used. While he cleans up he says, “I was down at the NeuYou Gym and I got a membership. They gave me three free trial visit cards to hand out. They’re in my coat pocket if you want them.” Helen checks the pockets of his coat on the chair and she soon has them out on the table, so they take one each.

Helen asks, “Isn’t a membership there expensive?”

“Yes, but I’ve got few options if I wish to stay fit. I’ll be going back for my first full visit this afternoon. I’ve got a three month trial Ultimate membership with unlimited visits to see if I like what they have.” All of them are surprised at him getting such a top end membership.

“If you don’t mind, I think I’ll come too. You can drive down to get some time in your learner’s log book and I can check them out.”

First Visit

At three o’clock that afternoon the four of them walk in the door of the NeuYou Gym. The girls are busy looking around, until one of the staff comes up and greets them. Mack says, “Hi, Merry, these ladies are my cousin and guardian, Helen, with her daughters, Mary and Diane. They wish to use the trial visit cards you gave me earlier. I’m not sure if the girls can afford to be regulars but I’m sure Helen can.”

“I’ll have Bert show them around while I have a word with the boss to see if we can qualify you for a family plan. Since they’re now your family I think it should work.”

“It’s worth a try. I want to go enter a program for the ’Grandmaster’ walker. I want it to mimic a walk I used to do all of the time at home.” Mack heads to the equipment room for the Ultimate members only while the girls follow one of the male trainers on a tour of the facilities.

Merry walks to the main office and sits at her desk. Picking up the phone she calls the other owner, her brother. When he answers she says, “Hi, Bro. I’ve got a policy change I need to pass by you. It’s about the family membership. So far we allow for full family, step family, and adopted family on a family membership. What about where a person is a ward of blood kin? We’ve a recently orphaned teen who now lives with his cousins. He’s got a trial Ultimate. His cousin and her daughters are now doing a tour with the intent of using his trial visits. I’m inclined to offer them the mixed family discount, but I need your OK to do so.”

John Neumann thinks for a while then replies, “Yeah, I think we can expand the policy to do that. We can do it for the families with a ward on long term stay with them, but not the short term ones.”

“Thanks, Bro, I’ve got a good feeling about this kid and his family. So I’d like to get them signed up.” She hangs up and goes to the main gym.

In the restricted access equipment room another member of staff, Andi, is helping Mack with his program. She smiles and says, “First, we have to work out the distance of your stride and the speed you want to walk and run at.” She starts the treadmill so Mack starts walking. “Nod when it’s at the walking speed you want.” He works his way up until he reaches a comfortable pace that feels the same as when he’s out and about the farm. He nods. Andi checks the speed read out, it’s just under eight kilometres per hour. She looks at Mack and is surprised because he seems to be ambling along. She writes down 8 kph while saying, “Mack, I’m going to set it a touch higher. Let me know if you can’t handle it.” He nods yes and she changes the speed to 8 kph. This is comfortable so he nods again. “Right. When I push the button I want you to take twenty normal strides, then we repeat all this with you running, OK?” Another nod from Mack. She pushes the button and he counts out the strides. On the twentieth she hits the button again. This gives her an average distance for each pace. “Right, now we work out your running speed and stride. I’ll speed it up until you wave for me to stop.” He nods and she speeds up the treadmill. He waves at just under fifteen and a half kph so she notes it as 15.5 kph and sets that. Mack watches her at work and keeps running. A moment later he nods his agreement to the speed, so Andi does the running pace measurement process.

Happy she now has the critical operating parameters Andi sets the system to slow down and stop over a three minute period. Mack stays with it and slows his pace while the machine slows down. When he finishes he asks, “Got all we need to do the program now?”

“All but the distances and angles.”

“Right, we’ll have to work on the angles but I know the distances I want between each change of angle. Can we program all that and then enter the angles for each change while I walk it out?”

“Sure can.”

“Good. I’ve got two programs I want to save. One is at a walk all the way while the other is part walk and part run. Let’s do the walk first.” She nods yes. They start to program distances and checkpoints into the system. Each checkpoint is where he’ll change the angle. The default is for level walking and changes of angle to happen over five strides as there’s no way they can change that part. The same for speed changes. Once all of the distances and checkpoints are put in Mack selects the first point for the change of angle up and Andi starts the front rising until Mack is happy with the angle. She notes the angle. Mack says, “That’s the angle we want for all of the up angles and we want the reverse as the one for all the down angles. OK?” Andi nods yes. Mack lists the points where the up angles are to be started and she enters them into the program. They do the same for the down angles and where they return to level. Andi adds the few minutes of slow down to the end, and she finds the program is a minute short of forty-five minutes so she extends the slowdown to make it forty-five minutes. Mack checks the work and smiles while he nods his approval.

Merry is waiting to speak with Mack as she’s already checked the ladies are happy with their tour and are trying some of the resources the gym has available. Seeing they’ve finished this program she steps forward and asks, “Mack, got a moment to talk?” He nods yes. “The boss has agreed to allow long term wards to constitute part of a family for the purposes of a family plan. Earlier I got the impression you’ve got more money than they do and you would like them to be members too. Is that right?”

“Correct on all counts! Can you give me a moment to just try part of this then we can discuss things in more detail.” She nods to agree. Mack sets the machine to run part of the program that mimics the approach to a gully and the walk through it for about eight minutes of exercise. The machine starts and he walks through it. The routine ends and he steps off the treadmill. Having tried the fancy treadmill he’s happy it does what he wants and this gym will suit him in his efforts to keep fit in a way that he’s used to keeping fit.

Mack looks at his list for the next program. He hands it to Andi while saying, “Here’s the list of the number of paces. It’s all running, except where it says ’walk’ beside the figure. After this is entered add the program we just entered, but in reverse because that’s how I return to the house after checking the camps. Can you do that, please, while I talk to Merry?”

“Sure can. This should be straight forward. It looks a long one!”

“It is, it usually takes me a few hours to check all of the camps on foot.” He turns to Merry. “Now we can talk! Having confirmed the treadmill will do what I want I’d like to convert my membership to a longer one now I’m happy to work here on a long term basis.”

Merry smiles, “The owner has approved offering our family deals to a family with a blood kin ward on a long term stay. So we can offer your household a full family membership, if they’re interested. How many members in the family because that affects the discount levels?”

“OK, Merry. There’s Helen, her husband John, the kids, Diane, Mary, James, and myself. I’ll need the Ultimate membership because I need access to the Grandmasters while the others will only need a general one. I’m not sure how frequently John and James will be coming. But Helen and the girls will likely visit once or twice a week, or more. I’ll be here for the next three years then I’ll go to university, maybe in Sydney.”

Merry smiles and pulls out a notebook. She looks at some things in it and makes notes on a piece of paper. Looking up she asks, “Mack, do you know what university you may be attending?”

“At the moment I plan on going to Sydney Uni, why?”

We’ve outlets in Melbourne and Sydney. The main one in Sydney is very near the University of Sydney and we’ve quite a few students as members. If you’ve an Ultimate membership you can access all of our facilities in all three of the cities when you’re there. It’s the only plan we recognise at all the gyms. With the various discounts available I can offer you a five year deal for the family that’s equivalent to an Ultimate with a Basic for the period. The rest of the family will get a Basic Plus account.”

Mack thinks for a moment then says, “OK, set it up and I’ll put it on my card when I’m finished here. On a related issue, can a group other than a family get a discount of some sort for their members?”

“I’ll have to ask about that. Why?”

“I come from the mountains and the local tribal elders up there have asked me to take on the job of being the welfare officer for their people down here and in Sydney. I was wondering if we can have them sign up and get a discount for being members of the tribe. It may give some people more of an incentive to attend and to also recognise their tribal membership. It’ll help with them feeling they’re part of the tribe again.”

“Hmm, I like the concept. I’ll have to discuss it with the owners. Any idea of the numbers we’re talking about?”

“Here in Queanbeyan and Canberra, probably only about six or ten of the twenty or so tribal members here. It’ll vary as people move house. In Sydney and Melbourne we’ve about sixty tribal members in each of the cities. On a related issue, how many members would you need in an area to justify opening up a gym there?”

“A minimum of about three hundred full-time basic memberships to cover the baseline operating costs. Why?”

“Oh, I was wondering what I’d have to work out to see if you’d set up in Wood Valley or Ryan’s Ridge. I’ll see what I can sort out and get back to you about it. I may even be able to get you a cut on rent.”

“Can’t promise anything, but we’ll be happy to look at anything you can come up with.” Mack nods his agreement.

Andi finishes the program and adds a seven minute cool down at the end to make it an even three hours. She reads the statistics and asks, “Mack, you said you run this on a regular basis! How often?”

“Every month I went to check the camps are OK and no one is stealing trees. I’ve been doing that for five years. It takes about three hours now. I also take a shotgun and do some hunting on the way. Why?”

“These statistics say this is just over forty kilometres and you do it at a run and walk in a time many adults would like to run a marathon. The short routine is a forty-five minute walk for six kilometres. Based on your running speed, if you kept it up for forty kilometres it’d take you about two hours and forty minutes for a marathon. That’s well up there amongst the top times for adults.” The figures surprise Merry.

Mack shrugs, “I don’t know about that. However, the short program is the common hunting walk I did two to four times a week and the long one is the camp check I did every few weeks. Mum used to drive it but never caught anyone doing anything wrong. Mainly because you can hear a car coming from a long way off and she had to approach along the tracks. I walked or ran through the forest to come upon the camps in absolute quiet from a different angle. Four times it allowed me to catch thieves stealing trees and take photos of them at work then I’d sneak in and disable their cars. By the time they got help to leave the police were on hand and they were all arrested. Their equipment got sold to pay compensation to us for what they did. After a few well publicised cases no one tried to steal our trees. The real fun was all of the equipment they used belonged to another person who claimed he had no idea they were using the gear. The equipment was sold because he couldn’t account for how they got the gear. So he lost a lot of gear that way, including a couple of utes. I never ran in races at school because I got plenty of exercise on the farm doing chores etcetera, like hunting and checking the camps.”

Merry has an idea and says, “Mack, later this year there’s a marathon being run around the city as a fund raiser. If I sponsor you will you run in it wearing a t-shirt to advertise the gym?”

Mack shrugs, “I suppose so. I’m not sure how I’ll go in an actual race. But I’ve no trouble with it as long as it doesn’t clash with anything else I’ve got planned. When is it?”