Team Australia new recruits: update 08/07/17

Hello internet friends. I hope you’re all doing well today. I know I am. Amazingly, the painting in the pool area was finished on time, which I'm sure is a first for Panama, so I got an hour of swimming and tanning not burning in just before lunch. Except now I've got that echo-y thing going inside my head from when you get water in your ear. So annoying. But I timed my pool time perfectly. 

Look at the storm that’s happening now!

Well today I thought I’d give you a bit of an update on my recruitment efforts. Mostly cos I don’t want to end up like Dazza and have my centerlink benefits cut off for not looking for work. A couple of times a week I scroll through the australia and teamaustralia tags looking for newbies. I also take note of any Brits I see so I can throw poor @tremendospercy a bone since he's a one man band over there at teamGB. 😢  

So far I’ve found and contacted 82 Aussies of which 14 have joined. A couple of others have told me they want to join but haven’t given me enough information yet to work with. Plus people are finding me thanks to you guys upvoting and resteeming these updates and getting me into the Australia and Team Australia trending pages. So a big thank you for that!

Today I’m going to introduce eight candidates cos my list is getting a bit long and I don’t want people to have to wait too long before they can join. But before I do...

The usual formalities

Existing Team Australia members, please go here and follow everyone that’s been added since you last checked. 

Don't forget to check out @centerlink, who is busy putting Aussie-battler tax dollars to work in the form of dole payments for posts, as well as showcasing Australia's most worthy dole recipients.

Also check out the awesome Minnow Support Project. Details on how to join are here and here. You're really missing out if you're not part of it.  

Candidate 1

Name and bio

@cloh76 is a Texan who lived in Sydney for about two years, then India, and now lives in the Philippines. He basically went straight from college to travelling. Thankfully @cloh76 got lucky early on in his career and landed had a job which allowed him to travel. He hopes to share some of his those experiences in future posts.  

@cloh76 wants to join Team Australia because of how much he enjoyed his time living down under. He sill has many friends here who he keeps in contact with and says he is part Aussie at heart.  

@cloh76 is a gadget and technology enthusiast and loves exploring and engaging in all things new and innovative. He also loves dogs. 

Fun fact 

“I love extreme sports – scuba diving, sky diving, but I’m afraid of roller coasters.” 

If you google roller coaster accidents – which obviously I just did – there’s a lot more than you think. However, your chances of 'death-by-roller-coaster' are around 1 in 750 million compared to sky diving accidents (1 per 153,557 jumps) or scuba diving (16.4 deaths per 100,000 divers).

Candidate 2

Name and bio

@ch00fy is a born and bred Perth boy, where he still lives with his family. He loves Perth, saying it has beautiful weather, great food, and every season up has something new to offer (you sound like you work for Tourism WA). 

@ch00fy is a self proclaimed hospitality freak that loves his work. He started off working in hotels until his mum opened a German style restaurant, which is eventually where he met his wife. After his mother could no longer run the business, he became head chef in another restaurant where he has introduced a lot of the German style cuisine that made his family’s restaurant successful.

@ch00fy is keen to share his food ideas and recipes with the world and has posted a bunch of recipes already. I very much like the look of his sun dried tomato hummus.   

Fun fact 

“I'm a keen beer drinker and I believe my cooking gets better the more beer I drink”  

Hmm… I knew a doctor once that stitched up his kid’s knee after a few beers and later regretted it said it was the worst stitching he’s ever done.

Candidate 3

Name and bio

@drwom lives in Brisbane with his family.  He has studied music composition and comparative criminology and has a PhD.  @drwom’s passion is creativity, which goes back to his childhood. As a boy he was an avid reader of science fiction and fantasy, and loved roleplaying games including Dragonquest and Traveller. He also played guitar and now plays in a band. @drwom writes all the band's music, including rock, pop and grunge, as well as fantasy and science fiction stories.

Coming from Twitter, @drwom is currently trying to find a way to curb his instinct to upvote everything he even remotely likes to save his voting power for the ten posts a day he really likes. A problem that many minnows on steemit can sympathise with. 

Fun fact  

“My neighbourhood reminds me of Sesame Street – we and all our neighbours had kids at the same time. For a while there it was like everywhere you looked there was a muppet or three hanging out, bouncing up and down or climbing trees.” 

My sister lived in one of these streets in Holland Park. It was nice. Then everyone started getting divorced. 

Candidate 4

Name and bio

@seabreeze is from Japan but lives in Cairns. She came here originally to study zoology at James Cook University. At the time she could not speak English but needed to study it as well to pass her course, which she did.  

@seabreeze loves animals, particularly marsupials, and is a qualified veterinary nurse who loves her job. She also loves camping, fishing, kite surfing, kayaking, traditional Japanese tea ceremonies and flower arrangements. She hopes to make posts (in English and Japanese) about great places and things to do in North Queensland, caring for pets, and sharing personal stories about her family.

Fun fact 

"I am addicted kite boarding in the crocodile infested waters of North Queensland!"

You should talk to @back2basics. He's been known to swim in crocodile infested waters as well. 

Candidate 5

Name and bio

@tropical-life is another expat living in beautiful North Queensland. He is from Poland but moved to Port Douglas 1.5 years ago after Australia stole his heart.  Back home he was a paramedic but unfortunately his qualifications are not recognised in Australia. If he wants to work as a paramedic here he will have to study everything again (that’s so dumb).

@tropical-life is also a photographer, a waiter and a bartender. He loves living up north as it’s very multicultural and a great place to save money for his studies.  

Fun fact 

“I can't sing. Once I tried in public. After eight years friends still don't let me forget that.” 

Well, we can’t be good at everything, can we? On the plus side, you take beautiful photos and can save lives. 

Candidate 6

Name and bio

@ratticus is from Adelaide, then lived in Perth for 17 years, and now lives in Sydney. He has a B.Sc. (Computer Science) and worked as a programmer before experiencing health problems, which left him struggling to walk for many years. 

During his recovery @ratticus improved his cooking skills and discovered a new love of cooking that had been lacking previously. He used cooking as personal therapy and sold meals to people that didn't have time to cook for themselves. 

@ratticus’s intention for steemit is to make food related posts, but since he also is interested in board and PC games, he may post about them as well.  

Fun Fact

“Many people that know me don't use my real name. Some don't even know it half a dozen years after meeting me.” 

I am shit with remembering names so it usually takes 2­–3 reminders before I can lock it in. However, not knowing someone’s name years after meeting them? That’s gotta be awkward. 

Image source

Candidate 7

Name and bio

@pulpworx is half Indo and half Australian. He is a producer, writer and seminar curator who splits his time between Sydney and Bali. He has created a seminar platform – BudoCon MindLab – and invites interesting and influential guests to Bali. In this past, this has included Yasiin Bey, Alessandra Ambrosio and Graham Hancock.  

@pulpworx has also written an original Sci-Fi series of short stories, which are available on steemit. It's a comedy series dedicated to the Pulp Dime fantasy novels of yesteryear. If you like tech and philosophy then be sure to check it out.

Fun fact 

I'm a Daltonian, meaning colourblind in regards to some colours and tones. Grey is pink, blue is purple, green is yellow and also in vice versa. Simply put, if a painting to you is 10 colours, for me it's around 5-6. Yes, skittles are confusing.” 

Wow, I can’t even imagine what that’s like. Getting dressed must be fun.

Candidate 8

Name and bio 

@nathanmj is @bmj’s son (who I introduced in my last post). He’s from South Africa but lives in Perth now. @nathanmj's passion is playing basketball and his dream is to become an NBA pro player.  

When he’s not shooting hoops, @nathanmj enjoys travelling and going to new places. He also likes photography and going fishing. According to his dad, this is @nathanmj’s biggest catch ever – a 10kg mulloway caught last Easter. 

Fun fact 

“Unlike my dad I've broken a lot of bones in my body. My left arm about four times my right arm once, and I've fractured my knee and my ankle.” 

I’m going to tell you what I told @bmj, broken bones are not a fun fact. They hurt.

Hmm… Maybe this is a South African thing.

 @sirknight, please add these new members to Team Australia.

The rules for joining Team Australia

If you’re not yet a member and want to be, this is what you need to do:

1. Follow all the existing members @teamaustralia.
2. Vote here for our resident steemit witness @ausbitbank.
3. Comment below or DM me on steemit chat or Discord that you want to join.
4. Link your introduction post so I can find out a bit about you. If you’re new to steemit you'll have to write one so use the introduceyourself tag to help boost your following.
5. If it’s not mentioned in your introductory post, tell me which city and country you’re in, cos let's face it, a lot of us live in Australia's fourth largest city - London.  
6. If you’re not Aussie tell me why you should be a teamaustralia ambassador. 
7. Tell me a fun fact about yourself. This can be anything. For example, maybe you run a successful business, or you have eight kids and three dogs, or you rode your bike across Amercia, or you won the blue ribbon for javelin throwing at sports day back in high school, or Toadie came into the pub you work at one day and you served him a beer, or, maybe you can fit 55 maltesers in your mouth like Ed Sheeran can. It doesn’t matter what it is, I want a fun fact about you!

Once I receive this information I will try my best to write a good introductory paragraph about you for the official Team Australia membership updates. So the better your information is, the better I can make you sound. Where relevant, please use the teamaustralia and australia tags to promote your work. I will try and post weekly updates unless there is a lot of interest, in which case I will try and post sooner.