Category: Canberra

Places and experience while in the Australian Capital

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Where has this year gone!

Ok this year time has flown so fast.  Seems like it was only a couple of months ago I was with the in-laws for Christmas.  Now we are planning to have my family over this year.  Three brothers, their partners and kids, my Mum and Dad and my wife and kids.  It will be a full house, a very full house.  They are all coming down from Queensland, with this being the start of my parents “Grey Nomad” experience.

So my parents and my eldest brother will be down in their respective caravans, my middle brother will be staying near our place in a cabin and hopefully my little brother will be down for a few days staying at our place or in a cabin.  My little brother is overcoming a bought of cancer and the subsequent treatment, he is doing really well and will have the results of his latest checkup just before Christmas.

I have had a lot of things happen over the last few weeks but will put them up in other posts soon.

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Canberra EV Festival

On October the 4th Canberra hosted an Electric Vehicle festival on the grounds of old parliament house.  At the show was a complete range of Electric and Electric assist vehicles (hybrid).  Two old Detroit Electric cars at one extreme and a Tesla Roadster at the other.  Along with the large companies showing off their almost electric Hybrid cars (actually not at all electric, they still get all their energy from petrol) there was a great collection of home conversion cars.  I met, in person some people and cars that I had researched on the internet.

Really has got me thinking… it would not be that hard to pull together the gear for an electric bike.  Of course I might have to learn how to, weld, cut metal and design stuff… also a shed full of tools might help, don’t have many of them.

Anyway it was fun and inspirational, here are a few links to get you going..

Hope this inspires you.

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Father’s Day

I had a great day yesterday.  I was given some shirts, a diary, Turkish delight and musk lollies.  After breakfast we went to Temora, home of the famous Temora Aviation Museum. 

Temora has the philosophy that all its exhibits must be not only capable of flying but are flown regularly.  They have approx 6 flying days a year where more than half their planes are flown.  These are not big aerobatic events, but the planes are put through their paces on a small field close to the crowd.  These guyswant their planes to be still flying in 50 years.

Yesterday they were flying their Sabre for the first time in public, such a great plane.  They also had a visiting FA 18 Hornet.  The hornet performed a “Power Display”, man that thing was amazing.  They seem to fly it like a rally driver drives a car.  They point the nose in the direction they want to go then floor it, the more tail slide the better!

You can see some of my photos on Flickr.

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Telecommunications is a wonderful thing

Ok as you saw we had “issues” with our phone. Yesterday morning the repairman came and climbed up the pole at the back of the house (yep pole, yep backyard, Canberra is a strange place) and tested the line. Well needless to say it was BAD, so 4 or 5 poles later he found the offending junction, once fixed he tested the line to confirm the fine was working. All good.

So last night I reconfigured the modem to ADSL2+ ( I was running ADSL2 for stability) and the “new” connect speeds exceed 10Mbs. Compaired to 0.6Mbs while it was faulty and 3.6Mbs “before” the fault I am very happy.

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Faulty Phone

For the last few weeks the home phone has been incredibly noisy. I believe it is something to do with all the wind and rain, as we have an aerial lead in line to the house. I have looked at the cabling under the house (which is not very pretty) and determined that it is all sound and dry.

It has got worse just lately, the last 5 days we have no dial tone and anyone ringing us just rings out. I bypassed our central adsl filter (conveniently located right in the middle under the house) with no improvement. During this time our ADSL speed has dropped to 1/6th of what it normally is to a pitifully low 0.5Mb a second.

The technician is due tomorrow morning so hopefully it will be resolved.

Sorry for anyone trying to contact us… however our mobiles still work.

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Evacuated – 4:15 am

Ok we had a rude awakening this morning as a way too loud policeman was bashing on our door. Seems that some nutter had stolen a tradesman’s van, taken some tools and then dumped it in the park over the road.  They then decided to torch it.

The fire brigade got there about 2:30 and had the fire suppressed fairly quickly.  However when they inspected the wreck they noticed one or more compressed gas tanks in the back.  Closer inspection showed them to be Oxy-Acetylene.  They checked the tempreture of the tanks and confirmed they were still rising due to “internal activity”.

At that time the bomb squad was called and an exclusion zone with a radius of over 200 meters was created.  That included our house.

I need sleep right now.

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Accident update

Ok so it is just over two weeks after the accident with the bike. I am off the crutches and just using a walking stick at the moment. I should be off that in a week at most. The burn is almost fully healed and the swelling is mostly gone, I am going to have a checkup with the doctor later this week.

I got a call from the insurance company about the bike, basically they stop counting when the parts got up to $13,000, no labour just parts. So it looks like I am in the market for a new bike.

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Dani’s Shoulder

Dani went into hospital last Tuesday to have her right shoulder operated on.  The doctors diagnoses Bersitius a while back but were not keen to refer her to a surgeon.  However after 18 months since the incident  that caused the problem and the shoulder only getting worse, we insisted on the referal.

So the operation removed the excess fluid, soft tissue and a bone spur found in her shoulder.  Within 3 days of the operation Dani had more movement than for the last 12 months, today she was able to brush her own hair and put it into a pony tail using her right arm.

The doctor is removing the stitches on Thursday and I will give you all an update.

Danis Fixed Shoulder
Dani's Fixed Shoulder
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Published

I got one of my photos in the local Canberra Times yesterday.

Tidbinbilla Meet - 21

A reporter from the paper joined the Canberra Flickr group for a walk through Tidbinbilla Nature reserve with the aim of writing a feature in the “Arts” section of the Saturday paper.  The reporter was great, genuinely interested and really great to talk to.  We spent an hour or two walking through the new sanctuary area in Tidbinbilla, around the wetlands and through the newly growing woodland.

The article was well written and covered nearly two full pages within the inser, with 2 large half page photos and two extra supporting photos.  My shot was one of the large half page shots prominently placed on the right hand page.  Imagine my dissappointment when I noticed they had attributed the photo to another Flickr member incorrectly.

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Splinter – Not a Vampire!

Apparently I do have a life during daylight hours. My family is seeing me before sunset for the first time in over 3 months. This has nothing to do with the longer days coming into summer and everything to do with the fact I am now working sensible hours.  The last two months of my old role had me working 65 hours a week on average.

I have now started my new role within the company and I am getting home at a reasonable time each evening and not working weekends.

With all this new free time I should be updating this Blog more often and taking and uploading more photos.  Sorry this site has been a little dull lately.

Splinter

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Another year!

Well I have survived another year on this planet! With one year left before I hit the magic 40 I am happy with my life, family and future. We have all fitted into Canberra quiet well Dani is getting a good amount of casual work, the kids are doing well at school with my girl getting awards for her English and Science and by little boy working and playing hard. Down here I have had more opportunities and job offers I have ever had in my life, it is so good to be wanted.

Besides the extra grey hair I got some great stuff this year. A new tire for my scooter (I have worn the old one out with over 13000km’s), a new razor (I think I got this because my wife is tired of me using hers), a cool Mag Warrior and the movie Serenity as a special boxed edition.

I am currently going through a detailed security check by the Australian government so that I can work on my government accounts and opportunities. So I must say a big thank you to my friends that have acted as referee’s for me.

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Getting Cold

Well over the last 2 weeks it has been getting very cold in Canberra in the mornings.

Every morning has been below zero degrees Celsius and we have had a minimum of -4 one morning. You all might be wondering if I still think the scooter was a good idea.

Well I am still riding, still enjoying it and still not frozen solid. Actually as yet I have not had to put on my winter pants or my winter liner in the Jacket. I am wearing the rain liner to block the wind and a jumper under that, with the winter gloves and a neck warmer I am doing fine.

Nearly 11,000Kms on the scooter now and no problems at all.

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Catch up time

Ok so work has been worse the last few months than I could possibly imagine.  However we just got the core of the project over and done with and things look like they might settle down.  This is so overdue as my home life has been badly effected by the current work load.

Now I have posted up some more photos from the weekend away with the family and I hope you all like them.

See you in a day or two.

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Moved!

Well we have moved and we are connected to the world again.  🙂

We got all our furniture and stuff moved in about 4 hours, with the help of two very good friends and One Man Removals.  So a big thanks to Jason, Robert and Jeff from One Man Removals.  We were able to move all our stuff in two quick trips leaving only odds and ends for us to tidy up this weekend.