(*) Most glorious

Well, Sunday morning dawned cloudy and threatening showery rain with little wind. To sail or not to sail, that is the question? Ahh, what the hay - go for it! I'd invited a few other people along, but for various differeing reasons they didn't come out. I sat out beisde Chifley Dam comofrting my boat still on its trailer for about 2 hours, just enjoying the fresh air, watching the ski boats whizz past, between intermittant showers. No biggie. The wind will come, oh yes, if you invite it, the wind will come.

Sure enough, at about 11 o'clock the wind picked up, so I quickly rigged mah small boat in about 30 minutes (a rew 'record time' for me, from sitting on the trailer until rigged and dressed ready to go) and was literally about to launch it - when Mr Hoon suddenly turns up with his Laser! Yay! This is the same guy I usually help out with all the "Sailability" stuff, so it's always fun to hang out with him. He's got the same warpo sense of humour as I have, so we kinda hit it off well. Plus it's always a lot more satisfying somehow going out on the water for a sail when there's someone else out there too. Mr Hoon and I basically followed each other around for a while in our boats [we both had Lasers - boats that is, not personal defence weapons! lol], stopped for a quick lunchbreak, then the wind came back and off we chuffed again. Bobbling around, just enjoying the now gloriously warm sunshine and light airs. No complains - at all. Mr Hoon had to head off at about 3 o'clock, so I went out again. This time I was kinda hanging around the other shore and kinda goofing around with another family group I knew, having them hang off the side of the boat as I slowly drifted past, that kinda thing. All up I'd say I was out sailing for about four hours - whoo hoo! By 5.30+ I just pottered about slowly taking my time packing up, just enjoying being out there beside the water.

Another bonus is that, with the recent rainfall just over the past week, the water level had risen by a meter! I stood at the top of where the concrete boat ramp was visible last week, and today the water was half-way-up my thighs! Yay! Bring on the rain! A funny side affect of some of these thundery storms that keep coming thru once or twice a day is that some localised flooding. Just down the road from where the boys live, a small bridge near them literally got washed away! There's even a photo of the remains on the front page of Saturday's local paper! heh heh. JD was saying one of his neighbours was trying to undo the bolts holding a guardrail on, with a wall of driftwood logjammed behind it... when it finally came loose, the rain bent 90-degrees - with the guy still hanging onto it! For a split second it seemed a little hairy, but he got out laughing - no damage done to himself. But at least the logjam an backed-up floodwaters managed to drain away a whole lot more quickly. Luckily the whole road didn;t get washed out there, otherwise the boys would have had like a 60 km trip to school, instead of a 30 km one! They would have had to have gone into town 'the long way round' via Rockley! heh heh. In the end, much to their dissapointment, they still had to and got into school the next day! hahahaaa.

Driving home, feeling tired - even out on the water in a next-to drifter, it's still physically draining - I enjoyed the most glorious sunset thru a break in the western skies, with bright shafts of sunlight gleaming down at an angle thru the dark clouds. Beautiful! It was only after I got home that I slapped myself on the forehard with a convincing "D'oh!" that I remembered - I'd forgotten I had my flipping camera with me the whole time! It would have made an almost-postcard or inspirational-poster-type picture! D'oh! to me!

I've got some more pics of the boys sitting on mah camera - that's tonights' task - editing and uploading them. Stay tuned! Also I can now update some more of the "Sailability' and Carcoar Dam Sailing Club webpage photos as well, now I've got my computers here sorted out - for now.

Postscript - here's the boy's latest pics! Enjoy their handsomness!

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The laptop is OK-ish... the battery seems to be going OK, but it takes like forever to charge it, and doesn't seem to be charging when it's plugged in... I dunno if it's the power adapter or a power supply thing, but it's working OK for mow, so I'll worry about that in a little while. I have a copy of MS Office in a CD-ROM, but I've lost the freaking access code for it, and I can't install it on mah other machine without it! Gagh! No, it's not a bootleg... I've just lost the original sleeve and info it came with! D'oh!

In about two weeks I'm heading off the Belmont, Lake Macquarie [south of Newcastle NSW] for three days to compete in the NSW State Access Dinghy Championships. I'll be going out with a guy who normally gets about in a wheelchair, but he's a great sailor and an even better bloke - always entertaining. Even tho his "MS" limits his mobility, he still drives everywhere and loves a sail... he's driving upto Belmont - taking a one-legged bloke with him! He'll be taking someone else out for a sail over the Regatta! heh he. Aint that awesome? I'll be going up with Mr Hoon, and we'll be towing three Access dinghies behind us [well, that's the plan! heh heh]. Should be a good time had by all.

Well, on with the photo editing and webpage updating! Onwards and upwards!

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On This Day... 5th March 2007
Born: Rex Harrison [actor, 1908]; Andy Gibb [1958, singer]
Died: Joseph Stalin [dictator, 1953].
Useless Trivia: "The Osbournes" fisr aired on TV, 2002.

My Soundtrack: "Odessy and Oracle" - The Zombies [1968]
Footwear: barefoot and wet from walking in the grass
Weather: thunderstorms and sunshowers... just waiting for a rainbow to appear as the sun sets :) Oh wow! The whole sky and everything outside is a pinky/orange/purple glow as the sunsets! Awesome! [stands and applauds]... postscript... I rushed out and tried to take a few photos... dunno how they'll turn out... but in the 2 minutes I was out there the sky changed! Wow! [keeps applauding]

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Here are those two photos taken out the front of my door of tonight's sunset:

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Monday Music Mambo

1. Name three of your favorite guitarists. Pete Townsend (the Who), John Lennon (The Beatles), Roger McGuinn (The Byrds)

2. Do you have a favorite guitar solo? What is it? "Something" by George Harrison, The Beatles 1969

3. What's your favorite style of guitar playing? Acoustic blues or jingle-jangly pop

4. Do you know how to play the guitar? Yes, I've been playing since I was 16 back in 1980!


Monday, March 05, 2007

1. From beth:
What's the most unusual hobby you have? How did you get started with it? Hmmm... I don't know if going outside and just listening to the sound around me is considered a 'hobby' tho? But I just love listening to the ambience of the world around me, wherever I am :) How did I get started with it? I think it may have been when we studied a few weeks of "Free Jazz" back in High School music class, but who knows?

2. From briar:
How many different kinds of music do you listen to? Name a few favorites, if you please. Sure! 1960's British pop ie. The Beatles, The Who, The Rolling Stones, The Byrds; acoustic folk ie. Bob Dylan; Psychadelic ie. Country Joe, Love, The Doors; hard rock ie. The Angels, Midnight Oil; Quirky Pop ie. XTC... all sorts of stuff... cool jazz, classical music, feetgazing rock...

3. From iris:
Do you take advantage of the outdoor areas where you live? What's your favorite thing to do outside? What's your favorite local bird? I sure do... I love to go sailing on some of our local dams. Favourite bird... hmmm... I don't think I really have one... maybe the Whip Bird? Altho they don't come exactly from these parts...

4. From kristy:
Children: Do you have any? Yes, three sons aged 13, 10 and 8.

5. From amy:
What is your favorite part of spring? The changing of the colours.

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Cyalayta
Mallard d'Quackers :o)
"Excuse me, which way is the stage?" (Audience member, lost at Altamont, 1969)

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(*) Rain shock

Hmmm... the interview this arvo went exceptionally well. It's a 3-day-a-week position with the Job Network Provider helping the financial administrator. The only drawback is... they said they'd call back this arvo - and they never did. Maybe they'll do me the decency of at least calling me tomorrow to tell me I was unsuccessful? rofl. We'll see...

Spoke with JD and Ix tonight too... we're spending Saturday together at the annual Royal Show here in town. yay! I haven't seen them much over Feburary for various reasons, but I'm just aching to hang out with them again. They told me that they went for a drive tonight to check out a small bridge nearby - that had been washed away from some of the heavy rainfall yesterday! Blimey! Apparently while they were there the water level came up a bit and washed some more of it downstream! heh heh. No damage done... it's just a small local dirt track and they were quite safe. But still a spin to watch a bridge disappear in a flooded stream! heh heh

What a surprise... more storm showers passed through today! Whoo hoo! Apparently out at Carcoar they've had like 125mm/5 inches of rain this week! Whoo hoo! Let's keep 'em coming and fill up the dam! Tho I'm sure at the moment the ground is in 'rain-shock', wondering what to actually do with all that water! Most of it would have just sucked straight down into the ground, I'm sure. Now, let the runnoff all go into Carcoar Dam - pwease?!?

And yes... the new battery for my laptop did in fact arrive today. It's in the process of being discharged and re-charged etc etc, to get it working to its fullest potential :) Seems to work well. I didn't realise how 'clunky' the keyboard on this machine is, compared to the laptop... gagh!

This arvo I've been getting mellow listening and enjoying the velvety-honey tones of Van Morrison's two early albums, "Astral Weeks" [1968] and "Moondance" [1970]. The guy has the sound of the holy! Awesome!

(*) Washed past us

I've got a job interview tomorrow afternoon, but I don't know what its for! Ya... strange! The Job Placement organisation I go thru rang me and asked me to come in for an interview with them, which is great. When I asked them if they could give me any more information about the position (apart from it being some form of office admin), they said they couldn't! Bizarre! I'll just to wait and see what tomorrow brings.

Yet another huge afternoon storm washed past us again this arvo... the rain is brilliant tho. We've been getting about 3 or 4 storms like this one every week for about the past 3 weeks. Whoo hoo. Apparently the dam levels are now officially on the rise here. Slowly but surely... more is running in than they are letting out! Yay! Now, out at Carcoar... it's gonna take a LOT of rainfall to bring it upto some kind of decent level. Hopefully the rain will fall out there as well!

The past three Wednesday nights have seen me taking a "MYOB" refresher course, at one of the local Community College. I wrangled it so that I didn't have to pay for it. The actual accounting software is easy, it's just the same as any other Windows-based stuff - it just takes a bit of time and practise to get the hang of using it efficiently. Glad it's a small group of only 9 people too, all typing accounting fingures away at nine terminals. lol.

At the moment I'm enjoying listening to "Echoes" compilation CD by Pink Floyd (2001)

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Earth Hour - Sat March 31st

www.earthhour.org EARTH HOUR - 7.30pm to 8.30pm - Saturday March 31, 2007

Earth Hour is a fabulous opportunity for you and your family to do something about climate change. On one night, in one hour, more will be done, more will be demonstrated, and more will be learned than through a hundred 'talk-fests'. And you can help make it happen.

What is Earth Hour?

It sounds simple, but it is very, very dramatic. At 7.30pm on March 31st 2007, we will be encouraging companies, government departments, individuals and families to turn off their lights for just one hour. If we meet our objectives during the first Earth Hour, the savings in green house gas emissions will be the equivalent of taking 75,000 medium sized cars off the road for one whole year! Now that's something worth doing.

Why?

The facts are alarmingly clear:

· The climate is changing! The 10 hottest years on record have occurred since 1990. In fact 2005 was the hottest year since record keeping began. (Australian Bureau of Meteorology)

· Almost 70% of Australia's greenhouse gas emissions come from energy production. (ABS)

· More than 95% of the Great Barrier Reef will have been destroyed by 2050 if carbon dioxide emissions aren't reduced. (WWF-International)

· One million species worldwide are facing extinction due to climate change. (University of Leeds)

But not everybody listens to the facts. Earth Hour is your opportunity to demonstrate how a simple change in our way of life could change, and help save, our planet.

The goals of Earth Hour:

· Households : Most of us use unnecessary electricity. Appliances on standby, old style light bulbs, lights left on when we're not using them. Earth Hour will help us all to realise just how simply we can make a dramatic impact upon global warming (and our own power bills). We will see it in action.

· Companies : We want companies to be involved. If every company in Australia turned off its lights when the buildings weren't in use, and combined it with energy saving technology, we would save between 2 and 4 million tonnes of greenhouse gasses every year. Earth Hour will show companies just how easy that is.

· Power Companies : We will be asking power companies to provide special deals for companies and households to switch to Green Power.

· To make it an annual event : Out of the 8,766 hours in a year, let's give one back to the earth.

What you can do:

· Sign up to Earth Hour and Pledge to turn off your lights on March 31st from 7.30pm to 8.30pm by logging ontowww.earthhour.org .
You will receive all the information you need to make Earth Hour a great success (and to cut your own energy bills in the long term). Pledging is free.
· Get off standby : Turn off all the electronic equipment and appliances in your home that are not being used or are on standby. Computers, televisions, stereo equipment, phone chargers, DVD or video equipment - you can find out more about this from WWF at wwf.org.au

· Tell a friend : Spread the word about earth Hour by involving your friends, family and workmates. Get them to pledge at earthhour.org and most importantly, turn off the lights at 7.30pm Saturday 31 March 2007.

· Another thing you can do before the event is switch to Green Power: Contact your electricity provider today. If all Australians switched to Green Power the saving in CO 2 emissions would be the equivalent of what is pumped out of 40 million cars! That's like taking every car in Australia off the road four times over.

· Spread the word - Once you have signed up for Earth Hour tell a friend; spread the word at work; tell your boss; mention it at school, at your local sports club or society group, you can even run it past your neighbours!

· Make it an event. Get the neighbours to switch off their lights and head out into the park for the hour; take some binoculars and look at the stars; sit and talk; explore your backyard by torchlight; have fun with sparklers; or just go for a stroll. Do something non-electric as a family $B!2(B make some candles, read by their light; have a picnic-at-dusk; pretend you are camping; have a candlelight dinner.

For more info on Earth Hour, check out www.earthhour.org

EARTH HOUR. MAKE IT HAPPEN.

(Thanx to Raven for the Info)

(*) Keeps Freezing

Spend today (Sunday) helping out at the Sailing Club, removing the pontoon for the winter and doing a bit of maintenance on some of the the club boat trailers. Twas a nice relaxing productive day - and always nice hanging out with those blokes, even if it was just the three of us today! Three was a perfect number tho for what had to be done... we just wanted to get the pontoon in - which took hardly anytime at all (thankfully), and we thought - while we're here let's kill a few birds with one stone, so we got some things done that could've waited until say, September, but they're all done now - yay! Yeah, just a couple of blokes hanging around with some tools - it's a worry! hahahaa. By the way - there wasn't even a beer in sight! heh heh I took a few photos of the Club and surrounds, and I hope to down/upload them soon. The current water level is abysmal :(

JD rang me and 'told' me what he wanted for his 13th birthday in early August... not suggested or hinted, just right-out told me! heh heh... not a worry! I got him a 3-pack Rechargable Walkie Talkie CB Radio set, which he's been hanging out for a while for. So, I'm glad I was able to get him something he's actually wanting. In the back of my mind I'm considering haggling with the boys' mum to go halvies [or thirds] on a PS2 (Play Station 2) for the boys - their cost have come down awesomely recently... quite reasonable... anyways, it's just a thought... and ya, they already have a Play Station, but it's like 3rd-hand and keeps freezing on them... you know, when you live 30kms out of town and it's sub-zero temperatures outside, sometimes the boys need some other kinda play/hanging-out options... especially with their mum pegnant again and getting out of her hair! lol

Oh ya, I'm listening to Ben Harper's 1997 album "The Will To Live" - I think I'm a bit of a fan of this guy nowdays! I have FIVE of his albums already! Gasp! That's unheard of for me, especially when it comes to music that's kinda 'this millenium'! heh heh

(*) Next of kin

It's ... a little bit 'fresh' this morning.... -6c / 21f ... brrrr!

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I received an interesting phone call early this morning from my brother... he was awoken at 3am this morning by a knock at the door... 2 policemen were standing there, and he knew straight away... one of our cousins in our small family had passed away 'under unknown circumstances' last night.

Yeah.. heavy! This particular cousin has been threatening to 'do herself in' for absolutely years... my poor brother, who is technically her 'next of kin', has received all these horrendous phone calls over the years day and night and talked some common sense into her along the way...

From what he can understand, she was found laying in the street not far from her home last night, so until the Coroner makes a judgement as to what actually happened, we don't actually know what happened to her! Hmmm...

I haven't seen her in literally 25 years, but only spoke to her at Xmastime on the phone. I never really 'knew' her at all, but I only heard all these second-hand horror stories thru my brother, who at time just got fed up with all her shenanigans... now that she's actually no longer with us, it's really kinda a shock!

Sometime in the next week my brother has asked me if I would come with him and help clean thru her few meager possessions in the inner western Sydney suburbs... more for mutual support, I think.

Oh well... our small family... we're dropping like flies nowadays! heh heh Sorry... I don't mean to sound facetious, but I dunno what to think about it all, to be honest.

(*) Looking forward to the weekend

Seeing the boys on Saturday arvo (fingers' crossed), and two sailing races on Sunday should see me feeling pretty wracked by Sunday night! But - looking forward to it! Just gotta fingure out exactly what the boys and I will be doing for Sat arvo, because their mum demands to know so she can feel justified to let them spend time with me? I dunno... if I don't tell her what we're gonna be doing, she just says 'no'! Sheesh... oh well, doesn't matter - my time with my boys is our time and I'll tell her whatever she wants to hear. lol.

More beautiful rain! We had like an inch-plus on Sunday, and it's popuring outside as I type! Lovely! The drought's not over in many parts of the state here, but we'd be pretty close to having it broken by now. At least our local water supply is full and overflowing - unlike Sydneys... sheesh! Even Carcoar Dam is almost at 20%, so there'll be some better sailing this season, the locals said the other day.

Well, here's todays funny pics for you to explore...

(*) A weekend to embrace

Twas a good weekend... quiet, settled - and LOTS of beautiful lovely pouring soaking rain... we *really* need this amazing follow-up rain, really really!

I took my telescope a few km's out of town on Thursday night and spent about 4 hours just gazing up into the heavens... what a crisp clear night... I actually saw things up there I'd never seen before! Plus a few shooting stars along the way sure helped... wOOt!

Waaaay too wet to go sailing today... the race was postponed anyway. I went out there all the same and met a few more of the locals, and helped work on an old Lasar (sailing dinghy, not interstellar weapon...) with a few blokes. The sight of this elderly chap with his box of tricks full of boat spare parts and bits and pieces of years' worth of collected boating oddments reminded me sooooooo much of my dad doing exactly the same thing, I got a bit soppy thinking about it! A nice day, despite my inability to get the boat out... not to worry.

I gave myself about an hour to take a crack at that 5,000-question survey this arvo... I only got about 12% into it and realised it wasn't getting me too far... maybe I'll post my answers one day (if you'd like... let me know! lol)

Here's some funny pics for you to enjoy...

(*) And the weather says

Go figure... yesterday was cold, wet and windy... today was brilliantly sunny, blue and windless! Ack! Can't work this place somedays! lol But at least I've finally got this new keyboard working the way I want it to... maybe...

And I've been thinking of having a small dinner party (maybe), but I'm a bit worried about that after the last time I went to fold the table napkins...
... I don't understand why people didn't want to come back! lol

But seriously, things here are same-same, going OK and life just potters along, nothing exciting happening, just sunrise-sunset is awsome enough.

(*) Go fly a kite

Standing atop Mt Panorama in the howling wind and occasional sleeting rain... flying my *two* kites! Lovin' it... just freezing my arse off at the same time being the only downer! hahahaa.

Lovely rain over the past few days tho.... apparently, speaking to one of the blokes from the sailing club, it's all fallen within the dam catchment area! Whoo hoo... just a few more inches to sail in! lol

(*) So much for spring

The weekend was a good 'un. JD and I had fun on the 8km fun run on Saturday, along with 1,000 others. His leg is still a bit weak after being in plaster, but he did it - made the whole distance! I'm very proud of him. There was no stopping him! Actually he and his brother SJ are going to Camp this school holidays - it'll be SJ's first camp! That's really really good - I'm so excited for them!

Crazy weather - we had like 20mm's of rain here over the weekend, and it snowed 40km's away on Monday! Sheesh! So much for spring! hahahaa.

Job interview this arvo went well - I was happy with it and felt relaxed and comfortable etc. Should hear by the end of the week.

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This week I thought we'd answer some true or false. Feel free to elaborate on your answers. Thanks for playing.

1. I'm at my best in the early morning. FALSE!!!
2. I start each day with a healthy breakfast. Hmmm.... toast, juice, rice bubbles & tea.... is that healthy?
3. I'm always sure to get at least 7 hours of sleep each night. No - make it EIGHT!!!
4. I enjoy my job. If I had one...
5. I get along with most everyone. TRUE
6. I'm looking forward to the new season of tv shows this year. Neutral
7. I make sure I take some time for myself every day. TRUE

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Katrina sorrow

My deepest sympathies go out to those affected by Hurricane Katrina's devestation along the USA's southern coastline.

Online aid here.

Read this comment from Alabama... a good perspective to the reality of it all...