Filling a gap.

The Easter colouring in photo competition at Coles looks a bit threadbare so I grabbed one of their photos and Grace added some colour to it.

Now the wall looks a bit busier and since she's not entered it isn't cheating ;)
On hindsight Kirsten's photo right below Grace's may be the pick of them but I sense Kirsten may have had a bit of help.

Earthhour.

Well it's been and gone and I suppose the greenies will again claim a huge success but it doesn't look like much of a power saving in QLD in their 20:30 to 21:30 lights off hour. maybe they should rename it the Joe Lucas hour after the prince of darkness who powered our vehicles with dark beams for too many years.

The other State's power curves all seemed to follow fairly even curves, probably due to a balance between Greenies and Skeptics, QLD must be imbalanced as I detect a hint of upwardness in the graph, doubtless though I'll be proved wrong.

Dead?

I saw this Brahman like beast very close to Skara Brae in the Orkney Islands off Pommyland, and I have to wonder whether it was alive or dead, the other cattles had wandered off to the other side of the paddock so it didn't look right.

I think the famous ruins of the 5000 y/o town of Skara Brae are in the background of the capture.

I'll probably be sued for using Google's material but they should be congratulated for the superb new street view images that have recently appeared. The Orkney and Shetland Islands are really beautiful and have sparked my interest, though they'd be too close to Scotland for tourists to understand what they're saying.

Powderpuff.

Tru has a new sticker, it sort of suits my lifestyle and driving, at least it's friendlier than the angry ones the young fellas favour.

Come to think of it I should start to use a few more American spellings, favor is easier and makes enough sense logically.

The Photo

This is the photo mega mentions, Clive is under mega's right elbow.

Ului may render going to Moranbah out, but i'm still having a good think about it.

RIP Clive.

I've just found out My Dad Fred's cousin Clive Hodge died a little while back.
You'll be missed Clive.

I took this photo five years ago at the Caves hotel at Buchan, Clive is in the middle with Fred in the green shirt, the chap in the red shirt is a local, Darkie who was a lot of fun to talk with that day.

Fred now thinks he is the oldest member of his clan upon Clive's passing, and since he has ambitions of becoming the world's oldest person hopes to keep the title for a while.

Mulching trials.

I've had a bit of a test making a mulching plate to use instead of the chute on the mower, the blades appear suitable for mulching. It started out easy with me just whacking a bit of sheetmetal over the hole and two pop rivets at the front and one behind, as well as an extra plate on top to cover the hole. Instant fail.
Then I tried an extra pop rivet at the rear to strengthen it. Slightly slower fail.

Hmm thinks a bit more about it and decides to put an extra plate inside to stop clippings being wedged into the rear where the pop rivets were stressed. It seems successful now but early days yet.

Another toy mounted.

I snuck downstairs hoping to be quiet enough not to be noticed by the neighbour's dogs today, I wasn't able to be quieter than a pin dropping so naturally I had to endure the usual chorus of noise from them.
Anyway after a fair bit of thinking I was able to come up with a dead set simple mount for the new GPS/mp3 player for Tru.

The timber was part of the mower's packing crate and all I did was cut it to just the right length to fit neatly into Tru's tissue box holder.

D'OH!

Unlucky today, I got a delivery from Dealextreme and the sku.15774 that I ordered seems to have become this sku.15744

I can't see myself ever having any use for electronic cigarette filters and it will certainly cost far more to return them than they're worth. Pure junk.

Hopefully i'll get some sort of action from DX to sort out the mix up, but a fair delay is inevitable.

Good.

I ordered this vernier caliper from Focalprice and its quality has surprised me, it's a beauty and the big clear display will be liked by my aging eyes (that's the reason for buying it.

The surprise is that it's a quality unit in a nice case and would make an excellent gift/prize for someone, and the receiver wouldn't even think the giver was a cheapskate. Only US$14.52 and comes with a spare battery.

Golly this is an ad! But no I don't get paid, I only posted because it impressed me.

A dilemma.

I bought this oil as part of a air/oil filter and oil package which meant virtually getting the oil filter and oil gratis after when you account for the normal price of Tru's uncommon air filter.

The dilemma is Repco appear to now be using Penrite as the supplier of their oil, where previously it was Mobil.

I rate Penrite oil about as highly as Kevin Rudd's term as PM, and don't really want to use it in any of my engines. I might try to give it away but that could come back and bite me but it could be a good gearbox oil for someone.

Very useful toy.

Checking the mower blades just became real easy thanks to the hoist :)

This should explain the bracket.

I bought the hoist a fair while back as it was on special and thought it would come in handy either here, or if we lost our house in the new place.
Finally I could mount it here after seeing our house isn't in the line of the new highway......yet.

Next job will be to cut the rails on the walkway it's mounted beside and remount them in a removable fashion. This will make moving bulky items upstairs (or down) far easier.

A new project takes shape.

The welding is my usual crud but hopefully it'll be strong enough for the task intended. I've been at it for three days and only another couple should see the job done.

My body hurts and gets exhausted after not much work, but hopefully it may improve after a while once the effect of those "pure evil" Crestor pills wear off.
Actually for many people they're great but some of us are unlucky enough to react in strange ways.

A bit of fun.

It looks like the Coles' bakers have a good sense of humour, I suppose that'll get ground down over time.

This massive happy octopus/spider was labeled and would presumably cost the same as the small loaves to its left.

Here we go again.

I thought Lipitor were bad news pills after racking up a huge cost at the hospital for a pill caused false alarm, but these Crestor the doc put me on in place of the Lipitor are possibly even more dangerous.
I've been as sore as buggery lately but didn't give that much thought as I've had balance problems that concern me enough to book a stint to see the doctor next week. Grace mentioned that perhaps the pills were causing the problem so I did a bit of checking and bingo! These Crestor can cause Rhabdomyolysis (wish I could say it but i'll write it down for the doc) and are very dangerous, methinks they're doing it to me and my kidneys are in poor enough shape as it is.

I think I can live with my cholesterol, it was never high anyway, the cure seems worse than the disease.

I'll still see the doc though as I think the loss of balance I have is a different issue and predates the Crestor use by a long way, it was only a fluke that I saw a link with Crestor and the pain I've been in.

Of course the doc will tell the official line of how Crestor is even more perfect than the flawed Lipitor that preceded it. Meanwhile the drug companies bask in their subsidised riches.