Cute duckies.

Later the place will be busy and sideshow alley is about the only reason for shows to exist nowadays, something to give the young a bit of a thrill.

Our lifeblood.

The sugar entries haven't dropped too badly but I'd be far more interested in a machinery display or home improvement sales but they haven't existed here for ages.

School display.

Every year I come to the show it seems Forrest Beach State School have the best school display, pity like nearly everything about the show the displays are dwindling and masses of empty spaces abound now.
This years theme is the 100th anniversary of the ANZACs.

A first for me.

I even made sure I didn't excite the judges by doing an awful job of printing and gluing to the required cardboard backing with a 25 mm border.

The original.

The winners. Technically the winner doesn't have the required 25 mm border so I suppose that rule doesn't matter, next year I might ignore it so I can give the judge a reason to kybosh me.

Nice new stands.

The show society managed to score $24k from the QLD gamblers fund to purchase new display stands, pity a lack of entries leave them looking empty.

So very tired but the bottles must be antiques by now.

It's showtime.

The Ingham show opened today but not until a bit after 13:00, tomorrow is a public holiday for show day but by this time most things will be packing up. Later tonight will be the busy time for sideshow alley but the grey weather made things look quite glum.

I wanted to buy a showbag but nothing I saw grabbed my interest, if I'd seen a cute doll I could have surprised Olivia.

Closing in on Pluto.

Maybe it isn't a planet these days but it's still a long way away and the New Horizons satellite is getting very close now. I've been monitoring progress at http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/
It should get very interesting soon.

Happy Birthday Olivia.

Olivia has her birthday today, too many for her liking but the alternative isn't very exciting. We went out for lunch yesterday to celebrate.

Only a geek would do this.

As followers would know I like to use LED lighting but changing the indicators are a real chore on Daisy, Proton seem to have designed her using every hurdle possible to prevent being converted into 21st century lighting rather than 19th.
This is now a rear lamp for daisy, I've found the specialised amber LEDs are too faint and also a poor colour, but using cheap cellophane wrapped around a bright white LED works pretty well. Daisy also has hard to source BAU15S sockets but a tap with a hammer to flatten one of the bayonet tangs on a normal BA15S plug sorts fitting it well enough.
More hurdles I'd overcome previously was the flasher relay being reverse wired to normal types, and the front indicators having the current flow reversed to usual, an issue only with LEDs.
The real fail this morning was not grabbing a decent photo to show the change but I'm sure it's at least as bright or brighter than it was, I just hope I don't have canbus issues but if so that fix should be simple.

The incandescent lamp is on the right here, washed out by the sun, so it's hard to judge.

Both lamps are LED here, again washed out by the sun.

Ho Hum.

The new public lavatory in town is still waiting to open, perhaps a royal visit is required to gather enough impetus. The construction work appeared to finish four weeks ago, maybe they're waiting for fittings to arrive, I suppose instead of ordering them themselves from China they contacted an Australian company so they can order from China and then put their simple to calculate margin of just placing a zero behind the last digit, after all it's spending other people's money so nobody cares.

Olivia paints a photo.

Nice.

Quite nice.

Olivia bought these when we shopped at the asian store in Townsville, she must be familiar with them as they're made in Philippines, but unlike similar types of nibblies usually found here they don't set your mouth on fire so thus masking any taste. Happily the 25% more peanuts must have started from a very low base as it still wasn't ruined by overpopulation.
If one more country would adopt the same measuring system as the rest of the world, then size labels would become simpler and easier to read on export foods.

Sunny day.

I'm smiling because I'd managed to find an obscure public lavatory in Townsville.
I'll have to moan somewhere on-line to get some action about a real lack of lavatories for travellers going past Townsville. My favourite and essential stop, the Bushy Parker rest area at Rollingstone half way between Ingham and Townsville has been rendered very awkward to access due to the back road bridge becoming unroadworthy, so now on the Bruce Highway there's no roadside lavatory between Frances Creek 10 km south of Ingham and Sandy Corner 150 km away. The bypass road that Townsville now almost enjoys has also bypassed any of the few public lavatories that ever existed there.
It's illegal to relieve oneself in public in QLD, with the usual penalties verging upon the death sentence which no longer applies here. Not good enough.
The shortest day in another fortnight or so but seasons don't mean a lot here.

I can't say I'm happy about this sign.

My thinking is state schools are taxpayer funded to provide education to those who don't wish to pay extra via the private system, there's something about this billboard that doesn't gel with me.

We finally went for a drive today, down to Townsville, here we stopped to get some prescription pills for Olivia as they were way cheaper than from the protected pharmacies in Ingham. A lot of strings were pulled in recent times to ensure a discount pharmacy couldn't open in Ingham, at least one of the few freedoms we have here is being able to chose who to vote for.

Vegemite chocolate.

I seriously doubt if this new flavour with become popular in any export market.
I have read that it's far nicer than it sounds, sometime later I'm going to find out for myself.

Fallen flower.

I noticed this flower had fallen off its perch, and being so pretty I thought I may as well take a snap since I had my do everything Olympus SZ-16 camera in my pocket.
Unusually I took this one fancy style by using its food scene setting to boost the colour saturation a touch.
Nice to have some sunshine again today.

Three boats and a Mayon.

From two years ago today.
I may as well post something nice from the past as vainly try and get a nice photo in our current bleak grey weather.