Closer to nowhere than anywhere

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I found one of my drill holes.
The map above should be centred on the concrete water tank we had helicoptered in from Mt Magnet. I spent about a month here in the mid 90's logging drill core from several 2-3km deep diamond holes from the same head.
Pan out and you see what I mean by remote.

Sean is safe

I'm sure you'll read about it in the papers.

Access Denied

If you suddenly can't access your USB memory stick, camera, phone or other mass storage device, in my case the 500Gb external hard drive, and you are using an Acer machine then for the love of [pick a god] Go into into Control Panel >> Add or Remove Programs >> remove everything Acer especially the LanScope and then reboot.
No more dreaded "Administrator has prohibited access to USB/1394 mass storage devices"

Get your boots on

How could I not have known? Sunday 27th July 2008 is National Stepfamily Awareness Day.

Presumably it was preceded by Have an Affair Day

And that by How the Fuck did She Find Out Day

Piss off I'm Taking the Kids Day

See You in Court Day

How the Hell Did it All End Up in a Heap Like This Day

RSVP Day

2nd Marriage Day

etc

And finally next year March 6 - Remember the Alimony Day

Briss (Mark II)

Went to my daughters god-father's second son's Briss last night.

  o              O               o #2         o<
 -|-    -->   --[ ]--     -->   -|-     -->  -|-   +  o
 / \             |              /|\          / \
                / \

Last time I posted this (for son #1) I was asked to 'please explain????'

to which I replied:

I hate it when I have to ex-plane comedy.
Do you mean the relationship where the god father (i.e. Christian) has a son subjected to a Jewish ritual or do you mean the Briss (sealing of the covenant between god and his adopted people by lopping bits off their genitals at a party) or do you mean the picture which is trying to convey the whole shomozle in ascii art?

I hope that nips any confusion in the bud, so to speek.

Steph

Steph is hanging up her keyboard.
The blogverse will be porer for her leaving but I understand why. She has been struggling with it for a while and has outgrown the girl she was. As much as I like to read about her misadventures and vicariously live the life of a self assured 20 something Sydney girl she doesn't have to pressure herself to post so that I have something to laugh at over coffee.

But what a girl - Carry and the clowns from Sex and the city are a fiction. This girl is the real deal. Smart, sassy and in control of her own destiny. But, I guess because of her outrageous, funny and at time appallingly lewd posts and commentary she reached a dizzying level of internet fame - with all the hatters and hangeroners and chattel that goes with that. The fact that she was writing about her own life and getting so much (de/con-structive) feedback would wear anyone down.

Nothing is forever. Over the years many of my fave bloggers have hung up their keyboards but this is a particularly acute parting for me.

I will miss you.

Good luck in whatever you do in life Steph - I have no doubt that you will wring as much fun and joy from this world as you can and will continue to touch the people around you with your humor.

Bye

Awesome upon awesome

More awesome than awesome. It's double plus good.
A 'A supervillain musical' from Joss.
Brown coats only - non gheeks need not apply. If you wanted more Firefly, more Buffy If you can imagine Nathan Fillion in OMWF then pop over to:

http://www.drhorrible.com/

- it'll only be up for a few days, see it now

Reading to Adrian

He obviously knows the meaning of the word "Bump".
Apologies for the quality (mobile phone) and my nasal Kermitesque Australian accent.

Sean is doing somethign really crazey

My crazy mate Sean is pushing the crazy envelope to whole new levels of crazy.

Wanky word for the day

Learned me a a new word today: weltangschauung, meaning mindset or world-view.
Used in a sentence: Fundies in Texas are opposed to teaching science in the classroom because it is at odds with their dark ages weltangschauung.

Childcare is doing a theme this month - space.
They've asked me to come along and talk about space. What do I tell a bunch of 4 year old's about space, hmmm;
- free energy of a vacuum? - too obvious,
- The Hertzsprung-Russell diagram? - doubly so,
- Recent observations backing up some of the more obscure predictions of Relativity? - not general enough.

Nah, they're all into robots, rockets and planets. So I'm taking along my Mars rover (shoe box with a picture stuck on either side) and a scale model of the solar system from plasticine and card. Yup - I just built the Solar system.

And now I need a rest.

Scientists have found nothing

Well, they have experimental evidence for the existence of a new bottomonium meson. That's a bottom and an antibottom quark pair for the uninitiated. The one they just found evidence for is so vanishingly small that it may as well be nothing. Not so much nothing as say a Neutrino which really is a rarefied piece of nothing but as the lowest energy state for a bottomonium meson its as close to noting whilst still being something as you can get. Now isn't that something!?!

Death of a Neighbour

She had been getting on a bit and had outlived all but one of her sisters who lived in the town house complex who had all succumbed to the cold of the last few weeks. She was noticeably slowing down and her usually beautiful home was looking disheveled. She spent most of her time in our garden and we would wave and take a moment to observe her on our busy bustling way past whilst she sat in the morning sun or shealtered from the rain within the ferns. We never named her but her now empty spot in the garden is a reminder that nature does not care. Her once beautiful golden web has been dismantled by the breakfast rituals of the wattle birds jumping through the grevillea. Her shriveled corps a shadow of her once plump presence. We saw her suiters come and go and once counted over 20 bees strung out in her trophy line. Around xmass there were 87 Nephila plumpies between the road and our door. Last week there were two and today, just the one.

Single dad for a week or so

Alex is in Germany for 10 days for work. So it's up to me to look after myself and the kids single handed whilst she's away. I normally cope for the occasional 3 day stretch when she's away for interstate conferences etc., but this is going to be a bit of a challenge.

It started well - at 1AM this morning Annalise had a temp of 39.5°

It was a toss up

Unlike Steph I don't change my profile image every time the wind changes direction but it's time for a change. I couldn't decide between one of the ones of me as a knock kneed kid / baby going for a beer out of the eskie or one of the ones in which I just look stoopid. I've gone for latter - particularly the first pick, 'cauz I think it's the dumbest face I've ever had photographed.