willedoo

Korean Air Lines 007 + 0

It's a funny use of language. You stand for election then once elected you sit.

You can't blame any party for having the desire to grow and gain more support and seats. This is what's happening in Queensland with the Greens eating into Labor support. But there's the rub. The Greens take votes from Labor but generally not the LNP. Unless Labor and the Greens are prepared to enter into a coalition, growing Green support is a gift to the LNP, the Greens' traditional arch enemy.

Nice looking floor Jerry, it reminds me of hoop pine.

Three more sleeps to election day. It should be an interesting night on Saturday watching the election coverage. The last couple of polls have shown Labor narrowing the gap on the LNP. If those results translated to election day the LNP might be in with a two seat majority instead of the massive landslide that was predicted earlier. It might be a miracle if Labor gets back in but stranger things have happened. When Can-Do Campbell Newman got the boot after the LNP's one and only term, Labor under Annastacia Palaszczuk's leadership went from seven seats in opposition to winning minority government. Labor won an extra 37 seats in that election. To put it into context, Labor lost 44 seats in the election three years earlier. There's no doubt the abortion issue has hurt the LNP. Talk of the LNP scrapping Queensland's voluntary euthanasia laws can't be helping either. The LNP are trying the small target tactic and didn't expect Robbie Katter to throw a hand grenade in the form of an abortion issue front and centre. The LNP have said they will scrap the ban on property developer's political donations. They argue that if Labor is allowed donations from unions, the LNP should be able to accept donations from developers. The LNP have also said they will commit to permanent, ongoing coal fired power generation. Queensland has no upper house so a majority government is free to introduce whatever legislation takes their fancy.

That reminds me of a mate who said when God was giving out ears, he thought he said beers and asked for two big ones.

At least you got the message across.

Bad stutter there.

I remember once listening to a lady on the ABC radio promoting a book she'd written. She was city born and bred and did the tree change and moved to the country thinking it would be great. The first morning she was woken up at 5.00 am by an absolute crow racket happening outside. She immediately thought "my god, what have I done moving here". She gradually realised that the only way to live there was, in her words, to 'learn to love the crows'. I can't remember whether that was the title of her book or of just one chapter. After hearing her speak on the radio, I started to take more interest in the crows around my place. I went from trying to scare them off to appreciating having a breeding pair share their lives and territory with me. I've had endless entertainment over the ensuing years observing their habits and capers and getting to know more about them. And yes, they still wake me up early in the morning but it doesn't bug me any more.

Don't worry ome, the noise will only last until they are weaned, which unfortunately takes a while. The chicks can be real bludgers. For a while after they are fully capable of feeding themselves, they will still try it on with the begging noise expecting the parents to place the food in their mouth for them. The only real alternatives are - a) kill the crows b) drive them away by making loud noises and throwing things at them. This option takes a lot of time and effort on your part with no guarantee of success. c) put up with being woken early and accept it as part and parcel of living in the country. This is a little bit easier if you can find things to appreciate about having a crow family live near you so that the pros and cons are more in balance. If they've nested near you they've made that area their territory and there will be a rerun of the breeding cycle every year.

I once bought some heirloom seeds on eBay just for the novelty of trying them out. Some varieties weren't worth growing again. The Black Russian tomatoes looked interesting but they had a habit of splitting before they were ripe, and the taste was nothing special.

Happy Birthday Peter, all the best.

This is the part I hadn't thought of. By the time exoskeletons have evolved into something more practical, medical advancements might be able to repair spinal cord injuries. https://www.9news.com.au/national/spinal-cord-research-trials-using-nerve-cells-from-nose-to-treat-paralysis-queensland-griffith-university/a90c494b-1042-4ab3-b631-67e9d565ceb2

You've been checking the records.

Me and cousin Clem about to look for logs:

When I used to grow a few vegetables, I found the Roma tomatoes were the go. They used to put out an incredible amount of tomatoes per bush. Tasted good and easy to handle as well.

About six months ago a small tomato seedling popped up in the yard, no doubt instigated by a bird dropping the seed. I dug it up and put it in a pot on the verandah and it's been producing small cherry tomatoes for a while now. I'd forgotten what naturally grown, bush ripened tomatoes tasted like. The taste is amazing. It reminds me of how tomatoes tasted when I was a kid. The supermarket tomatoes are fairly tasteless. They look like a tomato but taste like nothing.

The risk increases on a big scale dropping trees in steep, rough, rocky country. With country like where I live, a lot of thought has to go into figuring out an escape route. Often there's never a good option. On flat land you stand half a chance if a tree doesn't play nice but steepness, rocks and undergrowth will get you if a tree falls wrong. I think the restrictive tree clearing laws have helped a lot of us live longer.

That's what a bike mechanic told me many years ago. He said to always pull the Honda on to compression when leaving it for any time. The price difference with the firefighting pumps is big, but that's the pump quality as well as the Honda engine part of the cost. I bought a 5hp Honda with a single impeller Davey pump last year and it was around the thousand dollar mark. The 6hp Honda with the twin impeller Davey pump I have down in the creek has a replacement cost of around $1,300 these days, about twice what I paid for it originally.

I was told that the bullock teams coming down the old tollbar Toowoomba range crossing used to chain big logs behind the loaded wagons and drag them as a brake.

It's good to see robots making intelligent decisions.

I remember a bloke once telling me about an accident he came across on the beach at Fraser Island. A vehicle was bogged and a good samaritan with a snatch strap stopped to pull him out. They attached the strap to the bullbar of the bogged vehicle. The problem was the bolts holding the bullbar on were rusted and weak. When the rubber band force of the snatch strap was applied, it tore the bullbar off which went airborne hitting the girlfriend of the bloke who had stopped to help. It hit her in the head and she got a brain injury.

There's a lot of good synthetic products used these days for winching, although they are more expensive than the steel alternatives. These soft shackles pictured below have a 14 to 15 tonne minimum breaking strain and cost around $50. Saves the risk of a steel shackle becoming a flying missile. Synthetic winch rope in 10mm thickness, 25 metres long would cost around $200 with a load capacity of around 8 tonnes. Often a synthetic winch rope of a decent size will cost more than a cheap winch.

I was watching a YouTube video last night about some construction in Indonesia. One of the workers had a home made hacksaw with the frame made out of bent and shaped concrete reinforcing bar. You'd get a good grip but it would be a bit rough on the hands.