willedoo

Poor old Noddy copped a bit of difficult questioning from journalists in Townsville. He seemed frustrated they weren't accepting his slogans as an answer. https://www.reddit.com/r/brisbane/comments/1g15mwr/david_crisafulli_has_dodged_38_questions_in_a_row/

During WW1 my great uncle spent a bit of time on detachment to the Imperial Camel Corps when he was with the 5th. Light Horse Regiment. He hated it and really didn't have much time for camels and their Arab camel drivers. I don't know what they were doing, probably mounted infantry escort for the Camel Corps. By the tone of the letters he wrote back home, he was glad to get away from them.

What's the EX stand for - EXecutive or EXpensive?

Grand Caravan EX

I've heard that story a few years back about American companies exporting into Australian markets. They see Australia as the cream on top and charge higher prices here than they do anywhere else in the world. The tale I heard (on the radio I think it was) was that it was a bit of a standing joke among American traders.

Inside a very flash caravan:

I've got a big six metre long RSJ spanning across the centre of a 6m x 6m shed. It supports the skillion roof without having to have a centre pole, but the original idea was also to have a travelling chain block on it. That part never happened. It was meant to be a workshop but soon got filled full of stuff so it's best described as a storage shed these days. It seems to be the fate of all my sheds.

I can visualise how it would work. A similar principle to this tombstone lifter, except this one sets up and packs away on site.

I've seen some photos where they've had a small crane boom mounted on the rear of a ute. With a bit of skillful reversing of the trailer, they jacknifed it beside the load, picked up the load, then drove forward with the load suspended until the trailer straightened and was under the load. Then just plonk it on the trailer and drive off.

I've seen a few variations of this type that sets up at the back using the tow hitch as one of the support points. It would be portable, versatile and fairly easy to build.

Today I got one of those letters with the window that are obviously from the government. Whenever I see them in the letterbox my first thought is usually 'this can't be good', but as it turns out it was. It was a letter from the Queensland Revenue Office letting me know they'd granted me an exemption to paying annual land tax. The new unimproved property valuations had pushed most people into the land tax bracket. Normally you would have to apply for an exemption, but with an election this month, they are giving automatic exemptions to people who live on their properties and don't rent out part of it or conduct a business on the property. Once you have the exemption they will automatically grant it every financial year unless your circumstances change. The tax would have cost me $2,600 per year based on the current valuation.

You have my sympathy ome, fishnet stockings are expensive.

The other day I had a test run winching a small log up to the ute with the winch cable running over that big roller. The obvious happened - without a roller ramp or a lifting boom the log winches up too close to the ute back and catches.

The other option is to make up a longer roller ramp and winch the logs straight on to the back of the old farm ute in the above photo. It cuts out one articulation but the tray is a lot higher than the deck of a trailer and the height presents a few challenges.

The rollers I have are probably around 500mm long and 60mm diameter. They'd probably do the job. I've also got a few sets of big rollers (photo of one below) but they're heavy and a bit of an overkill. I'll find some other use for them. I picked them up years ago from the local dump in the good old days when the dumps weren't manned and people could take home whatever they liked. I think they were from a gravel crushing plant originally.

I've had another thought bubble on the subject of building a log jinker similar to that in the opening post of this thread (screenshot below). I'm inclined to build the rear section as it would be a good way to deal with that end of a log and with minor design adaptations could be handy for some other jobs as well. As far as the front section goes, my thoughts currently are that while it's a nifty toy, building it is a lot of work and expense for something that's fairly restricted to a specific use. So here's the prototype plan C. I need to buy a cheap unregistered 6x4 single axle trailer for carting stuff around my block. You can pick them up for around $300. It could also be used to support and tow the front log section. With the electric winch pulling from the front of the trailer, the log could be winched up a temporary roller ramp that runs from the rear of the trailer to the ground. I've got plenty of rollers on hand to build a cheap ramp. I can see it as a much easier and more versatile option.

Does the Jackey's Marsh festival still happen or is it history?

I thought it would be expected behaviour around there.

One thing I've noticed over the last week is that the days have warmed up, even hot some days, but at night there's been a beautiful cool, almost cold, breeze blowing from the north east. I assume it's the built up ground heat from the day rising at nightfall and drawing the cool air from the ocean in under it.

Autumn is good because there's something to look forward to. The weather is becoming more stable, it's getting cooler and the mosquitos (or flies if you're west of the range) are getting fewer. Spring is the reverse. It can be pleasant weather but things are about to get a lot worse. Spring always has you wondering if that cool, pleasant day is going to be the last one for the next few months.

It's hard to see any peace deal being made with the Ukraine/Russia war. Trump is tight lipped on details of his fantastical plan to end the war in one day if elected. Ukrainian surrender of all Russian occupied territory would be a bare minimum there. The Finnish president in a Fox interview has named four conditions for peace in Ukraine. The first is all 1991 territorial borders returned. The second is security guarantees where Ukraine is accepted into NATO or receives similar specific guarantees. The third condition is punishment for those responsible, and the fourth is compensation. Those conditions amount to a total surrender by Russia. They would only agree to that if NATO tanks rolled into Moscow.

The last two or three summers in S.E.Qld have been relatively mild, at least here where I live. The worst summers I can remember were, from memory I think 2016 and 2017. It was either that or 2017, 2018. Both those years had short winters, 6 days in the one year and about 10 days in the other. Also no spring or autumn to speak of.

Sometimes some states are less competent than the federal government. A new state won't necessarily add to government incompetence in Australia. If it had good government it would improve the national average.