onetrack

I find the 80 year weather cycle interesting. In 1980-1982 we had one of the worst droughts in living memory. Then the old timers told us it was the 80 year cycle aligning with the huge drought of 1900-1902. Then I started thinking about this drought period, and the 80 year cycle - and I recalled some of the old-timers telling me about the big drought of 1944-1945. So it looks like the 80 year cycle has clobbered us again. https://knowledge.aidr.org.au/resources/environment-drought-eastern-australia/ https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/78388049?searchTerm=drought

Rain gauge, Bunnings Bureau of Weather Observations Dept .... https://www.bunnings.com.au/at-home-metal-rain-gauge_p3110596

I reckon RA-Aus dodged a bullet by avoiding the election of the nudist resort owner who put himself up for board election! Just imagine, you could've been having RA-Aus board meetings in the nude in his resort!!

I see where the Donald is now selling and endorsing Trump Bibles. I wonder if there's a Book of Lies in his version? https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/mar/30/trump-selling-bibles

I can recall talking to a bloke once who had been eavesdropping on a bunch of "professional" nudists (from a nudist club apparently), on the local nude beach. He said a group of them spent about 3 hrs arguing over the differences between brown and white bread. Now, that's DULL! But I reckon people who want to spend all their time on the beach in the nude, doing SFA, must be some of the dullest people around. I like to be creative, and I cannot understand how people can sit there in the sun all day, doing absolutely NOTHING! (with nothing on, too).

It's official. Perth has just had the driest 6 months ever recorded since European civilisation commenced, and weather records started around 150 years ago here. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-04-01/impact-of-perth-dry-spell-on-wa-water-supply-explained/103646216

We are still in the worst drought for Perth and the S.W. of W.A. that I can ever recall. We've had a couple of spits of rain, less than 1 mm each time since early October 2023. Winter cut off early after a below-average Winter rainfall, and there's no sign of rain in sight for us for just about the whole of April. It's going to be a rotten cropping season for '24-'25, some of the Northern Wheatbelt farmers will be cutting back on area sown before long, and the soil moisture bank in the S.W. of W.A. is non-existent. Lots of people getting drinking water carted throughout the S.W., and even in the Central Northern Wheatbelt, because tanks are empty. It's pretty grim. https://www.farmonlineweather.com.au/models/rainfallchart.jsp?lt=wzcountry&lc=aus&mh=168

I spent many years backing a tandem drive ACCO tipper up numerous high (8 to 10M high) ramps to tip into ore bins. Then I bought a cabover F-model Mack with a tandem semi-tipper, and had to do the same with the Mack and semi-tipper. There was little room for error, the ramps often weren't more than about 5-6M wide. And with a full load, you had to gun the truck in reverse to get up the ramp because of their steepness, no slow and careful steering wheel movements, you got the truck and trailer straight, and kept them straight. And to add to the fun, neither truck had power steering! I'm a bit annoyed because the SIL got some great film footage in the mid-1970's of me doing this backing up ramps at speed - but just recently she and the brother told me they had to throw the film out, because it had deteriorated so badly, it was useless!

Stepdaughter is a senior manager in Beach Energy and they've got a new CEO who is going through the company like a dose of Epsom Salts. Firing people left, right, and centre, and ceasing all exploration. She's fully expecting to be marched out of the place shortly, even though she holds an important position. The future for oil and gas is obviously looking bleak, the new CEO is sacking 30% of Beach Energys employees.

It's been reported that GM and its automotive manufacturing allies ensured no tram or passenger rail network would become a large part of Americas transport system, because any increase in trams and trains would seriously impact their profits.

I have a severe aversion to "cutting edge technology", where the designers have failed to take into account all the possibilities and have not done adequate testing and refining. Fortunately, it seems the manufacturers have got electric power steering to be pretty reliable. I see automated parking as dumbing down driving skills. I can back trailers over lengthy distances just using the mirrors, and I can remember the awe of the bystanders in an underground car park swap meet, when I backed my 80 series Landcruiser and big tandem car-carrying trailer, straight back into position over 2 car parking spaces, between other parked cars, in just one go.

The day that car manufacturing companies and oil companies gained shared directors on their respective boards was the day the worlds consumers of car lost out big-time. It took decisive action by the U.S. Govt to force fuel-economy standards on the car manufacturers.

My style of luck is, I'd get one of those smart watches and smash it against something, when a spanner slipped. I've gone through a lot of watches. I don't wear jewellery such as rings, either - its too easy to turn a ring into a glowing branding iron if you arc it against electrical terminals. Or catch it on some projection when you're jumping down from a height, and it tears a finger off. Had a few blokes do that in the Army, jumping off the back of trucks, and catching a projecting bolt.

No, I've got lots of good useful items such as new filters, new car parts, 4WD and truck tyres, 4WD and truck rims, earthmover parts, several big workshop air compressors (the air tank on one is about 1500 litres and it weights about 900kgs). I've even got a port-a-loo! (an older all-steel one in good order). It'll bring about $650, I bought 2 at auction for $120, and the other, newer one, is doing duty at my block in the country. My 5 tonne Isuzu truck is going to get a workout. I've got several forklifts in various stages of repair, to move. I've got a 10 tonne Chamberlain 4WD front end loader and a full 20 foot sea container to move as well, but I'll have to employ a tilt tray for them. During the week, I sold a pallet of new ceramic soap dishes to a bloke who sells remnant tiles. There were 133 soap dishes on the pallet. I got $280 for them. He sells them for something like $25 each! Good luck to him. I bought 7 pallets of new surplus tiles (including the soap dishes) for $10 about 15 years ago. I sold a lot off over the years, and made a fair amount of money out of them. Sold them on Gumtree and even on eBay. You ought to see what the blokes in the other factory units have to move! They're all "junk" collectors, too - Dave, opposite my shop has about 50 or 60 cars, from Minis to Beemers to HDT Commodores, and even a '68 Chev Impala. Greg, next to him specialises in Holdens and Geminis. His sons race Geminis, so they've got a "collection" of Geminis that supply parts. He's currently restoring an FJ Holden that his ex-wife bought for him for his 30th birthday - he's 74! But the FJ is barely a quarter done, it's in a rotisserie and Gregs trying to get the body straight and all the rust taken out of it with new insert panels. The car has been written off THREE times in smashes!!

Oh no, the shed cleanout is continuing at full speed, and is in line with the schedule. A mate is rolling up from down South on Tuesday to give me 2 weeks of his time, to help speed things up. I've got a pile of stuff going to auctions.

You'd just get abused and shredded on Pprune as someone who knows nothing - because nearly every contributor on Pprune knows it all.

The crook water might go some way to explaining his irreversible brain damage.

I can't recall the last time I ate any Vegemite. I have a square crumpet with butter and a cup of tea for brekky, it hits the spot for me. Now can we start arguing about how a properly-toasted crumpet should look? (Hint - I do mine under the griller, toasters are a dead loss for an all-over even cook.)

The Bellarine Peninsula is nice, but it's too cold and wet for me to live in permanently. I guess if you want a repeat of Pommy weather, it'll do you just fine. The last time I rode a Melbourne train was Melbourne-Warragul in 2005, but it was definitely cheap back then. Things might have changed since, however.

A bit of an esoteric answer to me, but I guess these question posers like to put tricks into the questions.

The home buyers are flocking to the Left Coast and driving our prices up to Sydney levels. I believe the median house price for Sydney is $1.6M and it's still rocketing. Too much Chinese black money. There's reports from real estate agents here of East Coast buyers rocking up to Home Opens lugging suitcases full of cash to prove to sellers they are cash buyers. That stinks to high heaven of black money, drug money. laundered crime proceeds. And to top it all, apparently you no longer get your "asking price". The asking price is just a floor indicator and it's expected that buyers will automatically offer 5%, 10% or even 20% more than the asking price to secure the property. And apparently, recent pricing has no bearing on the sale price, it's all about the size of the property value increase in 12 mths time. We're well down the same road as the Chinese property collapse, I hope I don't live to see a massive property price crash here, but I'm convinced it's bound to happen.

Well it's DEEP THOUGHT, but that's not a 3 word expression.

What a shame the burning wreckage didn't fall onto a Russian military installation.

We use double water filters - 10 micron "rocks and debris" spun cotton filter and a 1 micron charcoal filter. The difference in taste between tap water and the filtered water is quite noticeable. We get about 40% of our water from underground (the Gnangara Mound) and 2 desalination plants, with the rest coming from a number of dams in the Hills above Perth. But our water is high in calcium because of the prevalence of limestone in the coastal plain, and the filters don't get the calcium out. The worst water I've ever encountered was in Nhill, Vic. It was nearly impossible to raise a lather in the shower or bath, and your hair went like wire the next morning.

I think a lot of animals are a bit smarter than we give them credit for, and they don't take long to figure out new techniques that are needed for new threats.