onetrack

My middle nephew has married a Thai woman (second marriage, the first was an Australian girl) and he is quite happy with her. They live in Northam, W.A., and his wife has a large number of Thai girlfriends that all keep together in a big support group. His wife operates a Thai food, mobile food van, that goes to major events, and she appears to be doing quite well. They managed to acquire the food van for a very good price at auction, which helped. The nephew really likes Thai people in general, to the extent that his wife encouraged him to buy a small farm (about 30 acres or 12 hectares, as I understand) in Thailand, to keep her family employed. He goes there regularly to see how the farm is going. He hasn't spoken about any problems with Thai officialdom, but I understand corruption amongst officials there, is rampant.

Here on the Left Coast, we are enduring a weekend of of heavy rain, thunderstorms, hail, wind and generally Winter weather. 36mm of rain since it started raining early yesterday (Sat.) morning, it's now 10:00AM on a dreary Sunday. The power has flickered a few times, but it hasn't gone off yet. It's actually pretty rare that we have power outages, maybe once a year. At least we haven't got the foot of snow that the Northern Tablelands of NSW are enduring. The season here is now making up for the long dry spell over Summer.

Coles el-cheapo fast-manufactured bread, does it for me! 😞

Yeah, right! - I bet their surname originally was McEnfarter, and they had to alter it, because it was an embarrassment to them!!

Get ready for some dirty weather that will cramp your bike riding, Marty! We're in the middle of a serious Winter-level cold front right now! We've just had nearly a week of snow on the Stirling Ranges, haven't seen that for a decade or two! The snow was down to 500 metres, too!

OME - Well, I suppose there could be a level of risk in that situation - but ammonium nitrate can explode without diesel being added, it just needs to be heated and confined, and maybe even have an initial minor detonation. Just a diesel spill from the fuel tanks of the truck transporting can be enough to set it off. There have been a few bad AN explosions on the highways from trucks transporting bulk AN, but a low number in comparison to the amount being hauled. The important thing is if you see a crashed truck carrying AN, and it's on fire, get at least 500 metres away from it! There was a ripper in the NT a couple of years ago, fortunately the police cordoned off the burning wreck and got everyone well back from it. When it blew up, the crater was huge.

Here's a FB video, taken from a dash cam of a road train driver, running the Great Northern Hwy in the Pilbara region of W.A. (I think the clip is from around Karinjini). It's not until you travel the Gt Northern Hwy that you start to get an understanding of the multiple hundreds of billions that comes out of the mining, oil and gas and chemical industries of the North of W.A. I only travel the lower 100 kms N of Perth on the GNH, where the maximum truck size is a B-triple (triple and quad road trains are only allowed to operate N of Wubin), 272 NNE of Perth on the GNH. However, every day I travel the GNH, I pass probably around 200-300 double road trains, and oversize loads, all hauling equipment, supplies, vehicles and consumables for the industries in the North. Ammonium Nitrate is trucked N in huge tonnages, diesel fuel the same, and the amount of mining machinery and vehicles (new going N, and well-used, coming S) is just mind boggling. The oversize loads keep getting bigger and bigger. One time, they would dismantle the dump trucks and other earthmovers, now they carry them completely assembled on platform (multi-wheel - up to 164 wheels) low-loaders. The dump trucks in this footage are just average size dump trucks. Some of the oversize equipment is 10 metres wide, and takes up the entire sealed road width (standard hwy width is 8 metres for 2 lanes). The GNH has been widened to a minimum of 8M and many passing lanes installed. The bigger oversize has 3 escort vehicles out front and 1 behind. One of the leading escorts is a "Traffic Warden", a W.A. Police initiative, where they train these Wardens via mostly retired police officers, in how to handle traffic control. The Traffic Warden is the 2nd escort and drives down the wrong side of the hwy and forces all oncoming traffic to stop and get off onto the shoulder. If there's a decent hill along the route, the traffic is stopped at top or bottom of the hill to allow the oversize loads to transit the hill safely. This can be annoying, as sometimes it holds you up for 20 mins, as the oversize trucks crawl up or down the hill. You can see the Traffic Warden vehicle at the 3:43 section of the video, as he blocks the oncoming traffic for the oversize loads. It's not unusual to come across 2 or even 3 massive oversize rigs travelling in convoy. https://www.facebook.com/watch?v=1298602058939721

Of course, no-one has asked whether Natn is a man or a woman. It would make a big difference if Natn was a woman. Thai girls can always start up a massage parlor in Australia, to earn good money. Then she could find out all about corruption and crime in Australia.

The internet is full of this kind of time-wasting, vacuous BS, that has exactly zero value.

Trump is in full dictator mode now. He gets information that disagrees with his manipulated economic story, and he promptly shoots the messenger. He's just organised the sacking of the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Erika McEntarfer, after data showed weaker than expected employment growth in July, and massive downward revisions to the prior two months’ job counts. The Orange boofhead claims McEntarfer is manipulating the stats to make him look bad, because she was a Biden appointee. The problem is, the stats are estimated for the month ahead, then revised accordingly after that period has passed, and the companies actual employment figures come in. The U.S. BLS provides preliminary, second preliminary, and final estimates before annual benchmarking, which further refines the data. The Orange boofhead is upset because the employment stats just released, don't show the massive increase in U.S. employment that the Orange boofhead is looking for, to match all his MAGA BS. Next in line is Jerome Powell, the Federal Reserve chairman. Official U.S. interest rates are currently at 4.33%, a figure set by Powell. He won't change the official rate because he says all the economic indicators don't support any change to the official rate. Trump wants the official interest rate at 1%, and he's scheming how to get rid of Powell, so he can appoint a MAGA loyalist who will do exactly as Trump says. The problem is, it's not so simple to sack Powell, because he's not a political appointee. The Federal Reserve is a stand-alone institution with no political alignment, it was designed that way from Day One. Accordingly, Trump is scheming up a plan to sack Powell for some illegality, such as spending more on the Federal Reserve building improvements in Washington, than what had been approved. Meantimes, Trump is spending an outrageous $200M on a Trump ballroom on the White House grounds. So much for DOGE cutbacks. If Trump sacks Powell, the economic fallout for the U.S. economy (and the global economy) would be huge, as external investors see increased financial risk to the U.S. economy with politicisation of the Federal Reserve - and price in the financial risk, accordingly. It's rare that I link to SBS news articles, but the SBS has this Trump news article right. https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/what-would-the-global-economic-impact-be-if-trump-tries-to-fire-jerome-powell/3f9w6fcqf

If you've wondered how the old-timers managed to build massive structures, here's an interesting outline of the movement of a 50 ton manufactured girder, produced for the Swanston St (Melb.) railway bridge in 1908. The girder was fabricated in the Dorman Long factory (count the rivets! - no welding back then! Arc welding didn't appear until 1923), and it was dragged by a team of around 60 horses to the site. The horses needed frequent rests, and it took nearly 12 hrs to move it, starting on a Saturday afternoon and going into late Saturday night. A special low-loader trolley was fabricated by Dorman Long for transport, it had multiple steel wheels of around 3 feet diameter (915mm). The front of the girder appears to be resting on two drays. At every rest stop, hydraulic jacks were installed at the rear to hold the girder from rolling away. Unfortunately, the photos don't show how they got the girder off the drays and the trolley - but it does describe how the girder was positioned with multiple numbers of 70 ton jacks - which is a technique still used today, but with electric-hydraulic jacks, instead of manually-pumped ones. The other interesting part of the story is the mention of "Wells flares" for worksite lighting. Remember, very little electricity, or electric lighting in 1908! I'd never heard of Wells flares before, but a quick search produces "Wells Light", which is basically, a kerosene fuelled blowtorch that was used to produce light for industrial sites back then. Click on the arrows up top to advance the pages. https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-300629325/view?partId=nla.obj-300646414#page/n39/mode/1up https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wells_light

Between the couch cushions.

Interesting cast of characters.

I never even felt it! I was sleeping the sleep of the just, warm and comfortable.

This Tik-Tok video is bloody hilarious, watch it right through.....

That's because FB has been tracking what you're looking at on your computer - even though they won't let you in!!

It wouldn't take long for a smart animal to learn where to press it down so they could step right over it! Cows will lean on a fence until it falls over!

Sir Michael Hill, of the jewellery design fame, has passed on at age 86. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-07-29/michael-hill-dies/105586068

We did the Corroboree Billabong croc tour in 2012, it's scary to see 4.7M crocs eating a full-sized water buffalo - on the land!

We've had good rains since the middle of July and Perth is already over its July average at 174mm (the average is 172.9mm). The farmers are smiling, the good rains have spread widely throughout the Wheatbelt, except for the far Northern and Eastern regions, which are still light on rain quantities. Overall, it's shaping up to be at least an average season, and if we get good rains in August and good finishing rains in September, the potential is there for an above-average cropping season. Some areas on the South and S.E. coastal strip, are actually too wet, now - so the aerial urea applicators are making a killing. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-07-29/wa-farmers-rejoice-over-double-digit-rainfall/105578990

Only in Australia, could you get a big croc stuck under your ute, when you were crossing a waterway!! 😄 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-07-29/nt-video-shows-crocodile-stuck-under-vehicle-cahills-crossing/105585016

An 86-year-old man went to his doctor for his quarterly check-up. The doctor asked the man how he was feeling, and the 86-year-old said, "Things are great, and I've never felt better! I now have a 20-year-old bride who is pregnant with my child. What do you think about that, doc?" The doctor considered the question for a minute, and then began to tell a story. "I have an older friend, much like you, who is an avid hunter and who never misses a season. One day he was setting off to go hunting. In a bit of a hurry, he accidentally picked up his walking cane instead of his gun." "As he neared a lake, he came across a very large male beaver sitting at the water's edge. He suddenly realized he left his gun at home, and so, he couldn't shoot the magnificent creature. Out of habit he raised his cane, aimed it at the animal as if it was his favorite hunting rifle, and yelled 'Bang Bang'. Miraculously, two shots rang out, and the beaver fell dead." "Now, what do you think of that?" asked the doctor. The 86-year-old replied, "Logic would strongly suggest that someone else pumped a couple of rounds into that beaver." The doctor replied, "My point exactly."

There's a good joke about that, I'll add it to the funnies.

Geez, that old bloke obviously owns a dozen coal mines, and his political views are well to the Right of Ghenghis Khan. I bet he reckons all Greenies should be hunted down and shot on sight, too!

We only genuinely wanted to secede once - in 1934 - but we have threatened to secede several times since - unless you're nicer to us. Oh, and we nearly didn't join in with Federation, too! We were producing all the countrys gold, back then - and so many Victorians flooded in looking for that gold, we had a name for them - "T'othersiders". I don't think many Tasmanians have left Tasmania, but I've known a few West Aussies who went to Tasmania and stayed. Cheap houses were the attraction back then, but I think that's changed now, too.