The Random thought thread

[old man emu]

10 hours ago, red750 said:

the kids will have their finances under control.

That is my current concern with my son who is developing into a successful business owner. It worries me that he puts in a lot of effort to make money, but little effort in arranging his affairs both financial and legal. How do you convince your kids that Life hides many financial and legal bogyemen that you have discovered in the years that you were dealing with your own life and raising them?

[facthunter]

You should be Educated and Knowledgeable about money because it's essential  to be informed or you won't have any.  Some one will take advantage of your ignorance. Nev

[facthunter]

IF kids ride MX etc supervised, they are educated, disciplined and skilled operators with appropriate riding gear. Sometimes their (stupid) parents push them too hard to win to get an EGO TRIP for themselves.  Nev

[red750]

Here's the weirdest thing I've seen. When I was filling the kitchen sink to wash the dishes, I noticed water seeping out of the tap spout from the spot marked 1 in the photo below. Today I noticed a tiny fine spray of water coming from below the spout at the spot marked 2, spraying into the sink bowl.

 

[onetrack]

The spout is rotted out, the minerals in the water react with the poor quality brass in the tap spout, and this etches out the metal, and creates pinholes in it. I have to replace our sink mixer every couple of years, it does the same thing.

 

You can't fix them, or buy parts for them, just buy a new sink mixer, they're only about $35 - and they're just about all made in China, we make only minimal amounts of tapware in Australia today.

 

You can buy Methven for lots more money, the Methven stuff is made in NZ, but the Methven stuff is horribly expensive. Phoenix, Brodware, Astra Walker, Faucet Strommen, and Sussex are made here, but are "exotic" in their pricing, too.

The Estilo, Mondella, Caroma, Dorf and a few other brands are all made overseas, in China and Malaysia. They have a warranty period of between 1 and 2 years.

 

I bought a Methven shower rose head with adjustable arm about 3 years ago, and the pipe on the arm rotted out, and developed pinholes, and sprayed all over the shower.

I pulled it off, and found it was made out of a cheap-arse really thin piece of brass pipe. Then I studied up and found out Methven have a lifetime warranty!

 

So I contacted the Methven agent here and told them my sob story, and sent them photos of the arm. In the best fashion, we'd lost the receipt - but I had the original box it came in, so I gave them photos of that, too.

They hummed and hah'ed, and said by law, a receipt is required to claim (which is correct). So they thought about it for about a month, then said they'd replace it, as an act of grace.

 

I waited about another 6 weeks, and was getting ready to contact them, when a parcel arrived. It contained a whole new shower arm, including the adjustable pivot ends (not just the pipe) - and this replacement unit was made out of a MASSIVE piece of brass, with the setup weighing about 2kgs!! I was amazed, and convinced they'd sent the wrong part. But I waited a week and heard nothing, so I thought I'd try fitting it up. It fitted perfectly to the old shower head, and looks a million dollars.

 

The stunning part is - we paid $117 for the original shower head and arm - but the same part number is still available at Bunnings, and it's now $265! They must have lost a lot of money on warranty claims and are now making up for it! I have to say, the new shower arm looks like it would last the average persons lifespan.

[facthunter]

Whatever is rotting that metal  you are drinking. It's probably CHLORINE in the water added to meet WHO  (health) requirements from Pathogens Like  E-Coli. .  Nev

[Marty_d]

Quite often Bunnings have "specials" racks with flick mixers down to $10.

Simple fix.

[onetrack]

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

 

Edited yesterday at 02:32 AM by onetrack
had to revise the link to bring up the correct page...

[old man emu]

When you were a child, were your grandmother's cooking lessons an introduction to nanna-technology?

[spacesailor]

Not my 'grandmother ' .

Granddad was a " chef '' & after being demobbed had a " guest house " , so he could do his 

( cooking ) thing . Pressed his own meats and made the most scrumptious desserts .

spacesailor

 

[facthunter]

Granma Pie Had me concerned. Nev.

[nomadpete]

14 minutes ago, facthunter said:

Granma Pie Had me concerned. Nev.

I dunnow, ask OME. He's our grammar grandad

[old man emu]

Grandma pie, or pizza, is a distinct thin, rectangular style of pizza attributed to Long Island, New York. Typically topped with cheese and tomato sauce, it is reminiscent of pizzas baked at home by Italian housewives who lacked a pizza oven. Despite having existed for generations, the term "grandma pizza" was little known outside of Long Island, New York.

 

On the other hand, gramma pie is a regional Aussie delicacy. An article in the Sydney Mail in 1922 describes the pie as “a special Northern Rivers dish”.   The Australian Town and Country Journal in Sydney, 1885, featured a recipe for gramma pie, proving its place in Australian culinary history long before mass-produced desserts took over. Gramma pumpkins (Cucurbita moschata) are vigorous, long-vining plants that thrive in warm climates and well-drained, fertile soil. More commonly grown in New South Wales and Queensland, gramma pumpkins are well-suited to Australia’s warmer, humid regions.

[pmccarthy]

I just got home from ten days at Noosa escaping the Vic freezer. Hadn’t been to the Sunshine Coast for thirty years. I was surprised at the development, it was like a linear city. Like the Gold Coast I guess. The main surprises were;

 

all faces were white Anglo types, no Asian or coloured folk to speak of

roundabouts every where seem to help the traffic flow

electric bikes all over the roads, unregistered but doing 60kph without pedalling

wealth, wealth, wealth, that we don’t see in rural Vic

 

Now struggling to get out of bed in a cold house. 

 

 

 

[nomadpete]

I used to take the family to Noosa for holidays. We'd stay at the caravan park at the end of Hastings street. Back then it was affordable. Great bushwalks. And there weren't any Ebikes at all. Safe and fun for all ages and finances. 

Now I doubt I'd be able to afford to take a family there to stay a fortnight by the beach!

 

Aaah, the memories!

[Jerry_Atrick]

I moved to Brisbane with my then fiancee in about 1993.. In the winter, we would alternate going to the gold coast and the sunshine coast each weekend. The prices in the off season were about as good as the back of a Toowoomba caravan park.. Except for those lovely apartments on Hastings street (the caravan park was long gone). 

 

We actually used to stay at Peregian beach and I saod to my then fiancee, we should buy a house there. She refusused.. The same house I was looking at at the time, was up for sale for $4m.. Yeah, it was done up a bit.. but it is land an proximity to beach. 

 

Oh, how I wanted to stay at one of those beachfront apartments on Hastings street. Just to be able to walk to the beach would have been such fun. Fortuitously, I moved to the UK when the £ was worth $3. I took my current partner there and we booked 3 nights at a dog-awful rate on Aussie dollars, but bearable on £s. I almost had her moving to Aus then, when after a nice meal we arrived back at the foyer of the apartments, and she said, "what a lovely terra cotta moth is on the wall". It was huge, and she hates living moths with a vengeance. I said to her that I don't recall seeing it before as she went to feel the lovely piece of art.. The wing span must have been 20cm.

 

Well, it flapped its bloody wings and defended itself by going for her hair. Once the screming had died down, while drawing heacy breaths, she commented she cannot move to QLD. F! Another opportiunity missed. 

[facthunter]

Clearly she wouldn't have been a good MOTH-er. Nev

[red750]

Holidayed in Mooloolaba many years ago when my sister in law and her family lived there. Later they moved to Mermaid Waters on the Gold Coast and the wife and I had a couple of holidays there as well. They now live in a retirement village in Yeppoon. Haven't been there.