Permanent blog now ready

My permanent blog has finally been set up!
Find it at www.sachqua.com/blog

Viking, um, ship?

Sounds like fun?

A viking ship made out of 15 million ice cream sticks, stuck together with 6 tons of glue, is seeking crew members to sail across the Atlantic from Holland to Canada (via Greenland).

Touted on the web page as the world's only "Full Size Recycled Ship".

Snow report

More snow last night!
Covering the hills on the way to work, and very icy roads. No accidents, though, everyone driving at 60-80kph. Took lots of photos.
No snow in town, but long icicles on everything and our sloped driveway was slick with ice. Just about went arse up getting into the car.

Edit: There were accidents. The local paper reported 10 crashes in an hour. And everyone I talked to had a few fun fishtails while getting to work.

G. I. John

Though he is actually "Private Chow"























John is back after surviving four weeks of basic training for the army reserves.

I went down to Kapooka (in Wagga Wagga) this weekend to see his matching out parade.

And then went out drinking with about 40 people who hadn't seen a beer, and been going non-stop, for four weeks. Good fun was had by all.

He's survived, and I think somewhat enjoyed, his time a Kapooka, despite being yelled at, never having 5 min to himself, and gaining a cold/flu and twisted ankle.

At the marching out parade, the Chief of the Defence Force was attending. Apparently this is quite a treat, because he hardly visits Kapooka, let alone for "lowly" reserves.


















There were some surprised reactions from people at the mine about John being in the army reserves. Some reactions:

"He's doing WHAT?"
"The thought of John with a gun is scary"
"He's mad"
























I'm glad he's back, even though he is having to learning again how to sit still.

Bad drivers

No more snow yet, but did have frozen dew on the lawn this morning.......

I couldn't open the car door because the rubber seal was frozen to the car frame. And no wiper water, cos it was also frozen in the tubes.

This blog is somewhat in response to Jad's comment about road conditions.

NSW roads are almost always in bad condition. For everyone in Western Australia, don't complain about the extra few cents you pay on fuel for road tax, it is very much worth it. The only good roads are the toll highways in Sydney, so you have to pay extra to use them anyway.

The speed limit on the road out to work is a 100km/h, but in WA it would probably be 80km/h. It's narrow, winding and potholed.

I have occasionally heard Perth drivers been accused of being bad, and having driven in Sydney I can understand why. In Sydney, there are so many cars, close together, going fast that you have to be continually alert, and take even the smallest opportunity to turn or change lanes. There is no margin of error.

In Perth, you have the luxury to hesitate, wait for a better opportunity and become rather lazy about driving.

But this also means that NSW drivers, especially Sydney drivers, are extremely bad country drivers. Driving too fast, or very close to cars in front, and overtaking dangerously.

And then you add ice.........

There are always a few bad accidents every winter. But there are also lots of accidents even on dry summer roads just from people being dickheads.

They don't salt the roads as they don't usually get too icy. I haven't experenced any icy roads yet *cross fingers*.

Snow

We had a snow fall last night!
Only a couple of centimetres, enough to thinly cover flat ground with tuffs of grass poking through.
It wasn't at home or work, unfortunately, but on the side of the road on the way to work.
The road gets to approx 1000m altitude before descending into the valley where the mine is situated.

Prediction is for more tomorrow morning. I will try to remember my camera!

My house

Thought I would show you some photos of where I've been living for the past 7 months.
It's a 4 bedroom place. Have one housemate at the moment, a vet grad, and she always has great work stories. Until recently also had a grad mining engineer, on exchange from my employer's western australian mine site.





























Lounge room at the front, front door to my left, hallway down to the bedrooms on right:















Kitchen (to the right of the dining room in above photo):















Living room / computer room:















Back patio:















But the best thing about the place (well, at the moment) is it has central gas heating!