time flies

Well, it is quite shocking to see that I haven't posted anything here since mid December last year, almost 3 months ago! How times flies huh? It's not to say that I haven't at least thought about maintaining this, but the inertia needed to actually sit here and write something was getting harder and harder to overcome with each passing day. So, here I sit, about to get the (rather large) ball rolling again. And what to write about, there is a plentitude (or multitude) of topics one can embark upon, not least of which is the day to day workings of my life and all goes with it. Sure, that would be easy; get up, have a shower, walk the dogs, cycle to work, do work, cycle home from work, walk the dogs, go to the gym, eat dinner, watch TV, go to bed, repeat. Not overly exciting, but it sure beats being struck down by a horrendous disease and winding up in hospital for 4 months. But a couple things recently have really caught my attention and piqued my interest; One is the economy and the other is the climate. I'll start with the economy. Personally, I don't understand it. I think about it and wonder where all the money in the world comes from...what thin air? For instance, the bank loans me money to buy a house, but where does the bank get its money from? And where do they get theirs? I don't get it. What I do understand is that a hand full of knob heads in Wall Street selling cheap loans got us into this mess to begin with. Were they mental? Did they not think that thousands of people on minimum wages would be able to keep up their loan repayments? God Bless America huh? Oh, and to cap it off, governments around the world are chucking money at the problem to no good effect....."Oh, we know you screwed up, but here, take $500 billion to make you feel better."...and so the high fliers and fat cats continue to live their lives as if nothing is wrong. As for the climate, well, it's all about global warming. As a scientist I'm starting question the validity of whether or not global warming is being caused by humans or not. It's true, atmospheric CO2 levels have been much higher than what they are now, about 175,000 years ago it was up around 2,800ppm compared with today's 380ppm, and it really didn't have that great an impact on the climate. I'm not debating whether CO2 can withhold heat or not, I agree with that, no issues, but I think we need to look at how life on the planet can cope with increased CO2 levels, see if it actually will create the environmental catastrophe that many are proclaiming will happen.

Best and Worst TV 2008...

In light of doing this post same time last year, I thought it pertinent to do another list of TVs best and worst moments from this year. So, in no particular order.... THE WORST: 1: Australian Idol. Seriously, watching these poor kids get through to the 'final' and win and then have their single bomb at no.52 in the charts is terrifyingly brutal. If their record doesn't sell, suddenly these poor kids then owe Sony/BMG a staggering amount of cash to make up their 'investment'. As I have said previously, if one of these kids can sing Wuthering Heights pitch perfect, then they have my respect, until then it's just glorified karaoke. As for the hosts, well, sometimes you wonder if their batteries need replacing such is their fascinating and sparkling repartee. 2: Big Brother: Went from the best last year, to one of the worst this year. The change in hosts to Kyle Sandilands and Jackie O just accelerated the demise. As hard as they try not to make it a 20-something beach party, it always turns out that way, because the housemates are all intellectually devoid 20-somethings. Strange that. 3: America's/Australia's Next Top Model: The combined mass of egos of Tyra and the other judges is so great that they're starting to form their own gravitational field. Get off my TV. Now. 4: Make me a Supermodel: How shallow are people? Hmmmm, just ask Jennifer Hawkins who just scored straight A's in Shallow Puddle Diving 101. Is it just me, or does she never open her eyes properly? Why is she on my TV? Can she even tie her own shoe laces? 5: A Current Affair/Today Tonight: A repeat entry. If the terms "alcohol fueled violence...", "rip off merchant....", "How to feed 9 children on a budget...", "Undercover cameras recorded this conversation...." interest you, then you need to seriously take a long hard look in the mirror. And the best... 1: All Saints: As much as I hate to admit it, I do enjoy this show. It's really gone from strength to strength over the last couple of years and has become a real sleeper for channel 7. The sad death of Mark Priestly made it even more compelling to watch. 2: Enough Rope: How Andrew Denton gets big name Hollywood celebs to spill their guts over the course of an hour is quite telling. It's good because it's not like Rove where they have 5 minutes of quick fire questions before the next commercial break, it really explores conversation and was terribly engaging. 3: Top Gear Australia: It has had its detractors from day one, including myself, but looking back I don't think SBS did a bad job of it. The main host needs a bit of a personality transplant but the other two are perfect. The show was never going to be as good as the British version, not on 10% of the budget, but nonetheless, kudos for SBS for giving it a go. What people don't realise is that it took the British version a good three years before it hit its stride, the first 'reborn' series in 2002, if you watch it, is painfully scripted and sparse. 4: AFL Carlton Vs Port Adelaide: On the rare occasion that Carlton was given free to air viewing, we came back from 40 points down in the final quarter to win by 25. That's television, that's entertainment. 5: Documentary night on ABC: I think it's Tuesday or Thursday nights 8:30pm, ABC serves up some real corkers,mostly BBC derived documentaries. I might as well don the plaid slippers and dressing gown to watch these, but in amongst the sea of dross typically served up on the commercial stations, it's sometimes nice to sit back and learn something new.

I am like..... so hardcore

I always thought there was something missing during my morning and afternoon bicycle commutes, something that wasn't quite all there. Alas, I have found it, all hail the BICYCLE COMPUTER! Yay! Of course, me being me, it was on special at Aldi for $10, so I got Miss R one as well. So now I am able to tell how fast I am going, how far I went, and how many calories I burn. So, for it's first run to work this morning I managed to average 32kph for 21.5 minutes with a maximum speed of 51kph (downhill of course) with 270 calories burned. Awesome! My normal route is mapped out here: http://www.bikely.com/maps/bike-path/220177 although this morning I chose to ride down Brunswick St instead just for a change of scenery...and to see how hideously bad car traffic is going down that way.....which it is, although no better than what Hoddle St is. I have noticed that if you're in car, there is no easy way to cross Alexandra Parade. It's a traffic dam, although I did do it the other day in the car on Saturday when traffic was backed right up to the North Fitzroy Bowls club along Brunswick St. Take Rae st all the way down, turn left, then right at Brunswick St. Easy. Is it just me or is Saturday traffic worse than peak hour traffic during the week?

When worlds collide!

I haven't thought about this for a while, but for some reason during some obscenly productive internet browsing I came upon this: http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/050822_asteroid_apophis.html If you can't be bothered clicking the link, it basically describes the impending 32,000km close encounter Earth will have with a 350m wide asteroid called Apophis in 2029. 32,000km sounds an awful lot, but it's closer than the moon which is almost 380,000km away, so yes, a close shave. So, if this chunk of rock happened to hit our dear old planet earth, what would happen? Thanks to the University of Arizona, they've worked out a simple computer program to help out here: http://www.lpl.arizona.edu/impacteffects/ The likely scenario is that Apophis would strike the earth in water, probably deep ocean somewhere about 2km in depth. So, if you were 1000km away, what would you feel? Well, not much apparently. You'd hear it, almost as loud as heavy traffic, you may feel a slight tremor about 3 minutes later, but otherwise nothing. If you were 100km away, you will suffer third degree burns over most of your body and your ears would be damaged by the noise. Even if Apophis landed on solid ground, the effects within a 100km radius would be survivable. So, I guess should all this eventuate you would be pretty darn unlucky to be at the epicentre of such a collision, but I'm sure there are some parts of the world that would benefit from such an event.

The Dogs

It's been a while since I have talked about the dogs, so I will. We've had Cleo the whippet for nearly 18 months now. She was such a timid little thing when we first got her and did not accept human contact at all. However, I guess it has been only the last 6 months or so where she has become very attached to Miss R and I, she'll even jump up on us and snuggle in behind our backs on the couch when we're watching telly. She's still quite independent and won't come back inside from the park when called, but she lets us clip her on the lead at least, so we have to walk her in. It's funny, as much as she loves running full tilt across the oval, she just as much loves trotting along on the lead down the street sniffing every tree in sight. When we're not in her familiar environment, such as down at the dog beach or down on the farm, she never leaves our side. Merlin the retired racing greyhound is the crowd favourite though. Over the last 6 months we have become much more confident in controlling him and we're not afriad that he's going to ru off never to be seen again. IN the park at least we can let him off the lead no worries, it's all fully fenced and he tends to just follow me around now without looking out for the next opportunity to escape. He is even getting better with other dogs, he even plays now which is great to see. If another dog barks at him or snaps at him, he is very quick at high tailing it for home, the brave dog that he is....not. He did himself an injury last time we were down on the farm, his front right paw must've done a tendon in it or something as he can sometimes have an obvious limp there. Still, once he warms up he has a big 30 second sprint around the oval, he is then flat on his back for the next 12 hours. I swear, if you're after a low maintenance dog, a greyhound is for you. So yeah, the two of them still get along well, they'll take turns in chasing each other around the park. A greyhound should be a darn sight faster than a whippet, but they can't turn as quick, so Cleo gets away in that respect, plus a greyhound doesn't have the endurance of a whippet, not by a long shot, and also Merlin is quite stiff in his back legs so he doesn't stride out all that well. I really want to take them down to Templestowe flats where I hear there is a bit of a rabbit problem, let the dogs do what they were bred to. I think Cleo would probably catch one, but I doubt Merlin would.

So, back in Melbourne......

It's been almost 6 weeks since we got back from Europe. Man, time has flown hasn't it? So, now we're heading into the Christmas season already. And what of this whole global financial crisis that is supposedly occurring? Well, from where I'm sitting, I've noticed the phone stop ringing a bit, especially since I got back. What I do is primarily linked into the start of big budget residential developments across central Melbourne. Luckily, we have a pretty good working relationship with a few of them and I asked them how the current financial situation is affecting them. Well, not much apparently, well, not in the strict sense of the word. It so happens that they're going to sit on their hands until the new year before starting new projects. They're still able to get funding, they're still quite solvent, so I think you'll see things start to turn in the new year. I guess we're lucky here in that our housing market is not artificially inflated by too much, supply and demand you see. There's not much vacant housing here, and with 1,500 new people arriving in Melbourne per week, these people need to live somewhere. I'm not a economic genius, but it makes sense yes? And Australia is still exporting hugs amounts of natural resources, be it food or minerals, so I don't think we're doing too badly, even in this day and age, I guess primary industries are still the bedrock of any good economy. I hold grave fears for net importers of foods though, such as many European countries. What if we closed off food exports to look after ourselves first? Wow, now that would make us pretty poor, but on the other hand, at least we wouldn't starve.

The trip part 11

So, our final full day in Paris and of our trip. We caught the tourist shuttle (again) around to LaFayette for Miss R to try and find some perfume or some such, but in actuality, we were going to have to re-mortgage the house should she wished to buy anything, such was the shameful performance of the South Pacific Peso at that point in time. So we left there and tried to find our way to Montmarte and the Sacre Cour Cathedral. This meant having to brave the Paris underground metro system. Now, four years ago I never had any problems with it, I used it quite easily, but for some reason this time around I was apprehensive. We asked a ticket booth lady which ticket to get, but she a grumpy little thing that was obviously upset by our mere presence, so we used the automatic ticket machine. Somehow we made it to the right station and walked up hill...a very long hill. What I wasn't expecting were laneways filled with dodgy secondhand dealers and equally dodgy people. Suddenly we weren't in Paris anymore but the back blocks of Doveton. Seriously, not pleasant. We took a look at the cathedral at the top of the hill, as impressive as it was, and walked back down the hill. Let down factor 10. I also got hit up by the infamous bracelet scam, where some African guy comes up and asks you to put your finger in a loop of string. Apparently they go on tie a bracelet around your arm and then 'insist' that you pay for it. They were very insistent, Miss R wanted me to be polite, but I was ready to sink my fist in his face if he didn't leg it. So, we made our way around to the Musee D 'Orsay, really, the best gallery in Paris in my book. The Louvre is a waste of time and money (The countless floor to ceiling renditions of the crucifixion get a little tiresome if you know what I mean). Anyway, the best bit about the Musee D Orsay was the Impressionist section. Here were some of the world's most famous paintings, all in one spot. Van Go, Monet, Renoir, all of them. Even Miss R, who isn't an art buff, was suitably impressed. And this wasn't just a pissy little room, with 5 paintings that the National Gallery of Victoria would put on, no way, there were about 5 large rooms, with 10 paintings from EACH artist. Breathtaking. So, that was that. We had dinner at a lovely little restaurant around the corner from the hotel where upon I had my final Creme Brulee. Pretty bloody nice it was too. The next day, our shuttle arrived to pick us up and take us to Charles De Gaulle airport. Not the prettiest of airports in the world one must say, and certainly one of the worst security checks in the whole world. Only 1 x-ray machine to serve about three plane loads of people. stunning in its inefficiency. We had good seats home, the trip from Paris to KL was uneventful, prescription sleeping tablets working a treat yet again. However, the trip from KL to Melbourne was not so good. Apparently we had found ourselves in the unofficial 'baby section'. I'm really not convinced that a 10 hour plane ride with a 6 month old is a pleasant experience. We had 6 of them in close proximity, plus a few toddlers whose parents decided to suddenly disown them once in the confines of the plane. I think check in people should just put all the kids and parents together in the one spot, maybe down the back, behind a sound proof screen perhaps, because, from the reactions of everyone else on that plane we were with, that would've seemed like the smart thing to do.