nomadpete

We paused at a little town called Avoca on our way home today. We had burgers for lunch. They took a while to make them. When the waitress brought them out to us (yes they were served on proper plates), she offered us knives and forks (not those useless plastic things) - we couldn't get our hands around them! Real burgers - nice big mince pattie, topped with sauteed onion, a rasher of smoked bacon, an egg, crisp lettuce, freshly sliced tomato, beetroot, a slice of tasty cheese. All between big, toasted bun. A real meal. When we got home we still didn't have room for dinner. You can keep Macca's and Kentukky fried kitten. I don't touch it.

University of YouTube has plans for a similar thing using a bit of broomstick as a 'logroller' trap.

That's recycling at its best! On the Darling Downs mice are a seasonal reality. Numbers are so high that individual traps are a waste of time. I bought a couple of 'mouse bucket' traps. These are a modern variation on the old greased bottle resting over the lip of a bucket of water. The hardware store sells the lid and you supply your own bucket. The flat lid has a carefully balanced see-saw embedded on it. If you lean a stick against the side of the contraption, mice will run up and when they explore the see-saw, it drops them into the bucket for a swimming lesson. Then it 'resets' back to level. It does work and can catch hundreds of mice.

C'mon. Discipline please. Show me a Positive to Celebrate.

Oh dear. I guess that all those years ago (when your darling offspring were but a gleam in your eye) you never dreamed that raising a family could ever be so challenging.

I think Spacey is referring to the reduced demand for diesel/petrol/ fuel oils, will result in rising prices there, and consequently will flow on to any industry that still uses these legacy fuels. The transition period will result in financial stresses whilst industries rearrange their businesses. Yes, somd prices will fluctuate, some businesses will go to the wall. Eventually it will settle down.

You young things! Some of the most satisfying jobs are done by hand.

Well, we don't exceed speed limits but do get held up behind convoys of wheeled Taj Mahals trundling along the highways.

I don't buy chinese screwdrivers - they are poor quality in every regard and either strip out the screw head of a fastening, or strip the end off the driver.

Whether straight or cross head, just like other situations in life, success depends upon getting a tight fit. Slotted head screws are good when you grind the screwdriver to fit the slot perfectly. Cross head relies on the driver being ground to fit the screw. So you have to know which standard the screw head was made to, and buy the right driver to fit the screw head. Phillips was one of the first. But the Philips screws are hardly ever seen these days. More common is Japan Industry Standard (JIS). Maybe the Japanese didn't wish to pay royalties to the Phillips patent owner? These have a sharper 'cross" shape. Using a genuine Phillips driver with JIS will probably strip the head. A quick test is to pick up the screw on the end of the screwdriver. If the screw falls off, the driver is not ground to match the screw. Of course, USA has it's own (incomatible) standard cross head spec, too. Which brings me to Bunnings Aerospace Standard. Seems the Chinese haven't heard of any of these standards. So their screws fail in many ways.

Happy Days. We don't have complex needs and this (to us) is luxury. Surrounded by state of the art, heavy modern caravans we still have a warm dry bed at night, and a lightweight box to tow around, without the hassles the other's seem to have. Staying in a lovely quiet park near the seaside at Scamander. The bicycle cost a tenner at the tip shop and after using it for my daily exercise all week, it goes back there. Keep life simple - it's more fun.

We were using one of these until my father splurged on a modern pressure fed kero one that had ceramic radiant columns. Unlike the wick types, it gave off no noticable kero fumes. But probably plenty of CO. No wonder we slept well at night.

I think Red was talking about inches.... around the waist.

Elek-wot? It'll never catch on.

And they are quiet (no noisy compressor). "Silent Night" was a brand of the kero ones.

Caravan 3 way fridges are still popular. Similar system to the old kero ones but they use a gas flame instead.

Back in the 70's there was a lot of demolition going on in Sydney - and I quickly learnt not to ride too close behind tip trucks loaded with rubble. A half brick, on edge, fitted nicely between duals. Until the truck got up to speed.

Ouch. Yeah, it was back in 2000. And I took the car to them.... I managed to jiggle the key to get it to work just once and didn't turn it off for fear it wouldn't ever work again. Good luck with it.

Gobsmacked. Betcha won't be looking for a dooerupper next time. But you will feel great when you see the finished article when all this is done.

Thanks Octave. We had drifted way off course.

A sign of poor morale in the office. We used to have a carton of milk in the office fridge, that had a padlock to protect its virtue.

I never did understand why nobody ever ran a bit of wire out to the dunny, for a light. The rows of little sentry boxes seems a forgotten icon.

That was common practice. The flat leather pad was the alleged 'shitcarter's hat.

In your attempt to apply logic you touched on the problem..... "Nutjobs" covers it all.