willedoo

Peter, I don't know him. I'd have to check to see who's name goes on those abandoment markers. I'm fairly sure the information on them is a legal requirement by the various state's petroleum regulations. It could be a simple tradition of the welder adding his name to it, or more likely it's the name of an authorised person attesting to the closure of the well. That possibly could be someone from the drilling company OD&E which was based in Toowoomba, or someone from Innamincka Petroleum, or if they used a contractor to seal the well, someone from that company. Schlumberger and Halliburton were the main well services contractors out there.

Jerry, I'm assuming that's an intentional pun and not a typo.

Have a good trip Pete, a good time of year to be heading out there. It's been over 14 years since I retired from working in the back country and haven't been there since. If I got my vehicle up to scratch I'd like to do another trip out there as I've never been there on a tourist basis, always working. From the east coast of S.E. Queensland it's bitumen all the way to Innamincka now. Last time I was out there the bitumen had extended from Jackson to past Ballera, but fell short of the border. It had been a good season with a good body of Mitchell grass as far as the eye could see. In that same batch of photos, I fund this one of an abandoned well name plate at that field where we worked for a short time. Top line is Willowie No.1, the well name - ie: first well in the Willowie field. Second line, the well owner, Innamincka Petroleum. Third line the drilling contractor - Oil Drilling and Exploration Rig 30. Fourth line, the date drilling commenced. Spud is short for spudded, the term for when the bit first bites into the ground. Fifth line, the date it was plugged and abandoned. Last line, the total depth reached.

I miss working in this sort of country. It's the type of scenery where you almost expect Clint Eastwood to roll up with his poncho and mule. This was the last job I worked on out there. It was a small prospect for Innamincka Petroleum around the field they had north of Innamincka. The camera was a little Panasonic Lumix compact. It took reasonable photos and was around that time period when digital cameras were starting to produce reasonable quality images. I've still got the camera but rarely use it. If I want to take a non phone photo these days I use the old Canon 700D.

Marty, this was my favourite for leaning into corners back in the day, but it probably wouldn't hold up against the modern bikes these days. A bloke I knew back then had a Dominator SS and he let me take it for a ride one day. As far as handling goes, it ran rings around the Commando. The only issue with the SS was the annoying vibration coming through the seat right around the 60mph mark. The owner of it went on to own the world's fastest Velocette. He tried for 200 mph for a few years but the final record he set was just a bit short at 193 mph.

That was dad riding with a toddler on the tank, mum behind holding a baby and an older child hanging on behind her.

I wonder how many they would fit on them in Asia. I've seen a family of five on a small solo bike (like a 175cc) in places like Indonesia.

They're good for carrying groceries. And building arm muscles.

Just to qualify those sidecar details, here's the quote from the transport department regultions: 'Sidecars which bolt directly to the motorcycle’s frame without the need for any modifications to the motorcycles are acceptable without specific approval. Sidecars which require the motorcycle to be modified (for example, welding to the frame) must be approved by the Department of Transport and Main Roads. Before modifying your motorcycles so that a sidecar can be attached, you should engage the services of an Approved Person Engineer, who can submit an application on your behalf.' So a normal bolt on sidecar doesn't need approval. The park brake ruling is that a motorcycle manufactured after February 1976 fitted with a sidecar must have a mechanical parking brake. A bike can have a right hand side car only if it was built that way before 1 July 1988.

As far as I know Queensland is the only state that has the option of either single or dual seat registration. About a month ago I spotted this Royal Enfield Bullet 500 and sidecar in the shopping centre carpark. I got talking to the owner and he was saying that as long as you have two seat rego on a bike, you can fit a sidecar any time you like without any engineering certification or inspections. You can build a sidecar yourself and fit it, the only transport department stipulations on sidecars are that it must have four attachment points and a park brake. We don't have annual vehicle inspections here, only on trucks so for other vehicles they only need a roadworthy certificate to transfer registration from one owner to another. The owner of this Royal Enfield is a retired pilot and has quite a few classics from what he told me. Norton Commandos and single thumpers. This one is his daily driver although he said he sticks to the secondary roads and doesn't go near the highway on it.

I take my hat off to you ome for doing that job. I remember four years ago when I was in icu after an artery operation, the first night there was a lot of commotion in an adjoining room. I don't know what the story was, but it sounded like a druggie who had od'd on purpose to suicide and he was very angry that he'd been revived. He was off his head and the police had to be there to keep him under control.

I still haven't identified the drum brake wheels on this 1970 Ural frame yet, but the tyres on it bring back some memories. They're Dunlop Roadmaster K81/TT100 tyres the same as I had on my Norton Commando Fastback in 1972. In those days they were the latest big thing. They still make them now but market them as a classic vintage style tyre. It makes you feel a bit old hearing that.

That's a lot of money. In Queensland motorcycle rego is $140 plus a traffic improvement fee of $70. CTP for dual seat is around $425, so about $635 all up. If it's registered as a solo seat, the CTP is around 80 or 100 dollars less, not sure of the exact figure. The saving for single seat rego is hardly worth it. A solo seat needs to be fitted and the pillion footpeg brackets either cut off or welded up.

The only recent time I've walked into emergency entailed a five hour wait before being triaged, but I wasn't a critical case. It was more a formality; the stroke clinic phoned me and wanted me to do it. As I know now, that's what I should have done in the first place instead of going through the GP and then getting a referral to the hospital. A couple of years ago when I was stretchered in after running low on the red stuff, it wasn't too long to wait. Maybe ten minutes ramped in the ambulance, then another ten in the hallway. The paramedics stayed with me and kept an eye on blood pressure so it was all good. Our local public hospitals are good in my opinion. Not the case everywhere from what you hear.

There's also an electric prototype. https://www.imz-ural.com.au/

Ural are branching out this year with a very different format to be released in the U.S., called the Neo 500. It's based on the Chinese Yingang SUV 500 II sidecar rig, liquid cooled parallel twin with chain drive. It seems to be an attempt to provide a cheaper, more accessable model for the market and will be about 5,000 USD cheaper than the standard base model Ural available now. Pics are of the prototype:

I doubt they'd sell them to the Russian military due to sanctions risk. They're headquarted in the U.S. now and manufacturing has moved from Russia to Kazakhstan since the war between Russia and Ukraine began. The new ones are a big improvement on the old Soviet made bikes. I guess they'd want to be for the price of them. Sales are strong, they have a big following around the world.

Original side valve M72 from 1942.

That newer Ural in OD in that last post is an M70, ceased production 2018. A military look retro tribute to the old original M-72 that started it's career at the Battle of Stalingrad in 1942. Pictured from another angle:

It must be a case of the squeaky wheel getting the oil. My energy retailer has been giving me a run around for a week or more regarding an estimated bill. They've gone the way of a lot of companies with team leaders, working groups and all sorts of titles and jargon. The end result is that to fit all this stuff into their operation, something had to go, and that something is common sense. Emails have been bouncing back and forth for a while now, thanking me for my patience and promising that the working group will look into it. I emailed them last night and told them that patience was running out and I would start looking at changing retailers if their billing department couldn't resolve the issue. This morning I received a revised bill of $0, so they've waived the bill by crediting my account with the bill amount.

I agree there octave. People selling small items are probably not going to come under scrutiny. More likely if you sell a large valuable coin or jewellery collection in one lot. A bit like centrelink with applications for pension or income support. Technically you are supposed to list the value of personal items and I'd say most people undervalue or don't list them at all. That's accepted and I've never heard of anyone getting an audit of their personal items.

In my situation the majority of my aviation collection has come from overseas, so there has been a postage and freight component to the total cost. Also since the government scrapped the $1,000 exemption on paying GST on imported goods, there's a 10% GST component in the total cost, which is 10% of the cost of the item + postage + any customs fees. When working out the cost of the item for determining a capital gain or loss, does the tax department go by the cost of the item only or that plus all other costs incurred.

I'm not joking, just asking a serious question. What is average if voting can flip either way on small margins? Does a 52/48 win represent what the average voter thinks, or would a figure of 70/30 better represent what the average voter thinks.

If they come to a peace deal where the regime is still in power, the Straits are open and oil prices back to normal, that's a big loss for the U.S. no matter how they dress it up. Iran lost a lot of military assets and a few top people, but any promises they make are not worth much, so I'd agree, a war comprehensively lost.

octave, I'm not sure what average means when applied to voting. I'm not good at mathematics, so hopefully someone can explain it to me. Most elections, even what they term landslide elections, have very little in vote percentage between the winners and losers. If the Democrats have a 52% vs 48% win, does that mean that 52% are average voters and 48% are not average voters.