willedoo

I thought she was from the Lockyer Valley but when you look closely, you can see her toes are singular and not webbed. From another valley maybe.

I don't know what the latest news is on the National Construction Code changes, but when it was being set up a couple of years ago, NSW, SA, and WA were opting out of the disability clauses in the new code. The energy efficiency in building produces some new sights that take a bit of getting used to. New subdivisions up here all have white roofs. Pelican Waters near Caloundra is growing toward the highway, and from the highway as far as the eye can see, there is a mass of thousands of white roofs with no other colour present. I don't know whether the white roofs are NCC mandated or developer covenants to achieve the energy rating.

It seems to be the way it goes. Race based immigration policies are more present on the right side of politics than the left. A lot of people also see the right as the stronger faction on law and order issues.

spacey, they don't do seismic exploration in the way it's done with oil and gas, but they can do low impact passive seismic testing to map the regolith which is the layer of dirt and loose rock covering bedrock. They use portable sensor equipment and bury the sensors about half a meter under the surface. One the bedrock is identified, they do core drilling and geo chemical analysis to identify the rare earth elements. Oil and gas seismic testing on the other hand is testing much deeper to identify the source rock and reservoir rock strata to find potential hydrocarbon bearing reservoirs.

One issue with oil is the environmental degradation from exploration. On the seismic exploration side of it, things have improved vastly due to the introduction of GPS, but on the other hand, since the time GPS was introduced and saved a lot of damage, a lot of work has progressed from regional 2D exploration to intensive 3D grids which leave a big environmental footprint. On the drilling and production side, not much has changed. They still need rig roads and rig sites constructed and following that, pipeline clearing and construction. In areas where there's not enough oil to warrant a pipeline, the oil is transported by truck to the nearest pipeline access. The roads are unsealed and need permanent work crews doing continual roadwork maintenance, so the carbon footprint is ongoing.

That would be worth good money now as a collector's item.

I remember those small ice cream tubs. The small serve ones, either Peter's or Paul's, and you would pull the top off and eat it with a flat stick like a paddle pop stick. I still use a thermos regularly if I'm working about the property or going out and haven't had time to finish the pot of tea. I'm one of those people who have no concept of a cup of tea; it's a pot or nothing. Mt teapot holds about four full mugs of tea. It's enameled metal and needs a beanie over it as a teapot warmer. An old mate of mine cut a spout hole in his beanie. He'd use it as a teapot warmer while having breakfast then wear it to work. He always had a bit of hair sticking out of the hole when he wore it. I don't do that; I have the luxury of a dedicated teapot beanie and exposing the spout loses heat anyway, so no holey beanies at my place. Just a reminder, this is Queensland we're talking about.

Here's my SK-1 Iskra seat. It needs a complete re-restoration as the previous owner, while well meaning, did a man cave restoration on it (wrong colours, inappropriate and irrelevant stickers, mounting on an office chair base with a made up seat base). His idea was something for the man cave that people could sit in, which is fine for that sort of thing but just not cricket for a serious collector. Apart from that, it's in very good original condition and complete.

Did I hear someone mention ejection seats? Caution - boring alert. spacey, all they need to remove is the seat's explosive charges which is a simple job. Newer seats have more charges than the older ones and they also have several small pyro-cutters that need to be removed as well as the rocket packs. The pyro-cutters cut belts and restraining cords on parachute and survival packs. The older seats were much more simple in their workings. As an example, an old Martin Baker MK.2E seat I did a cosmetic restoration on only had one primary charge, one auxiliary charge and one small (about .6 calibre) drogue gun charge. Those charges got the seat out of the aircraft and the drogue deployed. The rest of the sequence mechanisms were just mechanical consisting of tensioned springs, time released locking star wheels and cams. Even the old MB MK.2 seat from the early 1950's was quite sophisticated compared to the MiG-15 and Iskra seats that I have. The Mig-15 seat (KK-1) didn't have a drogue and was prone to severe tumbling. The Polish TS-11 Iskra seat (SK-1) which is very similar and based on the KK-1, also had no drogue system but had fixed plywood wing sections bolted on around the head and shoulder region to act as a stabiliser. In those days things were a bit rough in the east as far as ejection seat development goes. The Brits were way ahead of the game back then. Just for interest, the photo below shows an SK-1M seat removed from a TS-11 aircraft and shows the plywood stabilising wings situated between the seat back and the head rest. The stabilisers and drogues work to slow the seat down and prevent tumbling, but another important role is to push the seat into an initial horizontal plane to present a smaller cross section to the wind blast during a high speed ejection. The TS-11 Iskra was a Polish built two seat, single engine jet trainer. The Poles were hoping to sell it to the Soviets and Eastern Block countries but the Czech L-29 was the winner there. I think only Poland and India had the TS-11, and it was still in service until fairly recent times. It went into service in 1964 but they used a seat based on a more than ten year old design. Probably for weight saving I would guess.

Yes, we'd better get back on topic.

It's not the case here. Eight were allocated to museums and 25 sold to Canada. The rest were earmarked for scrapping. The ownership of the museum allocations remains with the RAAF, which means the RAAF continues to own them but they are on permanent loan to the museums. Accordingly there's a lot of restrictions on what the museums can do with the aircraft. For an example, for a long time the museum couldn't open the F-111 cockpit and let the public sit inside it on open cockpit days. Over the years they've become more lenient there. It probably helped a bit by having two tour guides who were ex F-111 crew. I think the RAAF still clean and maintain the F-111; I don't think they trust museum staff with the job.

Thanks everyone. I might copy and paste the main part of the post to the other site.

Our local air museum, the Queensland Air Museum has been trying to obtain one of the classic Hornets, so on behalf of the museum, I'm begging for e-petition signatures. Hopefully the link might spread a bit as every signature counts. The museum has plenty of people on it's side in local, state and federal areas, but the federal government is flatly refusing requests and will scrap the remaining Hornets rather than allocate any more to museums. The problem is, there's only one chance at obtaining a Hornet and that's before they're scrapped; once they're gone, they're gone forever. None have been allocated to any Queensland museums and QAM, Australia's largest air museum, has unfortunately missed out. A Hornet would be a great addition to the museum. The RAAF fast jet line up at the museum includes an F8 Meteor, CAC Sabre, Mirage 111, a Macchi trainer and an F-111. All ex RAAF except the Meteor. It's ex UK, ex Singapore and detailed to represent the RAAF Meteor flown in Korea by WO Ron Guthrie who was the first person in the world to perform a combat ejection. Link to the e-petition: https://www.qldair.museum/?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTAAAR3CrEK4TkeMUjOmTOS0dBuJB8fxe1M9G5yLK4ETuEMlGj3E1c7o24zCaLo_aem_AYVOprRVBzVWx6krUcwDtETL0q5yykUxQlrLrEpasihq_BUhBYL3Uaqq9Pz0NzgYqnQhLEsrJVG9hTlaD7vS9UEn

Macron has announced that France will supply the Mirage 2000 and training to Ukraine.

They're no slouch on the footy field. I went to high school with a lot of blokes from PNG and played on the same side as them as well as against them. They were solid and very,very fast on their feet. There were a couple of taller, slimmer brothers who didn't play football but they were unbeatable in the long distance track events. All the shorter, stockier blokes who played football also were outstanding at track and field events like sprinting, hurdles, shot put, long jump, relay - you name it, they could do it.

Apparently it comes from areas of salt leaching to the surface which are used by animals as salt licks, referred to as just licks in Kentucky. I hadn't thought about the finger licking part in reference to Kentucky; a good observation Marty. The Colonel's goatee beard looked a bit salty as well.

You can see in the above Google Maps screengrab that Kathy's Little Doggy Store is not far from Knob Lick.

There's a lot of Lick place names in Kentucky. Beaver Lick, Big Bone Lick and Knob Lick are there as well.

Trump knows suckers when he sees them.

I seem to remember quite a few years ago in the UK there was a Best Party I've Ever Been To Party ran in the elections.

In a big development for Ukraine, Germany and the US have given the green light to use their Patriot air defence systems against Russian aircraft on the Russian side of the border. This adds to permission recently for artillery and HIMARS strikes over the border in the Kursk and Belgorod regions. Within hours of getting approval, Ukraine started hitting convoys and troop concentrations massing on the Russian side of the border region, as well as HIMARS strikes on S300 air defence systems at Belgorod.

Another positive is that we are never too old for a bit of fun, despite what we might think. In this video, old grandad is having a fat old time shuffling with his granddaughters. He learnt to dance late in life and if my memory serves me well, he was taught by his dance instructor daughter. I remember some time back seeing videos of him in the early learning stage. What is he doing there? In my opinion it's a slower, more structured version of the Melbourne Shuffle. For an old bloke, he's got the running man down pat (and no, it's not a Michael Jackson Moonwalk).

I see where I went wrong. I arranged them in alphabetical order based only on the first letter of each word and not the rest of the letters in a word. So with my method, all letters starting with F had equal placing.

Very true. One of my positives is that I was almost deceased a little over two weeks ago, but here I am fit (almost) and well. The other positive is that when I had a gravity defying LOC, I didn't damage my 10 day old, new titanium hip. The positives keep coming; now that I'm in reasonable health again, the increased exercise and physio is going well on the hip surgery recovery front. I'll be tap dancing in no time flat. That's four of my nine lives used up now with five to go, so make the best of it and don't blow them is the plan. Every time you get another chance, when you wake up and open your eyes it's a wonderful world to be in. Life is too short to be a sad sack.

When I was in hospital recently someone came around as part of a prevention of delirium programme. They give you a booklet on delirium risks during hospital stays and ask questions about whether you are active in reading, watching TV, net surfing on the phone or social phone contact with friends and family. They also give you a big wad of brain teasers printed on A4 paper. General brain teasers and different puzzles to solve so you don't go loopy.