onetrack

Yep, that's the type of beast. Photo below of the one I rode in. Did you go to SVN, or did you stay in Oz. What corps were you in? Jerry, sorry to hear about your nail-in-foot exercise, that's not good. Tetanus is a nasty way to go. You're supposed to get booster shots every 10 years, and even in your old age. Yes, we had a great Christmas Day because SWMBO was greatly pleased when her son John and his wife Cara, and SWMBO's grandson Nate rolled up from the Gold Coast last Friday night. They very rarely come West, they like the GC life too much. They've been running backwards and forwards visiting Cara's two (adult) sons from her previous marriage, (they live just South of Perth), to the Perth Hills where Johns sister lives on 5 acres (2 Ha), and then to see SWMBO and myself in the City. Everyone rocked up here at our place in the City for Christmas lunch - although J, C, and N spent Christmas morning with Cara's sons families. We had a 3 day heatwave from Saturday to Monday (38, 41 and 43°), then a nice cool change for Christmas Day, 23°. We knocked up salads and dips on Christmas morning, I cooked steaks and beaut local fish on the BBQ (fish poached in ally foil), while SWMBO cooked up local squid rings and Shark Bay scallops (we'd previously bought a kilo of cooked Tiger Prawns (NW W.A.), and the final touch was SWMBO's roast potatoes (large handcut chips, actually). She parboils them, dries them, rolls them in olive oil, and roasts them in the oven until the edges are crispy. Just beautiful. There were seven of us for Christmas lunch and about three-quarters of the food and drinks disappeared. No alcohol of note, none of us drink much any more. Soft drinks, juices, tonic and sparkling water. We pulled a pile of crackers, wore all the silly hats (I wore my golden reindeer antlers), Nate wanted to read out all the corny jokes from the crackers, then after lunch we went on a present-opening spree, most of which was for Nates benefit, I think. All in all, a good day, everyone was in a good mood - although SD's company rang her up, and wanted her to sort out a big OH&S problem for them - even though she's supposed to be on leave for more than a week! She got a bit snaky about that issue, this company thinks she's on call 24/7, it's not good enough. I can't see her staying with them, she only started with them early Nov., and she reckons they're a bunch of cowboys.

Well, thank the Good Lord for small mercies, Marty didn't supply photos, or even worse - dash cam video! 😞

Ha ha! It was pretty scary being in the hold on fold down seating, no seatbelts, and the main landing gear is right next to you! I shat myself on landing once when a shower of sparks flew up into the hold from the wheels! Dunno where they came from, but none of the (Yank) crew seemed to be too concerned! And I must apologise, my failing memory has played tricks on me, it was C-123 Provider, not a C-119 Boxcar. Same company, similar aircraft, although the C-123 started off as a heavy haul glider, built by the Chase Aircraft company, and Fairchild got given the job to build the powered C-123, instead of Chase, when Chase were deemed incapable of meeting their military orders. The big Pratt & Whitney R-2800 radials were a joy to listen to, though - although the flames and smoke on startup were a bit of a concern to a 20 yr old!

Grump Old Nasho - No, I think you'll find there's a few forum users (such as myself) that are not pilots. I once studied up to some degree on the theory involved in gaining a PPL, but I was too busy owning and operating a sizeable business to actually go on with getting a PPL, so I had to give it away. But I've had plenty of clients with aircraft, and a former business partner I was in a mining partnership with, owned a Piper Cherokee. A farmer friend owned a Piper Dakota, and I utilised his aircraft to go and pick up urgently-required parts on occasions. Other times I chartered various aircraft (including twins) to inspect distant projects and jobs - and I've joyridden around in a wide variety of aircraft, from Cessnas (182, 207, 172) to the Pipers, as well as numerous choppers, including Robinsons and Jetrangers. Like you, I'm a Nasho and a Vietnam Vet, and I spent some time airborne in Hueys, Chinooks, Caribous, and even a Fairchild C-119 Flying Boxcar! I'm too old and too deaf to fly now, so I'm just an observer on the sidelines today. Welcome to the forum, and Seasons Greetings as well.

Joe, the original post is 3 years old, and the export of Urea from China has been relaxed, then restricted, then relaxed, a number of times by the Chinese, since 2021. Urea supplies for us as a country are still tight, and it's not a good position to be in, as Urea is a critical chemical for multiple sectors of the economy - especially agriculture. However, an Indian Global Corporation (Perdaman) with a division based in Perth, W.A., is set to build a Urea manufacturing plant at Karratha in W.A., using gas from W.A.'s NW Shelf. They have a 20-year gas supply agreement from Woodside. The financing of the construction of the Urea plant is being done by investors from the UAE (Mudabala Investment Company) and Global Infrastructure Partners, a U.S.-owned major investor. GIP is a division of BlackRock Inc, one of the worlds largest infrastructure investors. Perdaman and their backers are looking at good financial returns from the Urea produced from the Perdaman plant at Karratha, as the majority of the production will be exported. It's a AU$4.5B project, one of the largest projects undertaken in Australia in recent times. However, once the Perdaman Urea Plant is up and running, we can tell the Chinese where to shove their Urea. https://perdaman.com.au/2020/07/01/4-5bn-karratha-urea-project-agrees-epc-terms/ https://www.global-infra.com/ https://www.mubadala.com/en/news/mubadala-invests-in-perdamans-western-australia#:~:text=Mubadala Investment Company (“Mubadala”,fertilizer facilities in the world.

No, unless it's a major emergency, and lives and peoples safety are at stake. As the old saying goes, "Lack of planning on your behalf, doesn't make for an emergency on my behalf".

Not a quickie, but a good chuckle in the link below, detailing a day in the life of a youthful, male owner of a kitted-up Nissan Patrol 4WD. We've all seen him, or come across him. https://www.thebelltowertimes.com/a-day-in-the-life-of-a-nissan-patrol-driver/

I've often thought about the multiple hundreds of open pit mines in W.A. that could be used for pumped energy storage. Many of these abandoned pits are full of water, and many are 200-500M deep. In addition, they usually have a huge waste material dump adjoining the pit, adding to the height discrepancy between the pit, and the top of the waste dump. Surely, these sites are ideal for pumped hydro? It would generally take little to add a link to the main power grid, to deliver the power generated, as the grid is often within reasonable reach of the open pits.

Seasons Greetings to all the forum members and their families, and I trust the wind and weather conditions change for the better for you, Nev, and the danger of losing your house disappears. I've lost my house in a fire, it is devastating, but at least approaching bushfires give you some time to prepare. In my case, my house burnt to the ground during the day with an electrical fault, and when I wasn't home. But at the end of the day, all material possessions can be replaced, your life and family members lives can't, so keep safe.

In the far-flung regional areas of W.A., the rural powerlines to outlying areas were becoming a major cost burden to Western Power, the local energy supplier and maintainer of the grid. Quite a number of marginal farms suffered from excessive amounts of blackouts due to powerline damage by storms and long waits for crews to arrive to fix the damage. So Western Power decided to pull down those remote powerlines and replace them with on-site, stand-alone power generation facilities. The setup is solar panels, batteries and a backup diesel generator. The arrangement has vastly improved the amount of power available to the farms, and reduced blackouts to a bare minimum for them. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-10-02/thousands-of-renewable-standalone-power-systems-to-be-rolled-out/101479136

A dog owner in Ukraine thought he'd see how his dog would react, to him being attacked by strangers. The result is not what he expected! https://nevsedoma.com.ua/en/684120-a-dogs-reaction-to-an-attack-by-strangers-on-its-owner.html

I can't handle fiction, I get handed too many fictional stories nearly every day in normal dealings with people. I do like adventure books, especially the exploits of people during wartime. I got given a book titled "Great South Land" by Rob Mundle last Christmas. I was a bit reluctant to start on it, but when I did a few months later, I was quite surprised at how entertaining and informative the book was. It's all about the early seafaring explorers looking for the Great South Land in the 16th and 17th centuries, and how the Dutch seafarers Janzsoon, Hartog and Tasman - and William Dampier - who was a pirate, no less - actually contributed a lot to knowledge about Australia, long before Capt Cook took all the honours and glory for "finding" Australia. Mundle is especially admiring of William Dampier, who was an extremely observant man, who also recorded vast amounts of what he saw and experienced. Dampier recorded in detail, winds, currents, tides, flora and fauna, and also recorded the inhabitants of many places - including NW Australia. He wrote at least two books, but a lot of his journals and written information was lost when his ship at the time, the Roebuck, was lost at Ascension Island, due to worm-eaten planking. Capt James Cook utilised a lot of Dampiers accurately-recorded information, from Dampiers book, "A New Voyage Around the World", to assist in his exploration and claiming of Australia for the British Crown in 1770. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Dampier

But do you have the right size tool to fit that 10mm female socket?

Ooops, I must get a new keyboard, the letters are worn off this one.

Wearing things will get you thrown off any worksite, even public auction sites! See "site access" below! https://www.grays.com/sale/7053302/mechanical-workshops/mossman-mill-no-reserve-liquidation-engineering?tab=Inspection+&+Collection=&srsltid=AfmBOopnZZqECN_04xF7_gBg2AcdTlI54jjNHe68BzXVrD4SQN-Dnsd4

So .... does this mean you become a fugitive, if you release a fart in a miners cage?

Utilise smaller plates with smaller portions on them, and avoid entrees and desserts.

It can't be a genuine sign, there's no penalty for farting listed. 😄

It's called a portable diesel generator, when you want backup. The local electrical suppliers use them now for power backups when transformers fail. It's when the backups fail, that the ordure really hits the rotating blades. We had an episode like this when the main Muja (Collie, W.A.) to Kalgoorlie HV transmission line suffered severe damage from a major storm in January 2023. Five large HV pylons fell over during the storm - then the two gas turbine backup generators in Kalgoorlie failed to come on-line during the outage. It took them several days to track down the backup generator problem - and it was simply a problem that no electrical designer had envisaged - zero voltage in the Muja-Kalgoorlie line. The backup generators were designed to actuate with residual voltage in the grid - but there was no residual voltage, so they couldn't crank up. It took about 4 days to track down the problem and bring the gas turbines online, and it took nine days to restore the Muja-Kalgoorlie line. https://www.westernpower.com.au/news/storm-destroyed-transmission-line-rebuilt-and-re-energised/#:~:text=Five towers were destroyed by,owned generator during the rebuild.

American culture is all-pervasive and has infiltrated every country in the world where they've rolled up. They even built a town here in Australia, using all American building standards, power standards (110V power station), and even imported a sizeable number of LHD cars, so they wouldn't be forced to drive those dreadful RHD cars! That town is called Exmouth and if you were silly enough to buy an ex-U.S. Navy-built house in Exmouth, you'll find nothing made to Australian Standards fits! The doors are all 3 feet wide (to accommodate lots of portly Americans, I suppose), the windows are also oddball dimensions, all household fittings, wiring and plumbing is U.S.-made materials, and even the cladding for walls and roof is unknown in Australia! Some of the Americans sold their LHD cars locally when they returned to the U.S., and made a financial killing.

The W.A. Govt is charging ahead and investing in large storage ("grid-scale") batteries, as fast as the manufacturers can supply them, and as fast as State budgeting will allow. https://www.wa.gov.au/organisation/energy-policy-wa/energy-storage https://www.synergy.net.au/Our-energy/SynergyRED/Large-Scale-Battery-Energy-Storage-Systems

The first 7 years after I left school and living in the city, were spent living in a rented farmhouse in the wheatbelt, where we only had 32V power. We had a stack of 2V lead-acid batteries and a 32V generator run by a single-cylinder, hand cranked, YB model Southern Cross diesel engine. It was no fun cranking up that engine on cold Winter mornings! There was a brass cup inserted upside down into the rocker cover, you filled this brass cup with oil and poured it into the orifice, and the oil ran into the intake and assisted in cold starting. The decompression device was a pin that went under the inlet valve and held it open, and which pin was operated by a lever and rod assembly, which was actuated by turning a pipe sleeve that rotated on the cooling water intake pipe. So you filled the old YB with oil, rotated the sleeve as you slowly cranked the engine, until the inlet valve was held open, then you picked up cranking speed until it felt like your arm would fall off, and then you rotated the decompression sleeve to close the intake valve, and hopefully, she'd fire up! Cold mornings with frost on the ground and thick oil made this a "short straw" job!! The engine was built in the Toowoomba Foundry and I was surprised to see Southern Cross built over 14,000 of them! They were the days when we built good stuff in Australia, designed by Australians! We had also Dunlite Wind Generators, too, they were quite advanced for their time, and large numbers were exported, even to places such as Canada and the U.S.

Michael Leunig, one of Australia's finest cartoonists and poets, has passed away, aged 79. Mr Curly and his ducks have gone home for good. I had the pleasure of going to one of his talks in Perth about 20-odd years ago, he was a gentle soul, and a great observer of human nature. He was declared a National living treasure by the National Trust in 1999. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-12-19/australian-cartoonist-michael-leunig-dies/104748614

I got confused for a moment between this John Marsden, and the other John Marsden, the highly promiscuous and abrasive gay lawyer, who's been dead for years.