Worlds Greatest Shave

I would like to let you know that the Department where I work, which only has 400 people in it, managed to raise over $10,000 for the Leukemia Foundation.

An amazing effort.

Das Kapital, Wagamamma's and Borders

Last night saw several library type people (plus a nuclear physicist) head to Das Kapital for a quick drink after work.

Four of us then headed to Wagamamma's, for a bite to eat. This is a Japanese restaurant that the MonashMob first discovered in London (London Bridge Wagamamma's) and we are delighted to find that we can now just go into Civic. (Saves wear and tear on the passport).


After scoffing down a 21, (just my age you know)



a 41 and a 105, (one of us only had water, as they are on a no spend week) the four of us set off for Borders, upstairs for free drinks and nibbles.

In this bookshop were large mobs of Canberra librarians, so my progress around the store was slow as I caught up with a gazillian people. CJK did not come as it was her wedding anniversary, however I caught up with her mother, whom I have not seen in ages. I also caught up with a colleague from FaCS days whom I also have not seen in a while. Over $250 in books for the library was spent and then we went home. All in all a great night was had. Here is the TSS report for the night.

Beautiful friendships

These last few days have been filled with lovely happenings on account of how someone had a birthday back on Harmony Day. That day was spent at work and then coffee and cake at McDonald's with CJK), as happens most Wednesday afternoons.

Thank you JSR for Morse. On Thursday I headed out with with my girl friends to dinner at Mecca Bah, thanks to the organising powers of JC (and her calendar, dangerous thing that calendar!!!)

Family gathered at the weekend to celebrate, both our birthdays. I was very excited to have some Maxwell Williams side plates and small bowls, as well as a JB HiFi voucher.

During the week I had two visits from friends at work with special things.

I am sure that Aunty A will be whisking something delicious up from the trattoria.

Bag (don't you love the colour)
came from Lands End, US,
which has great kids clothes.

To all you of you I would like to say thank you for making this birthday a very special one, friends and family are wonderful and I appreciate everything.

Drinking, Dancing, Bouncing, Dreaming

Over the weekend RMC and TC and family gathered to celebrate the family birthdays and have some fun.

PVC and JVC came over for dinner as well, and then more bouncing and bowling and bashing was had as the six of us played bowling, tennis and golf on the WII into the wee small hours. Fortunately we gained an hour of time due to daylight saving.

MLR asleep with her head on her chin, obviously considering what she will do with that extra hour of sleep!!

ABC turns 75

Seems to be a bit of a theme this week, with never ending, ongoing, endless, nonstop, eternal, birthdays for someone or something.


So today it is the ABC's turn. Here is the report of the party held in Glebe Park in the City.

Happy Birthday

Happy birthday JSR!!!

To celebrate I am giving you a set of golf links in no particular order (sorry could not afford the clubs).

• Why does a golf ball have dimples
• Golfers information
• PGA
• Golf Australia
• History of the golf club
• Narooma Golf Club (my favourite club)
• Alan Shepherd Golf on the Moon
  

Golf Quotes

"When primitive man screamed, and beat the ground with sticks, they called it Witchcraft. When modern man does the same thing, they call it GOLF." ~ Anon

“I was three over. One over a house, one over a patio, and one over a swimming pool.” ~ George Brett

“To play golf you need goofy pants and a fat ass.” - Happy Gilmore

“Golf is typical capitalist lunacy.” ~ George Bernard Shaw

I know I am getting better at golf because I am hitting fewer spectators ~ Gerald R. Ford

Broadband

It was my usual Wednesday afternoon and came home early from work picked up MLR, then called in for supplies at the local shop as CJK and the kids were coming over for afternoon tea. Tidied up a bit and put the food out and CJK and co arrived. We were busy chatting and eating when someone else turned up at the door, Kieran from



turned up

We get our gas, electricity, water, isp, phone and cable tv from this mob. He wanted to know if we wanted to increase our discount on our gas? Let's see, well of course. I got the details of our billing account and then he asked if there was anything else? Big mistake.

Mondo: Can we get a better download speed? Sometimes it takes 20 minutes to load a photo to this blog!!!
Kieran: What plan are you on?
Mondo: the extra slow speed plan, think it might be called the "snail package"
Kieran: can you find some paperwork?

At this stage I invited Kieran in and offered him coffee which CJK kindly made while I checked out more moth balls paperwork.

Kieran filled in some forms and then wanted JSR's signature!!!!! I rang JSR who agreed to talk to Kieran when he got home. Kieran agreed to come back at 7pm for the signature.

It was when JSR talked to Kieran that I found out that we on a plan with less than 1 gig of download a month, and that we ran through it in less than a week. We are now on a plan that allows us 5 gig a month, costs $20 less a month and has unlimited downloads between midnight and 6am which is prime time for me!

Kieran was an interesting person, he and his wife had just come back from 6 years travel, working in Canada, Italy, Africa and Scotland to name a few places. It all sounded fantastic. He had done some caddying at one of "the" golf courses in Scotland and proceded to talk golf with John. Kieran's wife while in Italy was diagnosed with coeliac's disease, so of course both CJK and I started talking about good recipe's for coeliac's.

We should get the faster speed at the end of our billing cycle, which is coming up this weekend. So watch this spot.

All in all it was a great afternoon.

Harmony Day

Everyone knows that today is Harmony Day.

After work I went for coffee with CJK and Jacqueline, AJR and MLR and all the children except MLR had harmony day ribbons on. In addition to the coffee I picked up MLR's bike, which needed fixing and some t shirts for AJR for camp.

Harmony Day Newsletter.
List of famous people born on this day.
Another List.
Politicians born on this day.
Billboard number 1 hit on this day in 1961 was
"March 20 - April 2: Surrender Elvis Presley"

War!

Today is the fourth anniversary of the war in Irag! Today's view from three of the politicians responsible for this war.

• US-Bush pleads for patience on war anniversary
• UK-A reviled PM looks to history to vindicate his war gamble
• AUS-Howard to keep troops in Iraq

All we are saying is give piece a chance,
All we are saying is give piece a chance
C'mon
~ John Lennon and Yoko Ono

Daylight Saving

New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, South Australia and the Australian Capital Territory adopted Daylight Saving Time in 1971, Queensland opted out shortly afterwards and Western Australia are about start a three year trial. Australia had daylight saving in the second world war, but stopped after 1944.

This coming weekend, daylight saving finishes and we will gain an hour, which is great for three reasons.

• It is good that we gain this hour at night, so that we can get more sleep, or more time to play
  
• I love the fact that I will get to spend an extra hour with my brother and his family
• I am looking forward to it being light earlier in the morning

Daylight saving was best in 2000 as it started on August 27, instead of October to cover the Olympic games in Sydney. I vote that we start this early every year, alternatively I think we should start daylight saving on the October long weekend (as they do in Tasmania), to start early and to give us the extra day to get used to the change.

History of daylight saving in Canberra.

This link has the time in each state relative to the ACT, showing the effects of Daylight Saving on time across the country.

This link gives the dates of daylight saving changes from 1916/17 to 2006/07.

Homer, working from home, remarks "8:58, first time I've ever been early for work. Except for all those daylight savings days. Lousy farmers."
~Homer Simpson

Sydney Harbour Bridge turns 75

On Monday 19th of March, the Sydney Harbour Bridge is 75 years old! Happy Birthday to you. Sydney is closing the bridge to car traffic on Sunday 18th, and every ten minutes people with a booking will be able to walk across the bridge to celebrate the birthday. I have not heard that they are giving out cake or balloons, but watch the news tonight. TSS at 6pm and the Reuben family at approx. 2pm are walking across the bridge. I hope to see some of their photo's. Thanks TSS.

Here are some facts about the Bridge:

• The top of the arch actually rises and falls about 180 mm due to changes in the temperature!
• In 1932, 96 steam locomotives were positioned in various ways to test the load capacity of the Bridge.
• One of Australia's well known celebrities, Paul Hogan, was one of the painters contracted to give the Bridge another 270,000 litre coat of paint.
• When the Bridge opened, it cost a horse and rider three pence and a car six pence to cross. Now horse and riders cannot cross, you can bicycle across in a special lane and walk across the Bridge for free. Cars cost around A$3.30 for a southbound trip and it is free to go northbound.
• In 1932, the average annual daily traffic was around 11,000 and now it is around 160,000 vehicles per day.
• The Sydney Harbour Tunnel was built to cope with ever increasing harbour traffic problems and opened in August 1992 . It is 2.3 kilometres long and cost A$554 million to construct. It is strong enough to withstand the impact of earthquakes and sinking ships. It carries around 75,000 vehicles a day.

The opening ceremony in 1932 was marred by De Groot, who felt that the Bridge should only be opened by Royalty, not by a mere Premier, Jack Lang, click here for more information.

The bridge was designed by JCC Bradfield. Here is what Wikipedia has to say about him.

John Job Crew Bradfield (December 26, 1867 - September 23, 1943) was an engineer who designed the Sydney Harbour Bridge and had a grand vision for Sydney's railway system that has only been partly fulfilled. Other accomplishments include the design of the Story Bridge, Brisbane. He also designed the Cataract and Burrinjuck Dams.

Bradfield was born in Sandgate, Queensland, the youngest son of John Edward Bradfield (1823/4 - 1902) and Maria Crew (1828 - 1917). He received his early education in Ipswich, Queensland, attending Ipswich North State School and Ipswich Grammar School before completing a Bachelor of Engineering degree in 1889 at the University of Sydney, and a Master of Engineering in 1896. In 1924 Bradfield received the first doctorate of science in engineering at the University of Sydney for his thesis on electric railways and the Sydney Harbour Bridge.

In later years he developed the Bradfield Scheme (never implemented) for diverting some coastal rivers of Queensland onto the western side of the Great Dividing Range.

He married Edith Jenkins, daughter of John Ventris Jenkins, on 28th May 1891. They had five sons, including Keith Noel Everal (1910 - 2006) and Stanley George (1906 - 1951); and one daughter, Mary Margaret (1892 - 1984).

The Bradfield Highway is named after him.

St Patrick's Day

Happy St Pats day, hope you are all consuming green food and beer, collecting shamrocks or at least being silly. A short history of St Patricks Day. Sydney had their St Pats Day parade last Sunday, rather than today. I wonder if that has something to do with the birthday party for the bridge tomorrow?

We are celebrating by going out to dinner with friends, C&M. We are going to the local catholic club, which is bound to have a few irish merry makers in tonight. We are also dining in the restaurant that closes tomorrow for three weeks for refurbishment and a name change, so we will either get incredibly good choice of food and drink, or the dregs depending on the state of the kitchen and the fridge!!!! I am looking forward to going out for dinner as a couple, with no children!!!

Enjoy the rest of your day, Sláinte! (good health).

Canberra Day 2007

Canberra will turn 94 on Monday and to celebrate we get the day off. Three day weekends are great. The actual birthday of Canberra is the 12th, when Lady Denman named Canberra in 1913. The public holiday when we celebrate it is on the third Monday of March, with the previous 10 days being the Canberra Festival. There is already a committee working on Canberra's 100th birthday - should be a good party that year.

Balloons

I drove to work yesterday (as I usually do). I was feeling pleased that I had managed to get away slightly earlier than usual. So I was pretty disgusted when it took 45 minutes to get to work, usually it takes 20-25 minutes depending on the traffic. As I came up to the large roundabout at Phillip I found the cause of the traffic congestion - two hot air balloons, Credit Union of Canberra and Questacon, where both down on the middle of the roundabout and their support crews where trying to reinflate them. In true Canberra style, all drivers had turned into rubber necks!!! Once onto Adelaide avenue, the traffic flowed freely again. Unfortunately I did not have my camera with me, so was unable to get a photo of the whole thing, checking the paper this morning I did not see it either.

Captain

Well my son, who is highly intelligent and articulate and "always right" as all 11 year olds are, announced yesterday that he was captain of his house, Gudgenby!!! This is the guy who hates all team sports, whinges when swimming carnival is on and will avoid any sort of sporting interaction at almost every turn. Not only is he captain, but he caused his house to win an extra 200 points yesterday at the swimming carninal, by getting the team chant going and supporting the racers!!! Well done AJR.

International Women's Day

I have been thinking about IWD and what happened or did not happen in Australia on that day. International Women's Day is celebrated each year on the 8th of March. It is a celebration of the contributions to and the value women have in society. A very noble cause and one I subscribe to. However I have to say that I was underwhelmed this year by the activities in Canberra to celebrate this great day. Apart from a display and some research that I did for work, I did not celebrate.
In addition to the lack of celebrations, women have fallen futher on the political agenda (how many women are on the front bench?), women are under represented in the board room, young women seem to think that all the hard work has been done and are happy to morph into men to get short term goals!! Women still earn less than men in Australia, women in Australia do not have universal access to paid maternity leave. In the struggle to combine work and family, there is now a feeling that it would be better to stay home, for longer to better balance the care of the family. This is certainly what Virginia Hausseger of the Canberra Times, was saying on the 8th. On Saturday the 10th, Virginia went further, in her article "Gender equality button is still stuck on pause". Virginia talks about the facts;

• that IWD did not "generate any significant debate",
• women are becoming complacent,
  
• lack of role models.
  

Virginia challenges us to name five powerful Australian women! Take the challenge now, how many powerful women can you name in 30 seconds?
Let us hope that next year the IWD report card for Australia will be more positive. For more information about IWD.

And while this has no bearing on IWD, if you saw Difference of Opinion on the ABC on the 5th, there are further worrying trends. For instance Australian's work the longest hours in the OECD, and in a recent Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Report, it stated that people feel stressed and overworked. It was great to see Barbara Pocock in the flesh, as I have been reading her articles for several years now.
Mondo

John Inman Dead at 71

You may have read or heard that John Inman died this week of an illness related to Hep A. I remember him from Are you being served from the early 70's to mid 80's, but he is also known for his pantomime work.

Watching him on reruns on a saturday night reminded me of how much fun he was and how he will be sorely missed by his fans, partner and friends alike.

Breakfast & the Govenor General's Garden Party

Today TSS and I dashed off for a bit of R&R at the open day at the GG's house. Having lived in Canberra since 1986, I thought it was about time that I could claim to have set eyes on it personally. TSS and I started by exploring the options at Yarralumla for brunch. The place we wanted to go was fully booked and we could come back for lunch!!! So then we checked out the bakery, however we really wanted breakfast, not just a croissant.

We gave up and headed for the restaurant at the Yarralumla nursery, the Oaks Brasserie, where I have been before. Here we got extremely slow service. I had the bacon and eggs and TSS the Salmon Hollandaise.

Shortly before 12 noon we headed for Government House . After a $6 donation to the Smith Family, we joined the throngs taking advantage of the fabulous weather to explore the buildings. Click here for information about the house. The Canberra Times report of the garden party is here. The Governor General also has a home at Admiralty House, in Sydney. For a full report of what we saw there you can go here. The main thing to report is that the queue's were so long, we chose not to go into the building, maybe next year.



Apart from the former butlers cottage that I adored, I was impressed by the 400 year old yellow box eucalyptus.

Photos courtesy of TSS

Winter or Summer

Tuesday night, wild and woolly

On the second last day of Summer, Canberra was
hit with an incredible storm, this time lashing the centre and north side of the city with huge hail stones. JSR was of course in Newcastle and I sat here and listened to the storm bombard the metal roof of the pergola.



Wednesday morning aftermath,