"Today I ..." was astounded at the resilience of a local humble Oz magpie.
There I was, happily internutting, when all of a sudden there was an Almighty bang from outside down the street and my internut connection dropped out.
"That sounded like overhead powerlines shorting or a step-down transformer blowing its knives and/or its guts" thinks I.
Strangely enough though, my notebook power supply stayed on, but a test of the lights revealed exceeding dimness ... a sign of a brownout/reduction in mains voltage.
Considering it was a clear blue sky without a puff of wind to blow lines together or trees into them, my next thought was "oh sh!t, the work-dudes building a house a couple of doors down, have accidentally hit the step-down transformer next to the building site" so I rush outside in my PJs to make sure everything is ok and if I could be of assistance.
Sure enough, the work-dudes ARE shouting at each other and pointing to near the transformer enclosure, but they all appear to be ok and no errant gear is near it.
Well, except for a limp black and white form and another more active one stalking around looking concerned at it.
Yeah, a pair of magpies, and prolly the two that were unhomed and used to play around the tree featured in the youtube in my last blog post which includes a clip of them chasing each other around between the branches.
Okay, here is the clip again:
Anyhoo, the work-dudes fuss around the downed magpie that had managed to arc/short-out the overhead 25kv AC supply to the step-down mains supply transformer with an Almighty Bang.
One of the work-dudes flips the unfortunate creature over and you know what ?
It gets back up to its feet.
I kid you not. I'm standing there in my PJs in the street watching from about 40metres away, and this creature that should be, for all intents and purposes, the pre-cooked filler for a magpie pie, gets back on its feet and just stands there looking like it is thinking the magpie equivelent of "WTF" ... which was clearly what we were all thinking.
So one of the work-dudes gets it a container of water and puts it near the stoned crow wannabe and before you know it, it stepped over to investigate the container contents.
Then its friend hops over to say "WTF mate, you ok ?" in magpie (yeah, it does the "do do do doodle doodle do" thing similar to what I captured in the youtube in my last blog post), and the recently mega-zapped tells it to bugger off for the moment coz it still has its buzz on ... IE, it zots its beak at it as if to say "don't stand so close to me".
Within about 5 minutes, it is wandering about the verge on which it crash landed from about 6 or 7 metres up to, so I go back inside to unplug things like TVs and fridges which don't like brownouts that much (underpower is WAY worse for electrical stuff than blackouts), and when I come back out, the magpie had wandered off completely and its mate was gone too.
I wonder if it, or its chicks, are now going to develop super powers ?
I'm also just simply amazed that it was able to survive being a living short-circuit to such a high voltage AND the concussive bang that happened when it pretended to be a switch. A short-circuit that took Western Power around two and a half hours to fix !
"Today I ..." am also LOLing at the irony of "der spatz" (the sparrow) being "booted" offline by a magpie getting a 25kv AC boot.
I mean, when it comes to little birds vs bigger birds, its usually the former that chase the latter off, yes ?
Oh, and one more.
"Today I ..." was also pleased to learn that a bull in a bullring in Spain decided it didn't want to play the game of being tortured to death for the amusement of a sick in the soul audience but instead decided to join them where they sat and teach some of them and their children a deserved lesson they are not likely to forget in a hurry.
Here are some youtubes of derspatz proving that you're never too old to learn new things ... and for me and LSCP, that meant trying out Snowboarding at Coronet Peak, Queenstown in New Zealand in the July school holidays just gone.
For a slobbish "likes to hang loose" cool and froody bighead like me, I discovered it came kinda a natural ... and I don't think I'll ever go back to skiing now. :)
But don't take me at my word, not while there are long and boring youtubes to be endured ! Most of the following were taken using a tiny webcam thingy I had clipped to my beanie, so where I look, you see !
First up ?
Me and LSCP riding the fast lift DOWN the mountain:
Next up, a long and boring (coz, let's face it, I was going pretty slow) run down "Meadows Express"
Here is a similar run to that except I take a detour and include some footage of LSCP doing pirouettes on a snowboard. ;) :)
And now for a spill so daring and dramatic that it took me clean off the mountain !
Excellent fun which I well recommend ... and the fact that I appeared to be some mad old man talking to himself while zipping(ish) down the piste (hey, I was giving camera commentary !) tended to keep living obstacles away. Heh.
Snowboarding. Try it some time ... but if your butt bruises easily then I would recommend that you get some padded pants first.
See http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/butterflies-linked-to-climate-change-20100317-qfm4.html (with the utterly misleading and inaccurate headline of "Butterflies fly early as planet warms" ... since when is Melbourne "the planet" ?) for how Melbourne Uni's AGW alarmist and publicly funded MMGCC (man made global climate change) advocate and lobbyist, David Karoly, has boldy attached his name to the gob-smacking latest lunacy being used to prop up the AGW religion.
Yes, if you visited the link, you just read how butterflies in Melbourne are to deemed a direct proof of Anthropogenic Global Warming.
Yep, David Karoly basically wants you to believe that Melboreds Urban Heat Island Effect (thanks to it being a growing city) equals Man-Made Global Climate Change.
ffs, the study revolves around studing creatures in A CITY, you know, a place where populations, buildings and roads increase and spread, and the UHI effect generally increases, ... so should any of us be surprised that the growth and changes of/in a city should have an effect on the flora and fauna found within ... and who would deny that it happens anyway ?
Sheesh, what next ... another look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peppered_moth ("The Peppered Moth") and a revision to say it wasn't the amount of evil coal dust around that determined which colour varieties were "the fittest" for survival re: predation, but actually the amount of CO2 in the local atmosphere ?
Anyhoo, I've heard that Melboredites like to see themselves as the whole world, but isn't it getting a bit ridiculous to claim that the city's UHI equals Man-Made Global Climate Change ala Anthropogenic Global Warming ?
Aside from that, can you also now think of a better way your taxes should be spent than on the likes of Karoly and Co ?
Oh, and how is the collecting of data on breeding cycle of butterflys OUTSIDE Melbored's UHI going ?
Did the so called "scientists" bother to study that, or where they all just too busy pushing a barrow (one that also serves to carry the grant funding back to the lab) and providing Karoly with the subject matter for his next bit of advocacy and lobbying on his chosen religion, AGW ?
Hmmmm, let's look at that article provided in the link again. Oh, here we are:
"Dr Kearney said the study, which relates specifically to Melbourne, would prove a practical tool to forecast the impact of climate change on the city's biodiversity."
Nope, just Melbourne.
But it gets worse (or better, depending on which side of reason you are).
Look what has happened to the news item once it made its way out of Oz and on to the rest of the world.
Whatever happened to this being a study of the life cycle of butterflies in MELBOURNE !?
Butterflies emerging earlier due to climate change
Published: 7:20AM GMT 17 Mar 2010
Butterflies are emerging from their cocoons ten days earlier than 65 years ago because of climate change, experts warn.
The finding represents the first concrete evidence of a link between greenhouse gases and the timing of a natural event, according to researchers.
The team found that on average, the Common Brown butterfly (Heteronympha merope) has emerged earlier and earlier over the last half century, with an average of 1.6 days per decade over a 65 year span.
Researchers from the University of Melbourne said that the findings tally with a corresponding increase in temperature of 0.14 degrees Celsius per decade over the same period.
This warming is shown to be human-induced, researchers say.
Lead author of the study Dr Michael Kearney, from the Department of Zoology, said the findings could help our ability to forecast future impacts of climate change on biodiversity.
He said: "Shifts in these seasonal life cycle events represent a challenge to species, altering the food and competition present at the time of hatching. Studies such as ours will allow better forecasting of these shifts and help us understand more about their consequences."
The study, funded by an Australian Research Council grant to Monash, Melbourne and Wisconsin Universities, is due to be published in Royal Society journal Biology Letters.
The team looked at catterpillars raised in the lab and compared their development to increases in temperature and climate change models.
Professor David Karoly said: "Scientists have previously observed that biological events are happening progressively earlier in spring over the past few decades.
"This new work has tied the earlier emergence of butterflies directly to a regional temperature increase, and has tied the temperature increase very strongly to increases in greenhouse gas concentrations caused by humans."
If you hadn't already read the original report that specifically says the study was limited to Melbourne, a city, would it be fair to suggest that the above article would tend to have you think that researchers from the three listed universities had studied "the common brown butterfly" all around the world, and determined that all around the world, where ever it was found, it was hatching out 10 days earlier than it did around 65 years ago ?
Now ask yourself, why are the likes of Karoly and the Telegraph so keen for the natural cycle of climate change to be seen as being man made, global, ... and bad ?
[edit] About a month later now, and here is something else on the topic, this time from the award winning science blog "Watts Up With That" and commenting on "Confirmation Bias". See: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/04/23/butterfly-study-a-case-study-in-confirmation-bias/#more-18856
[edit++] Tis now June 2010, and here is the latest on the topic, this time from the Royal Society Publishing. See: http://rsbl.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/early/2010/06/07/rsbl.2010.0053.short/reply ... and wonder if Karoly et al should be subjected to a rigorous public conducted enquiry in relation to grant funding, etc.
The long and short of the Royal Society published article is that both Kearney and Karoly are just plain wrong, wrong, wrong, and probably fraudulently so.
Anyone really surprised that this would prove to be the case ?
A quick break from talking about the natural cycle of climate change and how certain folk seem dead keen on making a religion about it and other folk just wanna rob us blind over it.
Time to go boating. Yeah, apologies to readers from the Northern Hemisphere who have got loved ones stranded under the English Channel, or stuck in a London or Paris train station or in a New York airport at the moment ... hey, howz that "Anthropogenic Global Warming" thing working out for ya ?
Here is my tube of my maiden voyage in the new old (built in the 1960s) water toy on her way to be dry-docked for some repairs and antifouling (ie, painted with special stuff to stop other stuff growing on it):
Howz all those Mussels on the stern drive legs, eh ? Mmmmm, where is a pot of boiling water and some chilli or garlic when you need it ?
That was Part 1. Short and sweet eh ? Well stay tuned for Part 2 ... it ain't so short, so hang on to your life-jackets, this is going to get rough !
Here she is a week later on the planned quicky excursion back to the mooring that actually turned out to be a mini-odyssey. Once again, apologies to snow-bound folk unable to travel or get home over in the Northern Hemisphere at the moment.
Somebody elsewhere asked me earlier: "Oh and about your boat, what happens if she's leaking again, I guess that means she won't get looked at again til after x-mas new year? Be a bummer to your holidays if that happens."
The following is my response to that:
See for yourself and note the lack of concern in my voice.
"Today I ..." shared a surprise adventure with LSCP that we could have prolly done without but all things considered, better that it happened when it did rather than later.
Today was the day the new old water toy went back into the water after a week in dry-dock getting her bum sanded and anti-fouled (cheers Adrian & Daniel at Aquarama) and a new steering helmet put on her starboard leg and having the leg bolted down (a common "fix" for older volvo penta legs and their reverse retaining clamp of suspect design), the old Ward 32'er is back on the water again and ready to get up and go.
What a difference a week and a whole bunch of work and money makes, because "get up and go" she now does !
After paying the bill and visiting the fuel jetty to pay for go-juice at expected standard extortion rates, LSCP headed off in the car and I back to the mooring. All was good and well and the salt air soon made the smile on my face set harder than pelican poo on the aft deck.
I easily solo navigated her up to Claremont jetty where LSCP (who had driven around there from the slipyards downstream on the other side of the river) jumped onboard and soon took over Skipper duties.
Yup, LSCP not only stands for "Life Style Choices Partner", but also "Lady Skipper, Cute n Pretty".
As the newtube shows, she made skippering look easy. Tis much easier to steer now that one leg isn't flapping around in the chop. As for the water in the bilge, that's no worries and quite a normal thing to happen in a wooden boat that has been out of the water for more than a couple of days. The timbers dry out and shrink a bit and in leaks wet stuff, but I found even just a couple of hours later on the mooring, things seemed to have already swollen up again and the bilge contents back to more or less what they were before she was taken out of the water a week ago.
Besides, just like with Witches, Ducks, and Very Small Rocks, wood floats.
Ah, but on WHAT mooring "a couple of hours later" ?
Well, that's where the Adventure began.
After LSCP took her for a burn, she then assumed "grab the pole and hook up the mooring rope" position up forward. We idled up to the mooring and she deftly hooked up the mooring rope and slipped it over the thingumy on the front of the boat wot such things attach to, and I did my bit and turned off the engines and batteries.
Picture perfect, with no swearing or shouting at each other. Quite amazing really, especially considering the stiff breeze we were working against that was busy trying to push us ashore.
Then a strange thing happened.
Another mooring passed us.
WTF ?
How can that happen ... we're attached properly to our mooring !
Uh, yup ... but what was our mooring attached to ?
A long line of heavy duty chain that wasn't attached to anything other than algae and the wet stuff we were floating in.
fcukity fcukity fcuk ! (which is French for "oh bother, the train has stopped in the middle of the Chunnel")
Before I could get to the anchor, we had drifted aground ... well, the nicely newly antifouled/painted stern drive legs had. Meh.
So, then began the telephone ring around.
First up a call to Freo Sea Rescue (I'm a member and both boats registered with them for rescue attention ... well worth the $35 a year considering that they would tow me all the way back from Rotto at no cost).
Then a call to the owner of the mooring to tell him that it was no more and that the contractors employed to check it may have stuffed up because at the end of the chain there was a massive shackle missing its pin. A pin that holds it to the trio of chain linked concrete blocks at the bottom or whatever it is that is down there. A pin that is supposed to be wired to the shackle to prevent it coming loose like it just had.
Then a call to the DPI (Department of Planning and Infrastructure - all moorings are registered/licensed with them).
Then the owner rang back to say he had contacted the contractor but they wouldn't be able to attend until Wednesday (so what were we to do until then ?) and he suggested I get back onto the DPI again as they have access to some emergency moorings. Good to know !
Then the Freo rescue called to confirm our predicament (that we needed pulling into deeper water so we could start the engines and motor elsewhere).
By this stage another boaty on a nearby mooring had noticed our situation and rowed his tender over. LSCP and I were in the middle of sorting out a long rope to go from the bow to a nearby mooring with the idea of hooking it up and pulling ourselves into deeper water. I was in my Jesus boots and shorts and up to my waist in (thankfully warm) water (so much for Jesus boots allowing walking ON water) holding the bow into the wind. Anyhoo, the boaty rowed the rope out to the mooring and tied it on then came back and he and LSCP sat up forward and hauled on the rope while I put my back to the stern and heaved up while pushing and before you could say "ewwww, a jelly fish, and WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT SQUISHY THING I STEPPED ON" we were in deep enough water again.
So, time to call Freo Rescue again and say "thanks, but we're ok now" (I intend to send them an online donation later tonight for their troubles), and also call the mooring contractors who had called while we were hauling.
They confirmed they couldn't get there until Wednesday but wanted to know where they could pick up the recovered mooring equipment from. I told them they would know once I knew where I was going to end up.
Okay, where were we ? On somebody else's mooring, wondering.
We decided to go back to Claremont Jetty, tie up there, then walk up to the club to see if they had temporary/short term pens or moorings available.
No such luck ... especially seeing as we weren't members. Still, they were very helpful with what they could do, which was to lend me their phone to sit through "on hold music" until an obviously Very Busy DPI were able to offer a rescue by registering my port-less vessel to one of the emergency moorings they have.
Excellent, even though it was around 9km away in [deleted for now]. So, after "merry festivus"es were exchanged with the DPI and the Claremont Club staff, LSCP headed off in the car and I in the boat. Talk about having an unplanned workout ... and so much for the plans of getting her back in the water and back to her mooring in about an hour !
Still, what better way to get used to skippering her alone ... especially seeing as this was only the second time I'd actually skippered her since purchase. On the way around to [deleted for now] with the salt spray slipping by the middle window and helping with setting my smile again, I got to thinking how blessed it was that the mooring should go when we were there to attend to it rather than in the middle of the night and have the boat smashed up on shore.
Yeah, I'm a glass half-full kinda guy.
Are we there yet ?
Almost there ...
So after having a laugh with Poseidon and telling the Sirens (I did say "Odyssey" earlier) they were wasting their time coz I already have all the lurv'n'comfort I need with my LSCP, etc, etc, I made it into the still waters of [deleted for now].
Now WTF is that DPI mooring ... and how am I going to tie up on it without LSCP to help ?
Couldn't find it ... but I did find a complementary temporary mooring and was able to pull up my fine craft along side and hook onto it by myself. Then it was a simple matter of paddling ashore using one of the waveskis and towing the other one, then LSCP returned with me.
Another call to the DPI and the lovely and patient lady explained exactly where it was and yeah verily what other numbers were nearby ... and instructed me to call back when we were safely tied up there.
The instructions proved instructive and after a bit of mucking around making our own multiple mooring ropes, we had a new temporary home.
Yes, we are now "there yet".
All that remained was to secure the wayward mooring for the contractor team, paddle ashore with me singing LSCP's praises all the way for her patience as well as apologising for the one (maybe two) occasions I, uh, "failed to effectively communicate" and did an exasperated naggy whinge thing.
The poor girl is now horrible sun-burnt as she wasn't expecting to be in the sun much at all for what we originally planned ... but seriously (and as I said multiple times throughout the long afternoon) "you wouldn't read about it" (let alone plan for it !)
And yet here you are doing that very thing ... and well done if you made it this far.
Anyhoo, I get home to hear about cyclones up North and folk stranded under the English Channel and New York snowed in, etc, etc, and so how can I think of our afternoon's troubles and inconveniences being anything other than an adventure ?
Merry (good natured) Bah Humbug to one and all and may all your travels be adventures ... rather ordeals. Grin.
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