Kafka in Space

Armageddon Net 20 December 2007

2007-12-20T03:34:00.000-08:00

Due To Poor Quality Audio Do Not Listen To This Broadcast First.

The Armageddon Net faced it's most difficult operating conditions yet as Brett VK2TMG operated from the station of VK2ZHE/VK2AHL in the face of unspeakable noise on 3.666 Mhz in the 80 meter ham radio band.

Never the less Amateur Radio operations overcome adversity with the discussion of the following topics in this weeks short programme.

Download the MP3 audio file with this link.

Brett is operating from the shock of VK2ZHE/VK2AHL, The Bushcom Broadband Dipole, My Twisted Dipole, Newly Deployed APRS Digipeater VK2ZEN-1, Possibly Flashing APRSD to a router - ddwrt - openwrt, APRS on a laptop in a car or on a motor bike, Brett has no car, Can Brett get an APRS signal from this shack to VK2ZEN-1, Brett hanges Radio, Horrific Band Noise, Band Activity with the higher SF activity numbers lately, Flying Foxes Make More Noise than Cats, Brett is very lucky to have Tawny Frogmouths living and feeding outside his house, Tawny Fromouth Diets, Organic Gardener, The most excellent corn and fresh fruit.

Armageddon Net 29 November 2007

2007-11-29T03:59:00.000-08:00

Two Complete Armageddon Nets this week, look, count 'em, two.

More Vaguely amusing banter on 3.666 Mhz than you'll know what to do with.

This week sees amateur radio in Australia taken to a new low with this broadcast covering the following topics.

Download the MP3 audio file with this link.

PCB Design and Layout, FreePCB from freepcb.com, Gerber Files, Printing Gerber Files, Spice Circuit Simulator, Open Source Software, Software Prices Going Ever Higher, Open Office, Google Documents, Web 2.0 application Paradigm, Reliability of Telephone System,
ADSL Service without Telstra, VOIP, Sevice from Engin, Limitations of VOIP Services, SSB Activity on Beacon Frequency, Bretts Flourescent Light Episode, Essential Viewing List, The Movie The American Way, DVD Players, Streaming Video over internal Networks, HDMI and The Analog Hole, Blueray DVD seems dominant, Play Station 3 plays Blueray, PS3 is Remarkable, Games Consoles for Playing Games Computers for everything else, Humidistat, Moisture Problem at Brett's house, Hydro Shops not Cheap, Alot of Humidity products come from England, Danger from Power Supplies, What it takes to get Westinghoused, Another VK2ZEN & Pater Bob Adventure this time on water, Fishing, Putting Out To Sea, Navigating The Oceans, GPS, Dead Reckoning, Sextants, Availability of maps for GPS, APRS Maps needed For Imminent deployment of APRS Digipeater in Newcastle Area, CYGWIN Xserver for windows from cygwin.com.

Armageddon Net 26 November 2007

2007-11-26T03:42:00.000-08:00

This abortive attempt at an Armageddon Net failed 36 minutes in due to bad noise on the 80 meter band, though it remains Vaguely Amusing Banter IN YOUR EAR.

The Armageddon Net, possibly the worlds only podcast recorded by amateur radio operators on 3.666 Mhz in the 80 meter ham radio band.

This episode covers the following topics and introduces a new Armageddon Net Word "Fok"......

Download the MP3 audio file with this link.

Lawn Maintenance in Diabolical Heat, Transceivers Like 13.8 Volts, Awful Noise on the Band, 2008 Call Book, Explosion of Foundation licenses, Passband Filters, Transmit Bandwidth Adjustment, Automatic Antenna Tuner Switched Off, Analog Metering, Electronic Instruments in Vehicles, And in the 1977 Mini, Calculating Engine Power Output on the Road, Development Environment for the Atmel Microprocessor, Cylinder Pressure Measurement, Tuning Engine on the Road, Exhaust Gas Oxygen sensor, Ethanol Fuel Mixtures, Price Tradeoff Ethanol Fuel, A Foundation License Holder calls in VK2FJMT (Marshall) to discuss ethanol fuels and mini engines.

Armageddon Net 19 November 2007

2007-11-20T05:32:00.000-08:00

Vaguely Amusing Banter IN YOUR EAR, on 3.666 Mhz.

This Weeks Armageddon Net includes the following 30 odd diverse and riveting topics.....

Download the MP3 audio file with this link.

Icom 746/756 memories, keyer/voice recorder usage in contest, charging batteries, Armageddon procedures, Hording Food, Hiding Generators, Podcasting, archive.org, Linux Flash Player Problems, 2 meter IRLP, 1977 VK DXpedition Mini Cooper is Registered, Insurance IS Expensive, Awful FM900 radio, Now Legendary Crankshaft Break, ZEN has no DTMF, Epic uptimes, Great Newcastle Storm Blackout, American Survivalist Movement, Fiber Glass Body Repairs, Supercheap Autos is no longer super cheap, Jacar Battery Charger Kit, SCR's, Crydoms, Gmail unreliability, Mail Servers, Taking Callers, Connection of Plantronics telephone headset to the ICOM 746/756 for VOX operation, Fan Noise Control,Solar Condidtions and DX Openings, PSK31, Firefox Advantages, Windows Automatic Updates, International Beacon Project, 20 meter beam at Westlakes Radio Club, 40 Meter Beam at Westlakes Radio Club, Tentec Radios, Two Receivers (one in each ear).

Armageddon Net Test

2007-11-14T03:27:00.000-08:00

It has been along time since the last post and I have had my ICOM 756proII returned in working condition for some time.

Brett VK2TMG and myself have been conducting a late night VOX net on 3.666 Mhz on a weekly basis for while now and we decided to turn it into a podcast as well.

So here is the first experimental one to work out our procedures for doing this.

Hopefully I will be able to post at least 1 a week from now on.

Download the MP3 audio file with this link.

Why isn't my ICOM 756 repaired yet

2005-08-31T04:26:00.000-07:00

I don't know what's going on but I'm very concerned, you'll remember some posts back I mentioned my Amateur Radio transceiver, the mighty ICOM 756 ProII. Such a superior wireless that utilises a high level of computer control which I can quite frankly say is the closest way to make Amateur Radio communications interesting, to me.

The Mighty ICOM 756 ProII

I Did in fact have a loan of an Alinco DX77 for a few months but I only switched it on a few times and managed to get one dx contact VE7RAC when I heard them show up late at night on the forty meter band I think, surely a Canadian station there operating in a competition that I had no idea of the rules of, so I replied to him just to see if I could get a signal report. But frankly after having the wide array of controls of the ICOM 756 it just wasn't much fun, to me. And I was not enthused to keep the wireless running like I usually did with the ICOM 756, I mean the radio amateur purists love their equipment and their operations and that's fine, but I really don't get much fun out of radio unless there's something weird going on, like operating the ICOM 756. And it can certainly land those DX stations without too much effort.

Anyhow to return to the matter at hand, I remember I had operated the VK/Trans Tasman eighty meter contest from the top of a cold mountain out back of Maitland, where I grew up, but even at that time the ICOM had a problem, the automatic memory controlled antenna tuner built into the wireless had failed and I had to operate with an external manual tuner, it's a major crippling of the transceivers overall capability so the next week the adventure continued as I took the ICOM back to Lee Andrews communications, a fine establishment, to leave the ICOM for repair or replace under warranty.

So this was the adventure, to get the 1977 Mini Cooper down the highway and through the traffic of Sydney, this is always a pretty epic journey in the 1977 Mini Cooper as you have to go flat out for the highway then go into heavy city traffic, something that always is a problem with overheating what with the east-west type engine in the Mini. And running sustained high turns for the hours flat out on the highway sections is definitely the most intense test of endurance for the newly rebuilt 1275cc engine and with any breakdown from here to Sydney and back always meant you were stuck on some main road with often no hope of getting the vehicle to a safe place by one man pushing. These are the circumstances that led me to call for a passenger on this adventure, my consulting minister, a man of faith, we'll call him Pater Bob, And also he had a mobile phone.

All this radio equipment but I cannot afford even a mobile phone, I can't even afford to call one let alone own one.

I was also very curious to see how the gps/aprs tracking system would work down and around Sydney. It worked well once out of the mountains and in range of the Sydney receivers and gateways. You can see the coverage in the log from that day with rough map from APRSworld by pressing the posting heading for this blog entry above.

At any rate I loaded the wireless and Pater Bob into the 1977 mini and we spilled out on to the streets, hit the highway and hammered it up to 120 kph for extended periods, till we hit the twin service stations where I pulled up to check the engine before we hit the point of no return on the way to Sydney.

Pater Bob took the chance to do some good works for his fellow man by means of his cellphone while I cracked the bonnet. Everything was basically ok, there had been no problems apparent on the road, good temperatures and pressures, and inspection showed no loss of coolant and the expected rate of loss of oil.

As we were going to leave I told Pater Bob not to panic and pointed out the oil that had started to be blown out of the carbon crankcase ventilation canister as while it was not a good thing to be happening I didn't think it would cripple the vehicle, so we headed off onto the highway again for the long run to Sydney.

I took the mini up over 120 kph several times, and the mini showed no difficulties and before I knew it we had arrived at the end of the highway and were dumped into the Sydney traffic.

Again, no problems, the 1977 Mini handled the traffic, it was quick off the mark from the lights, it was nimble amongst the traffic and it stopped when needed well due to the disc brakes fitted to it. The best way to make a mini behave more like a normal small car is to fit the disc brakes and 12 inch wheels.

Getting through Parramatta was accomplished easily and we arrived at Lee Andrews communications Shop in Greystanes and thereupon arriving dropped off the ICOM 756 wireless transceiver for repair under warranty.

Whole job done with no problems so far. Pater Bob, being a gun enthusiast, suggested we continue on to Horsley Park gun shop one of the larger of the gun shops left in the country what with the continuing outlawing of guns in this country.

I agreed as there was no reason not to keep driving now the mini had come this far and I had never seen this gun shop Pater Bob spoke about so we drove on. I hadn't driven into Sydney much and certainly not this area and started to run into road construction where they were building interchanges with 3 roads on top of one another, "what the hell is this, this cannot be" I started to panic as I saw these things but drove on to Horsley Park where we parked and went to the gunshop.

Pater Bob wanted to show me a 1911 pattern handgun, this is Pater Bobs favorite gun especially in .45 caliber which is now illegal, and he basically hassled the gunshop salesman to pull one out of the vault. Pater Bob had to start talking about spending money on one before the salesman brought two out and Pater Bob proceeded to operate the mechanism of the gun and examine it completely in such a way as I could see all of the mechanisms of it from standing beside. All very interesting, I could see he wanted to strip down to it's components on the sales counter but I concurred with him that the salesman would not have been happy about doing that.

So, we headed off onto the highway again. Pater Bob knowing the area told me he knew where we could get food, food was good I thought, but we had missed the turnoff from the highway and it was not really possibly to turnoff further on, but we were stopped at a big set of lights, four lane highway in all four directions. I was baffled but Pater Bob as my consultant minister suggested making a U-turn in the intersection when we got favorable lights. It was not easy but I made the U turn and ended up heading in the right direction for food stop without incident, no collisions, no police. I ceased panicking by the time we hit the macdonalds Pater Bob was guiding us too.

Purchasing food at the roadside macdonalds I noticed Pater Bob grab about a one hundred and forty four competition forms that were near the door, which I thought was very strange, but as we ate he spent about an hour making technical drawings of how the 1911 hanguns were constructed on the back of aforementioned forms, everything he couldn't show me by disassembling one in the gunshop. So it's clear to you all now how much of a 1911 enthusiast Pater Bob is.

Anyhow, topped up the oil as the 1977 Mini had cooled down a lot and off again, to complete the run home, which was fully uneventful except for only barely making it to the fuel station near the end of the highway run. Pater Bob's prayers as the fuel gauge had been below zero for some time may have helped I don't know.

So it's three months later now and still no sign of my ICOM 756 being repaired. I have the receipt for it being put in for repair so that's somewhat comforting, but I'm very concerned none the less. The technician repairing in has emailed me to tell me yes he ca see the problem, the fault is not an obvious one, he has got the workshop menual for it now.

But as a test of the 1977 Mini Cooper too Sydney and back it was an excellent run. There ended up being no problems at all. It could do it again except for the cost of fuel.

Be,seeing you.

The Horror of the Tortoise from Underground

2005-07-10T21:38:00.000-07:00

Along time ago, I was always fascinated by a tortoise a friend of mine had found while digging a vegetable garden in the backyard to his home. What on earth had the small tortoise been doing underground for what must have been untold years, it was alive, but didn't seem to be able to make its head come out of the shell, it must have been seized in the retracted state from being unable move it at all for so many years. I did not understand how it could be possible but there it was.

I remember I went to his house to visit once, I was teenaged, I went to his house to visit. No one answered the door though I felt that he really was there but was not answering the door because I was a nuisance visitor I suppose.

Then, thinking I was probably being paranoid in thinking that, I went to where the tortoise was, near the barbecue. I tried to make it's head come out of the shell it wasn't easy. It seemed to be resisting fiercely so I kept pulling harder and still harder with childishly unaware curiosity and no thought of what I was doing to this creature until it's spine gave way and its neck broke. It's head was out now but the tortoise was clearly dead. I pushed the head back in when I realised what I had done and I replaced the tortoise where I picked it up from.

I immediately left and returned to my home.

Then a week later the fellow who owned the tortoise looked at me in an accusative manner and said the tortoise was dead, Somehow it's neck had been broken.

The horror of the incident lives on in my mind I mean how would he have known it's neck had been broken did he do an autopsy, no he must have been watching me do it but unable to stop me because he had been in hiding, what a horrible dilemma.

I must write it in my blog .

Try to atone

Though I can't be punished enough.

But how could the tortoise have lived buried in the back yard of a house
how could it be for untold years it did not dig it's way in,

I can only imagine it had been in some reptilian hibernation of some sort, or it ate when an insect or worm would randomly tunnel into the tortoises head space underground.

It's head was just permanently bent at the neck stuck in it's shell. It probably wanted to put its head out for a very long time. It probably wanted its head out of the shell especially now that it could see light.

Maybe I gave it a few seconds outside its shell before I killed it. I don't know but the memory haunts me to this day, out of all the horrors I've seen and done, this one stilltroubles me some 30 years later.

I was a child, I was stupid, I an insufferable nuisance, what can I do, there was no plan there was no reason. I'm only a man.

I'm only a man.

The Strange Case

2005-06-25T19:14:00.000-07:00

I discovered I had fallen asleep as I often do when the weight of the day has crushed me down onto the bed when I woke up from the following nightmare.

So, I find myself in some semi-interactive voyeur role, some kind of advocate for one of the people involved in a mystery that was taking place, maybe some kind of lawyers second chair not unlike you would see on television shows. I seemed to have been introduced into some kind of investigation and prosecution in which I had no knowledge what was going on.

The subjects of the incident in question were Laura San Giacomo and John-Boy Walton, which immediately struck me as being strange. Laura San Giacomo was pleading for understanding the group of people I seemed to be working for, she was asking to be punished in place of John-Boy Walton with the full weight of their justice, feeling it to be the only just solution.

John-Boy Walton was a slow witted "man-child" type of character, much as John Steinbeck always seems to include in such works as Cannery Row. He loved Laura San Giacomo there could be no doubt or at least obsessed. It was all he would to talk about to the investigators.

But none the less, in an isolated interrogation room by use of a dead severed cows head (which curiously had been squashed flat to a thickness of about three centimeters) and several different weapons somehow it was demonstrated beyond a doubt to even myself that he had definitely done the heinous crime that had taken place before my arrival.

Then I was with the entire cast of characters in some kind of place of judgment, I was sitting to the side of the team with John-boy Walton and all the evidence was being presented, especially the severed cows head derived evidence which was increasingly showing itself as the absolute proof of his guilt. After some time one of the panel in judgment, of which there were only about three, began gesturing at me trying to get my attention. I looked toward him and he began to make gestures resembling some kind sign language or code under his desk, I did not understand. He continued making these gestures, under the desk, unseen by his cronies on the bench, becoming more and more intense and forceful with them.

Then I could see my own hand and arm appear out in front of my line of vision and I raised my middle digit and "gave the finger" several times in an abusive manner back to him, also out of sight of anyone but him.

He then grimaced and with some considerable irritation at me evident in his manner he leant over and said quietly and still unnoticed by anyone else, "Get your client out of Sydney, Get your client out of SYDNEY!, go on, now, don't just sit there , run, RUN!.

Then the whole scene switched to myself and John-Boy Walton out in the streets of the CBD of Sydney, the great metropolis(Photo of Metropolis Sydney left). But he was uncontrollable, I tried to make him shut up and come with me to escape, but he just kept breaking away and looking for Laura Sang Giacomo. He was calling out for her and looking up many streets. I soon gave into this and started to look for Laura San Giacomo too because frankly I myself wouldn't have minded having her around for the escape. So we were both roaming the streets of Metropolis Sydney looking for Laura San Giacomo.

Then I felt myself being pulled way, I fought it, but it pulled harder, on my back. It pulled until I was able to fight anymore, it made a noise not unlike the THX sound system noise as I was pulled away and when it had pulled me completely out I opened my eyes and the nightmare was over.

For now....

Because I had awoken now at the time to take the ICOM 756 amateur radio transceiver down to Sydney to be repaired for the fault with the automatic antenna tuner mentioned in the previous blog entry. It had to be done in the battered and tortured 1977 Mini Cooper as that was the nature of the adventure, an adventure which would soon introduce you to the strange and enigmatic Pater Bob.....

The VK/Trans Tasman Contest Adventure

2005-06-11T21:52:00.000-07:00

Amateur Radio Operation, is a strange thing. One of the more strange activities within is the "Contest" where at the allotted time radio operators will try and make as many long distance contacts which are logged and sent to the contest runners who work out who "Wins", those winners being singled out to receive some kind of award.

Also strange is the desire to take valuable radio equipment out into harsh conditions to see how much punishment can be taken in the interests of operating radio.

So with the VK/Trans Tasman contest being run two weeks ago, and my nearly uncontrollable impulses to take the 1977 Mini Cooper on the strangest possible excursions I decided I would try to get myself, my ICOM 756 and the mini up to the top of a mountain out the back of where I used to live in rural NSW Australia where I had discovered two other radio amateurs had set up a portable station to participate in the contest. Matt Vk2ZMT and Rick VK2HFP

I arrived at the turnoff from Maitland Vale road onto the dirt track that would ascend the mountain as it was just getting fully dark. I had been up the track many times fifteen odd years ago when I would visit John who lived up the mountain, and knew to lookout for the sign that said "Private Property, Trespassers Prosecuted, No Exceptions, Go Away, Extreme Danger etc.." That's where I had to go in. I knew the track could be difficult in the mini but I could always drive carefully around and over the erosion but alas the track seemed to have been recently graded over with soft earth which hid the holes but did not prevent the mini sinking down into them, never the less I continued slowly, it was not easy.

I finally made it to the level of John Who Lived Up The Mountain's house, but alas discovered that not only was no one there, but seemingly no one had lived there for untold years.

I knew this was the right mountain and the other two radio operators had to be around here somewhere, I began to think they must have continued on up to the top of the mountain, far beyond John's house, far beyond the point I had ever gone in the past, and as I began to move further upward I realised it was far beyond the harshest conditions I had ever taken the 1977 Mini Cooper before anywhere.

Holes in the road and graded material gave way to large erosion areas and large rocks poking out of the never graded track, and it was not easy.

I reached a gate and on the other side I could see in the beam of the illegal 55/100 watt halogen lights of the 1977 Mini, just far enough to see the track go up more steeply again and even more large rocks on the track, rocks that must be considered boulders to the Mini Cooper.

I managed to contact the other operators on the two meter mobile radio in the car, they confirmed they were indeed right up the top of the mountain past the gate I was at, so I decided to press on through the gate and towards what would become the ultimate obstacles.

Through the gate I began to try and find away around the obstacles in the road, almost I got it a few times but I was revving the hell out of the Mini engine to try and pull it up over various impediments. Rocks, tree stumps, large pot-holes that if a wheel of the mini went into I'd be hopelessly stuck. But no matter how hard I tried I'd always get snagged on something and drop back down.

I tried getting out and by hand rolling away some of the larger rounder rocks that were not buried to deeply into the track, trying to clear a path I could negotiate, only barely managing to miss rolling large rocks into the Mini which was below me some meters. It was literally a Herculean effort. But alas no, I got a little further but just could not make the 1977 Mini Cooper go any further up the track.

I was only a few hundred meters from the destination at the top, but I knew there was just no way The Mini was going to do it as the oil and water temperatures were in the red and when I switched the engine off there was hissing. Knowing the damage I could already have possibly suffered from the innumerable rock hits to the bottom of the car up the track, and the last effort in trying to get up past the gate I called on one of the operators to come down and pick me up with their four wheel drive vehicle.

Failed to make the top of the hill none the less I made it up six hundred and twenty feet altitude as you can see from the topographic mapping made by the aprs/gps tracking system, with the 1977 Mini Cooper sitting about four hundred and thirty meters.

The 4wd arrived and we loaded my radio equipment and proceeded to the radio station VK2ZMT Portable, A tent on top of the mountain powered by a small 180 watt petrol generator with several wire aerials resonant on the 80 meter amateur band where the contest was being held roughly constructed and suspended from various poles around the site. The station was well appointed with a gas stove for cooking the sausages and a well stocked Esky.

It was an impressive site, this highest point in the region it was quiet and dark, also very quiet for radio interference. It was cold, very cold with wind, a chill winter bastard though dry.

Contesting had begun I was late, but the other operators had already racked up a good number of stations contacted. When I hooked up my ICOM 756 the bandscope revealed to me that the whole band within the contest limits was saturated with stations calling, a solid block of radio transmissions, one blending into the other as you'd tune through the band.

The VK/Trans Tasman contest is a straight through six hour smackdown match for stations in Australia and New Zealand to make as many contacts as possible with varying points being awarded for distance and low power(QRP) stations, short as many competitions will got for 24 and 48 hours but it's intense.

Each operator of a multi operator station such as ours(VK2ZMT Portable) must work the station for 1 hour so I knew I'd be operating 2 x 1 hour stints that night and when my turn came I fired up the ICOM 756. It was nearly impossible to find a part of the band where you could transmit, when you can call continuously is when you pick up the big points but you cannot just start operating on top of other stations. So we'd all be spending alot of time in pileups waiting to be acknowledged and exchange of information with stations already calling. Then you'd find that elusive spot on the dial where there was no one calling and start calling fast and hard, soon stations would be returning to you and the points scores would shoot up.

My automatic aerial tuner in the ICOM 756 had failed on me a week before and I had to use a manual tuner to bring the antenna into tune, and I discovered I could do that as I spoke on the radio on the fly by adjusting the loading controls on the manual tuner to give maximum dimming of the lightbulb in the tent which also ran from the small petrol generator. It was very effective.

We as a team made over 170 contacts on the night which are good numbers for such a quickly constructed portable station in a tent up a mountain out back of nowhere.

With radio it's all down to the magic of your particular location, and it doesn't really come any more magical than this location was, the adversities of getting there were well worth overcoming and the other two operators stayed the night up there whilst I always intended to drive back down and home when the contest ended after midnight.

So the adventure was far from over for myself yet as 1am rolled around and I was driven by 4wd back down to where I had left the 1977 Mini Cooper. I was already quite exhausted both mentally and physically and I had no idea whether The Mini was in any condition to get back down the mountain track. Using a torch I was able to determine that now the mini engine had cooled down there was still oil in it and still water so I knew that I had not punched a hole through anything vital to it's operation.

The Mini started and I began down the hill, it was harder going down than up really. At one stage I had my clutch foot sitting on the floor and I felt the floor pan under my foot bulge up as it was bent by a fair sided rock I was running over but I pressed on desperate to get off this diabolical mountain. I passed John Who Used To Live On The Mountain's house so I knew I was at least half way there. Numerous times The Mini would just go THUMP down into a hole which would threaten to put a hole in the sump and kill the car but no, it made it down, I got it out, but it was not easy believe me when I say that.

From there it was back onto road and back home, there were other radio amateurs still about that I could contact from the mobile radio in The Mini so if there was any serious problem with it I could always call in help, but only the drive on road at speed would tell me if The Mini was still in fully operational condition. Magically, it was. No significant impairment to it's function only superficial damage which is always anticipated when you take a vehicle like the Mini off road.

So that was the night in a nutshell, I thought it was quite an adventure, wouldn't have missed it. I could have done the contest from home, or from the radio club, but that just would not have been the same, would it.

At any rate this was not the end, I still had to run the !977 Mini Cooper down to Sydney in the next week to put my ICOM 756 into the repair shop to get the automatic aerial tuner fixed. So this is just the first part of the overall adventure.

The 221b Barker Street Residence.

2005-05-12T22:28:00.000-07:00

How on earth can I post photographs quickly and easily into the blog entry I don't know. I just don't know I'm only a man I don't know.

Embed html maybe, I shouldn't wonder.

Oh Right then. I see then it shows up in the editor.

oh that's very good.

P.S. That's a house I lived in the early 1980. The photo is taken only a year ago and though 20 years have past it's virtually exactly the same as the day I walked out of it even down to the piece of board put over the window of the front door where my flatmate had put his fist through the glass to gain entry once when he had left his keys inside.

It's in a heritage area of Newcastle called "The Hill" and it's definitely a genuine colonial era building I spent some time exploring underneath it and found all convict hewn sandstone blocks forming the foundations, and other weird things in the darkness. Lost a battery charger down there actually, very distressing in those days of limited access to batteries, or chargers.

So with no driveway, and no way of putting one in due to policies of The Hill committee, and being no doubt worth a small fortune this excellent house just sits there, probably some kind of nestegg in someone's estate alas.

I liked living in that house.

Oh that's too big

Maybe times in small font would be good.

I thought Trebuchet was a catapult like weapon of great size.

There is Now Video

2005-04-30T03:16:00.000-07:00

The 1977 Mini Cooper Movie has now been improved and placed on a high speed video server. I'd recommend anyone and everyone has a look at it mainly because I just spend 7 hours editing it for upload. It is much improved over earlier versions you may have seen by chance but it tends to have a little pixelation due to having to fit it all into a 10mb file.

I also discovered comments were restricted to blogspot users only, I've changed that so anyone could write comments I shouldn't wonder.

The mini is running very well now, the engine rebuild has turned out well EXCEPT it's leaking oil and water. I should be down in the garage working on those fairly minor problems as I write even.

The 1275cc motor with stage 2 racing camshaft, twin 1 1/4 inch S.U. Carbs and LCB extractors make it quite an interesting vehicle to drive.

Mate, She Gets Up!

Disappearance

2005-03-15T17:30:00.000-08:00

I became conscious of myself driving in a non descript vehicle between Newcastle and the home of my youth in East Maitland and it was announced by radio that the world would end in a few hours. I drove to East Maitland and by the time I had arrived I found myself to be the only person left. Everyone else had disappeared. I searched extensively for any signs of life but there was none, it seemed I was the last person left on the earth.

I began to think that somehow I had been the only survivor of the end of the world as predicted

Then I found some object that suggested that Dave (from over the road) was about somewhere nearby, the object was black.

Magically Dave (from over the road) appeared in the driveway of the house I grew up in, he was driving a hybrid vehicle that was towing some kind of machine that was the source of it's power he explained to me.

I searched through the house I grew up in and after some searching found a bed with two youths in it, one wearing glasses. I felt sure they were dead but with some trepidation (because I have learned over time to always be very cautious within these nightmares) I reached out and pushed the one with glasses who woke up immediately and looked not at me but outward through a window.

I walked to the window and looked out to see many youths running around in the street outside the house where I grew up, but became aware that there were no older people, only these youths. They were running, shouting and generally playing about in a sinister manner but it didn't seem overtly threatening.

I questioned to Dave (from over the road) why are we here, we are so much older, he did not know what was happening.

Dave and I then were in my radio room and we were trying to find radio stations to see if the effect was general or localised. There were only a very few stations to be found, one powerful broadcast station had been taken over by another man broadcasting from a distant place calling out continuously for anyone to reply to him as he too had found himself alone in his area and had could find no signs of life. Another station found transmitting from another area was playing normal broadcasts, as if totally oblivious to any changes. I wondered what was powering my radio, the lights the water for all of us.

I began to consider the possibility that some disaster had taken place as predicted but the nature of it had resulted in some kind of dimensional fragmentation and none of us were dead as such, just some of us were actually shifted into our own different dimension or version of the same reality, and that everything was still running for those of us in remote realities by virtue that somewhere in the fragmentation there was still a fully operational reality that effectively nothing had happened to in the end of the world disaster as predicted in part one, it was seemingly unaffected other than the fact that some of us just suddenly disappeared from it.

Then I woke up.

With luck I be able to get the final parts to reassemble my 1977 Mini Cooper engine today, after last nights effort at Adams Machine Shop, with Adam and I constructing a tool to remove and replace camshaft bearings.

that is all.

2005-03-13T01:18:00.000-08:00

Woke up this morning, knew I was fully awake and not just dreaming I was awake when The Fear hit.
Wandered aimlessly around my home all day worrying about how I could get my 1977 Mini Cooper going so I could at least drive away from this house that is my prison for a day.
With difficulty fell into an uneasy sleep where daemons visit by way of unearthly dreams.

I've been patiently waiting for a new days dawning

2005-01-23T19:04:00.000-08:00

Old King Cole was a merry old soul and a merry old soul was he. So he called for his pipe and he called for his bowl and he called for his fiddlers three.