Life & Wisdom & Stuff

No quotes, just reflections on the things that bounce around in my head.

This is the day my eldest left the nest and headed some several hundred kilometers south to start university.  I will miss her smile and world view!  I guess it's quite wrong to hope she abandons after one semester and comes back home forever?  It really does only feel like yesterday that I took a year off work to be a house-husband so I could look after Taff - it was 1994.

Lake Wakatipu, Jan 2013

Embrace honest sadness, it has great healing properties.  So does laughter, but I was never as good at that as Taff is!

Coffee is a two pronged sword.  But I never worked out what the first prong did.  The second is just the headaches when you go cold turkey.

Emotional self indulgence is the biggest enemy of happiness.  Don't dwell on painful things ever - go somewhere else in your head, it's a big place. Remember that admitting that you're bored is an insult to your own imagination.

You can't change the past, but you can shape the future.  Don't look back and regret, do something.  Embrace the future with a positive outlook, '...sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof...'.

Tasman Glacier - a somewhat knackered Taff!

Believe in people.  They see the world differently and have differing hopes and dreams.  They aren't limited by you.

If you feel you have to drink scotch, buy the good stuff.  Once you stop drinking for pleasure alone, it's a very slippery slope.  The same doesn't apply to chocolate - there is no good chocolate.  Cheese is somewhere in the mid zone. 

Wasted hours are not wasted if we spend them together.  I'm not sure if that applies to WoW, or SWTOR, or Tera, or Rift, or LOTRO, or POTBS, or computer time in general, but it's still better than being apart.

We reap what we sow - and the harvest is coming.  Don't pretend to look surprised when it arrives.

Bare feet, 2degC, Lake Tekapo

Don't watch or read or listen just to support your own beliefs.  Keep an open mind and be changed by what you experience.

Life never stops.  It's cycles are sometimes slow and seem stagnant, but they will spin off into distant memory all too soon.  Choose to enjoy today.

There is a negative correlation between how often you weigh yourself, and your BMI.  There is a correlation between global gross human industrial pollution and climate change.  the earth is not just big boned.

A fracture, a break and a crack are synonymous.  I used to think radiography was a grey zone, but it's fairly black and white.

Never take the easy way out.  Unless it's egg and noodles.  Or pizza.  Or both.  But at least consider the vegetable omelet option.

Crown Range Rd lookout.

Happiness and love are not arbitrary or concrete states of being.  They are choices we make every minute of every day.  As RLP said once:  '...if you want to love, choose to love, and be patient.'  If you want to be happy, choose to be happy and you will find happiness right where you are.  

I did say I wouldn't include any quotes here (there are at least three so far, but it doesn't really count as a quote if you write them from memory), but this is from a good friend:  "You chose your life, as do we all, in a million tiny valuings." (el Bravo)

Never forget God.  It's easy to structure our lives without Him, and an effort to trust and obey what we know to be true - but that's the only life course we can follow that won't eventually sink into regret.  It's no wonder the word 'fight' was chosen.  Fight the good fight - it's a fight against yourself as much as anything, and not a fight we can win alone.

Anyway my Taffy - I'm very proud of you and I always will be.  You get out there in Avondale academia-land and kick butt, have fun, work hard, make some good friends, and - if you can manage it - eat properly :-)

February the mid

All things change and life moves on.  The year 2014 feels like it has just started, except that it's already 12.6% gone.  I've had a dry 2014 so far, and have therefore dropped my BMI by 1.8, and regenerated a few liver cells.  After a January flying solo U/S, I've started training in MRI.  The physics is fun, but a bit of a head spin at times.  I'm enrolling in a UQ MR masters - but how far beyond grad cert I get will depend on finances.

(someone's head, from somewhere)

Speaking of finances, my Taff will be heading off to college next week. I still have no clue as to what she's actually studying, but I guess I'll work it out as the year drifts past. Jen will drive her the 8 hours south, and help her through the registration process.  A few weeks later we'll all be passing through en route to the Melbourne F1, so we'll be able to inspect how untidy her dorm room has gotten...  Cooranbong is a nice quiet town, and is home to mostly happy memories for Jen and I (high school not always being pleasant) and it will be nice to see Taff construct some pleasant memories of her own from that town.  All four of her grandparents live within a few minutes drive of college - it's a pity she can't drive yet - but that's a job for later in the year.

(Probably November, given the purpleness)

Lach has spent the last 3 months on gaming night-shift, but is now returned to keeping normal school hours for his year twelve.  A dirt-bike riding hiatus of two months followed a nasty accident before Xmas that saw him unconscious and ambulanced to hospital for an extended stay.  We are both not pushing it quite so hard on the trails since then - it's all about the risk:fun ratio.  Some risks are just not worth it.

(I'd say it was a Renault engine, probably)

Jen has started writing F1 pieces for thejudge13 F1 website.  I've been a continual fan of that sport for several decades (usually in the gaps between MotoGP and WSBK) but my knowledge of it's history extends no further back than the first races I saw in 1983.   Her research into engine and aerodynamic developments has been fun to read.  F1 starts a new era this year with ERS and turbos etc, but historically these upheavals in the rules have occurred many times - the more things change the more they just repeat history.

still life and cataclysm

Sometimes you just can't help it. There is a cool breeze coming through the window at last.

The late winter sunshine had pushed to 37 degrees during the afternoon and had been hot enough inside our helmets to soft boil an egg. I found myself leaving the throttle wide open just because it was cooler, despite the trees and scrub whipping by and the bike bitching and kicking at it's redline. It turns out that sand is not the easiest surface to ride on, and Lachy has the bruises to prove it. We decided that corner speed is bad, and the answer is lockup, point and squirt on any surface that responds well only to powerslides. In accountancy terms I think it's called 'fast in - fast out' with a bit of boredom in the middle. One day I'll get better at it.

GILNEAS CHAT > LFM HOGGER KILL PST

My masters course is done, except for the CSU admin stuffing up some paperwork - doesn't matter. They promise to have already sorted it out - it's only money. 

leeches and jam

The world is full of blood-suckers. A less emotive form of the same statement may be: I can see a mosquito. I can't actually see one from where I am currently standing, but life is really just an exercise in logic if you stop to think about it.


On Monday I drank whiskey and soda and became drunk. On Tuesday I drank scotch and soda and I became drunk. On Wednesday I drank bourbon and soda and became drunk. I therefore conclude that soda makes one drunk. On Thursday morning I failed an alcohol breath test - thank goodness it was only the machine in the bar at the pub.


I have been reading about Silbury Hill near Avebury. Being the highest and largest prehistoric mound in Europe, Archaeologists calculate that Silbury Hill was built about 4750 years ago and that it took 18 million man-hours, or 500 men working 15 years to deposit and shape 248,000 cubic metres of earth and fill on top of a natural hill. The mound stands 40-metres high and covers about 5 acres. At least once for each of the last four centuries, explorers and treasure hunters have been sinking shafts and digging tunnels through the hill in order to reveal it's history and secrets. I'm gonna drag my mob there for a gander.

water views

A month of on-call has just drifted gently by. No stress at all, didn't miss any really important bits in the lives of my children. The new academic year is about to start so I need to get serious about study schedules, assignments, exams etc before mid april. Early May at the latest. 25 unbroken days of rain and unbroken cloud cover has given unto us a town water supply dam that is noisily scrubbing it's own spillway sur le haut du unbroken main wall.


For posterity (i.e. how big my posterior is getting whilst playing WoW).
Taff the industrious: Kayle 70 NE Bal Dr, Susun 69 Gn Dem War, Misy 60 BE Fr Mag, Angue 30 Hu Ho Pr. Lach the stealthy: Lachthegreat 70 NE Bm Hun, ICBM 67 NE Ar War, Saturnguy 47 NE Sub Rog, Lachthedruid 30 NE Fe Dr. Andy the studious: Furgus 60 Dw Bm Hun, Georgina 49 NE Bal Dr, Youngmorty 30 NE Dis Pr, Rozzell 26 Hu Fi Mag. Cam the ankle-tapped: Nyctemana 70 NE Bal Dr, Nyctemaya 67 NE Dis Pr, Nyctemaza 60 Dr En Sh, Nyctemaqua 30 Dr Fr Mag. So there, so what. We are making the necessary preparations for the upcoming 160 hour Dath'Remar and Nagrand marathon. Need lots of Guinness, Crispy Cremes (no more than two dozen assorted per day), Guinness, CCs, Pepsi, Guinness, Lamington rolls (jam AND cream), Guinness, several spare mice, one spare keyboard, Guinness, one spare PC, Kilkenny Bitter, Pizza, whipped cream and fudge sauce for the pancakes, Guinness, and of course for such an extended endurance event, more Guinness.

a copy?

Updated my homepage subject icons just because we were bored. A change is as good as a holiday. I must research the author of that statement so I can take my small red dog to vomit on his grave. For the Azeroth records: my NE dis Pr dinged 51, Lach's NE ar War hit same, whilst Taff's Gn dem Warl is now 64 and her NE bal Dr is 69. One more weekend free of assignment guilt, then I will be back into the skulls and spines of my mind-numbing radiography masters. That is a neat Schumi vid: the boy was good.
Concordski: What was the thrust to weight ratio difference of the Tu-144 (without Tu-160 engines) compared to Concorde?

Bummers in music part 1. Sonata Arctica sacked Jani Liimatainen and replaced him with Elias Viljanen. Apparently he was fragging around with his compulsory Finnish military service or something. The sound won't be the same. I bought their latest album, Unia, and it does sound cool from the first listen, something that IMs AMOLAD didn't manage for me at first. A weekend off beckons - I don't go on call until sunday night. Our current roster has Al and I on call 19 nights out of 28 - it's been that way or a worse variation on it for fifteen years now. The boss is now 99% sure that we will have three extra radiographers by around xmas, and will be going onto an eight person - eight week cycle with four shifts each weekend day, and two each weekday evening period. The trouble with 99% probabilities where I work is that the dice only come up favourably 1% of the time. Even so, things will not improve for the sonographers anyway: same call ratio.

flagged

A week straight of bloody radiography assignments (Jennie got lots of early nights). No books, No net (except medical sites), No WoW, No idea why I'm doing this course... No blogging or facebooking either. So it's a weekend off (although I am on call) then back into the study next week. If I see another x-ray any time soon, I shall go all bipolar. Just as well I'm rostered in ultrasound at present. I will recuperate in Azeroth.

Q: Who is the younger of the two guys which are at the top of their points table of those that are already mathematically eliminated from the 2007 F1 and MotoGP championships. (clear as mud?)
Winston Churchill, under the alias 'Colonel Warden', went to north Notts to witness the trials of a prototype trench-digging tank. Built by the Lincoln firm of Ruston Bucyrus, (another 355 firms were involved in the design and manufacture of the various parts), the vehicle was initially called White Rabbit No 6 and later Cultivator No 6. The formidable machine weighed 130 tonnes, was 77ft long and capable of churning out 100 tonnes of earth a minute. It dug a trench five feet deep and seven feet wide.

That would have been an awesome beast to watch! Extreme wombat envy. The question for Lach had me stumped - I hadn't read about his blue fingers. The only problem with apparel that I could find was to do with his water bag:

Scott, from the 1971 Technical Debrief - "That's a good point. I, too, when we got back to the LM, tried the water and the food stick; and my water worked fine. I got several gulps of water. It was very refreshing and I ate about half of the food stick at that time. That helped quite a bit. I think, in looking at it, the problems I had (later) with the water bag were related to tie-down to the neck ring with only Velcro. On the second EVA, that came loose and I could never get to the water bag because it was under my chin. I think, maybe, if we had snaps in there, or some firmer method of tying it down, it would have helped me. Can you sort out why you couldn't get to the thing?"

frag uni

Lippman was the man. An amazing dude really - the stuff he sorted out. The solar device I had in mind was the coelostat: a system of mechanically aligned mirrors that allow for solar (and astral) movement. Recently this has been used for utilizing sunlight to replace electric lighting indoors, and for solar power generation. This faceplantbook thing that is all the rage: it's just a bit strange. Am I the only one who thinks it's epigeeky? Go Casey. Again.
An abhorrence for the abomination raises in me an alarm,
my antipathy crushed by apprehension of this aversion,
awe drowns as a chiller consternation invested with detestation,
revels in disgust dislike any previous dismay or dread,
fright fades into hatred and loathing of this monstrosity,
panic battles with repugnance and revulsion steeped in terror,
and all that because an assignment is due next week.
(thesaurus.com just loves horror)

more mutterings

After three weeks of holidays it's time to both return to work (am going on-call at 2200 tonight) and admit that it's week four of semester and an assignment is due on friday. As luck would have it - I can submit it electronically, so I won't have to start until thursday night :-)
So I went to work last night and trawled the archives for the necessary number of case studies showing suitable spinal trauma and/or pathology so I could at least have a look today. Following a hard night in Azeroth (dinged 44 NE Pr, 14 BE Hu, 13 Tau Dr - got the Horde T-Shirt last week) I arose to find my PC had a HDD failure. Four hours later it was back online just in time to get lunch for Jennie and then take T&G shopping. What assignment? Bugger it, I'm going back to Azeroth.
Tonight's MotoGP in Brno has Casey Stoner on pole with Rossi 0.8 done in sixth. It's starts about the same time that emergency is going to ring for a pointless erect and supine abdo. It has been raining all day which is nice for the dam but has left the little girls with way too much energy. For WoW posterity: Lach - Tau Dr 12, BE Mag 11, NE Hu 44; Taff - NE Dr 68.75 and flighty, Gn War 61, BE Mag 26; Roozie - Dw Hu 50, NE Dr 44 and retired for the semester (as I SHOULD be).