Hi Justin

Thanks for that information, but I have spent over an hour trying out what you said to do, yesterday
and then again early this morning, but it must be because of my dialup that I am having all sorts
of problems, and it has slowed my system down so much, in the end I just can't get it.

I downloaded the FLV Player ok, but even it takes quite a few minutes to come up, and I can't do
anything on the comput until it does.

Oh well, I will just have to wait until I move to England and get Broadband to be able to do it, not to
worry that is how life goes at times.

Jane

Sorry Jane it wasn't smooth and easy.
I guess I take my ADSL top speed for granted.

Never thought it would be so sluggish for dial up users....
I could download the video clip for you and send it as email attachment but the file's about 10MB which would probably be painfully slow for you to download as well.

Sorry...

Thank you so very much for offering and please don't apologise for trying to be helpful as I
really did appreciate your help. Yes the 10mb would take me probably upto 3 hrs to download
on my slow connection. Anyway I now know who sings it, so I will just go and find a cd of his, or
wait for my sister to return after her holidays and get her to download it for me and she can post
it off to me.

We are getting a fair bit of rain just this very minute, I hope you are getting it down in Brisy where you do
need water in your dams, especially if this drought doesn't end soon, as you said Brisbane may run out
of water by 2009, what a dreadful thought.

I used to say may the sun always shine on you and your days, but I am going to change it to may the sky
rain on your days and make you happy to be alive.

Jane
This is a rain dance for you guys that need it more than me.

I feel lousy, that I have not been around, but, it is great to see the regular crew, plus some new ones posting.

When I was a really little kid, the most affordable lolly was a raspberry frog, a hard piece of candy on a stick, shaped like a frog. They were 1 penny each, a bit less than 1 cent.

In my teen years I made friends with a guy, through surfing, one day I picked him up at his house, and here were his mum and dad making thousands of these red frogs. They had a great big kettle, and poured the toffee into the frog moulds, placing a little flat stick in before they cooled and set. At the time, I thought my mate was a real celebrity, being the son and heir to the penny frog empire.

Pete

i am a fellow aussie and i just joined this site.. its great!

I don't remember those frogs Pete.....guess it's because I am too young

Hey, remember the toffees all our Mums used to make for school fetes, fairs etc. With the hundreds and thousands on top? And then they banned them because they were too full of sugar.and were the cause of tooth decay....... (guess there wasn't enough flouride in the water
Welcome Kylie, nice to see a new member here.

Please come back and post. What part of Australia are you from?

Cheryl

Hi kylieh and welcome to the Aussie Thread, you will enjoy the company here as I certainly do.

Cheryl, I remember the toffee's my mum used to make and she also got us involved
in making them as well, sometimes we would add some food colouring to make some
different colours. They weren't banned from our school while I was still in primary,
as you usually didn't see them in high school. I could also remember that some were very very
hard, some so soft that you took a bite and you could make long strings with them.

Another thing that I can remember back in infants and primary was the milk delivered in the
little Milk bottles, and most of the time by the time we got to drink them at morning tea, they
had been sitting in the sun all morning and they were soured, but you were expected to drink
them, me I just couldn't handle them like that, you had more of a fighting chance in winter, when
the sun hadn't been shining down on them all morning. I think that is where I have gotten my
habbit of smelling milk before I drink it, and I like my milk to be very very cold. Well
these days we all just about drink milk out of cartons, I use the long life skim milk, but still like
it extremely cold. If my hubby leaves it out of the fridge for a while before putting it back, I have
to wait until it is cold again before I will touch it, and I still continue to smell it before drinking it.

Did you guys used to collect the different coloured Milk Bottle Tops?? We rarely ever got more
than the usual silver ones, sometimes we would get gold or red ones.

Have a nice day all

Jane

I do remember the milk in primary school, don't recall it being warm, but I do know i really liked it.

We didn't collect bottle tops, but we did get our milk bottles delivered every morning by the milky and his big clydesdale horse.

People talk about recycling these days, and yet back then, you used your bottles, left them out the next day for the milky to pick up. Same with soft drink bottles, you returned them and got your 2 or 5cents for the bottle.

We called the sticky toffees ' stickjaws'......I think you boil them for a shorter amount of time.

Thats right I couldn't remember the names of the sticky ones. Yes I remember when you handed
in your soft drink bottles and got money back on them. From the labels on bottles now, you still
get back a deposit in SA. I lived in the western suburbs in Sydney and the weather was always
hot in summer, so they didn't seem to have the common sense to put our milk where it wouldn't
have been in the sun.

So it just goes to show that we were recycling when we didn't even call it back then. Maybe they need
to bring that back, but then you get cash for cans if you take them to a recycling place, but like me
if you live out in the rural areas that isn't that easy, but our local progress association has very big
bags for cans, and they get filled up fairly quickly. Me I am more of drinking our liquid gold out of glass
bottles, when I do have a drink.

Talk about deliverys, we used to get our bread delivered from a van, where you picked out what you
wanted, and also fruit and vegetables also came around in a van. Our suburban streets were dirt,
our dunny cans were picked up by the dunny can man, all covered in tar. Until my dad made a tank
underground and put in a toilet, where you pumped the lid up and down and the stuff was spun away into
the big tank.

The more we talk about what happened when we were kids, the more memories it brings back.

Jane

Besides the toffee apples my mum used to make for the school fete she also used to whip up enormous batches of honeyed popcorn!
Garbage bags full of it....

There was so much that we used to gorge ourselves on the leftovers.

I'm so lucky I didn't get any cavities!

Just hundreds of pimples............lol

Pete

Its been very quiet in here the last day, I wonder where everyone is.

Have a nice weekend all.

Jane

Is anyone out there thinking of selling a house or buying one for that matter. I have found
a web site that doesn't cost you one red cent to advertise your house for sale, I know I will use
it in a couple of months time to sell our home.
Its called

http://www.owner.com.au

You should go and have a look. You can buy signs from them for $65 for 2, but its certainly
not compulsary, for us it wouldn't be any point as we live 4kms off the Bruce Hwy, and no one
would come up here where we are unless you were looking for someone up here, very hard
to find us, even after we give the easiest directions. As we had a guy come last weekend to buy
a boat from us and gave him the simplest route to get to us, but he still got lost. Yes its very
peaceful where we are. Really the only noisy thing here are the birds and the sound of roos
jumping down the road, well they don't make any noise, just a beautiful thing to watch.

And the best thing about selling maybe thru this web site is that there are no real estate agent
commission to pay at the end, providing we get a buyer. I am not terribly happy with the
real estate agents, as I find that they worked for the buyer and not me who was paying their
commission. One agent here that we used to sell our block of land 2 years ago, was so rude to
me I will never use their agency ever again, thats if I ever decide to use a real estate agent.
Apparently she has lost many a sale to another real estate due to her rudeness.

There are a couple of other web sites out there as well, for people to use, but they do have fees
involved, but I will probably use them as well.

They are

http://www.diysell.com.au

http://www.noagents.com.au

Anyway just thought I would give these ones a mention and give you something different to look at.

Jane

I just logged in after my weekend away to catch up on all the news, but apart from Jane's post, there is nothing new. Good to see you keeping the thread alive for the past couple of days Jane Good luck with the sale of your house. I hope it sells quickly for you.

Well, we have just had 3 nights at Lake Fyans, 12 km's from the base of the Grampians, Victoria. If you remember, the Grampians was devastated by massive pushfires last summer. I have to say, nature is amazing, as is as our native flora. All the eucalypts, are just black, scorched remnants of what they were, and yet, they are sprouting new fresh leaves from everywhere. All the ground looks green again, it is really beautiful. And guess what,.....lol, I have some pics for you all to see.

Lake Fyans has only 18% of water left in it, but still large enough to water ski, and fish etc. When it is full it is absolutely massive. The caravan park is lovely, and we all had a wonderful time.

So, like it or not here are a few pics.

This is what a large area looks like after the devastating bushfires
grampians 1

This photo gives some idea of the expanse of the Grampians - absolutely massive and a beautiful place to visit
grampians2

Cockies in one of our gorgeous gum trees, though I don't know how clear this photo will be. Will post it anyway.

gum tree and cockies

Hi Cheryl

Had a look at your photos, very nice.

I might just have to work out how to use photobucket and put a couple of my pics up.

Is it hot for everyone today where they are.

We are having temps of 37/38, not very nice at all. My electricity bill is going to be quite high if this
heat keeps up with running the air con and all of the fans.

Yesterday on the news they said it was a record high for this time of year, I know that Brisbane was a few
degrees cooler than what we were, but some parts apparently it was 40+, glad I wasn't in those areas, but
our 38 was hot enough for me yesterday.

Come on that southerly that is suppose to be coming in around tuesday or wednesday.

Jane

Hey Pete.
Is it fairly expensive to live in Caloundra?
I might move up there if our water here in Brissie runs out.

Is there a local bus service in the district there?
The abundance of water there sounds very attractive.

The bad news is Justin that the Beattie Government has today decided to take over all of our water, this will not be a popular decision, and apparently is not-negotiable.

Cost of properties in Caloundra are ridiculous, rentals even higher, the good thing is that transport is quite good
with rail nearby and a good bus service. We have recently moved out of Caloundra into the Maroochy Shire, which has a common water storage with Caloundra City. So we will be fine until we run out.........lol

Pete

Thanks Aussiefox for sharing your photos. The cockatoos photo turned out well. Sounds as though you had a good weekend.

The weather here has been terribly hot. Above 50 degrees today for hours. Still quite hot at 34 as I sit here at 10pm at night. Surely there must be a storm coming...

I have been getting a little 'hot under the collar' the last couple of days. Nothing in the stupid industry is how it seems... Maybe it is just the lack of rain or something. I really do need to have a beer, hopefully my old fridge can stand up to this incessant heat, at least to keep the beer cold.

Ahhhh...................thats better.......

Dorky

Gee Dorky, enjoy those beers,...I can't believe it....over 50 degrees????? How do you survive that? If it hits 43 or 44, I think I am dying. We had what I would call a ' stinker of a day' on Saturday, where I just moaned and groaned all day...hehe, but nowhere near 50 degrees. The last 2 days have been quite cool. I had the heater going last night
For every beer you have Dorky, make sure you keep up the water....beer does dehydrate you, you know

Cheers
Cheryl

Nice photos, Cheryl.

Your Grampians sure look different from our ones.

One of these days or one of these years I'll get round to putting some of my photos online (Scotland, Norway, Switzerland), I keep putting it off.

Thanks Pete.

I think I'll go live underground somewhere away from the sh***y water situation.
....Maybe I'll just morph into some sort of cactus hybrid to live out my remaining years in peace and balance.

When you get comfortable, see if there is a cave next door for me, we'll be able to chat over the fence

Pete

Hope you both will be both comfy in your caves.

Use the government subsidy and buy water tanks, save your own water and tell the government
to go jump.

Talking about water, my mum lives on the south coast from sydney and she bought a shower
head that their council recommended for saving on water, but she has found that since installing
it her water useage has gone up, doesn't make sense.

Jane

This thread has been quiet for a couple of days now

I haven't been around much, my days are just full of study, study, study.....I'm waiting to get back the results of my first essay......

Kids had their sports day yesterday at school, and won 13 1st and 2nds between them.....lol, trust me, that's their dad's genes coming through, has nothing to do with me. I went to the school to watch, but as I got out of the car, I saw someone I worked with for 10 years. Hadn't seen her for two years, and she is now engaged, with a 3 week old baby. LOL....I nursed the baby the whole time I was there, and didn't get to see the kids do much at all...........But it was great to catch up with her, she has had such a sad and troubled life, and now she is so happy and settled......was lovely to see. And turns out she lives just round the corner, so we have lots of coffee and chats (and baby cuddles) planned. Just cuddling that baby, made me wish I was a few years younger!!!!

Nothing terribly exciting to say, but want to keep this thread on the first page

My eldest son plays in the grand final for Cricket again this year, so the kids and I are heading off to watch tomorrow. I hate cricket with a passion, but, well, we've got to do these things.

Okay, rambled enough

Cheryl

Don't worry Cheryl we enjoy your ramblings. Congrats to the kids for their wins. Have
a nice time over the weekend studying.

Its always nice to catch up with people you haven't seen for years.

We were watching on channel 9 the program Missing Persons, and there was a guy on whose
dad is missing in the Blue Mountains in NSW turns out the Allan my hubby used to work with
him a few years ago back in Blacktown. I certainly hope they find his dad unscathed and soon.

Pretty treachious is the Blue Mountains and he is in his 70's.

Have a great weekend everyone.

Jane

Wow Its really quiet in here again this weekend. Everybody must be really busy with their lives.

Me I have only done some painting skirting boards this weekend.

Catch you all later.

Jane

Just for once I have had a busy weekend, with visitors from Tassie, it has been nice, and we have been every bit as much tourists as they were.

I get the feeling that it is slowly starting to cool down a little, although we have had no rain to speak of.
What is obvious is that the nights are becoming cooler, and that suits me fine.

Pete

Ditto to that Pete. May we have a wet and miserable winter.

I like your style Justin..

Dorky

Found this on Google News....pretty interesting read:

Drought may be ending - sunspots reveal
Monday Mar 19 18:17 AEDT

The worst drought in a century could end this year, according to a scientist who has linked the cycle of sunspots and the "looping" of the sun's magnetic field to Australia's weather patterns.

Associated Professor Robert Baker, of Armidale's University of New England, says his tracking of sunspots since records were kept in 1876 shows that switches in the sun's poles and magnetic field every 11 years are consistent in their effect on Australia's weather.

He said the current stage of the cycle, since the last "flip" in 2001, meant that the eastern half of Australia could look forward to 18 months of heavy rain and a 10-year "window" of average falls in which to prepare for an even worse dry period in the 2020s.

"I'm looking at the location of sunspots between 40 degrees north and south of the solar equator, their migration and therefore, in terms of this, looping of the magnetic field," Prof Baker said.

"The sun's magnetic field is now in a similar position to what it was in 1924 and 1925, when eastern Australia had particularly good rainfall.

"If this tracking continues, we can expect average to heavy rainfall for eastern Australia within six months and into 2008."

Prof Baker said sunspot activity was increasing as it normally did in this part of the sun's magnetic cycle, which has been a historic pointer to above-average rainfall.

While long-range weather prediction using the sun or any other measure was problematic, Prof Baker said his own theory pointed to 2009 as the next period of potential drought in Australia.

In the longer term, an even worse drought could await the country in the 2020s.

Prof Baker said his system of analysis simply complemented other methods of weather prediction and did not take into account the effects of carbon emissions on climate change.

"If this coming cycle of predicted rainfall does not occur, it will be undeniable that carbon emissions are impacting on our climate in a very profound way," Prof Baker said.

"In using this system as opposed to other methods (of long-range weather prediction), I'm trying to be as transparent as possible.

"This is a very useful tool - this is the engine that drives the whole climate system."

But Prof Baker said even if his predictions were borne out and Australia received solid rainfall over the next 18 months, government and water consumers should not rest on their laurels.

"There will still be a big cause for concern," Prof Baker said.

"We will simply have a 10-year window of opportunity to get our act together."

©AAP 2007


And for some further reading I found this one as well:
Solar pulses

Interesting stuff Justin.

Hopefully he is right and we gets lots and lots of rain.

Ballarat now is down to 13% water levels.

The council is drilling holes in the ground to get water to the roots of the trees in the Botanical Gardens, because the ground is so hard now, water can't penetrate it.



This WAS our lake

Now it looks like this

Yikes.

I hope that reverses soon Cheryl. Looks dam(n) spooky.

[quote name='Justin' date='Mar 21 2007, 08:39 AM' post='3854684']

Yikes.

I hope that reverses soon Cheryl. Looks dam(n) spooky.



Hey Justin....is that you in your avatar?

Wow, the before and after shots, that's frightening, Cheryl.

When were the two pictures taken?

Just got this ing new adsl modem to go with my new mac laptop I'll be getting either today or tomorrow and after implementing all the various settings etc it now won't let me use the 'quote' or 'add reply' function.

Sorry Cheryl, to answer your question above the guy in my avatar is Frederic Michalak - he's a French (GASP!) rugby union player. (Okay, everyone beat me up for not being patriotic.... )

I just saw his pic amongst some others and chose it as an avatar. It's a friendly pic don't you think? lol
This way people will always like me even when I lose my temper....

I've got a pic of me if I can just figure out how to use 'add reply' again.

I hope this weird error resolves soon.

Awww, now you've disappointed me Justin

Cake, the pics.........the empty one with the people was only a couple of days ago, the other, about 2 years ago.

All of our lakes are like this now!!

'Add reply' now works for me.
It must take some time for settings to resolve or some weird nonsense.

Anyway, here's a pic of me in the sterile lab I work in in the Oncology department.
The mysterious man in the mask:



Ain't I just the bee's knees...

Very nice Justin
You look very professional and important.

Shame we can't see your face

They make me wear a mask because I frighten little children.

Lake Wendouree, Cheryl that is positively scary.

Pete

Hi Cheryl,

I also looked at your pictures and yes it is very sad that your once beautiful lake is now empty.
Hopefully in the sometime near future it will fill again and once more your lake will be
beautiful full of bird life, fish and the rest.

Justin you certainly have a very important job, and yes it would have been nice to see the
face behind the mask, or maybe you are a mystery man.

I am very glad that I am living with tanks to supply our water for our daily living and not having
to be under big brother watching how much or what I am doing with our water. We always
know what our water levels are, by tapping our tanks to see how much is in there. We can
survive on 10,400 gallons each year if needed and thats with no sight of rain for a very long
time.

Just a suggestion for the people on all levels of water restriction, or maybe you are
already doing it, but try washing up with a plastic basin in your sink and then you can add that
water when finished providing you are using a safe washing up detergent water your plants
with it. My mum also uses a big plastic bowl in her shower so that water also when you finish
can be put on your garden. As it seems that Brisbane residents are on level 5 or going on it
very shortly and are restricted to I think is 140 litres per person per day.

Its a very scary situation for some people of this country, but you do learn to live on a tigher
water supply.

Have a good day everyone and may it rain soon.

Jane

Hi Jane.
I get pretty embarrassed when people say it's an important job. It isn't really, I'm at the lower part of the food chain in my job, when compared to the haughty doctors etc. lol
It's just that not many people like the exposure to hazardous substances, especially the girls if they want to fall pregnant (obviously).
I guess I just like to live dangerously.

By the way, I got my new iBook yesterday and sorted out most of the adsl modem problems.

Now Justin... I have been told from first hand how important you JOB is. There needs to be the people like yourself behind these Doctors. They make decisions and you guys do the work. Well make the medicine, if know it is toxic, for those who have had huge doses it makes sterile... but without these drugs many people would not be alive today.. Believe me you are an intricate part of the well being of many patients. I for one am truely gratefull for what you and your doctors have done for Trev. So you see it is an important job. Thanks Justin.

LOL In one way or another we all live dangerously. You got an ibook, are they dangerous Probably would be in my hands. (whatever that is!!)

Dorky

Aarrgghh. Now I'm really blushing beetroot red. Kind words Dorky...

Wow what a day today.....very very hot and windy, absolutely awful.

The wind was so bad today, the kids had to stay inside through lunchtime, it was deemed too dangerous outside

That's pretty freaky Cheryl.
Psycho winds...good grief.

Hope everyone is well, been gone since last friday morning for a spell in hospital, and
they have let me home for a couple of hours this morning to try and sort some stuff
out here at home, then its back in, I suppose they gave me time off for good behaviour.

I see that there hasn't been much happening here at the Aussie Thread, thats good so it
means that everybody and everything is well.

Have a bright day everyone and hopefully someone is getting some rain somewhere.

See ya next week hopefully.

Jane

Awww Jane, that is no good. Hope they are giving you the care and attention you deserve

Get well soon
Cheryl x

Hi Jane,
I hope you are on the mend, and feeling well soon.

Interesting that you have strong winds Cheryl, we have had a howling South Easterly Gale for 3 days now.

Yesterday I was watching a couple of teenagers throwing a tennis ball as hard as they could into the wind, then waiting for the wind to blow it back into their hands.

Unfortunately there is not a drop of rain, just clear blue skies.

Pete

LOL.....bet they enjoyed that. But, jeez, what's happening to the world. I keep thinking of that movie with Dennis Quaid, when they have the Ice age.......hehe, I am full of doom and gloom when I think of our earth.

I've never know winds like it Pete. We have warnings of gale force winds again tonight. But we are also forecast some rain as well. If we don't get some water in our reservoirs, lakes in Ballarat , very very soon, I don't know what's going to happen.

Payback time maybe.......lol, let's all make a mass exodus for New Zealand......

We had better take an electrician with us..... to turn the lights back on....

Dorky


Hi Jane , thinking of you. I sure hope everything will be OK for you. Hope to hear from you again soon. Best wishes.

Dorky