The Curse of Mobile Phones!

On my way to Queensland, left Canberra by train at 12:05 and all went well till Bundanoon when the attendant advised that due to track work, the train would be late into Sydney, possibly 20 minutes.

WOW, out came innumerable mobile phones and all the inadvertant listening suggested that everyone was telling someone that they were going to be late into Sydney. Oh well, it is nice to be informed.

Then on leaving Mossvale, over the trains PA system came the message that we were delayed only 7 minutes and things were looking good again, besides we were informed, the driver was going to try and make up time to Campbelltown.

Guess what. Out came all the phones again with another advisory to to those no doubt expecting the arrival of the passenger. Well the train ride did become a bit rougher but we did make up time which was duly advised over the PA and again this was relayed to all over the mobile phone system.

Then, we got caught up behind a suburban train, we were advised again and this time the attendant added that Country Link trains get no priority so we will be late into Central, so this whole sorry sage was relayed yet again to no doubt very desperate metters of passengers!

The train was eventually 15 minutes late, the mobile phone companies probably a $1000 richer, which suggests the Country Link people should get sponsorship from the Mobile operators on the basis of telling passengers irrelevant timetabling information.

( I have been told by a lawyer to be that this would probably be illegal )

After all this I met up with my daughter in the Kinokuniya Bookstore, quite an eye opener. Right next door was the Ichi-ban Boshi restaurant. A great meal which was just one huge soup bowl full of soup.

The Two of Us

We were born on the same date, but 58 years apart.

Tash and I

Wondering how many days there were between our birthdays, I put "perl number of days between two dates" into Google, and it came back with a couple of modules that I decided to give a miss (Date::Calc and Date::Manip).

Changed perl to web. The first on the list was Web calendar Home that allowed me to determine that there are 21184 days between our birthdays, which didn't seem right because that means 14 leap years as 365 by 58 comes to 21170. So was 2000 a leap year? I don't think so.

Oh well, who cares :-)

Times Have Changed

Concrete Pourer!

50 odd years ago I remember lugging bags of concrete up a hill. They weighed 112 lb each (I think) but as I remember putting one on each shoulder, maybe they weighed something less. Thousands of them!

Now this magnificent machine just pumps it all over the obstacles. A great advancement for the building industry. Another great invention is the nail gun. God, I wish I had one of them in the 1950s. Ever tried driving 1000s of nails into a hardwood ceiling, or floor!

A Cold Weekend

Spent the weekend (28/29) riding around Crookwell. Places of interest were Laggan (morning tea) Taralga (lunch) via Golspie on the Saturday and the wind farm on Sunday which is about 12 Kms southeast of Crookwell.

The ride was H A R D. Coming home from Taralga had us riding into 30 kt winds that were freezing, 6 degrees C I am told by the many cycling computers with a temperature sensor. Four of us had to get the slag wagon home, and two were seriously affected by the cold. The ride ran two hours late and probably a reflection of idle planning.

The morning tea at The Killaiden House Cafe, Laggan was great and ditto for the lunch at Taralga. Lunch was at Cushendall Cottage. A delightful place where we were given a wine tasting and lunch. Unfortunately, there seemed to be a For Sale on the business, maybe after 20 years or so they have decided to give the wine making business away.

Sunday was a ride to the wind farm. The blurb at the site look out told us one of the features of the district was the wind, and for us bicycle riders, we could only agree!

Glad to get home.