The Annual Review

The ROBOT blog has been around for almost a year.  How do you measure how the blog has gone?  The stats page says the blog is approaching 700 views and their spread is originating from various countries around the world. I have contributed 90 posts including this one, more like literary gems HaHa.  The comments section has been bleak, not much action to report there.  A goal for the next twelve months is to get a few comments.
Also I will try to expand the repertoire to include my own cartoons.  I have stolen one recently but at least 99% of the photos are all taken by me. My old mate Pablo does a good cartoon, it can't be that hard. 

Team Sarcomere in action last century

NOK NOK Who's there?

Have finally figured out the tethering option on my Nokia Windows phone.  Very handy if I am trying to upload this post whilst down at the beach. Mind you there is no shortage of mobile phones therefore network choices for getting my laptop onto the internet.  I can't last a couple of weeks without an internet fix. A few years back and you were happy listening to the cricket on the radio. We have more relos coming off the ferry from the Light Side to visit us on the Dark Side. Some of the lads have just left for a day of fishing and kicking back at the end of the pier.  There are two tents outside to cater for the overflow.  Even the Plovers are being crowded out.  But you wouldn't have it any other way.

Plover Town

Beach Migration

The annual beach migration has begun. Things just have to happen in a certain order. Cricket,  yachts, booze, bikinis.  Having said that something different needs to be introduced as well.  We used the pool for the first time since we had kids running around here. It has had  an upgrade whilst we were over at  the beach and now claims thermal heating status. Not to mention the water feature.  Other upgrades here include older vans being replaced by three bedroom houses loosely camouflaged as mobile homes despite not having wheels and being assembled onsite. Ours doesn't have wheels either but they fell off so it isn't the same. We are looking closely at our own upgrade, Such luxury not having to walk 200 metres for a shower or run off into the bushes for a pee.

Pool is a school

Festivus for the Restofus

We organised a sit down lunch for 23 of us.  Three tables extending out onto the deck accommodated everyone just nicely.  Even found 23 chairs including the piano stool.  Other stats included 80 potatoes, 2 rolled boned turkeys 2 chickens and a ham on the bone. Strav has out done himself with that ham cooked on the barbie. It was the best.  There was the traditional pudding  but the new dessert on the scene is the Tower of Melon. If its good enough for Pinterest then its good enough for me. Only took an hour or so to carve and create.  The big tips on this culinary culmination are to pat down the tower to remove excess moisture and whip the cream into a stiff frenzy before application.  A new crowd drifted in for the evening with another 16 for tea, so it was a long day but a good one.

Tower of Melon

Oshannassy Race

ROBOT recently featured our visit to the Pont du Gard. Those Romans weren't the only ones to build aqueducts.  I went for a ride yesterday on the Oshannassy trail. The trail is actually the maintenance road that was used in construction of the aqueduct back in 1911.  When I started work at the Board of Works in 1977 the aqueduct was in full production and I can remember the water flowing on one of the rare occasions I got into the field.  Now that it is completely replaced by pipes the previously restricted road makes a good walking and bike track.  Mind you some of the access points are marked steep on the map and they aren't kidding.  We had to walk the bikes up the side of the hill before we got onto the nicer riding gradient.  The race was shut down in 1996. In 18 years the dilapidation has been fast. I don't think this one will be around in another 2000 yar.
We rode 12 kms along the trail then zipped down to Warburton to complete our circuit via the rail trail back to Launching Place. Couldn't resist stopping at the Home Hotel for some lunch and a brew.

Cog café

Sluice gate

Display your Date

 Around this time each year I finalise my calendars. These days I release three versions each with a theme. There is always a Swimsuit theme and also a Coast theme. This time around I have devoted a calendar to our recent Lord Howe trip which is really a combination of those themes, as being an island with lots of beaches and snorkelling you can't avoid the coast or the bikini. I would always leave it to the last minute in case I took a photo late in the year that demands to be included.  I used to have my own html code that described the linework in detail. Then I positioned the photo and printed each page including an index on the back cover displaying how each page looked. 
 Much consideration was given to the design. Should the calendar be portrait or landscape as well as the displayed photos being either portrait or landscape. Should I hang it from the bound edge or make it twice the size by hanging from a porthole. These days I do the cheats method by using the magic dots to mount a photo onto a preprinted calendar. I should start a separate page to display some of my calendar efforts from previous years.

Index from 10 yar ago



Miss December 2015

Now that I think about it I should also produce an index page, like the one above, to help summarise the last few years where I have used the magic press on system. 

Back to the Future

I may have had a future view of my back.  In my early IT days the heaviest thing I lifted was a printer.  They made things solid then all steel frame and 50 Kilos at least.  My back has been dodgy ever since given the following years of lifting servers and monitors as big as washing machines and just as awkward.  Yesterday I was nursing a similar aging back. This one was 20 yar older than mine and belongs to my father. The backcrackerman was brought in to rescue the day but intense back pain is no fun. I had never seen acupuncture used before. Seems like a good compromise by getting to the internals of the problem but not leaving any marks compared to the previous V featured on ROBOT.

V for Victory

The ongoing skin dramas have entered the final stage.  All the stitches came out yesterday and the Doc is happy with his work.  A circular section of face was removed about the size of a 50 cent and a stretching was required to cover the hole. Seems this has to be done in a certain way so as not to pull the surrounds of the eye out of place meaning that both eyes still look normal.  Now we just have to get the healing happening without the scarring. 
AARHH  How do you ease the fact that you are now a pirate face?  You go straight to the jeweller's and order a gold ring to be made complete with 36 points worth of baguette faceted diamonds so that it complements your existing rings. 

The V

Ratification

Lord Howe Island is having a ratification and I don't mean some form of officialdom saying the island is now legit, although this ratification has involved much planning and paperwork. It was 1918 when the SS Makambo ran aground at Ned's beach.  That was the day that rats made it onto Lord Howe island and they have been paying for it ever since. The ratification is the complete eradication of all the rats and the 9$ million cost will be for nought if just one pair survives.

The process has been tested on a nearby uninhabited island and was completely successful.  There are over 50,000 rats infesting LHI and one of the more famous victims as previously mentioned on ROBOT is the Phasmid. The rats take out flora as well even on top of Mt Gower where the rarer palms fruit, the seeds do not reach the ground as the rats will climb the palms and strip the new seeds.

Pairings of wildlife have been collected over the last few years and poison as been introduced to their diet to build up a resistance.  2015 will see an air drop of poisoned rat baits that will completely cover the island. Even when the rats are gone the Phasmid cannot be reintroduced as its natural predator the BooBook Owl has also been wiped out. Phasmids would explode over the island and remove its foliage. So one of the steps is to remove the previously introduced Masked Owl which would allow the less aggressive BooBook Owl to survive. If its not one thing its something else.

The old rat baits

Ball's Pyramid

You would think a 570 metre high lump of rock sitting just over there would be easy to see. It seems there are boat tours which will get you closer which I think I will try out next time.  My first sighting was from Malabar Hill at the very north of the island. The atmospherics plays a part in this because the shape was more of a church spire all steep sides and towering above.  Two days later from the side of Mt Lidgbird there is a platform near the Goat House cave where you can get a view of the Pyramid.  We looked hard and despite a clearish day could not spy the rock. Yet another two days later we were coming down from Mt Gower this time we were above it looking down and there it was. However this was a squat shape nothing like what I saw earlier. Finally on the plane heading out we saw a dark shape in the water almost black but very distinct this time. 

Rocky Apparition

End of an Era

Sold a business today. Its been a year in the doing but only in the last two weeks has it really started happening. Of course "She who must be Obeyed " being the principal figure in all this had to work her butt off from Lord Howe Island.  Such is the technology that a small laptop and an internet connection made it all possible. They have no mobile phone coverage on LHI so Skype was used heavily.  At least when you need a break you can go and have a snorkel with the turtles. When a buyer is ready and wants to buy now then there is no alternative even if you have booked a trip away six months previously.  Its just another step on the road to retirement although SWMBO has got plenty more for me to do.

Just a Ride to the Office on LHI