Scott T: The Blog
A New Toy
Posted Tue, May 05, 2009 at 10:34am by ScottTagged: everyday, water
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Just another ping-post to prove I still exist ;)
I've also recently purchased a laptop. Several years ago I could never really see the need to have one since there were plenty of computers around the place on campus, and plenty of space to work in. Unfortunately it is no longer several years ago and we've been since forced to pretty much work in the one place at uni without any decent computers to use (at least if we want to spread out - damn cost-cutting and damn first-years :P). This, in combination with the desire just for some general portable computing power for holidays (eg, Mozzie state titles) ended me up with me splurging out for one - not that I'm complaining, since it allows me to surf the net and blog from in the plaza at Uni with a coffee.
On a different topic, we've had quite a bit of rain towards the end of April - certainly a nice change although a bit more, a bit further up the river system would certainly be appreciated.
Update: December 08
Posted Fri, Dec 19, 2008 at 10:24pm by ScottTagged: everyday, water
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I've been home for a few weeks (and had these images uploaded even longer) but have just gotten around to writing anything - too many things I've been doing! Anyway, things on the water front are getting a little bit better. At the end of November, pipes and pumps were put in place to top the lake up a bit, although they don't seem to have done too much since then - perhaps a few inches although we've also had an inch of rain recently (w00t!) and cooler than average temperatures (w00t again! 40 degree days just suck).
The "fresh" water also appeared to attract a lot of the carp...
Sailing officially ended last weekend with rather blustery conditions. A stark contrast to the dead-calm conditions of most weekends prior I guess. I've also started (paid) work so don't have as much spare time during the week again, along with a few projects I wish to complete before Uni resumes next February so have plenty to do between now and then. Don't forget the Lake Bonney gallery contains all the photos we've taken while the water has been receding :)
Long Weekend!
Posted Sun, Oct 19, 2008 at 1:31pm by ScottTagged: sailing, water
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Hard to believe we're halfway through October (and Spring) already - not to mention this post is almost 2 weeks later than planned already. Holidays have come and gone for another two months (even if I had to work through them), and exams are looming in a few weeks time for all those around me and for the Year 12's (including my younger sister - good luck! =) ).
Anyway, the long weekend also brought the opening of the new sailing season too, for which I headed home again. Unfortunately I was struck down by Labyrinthitis for the second time in 3 years (however was lucky enough for it to not be as bad as last time) but ultimately it was mostly drifting due to a lack of wind. Luckily the final race on Sunday afternoon picked up so the weekend wasn't completely wasted by those who visited the region. No photos of that since I wasn't expecting the wind to pick up as much as it did.
The water-line is also still receding - these photos were taken on Saturday 11th. The usual view doesn't really show where it sits now that the logs are out of the water so here is a side view instead. For scale purposes, most people stand roughly two-thirds the way up the closest stump. Still deep enough for us to sail although there are some areas down to less than 1.5m.
6-month Round-up
Posted Fri, Apr 04, 2008 at 11:16pm by ScottTagged: fires, spam, this-site, water
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It's now nearly 6 months since I got started with this blog, and although I though I would give it up after a month or so, I've stuck at it and come to enjoy it :) As such, I've decided to do a bit of a round-up on how things have progressed since that rather blunt "first post" in last September.
How things change! I started off with comments on changes to SSC where I had the time and other programming things but before long, uni started to creep in and that's where things really started to grow. Things progressed (both on and off-line) and before long the effects of the lake being cut off were becoming evident and just a few weeks later, a bushfire started not too far from home although it was contained a few days later. Into 2008, the water levels continued to drop (some pretty good photos are available here if you haven't seen them yet) and a fair bit of work was done on V3 of SSC before finally deploying it (with some teething issues - some still visible) last week.
Now for some interesting tid-bits:
- March (last month) has been the busiest
- Yahoo! indexes far more often than Google, yet Google is the dominant search engine from visitors
- The most popular search terms (by far) have contained "7th guest" and "vista" - Unfortunately I won't have my solution ready for quite a while so I recommend you try DosBox or just set an old computer up (That's what I've done :) )
- I've had about 15 spam comments and Akismet stopped them all
- I've had about 11 non-spam comments - thanks a lot! :D These have been from
- Ryan Leach
- Katie
- spookypeanut
- Larry "Liontamer" Oj
Looking forward for the next 6 months :)
Home for Easter
Posted Mon, Mar 24, 2008 at 7:40pm by ScottTagged: everyday, sailing, water
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Easter Thursday traffic (particularly around 5pm) is a complete pain. Seriously.
After finishing my lab early and rushing back to my accommodation, I managed to drive out of the car park around 4:20pm. It then took me close to half an hour for what is normally a ten minute drive to reach one of my friends houses to pick them up. From there, we battled our way across to the other side of the city for our tea break arriving at 6:45pm. We left there at 7:15pm and settled down to sit behind a truck for the several hour drive. One RBT later (a "Random Breath Test" - my first one! They were pulling off groups of 10 or so cars at a time), we arrived home around 9:20pm meaning a travel time close to 4.5 hours.
The weekend itself was quite good. I spent most of Saturday and all of Sunday down the Yacht Club and got adequately sunburnt on the Saturday afternoon out in the rescue boat. Seems to be a habit of mine getting burnt at sailing events. Unfortunately there wasn't a lot of wind but all the "races" got in with lasagne and apple crumble for tea on the Sunday night. All in all, I think the majority of those sailing enjoyed the weekend, both on and off water.
I also took the time for a trip around the lake to see the effects lack of water. While not a lot had changed from last time, there was a 10 or 15cm drop which was noticeable around the tree stumps. Part way around the lake provided some quite appealing photo opportunities as well (photos at end of post).
Eventually the weekend had to come to a close so my friends were dropped off at our place and we left around 12:45pm. The drive back wasn't nearly as hectic as the one up was with myself opting to just sit out the slower cars until an overtaking lane (leaving adequate room in front of me), but even still, we saw some rather risky overtaking manoeuvres performed by other cars. Upon reaching the city again, things didn't slow down very much with a fairly clear run through and after dropping my friends back off, I arrived back around 4:10pm. Around an hour less than in reverse direction a few days earlier.
Of course, the only issue I can see now is a lack of hot cross buns for another 11 months...
And now for the other lake photos. Full view here and here.
Did other people get up to much?
