Against all odds

G'Day.

I thought today I might open with a small mind reading exercise. Even though for most of you I am many miles away, I am going to attempt to predict what you are thinking. It is critical you follow the steps accurately, or this might not work.

Alright, ready? Think of a number between one and nine.

Got it? Subtract 5 from your number, and multiply the result by 3.

Now, take the number you now have, and multiply it by itself. Once you have that, add up all the digits in your number. IE 65 would be 6 + 5 = 11.

If your number is less than 5, then add 5. If if it greater than 5, then subtract 4.

Now multiply your number by 2, and then subtract 6.

Here's the fun part. Map your number to a letter of the alphabet, where 1 = A, 2 = B, 3 = C, and so on.

Take your letter, and think of the name of a country starting with that letter.

Thought of one? Now, take the second letter of that country, and think of an animal beginning with that letter. Concentrate hard on that particualr animal in that particular country, and scroll down to the bottom of the page (below the photos) to read my prediction.


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How am I supposed to follow a performance like that? It must have been a couple of weeks since I last wrote anything here, but I shall endeavour to bring everyone up to speed.

Last week I was out at the mine again, and what a week that was. Probably the most full on week I have experienced here yet to be honest. We are half way through a radio systems upgrade and things weren't quite working as they should and they were threatening to close the mine down and all sorts of exciting dramas. Needless to say we managed to get on top of things and any major crises were avoided, but it could have easily gone the other way too. I pulled some long days that week, as not only did I have to keep the mine happy but we also had a few jobs to do for the seamgas company out there as well which I managed to sort out after hours.

Not only was all that going on, but we also got a fair bit of rain which made getting to the repeaters very interesting. I ended up having to get a front end loader to dig me an access track though a bund wall just so I could get to one of the sites.

Anyhow, this week was a lot more relaxed. We had planned on doing a "shire run", so that was what we did. Basically this involves driving round some back country areas and small towns, doing the "travelling salesman" thing, and any repairs and installations required. We were intending to get an early start, but I got a ring late the night before we were due to leave asking if I could grab some spare parts from work and bring them out to Biloela before I left the next day. I agreed, then realised that Bilo was completely in the wrong direction for where I wanted to be going. Nevermind, we headed out and delivered the spares, and then retraced our steps, finally getting headed in the right direction about 9 o clock.

First stop was a place called Mt Perry, which was a very small town. The instructions we had stated "turn right at the greasy spoon". Assuming the "greasy spoon" was a name of a shop or something, we drove up and down looking for this famed spoon. After driving back and forth a few times and not seeing any kitchen utensils whatsoever, we decided to wing it and drove up random streets until we found the depot. Anyhow, it transpired that "greasy spoon" was old aussie slang for "takeaway shop". Not entirely our fault, then. (The same fellow who wrote the instructions later on went down the pub for a "pigs ear"...)

We had very little work to do in Mt Perry so proceeded on to the town of Gayndah. Which was also nothing like the instructions we had written down. Luckily we spotted a shire council ute on the side of the road and I went and asked him for directions, which led us finally to their depot. After sorting out their fleet and repeater, we decided to press on and make the next town before night fall. Thus we headed off to Mundubbera, a small country town with not a lot in it. There was an old steam engine on display however, that was about the most exciting part of the entire town. We luckily managed to get the last room at the pub, and crashed there the night. We went to the one and only takeaway shop for dinner, and ordered pizzas. These pizzas were quite possibly the largest pizzas I have ever seen. I ordered a small, and when they wheeled it out with a forklift* I wondered how I was going to eat it. There was enough food there to feed a small country for a year.
(*There wasn't actually a forklift, I made that bit up for effect).

Next day, we spent pretty much all day chasing graders and diggers down back country tracks and repairing broken antennas and the like. We finally managed to finish up near 3 ish, and decided to head to the next town of Eidsvold. We managed to get a room at the "Eidsvold HQ" which is a fairly nice motel, with meals and a dining room too. We shot down to the local pub for a while, and ended up with a bar meal for dinner. Some of the best steak and sausages I have ever had actually. Chips were a bit ordinary however. We headed off about 8ish and retired to our rooms for the night.

The next morning we arose and had some breakfast at the motel, and then got stuck in and installed a new base radio at the shire depot. We then proceeded to carry out all their site repairs, checked the repeater, and so on. It was a good thing we checked the repeater, as the solar regulator had failed and the equipment had about 2 days of battery life left before it would have gone off air anyhow. Luckily we had a spare and managed to replace it. I took the cover off the old one and counted 15 frogs behind it... gave me quite a fright when they all hopped out. Good food for the snakes I guess.

We managed to finish that work by around lunch time, and headed off to the town of Monto. Luckily there wasn't a lot to do here. We drove 40 KM out of town to locate a repeater, just to find that the council had quarried out the track and we had a sheer cliff face where the track once was. Needless to say we abandoned all hope of getting to that repeater. With that, we left Monto and headed back to Gladstone. A very interesting road back actually, mostly gravel with a bit of bitumen here and there. A few interesting towns which I can't remember the name of on that road, one town consisted of a pub and a cop shop... not sure what that says about the place.

Yesterday was spent sorting out all the stock we had sold while we were out and about, and also completing the paperwork so we knew who to charge for what. This turned out to be a mammoth task also. Pity all the mammoths are gone, I could have used one to help me out.

I almost had a recovery mission to go on too, one of our blokes managed to drive the bravo into a huge hole and got it well stuck. They eventually managed to dig it out before I got there so I haven't got any good photos of that yet. The bravo has some good sized dents in it now though.

Hopefully a quiet weekend ahead of us... although the landlord wants to put the rent up yet again, so not sure what we are going to do there. I'll have to do some research and find out the most effective plan of attack.

Right, I better carry on and do something productive... I haven't had a chance to work on my train layout all year yet, so hopefully might get onto that. Once the weather cools down in a few months I might be more inclined to get back into it. At the moment the boss's swimming pool is pretty appealing...

TTFN!











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I didn't know there were any Elephants in Denmark!!!

Bohemian Like You

G'day.

I thought I best take 10 minutes and attempt to make some rough notes, as I realise it has been a while since I have updated anything here and I am slowly getting less and less written down.

I have been somewhat busy since I got back to Aus from my brief break in the land of the long white cloud, being out at the mine every second week and on call the remaining weeks. Luckily our new Kiwi bloke is starting on Monday so that should help to lighten the load a little.

Somewhere in between the working, we had our inter-branch company wide "christmas" party, in mid January. This was held at a resort in Yeppoon, which is about an hour and a half from Gladstone. It wasn't a bad weekend actually, I quite enjoyed meeting people from the other branches that you deal with over the telephone from time to time, it was good to be able to put a face to a name and voice. We split into teams and there were some organised "events" we had to compete in. Naturally my team won :)

The Saturday night was a themed dinner and dance, the theme being something along the lines of "music", be it 80's, rock n roll, flower power, etc. For some reason I had this crazy idea that it would be a good idea to buy an Elvis Presley suit and wig and go as the king. Apart from the suit being one size to small and leaving very little to the imagination, it seemed to go alright. I must of managed to conceal my original identity fairly well, as some of the people I work with every day didn't even realise who it was to start with. The wig and dark glasses helped with that I believe. All in all it was an enjoyable weekend really.

Coming back from the weekend, we called into the model shop at Rockhampton which was probably a mistake, but I did manage to track down some 1:87 mining equipment which I have been looking for for a while, so I was pretty happy. Now I've just got to get it back to NZ in one piece.

Speaking of NZ, I hear Timaru is getting hit with 40 degree heat today... good one :) If you guys go outside and work in the heat most of the day, climb a few 100 meter outdoor stair cases, lug some heavy cable around, all while wearing long sleeved shirt and trousers with work boots and a hard hat on I might add, then you might have an appreciation of how a lot of Australians earn a living. (And us kiwi's working in aus for that matter). Then go out and do it again the next day. And the next. Oh yes, 40 degree days are warm alright.

Speaking of heat and mines... I spent most of this week out at a local mine for some so called "easy" tasks. I had three days allocated to do said tasks, and from what I had been told I was going to be doing, it all sounded pretty rosy. Of course, I should have known better. So, the day arrives. I'm out of bed early and drive out to the mine, and arrive on site around 8:30. After going through all the usual red tape and paperwork, it's them time to go home. No, not really. Although, I probably should have. Once we get the paperwork out of the way, we scope out what is involved with the job. Basically we were going to use a crane to access the top of a pole on a roof, mount a new antenna to the pole, and cable down the pole into the room below. Piece of cake. Or so I thought.

Crane arrives... turns out it was only a Franner crane and not the slew crane we thought it should have been. Old mate messes around with the boom trying to get a manual extension to work so he can try to reach the top of the pole, and half an hour later he finally works it out and we are ready to give it a shot. So, into the sully box with a mine apprentice, and we begin our ascent. Now, the thing with a sully box is it is supposed to be self levelling, using gravity to keep it upright. Unless you have the locks tightened up. Which my helpful mine apprentice did. So, as we started to get further and further tipped out of the box, I am telling him to loosen off his locking ring and he is getting more and more confused. Finally he cottons on and releases his side lock. Which, because we were now on somewhat of an angle, causes us to swing back and forth like a ferris wheel seat caught in the wind. Once things had settled down I explained the operation to him and things were alright after that. Just then, my phone goes off in my pocket, and it turns out to be the site nurse. Because this particular mine uses a different sign on system than I was used to, it turned out I had been randomly flagged for a drug test and could I please attend her office. I explained I was a little tied up at the moment but I would come and see her in due course.

Anyhow, we get up to within 2 meters of where we wanted to be, when there is a "thunk" and no more movement. The crane driver radios up to us that we had reached the end of the road as it were, there was no more lift left. As it was we couldn't see the other end of the link we were supposed to be installing, but they wanted us to install it there regardless. So, obedient worker that I am, we installed the antenna as requested and cabled it down the pole and into the roof, dodging redback spiders as we went.
By the time we got it all ran into the office and terminated, it was about 12:00. We packed up and sent the crane away, and I thought I had better go and see the nurse. She did her random drug test which took about 15 minutes on this particular mine, and then informed me I was free to work. Which was good, as all I had left to do was walk straight out of her office, jump into my truck, sign out, and drive off site.

I had offered to make a start on the next day's work, but the mine wasn't prepared for it and didn't have the suitable resources available so told me to return tomorrow as per the original plan.

So, the next day, up early again, drove out to the mine, signed on correctly this time, and... no one was around. After looking around for a while, I rang the guy in charge, to find.... he wasn't on site today. I rang his offsider, who was at the other end of the mine and about 1/2 an hour away. Eventually he turned up and showed me where we were going to go with the new radio unit at this end of the link. We prepared all the equipment and then waited for the crane to arrive. And waited some more. And some more. Around 2 hours went by, and we got a phone call from the crane driver. It transpired he had got the wrong end of the stick and was at the other end of the mine too. So, half an hour later, he finally arrives on site... and we discover this is also a franner and not the requested 50 tonne slew crane that we had requested. This poor old franner didn't have a hope of reaching even close, so I had a closer look and discovered a ladder going up the side of the building. I donned my harness and climbed the ladder with scaff hooks to make it at least look like I was being safe. When I got to the location that they wanted to install the antenna, we discovered that there was no way that we were ever going to see the other end of the link from that location after all.

After climbing back down and going through some options, we decided to climb an even taller building at the other end of the yard (which the crane still couldn't reach) and it turned out we could get a suitable link from that end. Problem was of course, we couldn't work up there without the crane, and the crane we had couldn't reach. After some further discussion, it was decided to flag the whole job until we could get a taller crane. I signed out and drove home, yet again having achieved very little.

The next day, we tried again. This time we had two Nixon blokes going out, as there was a 150 foot tower climb involved and technically you need someone there with a tower rescue ticket to keep the mine happy. I spent most of the morning up the tower putting up the antenna and cabling it back down, of course they wanted it right on the top of the ruddy thing. This of course was the day after the cyclone went through, and there was still a bit of wind around. We tried to get a rope and pulley system going, but it just got tangled with the wind and I ended up climbing up and down a few times to untangle it to get the antenna up.

Once we had that end sorted, we went back to the end I had installed two days ago. This time, we had managed to get a 50 tonne slew crane on site which allowed us to reach the top of the mast no trouble at all. The wind made things interesting, as being suspended by a crane hook we were at the mercy of the weather as to what direction we were facing. We managed to swing the manbox around enough and tied it off to the antenna mast to keep it steady while I moved the antenna higher up the pole. Even from the top, we couldn't see the other end. So, after much deliberation, they decided to scratch that idea and move it to another nearby building. We proceeded to uninstall all the work we had done two days before and moved over to a taller more suitable building. The crane took a good half hour to pack up, move and redeploy, and when we finally managed to get it in the air at the new location we discovered that you could see the tower really well, an excellent place to install the antenna.

The only problem was, we didn't have a pole or bracket for this particular location. One good thing about working on a mine, there is generally someone who can do anything you need. So we found a boily and he manufactured us a suitable mounting bracket which we then took up in the crane and installed. Thinking the link would jump into life... we were most surprised when it did not. Eventually blaming the tower end being out of line, we travelled back to the tower and I climbed it yet again and aligned the antenna. Still no link. Long technical story short, 3 hours later we discovered the fault was due to one of the mine's IT guru's having played with a setting which basically "hides" one end of the link from the other. Great.
Either way, with dark rapidly approaching, we finally had one working link system. Admittedly, it was supposed to be two, and it was supposed to be going to two totally different locations, but we were close I guess.

I imagine someone will have to return to install the third leg of the link, but with a bit of luck I might be at Moura again and it will be someone else's problem.

Oh yes, livin' the dream right here.

Speaking of which, I am back out at Moura again next week, then again a week after that. Then hopefully we will be back to one in four, as the new Kiwi might take a week, and the other Kiwi who is currently back in NZ will be back again.

Anyhow, that took somewhat more than the allocated 10 minutes, and it is now dinner time. Here's some photos I took with my new camera, another Rockhampton "after work party" purchase. (And one with the famed Elvis suit... minus the glasses unfortunately).

TTFN