Go to

HOME

Bottom of Page

Go to

The Motley Expeditions

Views from the Other Side

Strolls in the Bush

Travels round my Family

My Life as an Engineer

Barraba Red Hatters

Go on the Web to

Eco-Camping Australia

The Highway Wanderers Chapter of the CMCA

The Australian Skeptics

My Daughter's Blog

Dec 09

I am appalled by the evidence of the failure of the world's major religions

Watching tonight's world news which included a piece about a confrontation between Muslim Sunnies and Shiites which resulted in fatal violence in Pakistan, I was reminded of the violence between the Protestant and Catholic Christians at Whitsunday weekend marches in Lancashire when I was living in England.

I commented on this thought to Jean and she said she had had the same thought.

I consider that these events demonstrate the total failure of both these religions to succeed in getting their congregations to follow the basic principals of their religions; to "love one another", "to do unto others as you would have others do unto you", and "to be peaceful". For those who lead these sects to encourage their followers to kill members of the other sect shows that they consider their own views are OK even though they deny the teachings of their "God".

I have a world view that the 21st century is characterised by a dramatic failure of many cultures which have lost touch with the altruism which is necessary to ensure the survival of the human race.

I had to become a cowboy

Jean called me into the kitchen because she had seen that one of the little cows that are using our back paddock had got through the fence and was eating in our back lawn.

I went down to try and get the beast back in the back paddock. I tried to see how it has got through the fence but there was no sign at all. The beast kept avoiding me and finished up by the back of the house, I was worried that it could escape onto the road. I went and opened the gate and came back to where the cow was. It ran back behind the new shed and when I followed it it tried to head towards the house again.

I remembered learning when we were on the road that the usual technique for herding beasts is to wave your hat at them. I remembered that I was wearing my old Akubra so I took it off and waved it encouraging the beast to move the way I wanted it to go. It responded by going back through the open gate into the back paddock. Success for a first time very old cowboy.

The Art of Astral Navigation

There is a piece in the Risks Digest about the perils of GPS navigation which also reflects on the risks which were associated with paper maps. One point that was made is the the art of navigating by the sun or the stars has all but disappeared from those who drive.

I was reminded of an amazing experience I had many years ago while driving with the family from Sydney to a distant location in New South wales. We had been on this journey before but I failed to take a necessary turn to another road. Suddenly my little daughter who was only ten years old told me I had made a navigation error which she had identified by viewing the stars. Clearly she had remembered the sky view on the route we had taken on the previous trip and had noticed the difference on this occasion. We were all amazed that someone so young had taught herself astral navigation, had stored such specific information in her memory, and had used it to check on her father's navigation.

I did turn back and find the place where I had deviated from the proper route and we eventually arrived safely and only a little bit late.

More Progress

All the shelves are assembled. The first one took as hour to erect but the last one (the sixteenth) took 35 minutes. A good demonstration of the "learning curve" as it is defined by the industrial engineers.

We're now ready to shift stuff from the Office /Sewing Room and tidy up the rest of the house. As long as the weather stays a bit cooler, we should have all that done for the new year.

Hooray, the Shed is finished

I've done the last bits of shed building It is now bolted down to the slab to make it cyclone proof.

I thought that making it cyclone proof was quite unnecessary in Barraba but a couple of months ago a small tornado ripped across the town and demolished one shed and took some of the roof of one of the houses down the street. Nobody seemed surprised but I couldn't find anyone who had seen it happen before. If it happens again and hits our back yard, the shed should withstand it!

All I have to do now is assemble all the shelves and then move all to stuff that isn't needed in the room from the Office/Sewing room and any stuff in the house that we don't need immediate access to.

Then we'll be able to rearrange the house to make it more habitable and more convenient.

It's really nice to get a project finished.

Archives

Back

Jun 10

May 10

Apr 10

Mar 10

Feb 10

Jan 10

Nov 09

Oct 09

Sep 09

Aug 09

Jul 09

Jun 09

May 09

Apr 09

Mar 09

Feb 09

Jan 09

Dec 08

Nov 08

Oct 08

Sep 08

Aug 08

Jul 08

Jun 08

May 08

Apr 08