Gary....

If you ever Google "Gary Oldman" for God sake dont forget the 'R'...worst experience of my life...

Max..the update

*Just to remind you...Max at 8 weeks in his Hoosier Tire bed (cute huh!)

Max is growing…he started off so small and cute (I don’t know what went wrong)

His bed was a Hoosier race tire cut in half , they don’t have wires in the tread so it's nice and soft and I figured he could chew it all he wanted without wrecking it. He's chewed all my pot plants and all the pots, unbelievably he's even chewed up all the cactus'. (How's that even possible) My greenhouse has no plants left and in fact he's started on the shadecloth walls, I guess he'll grow up (eventually) and I'll be able to get some more in. Before you suggest I need to get things for him to play with...I have, lots of them; but he prefers to kill my things.

*He DID look cute, until he started doing this with his ears... When he hears a noise he does this then moves them around like radar trying to pinpoint the sound. It must be an American Bull Terrier thing because I've noticed they all seem to do it

 

At our last visit the vet staff could not believe it was the same cute puppy, they even called his name to make sure I wasn’t playing a trick on them. At just 20 weeks he was 27kg (60lbs) and he's expected to double that weight….

He's very friendly though and just loves people…any people. (which is only a problem in so much as he's a guard dog)

 * Three months old and growing fast! (note the oversize head)

* This was his last night in the Hoosier Bed, I took the hint of "That Look" and went out the next day and bought the biggest dog bed I could find. It's so big I can get into it comfortably and I'm hoping he won't outgrow it.

A bit more time has passed since these photos were taken, he's now six months old and huge, my son-in-law calls him 'the bowling ball' because he knocks the kids down like nine pins. I guess he's about 35kg now (75lbs)

With his few bad points comes a few good points like his fantastic temperament, he's just so friendly. I bought the biggest dog carrier cage I could get and I cant get him through the door of it anymore so I've just bought him a seat belt for the back of the Ute. This is the law in Australia, all animals MUST be in a fixed cage or wearing a fully approved animal seat belt. His is a full chest and belly harness with a sliding loop so he has some movement but is unable to climb or fall from the Ute bed...He loves it! He stands in the back with his big ears flapping in the wind, I'll get you a few pics as soon as I find someone who can work my new camera…

Being a white dog in Australia means Max has to have zinc cream applied to his nose every hot day to prevent sunburn and eventual cancer, a very real risk here in OZ..

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Stupid Australian Laws

Just in case you think I'm making fun of your country, allow me to show you just some of the 'Dumb Laws in Australia'

Children may not purchase cigarettes, but they may smoke them.

It is illegal to roam the streets wearing black clothes, felt shoes and black shoe polish on your face as these items are the tools of a cat burgular

It is illegal to walk on the right hand side of a footpath.

Taxi cabs are required to carry a bale of hay in the trunk

Bars are required to stable, water and feed the horses of their patrons.

Only licensed electricians may change a light bulb.

It is illegal to wear hot pink pants after midday Sunday.

You must have a neck to knee swimsuit in order to swim at Brighton Beach.

Until the Port Arthur Killings it was legal to own an AK-47 but not legal to be gay. (just a few years ago)

Lawmakers are proposing a new law that will not allow anyone to come closer than 100 meters from a dead whale’s carcass. (Recently passed)

You may urinate on the rear left tire of your own car in the absence of a urinal.

And if you think anyone actually obeys these old laws you'd be mistaken.....

Stupid Sex Laws (just my opinion)

In London, it's illegal to have sex on a parked motorcycle. (guilty)

The Romans would crush a first-time rapist's gonads between two stones. (I wonder if there were any second offenders)

In Indiana, mustaches are illegal if the bearer has a "tendency to habitually kiss other humans."

Up until 1884, a woman could be sent to prison for denying a husband sex. (clearly a law made by men)

While not as extreme as the ancient Israelite punishment for adultery (stoning), Greek men still had their fair share of discomfort when their pubic hair was removed and a large radish was shoved up their rectum. (some of the people I've known might like that?!)

In Alabama, it's against the law for a man to seduce "a chaste woman by means of temptation, deception, arts, flattery or a promise of marriage." (bugger)

It's illegal to have sex with a corpse anywhere in the United States.

In Minnesota, it is illegal for any man to have sexual intercourse with a live fish. (but if it's dead?)

An excerpt from Kentucky state legislation: "No female shall appear in a bathing suit on any highway within this state unless she be escorted by at least two officers or unless she be armed with a club."

The only acceptable sexual position in Washington, D.C. is the missionary position. Any other sexual position is considered illegal. (I'm not saying nuffin)

Under Lebanese law, men are legally allowed to have sex with animals, but the animals must be female. Having sexual relations with a male animal is expressly forbidden.

In the quiet town of Connorsville, Wisconsin, it's illegal for a man to shoot off a gun when his female partner has an orgasm.(WooHoo!)

An Oklahoma state representative once proposed a bill requiring that a man explain the dangers of pregnancy and obtain a woman's written consent before the two could legally engage in sexual intercourse. (and it's getting like that again)

Call me Curly Bones Bailey...

I'm sorry about the quality of this pic but I couldn't make it clearer. *

* too lazy to retype it

No Direction

This bunch of Aussie comedians pretty much sums up what mainstream Australia thinks of the new British Boy Band One Direction. (currently touring Australia)
This tit for tat sparing between England and Australia has gone on long enough... first they send us their criminals so we sent them Rolf Harris and Dame Edna Everage (Barry Humphres)  and now this... Boy Bands...thats it, we give up!



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Jumping For Joy

 

A quick day trip to Port Pirie in South Australia for a weekend of Motocross ended up being a very expensive outing for me.

I have several cameras including a very big, heavy superzoom just a year old, it let me down late last year by burning out a focus motor losing me hundreds of shots, after a free repair by the maker it's sat unused in the camera bag for four months. I decided to use it this time and took it as my sole large camera, after just 45 photos my offsider knocked over the billy spilling a cup of boiling water onto the camera. I picked it up rocking it side to side and a tablespoon of water poured from it's electronic packed interior…it no longer works. I'm not going to send it for repair, I wasn’t happy with it's earlier failure so I'll buy another camera (from another manufacturer) and cut my losses.

This left me with just my small automatic Panasonic, not a great camera by any means but…I still managed to take another 750 pics.

On the way home we stopped to find several Geocaches at one of which, somewhere, sometime I dropped my expensive Bolle sunglasses.

Without taking into account the fuel, food and tickets the day cost me a bit over twelve hundred dollars in losses… Ouch!

 

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Hazing

My second day at my first job and as a newby I was trying much too hard. My boss came out of his office and asked me to go down three shops to a firm he knew well and ask for a long weight. Holding his hands two feet apart he said it had to be at least this long…and to hurry up.

As I walked down it occurred to me that it could have been a 'long weight' or a 'long wait'.

Still I went in all enthusiastic and offered my hands the right distance apart and told the boss I had been sent for a long weight, he told me to hang around until he was finished doing what he was doing and he'd get it for me.

Time ticked by….and by.

Eventually he came and told me I'd waited long enough and sent my back.

I arrived back at work to cheers and clapping that I'd fallen for it...I was scarred for life. (ok, so that’s a lie.. but I did feel embarrassed)

Forward ten years and I'm at another business working with a very accomplished Boilermaker and a new apprentice in his first week. We were assembling a steel frame and the Boilermaker kept standing a meter of steel on it's end, it kept falling over and he kept standing it up. After a few attempts he turned to the apprentice and told him he needed to tack weld the steel to the concrete floor (impossible) He gave directions for the apprentice to find 'Concretecraft' welding rods next to the 'Satincraft' steel rods. (Concretecraft rods don’t exist, Satincraft rods do) The apprentice searched and searched and when he finally gave up and came out of the storeroom we were all there clapping and cheering. (deja vu)

The next day another Boilermaker pushed a piece of Aluminum against the bench grinder (which doesn’t spark) and complained the grinder was out of sparks. He told the apprentice to go borrow a box of sparks from another nearby firm. I waved him over and into the paint shop where I worked and gave him a small empty box, I wrote 'Grinder Sparks size16' on the box and told him to take it to the firm and ask them to fill it with grit blaster sand.

He was away for a half hour then returned and gave the box to the Boilermaker who'd asked for it and said they were out of small and large sparks so he'd settled for medium… he was cheered and clapped and immediately accepted into the crew. I like to think I saved him a bit of pain…

He went on to become a very good Boilermaker and that of course is entirely down to ME!

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Why I Dont Work There Anymore....

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