flu

It would appear that I (Frank) have the flu.

The story goes back to Thursday morning on the ski slopes at Perisher. On that fateful morning, basically I stacked my snow board. During that stack, I somehow hit my chest and my head. Thankfully I was wearing a helmet. But as for the chest, I thought I had broken a rib. It was excrusiatingly painful to sit up or roll over. Bed was no longer the relaxing place it should be. Every reposition required careful planning and a lot of patience and teeth gritting.

Last Monday, I fronted up to my Doctor who pushed and poked me and declated no broken rib. To get me out of his office, he gave me a referal for an X-ray and said that if it is still painful next monday (~10days after accdent) then go and get an X-ray. As I understand it, if it is a green stick fracture, then 10 days is required for some calcification to occur so it can be seen in the X-ray.

As the week progressed last week, the rib stayed painful and I began to feel a bit off. By Friday, I had a very blocked up nose and felt terrible so I took a sickie. Spend most of the day in bed. Had delusions of doing some work but in the end all I could manage was the occasional hot steamy shower to relieve the gunkyness. Saturday I was sort of OK and likewise Sunday. I Spent most of the time resting but was able to participate in life a bit more normally.

This morning (Monday) I felt doubly crap. As well as needing to take more steamy showers to clear out my nose, I was coughing up more and more phlem. I was worried that the mucus from my nose was running down into my lungs and it would only be a matter of time before it became infected. Eventually ventured down to the chemist to get a pill to relieve the symptoms. Got that but it seemed to have no significant effect. Every cough reminding me of that sore rib.

Later in the day having rejuvinated enough to drive again, I venuted up to Canossa to the X-ray. Sat there did that. One of the amazing things was that the fellow could take the plate that contained the film and sitck it in a slot in a machine and view and zoom in on the X-ray. maybe they do not develop the film using chemicals. I wonder how they do it.

Anyway this evening, my Doctor phoned to say that he had received the report that sad the good news was no broken rib but the bad news was that the X-ray showed some fluid in the bottom of my lungs. He asked questions like
Have I had headaches - yes
Couging - yes
Aches and pains - yes.
Then pronounced that I probably had influenza.

And now I know why I feel crap.
And that is about all I can write anyway. This has been written in several stages.

Flashpoint 28-AUG-2011

Just get back from holidays and Flashpoint is upon us.

The lectionaruy readings for Sunday 28-August-2011

Matthew 16:21-28
Romans 12:9-21
Psalm 105:1-6, 23-26, 45c
Exodus 3:1-15

Last time we used the Romans reading. Theme "Living in peace" A undocumented science experiment titled "Robots - Are we remote controlled by God or self controlled?"

Brainstorm:-
So
Genuine love.
Hate evil - Google -> Don't be evil.
Love with mutal affection - magnets
showing honor

The milk and food colour comes to mind but I do not know why.

these are very noble attributes. Character traits.
Christians should have all of these attribuites.
Light - Prism - shows that white light is made of all the colours.
beading multi coloured bracelet to remind us of the character traits.
http://amasci.com/amateur/pris.html

Somewhat ironic to consider that we are called to have all these character traits and that someone has designatd Sunday: August 28 Refugee and Migrant day.



Romans 12:9-21
Let love be genuine; hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good; Love one another with mutual affection; outdo one another in showing honor. Do not lag in zeal, be ardent in spirit, serve the Lord. Rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering, persevere in prayer. Contribute to the needs of the saints; extend hospitality to strangers. Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them.

Matthew 16:21-28
Then Jesus told his disciples, "If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit them if they gain the whole world but forfeit their life? Or what will they give in return for their life? "For the Son of Man is to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay everyone for what has been done. Truly I tell you, there are some standing here who will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom."

Snow Price Comparison

I was wondering how we went wrt to ski hire cost. We hired all sorts of things - Skis, poles, boots, snow boards, jackets, helmets.  To get an idea of how different hire places stack up pricewise I created the table below just comparing Adult Ski poles boots and Adult snow board and boots.

As expected hiring at Perisher is the most expensive followed by Smiggins.  Sponners is about the same price as "The base" at Jindabine.

In addition, Sponners had a further 20% discount when 4 or more people from the one family group hired together.

.	Adult Ski Poles Boots
.	Number of Days	1	2	5
.	Sponners	55	55	99
.	Smiggins Snowline	63	89	125
.	Perisher center	72	101	152
.	The Base - Jindabine	45	65	90
.
.	Adult Snow Board and boots
.	Sponners	60	82	105
.	Smiggins Snowline	74	110	162
.	Perisher center	83	119	176
.	The Base - Jindabine	40	80	105

Data sources:
1 Sponners   - http://www.sponars.com.au/content_common/pg-sponars-ski-hire-2011.seo
2 Smiggins Snowline - From Brochure
3 Perisher Centre http://www.perisher.com.au/lessons-hire/hire_on_snow.php
4 The Base - Jindabine - From Brochure

Snow Sunday

Driving home.
7:35 So long to Molong.
Breakfast in Dubbo - Picked up Drivethrough Maccas for Dan & Jemma and then went to PK's bakery to eat it.  The rest of us had bacon and eggs in various formulations.
Gilgandra - Saw lots of windmills.
Narrabri - Lunch - Sandwiches.  Locally purchassed avocardo & Tomatoe, Nutella Nutella and more Nutella for those who like it.
Moree - The rocket was open for business so took a quick flight.  The exit slides were notabe for the loud cracks from static electric discharge.
3:00 Now on the road from Moree to Goondawindi.  The GPS says 104km ETA 3:57pm
The land is flat to the horizon in all directions.

Snow Saturday - Henrys place

Megan wished to visit an old friend 'Andrew' and his family.  Morning tea was planned for 10am.  For reasons only known to themselves, at about 9:30 almost all the kids decided to have showers.  The visit to Andrew's was very enlightening as we discussed all sorts of topics ranging from business, the development of the Internet, diet and the impact of soil depletion on the quality of food that we eat and the consequential impact on our health.  He has some great kids and the youngest girl and Jemma did some great drawing.

Back to Henry's for his birthday lunch.  He had cooked a beautiful rib roast and veggies.  He had made passion fruit cordial - very handy given we had a lot of driving and we did not wish to start with a hangover.  Dessert was a fantastic pavlova constructed by Henry's friend 'Peita' who was visiting from Sydney.

After lunch Henry took us on a back stage tour of Parliament house.  Complete with entry using his swipe card to the staff car park.  We were vetted by security and our possessions x-rayed.  We walked down corridors and admired the bigness of it all.  Henry's office is just behind a door that opens into the House of reps. We understand that Henry sits down with the leader of the government to organise what will happen when in Parliament and then he basically drafts the order of service when is then forwarded to another department for publishing.

Jemma and some Parlimentary art.


We then wandered past Mr Abbott's office and Julia's office.  I had hoped to be able to nip in and use her toilet but the door was locked so I had to hold on for a public convenience.  It was kind of interesting that many lib / nat polies had posters on their windows consisting of a picture of Julia and some of her labour chronies and a pile of lemons and the words "just another labour lemon".  I thought this was pretty petty. 

Then down under to the service tunnels.  This was the fascinating bit.  I am really glad that we have a functioning democracy and I know that the public tours emphasise the role of government and the respect of democratic traditions but getting down in the service tunnels is just a lot more fun.  What I really want to do now is go down to the secret bunkers in the lower levels..... And also go out through the secret tunnels that allow secret comings and goings from nondescript places. 

Back to Henry's and fired up his computer to find accommodation. 

6:50 dep Henry's
     Put air in tyres
7:00 dep garage at Dickson.
Had a less that half hour stop at the Yass junk food service centre.  That is one place to avoid.  It would have to be the worst (smelly) KFC.
11:00pm Arrived Molong
Stayed at Molong Motor inn.  $130
Best value $130 we had all week.  Jim was very welcoming.  The room was clean and no smell of smoke or deodorant.



Things that were useful
Franks slip on shoes
Megan's ankle boots.  Quick and easy to put on after wearing ski boots.

Day packs / over night bags.

Having the car in the car park was a great base for sick kids or exhausted parents.

The mobile broadband worked well in the car.  (No service at Sponners)

Creamed honey is hard to spread when cold.  But still very nice to eat.
Megan making lunches from bread + creamed honey | Nutella | Strawberry Jam saved lots on money and was very nice.

Things to look out for
For kids, Pocket on shoulder or at least high on the left for putting the 'my ride' RFID lift pass in.

Bring
Small gas stove, Saucepan, water, milk, Milo or drinking chocolate.

Snow Friday

Well the weather was terrible.  Rain.
In the order of things we don't like - Rain at the snow tops the list.

I was feeling sore from my stack on Thursday morning so I switched back to Skiing.  While the rest of the family went to their lessons, Chris and I decided to skip school and go exploring Mr Perisher.  We took the 8 way chair to the top of front valley and then skied down front valley and across to the quad chair.  Got off at Mid station and skied down happy valley and across to the Mt Perisher triple chair.  Took the triple chair to near the top of mt Perisher.  It was was foggy and rained all the way.  I was still feeling knocked and so we made our way back down via the 'Home run rope tow'.  Had a break in the food court between the 8 way and the quad.

12Noon, made our way over to the kids ski school to sign Jemma and Dan out.  Spent a few minutes in the Perisher center feeding them Hot Chocolate.  Dan was miserable. Finally convinced them to walk to 'Aldos' Pizza place in the ski tube terminal.  It was full so attempted to move to the afore mentioned food court.  Megan purchased mini doughnuts to sugar Dan and Jemma up then she went ahead because the older kids needed an adult with them at the food court.  I then coaxed Dan and Jemma over.  Megan appeared at the door to the 'Manor' hotel and we entered for a far more civilised lunch in their restaurant.  This turned out to be the best move.  It was quiet, comfortable and the prices were very reasonable.  As a comparison, Nachos at mid station are $16.50 and main courses at this restaurant were around $18.  The hot chocolates were $5 and came in glasses with liquid chocolate 'painted' on the inside as compared to the normal price for takeaway hot chocolates of around $4.50 or even an unbelievable $7.50 at mid station.

After this leisurely lunch we went and hired two toboggans.  $10 ea for a half day ($12 for a full day).  It was still drissling but it stopped and the sun snuck through a couple of times.

Jacob & Marcus build a snow man?

snow Thursday

Thursday weather was a welcome change with Snow.  You know that white stuff we see on the ground actually falls out of the sky.  Mind you the snow came with Cold (Ok) and wind which reduced visibility significantly.

The new snow was much more slippery that the wet slush of the previous day and my snow boarding ability seemed to have evaporated.  I slipped and slid down front valley.  On my second run down I lost control half way through a right turn and went tumbing down the hill.  The helmet containing my head smashed into the snow several times and somewhere something posiibly the ground bashed into my chest.  I do not know if I broke a rib or just bruised something in there but as of Sunday it is still very painful.  It took me forever to get up and get going again.

9:30 went to my second snow board lesson.  Still feeling somewhat stunned it was explained to me that the new snow was indeed much harder to board on.  This second lesson proved much harder.  A combination of the weather, the new snow, lots of wind, low visibility, lack of experience etc etc.  Our teacher took us to the top of the Quad chair and then down into pleasant valley.  I was stuffed and every time I fell over I became even more stuffed.  By the end of the lesson, myself and two other tail enders had become separated from the rest of the group.  There was a huge queue at the Telemark T bar that takes us back to front valley and not having been shown how to ride a T bar and noting that many learners were falling off it and hence the larger than noral queue, decided with the other two tail enders to walk back.

Spent Thur afternoon in the Vito sleeping for an hour and then on the phone and the internet trying to work on a quote for work.

Meanwhile, Megan, Dan & Jemma had quite an adventure.  They ....
more to come

A welcome recovery in the Sauna at Sponners follwed by dinner and playing "Billionare" card game with our kids and some others - Ellie & Cooper.

Went to bed. Very sore.  As well as the pain in my chest, Both arms are very sore with some kind of bruise under my upper right arm and I can't lift my left arm without some pain in the upper arm / shoulder.

Snow Wednesday

Dan and Jemma both sick and in bed.
The weather has taken a turn for the worse.
After two glorious sunny days where our biggest worry was that the snow would melt we are now faced with the prospect that it will wash away.  It's raining.

Swapped my skis and poles for a snow board.  Chris tells me the reason there is animosity between skiers and snowboarders is not the agressive nature of snow boarders or the fact that skiers can use their poles to push up hill.  It is simply that ski boots are so dam ucomfortable and skiers spend all day walking around in agony.  I think it's true.  Snow board boots are quite comfortable.  Paul in the hire shop suggested a helmet and wrist guards.  Un beknownst to me at the time, helpful suggestions the importance of which would become valued sometime later.  (I am sure you know my distain for bicycle helmets).

So off to the slopes.  Jacob and Marcus disapeared and Chris took me to the beginners area and gave me a few pointers.  I managed to stand up and fall down and stand up again.

9:00am Chris went off to his lesson.  His parting comment was "you did pretty well for an adult".

9:30 lined up for my beginners snow board lesson.  This went really well.  We learned to hop and walk and drag that appendage strapped to one foot and to skate.  That is where you only have the front foot strapped in and the other rests on the board and sort of steers.  This is needed for example when getting off the chair lift.  By the end of the lesson I could do turns back and forth down the learners area.

12:00 Met Megan after her ski lesson and drove back to Sponners to check on Dan and Jemma.  They awoke as we arrived so we had sandwiches in our bed room.  Had a snooze and then drove back up to Perisher.

3:00 picked up Chris and took the V8 chairlift to the top of front valley.  Rode the board down slowly.  Gained skill and confidence.  Our teacher in the morning had emphasised the need to lean to the front of the board and although the rest of my brain wanted to lean back, I followed this advice and seemed to do well.  Too well in fact.

Megan, Chris, Jacob and I continued to ride the V8 chair and ski / board down front valley while Marcus, cold and with his boots full of water, had a sulk and went to catch the bus back to Sponners.

By 7:00pm, Dan and Jemma had arisen and joined us for dinner. Ended up playing cards and relaxing after dinner.

Snow Tuesday

Anyone would think we were at the beach.  It's hot here and there is lots of white sand.  Oh hang on its actually snow.  The sun is out and we are hot. 

To save a little money, lunch is sandwiches in the car park.

Today Dan is sick, so once again the hospital ship has been brought to the car park.


This is teh perisher center.  In the background is 'front valley'  The most noticable feature of this picture though is the significant quantity of blue.

Family photo1

Family on hill

By stroke of coincidence,
We all met top of front valley.

Snow Monday

6:00 rise and shine.  Frost on the ground but no snow at Sponners.
7:00 breakfast - Cerial, yoghurt, tinned pears,  OJ, Sausages, spagetti of the hot tinned variety, eggs, mushrooms, coffee.
7:30 Organised a new jacket for Dan.  Not sure why but I am sure there was a reason.
8:00 Frank, Marcus, Jacob, Chris & Dan On the bus from sponners to Perisher.

Jemma was a bit sick on the way down and has still not fully recovered.  So Megan will bring her in the Vito as that will give her somewhere to sleep.

Anyway back to today,  I had a bit of a ski with Dan and we met Chris a few times on the mountain.  Then at 9:00 dropped Chris into the ski school and shortly after, dropped Dan in for a 2 1/2 hr lesson.  This year Chris is the only one doing ski school.  The rest of us are doing the usual 2 1/2 hr lessons in the morning and then playing around in the afternoon. Marcus has is mate Jacob and so they will do things together.  Dan and Jemma are likely to pair up.  So we figured that Chris may be at a loose end.  I am hopeful he will make friends in the ski school.  They seem to have a good time and he always has the option to jump ship after lunch and be with us then.

After that Megan and Jemma arrived.  I sat in the snow with Jemma and then she did some skiing in the learners area.  We went up the magic carpet a few times and she was managing a snow plough (Pizza).  Tried the T bar but fell off.  She then said she wanted to have a sleep so we walked back to the Vito and she is now snoring across the front seats.  And that is where I am now.  I have my netbook connected to the internet via the vodafone 'pocket wifi'.

It was very hot on the slopes.  I took off the jacket inner so I was just wearing a Tee shirt and jacket outer mostly unzipped.  I got jemma to take off her long sleeved Tee shirt and just have a singlet  and jacket outer also partially unzipped.  Also took off her helmet.  (Lawyers).

Snow Sunday

Sunday.
Drove Henry's place to Sponner's.  Sponner's is the guest house where we are staying.  It is on the road between Jindabine and Perisher.  It is inside the national park.  On the way in, we purhased a 1 year NSW national parks entry ticket.  So next year we need to come skiing a week earlier.

 Our 5 day (Mon-Fri) lift & lesson pass allows us to ski Sunday afternoon.  Arrived on the slopes around 3:30pm and skied until closing time of 5pm.

Chris is snow boarding this year and seems to have gotten the hang of it.  That half hour practice in Europe must have paid off.

Close up of Chris.









Dinner at Sponners:-
7:00pm  Bread roll and soup followed by Choice of Beef sausages and Mashed Potatoe (I had that) or Chicken and vegies.  Everyone else had that except Jemma who is sick and asleep in her room.  She ended up having a bit of apple, the bread roll kindly delivered by Dan and some flat lemonade.
One can purchase bottles of wine and they write your room number on them and keep them so you get the bottle price rather than the per glass price and keep the bottle all week somewhere behind the bar.  So Megan and I have indulged in a bottle of wine each.
8:00 Marcus and Jacob anounce that they are going to bed.  So this is how to tire teens out.
 

Sun AM - Henrys

 Woke up and went and said 'hello' to Henry's [pet?] kangaroo.  It seems to just graze around in the back yard.

 Henry, Marcus, Jacob.

Chris, Marcus, Henry, Dan, Jemma, Megan, Frank.

Opening Jemma's birthday present from Henry.

Snow Drive Down

Friday Night - Drove Brisbane, Warwick, Moree.
In good Thomson style managed to leave almost one and a half hours late at 6:20pm.

Somewhat impeeded by roadworks at Cunningham's Gap where it appears that they have dug in for a while.

Had tea with Lewis and Peter in Warwick (1 hr) then drove to Moree.

Arrived Moree at about ten to one am.  All in bed by 1:10am.  We had a 'family room' of one double and 5 single beds.  $210 at the Burke and Wills.  Non smoking room with no smell of smoke.  Small simple room.  Quite happy to go there again.







Remember these wonderful climbing things.  You used to be able to climb up inside them.  I remember climbing up inside this one in the 70's.  However now a big steel plate has been welded over the entry hatch.  There is a plaque on the side that reads "Erected to commerate the centenary of education June 1970".

I guess in 1970 education like the space program looked to the stars but somewhere along the way, something changed.  So we welded over the old lofty objectives and ....

.... We built a new trendy ediface.  That looks sort of like the old one.....

But enhanced with a shuttle....

But of course like the new education system, you can only do it when the system wants you to do it and only when supervised and only the way it has been deemed the right way to play.  The rest of the time it is closed!.






Came across this as we were arriving at Narrabri.  It's a push me pull you.  There is a prime mover on both ends of the trailer with the big roll of wire on it.

Just on dusk, got stuck behind this.  Clearly the designer knew that farm machinery will delay traffic on the feeway and so made space for cars to just drive underneath.  Unfortunately we were in a van.

Fish Monitoring

We decided to freshen up Chris's fish tank.  The first challenge was to attach the light properly.  Here Chris uses a screw gun to screw the uprights to the tank stand.

 Feeding the wires that suspend the light through the bracket.

The finished light and stand can be seen below.  You may wonder why the brackets are so high  They are 1800mm high actually.  The reason is so we do not lean forward and skewer our eyes.The finished light.

We also decided it would be interesting to monitor the tank and display the monitoring data on a web page.  We are testing a Syndetic conductivity monitoring system.  The box is visible at the top right of the picture.

There is a toroidal conductivity probe in the tank.  This measures conductivity and temperature.  At preprogrammed intervals (Normaly 15minutes), the controller uses a Next-G modem to connect to the internet and send the data to a server at Syndetic.

 The user then logs ontoo a web page to view the stats.

To see this live go to
http://60.241.99.38/
Select "Syndetic Remote Monitoring"
Then use
Username = demo
Password = demo
All lower case
Choose Prototype Conductivity Monitoring System.
Enjoy the fish.

And of course we are so green as to run the whole thing off the sun. (See below)