The Spyders Web

Axl, my cat, is hurt. He’s okay, but he’s definitely not well at the moment.

He didn’t come home last night for dinner, which in itself is not unusual. Often he’ll stay out late, and just come home when he is damn good and ready. So I thought nothing of it.

Until tonight, when he did come home for dinner at the normal time. I went to pat him down his back, when my hand came to his tail, he yelped bigtime. I took a quick check, and there was a very large pussey discharge. Then I noticed his tail wasn’t up. Trouble.

A quick, panic call to the RSPCA, they could take him in straight away. I built the cat tank (as I call his carry-box), and stuffed him in, followed by a fast sprint to the RSPCA clinic (which is only about 10 mins away thankfully).

He’s got a very bad tear in his skin on the base of his tail. The discharge was an abscess that had burst. We think it was in a fight with another cat (there has been a new ginger cat hanging around lately). The doc said that was a good thing in a way, it’s getting rid of the bad stuff. He’s given Axl a good dose of antibiotics, advised th leave the wound open (it’s not bleeding), and ocme back on Friday. Best scenario – he’ll be fine and the wound will close itself. Worst case – surgery.

Been a real shock to me. Axl is nearly 16 years old now, and this is the worst incident he’s had. Normally Axl can take damn good care of himself, and there hasn’t been a fight he;s been in that he hasn’t come out on top (and I mean verses cat OR dog!!). But this is a definite sign he is feeling his age, and can’t scrap like he used to. I don’t want to loose him now.

Been having some really tough days at work. Somehow stumbled across this, and it just made me smile. Just what I needed to end a rough week.

I went to a friends wedding on Saturday. Nothing out of the ordinary there, except it was 3 hours drive outside of Sydney.

Got up at 4:30am Saturday morning, headed to the airport at 5am, for there at 6am, flight at 7am. Time to hit the Qantas Club lounge for some breakfast and desperately needed coffee.

Landed in Sydney at 8:35am (on time for once), met up with a work collegue Linda, who was going to drive us up to the Hunter Valley for the wedding. Her GPS did a pretty good job of getting us there. We stopped off in Singleton for some lunch, both had a hamburger the size of a football!

We were staying in a little bed and breakfast run by a husband and wife outfit on this little country farm. The B&B was kind of a hobby for them in their retirement. Was quite nice and cosy.

Wedding was great, held in a winery that was a favorite of the bride and groom, went off without a hitch. Even the weather was clear and sunny,the forecast had called for some showers, so they did well.

Reception in the winery main hall was good, except the PA system they were using for the speeches was pretty lousy, it kept echoing though the hall making it difficult to understand a lot of what was being said. Food was excellent, and the wine was great (apparently, I didn’t drink that night).

Ended up leaving about 11am, as because of my early start, I was running on auto-pilot by that time. And guess what – cops sitting right outside the winery, pulling people over to check they weren’t DUI…

Had an awesome home cooked breakfast at 8am, paid, and headed home. Back to Sydney airport around 12:30pm, Flight at 2pm, Home by 4:30pm.  Rang Mum (who had just left a message a few mins before I got home), she invited me over for dinner, but I declined. Too stuffed. I parked my backside on the bed to watch the Melbourne Grand Prix, and fell asleep half way through.

And that was that!

Site news : I’ve added a few little bits and pieces, so there may be a few changes you’ll notice… You’ll find them!!

Bloody hell, what is going on with this place. Just had another tremor. This time I’m at work on the second floor of a 3 story building, and the floor and desks felt like they were bouncing.

Been felt by heaps of people around town according to this.

Not sure how strong it was, more to come.

Update : a 4.6 again, and remarkably located in pretty much the same place as the last one! If I was living in Koruburra, I’d be moving real soon!

We just had an earth tremor!

I was sitting at the computer just before 9pm, when suddenly things started to shake. The desk wobbled, as well as the bookcase. Felt really weird! Only lasted for a few seconds, but it was a real WTF moment.

My housemates suddenly appeared, and we all looked at each other with a “Did you feel that?” kind of look!

Sprinted outside to be confronted with a few neighbours having the same kind of look on their face.

The news has reported it was a 4.7 on the Richter scale, no reports of injury or damage. Located about 90kms east of Melbourne.

There’s been a few minor tremors in Melbourne in my lifetime, but this is the first one I have actually felt with any intensity.

Finally got some content up in the Photos section. Still have a lot more to add, and I also need to annotate the photos, but I’ll get around to that soon.

Oh, and to the comment spammers – fuck off. It’s pointless. I won’t let your comments be published. Give it up.

The fires are still burning around the state, even 2 weeks after “Black Saturday”. Even yesterday we spotted a fire from our office up in the hills. Started off a small smoke column, then we watched it get bigger and bigger. Elvis, the water bomber went screaming overhead to fight it (first time I’ve seen the Eriksen Skycrane water bomber up close). Some houses lost, 2 CFA fire trucks, 2 or 3 firemen injured, but thankfully no deaths in this one. Looks like it’s under control this morning.

Death toll from Black Saturday is around 210. They still have areas blocked off as they are still checking for bodies.

Doubt this will be the end of it though. Predictions for Friday are 38 degrees with strong northerly winds. That means things could get even more ugly very quickly.

One GOOD thing to come out of this series of tragedies : proof of the Aussie spirit. Everyone has come together so quickly, given help, clothing, food, money ($130million and still counting in donations), even opened up their own houses to strangers to give those who lost their homess somewhere to stay.

How hot was it on Saturday? Normally koalas will run if you come near them, of if you get too close they’ll scratch and bite the crap out of you.

After the fires on Saturday, this little bloke just couldn’t care less. So long as there was water on offer…

Yesterday. It was the definition of hell in Victoria.

Melbourne hit 46.4degrees C. Hottest day in recorded history. And it felt every bit like it. The wind just sucked out any moisture you might have. I did some washing, hung it out on the line. By the time I had finished hanging it, the first pieces were already dry.

The constant smell of smoke in the air.

Bushfires all over the state. Many still burning today. Many towns wiped off the map, and that is no exaggeration. A few towns have lost every single building house and structure.

86 people confirmed dead as of 10pm tonight, authorities expecting triple figure death toll.

Just confirmed that Brian Naylor and his wife, the deeply respected Melbourne newsreader and his wife have been found dead in their home.

I remember Ash Wednesday. This felt worse. I never want to live through that again.

Edit : Death toll is now 131 and climbing.

Yeah, yeah, I know. I promised an update for the new car, and I never followed up.  So let me run through what has gone on (in no particular order).

Weather – thank FUCK last week is over and done with. 3 days straight of astoundingly hot weather. 43 degrees, followed by 44 the next day, then nearly 46! Record heatwave ever. And that was only in Melbourne. Up north in the country, it was worse. I have no idea what that is in DegreesF, but it was freaking hot. We had the following day (after that lot) at about 35 degrees. Normally we would have said that is a hot day. But after the previous 3 days, it was positively cool!!

Because of the drought and water restrictions, the grass is dead, many plants in the garden are near death (if not already gone). Axl barely survived, as he flat out refuses to come inside anymore (I have no idea why – something has changed and it has freaked him out totally). So I made sure he had plenty of water, and made sure when I got home from work I wetted him down to cool him off. Now normally you pour water on a cat and end up in hospital requiring a blood transfusion. Not this time. Axl squealed for a moment, then realised that it felt cold, so he let me drench him. I swear I saw him actually smile at me!!

The car : I decided to trade in the ol’ Ford AU2 model Falcon. There were a few things going wrong with it (switches not working any more, power windows jamming, etc). I checked out what the going trade-in rate for the old car was, and it came in at about $2k.

I spent a few days cleaning up the old car (including scrubbing the engine to make it look clean andwent to a Ford dealership on the otherside of town on a bit of whim (although I kinda knew what I wanted), and expected them to only offer $2k or less. Guess the clean up paid off, they offered $4550!

I found a car that suited what I wanted, excluding dual-fuel. Close enough! It drives very well, has most of the options I want, RACV tested and approved. And at a good price. Done and Done.

Sadly, things haven’t beenas smooth since then. Fucking Used Car salesmen. Promise the earth, deliver dirt.

1/ To get the car converted to dual-fuel, the caryard were going to give me a cheque for the cost of the conversion, taken off the equity I had in the trade-in. Well, I had to chase that cheque for nearly 2 weeks before they handed it over.

2/ The Government is handing out a $2,000 rebate on the cost of the dual-fuel conversion. However, to qualify, the car has to be in my name. With the conversion booked in for this Tuesday, I called VicRoads, only to find out the car yard still hadn’t transferred ownership to me! Lucky I found out when I did or I would have been out $2k! A few pretty forceful phone calls later, the transfer was completed.

3/ For the dual-fuel conversion, the car yard promised me a loan car while the conversion was done. I dropped the car down to the yard yesterday morning, only to find that no one knew about the loan car. So the one sales guy (not the one I had previosly been dealing with) called my sales guy, and gave him what-for, plenty of four letter words flying, all right in front of me. I snapped and told him to pull his head in, I don’t need to hear this crap. What ever the personality clash he had with his coworker, it wasn’t my problem. I finally got this little buzzbox called a Ford Focus (all the power of a wind-up matchbox car, and as much room iside).

Well, after all that, I picked up the newly converted car. And the job the guy has done looks great, and runs very well. I may move the LPG/ULP switch in the future, but int he meantime, I am now saving 2/3rds my fuel bills! I filled up both tanks tonight. ULP : 112.9c/L (with discount voutcher), LPG : 39.9c/L. W00T!

I promise photos soon. I have them, just need to upload them. I’ll try and get it doen tomorrow, along with a work update.