alius locus, alius mihi

The Vocal Version

Yes indeed, Vox'ers. A t least those of you following my fantasy journey from my hum-drum existence to one I'd much rather be enjoying. Money not withstanding. Last post, as you'll recall (Ye Gods....I sound like an episode of 'Lost In Space') I'd landed with fumes in the tanks on Green Island, sixty nautical miles short of my destination of Henderson Field, Midway Island.

Leaving Green Island

After over-nighting in the back of the Rockwell Aero Commander, I presumed that a radio call to Hawaii for fuel might result in a shipment of AvGas sufficient to get me to Lihue airport on the Hawaiian island of Kauai. I also estimated - in my early morning funk - that three 44 gallon drums would do the trick. Bugger that early morning funk. I underestimated by about an hour's worth of fuel, which resulted in my landing at French Frigate Shoals, 1 hour and a few minutes from Kauai. It's a crushed coral strip used by tourist carriers to view the atoll & out lying reefs. 3000' long it's easily within the sphere of the Shrike, but as you can tell from the photo, there's nothing on it.

Frigateshoals

Kauai

Just a brief note to alert Aussies to something I stumbled on yesterday. A social networking site aimed at Aussies.
buzz.org.au. It's interesting and seems well laid out. Have a gander.

But at least I'm dry. Actually, both of us are dry. Me and the Aero Commander 500S. Today's leg, from Wake Island to Midway Island, kind of fell victim to a lack of attention which almost resulted in a virtual swim. Autopilots are wonderful things, but the pilot still needs to pay attention to the flight plan. Fuel ran short as a result and I wound up calculating that I'd be 60 nautical miles short of my destination when the engines sucked fumes. Even a long, slow power-reduced glide didn't help all that much.

So, just on sunset, I put the aircraft down on Green Island, with about six minutes of fuel left. It's a tiny spec in the middle of nowhere, but it does have a navigation facility and a crushed coral strip. You can ever see it in exquisite detail on Google Earth. KMZ file here.

The entire Midway group belongs to the US Department of Fish & Wildlife, and up until March this year, had been closed to aerial traffic since 2004. There's an inhabited facility on Midway itself where avgas is undoubtedly available. I suppose the necessary fuel could be shipped to Green Island by boat. A short hop to Midway itself, top up the tanks and then onto Hawaii where the plane will need to undergo the modifications to the passenger cabin to accommodate a long range ferry tank which will get me to the US mainland.

It's good to live an alternate existence. I wonder what a trip like this would cost me in the real world?

Whose house (besides your own) were you in last and why?

I don't go into other people's houses. Why the hell would you want to go into somebody else's house? Weird!

To my mind, allocating an excise on candied alcoholic drinks is a logical progression. Sure, it's yet another tax boon to the federal government, ought to be something encompassed by the GST, as should all taxes on consumables. However, this article is nothing more than a baseless opportunistic beat-up.

As anyone who enjoys a glass of wine knows, a bottle of wine is almost always enjoyed in company, which means a supposed 8 standard drinks is halved or divided even further. In company, over dinner or on a sunny afternoon over nibbles, in my experience lasts maybe thirty minutes between three people. That's 2.66 (recurring if you count sniffing the empty) drinks each. During an interview I heard on Radio National last weekend, it's apparent that young female drinkers especially, drink these ready-to-drink 'alcopops', which rate at 5% alcohol by volume in Australia, with the expressed purpose of getting inebriated as quickly as possible for the least cost. That's binge drinking. I'm yet to encounter anyone who drinks wine for pleasure to do so for the same purpose.

That's not to say that bumping up the cost of these lollie drinks is going to deter those who really like them and drink them to excess for the buzz. Of course, there's the other option, as yet to encounter an excise increase to forestall teenage lushes (let's be honest and admit that it's the generation Y types that Nanny is ostensibly out to get), and that's to buy a bottle of the spirit of choice and a few cans of suitable soft drink or fruit juice. There's home brewed beer, which can pack a real punch I can tell you, and home distilleries (that apparently are illegal, but still freely available) which will provide the ardent hobbyist with pure alcohol to be flavoured as they wish. Neither method is taxed in the same manner as the binge drinker's supposedly favoured tipple, and neither they ought to be.

As a 'boomer', I've done my fair share of over-indulging in younger days, and frankly I don't think I've been unduly harmed by doing so. Some of the memories are vague, but I'm still here and quite rational, thanks very much. Drinking alcohol, smoking tobacco, driving fast cars and even eating junk food are all accepted, legal social mores. Parts of life in the modern world, even to the extent of being rights of passage in some cases. Being the grumpy old man that I am today, I have no time for Gen Y'ers who deliberately go out in public to make fools of themselves, however, in earlier life, I've probably done similar. If that's their thing, then I say 'enjoy'. Just don't impinge on my space. There's an old saw which says, "you drink, you get drunk, you fall down". There's another which says, "shit happens".

Raising revenue from a perceived social problem won't resolve that problem. Is binge drinking a problem? Personally, I don't think so. Is taxing a legally available and socially acceptable consumable really going to resolve a social problem? Maybe, but as I've already outlined, there are other avenues for the truly determined. In fact, there are always other avenues. I'm a smoker. Not a heavy smoker, maybe three or four a day, but I continue to smoke because I enjoy the experience, and besides, I'm an adult. If I choose to to smoke, I will and no legislative impost will stop me. I dare say the very same mentality will apply on behalf of those who enjoy 'alcopops'. Problem solved, Nanny?

What most excites you about the way you're living your life right now?

Fuck all, really. If you call work-home-work-home five days a week, flight simming on weekends because I can't afford to do anything else, then I s'pose that's exciting. Frankly, I'd always hoped there'd be more to it.

I'm a Brisbanite, but can't actually say I've paid a whole lot of attention to this seemingly benighted development. Until now.

I haven't had to work in the CBD for quite a while, but that all changed in January this year. Once again exposed to the rigours of making the daily commute into the city, I'm limited to travelling either by train, or car. Bus is definitely out, given where I currently work in the city, and the hours the job requires. Personally, I despise public transport in any event.  It's uncomfortable, inconvenient and expensive. In fact, from a cost/convenience perspective, travelling into town by six cylinder Camry (yes, Timmy......I have another Camry!) five days a week costs me as much in fuel as a weekly train ticket. The plus for me being the convenience of being able to come & go as I please, in comfort, without having to endure the press of my fellow human beings. There's also the additional benefit of enjoying Radio National as I go. Something which is impossible on Brisbane's electric train system.

Travelling by car into town has awakened me to the current state of gridlock on Brisbane's suburban roads during morning and evening peak hours. To put it bluntly, it's fucking terrible. A journey of 24 kilometers, which normally takes thirty minutes, takes one hour fifteen minutes. Unless some fool fails to pay attention, then it's much longer. There are five paths one can follow into the CBD, which cross the river. The Gateway Motorway, Storey Bridge, Captain Cook Bridge/South-East Freeway, Victoria Bridge and the Grey Street Bridge. The latter two options aren't mainstream access points as one is restricted to basically one lane each way, and the other accesses the western end of the CBD, making the overall journey much too long. The Gateway Motorway crossing leaves one with an ardous journey across the north-eastern suburbs, which leaves only the Storey Bridge and Captain Cook/South-East Freeway. All avenues are chock-a-block during peak times, with traffic movement never quicker than 40kph.

Why am I telling you all this local trivia, reader? Because the Northbank Development will literally straddle the existing South-East Freeway which runs along the northern bank of the Brisbane River. It seems to be a wonderfully well thought out project, if you believe the Multiplex blurb, but I notice there's absolutely no mention of the enormous potential this development must hold for disruption of traffic flows along the freeway. I've cobbled together a couple of photos from the wife's flickr collection which fairly accurately show that stretch of the north bank of the river which the development will change. As can clearly be seen, the South-East Freeway is right smack-dab in the middle of the project and is supposed to continue to run under the development. Full plans of the Multiplex proposal are no longer available from the Qld Government website, undoubtedly given the public outcry over the potential for damage to the heritage district of of the CBD, and encroachment into the river itself, with all the attendant disruption to animal and plant life.

Brisbane's Northbank. Victoria Bridge to the immediate left. Capt Cook Bridge to the right.

Whilst I'm not a raging greenie or an avid user of the Brisbane River, I am a daily commuter. One of 4,000 every hour over the Captain Cook bridge during peak times. I don't need what has every appearance of being a politically acceptable, developer inspired construction project which has every possibility of running two years plus, creating absolute chaos amid an already stagnant daily commute. I'm a'gin it! I've just decided that I need to start paying a lot more attention to this project, and which way our Anna will wave as the winds of public opinion change.

Show us a photo of you with a funny haircut.

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