General Discussion Thread

[JoB]

Just heard this on the radio news ...

A man and his friend have presented themselves at a fire station, asking for help to get two sets of handcuffs off the former.
The problem apparently was not that they did not have a key, but that the two cuffs of each set had been closed around the same wrist - in such a way that each cuff blocked access to the other's keyhole.

... I can't even ...

[Róisín]

Job, that is very weird!

Today is an interesting day here! On the one hand my apple, plum and peach trees are blooming, as are both the Dutch irises and bearded irises and the tulips, and Slide the old blue-tongued lizard has emerged from her hibernating space under the woodbox on the back verandah and has been sunning herself and eating snails over the last few days. She has survived the winter and seems happy and well. From the look of her she may well be pregnant.

But I haven’t seen her today, because the weather has turned back to being bleak and freezing, with sleety rain and a lot of cold wind. And just to make it worse we have a power outage, likely caused by a vehicle hitting a stobie pole in the next small town north of here, since there is a warning to stay clear of dangling and fallen wires at the accident site. So I will probably stay off the internet because we are going to be without power for at least twelve hours. Going to be running down my stock of firewood tonight since it looks like being very cold again. Grumble mutter curse grumble.

[Vulpes]

Just heard this on the radio news ...

A man and his friend have presented themselves at a fire station, asking for help to get two sets of handcuffs off the former.
The problem apparently was not that they did not have a key, but that the two cuffs of each set had been closed around the same wrist - in such a way that each cuff blocked access to the other's keyhole.

... I can't even ...

On the bright side, he apparently wasn't handcuffed to anything immovable! But it raises so. many. questions.

And as usual, I learned something on the forum - stobie pole! Not a thing here in Canada at all; sometime you see metal or concrete poles but not that particular design and I'd not come across the term. Thanks for the new bit of trivia, Róisín. I never know what interesting tidbit I'm going to run across when I log in.

[Róisín]

Stobie poles are mostly what is used around here, which is an arid area of mostly dry plains and mallee scrub, because tall, straight, termite-proof timber is rare and too much valued to waste on power poles. And in some places like the Nullarbor there are very few trees at all. Termites are a major hassle here, which is why most of the early houses were stone. The devices (two long pieces of channel steel with the space between filled with concrete) get their name from James Scobie who invented them early last century. Useful things, especially in a place as windy as this is.

[midwestmutt]

I had to google it and what I got was a lot of photos of cars wrapped around the things.

[JoB]

I had to google it and what I got was a lot of photos of cars wrapped around the things.

I guess that's one method to keep them warm, yes ,,,

[Róisín]

Letting people know that we are still alive here. There has been a major hailstorm. The sounds from the roof likely indicate that we have lost at least a few solar panels, but the roof is still attached. So far. The power is out and has been since last night but fortunately our phones and iPads were fully charged so we have communications for as long as the phone tower stays up and internet connection remains, or our batteries run down.

Lots of lightning strikes around here. No estimate on damage yet but there will be a lot. There is another storm band likely to pass over us soon, so wish us luck! Probably won’t post much for  awhile. Good luck to all, and especially to Dai who may be on the Southern end of the same storm band, and to everyone east of here who may be getting it tonight or tomorrow. Good luck and keep safe, Yastreb! Butter Good to all! Will keep you updated as I can.

[Opaque]

Dang! We got hot by a bad storm over here yesterday too. Glad to hear you're okay. Sorry to hear about your solar panels and power. Hail can really mess things up. Wishing you luck as the next storm passes over. Stay safe!

[JoB]

The power is out and has been since last night but fortunately our phones and iPads were fully charged so we have communications for as long as the phone tower stays up and internet connection remains, or our batteries run down.

Good luck with all that, but out of interest: Over here (crowded Europe, buried cables, German average outage time <11min/yr, yadda yadda), GSM base stations have "evolved " from several hours of battery lifetime to less than an hour by now. I don't suppose that the ones around you have battery banks that last until entire stretches of overhead lines have been repaired, but how long do they last into an outage?

#AskingForAFriend(lySuggestionToOurProviders)

[thorny]

Good luck to everybody! Róisín, hope your second storm band went over without too much incident.

We've had rather too much rain, but no significant flooding is in my immediate area. (We generally get the weather here after other chunks of the continent have worn the worst edges off it.)

[Mirasol]

Oh no, that doesn´t sound good. Stay safe, everyone in the area, and I hope nothing more gets damaged!

[Róisín]

Two days without power, phones or internet later, I’m back. We had really bad storm damage, what with huge winds and above 70,000 lightning strikes that actually hit the ground. We will need to get the car windscreen replaced, but looks like only minor damage to the house. The Telstra and power company linesmen are heroes, keeping on doing repairs through the weather we have been having. Now to sift through the wreckage and save what I can. But Star and I are okay, even if uncomfortable. Nobody we know has died, apart from one elderly friend who died of something completely unrelated to the storm. Let’s hope things get no worse!

[Jitter]

Róisín, good to hear you are more or less ok. How many casualties were there? I imagine there must have been several. Every now and then we see the news of huge hailstones somewhere, but usually no loss of life is mentioned. But surely even one hailstone size of a chicken egg can be lethal in certain situations? Especially if it were to render the person unconscious or otherwise incapable of seeking shelter and they were left in the open.

[Róisín]

There have been casualties but I know no detail.

[thorny]

Am glad that you at least are OK.