That'll do, Pig, that'll do.

Today my registration as an engineer in Queensland expired.

I was first called an engineer when I started at university forty years ago - it seems a long time.

I was registered when I became a consulting engineer in 2006, so registered for 14 years.

I wanted to celebrate but I'm suffering from a cold so I trimmed the trees and did the washing.

Will Power!

Will Power! by George Weinberg & Dianne Rowe (ISDN 0-7336-0397-1).

A guide for psychological development using characters from Shakespeare's plays-

Stage One: Defining Yourself

Stage Two: Understanding Others

Stage Three: Self-Reliance

Stage Four: Preserving Your "Self" in Relationships

Stave Five: Keeping the Demons Out of Your Life

Stage Six: Nurturing Your Soul

This book is part of my permanent library.

Consider the long now.

I like the idea of a clock that will run for 10,000 years.

One is being built in West Texas.

It is programmed to play a different tune each day for 10,000 years -if someone is there to wind up the mechanism and occasionally if no-one winds it up.

It would be worth making a pilgrimage to hear a tune that will never be repeated.

Upper Middle Bogan

I was watching this comedy show on TV- usually a good diversion. 

But one episode really grabbed me. A younger character composed a tribute to his hero, another character who could be described as an idiot.

The hero was considered to be happy-

1) He had something to do - his job.

2) He looked forward to something - drag racing.

3) People loved him - his family

Thuringowa City

Thuringowa City is no more. 

Years ago Thuringowa City was amalgamated with Townsville City and the name Thuringowa is just the name of a suburb and a street. It is a pity that the name Townsville was not the one to go.

Townsville does not make sense. It means town-village. Townsville is also the fictional joke name of the town where the cartoon characters The Powder-Puff Girls reside.

Townsville was named after one of the original investors who founded the town. He was also a ship owner involved in abducting Pacific Islanders f(called blackbirding)or forced labour in Queensland and he paid them in trinkets rather than cash. Payment in coin was the law.

He also gained title to land near Townsville by planting roasted coffee beans rather than coffee beans that could germinate.

When it was proposed in the 1990s to erect a statue of the Townsville's namesake in the City there was an outcry. It was realised that if completed the project would be subject to constant vandalism, so it did not proceed.

A mural of founding identities including the blackbirder was painted. But when I last checked the mural has been over painted.

I don't want to be reminded of the man, Thuringowa is a better name.

Rita in Charters Towers

Rita sat on the back steps of her house in Charters Towers. It was late afternoon. She watched the aboriginal men being herded along the gully out of the town. This happened every afternoon when Rita was a young girl in the early 20th Century.

Rita told me when she was in her nineties. I must have been a powerful memory because she did not tell me of any other memories from her childhood.

Rita was my grandmother and she lived to celebrate her 100th birthday. I remember what she told me.

Winter home

An ear out for trouble

A possum - probably a brushtail - is using one of the nest boxes I made.

Qapla'