A thin blue line

An interesting entry on Dodderys Blog that I have a story about. The blue fibre-optic cable in his pic also goes right past my front door. Mouth wateringly close for someone who is still a broadband free zone. Cable laying machines have been running all over the place. Of course when a gang turned up outside my front door, I had to inquire. It seems that the fibreoptic cable is being laid between Hamilton and Dunedin and all points in between. The people who are laying this is a company called FX. (this one I think) Now I don't where the backing is coming from but this is serious money and is in direct competition to telecom. Now considering the significance of this I can't recall hearing anything about it in the news media.

Unfortunately despite some rather undignified begging it sems it will be some months before it's up and running and then, their focus is initially going to be business clients so no cure for TFU's dialup.

Bugger

Five a.m.

And I struggle out of bed. Outside it's freezing. Last night I got things ready. Jeans and workshirt hang in the hot water cupboard beside the hot water cylinder, boots on top so everything is nice and warm when I throw it on, so at least that's a feel good thing.

Stir up the fire and throw some wood on to get the room a little warmer. Had a shower last night because it impossible in the morning, the cold water pipes are frozen. Only hot water to be had. That's OK, enough for a hot flannel over the face and a coffee. Make lunch, fill the thermos and out the door to the car.

The morning is filled with stars, 5:40 it's still dark. The sky is clear like crystal, it seems like there isn't a Star in the universe that you can't see. The grass is crisp and frozen and the air tingles your airways like sparkling ice water on your tongue.. The old Merc's V8 objects to being rudely awakened but it obligingly ferries me to the yard. The S-Line doesn't worry about icy early mornings and she grumbles to life with barely a flick of the key. Every morning the ritual is the same Oil - water - Hubmeter. Wander up and down kicking 22 tyres hoping against hope that nothing has gone down overnight. Nothing worse than changing a tyre first thing on a frosty morning. Lastly, Logbook to keep the Godsquad Happy.

Today the job is hauling softrock from our quarry to a Dairy farm for a new feed pad construction. The haul is going to take us past the Waipapa Dam on the Waikato river, then up into the hills and down towards the top-end of the King Country. The gotcha for the morning is the descent off the Arohena plateau down to Waipapa, the road is a steep, low gear descent and often icy when there is heavy frosts. 44 tonnes all up with a full load can get a little exciting if the traction disappears. Not too much of a hassle tho, three truck and trailers on the job today and about 90 years of combined driving experience, just requires a little extra care. The bonus today is that we have a loader driver, the job is fairly short haul, about an hour and a bit turn-around and the boss wants as much done before the weather turns again. John, the the guy who drives the 21 tonne digger makes his machine dance in a graceful ballet that belies the power that he controls. The teeth on the bucket tear at the rock, ripping it out of the quarry face before picking it up and depositing it gently in the truck and trailer. A beep on the digger's horn tells me that the requisite 26 tonnes of rock has been carefully distributed over the truck and trailer. The distribution is important, a badly loaded truck is an unstable and difficult to control beast, especially with the hoist up. A good driver takes extreme care over how the load is put on his truck, a good loader Operator makes life a dream. John is one of those Good Loader Operators

With the load on, the S-Line's work really starts. The road up out of the quarry is winding narrow metal and steep in places. Up till now I've used maybe 5 or 6 of the available 15 gears . On highway with a load I'll use ten. The five gears in the low box, often called deep-bottom-under, are usually only brought into play in difficult circumstance. We start off in 6th or 7th, the chassis twists, the nose rises, as the clutch bites and the 400 horses strain to pull 44 tonne out of the quarry. Climbing up to the main road will require 30 or more gear changes and the truck will only occasionally get over 30kph before I get to the seal. Once on the main road the run is fast, the initial part is gentle downhill before getting to the steep drop to the Waipapa Dam. We're doing a hundred K as we approach the top, we change down 4 gears using the Jacobs Engine brake to slow the truck fast as we come over the top and start rapidly descending through the first cuttuing. Sure enough the telltale glisten of ice on the road shows in the light of the just rising sun. Ease on the foot brakes, it's important to spread the braking over all the wheels while not allowing lockup especially of the steerers. For many years is was standard practice to disable the brakes on the front axles of trucks that travelled the desert road in winter. As long as your front wheels were still turning you still had steering.

The climb up from the Waikato river before turning off the seal toward Waitete is winding and slow and usually means a couple of cars stuck in behind the truck. Locals are no problem they just accept it like Aucklanders accept traffic jams, but often someone takes stupid risks to get past. After about half an hour and more climbing along another winding metal road you come up over the top of the Waitete block and the vista that is spread out before makes you realise why you love getting up at 5 am and getting out here. The sun has risen on a beautiful clearskied day. There is a dazzling white coating on everything. It's just gorgeous.

I reach into my bag to get my Digital Camera so I can put this stunning pic on my blog....and the bloody batteries are flat. Bugger!

Sometines Technology really bites!

They say a Picture is worth...

a thousand words.. While a picture can communicate, it is a rare picture that touches the soul like an artful turn of phrase. There are those wordsmiths who can craft a phrase that makes any picture a faded insignificant thing. .

Barista is one of those wordsmiths..

The Great Project Dilemma

It's a guy thing... Get a shed.. fill it with projects. I've come to the conclusion that "projects" require one to be a bit OCD. Certainly when you have a big shed it tends to fill with projects. Like the Imp which was going to be a pre '65 racer and the mini which was going to be a paddock racer and the Ladas which were going to be a team of Targa cars... just for a laugh... still might do that.

But when it comes to blokes sheds this one is up there for the prize of the best. Old Len was a true Gentleman and I like the fact that he got things to put in his shed, not just because they were old but because they were interesting..... a lot like Sir Len himself. Each thing in his collection had a story attached. I sort of think that if Sir Len were alive today he'd be a hell of a blogger, just blogging the story of his collection.

Every blokes dream... sort of.

I'm lucky, I live in the country on a small block, 2 Acres. Not a lot, but enough to feed ol' meathead and to have a shed. And it's a hell of a shed, 7000 sq ft give or take a foot or two. You can see one end of it in the pic on the right. What you can see is about a quarter of it. The house is down on the left and that's not a small house. Now a lot of blokes have come out, have taken one one look and gone gaga. Admittedly it's got a few toys: A 6 foot gap bed Lathe, couple of welders, gas plant and the like, all a bit like their owner; getting past their "use-by" date . Now there is one law that supercedes even that bastard Murphy and that is

"A mans junk shall expand to fill the available space."

Now if you had a business for a while that involved machinery, trucks and such, supplementary junk law "A" takes effect which says "Substitute 'fill' for 'overflow'". There are other supplementary laws involving Children along the lines of "They leave, their junk stays" but discussing the detail of those subsets would be getting way too complicated. Suffice to say that overflow was putting it mildly. I have however made progress. I've had two truckloads (about 8 tonnes) of scrap taken away already. More to go soon but the cars are the thing. Good grief how did I collect so many vehicles. If you happen to be looking for parts I can supply from:

2 Lada Classics 1500 5 speed versions
65 Mini 850 Complete with set of new tyres
68 Hillman Imp Body only motor and trans sold
86 Toyota Crown complete
81 Ford Cargo minus cab but with motor and 4 stage Allison trans
1 Hako Minisweeper
Plus heaps more, too many to list. And that's just the vehicles.

When I saw this place before we bought it I just fell in love. Now I'm having to clean it up. The scrap man loves me, but for me the flush has worn off somewhat.

So guys, be careful about wishing for that dream shed.... you might just get it. Right now I'd settle for a single room hut with a leanto on the banks of the Wanganui.....with just enough room for the canoe or two.

An icon passes

I read in tuesdays herald that production of the Hindustan Ambassador has stopped. Tragic..

I remember a comment the Manufacturers made to Jeremy Clarkson about why the Ambassador didn't have disc brakes. It was because a disc braked car would stop too quickly thus causing multiple pileups as less efficiently braked cars frantically tried to stop in the same distance.

I'm sure the question on everyones mind is: Where in gods name are we going to get our post vintage Morris Oxford parts now.

The annual June migration

Most of my work is done in rural districts. the Casa del TFU is in the middle of what is considered by many to be the richest dairying country possibly in the world. Dairy farmers financial years in NZ start on the 1st of June. So every year for a week either side of this date stupidity rules the roads as cockies try to get their stock from their old farm to the flash new place 20 k down the road in the cheapest possible manner.

One thing is a certainty stupidity breeds. Not only the drivers are stupid, the farmers try to be stupid too, just to exascerbate the situation. Problem is I've been around long enough and farmed in the right places to have seen, and worked with, Drovers moving real mobs. 2 or 3000 head sometimes. Drovers rarely held up traffic cos they spread their mobs out along the road side. Cockies these days try to keep them as bunched up as possible. Trying to get a truck and trailer through a mob when they travelling in the same direction as you is a bloody pain.

So advise to farmers for next year. Take a leaf out of the old drovers book. Borrow a couple of horses. They're easier to sit on all day than a bike and they travel at the same speed as a Cow. Don't drive the whole mob, just the old Girl that all the others follow. And be patient... it's much less stressful

Nine weeks smoke free

Nine weeks.

No smokes

Except for the occasional weakening

The weakening is good because it proves that I could be back to 30 a day in an instant. I stopped for two years back in 98 and had myself fooled that I could have the occasional smoke without it worrying me. Went to the 'States to stay with friends ... all smokers.... By the time I came home I was back to 25 Winnies a day.

Antismoking Crusaders are the pits. Self righteous prats to the last one. The evangelistic ex-smokers are no better, but they're not doing it out of some altruistic crusade for a better society, hell no it's purely selfish they're just preaching to themselves. It's their way of keeping on the wagon. If they spout the BS loud enough and long enough they brainwash themselves.

All the crap the ASH types sprout is so much nonsense. All their bloody ads on TV just remind me how much I want a smoke.

It's pure economics. My wallet is heavier to the tune of about 80 bucks a week or whatever a pack of 25 Winnies a day would cost. That's it, nothing else - full stop! If I could get my smokes for free, I'd smoke. If I won the Lotto tomorrow I'd start smoking again. But I don't want to ..... Why ? because when I gave up the last time after about 6 or eight months my sinuses opened up and I woke up one morning without a dry mouth.... now THAT rocked. But it's something that a nonsmoker would probably never understand.

Yay, weather has turned

The only problem with being able to sleep in on days when the weather is crap is the boredom.... you can tell by the number of posts. Meathead isn't the best for sparkling repartee and he has no knowledge of Rugby. However looks like there may be work tomorrow, which means stupidly long hours as we try to catch up the time lost for the weather. Oh well!

On the subject of sports, Liz Ellis, seriously staunch Aussie and meanest piece of work on a netball court (Non contact?.... Yea right! That's her on the left about to tackle our Irene) is quoted in the herald saying there is one thing that Kiwis are better at than the Aussies and that's giving Netball Television screen time.

Dang, someone should wake those Aussies up. This is up there with the best. Lots of Super fit, buffed chicks with long legs in short skirts indulging in a bit of full body contact. I mean come on ... Tem George is the hottest thing on TV at the moment.

It's got violence and passion and it looks good. I mean by comparison to Womens Basketball.... Why is it they all look like blokes with bumpy chests?

Wake up Oz TV, you don't know what you're missing

I have a horse

Not actually my horse, it belongs to a Pig hunter friend who grazes him on my block. Very useful, he keeps the grass down. That's him in the pic. I call him Meathead and although he's not mine, we're the best of buddies. I just put him out on the long acre (Grassy strip down the side of the road for the Townies) He likes the long acre because he can get up a good turn of speed. Burning up and down the long acre (much more fun than a square acre) is one of his three favorite pasttimes, the other two are rolling in the dirt which he has just finished doing and eating, which he is indulging in while doing his level best to ignore me pointing the digi at him. Something he wouldn't be doing if I had an apple or a carrot in hand.

If I was away working today, when I got home he would be hurtling up at full gallop to welcome me. If you think that a big dog rushing at you can be trepidatious, think about a goodly proportion of a tonne of horse. I'm glad he has good brakes.

He came trotting up to me when it was time to get moved out of the square acre and as soon as he was close enough he sneezed.

I think he may be getting a bit of a cold.

I needed a shower

Confession: I'm a bird lover

Especially our local native wild life.... By extension that means I hate cats and dogs. If you had ever seen what a predator does to a Kiwi, you'd understand why.

There is a subdivision, Five Jems, in the Western BOP where predator pets are banned. Wouldn't it be great if that spread all over the country.

Dial up blues

I hate Dialup, I hate telecoms excuses. EXCUSE ME Ms Gattung. The Box down the road will take a minidslam, a conklin or a GoLong. It's only a k away so I could have reasonable broadband speed. But No they refuse to put anything in because it would be "too expensive"...... And yet Teresa Gattung has the gall to say on TV that the other ISPs won't look after the rural customers with unbundling.... The irony of this statement is that she makes this profound statement as tho telecom IS looking after us. Well the news is, it couldn't get any worse.

There are Roadworkers and there are Roadworkers

Mrs TFU and I have two kids. All grown up now. One of them's an Engineer... Engineering Geologist to be precise. Has an MSc in Earth Sciences. As she was wont to say... "She does Dirt". Moving dirt to be specific... and I suppose I do the same to a degree... But I do the actual Moving of the dirt rather than studying how the earth does it for itself.

Anyway she pointed me at a blog, restarea300m that is done by one Doddery Old Fart, who works for one of her subbies, because she knew I'd be interested. (Frankly it inspired me to get thisun going... thanks Doddery) However there is a difference; Doddery and his mates do Maintenance and I do Construction. Whats the difference? Well as I look out the window there's a gale blowing and the rains horizontal and it's butt freezing cold. Right now Doddery is looking out his window hoping like hell a tree doesn't come down on the road and he get's a call out...because his wet weather gear still hasn't dried out, the only pair of socks he has left have holes in them, his boots are soaking wet and he doesn't want to wear his gumboots cos his bloody sox will end up around his toes in five minutes flat and he'll spend the night cursing at them and pulling them up every five minutes.... Because it's pissing with rain everybody will be travelling too fast for the conditions. So he's hoping when the callout comes that there'll be bugger all traffic cos sure as God gave sheep woolly overcoats some idiot won't see the signs, will overbrake in the greasy conditions and skid off the road through a fence and into a paddock. Now if Doddery and crew are lucky there won't be any stock behind that fence but of course Murphy is a bastard and so the fence has 5000 sheep and a couple hundred head of cattle behind it. Of course all these cattle are Angus.... Rightly famous for being all black.... (top pic) all over the road.... at night... in a storm. (Bottom Pic) At about this point Doddery gives up hope of being home for breakfast and puts a match to his logbook and boils hisself a cuppa. Such is the life of the Road Maintenance Crew.

The construction guy however looks out of his window and goes "Bugger, too wet to work, guess I'll have to sleep in!" and snuggles down contentedly. .

Open the Sauce

You probably wouldn't notice it, but this post and all others in this Blog has been and will be into the forseeable future, barring some form of mental collapse on the part of TFU, be brought to you without any assistance from any software produced by Bill Gates and his cronies.

As I said I'm a Tutor and one of the things I teach about is OpenSource software. So yes, this computer has no illegal software it and yet I have a full Office Suite, high end Graphics Manipulation software, video and sound editing software, not to mention HTML editors and the like. And none of it cost me a bean... a red cent or a cosmic razoo and it's all brand new. Literally weeks old..... and all legal.

It looks like a Vista and Office12 box, geared up to the same level as my OpenSource Box will set one back something on the bad side of 2 grand.... That is of course, so long as the hardware doesn't need to be upgraded to cope with it...... and it will still get viruses. I am sympathetic... No really.... I am.

Blogging of the First

The title of this blog is nothing to do with excessive intake of processed tortured fruit of the noble grape vine. It is in fact a cry of frustration caused by the fact that Telecom sees fit to extend Broadband to my neighbours house but not to mine because I'm "too far from the exchange" One step too far it seems.

For myself I am the model of contradiction, a Truckdriving-Actor-Geek-Teacher. This mixture of contraindications is exascerbated by being a recent exsmoker and hence my User Name TFU! Terminally Fukt Up. So if I seem fractionally bitter and twisted at times that's the reason. However I do try to keep it as positive as possible for the most part. (That is the Therapy speaking.) I'll let the obvious lack of decisiveness speak for itself.

There has been, on the part of TFU a certain reluctance to start up a blog if only for the fact that it seems that the vast majority of Bloggers seem to post once and never again. The one thing I never wanted to be was another blip in the mass that continually reinforces the statisticians belief in themselves and their version of truth. So the trick is then to discipline myself to a regular post till it becomes habit. And therein lies the rub.. I never was much for discipline, 8 years in the Army cured me of that. But what the hey we'll see how we go.

Last Monday was my birthday and I got to request my birthday present... Tickets to see Stomp What a blast, worth the 4 hours of travelling.

My little truck blew a heater hose on the way to Tirau. Much water required for the trip home. The weather is miserable, the workshop is cold because of it's ability to do a passable imitation of a NASA Windtunnel... so it can wait till tomorrow to get fixed. Certainly I doubt there will be any work tomorrow. The weather will see to that. Very difficult to do earthmoving type work in the rain. Things get slippery, trucks fall over when spreading metal.

Insert rant here... I drive a Truck.. For the educated it is an old S-Line International similar to the one in the pic below. 400 hp Cummins 15 speed Roadranger, double drive Rockwell back end on Hendriksen Suspension. It has a 5 metre long 15 cubic metre tipping body with a single ram Front of body hoist capable of lifting 20 tonnes. It tows a 7 metre long three axle trailer with a 25 cubic metre body on it. The truck will carry 10 tonnes and the trailer 16 tonnes of good roading metal. On the road gross of around 44 tonnes. These guys claim to drive Trucks. Bah hook my trailer up to the back of your 4wd and see how much of a truck it is.

It is a result of the continuing leaching of americanisms into our vocab. My daughters bf was asking where "the Bathroom" was in a restaurant last night. WHAAAT? I had to inform him that he would rarely find a bathroom in a restaurant.. Toilet yes! thunderbox, longdrop, dumphausen, bog, Loo,WC, Porcelain Throne, wharetutai... even the Ceramic God or Altar to BAAART if he felt in need of a prayer.... But if he went into my bathroom and took a piss or a dump I would be very pissed off indeed. We should pass a law or make it socially unacceptable to use americanisms foisted on us by too much second rate television. Lazy linguistics.