ok, now we're getting into alot of specifics here. The North Pole has not always been covered in ice, even in recent history. Also, where did the name Greenland come from? or Vinland, for that matter ? These are very northern areas, yet in (relatively) modern times appear to have been quite a bit warmer. Again, I want to reiterate that I am absolutely NOT for pollution, but I just don't think that we are causing significant climate change. Another sticky point: there is no way to measure "average" temperature. In fact, there really is no such thing. I have a friend who is a biochemist who has a company that makes viral cultures in a "large" reactor. Large meaning about 50 gallons. He tells me that there is absolutely no way for him to measure the temperature of the solution to an accuracy of better than 2 degrees fahrenheit. HE'S A SCIENTIST. And we're supposed to believe that we can measure the "average" temperature of the earth, a much more chaotic system, to accuracies of 0.2 degrees? This is ridiculous in the extreme. My sincere hope is that this whole climate change fad is really a masterful way to convince people to switch to nuclear power instead of burning hydrocarbons for electricity generation. Perhaps that's all it is -- get the environmentalists to start backing nuclear power. And that would be a very good thing for the world. Wayne

I thought my place was small - we have total land area of 285 square metres - that includes our little 2 bed home - - here's a list of what I've got in that bit of dirt: She Who Must Be Obeyed and I are happy to try and grow anything we can get our hands on, though she is starting to wane in her enthusiasm: silly girl thinks we have too much planted already...LOL cyprus pines - x 2 - they provide privacy from two neighbours and have a love seat and fish pond underneath them. There's a black elephants ear in the fishpond along with some twisted bamboo and a couple of other plant gifts that I can't name. The pines have two baby stag horns, mini split leaf philodendron, a lime leaf philodendron and some old mans whiskers growing on them Boston ferns, king ferns, a couple of different coloured periwinkles, vietnamese mint, taro, cardamom, five spice plant, coleus, ivy, argaves, hoya, more black elephants ear, cycad and some mosquito breeders (bromeliads). There are a couple of "invaders" - again unknown - that provide some blue and purple flowers during the summer. They seem to like it there, so they stay. This is the boggiest part of the garden - we get a lot of run off from the neighbours and the upper part of the hill our street is on. Next to the bog we have a gardenia, snow bush, lemon grass, yesterday today and tomorrow and a little buddha garden - - A ceramic smiling buddah, some gypsophila, pansies, petunias, gailardia, a camelia behind and some wormwood. We have a little concrete patio with a pergola over the top - about 5mX2m - strawberries planted outside and nasturtiums, lemonbalm and apple mint growing where it can. There's a jasmine growing up some of the trellis. Inside the pergola we have three bird cages - - a pair of green peach faces without the peach colour, their mum and a new chick (dad was escaped by a cat) and a pair of bengal finches. Half a dozen hanging baskets with a mixture of ferns, tahitian bridal veil, a New Guinea flat tassel fern, zygocactus and variegated philidendron/spear leaf thingy; pots and pots of lilipili, cane palms, scarlet croton, cardboard cycad, small tree ferns, pony tail palm, birdsnest fern, calla lillies, cordyline, diffenbachia, an orchid and half a dozen others that were given by friends - they look good but I don't know what they are. At one end of the pergola is an eight month old clumping palm and at the other a 4 metre tall tree fern - probably cunninghamii - it has three or four orchids growing on the trunk and day lillies, asiatic lillies and a pink and white leafed thingy that pops up every year. The next structure is the grave - it was a large pile of compost that is now planted with rosemary, beans, silverbeet, soursop, gerberas, sweetsop, surinam cherry, petunias, african daisies, gotu kola and a beatiful little red climbing rose grows along the fence. Then comes the guinea pig hutch - it follows the side fence for about four metres and has beans growing along the outside - bit of tucker for the animals and strawberries surrounding the first of the lady finger bananas. There's five bananas in total, four of them flowering/fruiting, the first hand is ripe now. In and around the bananas are strawberries a small purpley/red coloured bush that was an indoor plant but which thrives since it was taken out of the pot and given the option to live or die. There's a couple of sorghum plants growing to give the birds a bit of variety. Between the grave/bananas and pergola is a small bit of earth with these growing: In pots - bok choi, choy sum, pak choy, silverbeet, english spinach and anenomes. and hollyhock seedlings. In the ground - a mock orange, midyim berry, jabacotiba, silver beet, california asters, nicotinia, day lillies, chocolate pudding fruit, pansies, some flower seedlings that I forgot to learn the name of, horseradish and a calemondin (star fruit) . Behind the calemondin are some more gerberas, licorice basil and oregano. In behind the bananas - between them and the guineapig hutch is another bad piece of soil - sand on top of clay - that's where the cane toad trap is and where the cat trap will go. Theres also my experiment with theobroma cacao - the plant used to make chocolate. There's more silver beet, some sweet potato, some scotch bonnet chilli, a small native daisy - that has yellow or red or white flowers and is starting to sprad like a ground cover, a lychee, a dizzygothica that was also given the option of grow or die after surviving my pathetic attempts at keeping plants indoors, a candy striped hippeastrum, a custard apple (methinks) that grew from a seedling, another red climbing rose, a cutting of a plant that She Who Must Be Obeyed found on a walk and which is now growing quite well in the back corner, more sweet potato and pumpkin, the worm farm and the compost heap. This brings us to the other plant that was there before we started planting - the 10 metre tall fish tail palm. About half a dozen canes a foot across play host to a very large stag horn, a couple of philidendrons and a couple of monsterias, a dozen or so bromeliads, more old mas whiskers and something that SWMBO insists is a native orchid - about half a dozen different colours and they are thriving there - so who am I to argue. Another unnamed varigated little shrub with pretty white flowers and more strawberries. In front of the palm is a mulberry seedling - it was sprouted in March or April 2004 and is now 5-6 metres tall. Then come two roses - Angel Face (named after She Who Must Be Obeyed) and our prized Blue Moon. Some more california asters, strawberries, day lillies, crinum, hippeastrum, tansy, blue boy, a wisteria which I have the job of trying to make into a standard, goji berry, a rather permanent capsicum - it fruits so it stays, a camelai - again no name, some gerberas in pots, a cumquat seedling, a mangosteen seedling,beans, jap pumpkin, a potted philidendron - large palmate leaves, nother gift - blue and white flowers with a miniature orange fruit, more hippies a naked lady, mondo grass, as a bit of a border, some basil, marguerite daisies, some green and white thingies that I forgot to keep the name tag from, a little purple puffball of a flower - again the name escapes me, a sub-tropical nectarine and some snowdrops coming up - they've apparently naturalised to this sub-tropical environment. In amongst all of that are strawberries (did I mention them before??), some more periwikles - escaped seeds - dozens of orange and yellow cosmos (whichthe pale faced rosellas love) an orange -washington navel I think, a seedling each of sweet and soursop, moon flowers where-ever they can find something to grow up, more agaves, strawberries, lemon eureka??, another type of custard apple seedling or a longan - I must remember to use and keep name tags. A globe grape seedling growing up one of the stumps from some more cyprus pines that we got rid of. A red grapefruit - again a seedling, an ice cream bean tree, some walking lillies, surinam cherries, mango- another seedling, and in the far back corner - a Norfolk Pine - we got a pot with three of them in it a couple of years back, two were given away and SWMBO couldn't bear jsut dumping number three - so she was planted in the back corner and given the opportunity to live or die - it was nearly two metres tall and had less than two litres of root ball when the other two were cut out of the pot. There.s a lot of baby red egg plant, chives, parsley, another crinum, a kaffir lime, a cassabanana, a pineaple - which the guineapigs discovered when they escaped and is now struggling to get any growth on it at all, some yarrow, tansy and wormwood, mint - half a dozen varieties surviving, a feijoa, tomatoes,ceylon spinach, paw paw,fennel, basil, kangaroo paw,pansies, dill, curry plant, frangipani, lemon myrtle,day lillies, more chillis, more strawberries, more mondo grass, nasturtiums, coriline australia, basil, another grape - pinot moir, naturalised fressias, 2 X prince of orange,passionfruit,. Along the southside of the house - with no sun - grows a camelia, gardenia, coleus, croton, golden cane palm, ponytail palm, blueboy, nodding violets, jade plant. Out the front is an olive, more ceylon spinach, nasturtiums, hippie seedlings, loquat. longan, frangipani, bush lemon, passionfruit, cosmos, a couple of types of self seeded marigolds, spinach and I think that's about it. Frightening isn't it. The whole block - including our little home is about 285 square metres. Maybe I should go and see a doctor??

Well, boys grow fast, and my son is going through a spurt. We were on a 50 mile ride last weekend, and it was clear that he is outgrowing everything. His bike shoes were hurting his toes and his beloved Peugeot "Leo" is definitely too small. If you know bike fit, you'll see the signs of too-small-a-bike. His heel is lower than the ball of his feet, and his head is well forward of the bars. Bigger bike shoes, that is easy enough, and done. But bigger bike - that takes more work. I built the wheels last Sunday. Started assembling the bike Monday night. Several trips to the bike shop later, we are almost done. His new bike is ridable - I've ridden it to the bike bar tonight, as a matter of fact - and we only have the bar tape and brake hoods to do. The frame is a 1974 Raleigh Gran Sport, which was Raleigh's upper-mid-range sport touring bike of the day. The International was the top-end sport tourer, the Competition was the equivalent race bike. The Gran Sport was made from Reynolds 531 double butted tubing, the best there was, at the Carlton works, where Raleigh's best models were built, save only the very tippy-top Team Professional and the Raleigh race team's Team Pros. So the frame is very nice. But the components were just adequate, even back then. Raleigh, like Peugeot, tended to save money on the boltable bits as they spec'd bikes to meet price points. The mid-1970s were an era of rampant global inflation and deep industrial turmoil in England, and Raleigh was struggling to stay afloat. So we weren't going to keep all the original components. But what just had to stay, lest we lose what makes a Gran Sport a Gran Sport, and what had to go, to make this a magic carpet ride? Gran Sport bikes, which were sometimes also called "Grand Sports", came with the distinctive GB randonneur handlebar, which is upswept on the tops and flared on the hooks. The randonneur bar is practically the signature look for the model, so it had to stay. 40 years ago, manufacturers didn't restyle their products every year at the whim of color consultants and focus groups. A successful model stayed the same for years, long enough to become a classic. So with the Gran Sport. The classic Gran Sport of the 1970s came with white handlebar tape, white brake hoods embossed "Carlton", and a black leather Brooks saddle. That is how my Gran Sport was, and how my son's will be. Today, white tape might look precious, even girly. Back in the day, white handlebar tape said "racer". The top racers rode gleaming white bar tape, which their mechanics replaced with fresh wrap every day. This was before everything turned menacing, thoughtless, paramilitary black. My Gran Sport had the standard Brooks sporty bike saddle, the black B17. My friend gave me a much cooler saddle, a Brooks Professional with copper rivets, the racer's saddle of yesteryear. It looks the same to most people, but to bicycle cognescenti, the copper rivets speak volumes. So the top of the bike - saddle, bars - will stay true to the traditional 1970s Gran Sport look. All the moving bits below, though, will be of a different era. For bike people, Campagnolo is magic. The company may be a fraction the size of the industry gorilla, Japan's Shimano. It may be conservative and slow to innovate. Its components may work no better than the equivalent Shimano group, and be barely lighter. And the "Campagnolo tax" may have you paying two or three times more, for the privilege of having Tullio Campagnolo's signature and "Made In Italy" on your bike components. But you want it anyway. You know you do. I never had a Campy-equipped bike as a kid. Hardly any kids do, unless their dads are made of money, which I'm not. But if you have patience, know your away around eBay and used bike parts, and can do your own work, you can ride Campagnolo without breaking the bank. This bike has a near-complete group - drivetrain, brakes, integrated brake lever-shifters, hubs - of late 1990s Campagnolo Veloce. Veloce is a midrange Campagnolo group, distinguished from the higher-end groups by a slightly less polished finish, slightly thicker forgings with fewer lightening holes, and no titanium bits. It looks great. So here are a few pictures of the bike in progress. The GB stem and bars. The front brakes, including my homemade drop bracket, necessary to adapt short-reach late 1990s racing sidepull brakes to a 1970s frame meant for long-reach touring centerpull brakes and larger diameter rims. Here we are, test fitting the integrated levers on the bars. I'll get the last things done tonight, and tomorrow I'll show the boy himself with his new bike, "Rollie".

"Steph, it is not always the places that look prosperous or upscale that interest a thief." my place sure wouldn't be labeled 'prosperous' or 'upscale' - it wouldn't even make 'unprosperous' or 'downscale' - lol! it'd be considered darnright dangerous - lol! starting with the holes the dogs have dug all around their 'areas'. the holes make a half circle shape from where their cables were connected. don't know if I've posted this before but I only figured out a few yrs back WHY they did that. it was so they could follow where the sun was no longer over them... the hole was a place to put their buttside out of the direct sun - lol! silly dogs! (actually, very smart!) anyway - i know the pattern - others don't - lol! of course, dbf has done away with those traps...er holes now. then there's my hoses. they go in several directions and they change when I move them. you'll never know where they'll be next. but by the time i water the plants/bushes I'll be too tired to roll them up or get out of someone's walkway. if you're fool enough to walk on my land, especially after dark. did I mention the natural wash that rain eroded out and thru part of my drive? that isn't marked either. then there are the dogs. vicious sounding critters. ups man won't get out of truck. neither will the mailman. I did replace the falling apart steps up to the door a few months back (dbf did). you couldn't step on each step and I didn't post a sign warning which one to skip. one of the others was only 'good' for a few times use before i had to 'reset' it. not something I did for a stranger either...lol! when dbf replaced those steps he wiggled the banister - and the whole thing collapsed in front of us! oh dear... yeah, anyone attempting to get in here wouldn't make it in one piece. if they somehow managed that they'd meet the end of my loaded gun. If I wasn't home at the time they'd just let loose with a few bad words ending with 'someone beat me to this place!' sigh. I will feel more like a target with things fixed up. I think once it's all done I'll ask dbf to dig a few holes for me... toss some rebar around on the land etc and post a sign saying 'Beware of Rottweilers'. the boxes - dbf said the other day something like 'think of all the room you'll have now to store these boxes'. lol! I've been saving them since before Christmas - from stuff I ordered for presents. I was hoping I'd need them soon... I know dbf would just throw everything in a few large boxes and then move the boxes with his forklift... but I don't do things that way. I don't mix kitchen stuff with bathroom stuff or dog toys... I do have 1 huge box to use for mocking up any appliance, cab or whatever in the new place before a real purchase or change (per kitchen forum). I'm sure many people will think I moved and some nice normal lady has moved in here...SURPRISE! "crapalanche" - that's a word I need to remember!