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Cheryl wrote: "Thanks for the group, Mandy and Gail - so good for me to learn more about the wider world by eavesdropping on your conversations :)"

We appreciate and welcome any outside input. :D

Ground breaking News in Australia today. Perhaps not. :D

Gail "cyborg" wrote: "Ground breaking News in Australia today. Perhaps not"

Hahaha! Amazing. You gotta love the police. They are really the masters of understatement: "Detectives described the python as not happy"

I have got my hands on some Melbourne Cup 2010 merchandise and I was thinking of having a little sweepstakes of our own here on Aussie Readers. I've posted some pictures of the prizes you could win below. I thought we could do a sweepstake; I'd put out an event notice and the first 24 or so would get to enter. If there were lots interested I could do two. I also thought I could do one or two quizzes with a melbourne cup/horseracing in Australia theme. Does anyone know how many horses usually run in the melbourne cup and how long before the race do they announce the horses? Would any of you guys be interested in this?







I've got some other items; cap, stubbie holder, bottle opener.

Sounds like fun. Let me know what I can do to help.

Sorry to put a dampener on things, but, a dear friend passed away a couple of days ago & I wrote this tribute, I was informed by Peter's daughter my poem will be included in his service.

I included a small piece from one of his stories & a stanza from one of his poems.



Larrikin man Peter.

He sleeps this night, dreams of being a famous author

Lover, father, grandfather, mate.

Again, early visions revisit.

Larrikin train driver � story teller

cattle wagons rattle, bogies shake and jump,

electric engines stutter and fart,

coal wagons, 117 in total

as one,

his heart traversing steel veins.

Boisterous, calls a spade a spade.


Larrikin man � poet

“What does one write when one cannot write�
For choice words I am distressed
So verse has become unfinished
I find so far, I am unexpressed
And my hope is near diminished.

P. ©


Loving wife stirs,

rubs sleep from her eyes

tears flow.

He has joined famous authors.

David J Delaney
10/09/2010 ©


Dedicated to my dear friend Peter Robert David, passed away peacefully
08/09/2010 RIP mate.

It is a beautiful tribute to your friend David. Thank you for sharing it with us.

Thanks David. Hope you are holding up OK. big hugs from us.

Thank you dynamic duo, I'm ok, Peter would'nt want a fuss, thing is he was only 59.

Time to talk a little sport as that's what takes over my entire weekend.

I have just arrived home from watching the All Blacks shatter the Wallabies hopes of a victory. I'm depressed now. It was a game of 'if only's'. Does anyone else here have a passion for rugby? Cricket maybe? Anyone?

I'm asking here because I really want to start a sport thread but unless I can get some interest I think Batman will banish me to the bat cave. :D

David, sorry to hear about the loss of your friend. It is always sad to lose someone, but you can't help feeling a bit 'cheated' when they go early. I'm 54, so I consider 59 as young...much too young to die. And of course very hard on the family...but you've no idea how much it means to them when the person's friends turn up. My mother-in-law had been in a ladies' aqua aerobics group...and they all turned up to her funeral and it was much appreciated by the family, as I'm sure your presence was in this case.

Gail,what a good idea, to have a place to discuss sport. You could call it the 'Sport Spot'. I think it would be popular, but if not you could drop it later on.

Jan wrote: "Gail,what a good idea, to have a place to discuss sport. You could call it the 'Sport Spot'. I think it would be popular, but if not you could drop it later on..."

Jan you will make Gail so happy with this message.;D The Sport Spot is an excellent name for a thread!! Thanks.

Jan wrote: "Gail,what a good idea, to have a place to discuss sport. You could call it the 'Sport Spot'. I think it would be popular, but if not you could drop it later on..."

Love it Jan thanks.

Has it started yet?

Yep it sure has Jan. It's located under the topic Just for Fun exactly as you suggested Sport Spot. :)

My Daughter became a teen yesterday. By that I mean she turned 13. She is wonderfully behaved, bubbly and a joy to have around. You hear so many horror stories about teenages that I wonder is this going to happen to my kids? It really is hard to imagine at this stage. Does anyone have any experience with these things? Is my daughter a time bomb waiting to go off? Maybe there are some teens here who would also like to offer an opinion.

My eldest son is 15 and I was dreading the teen years, but he is wonderful ... caring, calm, fun to talk with, has a nice (perhaps nerdy) group of friends and is doing well at school. Have four more yet to follow, so who knows, but so far 1/1 great!

Gail "cyborg" wrote: "My Daughter became a teen yesterday. By that I mean she turned 13. She is wonderfully behaved, bubbly and a joy to have around. You hear so many horror stories about teenages that I wonder is this..."

Gail I have no children of my own but my three sisters have all been prolific breeders [can I say that?] - have seen several go through the dreaded teen years and to date only 1 that briefly became a nightmare. The two current teens, 14 year old twins, are still as well-behaved and polite as ever although they do sometimes seem to speak a foreign language punctuated with a lot of words like 'chillax' and 'whatever' but I just try not to listen :)

Good luck with your daughter but I'd say you were off to a good start.
Cheers,
Trace

Well Dee-Ann I am very pleased to hear that. I think that it's like anything (I am hoping) the stories you hear are the exception, but they make the most impression and therefore scare parents.

I think that teens are greatly influenced by the friends that they surround themselves with. If they are level headed and not surly grumps with parental grudges for no other reason apart from making them wear tasteful clothing, then I think that most worries are moot.

hahaha. I sound like my mother. You wouldn't think that I was only 26. But seriously, I work with teens frequently and thats the best consistent pattern I've noticed....
?

The bad news Chip is that as you get older the more like your mother you will sound. (or so I have found.) it is very scary, for me anyway. :)

Chip wrote: "I think that teens are greatly influenced by the friends that they surround themselves with. If they are level headed and not surly grumps with parental grudges for no other reason apart from makin..."
Absolutely, watch the friends! Watch the tv shows they watch and talk with them about any issues that come up.
Never be too tired or too busy to talk. But it sounds like you've built a good foundation Gail,which will help a lot when the hormones hit, which they will do from time to time.

My 14.5 yo son has the deep voice, acne, etc. but is still my lovebug and talks to me about just about (but not quite) everything. He's very thankful I got him a couple of books so he wouldn't have to ask me everything.

It's So Amazing!: A Book about Eggs, Sperm, Birth, Babies, and Families
It's Perfectly Normal: Changing Bodies, Growing Up, Sex, and Sexual Health

re other subjects, he has older cousins, etc. who provided, shall we say, negative role models...

Overnight on the OPRAH show, Oprah announced that she would be doing 2 (i think) shows live in Australia in December and taking the whole studio audience that were with her on last night's show, to Australia as well. They went crazy! Here's the clip:

John Travolta was there in a mock Qantas plane. Apparently Tourism Australia has known about it for a while and are very happy about the 45 million US viewers who will be watching the shows!

The morning talk shows here in OZ are full of very funny suggestions for what Oprah should do/see while she's here... I think it's great. Good for Australian tourism and I've watched Oprah plenty of times over the years. Her shows always have a great message and this is her final year.

She'll be doing at least one of the shows from the Opera House or as the news media are calling it this morning the 'Oprah House"! I think she should definitely do something on the 'Big Pineapple' at Nambour.;P

Cheryl are you sure you can't get a ride along with her?? :)

Thanks Tracy, Cheryl, Jan, Dee-Ann and Chip for all the wonderful feelback on the teens. :)

heh, thanks for the warm fuzzy, but I'm such an 'ugly american' I don't even have a passport :(

Ahhhhhh, don't worry Cheryl I can fix that. I'll print you one off the net & post it over. We would love to have you here. :D

LMAO, Oh thanks for the new nick name Mandy.

Here I was thinking I was bringing the tone of Aussie Readers down. :D

Gail "cyborg" wrote: "LMAO, Oh thanks for the new nick name Mandy.

Here I was thinking I was bringing the tone of Aussie Readers down. :D"

;D

I'm so glad I joined this group!

Cheryl wrote: "I'm so glad I joined this group!"

And we are glad to have you! Where is NV? I heard 70 per cent of Americans don't own a passport, so you are not the only one.
Armchair travel can be a wonderful thing. Want to go to Venice in Italy? Just google it, select a youtube video and you'll be floating on a gondola! Marvellous.
And as for photos...the world's your oyster!Google Earth is great as well. See if you can find Elephant Rocks near Denmark Western Australia.
Have fun here with all us Aussies!

Thanks!

Nevada is a great big mountainous desert east of California. And before you ask, no, I'm not anywhere near Las Vegas and I've no interest in visiting there and even though we have slot machines in the grocery stores I do not gamble. :)

Couldn't find Elephant Rocks, except the Cider Company...

Cheryl wrote: "Couldn't find Elephant Rocks, except the Cider Company..."

Morning Cheryl! (or is it goodnight your time?). Try to find in Queensland where I come from. Just up the road is which is the home of Steve Irwin's (Crocodile Hunter) family.

Cheryl wrote: "I'm so glad I joined this group!"

G'day Cheryl, I love doing this to our American friends, in the state of Queensland (where the best writers live hahaha!!) Nevada would fit 16.7 times, I especially like pointing out to Texans that their state fits 9.7 times into Queensland. there's a little bit of trivia for your friends. (-:

Cheryl wrote: "Couldn't find Elephant Rocks, except the Cider Company..."

Cheryl here is a link to some info on Elephant Rocks

Oh very cool, thank you Gail. You know, I've never had much of an urge to travel to Europe, Africa, China, India, etc.... but there's so many intriguing things about Australia, and of course New Zealand too, that I have put a visit down under on my 'if I win the lottery' list. :)

Yes David I do know that Australia is bigger irl than it looks on our maps - thanks for the actual numbers!

So, folks, do you travel much around your ginormous island? Have those of you who live north heard of Elephant Rocks before now?

Oh that reminds me, we need a holiday thread. Thanks Cheryl. I'm onto it. :)

G'day Cheryl, I was a truckie (or as you say trucker)for 25years & mainly traveled the east coast & out western Queensland & western New South Wales, I was forced to go to Melbourne a couple of times as well (hehehe) still waiting for my chance to see N.T, W.A, & S.A., yes I know of Elephant Rocks W.A. there is also 'Elephant rock on the Gold coast.

My pleasure on the numbers, actuall there is not that much difference between the total area size of the U.S. & Australia.

Wow, it's all quiet today compared to yesterday's deluge of posts.

Awfully warm up here in North QLD (inland) as well, got to be in the mid 30's already :sigh:

Paul.

It's a beautiful 25 degrees here in Brissy. I've just found out how to put RSS feeds on my iGoogle home page. So I've got some book blogs that have been recommended in our blog thread now beaming effortlessly into my computer all on the one page. Aaah technology! I love it!

(If anyone's interested I could write how to do that in the Tips of the Day thread)

Has been eh! Paul, current temp here in gods own country 29.3 deg. 55% humidity & in the last hour starting to form some clouds, otherwise all day has been blue as blue can be, sounds like a song title (-:

been through the towers a few times & Ravenswood as well & had a couple at 'Delaneys' pub. relations? don't know.

What the hell is a RSS feed, sounds like something you give to the stock. LOL!!

Mandy, I think it'd be good if you share the RSS tips - it helps a lot of people to have such things, I know I need to link up a lot of RSS feeds to save having to triplicate/quadruplicate entries everywhere.

David, thankfully I don't have any blood relations here in C.Towers, though my parents now live out at Ravenswood, quite a ghost town still however. I for one would not like to live out there, the isolation would drive me literally more insane; it's already hard enough keeping my head together each day.

We do have A/C through the house in most rooms but it doesn't stop the infrared being radiated in from the walls - that more than anything else makes us feel quite ill.

Paul.

David wrote: "What the hell is a RSS feed, sounds like something you give to the stock. LOL!!"

Sorry David, I only found out what it was recently. It does sound like stock feed! You know when you go onto the internet and you get your home page (mine is iGoogle but there are lots of search pages out there). These days most internet sites who produce regular information updates provide a link (called an RSS feed) that you can connect to your home page. That means that your internet home page will have little boxes with updates from all sites you're interested in. So I don't have to (e.g.) search for the ABC Radio National website, then their radio section, then the program I want... etc etc. It's just sitting there on my internet home page to access with one click.
Hope that makes sense.:)

Current temperature in Omaha Nebraska is 21C, warmer than Sydney which is only 18C, but very pleasant. :)

Paul wrote: "Wow, it's all quiet today compared to yesterday's deluge of posts.,

If you post they will come, but if you sit back and wait so will everybody else.

Gail "cyborg" wrote: "Paul wrote: "Wow, it's all quiet today compared to yesterday's deluge of posts.,

If you post they will come, but if you sit back and wait so will everybody else."

I think everyone's a bit sleepy today (Oh wait, that's me!). If you click on the 'explore' button there's practically no-one online in OZ at the moment.:)

D'oh. It took me a while to work out which explore button you were talking about. Got it now.:)

My name doesn't appear, or does it only show other people who are on-line?

Gail "cyborg" wrote: "D'oh. It took me a while to work out which explore button you were talking about. Got it now.:)

My name doesn't appear, or does it only show other people who are on-line?"

Yeah my name doesn't appear when I look. I think it might just show others..