Cyclone Larry

There was a dead calm on Sunday night as Cyclone Larry hovered off the Queensland coast. The wind started picking up early Monday morning. I woke up at 5:30am, put my bicycle inside, and waited… The power went off not long after I got up. The strong gales started at around 7, as the center of the Category 5 cyclone sped towards Innisfail (75km south-south-east of Cairns). Once the wind died down, it got pretty boring. Emergency services were recommending that people stay home (and the roads were cut anyway), so there wasn’t much option to go anywhere. It really is amazing how much we sometimes take electricity for granted.

I have the power back on, thanks to the hardworking people at Ergon Energy. There’s still plenty of work ahead for them though, still quite a few people in Cairns without power. (There’s nothing worse than hearing people complain on the radio about how they still don’t have power, when they have no concept or appreciation of the work involved in getting it working again.) There was no damage to my place, but plenty of fallen trees in the area, and some have lost roofs. But all-in-all, Cairns has gotten through relatively unscathed.

But Innisfail, that’s a whole other story… It could be weeks before they have electricity, running water, and even sewerage operating again. Many of the building have been completely destroyed. The army’s been called in to assist with water, medicine, and generators in what’s been called the biggest relief effort in Australia ever.

Banana and sugar crops in the district have been decimated, which will cost the regional economy hundreds of millions of dollars.

Cyclone Wati is looming out to the east, but it isn’t currently expected to pose a threat.

Grumble

What a miserably unproductive day. The PABX at work was malfunctioning, so we couldn’t make outgoing calls for almost the entire day. At lunch time our state headquarters decided to take our e-mail offline statewide as well (“technical difficulties”). They could have actually told the local IT people (i.e. me) that they were doing it.

Was hoping I would arrive home to find a reply to a certain e-mail I had sent, but alas, that wasn’t to be either.

Tomorrow will be better.

A long drive

Man, did it take a long time to get home today, yet again! Traffic banked up and almost at a standstill. The cataclysmic cause of this tedious humdrum? A rampant guerrilla incursion? Molten lava flowing through the streets? A merciless onslaught by alien invaders?

No… the cause of this importunate ponderousness was Dihydrogen Oxide… H2O… water! Not a massive deluge of Ark-like proportions, just normal, everyday, run-of-the-mill rain… and for some inexplicable reason, everyone forgets how to drive. Sure, you have to make consideration for longer stopping distances. But it doesn’t mean you have to stay stationary extra long when the lights turn green for no particular reason. Sheesh.

Those 3 Little Words…

“Some Assembly Required”.

 Got myself a new TV cabinet that I had to put together. There weren’t a bunch of pieces left over, so I’m assuming I got it right. Must be thanks to all that LEGO^® and Meccano^® I played with as a kid.

Fairly straightforward putting it together, but because of the pre-drilled holes that are all slightly out of place, despite my best efforts, there’s not a perfect right-angle in sight… just like the one in the showroom.

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