Aurora at Home

I’ve long wanted to one day catch the ‘Southern Lights’, we occasionally get them here in Tassie, but its usually only visible near Hobart, and usually quite weak, whenever the alert for an impending solar storm goes out I either am not able to make a trip somewhere to see them, or they are too weak to be worth such a trip.

Well earlier this week it was reported that the biggest solar storm in 30 years was coming, I had been so busy this week that I had not paid much attention, and to my surprise, the Aurora visited me at home! Some photos below, it was as insane to experience as it looks!

Update 3.0

So I once again decided to overhaul my blog site, fingers crossed this time is the last, once again I have had to move all of the data across manually. I started this nearly 1 year ago today, but it is now finally done.

Ive connected a new domain as well:

www.thebookoforigin.com.au

Nathan Got Baptised

Nathan was baptized after church today, a decent chunk of the extended family came to church to witness. Nathans testimony during the service was amazing, I’m a proud big brother.

After the church service we headed down to the beach for the baptism, and a fellowship lunch followed at the nearby picnic area.

The Jetski

So nearly 9 months ago now Justin hosted a winter ‘Swim & Bonfire’ for the church at his place, in their dam. Unfortunately for my bank account I got to have my first go on a jetski….

Obviously I decided that I needed another mid-life crisis toy and so I started hunting for one.

I found this older, but very neat Yamaha in Hobart, with a freshly rebuilt engine and decided to bring it home. I negotiated the guy down to $4500.

I wanted an older model, specifically a 2 stroke powered model, for several reason, but mainly for the reduced maintenance requirements (no oil or coolant to maintain etc). This one fit the bill, and with a new motor I figured it would server me for a long time without any issues. Boy was I wrong.

I picked the ski up in September of last year, it was several months before I got the opportunity to take it out, Grant brought Wren around and we took it out to one of Marks dams, unfortunately for me when we put it in the water and went to start it, it would not turn over, the battery had gone flat while it was sitting and so I assumed it was a power issue, we mucked around with it for a while, during which the ‘smoke escaped’.

To cut a long story short, it turned out that between my purchase of the ski, and putting it in the water for the first time the impeller locked up. Yamaha used two different metals in the jet drive impeller housing, and on occasion the two metals can react and cause small bulges in the housing, which can cause the impeller to seize. This is what happened to mine, but because we kept trying to start it, we ended up burning the starter out motor and melting the starter relay solenoid.

So, before I even got to use it I’ve had to replace the starter motor, install a new battery, a new starter solenoid and rebuild the jet drive. I’m in the hole for nearly $2500 on top of the purchase price 😅

Yesterday I finally took it to Lake Barrington, put it in the water, and took it for a spin. Its loads of fun, and runs really well! Thank goodness! 😅

The lake yesterday was unreal, there was no wind and so the lake surface was like glass, the photos don’t really do it justice.

This next video kind of does the glass effect justice, watch it at a high resolution.

As a side note I also went and found the pumping station ingress point where Joe and I worked for a couple of weeks, I had our 30 ton digger here on the lakes edge:

Anyway, the ski is finally all good, and with the coin I have now spent on it I hope to keep it for a long time, and have many more adventures with it!

Truth Be Told - My Testimony

I have been on quite the journey since my separation, I have felt for a while that I should share my journey with others in the hopes that someone might learn from my mistake. It took me a while but, last Sunday I shared the below testimony in church.

Good morning everyone. Can you tell I'm nervous?

I've spent months mulling this over trying to figure out what to
say, but if I'm honest all that was really happening was a delay in
getting up here to share what I wanted to share. So I decided to
stop over-thinking it, and well, here we are.

I’m sure most of you have noticed that I have been coming to
church on my own for a while now, for those who don’t know, a
little over 12 months ago my wife had an affair and that
ultimately led to her abandoning our marriage and moving out.

Unless you have been here yourself, you actually can't imagine
what it has been like, however, God has been hard at work in my
life and He's taught me a lot in the past year.

That brings us to today, and there is one particular lesson I want
to share with you in the hopes that you can learn from it as well.

My wife was a very private person and she was always adamant
that we do not air our 'dirty laundry' out to anyone else. As a
result I had to be very careful who I spoke too and what I said,
leaving us to try and figure out our issues on our own.

This is the mistake.

We actually can't do it alone, God didn't design us to do it alone,
but instead of reaching out and getting help, we fight our battles
in private, we try to hide our shame, our guilt, and our mistakes,
often with deadly consequences. James 5:16 says: 'Therefore,
confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that
you may be healed.'

In the past year I have learnt that there is no judgement waiting
for me when I reached out for help, you can probably imagine
the terror & shame I felt as a Christian husband, from a Christian
family, staring down the barrel of a divorce. Initially I did not
know where to go, or who to speak too, fortunately for me God
stepped in and forced the issue, and you know what I found
instead? Love, understanding, advice, and support. I wish now
that I had not waited until desperation to reach out.

The reality is that we are all struggling with something, some
big, some small, whether you want to admit it or not, and most of
us are keeping it hidden away, battling with it alone. Psalms 32
says 'For when I kept silent, my bones wasted away...'

I stand here today having learnt this lesson the hard way, and so
I would implore you all to not make the mistakes I did. Trust me,
once you overcome the guilt or shame that you feel, and reach
out, and you find the support network that is right there, whether
that’s amongst your friends, family, or church group, you will
wonder how you ever handled life on your own. I know I do.

I’m going to close this by playing you a song, its a song, one of
many, that God used to great effect during the peak of my
despair.

Before we play it though I want to highlight the chorus.

Keep in mind the You in the following is referring to God.

It goes like this:
"I say I’m fine, yeah I’m fine, oh I’m fine, hey I’m fine, but l’m not, I’m broken
and when its out of control I say its under control, but its not and You know it
I don’t know why its so hard to admit it, when being honest is the only way to fix it

and here is the critical part:

There’s no failure,
There’s no fall
There's no sin You don’t already know
So let the truth be told. "

Next time you are struggling with something, remember this:
'the only one who actually matters, He already knows, so
swallow your pride, and go get some help. You wont regret it.

I also recorded myself for review, and too look back on later.

Archie

Amy decided she wanted to have a second doggo, we thought about getting another corgi, but they are just so expensive, so we broadened our search and found a pure bread black lab pup.

Meet Archie:

Unfortunately we did not know that male corgi’s are quite territorial, so at least for now Archie cant live out the back with Bilbo, not quite sure what we are going to do about that just yet.

Here he is helping build his pen:

Bullbar Swap

I was supposed to go camping over the long weekend just gone, but the weather turned bad (some epic storms last Friday) which turned everyone off camping.

On Saturday I ended up giving Rob a hand stripping the G60 that been sitting in his shed for the last few years. Mainly so that we could get Oscar into the shed for repairs so that Rob can come camping next time.

He wanted the doors, seats, steering box and the engine from this G60. The engine proved trickier than expected but because he doesn’t care about the chassis and body, the grinder got a decent workout, which made things easier. We won in the end.

On Monday I decided I needed to make some more headway on Snuffy, so dad and I set about swapping the bullbar over.

A shot of Skippy before we started:

I have hated the plastic bar that he came with since I bought it, it looks much better with the 3” lift (the bar looked outright wimpy before that) so it was good to finally see my good TJM bar go on. 

Because Skippy is a Series 3 and Snuffy a Series 1 there are a few differences that initially prohibited the bar from gong on, we had to cut a little bit out of the radiator guard (for some stupid reason the Series 3’s have a radiator that hangs down below the chassis, literally the only thing on the whole car that does). The grill also sticks out a bit more so we had to trim a bit out of the top of the bar as well. But it was worth it!

Now to find time to get the rear bar swapped...

Amy's Graduation

My beautiful wife graduated today, after 3.5 years of hard work and determination that continues to amaze and astound me, she has graduated top of her class! Taking out the ESSA highest GPA award. To say that I am proud of her is the understatement of the century!

She doesn’t get a rest though, diving straight into Honors, where her work ethic and determination to be the best she can be continues to amaze! I love you baby and I’m beyond proud of you!

Side note: Amy Eyles BExSc sounds so cool!

My New Job

I started a new job this week. Its pretty amazing to be here, and even more amazing the series of events that has led me here. First though, some history.

For the last six months or so dad and I have been trying to work out what the future of Country Contracting will be, its been pretty hard recently and both dad and I have been growing tired of the unnecessary difficulties that generally come with this industry. The answer presented itself a few months ago, Geneva started chasing dad for a job, they wanted him for a chaplaincy/christian living role which the school currently lacks. It was hard for me not knowing what was next, but it was too great an opportunity for dad not to take it.

Dad accepted the role, and was scheduled to start with two days per week from term 3 this year, which was in mid July. We still have a fair bit of work to wrap up with CCE so we can’t just pull the pin and walk away. I was to keep working 5 days a week where possible and keep things ticking over while dad was at Geneva, it was a difficult time, not knowing what was next or whether I would have a job come the end of the year.

In early July Grant, my brother in law, was invited to a business networking meeting where he met a local IT business guy who mentioned in conversation that they were looking at putting someone on soon and Grant said to him hey, I know a guy. Grant gave me his contact information and told me to give him a call, so I did. I was asked to go in and have a meeting with him about it. I dressed up in a suit and went in for the meeting. The business is Perth WA based, and had only recently opened the office in Devonport, the local guy had been working from home since moving here from Perth in 2014 and had picked up enough local clients to make it too much work for him and his home office. I told him straight up that my availability would only be Mon-Tues most weeks until such time as the family business work was finished. The interview went really well, but they wanted to run a job ad, which is fair enough. I submitted my resume once the job ad went live several weeks later and was asked to go in for an official interview on Monday 30th July. Late Wednesday night August 1st I received an email from the boss in WA offering me the job, I would start on a casual basis until the family business work is done at which time they will transition me to a full time role.

For a business to be willing to put me on, with no qualifications, on a part time basis while I finish up with CCE is almost unbelievable. I have absolutely no doubt that God has been at work during all of these events and I am truly grateful. I’ve landed a job that I have long thought I’d one take pursue, and its happened while I have no official qualifications. God is good.

My Final 2.8 Patrol Club Post

​Below is a copy of the last post I put into the 2.8 Patrol Club that I started in Facebook. Posted July 11, 2018

Its a sad time for me my friends, my beloved RD has died 😪

RIP Snuffy.

Somehow she got majorly dusted, I’ve been over the intake with a fine tooth comb and I can’t work out how it happened. The bores were badly damaged, even the big ends had grit go through them, every single one was nearly stuffed, and to top it all off the head was cracked, no symptoms from that yet but they cant have been far away.

I've just finished bolting 4.88 diffs gear in and a VNT Turbo onto her as well, never got to drive it! 😭

All of this is even more infuriating because I did a ground up rebuild in 2010, nothing was untouched! She's only done 95,000km since then!

Its taken me a while to digest everything that’s happened, but I have decided to buy a new vehicle (still a patrol) instead of dropping more $$ onto this one.

I started this club quite a few years ago now, it’s been great watching it grow and fill with people who like the RD as much as I do! Unfortunately my days of owing an RD28 are drawing to a close, but I’m not going anywhere, I'll hang around and continue to admin and contribute where I can.

Thank you to everyone for making the club what it is! I look forward to watching the mighty RD live on!

Snuffy Update

In short, Snuffy is buggered. RIP.

It turns out that Snuffy has suffered significant engine damage, we are unsure how it happened, but all indications are that it has been dusted, not only are the rings and bores stuffed, but the crank bearings appear as though they have done 600,000km, despite only having done just shy of 100,000km. This implies some crap (dust) has made it into the oil and gone through the engine.

So now I am looking down the barrel of a full ground up rebuild, like what I did in 2010.

Its frustrating being here again, we did all of this in 2010 after I stupidly left the sump bung loose. When we built it then we did everything properly thinking it would last me far longer than I would likely keep the car. Apparently not.

Snuffy

Well Shit.

Its taken me nearly a week to sit down and write this, and that’s because I needed to calm down, everytime I sat down to write something, anger over came me and I had to put it away.

Let me start at the beginning. Approx six months ago my car, Snuffy the Patrol, started blowing butt loads of smoke, oil smoke, the original turbo had crapped itself only 30,000km earlier and I had only been able to afford a secondhand unit in unknown condition from a wrecker on the mainland. Of course, I instantly assumed that unit had also crapped itself and so we went hunting for a replacement, I dearly wanted to fit an upgraded unit, maybe a Mamba kit or similar, but at about this time a low km (10,000km) set of 4.88 ratio diffs with ARB lockers came up for sale locally really cheap, I paid about $2000 plus my diffs, for perspective its nearly $5000 in parts alone! Its an upgrade I have long wanted to do, as it will return the gearing to standard with my 33" tyres on. So we bought the diffs, and opted for an aftermarket turbo.

Mistake number one.

The aftermarket turbo barely lasted a day, the test drive went really well, but on the first trip to work it started smoking again, the unit came with a 24 month warranty, which we attempted to claim on, but as it turns out upon a close reading its not worth the paper it is written on. So there goes $700 down the drain. Not to mention all the stress and headaches that went along with it.

That scared us away from aftermarket turbos, including Mamba kits and the like, so I went on the hunt for the best replacement, I didn’t want a genuine replacement as they just arent good enough for the engine, and also cost a ton to replace because they are a ‘s’ model, meaning Garrett built them specialy for Nissan for the RD28. Long story short I got onto a turbo specialist in Melbourne who was able to supply me a modified VNT Garret GT2056, which we jumped at, both dad and I have long thought that the RD needed a VNT, so despite the high cost we ordered one, knowing that a Garrett would last and not give us any trouble.

Fitting it turned out to be far more difficult that we were expecting, the supplied manifold adapter didn’t fit, the seller had made these units for other RD28’s and so had built mine to the specs he had in his records, even he couldnt understand why it didnt fit and offered a refund and his apologies. I was determined to make it fit and so we had Spreyton Engineering make up a new adapter.

In hindsight, mistake number two.

During all of this our Mini also had some issues, though these have been a long time coming and were only delayed due to lack of funds. Funds became available and after a series of, what we considered at the time to be very annoying events, but that I am now sure had the hand of God behind them, we found a new mechanic who was able to do the work, and I soon discovered, was very very good at their job. I have never been so impressed with a mechanic, and I have NEVER found any mechanic I was completely comfortable to leave my cars with. The best part is they are in Shearwater. Praise God.

I asked them to finish the turbo install on Snuffy for us because it was simply outside of our ability. I was blown away by the work they have done, the care taken, and the extra effort they went to.

That leads us to today, on Wednesday this week just gone they started Snuffy up for the first time since December of last year (2017), and that’s when the shit hit the fan.

It turns out that the turbo was never the problem. The problem is actually far more serious, the piston rings are stuffed. Why, I have no idea, its only done 100,000km, its been well looked after, regularly serviced, I’ve done everything right, but here we are. The only thing we can put it down too is a dodgy rebuild. We will of course know more once they get it apart, but you understand why I am so angry.

Basically whats happening is compression is making it past the pistons and into the crankcase, causing it to pressurize, because a turbo essentially relies on gravity to drain the oil from the bearings, if the crankcase is pressurized, the oil cannot drain, and so it gets forced past the seals and into the intake/exhaust, causing the engine to burn it. The reason the aftermarket turbo lasted a short while is because it took time for the crank to pressurize and also for the oil to make it through the intake plumbing, intercooler etc and into the combustion chamber.

This whole debacle has made me very angry, and it has taken time to calm me down. I just have to remember, at the end of the day it is just a car, and all its going to take to fix it is money, its just really really disheartening to put your very best into looking after something, and have it fail on you. I guess its just a fresh reminder of how broken the world is, and how much it needs Jesus.

New Appliances

This one is more for record keeping than an entertaining blog post. 

Consider yourself warned. 

Our fridge and washing machine were el-cheapo's that we purchased of off gumtree, the fridge is too small and the washing machine terribly noisy, since the block sold we decided it was time for some upgrades. 

Behold, the new gear!

*insert fridge photo here*
*insert washing machine photo here*

Apparently I did not document the washing machine after its instillation, ^ is the only photo I could find.

*photos added in 2023 when updating the blog website*

The Block Sold!

Block is sold!

It finally happened, the block has officially sold. A few weeks back a guy from Kalgoolie contacted our real estate agent about the property, shortly there after he found my ad on Gumtree and contacted me directly. As luck would have it our RA contract was set to expire a week later, we agreed to settle privately.

Chris (our buyer), who currently lives in Kalgoolie, was keen to purchase the block sight unseen. After agreeing to a price, which, was lower than I would have liked, but given the lack of interest we couldn't afford not to accept, on top of that the timing of the sale was no accident. Chris is a bit of a legend, when he made the offer (145k), it being lower than my original minimum of 150k, I told him to give us some time to discuss it, even though I knew we had to accept, the following day I contacted him to agree to the sale price, he was wrapped, and said to me ‘first things first, do ya like bourbon?’.

Debbie Hutton handled all the legalities, she’s the same conveyancer who handled the hell that was our original purchase and sub-divison of the block. She’s really good, if you need a conveyancer give her a call.

Funny story, so the guy who bought the blocks name is Christopher Robin Kreely, apparently his parents really liked winnie the pooh…

Anyway about a month after the purchase went through he and his partner came down and we went out to the block to show them around, he brought a bottle of bourbon and his partner brought several bottle of champagne for the girls.

We spent a few hours showing them around, giving Chris all the information I could in regards to the block and its many quirks.

Chris was wrapped with it, its just what they were looking for.

It Is Well

It is well.

In church today we sang the song When Peace Like a River, a well know hymn, but perhaps not so well known is the story behind it, the author, Augustine, endured the death of his four year old son to scarlet fever, followed by severe financial hardship caused by the great Chicago fire, and then the death of his four daughters, sunken at sea while heading to Europe for a holiday, Augustine had not been able to travel with his family, his wife survived the sinking and telegram-ed back to her husband the words ‘Saved alone, what should I do?’. Augustine immediately set sail to Europe to be with his wife, and while crossing the very spot his daughters died, wrote the hymn. It is well with my soul.

This tugged at me, I have been enduring financial difficulties recently and I find myself begging God to sell our property so that we may no longer suffer difficulties. If a man who lost everything can sing it is well with my soul, what business do I have complaining about, what ultimately is, a minor inconvenience.

https://youtu.be/nCg-QXhhC5I

Update 2.0

My website has been undergoing a major overhaul over the last 2 months, I have been working on improving the design and making it more modern, I am much happier with this design.

The biggest change is behind the scenes, a change in host, I wasn't able to get a design I was happy with at my previous host. I also wanted a decent mobile app so I can post on the go (up until now I have been forced to do it from a computer). This host has excellent mobile apps. 

This overhaul has been a long time coming, and a lot of work to bring online (I had to transfer all the content over manually). I’m glad its finally done.

New Zealand Subdivision

Remember the subdivision I was working on in NZ, the one that was supposed to be finished before I moved back home?

Its finally finished, a mere 2 years after I moved home. This is what it looked like before we started.

And this is what the place looked like when I left, hardly recognizable!

To see these photos in ‘spherical’ mode: https://photos.app.goo.gl/RH8EXy6PGHVsW9cu7

And this is what it looks like now, almost ready for new houses:

Dean still doesn't clean his car! 

Hopefully one day soon I'll be able to return to NZ and visit this place, likely full of houses by then.

I Bought an Android...

Yes you read that correctly.. Unfortunately.. Or not? 

As many of you would know I’m a big user of Apple products, iPhone, iPad, Macbooketc, I know the basics of Android but recently I started a small tec support business, in an effort to increase my skill-set I have purchased an Android flagship that I will be incorporating into my daily use to learn the in's and out’s of the Android OS. 

There were a couple of phones I was looking at to fill this role, but I settled on the Samsung Galaxy Note8, primarily because Samsung is the biggest seller of android phones, and also because the S Pen intrigues me. I briefly used a Note7 last year, I was considering buying one then, but we all know how that went. Lets hope there isn’t a repeat this year!

Star Trek: Discovery

Star Trek Discovery aired yesterday, Rob and I watched it last night at his place.

Mixed feelings at this stage, the visuals are fantastic, the acting is good and the story telling is great. My problems so far are with the glaring canon issues (oh and the ship is butt ugly), the writers say they are canon and to 'give us time', which I fully intend to do, and I will reserve judgement until I’ve seen the full first season.

It is great to have Star Trek on the TV screen again!