Another SuperJumbo!

OK, this has got to be one of the ugliest aircraft ever built. The Boeing 747 is no oil painting, but this variant, the prototype Large Cargo Freighter, is just horrible.

Not that the Airbus A380 is a glorious sight, neither.

Q400

Q400,
originally uploaded by skyring.

An expensive day yesterday. I've got my taxidriving practical test coming up, so I sent the car in for a service, specifying that they should fix the cracked passenger's side wing mirror. I didn't want the car to be declared unroadworthy, causing the test to be cancelled, and $125 down the tube.

It's been a while since it was last serviced, so I expected a few things extra, and sure enough, they rang with a long list of things that needed fixing. Headlight bulb, coolant, wiper blades, couple of mufflers, seals around the transmission - lots of things.

Picked it up and when i saw the price $1850, I near keeled over. "Errr, how much is it without the wiper blades?", I asked.

Oh well, load down the plastic a bit more, and we need to keep the car in good nick. Have to do the other one soon, which is making rattling noises.

BookCrossing meeting. A pleasant surprise, when Sujie walked in. And her mate Sarita03. The stuff of legend - i once released a couple of books in Lake Burley Griffin at midnight, and the next morning Sarita fished one out, read it, and sent it on to her mate in Borneo - Sujie.

Sujie promptly became a hugely enthusiastic BookCrosser, and ever after, I talked about the book i chucked into lake B-G and it washed up in Borneo.

Scott from Queanbeyan came around, looking about ten kilos lighter than last time, and a full head of hair, as opposed to a shaven head. He looked a million dollars.

A whole bunch of others - Calissa and her mother, Unbalanced, Jools...

A great evening. Not quite T-shirt weather, but I sat next to the fire and my love of BookCrossing kept me warm. Very proud of myself, actually. I brought in one book, and didn't pick any up, despite massive temptation. Unbalanced always brings in a mountain of magnificent books.

Today was a very easy day. Went off to the airport and spent a dozey warm hour sitting on the old RAAF Base Fairbairn side. A couple of security guards came and checked me out, took my details, suggested that I register with the airport management as a planespotter nerd.

Got a couple of photographs, including this one of the new long-bodied Dash-8 - a sleek bird.

Big news was finally cracking the security code on the car radio. DD let the battery run down some months back, and I've been checking codes, because i lost the bit of paper with the number on it. Every hour that the car's on we get three attempts. i started at 1111, and finally today, got to 2225, which did the trick. Almost skipped over that bunch of three, because I thought I'd already done it.

Anyway, the kids are happy now - they have been missing their music.

Still waiting on the police check. Can't do anything further until that arrives. Next Friday is probably the earliest I can start work, assuming everything goes through smoothly. The practical driving tests are held every Thursday, and they take bookings up until the preceding Tuesday. So even if the police check arrives tomorrow, it will be next Thursday and I still have some more hoops to jump through assuming I pass the test.