Ian from Sydney

Thank you Ian. Wasn't Oscar great? It was good of you to post this. Merry CHristmas to you and Anne and all of your family!

Ian, What a wonderful selection to pay tribute to Oscar's great talent...Thanks for being so timely. Holiday Blessings to you and yours on theis Christmas season.

Ian - thanks so much for your comments! I appreciate your suggestions and will look into the Sony W200 and also check out the website you mentioned.

Thanks Ian for the help with that flag. I must admit that all the changes in the Balkans and the former Soviet Union have left me behind a bit.

Hello Ian and Anne, and I hope your Xmas was everything you wished of it, and that you have a great 2008!! Sorry for the tardiness of my wishes, but Telstra put us off the air (no phone or internet!!) the week before Xmas and it has taken this long to get it all straight again, plus a new modem and tower!
I think that we have become grand-neighbours, as our son moved to Bronte Road before Xmas! Hope you are both well, and that Micheal has a safe return, Ngaire.

Stopped by to wish you good cheer
Brought a little bubblie here
May your toast be great
For two thousand eight
May you have a very

Hope your Christmas was blest.
No resolutions to obsess
It is not too late
For to celebrate
Our Lord Saviour’s Righteousness

Ian and Family!

Happy New Year Anne and Ian. I hope this year and many more in the future are filled with happiness, good health, the love of family and friends and peace!

Ian, and for visiting my new page.

The photo on my page was another taken by my 10-year-old son and it wasn't until I revisited it yesterday that I realised just how good a shot it is - he's managed to get me, my wife and younger son (the other two are in the distance on the right) in the frame as well as getting the essentials of the Pont du Gard itself! He regularly puts my photos to shame. I must put up a photo he took of a parrot at Dubbo zoo when he was 6 - it's absolutely spectacular.

Ian and Anne, I was sorry to hear of your cousins passing.

Freinds come and go,
Some rarely show,
But others stay forever.
Should we be cross,
Because of their loss,
It means we will see them never.

They'll stay in your heart,
And just when you start
To feel a little sad.
Remember the joy
They brought, and oh boy,
You'll once again feel very glad.

For the times that you had,
The good and the bad,
The pleasure you found in their smile.
Remember them well,
Let your heart swell,
And they'll stay in your heart for a while.

Hi Ian, thanks for the birthday greetings. It was yesterday 15th. Another meeting some time later in the year would be great and I keep looking out for suitable venues. I did have a coffee with Kate and her daughter at Macquarie shopping centre a couple of weeks ago.
We are going to Melbourne tomorrow for a few days so hopefully the site will be working properly when we get back. June /Epping

Thanks for dropping in yesterday, Ian and for you appreciation of my photos. Sorry to read about your cousin's death. That poem from Greg is beautiful. Say hello to Anne & Michael for me!

Hi Ian. There's a story about that python you liked so if you don't want to "hear" it, don't read any further! We were at a farewell lunch for someone who's going back to Dubai for another couple of years to work when we got a phone call from another river friend saying there was a python in Dave's chook shed. (Dave's at his son's recovering from a broken femur & this friend's been cutting his grass, looking after the chooks & collecting the eggs.) He'd rung Dave & told him about the python & also said it had eaten the 2 budgies that lived with the hens & he didn't know what to do about it! Dave knew we were there so told him to ring Paul & he sort it out! Paul said I don't know how to catch a snake, so I said well we'll have to get a strong bag, a forked stick & a noose on another stick. Paul had a bag & he said the boat hook would do as a forked stick but there was no noose! So I said that'll have to! So we went off & got the python out (took quite a while!) then released it into the bush near the dam & fixed where it had got in! I took a couple of pictures of it sitting high up in the shed - very dark & a little blurred, but I put one up anyway, just for the memory! (Didn't want to use the flash & frighten it more... we were frightened too!) I took over 40 after we released it but only a few were any good - moving too fast, leaves in the way........... We weren't bitten by the snake but I ended up with a leech on my leg!

Hi Kate, I guess that's payback for the pleasures of living in the bush.
I have been following your photos and you have some beauties. Unfortunately I don't have time right now to go through them slowly, but I'll get there sooner or later.
I loved the snake story. I have seen so many King Browns on fishing expeditions and Red-Bellied Blacks at our previous home that I automatically think of all snakes as venomous. I realise that pythons are relatively docile creatures, but they can give a nasty bite if agitated.

Silly me - I replied on my own page!!!

I did it, and its up on my page, a little small, but looks great. Thanks, I think I've found myself another new toy.

Have a great one!

I managed to get the bigger pic, and I've updated it on on my page. Please let me know if you would like something like that on your page, I would be more than happy to give you the links.

Wow That's Snowy River is somthing

Hi Ian. Thanks for dropping by and leaving a comment for my husband. He was not nominated for an Order of Australia Medal, but for a local Council Award. While he was not named as Citizen of the Year for our local area, he did receive a Community Service Volunteer Special Commendation Award. The nomination by itself was both a huge surprise, and honour. To receive further recognition for the work he does with our local youth band blew him away. As it would appear from your comment that you have been a recipient of an OA, you would know that people who do volunteer work do not do so for any form of recognition, and generally just plod along doing the best they can to be of assistance, and hope that their efforts are of some value and use to someone. Even hearing some one utter one of the most gracious, and prehapse under used terms, "Thank you", is recognition enough. Consequently, he is over the moon with the recognition he has been given. Thanks Ian.

Thanks again for your kind words Ian. However, I think that you may underestimate your community contribution - an OA is not just handed out because you have fulfilled a commitment, but because you have made a valuable contribution, regardless of whether that contribution is in Australia, or overseas, and regardless of what that contribution was, there has clearly been an element of service to some community. You deserve to be congratulated - so congratulations!

G'Day Ian, sorry I haven't been around for a while, just thought you might like to see some photos of the new Jabiru I am flying, check it out in my gallery on my page.

Ian,

The registration of the planes is Australian, but on the recreational register (RAAus) not the G.A. register, hence the numbers rather than three letters.

Sorry the Jabiru is cleared for aeros, I have spoken to the manufacturer and he said that he didn't want the hassle of getting through CASA, but he did imply that the test pilot has done many, and the structural test of the wing went to 13g.

is = is not

No problem RE: the chat room Ian, family is far more important.

Stall is fairly docile, so much so that to induce and incipient spin you need to stall at high power and then kick a boot full of rudder in. We are only allowed to teach incipient spins, but some times it takes the student a while to recover, so is it still incipient? sometimes maybe not.

There is no reason the Jabiru couldn't do aeros, it is just not certified for them, I am sure many have done them, but I couldn't stand up in a court of law and say for sure.

'wing down' technique in crosswind landings; yep, the Jab is easy to land in a crosswind that way, the book quotes 14knot demonstrated, but I've done far more than that when its not gusting, as the gust can make you run out of rudder.

Steve

The instrument panel as every option Jabiru can provide, even an AoA indicator (tri coloured bar next to the airspeed bar at bottom).

And yes it is a great little plane, great 'bang for buck', $80K standard but $100K in this configuration.

On the flight home I averaged TAS 105k, in the picture I'd just finished a climb so the plane was not yet at cruse (almost) of IAS 95k.

The instrument panel is not quite option 5, non of the night options, as you are not allowed to night fly under recreational licence, and doesn't have the second COM, though the COM in it is dual watch (ie can listen on two frequencies and transmit on one).

Just letting you know, I've used another one of your photo's and animated it.
Check this one out, its up on my page. I just love it!

Thanks for the info Ian, Angie/M is 1 smart cookie.

Sounds magnificent.
I'm sure I'll be back to you once I've had the atlas out again...
One question - is there just one place that you really, REALLY wished you had had the time and funds for? [or any you felt ..nah, could've lived without that?]
I wish when I was in China in '86 that we had visited Guilin [spelling?]...I wonder if I will ever get back.
Ciao for now.

I have another one of your photo's up. The Dutch Home.
Thanks again for letting me use your photo's to play around with.

Ian, I just at Bean's and read your itenary for the two big trips you have taken. There are so many places to go and so little time. Once I am better and have the brace off then I will start on plans of where we will go this year. Have a good idea but have to get the doctors ok first.
Guess it was good I finally got a look at your pictures, maybe get a new toy because of it.

Thanks for the muddy flood warning, Ian! The River's been very muddy for ages, as soon as it starts to look clear more rain comes! The water height is no problem, but the logs that are swept along by the flooding in the little creeks are a major hazard!

Good, Ian, it will make a great jigsaw puzzle when it finally makes it there. (Hope it gets to hard!)

Beautiful hard jigsaw today, I don't normaly do sunrise nice to see what they look like. Looking forward to more of your pictures.

I've just enjoyed your "Man from Snow River", thanks. I've finally got some speakers!

You touched my dreams with your youtube video... Someday (hopefully in the very near future) I would like to do one of the touristy tours of the Snowy River country horseback. I know it will be watered down (the horseback part, not the pub part) for liability reasons, but I still want to do it. Left your crew some salsa and chips from Arizona.

vwhite1212, the High Country is a spectacularly beautiful and rugged part of Australia. I hope you make it.

Silly me - sound asleep and I answered it on my own page!