LPTP #8... destination reached, more or less

Well, now that the WOW event is over for SETI Main, I've restarted Einstein. I don't have any work left; however, I'm sure that BOINC will correct that for me, soon. :-)

I think the electronic age is going to bury the ancient art of paper delivery rounds, which I think started in Roman times. I too have been a purveyor of same, riding around town getting very fit because that's an up and down prospect. The town's name is Healesville but you could accurately call it Hillsville too. And yes there are the good & bad memories :

- done on a 'dragster' ie. 20 inch wheels on a 68 inch wheelbase with high riser bars, long & slightly laid back but high backed seat, with a four-gear stick-shift on centre frame. Front and rear handbrakes, plus a bit of shiny bling. Cool aka Peter Fonda in Easy Rider ! :-)

- tips from the nice lady in the caravan park if I went down the street with her outlay and asked one of the adults going into the totalisator if they could place a bet on a horse for my Dad ! Take the betting slip back, a nice ten minute job and sometimes if the horse won I got a shiny coin. Seriously that's how it was in the 60's .... :-)

- a dear old rich woman up a long winding driveway who gave me a glass of milk and a bikkie for just turning up. I didn't know it then but she was shunned by the town for some reason. It wasn't for being a witch as far as I can tell.

- saw a guy's arm lying in a ditch, which scared the crap out of me at the age of nine, and so I pedaled like mad to the cop shop and they came and checked it out where I showed them. I got a ride in the police car ! The arm was attached to a live, but drunk man whom they took home. He stunk something shocking. The police sergeant looked me in the eye and patted me on the head and said I was 'a good lad' for coming to tell them. I felt on cloud nine for a few days because he said that. Such are the memories of a child that The Police were Gods Striding Across The Earth back then.

So it is with some authority that I can say : getting the paper boy to float your newsagent account is Pathetically Poor Performance*.

Cheers, Mike.

* Actually that is so lame that I am getting mildly angry just contemplating that. I feel hard for my fellow Paper Round Bike Bro here. What alleged adult has epic failed their life to the point where they lay that on you ?

( edit ) Now that I think about it, the police did not routinely carry a sidearm then ( quiet rural Victoria was not well known for armed offences ). The coppers were all 6+ feet tall and 'built like a brick s***house' in the style of US Marines. One constable had biceps like a gorilla's leg and with the haircut to match. His mere attendance settled down any pub in the district. No one was game to dis him 'cos he could sort out 3 or four at a time ! Honestly he was Seriously A Legend, as while some tried it on when he first turned up word then quickly got around. But I believe they had pistols and a high powered 0.22 calibre rifle locked up at the station. I remember being told one constable would put injured stock down for a farmer in exchange for a bottle of beer ! Of course these days he would caned out of the force for that ! :-)

( edit )

and/or of course, paratroopers. :-)

Hmmm....I always thought the 1st of the month was the start of the month, but okay if you say so!!

That's pretty much right ! Except just add 40 degrees Celsius to get a 'proper' temperature reading. I think your thermometer is very brokenedness, ours don't read that low. :-)

Australia is a ruddy great blob of desert with a thin rind of green, largely populated by gray and red hoppy things, and otherwise known as God's Discount Venom Warehouse. If it wasn't for the south pole, and cyclones that turn downwards instead of upwards, we would have no water at all.

Cheers, Mike.

We only have the categories of brown snakes, tiger snakes, mulga/black snakes, taipans, death adders and vicious snakes. That's all. The only safe snakes are imported. Having said that a typical envenomation episode ( adult snake biting an adult human ) carries a threefold greater risk of fatal anaphylaxis ( an immediate type of 'serum sickness' ) from the antivenin 'cure' than the snake's toxin by itself. We'd probably have much better products & protocols if only we could find enough volunteers for clinical trials .... apparently no amount of money will attract previously healthy applicants. Odd.

I have treated a serious snake bite once, successfully, but it was - as per the Duke of Wellington @ Waterloo - 'a damn close-run thing'. The key, believe it or not, is identifying species specific characteristics of the scale pattern around the snake's anus. I discovered this during a hurried phone conversation with a Smart Feller In The City when I was young & Working Up The Bush. Usually this is a straight forward proposition if you are in the know and have the snake to examine.

However the snake bitee's mate who brought him in to hospital laid down in the back tray of the ute ( because he kept feinting when sat upright ), had blasted said snake to pieces with more than a few shotgun rounds. Plus one in the head to be sure. Nonetheless like a good chap he had brought the collected debris in a shopping bag. So I found a tapered segment of the snake, provisionally marked it as 'the rear end', and rapidly scanned for a tiny hole. All this while the more junior doctor is calling out falling blood pressure numbers to me. Yes I did find it, described the number of scales for and aft of said hole to Smart Feller, tiger snake ( that aren't all striped BTW ) identified, correct product given and snatched a victory from the jaws of defeat etc. That was a 'three-finger whisky after knockoff' kind of day .... :-)

FWIW : Five scales in a fan pattern forward of the hole, and three scales fanning out from the tail end of the hole. Toss that into your next Trivial Pursuit Nite. Alternatively it you are in need of Mike's Snake Backside Rapid Identification Service just pop me a PM.

Cheers, Mike.