This is the blog of a Norwegian (Marianne, aka 'M') who moved to Australia in 2007 to be with Roger (aka R) and feels lucky to have escaped a comparatively communistic country with ridiculous weather!

I just stumbled across this article/blog entry and found it interesting.

One of the many awful legacies of the Bush Administration will be the way they aggravated rather than helped solve the very real threat of international terrorism.  By failing to heed warnings before the attacks of 911 and then responding in almost exactly the wrong way after those attacks, they have turned—by action and rhetoric—a big problem into something worse than it needed to be.

Read the whole article here.

I use both Dreamweaver and Photoshop quite frequently. Dreamweaver has been doing something that annoys me, and I have been thinking it was just a DW issue. But now I'm thinking it's actually a Vista issue.

What DW does is it never ever remembers the login and password for sites I'm working on. I've ticked the box where it says to save it, but every time I start DW I get an FTP error because for some reason it didn't save it. Every single time. It's not a big issue when I'm working on my own sites, because I know the username and password for them, but it's a bit annoying when I'm working on other sites, because then I have to look up the details.

And it's especially annoying if I've been doing stuff in DW and close it, thinking I'm finished for now, only to suddenly remember something I shoulda done, and then find that in the 5 seconds DW was closed it forgot the details for the site.

Sounds like a DW issue right?

Well I don't think so, because now Photoshop is doing it too. On my right in PS I like to have the character, history and layer windows open, because those are the ones I use most frequently. However, whenever I open PS it now goes back to the default windows, which are navigator, colour pallette, history and layers.

I think it's Vista's fault...

Google maps has a new feature where when you search for a street address you can go to 'street view' and see reasonably good photos of pretty much every street in Australia. Here's an example. And here's our house as it looks on google maps:

There is an outcry about the invasion of people's privacy, and the news on every channel is making a big fuss about it, because you can see people walking around in the street, getting into their cars, and see the rego plates on the cars and look at any house in any street you want.

It's ridiculous. So what if people can see our house? People walk past our house every single day. Should I be outraged because strangers dare look at our house? Or because they might look at me while I'm out in public?

And what's the problem with seeing rego plates on cars? You see rego plates every time you leave the house anyway. If you take photos of friends while you're out in public, chances are a random rego plate will be included in the photo. And what can you do with a photo of a rego plate anyway? There's nowhere to look up who owns the car. And even if there was, you don't need a photo of a rego plate to do it. Just go outside your door and within a minute or so you will see several rego plates.

In my opinion, if you're out in public, you have to expect people to look at you. It's not like you can see the insides of people's houses on Google maps. And even if you can see something in a window somewhere, it's no different to what any random person walking down the street would see.

The people who are going on about privacy issues need to lighten up. 

All Australian buildings have what is called a safety switch. This means that if you were to try to electrocute yourself by means of sitting in a bath tub and lowering a toaster or any other electrical appliance into the water, or poke a knife into the toaster, or a power outlet, nothing would happen. The safety switch would be triggered in about 10 milliseconds as the leak to earth is detected, the safety swich would trigger, and the power would go out before you ever felt anything.

Today, this turned out to be very good news for my fish. I was doing some stuff in my 90 litre tank, and had lifted the hood, which has the lights in it, up for convenience. When I had finished and was putting the hood back in it's place, it slipped and one end of the light went in the water.

The safety switch was immediately triggered and my fish were spared from death by electrocution. They have no idea how lucky they are.

We would prefer to keep our cats as indoor cats. Then we would never have to worry about them getting hit by cars. It's also illegal to let cats leave the property on their own. Unfortunately, life isn't that simple. The cats want to go outside. Especially Julie and Odo. Julie became a much happier cat after she was allowed to go out.

We have been talking about cat proofing the garden for a while, but have been unsure of how to do it. We contacted a company which specialises in nettings for custom cat enclosures, but they wanted $1500 for the netting alone. In addition there would have been all the bolts and screws. So we put it on hold - again.

But one day last week we went for a walk around the area and saw a dead cat by the side of the road. So we decided we needed to do something about the garden. R had an idea for a cheap alternative to the custom netting.

Instead of putting up a netting from the fence all the way to the roof like the netting people wanted to, he was sure he could simply cat proof the fence, and prevent them from jumping over it somehow. We got a lot of plastic mesh and aluminium strips which were made into 45 degree brackets (turns out you can't get 45 degree brackets pre-made). The brackets were then attached to the fence, and the mesh stretched along the fence, held at a 45 degree angle. The thought was that when the cats try to jump the fence, they would be met by mesh at the top, and cats can't climb upside down.

The trees had to be trimmed quite heavily to prevent the cats climbing up them and then over the mesh.

This corner was a possible weak link because of the gap between the shed and the fence which we put mesh over, but it then made it possible for the cats to climb up the mesh and onto the shed roof, so we had to find a way to prevent that too:

After we put all the mesh up and tried to think of every possibly escape route, it was time to let the cats out. Julie is the most desperate to leave the garden, so she was the real test. Here she is trying to find a way over the fence:

After Julie was first let out and realised there was no way over the fence, she sulked for about an hour, but then she realised that the garden isn't so bad, and made herself comfy:

Where the fence is straight it works perfectly. They cannot get over the mesh. The problem is the aircon units which they can stand on and then jump onto the shed roof. Both Odo and Julie managed to get out eventually, but we will secure the aircon units tomorrow.

The total cost was just a little over $200 and it took about 7 hours.

(All photos can be clicked for bigger versions)

In Norway a few supermarkets make you pay for plastic bags. They have the store logo printed on them. No other stores make you pay for plastic bags.

A lot of people complain about having to pay for them, they say the store should be paying them to carry around advertisements for the store.

Today I read that other supermarket chains in Norway have now decided to make customers pay for plastic bags, saying it's an environmental thing, despite customers grumbling about it. The price you pay for a single plastic bag is usually 50 øre (10¢), unless it's gone up since I was last there.

Here in Australia all plastic bags are free. At least they all were until very recently. Borders, a big chain of bookstores, recently started charging 10¢ for their plastic bags, saying "our plastic bags cost 10¢, because they cost the earth a lot more".

So at supermarkets you get free plastic bags, but as an environmentally friendly alternative you can buy canvas bags. Every single supermarket will have canvas bags readily available throughout the store. You can get plain ones with the supermarket logo on them, or themed colourful ones. They cost about $1 (5 kr) and can be used again and again. They're bigger and stronger than plastic bags, so you need fewer of them.

In Norway you don't have this option, at least not the last time I was there. I'm sure you can get canvas bags somewhere in Norway, but supermarkets don't generally offer any alternative to plastic bags. Which is what makes it pointless to make people pay for them. The whole point of making people pay for them is so more people will choose to not use plastic bags, thus reducing the amount of plastic bags which are produced and dumped and end up killing wildlife somewhere.

If you go to the bookstore, not using a plastic bag is a real alternative. You can easily carry one of two books home without the use of a bag. When you're doing shopping for the week or month, you can't realistically choose to not use bags.

So when people grumble about having to spend 10¢ on each plastic bag, I think they have a good point. It's not that it's so terribly expensive and they can't afford it, it's just that it's pointless. The stores are making a bigger profit from it, because everyone has to get the plastic bags, whether they are free or not.

 

 

The cabinet of the Fijian Government has just approved a decision to support a Universal Declaration on Animal Welfare (UDAW) at the United Nations. Fiji is the first Pacific Island nation to endorse the development of this important initiative. The Declaration will be global recognition that animals matter, can feel pain and experience suffering. And that all of us - from individuals to governments - have a responsibility to put an end to cruelty around the world.

Do something amazing - Sign the petition

The Australian government has a Department of Climate Change. Norway doesn't, prolly because 30% of the Norwegian population doesn't believe climate change is man made. Their government reflects this view. Even the politicians who claim to care about global warming, are not willing to be inconvenienced to do anything for the environment. 'We care, but only as long as we don't have to spend any time or effort doing anything.'

Another reason to like Australia.

On a different note, water restrictions were lifted from 'extreme' to 'high' on July 31. The daily target per person has been raised from 140 litres to 170 litres. R and I have been using about 110 litres each.

Under extreme restrictions, we were not allowed to use a hose at all at any time for any reason. We were allowed to clean the house, car and bins, but only using a bucket and only if our health and/or safety was at risk. Showers were limited to 4 minutes per person per day, and everyone was encouraged to recycle shower water for the garden, and to install water saving shower heads, taps and toilets.

Under high restrictions, everything is pretty much the same. The biggest difference is that we're now allowed to use a hose. But only at certain times. We live in an even-numbered house, so we're allowed to wash the car with the hose between 4 and 4:30 every Sunday. We're also allowed to use the hose to water the garden every Wednesday and Sunday between 4 and 4:30.

For newly established gardens the rule is:

For such premises, water from the reticulated (town) supply system is not permitted to be used for the watering of newly established gardens and lawns except where the watering is by hand held hose and where the watering occurs within the following hours: for 1 hour only on the day of establishment; and for 1 hour daily (between 4.00 am and 7.00 am or between 4.00 pm and 7.00 pm) for 14 days (including Mondays) after the date of establishment (receipt for installation or purchase required).

We installed a garden pond yesterday and used the hose to fill it. I was curious if that was allowed, so I looked that up too. It turns out it's not allowed:

For such premises, water from the reticulated (town) supply system is not permitted to be used for the filling or the topping up of fish ponds, frog ponds or outdoor aquariums except where the water is used from a bucket filled directly from a tap.

I find that rather strange. I guess none of the people in charge of the restrictions bothered to actually use their heads and so they didn't realise a pond holds the same amount of water no matter what you use to fill it.

You can read about the restrictions in detail here.

While I was living in Norway, I never let the weather bother me. As a teenager it did bother me, but I realised that it was too inconvenient to let the weather affect my mood, seeing as Norway has some 200 rainy days, and about 10 sunny days a year. So I refused to let it affect me at all, and even when it would rain non stop for 6 weeks, I wouldn't think anything of it.

Things certainly have changed. Brisbane has an average of 243 sunny days a year, and so I have gotten used to getting up to warmth and sunshine. It's great:)

The only problem are the days when it's overcast or raining. I get sooo depressed and grumpy and don't feel like doing anything. If I have to do something in the garden I can't stand to stay outside for more than about 2 minutes at a time. All I wanna do is sit in front of my computer and try to not look out the window.

I think we have to face the fact that Americans hate each other much more than most other nationalities–as is reflected in our murder rates. We are one of the most deeply religious and homicidal societies on earth. Even in 2001 you were five times as likely to be murdered by an American as by an arab terrorist. And we love to kill children more than ANY other nation. I think the consensus here is fairly representative of American society and it is overwhelmingly in favor of giving teachers the power of deadly force. And this is a lesson that will not be lost on their students–it is pointless trying to reason with an American, even if you are an authority figure, and you should always be prepared to kill. In our society, power and respect comes not from education but from the barrel of a gun.

I got this quote from Randi who got it from a comment in a news article about how some teachers in Usa are now allowed to carry guns to work.

A couple days ago R was showing Olivia our new pond. He gave me credit for everything, because he didn't want it to sound like it was all his idea. What R didn't know at the time is that I was in the bedroom which has a door out to the outside area, and so I heard everything they said.

So R had no idea I could hear him, and he still made sure he gave me credit. Just another thing that makes him perfect and I feel extremely privileged to be with him:)

A few months ago I started reading a book called 'Raw energy', and you can read more about the theory behind that here.

As a result of what I read in the book, I changed my diet to include a lot of raw fruit and veggies. R also changed his diet, both because it's easier if we both eat the same thing, and because we both wanna stay healthy.

Last Sunday, R started getting sick. Colds hit him hard, and usually last 9-10 days. But yesterday, Wednesday, the fever, joint aches and blocked nose were gone. He's still coughing and sniffing a bit, but he feels fine, and is pretty much all better.

I have no other explanation, except that a diet consisting of a lot of raw veggies makes us healthier, and so his body was able to fight off the cold in only 3 days.