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Was sitting inside at around 4pm today enjoying our lovely evaporative cooling and suddenly the sound of air pouring out of the vents just stopped. I thought it was odd because evaporative cooling doesn’t usually turn off like that, so I looked around the room and sure enough all appliances had gone off. Not to mention it’s strange when you’re using a laptop and the power goes as the computer just continues running on battery and web pages stop loading before the wireless network drops out.

Thought I’d be smart and drive down to the supermarket to do some shopping that needed to be done. Though along the way, not a single set of traffic lights were working and Safeway too was without power. Fortunately I managed to get in there while the building was still cool and they were running the store on emergency lighting and minimal power for the cash registers (without the conveyor belts or any of the displays). Though the checkout guy said they’d be closing it as soon as it gets hot. Went home still no power, so went over to Chadstone which still had power. Came back home to cook dinner and fortunately the power came on not long after.

Thought it may have been caused by the load placed on the electricity system from refrigerative cooling systems (as opposed to more energy efficient evaporative coolers), though as it turns out it was caused by bushfires taking out a main transmission line. In total, we lost two gigawatts of power out of the state total of nine gigawatts. Radio reports were saying that over a thousand sets of traffic lights were out, so needless to say, police were very scarce and the roads were chaotic.

Well I’m glad we have our power back!

I’m probably the person you’d least expect to take an interest in the Commonwealth Games. Hell, I hardly even took any interest at all until they were nearly here and to many extents, sold out. Still it turned out to be a somewhat interesting ten days.

Probably the first thing I noticed was that off-peak public transport was far more crowded than usual. Standing room only when ever I got on at Box Hill, only to become packed like sardines beyond Camberwell. Some of this can probably be attributed to school holidays alone, though not usually beyond the level that you wouldn’t be able to get a seat. Though I also took some time to watch the opening ceremony on TV. It wasn’t as flash as the Olympics, though there were a few impressive moments, such as the tram with whings (where did they get all the conductors from these days?).

On the first weekend of the games, I stayed the night at my brothers place and had a bit of an enjoyable time watching the games on TV, including various things as gymnastics, swimming, etc. The next morning I couldn’t pull myself away from the television as Kerryn McCann was about to win the Marathon. None the less, after that I didn’t watch any more on TV, I did turn the TV on for a moment though unlike at my brothers house, there just wasn’t the choice to watch whatever I preferred of four different events. So after that again, it was back to the crowded public transport being the only thing reminding me that the games were on.

However, on Friday night I went with some friends to an event at the Sidney Myer Music Bowl. It was the combined Army, Airforce and Navy bands and although there are many great events held in the music bowl every summer, this was part of a range of events put on during the Commonwealth Games. Perhaps not so ‘gamesish’ though the additional crowds around town and the improved public transport services were something to note.

Though the highlight the Games for me would have to have been going to the Cycling Road Race on Sunday. As spectators it involved plenty of walking as we wanted to check out the course from various locations, so needless to say with this and the 31˚C heat (not to mention the poor buggers out racing in it) we were buggered by the end of the day. Oh yes and I did grab some photos before the camera batteries went flat, they are availble in my gallery and on flickr. Still there was nothing like the sense of exhilaration as we watched Matt Hayman finish the race, winning gold.

Well that’s my wrap up of the Commonwealth Games.

Last week I finally bought a scanner, which is about the first time I’ve had a scanner at home for years. I ended up getting a fairly low-end Epson Perfection 3490 scanner, since for the moment if I want to do a few more decent scans I can do it on one of the $2,000 Epson Expression 1680 scanners at TAFE (if I ever get there). Though already I can see that it’s hard to get a scan that looks anything like the original.

Nonetheless, back in 1998 when I was a young teenager some friends wanted to do some go-karting down at Port Melbourne. So one of them convinced his dad to drive us, though on the way back we went via Victoria Dock. By that stage the harbour was closed as the “Bolte Bridge” (as it was later named) was beginning to block the way for ships. By that stage the docks had been abandoned and we could drive right out onto the wharf. There was something I liked about the baron atmosphere so not long later I went back with my own father along with the old Pentax SLR camera. So I took these photos in the Winter of 1998, knowing that the place was about to undergo a major change. Despite my dislike of freeways (a number of them are of the bridge construction), they do look rather impressive. I made a number of subsequent trips back to the place, amazed at the lack of graffiti despite being only minutes from the central city. While the horse stables (used for those horse and carriage rides that you see around the CBD) made it almost feel as though the place was stuck in a time warp.

Later in the year Kennett had one of his massive open days where he’d open up all his projects, so I was able to get some inside shots of the Docklands Stadium as it was under construction. Later I also took some pictures of some other parts of Melbourne for a web site that I had created. Though some of the shots had been scanned overtime, the scans have long been missing. So here they are, also to be compared with the same location but earlier this year:

• Melbourne 1998
• Victoria Harbour (April 2005)

Yesterday while I was dropping by RMIT to lodge my application for changing to this new course, I stopped to take some photos. Though the campus was noticeably quiet due to the fact that it was holidays, the following was of interest:

Chris has suggested that they could house students there. I certainly think it would be rather amusing if it were used for classes It is in fact Building 19 of RMIT which was formerly the Police Watch House. More recently the building has been used as an art studio. It’s now a construction site.

Today I went mountain biking in the You Yangs which was being organised by my brother through the outdoors club. The weather was a little wet for it and it would help if I rode my bike a bit more to get my fitness up before attempting anything like this. Fortunately we were never far from the car park, where the only shelter in the area could be sought (that is; inside the vehicles).

Finally I was able to go on a tour of the Carlton & United Breweries today (along with my brother Tim). My question of the day was “you don’t get the water from the yarra do you?”. It was actually quite exciting, you get taken around the site in a little minibus, although it wasn’t a great distance there is a fair bit of traffic on the site and I spose they are also factoring for the slight chance that someone may turn up on the tour after a few too many beers!

Obviously the best part was at the end when we got to sample the beer. The beers that we sampled were (and in order):

1. Foster’s LightIce
2. Carlton Midstrength Bitter (I think?)
3. Carlton Draught (the one I liked best)
4. Carlton Black Ale