Went away for a night...

to Echoes in the Blue Mountains for no reason other than we could!

Great place, amazing views of the mountains and I now have a real desire to do some serious bushwalking.

There was a spot out in the distance in the valley below which fascinated me called the Ruined Castle which apparently you can walk to and the trip is 7 hours. It says "for experienced walkers only" and not for the faint hearted... well, I am going to do some practice walks and take it on down the track.

We walked around Lady Darley's Point, down to the Three Sisters and of course took in the great views from Echo Point which was quite pleasant on a week day afternoon without a huge amount of tourists as there are on weekends.

Anyways, here's some pics:

Niki with the Three Sisters

Me with the "Ruined Castle" behind me on the left. This shot was on our balcony ;)

Me at the bottom of Lady Darley's steps... shear drop behind me.

Us at the base of the VERY steep stairs to the Three Sisters

Glad my taxpayers dollars aren't being used...

...to buy out bad debts like they are in the US!

The US Congress is debating the need to spend $700Bn of tax payers dollars to bail out bad debts from its financial institutions.

$700 billion dollars!

That is the largest rescue package ever since the Great Depression and is an alarming fact that the US economy - of which we're tied to the hip - is in severe trouble.

Of course, with the markets failing, investors move into secure / solid asset classes like Gold and Oil and the price of oil surged upwards by $25 a barrel which pundits here in Australia are saying will increase our bowser cost by 25 cents a litre.

$2 / litre petrol is not far away people!

So whilst our taxes are not being spent on this farcical payout, the trickle down effects on our costs of living will be huge.

Funny, I heard an ad on the radio this morning for a special on LPG gas conversion for your car... timely ;-)

Why the AIG bailout is bad news for all...

OK, some seriousness today...

The collapse of one of the worlds leading insurers AIG and its subsequent rescue by the US Federal Reserve in exchange for 80% of the companies ownership is very alarming.

I am not sure if Australians are aware of AIG other than the fact that they are the sponsors of Manchester United, but the reality is that many Australian corporates rely on AIG for insurance and the collapse of such a large entity will spell operational cost increases for those corporates and hence those costs will be passed on to their customers - i.e us punters.

To put it into terms we Australians understand - HIH Insurance collapsed leaving debts of $4.5Bn. AIG needed A$107Bn to bail it out... roughly 25 times the size... and yet we Australians still spit when we hear the acronym HIH.

But the government bailed out AIG in the US and now own 80% of the company. Whilst that is a good thing in the short term, how can such a large company now be owned by the government and continue to operate... I believe that what the US Federal Reserve has done is stopped AIG imploding but it will still die a slow death and ease the sudden pain on the economy.

But what next? If AIG has collapsed, then what about the other big players in finance? How many companies need help? How many will get it? And what happens if the US Federal Reserve continues to buy up ailing big companies?

We suddenly move from a free economy to a government owned economy.

Is that not Communism?

I'm OK... but its been pretty bad!

Well, I have had a cold this past week... a few sniffles... but I don't think it will blow up into full on ManFlu.

ManFlu is a horrendous virus and one that should be treated as below:



Niki had a bit of a runny nose too... but not as bad as me!

Weekend Over... Does it matter when you're unemployed?

Wow... life seems on cruise mode at the moment...

Today was Monday and I had no Monday-itis!! I tell you what, I am seriously thinking about going to see the World Vision people and asking them to sponsor me rather than some poor unfortunate in Africa. This life of lazy luxury is actually getting appealing!!

But it can't last forever, but I can report that I am now talking to three job prospects, all of which I would take in a flash... so hopefully it won't be long now.

Now, the weekend... (am trying to work out what was different about the weekend in comparison to Friday or today?)

Saturday we did the Dancing / Shopping routine and the sad thing for me is that I have given up playing cricket this summer and I was being given score updates as to how the boys were progressing without me (poorly!) and I ensconsed myself on the lounge on Saturday night to watch the two football finals that were on, including my own team the Dragons who also played poorly to be smashed out of the competition...

Sunday... well we went out for lunch... and I watched more football! It was a bit of a second Fathers Day given Niki and the Girls were so sick the weekend before.

Now today, well that wasn't much different...

Wonder what I will do tomorrow??

Classic Nerd Comedy

I have said I don't play World of Warcraft... this is why!

Very funny...

http://www.watchtheguild.com/

On The Painting Desk - Khemri Done

Have finished my Khemri Blood Bowl team... even played a match with them today (and won!).

Quite happy with the way they turned out... the pinning of the pieces was extraordinary in that each miniture was actually 8 seperate bits (except the Mummies which were a full casting).

Very fiddly to put together, was really put off doing it in the first place because of it, but now that they're done, I am happy with the look of the team!

Khemri Mummies

2 Blitz-Ra's and 2 Thro-Ra's... really happy with the eyes on these guys

The Skeletons... differing helmets are a nice touch.

Team Shot!

All up, this has taken me about 6 weeks to do, but I do paint teams in a sporadic fashion... 15mins here, an hour here etc... the pinning though took more than the painting!