Fatal collision at Moonlight
From the Victoria Police website:
Police are investigating the circumstances surrounding a fatal collision on the Pyrenees Highway. The accident occurred around 11.15am near the Chadwick Track intersection. Investigators have been told that a 76-year-old Maryborough man was riding [sic] his 98 Ford ute west along the highway. For a reason yet to be determined he lost control of the ute and collided with a tree. The man died at the scene and a report will be prepared for the Coroner.
We got the call around 11:18 and were on scene at 11:27. The driver was already deceased.
One year on
Today is the anniversary of the terrible bushfires of 7th February, 2009. The fires left 173 people dead and over 400 injured.
Twelve months on there are still scars left on the land, throughout the towns that were directly affected, and in the hearts and minds of the people who experienced the ferocity of nature at its worst.
Maryborough, where we live, was fortunate. Although we didn’t have a single fire in the area that day, Lisa and I clearly remember the sense of dread that hung in the air. The weather bureau had been warning about the day being an extreme fire risk for some time. As soon as dawn broke we could sense in the heat and strength of the wind and by the look of the sky that the day would be every bit as bad as predicted.
Some of the things I’ve heard from various SES and CFA volunteers over the last 12 months have been grim. When you’re in the way of a 1300°C fire front that travels 32km in 8 minutes you simply don’t stand a chance. I cannot imaging how the people of Strathewen, Kinglake, Marysville and countless other towns and hamlets felt as their communities were decimated by an inferno that transformed day to night, turned homes to dust and tore apart families and friendships.
Lesson have certainly been learnt. Communities are rebuilding, emergency services are better prepared and people are more aware of how devastating, unpredictable and uncontrollable fires of that scale can be. Faced with another event of this magnitude, things will be different. People will leave homes much earlier, and those who bravely choose to stay and defend have a clearer picture of what they’ll be battling against.
As much as it will be sad to remember the events of 7th February 2009, the anniversary will also be a reminder that as a community we have moved forward, we have learnt and grown and we have emerged stronger than before.
We’ll certainly pause for a moment and remember the 173 people who died, but we’ll also take heart in knowing that their loss has done much to improve the way we’ll deal with similar events in the future.
D80 fix on the horizon
I finally got a quote back from the Camera Clinic, and they want $418.00 to fix my D80. I’ve told them to go ahead. If they’ve got parts in stock (and given how popular and common the D80 was, I hope they will have) it will take a few days. If they have to order parts I’ll need to wait a couple of weeks. We’ll see. Either way, it will come back with a new SQ Motor (whatever that is), a new aperture control unit and a new shutter assembly. Should be like new and good for the next 38,000 shots!
Australia Day
Yesterday was Australia day – 26th January – which is the day those of us living down under celebrate the arrival of the first ships from England and the subsequent plundering and destruction of our country.
We took the opportunity to head into Melbourne and visit the museum. The kids had a ball because it’s such an interactive place.
They particularly liked the sandpit where they could use paintbrushes to play amateur archaeologists and uncover fossilised dinosaur bones.
I still haven’t got my D80 back, but Lisa got lots of excellent shots with her camera – there’s a set up on flickr.
The photography policy at the museum is excellent – it’s your camera, and your museum, so go crazy. The one and only place there was a “no photography please” sign was the Koori artwork gallery and that’s out of respect for indigenous Australians’ belief that by taking a picture you’re taking something away from the soul of a person.
Given how open the rest of the museum is it’s not hard to live with one small restriction.
Lisa’s flickr account
Lisa has recently started posting some of her stuff on flickr, which is really good to see. She got a D90 a few months ago and despite discovering that digital photography means a continual backlog of images to be processed she’s really enjoying it.
Not sure that her image of me as Chopper is her best work. Dubious subject.
CFA fire danger ratings for the next few days
Take care, people.
My D80 has died
Over the last few weeks I’ve had an occasional error message displayed on the top LCD of my D80. It’s been getting more and more frequent and it’s now reached the point where it’s there the whole time. The shutter fires but it doesn’t capture any images. It’s dead.
I’ll take it into a Nikon service centre as soon as I can but it probably means I’m out of action with respect to photography for the next few weeks.
When I first started getting this error I feared it was actually the shutter that was failing. In the D80 the shutter mechanism is rated for ~50K exposures, and I’m up around ~38K. The more I read about this error though the more I’m convinced it’s an electronics problem.
Our garden
Lisa has done a terrific amount of work in the back yard over the last few days. I went out early this morning and took a few shots of things that caught my eye…
Quick links
- Canon EOS 550D Announced
- US soldier waterboards his 4-year-old daughter for not reciting alphabet
- MeFi: Nobody Home
- Start your weekend off right with dancing hexapod robots
- South African budget airline's fantastic self-explanatory livery
- Hello Chainsaw
- MeFi: In Our Time - 440 archived programmes
- Highway Handbook: Why We Speed
- Oracle's Bold Plans for Java Bode Well
- Fun with punctuation
Who said what?