Project for the kids (really!)

Percy, pulling a tar wagon and S.C. Ruffy (all Bachmann gear).


Thomas, pulling four trucks, two of which happen to be troublesome (all Bachmann gear).

Darter

Photograph of a remarkably tame Darter at Ascot Waters in Perth, Western Australia. The feather pattern is incredible.

Dingo

I saw my first Dingo yesterday - it was feeding on a kangaroo carcass on the side of the road between Tom Price and Paraburdoo.  I didn't get any photographs, we were keen to make sure we didn't miss the plane home.

I also saw a fair few cows near the junction of the Rail Access Road and the road to the Brockman mine site (where I went for work).  A lot of the mines in the Pilbara are on/near functional cattle stations.  There has been plenty of rain recently so the cows looked in very good condition.

Review: Belkin Flip

I just purchased a Belkin Flip (a two computer KVM setup). It works as advertised and currently shares my monitor, keyboard and mouse between my Mac Mini and my Power Mac G4 500MHz DP. I am impressed with the quality of most of the cables. My only gripe is the paddle that allows you to switch between inputs is a little flimsy (and the cable is very thin). For the price, however, it is excellent value.

Train Set

I spent some of the weekend wiring up a switch for the train set. I now have two separate sections of track (joined so trains can travel between them but not joined electrically). I can control the sections from separate power supplies (allowing two trains to run at the same time) or control the whole board from the one supply. This is achieved using a switch and some fairly fancy (for me anyway) wiring.

On the list of things to do are:

• House the wiring and switch properly;
• Child-proof the two power supplies (so they don't get pulled off);
• Fix a few sections of the track that seem to cause intermittent derailment;
• Take some photos (and videos) of the train set in action;
• Wire up the two "experimental" electrically controlled points (these will allow access to two sidings I have added);
• Fix some things that have been broken;
• Design and construct the tunnel, station and quarry.