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Post by chookmustard on Aug 10, 2013 18:32:13 GMT 10
Great stories angra, thanks for sharing.
I've had the pleasure of nearly being wiped out by a tree as well. A massive gum tree branch dropping where I had been standing a moment before.
So weird, no warning at all as the branch looked healthy.
That gun story sent chills through me though!
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Post by angra on Aug 10, 2013 18:42:03 GMT 10
You know they call big 'ole gum trees with hanging branches 'widow makers.'
Best to avoid them when the wind picks up.
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Post by Matthew Of Canberra on Aug 10, 2013 18:56:14 GMT 10
I didn't know widows grew on trees.
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Post by angra on Aug 10, 2013 19:01:25 GMT 10
MoC - you cheeky devil!
I'll add one more thing to the drowning kids story - which is perfectly true. When that little girl (around 7) looked at me and said "I don't want to die!" I knew in my soul that I would either save her, or die myself trying.
Funny what extreme danger brings out in you.
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Post by Matthew Of Canberra on Aug 10, 2013 19:18:39 GMT 10
"We all have odd things happen to us"
I've had a pretty dull existence. I fell out of a moving car when I was a kid - an old morris of some kind, the driver gunned it turning right from a standing start (t-intersection, cross road, adelaide). My bro and I were in the passenger seat - he had the seat belt on, I went out the door (the latch didn't work). I jumped up laughing and sprinted after the car, never told my parents.
I had a bit of a moment very late one winter's night about 15 years ago. About to turn right onto northbourne ave, decided that I just couldn't bear to put up with the inanity on the radio any longer and held off pulling away on the green to change the channel - as a road train went through the red. I was a bit startled. These days I regard that as pretty normal canberra-driver behavior - the competence level here has really plummeted in the last decade, to the point where it's sometimes comical.
And I guess I stopped a girl jumping off an overpass once. It's so surreal I find it hard to believe it actually happened. But I told people about it when I arrived at dinner later, so I have testimony. I was younger and fitter, and I hadn't started taking SSRIs yet, so I was prone to flashes of slightly irrational moods. I drove over a bridge near my house and did a double take - a girl was on the other side of the railing and there was a crowd of people around her. I flipped out, got a bit angry, decided that angry was a response that I could go with, pulled my car up on two wheels and shimmied out over the bridge on the other side of the railing - I basically wrapped myself around her and ensured that she wasn't going anywhere. Then we negotiated our way back to end she came from where the police were waiting. I got back in my car and went to dinner. I doubt if she was really going to jump - I suspect it was a pretty terrible cry for attention/help, and I don't really think I was in any danger - the drop was real enough, but I was pretty strong then, and a lot bigger than she was. But it was still surreal. The poor girl's arms were a terrible mess.
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Post by Matthew Of Canberra on Aug 10, 2013 19:22:03 GMT 10
I'm just impressed that you could swim hard for 10 minutes. That would kill me. I missed the excitement on a coast trip many years ago when a chap got caught in a rip, and his girlfriend swam out and grabbed him. Turns out she was a very strong swimmer.
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Post by angra on Aug 10, 2013 19:31:00 GMT 10
The flippers make the difference.
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Post by chookmustard on Aug 10, 2013 20:11:49 GMT 10
I didn't know widows grew on trees. Stop it , you're killin me. Seriously
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Post by angra on Aug 10, 2013 20:37:31 GMT 10
Sadly, saving the kids in the sea was the seed for my divorce. I could never accept her dismissal of this as just "another swimming trip which meant nothing to anyone" (as she put it).
I nearly died, and so did they. And the father was devastated - with the exhaustion and guilt and mother's scorn etc.
I looked into that young girl's eyes, saw her close to death, and saw the anguish on her mother's face. If wife +1 couldn't accept that as a real emotional drama then she was wife -0, as far as I was concerned, as it gutted me.
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Post by angra on Aug 11, 2013 9:14:11 GMT 10
If you like tales of weird things (without the usual conspiracy nut trimmings) then try the Fortean Times. Always a good read on a cold winter's night with the rain lashing the windows panes and the wind howling around the house, and that strange scratching noise comes again, and you feel a cold chill grab your heart like clawed fingers gripping a struggling terrified creature... www.forteantimes.com/ (God, HP Lovecraft has a lot to answer for) We moved into our house last year, and there is a lovely tree growing next to the carport, with branches hanging over. On a windy night a branch rubs against the car port roof making strange scratching noises - which used to keep me up thinking it was giant rats or something, until I worked it out. Secateurs have removed the mystery. Then we found our outside light going on and off at night. It was activated by a motion sensor. On/off, on/off, but no obvious cause of motion. One night I stayed up late to try and fathom the mystery. On/off, on/off. Then I looked out the window and the answer was revealed. Kangaroos! nibbling our shrubbery! (My neighbour has given us a great recipe for marinated kangaroo jerky)
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Post by Matthew Of Canberra on Aug 11, 2013 10:24:07 GMT 10
Usual disclaimer - podcast junkie. You might like jimharold.com/He's got a "campfire" show, a call-in show where people tell their ghost stories. And he's got a "paranormal" show, which is more book reviews, interviews, paranormal news, stuff like that. It's better than some of that sort because jim harold isn't a raving lunatic, and keeps the show pretty tidy and sensible (given the parameters). It's one I have to be in the mood for, but it's entertaining. Monster talk is doing episodes again - basically the entertaining, debunking version of the above. With puns.
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Post by Matthew Of Canberra on Aug 11, 2013 10:28:48 GMT 10
Just trying to set up my homebrew-airwave-harvesting-clunky-tivo-like-arrangement to record the great debate (for entertainment purposes only). The ABC seems to be a bit on the hop - their schedule for tonight is all over the shop, and none of the links point to anything!
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Post by angra on Aug 11, 2013 11:39:17 GMT 10
I've got a redundant Foxtel satellite dish on my roof. Can you point it anywhere else and get something useful? Or do you need some special gizmo?
I rang them and asked them to take it away, but they weren't interested - suggested I take it to the recycling tip. Seems a waste. Surely a satellite receiver can be used for something (other than a wok)?
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Post by Matthew Of Canberra on Aug 11, 2013 12:37:06 GMT 10
Stick it on ebay, see what you get for it.
There WILL be SOMEBODY out there with a use for it. I have no idea what, but that's because I don't know anything about them.
I arrived at a friend's place (a ways outside canberra) a few months back to see one of the gang mucking about with a powered directional antenna - he was trying to locate a mystery 4G tower that was showing a signal, by triangulation (we sure as heck couldn't see it). I suspect that he had nefarious designs on making use of it, but it's also just the sort of thing he does.
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Post by Matthew Of Canberra on Aug 11, 2013 12:42:49 GMT 10
Just listening to "backstory" while doing the ironing. They're talking about the history of popular astronomy in the US.
I just popped downstairs to kick off some backups, but they just finished telling the tale of how pluto was discovered.
Apparently the founder of the lowell observatory was convinced that there was a Planet X, to explain the wobbled that he (incorrectly) deduced in the orbits of some planets. When he died, his will said that his observatory had to keep looking for it, or lose the money. The other astronomers didn't have any time for that, so they decided to find somebody who was willing to just do that, so they could get on with more interesting things. They found their mark in Clyde Tombaugh, who wanted to go to college but the harvest failed - so he was looking for a job. He'd previously built his own telescope, including making the lenses, and had done detailed drawings of planets. So lowell hired him to do the observations and photo comparisons while the rest of the astronomers did other things. And Tombaugh found Pluto.
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