Its been a while since I have put here any news about my rabbits.
Late last year, Stychrome, the wild one, died. He has really old. I was sad about it at the time but it is a sad fact of life in this world that things die all the time.
We buried him in the garden and put a big brick on top, and some flowers on that.
Photo: Stychrome at his prime. Click for Video in new window.
Katrina the (boy) rabbit was upset. You could tell he knew. Stychrome’s house was still there but he was empty and it made me feel a bit empty too looking at it. It is really strange to see something alive one minute and then dead. Physically its the same but it has no life. Is this the reverse of what happened when God breathed life into Adam? (Genesis 2:7)

Just as death is horrible, it is wonderful that God creates life, and even allows us to continue living. And there is another kind of life called Spiritual life. Because life made out of flesh, as I have just been talking about, will always decay and die, if we are to live forever (as Jesus promised for those who believed in him) then we have to be reborn of the Spirit. Living things on earth can only recreate the same type of life, which eventually dies, but God gives true life.(See John 3)

Back to the rabbits: Katrina was very depressed so I borrowed my brother’s wife’s rabbit which is a big fat lop eared blob compared to Katrina. We put her in Stychrome’s old house after we cleaned it. That cheered them both up a bit. Then near the end of December Katrina got very sick and was collapsed - which is the the technical term for when their legs cant hold them up and they cant even move to go to the toilet. I thought he was going to drop dead as well but I took him to the Vet and the Animal Hospital which ended up costing heaps but a few days later he was back home. They said to keep him in a cool place so I had an excuse to put the air conditioner on.It was 40 Degrees C outside. He was still sick as anything and for some reason would only eat carrots so I was dipping the carrot in other things to try to get him to eat it!.

Photo: Katrina at the vet, much better than he was. Click for full size.

After another few days he was ready and eager to go back outside so I let him out. At first he was still weak and just sat in his house but he started to get more and more adventurous and go into the yard. I would say hes back to normal now except he likes to sit still a lot. Hes an old man rabbit now. The lop-ears has gone somewhere else much to Katrina’s disappointment.

Photo: Katrina next to Belinda, feeling a bit better but tired. Click for full size.

Paul

I watched a film the other day when i was visiting my parents called ‘Its a Wonderful Life’. Its an old black and white film but they story is nice. Aridhi tells me that the story of it is very similar to a book she read too.

What it made me think of is what effect do I have on the world and people around me? In the film the main character, George gets to see what his town would be like if he had never existed. If I had never existed would things be better or worse overall? How do we know what is the right choice or the right thing to do to make things better?
I believe that by seeking God and learning his ways, then life will be as good as it can be. In the film George seems to instictively do the right thing, or sometimes he is forced into it, but he always make the right choice of the options he has. Even though he is frustrated because he feels that his own dreams have not come about he continues to do right (Until he has his breakdown at which point God helps him in answer to prayer). George realises in the end that he has more than enough to make him happy, and also all the good he has done outweighs what he has suffered, and to make a happy ending everyone in the town comes to help him and they show their appreciation for what he has done for them.

Things will not ever be exactly how we want them, whether we follow God or not, but we can be sure that since God is the ultimate wisdom and he loves us, then following him and learning his ways will help us to choose much better in the choices we have in life.

Who can we learn from to help us make good decisions? If we say the world is in a bad state then why is it like that? Should we take advice from society when we know the result already. God promises a better way

Soldering is a way to join things together using hot metal. It is commonly used in repairing and prototyping electric or electronic circuits. Mass-produced electronic circuits are also soldered but using a very different technique.

Because of the heat involved it can be a a dangerous activity for the inexperienced so it is recommended that you learn in person from somebody who is experienced at soldering.

The three main dangers from soldering are burns for the iron, fumes from the solder and other heated things, and the danger of starting a fire from the hot iron.

To reduce these dangers, always solder in a ventilated space - keep a window open, use a proper soldering iron stand, and take care when holding the soldering iron not to touch the hot element with either hand. If the soldering iron falls off the bench, dont try to catch it in midair, let it fall and hit the floor before you pick it up! Better to burn the floor a little than your hand.

This is a circuit and instructions to make a circuit which lights a light globe from batteries, with a switch. Its a do-it-yourself torch. If you just want a torch then you will save time and money buying a preconstructed one, but building your own is a good way to start learning about electric circuits. This circuit can also be expanded to accomodate multiple lights and switches etc. What actually happens between the switch in the wall and the light in your ceiling? Build this and find out!

This light circuit can be using for decorative projects or to learn about electronic circuits. It is important to use batteries and low voltage lights for safety.

Rechargable batteries can be used with a charger to save the cost of buying new batteries, otherwise nonrechargables will work fine.

Some things you will need for this project:

• 2 Batteries (and charger if using rechargable batteries)
• Battery holder for 2 batteries
• Switch
• Light globe and matching holder.
• 3 wires with alligator (gripping) clips.

I have given part numbers from Altronics, an electronics shop that you can order online from, simply because they have all the parts needed and allow you to see a picture of the parts you need, if you look up the part numbers. You can then order the parts of buy the equivelents from your local electronics shop.

Suggested part numbers from Altronics:

• Battery holder: S5025A
• Rechargable battery: S4745A (set of two)
• Switch: S1042
• Light Globe: S4042 Holder: S4055
  
• Wires: P0415 (set of 10)
  

The light globe can be whatever size you want, the voltage should be 3 volts to match the battery voltage.
There are light globes that use a heating element inside, which globes from being heated by the electricity. Inside the glass there is no air, which stops the heating element from burning as it glows white hot.
Other typs of light globes do not get hot because the produce light in a way that doesn’t make heat. These ones are called L.E.Ds.

Construction method:

1. Put the batteries in the holder (make your you put the flat end of each battery on the spring)
2. put the light globe into its holder.
3. Connect a wire using the clips from one terminal of the battery holder to one terminal of the light globe
4. Connect a wire from the other battery terminal to one terminal of the switch
5. Connect a battery from the other terminal of the switch to the other terminal of the light globe.

Now you should have a working light circuit. If not, check these things…

Switch Terminals. If your switch has more than two connections, follow this guide:…

To make this circuit permanent, you can replace the clip wires with insulated copper wire. You will need to be able to solder.

“…For this reason, because I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints, I do not cease to give my thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seating him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. And he gave him as head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all. …” - Ephesians 1:15-23

Paul the apostle wrote this to the church in Ephesus some time after the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. I think it is a good prayer for people to pray for each other, so that everyone could have a spirit of wisdom and knowledge of the Father, who is God who created the whole world and everything in it and is in control of everything, and to have eyes that can see God’s work in the world and see past the obvious things.

What is the hope that the Ephesians were called to?
What are the riches of his inheritance?
What is the immeasurable greatness of his power?

I think these questions are still relevant to everyone today. Some of what Paul wrote there is conditional ‘in the saints’ ‘toward us who believe’. I think the answers can be found in the bible, in our eperience of living in knowledge of god, and we will see our hopes fulfilled by God at the proper time. What is it that you hope for? What is it that we can and should hope for because God has promised it?

I think Paul starts to answer about the greatness in the next part. The same power that raised Christ from the dead, which is more powerful than anything on earth, above any authority here. That is the same power God can use for the good of people who believe in him, and he promised it because he said “For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.” - John 6:40. This means that even though everyone dies, the people who believe in Jesus, will be ‘raised up’ and given new life when Jesus returns to earth, which he will.

There is good news about my car (a ute really) - It has moved from the street to the driveway. My brother helped me refit the alternator and charge the battery and start it. I think it is working but not charging enough because it only charges with about 1 amp of current and the voltage is only slowly increasing past 13 volts as the car idles.

In other words it runs the car but only if I dont use the lights, the windscreen wipers or anything else that uses a lot of power.

Next step is to buy a new regulator for the alternator…

My car is broken down…again. Last time it happened I got it towed home and then got somebody to come and fix it. It was very expensive. This time it broke down out in the country. I got it jump-started and found out that the alternator which charges the battery was broken.

So I tried to drive it the rest of the way home anyway,knowing that if I stalled it it wouldn’t start again.A good test of my manual driving skills! I have had this car nearly a year and before that I only drove automatic cars. I ran out of power as I reached the edge of the city, It was getting dark and a bit wet and I had no lights, wipers, speedometer, clock…Nothing. Only the blinkers worked and they went very slowly by the sound of it and eventually stopped too.

The car kept going a surprisingly long way and then suddenly as I was going about 40km/h through an intersection the car lost power and was just rolling…So I steered into the little triangle bit between the left turning lane and the left driving lane and stopped there. Not a bad stop to stop actually it could have been worse. I called the tow-truck and then when I had to describe where I was I realized that I was nearly home,outside a shopping centre. I went to the shops while i waited for the truck. It was a surreal fealing, going from being broken down on the road to being in a nicely lit shop and everything bright and clean. I could have almost forgotten my car was there and gone shopping!

Eventually the tow truck showed up and pulled my car up without any trouble. That is becoming a familiar experience. The tow truck driver started telling me about the benefits of insurance so I started asking him about obscure places where my car could get towed from for free if it broke down. I think he got a bit carried away with some of the answers because he said they would tow it back from the Kimberly which is only about 5000km away…

The car is back on the street outside my house now. Yesterday I took the alternator out of it and washed it because it was very dirty. The dirt alone probably stopped it working…My whole hands was black after I cleaned it from the grease. I tested all the parts of the thing and put it back together…It seems to work as far as I can tell so I have to still put it back in the car and test it some more and find out why the battery isnt charging. Maybe it was just a loose connection or something or maybe the regulator is not working properly at high speed.I really need to get the thing back on the fan-belt to test it properly.

The underneath of my car’s bonnet is slowly changing from black to silver as I replace all the parts that fail one by one…

Paul

21/10/2007, Benalla, Victoria
There are lots of suggestions floating around for how everyone can ‘do their part’ to be more efficient with the resources we have. The need for this is because, for water there is not enough because of drought, and government incompetence because they did not plan ahead and build extra water storage or desalination yet. Of course people in dryer areas of the country have been dealing with lack of water for centuries. For power, because the attention is currently on greenhouses gases and climate change - we have no shortage of power generation capacity or fuel.

My main disagreement with most of the suggestions officially recommended is that they are mostly unsuitable for renting.

People renting thier home generally cant make structural or infrastructure changes, and if they could, why would they pay for it when the landlord can remove the tenant at any time with short notice. Landlords, who own their properties as an investment, are not willing to reduce their return on investment by paying for water or energy saving things.

Examples of improvements in this category:

Rainwater storage tanks - unfortunately very expensive, and they are generally installed only to operate the toilet and water the garden, so they tend to increase water use, rather than reducing reliance on mains water.

Insulation - Also expensive to install, and a permanent feature of a house. Lack of insulating makes a house hotter in summer and colder in winter, increasing energy costs and greenhouse gas emissions

Gray water recycling system - Similar issues as for rainwater storage tanks. May not actually reduce water use if used to water the garden, since it is illegal to water the garden using normal water, this just uses water that would have gone to waste to keep the garden alive (not a bad thing anyway)

Window glazing - Since most heat exchange in a building is through the windows, glazing or other forms of glass insulation reduce noise coming into the building and also reduce heating and cooling energy use. Again, something that should be installed by the owner of the building not the tenant.

Hot water system- Hot water systems here come with the place if you’re renting - if you own the house you can buy your own. Electric hot water systems are inherently inefficient compared to gas because the coal must be burnt, the heat converted to electricity, and then the electricity is converted back to heat, but when gas is used for heating, the flame heats the water directly. In the house I lived as a child, there was even a coal-burning hot water service in the laundry when we moved in. The entire room was black with soot! With modern electric hot water systems - that soot is just somewhere else.

And many more…
What we can practically do on our own is limited to relatively small scale things: Short showers, let the garden die, turn lights off when not needed, use efficient lamps…

That is just for the home we also should be conscious of what we do in other areas of life like transport,work,leisure.
Ill leave those for another day…

I am no better person than anyone else in the world…I used to think so but now I know that whatever I have is from God, and anything good I have is from him.

I always believed there was A God… Just not the God that anyone would describe.

Looking back I think that it is funny that one hand I rejected anything people told me, but I held out the belief that there must be some sort of creator…

It never hit me that if there is something out there so powerful that can create everything, then I should make an effort to investigate, or even consider the security of beleiving in something so powerful, knowing nothing about it, and ignoring it.

This was even as I called myself an atheist, I said to myself ‘there is a God’…Knowing the definition of a God…All powerful and all knowing, but the two facts never joined up in my mind - that there is a god and that god knows everything and made everything, and can do anything.

How could I move closer to knowing god or make the effort to find out about god? I couldn’t because I was too ignorant, but God made himself known to me, and then I started to learn more about God - About his mercy and love.

my experience reminds me of what St. Paul said in Acts ch 17: Verse 23

For as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription, ‘To the unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you.

you can read the complete speech online, here: (it is fairly short and worth reading)

If there is ever a completely planned city, it should be laid out in a square grid.
Each block formed by the intersection of the roads would be built according to a set pattern:

The benefits of this would be:
No envie between residence: Everyone would live in the same ugly block:
Efficient system of public transport: You could have trams on every road going one way, and trams on every cross road, So to get from any one point in the city to another, you would always have to only take 2 vehicles.
Efficient energy, water, communications distribution: Everything is in strait lines and predictable.
It would look obvious from space, so any visiting aliens would take notice.
The city could stay decentralized, because if any one area became a centre, the occupants of the buildings there could be uniformly dispersed throughout the city, because every building is the same.
Cost saving in design: No need to waste money on architects to design buildings: Only a few building designs repeated.
Mass production of construction materials.
Easy to isolate city in the event of a disease outbreak : Just build 4 walls.

overview and detail of planned city: