Michael West’s Blog

OK, so this blog isn’t intended to be solely about Canberra’s weather but it has been pretty interesting lately. We have had a lot of rain here in the past few days and as such Lake Burley Griffin is now full - mainly due to stormwater and other runoff from North Canberra. As such for the first time in 5 years there is talk of opening the floodgates on Scrivener Dam. At present 3 of the sluices are open and allowing flow into the Molonglo River. Word from Christina, who works for SunWater - they have responsiblity for Scrivener Dam - is that the people there are working around the clock monitoring the water levels in the lake and it seems that extra people will be sent to Canberra from the Brisbane office (where she is) to help out. Sadly, Christina is in a different division so won’t get to come down. Above is a photograph I took last night and below are some photos I took this morning on the way to work.

OK, so I have some good news and some bad news…

GOOD NEWS: After a 3 week break due to a bad leg injury (see earlier post here for details) I was able to play soccer again for ANU FC Division 4 on Saturday. We played against the 2nd placed team, Woden Valley FC.

BAD NEWS: Just 10 minutes into the match, while goal keeping, I charged a player who was shooting about 8 yards out. His foot and the ball connected with my right hand and bent my three middle fingers back about 45 degrees.

GOOD NEWS: I stopped a certain goal.

BAD NEWS: I took no further part in the match and had to watch the rest of the game from the sideline with my hand wrapped in an icepack.

GOOD NEWS: My team played the best they had all season and went up 1-0. Sadly Woden Valley equalised with just 3 minutes to go. But it was still a good result.

BAD NEWS: After the match my fingers and hand started to swell and bruise rapidly. See photos below. Notice the rainbow coloured fingers and the size of my knuckles! After seeking the advice of a friend who is a nurse (thanks Anna), I headed to Canberra Hospital to see a doctor. I was quickly referred to get an x-ray.

GOOD NEWS: A only had to wait 10 minutes to get an x-ray, a minor miracle for the overstretched ACT health system. X-ray showed that nothing was broken.

BAD NEWS: Doctor concluded that I had hyper-extended my fingers and over stretched all the ligaments. The bruising and swelling will get worse before it gets better. Hence I can’t play sport for another few weeks and it could take a month or two for my fingers to heal completely. That means I will miss even more games!
GOOD NEWS: It has rained continually all day today and so my match on Wednesday night has been washed out (again!). Lets hope it keeps raining (we need the run off in our dams anyway).

Not that I’m complaining or anything - I like cold weather (except when I have soccer training of an evening) - but according to the Bureau of Meteorology forecast it is going to get down to -4 deg C tonigh in Canberra! Sadly, it won’t snow but we will get some cool frosts tomorrow. The ABC did report yesterday some snow on the Brindabellas - up to 10cm.

Last night I went to a talk by Malcolm Turnbull, the Federal Minister for the Environment & Water Resources, held by the Canberra Division of Engineers Australia. The talk was entitled “Vision and community expectations of engineers in relation to water, energy and environmental matters”. To be honest I was a little underwhelmed. It was obvious that Mr Turnbull is a very good orator and you would expect that from someone who was a very successful solicitor and businessman and now a politician - his bio is here. He was engaging and drew examples from a wide range of fields and epochs, including ancient Rome and the engineering endeavours of the Eqyptians. But for me the problem was the lack of content, he didn’t really talk about much that I (or the rest of the audience) weren’t aware of already. He basically just summarised the key environmental challenges facing Australia - water scarcity and climate change and stressed that engineers were crucial to tackling these problems. Sure… but in what way? What can we keep doing? What do we need to do better? What more does the community expect from us? Where are the skilled people and the other resources going to come from? I guess I was left with more questions, than insights into his view on the issues at hand.

To be fair, my attention was held completely for the 20-25 minutes that he spoke and he came across very measured and didn’t politicize the issues too much - which is unusual for a politician in an election year. Also, it was interesting to hear his views on how climate change should be addressed. Principally, he said the three main areas where real benefits can be made were…

1. Increased energy efficiency - whether in the home or industry, for example sustainable buildings, insultation, etc.
2. Forestry policy - interestingly reversing deforestation, in particular the destruction of rainforests in Brazil and Indonesia, can reduce CO2 emissions by up to 20%. Hence, the Federal Governments funding of forestry initatives in Indonesia recently.
3. Zero emission energy production - solar, nuclear, bio, wind, etc. Here Mr Turnbull harped on a bit about clean coal & CO2 sequestration which I think is a bit of a pipe dream and is touted so as not to put the coal industry offside etc.

Anyway, it was interesting hearing the Minister speak but it would have been nice if there was a bit more ‘meat’ to complement his well crafted words. I would be curious to hear what others think about the proposed three-pronged response to climate change outlined above.

Yesterday, a young woman, agitated after being accused of shoplifting and arguing with staff at Woolworths, decided to use her car to redecorate the front of the Erindale Shopping Centre. The Erindale Shops are just down the road from my house and within walking distance - and I found out about it by reading the news online here and here! Thankfully no one was injured in the incident and the woman was promptly arrested. Apparently there was a fair bit of damage to doors and signage and those stupid kids rides you find in such shopping centres - I’m not complaining about the destruction of the latter! Anyway… as one of my house mates pointed out aptly, “That’s the south side of Canberra for you!”

CNN reports this mildly bizzare episode in Palatine, Illinois….
“An elementary school science teacher in this Chicago suburb doesn’t have to turn on the news for an update on NASA’s space mission. She just turns on her video baby monitor.

Since Sunday, one of the two channels on Natalie Meilinger’s baby monitor has been picking up black-and-white video from inside the space shuttle Atlantis. The other still lets her keep an eye on her baby.

“Whoever has a baby monitor knows what you’ll usually see,” Meilinger said. “No one would ever expect this.”

Live video of the mission is available on NASA’s Web site, so it’s possible the monitor is picking up a signal from somewhere.

“It’s not coming straight from the shuttle,” NASA spokeswoman Brandi Dean said. “People here think this is very interesting and you don’t hear of it often — if at all.”

Meilinger silenced disbelieving co-workers by bringing in a video of the monitor to show her class on Tuesday, her students’ last day of school. At home, 3-month-old Jack and 2-year-old Rachel don’t quite understand what their parents are watching.

“I’ve been addicted to it and keep waiting to see what’s next,” Meilinger said.

Summer Infant, the monitor’s manufacturer, is investigating what could be causing the transmission, communications director Cindy Barlow said. She said she’s never heard of anything similar happening.

“Not even close,” she said. “Gotta love technology.”

Yes, that’s right! South eastern NSW has been hit by a big low and so its been very cold here in Canberra. It was -5 deg C the other night at my house and the Bureau of Meteorology warned that the airmass over Canberra was cold enough that if it rain it was likely to fall as snow at higher elevations. Well in the early hours of the morning today it did! OK, so it hasn’t snowed in Canberra proper but it did to the north east at Bungendore and Queanbeyan. The ABC reports falls of up to 6 inches in some places and has some nice photos on its website here. The weather has resulted in traffice chaos, a rarity in Canberra, while the rest of us are just left with grey skies, rain and ice cold winds!

Last Saturday, while playing soccer for ANU FC, I managed to do a fair bit of damage to my left leg. I was goal keeping (and playing quite well actually) and ran out to punch a ball away and twisted and landed the wrong way. I ended up tearing my quad muscles (the big one in the centre of my thigh) and misaligning my knee as well as straining my hamstring, groin and other ligaments. Not fun at all. It was made worse because, while in the process of hurting myself, the opposition scored and we ended up losing 2-0. They scored later in a one on one when I couldn’t get to the ball fast enough because I could barely run (yes - with the help of adrenaline I kept on playing which in hindsight was a bad idea).

I didn’t help my cause either by getting in the car straight after the game and driving for 3 1/2 hours to Sydney to see the Socceroos play! Anyway, the physio says I was lucky not to rupture the whole quad muscle and will be out of action for 3-6 weeks. I’m hoping I will only miss three weeks of soccer. As such I won’t be training for a while and so will reclaim two nights during the week and in general will have to take things a bit slower. The joys of hobbling around and visits to the physio await.

On Saturday I drove up to Sydney after my football match in Canberra to watch the Socceroos play Uruguay at Telstra Stadium in Homebush. Although only a friendly it was billed as ‘The Rematch’ of that fateful night when we beat Uruguay on penalties to quailfy for the 2006 World Cup and the match didn’t disappoint. True, the Socceroos we minus many of their big names (Harry Kewell, Mark Viduka, Tim Cahill, Mark Schwarzer, etc) but Uruguay had a full team and it was a fiery encounter. There was a great atmosphere and a good crowd of 62,000 or so.

The Socceroos played well and kept Uruguay contained early on. Mile Sterjovski scored in the 7th minute after a good cross from Brett Emerton. This set off some wild celebrations including the obligatory flare being thrown onto the pitch (see photo below). Sadly Uruguay equalised just before half time.

It was good to have some friends (Josh, Annie, Jared and Jan) and my mum and aunt at the game. Jan (pronounced Jahn) and his other friend from Germany, Philip, were decked out in the Aussie flag and green and gold and really got into it which was great. Like true Germans they sang and cheered throughout the whole game Thanks also to Jeffery for organising the tickets!