Just a bit weird ...

... but I like weird ;-)

which could be why I like all those old TV shows that Julius Sumner Miller did ... I guess that as a kid I also wondered "why is this so?" LOL (and yes - I still like science ;-)
 ... but what has that got to do with weird? - well - he was a bit of an oddball ... but he would have been a rather interesting person to meet.
But why am I posting about him?  - well - I was trying to thing of something to post for the letter J for ABC Wednesday ... and I was catching up with putting some photos on the computer (the lot I am doing at the moment are from the middle of July!) when I found some photos that I took at the Cadbury chocolate factory (yum yum - lol) - they had a display with a pile of (rather peculiar but very interesting) letters that Julius Sumner Miller had sent them, and among them was this recipe for baked beans ...

(I don't think it is copyright or anything ... and it is there on public display)

I don't think I will ever bother with cooking my baked beans that way ... it is way easier to Just open a can and microwave them while the toast is cooking - lol

Also ... Just because I felt like adding it to this post - is a photo of a rather interesting tree:

I took the photo late in the afternoon, near some blowhole south of Hobart (but not the one on the way to Port Arthur - we went there the next day - this one was down the other way ... I could work out where if I dug out the map, but I am not doing that at almost 4am ...  not when I should have gone to bed 3 or 4 hours ago!)

This was near the other blowhole - the one that IS on the way to Port Arthur ...

but it is not right next to that blowhole, it is actually at the tesselated pavement (which is a rather interesting rock formation at a beach a few km up the road).

(hmmm - maybe I could post a photo of that when we are up to the letter T ... along with a few other photos I Took in Tasmania? lol)

btw, the other day (before I found that J photo) I think I was thinking of writing a post about how one should not use the word "Just" as often as we do ... like when someone makes a really nice quilt or other hand made item/work of art and says it is "Just a 9patch" or "Just a log cabin quilt" or "Just something I threw together" ... or "Just a painting I did" or "Just some poem I wrote" or "Just a photo I took" ... it is not JUST anything ... it is something you have created (or in the case of those who say "I Just did ... " when they have done something nice/good - it is something nice/good you have done) - so it should stand alone and be counted on it's own merit - you don't need to JUSTify it - lol
... Just thought I should say that ... lol

er ... I now have Just a few hours until I have to be up again ... I might Just get enough sleep to tide me over until tomorrow night ... (it is a good thing that I will Just be a passenger, rather than the driver, on my Journey tomorrow - lol)

goodnight ...

odd socks ... and other things ...

... Ever noticed how you put 2 socks in the wash ... and one seems to go missing?

I have heard many people complain about that, and about the same thing happening to pens and teaspoons and tools and stuff ... yet wire coat hangers seem to multiply in numbers that indicate they must be breeding with each other or something ...

If you don't know what I am talking about you have probably never read the right blog posts, or been on an e-mail list/forum/yahoogroup for long enough to see the subject come up ... because the subject has come up several times on the newsgroups and yahoogroups I have been active on. (in fact the moderators on the scquilters yahoogroup recently had to tell everyone to stop going on about it because it was generating too much off topic e-mail - lol).

I decided to do a quick google search to see if I could find an example ... funny how the first result that came up in the search was this one - http://www.universetoday.com/2009/08/21/if-you-dont-have-an-lhc-heres-how-to-create-your-own-black-hole/
... hmmm - I think the reason for that might have been MY comment on there! (you should be able to find it not quite half way down the page ... or further down in this blog post if I remember to copy it here (I did - further down in this post) ;-)

the second thing that came up was this perfect example - http://www.woodworkforums.com/showthread.php?t=78511 ... change all the references to woodworking/screws/etc to quilting/pins/etc and it is almost exactly the same conversation as what I have seen on the quilting lists I am on - lol

hmmm - some rather odd results come up when one types "odd socks wire coathangers pens black holes" into the google search box - lol
(I found and had a read of a couple or really weird but quite interesting blogs and a rather strange, but interesting, short story ;-)

so why am I posting about odd socks/etc NOW?

er ... 2 reasons - the main one is because I just found a photo that reminded me of it.

I took the photo a few weeks ago ... after I took the washing off the line, and carefully put all the socks in pairs as I put them in the basket
(well - all those that were pairs - DS's socks never have pairs - they never get put in the wash in pairs because he usually just gathers up the first armload of dirty washing off his bedroom floor when he has a clean up of his room, and chucks it in the laundry ... and ... he doesn't usually wear them in pairs anyway! - he just grabs 2 socks that are near enough ... or the first ... or even the only ... 2 socks he can find in the mess on his bedroom floor and wears them.)

... anyway ... I DO usually wash mine in pairs
(except for the "pair" I have been wearing lately where one is pink and the other green - because they are the same type of sock, bought at the same time from the same place, and the other pink and green sock both have holes in them!)

but ... I only had ONE red sock ... and I knew I had hung 2 on the line the day before - becuase I actually remembered doing it!

The other one wasn't still on the line ... however it had been windy that day, so I had a look around under the line/around the yard to see if it had fallen/been blown off ... but there was no red sock lying on the lawn or anywhere I could see ... so I took the rest of the stuff off the line (no - the red sock wasn't IN something else - I checked - becuase our washing machine likes to play that game - it even stuffs shirts and things inside doona covers) and then I had a potter around and pulled up some weeds from the garden/lawn and picked up some other stuff that was lying around under the pergola (where the washing line that had the socks on is) ... when I just happened to glance INTO the bucket of water that was beside me ...



yep - found the red sock! LOL

... which ended up becoming one of the few examples of when one of my socks goes into the wash alone - becuase it went in with the next load of washing I did before it re-joined it's partner - lol
(well ... who knows what is in those buckets - probably a mix of whatever was in the bucket before I found it in the rubbish pile on a nearby building site, rain water collected as it ran off the side of the pergola roof, dust, dog slobber, and whatever insects/etc may have drowned in there)

btw ... this is the comment I left on that Universe Today post (which was about making tiny black holes without needing to use the LHC to do it):
aykayem Says: August 23rd, 2009 at 2:45 am
yes – let them make those black holes and do their research – before I lose any more socks! Black hole type phenomena have also been observed (by both myself and other members of various newsgroups/e-mail lists I have been active on) in relation to wire coat hangers and pens – there seem to be black holes which swallow up and/or spit out those items – and in some kind of pattern/proportion that results in this equation/rule – the number of wire coat hangers/pens/odd socks/etc that can be found in a location near one of these black holes is inversely proportional to the need one has for said item. I also seem to have a black hole in my sewing room (although I think it, or another one, may also sometimes be active in other areas of the house too) – and it seems to swallow things up and then spit them out again when I am no longer looking for them (usually when I have given up trying to find them, and used something else instead).btw – I have even made a (small ;-) quilt with a black hole on it – the photo is on my blog ( in this post – http://aykayem.blogspot.com/2009/01/other-4-journal-quilts.html )

hmmm on my comment on that post the ;-) shows up as a smiley face - I didn't know it would do that else I would have put another ) after it :-)

anyway ... that quilt leads on to the other reason I am posting all this weird stuff about odd socks, wire coathangers and black holes ...

well - not that quilt exactly - as you can see from that comment, and the link I put in there - I have already posted about that one ...

but ...

I have made another black hole quilt! LOL

and ... I have already posted a photo of that one too ... but only part of it ... in the post before this one - so now you get to find out WHY there is cat hair on my event horizon ...

The reason there is cat hair on my event horizon is because we have a cat, who likes to "help" me sew - so there is cat hair on all of my quilts (and on everything else I make) ... including this one:



(as usual - if you click on it you should get a bigger version)

I made it for the ACTTAA exhibition, which was last weekend ... which is why, in my usual manner of working to deadlines - I made the quilt the weekend before that!
... even though I have known for ages (almost a year) that the theme/title of the exhibition was "Heaven And Earth" ...

btw, the title of the quilt is "Good Heavens, Where Did All These Coat Hangers Come From? … and Where On Earth Have All My Biros/Keys/Teaspoons Gone?!"

oh - and for those who might be wondering where I got all those teeny tiny coathangers from - I made them out of paperclips!
(it created a bit of interest at work - me sitting at my desk, in my lunch break, bending paperclips with a pair of pliers - lol ... I did it at work because I knew where a pair of pliers were there ... I have a pair here at home too ... but they are "lost" somewhere in the pile of mess in my sewing room ... probably hiding in a box of bits for some half finished project or another ... )

hmmm ... talking about black holes - time seems to vanish into them too - it seems to have taken me just over 3 hours to write this blog post ... but I did eat my tea in the middle of it, and uploaded some photos, and read a few e-mails/etc ...

But ... I was Busy ...

... so this B post is just a little Bit late.

(er ... it is Belated? ... such an odd word that one - usually only seen on Birthday cards for those who forgot to send the card earlier ... and it looks stupid there too ... lol)

I could probably have thought of Bazillions of B things to post about, for ABC Wednesday, if I had not Been too Busy to post this sooner (actually there probably was a couple of times I may have had time to post something a Bit sooner ... But at the time I didn't Bother, Because I was going to do it "later" - lol)

But ... seeing I mentioned it last week (well - the week before last probably, seeing I was meant to post this last week - lol) ... I had better Bore you all with what I said I would say about Black h0les ...

B is for the Big Bang theory and how the Big Bang resulted in the creation of a Bazillion galaxies (some Big and some small) ... galaxies that astrophysicists tell us each have a Black hole in the middle of them ... and which also contain Bucket loads of Big stars that have died/collapesed and formed even more Black holes ...
But ... the Big question is - where ARE all these Black holes, and what is going to Become of them in the future - will the universe just keep getting Bigger until everything is too far away from anything else for anyone to care? or will some/all the stars become black holes and eat up everything else? If that happens, then what will the universe Be like?- what will happen once the Black holes are all that is left? - will they just keep eating each other up (due to Being attacted to each other's gravitational pull) until there is one Big Black hole? ... That is where my thoughts were going when I started to wonder - where does all that stuff go?! - maybe that is when it becomes too Big to fit in so little a space and we get another Big Bang? or maybe our Big Bang (the one that created our universe) is just the other side of some small Black hole in the Backwaters of some other universe?

hmmmm ... what if our whole universe is just some weird little Blob in some scientist's Bottle?

maybe I had better stop writing all about what comes out when my Brain goes Beserk, before I drive you all Bonkers!

btw ... B is also for Boo Boo - like the Bag of tools that was lost by that astronaut working on the ISS - I just found out it was supposed to have been going to re-enter the atmosphere yesterday - http://www.universetoday.com/2009/08/02/orbiting-toolbag-will-enter-atmosphere-aug-3/ ... I wonder if it is Back yet? - actually it won't/didn't come "Back" anywhere - it will/did Burn up on re-entry - lol

(unless it gets swallowed up by that Black hole that comes and visits my place - the one that eats one sock out of each pair I put in the wash, and swallows up all the Biros/pens and spits out wire coat hangers ... )

Before I go ... I can't not say that B is for BLOG ... lol

... which reminds me (just after I actually posted it!) that I should mention that I am still trying to Blog my way to Antarctica ... hey - I even have 1 vote! - someBody has actually gone there and voted for me!
(... now that I have more than 0 votes I won't get the Booby prize? - another few thousand votes and I might actually Be able to win this - lol)

a very big hole ...

... not a black hole but it is "swallowing stuff up"

On Friday, a group of us (mostly teachers and a couple of us who are not) hopped on a bus and went up to the Woodlawn Bioreactor for the day - first we went to the visitors centere and watched a "safety video" and learnt some stuff about the place, then we went up the hill and looked down the hole, and had a look at the old tailings dams and stuff, then we went back to the visitors centre for a yummy free lunch and spent the afernoon learing about climate change, and ideas for teaching students about it (it was actually a thing for teachers but non teaching staff were allowed to go too ... so I went - one way to keep my brain cells working - I might need them one day - lol) ... and because we will be getting a copy of all the notes/info/etc I didn't need to write a lot of notes, so I did a lot of sewing on my black hole journal quilt while listening to the stuff on climate change (strangely enough, I think I have always been able to listen/pay attention better when I am also doing stuff with my hands ... even when I was at school - which used to drive my teachers nuts because I was always scribbling in my book or fiddling with stuff on my desk or something but I was often the first one to understand whatever it was the teacher was trying to explain to the class! ... maybe that was because the other kids were too distracted by my fidgetting? LOL)

Anyway ... for those who don't know what it is/have not followed the link at the beginning of this post and found out - it is a huge big hole in the ground - how huge?

this huge:

- see that truck in the foreground, driving along the road below? - well there is another one the same size down the bottom where the green arrow is pointing! ... see how small it looks?! - yes it IS a BIG hole - lol

(it was kind of handy that the camera I was using does wide angle ... lol)

It was a mine once (an open cut one ... and they also did some underground mining too) ... but it kind of closed down overnight (quite a few years ago) and it has now been turned into a "bioreactor" ... which is basically a rubbish tip that they collect methane gas from - they collect rather a lot of Sydney's domestic garbage, stick it on a train which comes down to a place a few km away, where the containers are loaded on to the trucks and taken down the hole and emptied into the bottom ... and they stick pipes and stuff in it and do all sorts of techincal things like pumping the sludgey water out of the bottom so the right bacteria break down the garbage and produce methane - which comes up the pipes and is used to generate electricity ... they chose the mine because it is big enough to fill with a LOT of garbage, and the geology/rock type/etc means that stuff from the rubbish does not leak out into the groundwater - the bloke telling us about it described it as a big bucket ...

(maybe I should have called this post "a fart in a bucket"? LOL)

btw ... seeing it IS an old MINE ... there were some rather interesting rocks lying around ... and we got to get out of the bus at the top where we looked down the hole, and down by the tailings dams ... so of course I brought a few handfuls of rocks home - LOL

(I actually took a spare "green" shopping bag to put them in - because I have been there before - went with the Land Rover club about 2 or 3 months ago, but we had parked at the visitors center and only taken a few vehicles up to the lookout and I was in someone else's 4WD - so I only had room for the one or 2 that I could stuff in my pockets)

I have not taken any photos of the rocks yet ... I might do that some time in the next week or 3 and then all I need to do is try and remember to blog about them - lol

Actually I do have this photo of some of the rocks:

... but these were not the ones I was collecting and bringing home.

I took this picture because I liked the colours in the rusty whatever it was and the rusty rocks it was lying amongst. ... yes the rocks actually are rusty - I think it is because of what the ore they were mining is made out of (iron sulphide, etc) - the iron in the rocks oxidises when exposed to the air and becomes iron oxide ... which is what rust is.

Also, I have a photo of one of the rocks I collected the other time I went there (back in July actually - that is the date on the photos ;-)

This is what I went looking for some more of:

The gold coloured cubes are pyrite (otherwise known as "fools gold" ... ok - I am foolish enough to be attracted to interesting shiny things - lol)

... and yes - I found some more this time ... not a lot, but some ... enough to maybe think about attempting to sew some of the little gold cubes onto a journal quilt - LOL

(and enough to give a couple to the school I work at, so the students can look at it when they learn about crystal structure or what pyrite looks like)