I still have the robot on the job. Here you can see the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery . And here is a poem: Soliloquy for One Dead Bruce Dawe Ah, no, Joe, you never knew the whole of it, the whistling which is only the wind in the chimney's smoking belly, the footsteps on the muddy path that are always somebody else's. I think of your limbs down there, softly becoming mineral, the life of grasses, and the old love of you thrusts the tears up into my eyes, with the family aware and looking everywhere else. Sometimes when summer is over the land, when the heat quickens the deaf timbers, and birds are thick in the plumbs again, my heart sickens, Joe, calling for the water of your voice and the gone agony of your nearness. I try hard to forget, saying: If God wills, it must be so, because of His goodness, because- but the grasshopper memory leaps in the long thicket, knowing no ease. Ah, Joe, you never knew the whole of it... I like Bruce Dawe. He just my be my favourite Austral
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Your story of the dedicated and very professional bartender on board the love boat made me laugh again. The photo of the tiny lifeboat at the bow of the passenger liner was extraordinarily meaningful to me. I went through the Panama Canal on board a sailboat and going through the locks felt pretty much the same as that. We would enter the lock first and then see that huge containership come right behind us, it was a pretty imressive sight!!!
My father is a seaman, so I've had the opportunity to get into the engine rooms of some of these ships. It's odd to see spark plugs two metres tall.
Jen got to sit in the Captain's chair of one of the Spirit of Tasmania ferries, so we've faired alright on the nautical front.