This past weekend I took some photos of the dogs playing in the snow.  They were like little kids running around.  Haven's happy jumping as she catches a snowball in her mouth.

In the Air

Here Beacon's fetching his Orbee ball and Haven's "attacking" him. 

Attack!

After getting tired and hot from fetching Beacon decided to cool off in the snow. 

Sophisticated Beacon

Andrew took this opportunity to throw snowballs at Beacon.  He'd look up at them as they zeroed in on him.

Watching an Incoming Snowball

Eventually Andrew hit Beacon with a snowball.  He didn't really try to get out of the way and ended up taking it on the side of his face.  I actually got a photo!

Hit by a Snowball

There was also digging in snow piles for the Orbee ball. 

Digging for the Ball

And of course Haven did her exploring, which usually leads to snow on her face.

Snowy Face

On Sunday Andrew built a snowman for Beacon to "attack".  Beacon's very serious about these attacks.  You can watch a video of Beacon taking on the snowman here. 

Starting tonight another storm will hit us.  It'll last until Thursday afternoon or evening!  There will be rain, freezing rain, and snow so things will be a mess.  Eventually we'll get a decent dumping of snow before it's all over. 

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/pol

Abbott gives fresh start to Kevin Andrews, Philip Ruddock and Bronwyn Bishop

Philip Ruddock will be brought back in as the secretary to shadow cabinet to draw on his “extraordinary corporate knowledge”.

“I think the government is vulnerable,’’ Mr Abbott said.

“The government is very vulnerable on economic management with three interest rate rises in just three months.

“It’s a balanced team. Many of Malcolm's supporters have been promoted. I accept some people have shifted but inevitably if you are going to have a new team there does have to be some change.’’

Mr Abbott praised Mr Morrison as a great talent who was one of the bright new stars of the new generation of MPs.

“Scott Morrison is in the energetic mainstream of the Liberal Party and I know he is going to do a very good job,” Mr Abbott said.

Victorian Tony Smith will take on communications and former chief climate change negotiator Ian Macfarlane takes on infrastructure.

Mr Abbott's promotion of Turnbull supporter Mr Morrison to the key immigration portfolio prompted anger from then incumbent Sharman Stone, who told The Australian yesterday she had been done over by the party’s right wing after performing a difficult balancing act between competing factions within the Coalition.

As expected, Joe Hockey has retained the crucial treasury portfolio and Greg Hunt has retained environment but has secured an expanded role covering climate change to recast the divided Coalition’s policies.

Mr Abbott described him as a “great communicator”.

Chris Pyne has retained education and his role as manager of opposition and would continue to expose waste and mismanagement.

Scores of frontbenchers who quit in a revolt over climate change were rewarded with reinstatement of new roles on the frontbench.

Yesterday we walked to the downtown area three times!  The first time we took Haven.  We had to go to the post office.  And there were ice sculptures being made along the riverwalk. 

Haven Sort of Watching

During our first trip out they were just getting started on the sculptures.  It was neat to see how the blocks start off.  They all have a template put on them so that the bigger chunks can be taken off and a basic outline "drawn" with a chainsaw.  All of the carvers were culinary students at a local college.

Template on Ice Block

We even walked around on the riverboat.  Haven wasn't so sure about that. 

Haven Posing

We were out for about an hour and a half during our first trip downtown.  We decided to go back toward the end of the time the sculptures were being made.  On our way back the second time we saw someone we knew and ended up chatting for awhile and ended up missing the winning sculpture being named (hopefully it'll be in the paper this week).

Here are some of the finished products.

We headed back home and had a couple of hours before walking back to Main Street again.  This time it was for the parade, which was pretty cool.  It was the first time we watched the parade even though we've lived here for almost seven years! 

My favorite part was the cow!!  The local fruit/produce stand had him/her.  The cow had a big green blanket on it with red garland on it.  Cool!  There was also a hot air balloon company that had a burner as part of their float.  From time to time the big flame would go off and everyone would oooh and aaah.  I also liked the old pipe organ that used to be on the riverboat.  Someone was playing Christmas tunes on it as it rolled along (on a float). 

There were a lot of people watching the parade.  It was a good thing that we walked because it was crazy with all of the cars trying to leave.  It was fun participating in some of our small town activities.  You can see more photos of the ice sculptures in this Flickr album.  I didn't have the camera with me during the parade so no photos there.

Mrs Snowy had other plans for Friday night, so being the grovelling loving husband that I am, I concurred.

I worked in a semi-government department in a former life. I remember one occasion where my boss and I had a meeting with an engineer from the local council regarding changing the electricity tariff of a pumping station that only pumped at night. He said that the council was going to have to pump during the day, and could we verify that the current electricity tariff would be advantageous, or should they change to another tariff. We did our sums and verified that the existing tariff would be the best, even though they would be pumping during the more expensive daylight hours. And so it proved. Until it rained and the council only needed to pump at night again. Because of the foibles of the tariff, this incurred a quite substantial penalty charge. And the resultant hullabaloo was something to observe.

All sorts of “experts” came out of the woodwork with an opinion on who was right in the matter, each arguing from the perspective that advantaged them. One councillor appeared on TV and confidently declared that the council had been assured at the meeting with us that the penalty charge would not apply. Which was a lie. I know because I was there, and the penalty charge was never discussed, because our understanding was that the daytime pumping was to be permanent. Fortunately for the engineer, he had long departed for greener pastures, otherwise I imagine he would have been hung out to dry by the councillors who had acquired such wisdom in hindsight.

So what does this have to do with the current climate change fuss, you may ask. Well everything. I learnt from this exercise that the only people who truly knew what had happened at that meeting were the people who were there. I learnt that those who had a vested interest in a matter weren’t very interested in the truth, but were more interested in cherry picking various snippets of the facts that suited their argument, and ignoring those facts that didn’t.

So it is that climate change denialists are having a marvellous time with the so called “Climategate”. Information from emails obtained illegally is being trotted out as “evidence” that climate change is not occurring. This, on the eve of crucial climate change talks in Copenhagen.

So where does this leave those of us who don’t have the knowledge to make an informed opinion on the matter? We have to get our truth from those whom we trust to give an unbiased opinion. For myself, I trust the people who use the scientific method to arrive at a conclusion. I have to be guided by them because I don’t have the scientific knowledge to make an informed decision from the data. What is being challenged on the basis of the hacked emails is that the scientific method has not been followed. This despite the fact that others have arrived at the same conclusion using different data.

I’m prepared to give the climate change believers the benefit of any doubt. The denialists are fond of saying that they want to be convinced that man made climate change is real. I’m saying that it is up to the denialists to prove that it isn’t real, using their own results arrived at by following the scientific method, and accepted by the majority of the scientific community.

Because if the denialists are wrong, we on planet Earth are toast.  Literally. That’s not a gamble I want to take on my kid’s future.

A couple of samples from a recent product shoot, of a different shiny reflective product...

VL1

VL2

After a relatively warm November winter has decided to make an appearance.  When we went to bed last night there were a couple of inches of snow already on the ground.  The dogs loved it.  They were chasing each other around.  Haven was eating snow.  Beacon was chasing snowballs.

Things were a bit different this morning.  With snow up to their bellies the dogs weren't as eager to hang out in the stuff.  I'm sure we'll take pictures of them playing in it over the weekend. 

09HouseReno 293

doesnt look much yet but once the curved wall and gyprock is in it should be a nice space to work in