Latest Missives from my Amish Dad

My dad has, unfortunately, an iPhone. His university gave it to him, against my objections! Anyway, having retired, he's had to shift it to a plan of his own since the Uni has stopped paying for it.

I'd given him explicate instructions about the kind of plan he'd need, and to make sure he got a data plan. I'd even randomly bumped into the Telstra store when he was getting it all set up and it sounded like they were doing the right thing - I chose not to get too involved!

The other day, I got this email from him:
"Telstra is giving me a monthly data allowance of 5 mg. Is that OK?"

I replied:
"No, not even close. You're sure you're reading it right? The guy in the store mentioned 1.5Gb. 5mg is enough to download maybe 15 emails!"

He replied:
"He said '5.00 mg'."

My reply:
"That's not what I heard! Egad, that's absolutely useless - I have a 2Gb allowance, which is about a hundred times that. Are you sure it wasn't 500Mg? I'm not even sure they HAVE a plan which is only 5Mg - that's like two floppy disks worth of data, or the size of one MP3."

So today I get this email:
"Sorry, Son. I made a mistake. It says "5.00GB'. That's different?"

*slaps head* Yes, yes it is!!!!

Another Aircraft Museum, this time in Moorabbin

Pinched this image from Google Maps, this is the original view.

In this view, from the bottom right: A DC-2 with no wings or tail, then between two sheds is the hull of a Catalina flying boat. Above that, pointing south, is a DC-3, overlapping it an ugly Bristol Freighter. The the right of them a tailless Vickers Viscount, and completing that group of four planes, a de Havalland Heron. Along the top, left to right, a rotorless Westland Wessex helicopter, a Fairy Gannet, a Gloster Meteor and finally a CAC Sabre!

I'd been meaning to go out to the grandly named Australian National Aviation Museum at Moorabbin airport for a while, but I never quite made it - not least because I live waaaaay the other side of town. I finally made it down there a couple of weeks ago. I made the someone dumb decision to take public transport, thinking I could take a bus from a nearby train station to the airport... I probably could have, if I'd been prepared to wait for 45 minutes or so! I ended up walking which took ages, leaving me with only about an hour and a half to look at the planes.

This turned out to be enough though, the museum is not huge. Apart from the planes parked outside (see above) the rest of the collection is in the large shed in the middle of the shot. I've seen most of the planes they had before, except for some of the more obscure little planes. In fact, I've seen some of the planes they have in the air - the Sabre, the DC-3 and even a Vampire.

There were a couple of planes I'd not seen before. Notable was the Beaufighter.

(Picture pinched from the museum website.)
The Beaufighter was a big twin engined fighter from the second world war. And indeed it was really big - I could have stood comfortably underneath it. This one they have is one of only two in Australia, one of few left in the world.

Otherwise, I think I'd not seen a Fairey Gannet either. It's another strange ugly beast of a plane, with a weird engine made from two engines coupled together and driving two contra-rotating propellers.

They also had some quite impressive engines - big things they are! Four or five tons of metal, with banks of 24 cylinders some of them. But otherwise, I was out of the place in just over an hour. I have some photos I took, which I'll upload eventually. I was a bit worried about the planes they had parked outside - some of them were not looking the best from the effects of the weather. I guess it's not Smithsonian. I'll have to see if there are any other decent aircraft museums here in Australia, although I think I like it a lot more seeing the planes in the air.