I like it that I still call Australia home

If I wasn't here already, I'd want to come here, after seeing the new Qantas advertisement. Here's one version on youtube.
I don't fly Qantas myself when I go visiting friends and family, this airline has positioned themselves in my mind with an idea they might be for overseas travel, and they have an undeserved reputation for being expensive. A few times when they have flights going where I want to go, at times I want to go, at a price that doesn't aim itself at executive travel, its been a good experience.
Generally I fly with their cheaper offspring Jetsar. They are a mass marketed pain, but not unbearable. I have learned to travel in the morning, when problems haven't had a chance to cascade into late flights or even cancelled services. The few times a flight I am on has been cancelled, I have been bumped to a fairly close flight with Qantas. I just can't stand the happy chirpy friendly nonsense from rivals, Virgin airlines. I want to be left alone with my book an short flights.
Anyhow, I don't care how much schmaltz is in the Qantas ad. It is feelgood, lump in the throat, wet in the eye, warm and fuzzy, you bloody beauty bit of aussie culture.

I didn't start the fire

A couple of new pics I’m pleased with on Flickr.
I woke early this morning to the sound of crackling. It couldn’t be hail, too much snapping to be distant gunfire. With sleep out of my ears I recognized the sound of burning wood crackling. I couldn’t see anything out the windows on either side, so I thought there might not be immediate danger. Lots of sirens. I thought this was a bit too much to try to investigate in slippers and bathrobe, so I pulled on some clothes that might be OK if I needed to walk on burning coals. When I got there only one brigade had arrived. By the time I left there were ten, including two long ladder trucks. The police wouldn’t let me get too close; bastards, they let late arriving media though the tapes, but I got a couple of shots early before the media had the easy job of photographing in the light.