Karin at Madame Tussaud's

Soon after I woke up it already got pretty busy at our place. Simon dropped by to service Ash's car. The party was already full on when I finally arrived.

Simon is very aware of these days (Amsterdam) fashion and totally got the purple worked into his outfit.

After the party was over we drove to Bunnings. I needed a drill press vice. That's a vice (bankschroef in Dutch) to use specifically with a drill press (kolom-boormachine in Dutch). Unfortunately I forgot to photograph it. I need this to drill holes in the heat sink. I need the heat sink for my power supply. I need the power supply to test a little electrical fountain pump. I need the fountain pump for my little Zen garden I want to make.

If we are lucky all this will be created before we move out...

We also bought one plant each for our desks at work. Of course it also needs a pot.

When we came home and were quite tired and didn't know what to have for dinner, the phone rang. Karin asked if we could be interested in some cottage pie that she made fresh. I drove us down in record time and the pie was delicious. Thanks Karin! :-)

You'd think I photographed a wax statue at Madame Tussaud's here but it is really Karin! :-)

When we came home again I checked the mail and Craig, a friend of ours send us a postcard and a fridge magnet. THANK YOU CRAIG! :-) I actually really like this magnet. I like Obama coz he's the best choice for a new American president at the moment I think (I REALLY don't like republicans (and Australian and Dutch liberals) because they put economic interests way too far ahead of anything else).

It's added to our fine selection of fridge magnets. I like our fridge magnets. They remind me of places Nicole and I visited. Good times, Terry, good times.

AMRE 2008

Today I went to Adelaide Model Railway Exhibition 2008. Eventhough I already knew about it 6 months ago and thought about it 3 or 4 weeks ago as well I would have completely missed it if it wasn't for Gavin telling me about it after he heard about it on local radio!

Thanks Gav! :-)

The exhibition is held yearly and has lots of displays and a section for shops selling second hand and new stuff. I actually managed to score a Dutch passenger car for only $20 (€13) which is a bargain.

Here are some pictures I made while walking around.



In Australia people are more interested in Australian and American trains. I don't like those.

Little village.

This was a really nicely done section showing a little canyon with a waterfall and river.

Typical Australian landscape.

The above photo and the next three photo's are from a small LGB track layout. That's G-scale track (the big stuff) which is generally 22.5 times smaller than real trains. It was really nice and very well done with great detail.







Australian layout.

American layout.

This shows how big some layouts can get. They are usually built from modules so they can be easily taken apart.

Right side view of the exhibition.

Left side view of the exhibition.





The second smallest scale is Z-gauge. This scale is 220 times smaller than the real thing. This small track is build in a guitar.



In the evening we had dinner at Karin and Gav's place. BBQ. I had a fantastic steak, garlic bread and key lime pie. Here we see (l.t.r) Rhys, Nicole and Ash.

Here's Gav finishing the leftovers.

Madame Tussauds

This morning/afternoon I made good progress working on my power supply. The circuit works alright (it performs in 2 scales: 0.6-7V and 3-30V) but I do have to check out the heat situation. The end transistor (not in the picture) is going to need a lot of cooling and possibly the bridge rectifier too.

In the evening we had a very nice BBQ at Karin and Gavin's place. We stopped at the new park nearby first. They've been working on it for very long and it's now finished and al the animals are back.

Mason was happy as always and he couldn't keep his hands off of me.

Here we see Amy and Ash posing with a wax statue of Gavin that we borrowed from Madame Tussauds ;-)