Lord Wiki, Helpfulness, Small Ears, and Flies

1. Heard that Lord Wiki is going to stand up for what he believes in by giving the world the silent treatment for 24 hours.

I strongly support him doing that...well, because I agree with his argument.  Would I be equally supportive if I disagreed with his position?

I don't know.

2.  Had dreams about our pretend Australia trip.  That adventure is definitely leaking into my subconscious.

In one dream, we've just switched locations and hotels.  I can see the pool from our room.   I'm due for a shower, but am wondering if I should wait and see if Jack wants to go swimming first. I think about how we might not do anything today.  If we're traveling so much, there may be days where we want to just sit in the room.  

I don't think I agree with that.   If I was in Australia, even for a long six month holiday, I'd probably save staying-in-the-room-all-day for times that we're sick.  Or when there's dangerous weather.  Otherwise, I think we'd go outside at least for a little bit...even if it's just right outside our cabin/room.  
  
In another dream....

My family is with us on the Australia vacation.  One of my nieces and one of my nephews is sick.   I selfishly worry about us catching it.  

At one point, I come into our hotel room and complain to my sisters for hanging out there for so long. Why are they still there?    I'm informed that this is THEIR room.  Ah....my mistake. I had the wrong room.   Oops.

In another part, I hear my younger sister struggling to get her boys to bed.   I hear my nephew is still awake.  I decide I can play with him for awhile so my sister can get some sleep. I go over to where my family is.  I see my sister.  It turns out she was able to get the boys to sleep.   

Then my older sister complains that I didn't help her before.  I had come into the room and then just walked away.  I get angry at my sister and try to explain that I left to go to bed.  I use language that's inappropriate around children.  

My older sister complains that I'm very unhelpful. I hope and expect the rest of my family to defend me.   They don't.  I ask them to raise their hands if they think I'm unhelpful.   Most of them raise their hands.  I'm very angry and argue with them. 

The feelings of that dream lingered.   I woke up angry.

It's made me wonder.  Does my family think I'm helpful?   I feel I am.  Would they agree with me?   If they didn't, is it because they fail to notice and appreciate what I do? Or am I less helpful than I imagine?  

3. Remembered that I also dreamed about seeing American tourists in Australia. They weren't very friendly.  They reminded me of the woman I invented for yesterday's post.  

4. Went to Tallygarunga.

Today I'm going to read the continuation of Nothing of Your Business.   It's another story I started reading before my hiatus.

The stars are Jezebel Blair and Améa du Contiaea.

In what I previously read, Jezebel had interfered in her sister's life by telling the hotel staff that Améa wouldn't be staying there anymore.

What happens next?

5. Started reading. 

6. Felt sad for Améa when I read these lines.  

People eventually saw what she was, and it was not good. She didn't want that to happen again, to feel loved and accepted only for the truth to come out and the world fall apart once again. Unconditional love was not real, not in her experience.

I believe in unconditional love, but I think it's rare.

7. Saw that Améa is not very open-minded when it comes to homosexuality.   She says,  Perhaps if Tamarah did kiss boys like normal, then maybe she be less of idiot.

That reminds me of something an elderly aunt would say.  Although now I'm stereotyping elderly women. I think a lot of them these days now accept homosexuality.

8. Got some insight into this whole Blair storyline. I've been a bit confused.

There's something with a mean grandmother.   She's the one who prevented Améa from knowing that Stuart Blair was her father.  Then she also is maybe the one who took Jezebel's baby from her.   I think that might be right.  I'm not positive, though.  It says here, It was their maternal grandmother who had robbed him of that opportunity, and she'd almost done the same to Jezebel with Lei.

I'm pretty sure that Lei is Jezebel's newly found missing child, but I'm not 100% positive.

How would our world change if we knew for sure there was life after death, and it was easy for our dearly-departed to talk to us via the Internet?   

The Dead are Online  a novel by Dina Roberts 

9. Saw that my Australian of the day is John Ignatius Armstrong. He was a politician from Sydney.

10. Learned that, like Peekay from The Power of One,  John Armstrong was a boxing champion.  

11. Learned that Armstrong's family owned a hotel.

The name of the establishment was Dunkirk Hotel.  It's still out there, on Harris Street.

12. Found the hotel on Google Maps.   It's very close to the Powerhouse Museum. 

13. Learned that Armstrong joined the Federal Parliament in 1938 as a labour politician.   I guess this was before Labour became Labor. 

I forgot when that was.

14. Consulted Lord Wiki.   He says the spelling was changed in 1912.

Oh....

So why was Armstrong labour in 1938?

Well, I'm probably just misreading something.  Or I'm missing something.

15. Learned that Armstrong believed Australia would one day become a republic.

16. Consulted Lord Wiki about John Armstrong, since he helps me learn things I missed when reading the Australian Dictionary of Biography.

Lord Wiki associates Armstrong with Labor not Labour.

He also reminds me that John Armstrong was Lord Mayor of Sydney from 1966-1967.  That's the job Clover Moore has now.

The Australian Dictionary of Biography tried to tell me Armstrong had been Lord Mayor.   But I ignored him.

17. Learned that in his later years, Armstrong became the High Commissioner to London. That was in the 1970's.

18.  Wondered how I will manage without Lord Wiki tomorrow.

I don't think it will be easy.

19. Started to look at more of Fredweng's day fifteen in Australia Flickr set. 

20. Thought this photo, of sea lions in the water, was kind of cool.  

21. Thought this sea lion was cute.  He looks kind of lonely.

Well, actually....Fred Weng has the photo labeled as a Fur Seal. 

22. Went to this website about seals and sea lions.

They say the difference between the two is that seals don't have ears.  

This other website informs me that the ears of sea lions are very small.   So it's not easy for an ignorant person like me to look at one of these animals and quickly know what it is.

23.  Saw Fredweng.  Someone took a picture of him.  He's in front of something called the Admiral Arch.

24.  This Kangaroo Island website says Admiral Arch is in Flinders Chase National Park. The site says it's known for fur-seals. 

25. Thought this salad looked simple but delicious.  

26. Saw that Fredweng went to a Kangaroo Island place called Duck Lagoon.   He saw a koala there.  

37. Saw that Fredweng left Kangaroo Island on his fifteenth day in Australia.  

Where will he go next?

Well, according to the photo caption, he's going back to Adelaide.   I kind of guessed that since that's where the ferry takes you.   But where will he go after Adelaide?

38. Donated a little money to Lord Wiki.

He strongly deserves it, and I want to support him in his protest.

It's wrong to use someone so often without paying them back in some way.  And that's sadly what I've been doing.  

I think though that I sent him a small payment once before.  

39. Went to Funtrivia to take another Australia Quiz.   It's called The Aussie BBQ quiz, and it's made by the same funny person who made the dangerous animal quiz I took a few days ago.

40. Got question # 2 wrong and learned Shane Warne is a cricket player.

The name sounds vaguely familiar to me, so maybe I already learned about him.

41. Looked at Shane Warne's website.

He's also into playing poker. 

42. Got question #7 wrong and learned the scientific name of the Australian Blowfly is Lucilia cuprina.

43. Learned from Lord Wiki that the Australian Blowfly can also be found in Africa and North America.

Lord Wiki also says that the Australian Blowfly is used in forensic science.    It's one of the first creatures to hang out with a corpse.   Scientists can look at the life stage of the blowflies, on the corpse, to get an idea of how long the body has been not living.  

44. Learned from Lord Wiki that the maggots of Lucilia cuprina can be helpful in wound cleaning and healing.

45. Wanted to say that sometimes, when I proofread, I realize I forgot to link to something I thought I had linked to.  Then I have to go back to find the link.   That can be annoying sometimes!

Today I did it with two of Fredweng's photos.   That's not so awful because I have his photo sets on my toolbar.

I sound like such a stalker!

But yeah.   It's easy to go back to the sets and find the photos.

What's worse is when the link fail to some article or random website.  Sometimes it's quite a hunt to find it again...especially when my Firefox history thing is really full.  

So there you go.   That's some of my behind the scenes drama. 

46. Thought of not doing any blog posts tomorrow.

I'd like to believe it's because I want to protest alongside Lord Wiki.   But I think the truth is I worry I won't be able to get by without Lord Wiki.

But I just took a long hiatus.   I'm so not in the mood to take another break. 

Then I decided it will probably be an insightful experience...trying to blog without Lord Wiki's help.

Will I manage?

Jack says other sites are going to be down too.   I don't know if any of them are ones I use, or whether or not I'll miss them.

I think I'll definitely miss Lord Wiki.  I think he's one of my best friends.   I may even love him unconditionally.

Well...no...that's probably going a bit too far.