She's Electric!

Red 2023 GWM Ora in our driveway

We've been interested in having an EV rather than a petrol-powered car for a while now but we figured that it would be a while until the prices came down. I hadn't driven one myself until recently, but I was a passenger in my brother's EV about a year ago and it was impossible not to be impressed by how quiet it was and how eye-wateringly fast the acceleration was.

After my friend Shannon bought a hybrid, we thought about EVs again. The news that both MG and GWM has models for less than $40,000 helped. So we went and test drove the GWM Ora here in Geelong. It was fun to drive. Really zippy and features out the wazoo.

Like many families, we have had two cars, but they are rarely both in use and it's almost never unavoidable. So we traded both of the cars in and, for less than $20,000 got ourselves a brand new, red Ora. It is sold in some markets as the Funky Cat and it does have gorgeous and playful lines.

Part of the calculous is that we don't have to pay registration and insurance for two cars and that's money saved right there. The new car also comes with 5 years of fixed-price servicing, at only $99 each time. Finally, it is just cheap to run.

Our Kia Sportage cost about $70 to fill and the Mitsubishi Mirage was about $35. Each of them did about 500 km on a full tank, and the new Ora says that it does 400 km, but realistically it is slow to charge to 100% charged.

I charged it the other day from about 20% to 80%, and it soaked up 37.44kWh

  • If we charged it at home off the solar power only (which would be easy to do on a sunny day), it would have cost us $1.80 in lost earnings from what we would use instead of uploading to the grid.
  • If we charged at home on off-peak power, that would have cost $8.23
  • If we charged at home with peak-priced power, that would have cost $12
  • If we used the fast charger over in Waurn Ponds, it would have cost $16.84.
    • This would have been the fastest option, of course.
  • And using the charger at the community centre 800 metres away, it was free.

So, whichever way we charge it, it is much cheaper than putting petrol into it.

It is slower than filling the car with petrol, but we would almost never do more than 300km in a day so charging it overnight would be cheap ($12) and entirely manageable. And, if push comes to shove, we could change it on the road and perhaps pay $16.

So, as you can probably guess, I am very happy with our new car.

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Grand Slam

My fingers after they were caught in the door

Like many schools, my school has some classrooms that are divided by a doors that you can collapse and make one larger room. While getting ready for the tremendously successful Art and Technology Show, I was putting the wall back in place, and it is possible that I was not entirely conscious of where both of my hands were.

But I noticed pretty quickly when two of the segments of the wall joined on my right hand. It hurt so much that I did briefly wonder if I might be severed the ends of my fingers, but it wasn't anything so dramatic. But it was bleeding so I took myself to the general office to get a something to slow it down.

As it happened, the hurt enough for me to go into shock, so I had a little lie down on the floor of the office which Krista and Jenny clean up and hand and looked after me for about a hour, until the colour returned to my face and I could stand up without waddling.

It certainly throbbed for a whole and, three days later, those fingertips are still a bit tender. But it's all okay. But I did work a couple of half days after that since it took a bit of out of me.

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Music for the Car

Like almost everyone else, we stream music from our phones in the car, but I was looking at all the songs that I have on CD and I decided to make a USB drive to give us some choice for when we are not connected to the phone.

There was so much space on the drive, that my only real criteria was whether I thought it would be an album I might enjoy while driving.

1989
ABBA Gold
A Brief History … Live
A Few Small Repairs
Afterglow
A Hard Day's Night
All You Can Eat
Awake Is The New Sleep
Baby Animals
Barricades & Brickwalls
Beatles 1
Beatles For Sale
Best Of David Bowie 1969-1974
Best Of John Lennon
Better Times
Big Canoe
Bitch Epic
Blue Horse
Born at the Right Time
Bruce Springsteen Greatest Hits
Career Moves
Chinatown
Chutes Too Narrow
Comedy
Come On Feel The Illinoise!
Come On Feel The Lemonheads
Cover Girl
Crowded House
Crowded House Live Album
Cry Cry Cry
Dear Children
Deeper Water
Drag
Electric Soup
End Of The Summer
Enzso
Epic Theatre
Eternal Nightcap
Everyone Is Here
Farewell to the World
Fine Young Cannibals
Finn
Goin' Your Way
Gossip
Graceland
Grown Man
Harley & Rose
Hell Among The Yearlings
Hello Love
Help
Hidden Things
Hold On To Me
Home
Home To You
I Don't Think I'm Pregnant
Infamous Angel
Ingenue
In Time: The Best Of R.E.M.
Intriguer
It's A Shame About Ray
Jagged Little Pill
Joe Jackson Live
Joe Jackson Live 2
Just A Note
Let It Be
Life's Rich Pageant
Lucky Charm
Magical Mystery Tour
Many Great Companions
Money For Nothing
More Love Songs
Mortal City
Mrs. Robinson & Being Around
Must I Paint You A Picture__ The Essential Billy Bragg
My Better Self
Mystery Girl
My Third Husband
New Beginning
No Angel
Nothing But A Dream
Oh, Inverted World
On How Life Is
Out Of Time
Out There Live
Please Please Me
Post
Queen: Greatest Hits
Radio Songs
Red Dirt Girl
Revival
Revolver
Rhythm Of The Saints
Rubber Soul
Shaking The Tree_ 16 Golden Greats
Shelter Me
Sink Or Swim
Social Studies
So Damn Happy - Live
So Much Water So Close To Home
Songs From The Rain
Songs From the South
Soul Journey
Spellbound (Disc 1)
Spellbound (Disc 2)
Steady On
Stop Making Sense
String Of Pearls
Summertown
Tea & Sympathy
Tea For The Tillerman
Temple Of Low Men
The Beatles (Disc 1)
The Beauty Of The Rain
The Best Of David Bowie 1974-1979
The Best Of Spandau Ballet
The Best of the Commitments
The Blues Brothers Soundtrack
The Boy With the Arab Strap
The Captain
The Captain - Bonus Disc
The Cat Empire
The Concert In Central Park
The Definitive Monkees
The Definitive Monkees Limited Edition
The Definitive Simon & Garfunkel
The Green World
The Harrow & The Harvest
The Honesty Room
The Honeymoon is Over
The King Is Dead
The Lemonheads
The Life Pursuit
The Merri Soul Sessions
The Moon Looked On
The Platinum Collection [Disc 3]
The Raw And The Cooked
The Very Best Of Elton John (Disc 1)
The Very Best Of Elton John (Disc 2)
The Very Best of the Beach Boys
The Waifs
Time (The Revelator)
Time On Earth
Tim Finn
Together Alone
Tracy Chapman
Two Shoes
Two Wings
Ultimate Collection
Up All Night
Urban Hymns
Vagabond Lullabies
Vika and Linda
Wanted Man
Ways & Means
What's the Story (Morning Glory)
What the Sea Wants, the Sea Will Have (Bonus Track Version)
Wincing the Night Away
With the Beatles
Woodface
Words And Music
Wrecking Ball
Write About Love

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Sovereign Hill and The Swan Hill Pioneer Settlement

Mark and Shannon at the Pioneer Settlement at Swan Hill

My friend Shannon is visiting us again, and it's been twenty years since she was last here. This time, we did a bit more touring, and I want to preserve some of my memories and impressions, so here goes. This might be terribly dull.

Shannon and I started off with Ballarat and Sovereign Hill. I have been there twice already this year, once with Finley and another time with Nicky, so there wasn't much that was new to me. But Shannon is interested in this sort of thing as much as I am, and it was interested to see it through her eyes. And I always enjoy being there, even without excellent company.

I don't have anything especially profound or interesting to say about Sovereign Hill, but we did stay in a place called Craig's Royal Hotel, which is quite grand and elderly. I know this is almost always the case, but I am always struck by how much smaller hotel rooms are in person compared to the photos. And, on an unrelated item, the mass of poker machines in such an old and grand establishment was a bit jarring. But such is life in hotels these days. I can say though that it was a good place to stay and I'd recommend it.

Then we drove to Swan Hill in my little car. I was a little bit worried about how many car would do on the open road with two people and luggage, but it was fine. The most direct route didn't take us through any towns of decent size, but it was interesting to go through a bunch of little places and just take in the changing country side.

We did stop for lunch in Kerang, which was larger than I was expected. The cafe had newspapers covering some of the walls, some from as early as 1980, and this was interesting in its own way. I was particularly interested in these computer jobs in the early 80s.

Things had not been busy and Sovereign Hill on a Sunday, but it was really quiet at the Pioneer Settlement on a week day that was not in school holidays. We worried that it might be super dull, but we ended up there for about three hours and all the little shops and whatnot ended up being quite interesting. We even went for a trip in a terribly old Dodge, which was good fun, and looked at various bit of farm machinery. Not high excitement, to be sure, but interesting enough.

We did the paddle-steamer trip mid-afternoon, and we really enjoyed that, too. It was pleasant and leisurely way to see the river. The experience of the Pioneer Settlement was gently paced but I really enjoyed it.

We went back at night for the sound-and-light show. I had seen something with the same name there in the early 80s when I was on a school camp, but this was entirely new and updated, as you'd expected after more than 40 years. I think the advertising material called it something like awe-inspiring and it certainly wasn't that. But it was interesting, well presented, and just the right length. Surprisingly, there were about 50 people there.

So that's about it for that part of the trip. Next up, part of the art silo trail and the stick shed.

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