Three more years under the Coalition...

...with the balance of power in the Senate possibly held by Church affiliated Family First party.

I'd better hurry up and start a family to take advantage of baby bonuses, first home-owners grants, and all the other family-orientated policies that the government will be churning out.

Three days in the Central West

Taking advantage of the Labour Day public holiday on last weekend, some friends and I ventured over the hills and far away to
Central West NSW, staying in a lovely B&B in Parkes, and visiting the CSIRO Parkes Radio Telescope (star of The Dish), the Peak Hill Open-cut Gold Mine, an alpaca farm, and the oasis-like Western Plains Zoo in Dubbo. With digital camera in tow, I thought I'd let the pictures do the talking for what was, overall, an enjoyable weekend and a chance to soak up some sunshine in preparation for the Sydney summer.

Branson to turn space travel into a six-figure adventure

Richard Branson's Virgin transport, entertainment and communications group has signed an agreement with pioneering aviation designer Burt Rutan to build an aircraft based on Rutan's SpaceShipOne vessel. SpaceShipOne cracked the barrier to manned commercial space flight in June by flying 328,491 feet, or about 62 miles, above Earth -- about 400 feet above the distance scientists widely consider to be the boundary of space. The flight lasted 90 minutes. The new service will be called Virgin Galactic and expects to fly 3,000 new astronauts in its first five years. Fares will start at US$208,000 for a suborbital flight, including three days' training.

New item for the personal To Do list: become an astronaut by 2015. I missed out on flying the concorde, but this one might be within reach.