Kimler Adventure Pages (http://randsco.com)

Aussie Top 10

Queensland, Australia - Scott didn't make the Top 50 list for "The Best Job in the World", but still, the show goes on.

Top 12 (by vote): The most-voted-for video applicant is automatically granted an expense-paid trip to Australia and will interview for the "Island Caretaker" position. Here's a look at the Top 12 of the Top 50, by voting. _{Randsco Newswire}

Julia Yalovitsyna, from Russia, was eliminated because of her involvement in a porn scandal. Achim Dold, from Germany, withdrew his application for unknown reasons.

Forty eight remain. Clare Wang, from Taiwan, was declared the wild-card applicant, because her video received the most votes - by a wide margin (151,000+ votes, compared to 2nd-place Mitchell, with 55,000+ votes).

Tourism Queensland will announce, tomorrow, which of the 47 remaining applicants they have selected as the Top 10. All eleven will be flown to Australia for interviews.

UPDATE: Tourism Queensland announced early on April 2nd that they would be selecting 15 applicants for an expense-paid trip to Australia, rather than 10. (The wild-card - Clare Wang - will be going regardless and she'll bring the total number of applicants selected for a trip to Australia to 16). _{(tourism queensland news item)}

The move is an acknowledgement by Tourism Queensland that the Top 50 have generated "incredible media coverage and support ... in their respective countries". (My guess is that they decided the media coverage far exceeded the $20k AUS or so extra it will cost them to offer a paid trip to the five extra candidates).

Good luck to all the Top 50 candidates who are anxiously awaiting to find out if they're one of the 15 that will be selected!

Yahoo Hacked

Yahoo!Mail Server Somewhere - Two weeks ago, someone from Australia hacked into the Yahoo!Mail server and broadcast a SPAM message to everyone in her Yahoo address book. The message was short and contained a link to some SPAM website.

We've been trying to work with Yahoo!Mail customer support to determine the nature of the email break-in and despite multitudes of messages, the Yahoo!Mail support staff has been very un-helpful.

"Most Yahoo!Mail customer service representatives don't read our message content," said Scott, exasperated with the lack of cooperation and assistance, "They just send back some automated message or try to throw up some other unhelpful roadblock."

The incident wasn't a one-off, as it happened again, last night.

"This is most frustrating," said Rachel, during a cell-phone interview, "and I'm thinking about swapping my account to gMail, because of the grief Scott's gotten from Yahoo!Mail customer service."

Aircraft Emergency Training

Nanaimo Airport - Last weekend, Scott - along with other North Cedar Fire Department members - participated in a joint training session at the Nanaimo Airport.

Nanaimo Airport Fire Truck - The 500-gallon truck has 4-wheel-drive, a bumper mounted monitor, under-carriage spray nozzles, pump-and-drive capabilities with water, foam or nitrogen-charged dry chemical agents. _{Randsco Newswire}

Because of the recent fire department boundary changes, different departments will now be responding to emergency calls at the Nanaimo Airport. The airport now falls within Cranberry's fire-protection district and they will now be responsible for any and all emergencies calls. In the event of a large-scale emergency, Cranberry will be calling on their neighboring departments - North Cedar and Ladysmith - to provide mutual aid.

The training provided an introduction and overview of aircraft emergencies, firefighting and rescue priorities, tools and techniques and got the new departments interacting with airport staff, equipment and learning airport procedures.

The two-day classroom course went well and there will be follow-on training and a mock emergency scenario training event, at the airport, this coming autumn.

Eggs 4 Sale

Nanaimo Hospital - With seven laying hens, the Hutton House hens have been producing more than Scott, Rachel and Alex can consume. Rachel has begun to take the extras (couple dozen eggs per week) to the hospital, to sell for $3 a dozen, to other nurses.

The labor and delivery department, where Rachel is now working, seems to be keen on the brown, free-range eggs. Rachel has more customers than the hens can keep up with in eggs!

At the moment, profits are used to "grow the company", so to speak - quite literally - as the hens are producing enough to keep themselves in feed.

Scott and Rachel have given some thought to expanding operations, which would require the acquisition of more birds, chicken coops, fenced-in runs and a permanent barn.

"If we can sell $2500-worth of eggs," explained Rachel, "we would qualify for 'farm status', which would lower our property taxes and provide several other benefits."

So far, the Hutton House hens are ambivalent about Rachel selling their eggs.

"There's been some squawking," said Scott, jokingly, "but usually, it's about laying the eggs and not selling them!"

Expansion of the egg business will be discussed at the next Randsco board meeting, expected to take place sometime this summer. No decisions will be made till all parties involved have their say. Any shareholder who cannot attend the meeting, may vote by proxy.

Though we can't determine which way company execs are leaning, we're fairly certain that Rachel holds the majority vote.

Run Dog Run

Hutton House Chicken Run - For the past two days, some dog has been terrorizing our 7 chickens!

Rutted Dog Path - Around and around the dog went, burning a path around the chicken run, in his frantic attempt to get at our seven chickens! Poor girls! _{Randsco Newswire}

Rachel spotted a dog, out the living room window, by chance.

"There's some dog running down our driveway," she said.

"So?" said Scott, with his usual interest in odd animal behavior.

"So ... he's running toward the chicken coop!" said Rachel, excitement building in her voice.

Afraid that the dog might scare a bird to fly out of the fenced-in run and into "jowls of death", Scott raced outside. The dog was in a fervor, running around the fenced-in chickens, barking at them, which created quite a bit of feathered excitement, from the frightened birds. Scott yelled at the dog, which ran away.

The dog loped off the property, back out the driveway and Scott was relieved that Rachel had spotted it, by happenstance, at the same moment it spied "the girls".

Relief turned to frustration the following day, when Scott again spotted the dog, running around the chicken run, barking and scaring most of the chickens into the coop. This time, however, when Scott gave chase, he realized that the dog had been pestering the girls for quite some time - it had created a rutted path, all around the fenced-in run.

We don't recognize the dog and don't know where it lives, but it's grown suddenly interested in our chickens and we're not certain what we can do to dissuade it. Our poor chickens are being terrorized and spend most of their day in the chicken coop, afraid to come out.

Because it's the weekend, the regional animal services department is closed and besides, we're not sure what they could do, as they're a good 45 minute drive from where we live.

"It would sure be nice to know where the dog lives," said Rachel, "I'd have a talk with its owner, for sure!"

Scott moved the wireless driveway monitor, which is a heat-sensor, aiming it at the chicken coop. "At least we'll get a signal, the minute he comes back."

Meanwhile ... egg production has tapered a tad, as the girls are fearful of a certain, four-legged menace.

Liars Go Live

New Design - Once the nameservers propagate, the new Lindsay Kenney website will look like this. (One of 54 lawyer profile pages, from this prestigious Canadian-based legal firm). _{Randsco Newswire}

Vancouver, B.C. - Scott and Yabba have been working for the Law firm of Lindsay Kenney for a number of months, coding, designing and inventing for their new web design.

"Great News!" said Scott, "It went 'live' last night!"

"The site might bounce around for a bit, till the nameservers are propagated around the web," explained Scott, "and there's a known DNS issue, that LK Law's IT staff need to sort, but you should be able to hit the site at - http://lklaw.ca."

"It's hot!" said Scott, about the new design, look and custom features - including Scott's pure-css technique (Photo-caption Zoom) and custom javascript/PHP coding by Yabba.

Reef Her Madness

Queensland, Australia - Though Scott's bid for the "Island Caretake" ended when he found out that he didn't make the Top 50 cut, he's been having fun following the progress of those that did make the short-list.

He's performed a quantitative analysis of all 50 applicants, posting the results in an interactive table that many are using to see how the applicants rank against each other.

"It was surprising to see how many didn't demonstrate any knowledge or experience about the Great Barrier Reef Islands," said Scott, "Especially as this was one of the 'key points' that Tourism Queensland claimed to be evaluating."

Something smells fishy and it's NOT the reef!

Hailey's Around the World Promo Tour: Australia's Hailey Turner is taking her application to the streets, by flying around the world to garner support and promote the reef! _{Randsco Newswire}

Meanwhile, one of the applicants, a 20-year-old girl from Australia, named Hailey Turner, has embarked on a round-the-world tour, to promote her application.

"It's mad!" said Scott, "But it's also fun and exciting!"

Kinda raises the question - What would you do to land a $150k "Dream Job"? How much time, effort and resources would you be willing to commit?

In more scandalous news, it turns out that one contestant is embroiled in a porn scandal and another received professional help from her countries top TV News station, to make her video (leaves many wondering the quality of her own material, should she be selected "Island Caretaker")

For those readers in Canada, a heads-up: Starting this week, Canada AM will be hosting a different Canadian applicant each morning (there are 7 Canadians in the Top 50). They'll showcase each applicant's video, plus have an interview with each.

Alaskan Cruise

Hutton House - Sources close to Randsco staff have heard rumors that Scott, Rachel and Alex might be planning an Alaskan cruise with Norweigen Cruise Lines, early this summer season. No details have been released, though it was rumored they'd be traveling with friends.

Firehall Field Trip

North Cedar Fire Department - The morning and afternoon kindergarten classes at Woodbank Elementary visited the fire hall last week. Scott was one of 5 firefighters that hosted the youngsters. Alex's class (afternoon) had fun and Alex (as well as her Dad) were excited about the event! The two groups watched a safety video, aimed at teaching kids about fire safety, helped firefighters "suit up" (w/SCBA) and got a chance to fire water from a 1 1/2" nozzle, at a distant target. Fun stuff!

Pictures and more to follow in an upcoming Randsco article.

Aussie This Aussie That

Yellow Point, Australia - Sometime shortly after filming Scott's Aussie "Island Caretaker" video, it's been like a 24-hour cable channel around here - the "AAA Channel". (We're talking about the "All About Australia" Channel, not the "American Automobile Association" channel).

If you don't already know - and it's pretty hard not to, when Scott throws up a site-wide banner about the bloody thing - Scott's applied for the highly publicized Queensland Tourism position of "Island Caretaker".

We won't go into details, as not to bore everyone to death. Just letting folks know that most of the recent news has more to do with the land down under than the land outside the front door.

Enough. View the video and vote 5 stars! (View it again, if you've already viewed it and vote again, if you've voted already. Vote daily, hourly or minutely ... and we don't mean a small, we mean OFTEN!

We apologize if the Queensland Tourism website is slow. We didn't design the site or plan the server specifications. IF we had, you would be darned sure that the "visitor experience" would be better! (Just pull up the video link and camp on it and do something else. If the video comes up, watch and vote ... if not, just hit refresh and give it another few minutes.) Aaargh - I know, but it's a reflection on THEM, not my video. Makes my "thank you for voting" mean something more, because we know what you're having to go through.

New Lay Record Set

Hutton House Hen House - A new single-day lay record was set by the Hutton House hens today. Seven eggs were laid and gathered this morning!

"It was bound to happen," reports Scott, "now that we have seven hens."

(The last record was six, set last year, by - then - four hens).

Valentine Amore

Hutton Dog House - Valentine's Day came and went, but for Scott, this Valentine's may live in infamy.

First, the legal disclaimer: The following story in no way reflects poorly on Scott's moral or romatic upstanding. Any resemblance to Valentine's Day past or present is purely coincidental and unintentioned. Let it be known that Scott, being of sound mind and body, did herefore make a - terribly funny though it may be - social blunder.

"It was an honest mistake," he said, laughing.

Grandpa? Scott noticed the funny bee-type path above the animals, but failed to spot the word "Grandpa"! (Nothing says love to a woman more than addressing her as "grandpa"!) _{Randsco Newswire}

What happened? Scott bought the wrong Valentine's Day card. So eager was he to share his love and affection, that he grabbed a card that showed three "people" on the front. His idea was that they represented himself, Tuxedo (the cat) and Alex. (Mind you, only Tuxedo's likeness was represented by a cat. Alex was a dog (on the right) and Scott was a - well - whatever that's supposed to be. A dog with stiff ears?

The outside of the card said, "Happy Valentine's Day" and the inside, "We [heart] You!".

"Ah, that's nice," thought Scott, "I'll let Alex sign it, I'll draw a small paw-print for Tuxedo. It's the nicest card on the rack!"

What Scott failed to see? That under the "Happy Valentine's Day", was stitched the word, "Grandpa"!!

Scott may have missed it, but Rachel didn't.

Reporting live from the frigid Hutton House Dog House and bringing you "news that you can use" this is Dirk Smedley (of the famed, "Birk Does ..." XXX-rated movie series).

Go Snow Go

Hutton House - It's been nearly a month since snow first fell and it's only now, beginning to melt.

After record snow dumps in mid-December, temperatures remained below freezing or slightly above, until after the New Year. At one point, Scott was certain the weather feed - which reports from the nearby Nanaimo airport - was wrong, as it showed an unbelievable -18°C (-0.4°F)! That's very cold, considering we're less than a quarter mile from the ocean.

The snow was so light and fluffy that it was impossible to make a snowman, though Alex made up for it by sledding down the road and driveway.

Temperatures did - gradually - climb to just above freezing, but continued snow flurries kept accumulating the white stuff faster than it was melting.

While we were fortunate to have a "white Christmas", to be honest, we were so sick of *cough* used to the snow by then (shoveling, getting stuck, school cancellations, etc.) that it was no longer "special".

Yesterday, with temperatures climbing to 5°C (41°F), the snow began to melt with earnest.

"A couple more days of this," said Scott, "and we might have a snow-free driveway."

The December snow measured over a meter, which has happened only twice before during December, since 1947, when Environment Canada began keeping records.

"We had 116 centimeters of snow at the Nanaimo Airport," reported David Jones, a climatologist for Environment Canada. Agency records shows 111 cm. accumulated in 1964 and 107 cm. in 1968. Even in December 1996 - the most recent winter dump - snowfall reached only 95.2 centimeters.

"This has been the second-highest monthly total at the Nanaimo Airport," Jones went on to say. (The highest was February 1975, when 122 centimeters fell.)

Masked Bandits

Hutton House Hen House - The chickens are also glad that the snow is melting. It means they're gradually getting more of their run back, each day. (They're not keen on tramping in the snow and Scott kept a small area snow-free for them).

One benefit of the snow was seeing tracks of all the critters that had been about, during the night. For a while, it appeared the raccoons were hibernating, but just the other morning, Scott spotted raccoon footprints. Now that temperatures are rising, they're venturing out and eager to fill their hungry bellies.

Tracking the prints, Scott surmised that the raccoons walked around the perimeter of the chicken run, looking for a way in. They moved some stones away from the edge of the fence and paced back and forth.

The distressing part was that they were successful in breaching the fenced-in run. There were raccoon prints INSIDE the chicken run! How had they gotten in? No matter, really, as the result is the same.

Fortunately, the girls were all safely tucked in for bed, holed up in their coop. "Chicken" wasn't on the menu - at least - not that night.

Retribution came for the seven chickens just this morning, as they caught another two raccoons in their cleverly-devised trap! Sentencing was swift and merciful.

For those keeping score at home, the tally is now: Raccoons - 1 and Chickens - 6. (Note: The chickens caught a raccoon just before the snowfall, which the Randsco rag didn't report ... being Holiday season and all.)

"Brawk, brawk," said one chicken, when asked about the capture.

"Brawk Obama!" squawked another (apparently excited about the United States Presidential nominee).