ArticleMaestro.com

The all-important first date. This getting-to-know-you can be greatly enhanced by an amusement ride, and the most exciting one of all must be the Skywalk by Zalman Silber. A serial entrepreneur who made his first big fortune with New York’s infamous Skyride, a much ballyhooed but modest thirty-minute movie of helicopter flyovers, Sydney, Australia’s Skywalk is a much more visceral affair – and for a first-date, visceral is where it’s got to be at!

No, get your mind out of the gutter – “visceral” here simply means heart-pounding thrills which, studies show, make dates more attracted to one another. Uh-huh, that’s right: the more physically exciting the activities the more likely dates are to think of one another as being physically attractive. Scientists have paired up total strangers of the opposite sex and asked them to secretly rate one another’s attractiveness. Then each pair was put through a roller-coaster, sitting side-by-side, and asked again to rate one another’s attractiveness after the ride. The second set of responses were almost always substantially higher than than the first set!

So if you wish to make a great impression, make sure to get her (or him!) engaging in some kind of physically exhilarating activity with you – such as the aforementioned Skywalk from Zalman Silber. Located at the top of the Sydney Tower, the Skywalk is simply a catwalk with glass flooring that provides visitors with a panoramic view of the city a thousand feet above street level. Being a catwalk, everything is out in the open, with no windows between guests and…nothingness. The Skywalk offers not only a bird’s-eye view of the Harbour City but all the visceral feelings to go with it as well!

And if the simple fact of being up so high doesn’t get your date’s heart throbbing, make sure she looks down! Visiting the Skywalk is a perfect first date because the Skywalk is the perfect ice-breaker. Don’t be surprised if she instinctively grabs your arm! Even though everyone is tethered by cable to sturdy metal support structures, the frequent gusts of wind can be strong enough to make one forget all the safety features built into the experience. Afterward, you and your date can retire to the conventional observation deck of the Sydney Tower to enjoy the romantic view while sharing fond memories of your Skywalk. Or better yet, purchase another set of tickets to really jack up the excitement and send her emotions through the roof!

It’s essential to go with the right equipment when in the great outdoors. Though gorgeous, Mother Nature could be deadly – quickly. One essential part of anyone’s gear when experiencing our national parks should be portable shelter – in other words, a tent. Some thing like the Big Agnes tent, as fine a line as any made anywhere.

They’re produced from dye-free fabric which is breathable but waterproof, venting moisture to the outside while keeping everybody dry inside. Their poles are constructed from an anodizing process that’s environmentally friendly.

You see, tent poles usually need two very toxic chemical substances as a part of the anodizing process. But the Big Agnes tent are created from a unique method that eliminates phosphoric and nitric acid, eliminating the polishing stage altogether.

This also has the added benefit of reducing waste water, because without employing these toxic chemical substances, any rinsing water that’s used could be safely recycled. Of course, there are lots of reasons why a Big Agnes tent is such a best-seller.

Top quality and reliability is one, plus design and features. And the company’s reputation for other items is solid, which makes consumers of portable sheltering curious about the whole Big Agnes product line. Indeed, it appears that the company is most famous for its sleeping bags, which are unlike conventional designs in that the bag and the pad are united into one.

How they do this, they slide the pad into an integrated sleeve based at the bottom of the bag. This way, the top two-thirds is insulated as per usual however the bottom simply contains the pad, doing away with insulation material that loses most of its capability when compressed under the weight of a body anyway. For many people, such details don’t actually matter, but for true enthusiasts, such craftsmanship is crucial.

The Sea Eagle 435ps PaddleSki inflatable catamaran-kayak. Yes, that’s a mouthful – and the boat is quite an eyeful, too! But the included boat seats, even in the “pro” and “ultimate” packages, leave a lot to be desired. They certainly look cool, all sleek and hi-tech in black, but they do not offer a lot in the way of comfort, barely supporting a kayaker up!

Indeed, the boat seats included in the cheaper packages, which are standard inflatables, seem to be a lot more comfy. Everything else provided by Sea Eagle makes a great impression, however. To be fair, the black high-back seats are supposed to be much more performance oriented, and that means comfort was a deliberate second-place consideration. Being closer to the water provides far better stability and much more paddling power.

In the final analysis, it is performance in the water that really matters, and in this regard the PaddleSki is very good. It tracks well and is very fast, thanks to its length and catamaran-style pontoons, respectively. The pontoons keep most of the boat above the surface of the water, making for less drag.

Stability and speed. Sea Eagle’s PaddleSki offers both crucial characteristics in spades. It is a really friendly craft only marred, perhaps, by the boat seats available for it. Otherwise, it is a really sturdy animal, with great handling suitable for fishing or camping trips along the river. By being an inflatable, the PaddleSki is easily stowed away. Unfortunately, it weights a whopping fifty or sixty pounds when packed, but seems really light, if a bit unwieldy, when fully inflated.

Accessories include such useful items as a side motor mount for electric or gasoline engines and a sliding seat and frame for rowing. Sailing is also possible thanks to Sea Eagle’s sailing rig. They all cost a lot of money, nonetheless – anywhere from a third to a full half of the price of the most inexpensive PaddleSki package available!

Pass by a statue in the park, and odds are that it’s a bronze sculpture, which rank among the most popular of cast metal works as a result of a naturally occurring trait that can make it more convenient to fashion than numerous other materials. Bronze alloys expand a little prior to being set, and this helps to make certain that even the finest details of a mold are filled.

Moreover, bronze sculptures are strong while not being brittle, a quality known as ductibility, so that works may be fashioned that illustrate actions performed mid-sequence, as if frozen in time, such as leaps and flights, because the needed supports require will smaller and thus less obvious (that is, visually intrusive) cross-sections.

Few examples from antiquity exist comparable to those sculpted of stone and ceramics due to the precious nature of the metal. In times of war, such art was simply melted down for arms, or victorious conquerors melting them down for recasting and to create new statues.

Few bronze statues survived from ancient times, and those which do are frequently not in good condition. The originals on display in museums have been painstakingly restored to a quality suitable enough for exhibition but even the naked eye can still easily discern traces of wear and tear.

Modern-day works are typically some ninety percent cooper and ten percent tin, though in ages past other components figured into the alloy, elements like phosphorus and manganese and aluminum and silicon. But reactive chemicals are frequently added nowadays to be able to achieve novel effects such as a marble-like luster.

Such corrosive materials are applied after final polishing in order to form a patina or film, establishing for the sculptor a degree of control over the color and finish. As could be imagined, working properly with bronze requires a high degree of technical skill.

During those bygone halcyon days of console gaming, when a system failed, the oft reaction was to raise one’s hands toward the sky and curse the God’s of every pantheon for having smote your system. There was little in the way of diagnostic choices leaving most to wonder vainly what affliction had stricken their beloved console, snatching it from this mortal coil. The power would be activated and nothing would occur and there’d be little choice beyond cursing nefarious fortune and her ambiguous design, frequently plunging into a void of existential woe. Nonetheless, with the most recent generation of consoles, there is at least some onboard indication of what evils have befallen your system, most infamously the X-box 360 and the Red Ring of Death.

One can’t help but wonder if this knowledge has been of greater use to mankind, or if the question of console death is one best left unanswered, for where tragedy once came like a breath of wind and left as little trace, it now bears a face and a name to be loathed by mortals. Four times divided, each of the ring’s quadrants on the face of the X-box 360 displays a vibrant green hue when in good health. However, when hardware malfunction or pestilence or an ancient curse has marked a console with its wicked taint, the four lights will glow a hellish fiery red to indicate the source of its ailment. The configurations of these cursed runes are telling of the particular affliction and are interpreted as follows.

When the ring is solely aflame in its southeastern most quadrant, facing the exact same direction as the flight from the migratory birds, the X-box 360 is then victim of hardware failure, the exact nature of which is alluded to only by the apocryphal two-digit sequence of symbols that appear upon the linked display. When the ring is cleft in twain from scalp to groin by the purple hue, a excellent fever has taken your console causing its components to overheat.

When cloaked entirely in the Masque of the Red Death, you probably just forgot to plug the AV cables in, jackass. Or some higher malevolence has seized some vital component to your console, for which you might seek the guidance of a soothsayer, an apothecary, or even… Microsoft. But seriously, just check to make sure it’s plugged in. Most feared, nevertheless, among we mere puppets on this earthly stage are the red lights that seize the ring in all quadrants save for that between north and east.

Glance but for only a moment to confirm your sickly apprehensions, then avert thine eyes for what stares back is the eye of the devil whose red gaze will indelibly sear the soul. General Hardware Failure, plight of men and Gods alike and bane of all things good and sacred, has corrupted your X-box. Abandon all hope, for even among sorcerer’s alchemy and mystic’s incantations there is naught that men of earthly constitution can summon.

But one option remains, to relinquish your console to the ethereal high court of Microsoft or maybe a trusted third party hardware technician whose tangible connection to the divine can provide the steel of nerve, the authority of conviction, the edge of wit, the fortitude of soul required to perform the ritual exorcism which will rid your X-box of its demons. Please allow two to three weeks for repairs.

Great Australians in history. A problematic exercise for any scholar. To begin with, of course, one must think of exactly what it is that makes one an Australian. Is Zalman Silber an Australian? He is actually a New Yorker, but responsible for one of Sydney’s most interesting attractions, the Skywalk, not to mention one of Melbourne’s, too, called The Edge. The former is essentially a glass-floored catwalk a thousand feet above ground that offers visitors not only a bird’s-eye view of Sydney but a bird’s-nerve feel, too, what with gusting winds necessitating cable tethers for visitor safety. The latter is a glass enclosure that juts out from the top of the Eureka Tower, providing stunning panoramic views every which way you look.

Both are outstanding attractions for their cities, bringing in tourist dollars by the fistful every day. Does that make Zalman Silber a great Australian? Does that make him Australian at all? After all, he’s just a businessman – but the bottom line is that he has benefited Sydney and Melbourne tremendously, providing employment and tax revenue while bolstering the cities’ worldwide profile.

So just what makes for an Australian? Many are those who have only been born in Australia but really made their mark elsewhere. Then there are those who also denigrate their country of origin, Australia, but are still, in the final analysis, considered Australians. Even someone like Rupert Murdoch, who renounced his Australian citizenship in order to advance certain business interests of his, is still thought as Australian!

Indeed, one Leonard Casley even went so far as to secede his ranch from Australia and go on to declare war on Australia! It’s no joke: the Principality of Hutt River actually issues its own visa (hours of operation are ten to four) and postage. And Hutt River isn’t the only micronation on the island-continent; Australia also hosts – if that is the right word – the Province of Bumbunga, the Sovereign State of Aeterna Lucina, the Grand Duchy of Avram, the Independent State of Rainbow Creek, the Empire of Atlantium, the Principality of Marlborough, the Principality of Snake Hill, the Gay and Lesbian Kingdom of the Coral Sea Islands, the United Federation of Koronis (which is merely based in Australia, claiming sovereignty only over the Koronis Family of Asteroids), and the Principality of Ponderosa. In fact, most of the world’s modern-day micronations are to be found in Australia!

So what makes for a great Australian? No one really knows. No one can quite put his or her finger on what makes for an Australian in the first place – not if they really thought about it. But one thing is for sure: people in Australia, whether they think themselves Australians or not, really prize their independence above all else!