Hey Blarg and Philby, Just Saw the news reports ...

... about today's flash flooding in Melbourne and Victoria. Hope you guys and all that's important to you are doing ok.

On top of the Queensland and New South Wales floods, Cyclone Yasi hitting Northern Queensland, the Carnarvon floods, and Perth nwrrowly missing a hit from cyclone Bianca we're not off to the best off starts to the year - seems Huey's not happy.

... and hopefully our old friend Chrissie on the NSW Central Coast has faired well recently too. Love to hear from you if you're still checking in Chrissie!

cheers, Robbie

I'm beginning to think Australia is sinking! Hope everyone is ok, we had bad flooding last spring here in RI, luckily I live atop a hill, hope you fare as well as I did.

-Dave

Hi Robbie,

Thanks for your concern. I managed to escape the flash flooding, it was some seriously heavy rain! I had a gig that night and the place we played had some serious roof issues - there were a LOT of leaks. By the end of the night there were more buckets than people... I'm headed to NSW next weekend through the flood affected portion of Victoria, so it may be a different story this time next week! The town were going to was host to the evacuees from the town across the river. Hopefully they're all ok.

Hope all you guys and gals down-under hang in there and stay safe.

Good luck!

- Jos

Thanks, Jos.

You lot stateside aren't having much joy either - your blizzards etc are looking terrible. Hope you all manage to stay warm!

Thanks for your concern everybody. There was a lot of flash flooding in my neighbourhood and my basement studio filled up with about 4" of water. Just low enough to be lapping at the bottom of my guitars.



Thankfully I got down there in time and all the floodwater drained out when I opened the door. Everything has been moved to higher ground now and the carpets are out in the backyard drying. I got off lightly compared with thousands of my fellow Melbournians. Many people had to be rescued. I'm gonna build me some sandbags and have them on hand in the garage for the next time this crazy stuff happens.

The Big Guy Upstairs has got a great sense of humour. It barely rained during the last 10 years, now it looks like we're getting the missing rain in a few weeks.

Hope you guys are keeping warm up in the other hemisphere.

You lot stateside aren't having much joy either - your blizzards etc are looking terrible. Hope you all manage to stay warm!

As usual, the madness seems to stop at the Rockies so for us in the Pacific Northwest it's the usual dreary rain and gray skies. Only in the weekends though; we have sunshine during the work week

And Philby, glad you noticed in time and that the amp was on a stand. Keep the guitars high and dry and use some desiccant to avoid neck problems

- Jos