Warm But Wet And Gloomy Outside

We have had over an inch of rain (30mls actually) over the last day or so with more rain expected today. But it isn't cold with 23 to 26 expected over the next few days until cooler weather arrives later in the weekend.

On Monday I was out and about during the afternoon helping Computer Club members. One member was after a copy of Pinnacle 14. This is a huge download of about 2.7GB. She said she had fast speed and plenty of bandwidth allocation so invited me to her place so I could install some download software and she could download the program herself. I installed the software taking her at her word but found the connection wasn't too good. Further investigation showed she had only 5GB download per month and 512 speed! It would take her 15 hours to download the program.

I came home and downloaded the program for her in less than an hour.

We have a great young chap at the club who has a bit of a disability. He was keen to change his ISP (Internet Service Provider). I went to his place to help him complete the online form so he could swap to a new ISP (and now get 10x the download allocation for the same price). I will need to go back to his place to setup his modem for him when the change comes through. The modem has to be reset so it can connect to the new provider. He will now get 25GB download per month for $30. However his speed will be quite slow but fine for just doing some internet browsing.

And finally I had promised another member all 10 episodes of "How the Americans Won the WWII Without Any help from Anyone Else" (better known as "The Pacific"). I put them onto a hard drive for them so they could watch it on the media player.

On each occasion I took my new 880GB Portable HDD with me. It is wonderful! It is hard to believe that this small HDD holds all my movies, all my downloaded software as well as a backup of all my important stuff (photos, music, documents etc).

To get 'ahead' of my home brewing schedule I put another brew on yesterday. For this brew I will use 1.25 litre Coca Cola bottles. This will be a great backup to my regular brew timetable and put me in front of my brewing schedule prior to our next trip to Melbourne in about 3 weeks. However I now have another bottle washing day most likely on Friday and possibly a bottling day on Sunday.

A Bit Of Summer

We are in for an interesting week as far as the weather is concerned. We have already had 18mls of rain overnight and we are meant to be in the 'dry' time of the year.

Showers are expected to increase from this afternoon and develop into rain for much of Wednesday. Thursday should see a few early clearing showers with a possible storm in the afternoon. Storms usually mean warmer weather. Hopefully the rain won't make things too boggy.

Friday is a possible early shower and a warm day (24?) while Saturday is expected to be fine and 26. Sunday will see a late afternoon shower and about 24 degrees.

Overnight Sunday will see a cool change come in with things getting back to normal for winter, cooler, clear and crisp days (about 20) and high single figures for overnight.

Showery Sunday

Awoke to wet grass and roads this morning and 9mls in the rain gauge. It had been overcast most of yesterday which must have turned into rain overnight.

I managed my first bike ride for some time on Friday. Usually I don't ride when we have visitors but then I missed Thursday as my bottle washing was a 'must do'. Also on Thursday I had to accompany Trish to the eye doctor in case I was required to drive home. It appears it will be another 5 weeks till things settle down and Trish can get new glasses. I think there are times when she wishes she hadn't had the procedure done.

We enjoyed our usual Friday afternoon "Meeting" with the others. We had a good chat and shared the week's adventures.

Saturday saw me back to the Computer Club again. The major problem I have to deal with appears to be email. A lot of people just go online and visit their ISP's website to read their mail that way. Others use various programs (usually Windows Mail) to access their emails on their computer. Others have Office on their computer and then Microsoft Outlook takes over all the email functions. Outlook is a business version of an email program and has heaps of things the normal little old 70 year old lady doesn't want!

I had this problem with a club member on Saturday who was using "Outlook". To complicate things she had inadvertently subscribed to a U.S. newspaper 'RSS feed'. Every time she went to access her email she would automatically download up to 20 U.S. newspaper headlines into Outlook as well. I worked out how to cancel the RSS Feed and then was able to reconfigure Outlook so she could receive her emails. Next Saturday I will switch her across to Thunderbird version 2. This version of Thunderbird is as close as you will get to the old fashioned (and now out of favour) Outlook Express. People seemed to find Outlook Express easy to use and Thunderbird version 2 has a real Outlook Express feel about it.

Watching footy on TV has been the norm over the weekend. With no sun about yesterday we even had the heater turned on for a while.

I thought the story below was worth adding to my Blog page.

Retirement Plan

Outside England's Bristol Zoo there is a parking lot for 150 cars and 8 buses. For 25 years, its parking fees were managed by a very pleasant attendant. The fees were for cars £1.40, for buses about £7.00.

Then, one day, after 25 solid years of never missing a day of work, he just didn't show up; so the zoo management called the city council and asked it to send them another parking agent.

The council did some research and replied that the parking lot was the zoo's own responsibility. The zoo advised the council that the attendant was a city employee. The city council responded that the lot attendant had never been on the city payroll.

Meanwhile, sitting in his villa somewhere on the coast of Spain or France or Italy is a man who'd apparently had a ticket machine installed completely on his own and then had simply begun to show up every day, commencing to collect and keep the parking fees, estimated at about £560 per day -- for 25 years.

Assuming 7 days a week, this amounts to just over £7 million pounds ...... and no one even knows his name.

Back To Normal Again

Tuesday saw our visitors and ourselves spend a very pleasant time doing a couple of 'tourist' must dos here on the Sunshine Coast. Lunch was spent at the Buderim Tavern which sits above the Sunshine Coast and offers views across to Mooloolaba and Caloundra. From there we tripped to Mooloolaba with its magnificent beach and very comfortable "Surf Club". Then it was back home to ready for a night at Thai Lime twist, our local tasty and inexpensive Thai Restaurant.

We were joined by a couple of our friends from here and all 8 of us had a great time. The meal was excellent. Afterwards we adjourned to the Caloundra RSL Club where both Eddie and Patsy made 'donations' via the poker machines.

Eddie and Patsy were heading back to the Gold Coast on Wednesday so we decided to break the trip at Sunnybank, a suburb to the south of Brisbane with a large Asian population. We enjoyed some Malaysian noodles for our lunch and needless to say 'over ate'!

We dropped Eddie and Patsy off at the Gold Coast and then began our drive home. Being a little later than we hoped we were caught in some peak hour traffic near Brisbane. It held us up for about 15 minutes. Within a half hour of home the traffic again came to a halt. We were lucky because there was a road off to the left. This made our trip home even longer! On the news we heard there had been a roll-over and traffic on the main highway had been blocked for an hour or so. We did well to get off and then be able to drive around the accident.

Today was bottle washing day and I was hard at it by 7 am. Then Trish went to see the eye doctor again and learnt there had been a relapse and her vision had again worsened in her operated eye. The doctor wasn't surprised and said it can take several weeks for all to settle down. If all goes well Trish will be able to get new glasses in about 6 weeks time.

Visitors Arrive

My home brew supplies are a little low so it was time to put another brew 'on'. It should be ready to bottle next weekend but of course this now means I have 32 bottles to wash and dry.

The weather has been great lately so it should be good for brewing. However we expected and got a few showers on Monday.

On Sunday I spent some time setting up my new hard disk drive and was able to get rid of two of the older and smaller capacity drives. Things are now quite streamlined and makes taking computer stuff to Melbourne on the plane much easier.


Monday saw us head down to Surfers Paradise and pick up some good old friends to come and stay with us for a couple of days. It will be a hectic time for us. Our guests are Eddie and Patsy Riordan, Eddie was a colleague (and former boss) from my teaching days. He is a bit of a villain. The doctor has suggested that Eddie should drink several litres of water per day. However as you can see from the photo, getting Eddie to drink water is easier said than done.

The throat was little husky this morning as I awoke. Possibly the curry we had last night was a little on the warm side .... or I drank too much!

I Have Been Spending

Trish is pretty good right now and again not sure what she is planning to do as far as her second eye op is concerned. One day it is 'yes' have it done then the next, 'no, I don't think I'll bother'. Much will depend on her next trip to the eye doctor on Thursday.

I have 4 external hard disk drives attached to my computer. I have had them over quite a few years so the older ones don't have a lot of capacity. When ever travelling down to Melbourne I like to take all my backed up stuff with me and this has been a larger 1Tb powered external drive. I would really like a 1Tb 'pocket' drive, ie it gets it power from the PC so you don't need to carry a power pack with you. A 1Tb pocket HDD costs over $200. However one of the stores "Officeworks" has a 880GB pocket drive on special for $126. 880GB isn't too short of 1Tb so I picked one up today. It is so small yet has so much capacity. It is perfect. Compare the physical size of it in this pic.

I am busy storing stuff to it as I type.

We have friends Eddie and Patsy coming to stay with us for a couple of nights early this week. Eddie is one eyed Collingwood and they went to the top of the footy ladder today, we couldn't have picked a worse week to have them here!

My footy team lost last night and Trish's team had a huge win today. My team's loss allowed Collingwood to move to the top of the table!

Much Improved

Trish is much improved this morning and I have lost my taxi-driving job. She is seeing well enough to be able to drive.

Trish is now having second thoughts on having the other eye done. She has removed her glass's lens from her treated eye.

A chilly day today with bright sunshine. There is a bit of wind outside which made my 12k bike ride a bit harder than usual. The wind chill factor made it quite unpleasant on the bike.

However out of the wind it is glorious. We are looking forward to a top temp today of about 20 degrees.

I Am Not Allowed To Tell You

Trish is feeling a little different after yesterday's procedure. I will be doing the car driving for the foreseeable future until things settle down. There is still some recovery to do but things should settle for her over the next few days.

But she needs to take it easy and not do anything silly for the next few days. Trish goes back to the doctor on Thursday of next week but already the doctor is extremely happy with the way things went.

My bike riding may go 'on hold' for a few days and "taxi driving" might be taking over.

It must have been close to 25 degrees yesterday until a cold blustery southerly change came through in the afternoon. Overnight was around 6 degrees and though lovely in the sun and out of the wind right now, there is a chill in the air again. Tomorrow morning is expected be even colder than this morning.

"Spring" Cleaning

It is a little wet in England as I type, the first cricket test match between Pakistan and Australia has a delayed start owing to "bad light". Hopefully play will get underway soon. I am on the PC and will do my blog page.

A delightful warmish sunny day today with temps around 23 degrees or so. Even now at 8:30 at night it is a pleasant 18 outside. This morning I finished a 13 kilometre bike ride about 9:30 and then I decided the blinds along the patio needed a clean. They get a build up of dust and some mould from the weather we experience here. You need a warm day to dry everything after you finish so today was a great day.

I use a pressure hose and give everything a good going over. It is a time consuming job and everything gets wet, me included. It took an hour and a half to do the blinds and they sure look a lot cleaner now.

After lunch I helped a couple of the neighbours out with their computers. I haven't been happy with the email client I put on a new computer across the road so this afternoon I installed the old favorite 'Thunderbird 2'. I like the feel of this older email program, it is a lot like the old favorite, "Outlook Express". Newer email clients set up email accounts almost automatically. Thunderbird 2 is an older email program and each email account has to be manually setup. In some cases this can be a little hit and miss. I will need to return tomorrow to finish setting it all up.

Another Glorious Monday

Today we have a clear blue sky and the temperature in the backyard has been around 24 or so for much of the day.

The day was off to an early start for me when I watched almost all of the Soccer World Cup Final this morning. I was up about 4:35 am to watch the match. After I had watched Spain win I spent a little time 'movie hunting' on the internet. Last night we watched two bumper shows, 'Se7en' and the 'The A-Team'. The first show is now about 15 years old but it was a detective classic. A really great movie scoring about 8.5 which puts it amongst the all time greats. I am still not sure what the movie the A Team was about, all I can tell you was it was non-stop action all the way through!

This morning Trish went to Gym while I hopped on my bike for a 13 kilometre bike ride around the estate. When I got back home it was a bottling day. I cleared the garage out to make room and was into my bottling. About an hour later everything was drying in the glorious sunshine. After lunch I popped over the road to give Brian some more PC tips on finding movies to download. I think he is struggling a little.

After I finish this blog page I think a little quiet sitting in the sun is in order!

The weather for the rest of the week is looking great too, warm sunny days (22-24) till Thursday, but after that the sunshine will stay but the days will be a little cooler (20)!

Early next week we will have friends Eddie and Patsy staying with us for a few days. Fortunately for all of us Eddie is slowing down a little (he is now in his mid 70's) so it won't be as hectic as it used to be!

Overcast And A Few Showers

Just about lunchtime, enough time to do a quick post.

Trish's team won the Trivia Night on Thursday and she was happy with that. There were several regulars missing from her team so they were really pleased to win with only a few of them there.

Trish has been working on the Stitchers' newsletter. She has volunteered to do it. I set it up for her in "Publisher". This isn't a program she is familiar with so she is on a bit of a learning curve right now. Publisher makes it easy to 'adjust' areas of your piece so it fits in. It is easy to make a picture a little larger (or smaller) and the same with the size of the print. Text boxes can be easily manipulated too. She is learning the best button to use is "Save" just in case something gets messed up.

Yesterday afternoon we both went around for 'drinks' with friends as per usual Friday afternoon. Again it was very pleasant.

Overnight we had a few showers and again we had one or two this morning as well. It is about 20° outside right now.

It Remains Gray And Cool

It tried to rain yesterday but only managed a few spots. It is 16 degrees outside right now mid morning and that sure is cool for this part of the world. My daily bike ride warms me up though. I got in about 12 kilometres today and Trish has just come back from Gym where she spent 90 minutes or so.

The photo was taken this morning and shows the gray skies. It does not look too good for the "Sunshine" Coast!

We had a great night last night. A pleasant Thai meal followed by everyone back to our place for a few drinks and watch the Rugby League game. There were plenty of laughs and quite a few drinks. Everyone enjoyed the night. Queensland won the series 3-0

Trish has Trivia on tonight while I will be enjoying some footy shows on TV.

Cool Weather

Life continues along quietly. Bottle washing day today so that kept me out of trouble this morning. Then 75 year old Brian over the road needed some help to set up his webcam so I was off to do that.

The weekend was 'the usual'. Computer Club Saturday morning with the usual help a few people out. Then footy on TV for much of the rest of the time. I did manage to get a brew on Saturday afternoon and that has been bubbling away. I am making a dark ale but using 'brown sugar' this time instead of the usual refined white sugar. I am hoping for a creamy 'thick' taste but it will still be drinkable whatever happens with it.

The weather is overcast right now and about 18 degrees. Yesterday was a lovely sunny 23 and it was glorious sitting outside.

Other time has been spent keeping the Bellvista Community Association website up to date. I really enjoy doing it so for me it is fun to do. I also copy/paste stuff from the website to write the Association's Newsletter as well. Though it is not due to be printed for a few weeks, I have just about finished the next double sided A3 edition.

Tonight is the third game in the Interstate Rugby League competition. A couple of the guys here on the estate are into it so we are all out for tea then back to our place to watch the game.

The others bought TV sets to fit the furniture they then had. So both have 32 cm screens and sport looks so much better on a big screen. Our TV is 42" so it is around to our place to watch the game. I will keep an eye on it but it really isn't my 'thing'.

Speaking of sport on TV, the sooner this World Cup soccer is over the better, I get up about 5 am to watch the second half of the matches from South Africa. Only three more early mornings to go!

Ain't No Sunshine!

The last couple of days have been cloudy, gray and quite cool. We have had no rain yet but the temperature has struggled to get to the high teens. Maroochydore had a 16 as a max one day. The last two days have seen the temperature get to about 18. However if the sun were to break through, the temperature would quickly go up several degrees. We are expecting some light rain overnight.

Trish flew back home again on Tuesday in quite reasonable condition after baby sitting two x under 5 yo's. She had visits from friends while down there, (she couldn't go out herself) and it seems they were very enjoyable evenings.

Since returning home it is 'back to usual' for her with Stitchers on Wednesday, Trivia Thursday night and Quilters this morning. We had a quick trip to the shops Wednesday afternoon.

I have been riding a little later recently doing between 12k's and 15k's most days. I meet up with more people at this time of the day and spend some time having a chat. This morning I didn't get back to the house till after 10 am but then gave the front lawn a quick mow and tidy up. The grass wasn't that long, it just looked untidy!

We are both off to the Bellvista Home Brew Appreciation Society meeting this afternoon. It is good to catch up, have a few drinks and see everyone.

We saw a show on TV about how much power is used when electrical items are left on stand-by. They say there are some good savings to be made by actually switching things off at the wall. I set up the main entertainment electrical equipment recently with a power board but with individual switches.

I have now done the same thing with the Computer room. There are a lot of things to plug in for power attached to the computer: speakers, PC, monitor, printer, a lamp, the modem/router, the cordless phone system, and each external hard disk drive (three of them) have their own power plugs. The plugs look a bit messy but I can now turn everything right off!