It Poured

All together this morning I have tipped a total of 110mls out of the rain gauge from the last 2 days.  The pool is full, the garden is watered and the pool chlorinator is again telling me the pool needs more salt.  You can check the rainfall figures so far for 2012 HERE.  You may need to go "Q2" to see the second quarter rainfall updates.

However the day has opened to a glorious blue sky, a top temp of 23 degrees and altogether glorious.  A little overhead cloud as I type but a much better day than yesterday.

Little other news.  I enjoyed the footy on TV yesterday.  Despite on paper being some 'ordinary games' they turned out to be a lot closer than expected making for some good viewing.

Friend Ian Eather dropped off my Community Newsletters I have to deliver around 5pm last night.  He headed home an hour or so later and there were three empty home brew bottles on the kitchen bench. It was a very pleasant 'interlude'.

More footy on TV this afternoon.

I have been wading through the TV Series Spartacus the last few nights.  I am enjoying it but there is a lot of violence in it.  It lapses into slow motion in best "Spaghetti Western" style whenever there is blood.  You see the blood fly and spread out across the screen.  It lapses into slow motion quite a bit.

I am glad I am watching it while Trish is away, it is certainly not her 'cup of tea'.

Heavens Open Up

Friday saw a cold southerly wind hit the Sunshine Coast with cold overcast weather.  Then Friday evening the first few drops of rain arrived and throughout today (Saturday) it is pouring.  I tipped 66mls out of the rain gauge this morning and there is another 25mls or so in the gauge just after lunch time.

Right now it is around 1 pm and I have the track suit trousers on and I am wearing socks!  It is cold, wet and miserable outside but we have the prospect that all the footy is on TV this afternoon.

Today's Computer Club was great.  Because of the weather the numbers at Computer Club were down which took a lot of the pressure off.  Most of the concerns I had today were copying people's own home made DVD's, some email stuff and backing up files.  Another person was considering moving from their wireless dongle internet connection and wanted to know about what other services were available and how much would it cost.

I tripped into Aldi earlier to get some bike riding stuff for Trish.  The seat on her bike has had it and Aldi had Gel Saddles and Gel Seat Covers available.  It is like shopping at those $2 stores, if there is something you want you need to be there early to get it before it sells out.  The best thing is you have up to 60 days to swap it if it doesn't do what you want.

Off to make some lunch and settle into watching the footy on TV.

Blogger Has Changed

I logged in to Blogger this morning to do my usual post and everything looks different from my end.  The view you get when reading it is still the same.  I guess all the tools and settings are still there, just now they are in a different position.

Winter has hit, cold southerlies are blowing this morning and the air is crisp and clear!  Humidity is under 30%.  Some areas in Queensland's north west had their coldest April day on record.  The temp should have been 32 but it was 16!

We were down to single figures this morning with a minimum around 9 degrees, they were expecting the low to be around 12 degrees.  Our protected back corner was still a delightful 28 degrees or so in the sun!

And the view across Pumicestone Passage this morning was exceptional.as you can see from the photo.

I have been going to bed a little earlier as I am here on my own still with Trish in Melbourne.  I tend to wake up early which isn't too bad as I head off to the lounge room to watch the live cricket from the West Indies. Sometimes when I wake during the night I like to catch up with the cricket score before going back to sleep.  Trouble is there isn't any radio broadcast from the ABC available for this tour.

But if you click on this link below it will take you to an online radio station in Dominica which is broadcasting the cricket. You will need to hit "Back" to return to this page.

http://www.caribbean-radio.com/asx/dm/590AM.asx

I can put this link into my internet radio and listen to the cricket broadcast live!

If you have a smart phone and the Tune In App, the station is DBS 88.1 FM in Dominica and is available via Tune In.  You can also get Tune In on your Computer and listen to thousands of radio stations all around the world.  Click HERE to get to Tune In on the internet.  When you get to the page, click on "Browse" in the menu bar at the top and then click on "By Location" to check out stations all around the world.

Where Do You Get Your Movies & TV Shows?

I was chatting with a mate on the phone recently and I was asked, Where do you find your TV Shows and Movies?  I reckon that would be a good subject for a post on my blog page.

You can find much of the information at a website I have called "Movies, How To".  You can access it here.

I have my favorite sites I visit daily.  Click on the name to visit the site.  Sceper, ReleaseLog, Scenetube, and OneDDL just to nominate a few.  These links are to the Movie Sections of these websites and have a list of the latest movies available.  I use this mainly as a way of finding what is new for that day.  Most of the movies are the same on each site anyway.  I make sure I check the Internet Movie Data Base for a 'score' or rating on each movie.  Quite often the IMDB score is a part of the post.

If there is anything there that I might want I then go to NZB Matrix where I am able to 'download' movies.  90% of the time if they are on any of the websites above, I will find it at NZB Matrix.  You can Google NZB Matrix but you have to be a member to access what is in it.  I am a paid up member there so I can access nearly all of the stuff there.  It cost me around $10 to be a lifelong member of NZB Matrix.

TV Shows are much more difficult to check out.  I like to visit MetaCritic (Here) and check out the TV section there to see what is getting the good 'scores'.  It is a long process to keep an eye on what is happening.  I also like to check out the TV Section of the Guardian newspaper in the UK (Here) and read the reviews there.

I check each TV series out on IMDB.  Also when on IMDB I keep my eye open for "lists" that readers have created which appear on some of the TV Series I am investigating.  On one of these lists I found a series called Garrow's Law which gets a score of 8.5.  Check it out here.  I reckon that is the next series I will download.

I keep an eye on the ITV and BBC websites in the UK as well.

Another good source is the ABC iView "Drama" website. (Here).  My ISP gives me 'free' download (it doesn't count towards my monthly limit) from iView and I have discovered that I can download those programs and convert them to play on my media player.  So these movies off iView are absolutely free at no cost.

There is also the ABC's "At The Movies" website link (Here) and another website called The Film Pie which you can access here.

My ISP also gives me free access to Usenet which is a movie download facility.  This type of movie file download is available from NZB Matrix.

I share a Rapidshare Account with someone which I can use during the 10% I can't get at NZB Matrix.

I can also get TV Show download links from TV Freeload.  This is a great site for getting Rapidshare download links.  You can check out TV Freeload here.  You may need to create a free account to get into TV Freeload but that is free and easy to do.

Happy In My Own World

The first week or so that Trish is down in Melbourne while I stay at home are usually OK. It is into the second week things get a little lonely. So being only 4 days in to the two weeks she will be away everything is going along fine.

My pressure cleaner decided to stop working properly so I was in need of a replacement. Aldi had them 'on special' so I grabbed one yesterday. It is much smaller and not as powerful as the other one was but it doesn't come in for a lot of use. Being small it is much easier to use and to set up.

I gave the letter box and the border stones in the front garden a clean this morning so the new unit does everything I want it to do.

Drinks on Friday was a great evening with lots of laughs and eats. There were 3 other couples there, two regular couples and 2 visitors up from Sydney to visit Ian and Kerrie. At 7:15 I headed home to watch my AFL on TV while the others stayed on to watch the Rugby League. I hear that one couple didn't leave until all the footy was over.

I am enjoying Computer Club a little more since I made a conscious effort to throttle back on trying to help everyone out. I no longer take my add on drive with all the movies and software on it and this makes things a little easier. I make it that if people want something done e.g. get a movie or have a program installed they have to come to my place to do it. That means they have to make an effort to get it rather than have it served up to them on a plate.

Meanwhile in Melbourne, Trish has sorted out the car door problems. The car is around 20 years old and everything is getting old. Even the remote control which opens the car doors requires an extra hard 'push' to get it to go. This is all she did, gave it an extra hard push and the car door locks popped open. However she does want to replace at least one of the front door locks 'just in case'.

Plenty of footy on this TV afternoon so that will be OK. Sensational day here with a top expected of 28 degrees. There was a nip in the air this morning while on my bike ride with overnight temp dropping to 16. The pool was 22.5 degrees so it wasn't a long swim in my pool!

All Quiet On The Home Front!

After the rushing around of last minute packing and all, today is much quieter.

On Thursday I managed to get Trish to Brisbane Airport in plenty of time to catch her flight to Melbourne Thursday afternoon. She was being collected by Kim in Melbourne around 6pm and would be spending the night with Chris, Wendy and family. Kate would pop over Friday morning and collect her and take her to Berwick.

The first thing on the agenda for Trish is to get the car doors on the car we keep down there to operate. Hopefully the problem will be overcome with new remote control batteries for the central locking system. However we will probably need to swap a door lock over to ensure entry to the car. Right now the manual opening of the car door by key isn't working.

The weather here remains very comfortable. Mid 20's most days and high teens overnight. The weather is ideal for bike riding as you can see from this photo. It is extremely pleasant doing my daily 12ks (when I can get out) and I enjoy catching up with people and sticky nosing what is going on around our estate. With the camera I just bought I can take some snaps and add them to the blog page or the Community Association website as required. It all keeps me busy and fully occupied.

After I returned home from this morning's bike ride I put another brew on. The photo shows the can the brew mix comes in. To the can's contents I add 23 litres of water, 400gms of white sugar and mix it all up. Finally in goes a sachet of yeast which comes with the can you see here.

Drinks this afternoon around 3pm so I had better get my 'casserole' sorted out so when I arrive back home I can just heat it up and enjoy my meal and watch the footy live on TV.

Trish Heads To Melbourne Tomorrow

We have had some showers and quite heavy rain overnight recently. I tipped 49mls out of the gauge a day or so ago and another 8 mls this morning. I managed a bike ride today but after the recent overnight rain there was considerable seepage across some of the footpaths. The pool is a little brisk for my brief post ride swim these days!

An older neighbour across the road loves the movies and TV shows I pass onto him. As I said elsewhere, I recently acquired another latest model media player. I loaned it to Brian for a week or so to see if he liked it.

He didn't like it, he just loved it. This morning we headed into Caloundra where Dick Smith did us deal at $130 which is the cheapest I have seen it for a week or so. This latest model connects to the internet, updates its firmware and even finds some of the info (movie sheets) about a film or TV show online. I prefer to make my own movie sheets which give the movie's stars, time, date of release, IMDB Score, a synopsis and all with a background shot from the movie. They look great but only work on this latest model.

So now Brian is in TV heaven watching movies and TV Series throughout the day. Some of the stuff I give him is out of sync, the lips don't move exactly with what is said and is an all too common problem with stuff from the internet. This unit has the ability to adjust the lip sync so what was unwatchable becomes perfect to watch.

Meanwhile Trish has been tidying up loose ends here prior to her tripping down to Melbourne for a fortnight. She is already fully booked for the first four or five days down there. The doors on the car we have in Melbourne aren't opening easily at the moment so it may require new or replacement front door locks. Possibly the problem is just that the batteries in the doors' remote are flat! Trish will find out soon.

We went out for tea with friends last night to a local very pleasant Chinese Restaurant. Plenty to eat, too much to drink and a lot of laughs. It was all good fun.

I was out of bed around 5:30am to catch up with the cricket live on TV from the West Indies this morning. My mouth was a little furry from the previous night's festivities.

I am settling into the office's revamped setup very easily. It seems better and there is a lot more space. The printer on top of the fridge is less than ideal but then it doesn't get used an awful lot.

More Chiropractor?

Sunday here wasn't warm at all. It was overcast and gloomy. An early shower of rain meant there was no bike riding for the day.

Therefore all was fine for moving the furniture around in the office. The first job was to disconnect everything and move it into the lounge room. Then it was necessary to empty out the refrigerator. I decided it was a little warmer than I had first thought it was. This photo shows the lounge room filled with computer bits and the contents of the fridge!

Despite removing 95% of the stuff from the office table it was still very much a two person job to move. It had been in the one spot for around 10 years so when things had been emptied and shifted away from the wall Trish got in a did a quick clean.

The fridge moved easily when we put a piece of carpet under it and slid it around.

When the furniture had been repositioned it was time to reconnect things. We modified the original plan a little so I didn't need the extra long VGA cable to connect the old PC with the TV Monitor.

I was relieved when after reconnecting things and turning them back on everything worked. The main PC wanted to reinstall drivers because I had plugged things back into a different USB connector on the PC and it thought it was 'new hardware'.

We found the small filing cabinet didn't allow much room for my legs under the table. Some furniture and things were rearranged in a wardrobe and now the filing cabinet lives there. It was also decided to put the main PC cabinet under the table freeing up even more space on the table top. Some leads needed modifying to connect the speakers to the main PC but now Monday morning everything seems to be working OK.

And the purpose of all this work was to ensure easy access to the phone point on the wall in front of my chair under the huge office table.

All we need to do now is make another appointment with the Chiropractor to get out backs 'done' again!

My footy team suffered a rare loss but the other team sure played very well. It seems the numerous injuries my side has isn't helping with getting the best team on the field each week. Trish's team had a comfortable win and are sitting nicely on the ladder.

Trish is at a meeting this morning. Being a sunny morning and despite a light overnight shower, I managed a 12k bike ride this morning. The swim in the pool was abbreviated because at 22.3 degrees, it is beginning to be a little cool for a long morning cool off swim!

Showers On And Off

I managed to tip 14 mls out of the rain gauge this morning, most of which was due to some heavy showers overnight. At least the pool is full again and the garden has recovered from over two rainless weeks.

We spent a pleasant Friday afternoon catching up with Fred's youngest daughter Ginny. We had a good chat and enjoyed a few quiet drinks. Ginny returned to Melbourne Saturday afternoon.

I 'paced' myself a lot better at Computer Club yesterday morning, making time for plenty of chats and I enjoyed things a lot more. I have decided not to take my 'external drive' into the meeting any more. Lots of people are grabbing it to update their movies. When I eventually get it back folders are all over the place and in some cases files may be missing.

Last night we went to the RSL. John and Margaret Lehmann's daughter Renae is lead singer of a small band who were performing at the RSL. The pub style meal we ordered was OK but when you are buying beer at $4-50 a schooner it is expensive when compared to my home brew ... and the bought stuff doesn't taste as good.

I use the new little camera a bit for everyday photos for this blog page or for the Community Association website. I jumped onto eBay and ordered a small leather case for it, under $6 delivered to my front door. It arrived late last week but I didn't have it long. It now houses Trish's Canon Camera while I now use Trish's hand me down case.

With it being a bit damp outside I think we are going to have a go at moving the office around. Hopefully everything will go again after it gets disconnected, moved and then reconnected again! We will see.

The way things 'have to go' means I will need a long VGA and audio lead to connect the 'old' PC (currently under the desk) to the flat screen TV I will be using as a monitor. I need a VGA coupler to join two shorter leads together to make a lead which is long enough. Again eBay rescued my with three couplers for $2-80 from China! But it takes around 3 weeks for them to be delivered.

So the move today will possibly mean the old PC can't go where it will eventually go. The VGA leads connects the PC to the monitor.

Some Overnight Showers To Dampen Things

Yesterday we attended Fred Pereira's funeral. We don't do this sort of thing too often up here as we are not close to people older than us.

Over 60 people were at the service which was conducted in the Caloundra Catholic Church. The service seemed to concentrate on religion rather than the person who had passed away which was different in focus to what we had previously experienced.

The 'reception' was at the Caloundra Cricket Club rooms and consisted of nibbles with tea and coffee. As Fred would have said, it was a bit of a dry argument.

There is a piece on Fred on the Dandenong Cricket Club website which you can access HERE.

After a sensational game of footy on TV Monday afternoon and evening we headed around to friend's for a BBQ. Ian is just getting into 'movies' so some time was spent downloading adjusting and updating. It was great.

On Tuesday I had a CT scan to get done to check my sinuses and then both Trish and I checked out the Chiro. I was planning to visit Fred but he had gone that morning.

Wednesday was pretty much a quiet at home day but after bottle washing I had a Community Association commitment later where many of the Committee met with representatives of the developer Stockland for an update. This meant Thursday was to be busy for me with a fairly big news update on the BeCA website.

The strong winds we have been experiencing all week have now swung around to the east and so we are getting showers throughout the day. Overnight saw us receive 8mls of rain, the first rain we have had for a couple of weeks. If you check my rainfall figures you will need to click on Q2 down near the foot of the page to get to April's update.

Yesterday I had the funeral and today we have wet roads which all means no morning bike rides.

Daily temps now range from around 16 overnight to 25 during the day. I bottle washed on Wednesday after a late start and the bottles seemed to take an eternity to dry, mainly because the days aren't as warm as they were just a week ago.

Trish is off to Quilters this morning and this afternoon we will visit Fred's youngest daughter prior to her returning to Melbourne tomorrow. No drinks today as both of our usual drinkers have visitors. But we will be watching the AFL footy tonight, it is Carlton Vs Collingwood!

Farewell Fred

Good mate Fred Pereira passed away at 4:45 am today.

Fred was the major reason I decided to try my luck and play cricket at Dandenong way back in the late 60's. We became good friends and got into heaps of mischief together.

Fred then moved to around 1km from our place here on the Sunshine Coast. While visiting their house when it was under construction Fred and his wife Heather would stay with us.

Heather passed away at our home. I still vividly remember Trish administering mouth to mouth on Heather in a futile attempt to revive her.

Later Fred and I tended to drift apart but we were always mates. Fred sought a lift from me to be driven to the local airport at which I answered "No worries". I was due to drive him last Monday week.

Fred is survived by three daughters. His funeral is on Thursday at the Caloundra Catholic Church which is where Heather's ashes are.

It is a sad day!

Sensational Weather Continues

Every day is high 20's with an overnight low in the high teens. Skies are generally clear and bright blue. We did score a passing shower yesterday but all had dried up and was clear again after a few minutes. Our night out at Forty Five 51 was very nice. However I am glad we didn't pay 'full price' for the meal. The chicken seemed a bit tough to me though the entree and surrounds were marvellous. We finished up back at the home of Ian and Kerrie where we kicked on for a while.

I have been riding most mornings unless I have an early morning appointment to get to. I had to return to my Ear Nose & Throat guy Thursday morning. He described my infected ear as 'pristine' As far as he is concerned everything is fine. He described my sniffly head as a sign of the times and a problem experienced by older men! I reckon I have a head cold which has been hanging around for 'zonks'.

Plenty of footy on TV over the weekend and now we have the cricket on in the morning from the west Indies. I am out of bed around 5 am and I can watch the last couple of hours of the day's play. My footy team plays Trish's team this afternoon. Geelong has always beaten them the last couple of years whether it be by a point or a few goals. I am not so confident today. Geelong's ruck stocks are low and this means Hawthorn will most likely have first use of the ball.

I managed to put a brew on yesterday morning. Later that day we were invited out for lunch at friend's place. It was a big family get together for them but we didn't feel like outsiders. It was exceptional and we had a great time. I am pleased my beer is only mid strength.

We are invited out to a BBQ tonight but that will need to wait until the footy is all finished.

I am in for a CT Scan at 10 am tomorrow so I will need to be a little careful with my drinking this evening. The scan is to check all my airways are clear and was requested by my ENT guy.

The Computer Club was extremely busy. I do too much at the Computer Club so I have decided to cut back a bit. I find I am not enjoying it so much as I don't have a chance to mingle and swap stories with others. I am busy trying to sort out someone's email on a laptop that runs Windows XP and is 5 year's old and has never been reformatted. No wonder things won't work properly!

The Front Door Is Open Again

With days getting to 28 degrees and overnight the very high teens, the front door has been thrown open again!

Plenty of bike riding going on at the moment with absolutely ideal conditions. Right now in a warm corner of our backyard it is into the low 30's and the humidity is under 40% making things extremely comfortable. This morning the pool was 23.5 for my post bike ride swim so it was definitely refreshing when I jumped in.

Monday night was the 3rd Community Association Meeting for the year. It was a committee meeting so only committee members were there. This usually means a huge post to go onto the website the next day. This kept me busy.

Trish and I went to visit Fred in Nambour hospital. He was looking frail, he was rambling in his speech but seemed really glad to see us. I related the contents of a couple of emails I had received from people remembering some of the antics we used to get up to. He asked me to stop telling the stories as laughing can be painful for him.

After staying for an hour or so with Fred we stopped at Beefy's Pies near the Ettamogah Pub on the way home for a pie for lunch. This company is an award winning pie making company and the pies are sensational, expensive and huge. We had a small tea last night.

I am feeling better but still have a heavy chest and some congestion. To ensure all bases are covered I am booked into to see a cardiac guy as I have become a little short of breath at times. I am also to see my ENT specialist tomorrow morning for an ear tidy up. I will run my stuffy head problem past him as well.

We are off to a nice little place in town called "Forty Five 51". 6 of us going and using an online coupon special for a special deal. The special includes and entree and main meal for 2 for $42. We will meet at 5:15 for pre-dinner drinks, head off to the restaurant then back again this time for post dinner drinks. Needless to say apart from a 'free' glass of wine, the drinks are expensive at the restaurant.

Perfect Weather

It is beginning to cool down a little from the heat of summer. This view is quite new to us, it is the front door closed to keep the cool breeze out! The door usually remains open all the time when it is summer time.

Still no joy from the postie. I bought an item on eBay which arrived from UK in a little over a week. The DVI/Hdmi lead I am still waiting for is coming from WA and was ordered well over a week ago.

There weren't drinks on Friday so Trish and I enjoyed an hour or so in the sunshine having a 'quiet' one. The AFL footy is back on in earnest again and with the new TV rights deal we are getting every game live, it is almost like being in heaven really! Trish's team had a good win on Friday while my team went down over in the west on Saturday night. I wasn't surprised at the result. The Dockers have the best ruckman in the competition and we had one ruckman playing his first game while the other guy had around 20 games. I was hopeful they would win but not overly confident.

My friend Fred is seriously ill and will be extremely lucky to see out the month. His family are all here in Queensland now and visit him regularly. Trish and I hope to see him on Tuesday.

The great weather (max around 27 and 18 or so overnight) means I am back on the bike and riding. I did around 15k's today and mapped my ride. You can see it HERE. I haven't done that ride for some time and I had forgotten how big a couple of the hills are. I should sleep well tonight. The photo above left shows what I enjoy on my way round.

I was in the pool when I arrived back home but not for too long. It is around 23 degrees now and heading towards "Brisk".

Trish decided it was floor cleaning day! I didn't know until I jumped out from the pool. It is a two person job, one uses the steam cleaner while the other mops up any left over water from the floor. Usually we wait till we have a really cool day but once "The Boss" makes up her mind that is what is going to happen. No mention that it is going to happen, you just get back from a 15k bike ride (a little the worse for wear as well as hot and sweaty) and get into it!

Click on all photos for a larger view. Then click on the X in the top right hand corner to return to this page.

Busy at Computer Club again yesterday. One chap couldn't get any response to get his computer going. It worked much better after we turned his power on. Another lady wanted her laptop 'reformatted'. She had thoroughly prepared saving all her documents etc and the reformat went ahead without too many problems. Several others just get sick and tired of putting their password in each time they start up their computer so we managed to remove those.

Another lady wants to buy stuff online and wanted an intro to eBay. I asked her if she had a PayPal account and she said not yet. I then told her she would need to give PayPal all of her bank account details but she didn't think that was a good idea. Therefore there was no need to show her all about eBay as 99% of payments are done via PayPal!

Needless to say it was all great fun.