It Isn't Warm!

Don't let the bright blue sunny sky here this morning fool you!

It isn't even 17º outside and it is almost 11 am.  The wind, not breeze today, the wind is a lazy one as it blows straight through you!  The thought of a bike ride lingered on my mind for around 5 seconds and then promptly disappeared.  Cold temperatures and a brisk wind are not a good mix for a bike ride!

My second brew is bubbling away quietly but the cool weather isn't good for me enjoying the odd ale or two!  I need a few more empty bottles before I can bottle wash early next week.  But I may have to force myself just so I have enough empties!

The brew continues to be well rugged up to keep the temperature up so the brew can work properly.

We watched plenty of footy yesterday afternoon and evening, especially the game from Brisbane which was played in very wet rainy and cold weather after half time.  That wet weather arrived here an hour or so later but just gave us a few mls of rain.  It did usher in the wind change though and gave us the cooler weather we can expect for the next few days.

We are currently watching the Kevin Spacey TV Series, "House of Cards".  It is a political story set in USA and tells of the plotting and skulduggery which allegedly goes on in a tough political arena.  It has got both Trish and I hooked at the moment.  What with footy, House of Cards and Wimbledon there is heaps to watch on TV.

This morning I was up at 6 am to watch the World Cup soccer from Brazil as well.

Next door have a large dog.  It tends to bark extremely infrequently when they are not home.  The neighbour wasn't at all pleased when I told him of a worse than ever episode which occurred on Friday night when they were out.  He told me it was a dog and that dogs bark, I told him the dog was his, he was responsible for it and he should accept the responsibility which goes with being a dog owner.

We agreed to differ.  We haven't seen or heard from the dog since!  It does rush up to fence between our two homes and can startle you from time to time, especially if you have forgotten it is there.  The couple of trips I have had to make outside today have all been quiet.

I wonder what he would think if his elderly parents were in our shoes and whether his stance on this issue would be any different. I seem to think it would.

I enjoy my lifestyle here too much not to put up with anything which could unreasonably interrupt it.

We get a fair bit of kid noise but that goes with the territory.  Kid noise is fine, I worked with it for 40 years and it helps to keep you smiling, but I do draw the line at untrained and undisciplined barking dogs!

A Warmer Saturday Morning

It is around 12 degrees this morning, much better than the 4 and 5 degrees we have had the last couple of mornings.  However these cold mornings have finished up with glorious sunny days around 24 or so.

Yesterday's bike ride took place around mid morning when the temeperature was approaching 20 degrees.

There isn't a lot of news about the place.

My PC continues to gallop along fine (Touch wood!) and do all the things it should do.  Trish's new laptop is a little gem and works beautifully.

The reformatted Dell Laptop is working well too.  It isn't as good as the new one and even though it is working fine right now, at around 5 years old its days should be numbered!  The battery died in it around Christmas and we never bothered with a replacement, electing to run it off the mains power instead.

However a little search on eBay found a 'replacement' (new) at $20 so I have sent for it.  It is just nice to be able to take a laptop with me on those very rare occasions when to have one would be handy.

A mate is having a problem with his older laptop and his media player 'talking' to each other.  Is the problem the media player, the modem router or the old laptop?  If I had the reformatted Dell laptop with me we could have narrowed down the problem quite quickly.

I have computer club this morning.

My footy team has brought back memories of those panic attacks I suffered when I was working!  I reckon I almost suffered several more attacks last night while watching the game from Melbourne on TV.  Fortunately they responded to win a close match. 

I did get another brew on yesterday morning.  That is the third brew that has gone on in three weeks.  I have made an 'extra' batch to take to Melbourne with me in a couple of week's time.  The photo above shows the brew bubbling away.

It needs the heat pad and the old trakkie top to stop the brew getting too cool.  Some warmth is required (28 degrees) to ensure the yeast works effectively.

Just Sensational

As the photo shows, today is just the most glorious day.  It is low 20's this afternoon and not a cloud to be seen.

It looks good doesn't it?

I had been considering a change of Internet Provider.  I had a great offer from Bigpond who would give me 100GB download for $60 which is the same price I currently pay for 60GB download from Internode.

However Internode have just updated their offerings and now I can get phone line rental and 100GB from Internode for $80.  Usually I don't get close to my 60GB as I focus on obtaining 'matroska' files rather than .avi or .mp4.  Matroska (.mkv) is a newer format which has great quality but smaller file size.

Yesterday I pulled the switch, we will move the phone line rental and internet connection to Internode and pay the 'bundle' price.  It is actually a few dollars less than we paid previously but with 65% more download!

We must be going to Melbourne soon.  The car had a major service today, new spark plugs etc and all is ready for the drive.  I am off to get my prescriptions updated on Monday and will look to mow the lawn as well.

What A Difference A Reformat Makes!

All the best plans of mice and men!  Well the plans to reformat the laptop didn't go exactly the way it was meant to. 

But we got there (or are getting there eventually).  The original plan was to return the laptop to the same condition as when we bought it. The laptop instruction book told us how to do it but it wasn't quite as the book said it should be.

We had updated the laptop with official Windows from Vista to Windows 7.  And the return to Factory Condition option isn't available in Windows 7!  This option was called the Dell Image option but it was nowhere to be seen.

The beauty of the Factory Image reset is you don't have to worry about installing any drivers, they are all installed automatically from the Dell Laptop Image.  A driver is a small program which runs the "Dell" laptop parts of the system.  These drivers are for the screen, the sound, the wireless internet connection, the webcam and other pieces.

To do a full return to factory conditions meant I had to 'manually' re install Vista and the Dell Drivers from the disks provided. 

So off I set.  The Vista reinstall was OK but I was having problems with the drivers.  So I restarted the now Vista laptop, hit the F8 key and got into the 'restore' options.  Bingo, there was the restore to Dell Laptop Image option!  15 minutes later it was just like the first time we bought the laptop.

Then came the reinstall Windows 7!  This went reasonably OK.  Another hour or so and Windows 7 was up and running.  Then it was updates time.  After all the updates for Windows 7 and the 2010 version of Office I have installed the updates total around 1GB!

The photo above shows the laptop doing 131 updates, most of these are for Office 2010 which I installed this morning.

But we are getting there OK.

It is amazing how much quicker the laptop runs after the reformat.  Though not as quick as the new laptop, it is now a credible backup for either Trish or myself 'just in case'.

The battery in the old laptop is dead so it only runs when connected to the mains power supply.  But it appears to be running quite OK after the reformat!  It was worth the hassle!

Roll On Cricket Season

As the blog title suggest, my footy team were beaten again on Saturday.  They have been up with the top teams for around 7 or 8 seasons now but it looks like that era may be coming to an end.

As the older champions retire the youngsters in their place just aren't quite up to it just yet.  They should still make the finals this year but I can't see them doing much when they get there. 

The weather continues to be very pleasant.  The wind is off the sea the last few days which means milder overnight temperatures but it also brings a few clouds and the occasional shower each day.  24 degrees or so during the day and 12 overnight is our current range.

When the wind swings back to the south west we get chilly clear mornings and delightfully crisp bright sunny days.  That is what we are expecting mid week coming up.

As usual Computer Club was busy on Saturday.  My PC starts even faster now it has settled down following the reformat the other week.  I can be using it in under two minutes from a 'cold' star at the moment.  Everything seems to be working brilliantly.

To repair some of the computers I help out with at Computer Club they too really need a reformat.  One guy couldn't get a program to run on his laptop.  So he decided to do a System Restore to a point back a couple of days.  However when you hit the "System Restore" link on his computer nothing happens!

I managed to start it in Safe Mode, I hit System Restore and again nothing happens!  His laptop really needs to be reformatted.  That is, take it back to factory default condition, exactly what it was like the day it was brought home from the shop.  This means you completely wipe everything off the hard drive and start again.

Most laptops have a 'hidden restore' section on their hard drives.  On this section is a 'copy' of what was on the brand new laptop.  When doing a full reformat, or revert to factory settings, this is copied onto the usable section of the hard drive after everything that was there beforehand is erased.

This is just what I am going to do with Trish's old laptop tomorrow.  It will take a little longer because her laptop came with Windows Vista on it.  So the restore process will restore Vista.  Trish got a copy of Windows 7 on a disk from the manufacturer a month or two after she bought her laptop.  So after the Vista restore is finished I will need to reinstall a fresh copy of Windows 7 over the top of it.

It should take around 90 minutes to have it back with a brand new copy of Windows 7 ready for me to load up with software.

It will be a backup for both of us in case we have a disaster somewhere with one of our computers.

We will see the last 3 episodes of "Fargo" tonight.  The original movie "Fargo"is one of my all time favorites.  Needless to say I am finding the 10 episode TV Series fantastic.  It scores 9.2 and is expected to win several Emmy Awards.

I managed to get my "Melbourne Bottling" completed Friday morning and immediately put another brew on.  I have stacks of empty bottles so a brew is needed urgently to utilise them all.  I will probably bottle on Friday of next week.

My brother continues to enjoy his caravan Trip as they head further north and enjoy the warmer weather.  When I last spoke with him they were at 1770 north of Bundaberg.  The enjoyed their time at Burnett Heads near Bundaberg.  From there they were off to 1770 and then Rockhampton to catch a Rodeo.  After that they were setting out for Yeppoon.  From there they thought they may head inland to the fossicking areas around Emerald.

My brother is loving it and his wife Jeannette is enjoying it more than she thought she would. 

I Had a Thought

Always a problem when either Trish or I 'have an idea'.

But before that.  It is a wonderful winters day in this part of the world.  There is hardly a cloud in a beautiful blue sky and the temp is around 23 degrees.  The front and back doors are wide open to allow the warm outside air to go through the house.  It is a superb day.

The World Cup soccer on TV has turned my day upside down.  Each morning at this stage of the competition there is a live game on telly here at around 8 am.  This is usually when I am bike riding or checking emails or downloads on the internet.

So a daily international soccer match live on TV tends to set me behind schedule just a little bit.  But this is a drama I can handle OK.  I ride after the soccer has finished which ensures the day has warmed up from what has been a chilly 7 or 8 degree start!

We are beginning to get into the mode of preparing to go to Melbourne.  This time we are driving down and the main purpose is to farewell Kate, Arj and the grand kids as they set off for a 2 year teaching posting in Saudi Arabia.  They leave late on August 2nd.

As we are driving the car down this time it means I can take some of my own home brew with me.  A full home brew batch is the equivalent of five dozen stubbies or around $100 worth of beer.

Home brew however means I need to reuse the bottles and I wasn't fussed about bringing 60 empty bottles back with me!

I was due to get underway with bottle washing today, so late yesterday I changed my mind and had to hurriedly prepare 17 large Coca Cola or Pepsi Max bottles. When finished I can just put the empties in any recycling bin and not have to bring the bottles back with me.

The photo shows them drying in the sun today.

Trish organised a big day at Stitchers today with a red theme.  They had someone doing a presentation on a "Red Organisation" and I believe the morning went very well.

It is now a full week since I reformatted the old PC.  Most days I discover something else I still needed to install but that isn't a problem.

Right now it is running better than it has done for around 18 months.  I usually reformat after a couple of years but this time it went a little over 3 years.  The difference in how it runs from a couple of weeks ago is amazing.

One or two programs I used to have didn't work as well as I thought they should so I have switched to another program.  The biggest hassle was with an unpacking problem called Winrar which I used quite a lot during downloading stuff.  The reformatted PC would hang when a file was being extracted with Winrar.

Google came to my rescue.  This can be a bit of a problem as I read online that quite a few people had the same problem.

This was easily solved by just using another free extraction program called 7Zip. 7Zip evidently extracts stuff even more quickly than Winrar.

Everything is working very well at the moment!  (Touch Wood!)

Hi Lou Ann in Texas, I see you still give the blog a visit from time to time! 

Great to see you!

Sport On TV

The beginning of the "World Cup" soccer from Brazil is surely taking up some of my TV Sport watching time.  I usually wander out in the dark around 6:00 am and turn the TV on.  Today Sunday there are three matches for me to watch with the last game finishing just before 1pm.  This is handy as the live coverage of the AFL begins soon after 1!

The PC has continued to operate OK.  It does have its moments though when things seem to 'hang'.  The PC has an up market 'video card' in it which needs a special program (or driver) to run it.  I have updated the video card program this morning and see if I can stop the 'hanging'.

Sometimes I get the error message "Windows Explorer has stopped working." The message looks a little like the one in the photo left.  After about a minute all my icons and things come back and everything is back to normal.

But the computer just 'hangs there' seemingly doing absolutely nothing at all.  This does cause some heart palpitations!

Having a couple of other computers around the place is handy as well.  I haven't been as good as I should have been with saving some of the small files I use.  Often they are just copied into a folder on one of the other laptops.  I can easily then just go and copy/paste the missing file across to my PC via the wireless network.

Computer Club was busy yesterday.  An elderly lady was having problems.  I put a copy of Malwarebytes on her laptop to do a scan for any malware and then clean it up for her.  On a 'badly infected' computer I may get 200 files to repair or delete.  On her laptop I got nearly 1600 files.

The only way to effectively clean the mess up is to reformat it. This we did yesterday and it is again up and running.  However now she needs to go home and find the password to get into her home wireless network.  Things never go 100% smoothly when attempting a reformat!

It is a coolish but sunny day today with a top around 21 or so. This follows on from a cloudy and drizzly day yesterday when we got around 2mls of rain.  Cold overnight temperatures are due on Monday when the prevailing wind swings around to the south-west and it will bring cold dry wintry air in for the centre of the continent.  Days will be sunny but 'crisp'.

Bike riding operations will need to be modified.

My brother has arrived at Woodgate Beach with his caravan.  It was a little wet when he sent a text message through late yesterday saying it looked a great place to stay when the weather fines up.  The sun is out again today.

I saw this on one of the websites I like to visit. 

It is a Dell $17,000 15" laptop dropped back to $1,000, a $700 saving. It has the latest i7 processor, 16GB of ram, a graphics card and a 1TB hard drive.

It is top of the range and on special for just a few more days.  Check it out  HERE .

PC Update

I reckoned I had finished with the PC around 5 pm yesterday.  But then I remembered I needed to install this and then that.  Later I remembered a few other bits and pieces which needed doing as well.  I finished up with a pretty lengthy list which I have now completed.

After loading everything up on the PC it now starts in around 3 minutes.  There is a fair bit of stuff on it though which starts up with the computer so I am more than happy with this.

Overall it is running heaps better than a week or so ago and has most of my stuff back and installed again.

I did put another brew on this morning which again means next week I will be bottle washing, most likely on Wednesday and bottling on Friday.  This one is an English Bitter and it isn't too bad at all.

Our Indian meal last night with Geoff and Jeannette at The Curry Bowl was excellent.  We couldn't eat any more, it was BYO and it worked out at $20 per head.

They have just loved Mudjimba where they have been staying.  Sentences they say now begin with "Next Year when we are at Mudjimba .."  I think they would love to be back.

They are due back in Melbourne mid July so they moved on today to ensure they got the most value of their time still to go.

Their next stop is Woodgate Beach!  It is a beautiful small secluded beach about 200k's north of us.  It is an extremely popular with caravanners. There are heaps of bike riding tracks there and it is a lovely quiet beach.

Click on either photo for a larger view.

We have drinks this afternoon at 3pm which should be lots of fun.

The last couple of days have stressed me out quite considerably.  It brought back recollections of when I was 'crook' at school, not a pleasant memory at all.  Just when you suspect you are over it, then something comes along to bring back those terrible memories.

Catastrophes 1 and 2!

Now what would really upset young Les Thomas.  I think I know; either his computer died or the internet has been disconnected!

I have endured both catastrophes since I last posted on this blog. And both in the last 24 hours!

This post is coming from my totally reformatted PC.  I started around 4pm yesterday afternoon and it is getting close to being finished over the next day or so.

I am just so pleased I am so meticulous with my backing up.  This did make getting things back to the way they were a lot easier.

My PC was beginning to get bogged down and would stop working for a minute or so while it caught its breath.  Now it starts more quickly, shuts down OK and does what it is meant to do much much better.

This blog is being 'done' on the reformatted PC.

Yesterday afternoon I decided to install Windows 7 again after the PC just wouldn't boot up at all.  Windows 7 is an older much updated system nowadays so after installing, it did around 750mb of updates!  After I put Office 2010 on today it did another 450mb of updates.

I was busy working this morning getting things up and running and saw the internet had gone off again at around 7:30 am.  Unlike other occasions recently, it did not return.  About 8:15 I was on the phone to Internode my ISP.  The Tech Guy saw it was a real problem and not something I had done.  It was a Telstra job!  By 10:15 we were online again.

My brother Geoff and his wife Jeannette are in the area in their van.  As they have dogs they have to find a dog friendly park nearby.  Most Caravan Parks in this area don't need to take dogs etc, they are popular enough. 

Geoff is staying at Mudjimba near the airport so they are 30 minutes from us.

We caught up for drinks on Tuesday, lunch at the gorgeous Headland Golf Club on Wednesday and tonight we are meeting at The Curry Bowl for tea.

They head off further north tomorrow!

I will be sleeping very well indeed after a hectic 24 hours just gone.  A couple of beers tonight and a curry will ensure I sleep OK.

End Of The Week

Trish has returned home safe and almost well from her recent 5 day trip to Melbourne.  5 Days just isn't long enough she felt so I reckon that will be the last time she heads south for a mere 5 days.

But she did have commitments with the Arts Centre Association when she arrived back home.  A big Fair is on over a couple of days of the upcoming weekend that she wanted to be involved with.

I had a Community Association Public Meeting to 'chair' on Monday night which finished with a small Wine & Cheese tasting, It went over very well.

Prior to that I had an appointment with the Heart Doctor and he has now pronounced me as having minimal risk.  The medication he put me on for several months has worked perfectly and my 'bad' cholesterol is down to 1.5%, with an overall Cholesterol reading of something like 3.4%.

Trish had the makings of a head cold when she flew home on Tuesday.  It worsened on Wednesday, was pretty full on on Thursday but she is much better today.

Despite Trish not moving that well, four of us went to the RSL on Wednesday evening.  A guy by the name of Greg Doolan was playing.  He was the lead singer of an early 90's hit group in Brisbane called "Wicketty Whack".

He is a darn good vocalist though and top entertainer.  He had an old mate with him from one of the first bands he ever played with. At one gig that Wicketty Whack performed at back in those days, the crowd was 36,000.

The two guys and the backing duo (one of whom was Greg's wife Laura who herself won Queensland's female Singer of the year 5 times) put on a sensational show with heaps of 60's hits.  I especially enjoyed the "Them" hit Gloria.  The joint was really rocking. The average age in attendance would be late 60's and there were some sensational rock 'n rollers as well.

The food was OK, Carlton Draught was $4-90 a Schooner (15oz) and the company we were with were good friends John and Marg. The music was sensational.

The Community Association role took over on Thursday as we moved stuff out of the 'old Land Sales Office' into safe storage.  We moved around 65 chairs and a table.  The building is being refurbished and given to Council as a Community Centre.  Council will then make the facility available to residents.  Another group will 'manage' it but we expect the Community Association will be a major stake holder in how it is run.

It should be all up and running by September.

Most days it is lovely and sunny with a top temp anywhere between 23 and 26 degrees.  The other day even the pool was 20.5º, that is almost warm enough to swim in!

My brother Geoff and his wife Jeannette are currently in Brisbane.  The have a caravan and Geoff in particular is keen to get on the road and do some touring.  It seems Jeannette may not be so keen.  They have travelled up the Newell Hwy to be in Brisbane to catch up with one of Jeannette's girl friends.  They plan to stop off at Caloundra with the caravan for a few days from Monday so it should be fun catching up.

From here Geoff is aiming for Longreach.  He plans to be back in Melbourne in around 5 week's time.  I am not sure he comprehends just how Longreach is from here, it is a long, long way even from Caloundra!

One of our 'drinks' team members had a minor health hiccup which landed him in hospital this week.  Therefore we are giving Friday drinks a miss this week.  With a few colds about right now it seems a pretty good idea.

A Quiet And Cool Sunday

No, I am not sick of curried snags just yet!  It is certainly handy just to wander over, load up a container of curried snags and put it through the microwave oven for a quick and tasty meal.  Add a couple of pieces of toast, some chilli and a man is in food heaven I reckon.

It is an overcast and coolish day.  Hopefully we will get some sun later and an expected top of 25.  The new young neighbour isn't real flash on mowing just yet as the photo shows

Saturday turned out to be a Computer Day (surprise, surprise?).  My "calendar" on my phone indicated the footy didn't start on TV till 3:15 so this determined my day.  Another older guy from the Computer Club also bought a laptop from the same place I bought mine (in an online store in Brisbane).

He got it started up OK but needed a few add-ons to make it a little more friendly for him to operate.  I did a few things on his laptop at the Computer Club on Saturday morning.  It was a real busy day and some people who wanted help I just couldn't get around to there were so many after assistance.

But then they get help for nothing so it isn't too bad.

With footy being a late start I offered to go to this guy's place and do some more stuff for him on his new laptop.  We installed his printer, swapped a heap of files from one laptop to the new one and I even helped his wife with her email program as well.  When we got the email program up and running she downloaded almost 600 emails, 99% of them were for selling stuff!

I had a sandwich there for lunch and headed off around 3pm to watch the footy at home.  They insisted on a cash donation to my wallet which I tried to refuse but they insisted.

I got home around 3:15 and discovered it was almost 3/4 time in the footy, my phone calendar was wrong!

While on the subject of calendars I keep a 'calendar' on my PC.  I download calendar files of the footy draw, the soccer world cup, cricket seasons etc and 'import' them into my 'master calendar' in my "Google Account" which is online and in the "cloud".

If you have a GMail email address you also have a free "Google Account" which has heaps of great things in it.

A 'calendar' is one of those great things.  The desktop PC calendar on my computer is linked to my online Google Account Calendar.  So when ever I update or add an entry to the desktop PC calendar it automatically updates my Google Account Calendar online via the internet.

Now my Android phone is also connected to the same online Google Account.  Android is owned by Google and if you wish to download new apps to your android phone or tablet you must have a GMail email address to register.  So I use the same GMail email address on my calendar on my PC, on my Android phone and on my Android tablet.

Any changes I make to the calendar on any of my devices is therefore copied to everything else!  This is very handy.

Check out all the goodies in a Google Account!  Log into your Google account and hunt around for your "Dashboard".  Blogger (where this blog comes from ) is owned by Google as well and is included in my Google account.  I also have websites there, some documents and all my contacts for my phone are stored there as well.