Showery Start To Friday

My cold/hay fever is improving slowly.  I am taking "Cold Tablets" now to keep the heavy head cold symptoms under control.

The replacement brand new modem/router is up and running and seems to have solved the problem at this stage.  We will reserve judgment for a few more days just yet before announcing my recent internet problems are all solved.

The $20 32GB memory stick turned out to be  USB3 when I collected it yesterday.  I was pleasantly surprised to get what appears to be a pretty good deal at a pretty good price.  USB3 means it can update files etc at a much quicker rate than the standard USB2.

My $6-95 32GB memory stick I ordered from China arrived as well. I have transferred all the files from the older and smaller sticks I had been using.  I take these with me to Computer Club where I sometimes require files and programs I have brought from home.

Another part of yesterday was to check out possible new computer furniture to replace the big table and hutch I currently use.  What I have is large, heavy but extremely practical.  What we saw yesterday was smarter, smaller and less practical.

However it seems I could do the vast majority of things that I can do now with the new 3 piece setup. Most importantly it will all 'fit' and allow easy access to the phone point in the 'office'. At this stage the phone point is under the table behind a large piece of backing timber from the table.

There is plenty of flexibility using 3 separate pieces of furniture which would make it easier to access the phone point.

As we were working through the recent problems with the internet we slowly but surely eliminating possible causes.  The line outside the house was apparently fine, the connection into the RIM was swapped over thus eliminating the most common problem areas of the phone line into the house.

So the problem had to be somewhere inside our home. That lead us to the leads I was using, the modem/router or the house telephone wiring.  As we live in a sub-tropical area, rusting is always a possibility and perhaps the telephone point connection was rusty and requiring replacement.

To replace the telephone point I use for internet would mean the technician would not have easy safe access which he would require.

Any change we make to the setup in the office would have to make access to the phone point much easier if required. But the new proposed office equipment looks pretty sharp don't you think?

My cold meant I wasn't keen on a bike ride this morning.  Then when we received a decent shower of rain this justified the decision not to ride.  It should be around 30º again today with the clouds clearing to a sunny day.  A good day for drying the bottles for my next brew which I will bottle on Monday!

Recovery Mode

It is Thursday and I remain in recovery mode.  No not recovering from my 'procedure' on Tuesday, but from a severe head cold which struck suddenly on Tuesday evening.

I had not really been feeling 100% the day or so before.  I thought it was a few nerves relating to the upcoming Top n' Tail on Tuesday or the 'prep' I had to undertake on Monday.

As it turns out it was more likely to be prior to the onset of this extremely heavy head cold which started with a sneezing bout on Tuesday evening.  From there it rapidly developed into all sorts of heavy head cold unpleasantnesses.  The extreme runny nose, the constant blockage and heaviness of the chest and head and the overall unpleasantness of just not being well.

The night's sleep Tuesday into Wednesday was minimal and I awoke to a pile of tissues beside the bed.  The nose was responding as if it were a tap, my eyes would be watery and a nasty shade of red.  The tissue box remained a constant companion throughout the day.

I had a couple of "Cold Tablets" left and these did at least give me a few hours relief from the very worst of my symptoms.  I first thought it was Hay Fever so first thing Wednesday I wandered into the Chemist for some anti-histamines.   However I now realize that is more likely an extremely heavy head cold.

I managed a full night's sleep overnight Wednesday into today and feel much better for that.

So I now have Thursday before me.  A full morning at least it will be.  My modem/router is ready to be collected following its replacement, I purchased a 32GB memory stick online using the $20 'gift card' we received when purchasing Trish's new tablet last week.  Finally we are going to check out various furniture shops around the area to see what is available in the way of a replacement computer desk somewhere down the track.

My tissue box will continue to accompany me throughout the day!

See You In 5 Years!

Today was my top 'n tail day.  My Mum passed away after suffering cancer, some of which was bowel cancer.

One of the wonders of being married to a nurse is that anytime you may forget something which is a health issue you get reminded.

So with a family history of bowel cancer I have been undergoing top 'n tails for the last 14 years.  In the very first one I had they found 'something'.  Because it was found early and removed there wasn't a problem.  But it did mean I needed to have the situation monitored.

So over vary periods of time, at one stage annually and then every couple of years for the last 14 years I have fronted up for my top n' tail.

The prep isn't much fun and I will spare you any details.  To put it one way, the prep day isn't my favorite day!

So after this morning's procedures to be told everything is fine, no problems, no signs of anything at all and "I will see you again in 5 years!", was music to my ears.

Now to sit down and have a good meal!

We received a hefty email today from Kate in Saudi.  It has documents we need to include in a Visa application for Saudi Arabia.  Things are beginning to get a little more exciting!

Sunday 8:30 am - 412mls Altogether

The skies have cleared at last.  Beginning with morning showers on Thursday onto the real outbreak of rain Thursday afternoon until just after lunch Saturday we experienced over 400mls of rain, 16" in the old language.

412mls to be precise!

The rain has now cleared and this morning we awake to sun and some blue skies.  It has clouded over again now and there is the possibility of showers this afternoon.  But the heavy rain has gone and we have escaped relatively unharmed.

The pool took a bit of cleaning this morning as there were plenty of light weighted floaties in the water.  the vacuum goes by just near them and they float up into the water, only to settle again when the vacuum has well and truly passed by.

The pool is a little over 24º with all the rain and cooler weather. My bike ride this morning was for around 13k's and I certainly noted the pool's cooler temperature with my after ride swim.

I noticed the 'second fridge' in the computer room had its door partly ajar Saturday morning.  The things in the freezer were melting and all the drinks were no longer icy cold.  There was water on the floor.  It looked quite ominous as though the light was on, the fridge motor certainly wasn't running!

We pulled the plug on it and let it sit for the best part of an hour.  We plugged it back into the power point again but alas, there was nothing.  The light came on when you opened the door but the motor certainly wasn't running.

However around 20 minutes later it sparked back into life and has been running perfectly ever since.  I restocked it, I even added some more soft drink and this morning things are cooler if not icy cold.  Hopefully things will be fine.  The stuff in the small freezer compartment is all frozen again.

The large table in the computer room is going to 'go'..  It is too bulky and takes up too much space.  I reckon I have had it for around 20 years.  We will keep our eyes open for a smaller 'corner' desk I think.

9:00 am Saturday

Hopefully, the former Cyclone Marcia which is now a tropical low has just passed us.  There is almost 90mls (under 4") in the rain gauge from the rain which started a little over an hour ago.  I will let the photos do the talking!

Click on all photos for a larger view.

The weather bureau's radar image as the rain passed.   Caloundra is just at the tip of the arrow near the green figure '197'.

The rain teeming off the new shelter roof.  I stood in the rain for a brief moment to get the photo.  That was probably a big mistake.  I was drenched.

Our street from the front door.  It no longer floods since the new housing development has been built.

The storm water from our block pouring out onto the road.  This is the water from the roof, the pool, the and the back yard which all connects to the storm water.

The heavy cloud has blocked the Satellite TV Signal so the cricket is off until the rain clears a little.

The pool of water came back again.  As the rain eased, this pool of water disappeared in a matter of minutes.

This is as high as the water level got during the downpour.  I took this shot just as the rain began to ease.

There are 84mls (almost 3.5") in the rain gauge.  The vast amount of this fell in a little over an hour. Already around a 1cm (1/2") has drained from the pool overflow!

Saturday 6:00 am.

The coastal town of Yeppoon has suffered the greatest damage after Tropical Cyclone Marcia crossed the coast around 500k's north of us. The photo shows some of the damage it caused at the seaside town.

I have just totalled up 175mls (7") of rain from yesterday.  Add to that the 128mls (5") from the day before and we have reached our predicted 300mls (12") total forecast.

Cyclone Marcia is now a tropical low and heading south inland and is expected to cross into NSW before heading out to sea again.

Yesterday afternoon saw lengthy spells without any rain.  Between 4pm and 10pm we only had 6mls.  This has allowed any water build up to get away and removed any fear of flooding.  Areas around rivers however are not so lucky with rivers breaking their banks and flooding low lying areas.

We have been warned to expect further periods of heavy rain today as the remnants of tropical cyclone Marcia pass to the west of us.  We can also expect some squally winds.

I reckon we have experienced heavier rain for longer periods than we received yesterday during our time here.

Our backyard hasn't looked like what it did from this late January post during this wet time. (HERE)  A small pool developed in this area of our backyard yesterday before the rain eased and the water was able to get away.

I will wait till the last moment before deciding whether to attend Computer Club this morning or not.

We are not in a 'fast' internet area.  However yesterday afternoon the internet speed dropped by 60%.  This morning the speed is back up again.  I suspect the stormy weather had something to do with it.

And it is great to not have to reboot the modem/router several times a day to have the printer or media player accessible again.  Replacing the modem/router with an even older model I had stuck away appears to have fixed the networking problem.

Some Sunshine Coast businesses closed their doors yesterday because of power outages and inclement weather.  I am guessing the internet was affected as well.

8:30am update.  It is belting down now.  This must be from the tropical low former cyclone Marcia as it is just to the north west of us now.  I am unable to watch the cricket from NZ.  The storm cloud above us is so thick, the TV signal from the satellite is having difficulty penetrating it.

My cricket game is on for 5 minutes, then the signal drops out and the coverage goes to a black screen!

I have decided against driving though this rain to get to Computer Club.  It is an unnecessary risk to drive when you really don't have to.

1:40 pm, Friday

The rain has been falling on and off since I last posted.  Since 7am this morning we have had around another 120mls of rain.  We are pretty close to 250mls (or 10") since it all began yesterday lunchtime.

The place is bearing up very well indeed.  The rain has been on and off so everything gets a chance to drain away.  The pool was almost up to the paver coping around the edge when the rain stopped. 

Around 2cms of water drained out before the next heavy downpour arrived. Then the rain starts up again and so it goes.

With such bad weather all the beaches along the Sunshine Coast have been closed as well.


With the old Billion modem/router continually 'losing' items such as the printer and the media player from the network, I bit the bullet this morning and swapped over to the even older D-Link model modem/router I have.

At this stage everything has remained 'connected'.  I had forgotten a few little intricacies around the old D-Link but after a few goes I have managed to set it all up and it is running OK.

The cricket on TV looks like being a fizzer today with the English dismissed for around 130 runs.  It will be all over by later this afternoon.

There won't be any cricket from Brisbane's "Gabba" ground tomorrow with all the rain we have had and still to have according to the weather bureau.

7:00 am Friday

It is early Friday morning and according to reports, Cyclone Marcia has intensified to Category 4 and is due to cross the coast around 500k's north of us in a few hours.  It will bring 280kph winds around its 20k 'eye'.  It will then weaken as it heads overland, most likely towards us.

The bureau believes that most likely the cyclone will track south over the land and become a tropical low by the time it reaches the Sunshine Coast.  Our weather forecast has winds today and tomorrow of around 40 knots for our area.

The rain began falling here around lunchtime yesterday (Thursday) and by around 7am Friday morning we had received almost 130mls (over 5").  Unlike other rain events, there are periods when the rain actually stops.  Right now as I type the rain has stopped.

Some low lying parts around this area are experiencing flood problems as rivers and creeks rise.  We won't get that here as unlike much of the Sunshine Coast our area is not prone to flooding.

Light green shaded areas indicates an extremely low chance of flooding, red = very high chance of flooding.  The arrow points to where we live. Click on the map for a larger view.

The rain is best described as steady with some heavy showers.  The short breaks in between rain periods is enough to see any water on the ground get away.  It seems that at this stage the pool has never seemed like overflowing.

It is expected to be around 27 here degrees today.  Everything has a wet feel to it.

I was especially pleased that the PC started up perfectly this morning, this quite high humidity can be murder on electronics!

The rain is expected to continue throughout tomorrow and ease to showers on Sunday.

Trish is heading off to her "Quilters" this morning and I have cricket on TV around 11 am. I am planning to swap the modem/router over to my 'original' D-Link this morning to see if I can keep everything going on the home network. It becomes a pain when having to reboot the current modem/router every couple of hours just to get the wireless printer back online!

I will update again later today.

Wet Ready

The weather forecast has been updated since I last posted.  It now will be a category 2 Cyclone that crosses the coast around 450k's north of us around 4 am Friday.  The fiercest area of the cyclone will be the small area directly around the cyclone's eye. 

So we are quite a long way away from where the most intense action will be.

The system is then expected to lose power considerably and develop into a Tropical Low and head south.  The wind will slowly ease but there will be lots of rainfall, up to 300mls over a couple of days is expected here.

We have had this sort of rain before.  Drainage improvements we have made in the backyard with the concrete area and drain we expect we are going to be fine.

As the photo shows, the outdoor chairs are stacked, the sun blinds along the back of the house are up, the Waeco is safely packed away and we believe we are ready.

The sky is quite grey and we had 13mls from showers yesterday and overnight.  That is 1/2 an inch in the 'old scale'. I didn't manage a bike ride this morning as you would expect.

It isn't cold, it was 25º first thing this morning outside. It won't get much warmer as the rain is expected to slowly increase as the day goes on.  Right now we get a short sharp shower every 30 minutes or so.  That will develop into steady rain as night falls.

So it is front of the TV I will go.  There is a cricket game on TV today so I reckon I should be right!

When Is A Cyclone Not A Cyclone?

When the wind doesn't quite blow hard enough appears to be the answer.

Our weather forecasters are telling us that currently there is a Tropical Low Pressure cell around 1000k's out into the Coral Sea off the 'Capricornia Coast'.  This cell 'may' develop into a cyclone (but not a very strong one) and cross the Queensland coast around 450ks north of us.

Now if we lived back in Melbourne, this would mean the storm centre would be 100k's north of Albury!  So the storm centre will be a long way from us when it is at is strongest.  After crossing the coast it is expected to head south and over us.  Fortunately, once over the land, the storm loses some of its wind strength.

On the map above, we are just below where it says "Maroochydore" and fortunately for us, our home is above the 100 year flood line, unlike the vast majority of the Sunshine Coast.

The southern side of the Tropical Low gets the brunt of the wind and the rain as the winds swirl around the cell centre in a clockwise direction.  I guess it would be in the opposite direction if we lived in Texas.

We have been told to expect increasing showers this afternoon and full scale rain Thursday and Friday.  We are to expect around 300mls of rain over the next few days.  Hopefully it should clear by Saturday morning as the cell heads towards northern NSW.

I have just emptied the Waeco fridge from outside the back door and cleaned it up a little.  After it dries, I will bring it safely inside.  I have removed the 'plug' from within the pool's skimmer box to allow all the excess water from the extra rain to drain into the storm water system around the house.

I will stack the outdoor chairs later today so they are more likely to stay where they are and not blow over.

I mowed the lawn again yesterday afternoon so it will dry out as quickly as possible after the rain clears.

The whole of the Sunshine Coast is bracing itself for strong winds and high tides.  It is hoped the strong winds do not decimate the glorious surf beaches by washing away much of the beach sand.

Now for our other news.  I treated myself to a couple of new polyester T-Shirts mainly for my daily bike riding and a another polyester polo top yesterday.  The polo top feels just great when you wear it and is light and easy to wash and dry, just perfect for travelling overseas and for Mediterranean cruises.

It was my birthday and these shirts would be my gift.

We checked out the local "Trade Secret" store which specializes in end of run specials from the larger clothing manufacturers at reduced prices.  Attached to Trade Secret is another store of theirs called "Home Secret".  Trish grabbed this extremely lightweight Pierre Cardin suitcase with 'spinner' wheels at what seems a great price. Check out the photo
left.

With the World Cup Cricket on over the next couple of weeks there is plenty of sport on TV so the wet weather won't be a problem.

I am lined up for a endoscopy on Tuesday morning (both ends).  I begin the 'prep' Monday afternoon.  I am so looking forward to Tuesday afternoon!  This is not one of the more pleasant procedures one has to endure as life goes on.  As unpleasant as it all is, it is still much much better than the alternative!

Lovely Sunny Sunday

It is high 20's and I have elected to stop indoors.  Obviously there is sport on TV! And yes, the Cricket World Cup has started and that is what is occupying much of my time right now.

A couple of years ago I bought Trish a Chinese 7" tablet for a little under $200.  In its day it was a great buy.  But as we became used to tablets, phones etc it was obvious for some things that the 7" tablet wasn't going to cut it.

Recently a neighbour bought a Samsung Tab 4 10.1" tablet for around $345.  He just loves it and began to show me how it worked or sought my advice on apps to install.  So when I saw exactly the same model on sale for $269 for a reasonable mid range 10" tablet it seemed just too good a deal to knock back.

With us travelling overseas in a couple of months it would be ideal for emails etc.  We picked it up after lunch Friday.  Trish loves it.  I have put the thomfam90 Skype account on it.  The Skype account I use is les.thomas90 on my PC.   So feel free to give us a call on Skype if you wish.

Arj has added a new post to his blog which you can access HERE.  If that doesn't work for you try HERE and then click on 'Settled – February 13th 2015' under Recent Posts.

We had a long Skype call with Kate on Friday going over what we needed to do to get our Visas to get into Saudi Arabia.  If we didn't have it sorted beforehand, we certainly have it sorted now.

As some of you already know, we are doing a 9 day bus tour of Spain followed by a 24 day Mediterranean Cruise.  You can check the cruise details here.

The cricket is about to start so I am off.

Bike riding etc as normal, a few showers but not too much.  Pool is between 26 and 27 first thing in the morning.  Quite pleasant for an after bike ride swim!

More Showers On The Way

I was just about to set out on my ride this morning after emptying out around 10mls from the rain gauge.  The forecast is for 60% chance of showers and the sky looked somewhat threatening.

Modern day cameras do a wonderful job in getting the best looking photo possible so you can see everything.  The photo left was nothing like this when I downloaded it from the camera.

Click on the photo for a larger view.

To get exactly what the clouds looked like I had to tweak the photo quite a bit to try to capture the mood of the sky.

To me we were odds on to get a heavy shower of rain from this so I decided to curtail any bike ride.  Needless to say that because I decided not to ride, the cloud passed over without a single drop of any rain.  Around an hour later I managed my 12.5k's of bike ride in quite a sweat.

The pool water temp was around 27º so the swim afterwards was extremely pleasant and refreshing!

Not a lot of news to share from yesterday.  Someone from the Community Association popped over to see how I 'did' my movies.  He was subjected to a shotgun approach, i.e. I threw all the information at him, hoping he would get an over view of the process and then be able to pick out the bits which suited him and his needs.

He took a couple of movies home with him to watch on his TV.  His TV did have a USB connection so we were hopeful it would play movies as well.  The TV turned out to be a Sony and not really very new.  However it wouldn't even turn on!

He is looking to buy a new TV before his wife gets back on the weekend from a trip to Sydney to catch up with family and friends.  She is a keen golfer so we imagined a game of golf would be in the pipeline during her Sydney visit as well.  They have the Pay TV on and the wife just laps up all the various golf tournaments shown from all over the world.

I expect the new TV will be in place before she arrives home!

Saudi Arabia, Here We Come!

Tuesday for us can only be described as a 'big day out"!

We collected friends John and Margaret before 10 am on Tuesday (yesterday) and headed south to Brisbane and beyond.  Margaret was interested to learn more about Costco and as we were heading to Brisbane, popping in to Costco on the return journey home seemed a great idea.

But first we headed around 20k's south of Brisbane to a one of a kind store for this part of the world called "Amira's Abayas".  Amira didn't usually open on Tuesday but said she would pop down to her shop around 11 am this Tuesday and help us out.

She arrived in her car just after 11, covered from head to toe in traditional middle eastern female clothing.  She was in her mid 30'sm, bright and bubbly and having a great time with her happy nature and disposition.  She was so helpful and gave some good advice on what Trish could wear.

So after around 20 minutes and some good laughs we bought Trish's 'abaya' for her to wear when in we are in Saudi Arabia and outside of the KAUST compound.

Surprisingly the shop was only 10 minutes from Sunnybank and the Malaya Corner Restaurant.  This part of the world was a bit of an eye opener for our friends as we wandered around the Asian grocery, the butchers and had a look around the various eateries.

The meal was sensational.  Char Koay Teow, a seafood stirfry, lobak,rotis and a Moroccan Coconut Chicken curry.  John and I enjoyed a stubby, the ladies a wine and Diet Coke and the bill was under $90.  Our friends enjoyed it very much.  Each dish was so different but so tasty. It is a shame it is so far away from Caloundra.

Then we headed into Brisbane to buy a couple of "Shoo-Aways".  One of John's had stopped working and we had been promising ourselves to buy a couple when the first chance arose.  So we bought three of them.  You can find out more about a 'Shoo Away' here.

We don't get a lot of flies here on the Sunshine Coast.  But when a few decide to arrive and spoil drinks and nibblies, these gadgets quickly solve the problem!

The last stop off was Costco.  It helped our friends to decide it was worth the $60 joining fee.  I think they came away confident it was worth the money to become 'members'. We topped up with lamb cutlets, smoked salmon and other good deals.  Filling the car up with fuel saved another $5 off the total costs as well.

So ended a great fun and eventful day! It was around 4:30 by the time we put the car back in the garage.

It has been showery but I managed a bike ride easily enough this morning (Wednesday).  The pool was around 26º this morning and it should get back up to 28º or so later this afternoon.  We are really enjoying the cooler nights we are experiencing at the moment.  With showers of rain and warm sunshine, the grass in the lawns and the parks seems to grow as you look at it!

Gorgeous and Not Too Hot!

This morning's pool temperature was around 25.6º which is quite a come down from the 28º we had a week or so ago during the hot weather we were experiencing. The top daytime temperature today should be around 30º.

It has been relatively quiet around here the last few days.  I continue on my huge learning curve re the new BeCA website.  Currently we are getting 'blasted' with Spam emails.  I receive a notification email come through to my phone telling me there is a new website comment seeking approval to be 'published'.  The email on my phone has been going crazy the last day or so as yet another email arrives announcing another 'comment' for me to adjudicate on.

As the web administrator for the website I have the ability to allow or disallow any comment coming to the BeCA website.  I get an email announcing there is a new comment seeking approval.  I then read it and I either approve, unapprove, spam or trash it via the website's "Dashboard".

I reckon we had the best part of 20 emails come through to the website yesterday all of which were spam comments seeking approval to be published on the website.  I can now use my phone to delete them.  I have to get into the website's "Dashboard" and delete them from there.  But with modern technology and the phone's ability to 'remember' passwords it isn't too big a chore.

Computer Club was busy yesterday.  There are quite a few people who also enjoy the same favorite UK TV Crime shows as we do so copying the latest episodes of Silent Witness, Midsomer Murders and others was quite popular (and time consuming) yesterday. I take a 16GB memory stick with selected recent TV shows and movies with me to Computer Club.

I did my bike ride this morning, setting off around 6:30am.  There wasn't a cloud in the sky and riding around some of the magnificent public parks here was just sensational.  We do live in a very pretty part of the world with many great parks and walking tracks available.

On Tuesday we are heading out for the day.  A couple of friends will be joining us.  Trish has to buy her 'abaya' that she is expected to wear when we travel to Saudi Arabia.  There is a shop in South Brisbane around 100k's away which sell them.  The photo above left is of an abaya.

Now we can't go that far without popping into a Malaysian restaurant in Sunnybank way can we?

So the day will go, firstly to Sunnybank, then the "Abaya" shop and finally drop into Costco on the way back for a buy up.  Our friends have wanted to have a look around Costco and see what it is all about.  We had suggested they join us on the next trip down which just so happens to now include Sunnybank and purchasing the abaya!

Fact Is stranger Than Fiction!

On March 23 , 1994 , the medical examiner viewed the body of Ronald Opus, and concluded that he died from a shotgun wound to the head. Mr Opus had jumped from the top of a ten-story building intending to commit suicide. He left a note to that effect, indicating his despondency!

As he fell past the ninth floor, his life was interrupted by a shotgun blast passing through a window, which killed him instantly! Neither the shooter nor the deceased was aware that a safety net had been installed just below the eighth floor level to protect some building workers. Ronald Opus would not have been able to complete his suicide, the way he had planned.

The room on the ninth floor, where the shotgun blast emanated, was occupied by an elderly man and his wife. They were arguing vigorously and he was threatening her, with a shotgun! The man was so upset that when he pulled the trigger, he completely missed his wife, and the pellets went through the window, striking Mr. Opus!.

When one intends to kill subject ' A ' but, kills subject ' B ' in the attempt, one is guilty of the murder of subject ' B.' When confronted with the murder charge, the old man and his wife were both adamant, and both said that they thought the shotgun was not loaded.

The old man said it was a long-standing habit to threaten his wife with the unloaded shotgun. He had no intention to murder her. Therefore the killing of Mr. Opus appeared to be an accident; that is, assuming the gun had been accidentally loaded.

The continuing investigation turned up a witness who saw the old couple's son loading the shotgun about six weeks prior to the fatal accident. It transpired that the old lady had cut off her son's financial support and the son, knowing the propensity of his father to use the shotgun threateningly, loaded the gun with the expectation that his father would shoot his mother. . .

Since the loader of the gun was aware of this, he was guilty of the murder even though he didn't actually pull the trigger.   The case now becomes one of murder on the part of the son for the death of Ronald Opus.

Now, comes the exquisite twist! Further investigation revealed that the son was, in fact, Ronald Opus!!

He had become increasingly despondent over the failure of his attempt to engineer his mother's murder. This led him to jump off the ten-story building on March 23rd, only to be killed by a shotgun blast, passing through the ninth story window. The son, Ronald Opus, had actually murdered himself!!

So, the medical examiner closed the case as a suicide!

A true story from Associated Press.

Read the posts below for our latest updates!

Another Day, Another Brew, Another Website!

My personal body is now worth almost $3,000 more.  Yes, that is correct, I had the new crown fitted to my tooth yesterday morning!  I now 'should' be able to eat a little more easily and comfortably.  Comfortably in as much as won't necessarily require a toothpick or floss after eating a piece of steak!

And that will be a new experience for me!

The Community Association's 'new' website has gone 'live' and I have been on an incredibly high learning curve the last few days.  I think I have a handle on most areas of maintaining it now.  It is a little different to how the former site used to operate, a little simpler and much more automated.

It has to be a lot more 'automated' as the website is mobile device friendly and to ensure it operates effectively on android or IOS devices with smaller screens it needs to be a little different to your everyday on a computer type website.  So now there is basically only one way to add a photograph. This isn't a bad thing.

And a new brew has just gone on as well.  This one is a plain 'lager' and should be ready to bottle in a week. see the photo above left.

We continue to battle on with our one older modem/router until the other one is replaced by the manufacturer.  It is working around 80% and requires a reboot several times a day to re establish connection with the printer and the media player.  The reboot only takes a couple of minutes so it isn't a huge distraction.

We have just received notice from our PayTV operator saying they will now be delivering a telephone and broadband internet service as well.  I currently pay $80 for phone line rental and 100GB download.  Foxtel (the paytv provider) will give us 200GB download, phone line rental including free calls to local and national fixed line telephones all for the same $80.

We will most likely be moving over to them mid year after we return from our trip overseas.

Our overseas trip is now around 8 weeks away.  We fly to Spain for a 9 day bus tour finishing up travelling by fast train from Madrid to Barcelona.  After a few nights in Barcelona we head off on a Mediterranean cruise.  Click HERE to see the places our 24 day cruise will be visiting.

We finish the cruise in Venice then fly to Dubai for a night before heading on to Jeddah and Kaust to spend two weeks with Arj, Kate and the kids.  A couple more nights in Dubai on the way home arriving back in Brisbane on or somewhere near June 6th.

I will miss around 8 rounds of the footy!

In Melbourne they are about to hit a mini heatwave.  As usual very hot northerly winds for them means cooler south easterlies for us.  Cooler isn't really too bad after recent weeks of stinking hot weather.  Last night we even slept under a sheet and without the fan whirring away!

We are getting high 20's most days, quite windy and intermittent, very short but heavy, showers of rain.  A dump of rain can last only a couple of minutes but sound deafening on our patio's tin roof!

The pool is back to around 26º again which means a great refreshing swim.  The weather should be similar for the next seven days or so.  We will surely enjoy the cooler weather!

A Sunny But Windy Monday

We have decided that we have had enough of "tennis".  There has been tennis available on TV daily from mid morning to midnight.  It has been great.  We can switch between the tennis, the cricket and on Saturday a great soccer match!  So it has been sport, sport and more sport!

And each day I acquire more and more stuff to watch from the internet but we will need to be quite discerning and carefully select what to watch.. The not so good stuff I have already downloaded then gets deleted!

The days have continued quite warm but nowhere near as hot as a week or so ago.  Most days are between 22 º in the morning and 30º during the afternoon before the sea breeze comes in.  Hopefully we will get some more welcome showers over the next day or so.

There is a degrading cyclone out in the Pacific Ocean.  For the next few days we will get some strong south easterly winds from what is left of this degrading cyclone.  These winds will bring us high waves, high tides, plenty of showers and coolish days. Hopefully the high seas won't wash away much of the sand from the surf beaches.

As you know I buy bits and pieces from overseas, mainly from China.  As nifty as some of these things are they are made to Chinese standards and not necessarily fully approved for use in Australia where the standards are usually somewhat higher.

The nifty switch I was using to restart the modem/router was one such piece of equipment.  As our area expands, new shops and shopping centres open.  One such new centre opened around 5k's from where we live.  With some spare time today we wandered over to check it out.  One such store there is a brand new Aldi Store.

They had these remote control power switches, 4 for $8.  Perfect I thought for the remote controlled light in the lounge room and I could put another on the modem/router.  They come with a remote control so I reckoned I could teach my Logitech Universal remote the signals and be able to control everything from the one device.

Regretfully the Logitech Universal remote works on IR signals (infra-red) while the Aldi remote control switches work on wireless signals.  You need to point an IR remote directly at the unit you want to control, i.e. your TV set.  Wireless remote controls work differently, you can be in one room and press "On" and the unit turns on in another room, you don't have to point the remote control directly at the device to control it!

But the button you can see in the photo above is a manual on/off button so it works just fine for me when just wanting to turn the modem/router on and off.

Being a new Aldi store there were still a few 'opening specials'.  We bought a reasonable paper cutter and a few other bits and pieces.

The Community Association website has been keeping me busy as well.  We applied for and were successful in gaining a $1000 grant which we used to upgrade our website.  Not only is it being upgraded but it is also going with a new host.  Over the weekend he transferred the whole website from the 'old' host and then re allocated the website address to the new server.

The next step is to replace the old website with the new one.  This should occur tomorrow or Wednesday. I have been on a severe learning curve the last few days.

There is a Community Association Management Committee meeting tonight as well. Then I have something on for most days for the rest of the week.  I will need to get a brew on soon as well!