Now That's a "Selfie"

I guess the title isn't quite correct but it seemed a good idea at the time.  The photo is one I took this morning during the bottling. But it is really my hand!  It is always good when that job is all done and dusted.  My beer supplies have been updated and I can have a week or so 'off' as my empty bottle count gets higher until I need to go through the whole thing again!

This brew is an "English Bitter" and I have used very dark sugar to give it a bit of a caramel sensation.  The truth of it all will be in the drinking!

Trish is delighted her team has won its way into the AFL Grand Final.  They did it the hard way and now have a fourth difficult match to get through to win the Premiership Cup.

The weather has been getting a little warmer during the day as it should at this time of year.  However the nights remain decidedly cool.  One night it was down around 8 or 9 which isn't what we expect at this time of year.

The 'Storm Season" has come early.  We missed the worst of it Tuesday evening when some places to the south of us were covered in hail.  We had around an hour of heavy consistent rain Tuesday afternoon and this morning (Weds) I found 19mls in the rain gauge.  That is around 80pts in old speak!

There was heaps of thunder and lightning late yesterday as the heavy storm clouds came through.  It became so dark in the house we had to turn the lights on!

We had spent much of earlier in the day checking out Mooloolaba which is a popular holiday destination for southerners at this time of year especially as it is school holiday time still.

Traffic was heavy and slow so we ended up parking the car and walking.  We had a Thai lunch at around $10 a head.  It was great and quite generous in size.  Some bread rolls were all that was needed for last night's evening meal.  There was a stiff wind blowing at Mooloolaba beach so it wasn't all that pleasant walking along there.

On the way home we did a little shopping including a good sized rubber mat to put under the old car which now again lives on the driveway here at home.  Our friends have sold up and moved so the car has had to come home.  It drops a little oil so the rubber mat hopefully will help protect the driveway from unsightly oil marks.

The radiator required two new hoses so all is now back and working well.  We were fortunate not to do more (and very expensive) damage to the motor.

Got an android mobile phone or Android TV box?  Check out this website for apps to add:

https://sites.google.com/site/malaysianvideostreamer/

And Arj has added a post to his blog about their recent trip to Istanbul:

http://behindthekeyboard.global2.vic.edu.au/2015/09/26/istanbul-26th-september-2016/

Enjoy!

On The Improve

I still have some aches and pains but I am much improved this morning enabling me to get back on the bike and complete a 12.5k bike ride.  I found the exercise helped to overcome some of the stiffness and soreness I had from the tumble from the bike a couple of days earlier.

Not a lot of news at all this morning.  The sun is out but there is a lazy southerly wind out there which blows straight through you rather than around you!  It was long sleeves on the bike ride this morning and a pool temp of around 19° was quite below my minimum temp for a swim.

Most of the TV watching is now done via the Android Box.  I had read a review somewhere that the TV series 'Criminal Minds' rated quite highly.  Neither of us had ever seen an episode so we felt we should give it a try out.

Via Kodi and some of the addons that come with it, it is possible to search out a TV series, navigate to a particular website and play any particular episode from that website onto your TV via the internet.  It is like a poor man's Netflix!

The quality of the file is usually quite reasonable and more than watchable.  We will do that again!

So you can either watch a TV Show episode you have already downloaded or an episode which is stored on the web.

The new Android Box plays HEVC files, a new format which is smaller in size but better in quality.  The picture above shows a few of the formats of one particular TV Episode available to download.  The numbers 720p or 480p refer to the quality of the file, 720p being a better standard.

The numbers 265 or 264 refer to the type of file.  264 files are usually either mp4 or matroska.  Xvid usually refers to the old .avi format.  The 183MB section refers to how large the file is to download.  Obviously the smaller the file, the quicker it is to download especially if using no cost download options like I do.

The 720p files are the 'better' quality files.  So you can see from the example the better quality HEVC file is actually smaller than the lesser quality 480p 264 file in the files created by a group known as RMTeam.

The problem is very few media players can currently play HEVC files.  My WDTV Media Player can't play them but the new Android TV box can!

Still no call regarding the old car just yet but we will sit and wait.  I am now guessing there was a problem getting the radiator hose and one had to be couriered in.

A Little Sick & Sorry

The longer yesterday (Tuesday) went, the more painful any leftover injuries from my tumble from the bike became.  But the hurtful bits were from places I didn't realize I had hurt.

By late Tuesday afternoon my left hand and wrist were extremely painful despite cold compresses and a couple of bottles of home brew beer!  Then I would reach up for something and I would find another sore spot on my right shoulder.

There was the skinned knee and the cut on my toe as well to contend with. No way was I in any condition to ride the bike this morning.

By this morning my wrist, though still aching, was a lot stronger than the night before.  I had problems unscrewing my home brew beers the wrist was so sore.  When I awoke this morning I felt like I was aching all over! I was pretty stiff and sore.

It is now early Wednesday afternoon and I still feel a little stiff and sore but I can again use my left hand almost 100%.

This was extremely handy as I had another brew to put on.  The number of empty bottles I have had reached over 20.  This number of empties triggers the need for the next brew to go on.  By the time I get a total of 30 empties, then I have enough bottles for the next brew.

So I have around a week to get 10 more empties, wash them and sterilize them all ready for the bottling.  So a bottling next Wednesday seems a good bet!

Today is somewhat cooler after a lovely warm day yesterday.  Still it is mid to low 20's and hardly a cloud in the sky.  The breeze is now from the south bringing cooler air from Southern Australia over us.

It should be back on the bike tomorrow I suspect.

Still no news on the car.  I told the guy of that if the problem was just a 'blown' radiator hose, then they could give the car a service.   I wasn't going to fork out too much cash if the over heating problem was more drastic and therefore quite expensive to repair.

We reckon the old car hasn't been serviced for a couple of years!  It gets driven only a little once every few days and then for very short trips.  Or maybe they had problems getting the correct replacement radiator hose and needed to have one couriered up from Brisbane?

Time For A New Post!

The weather has remained mild here in SE Queensland and life rolls on.  The Android TV Box keeps me occupied (and frustrated at times) for a fair bit of the time. Then there is the usual hum drum of events.

I had a tumble from the bike this morning, only the second time in the 10 or 12 years we have been here.  I was trying to avoid an older lady walking in the middle of the pathway.  I pulled off onto the nature strip; then as I was crossing a 2" lip on the concrete of the footpath, the bike's front wheel didn't grip and slid sideways along the lip. Down I went.

I thought the photo I took of my skinned right knee was a little over the top so I have decided not to put it on this post!  The major area of hurt right now is my left wrist which is where I landed on the concrete footpath.  My pride didn't spare too well either.

We had a short trip to the shops earlier today (only a couple of k's away) and the old Telstar was making quite a noise after we pulled up at home.  There was a a rusty water mark all over the engine near the top radiator hose connection.  I am guessing that hose has split or something.  The car is cooling right off now and it is booked into the local car service guy later today.

We had a Skype call from Kate the other day just before they flew out to Istanbul for their short Term 1 break.  Right now they are in Turkey having a look around the capital city!  Needless to say Istanbul's Grand Bazaar will be a highlight!

While on Skype we managed to put a few plans into place for their trip to Melbourne at Christmas.  It looks like the whole family in a holiday house scenario is on again.

On Thursday of last week we headed around to Ian and Kerrie's for drinks.  From the way I felt for much of Friday I guess we had a great time!  It was fun though catching up.  Four of us travelled over to their place together so we grabbed a cab to get home safely.

Trish is a little happier with her footy team after a good win on Friday night.  They have another crunch game this Friday coming, the loser is out of the race.

It has been quite dry as well with this being the driest time of the year.  The forecast on Sunday was for a possible overnight shower.  That 'possible overnight shower' actually turned out to be 24mls in the rain gauge the next morning, almost an inch of unexpected but badly needed rain. The lawn and the garden loved it!

It is around 28° and the pool should get to about 22° later today.  However it is the cool overnight that kills the temperature.  I looked for a swim this morning after I finished the bike ride but 20.3° was just a little too brisk even for me.

So now the news is up to date, a little more interesting than usual ... but not much!

Still Very Quiet

It is still fairly quiet around here except for the fact we have a wonderfully warm day today, a taste of the hot weather to come.  It is into the high 20's with the sun beating down and the wind today coming from the north west.  Anything with west in the wind direction means the wind is blowing the warm air off the land rather than cooler air from over the sea. This means the wind is most likely dry and warm.

I did manage a quick swim after today's bike ride, only a couple of laps thankyou as the water temperature is under 21°.  So a lengthy swim was out of the question.

I now ride my bike on a modified route thus avoiding any spots with swooping magpies.  One magpie even swooped the car yesterday as we were driving out of the estate.

Trish is out at Stitchers today while I hang around the house busily obtaining new files for the Android TV Box.  My internet month finishes tomorrow and I have heaps of bandwidth still available to access.  So access it I am!

One of the Arts Centre Association groups bought a new laptop which was delivered to our home yesterday morning.  It has been updated to Windows 10, has a 'real' Start button installed so for all looks and purposes it operates similarly to a Windows 7 machine and I have also loaded up Office and few other necessities.

The computer one of the guys bought the other day off our departing neighbours for $50 continually froze while carrying out a Windows Update. Therefore he couldn't use it as it wouldn't fully start up! It would get to around 70% of the update done on restart and would then freeze!

I managed to get into "Startup Repair" which went on for about 15 minutes just whirring around before it said to restart the PC.  This we did and fortunately it started fine, but without completing the updates.

I popped in there again this morning where the 206 updates had again lined themselves up for installation which we set in motion.  My phone hasn't gone off this afternoon so all must have gone OK!

It is almost time to pour myself a beer and go and sit under the pergola and enjoy the day.  You can see the pergola in both photos.

I am not a fan of my own personal Facebook page.  But my kids are so when I finish a post, I add a Facebook entry to say there is another boring blog post to read and the kids know that if they are having problems sleeping, they can read one of Dad's Blog posts and they will fall asleep quite quickly!

The other day I received a Facebook Friend Request from Yuko Shibayama in Tokoname Japan.  It is my recollection Yuko was a visitor to Langwarrin Primary School as a student on an ISSE Exchange from Tokoname in Japan.  We kept up spasmodic contact via email.  I received photos of her husband and then of their children.  The internet sure makes the world a smaller place!

Another Ramble On!

The weekend came and went with Trish a little disappointed that her footy team suffered a defeat and will now have to contest each and every weekend (and win each game) if it is to take out the 2015 premiership.  I was a little envious as my team, which isn't in the finals, had defeated three of the 8 teams competing over the weekend.

The weather remains warm enough (around the mid 20's) to wear shorts and T-Shirts but still needing to don warmer clothing around 5 pm.  Yesterday was a lovely sunny day and the pool actually got to 21° later on in the day.

I continue to work out the Android TV Box which I have recently installed and discover something new about it each day.  In some ways it is better than the WDTV Media Player, but in other ways it isn't.  But the Android Box plays HEVC format video files where the WDTV doesn't.  HEVC files have excellent quality but are a much smaller file size.  When using free download sites this is an important feature as the files download more quickly and are less susceptible to failed or extremely slow download speeds.

I do love the way the Android box goes online and gets all the info about a movie or a TV Series episode and how it is all presented on the screen.  With the WDTV I need to do much of this 'manually' which can be a bit of a pain at times.

I bike ride most days but as we are entering the magpie hatching season bike riding can be a hazardous pastime.  Last year I reckon I was swooped once throughout a couple of months by nesting magpies.  Yesterday alone I was swooped around 5 times, on one occasion there were two birds having a go at me at once.

The cable ties have been installed on the helmet (see the photo above) but when a nesting magpie has its anger up, cable ties don't matter to it!  But I can easily modify the bike route so as to avoid them and their nests.  A swooping magpie usually doesn't hurt you but they certainly have the potential to do so.  They can scare you when they attack from behind and at the last moment you hear the piercing screeching, the noise of flapping wings and finally the tap on your helmet from the bird's beak.  It isn't much fun!

Computer Club was reasonably quiet and easy going on Saturday with much time spent trying to sort out which phone a club member wanted to buy.  I helped another neighbour with her printer yesterday.  All it needed in the long run was to have the ink nozzles cleaned!

Trish has ordered a laptop for one of the Art Centre Groups she attends.  There is an Acer i5 on special right now for $499.  The specs indicate it is more than adequate for most people and at $499 is a great deal.  By the time you add postage and handling it comes in delivered to your front door at a little over $520.

I am still at home in case the delivery which is due today comes.  Trish is out walking and when she gets home, I will set out on my bike ride, hopefully avoiding all the swooping magpies!

We have finished watching Hand of God and enjoyed it a great deal.

I Continue To Play

We have a few showers about today, drizzle mainly and pretty cool to boot.  I received $100 for sorting out the computer I set up the other day.  Needless to say I had a trip to the Home Brew shop today where I discovered another $50 had been left on my 'tab' there for me.  I also grabbed 3 x 16GB USB drive for $27 available from the post office.  This is a pretty good deal I reckon and those USB sticks are always handy to have.

The learning curve I have been undertaking with the new Android TV Box is huge at the moment.

It appears the Android Box doesn't like my Yamaha Amplifier.  Sometimes it registers as there being a sound track and other times it doesn't.  So I have reconfigured things to 'bypass' the problem.

Usually all connected devices I have (Pay TV, Media Player etc) connect to the Amp via HDMI leads.  The connected devices include the Media Player I have been using for years, The Pay TV Box and the new DVD Player, all connected by individual HDMI leads to the amplifier which in turn sends the audio to the surround speakers and the video to the TV screen on the TV's connection HDMI 2. The Amp has the ability to take up to 4 different devices.  It all works nicely .... usually!

The sound from Free to Air TV comes via an optical cable from the TV back to Amp so when we are watching FTA TV the video goes direct to the screen and the audio passes to back from the TV set to the Amp and plays out through the speakers.  The TV's own sound is set to 'mute' so all audio is controlled via the Amplifier.

Originally I had the Android TV Box connected to the Amp via a HDMI lead but I had the resultant audio issues, namely 60% of the time it didn't work!

The TV itself has several HDMI inputs.  Up until recently I was just using just the 1 input on the TV, HDMI 2 from the Amplifier to take all my connected devices.  So what I have now done is disconnect the Android TV Box from the Amp and connected it directly to the TV on the TV's HDMI 1 connection.  Now the audio comes from the Android TV Box to the TV which then uses the same optical cable the TV does to return the sound to the Amplifier and in turn out through the surround speakers.

The TV has no problem at all accessing the audio from the Android Box and then passing it on to the Amplifier.  The only hassle is the TV sound quality is 'ordinary' so the audio we are getting is stereo.  90% of the stuff we watch on the Android TV Box is in stereo, it is the remaining 10% of shows with great sound we cannot access.

It appears the sound issue is one being experienced by many buyers of this box (and other brand boxes).  The technicians have been hard at work trying to improve the problem and sooner or later (hopefully) there will be an 'update' which will fix the problem.

Currently we are watching a series streamed over the Android TV Box called "Hand of God".  We are enjoying it very much.  It tells of a Judge's son who has committed suicide and is in a coma.  The Judge has suffered a bit of a breakdown and though still working, he now believes he is "God" and is wielding his power in a Godlike manner to try to get his son out of the coma.  The son has been diagnosed as 'brain dead' and only remains alive because of life support machinery.

The Judge wants his son to snap out of the coma and is prepared to use his judicial powers to ensure the life support machinery isn't turned off despite the wishes of most of his family.

Meanwhile he is having people killed as he tries to solve what he suspects is a murder!

New Toy Arrives

The weather continues to be absolutely perfect with tops around 25° each day.  Overnight it gets down to 11° or thereabouts so the doona has gone into summer hiding and we now sleep under a sheet and a quilt.

The meeting went off well on Monday night but as usual this meant a busy time for me that night running the show and a busy next morning putting a comprehensive report on the website.  But all of that was done satisfactorily.

Then it was to reformat Brian's old desktop computer for a mate who does the BeCA Newsletter.  That was all completed around midday on Tuesday and I headed home to relax.  With such a busy morning I gave the bike ride a big miss.

So I rocked home before 1pm ready for lunch and there was my Android TV Box delivered from China.  It had taken almost 7 weeks to be shipped and delivered.

I copied many of the settings from the Kodi version on my desktop over to the new Android TV Box.  This didn't work as well as I had hoped it would with around 90% of the features working OK but the remaining 10% not working full stop! That took care of Tuesday!

So after a bike ride this morning (Weds) I decided to go back to square 1 and do the setup all over again.  Around 2 hours later with several hiccups everything on the Android TV box seems to be running OK.  I am 90% happy with it, but for $70 it was a great deal.

There are a few idiosyncrasies to come to grips with but I think all will be fine in the long run.

The photo above shows the setup.  The unit itself is the small black box on the left just under the TV Screen.  Beside it is an add on drive with a few movies etc on it.  I don't think I am going to need that in the long run.

Then there is a wireless mouse which can be used to control the box or you can use the small wireless keyboard with a built in mouse pad to control the on screen pointer just as you have on your computer. This keyboard works perfectly.

At this stage I reckon I have done pretty well with it.  It has been heavy work sorting it out though.

The idiosyncrasies include the box finds video files better on hard drives attached to other devices than the hard drive attached to it.  The attached hard drive does not show on my PC as a 'network' drive, therefore is inaccessible from any other device on the network.

You need to manually press a button at the back of the box to start it up.  Sometimes (depending on what order you do things) there isn't any sound through the speakers or our headphones.  But this is easily overcome.

If I turn the Android box and everything off using my all in one remote control, the TV turns off then turns back on again!  But if I turn the box off first using the 'icon button' on the screen, then turn everything else off with the remote control, all closes down perfectly!

It plays all my Movie and TV Show files.  There is one newer format of file I avoid but this little gadget plays those files fine!

All in all I am very pleased!

Absolutely Glorious

What an absolutely glorious day we have today, if a little on the breezy side.  Hardly a cloud in the sky and the mid afternoon temp around 25°.  Just delightful.

Not a lot has happened from the last post.  Our older friends Brian and Edna from over the road are packing away getting ready to move around 400 metres to a much smaller home.  We get offers of furniture etc but we have no where to put any of it.

I even knocked back a small office chair today which would have been handy if ever I have someone around and showing them some PC stuff.

But that won't happen as for 99% of the time it would just sit there taking up space!

The home and away footy season finished over the weekend with my team having a great win over one of the finalists.  But this is all too late as my team hasn't made the finals.  Trish's team had a good win and finished the season third overall on the ladder.  She is happy about that!

The footy finals begin next weekend.

Another brew went on this morning so bottle washing and a bottling will follow over the next 6 or 7 days.

I managed a couple of bike rides the last few days as time and weather permits.  The weather hasn't had any impact on my ability to ride the last week or so.

Computer Club was unusually quiet on Saturday which gave plenty of time to chat with others.

I have a meeting to 'chair' tonight.  It is a Public Meeting so there will be plenty of people there to listen to our speakers.

I am back over to Brian and Edna's later to dismantle the 'old' computer which has been sold to a friend of mine whose PC recently just stopped working!

And friends Russell and Irene have arrived back in Melbourne after around 3 months on the road in their caravan enjoying the warmer weather in our part of the world.  It is something like 13° in Melbourne this afternoon!

Same old, same old ......

It's Thursday

There is very little if any new 'news'.  Our good neighbours at the end of the court (Brian and Edna) have had their house on the market for some time.  They have recently sold so are in the midst of downsizing from  5 bedroom house to a small 3 bedroom terrace place.

The photo is taken from the Real Estate Agent's website.

We are assured it is much larger inside than this photo indicates.  It has been described as surprisingly roomy inside.

There is a lot of tossing stuff away or just getting rid of it at minimal cost for them at the moment.

Brian has become a techno convert despite being in his 80's.  I keep them up to speed with movies, TV Series etc and he has become a big fan of Netflix.

His PC is over 4 years old now so they have decided to downsize it as well to a laptop. Yesterday he had an i5 standard specced laptop delivered for a little over $500 which is a pretty good deal.  At this very moment it is updating to Windows 10.

I will transfer all the stuff over from the desk top PC to the new laptop over the next few days for him.

We have just had a rain change come through which turned out to be a bit of a fizzer.  We only managed a couple of mls in the gauge and there may not be any more to follow.

Days have been in the mid 20's and very comfortable.

We just finished watching a BBC Crime series called "The Missing" which was very enjoyable.  Keep your eye out for it.

My Android TV box has arrived in Brisbane so I am guessing delivery will be tomorrow at the earliest but more likely early next week.

Russell and Irene continue to head back to their Drouin home in their caravan.  They have arrived in Griffith where they will spend a few days.  Russ was glowing in his reports of Griffith in relation to local produce from the wineries there.

Into The New Week

We are into a new week and friends Russell and Irene have packed up the van and are well and truly on their way back home to Melbourne.  Usually they aim for fewer k's than what they did yesterday when they did around 500k's in the one day from Caloundra through to Goondiwindi.

They are due back at their Drouin home on the weekend.

Friday night we had them around for an evening meal.  It was a big night!  I felt OK on Saturday for Computer Club, probably just a little below 100%.

The Curry Bowl on Saturday night with Russell and Irene was excellent, much better than watching my team try to play footy the night before.  The season is over for them now with no chance of making the finals.

Trish's team had another good win and are firmly planted in the top four and ready for the footy finals.

We didn't see our friends on Sunday as they wanted time to fully prepare for their big drive on Monday.  We understood fully their point of view.

Trish headed off to a Quilt Show while I bottled the latest brew before turning on the footy on TV.

Monday was quite a computer day.  I helped a couple of people out, mainly through trial and error but I think we ended up with two reasonably satisfied customers.

I was back on the bike Monday and again this morning.  It is magpie 'nesting' time and they can become quite protective of their young by swooping those travelling anywhere near their 'territory'.

We had some rain over the weekend, mainly Saturday night into Sunday.  I tipped just over 30mls out of the gauge mid morning Sunday.