On My Own

Trish headed down to Melbourne late last week to catch up with family and friends.  I decided to stay on the Sunshine Coast leaving her free to do whatever she wanted when in Melbourne.

Kim has returned to Melbourne from overseas as well and Trish is very keen to catch up with her.

Bike riding in the morning sunshine, watching the TV series "Deadwood", keeping an eye on things around the house and helping others with their computers or Android TV boxes has kept me busy as well while here.  I have a visit regarding TV Boxes this afternoon and another one for much of tomorrow.

Deadwood is an older extremely high rating western TV series which is probably not to Trish's taste.  So while she is away I am ploughing through as many of the 36 episodes as possible.  It is easy to see why it is so highly rated.

The AFL footy was good for both Trish and myself the last week or so, though a little stressful at the finish.  But a win is a win!

So there is little news but to say we are both well and life is pretty good.  I will get all the gossip from down south over the next few weeks when Trish returns home early next week.

I can say I have now truly mastered "Devilled Sausages" with this latest cook up being the very best so far!

Days are now usually around 23° and then low teens overnight.  The doona has come out of storage but still gets thrown off at various stages during the night.  Bike riding continues with me getting through in excess of 100k's last week.

The Hyundai has developed another oil leak and is being attended to this week.  The little Honda is due for a service and this will happen when Trish gets home.

I will get a blood test this week as a part of my annual roundup of doctors' appointments.

So it is the same old same old .......

The photo above is taken in the new 50,000 resident development just to our south.  Hundreds of homes are being constructed there at the moment.  Every block on this section of the new estate has a "Sold" sign on it.  The developer expects to have sold nearly all land prepared at this stage by the end of 2017.

Building of new release stages is going ahead frantically with sales far exceeding expectations right now!

Like a Lizard Drinking ....

That's how flatout we have been.  Since I last put up a post I have done another Android TV Box, sorted out a new laptop, fixed up a neighbour's corrupted Administrator's Profile on a laptop, put a brew on, mowed the front lawn and checked out and backed up all my own Android TV Box profiles.

I have finally worked out that if I am setting up someone's Android TV Box something will go wrong somewhere along the way and what seemed a straight forward job suddenly gets complicated.

Setting up a box requires a GMail account and the associated password and it also requires the password to get onto a local wifi setup.  Lack of knowledge of passwords is a huge problem.  But what is worse is when someone says this is the password and they are wrong!  They have mistaken what the password was and are vehement that the password they have given you is correct.

What should take around an hour ends up taking you 3 or 4 hours!  And I do it for free, but I do expect a rush of funds into my Home Brew Shop Account over the next few days!  Bill over the road whose laptop I fixed makes his own distilled alcohol so you can guess how I get compensated from him!

And doing stuff on my own home network is a breeze and I can move files around between devices with ease.  I can copy the Kodi 350mb setup files from my Nvidia Shield Box to the Minix Box over the network in less than 15 minutes.  To do something similar on some networks can't be done wirelessly on the network the way it has been setup and has to be done using USB sticks.  With Android Using USB sticks makes it a sloooow process!

To make the process a little quicker I have now created a setup profile with all the basics already included.  So it is now a matter of installing Kodi, copying the setup files across and then adding any other addons the box owner really wants.

On Monday I bottled a brew and by midday had another brew mixed and ready to go.  In between I delivered almost 200 Community Association newsletters.  During the delivery process I kicked a small stake taking a sizeable piece of skin off a toe. While delivering her Newsletters Trish was confronted and attacked by a dog!  She received a bruise on her leg but was not interested in pursuing the dog's owner.

So I have another bottle washing and bottling to do.  But then my home brew supplies should be fine!

The weather here has been glorious.  Mid 20's most days, slippers and a jacket on around 5 pm and nice and cool overnight.  I have ridden the bike several mornings this week but gave the Newsletter delivery day a miss.  I ride a lot later during this time of the year as a 7 am start is a little on the chilly side.

Speaking of chilly, the unkillable fridge managed to freeze several of my 1.25 litre bottles of beer so I have had to turn the cold control around to just half way!

We have wet weather due either tomorrow or the next day and then it is expected to continue across the weekend.

Trish flies to Melbourne on Thursday of next week so I am already looking forward to "Devilled Sausages" for my evening meal for the first few days she is away!  She is away for around 10 days leaving me to fend for myself here on the Sunny Coast.  This is a task I don't mind every now and again.

Unkillable!

As I mentioned in the last post, our 12 year old Samsung beer fridge was on death's door for around the 4th time upon our return from 15 nights overseas.  The doors to the freezer and the fridge itself always have to be second checked to make sure they are closed fully.

We have previously been woken during the night by the old fridge making dreadful noises as during mid summer the freezer door hadn't been closed properly and in the sub tropical heat the motor had been whirring and loudly chugging away trying to freeze everything.

And this has happened since but usually it is found within a few hours and the door is carefully closed fully and properly.

But for this last incident I must have fully packed the fridge before we went to Bali for 15 nights.  The door was not fully closed and therefore not fully sealed.  So when we arrived back home and went to the beer fridge for a cold drink, shock horror, the door hadn't been fully closed and sealed and everything inside was hardly cold at all!

Despite closing it up again and keeping fingers crossed anything inside hardly cooled over the next day or so.  We began checking the local appliance stores online to see what a replacement would cost and it seemed we were looking at over $400, possibly up to $500.

Then Trish found a possible solution online in a forum.  As the door was slightly ajar, humid damp air had found its way into the fridge over the fortnight and the dampness had frozen blocking the ducts which carry cold freezer air down into the fridge compartment.

So turn it off for around a day, let everything defrost and drip away, fire the fridge up again and cross your fingers.

Cross the fingers we did and the unkillable fridge did its job.  It is now fully laden with icy cold soft drink, refreshing home brew and a few other odds and sods.  The frozen gunk in the freezer ducts had defrosted and drained away!

This fridge is 'unkillable'.

A glorious day today, sunny and low to mid 20's.  But we had around 30mls the day or so before today and the wet is expected to return tomorrow.  That's OK, it's bottle washing day!

Wednesday's News

From the heat and humidity of Bali to the cold and unseasnally wintry conditions in SE Queensland.  It is around midday and the temperature outside is a little over 18°.  It is cold, grey and very wet.  The rain began around 10pm last night (Tuesday) and today there is well over 30mls in the rain gauge.  The long sleeves have been dug out, the warm slippers have been dusted off and even the 'trackie dacks' have made a reappearance.

It was fine though coolish yesterday when the temperature got to 24.  I did get a bike ride in for over 23k's but that won't happen today when it won't see the 20's.  Less than 20° is cold for this time of the year here with low to mid 20's being the norm.

Things are slowly slipping back into place.  A brew went on on Monday around lunchtime (as the photo above shows) as my supplies require some replenishment. Nowadays I do around 40% of the filling up in the kitchen before carrying it to the garage where I top it up with water.  It saves carrying 23litres of home brew mix through the house to the garage.  That is becoming too heavy for me to carry nowadays.  I will put another brew on early next week to get things back to normal.

We did a little online investigation into fridge problems yesterday.  The freezer on the Samsung beer fridge seems to be working fine but the fridge part just isn't getting cold.  One online cure suggested the vents between the freezer and the fridge may have become frosted up not allowing cold air from the freezer into the refrigerator section.  The suggested cure was turn the fridge off overnight, allow it to fully defrost and then see how it goes the next day.

I started the fridge up again around 8 am this morning and now around 4 hours later, the can of soft drink inside it sure feels cold enough to drink!  Possibly the problem has been fixed but we will give it up to 24 hours and see how it goes.  Things are looking positive.

Android TV Boxes look like taking up the rest of today.  A couple of friends bought Minix X8 H Plus boxes like the one I had bought.  It now seems these will only ever be able to run Android 4.4 while the latest version of Kodi requires a minimum of Android 5.1.  As new addons get developed and updated they too require 5.1.

Money isn't a hassle for the people I am helping so they too ordered and have had delivered Nvidia Shields and now they want me to go around and set them up.  I am doing one this afternoon.

In the meantime some very clever people have written a new version of Kodi 17 which runs on 4.4 boxes and runs 99% of all the addons.  It is called MyGica Media Centre and works fine for most people.  So I will install this on the older models as well as setting up their shiny new Nvidia Shields.

I don't know who will have the more fun!

Home, Safe & Sound And Now Rested

The flight home was a little quicker than anticipated as according to the pilot we had an almighty tail wind.  Despite taking off around 30 mins late we still arrived in Brisbane about 10 minutes early.

We both took sleeping tablets and managed some sleep on the flight home.  We requested and were given a spare seat between us giving us a little extra room to stretch out in.

Trish bought this wall hanging which came with a stand (photo below).  The metal stand was too large to go in her check in luggage so was stowed as an item on its own.  Upon arrival in Brisbane, and not being sure where to go to get through customs, we were directed to carousel 7 to collect our bags.

The metal stand was delivered to a different collection point around 100 metres away. Trish walked the 100ms to collect it.  She then returned to carousel 7 at the other end of the hall to find me and our bags.  We then had to walk nearly all the way back to the other end of the hall again to get on the end of the queue for Customs!  All went smoothly but it did take time.

As the top photo shows, Caloundra is a pretty good spot to come home to.

We have now been home for two nights and have finally caught up with most of our sleep.

The 12 year old beer fridge has decided to die so the Waeco has been pressed back into service to give us cold drinks.  On top of this the washing machine isn't working perfectly either.  So we may be forced into some purchases soon which has not come at a good time for us after a trip overseas.

I need a new crown on a tooth in about 6 weeks time as well.

The cooler weather after the high humidity of Bali is a welcome relief.  The poor form of my footy team the last two weeks has been a worry as well.

It seems strange to be closing doors and windows to keep the cooler night air at bay.  Singlets have gone and have been replaced with T-Shirts.

At Computer Club on Saturday I spent some time on setting up the Messenger App on a friend's phone.  He is flying to Bali in a few week's time and is staying about 5 minutes walk away from the Horison.  Messenger was an incredible app allowing us to make phone calls via wifi and data despite being overseas.

Bike ride time now despite a light overnight shower of rain.

Ready To Head Home.

It's 9am here Wednesday morning and our bags are in the process of getting sorted. We have the room till 6pm so we have plenty of time to get everything ready.  Today will see a few journeys out but overall it is a take it slowly day with our flight not due to depart here until 11:15pm.

It seems we will have beer to leave behind. Bintang is the local brew and after a couple of weeks I have almost had enough.

We ate breakfast at the hotel yesterday morning and then had noodles for lunch. So when we headed to tea, photo above, I wasn't really that hungry. We ordered satay for starters to be followed by crispy pork belly and a chicken dish. We were surprised when a dish of 8 huge satays were brought out. They were monstrous!

My tummy was a little on edge and I was pleased we could cancel the chicken. It seems we had ordered 3 full size main courses and not the starters we thought we had.

Pork Belly can be rich and extremely filling at the best of times so the decision to cut one course was the right one.

With an overnight flight coming up caution on the food front will be the order of the day. We don't want a queasy tummy on the plane heading home.

Would we come back here again? Yes but only with friends and there is just so much shopping you can handle in a fortnight as well. Despite living in Queensland I have found the consistent high humidity a bit of a trial.

The hotel at around $60 per night (that was on 'Special') was quite good for our needs. Perhaps we missed a larger resort style pool with heaps of shade where you could sit quietly.

But at that price with breakfast included it was a sweet deal.

So now we have to put in around 8 hours or so until our 6pm checkout. Then we have a car to the airport, check in and wait till our 11:15pm departure. We fly into Brisbane just before 7am. There is a 2 hour time difference between Bali and Queensland.

By this time tomorrow we will back in Caloundra!

Seminyak, One More Night.

Today has been showery. This morning's walk up the street for any last minute shopping was not so hot. However as it warmed up and the humidity rose from the everyday 85% to a stinking 95% it sure felt hot again.

So it was some new Havianas for Trish, a few more small gifts for grandchildren and family members and then a spot of lunch just beside the Bintang Supermarket which is where this photo was taken. This seems a normal Bali traffic shot!

Then as the drizzle recommenced it was back to the hotel.

As you have probably worked out Bali is very much a shopping for T Shirts sort of place. Other items may be a little cheaper than home but then you won't get the range. Even the cheap Bali knock off watches are not a good deal when you can buy online from China for less. The $10 T Shirt is probably lesser quality than the $12 on special one you can buy on special at Big W!

You will get your good shopping deals, great nights out at OK restaurants for less than at home but for us that's about it.

I chatted with a guy the other day who was on about his 20th Bali trip. They stay at the same hotel, enjoy the same restaurants and have a great holiday every time. He and his wife are still working and look forward to their annual holiday in Bali with much pleasure.

They enjoy the holiday destination. We already live in a great holiday destination ourselves on the Sunshine Coast so really we don't need to travel to Bali for this sort of a holiday.

Don't get me wrong, we have had a great time on our Bali trip, but I am not sure we would come here 20 times or more. Trish sure enjoys all the eating out and not having to cook.

We are now beginning to get our heads around packing and heading home. This seems pretty well in hand at the moment.

The next big decision is where to for our dinner tonight. Right now it seems The Kuali where we had grilled snapper and a chicken curry for last night's meal will most likely win the vote for tonight.

Probably the next post will be from home. We should get to our home around mid morning Thursday. We fly out of Bali at 11:15pm Wednesday and land in Brisbane just before 7am.

We are both planning to take a sleeping pill to help us through the 6 hour flight.

Seminyak, Monday.

We enjoyed a quick vist from the newlyweds Beau and Jess on Saturday just as they were doing the rounds prior to flying back to Melbourne Saturday night. There was even more leftover stubbies and yet another bottle of wine to add to our collection.

I made a pretty good fist of finishing some of the beer off on Sunday but I am suffering just a little today (Monday).  I am usually a mid strength beer maker nowadays so a session on heavy can be hard going for me.

Footy watching took up much of the weekend which didn't deliver good results for either Trish or myself. I headed down the street to watch my game as it wasn't covered on the in-house TV.

The photo above is one taken around the hotel pool. We have booked a late checkout (6pm) for Wednesday and a car to the airport will take around an hour and costs $20.

Today Kuta and the Discovery Mall was our aim.  We grabbed a cab (we have been told only use Blue Bird cabs as they are obligated to use the meter) and around 40 minutes later and at a cost of $4:50 we arrived at the Kuta Discovery Shopping Mall.  We had a good look around and even checked out the Kuta Beach nearby which wasn't too flash just here.

Discovery Mall even has a Marks and Spencer section so sections of the Mall were quite upmarket. After checking out a few places in the air conditioned Mall we ventured out for another look around the local Kuta main street. Perhaps Kuta is where we should have stayed?  There are many more eating options there with large areas of eateries catering for many tastes.

We especially like our Asian food and we found a nice looking place that had Murtabak and the Indonesian form of our Malaysian favorite Koay Teow. The Murtabak (a large thick roti/pancake with ground beef, vegetable and spices inside) was sensational and the Koay Teow was good too. Despite feeling a little queasy along with any associated toilet hassles, I really got into the food.

The tummy has been fine, the Murtabak was sublime!

That's the restaurant in the photo above.

We walked for about 20 minutes then hailed another Blue Bird cab back to our Seminyak hotel. This was a much quicker ride and therefore cheaper at $3!

I might grab a quick swim later today before heading off for more eating and possibly just a little drinking.