Back Home Again

The footy at the MCG was again extremely enjoyable.  On the final Saturday of our stay in Melbourne I saw Collingwood defeat Melbourne which eventually meant Melbourne failed to make the 2017 final series.  The win by Collingwood was unexpected.  It was a very enjoyable day.  The photo left shows the view of the ground from the Glass walled bar just behind where I like to sit.  That's my drink in the foreground!

It is just under an hour in the train to get home from the footy.  The next day I checked my 'account' and saw the return trip by train had cost me around $3 which makes for an inexpensive day out.  This was more than offset by the $8 price of the schooner of beer you see in the photo above.

Before the game got underway I sat in a lounge chair and listened to the latest footy news via a radio app on my phone.  This photo shows the view from where I was sitting.  There is yet another large bar on the level below which is quite pleasant in the afternoon sun.  You can see the entry turnstiles in the level below the bar.

Click on both photos for a larger view.

Sunday was pack our things day and head across to Chris' place near to Tullamarine Airport for our Monday morning flight home.  What was good about the Sunday was the whole family got together for a really fun day.  It was an excellent way to finish our brief time in Melbourne.

Chris dropped us at the airport around 7:15 am on the Monday and we settled down to wait our time for take off at 10:15 am.  The flight home was uneventful.  We collected our car from the Car Park and were home around 2:30pm.

On Tuesday I collected a parcel which had been delivered while we were in Melbourne.  It is the 'WiFi extender' which you can see in the photo.  It was a special deal and cost me around $12 delivered.  After setting it up it works fine and gives us quite a strong WiFi signal in the master bedroom.  It had always been reasonable but now it is fine.

I have fitted the WiFi unit into one of the two overseas power boards I have.  It runs off a USB port and these power boards come with several of them.  

So I am back on the bike again doing 15k's on Tuesday and 21k's today.  A couple of night's sleep in our bed has been great as well.

So things have got back to normal pretty quickly.  Back to shorts and a polo top and lovely days of temperatures in the low 20's.  Trish has a bit of a cold but that hasn't stopped her getting back into Stitchers and the Caloundra Arts Centre Association.

There's no place like home!

Some Catching Up

Our full week in Melbourne has been spent enjoying family time with Kate, Arj and the kids, and where possible, catching up with friends.  Very little has been done in the outside fresh air as it has been so cold.  Some may say bleak on a few days.

Without being too unfair on Melbourne, it was an uncustomary 31° when we left Brisbane and we arrived into a wet, cold and windy Melbourne after dark in the midst of a howling icy wind and the odd shower of rain.  It certainly has improved markedly since then with some sunny days with a reasonable top temperature.

14° at the MCG on Saturday was a taste of what going to the footy could be like.  We have been told that the last week or so have been the coldest and most unpleasant of the winter, so it seems we have mistimed our visit.

Friends and former neighbours Barry and Rainy drove down to a nearby Thai restaurant for a meal and a great catch up on Tuesday evening.  Then we caught up with Carol and David (photo above) at a local restaurant for a delightful lunch on Wednesday.  Thursday it was to our favorite Vietnamese restaurant with Eddie and Patsy and today it is Vietnamese again with June and Keith at a more car parking friendly restaurant.  Our trip to Vietnamese at Springvale on Thursday was made difficult by the impossible car parking.  It took us some time to find a suitable spot but it certainly marred our day out.

Though we have the use of Kate and Arj's second car, we are not keen on driving too far as I said recently.  20 minutes or so seems around our limit of driving, all done with utmost care and sobriety.

But our all too brief time in Melbourne is rapidly coming to a close.  We have 3 more full days before heading home.  Kate and Arj will use us 'oldies' for the opportunity to head out on their own for a couple of nights and we will enjoy a little baby sitting, a task we rarely have had to do.  The footy is on TV both nights so I am not put out at all!

I have the MCG for a rug up and catch the the footy tomorrow Saturday, and then Sunday afternoon, we are back to Chris' for our final night prior to flying home on Monday morning.  It seems showery weather will greet us back in Brisbane upon our arrival.  As we have the car parked in Brisbane, it is a lazy one hour drive home where we should arrive mid afternoon on Monday!

Safe and Sound In Melbourne

We left Brisbane around 3:30pm and 31° on Thursday and eventually landed in Melbourne close to 6pm.  By the time we collected our luggage it was a chilly 9°.  It was dark, cold and windy with the odd passing shower of rain as we waited for Chris to drive in to pick us up.  The change in weather was a cold reminder of what living in Melbourne can be like.  We braced ourselves against the cold wind as we waited.

We enjoyed a couple of nights with Chris, Wendy and the two grand kids and it was great to catch up.  We ventured out of the house on a cold and wet Friday afternoon for a flying visit to a shopping centre.  They have a very large house and they keep the main living dining kitchen area warmed.  They are used to that life style.

They were great hosts and it allowed me to totally redo Andrew's android TV box for him with all the updates and the new and better working addons.

Our daughter Kim recently returned to Melbourne from her home in Perth followed up by a trip to Asia.  She is busily sorting out a new job, and getting her great St Kilda Unit set up again with furniture.  She has to borrow a car (previously hers) from a friend who is holidaying overseas for a week and was able to get me to the footy on Saturday, take Trish shopping with her and finally to the Malaysia Garden (MG) for tea. 

The footy was great and reminded me again of how wonderful my MCC membership is despite it being so expensive especially when we live so far away.  But the day was great (but very, very, cold) and then my team won a less than inspiring game of footy.

We moved onto Kate's to stay Saturday night after the MG meal.  Their home is smaller and they tend to have some heating on 24/7.  So we have settled in nicely.  Despite being a one-year-old's birthday party on Sunday it was an ideal opportunity to catch up with great friends Barry and Rainy and their family.  We had a great time.  Our kids know their kids so it was enjoyable for everyone.

We do have a car available to us now most days but we only like to use it as a last resort.  We have had unpleasant experiences with borrowed cars before so we will only use it when necessary and when the times suit.  A part of the deal is to take and collect the grand kids from school which we enjoy doing.

We have a night out planned for Tuesday and a still to be confirmed Vietnamese lunch on Wednesday.  As the photo above taken from Kate's backyard shows, the weather isn't conducive to outside activity.

I recently bought a Bluetooth mini keyboard on eBay.  Being Bluetooth it is very practical to use with a variety of devices.  I saw a YouTube video on this particular model and was sold on its versatility.  It is dearer than any other of these mini keyboards I have but connects readily to any Bluetooth enabled device.  I bought it on eBay and had it delivered to Kate's place here in Melbourne.  I picked it up this morning (Monday) from the post office and it is a very clever little device.

So I think I will head off for another quick play.

2000k's and a Nip!

It's beginning to get close to us setting off for 11 nights down in Melbourne.  We tend to book flights months in advance and usually associate their purchase with a 'special' deal.

So we fly out mid afternoon tomorrow (Thursday) for a couple of nights with Chris and Wendy close by to the airport then on Saturday Kim will drive us to Kate's for a week and then a final night (Sunday week) at Kim's before flying home on the Monday morning.

Kim is still without her 'own' car at this stage and is borrowing one for a few days.  But there is a St Kilda to the Airport bus service we can use as a backup service.  Seems a pretty good idea to us! The photo is of the bus just outside the entry to Luna Park which is a 5 to 10 minute walk from Kim's unit.

Parking has been booked at Brisbane Airport and all we now need to do is pack and be on our way around lunchtime tomorrow.

At this stage I am set to get to a couple of footy matches, both on Saturday afternoon and both at the MCG.  The top forecast temp of around 13° for Saturday along with a few showers isn't something I am looking forward to though.   I will see my team play the first week but not the second.  The second week is a Saturday night game which I hope to catch on TV.

Fortunately my tummy has settled down again and everything seems 'go' again. 

It is remarkably warm outside for this time of year with the top 20's as the predicted maximum.  But it's blowing a gale from the north west and is a little unpleasant outside.  But I did sneak in a shortish 12k bike ride which will be my last until we return in a week or so.  Despite the wind I clocked up another 12k's lifting my total K's ridden since beginning to count late January this year to over 2,000k's.

On the bike ride this morning I managed to stir up a magpie who has also been upset by the warm weather into believing it is spring and beginning the nesting season early.  He decided to swoop me from behind and took a light nip at my right ear as a part of the deal!

But that is about all the news really.  The rest would just be about Android TV boxes and helping people out with their installations of Kodi.

There is a big Windows 10 Update doing the rounds and it has a tendency to break a few things.  So I have been helping people out with getting stuff back to normal.

So the next post may come from Melbourne somewhere!

Around 28° Outside

Summer is just around the corner, or so it seems, with a gusty northwesterly and warm sunny day.  It is nudging 28° according to our little thermometre.  Shorts and T Shirts are the theme of the day and there is a feel of summertime in the air.

Despite the lovely weather and the forecast of similar for the next week or so, bike riding has not been on my agenda.  Though moving a little better now, there was a day or so when the item top left was where I was spending some time.  I have had a tummy bug which hit Wednesday morning and is still about today.  Bread rolls with margarine, a little fried rice, Vegemite sandwiches and anything else which is light on the tummy has been the order of the day.

But the last day or so I can now at least get out and about for a few hours at a time.  My home brew is off the menu as well, I just don't really feel like it!  So as you can imagine, bike riding is not a high priority right now.

But it has been the Community Association's Newsletter week which I now have all sorted and ready for printing. I managed a bottling Wednesday and even around to a friend's home to update his Nvidia Shield.  I have another one to do on Monday morning as well.

Trish's laptop has been a bit silly recently and her anti-virus Nod32 was playing up so I felt possibly a reinstall would fix it.  Every time I went to install a new version of Nod32, her laptop told me not to worry as Nod32 was already installed when I had uninstalled it earlier.  There were some small leftovers still on the system which lead the laptop to believe Nod32 was still there.

So today I decided to download the special Nod32 Uninstall Program.  I ran it on the laptop and it told me it needed to run in the Computer's Safe Mode.  The internet came to my rescue and told me how to get it into Safe mode using the run file msconfig.  This I did, changed the boot settings to "Safe Mode" and it worked perfectly.  The Nod32 Uninstall tool ran for 5 seconds and was done.

Usually a restart starts the Computer back in into its normal state.  But no not this time, it kept starting in Safe Mode.  I eventually worked it out and got it to restart normally.  But I was a little worried for a while.

Nod32 installed perfectly and all is OK again!

We head to Melbourne next week with socks to wear and long sleeved fleecy shirts as well.  But we will catch up with some family and friends and I will get to a couple of footy matches in the freezing MCG!  It should be good.  And we will get to enjoy great Asian food again, enough to whet our appetites for our trip to Malaysia in November.

Life's not too bad!

Two Posts In Two Days!

It is well after 9am and I have just put my head outside to set off on my morning bike ride and saw there was a strong cold south westerly wind blowing.  When it comes to bike riding the words "strong" and "cold" when mentioned in the same sentence with "wind" are a huge turn off.  And so it was today.

I was a little later than normal in heading off as I was caught up with the Computer.  You see I received and installed the very large Windows 10 Creators Update yesterday  The update commenced around 12:15 pm and was all over well beyond 3:30 the same afternoon.

Updating anything on Windows is always laced with a little danger in that things will no longer work after the update when they were working perfectly beforehand.  And this was the case for me yesterday.  Sometimes after an update the printer no longer works or a program or two won't open. Usually it is a case of going to a website and downloading the new updated drivers and everything is fine again.

I am pleased to say the printer works fine but my email client Thunderbird received emails fine but no longer could send.  It took a reinstall of a brand new blank version of Thunderbird then the transference of some folders and email addresses from the old discarded Thunderbird profile across to the new before all was fine again.  I did need to re configure about 8 email accounts which tested my backup of email account passwords.

But all is now fine again with Thunderbird.

My trusty old wireless keyboard and mouse are now working again as well.  With the keyboard I have you can re allocate a keyboard key to do a specific task.  For example I can tap a key and the folder containing all my latest downloads opens automatically.  So that took 2 reinstalls this morning before I got it back up and running.

All this took a couple of hours to complete but now is all back and working 100%.

Needless to say it was great fun getting things up and running again.

Time For An Update

Last night we had an unexpected 16mls of rain.  Though it was predicted we would have the chance of a small storm, to get 16mls was a bonus.  It is the first 'double figure' rain total we have had for almost two months.  But this is traditionally the driest time of the year.  I will consider a bike ride after it dries out a little more.  Those pesky puddles, wet conditions a resultant spray from bike tyres make for an unpleasant experience.

Things continue to roll along as per normal, bike rides, brewing, bottle washing, bottling, sorting out Android TV boxes, not much changes.  Trish has had her bits and pieces with the Arts Centre Association including a Quilt Show in which she was just a helper rather than an organizer.

The Community Association has been a little quiet but is beginning to fire up again as winter comes to a close.  With the huge residential development to our south there is always something brewing in the background.  There is a new Primary School opening next year in the new suburb which will be zoned for local kids.  Therefore the Community Association has had some involvement disseminating information and keeping people up to speed.

There is to be a major upgrade of the main road into our area so that should be our next centre of focus. And there is a Newsletter to do as well as a Meeting to chair this evening.

It has been a warmer than usual winter with no hint of turning on a heater at this stage.  And now we are heading towards the middle of August, we will be swimming again in around 7 weeks.  Our coldest period is between mid June and July.  August heralds things beginning to become much milder.

Many days have seen sunny skies and low to mid 20's.  The odd 5° early morning has been chilly but come 9 am it is around 15° and warming up nicely.  On a few days we get the cold south westerlies which though sunny, means it is time to rug up!

We fly to Melbourne for 10 days or so late next week (August 17th) for me to get to a couple of footy matches and to catch up with everyone.  Trish's team lost on the weekend putting an end to any chances of making the finals.  Meanwhile injuries and suspension has robbed my team of any chance of making the top 4 and doing well in the footy finals.  We will see if they are any good with around 4 or 5 of the best players missing over the next few weeks.

We keep up with many of the latest movies and TV series.  Top Of The Lake Season 2 is occupying us at the moment.

Trish has a bit of a cold and is laying low.  I have now had both crowns fitted and more trips to the dentist should be on hold ... I hope.  The Chiro is our next focus as the joints seem to be always stiff and sore.  But we are managing beautifully thankyou!