On Our Way Again

Here is a photo of the gigantic Asia Mall in Manila.  It was a very pleasant part of our recent trip to Manila and the Philippines.

So we have returned to Caloundra and I have been reminded of how much I dislike overnight flights.  Despite a couple of sleeping tablets, I really only managed to doze.  Trish believes she got a couple of hours sleep during the 8 hour flight from Manila to Brisbane.

Neither of us has pulled up overly strongly after the trip.  I have dropped around 5kgs and still not a total 100%.  Trish is worse than I am having suffered yet another relapse!  She says she is OK but I know differently.

And we are on our way again, this time we are flying down to Melbourne to spend Christmas with the family today.

It seems I didn't give the garage remote to the neighbour who keeps an eye on our place while we are away, instead I gave him the remote to the car.  He has pressed the remote key to open the garage, the garage hasn't opened but he did open the car boot .... and activated the boot light.  So it has been on for around 2 weeks.  The car battery is as dead as!

It has been recharged at $20 a pop but there is no guarantee it will start upon our return from Melbourne. Kim is collecting us from the airport in Melbourne and will drive us out to Kate's in Berwick where we will be staying.  Needless to say we will drive via Springvale and the Vietnamese restaurants there.  Fortunately, both Trish and I have our hunger back!

This time I am taking the new 'old' laptop I was given so I will be able to compute almost as usual.

I have put all the Messenger pieces together and have created a single lengthy blog post on the trip to the Philippines.  Over the next few days I might even go back and add a few more photos. You can relive the trip in the post below.

We expect to return to Caloundra a day earlier than we had planned, on Sunday Dec 30th.

As much as we will enjoy being with the family, I am sure neither Trish nor myself will sorry to get back home for a prolonged period of time.

Our Trip to the Phillipines

Fri: That's the view from our hotel room in Manila. Great to be met by Peter and Vecy, made things so much easier. 

Hotel room is small but WiFi runs at 45mbps. 

Vpn works great and can watch Foxtel 501 and the cricket. Quiet day today checking out surrounds. Out sightseeing with Peter and Vecy tomorrow. It's true what they say about traffic in Manila.

Sat: The photo above is Fort Santiago, built by the Spanish 500 years ago. It was the scene of numerous major events from the time of the Spanish, the British, the Americans, the Japanese and eventual independence. It has scene many gruesome events. It was an interesting visit. Eating here you will find it difficult to find local food. There is Chinese, Taiwanese and others, but Filipino is hard to find. Last night we ate Taiwanese and found it cheap and good. Tourist info is hard to find. We can't find a decent tourist map of Manila but we found there is a hop on hop off bus which we hope to check out tomorrow. Today we will walk again and check out our area to the south of the hotel.

Mon:  As the photo shows the traffic in Manila is nearly always heavy. We were on our way to eat when the photo was taken. We've been looking to book a day trip to Corregidor after the wedding when we return here. Tourism isn't a high priority here. Some of the reviews of the day trip paint an unpleasant picture. You get there via a 90 minute boat trip on small narrow seats. One reviewer suggested sea sick tablets. Lunch would be provided but again reviewers are less than complimentary. It can be great when you get there but at $70 per head it sounds risky. On Sunday we visited the largest shopping mall here called Greenbelt. It was not only huge but packed to the rafters. Another interesting experience to add to our list. Grab is the Uber of Manila and it works great. It was around $3 for the 4km trip. Picked up where you want and delivered back to the hotel. We may try and visit China Town today. I'll talk more about how this place is missing out big time on the tourist dollar.

Tues:  Took a ride to Manila's Chinatown yesterday. A 10k ride took the best part of an hour. We hit 60kph once, rest was stop go, few road rules but not an accident to be seen. Interesting to see the other side of Manila. Poverty and unbelievable living conditions. Our meal last night was Filipino and fantastic. Adobo and a spicy baked fish. From there to a bar where I chatted with 4 older guys from Saudi. They had 3 buckets of 6 stubbies in front of them. Had a great chat. Today meeting with Peter for lunch. Looks a bit wet outside today so hopefully a little cooler rather than the low 30's.

Thurs:  Tummy bugs have hit us the last couple of days, nothing serious but enough that I didn't eat for 24 hours and today was very quiet when it caught up with Trish. I came good in time to get to Peter's Buck's night for beers, fried chicken and local fare last night. The venue was 6ks away which took me 90 minutes to complete via narrow single lane back streets through very poor areas. It was quite an eye opener. Trish is still not eating today which left me to spend the day at the hotel using my VPN and Foxtel app to watch the First Test from Adelaide. Phone plans are interesting here with it being quite expensive to call from one network to the other. Data is the most important as you contact from network to network by Viber or Messenger. I will change to Trish's network so we can easily call each other. So we head to Tagaytay tomorrow, a 60k trip which should take a couple of hours by a Grab car if the traffic is OK.

Fri:  It's pretty here in Tagaytay. Trish is feeling better and may even eat something later. The wedding is on in 40 minutes, that's the backdrop for the ceremony. 

Just beautiful. It took 3 hours to do the 60ks here from Manila. Traffic is unbelievable.

Here we are into our final day at Tagaytay. Trish is feeling much better while I have had a minor relapse. But we had a great Filipino meal last night with Vecy's Filipino family, Peter, Jarrod, another airforce mate and ourselves. Trish was careful with what she ate but I wasn't. 

Sat:  My tummy concerns from last week reappeared but all seems on the improve now. We will get out for a bit of a walk after lunch after hitting the credit card machine. 

Now getting back home to Australia is four nights away and after our health issues here that can't come too soon. 

But the weather here is cooler than Manila with an ever present breeze. 

We are fairly high up in Tagaytay and the view over the lake is fantastic.

Mon:  That's a local Tagaytay Shopping Mall in the photo, a quite upmarket sort of a spot. So all the wedding guests have departed and gone their ways. We bid them all farewell this morning leaving us the final group to head off which we will do tomorrow. I have managed to sort the taxi driver who drove us here to come back twice so far to drop others at Manila Airport for their trip home or elsewhere here in the Philippines. We walked well over 1.5ks to that shopping mall for a quick look around before traipsing another 1.5ks back to the hotel. It seems I may have recovered somewhat following from this morning's severe tummy hassles. But as we are about to head out for a small evening meal only time will tell. We suspect we have the least expensive room in the Lake Hotel. It is 6:30pm right now and there's another wedding on, yes on a weekday Monday. Our room is almost shaking from the loud music and the yelling of the female MC. Oh what the guests had to put up with on Saturday night. Yeah, you're right, I've complained (hoping to get moved to a better room) but have been assured the celebrations will be over by 8:30pm. So we'll duck out for a very quiet and lengthy bite to eat and get back around 8:30. Tomorrow it's back to Manila if our taxi man turns up at 10am.

Tues:  Driving from Tagaytay to Manila. Maps app says 16 miles to go and it will take 86mins. A 2hr 15min drive and we are back in Manila and as you can see we are in the process of booking into our hotel. Looks OK for $80 or thereabouts per night. 

Check in is 3pm and we are way early, the result of not knowing what traffic would be like getting here. Looks like lots of interesting places to check out by foot nearby.

Weds am:  Two more nights to go. Good morning from Manila. It took around 2 and a half hours to complete the journey from Tagaytay through some heavy traffic. This hotel in Manila is the best we have stayed in for sometime. Plenty of multi national power plugs, heaps of room, a couch, nice bathroom setup, comfy bed, everything that Trish and I look for. And you can see the view from the 12th floor. It is in the middle of the University area and we have discovered one rule, alcohol is not available from nearby convenience stores. 

So the leftover duty free rum makes a reasonable alternative. Beer from the mini bar is a little over $2 a stubby so is still OK. We have both been careful with what we have eaten and have found a small Asian restaurant specialising in Asian Street Food which is cheap and the food is light. This suits right now. We had a walk around after eating last night and cannot believe the sea of humanity that met our eyes. There were cars of all shapes and sizes and a mass of people everywhere. It was an incredible sight to see so much going on at 8pm on a Tuesday! We made our way back to the great hotel and spent the rest of the night quietly. We will be out on foot again today, after testing the hotel breakfast.

Weds pm:   So far today we have been out twice for walking. It's pretty hot out there so we've welcomed coming back to our great hotel for drinks and a cool off. More importantly I found a 7 eleven that sold beer and at 49 pesos (or around $1.30) a can for 500ml Tiger Strong Black 6.7% I grabbed several cans. It is even difficult to walk along the street here because in some places there isn't a footpath while in other places the footpath is broken or so narrow there is room for just one person. Crossing the road is another new experience. You just decide to go and that's it. Slowly but surely you get across the road, putting your hand out to slow a driver down. I've usually got Trish in tow and she isn't a willing street crosser. Stop and you're gone so you just press on. So far we've made it OK. We are both looking forward to Saturday and getting home. Tomorrow I reckon we'll try Grab hire cars again and check out another nearby shopping mall. Any sort of luck I'll find another beer selling 7 eleven store!

Thurs:   I just hit the wrong bloody button and lost about 5 paragraphs of what I've typed. So this post will be in stages. We fly home tomorrow night around 11:30 PM. As we both haven't been 100% health wise, we are way under our budget. $50 for a late checkout seems a no brainer so that is what we will do. As you can see from the photo it is showery here today and heaps cooler. 
Last night we caught a Grab Car back to the first hotel we stayed at and a nearby Taiwanese restaurant which had some great food. We had prawns, dim sums and dynamite prawns. It was delicious. I only wish I felt more like eating. Despite being off color, I still managed a couple of 500ml cans of beer so I'm not really on my death bed so to speak. But it was good to get out.

Yesterday we got out walking a couple of times but 33 and 80% humidity made it tough work. We've now walked in all directions and still find it difficult to see stuff. Lousy footpaths, zillions of cars, incredible traffic and steamy weather is not conducive to sightseeing. We will check out yet another shopping mall this afternoon. It is an $8 Grab car trip away and should fill in the day nicely. Luckily we have a great hotel room, heaps of space, a comfy couch, neat bathroom with hot water, it's really great. And this is the least expensive place we've stayed! But isn't that the way! More tomorrow (before the cricket).

Fri:   Finally things seem to be on the improve regarding our tummies. Beside is a photo of last night's meal, pork sisig (great) and spicy chicken. The restaurant held 14 in the air con section and the bill including a jar of iced tea was around $6. It was enough for us to eat still remaining a little wary. Earlier in the day we went to the Mall of Asia. Now this is a shopping centre with everything.
The centre was huge. It had eateries everywhere, one was a version of McDonald's but it sold pretty good Chinese food. We doubled up on the pork dumplings. There was a technology section with shops selling apple, Asus, lenovo, Oppo and other brands. I drooled.
All the big brand names were there as well so it was a great place to check out. As many of you know, I buy our phones online and usually Chinese brands. Currently we both have Xiaomi brand phones, one of the largest phone companies in China and said to be bigger than Apple. There was a Xiaomi shop there as well so I checked out the latest models and grabbed a set of headphones
Understandably we are both a little squeamish this morning after eating out last night but having just had a light breakfast things have turned out OK. It is showery here again this morning but we are planning a quiet day today. We fly out at 11:30 tonight and get to Brisbane around 9:30 am tomorrow. Our 6pm late check out will mean I should get to watch a fair bit of the Second Test today. Next post will be from sunny (wet) Queensland.                

Almost Ready To Pack!

Today is Tuesday and we fly out to the Philippines and Manila on Thursday, just before lunch.  The pool has been cleaned, the filter flushed out, the lawns mowed and the edges 'done'. I've guesstimated which case I should take and am getting my head around what clothes I need and whatever else needs to be packed.

I've tidied up my Samsung tablet and have uninstalled a few things.  I have 'synced' my Firefox browser with my other devices so I can readily access some of the websites I might need to check while away.  I've checked my Foxtel App on the Samsung tablet and have installed my NordVPN.  With this I hope to fool Foxtel into thinking I am in Australia and therefore eligible to watch Aussie sport on their sports channels, despite being overseas.  After all there is an Australia vs India Test Match on while we are away!

I've been to the doctor to sort out my meds and all is ready to head away.  We've been in contact with Peter, the husband to be, who is currently in Manila ensuring preparations are running smoothly for the wedding.  Peter will meet us at the airport.  He also mentioned that every passenger on the flight in (we are on the same flight as he was) was given a free sim card so that should mean we have some phone service when we arrive.

We have used the Messenger App to speak and text between ourselves in Queensland and Peter in Manila.  Messenger is taking over from Skype as the way to remain in contact while gallivanting around the world!

Under cover car parking has been booked in Brisbane for our time away. I've loaded up the Vodafone TV Box with some basic TV series ready to go.  All I will need is access to the hotel room's TV's HDMI ports and we are in business.  Hotel WiFi should be available as well.

Our hotel bookings are all completed and Trish has loaded up the "Travel Card".  I've had a haircut courtesy of Trish.  All seems in readiness

We had a great drinks night on Saturday and it took me a full 24 hours to recover.  I was OK the next morning, just not my sparkling best.  We had to travel around 8k's away this time and our host was kind enough to pick us up so we just needed to 'Uber' home.

This does not augur well for wedding celebrations so some care will need to be taken!  Fortunately the wedding reception is in the same hotel as where we are staying!  I will need to tread carefully at any pre-wedding celebration while in Manila.

So what else have we been up to?  I grabbed a $99 12 month Aldi Sim card for Trish for when we get back.  That gives her unlimited calls for 12 months and a total of 12GB of data.  She isn't a big user of data.  The deal seems pretty reasonable, even if she decides to toss it after 6 months.

We are slowly working our way through the drinks in the Waeco fridge wanting it emptied and cleaned before we leave.

There is a big washing day on today finalizing clothes required for the trip!

So basically, everything has been geared towards our trip away.  But then three nights after we get back home, we are due to fly to Melbourne for Christmas.

Most likely my next Blog post will be from the Philippines and done on the tablet.  The tablet sure isn't as nice to use as the PC but it still works OK.

Next stop, Manila!

Yes, Still Alive & Kicking!

For me my 'work' with the Community Association for 2018 is all but over.  A couple more things to finalize and that will be it. Trish remains flat out with her Association duties and both of us are finding we are beginning to slow down a little needing a few days of R and R just catch up with things.

Our health isn't a hassle with both of us fairly fit and active.  I am splitting my daily exercise between walking and bike riding aiming where possible for either a 4K walk or a 13 or 14k bike ride.  I manage to get into the pool after the walk or ride.  The pool is great but with the bit of topsy-turvy weather up here switching between quite warm to lovely and mild every few days or so.

The pool was 24° this morning but a gorgeous 28° a few days earlier.  If you watched the cricket Saturday night you would have seen the row of that storms swept across SE Queensland.  We got almost 17mls in that lot and another couple of mls the next day along with a drop in temperature from 32° down to a cooler 24° the day after.

So what have we been doing with ourselves?  Trish is working on arranging a series of Markets for the Arts and Crafts Association and I have been playing with my new self bought Christmas present.  I enjoy having a second Android TV box to muck around with.  The one I had was a very basic box which sometimes would connect to the WiFi here at home or sometimes not.  Then there were apps which opened one day but not the next.  Reliable is the one word you wouldn't use to describe it.

Early last year Vodafone entered the android TV box market with their Vodafone TV.  It was priced at a little expensive $120 but was popular with public.  It was built for Australia so came with the right power plug and that sort of thing.  Vodafone promoted it along with their new broadband product they were introducing to the market.  Connect to Vodafone NBN and grab this box for $120 and we'll give a free 6 month subscription to Netflix sort of thing.

They then raised the price to $140 and it became a little too dear.  Suddenly they dropped the price to $72 and at that price it was a bargain.  So Merry Xmas Thommo, I bought one.  And I must say I reckon it is a pretty good item.  There seems to have been a rush on them at that price and there is plenty of chat around internet forums on them.

It is around 1/3 the price of my Nvidia Shield but works much better than that.  I would say around 75%, not as powerful as the Shield and a little slower.  But when up and running it is very similar.  And I can fully control it with my Logitech Smart Hub.

Our other main thought at this stage is around our upcoming trip to Manila, the Philippines and the wedding. We have now booked all of our accommodation which is great.  Trish booked under "Trish Thomas" but when the credit card had "Patricia Thomas" on it the hotel rejected it.  The odd email back and forth soon sorted that out.

The bride and groom are already over there getting ready and we arrive in Manila Thursday week.  It is a place we ordinarily wouldn't have thought of visiting so it should be a lot of fun, especially having people there we 'know' who are available to support us if needed.

You never know, the next blog post may be from the Philippines!

We've Now Been To Fraser Island

 We arrived back home from our three nights at Fraser Island around 3pm Friday afternoon.  I guess if you were working then these three days would have been the perfect time to sit back and just 'chill out'.  It was a great place to just prop and hang.  We are retired now and spend heaps of time propping and hanging so it wasn't really our scene.

The beer wasn't too expensive, the meals were ample though a trifle on the dear side and the Kingfisher Bay Resort was fine.  It was around the same cost per night for our stay at the Golden Sands Hotel in Penang last year.  Given our 'rathers' the Golden Sands would have won by a street. WiFi was virtually non existent at Fraser and the free stuff available around Reception was as slow as.

We didn't bother with the $200 per head tour to the local highlights which I would expect would totally 'make' the three days away.  We'll do it later from the Sunshine Coast with friends at around $180 per person.  But it will be all the way along the beach from Noosa to Rainbow Beach, then a short hop over to Fraser and do the full day bit then.

The photo above was taken from the barge as we travelled across from River Heads near Hervey Bay to the resort itself.

Upon arrival it was unpack, get sorted, check out the room (which was fine) and then the local 'store' for supplies.  6 stubbies of mid strength was $20 and there was a fridge in the room.  Or you could have wandered to the beach bar where it was 4 mid strength stubbies for $24. The 6 for $20 seemed a good deal when you consider where we were.

You could bring some of your own supplies if you wished, that wasn't a hassle.

We sat on our balcony and this was the view, through the trees to the resort pools and what turned out to be the breakfast venue.  Breakfast was included in our deal which was great.  Yes, we made a hog of ourselves at breaky so that a small packet of chips along with a frosty drink for lunch was all we needed.

Our major past time was walking around the resort, out along the jetty where they were fishing, then a walk back to the room.  We did around a couple of k's twice a day and filled in the time OK.  I didn't bother with the pool.  Then there was sitting quietly on our balcony as well.

We had our evening meal at a place called the Sand Bar.  It was like a glorified pub with above average counter meals.  A burger set you back $19, a parma around $24 and a pizza $25.  Trish had some salmon at $28.  You weren't hungry when you finished.  A Fifty Lashes Schooner set me back $9-50.

But we are sure glad we did it but probably would have preferred something with a little more excitement.  We reckon for the money we spent a few nights at the Gold Coast would have been better value.  There is a range of eateries there and plenty of places to sticky beak around and fill in time.

But now we can say we've been to Fraser Island!

Following Meg and Harry

I am not sure we'll get the "Royal Suite" but we are off to Fraser Island this week and staying at the same place as the the Royal Couple!  Trish grabbed a ticket from a "Luxury Escapes" website, three nights accommodation with breakfast included.  We are on the 3:30 pm Tuesday ferry across to the resort and will spend 3 nights there.

We've booked a Fraser Island all day bus tour for one of the days and it had better be nice and sunny! At $150 per head it would want to be a great day out.  You can't go over to the island and not 'do' the tour on this once in a lifetime trip for us.

So this week is pretty well sorted.  As the photo shows I've managed a bottling around a week ago and today I put another brew on and bottle washed.  The bottling should go ahead upon our return from Fraser!

We bit the bullet and one of the guys at Computer Club put a totally new version of Windows 10 Pro install on Trish's 5 year old laptop for her.  I spent most of yesterday (Saturday) putting Office and all the other stuff she wanted back on again.  We managed to re install 95% of the stuff back, luckily it was all the important stuff she needs.  It sure seems to load and shut down a lot more quickly after the reformat.

The weather has sure warmed up the last week or so here with a week of around 30° each day.  Some days were hotter, others a little cooler.  10 days ago the pool was 22° and a bit chilly.  Today it is over 28° and just delightful!  I usually swim a couple of times each day.

Bike riding has now been joined by a daily walk of a couple of kilometres. I'm wanting to get ready for our trip to the Philippines and Manila early in December where we expect to do a lot of walking.  So I thought I would start off with a couple of k's each day and slowly work my way up.  So I do my walk and follow up with a slightly shorter bike ride of around 12k's or so.

After that bit of exercise a swim goes down very well indeed.

On Thursday's walk I just wore my cheap scuffs and managed a blister on a toe on my right foot.  So walking gave way to bottle washing this morning!

Luckily we aren't into the full swing of summer as the ceiling fan in the lounge room just stopped!  I've rigged up a pedestal fan in the short term and it is OK at this time of the year.  Someone is expected to come around and check it out for us.  I guess we'll be up for a new ceiling fan.

There is a Cricket Australia android 'app' which has live TV coverage of the Sheffield Shield matches.  Being Android means it can also be installed on my Nvidia Shield box and I can watch all the matches live and on the big screen  There is also a Cricket Australia addon in Kodi which gives me yet another chance to sit back and enjoy the day's play at the MCG or the like.

So we are both well and enjoying life here on the Sunshine Coast.  The warmer weather now means several jumps in the pool each day.  So mow the lawn, into the pool afterwards.  And then I can always enjoy the odd cool drink or two .... or three!

Online With The NBN

I received an email around 3pm Tuesday afternoon from Telstra advertising all their NBN services and to 'connect now'!  I really don't think that it was the formal notification that my NBN connection had gone live, but I plugged all the bits and pieces in anyway, connected the landline phone to the modem/router and waited.

I noted the 'Connected' light came on almost immediately after I powered the NBN Connection box.  Then another "DSL" light came on.  I then powered up the modem/router and suddenly my PC indicated I was online!

My modem/router is now just used as a router and distributes internet across the house via Ethernet cables or by wifi.

A quick trip to the Speedtest website showed I was getting 47MB as a download speed which is pretty good. I didn't mind the connection being a day earlier than I had been told.

Around 45 minutes later I received a call from Telstra, this time checking that all had gone well when I connected.

We are on a Fibre to the Curb (FTTC) connection while most of our area will be on the standard Fibre to the Node (FTTN).  Many locals continue to wait for their FTTN connection to go live. They have been told to expect connection by November 1.

Has it made a difference to my downloading habit?  The answer is yes by quite a bit but not as much as I had hoped.  There are two limiting factors to downloading, how fast is my connection and how fast is the website with the download releasing the file.  So my 47MBps download speed is hindered if the source site is releasing it at 30MBps.

Some sites release files much slower than others so it is a little hit and miss.

Overall I am delighted with our move.  The landline phone (which we only use for incoming calls) works without a hitch.  Some NBN users with different suppliers can experience problems with the old 'landline phone' connection.

The rainfall up here has been incredible over the last week or so.  We have now had well over 10" or 250mls of rain.  We have gone from a dry year to one which is around average.  Areas about 50k's to north of us (around Noosa) have had twice the rain we have had.

I managed a bike ride yesterday but today's ride was thwarted by a very light rogue shower.  It was enough to make the roads and footpath wet.  Today there aren't any mudguards on bikes so a bike ride on wet paths means you get sprayed all over.

Back To The Mundane Stuff

The photo to the left shows the first bit of sunshine we have seen here on the Sunshine Coast for several days.  Despite it being  wet on and off over the last 8 or so days, I did get a fair bit of bike riding in knocking over around 70k's in between any wet mornings last week.

However with the recent downpour, especially over the weekend which saw us receive over 180mls (or over 7"), the bike has been put well away.  All told we have received almost 10" (238mls to be exact) since the previous weekend.  A strong wind is accompanying the rain which is whipping up huge seas at all the closed local beaches.

So to see some blue sky this morning is a bit of a change.  We've been sitting around 20° over the last 3 or 4 days while Melbourne has been up to a balmy 28°.

We have gone from a 'below average rainfall' 2018 to an 'on average rainfall' year in the matter of 8 days or so. With the sun out just now between the showers, you can really feel its warmth telling us summer isn't too far away.  Give me 30 minutes of that sunshine and the towels on the line will be dry!

So what else is new.  All of our computers 'played up' after a recent Windows Update.  Fortunately a restart on most occasions eventually managed to 'fix' things.  Bill over the road turned his PC on and he appeared to have lost everything, it was as if his PC had just been reformatted.

I reinstalled the stuff he wanted so he could get up and running again when I eventually worked out that his PC had just created a new startup 'profile'.  I found his old profile with his favorite settings, shortcuts and all his photos and downloads so just copy pasted that to the current 'new profile' and hopefully all should be fine again.

My Computer did the exactly the same thing but everything returned to normal with an immediate restart.

Mr NBN is still to be connected at our place.  We are getting are getting a Fibre to the Curb (FTTC) connection and it seems each FTTC customer is timetabled as to when they will be connected. FTTC requires an extra piece of hardware which of course had to be delivered.  It's the small white box in this photo left.  Ours arrived on Friday and our FTTC connection goes through sometime on Wednesday this week, around 48 hours away as I type.

The larger box on its side is the new modem/router while the larger black box on the left is my 4TB Seagate Cloud Drive.

Again the guy over the road had his connection go through late last week and he is with the same company as I am.  After getting connected and now on a 50MB speed internet plan he clocked a download rate over 47Mb.  He is delighted!

The bottom of the range but extremely handy Dyson stick vacuum we have has been great for smaller cleaning up jobs around the house.  However the 'trigger' sticks and at times keeps on cutting out making it a pain to use.  With an online 20% off sale at a local Electrical store we bought a Bosch stick vacuum to take its place.  It isn't quite as portable and light to use as the Dyson but is more like a heavier 'real' vacuum cleaner.  And it is heaps more powerful though much heavier than the Dyson ever was.

But at 2/3 the price of the Dyson, the Bosh Stick vacuum is just perfect for our smaller house.

The Community Association celebrated its 10th Anniversary on Saturday night.  We had a subsidized meal and a great night.  All the current Management Committee (and most partners) were there but only 1 or the 'original' team came along.  Kerry loved the night and had a great time.

 Trish is mulling over the idea of taking over the Presidency of the Arts Centre Association.  She has completed her allowable terms as Secretary and has to resign later this year.  Needless to say she is keen to see who offers to take on the Secretary role in the new setup prior to making any commitment re the presidency.

So that is all our news, bits of this and bits of that.  I can hear again now my hearing aid has been repaired again.

All we need now is for the sun to stay out and dry everything up.  Some showers are predicted for each of the next few days, fortunately the forecast is for 'showers decreasing'.  We can only hope so!

Roll on Wednesday!

Storm Season

This time of the year is known as 'storm season' here in SE Queensland.  When the conditions are right, humidity builds across the day and can then erupt into a fierce thunderstorm.  Thunderstorms in this part of the world can be hit and miss, a location 20k's away gets 25mls and you get a few spits of rain.

Last night we received 28mls of rain in around 30 minutes.  It just bucketed down with a wonderful display of flashing lightning and loud thunder.  We survived OK without a hassle but this morning it is sticky and slightly overcast.  It seems the stormy weather maybe hanging about. My phone weather app tells me the humidity is well into the 90's.

And it feels it too.

So what have we been up to?  One of my hearing aids died and is in for repair.  I pay an annual fee to have all repair costs covered so it won't be damaging to my pocket.

Last week was busy as it was 'Newsletter Week'.  I only have one more newsletter to go for 2018.

The new PC goes well but I have had a problem with Microsoft's OneDrive program.  OneDrive is an online storage service from Microsoft but the service began uploading heaps of stuff I didn't want it to such as all my Documents.  You have to be careful because if you then delete Documents from OneDrive, it deletes all your documents from your Documents folder as well, many of which have been collected over years. It wanted to do the same with Pictures as well.

You would turn synchronization of those folders 'off' but if you tried to remove them from OneDrive it just wouldn't do delete those folders.  Then a few days later they would be updated online again.  The Documents synchro process had turned itself back on again.

So OneDrive has now gone (uninstalled) and its job has been overtaken by DropBox.  It is doing the job nicely. I can easily swap files between my devices using DropBox.

Trish continues busy with heaps of projects at the Arts Centre Association  She attends up to four handcraft sessions there across the week as well as being heavily involved with the administration side of things.

Being spring it is cleanup time around the place.  Yesterday I cleaned the pavers all around the pool and removed all the built up mould from them.  I use a mixture of 1 part chlorine to 2 parts water and broom the mixture across the pavers.  A few minutes later the chlorine has killed the mould and I can wash the pavers down with the hose.  The 28mls of rain last night ensured all chlorine had bee removed as well. The photo above shows the pool area after the cleanup.

The front lawn got a mow as  well and I am now waiting for a fine dry day to let the Weed n Feed do its job.

That leads us to our upcoming connection to the NBN which is due for connection in "October".  I had to complete some forms at the local Telstra Shop which I did.  I then expected to be given a FTTC Connection Box, race home, put it all together and bingo I was online.

But no.  The Connecting Device is being sent out by Courier any time from Friday.  Then I kind of think someone from the NBN will connect it all up for us and I suspect this is to happen the following Wednesday.  I will make a call and find out more later today.

But as you can imagine, I find it a bit frustrating.  Fortunately my ADSL service is pretty reasonable so waiting for the fibre access isn't so bad.

I continue to bike ride but I am becoming more selective on what days I ride.  With the overcast skies around today is a wait and see day before riding.

There is now plenty of cricket on the TV for me to watch.  The cricket doesn't excite Trish too much so we go back to watching series I have obtained from online during the evening.  Currently we are wading through an older TV Series called "The Big C" with Laura Linney.  She won awards for her role in this excellent series.

We have seen it before but I came across a high quality version a few weeks back so we have been watching it.  It i a great series.

Some of the Pay TV services such as Amazon, Hulu and the like are replaying some of these older series again which usually means that soon after there will be a great copy available for download and playback.  The Big C is one such series.

I find I am using my VPN service sparingly.  It is handy at times but mainly just to find links from some of those sites which have been blocked to Australians.  There are numerous backdoor sites which allow users to gain access to these blocked sites.  A quick copy/paste of the link you want and it is all go to get the stuff you want to download.

So that's about it.  It is time for another check outside to see if a bike ride is on the cards for today.  Magpie swooping season is all but over which is another reason to jump on the bike.

That's It 'Til Next Season

The AFL season has now come and gone with the Grand Final played yesterday and The Eagles coming out on top in a tightly fought match in Melbourne.

My attention had been drawn to Cricket anyway with the departure of my team from the Finals race early in the procedure.  With PayTV now having rights to most matches we can enjoy many of them on the PayTV platform.  Those we can't access on PayTV we can enjoy via the Cricket Australia app which has been incorporated as a Kodi Addon.

Grand Final day meant an earlier than usual departure from the Computer Club to get home to plant myself near or in front of the TV to keep up with the Grand Final happenings.  The Home Brew went down very well and brought back memories of previous Grand Finals I had attended with mates back when we lived in Melbourne. A few cold beers was a major feature of those great days.

Around 8pm last night a row of thunderstorms rolled across the Sunshine Coast with a display of lightning and some serious thunderclaps.  Despite the grandeur of the show, we were left with just 1.5mls of rain.  This morning we still have the odd clap of thunder and we do have a very strong wind blowing.

This means a hold on bike riding for today with possible storms and windy weather.  I have recovered from a puncture the other day when I was about to set out on a ride and saw the front tyre was as flat as.  Nowadays you don't really repair a puncture, you just put in a new tube.  At around $6 for new tube, it is a genuine easy way to overcome a puncture.

My newer hearing aid started playing up yesterday so it will go in for repair.  With the Monday coming being a holiday, it probably means I will have hearing hassles for the week and beyond next weekend.  This is a pain!

The pool is up to the low 20's nowadays with the nights warming up considerably.  Mid to high teens are the current overnight minimums.  I had a quick swim on Thursday following a haircut given to me by Trish in the afternoon.  I swam up and back a couple of times but that was enough in the 21° water.

Our visitors have now arrived safely back in Newcastle with the caravan all sorted.  It was great having them here and I suggest they are delighted with their new acquisition.

The new computer is running beautifully.  My only regret is the lack of USB ports but I now have a couple of USB hubs along with 2 usb extension cables giving me ample access.  The given to me laptop is working great as well despite a low to mid powered processor and a sticky keyboard.  Both shortcomings are more than compensated by the extra 4GB of ram it has and the incredibly cheap $15 Logitech keyboard from the Dick Smith fire sale which works perfectly.

The old laptop has become a great backup to have 'just in case'. Also it is the perfect thing to take to Computer Club so I can actually now show people on my machine how to do things.

And my latest computer acquisition is a 2 year subscription for a VPN a Virtual Private Network.  More and more I am landing on websites to which the Australian Government has closed.  In Australia you are unable to access some websites, usually websites which access illegal downloads.  Your internet address supplied by your ISP tells anyone online which country you are in which allows the government to block certain addresses.

However when you connect to a VPN it re routes your internet address through to its servers which it has scattered across the world.  You can pick and choose which country you want to be connected to the internet through.  These countries do not have the same laws as in Australia so you can access all internet sites.

The downside is that your connection via those countries can be markedly slower.  I joined a VPN service yesterday and tried half a dozen or so countries.  Many are painfully slow but I found Brazil OK and Taiwan was marginally slower than my Aussie connection.

You can add your VPN to an android TV box as well via an app and 'pretend' it is connected via Taiwan.  The TV box can then look for stuff to play for you, unencumbered by government restrictions to banned websites.  The VPN is turned on and off from your android app or via your PC.  I can use the VPN service on up to 5 devices.

It seems pretty nifty and at about $1-50 per week, a handy service to have.

So that is about all of our news.  Our next getting away is later this week when we have three nights on Fraser Island.  There is a possibility we will be there at the same time as Harry and Meghan.  We have nights there as well as a full day bus tour planned.  It should be fun.

We are both well and getting on with things OK. The Arts centre Association keeps Trish busy and enjoying the company of many friends there.  Right now, life is pretty good!

Visitors Now Heading South

The footy for Trish and me is now all over for 2018.  Both teams were defeated and now are preparing for the 2019 season.

Mick and Janet arrived from Newcastle with their car packed to the limit with stuff to go into the new caravan.  There were pots and pans, clothes, blankets and all the things you need to set off on a holiday.

There was too much home brew consumed, too much home made spirits drunk, but not too much friendship and laughs.  It was great having them here as they waited to pick up their new snazzy Rave caravan.  It was ready enough to collect late Tuesday but still things needed doing.  Around 48 hours later and all was done and a few teething problems were overcome.

They are now newbies on the caravan scene and winding their way slowly over a couple of weeks back to Newcastle.  It gives them the ideal chance to sort out their roles, how towing works, backing into a site and working as a team.  It is a little trial and error but if you take your time there shouldn't be any troubles.

Their tow vehicle is a 8 cylinder diesel Volkswagen Toureg which will do the job in a breeze.  It's a top of the line tow vehicle pulling a top of the line caravan.

So they are now in northern NSW leaving us to get on with things.  The pool is almost ready for swimming and I was delighted that all the water needed was a couple of bags of salt and a 'blocker', a chemical which helps to stop the chlorine 'flashing off' and disappearing.  At well under $40 worth it is the cheapest it has ever been for this beginning of the season top up!

At around 19° to 20° first thing in the day it is a little on the sharp side for swimming.  While we continue to get our overnight temps of 12° and above, the pool loses any heat it has gained during the day overnight.

With friends visiting we have been to Miss Hoi An a couple of times.  On all occasions the food was excellent, we really have stumbled onto something great in this foodie desert called the Sunshine Coast.

Trish is a busy as always with CACA stuff while I have the new PC up and running just as I want.

Plenty of cricket coming up on the TV, brews to bottle and getting ready for summer stuff to do.

We are both well, Trish is over her Melbourne cold and luckily enough she didn't pass it onto me.

Thursday PM

We've had almost 25mls of rain since I last added a post to the blog.  We need all the rain we can get as it has been unusually dry.  So we've had a couple of showers today with another possible shower looming.  But it isn't cold with the temp around 24°..

I was installing another program earlier this week on the new PC when a pop up message said the program could not be installed until Office 2016 had completed installation.  I clicked on a couple of buttons and before I knew what had happened Office 2016 was gone!

Eventually I downloaded another 3+GB version of Office 2016 and the install looked totally different as the photo shows.  Within 5 or 10 minutes 2016 had been installed and a minute or so later it was fully activated.

A bit of Youtube searching showed the problems I was having with the previous Office version installs where it stalled at around 90% were not uncommon.  And it even showed a way how you could get it to complete the installation.  But I am happy with it all now.

So it's over a week that I have had the new PC and I am quite happy with my choices and purchases.  The 8GB of Ram has seen an improvement on speed and the ability of the PC to do a couple of things at once.

Right now it is all great and running how I want it.  I have successfully added the 4x usb3 hard drives via a Hub and have added a usb3 extension cable to give the leads a bit more room.

Friends from Newcastle are coming to the Sunny Coast to pick up their brand new caravan.  The van is ready for collection on Tuesday and they will get here around lunchtime Saturday and spend a few nights with us.  It will be great to catch up and I am sure we will enjoy a couple of drinks.

We have received a couple of letters from NBN suppliers saying to sign up with them now for when the NBN gets connected on Friday October 19th, around 6 weeks away.  I have done all that but now we have an 'expected connection' date.

Footy for Trish and me tonight and tomorrow night.  A loss for my team means the end of 2018 while Trish's team gets a second chance.  They play the top team who are favorites at this stage to take out the premiership ...... but we will see!

Sunny Sunday

With an expected top temperature of around 26° we are in for a delightful day.  Usually temperatures like that in early September mean a bit of wind around.  That is why I got today's 18k bike ride out of the way early! I was also hoping to catch a couple of magpies enjoying a Sunday sleep in but no such luck.  I suffered no harm as the long wavering cable ties attached to my helmet made any swooping magpie think twice about getting too close.  It is nesting season and father magpies are out and about ensuring their young are safe and sound.

The new PC is just about sorted.  I have had enormous hassles getting a recent copy of Office to install.  2010 goes on fine but it took around 8 goes before I got a 2016 version to install.  Even then it installed without me really knowing.

The green installation progress line that goes across the screen stopped at around half way.  The activity indicator light on the hard drive just seemed to flicker as if the who process had stalled.  Usually I would get impatient after waiting for 5 minutes and then roll back any changes.  I had downloaded an official Office Removal Tool and it got used around 8 times or so.

We were heading down to Brisbane later that afternoon so I just left the PC with the installation progress line at around half way to see what would happen.  We returned home around 8pm to see the green line monitoring the installation still only half way across the screen.  I was able to do a couple of things but the PC then locked up requiring a power off via the power switch on the wall which I did.

The PC restarted fine but then a Russian website automatically popped up in my web browser I immediately shut the browser down.  I checked the PC's program menu and lo and behold, Office 2016 had been fully installed. And I can now guess where my Office 2016 Installation file had come from!  I am pleased to say all seems to be working perfectly.

I received a text message from our soon to be married in Manila nephew Peter and his lovely Filipino partner Vecy.  They were heading to a Brisbane outdoor eatery called Eat St.  It was something we had often wanted to do so we went along as well.  It was setup in colorful and excellently done up shipping containers.  It was huge affair, much bigger than we had guessed and even getting a table to sit at a bit of a raffle.  There we several large halls, a couple of live bands on two outdoor stages and a wide range of food to try.

Needless to say we had heaps of Filipino street food which Vecy chose.  We are learning that if you eat with anyone Filipino, you don't walk away wanting more to eat!  But as the photo shows it was a huge concern with lots of people there. It was a short sleeve sort of night with quite a busy crowd.  It must get packed when it is a 28° night!

We arrived home around 8pm.  It is a long drive of well over an hour to get there so it is the sort of thing you would do after spending time in Brisbane and a spot to eat before heading back up the highway. Not the kind of "where will we eat tonight?' sort of thing.

It was then after I arrived home I was delighted to see Office 2016 had eventually installed!