And What A Drop We Had!

It began raining almost a week ago.  There was one or two 24 hour periods when we had a few mls and then there were other days when we had 2" of the stuff.  Mixed with the wet weather has been the heat and humidity from up to the north giving us ideal conditions for late afternoon thunderstorms. But hot and steamy conditions for everyday living!

And then around 9pm last night (Monday) a cooler southerly mass of air moved in over us, again with thunderstorms, but leaving us this morning with cooler weather.  After 7" of rain (our total for the last 7 days) it is still warm enough to begin to dry the moisture from the ground and recreate the similar humidity to last week.

So today is still a little on the humid side but there is cooler weather with lower humidity on the way.  Again the air con in the living area got a run on a day or two recently while the bed room unit did manage a few hours one especially steamy evening!

The photo is of ordinary quality but shows what the pool chlorinator is indicating.  It says that there is just a little chlorine production (only one light) and I need to check the salt in the pool.  But I only put 4 bags of salt in the pool a little over a week ago.

I checked the chlorinator a couple of hours later and all the lights (about 6 of them) were on and the chlorinator was working perfectly.

This morning the chlorinator is back to just one light.  After a trip to the Pool Shop the verdict is the element requires replacement and most likely a 'board' or two in the main chlorinator itself.  This is around $600 even before labour is included.

So we are up for a new and larger (and therefore more efficient) chlorinator.  This should happen later this week.

The new shutters have gone onto the backburner!

I managed just one bike ride during the last week but did get a bottling done.  So my supplies have been rejuvenated.

There were also several TV box setups to adjust as well.  I am trying to set up a system where people can do their own updating.  I supply the update and they download and install it themselves.  If successful this would make it much easier for me.

I have been getting great feedback on the Tea TV app especially for Windows or Mac.  It can be installed on android but it works brilliantly on Windows and Apple computers.  Do a Google Search for "Tea TV for Windows" or "Tea TV for Mac" and see what Mr Google throws up for you!

And After All The Heat Comes The Rain!

As the title says, after the heat comes the rain!  It has been a wet week since around Wednesday.  The bike has been put right away so exercising is off the agenda.  Now the biggest hassle we have is  to get the towels after our showers dry enough for the next day.  The humidity is naturally hovering around the 90% mark.

We had almost two inches (50mls) since 9 am yesterday (Thursday) and mid teens the day before.  More heavy rain should continue today and tomorrow!  But we won't be in any need to build an ark just yet, just stay indoors and keep up with things!

I am still waiting for the 'last' quote regarding shutters to come in.  Some want 30% or 40% deposit, others want 50% which is a fair fork out when you just order them.  It is then a 6 week wait until they are built and installed.  Then you pay the rest.

With prices and products all pretty similar, the lower deposit may be a determining factor.  But we just wait and see.

All products have a 10 year warranty whether they be PVC, aluminium, timber or a combination of two.   So the source material all seems to be around as good as each other.

Following the turmoil with Kodi developers being threatened with legal action, Kodi stuff has kept me busy for most of the week.  I have done several setups now.  For people using their laptop to stream movies I have been suggesting the try a program called Tea TV.  If you Google search for it ensure you get an ad-free version if possible.

And another bottling was completed successfully.  Drinks at our place on Monday while it was still warm was a great success.  And I moved into Tuesday after the big night without any major hassles!

And that's about it really.

Trish is at Quilters this morning while I continue to mess around at home.  Moving pot plants out from under the pergola so they get some natural watering from the rain has been one thing to keep me occupied this morning!

Some Respite

We have lived here now for almost 18 years and the weather throughout the last week has been the most unpleasant with the hot days and very high humidity.  Fortunately the new air conditioner in the bedroom was installed in the nick of time meaning getting a good night's sleep is never an issue.

As the photo shows it wasn't even 7am but the temperature was already almost 27° and the humidity was around 95%.  This was a cloudy morning with huge storm clouds all around.  The most rain we got overnight was a couple of mls one night.

Last night the thunder crashed and the lightning lit up the sky with a magnificent show of lights.  But not a drop of rain fell where we live.  Fortunately, though still almost 30° today, the humidity is around 60% and there is a cooling sea breeze.

I reckon the air con ran for four days this week.  Usually we wouldn't run the air con for 4 days over a summer let alone in one week.

I managed 10k's on the bike one morning and did a bottle wash on another.  The front lawn got a mow as well.  But with the hot temperatures overnight it meant the pool was around 32° during the day meaning and you couldn't really cool off with a swim!

With the house getting close to 17 years old, some things need a bit of a tidy up.  The vertical blinds in the main living area don't work as smoothly as they used to and are beginning to look shabby.  We have been suggested shutters may be the way to go.  Not only would it help to keep out the light at times but would be good for insulating against the heat as well.

We have had several quotes with just one more to go before we decide.  We get told "Don't use timber as the timber shutter blades will warp and stick with the humidity".  And "Don't use PVC as it is not structurally strong and may tend to yellow over time".  The best deal so far seems to go for timber shutter frames and PVC blades.

Every sales person has another pitch.  We sought information on using aluminium but were advised that aluminium retains the heat and could warm the room up after the sun goes down.  We have one more sales pitch to sit through later this week.

Trish is down in Brisbane with friends from her "Beading" group.  I will finish up here and watch the sport on TV while enjoying the odd brew or two.

There has been another round of legal action threats against some Kodi Addon developers.  This means they pull down their addons and shut up shop.  Without regular minor updates, the addons slowly begin to stop working properly.  So those who are not at all tech savvy have problems replacing the non working addon with new addons from new developers.

I may have a busy day or two coming up!  But I am trying to deflect as much of the updating as I can. People need to learn how to uninstall a non working addon and install a working one.  Sometimes it is easier to ring Les!

The Heat Is Back

The tropical heat has returned and not without some hassles.  Hot air from all up north has settled over much of Queensland giving us some very hot weather indeed.  I did manage 17km on the bike before 8am this morning and believe me, that won't happen again.  I reckon I didn't stop sweating till an hour after the ride.  And somewhere in there was a swim.

On a couple of nights we had had a weak thunderstorm which has dropped a few mls of rain, just enough to cool us down for a good night's sleep.  One night was an absolute stinker but the new air conditioner in the bedroom meant it didn't worry us one iota!

During this very hot spell the air con in the lounge goes on early afternoon.  We set it at 27° and arc the ceiling fan up.  It is super comfortable and despite being set so high, you can feel the cool right up the corridor to the front door!

Several Community association reps attended a Traffic Parking Forum on Monday and it was heavy work.  The mayor and all the Councillors were there along with other dignitaries.  I gave a 15 minute presentation on our Community Association's views and got out of it relatively unscathed.

I am out of practice for that sort of stuff and as my 72nd birthday is just a few days away I find age is beginning to catch up.  The air con was set so low we nearly froze our bits off!  Then when we left we hit low 30's and high 60's humidity.

On Tuesday I had to write the day up and put a post on the Community Association website.  Again, a couple of hours of pretty heavy work.  But I did get another brew on as well.

So today was bike ride day.  Believe me tomorrow will be much shorter than the 17ks I did today.  And the front lawn may get a mow as well!

I signed up for Foxtel again today, this time I am paying a little more per month but I have the deal for a year rather than just 3 months.  We get Foxtel, HD and the Sports package for $39, a special going for anyone at the moment.

The time says it is almost time for me to sort the BBQ for tea so I had better finish up for now.

Quick Update

Our bout of gorgeous cooler weather is about to end.  Days have been around 30° but overnight has been down as low as 18°.  The cooler overnight temperatures sure has an impact on the pool.  One morning as I jumped in after a bike ride it was 24.9°.  I sure noted the cooler temperature.

But Sunday it is forecast all is to change with mid 30's on the way for much of the week.  It looks like that air conditioner was fitted just in time.

But the rest has been humdrum stuff.  The sparky has been back and we now have the two 'power circuits each on a safety switch of its own.  This means if something goes bung, we should still have power to one half of the house. Nowadays, all houses are setup like this evidently.

It has been a busy week for me with the Newsletter but it is all done and dusted now and ready to print off.

I have computer club this morning and a Forum on street parking to get to on Monday.  Somewhere along the line, probably Monday, another brew will go on!

More Kodi setups were attended to this week with very happy customers at the finish of it all.

We are seeking quotes and ideas to cover the lounge 2.4.x 2.1 window.  Possibly consider shutters at this stage.

All Is Cool!

We now have an air conditioner in the bedroom! 

During the recent bout of extremely hot days and nights it would have been handy to run just to cool the bedroom down a little before we retired but with the current cooler weather it isn't necessary.  We still get to our 30 or so during the day but as it gets later in the day it cools and eventually drops to around 19° or so overnight.

But the installation didn't happen without any mishaps.  It seems the safety switch for the power isn't functioning correctly as the electrician discovered yesterday.  It is working OK now but couldn't be fully relied upon.  The sparky will be back to sort it all out in a day or so.

And then I went to vacuum the pool but there wasn't enough suction.  I tried several things but all without luck.  Eventually I cleaned the filter cartridge and it became immediately obvious what the problem was.  The cartridge needed a clean so badly the water had found trouble getting through at all.

One cleaned filter cartridge later and the vacuum was back to full suction.  But then an ominous yellow light came on saying the pool needed heaps more salt.  Trish made a quick dash to the local pool shop and two bags of salt later the pool was clean and the salt chlorinator was working perfectly.

I did have a quick swim afterwards.  I had misread the pool thermometre and thought it read 28.5°.  It actually read 26.5°.  It is quite interesting as to what a difference 2° can make when you first get in!

So it was a day of fits and starts!

That night I had a Meeting to chair which went longer than normal.  This morning there was a report on the meeting to do as well as finish of the first Newsletter for 2018.  Everything just seemed to come at once!

But all is now over and done with and I can settle back to my life of ease!

112 Mls later (4.5")

At last we had some decent rain. 

We are in the middle of the 'wet' season here so we expect it to rain, usually in the form of tropical downpours at this time of the year.  Over the last 3 or 4 days this has not been the case.  It has been periods of rain with no major storms or sudden downpours.  But wet (and very cool) it has been. We have had well over 4" of rain in fact!

One day we managed around 23° as a maximum temp which is around 10° cooler than usual.  The ceiling fans have gone off and in some cases the front door shut and the windows closed owing to the cooler weather.  In between showers we look at 80%+ humidity which means the towels never get quite 100% dry!

The sun is back today and we are looking at around 28° but there remains a blustery wind out there. With the rain comes dust falling with atmosphere.  Now the pool badly needs a vacuum but as it is down to a temp of 23° no one is bursting a boiler to get in for a dip!

The local Community Association gets back down to work today after a 2 month layoff as we have our first Management Committee Meeting tonight which I am chairing.  This means a busy day tomorrow getting everything up onto the Association's website which I oversee.

The air conditioner installer is here right now beginning the installation.  The sparky will be here in an hour and we can expect to lose power for a short time as the new air con unit gets 'wired in'.  Hopefully all will be up and running around lunchtime.

When we bought the little Honda around 15 months ago the driver's floor mat had a rip in it where it is secured to the floor to keep it in place.  We asked them to fix it which they did but it was only a temporary fix.  The mat actually needed replacing.  We grabbed a pair of replacement mats on eBay and they arrived late last week.

It is nice being able to step into the car normally rather than trying not to tear the mat from where it is attached.

Over the last week or so I have done several Kodi boxes and 3 or 4 PC's which have Kodi running on them.  Needless to say I have loved every minute of it.

I expect to get back on the bike tomorrow as soon as the place dries out a little and the wind drops.  But we will have to wait and see.

Finally, Some Rain

Days of relentless sunshine and accompanying humidity can eventually become quite tiring.  We had a mere 30mls of rain across all of January which is right in the middle of 'the wet season' here on the Sunshine Coast.  Our temperatures here seem to be closer to Brisbane's temps than the Sunny Coast.  Here the temperature is taken at the Sunshine Coast Airport which is around 1km from the beach and has the benefit of on the coast sea breezes.

We live around 4k's from the beach so despite still being close and getting a great sea breeze, it is usually a few degrees warmer than the 'official' Sunshine Coast temperature.  Yesterday it was 35° in Brisbane and felt just like that here at home.

But overnight we have had a "Melbourne Cool Change" go through.  Today will be much closer to 25° compared to what we had yesterday.  And with the cooler weather has come some rain, 35mls in fact, more than doubling the 2018 rainfall total.

Despite the cooler weather the house remains quite warm.  The ceiling fan is whirring overhead as I type.

The Air Con in the living area got a run late yesterday afternoon.  The afternoon sun shines on the the living area so it still warms that area despite the sun blinds across the back of the house.  We run the air con at 26° which is great when used in conjunction with the ceiling fan.

We have decided to have an air conditioner fitted in the master bedroom as well.  We can manage the hot weather in this room as it usually has cooled off enough when it is bedtime, especially with the ceiling fan.  But as we get older there will come a time when one of us is laid up in bed so we will need more than just a ceiling fan for warmer days.

Via our "St Andrew's Care" affiliation, the cost of the unit and the installation are discounted.  Monday is the 'magic' day when the new unit is to be installed.

I did another Kodi setup yesterday and left one local resident very happy indeed.  I am doing another today.

We ate out at the Kawana Bowls Club earlier in the week as the photo above shows.  Despite being an inexpensive meal it was spoiled by the quality of the food.  The lining up and being served individually wasn't much fun either.

My back is much improved , so much in fact I managed a 17k bike ride yesterday.  The wet weather will keep me off the bike today.  I put another brew on as well the other day and I expect to bottle wash on Sunday and do the bottling early next week.

Beer should be stored in the dark for the 4 or five weeks as it matures after it has been bottled.  Finding appropriate containers for the larger 1.25l bottles makes it a bit of a challenge.  But some inexpensive frosted colored plastic storage containers and a can of black spray paint creates the perfect storage container!