Not So Sunny On The Sunny Coast

The bike has been stuck under the back veranda for well over week now because we remain in the grip of a strong S/E wind bringing continual showers on and off to our part of the world.  This morning we got 13 mls which is a lot when compared to other recent totals.

Most mornings have seen a mere between 1 and 7 mls but this rain falls around dawn and across the day with short and sharp showers.

Both of our affiliations with local Community Groups has kept us busy recently.  They have reorganized bus routes in our area and upped the number of services incredibly.  But instead of doing the rounds of the community, the bus route now goes directly along the main road and right through our estate.  It has seen 6 local stops closed which has disadvantaged many elderly locals.

When we moved in to the area the 50+ years demographic was above 50% with many buying homes near a local bus stop.  These bus stops have now closed and these 50 years+ residents are now 65+, many with extreme mobility problems.  The decision to close local stops now mean the majority of people have a good 1 km walk.

Needless to say I remain busy with my tech stuff.  Plex has become my go to application for watching stuff I have 'acquired' on my Nvidia Shield.  It works well and now means I am getting some excellent use out of the old PC.  The more I use it, the better I am finding it.  It is great fun.

Recently we had a 250GB SSD hard drive installed in Trish's laptop.  It is around 5 years old now and was needing a boost up.  A guy at computer club removed the 750GB mechanical hard drive and installed the speedier SSD drive.  It now loads super fast and responds very quickly.  It was $45 to cover the cost of the SSD drive and $15 for an enclosure for the old drive.

I will get the same done to the old laptop I was given.  By replacing the hard drive with a 16x faster SSD drive will give it a great boost.

At Computer Club I often get asked what browser I use when surfing the web.  I like many of the addons which I can install in Firefox but Firefox updates so frequently many of the addons I like to use can't keep up with the updates and won't work on the latest Firefox versions.  So I use a version of Firefox called Waterfox.  It is usually around 6 months behind in development to Firefox, and therefore all my preferred addons still work great.

One of the guys at Computer Club strongly recommends the new Microsoft Edge browser because it is so nippy and speedy.  I am not a fan of Edge and its few addons but read where a new version of it is incorporating much of the workings of Chrome.  In its early stages of development it is being called Edge Canary which you can download and install.

Being heavily based on Chrome you can sort of install many of the Chrome addons.  So it is easy to add ad blockers, Real Debrid, backup addons, select search and many other search programs.  You can even create "Search" links for yourself.  With many download websites now being blocked by the government, proxy websites have sprung up everywhere.  You can now create your own search for one of these proxy websites which is handy when you are looking for a particular movie or TV episode to download.

As the new Edge Canary browser is still in development it still has a few hassles.  But overall it works quite well and seems so much faster than other browsers I have tried.

As per usual we are both well and loving where we live.  And we hope everyone is also happy and content with their life and health as well.

It Has All Changed!

The cold wintry and wet weather that recently swept across Melbourne and Victoria has made it's way to the Sunshine Coast.  Though today is showery with a cool breeze, the sun has been out and warmed everything up a little.

But yesterday we shut the house up to keep the cold southerly out.  Trackie daks, warm tops and socks were the order of the day as we battened down for our own cool day.  The high teens was as much as we saw Sunday morning but as the cold southerly wind died down a little the place began to warm to the low 20's.

I managed a swim for the first day or so of May but swimming is now well behind me.  I will have to wait until AFL footy Grand Final Day in September before I make it back into the pool again.  The breezy and cold outbreak has also put a halt to bike riding in the shorter term.  I now wait till after 8 am and the sun has begun its work prior to even considering heading out for a ride.

But things cruise along as normal with not a lot happening about the place.

Mow the lawns, put out the rubbish bins, do stuff for the Community Association, mess around with my Tech stuff and learn more about Plex.  Though I still keep up with Kodi stuff, Plex has become my go to application to play back movies and TV series.

Speaking of which we have just completed watching the BBC police drama series "In The Line Of Duty". After some ordinary stuff to watch lately the TV series was real shining light.

Of course there is another home brew on and a bottling is due this week sometime.

The best restaurant we found up here back in the early days was a place called Spirit Of Tibet in Mooloolaba.  But as Mooloolaba went ahead, rent prices forced the guy out.  He setup briefly at a couple of other places but was never open for more than a few weeks before something or other happened.

As it turns out he has opened up again but this time in the strangest of places which is partly why we found him so hard to find.  He runs his restaurant as a part of the Forest Glen Big4 Caravan Park (photo above).  It is a great size, heaps of space and the food is just as sensational as ever.

Three other couples I have met from Computer Club and ourselves checked it out the other night.  The food was a resounding hit for everyone with people who are not that fond of spicy food absolutely loving it!

The trouble is the restaurant is a good 30 minutes drive away.  However our friends enjoyed the food so much we will all get back there again.  We had some great nights there when it was in Mooloolaba and everyone we have taken there just loves the food.  He makes a tasty but spicy chilli sauce which needs to used carefully.  But boy it is nice.

The Computer Club group are a great group to go out with.  All of us are retireds and have come from interstate to live around Caloundra.  Previously occupations included the merchant navy, hair dressers or driving trains and then moving into lead lighting. They are a diverse group.

And we all enjoy watching our movies and TV series as well.

Trish and I are both well and keeping pretty busy.  Life is pretty good actually!