One New Phone On Order

Day two yesterday (our first full day) on the Gold Coast was spent with umbrella in hand.  Needless to say, by carrying an umbrella all day there wasn't even a hint of rain.  Though it remained overcast and windy all day.

So with brolly in hand we set off to check out Pacific Fair Shopping Centre.  It is a huge place and not very well set out.  It seemed every time we wanted to go to a shop it was at the opposite end of this huge Shopping Centre.

In Big W they had budgie smugglers on special.  I always wear a pair under my boardshorts when bike riding.  After a bike ride when the weather suits it is straight into the pool, shorts T-Shirts and all so bathers under the board shorts are a must.  At $5 a pair it was too good a deal to pass up.

So we wandered around Pacific Fair from end to end racking up the steps on my Fitness watch.  At the end of the day I have a new 'steps' record of around 12,000 steps.

We made our way back to the hotel room after lunch to enjoy a quenching ale and to rest up a little.  Unfortunately Trish's phone slipped from the table onto the floor smashing the screen.  As many of you know I tend to buy my phones from China and limit my budget to under $250.  At this price if something goes wrong I haven't spent an arm and a leg on the phone.  For us a $250 phone from China has all the bells and whistles you get on a phone here at twice the price.

We found a smashed Xiaomi screen repair place at Pacific Fair but the Indian chap we spoke with said the repair would be around $150 even if he could get a new screen for this model. We were better off buying a new phone.  Being from India he said Xiaomi phones were one of the best brands available in his country and he highly recommended if we were to buy a new phone, grab another Xiaomi!

These phones do everything we could possibly want so why should we pay hundreds and hundreds of dollars for a phone with all the bells and whistles, many of which we don't want or need!  The downside is if something goes wrong, (like a smashed screen) you are up the proverbial creek without a paddle.

So Trish will have a new Xiaomi Redmi Note 7 phone in a few weeks from a world renowned manufacturer.  The phone with the busted screen still works fine and being a Xiaomi phone we spent a little time yesterday working out the old phone's sync to backup.  So when Trish's new phone turns up we log into her Xiaomi account and download her backup onto it.  She will get back all her contacts, all her pictures, all her apps and all her messages.

We hit a Greek place for tea last night.  It was OK but not anything as good as George's Greek Tavern in Caulfield.

Day 2 (today) at the Gold Coast showed us some patches of blue sky though the wind continued to howl and there were showers scudding through all day.  So this time we went the other way (without the umbrella) and into I guess what you would call Broadbeach South.  It was another walk around looking at what was happening.  There were plenty of eateries for us to check out as well but we finished up with lunch at the Kurrawa Surf Club which is where I grabbed the photo above.

Carlton Draught at $5-50 a pint was a huge windfall!

The 12000 steps from the previous day had taken their toll and the hips were a little painful after a longish walk.  So in between the showers we headed back to the Avani Residences to recuperate and possibly enjoy a few more ales!

Trish has a bit of a cold too which slows things down a little for us.

So we reckon it might be Persian for tea, something a little different!

We head back to the Sunny Coast tomorrow and we expect to arrive home around midday or so.  But already we have decided to pop into Sunnybank's Malaya Corner where we'll grab some take away which will be prefect for our first evening meal back at home tomorrow.

Of all the meals we have had while away for this short trip, our lunch at Sunnybank on our way down to the Gold Coast has been our most enjoyable of all the places where we have eaten.

Everything Is Perfect Except ......

So we've made our way down to the Gold Coast and we are staying on the 28th floor of "Avani Residences".  The view is sensational. The room is quite compact but it does have everything you need (except Foxsport).  The beds and facilities are great and the position seems pretty good as well.

From our apartment window we can see Pacific Fair and the Gold Coast Casino, all within quite easy walking distance.

The free WiFi is even better than my NBN connection at home so there are heaps of pluses

But the weather is terrible with frequent heavy showers passing through. Last night as we were walking home from a quick bite to eat we were caught in a quick shower.  The rain drops were as big as so it didn't take long to get wet.

I was able to grab a carton of my preferred Cricketer's Arms Session Ale on the way down to the Gold Coast as well.

Lunch at the Malaya Corner Restaurant in Sunnybank on our drive down was to die for.  Char Kway Teow and Beef Rending, two huge serves which we had trouble finishing.  Malaya Corner is just on 100k's from our place in Caloundra so we don't manage to eat there very often. Thus we only sought a small meal for our evening fix.

There's a "Street Food" restaurant 50 metres away from Avani Residences which sells Asian Food.  They charge like a wounded bull but it is so handy and suited us perfectly to get to between showers.

Today we will grab a couple of umbrellas from Reception and check out the local spots.  The Light Rail station is around 200 metres away as well.

So off we go!

It Could Be Worse I Suppose

So the forecast for the next three days here on the "Sunshine Coast" is 90% chance we'll get some showers.  It is not the best outlook for three nights away on the Gold Coast but it could be worse.  It could be school holidays or worse still it could be "Schoolies".

As the photo left shows here on the Sunshine Coast the 90% chance of showers has already proved to be accurate even at 9 am.

But it will be a few nights away in something a little nice and a little luxurious.  The eateries on the Gold Coast are much more cosmopolitan than where we live so this seems a another advantage to heading away. The photo below was 'borrowed' from their website!  It was one of those specials on Trip Advisor or something with a $100 per night off deal!

It has been some time since I have posted but really there hasn't been a lot of news.   Earlier this year in an effort to extend the bus service to further out and service new areas around 6 stops in our area had been closed in order to streamline services.

We have quite a few older folk who moved here back in the early 2000's and selected their new home site on its proximity to a local bus stop.  So the closure of them was a huge loss for many older residents who had depended on a bus service to get into Caloundra for shopping or to access doctors and other services.   Now a trip into Caloundra entailed a long trek to get to the remaining bus stops or an expensive taxi fare.  So there was a lot of very upset people around!

Our Community Association along with the local ALP candidate stepped in for the fight.  The local candidate threatened to withdraw from pre selection unless something was done about it.The local bus stop issue now seems to have been resolved with the Minister responsible stepping in and telling Translink to sort it all out.

So a huge win for the local candidate and for the Community Association with a new dedicated bus service just serving our area to be implemented.  All 6 stops previously closed are to be re opened!

As NBN services begin to become available across this end of the coast I have been out and about helping people setup home networks or get their streaming and playback stuff sorted.

Trish remains very busy with organising markets and renovations for the local Arts Centre Association.  They got a good deal on new block out blinds for the "Centre" so guess what, we are getting new block out blinds as well!  But then the 'verticals' have pretty well had their day so the new blinds are really needed.

We both remain healthy and active though the cold mornings have curtailed my bike riding markedly.  If it's not 15° and reasonably calm outside by 9 am the bike doesn't get out.  With very cool mornings followed by gusty winds it means I haven't ridden for a couple of weeks now.  I do try and get out for the odd walk every now and again though.

And there is usually a bottle wash or sort out a brew around as well.

Our few days away will be good and break the time up a little bit.  We are looking forward to it despite the gloomy weather forecast!

And Then It's Gone

I could be talking about any warm weather because that's all gone now.  We even ran the heater for 4 hours the other night with blustery cold winds giving us a hell of a time.

Back at the end of April I mentioned in my Blog that my PC was taking some time to start up.  I have a Dell PC and it comes with 12 months warranty. mainly on a 'remote' basis.  That means you ring them up, the Dell Tech gets access to your PC and even though he may be overseas they can still carry out processes and fix repairs.

So that's what I did to solve to slow startup.  I reckon he worked on the PC for an hour and I saw on my screen something about "restore health" going on.  Towards the end of the process it said several problems had been rectified so on the surface all was good.

The chap would send me an email if problems continued, he was sure all was OK and we hung up.  But I noted the writing on the screen was very hard to read, almost as if it had been written with one of those dot matrix printers.

So I had a try to fix, all unsuccessfully I am afraid.  And to top it all off I decided on a "Windows Restore".  It turns out the restore had most likely gone from one version of windows to a slightly different version.  The restore process didn't work and on top of that the PC would begin to start but after 20 seconds it would crash.

But we have some pretty clever people at Computer Club, with one of the guys doing a full reformat of my PC.  So I lost everything but luckily I keep regular backups.  It is just about all back together now with just a few bits and pieces I will add as I go along.

I haven't ridden the bike since earlier in the week.  It has been bitterly cold with a gale force wind at times.  Then the PC died so I was trying to fix or else putting all my stuff back on after it was fixed.  But this post is being done on the PC and it is going along quite speedily.

Trish has been busy with getting Fairs up and running and doing heaps of other things.  The Community Association has the odd issue or two bubbling along which have required some time. And in the middle of all that the PC died!

I continue to mess around with a program called Plex which I am beginning to fully understand.

My footy team continues to plow along with another big match on tonight.  Between the footy on TV, the cricket from England, the tennis from Paris and heaps of videos to watch 24 just isn't enough hours in a day!

But I am pleased the PC starts up beautifully nowadays!