The Time Had Come

And it happens to all of us, eventually the time comes.

Back in the days when we were 'rich', that is prior to the GFC, though careful with our money, if there was something we wanted, we bought it.  And so it was with my Bose Home Theatre Speaker system.  It cost close to $2000 when I first bought it, the Bose 'Mini' Speakers and the huge Optimus Sub Woofer which included all the power to run the mini speakers.

If you check today's prices for a similar modern day setup the price nowadays is closer to $1250!

On top of the speaker setup, you also needed a 'tuner/amplifier'.  All together with an OK tuner/amp and the great set of Bose speakers, you had a pretty awesome home theatre setup.

Except we live so close to our neighbours, so close that if they sneeze next door we hear!  On top of that I've now got hearing aids and 99% of the time I wear wireless headphones to hear the TV clearly enough!

So my Bose Home Theatre setup sort of just sat there gathering dust with wires everywhere  (I mean everywhere!) just waiting to be used!  Even a whole section of our home theatre cabinet was set aside for the tuner/amp!

It would be a Herculean task to move the cabinet on which the TV sits if ever you wanted to do so.

We had coils of Bose Speaker wires everywhere, hidden behind couches and stuffed down behind the home theatre unit. Every now and again Trish would suggest we move the TV unit or that we do something about all those wires!

It just so happened that all the major electrical retailers here recently had huge sales on and each them had loads of soundbars on special.  If I was going to retire my Bose system, I would want something reasonable to take their place.  But then again I wear hearing aids, we live on a tiny block of land and usually I wear wireless headphones to listen to the telly!

So I grabbed a mid range sound bar during one of those 'specials'.  It took a minimal amount of time to disconnect the Bose setup and move major pieces out of the way.  Then there was the tuner/amp to disconnect and put away.  The longest time was spent rolling up the metres and metres of wiring and putting it all away on a shelf in the garage.

Out came the new soundbar and the huge amount of polystyrene everything was wrapped in.  There was a sub-woofer as well which just needed 'powering on'.  It connected to the soundbar automatically using Bluetooth!  You powered it on and it automatically connected to the sound bar!, There were no wires, nothing!

Connecting the TV audio to the soundbar was a breeze, I just ran an optical cable from the TV to the soundbar.

By removing the tuner/amp I now had a whole section of TV Cabinet for my android TV boxes so they now could be stored out of the way from atop the TV cabinet.

But the big job was yet to come.  I use a 'Universal Remote Control' to run all my devices. So to watch stuff off Plex on my Nvidia Shield I need to power on the TV, the new soundbar, and the Nvidia Shield.  I need the TV then to go to HDMI 3 which is where the Shield is connected to the TV. Finally I need to be able to control the volume level on the soundbar.

With the universal remote control I press 1 button! The TV turns on, the Shield turns on, the soundbar turns on and the TV switched to input HDMI 3!  However because I removed the tuner/amp from my setup, meant I now had to reprogram the Universal remote Control so the Sound Bar would do the stuff the tuner/amp used to do.

And as is Murphy's Law always on this sort of thing, it didn't just work straight out of the box!

With some appropriate inappropriate language and some trial and error it wasn't long until everything was working as required.  And now everything in the lounge room is so much neater and tidier!

Of course the sound bar doesn't produce the sort of audio that the Bose speakers and tuner/amp did.  But to my half deaf ears, it sounds pretty good to me!

All in all it was a task which needed to be done and we have ended with an acceptable home theatre setup!

Let me know if you want a 2nd hand set of Bose mini speakers, an Optimus Bose Sub Woofer, around 100 metres of Bose cables and a lower end of the range tuner/amplifier!

Looks Are Deceiving

In this part of the world we have around another fortnight of colder weather to go prior to things beginning to warm up again.  The photo was taken this morning but looks can certainly be deceiving.  Though you can see glorious blue sky, what you can't see is the bitter southerly wind.  Despite it being mid morning, the temperature is still to get to 15°.  It is expected to get up to 19° later on.

Last week when we had our visitors from Newcastle spending a couple of days with us it was mid 20's under our pergola up the back.  It was delightful.

But both top temps in the 20's and our visitors have now left to return to work and home in Newcastle.  Janet and Mick bought a caravan from a nearby Coolum manufacturer around 12 months ago.  The 12 months means it is now warranty fix up time so they brought the van back up here to have it worked on.  It was booked in for several days to ensure the work could be done properly.

Mick suffered a nasty fall recently and has damaged a couple of his ribs which made almost any movement hesitant and painful.  Fortunately it did not affect his ability to raise the odd glass or two.  But it was great having them and we enjoyed their company and friendship very much.

The chap over the road is a long time Caloundra guy.  He knows the place back to front and has been a handy contact for when we first arrived and was able to advise us where to go and who to see. Bill makes the alcohol as well is a handy friendship to have.

His i7 laptop had slowed dramatically so I took it into Computer Club where a guy replaced his 1TB hard drive with a 480GB SSD drive.  The difference in how the laptop now runs is unrecognizable from its' earlier state.  It is amazing.  Now it is lightning quick to open up and use. Bill had to join Computer Club before George would do the work.  Still for under $150 he will get heaps of future work out of his older i7 machine.

Another happy customer!

Trish continues to cough and splutter a bit but nowhere as bad as she was a fortnight ago.  She now knows what a bee sting is like suffering her first sting yesterday at an Arts Centre Association function.  The spot where she was stung is still tender today.

Our footy teams continue OK which means we are both contented this morning.

So that's about it again, all is well on the Thomas front up here on the Sunshine Coast!

Home Again!

We've been home for a few days now and settling back into my own beer supply, my own bed and everything else that goes with being back home again.

Despite a very nasty cough, Trish is well and truly on the mend now and doing all the Arts Centre Association stuff she loves to get involved with.  I have been readying myself to come down with that nasty cold as a pass on from Trish but up until now I seemed to have possibly dodged a bullet.

We left the Gold Coast and our super little apartment mid morning Friday and drove home via The Malaya Corner Restaurant in Sunnybank (photo above), this time for some take away for our tea.  The 2 meals we had from this Sunnybank Restaurant were the two best meals we had while away.

We didn't make it out for an evening meal on our last night at the Gold Coast, the lunch and a few beers at the Kurrawa Surf Club being substantial enough to ensure a very light evening meal for us.

Upon arrival back at our home in Caloundra we were greeted with almost 150mls in the rain gauge, a massive 6" of rain during the few days we were away and during what is meant to be the 'driest' season of the year.

There has been a few intermittent showers since we've been home but nothing unusual.

So it is back to the same old same old.  I did manage a bike ride recently but I am now committed to bike riding when the weather suits.  Despite being mid teens during the bike ride, the wind chill factor makes the ride less than comfortable.  Today I did a walk instead for around 3,000 steps according to my watch which was about 2.4k's.

So the 12000+ steps we did one day while on the Gold Coast would have equaled around 10k's of walking!

So far I have helped an elderly lady Computer Club member set her NBN and associated WiFi telephone handsets up and all working OK.  Another Computer Club guy has just connected to the NBN and has bought an Nvidia Shield so I have been around there a few times working on his home network.  That seems to be working OK.

Our Newcastle friends, Mick and Janet are in town.  Their super duper caravan was bought from a manufacturer in Coolum, around 30k's north of Caloundra and it is due for its 12 months first service.  They also have several warranty issues which require attention so they decided to drive up with caravan in tow and sort their hassles out.

They popped in on Monday while the van was being serviced.  The van then goes back to the factory again for several days late next week while the warranty work is completed.  They will stay with us while the warranty issues are being attended to.

Mick recently took a nasty fall which has knocked him about a bit.  He also has a head cold which has only worsened his state of health.  And he is also on the final stages of new work project which only requires the i's to be dotted and the t's crossed. 

He is looking forward to a few days R and R over the next week or so!

So as you can see, life continues to meander along for the Thomas family here on the Sunshine Coast!