Home From The Gold Coast

Thanks to everyone who sent me birthday wishes in all forms and shapes. I received great birthday cards with pleasant inclusions, many best wishes via email and the odd email birthday card too. Thanks everyone for your kind wishes.

We dove to the Gold Coast to spend a couple of nights with friends (Det and Brenda) who we met on our trip to Vietnam and China. It is only two hours from our place to theirs at Burleigh Waters and almost 200k's. It is freeway for 99% of the trip so usually it is a relaxing ride. It wasn't long after we arrived we were enjoying drinks followed by a BBQ dinner.

The next day we visited Mt Tamborine. The Mt Tamborine area is a little like a trip to the Dandenongs outside Melbourne. It is in the hills and has its fair share of handicraft stores and boutique wineries. Having visited the Dandenongs on quite a few occasions the Mt Tamborine area though picturesque didn't have the same "wow" power. The weather was showery and this didn't help. One spot which was nice was the St Bernard Hotel perched overlooking a cloudy valley. It had a lovely outdoor area too but the weather prevented us from using it.

We had a great meal that night at a local club which completed an enjoyable day. We then headed back home the following morning through a couple a heavy showers of rain. Extensive roadworks made the return trip a little longer.

Today the weather is warm and very humid. Right now mid morning it is 31 degrees outside with the humidity hovering around 75%. I rode for over 10k's this morning, then washed the bottles for my next bottling and the lawn has been mown. I also dug away the earth surrounding the palm in the middle of the front lawn in readiness to have it pulled out. It just hasn't flourished there at all. A swim in the pool followed this morning's work. It was all hot work.

Both of the our next door neighbours on either side are in rental properties. In the small house quite close to ours is a young family with two little children. They agree their decision to rent that home was a mistake and doesn't suit their needs at all. On the other side is an older couple Andy and Jean with whom we along quite well with. They have decided to leave having gotten a new job helping to run an 'over 50's park' on the south side of the city. We are keeping our fingers crossed we get good neighbours in to replace them.

To The Gold Coast

Sunday was warm and sunny so we drove to the beach about 10 minutes away for a walk along the boardwalk. There was a cooler breeze blowing and the seas were rough following the rainy stormy weather we had just had. As usual the view towards Pumicestone Passage from around towards Kings Beach was stunning. There were jet skiers, surfers, people picnicking across the water on Bribie Island and strollers everywhere. The water is a little murky following the rain flushing out some of the local creeks.

From there it was back to our home and an hour or so beside the pool (or in it for a short time as the rain has cooled the water) and a couple of drinks and a chat.

Today we are driving down to the Gold Coast to spend a couple of nights with Det and Brenda, a couple we met on our trip to Vietnam and China. Det is now heavily into both sides of home brewing, that is brewing and drinking! They live at Burleigh Waters near Burleigh Heads, a most magnificent and picturesque beach on the Gold Coast.

We expect to get home Wednesday about lunch time.

Tuesday is my birthday!

The Wet Weather Heads To NSW

Grey skies and plenty of rain has been the highlight here for the last few days. Our totals are in the vicinity of 100mls (4") the last day or so but other Sunshine Coast areas have had much more than that. The pool is full again! The rain is now heading south towards NSW.

I was to do a Tutorial at the Sunshine Coast Computer Club (SCCC) yesterday on Skype and Facebook. I was going to install Skype on a SCCC laptop and walk people through the process of setting up their microphone, their webcam and creating a Skype account. However we must have caught the laptop I was going to use half way through a Firewall update because the firewall refused to let me install Skype. This made a mess of the Tutorial and meant I had to spend a little more time on Facebook. I walked people through my Facebook Page and showed how you were able to keep up with everyone's news, about creating a Facebook account, looking at photo albums etc.

I will be wary next time I do a tutorial down there on their equipment.

Trish's laptop is running awfully slowly at the moment. It runs XP and doesn't have enough RAM. XP needs at least 500MB of RAM and this only has 256MB. It requires having the system wiped off and everything reinstalled again. It currently takes over 10 minutes to start up. After a reformat the startup time should be reduced to a few minutes.

We have seen some great movies lately. "Changeling" has probably been the best one, a great story and based on actual events. Angelina Jolie has an Oscar nomination in this one. "Doubt" was great too. Meryl Streep has been nominated in this one and plays the role of a Catholic School Principal who follows through on her hunches. It brought back some memories of times when I was a principal. Last night we watched "The Reader" in which Kate Winslet gets an Oscar nomination. Another great story.

Movies I get from the internet seem to come in bits and starts. There were many great movies there a few weeks ago, now the selection is very ordinary!

I Got A Laugh With This One.

An American decided to write a book about famous churches around the world.

So he bought a plane ticket and took a trip to Orlando, thinking that he would start by working his way across the USA from South to North.

On his first day he was inside a church taking photographs when he noticed a golden telephone mounted on the wall with a sign that read '$10,000 per call'.


The American, being intrigued, asked a priest who was strolling by what the telephone was used for.

The priest replied that it was a direct line to heaven and that for $10,000 you could talk to God.

The American thanked the priest and went along his way.

Next stop was in Atlanta . There, at a very large cathedral, he saw the same looking golden telephone with the same sign under it.

He wondered if this was the same kind of telephone he saw in Orlando and he asked a nearby nun what its purpose was.

She told him that it was a direct line to heaven and that for $10,000 he could talk to God.

'O.K., thank you,' said the American.

He then travelled all across America, Europe, England, Japan, New Zealand.

In every church he saw the same looking golden telephone with the same '$US10,000 per call' sign under it.

The American decided to travel to Australia to see if Australians had the same phone.

He arrived at Perth in Western Australia and again, in the first church he entered, there was the same looking golden telephone, but this time the sign under it read '40 cents per call.'

The American was surprised so he asked the priest about the sign. "Father, I've travelled all over the world and I've seen this same golden telephone in many churches.

I'm told that it is a direct line to Heaven, but in all of them price was $10,000 per call. Why is it so cheap here?"

The priest smiled and answered,

"You're in Australia now, son - it's a local call".

KEEP SMILING

More Fire News

I was speaking by phone with a former staff member of mine yesterday who doesn't know how her home wasn't burnt in the fires in Victoria on the weekend. It was just an act of God which turned the wind moments before her home was to be engulfed by flames. She didn't even know there was a serious bushfire in her area until she looked to the bottom paddock and saw flames racing over the hill.

This seems to be the common story, things happened just so quickly and there was no advanced warning that the fires were on their way and people did not even have time to flee.

In the photo (from The Courier Mail) the city of Melbourne can be seen through the devastation caused by the weekend fires.

Click here and the link will take you to a gallery from the Courier Mail Newspaper with almost 300 photos of the fires in Victoria.

I also found this site this morning which may be of interest:

http://www.dse.vic.gov.au/fires/updates/report/index2.htm?time=Thu%20Feb%2012%202009%2011:03:57%20GMT+1000

I have also heard that despite it being in the midst of winter in Sweetwater Texas, bushfires is a real concern for our friends there as well.