It's All Puff And Blow

The weather has been a major talking point in our part of the world.  With severe thunderstorms forecast for most afternoons and with some areas to the south receiving over 100mls, our little corner of the world has seen just 6 mls of rain!

The picture shows thunderstorms bearing down o Caloundra late yesterday (mid upper right) but from this system we received a mere three mls over two hours of ongoing drizzle.  Yet 30k's away and a little inland, they got well over 40mls.

The storms just died as they got closer to our coast.

In the meantime it has been hot and steamy with the pool being a popular spot.  We would grab several swims throughout the day and then a final swim just prior to retiring.

It has been warm overnight as well but the ceiling fans do a sensational job!

The helicopter issue in the skies above our homes has raised its head again.  Our local Council is just like any other government bureaucracy.  It has taken almost 2 months to get a couple of signatures onto an agreement before passing it along to the local developer for the final signature.  The developer signed and passed on the agreement within 36 hours.

Now it is Council's role to "implement" the agreement so helicopters will now do the vast majority of their touch n go's during pilot training well away from any residential area.

It seems that to help the Council get its act into gear, the local pilot training company decided to give our area another 'burst' of unwanted noisy helicopter touch n go activity. At times we have had two very large helicopters doing touch n go's for over an hour.

My broken filling now has a temporary crown on it.  I spent 90 very unpleasant minutes in the dentist's chair yesterday morning (Thurs) having the temporary crown fitted.  Needless to say the bill (of which less than 50% is covered by insurance) gets into the "Thousands" of dollars area!

I should have become a dentist!

The local Community Association has been successful in its submission for a $1000 Community grant.  The money will be put toward rebuilding the BeCA website which has become a little 'tired' over the last 4 or 5 years.

We are well into end of year Christmas parties.  Trish's main group had a huge luncheon recently which she mainly organised.  They had over 70 in attendance and it all went off perfectly.  The second group of which she is a mere 'member' is having a Christmas gathering today.

Computer Club has its Christmas goodies tomorrow.

I Monday I reformatted the neighbour's PC and it is running OK for them.  And yesterday I bottled the latest brew.  It took a couple of days before the brew began to work.  This is not a good sign!  However it was ready to bottle yesterday which is around a day behind schedule.  I bottled it in the garage when the temperature was 33º and the humidity was around 71%.  I needed a dry set of clothes after I finished.

The cricket Test match between Australia and India continues on TV today.  Before that I must pop into town for more home brew supplies.

The 'old' car we brought back from Melbourne lost the radio, dash clock and a red hazard light remained on.  It turned out to be the electric radio aerial was shorting out and needed to be replaced.  That was done yesterday along with a replacement 'alternator' belt.  The new alternator belt will make the neighbours happy as the car would let out a scream when first started each day.  It now runs very quietly!

The total cost was just over $100 and included a new alternator belt and a new aerial.  This cost fitted in with the sort of money we were looking to spend.  The quote was done at no charge by a local Auto Elec.  I cancelled the mobile guy who wanted around $50 just to look at it.

Finally, last night we watched the movie "Gone Girl" and we both have agreed that the female lead is not a very nice lady at all!  There are heaps of twists and turns!  It was very enjoyable to watch!

All Go Again!

I was doing some texting yesterday on Community Association business and mentioned to one person that my internet was down.  She said her son had experienced internet problems that morning too.  Then on a call regarding the Community Association upcoming newsletter I was told their internet was out that morning as well!

I went and checked my own modem/router and saw the internet light was on again and we were once again 'connected'!  So all is go again online! The internet was off for around 3 hours altogether.

It is extremely tropical here this morning.  The humidity is so high you can see it in the atmosphere like a very light fog up against the end of the street.

Hopefully it won't take much to 'ignite' the atmosphere and for us to get a heavy thunderstorm and give everything yet another good watering.  There are 'possible' storms for us 100k's north of Brisbane, while Brisbane itself and the Gold Coast further south have 'probable' storms in their forecast.

I am supposed to be re formatting a neighbour's PC this afternoon.  If all goes well it is a few hours work.  If things don't go well it could be 36 hours!  Hopefully it will be the former rather than the latter!

If all goes OK we will get the reformatting done, Office 2007 installed as well as Firefox and Thunderbird.  That should be enough to see them through until I can get the other stuff installed over the next few days.

People also do not realise the amount of updating the PC will want to do to get everything up to date.  The Computer is about 4 years old so it will need 4 years of Windows 7 updates!

Trish drove the 'old' car the other day and the radio, the dash clock no longer work and there is a red warning light on the dash saying one of the doors is still open.  I took the car to our local repair guy and he suggested I really needed an Auto Electrician.

We were offered $200 for the old car as a trade in some time ago.  Despite its low value, 6 months ago Trish drove it back from Melbourne (almost 2000k's) and it didn't miss a beat!  It will cost around $50 just for the "Auto Elec" to have a look at it and tell us what is wrong!

Where do we draw the line and say no, enough is enough?.  The car still runs beautifully, starts first go and runs on the smell of an oily rag!  How much should we spend to have these problems 'fixed'?

Internet Down

I have just got off the phone after a 30 minute call to my ISP "Internode".  The internet dropped out around an hour ago this morning (Sunday).  I am currently online via the mobile phone being connected to my PC for internet access.

The message from Internode was, if you are not back online by Wednesday morning, call us again.

We had modems connected all around the house earlier trying to isolate the problem.

Hope to be all back up and running soon!

UPDATE!  After speaking with others locally, all experienced Internet Connection problems this morning.  Just before 1pm our internet service was re connected and is now up and running again.

Saturday!

It is heading towards 7 am and I have Computer Club later on this morning. The final Computer Club meeting for 2014 is next Saturday Dec 14th.

The Community Association has kept me most busy the last day or so. There has been an issue with the local airport and I did an interview for TV and the local newspaper on it.  However the whole thing was to stir the local Council into getting itself into gear and finalizing an initiative to remove many of the helicopter circuits from above our homes.

The TV interview didn't even make the News broadcast!

The local MP had a Media release which said as far as he was concerned all the State Government work had been done, the final stage was now up to Council!  And that was almost two months ago! Hopefully the press release will ensure Council signs off on the deal and it is all done and dusted!

The weather has been warm and humid.  Today it should culminate in steady rain and continue as afternoon storms for the next week or so. The pool does need a top up so the rain (if it comes) should be just in time. The photo taken just now shows the overcast sky.  Click on the photo for a larger view.

It can be quite hot inside the house but when we venture to sit under the pergola out there it is just delightful.  The breeze seems to always be cooler and it is just the perfect spot to sit, read, consume and have a swim as required!

It isn't the most elegant of structures but it "works" perfectly! The new 'sun lounge' isn't half bad either!

The latest brew I put on on Wednesday seemed to take an eternity to start bubbling away.  The bubbling usually happens a few hours after putting the brew on.  But this latest brew took a good 36 hours before it launched into action.  Hopefully it will be OK when I bottle it a couple of weeks before Christmas..

The temporary filling I had the other week has collapsed!  I was eating a few potato crisps with an ale yesterday and suddenly found 'lumps' in what I was eating.  I rang the dentist but was told not to worry and as long as I wasn't in any discomfort and come in for my scheduled appointment on 8:00 am Thursday morning.

Hopefully the predicted rain comes sometime today and we get a good soaking!

The Cat's Out Of The Bag!

One of the things I have learnt about blogs is that they are a public document, something out in the open for everybody and anybody to see.  So I couldn't write about our recent trip to Melbourne to attend a very good mate's surprise 80th birthday.

Eddie Riordan was a principal of mine around 30 years ago.  We got on very well and have remained in contact.  They visit us up here in Queensland and whenever we go to Melbourne we catch up with Eddie and Patsy.  So when the invitation arrived for us to attend his 'surprise' 80th birthday we just had to go.

We aren't going down for Christmas with the family this year as Kate and family are overseas.  We thought we would head down and grab a few nights with Kim in St Kilda and hopefully be able to catch up with the lad Chris and family before Xmas as well.

The were two other stand out events while we were there.  One was a Skype chat we had with Kate and family in Saudi Arabia with Kim, Trish and myself.

The second top event was when Chris and family came over to Kim's for  BBQ and a catch up Saturday afternoon for a few hours.  They stayed until after 9pm at night.  That was really good too.

Then there was the surprise birthday party.  Heaps to drink and eat ensured it was a great time as well.  There were many family members present at the party so we felt a little out of it at times.  At least one other teaching colleague was there, Graeme Williamson who I also catch up with from time to time.

We enjoyed the occasion.

While in Melbourne we ate out numerous times, so much so that our first evening meal when we arrived back home yesterday (Tuesday) was a tomato sandwich.  We won't be eating much tonight either!

We had a sensational Malaysian meal on Monday night with our usual favorite noodles dish (Char Kway Teow), crispy duck and a chicken curry.  Along with a couple of rotis and some coconut rice the meal was to die for!

We flew out of Brisbane with Tiger Airlines this trip.  As the real cheap airline Tiger Airlines no longer flies into Maroochydore, fares from our local airport on the coast have remained quite high with the lack of competition.  We booked return flights from Brisbane and paid for car parking for around $100 less than had we have been driven to Maroochydore Airport and flown to and from Melbourne from there!

We are entering the storm season and possible storms were predicted for Thursday, the day we were due to fly out.  We had booked outdoor parking. With the possibility of storms a part of the weather forecast, we upgraded the parking to 'under cover'.  So when the worst hail storm for over 30 years hit Brisbane that night, it was the best upgrade we had ever made!

We and another couple were driven back from the airport by the parking company.  They had parked their 4 month old Suzuki outdoors!  When the car was brought to them they almost cried, the car has almost every panel dented and will possibly be a 'write-off'.

The other couple did give us a tip though.  They prefer to fly with the low cost carrier Jetstar rather than Tiger.  If Jetstar have a flight to the same destination within an hour of Tiger, they will beat the Tiger price by 10%.

We slept quite well last night in our bed and we are busy tidying up today.  Washing is being done, lawns mowed etc, just general tidying up.  I had to get a brew on as well!

The weather is hot, the pool is sensational but I have a laptop to check out this afternoon for someone. The pool and the cool beers may have to wait for a while!