Warming Up

The saga surrounding the back tyre on my bike looks like it is now over. Yesterday I bit the bullet and bought a decent tyre for the back wheel. The new tyre is now on the new bike and the old tyre and tube will go back to the 'old' bike just for emergency purposes.

Because the problem is the back tyre it can get messy trying to remove the wheel with the dirty, greasy and oily chain getting in the way. The bike was still upside down this morning just to make sure that the tyre didn't go flat overnight causing me to take the whole wheel off again. I completed a 13 k bike ride this morning without a problem.

Foolishly on previous occasions I had removed the back wheel under the pergola. Bits of oil and grease sprinkled on the pavers so this morning I was hard at work with the degreaser cleaning the pavers. Then I took another 30 minutes or so to give the front lawn a mow. It has thickened up remarkably since I fed it a couple of weeks ago and is looking quite good at the moment.

With plenty of fine hot weather forecast for the next few days the gazebo has gone back up again and the pool is taking a little more of my time. The pool water remains a little brisk but is certainly refreshing after a bike ride.

Trish is on a shopping morning with a friend this morning. They have headed to North Lakes around 30 minutes south of here for a look around.

The new Bellvista Tavern 'may' be open tomorrow for the first time. If not tomorrow then a Thursday opening is looking good.

Sunshine Returns To The Sunshine Coast

The rain stopped overnight Friday but we have had a few showers since. So far this month we have had 352 mls a little over 14" in the old scale. Despite the rain being limited to showers, there were still 19mls in the gauge yesterday morning and another 3 this morning.

I won't go into too many details regarding trying to get the 'new' tyre on my bike but I am beginning to run out of glue for my puncture repair kit. What was a 'new' tube Monday of last week is now sporting 4 patches, including one which has been replaced. Eventually I grabbed a tyre off the 'old' bike and put it on easily and without any problems. It will get me by in the short term.

With all the rain though bike riding isn't much fun. With seepage and pools covering some of the paths you come home quite wet from spray. This photo is by far the worst spot but give it another day or so it will be all gone. With the wet weather and now warm each day the grass almost grows as you watch it.

Plenty of cricket and footy over the weekend on TV which kept me busy.

Computer club was hectic again but I seem to be able to satisfy most people's needs. Trish is busy this morning helping to tidy up the "Stitcher's Library".

I am helping a guy out with his WDTV Live SMP player on Wednesday morning. However I think he has 'wireless' broadband which would mean he can't access the internet with his media player and therefore may miss out on some of its benefits. We will wait and see.

Wednesday night we are off to the RSL as there is a Bee Gees tribute night on. It is 'booked out' but we will see if we can fluke a couple of seats. We will give the great small Chinese Restaurant in Caloundra a try again before adjourning to the RSL.

Cooler and Much Wetter

Tuesday morning was probably some of the worst weather we have experienced since moving to Queensland over 10 years ago. It was overcast, hot and extremely humid. It didn't matter what you did, you still felt uncomfortably hot, sticky and lethargic. Then soon after lunch the rain started and really hasn't stopped since.

Even when the rain first started it was till hot outside. We had the air conditioner going with heavy showers of rain going on all about us. Since then we have had over 140 mls with up to 200 mls more forecast in the next 36 hours. And it has gone from Hot, Hot, Hot to Cool, Cool, Cool!

Trish checked my rear bike tyre out after the problems I had with the front one. It too was bulging in places so it was up for replacement. I grabbed an old tyre off one of the other bikes here but I managed to pinch and puncture the tube while putting it on. It is a rear tyre this time and so much harder to get at. The local bike store wanted to charge me $25 for new tyre while K-Mart would do one for $10. Guess which one I bought?

I repaired the puncture and after some problems put the new tyre on the rear rim. Wouldn't you guess it, I had pinched and punctured the tube again! I wasn't happy. However third time lucky and now all has been restored again to prime working condition.

All I need to happen now is for the rain to stop!

We have been watching Series 4 of "Breaking Bad" all this week and finished the Final 13th episode last night. I really enjoyed it. I had a nasty tummy upset late in January and had a minor relapse with exactly the same thing on Wednesday night. It wasn't as severe as last time but still had me out of bed for 20 minutes at 2 am Wednesday morning.

I have finished my second course of heavy anti-biotics and all the dizziness has disappeared. I remain sniffly though so this cold has been hanging around for 6 weeks or so now. The nasal spray stuff I am on will fix it I have been assured but it may take up to 6 weeks to do so. The spray is around $40 a pop but our GP got me a couple of 'samples' to try.

Yesterday we travelled to the RSL for a "Students' Luncheon". The RSL has a training program for young 'wanna' be cooks and and waiting staff. It is around $20 for a 2-course table service meal. We gave it a try yesterday with friends Ian and Kerrie. The 'lunch' saw us get back home from Ian and Kerrie's just before 6pm. We both had $15 birthday vouchers from the RSL. This saved us a few dollars and ensured we had a great time.

I am catching up on websites. I have added an extra page to my Movies, How To website and I have been busy with the local Community Association website as well. My forums I like to visit can be time consuming providing advice as well.

Trish is at Quilters this morning and we don't have a drinks session planned for today as everyone is away. I will be watching the cricket and footy in front of the telly!

Hot, Hot, Hot.

It may be around 32 this afternoon but with the humidity it feels somewhat more than that. The house is all locked up trying to keep the heat out and there is little respite with no sea breeze which is unusual for this part of the world.

We expect another hot one tomorrow and then storms etc to give us a couple of cooler days. You could see it was hot up here if you watched any of the cricket from Brisbane on Sunday where a couple of players were effected by the hot weather.

I did get another bike ride in though, you can check it out here. Almost 15k's. I got home just as the front tyre was going flat. I had to walk the last 50 metres.

That is two front wheel punctures in the last two weeks. I repaired the latest puncture and thought there may be something inside the tyre causing these to happen. A closer inspection showed the tyre has had it. It isn't a good photo but the bright bits you can see are rays of sunlight through the tyre!

That sure explained why I had two punctures within the last couple of weeks, I was probably lucky I didn't have even more. I have remembered all about mending punctures now.

They were having a clean out of bike tyres at K-Mart well over a year ago so luckily I grabbed a couple at bottom basement prices. I should be fine for tomorrow's ride. You can see where I rode to today from two of the photos to the left!

Gee it is pretty down on Pumicestone Passage.

I bottle washed Sunday morning and I will bottle tomorrow. In this humid weather that will be hot work!

When we had our recent phone problems the Tech from Telstra wanted to check our indoor phone points. One is right underneath the "Office Table" and almost impossible to get to. I wrote about this in a post on February 8th. The big clean up has commenced. This is my Office Table now! The bins are full and we need to make a couple of trips to the Salvos to move some stuff on!

We will move furniture around when the weather cools off a little more, possibly in a month or so! Moving the furniture around should make accessing the phone point a little easier if required.

It is about time to head to the pool again!

New Flight Plans

Trish is flying to Melbourne for a couple of weeks late in April. As Tiger Airways are still not flying into the Sunshine Coast Airport, we tend to travel when it is suitable in and out of Brisbane

When booking her flight some time ago she thought she would give the new airline "Australia Airways" a go to see what they were like.

Overnight Australia Airways went into Receivership! Documentation indicates that as we paid via a credit card there are avenues available for a refund. We will be investigating that later today.

Trish has already booked replacement flights this morning with Tiger Airways out of Brisbane and the cost is actually cheaper than when she had book with Australia Airways.

I have bought myself a 'new' weather station for my birthday. The old (now retired) weather station was purchased off eBay years ago! I paid around $65 for it back then. It has been in use for a few years now and the 'remote' sensor for outside temps wasn't working too well.

The new one was $38 on eBay and it arrived today. It is now setup and working. It will be interesting to compare temperatures, especially outdoors because I always felt the old weather station's outside temp reading was a bit inflated.

We have lots of roadworks around the estate right now with works being done on the main road into the estate. We have a school here which caters for 1250 kids and most come in by car. You can imagine what it is like when the kids arrive for school and the one and only road in has extensive roadworks going on.

In its wisdom the Council decided to carry out its roadworks here this morning as well and decided to redirect traffic back around by the school during school morning drop off time. The roads were gridlocked! I have been busy as President of the local Community Association to see what is happening and try to get the left hand to know what the right hand is doing!

You can read about it HERE.