Getting Ready For Xmas

After the disappointment of the recent Test Cricket we have been into "Getting Ready To Go Away" mode. The house has had a clean, the pool filter has been cleaned as well, the lawns have been mown, I have had a haircut and I picked up my new glasses. Sometimes you reckon it would be easier not to go away!

The weather has been crazy hot and humid. On Monday it was hot but the humidity was 80% which is high even for here! It was up to 33 degrees as the day went on. The pool was 23degrees in the morning and around 28 later that afternoon. Today was 30 or so again but when the sea breeze kicked in it was a pleasant 27.

I rode this morning after some heavy overnight showers the previous night and got in my 12 or so K's.

Last night we decided to try to get people together for a Xmas outing up here. The preferred restaurant was closed so someone suggested we try another Thai one just down the road. It was closed for renovations! And it is school holiday time in this part of the world.

We finished up going to a little Chinese Restaurant under new management named the Bamboo Garden. The new owners had also owned a restaurant named "The China Flute". The food at the China Flute was pretty good and very pricey! The six of us decided to try the 'Under New management Bamboo Garden' and had a very very nice Chinese meal. We ordered well which made a difference, Pork with Ginger and Shallots, Salt & Pepper Calamari, San Choi Bow, Satay Chicken, Mongolian Lamb and it was all delicious. Everyone was very impressed at around $50 per double!

On the way home we passed some houses which have been decorated for Xmas. Some people go to a lot of trouble to get their homes sparkling with bright lights. It looks pretty impressive.

We fly to Melbourne Thursday morning making tomorrow our last full day at home. I will do my packing etc while Trish has her hair done, goes to a Stitchers Luncheon and then out with the Tourist Info group for her evening meal! I think she is looking forward to going to Melbourne for a rest!

Problem Solved

I have managed to solve the problem with my PC. I downloaded and installed a small program around two weeks ago called "Soluto". My PC takes a while to startup, mainly because I have so many things going on in the background such as calendars, weather conditions, start up menus, Mailwasher and a few more little utilities. Soluto would monitor these startup programs and tell me roughly how much longer the PC would take to start up.

I noticed Soluto had been 'crashing' a couple of times recently and telling me certain programs had stopped running. I uninstalled Soluto this morning to see if it was causing the conflicts on my PC.

I was right, after uninstalling Soluto I again tried to run ThumbGen and this time it worked. I am guessing there was a conflict there somewhere with Soluto and other programs which now has been solved. I was fairly happy all now seems to be OK once more.

Drinks was great fun on Friday night with plenty of great company, great food and cool drink. We stayed a fair bit longer than we had expected but enjoyed the evening very much. Earlier that day Trish had a great Xmas Luncheon with her Quilters Group. She arrived late for drinks and wasn't hungry or thirsty!

I had my Xmas breakup for Computer Club yesterday and again there was plenty to eat and drink. A couple of the members I help bought me a lovely pen as a thank-you gift. It was lovely!

Thunderstorms rolled through again late yesterday giving us 1/2 an inch of rain in about 15 minutes. Saturday morning had already been wet with steady rain and this morning there was a total of 50mls in the rain gauge.

I managed to get a bike ride in this morning despite the 80% humidity and temp in the mid 20's. There was some spots where there was seepage across the paths but that didn't deter me.

The swim afterwards was refreshing. The pool is quite full again and the temp of the water is around 23 degrees. This morning was hot and sunny but it is becoming more overcast now with a sprinkle of rain around. Rain and more storms are expected tonight.

51 mls Altogether

Wednesday was very cool here with one part of the state recording its lowest ever top temperature. Brisbane got to a very winter-ish 19 degrees when the average is around 30 degrees at this time of year. Don't let the blue skies in the photo fool you, we still had a couple of showers after I took this snap.

Thick clouds covered the sky with rain on and off throughout the day. The pool is full to the top again with some water draining out through the 'overflow'.

I still haven't been able to fix that small computer program on my PC. However someone else has exactly the same problem which makes me feel a little better. It will be just a minor adjustment which will most likely be fixed in the next program update.

The pool needed a bag of salt today but I knew it was getting close anyway. When we get a heap of rain and some water goes out through the overflow you lose the salt from your pool.

When the water was 'tested' a month or so ago the pool guy said it needed salt then. However the Salt Chlorinator has a built in low salt indicator and it hasn't been showing anything about the salt being low for some time. However this morning it was 'on' so the bag of salt was added.

A couple of passing showers is all we are getting today and the temp is closer to 24 degrees. I wouldn't want to swim in the pool right now as it has cooled right off. I haven't been on a bike ride for two mornings now because of the rain.

PC Won't Do What It Should!

After solving problems for everyone else I am now unable to fix something on my own PC. A couple of weeks ago I started using a program to add 'movie information sheets' to the new media player I have acquired. It has been working pretty hard and I have just about got everything up and running.

I was about to do a few more TV episodes on the media player yesterday and the program wouldn't run at all! It did nothing!

The program "Thumbgen" is what is called a 'portable' program. That means there is no need to formally install it onto your computer from a 'setup' program. It runs from its own folder but it does need something Windows things previously installed (called.NET3.5) which is already in Windows.

I jumped on the internet and found the 'Thumbgen Forum' and left my concern there in a post I wrote. This morning there is a reply from the guy who wrote the program! He wanted me to send him a copy of the log file. I did that for him this morning. I await his answer.

Meanwhile I have had trouble getting my 'old' PC to run. It just wouldn't go. The red light would come on for 10 seconds and then nothing! I decided to move the ram cards around from one slot to another. There are 4 slots and two x 1GB ram cards. I swapped them around, hooked the PC back up again and it worked. I have now installed "Thumbgen" on it and it works perfectly! I have a temporary solution to my problem!

Busy day yesterday (Sunday) with bottle washing. With 2 lots on the go I had a double bottle washing to do.

Our youngest daughter Kim has moved out of the shared flat she had been living in for over 5 years. She has decided to go out on her own and has a small 1 bedroom place in this block. It is about a 5 minute drive from her previous place. It would now be around 15 minutes walk to the main Acland St shops rather than the previous 5 or so minutes. We reckon she will be happy there. We got the photo off Google's "Street View".

We had a blustery cooler change come through yesterday. Today is a cool 24 degrees with a lot of cloud overhead. Showers should extend to rain Wednesday afternoon. We will have to wait and see though on any rainfall!

Cooling Off

After a blast of perfect swimming pool weather here, a cooler south easterly change Thursday afternoon has returned temps to the mid 20's with overnight mid to high teens.

The change came through late in the afternoon Thursday with localized heavy falls. Here we got a mere 7mls, enough to top the pool up a little, while at the Caloundra race course about 4k's away they got 29mls. Some areas of Caloundra lost power as strong winds accompanied the change while here at our place it wasn't much of an event at all.

We had the final Community Association management committee meeting on Monday evening which meant my Tuesday was busy getting the website up to date and writing letters or emails. It was Newsletter delivery day as well and I had to get out and deliver my 110 copies to local homes. Tuesday was fairly busy ... and hot.

With Christmas not too far away and our trip to Melbourne to be with the family, it is time to get my 'home brew supplies' up to date and ready for visitors who may come up in the New Year. I have two brews on the go which means double brewing, double washing and double bottling. It won't be too bad as I will be using large 1.25 litre Coca Cola bottles for the second brew. Both brews are bubbling away as I type. I will be washing heaps of bottles tomorrow.

Of course the First Test from Brisbane is on right now as well which keeps me fully occupied during the daylight hours.

A week or so ago I bought a new power board online at one of the daily 'specials' websites. It has individual switches and buttons which 'light up' when turned on. This one has a couple of USB power connectors as well for charging phones, keyboard mice etc. It has a RRP of over $120 but on special online it cost a little over $30. There is no shortage of individually switched power surge protected power points now. I especially like to 'totally' switch off my PC overnight so I find the individual switches excellent.

Trish has been busy with Stitchers and Quilters and other CACA Committee issues. She receives a couple of calls most days with issues or just a quiet chat.

Movies have been good this week. Last night we watched George Clooney in "Ides Of March". We have also seen "Albert Nobbs" and "Red Dog" this week. "Tyrannosaur" was another interesting movie as well. Most have "For Your Consideration" on them which means they are copies for judges at the Academy Awards to view prior to nominations.

I am about to get ready for Computer Club in an hour or so. I plan to be back home fairly early to again enjoy the Test Cricket on TV. There is plenty of sunshine today so we may even get a full day's play.