A Grey Day

Showers, showers and more showers.  That is the forecast since Friday and right now on Sunday it doesn't look great at all.  Dark skies, strong winds and showery.  I am looking forward to late next week when we are told to expect top temperatures around 24 or so.  I can't wait.

Little news, no bike riding, Computer Club yesterday, my footy team won well and we still haven't turned the heater on despite the overcast conditions.

It is great to be rid of some of my not so nice tasting home brew beers.  A lager I am slowly working my way through right now is very very good!

The 'bit off stuff' I brewed wasn't too bad when I mixed a little Ginger Beer or something with it.  Then it tasted quite OK!

I Am Slipping!

Please keep the following information 'in house' as it may damage my reputation.  Instead of installing a pirate copy of a 'pay for' app on my phone yesterday, I actually paid for one!  It was a new experience, I had never paid for a 'app' on my phone before!  There are pirate versions of most apps out there at the same places I get my movies and TV shows.

However apps which are for Australian services and users are not so easy to find.

I am pretty keen on weather stuff.  Trish would say 'obsessed'. I have downloaded and installed around 10 different weather apps on my phone over the last couple of years.  However many of them get their info from services such as Weatherzone, Yahoo etc. 

Many of these apps update slowly and give you the temperature what it was 2 hours ago rather than instant stuff from our Australian Weather Bureau (Bureau of Meteorology - BOM).  Then when I travel to Melbourne the app goes into meltdown when I want to swap to local Melbourne information.

You check the temperature on the phone and it tells you it is 18 degrees but when you head outside it is obvious that it is much cooler than that.

There is one app which gets its information instantaneously from the Australian BOM and it is called "Pocket Weather".  It cost me $1-99!

The wind direction has changed overnight giving us milder but showery weather.  There were 11mls in the gauge this morning and we have a showery week in front of us (so Pocket Weather tells me). It was too wet to ride my bike.

At last the brew I have had on has stopped 'working' allowing me to bottle it all this morning. The photo above left shows the container drying outside.

We ate at yet another Bowling Club yesterday for our lunch. It was good pub fare, not expensive but more filling rather than flavorsome.  For $12 you get a reasonably sized meal and a drink.  I managed a schooner of Carlton Draught for $4-20 which is the best price I have come across recently.

Trish is at Quilters today.  As she is not a involved with the Quilters committee it is an easy day for her.  I had some stuff to sort out for the Community Association yesterday which all worked out OK.  We have our AGM coming up in a month or so and needed to sort out the Treasurer's position for 2013/4.

Friends Ian and Kerrie are still in Sydney and the other couple (John and Margaret) are caught up with family over the last week or so.  School holidays commenced in Queensland a week ago. Therefore we won't be having drinks as per usual today.  There will be plenty of footy on though.  And there is tennis from Wimbledon as well!

Don't Let Looks Deceive You

From the photo here left it looks like another fantastic day here on the Sunshine Coast.  And in due course it may well be a beautiful day.  I just readied myself for my daily bike ride.  I grabbed my camera, my bike odometer, my helmet and I was all ready to go.  It was a little cool despite the glorious blue sky so I reached for my 'splash jacket' as well.  Then I walked to the back of the yard and felt the full force of the steady freezing cold breeze out there.  The 'wind chill factor' would be incredible.

I'm too old for this I thought so I grabbed the odometer, the camera and removed the helmet and headed back inside to be out of the wind.  I may check it out again 'later' and if conditions have improved and I may set off on a ride later today!

As you can imagine life has continued along quietly with not a lot happening.

We are considering doing a road trip in a few weeks time.  One of the spots we missed from back in our caravaning days was western Queensland.  We would be away for around 11 nights and spend a few days in Longreach via Charleville and Isisford.  On the way home we would spend a couple of days in Yeppoon.  We would leave on a Monday and arrive back home on a Friday.

Trish is at Stitchers this morning so I am home alone.  I was planning on 'bottling' today but things aren't quite ready to bottle just yet.  That may happen tomorrow, we will see.

We are just over mid way through the TV Series "House of Cards".  Having a hearing problem I note when anything on TV is even slightly out of sync (OOS).  Trish says the movies are fine and she doesn't notice any problem with them at all (or rarely does).  All three episodes of House of Cards we watched last night were slightly OOS.  Is this a problem with the media player, the quality of the leads connecting it or is the problem with the files themselves?

I decided to dig into my archives this morning and replayed a section of one of the OOS episodes from last night on the computer.  Lo and behold, there it was, the files themselves are ever so slightly out of sync.  They do not appear to be fully as bad as when played on the media player, but then a computer has a lot more processing 'grunt' than a $120 media player!

To the right of this post there is a series of links under the heading "Finding Good Downloads".  If you want to have a try at getting some movies or TV shows for yourself download the "How To" at 09. Downloading From 180Uploads.  I tend to look for things that have been put on the tv-release website by "mSD".  Those files are smaller than other regular downloads because of the format he always uploads in.  All of his files are in a format called "Matroska" and end with .mkv  Matroska Files are well known for their high quality by small file size.  The down side is if you are going to have a problem with a file playing correctly, most likely it will be in the "Matroska" format so my experiences shows.

Give it a go!  There is  TV show playing in the UK at the moment called "Dates".  Each show is only 20 odd minutes long and mSD has uploaded his version of them at tv-release.  Each download is a mere 100mb so would be a good place to have a practice and see how you go!

Typical Winter's Monday

As promised by the weather people, on Saturday we awoke to a lovely cool but clear and sunny day.  The weather has continued on the same way ever since.  Sunday's bike ride at around 9 am was very cool indeed with me wearing cycling gloves and the splash jacket.  Today I rode at 9:30 and it was already around 18 degrees by that stage. The splash jacket and gloves were no where to be seen.

The temperature is around 21 right now but certainly much warmer than that in our small enclosed backyard. As the photo shows I bottle washed this morning and now I am attempting to get the bottles dried.  Being a very lightweight plastic it takes time to dry them.

A single 'glass' bottle I have is very dry already.  The glass itself heats up and this in turn dries the bottle.  The lightweight plastic doesn't heat up any where near as much as the glass ones do.

The dog problem next door with barking when the family is away has all but stopped.  I can go out the back door without being harangued by a fierce outburst of aggressive barking.

My footy team was defeated yesterday after they all but stopped in the last quarter or so.  It took a kick after the siren for Brisbane to clinch the match but that was enough.

My team has never been able to overcome the retirement of their No.1 ruckman several years ago.  Yesterday they fielded one ruckman playing his 6th game and another in his first AFL season.  Brisbane's young ruckman is a No1 draft pick and a very good player.  As my team's rucks tired the other guy came to the fore giving them first use of the ball.  In the last quarter everything went perfectly for them and with first use of the ball went on to win the game.

Trish's team won easily and now sits one game clear on top of the table.

Computer Club was great on Saturday.  I was being hounded by people seeking help on other days.  At times I have 5 or 6 people wanting to see me.  With the pressure off on Saturday I was able to help anyone in need without rushing.

We began to watch a new TV Series called "House Of Cards" last night.  It stars Kevin Spacey.  It is set in the USA and tells the story of a chief campaign advisor to a new US President "Elect".  As a reward for his great electioneering work he was promised a major role in the new administration.

However as the jobs are being delegated out he finds that people have gone back on their word and he has been cast aside to being just a Congressman.  He begins to wreak havoc within the new government as he seeks retribution for his being overlooked.  It looks like great series.

Wet And Miserable

The Australian Weather Radar shows a blanket of cloud covering much of the Northern Territory and Queensland.  That cloud has arrived here on the coast and is giving us a Melbourne type rainy day.  The rain isn't what locals would call 'heavy', but we could get 15mls out of it during the day.  The cloud is expected to clear the coast later today or early tomorrow returning us to bright sunshine and temperatures from single figure minimums to around 20 degrees maximums and sunny during the day.

The bike remained parked under the patio today.

The rest of the news is boring so if you want to switch off do so now ..... and go onto another website!

We drove to Maroochydore yesterday for a little 'office' shopping in attempt to better use space available for us and make our little home more user friendly. We have achieved that.  I checked the local telephone company shop and was told I have another two payments to go on my phone plan to complete my contract.  I will then switch to "Kogan Mobile" which provides an excellent plan, is sensationally priced and connects to the major "Telstra" network. The Telstra Network is easily the best across this country.  My current provider is via the Optus network and the phone service here at Bellvista is best described as 'nearly serviceable'.

From there we caught up again with friends Peter and Cheryl at the Headland Golf Club for lunch.  Three of us had the Chicken Parma while Cheryl went for the Fish and Chips.  The meal was "sensational' for regular pub 'fare'.  For around $14 you certainly weren't hungry afterwards.  And at $4-60 a schooner for beer it was all well priced.

There was a big crowd in, unlike the previous week when we attended on a Tuesday.  It is a popular spot for group luncheons we are discovering.

Needless to say it was bread rolls and whatever for last night's evening meal.

Last night we watched another UK detective series called "Vera".  It was excellent viewing.  The footy is back on again this evening and over the weekend.  I have Computer Club tomorrow as well.

Another brew went on this morning.  This time I have made a lager.  I gave the container a good bleach out and rinsed it with hot water to ensure the container was sanitized.

A liberal spray with sanitizer yesterday and a decent rinse out this morning followed by a final hot water rinse means it should be clean and ready for the brew.

I will tell you if it all worked effectively in about 6 weeks time when this brew is ready to drink.