| Last Week | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Saturday | Sunday | Next Week

Monday, January 29, 2001

Today is a Provincial Holiday, so almost everyone sleeps in. These holidays are a relic of our colonial past; they are observed on different days in different regions but are supposed to relate to the official establishment of each region's acknowledgement as a Province. Not even the rugby heirarchy use the old divisions any more (although that sport used to occasion much spilt blood in the pursuit of a trophy called the Ranfurly Shield, commonly known as the Log of Wood) as there weren't enough provinces to make a really good competition when rugby went pro.

The New Zealand Herald newspaper devoted most of a page plus the editorial to the subject today -- history, present-day relevance and future fate. The retailers bemoan them, as they are all within the first two months of the year and they say the holiday disrupts the orderly process of extracting money from the public. However, I suspect that any attempt to dislodge, omit or transfer these holidays would end in armed uprisings. But in actual fact, all the major retailers and many of the smaller ones are open anyway -- in New Zealand there are only three days of the year when shops are constrained: Christmas Day, Good Friday, and the morning of Anzac Day (when we honour the memory of our war dead). So these holidays mainly relate to offices, government departments, banks etc -- whose staff are pleased to take full advantage of whatever fine weather is about.

Which wasn't about today; a little drizzle every now and then between fine breaks. My satellite dish has been out of action since Friday; the ISP posted a notice saying the service providers in California were having problems getting a good uplink to the satellite due to bad weather. Aha! I thought -- but the problem has steadily got worse and the card utility (which provides a diagnostic display complete with a dinky animated graphic of a satellite squirting a signal down to a globe) told me the signal was well down, and the bit error rate was high. So I called the help desk (surprisingly answered on the first ring) and arranged for a service person to come out tomorrow and check the dish. We had a swarm of earthquakes last week when we were away, and I suspect the dish may be slightly off line.

And the earthquakes lead me to tell you about our *ERUPTION*; news of which had my son Ross emailing me from London and asking WTF?? (Actually it wasn't any great deal here -- I just forgot to mention it).

We have an active geothermal area hard by the city area, actually across the road from our hospital which is well above it on a hill. There are a number of very hot pools, some of considerable size, say 20 - 30 metres across. Well, about 3.30 in the afternoon on a fine sunny day, the ground rumbled in the middle of a mown lawn and suddenly mud and stones flew up in the air to a considerable height and we now have a new 12 metre crater steaming like crazy. And everything within range coated with grey sicky mud. I'll poach a picture out of the local newspaper to show you. Fortunately there were few people about when it blew; one woman who was closest, was alarmed at the rumbling, dashed across a park roadway and sheltered under bushes.

Tuesday, January 30, 2001

11 am: Here's the mud eruption picture I promised last night.

Night: It was Rebeccah's first day at High School today - but just for the morning. I attended to email and daynotes this morning, while Joan and Joanna went into town to try and find fabric to make Ethan some shorts for school. I went off at 12 to pick Rebeccah up, then took her into town to meet the others for lunch.

My satellite suddenly came right this afternoon, and my ISP's home page told me the weather troubles in California had finally eased, and signal levels are almost normal. I worked on some scanning during the afternoon -- a picture in an illustrated paper taken during the war of a bunch of New Zealand soldiers, one of which was the husband of Joan's cousin Eris. It had a worn crease through it, which needed some careful cloning to get rid of.

We had tea and watched the early evening TV, then went out for a brisk walk through the park (still hasn't been fine enough lately to take photos). I then worked solidly on the Truck web site, and have finished it to the point where Don can do some titivating and show it to the client. Very satisfying.

Wednesday, January 31, 2001

Joan went off with Joanna into town; I arranged to meet Joanna at a local cheap office stationery outlet to help her with the stationery purchases for the three children. She was armed with the lists, and we went round and round the stacks trying to locate the particular pad, exercise book, or set of coloured pencils specified. There was a long row of cards suspended from a string over the heaps with the cryptic designators, like "1G4" etc. Add a horde of other harassed parents and grandparents doing the same thing, stir frantically and get well clear. That's why I went along to help; we managed to get through in about half an hour, then I drove to the supermarket where Joan was getting the shopping in.

I spent some time in the afternoon coming to grips with my new genealogy program (Family Tree Maker) and adding data to join the stuff I was able to port over from a previous program. This evening, I was back on the same job but got a little sidetracked in going through the masses of source material I have on file. You find things you had forgotten about, and stop to read. I've got a lot of interesting stuff that was preserved by my grandfather: such as letters written by his uncle from Ohio in 1887, and letters from aunts in Ireland about the same time. They contain a wealth of family news that has been invaluable to myself and other researchers. I must transcribe tham some time, and post them for genealogical use.

A short post today -- because I didn't get much else done. CUL

Thursday, February 1, 2001

Another morning which started off with a little bit of work, then having to stop, close up the house, and head into town. One wastes a lot of time going backwards and forwards. Anyway, the optician rang to advise that my new fancy pair of glasses was ready to collect, so needs must. The glasses are the progressive focus sort; I knew I would take a little time to get used to the change from ordinary bifocals, but they do seem as if the transition point is a little high for comfort. I fould myself driving with my head dropped forward, which put a strain on the neck muscles. Also when I sat in my favourite lounger chair, I couldn't focus on the TV without resting my chin on my chest. I may have to go and see the optician again for adjustment.

Had another afternoon's work entering data in the genealogy program; I am keen to get the Barkman stuff tidied up so I can add to the book version we have already roughed out. To round out today, here's a little item for you:

More Prozac, less hunny for Pooh By KATHERINE HOBY [ex New Zealand Herald]

Oh bother! It seems all is not well in the Hundred Acre Wood. A group of Canadian doctors has found that Pooh, Piglet and other A. A. Milne characters need psychological help. An article published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal suggests Pooh is suffering attention hyperactivity disorder and could be prone to Tourette’s syndrome. Eeyore has chronic depression. Christopher Robin is having a gender identity crisis and Piglet needs medication.. Sadly, the forest is not ... a place of enchantment, but rather one of disenchantment, where neurodevelopmental and psychological problems go unrecognised and untreated, the paediatricians write.

The journal has a tradition for writing tongue-in-cheek pieces for the festive season,but the doctors conclude that there is a dark underside to A. A. Milne’s world. Pooh’s obsession with food and his repetitive counting behaviour raise the possibility that he has obsessive compulsive disorder His"hunny" obsession has led to obesity. They are concerned about his assertions that he is "a bear of very little brain" and suggest that Christopher Robin is to blame.

"Early on we see Pooh being dragged downstairs bump, bump, bump, on the back of his head. Could his later cognitive struggles be the result of a type of shaken bear syndrome?" Piglet, Pooh’s best friend, is struggling with generalised anxiety disorder. The symptoms include blushing and stammering. He needs an anti-panic drug. Eeyore needs therapy to help him cope with the cruel loss of his tail, and suffers from depression, for which he should take Prozac. Owl covers up language and spelling problems and is clearly dyslexic, the doctors say. Rabbit has a narcissistic personality disorder; Tigger needs sedation medication.

Roo is of great concern, due to his single parent upbringing by overprotective mum Kanga "We predict we will some day see a delinquent, jaded, adolescent Roo hanging out late at night .. the ground littered with broken bottles . . - and the butts of smoked thistles." Christopher Robin has a gender identity disorder, lacks adult supervision and talks to animals altogether too much, the doctors conclude.

Auckland psychologist Henck Van Bilsen said a lot of the diagnosis appeared to ring true. "I haven’t done a recent study of Winnie the Pooh but it sounds reasonable to me," he said. "Didn’t Eeyore always seem down and blue to us? Of course he did. Wasn’t Tigger always the bouncy one with too much energy? Absolutely!" What’s Pooh to do?

[from subsequent letter to the NZ Herald]

As a long-time (about 68 years) admirer of Pooh Bear, I can today find only one thing "wrong" either with Pooh himself or with any of the other inhabitants of the Hundred Acre Wood. That one thing is the recent spate of revolting American caricatures designed apparently to reduce them all to the commercially profitable intellectual level of Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck. For this embarrassing sickness I offer the following, albeit apocryphal, antidote:

"Winnie-the-Pooh withdrew his paw from the bottom of his biggest honey-pot, licked the honey off the barrel of the revolver, levelled it thoughtfully, and fired six shots point-blank into the sick, leering, sneering face of Walt Disney. Then, glancing up at the clock (which still said five minutes to 11), he dropped the gun back to its hiding place and murmured: "Time for a little something."

Friday, February 2, 2001

Here's a quote to start the day's entry, from Kim Stanley Robinson's Blue Mars:

"Only a few people in the world were lucky enough to run into their true partners — it took outrageous luck for it to happen, then the sense to recognise it, and the courage to act. Few could be expected to have all that, and then to have things go well. The rest had to make do."

This made me stop and think: we've managed to do it twice. Joan and I are agreed that we both have had outrageous luck; firstly in our respective initial husband and wife (both deceased) and then to have been able to pick up another marriage and run with it — obviously having had all three desiderata going for us once again.

From Jonathan Stern:

You'd think after discovering these many errors I would be trusting my own instinctive feelings more. The problem is, we are trained to trust the experts. Even when you consciously set out to think your own thoughts and do your own thing, the conditioning you received as a child lurks continually in the background. It especially exerts its influence when you are doing something unfamiliar.

The insidious influence of Mother Knows Best lasts for ever; even when you *know* that Mother's ideas were half-truths and old wives tales, you still remember and heed -- until your rationality takes over! But if we can't trust the experts, WHO CAN we trust? Experts don't come with believability ratings. You can't determine the credibility of an expert until after the job's finished and the bills paid.

Finally, the oldie but goodie jokes: ex = has-been, and spert is a drip under pressure. Also, an expert is someone from out-of-town, with slides.

Today, was a working day on the financials -- bank statements and cash books. Don came in with a client's newsletter to update with new pix and text; I'll get it finished over the weekend for him to titivate. Also Jo informed me that the old kid's computer at Lisa Cresc has karked it, so it looks like a job for <gasp> Compooter Mahn </gasp> who leaps tall tower cases with a single bound and is dedicated to combating the evil forces of obsolescence and chips gone baaaad. There's three carcases about, so I *should* be able to salvage enough stuff to make one working box.

A good stiff 40 minute walk after tea; I really must get the park pix processed and on the page -- they're in the camera waiting. Tomorrow, I promise ......

Saturday, February 3, 2001

Over to Lisa Crescent this morning to pick up the old computers for salvage. There is an old IBM Aptiva with a Pentium 133 and 16 MB of old RAM which I put aside, together with a 4x CD-ROM. I sort through old motherboards put away in boxes, and locate a socket-7 Asus board -- but I have a feeling that I munged the BIOS on this one. A test will tell the tale tomorrow. The older one is a 486 box which is the one the kids were using, with Win3.1. It even has a 5 1/4 inch drive -- I'll put that aside for future use; every now and then, someone bobs up with old floppies containing data they desperately want!

I managed to get some work done on the client newsletter, before the grandchildren arrived in mid-afternoon. It was Jo and Don's wedding anniversary a couple of days ago, and they treated themselves to a dinner and night in a hotel -- so we have the kids overnight. The usual bedlam for an hour or so, then we loaded them into the car with a basket of crockery and cutlery, and drove off to Ngongotaha (where the A & P Show was, last weekend). There is a good Chinese takeaway there, run by friends of Jo -- so we got a good assortment of dishes and drove on to one of the picnic spots which looks right down the lake towards Rotorua city. The weather was fine, warm, but rather windy -- so we all ate, the kids disappeared off for a while exploring, then we packed up and drove back home by continuing on round the lake. It's about a marathon distance around; we have one here every year and it's a big event on the marathon circuit.

I've spent a little time tonight on the park page, massaged the pix I took earlier in the week and set them into the page. We really enjoy walking around one or other of the circuits.

Sunday, February 4, 2001

Kids up and out at 8 am, so no Sunday morning lie-in. They were "quiet" but spoons rattling on plates of cereal are distracting. Don and Jo came in later in the morning, enthusing about their night off at the hotel, the nice breakfast, and how efficiently the staff served them. New Zealanders in general are not noted for their service expertise (unless you are in an expensive hotel) -- the best description would be casually friendly. [Digressing, there is an anecdote about NZ troops in WW II in Egypt. A senior British officer complained to our General that NZ troops were not saluting him. The General replied "Well, if you wave at them instead, I'm sure they'll wave back."]

Of recent years, various polytechnics have run very successful courses to teach catering and the art of 'silver service'; the young graduates are very polished and usually get jobs immediately after finishing. We have, occasionally, gone to the local one for an evening meal. The trainees are rotated between the kitchen and the dining room for experience. It's a real hoot to have an enthusiastic trainee waiter/waitress doing so well -- then suddenly forget what they are supposed to be doing next! Part of the deal is that you don't prompt them or react. One night we were served dessert and all sat with hands in laps in silence, while the petrified lad stood frozen in panic until he realised that he hadn't provided spoons...

The rest of the day spent on ancient history; to whit, the 486-DX with dead CD-ROM drive. I had salvaged a quad-speed from the other junked machine BUT the old one had an interface card into the bus, and the new one was IDE. There were two hard drives installed but only one IDE channel; I tried switching the IDE cable from the slave over to the CDROM, but it didn't get recognised -- I suspect the BIOS was too old to cope with it. Soooo, I just restored things back to where they were -- minus the old CD-ROM and card, and closed it up. It will do for the kids' homework; and there's a lot of old DOS games they like that are still OK. They'll just have to wait until I upgrade Don's home box, then they'll get the present one. Can't remember what it is, as I didn't build it; three years old so is probably a K2-333 or similar. The mobo I tried with the spare Pentium 133 did have a shot BIOS; it was the only one I had with a Socket-7, unfortunately. I may go down to my friendly computer pusher tomorrow and see what trades they have in the back room. One never knows. I even have a good Gigabyte slot-1 board if someone there has a suitable second-hand processor <fantasy mode> "Psssst, got some real stuff?", "Yeah, this is good sh*t man, Pentium II 300."</fantasy>

And so to bed after another long, hot day.