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Monday , June 18, 2001

Up at 5.45 am; I checked the site ftp server first thing and uploaded the offending redirector page that wouldn't go last night. Apologies to those who got a 404.

Some determined work put into unpacking suitcases and washing clothes etc. About mid-morning, the postie delivered the usual mountain of mail which has accumulated over the past six weeks. Joan opened all the envelopes, while I unfolded the mail and sorted into piles. It was well into the afternoon before I finished.

Don dropped in some transparencies for me to scan, and arranged for me to do a photo shoot tomorrow. Ethan was with us for some time during the day, as he is home from school with his asthma being a problem at the moment. There must be a high pollen count, as both Joan and myself are having nose problems, so Ethan is probably having a reaction as well.

We managed to stay awake an hour longer, and were in bed and asleep by 8.30 pm.

Tuesday, June 19, 2001

I was up, showered and dressed by 6.45 am; although Joan snoozed on a bit longer. We'll add another hour onto bedtime tonight, and that should get us somewhere within normal parameters. I got in some quality surf time on Daynoters' pages before breakfast. I changed the camera batteries and drove into town to pick Don up at 10.15 am. We went out to the client, who has three fruit & vege shops in different parts of Rotorua and wants his signage and colour scheme updated. I shot a selection of digital images of each shop with the Nikon CoolPix 990, and when back home, transferred them to a Zip disk. Don will mask off the painted areas and introduce his suggested colour scheme.

After lunch, I fired up Mac, the G3 powerbook, and plugged in an ethernet cable. Ross had mostly configured the TCP/IP before I left London, but I did a Google search and found various documents to assist me in doing the rest. Suddenly, Netscape lurched into life and I was surfing the web; but I couldn't seem to get on the network itself. A little more research, and I re-enabled the TCP/IP binding to File & Printer Sharing on Sissy. Back to Mac, and try an application called Dave -- wow, there are the drives on Sissy. I had removed the binding as a security measure, but hopefully Zone Alarm will provide sufficient protection. This ability to share files between Mac and Sissy is not something I will use very much, but could be useful.

More time spent on transferring the image files from our trip into appropriate folders, preliminary to combing through them for pix that didn't make it -- blurred, bad composition etc -- before assembling them into a CDRom to take into the local digital photo place. I've also got a heap of film to get processed.

Wednesday, June 20, 2001

Up at 7 am this morning -- a little better than yesterday. We drove out to our upholsterer's workshop at 9 to check on progress with the roll-end couch that he is re-covering for Joan. Surprise: it's finished and ready, and will be delivered later in the day. The fabric he used was some roll-ends that Joan found in Auckland earlier in the year.

Mid-morning, we had an old friend Neville and his mother Flo (who is nearly 90) call. We had an interesting morning chatting -- they wanted to hear all about our trip. After lunch, Neville sat with me while I started scanning the heap of transparencies that Don left on Monday. After they left, we went out to do a supermarket shop run; and by this time we had acquired Eli, who had been dropped by Jo after school. It's interesting what these kids notice and retain; Jo had bought in some groceries late last week to be here for us, and Eli correctly remembered the brand and beans of the coffee we drink.

I did some more scanning until tea, then did some TV watching until coming up to do these Kronikles. We are trying to stay awake until 9.30 tonight...

Thursday, June 21, 2001

Drove Joan into town for what I call the "hooves and horns" morning: podiatrist and beautician. I had a ring to pick her up at 2.30 pm, but got involved with trying to find some software on the 'net that I [horrors] forgot until she rang again to remind me....

Ethan came in after school, and has had a good run at the computer as well as surfing. He was horrified to be on a 'cheat' site and was suddenly bombarded with comealong soft porn windows. Later, he was looking at some Pokemon site and suddenly my virus alarm triggered -- there was code trying to make Internet Explorer send an email using MAPI. So we literally pulled the plug and rebooted. A virus scan proved negative, so I suspect the page had some javascript buried in it. An object lesson for Ethan, and it has scared him sufficiently to keep away from these sites in the future. I won't let the kids go into chat rooms, either; it's a big temptation when there is a broadband connection always ready to go. Although I have Zone Alarm running, and the Nokia DSL modem/router has some small measure of protection.

The jet lag is still sneaking up on us at odd times, although I think our sleep pattern should come right tonight. It's a real drag trying to stay awake long enough to keep advancing each night <g>.

Friday, June 22, 2001

We were up once again at 6.30 am; Joan was watching early morning TV while I checked Daynoters. We went out at 11.15 am to pick up some supermarket stuff, then into the library to get something to read. Then we collected a friend from the bus, Derrick, who was our tour guide in Greece and Crete. He was in Hamilton overnight, and is working his way down to Christchurch where he lives.

Back home for lunch and a long chat, before going out for a drive to show Derrick some of Rotorua's charms. We visited the Rotorua museum and the Ward Baths, then went to Polynesian Spa who is one of our clients. Derrick was amazed at the facilities there, and will return tomorrow morning to soak in the hot water. We came home via Kuirau Park, where we has a mud geyser earlier in the year. I ran through most of my pix taken in Greece and Crete on the POC screen before dinner.

A very pleasant steak dinner with some nice wine, lots of chatter -- and into an early bed, as Derrick was more jet-lagged than we were <g>.

Saturday, June 23, 2001

Whoops, Saturday night sort of slipped past me; it takes a few days to get into the habit of regular posts again, after not doing it for 6 weeks. I had a sad phone call during lunch: my first wife's mother had just passed away -- in her 91st year. She has been in a nursing home/hospital for 10 years with severe Alzheimers, so it is a happy release, really. I put through a few phone calls to key family members for them to pass on the news. I am Executor for the estate, so it falls to me to organise the funeral.

We drove Derrick to his bus after lunch, and went back through town to the local Dick Smith electronics store. I had noticed a special on CD-R discs -- 16-speed in jewel cases for $NZ1.80 each -- so bought 3 boxes of 10 to put aside.

We had a reasonably quiet time for the rest of the day. I got busy with my trip images -- bringing each one into Photoshop, correcting it with auto-levels, sharpening, then re-saving. There's about 450, so it's going to take some time.

Sunday, June 24, 2001

Out at 9 am for a brisk walk in the fresh morning air -- temperature about 12 degC and foggy. We decided we hadn't lost too much trip fitness -- and my weight is less than when I went away.

I was settling down to some office work, when the phone rang -- a couple of friends from Wanganui, who were in Rotorua visiting relatives. He is in the Wanganui Camera Club, for which I still do some DTP; in this case it was to update the entry forms for their annual Festival of Photography. We had coffee, I printed the updated forms, we chatted, and then they went off before lunchtime.

In between times, I was busy on the phone to Sue, and the funeral directors in Wanganui. We have decided to postpone the funeral until Friday, as Sue has a big business and training session in Auckland on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday; there are people coming from overseas for it, and it has taken weeks to set up. As we had decided to delay any funeral if Nana had died when we were overseas, it really didn't seem much different in principle to pospone the funeral for a couple of extra days. Sue will be able to fly down from Auckland, probably to Wellington if she can't get a plane seat to Wanganui. We are driving down on Tuesday night and returning to Rotorua after the interment on Friday afternoon.

Jo, Don and the kids came here for Sunday evening roast; something packaged as 'Danish Roast' which turned out to be hogget (older lamb) leg which had been boned out and stuffed, then covered with some sort of marinade which eventually burnt itself onto the leg of meat and had to be trimmed off. But the meat was very tasty when consumed.