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Monday July 2, 2001

Hard at work in the office today on tax returns: one estate, two trusts, and my own. Stopped at 12.15 pm to go to town to pick Joan up from the dentist, where she had been for a chipped tooth repair. I wen into Dick Smith Electronics to exchange the Uniden phone from Saturday's frustrations. Drove home, plugged it in, tried the speakerphone -- only to have the microphone as inaudible as the other one. There was an 0800 phone number for support listed, so I rang up the service centre. I was directed to pull out all the other phones in the house (3 plus answerphone plus Sky digital interactive) as that apparently has caused problems. It made little difference; and I informed the service engineer that in any case I was not disposed to doing without all the other phones just so the Uniden could have the line all to itself. With a bit of prodding, he admitted that most speakerphone facilities just didn't work as well as people expected, due to the microphone having lowered sensitivity to avoid acoustic feedback.

Pathetic. About the only use the speaker may get, is to listen for someone coming on line when you are in a phone queue. Then you have to lift the handset to be able to talk, as the built-in microphone will not get a respectable volume even if I shout at it. But the rest of the phone is fine, so we're keeping it.

I worked on in the office, patiently finding several subtle errors I perpetrated way back last year. Stopped for tea, then continued -- to complete the first tax return by 11 pm. Oh well, I've only got to finish one per day and I'll be OK...

Tuesday, July 3, 2001

Sad news for all lovers of good ol' guitar pickin': Chet Atkins is no longer with us, and doubtless is demonstrating harp pickin' to the Heavenly Host. He's been a favourite of mine for years; I love a tape I've got of him jamming with Mark Knofler -- lots of great guitar work and gentle ribbing. Hop over to John Dominik for some more eulogies.

Guess what -- I went to use the new Uniden phone this morning, and one vertical row of buttons was dead <groan>. That was IT. Packed it up in its box, returned it to Dick Smith Electronics once more; and bought a Panasonic model the same as the one I bought for my office the previous week. It has a cordless handset, and the base station has dial buttons too for independent use -- so of course it HAS to have good speaker and mic clarity. Works perfectly, problem sorted. So much for Uniden: crap, crap, crap.

Dropped Joan at Joanna's to look at some curtains that Sue had passed on from her redecorating efforts. It appears that they are exactly the right length, and only need separating into four drops to be pressed thankfully into use -- Jo's existing bedroom curtains are thin and a bit more insulation in this cold weather will be welcome.

I carried on with the first trust tax return; it's complicated to get right as it receives income from Australia which has to be accounted for in $NZ, converted on the date it is received or credited. Then I have to do a final bank balance adjustment using the exchange rate on the 31st March (which is the end of our tax year). Quite a lot of fancy tap-dancing to get all the figures to reconcile and sort out the tax payable; but I finished at 10 pm. Two down, two to go.

Wednesday, July 4, 2001

Diligent attack on the third set of books this morning. Found the usual mishmash of wrong entries and other cock-ups and corrected them -- fortunately, I use an old DOS accounting program called Bottom Line Accounting which allows me to edit the entries directly and not have to go through an audit trail procedure. Just hit modify and go in and change the sucker. Makes stuffy accountants blanch and report in sick. Mind you, I must proclaim my comparative ignorance of the finer points of bookkeeping; I just keep looking back to see what I did last year. Then keep hacking until everything balances and it looks right. Works for me, anyway.

After lunch, Rebeccah and her school friend Caroline came to start on their science fair project; they have chosen to make a simple telescope (now that will make Bob Thompson sit up and take notice <grin>). I looked at the specs they had downloaded off the 'Net, and sent them and Joanna into town to buy a suitable mailing tube for the barrel. I ratted round in my heap of treasures and located a set of three lenses, which I originally salvaged from an old WW2 aircraft gunsight about 40 years ago. An achromatic doublet and separate convex lens which will make an excellent eyepiece. The objective lens was a little trickier, until I found a 49mm Olympus close-up lens of 40 cm focal length -- rather OTT for a simple telescope, but what the hell, might as well go the quality way.

The girls returned with supplies; and I set them to cutting the tube to length, then spraying the inside with matt black paint. I'm going to tackle cutting the end cap to take the objective lens, and we decided to use a polystyrene block as packing between the tube and the eyepiece. I salvaged a chunk of polystyrene from monitor packing, and set them to trimming the block into a cylinder. The tricky bit is going to be the hole for the eyepiece -- has to be a firm sliding fit. We'll have to make up a separate cardboard tube for the eyepiece and get that assembled first. Oh well -- that's what Grandads are for....

Out to Camera Club after tea -- missed a couple of meetings while away, and was agreeably pleased with the improved quality of mounting and better photography shown in the competition prints. The members have certainly taken our challenge to heart and are really getting enthusiastic about the regular field-trips and monthly competitions.

Back home at 9.30, and completed the tax return by 10.45 pm -- three down, one to go.

Thursday, July 5, 2001

Guess what: today I was working on my personal tax return. Firstly had to complete the books for my graphic/Web business, then carefully assemble the relevent income details onto an Excel spreadsheet. Some income was from Australia, so I had to retrieve the appropriate currency conversion factors and convert all to $NZ. I stopped at 12.30 pm for a bite of lunch: ratted in the fridge for some left-over pizza and reheated it. Then stopped again at 3.45 pm to drive into town to pick up Joan (who had been helping Don in his office) and Rebeccah (she had been assisting a local radio station by helping control a crowd of kids who were doing a holiday activity). Returned Rebeccah to Lisa Crescent, where we encountered a couple of ex-nursing friends of Joanna who had dropped in. One hour and a cup of coffee later, we departed for a small local cafe who sells takeaway roast meals -- we ordered two roast pork and veg meals, and took them back home for consumption.

After tea, it was back into the tax; I transferred details into a special tax Excel spreadsheet I had bought. It was supposed to prepare and print out a complete labelled listing of the tax form -- but there were errors in it somewhere (or more likely it was prepared on a later version of Excel) so I ended doing a couple of screen shots of the entry form. This was laid out just like the tax form, so it was a doddle to copy the figures onto the real paper form by hand. Incidentally, I use a program called PrintKey 2000 - has an icon in the Tray which summons the program to life. You have the option to print the whole screen, but more usefully you can draw a rectangle on your chosen part and just print that. I use it a lot.

Anyway, the tax is done for another year -- thank goodness. My office is now a complete shambles -- there are heaps of unfiled paper everywhere, as I have been going straight from one tax return to the next, so as to get them done on time. Now I can get onto some of the other stuff that has been held over since we left to go on holiday. And I have to watch out for the Tidy-up Squad who has threatened to bring up a black plastic sack and do her OWN tidying.

Friday, July 6, 2001

A start on the office tidying until 10.40 am, when I grabbed the Nikon CoolPix 990 bag and a tripod and headed into town to pick up Don for a photo shoot. We went to a new client called Excalibur; they are starting up a new Bed & Breakfast place in one of the smarter areas of town. The house is mock-Tudor, and the decorators had just finished painting and papering the accommodation rooms. Everything has been in excellent taste, and we spent some time photographing. One bedroom had an enormous four-poster bed with beautifully turned posts the size of small trees, and a medieval canopy matching the bedspread. The verticals have suffered through having to use a wide-angle attachment, but Photoshop will deal to that in good time.

Back home for lunch, then a quick product shoot for a client who sells deer antler velvet and extract, to the Asian market. Don wanted a couple of shots of the product dissolved in hot water in a cup, so we found a couple of cups and saucers which looked oriental. Then I threw all the images on a Zip disk, to take into town for Don to work on over the weekend. We also stopped off at Penny Lane Furniture, a place that makes beautiful furniture for the same price you buy lesser quality in the shops. They are making Joan a cabinet to hold all our first aid stuff, to be put above the vanity basin that lies between our entry hall and the garage. It is also designed with shelves to hold a collection of small carved wooden bears that have been in the family for at least 80 years.

We came back home, tidied up the mess from the photoshoot, and had a rest for a while; this week has been very concentrated and thus tiring. After tea, I fired up the Mac G3 Powerbook and attempted to install some software on it with mixed success -- should have sacrificed the chicken, I suppose.

Saturday, July 7, 2001

Helped Rebeccah with more of her science project today: she whittled more shavings off the block of polystyrene which will hold the eyepiece, while I tried desperately to locate a cylindrical object of 34mm in diameter that I could use as a former for the eyepiece tube. Joan went off to visit a neighbour with a machinist's caliper -- wonder of wonders, she came back with a piece of metal water pipe of exactly the right size. So all I had to do was to slit the (too large) cardboard tube, apply glue to the overlap, press it tightly round the pipe, then hold the lot in my vise for the glue to dry.

I am using three lenses (see Monday above); the single lens is about 3mm larger in diameter than the achromatic doublet. I will resort to the quick and dirty solution -- the two lenses have to be pressed together, so I'll use Magic Mending tape to bind round the edges. This will hold them together, and I'll wind enough tape around to act as a packer. We're not talking rocket science here, it just needs to hold together long enough for the science fair... Getting a concentric hole through the polystyrene is not going to be easy either.

We dropped Rebeccah back to Lisa Cresc, and later returned with KFC takeaway for a tea with Margaret, one of Joanna's friends who is down visiting in Rotorua. Back home in time to watch the Silver Fern womens' netball team trounce the Brits 74 - 30. For North American readers: netball is a variant of basketball largely distinguished through not having ball-dribbling, so it is very positional. But at the same time very fast, because the ball travels faster than people can run. It is played in Commonwealth countries (but I don't think in Canada? Someone might enlighten me).

Sunday, July 8, 2001

Damned with faint praise .....
Mailbag: To: Mat Lemmings <scribble_feedback@matlemmings.com>
From: Mike Barkman <mike@icarus.gen.nz>
Subject: Boring

<snip>
So in a moment of combined vanity, pride and desire to win this week's most boring photographs on the 'net award, I offer you the following. Click the photos for bigger pics :
</snip>
My boring photos this week (above) are more boring than your boring photos. So there.
/Mike

From: "Mat Lemmings" <mail@matlemmings.com>
To: "Mike Barkman" <mike@icarus.gen.nz>
Subject: RE: Boring
You know, I think you're right......! :-)
I'll pass the award on.

A quiet day today, recovering from the busy week. We arose late, breakfasted leisurely, and generally avoided anything that looked too much like hard work.

After lunch, I fired up the Mac Powerbook and succeeded in re-installing the recalcitrant software that had defeated me earlier in the week. I also managed to once more have the Mac finding the rest of the network. More diligent reading on the subject allowed me to delete the NetBEUI I had running on the two Winboxen, and leave everything to TCP/IP. I then rummaged around in the Mac's Control Panel, found NetBIOS was not turned on and did so -- lo and behold I could see the rest of the network. I seized the opportunity to pull over my website files, in case I need to work on them with the Mac at some time.

After tea, I watched a little TV: an episode of the Antiques Roadshow that Joan had previously videoed. Then back upstairs to prepare this imperishable prose. G'night John-boy [g'night all]....