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Monday July 9, 2001

An asthma newsletter is in the offing, and I have received some copy for it in MSWord format. On opening it, I found some very well-done tables of information on asthma medication. Unfortunately the author had done them in landscape format; now I could put them in like that, but the newsletter page would have to be read sideways. As this is something that really pisses me off when I encounter it, I decided to reformat to my normal page orientation. I had to open a table in Ventura, open the Word doc, and drag'n'drop text over into the correct cell. Took an extra hour, but I feel the readability of the newsletter is better that way.

Dropped Joan into town for her to do some shopping, and went to Whitcoulls to buy a copy of The Little Mac Book -- I got this out of the library last week, and found it has the right balance of information for what I need. A bonus was the fact that I also found the tenth (new) edition on another shelf. Macs do things in such irritating ways for M$ indoctrinated people (fancy having only one button on mouse...) that I need a quick reference to get the subtle difference.

Returned *another* duff magazine DVD-ROM to the newsagent for exchange -- this was from PC-Plus, an English magazine. They send them out here 12,000 miles in flimsy black plastic holders and expect them to survive unscathed. I had very little trouble when they used jewel cases. In the UK, one can just ring up the appropriate phone number and get an exchange organised -- but that's not practicable from New Zealand. We just have to send them back to the NZ agents and hope they get some returns.

Did all the necessary end-of-year resolutions for the trusts, and filed another kilo of paper away -- bank statements etc. Eli rang to ask if he could come and sleep over, so I had to put desktop shortcuts up for his favourite games on Sissy. He had been using the box that got whipped off down to Don's office in May, so hasn't been able to play them lately.

Tuesday, July 10, 2001

A news item that made me shrivel in fright and swear off bathing in rivers:

Two die in fish dismemberment [New Guinea]
Authorities believe the killer fish is an introduced member of the South American pacu family and a relative of the piranha. He believed the fish had started biting humans because of a lack of naturally occurring food. "The reason for biting people on their genitals is a result of the fish detecting a chemical change in the water, swimming up the urine trail and biting the genitals."

That might also stop kids peeing in swimming pools...

Eli slept the night through, and was allowed to remain in his sleeping bag [in the lounge] and watch Cartoon Network for some time. I had a visit from Joanna's friend from Auckland who needed advice on starting a trust and re-doing her will. She is a widow with a 5 year-old son, and they are both in receipt of a pension from her late husband's government super fund. She wants to make sure that the money she is saving for her son is kept intact while he goes through his wild teen years. I spent some time going over the makeup of a trust, step by step, and how this is integrated into her will -- as these both have to work together. I've pointed her at a good trust lawyer in Auckland, and also some alternatives. Good deed for the day...

I dropped Joan at the doctors, as her sinuses have been acting up, then collected her a bit later with Eli in the car. It was after 12 by now, so going through town, we stopped for lunch at Burger King (the only hamburgers I tolerate -- can't stand the taste of MacDonald's). Joan also needed to get a hair trim, so we got that out of the way and then did a supermarket shop. Back home and some work done in the office during the rest of the afternoon. Jo called in to collect Eli before tea.

I've been having an interesting email exchange about digital photography, if you're interested.

Wednesday, July 11, 2001

Another cracking frost this morning -- probably about 4 degC I would think. We've had several days of frosts, and more to come. The compensation lies in the glorious sunny day afterwards. An SOS from Joanna: Ethan broke his bed yesterday. She had moved them from their old upstairs bedroom, to the big downstairs room that Joan used to have; and set up two beds that they had used when Rebeccah was young and Ethan was a toddler. Now Ethan is 11 and weighs 65 kilos (that's about 145 lbs for those in backward countries, and some of his dad's family in the US go through doors sideways -- AND his eventual height will be about 6ft5in). So the rather flimsy bed side split and deposited him on the floor, and the next step is to bring down the existing bed from upstairs. BUT it is a built-in bunk affair which is nailed on the wall...

I dropped Joan with some tools at 10.45 am to survey the problem, while I went into town for an appointment with my dermatologist. He looked at my solar keratoses, and gave me a prescription for a cream which will munch away at the damaged cells. Keratosis is a pre-cursor of skin cancer, and if left untreated, may develop into one -- so it's treatment time. Problem is, there is a world-wide shortage of this cream due to manufacturing difficulties and it won't be available until the end of August. I returned to Lisa Crescent and surveyed the bedroom carnage. The ladies had unscrewed all they could, but what was left required more Tools -- this is a job for Handy Man who leaps tall sawhorses with a single bound.

So I went back home and loaded the C-RV up with toolboxes, saws etc and returned. The removal of the boards nailed to the wall was accomplished without too much trouble, and we carted everything downstairs. The first problem was that I had to reverse the bed orientation: head on the left instead of head on the right. That meant sawing the skirting board to allow the base end to nail flat to the wall, and a certain amount of sawing bits off the other base supports to clear the skirting on the long side. Then we got it all nailed/screwed together, and Ethan, even as I write, is snuggled up in it snoring his head off. Just got to finish it all off tomorrow.

Thursday, July 12, 2001

Another good frost this morning; the air temperature at 8 am was -3 degC, so the ground temp. must have been a couple of degrees lower. Joan is complaining about frost damage in the less-protected parts of the garden; several plants are ailing. I drove Joan over to Lisa Cresc at 10.30 am, and returned to get my scanning jobs under way.

The first was quick: only involved scanning four prints, so I finished that in short order. Then came the pile of 35mm trannies in strips of 6. That meant digging out the strip carrier for the Nikon LS1000, and fiddling with each strip to get it straight and lined up with the holes in the holder before locking it down. About a quarter of the strips (all client-supplied, I hasten to add) looked as if they has been dropped on the floor and ground in with a heel, so I was busy cloning out scratches and crud. If the frame is clean, I can manage about 16 scans per hour; but cleaning up the dirty ones takes time. I wasn't too fussy, as these images will be used on the client's website -- but experience teaches me that if I ignore the dirt, these images will be picked by the client to go into an ad or brochure.

Joan came back in from town, and I stopped for lunch (left-over sausages with cheese on toast...). We then went back over to Joanna to finish the Bed Job. I had to butcher the legs off one of the bed-ends, as it had to be screwed on the wall at the head of the bed. Then I found I had no more really long screws, so we drove off to the local hardware emporium to collect those, and also some turned wooden plugs to cover up the screws. Back to the house; the bed-ends were attached, and a long board to contain the mattress glued and screwed to the side. All I need to do now is bring the appropriate drill to counterbore the screwholes and fit the plugs. THEN we start on Eli's bed and repeat the whole exercise -- at least I know what we're doing this time!

Back home at 4 pm and another two hour's scanning before tea is announced. A fourth hour during the evening, and that leaves me another hour's work in the morning. I've just counted the job sheet: I've scanned 49 frames in those four hours, so I've dropped to 12 per hour due to the extra work. Isn't it fun being retired! <grin>

The email dialogue with Gary on digital camera continues; I've had to break it up into separate threads for intelligibility.

Friday, July 13, 2001

Another frosty morning -- how 'bout I swap some cold air for some warm stuff from North America??

I managed to get the balance of the scanning done -- about 70 scans all up. There was about 300 MB worth, so dropped them onto a CD-R to give to Don.

Joan vanished into town to help Joanna shop, then phoned me at 12 to come and pick her up. We went on to the Library for a book recharge, picked up some pies for lunch, then drove home. After lunch, I tackled some deferred maintenance: the outside tap by the garage door has been dribbling badly. I shut off the water, removed the tap body and tried smoothing the valve seat with a reseating tool, but the corrosion had gone too deep for that. So back to the plumbing supplies place to buy a new tap, return, and fit. Problem sorted.

Back in the office driver's seat, I realised that my ethernet performance between Milly and Sissy was pathetic. I had fiddled with the network setting, changing from half to full duplex -- didn't find any difference -- changed it back to half. So I thought I must have munged a setting in the network bowels somewhere, and first tried removing and installing the NICs in both boxes -- no change. Finally I remembered something: I have an ad-blocking proxy server called Naviscope running on Sissy, and yesterday had been fiddling with settings in its config. I looked, and sure enough, in a moment of madness I had checked a box that said "Optimise MTU/ RWin settings". Now I KNOW I shouldn't have fiddled with this when I am using a TCP/IP network BUT... Anyway, I click on <Use Default Windows Settings>, and presto: files are transferring at their accustomed speed.

After tea, I set about getting the Mac G3 Powerbook to talk to the HP Laserjet which is hooked into Milly. I eventually succeeded with the aid of a crafty program called Dave, which allowed me to see the MS network, select Milly, and select HP (which I have set to share). I then opened up a document, clicked on Print -- and nothing appeared to be happening. Ah, but the ways of Apple are indeed inscrutible. It was doing a print spool thing and getting all its ducks in a row, before eventually talking down the network to Milly and booting the HP into life. Being used to Windoze energising the printer almost immediately, this was another culture shock to endure. But at least I can now print from the Mac. Oh yes, I *know* that I can get a nifty device to directly connect the HP to the ethernet -- but a suitable model such as the D-Link DP101 costs $NZ 354 (about $US145) which doesn't seem to be very cost-effective. Considering I don't anticipate a lot of printing happening from the Mac. Actually, for that sort of money I could probably get a Mac-compatible inkjet printer.

Saturday, July 14, 2001

No white frost this morning, but the air temperature at 9 am was 3 degC. No sun either, so it really didn't warm up much all day. Not that it worried us much -- we had an inside day and the heaters kept things cozy inside. My upstairs heat pump is very good; it cuts in every now and then and keeps an even temperature.

Consequently, little of interest technically happening today. I busied myself assembling the various piles of tax records to go into archive boxes; did some surfing, and caught up with Daynoters and Bloggers. I also did some drive maintenance on Sissy: the usual defragging, and also took a drive image as I realised I hadn't taken one since before we went away.

Spent most of the afternoon reading: found Elizabeth Moon's Once a Hero at the local Library -- which is third book in a series. Good standard space opera, and well-written; recommended, and I'll make sure to get this series. She also has some fantasy stuff to keep an eye out for as well.

Sunday, July 15, 2001

No frost this morning, either -- in fact, it rained briefly about 8 am befoe we arose. A leisurely breakfast before ascending to the 'engine room' for some Daynoters and Bloggers. The sun came out about 11 am, so suddenly decided that this would be a good time to wash the car. Now this is something I undertake only twice a year -- I don't waste time pampering my vehicle. But 'Er Indoors has been complaining about getting clothing dirty from vehicular contact, so it was time to act. At least the chore is more tolerable in these days of water blasters. A good spray down, and I fit the little bottle/nozzle which sprays the car with detergent. I've long since exhausted the bottle that came with the water blaster, so these days I use a detergent which has wax in it. This gets a good foam up; I go over the paintwork with a car washing brush (but not on the hose), then give the car another blast to finish. All that remains is to vacuum out the interior.

Rebeccah and her friend Caroline arrived after lunch to assist in completing their telescope -- after all they are supposed to be doing the work. But I had done all the tricky bits for them like putting the eyepiece together, and basically all we had to do was try a test assembly before gluing stuff in place. I have to make them a simple wooden cradle with clamps, that will screw on a camera tripod; and then they can do some observing. Probably all they will be able to do is look at moon craters; I doubt whether it will resolve the moons of Jupiter -- but one never knows. We are waiting for the next clear night. The last job was to sit down with them and make them do an outline of the whole project -- then they have to write up a log book from it. I shot digital photos through the operation, so they will have a series of construction stages to diaplay.

We drove into town for Joan to pick up a large plant bowl from The Warehouse (this is a NZ chain selling cheapo products, bit like a KMart); we also stopped at a supermarket on the way home for milk and supplies. So that's the day, that was.