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Monday, September 10, 2001

A bit chaotic here today, as a couple of installers arrived from the aluminium window company to install the new kitchen window. This replaces the stupid conservatory window in front of the kitchen sink, which was too deep to clean without great contortions and served as an insect/fly trap. They had a few panics, as the house is clad in brick veneer and the new window was designed to fit flush to an outside surface. A lot of head-scratching and copious amounts of silicone sealer got it all fixed, and the kitchen staff much happier. There are two new shelves as well: one over the new window and one over the pantry opening, where fine china and knickknacks will probably end up.

All this took up a good deal of time, and I didn't get into town to take my book masters to be photocopied until 4 pm. I also had to call into our lawyer to get papers attested for Nana Clay's estate. So not a lot of useful work got done today; I used up a bit of time re-reading (for the umpteenth time) my 1st edition hardback copy of Frank Herbert's Dune -- this turned up in the clean-up at Lisa Cresc last week. As a matter of interest, I also have the original four issues of Analog which carry Dune as a serial. I have a reasonably complete run of Astounding/Analog from 1950- late 60s in the British Reprint Edition, and I really should get out a selection to try an auction on EBay. We started getting the American edition after the BRE became redundant, Like all pulps, they are slowly deteriorating with time and should go to a collector -- but who would want 600 copies or so in one big gulp? Should there be any reader interested in all or part, please mail me pronto <grin>

Tuesday, September 11, 2001

Out in the car after coffee this morning to collect repeat prescriptions for Joan, then into town to bank a cheque. Finally a call into the supermarket for essential supplies, then home. The rest of the day seems to have vanished -- in the Pournelle phrase, 'devoured by locusts'.

A belated Father's Day pressie arrived from daughter Sue -- belated mostly because of the vagaries of NZ Post. A paperback by George Martin: book one of a fantasy series which I am looking forward to reading. As you might guess, we share the same tastes in SF and fantasy; very useful when it comes to recommending reading.

Wednesday, September 12, 2001

A day of infamy, a day of sadness. I switched on my bedside radio at 7.45 am, to be shocked fully awake by a voice saying that 100 hospitals in the New York area were on full emergency alert to take casualties. I flicked on the bedroom TV and looked aghast at the video of planes crashing into the WTC. I spent the rest of the day and evening glued to the TV, surfing between CNN, CNBC (Australian edition), and the UK Sky News, as well as composite coverage from our local TV.

I left the TV, to clear email and check the Daynoters' reactions. Here's my comments, posted on Robert Thompson's discussion forum:

Interesting that President Bush was prepared to spend billions on anti-missile missiles; if the same money and effort had been put into things like armoured doors shutting off cockpits, and putting armed sky marshals on all planes -- then this tragedy might not have happened. Tom Clancy had it right when he said that the US has neglected putting more spy cops on the beat.

I've observed considerable laxity in airport security over the years. I know this is a result of not wanting to inconvenience people, but there have been years when I've had all my hand luggage searched, and other years when it's gone through the X-ray and out again before I even had time to walk through the loop and collect it. Now I really don't think it got a good looking over, as I have lots of camera stuff in my bag and some of it surely would look suspicious -- this I deduce because *sometimes* they stop the belt at my bag and have a long scan.

Another example: we were travelling from NZ to UK via LAX and were in the LAX transit lounge. This is separated from the main concourse by a glass wall with a sliding glass door -- which appeared to be slightly open. We were sitting looking at nothing in particular, when a woman quietly went up to the door and slipped through into the concourse and vanished. Next thing the airport security were looking at the door as it must have tripped an alarm. On our next trip this year, the door was securely bolted shut -- stable door?

Anyway, we in NZ send our sympathy and condolences to all those who have lost loved ones or are suffering. Many Kiwis live and work in New York, and a number of them would have been at their desks in the WTC.

Thursday, September 13, 2001

Got grabbed by the TV again this morning, and spent most of the day alternating between CNN, CNBC, and Sky News. For this sort of breaking history, I can spare the time. Joan vanished with Joanna again to help with her housework and decorating. I drove over in mid-afternoon to pick her up and collect a prescription (for myself this time), then back home.

More TV until tea, then I came upstairs to catch up on things like newsgroups and daynoters before bed. Oh well, I guess tomorrow will mean a more normal work day -- gotta be done some time.

Friday, September 14, 2001

Into town at 10 am. to meet Jo and Ethan, and Anne and Adam; the two boys had been taking an entrance test at Rotorua Intermediate School to facilitate their going into an accelerant class next year. We all had coffee together -- well, the boys had Coke -- then I went off to the computer shop to see if my Epson ink carts had come in. No luck yet; so I went down the road to the opposition and found they had one in stock. That will enable me to do some printing in the weekend. Picked up my family history book copying, then back home to get a bit of work done. After a rapid lunch, I went back into town, picked Joan up and went out to our hairdresser for me to get a close cut. I've got to put this nasty cream on for a couple of weeks, and I needed a clear run at my scalp.

Back home, it was hard to keep away from the TV -- but managed to get upstairs and assemble a book to see if the extra pages were still OK for the plastic binder. No problem; I could probably get a few more in, but it makes the pages hard to turn. Thankful to see that airport security managed to nail some more of the hijackers.

I spent some time on the 'Net doing research for Don. We have to provide a new corporate identity and look for our local Museum, and as always, the first job is to see what the rest of the world has done. It's always intriguing to see the wide spread of sites when I do this job. Now, I'm on broadband and get a reasonable speed, but it always seems that the sites with the most complicated graphics have the slowest servers, and they are all full of images which must be downloaded before anything is to be seen. I just clicked off a lot of these -- particularly when I could see there was little to attract me -- so all the designer's hard work went to naught because he was a bit too up himself to check his site on a slow connection. Why was it slow? Because of inadequate servers and a bad international pipe. There's one thing we've become painfully aware of: that if you put a site up, you are going to be international whether you like it or not; and a clean, fastloading page gets looked at more thoroughly than a slow, tarted-up one.

Saturday, September 15, 2001

Into town at 10 am; the weather wet and rather unpleasant. This was scheduled to be the 'Progressive Photo Shoot', which I had organised. By 10.15 am, only three other people had appeared, more rain was threatening, so we decided to postpone the shoot until a better day, and hopefully more members.

So we adjourned to our place, and spent the morning discussing the heap of prints I have on hand to assess for another Camera Club. It was a very useful session: for me, I got comments on things I might have overlooked -- and the others got the benefit of looking at prints without having their comments taken seriously. By that, I mean with full candour and not having to pussyfoot about in case a beginner gets put off. We also discussed me convening a Summer Photo School in the Christmas - New Year break. I've done this sort of thing in Wanganui some years ago, and everybody had a great time.

After lunch, I got hooked on CNN for a while, but managed to get some things done upstairs. Opened my mail to find a welcome advice that my income tax refund had gone into my bank account -- that certainly brightened the day! More ordinary TV this evening; one of my favourites is an English series about a roguish antique dealer called Lovejoy. Came out in the mid-80s, and is going down even better on the rerun.

Sunday, September 16, 2001

Worked steadily this morning assembling books -- 238 pages = 119 sheets of paper to be punched and assembled into a plastic binder. I managed to get 12 finished, so the back orders are now ready to post tomorrow. I guess the copies going to the USA will have some delay; the news is that planes with passengers will not have cargo put on them -- will that extend to mail?

My burglar alarm started showing a red 'trouble' light on the keypad yesterday; unfortunately I forgot about it until this morning. After phoning my alarm installer friend in Wanganui, I did the check that showed the backup battery was stuffed. Why unfortunately? Because it appears the alarm has been 'phoning home' every 15 minutes to tell the alarm monitoring company about the battery. That costs me 15c a call, so the phone bill will be rather inflated this time. The alarm company didn't ring me, because the code that the gear was sending had been linked to appear as an open/close code, rather than a bad battery. Feh. I pulled the power right off the unit to stop it. Then into town to DSE and purchase a new gel cell. I've had it on a proper battery charger, and will install it tomorrow morning.

Deirdre (Joan's niece) arrived late afternoon to bunk in with us while she does her sales round in the area. The family came over for dinner: Joan had cooked some ethnic American food: Boston pork and beans -- I am not greatly interested in these; probably the molasses is the problem. Fortunately there was a supply of proper sausages as well, so I didn't go hungry. Still keeping tabs on the USA situation at intervals during the day -- it's hard to tear oneself away from CNN and NBC with history going on live.