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Monday, October 29, 2001

We had another night of heavy rain, followed by high winds during the day -- well, high for us, anyway.

After morning emails, I resumed clearing the camera cabinets in the office and winnowing out the junk. Joan went to town with Joanna and left me to microwave some luncheon soup. I was just getting into the clearing job again, when Russell stopped by to go over his proposed digital photo competiton entry form. We mulled over the problems of doing a form in Dreamweaver -- but not having a site to link to for the form. Finally, we came back to the simplest solution: attach an .rtf file to the emails going out with the order form for the entrant to print and post with his money. The images will still be emailed separately, then married to the entry form by number.

I had another long fiddle with WinXP: I cannot get any joy from the printer, and I cannot access my network. I checked with Millennium Computers, who advised getting the latest HP drivers, and an update for the network card, as WinXP drivers leave something to be desired. I did this, with no change -- and as I had wasted far too much time already, I did a Drive Image of the WinXP partition, deleted it, and restored Win98SE for the meantime. I'll get back to WinXP at a later stage.

Tuesday, October 30, 2001

Went over to Lisa Crescent to finish sorting out Joanna's oven. Messed around for a while getting the packers lining up with the oven door surround -- only to discover that the rear of the oven had dropped in one corner. Pulled it right out; I found that the MDF board I had put in on the carcass bottom had split/delaminated and was dropping away from the screws. A couple of offcuts of 100 x 50mm fixed that; put the oven back into place, and of course now found that the packers had to be unscrewed and replaced in the previous positions...

All it needs now is a strip of wood along the edge of the bench to make it look nice. Just in time too, as Halloween is approaching fast. We must go out tomorrow and stock up on bribes for kids.

Spent the rest of the day practicing archaeology; that is, excavating my way down piles of paper and stuff in the office. Finding things I had forgotten I had. Finding things I didn't even know I had. But I'm winning -- slowly. Tonight I devoted time to the Camera Club newsletter which has to be finished in a day or so. I'll transfer an article on NiMH batteries onto the photo page for those interested.

Wednesday, October 31, 2001 - Halloween

The Honda CR-V had to go into the glass company to get a new windscreen, as a result of a bad stone chip coming back from Wanganui a couple of weekends ago. The roads in NZ are largely sealed with stone chips spread on hot bitumen and rolled. The chips are inclined to work loose and are sometimes fired at your car by the tyre of an on-coming vehicle. Although small (about pea-size) they are arriving at the combined velocity of the two cars, which could be as much as 200 kph (120 mph). They are also very jagged and have sharp edges and points -- as a result of being made from crushed stone. Consequently, windscreens are very vulnerable to stone damage - and the stone impact is like a pistol shot. Comprehensive car insurance allows for one 'free' windscreen replacement a year without affecting your no-claims status.

An alternative to replacement is to have the 'star' filled with liquid acrylic under pressure. This seals the cracking and acts as a barrier to water. This repair is not as good as it sounds; they won't do it if the star is near your line of vision because the plastic distorts quite a bit. I had the previous windscreen repaired as it had just been replaced when it was hit; but the star was right over on the passenger side and didn't cause any vision impairment.

Joanna dropped me back to collect the car at 2.45 pm, and we got some work done before having a sort of early tea. Then over to Lisa Crescent for Halloween; a little curtailed this year because the house is still in an upset from the alterations. However, the children got their costumes on as usual and there was a good representation from their respective school friends as well. Unfortunately, there was a prolonged shower of rain just at the time they all went off to Trick'n'Treat, so they were back fairly quickly. I didn't get any photos this year as I was reluctant to go out in the rain myself.

Back home at 8.45 pm; Joan settled down to watch TV while I completed the Camera Club Newsletter. I printed the masters, did the photocopying, folded and stapled. I only needed 20 copies, as the club membership is not the greatest at the moment.

Thursday, November 1, 2001

Into town this morning via our upholsterer to check fabric for the two old armchairs that Joan bought in Wellington earlier in the year. Then to the library and supermarket before returning home. I started on the spare bedroom, commonly referred to as the 'grot' room and engaged in more archaeology. All sorts of interesting material turning up from the heaps. I sorted through a pile of old mounted prints that I had done years ago, then binned most of them; also colour stuff I'd played around with in the 70's with rather disappointing results. I was interested in the fact, though, that in general the colour had remained reasonably stable over 20 years or so. One of the reasons could be that each colour print had been properly washed after processing; the practice these days is to use a bath of 'stabiliser' instead. Time will tell...

After TV tonight, we tackled a number of magazines of slides that had belonged to my late brother Bruce. He had passed them on to me a couple of years ago after a clean-out, and I had not got round to looking at them. They were fascinating: he had done a world trip in 1974 after early retirement from accountancy at the age of 50 due to health problems. He had travelled with a pack on his back -- long before the term 'backpacker' came into use. The travel slides were of the USA, London, Rome, Athens, Singapore, Hong Kong and Australia. The last couple of drums were slides that he had taken over the years in the Tongariro National Park -- that's where our three active volcanoes are. He had been a keen skier, and had been a member of the Park Board for years, so had gone into most parts of it. Some great pix of the mountains erupting, with black mud flows over the white snow. I might put together a drum of the best shots and show them to the Camera Club one night.

Friday, November 2, 2001

The weather has been bad all week; last night the winds were bad enough to drop a few trees around the town. That means others were worse off ... Auckland had gusts of 140 km and roofs were damaged. Joan went off with Joanna into town -- she needs to decide on wallpaper and paint for her refurbished bathroom; and if your mother ran a decorating shop for years you want her to help. I carried on packing up cameras from my old collection. A man came from a second-hand furniture place to look at the display cabinets; I haven't heard from him at end of day, so am pessimistic about getting rid of them. They'll have to go down into the garage over the weekend, anyway.

Joan phoned me from town in the mid-afternoon to pick her up; we collected a piece of wooden trellis from the trellis maker that Joan needs for her latest rose, on the way home. I'll be putting that up tomorrow morning. Also this weekend, is the job of putting screws into the flooring to stop it squeaking when walked on. It was put down with gun staples originally, and these have probably worked a bit loose. the screws should fix that.

Saturday, November 3, 2001

Another day spent packing up stuff in the office. I didn't get the rose trellis installed, because it poured off and on for most of the day. I phoned the furniture man to check on whether he wanted the display cases; yes, he would -- and offered me a lot more than I feared I might get. They'll go down into the garage tomorrow, and he will pick them up --hopefully-- on Monday. I'll have to get the replacement shelving and cupboards early next week.

The only other exciting thing was a visit from Joan's cousin Reg, who brought her some salad seedlings. Reg is the principal of a primary school a couple of miles away from us; we had a long and stimulating conversation about children and education and stuff. We don't see each other very often as both households are always busy -- but it's always very pleasant to talk intelligently with someone.

Sunday, November 4, 2001

A hard night's day, as Paul McCartney might have said. Moving stuff about upstairs; removing the guest room beds; removing the old carpet (this is not very worn at all -- it will go to Joanna). Then attacking the floor board with long pozidrive screws by each nail. At last: success! The only noises now come from inside the walls, probably due to the wood framing moving when the weight is being re-distributed around the room.

After lunch, I seek the aid of Mick from across the road. We drive in his ute [US= pickup] to the store where my flatpack units are waiting, load them on, and return. Later in the afternoon, he returns to help me get the display units downstairs and round the house to the garage. These things are bloody heavy, and after the job is finished I collapse in a chair for a while to recover. I hope my arms are not too achey in bed tonight -- that's what usually happens after I do heavy lifting...

The carpet layers will be here first thing tomorrow to do the bedrooms; I'm going to upload this, then transfer the site files to my laptop; tomorrow night will be chaos as all the boxes will be disconnected and stacked ready for the carpet boys on Tuesday.