For new readers: welcome to my day journal — of sundry activities and rambling thoughts. There's a mixture of techie stuff and personal doings, so just read the bits you're interested in ;-]
You'll find previous Kronikles in the ARCHIVE if you want to catch up.
For interesting links which change every week, look at my Home Page for Life in NZ and Nice Ones.

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Monday, March 25, 2002

A good night's sleep, untroubled by noise or distant music. Aftrer breakfast, Joan disappeared off with Joanna to shop for some fabric. I did the usual round of emails, until Russell arrived at 11 am to collect his resurrected computer. He was delighted with the results of my labours, and I'm sure his grandchildren will be pleased too.

We drove into town at 1.30 pm to back a couple of cheques and visit the travel agent. She needed our passports to enter them on their computer system, as they had had an upgrade and our past records were not carried over. We now have all our tickets, and will be making a final decision on travels around Britain and Ireland, in the time slots where I have allowed some latitude. I'll then be able to write or email to the various people we're calling in on.

My web stats file has some intriguing search phrases as usual: "Where does astronauts waste go to?"; "women laptop beach photos"; and a rather enigmatic request: "wheight lifting". Now, does that one request increased weight or height?

Tuesday, March 26, 2002

A busy, busy day for me. Don brought in a newsletter done in CorelDraw to be dissected, and the content put on the client's web site. I worked on this, off and on, for a large part of the day and got it mostly finished. One sticking point was a fancy javascript menu bar with cascading menu items; I needed to add the latest newsletter link to the menu. This had been coded by Chris, our absent Uni lad, and although I could see how it was done, my addition didn't add. So hopefully, Don will know what needs to be corrected.

I picked up Joan from Don's office, where she had been doing filing, at 2 pm to go to the Library. Unfortunately, she hadn't put the books into the car -- and I hadn't checked. We had to get them renewed instead; we also got some book tapes for our car trip. We then went over to the hair salon for a cut. This accomplished, we called into the supermarket for supplies and then out to a local school to take two photos of broken signs for Don to give to the signwriter.

I did further work on the newsletter before tea, then Don dropped in a whole lot more urgent stuff: a bunch of prints to be scanned and processed which were needed urgently first thing in the morning. He also emailed me more updates for our politician's site. It turns out that Don has, at the moment, 35 jobs stacked up -- no wonder he is in a perpetual panic.

All the things I was going to do this evening before we go away, have had to be put aside until the morning. So I think I'll just have some supper and crawl off into bed.

Wednesday, March 27, 2002

I had quite a lot to catch up with this morning before we could pack the car and leave; transferring web sites to Ace the laptop; then packing the clothes that Joan had left me to find for myself. Stuff like that, which always seems to be done at the last minute -- instead of a leisurely approach.

Anyway, we managed to get away at 11 am; stopped at Taupo for a KFC lunch; then a clear drive down to Wanganui, arriving at 3.45 pm. Checked into the motel, found a petrol station to fill up the car, visited Eris (Joan's cousin) then back to the motel. I used some time to send a group email to the Rotorua Camera Club members, reminding them of the next meeting on 3rd April. Eris walked around to the motel at 6 pm, and we took her to a Chinese restaurant. Chicken and corn soup, sweet & sour pork, and crispy chicken -- delicious as always.

Back to the motel for a freshen-up, before walking a 100 metres to the Wanganui Camera Club meeting. I was the main attraction for the evening, giving my assessment of their prints and slides. It was great to catch up with old friends -- and also great to see lots of new faces, which meant that the club was doing well.

Back to the motel for supper, and to compose and upload these Kronikles.

Thursday, March 28, 2002

We were packed and away from the motel by 9.30 am; picked up some ceramic tile pieces that Joan had left behind at Eris' place, and went on our way to Wellington. We stopped for coffee and some food on the way, and stopped again at Otaki for Joan to look round a couple of factory shops. We arrived in Wellington about 2 pm; parked the car in Sue's apartment parking; unloaded the car and took our stuff upstairs to the apartment.

We had a quick drink, and walked down to the shopping streets. Joan wanted to look at shoes, and I went to Dymocks bookshop to look for something on Cascading Style Sheets. I ended up with a CSS book, and another on Javascript; these should keep me busy for a while. We met up at 3.30 pm and walked back to the apartment. I stopped off to visit an art supply shop where I had bought a bevel matt cutting board and 45 deg cutter last year. I had decided to get the 90 deg cutter, as they had been unable to supply this when I bought the original gear.

We had a little while to wait before Sue showed up after 5.30 pm. Joan, Sue and Jeremy went off to the supermarket for supplies, and left me at my laptop. I cleared my email and found a couple of news releases for the political site I'm maintaining. I did the pages, uploaded them, and by then the others were back.

We've been watching TV this evening, and now off to bed.

Friday, March 29, 2002

We rose leisurely; it being Good Friday, there were no shops open to visit. I set myself up on the table with my laptop, and started in on this Cascading Style sheets stuff. I have to look at the HTML styles I have set up in Dreamweaver, and see which will be converted over to the stylesheet.

In the mid-afternoon, Joan and I drove over to Seatoun to visit her friend Joannie (who lives just round the corner from Peter Jackson, for those interested). After we came back to the apartment, I started in on my web site files, doing the CSS thing. It will be a while before viewers see much difference, as I have to alter a lot of code.

We had roast pork and veg for tea, and watched some video afterwards until bed.

Saturday, March 30, 2002

This morning was a working morning: Sue had a whole lot of stuff to go to the rubbish tip. Chief item was an old king-size rubber mattress, but there was a ton of things for recycling as well. We got the mattress up on the CR-V's roof rack, dropped a seat, and loaded all the junk inside. The tip was some distance away over the Karori Hill, and I was rather impressed by the facility. There was a long concrete trough under a covering roof, with a sealed area in front of it, and I backed the CR-V up to the lip. The rubbish went over the edge, where it was periodically gathered by a bulldozer and taken away to the actual tip area. Certainly beats wading through mud, like most of our NZ tips.

We returned back to the apartment, then walked about half a mile to have lunch at a cafe. There was a large food market across the road, where we bought a heap of sausages and things for dinner. Back to the apartment again, then out in the car to go to a large pet supplies shop. We bought a good-sized carry-cage for Missy the cat, an electric heating pad for the winter, a cat flap to go in the laundry door, and a tray with lip to hold kitty litter. That means we're all set to pick Missy up on the was back from Auckland, after we return from the UK. We drive right past the door, so it seemed silly not to pick up the cat, and then have to drive an hour there and back later. It was good to have a large range of things like cages to pick from -- the stock in Rotorua would have been severely limited in range and price.

Our sausage and colcannon mash was delicious; Jeremy and Joan went to the liquor shop next door and came back with Irish beer for themselves, and some passible cider for Sue and I. A really good dinner <grin>.

Sunday, March 31, 2002

We were up at 8 am, moving very quietly so as not to wake Sue and Jeremy; but Sue came out and we sat and talked over breakfast. We continued talking and chatting until about 10 am; got ourselves organised and the suitcases down to the car. We also brought home a leadlight stained glass window, that Sue had taken out because it really didn't go with her more modern decor. It's quite large, about 4 ft X 3 ft, and we have a blank wall in the lounge where we want to put a window anyway.

We had a good drive home; there was a cold front moving up the island that we kept driving through. I would drive faster than it was moving, but somehow it would sneak up from the west and dump more heavy rain on us. On the way, I was waiting for Joan to return to the car after a comfort stop, and fired up the WAP news on my cellphone. It was sad to read that the Queen Mother has passed on; not entirely unexpected, but a bit shattering to read it scrolling up on my phone screen.

We arrived home about 6.30 pm, dug a shepherd's pie out of the freezer for defrosting and eating. There was a doco on the Queen Mother after the news, which we watched. Truly a remarkable woman, who made an enormous contribution to Britain, the old Empire, and the Commonwealth. Sadly missed -- certainly by my generation, anyway. Ave, atque vale.