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Monday, April 8, 2002

A long sleep for both of us, but up and out for a walk at 9.15 am. Joan's neice Deirdre dropped in for morning coffee at 10 am, and I managed to get some office work done before lunch. In the afternoon, we drove into town to pick up bits and pieces. My venerable Makita 9.6 volt cordless drill had stopped working on Saturday, and it appeared the battery had failed. I was not amused, as it was only just three years old and had cost $NZ130. The original battery had lasted about 11 years. I was staggered to find that the cost of a replacement battery was now over $150; and the salesman pointed out that for $300 he could supply TWO Hitachi 12 volt batteries plus charger -- and a free drill to go with them. So I weakened and bought it; on the basis that I could buy a new battery for the Makita, and have the drill crap out on me; after all, it had done a LOT of work over the years.

When we got back home, I put the new batteries on charge; and on an impulse, shoved the battery back into the Makita, still no joy, then remembered I had pressed the reset button on Saturday to no avail. Pressed it again (with the help of a stick, as it was recessed) -- and the drill burst into life. I concluded that we had badly over-stressed it, and heated it up to the point where the reset button wouldn't reset. The drill subsequently cooled down, and a further reset did the trick. So, now I have TWO good cordless drills, which can be real handy at times -- drill bit in one, and screwdriver in the other. Are you listening, Mr Dominik?, as I gather from his recent Daynotes, that DIY really stands for Dominik It Yourself. My only question is: should I have looked up the non-functioning drill symptoms in the Microsoft Knowledge Base?

My laptop client came in to collect her gear; she was delighted to get the Backpack tape drive plus tapes for half of what it would have cost her for an external Zip drive.

Tuesday, April 9, 2002

Jon Dominik replies:

Did Microsoft buy Makita? Reset button on a DRILL? Good grief. It's true. Microsoft WILL rule the world one day...
Actually, I'm jealous. I've been working all weekend with just one drill, corded, in the garage. I've often passed the cordless drills in Home Depot and ... well, drooled over them. I've a friend who has sworn me to never purchase anything less than the 12v version, though 14.4 is better

Joan, Joanna, Deirdre, and three boys went off to Taupo for the day. Joan was meeting with an old Wanganui friend who is now in his 80s, so the others went for a nice day out. The weather was fine and warm; a good time was had by all, and they were back by 4 pm.

I worked on web stuff for most of the day. Don needed a CDRom burned, with all the files I had on backup for a particular client -- this is the beauty of having a continuity of backups. He came for lunch -- a chance to get out of the office -- and we were able to talk about web site stuff and business. Russell dropped in to pick up a missing power cord, and that was all the excitement for the day. I'm going to head off to bed soon, and watch the Queen Mother's funeral on the bedroom TV.

Wednesday, April 10, 2002

Another reasonable day. The temperature was about 17 degC; but the ground temperature must be dropping, as the grass seed that Joan sowed over the last couple of weeks has not germinated. There has been plenty of rain, so it's not lack of moisture.

We went out for a 50 minute walk this morning -- following the roads round in a circle and coming back through the park. See the map and pix. It was a very pleasant walk in the morning sun, and as we now have only four weeks to get fit for touristing, we'll be doing a lot more.

Joan went off to town in the bus after lunch, and left me to complete the roof guttering on the new shed. I also applied more silicone sealer to some of the panel top edges which didn't end up tight with the roof. Following that, I ran the mower over the lawns to keep them tidy; not much more grass growth to be had before the winter sets in.

Thursday, April 11, 2002

Back onto the shed this morning. We went down to Benchmark, our local hardware & timber outlet to get 400 mm MDF planks to make the shelving; also galvanised coach bolts to fasten the latch securely. I set up outside with my cut-off saw, and chopped 20 x 20mm strips into lengths for shelf supports.

After lunch, I got the strips all screwed into place, then broke the planks down into 900mm lengths for the shelving. With my usual precision, I somehow managed to get one plank less than I needed, so that will mean another trip -- unless I find some scrap which will do the job. I put another coat of stain on the shed front, and that was the day's work finished.

To one side of the shed, we have a drain grate set into the pavers. The last heavy rain we had, I was checking to see if accumulated water had reached the shed; it had indeed (and was 10mm up the shed support), and I realised that the soak pit must be in need of attention. There is also another soak pit at the rear of the house which needs digging up, so phoned my friendly plumber. He will check the job next week and get his labourer to do the heavy work of lifting the pavers and excavating the pits. They're probably filled with mud.

Friday, April 12, 2002

A good run of office work this morning; Deirdre popped at coffee time to collect some clothes that Joan had altered for her, before heading back to Auckland and home.

After lunch, it was back outside to finish the shed. I applied more stain, then we sorted out the shambles in the adjacent potting shed (where all the stuff from the old shed had been dumped). Pails of paint were stowed away under the new shelves, and I managed to get cartons of cameras out of the garage and into place. We then worked on the potting shed; I hammered lots of galvanised nails into wood, to hang up all sorts of garden stuff. By the time we finished, things were back to a reasonable state -- and more important, everything was accessible.

Joanna and the children came over at 6 pm for Chinese takeaways -- we have a small suburban shop not far away which produces excellent food. Don has 'gone bush' overnight; taken his tent and sleeping bag and is having a night out on his own -- very therapeutic for him. He's supposed to be hunting, but I suspect he just points his finger and says "BANG".

Saturday, April 13, 2002

The anticyclone is still with us; a bit of scattered cloud in the morning which left us with lots of sun round the edges. Joan vanished outside to spray weeds with weedkiller, and roses with antifungal solution. A chemical warfare initiative.

I laboured inside on the Asthma Society newsletter; not many problems with this, as I have trained the contributor in the art of using MSWord to prepare the text. He then emails it to me as an attachment, and I cut'n'paste the text into the Ventura template. This also transfers the bold/italic attributes, so I have little to do other than flow the text into appropriate frames and add some clip art. Anyway, that was printed and put into an envelope to post down for proofing.

After lunch, we drove into town to post the mail, and to call into our purveyor of cheap junk, otherwise known as The Warehouse. One of our across-the-road neighbours had just rushed in to inform Joan that she had bought a garden swing seat reduced to $NZ50. Alas, they had all gone by the time we got there. Back home, I spent some time in the garage catching up on jobs; Joanna has been waiting patiently for me to cut four tiles to fit the curve of her new bathroom wash basin. I have a blade for my jigsaw which is coated with tungsten carbide granules -- this makes short work of cutting these soft wall tiles.

This evening I have punched and bound 19 copies of the family genealogy book I have published. It took me about an hour and a half; another job out of the way.

Sunday, April 14, 2002

After doing the morning email, I went down to the garage to continue my clean-up. We had amassed a reasonably large pile of junk by now -- an old garden fork with a broken handle, empty cartons, styrofoam packing, old paint tins etc etc. I loaded it into the car and we drove over to the rubbish tip. This is several km out of town, and we don't need to go there very often; our normal garden rubbish is put into a 44-gallon drum with lid, and this is emptied once a fortnight.

On return, I swept and washed over the garage floor, and tidied up the workbench somewhat. Later in the afternoon, our neighbour with an old ute (pickup truck to you US citizens) showed up, and we were able to load the old metal garden shed on the back, to take over to Lisa Crescent for Joanna's use.

A quiet evening, as I am rather tired after the week's work; a little computering, and I'm off to bed to catch up on some reading.