thebaldgeek

We are back from the Feast of Tabernacles. (Lev 23:33->43).
This year we went to Bright again. While we been there quite a few times we never seem to tire of it. It is a beautiful little town and well suited to our 10 or so day stay.

The sound system went very well this year. We used the speakers in the hall this year which saved on the set up a bit. The sound was a lot more even using them as there is 4 of them and they are nice and high, so there are no dead spots.
They are not up to dance music however, so for that we used my amp and large speakers from the basement. I did not take the subwoofer this year, rather I just relied on the 12” woofers in the bottom of the speaker bins, I’m glad to say it worked a treat. There was plenty of base for dancing and good volume. I ran about 70w average (according to the power meter on the amp) and the speakers took it all and had head room to spare.
The VOIP hookup also went very smooth. The only real hassle is the hooking up to allow people in the hall to talk with those on line. I will have to look at a better way to arrange that next year.
The lights worked well, we have that down pat now. The flowers look great with the lights on them. Got one ‘complaint’ from one of the pianists that the light made it hard for them to read their sheet music. I may try putting the light higher next year, but am worried that it will cause long shadows over their face. See what we come up with……

Pulled up well after the snowboarding. Really well in fact. Perhaps it had something to do with the fact that we only had 3 runs….. Terry has got onto this Freeboard thing, it sure looks like snowboard on wheels. Given the price of going to the snow, this might be a cheaper way to get the feel of snowboarding in a more temperate climate, ie out the front of our house!

Soon as Terry has a day off school we are keen to ride to Gellong and look for a harness for use on the kite. We need to take the stress off our arms, and get better set up for moving to a land board or buggy.

Yikes, bit of a longish blog, better get moving!

I will probably reget it tomorrow, but we went snowboarding with Terry this afternoon…….

It was a lot of fun. We took a tour bus up to Falls Creek. The weather was hopless, and the snow was more ice than powder, but it was nice to get up there with Terry.
We both got a lot better at it by the end. He would like to do more of it, but I am waiting till tomorrow before I decide if Im going to have another bash at it or not. (I last went 4 years ago, and was peretty stiff and sore for 3-4 days after!)
We have a few photos on Freddys phone, so they will have to wait till we get home and can get them off (I have no idea how I am going to get them off…..but Im sure we will figure it out).

I know some insist that skis are the only way to go downhill, but the old snowboard is a whole bunch of fun for me and the boy.

The plane we were suposed to catch from LAX was declared out of service, so they had to fly a different Jumbo down from San Francisco….so, we had a nice little 3.5 hour delay while they did that. We ended up taking off at about 1.30am.
The flight was not all that smooth, lots of little jolts, not as bad as our flight over in 2004, but not as smooth as the flight over last month.
It was about 2 hours too long for Amy and I, we both got very quezzy at the end, we found that if you look at the side window with your eyes shut, the head does not spin quite as much on landing and take off as sitting looking forward, that helped, and the ginger tablets are fantastic as well!
There was a 45 min delay for some reason when leaving Sydney….anyway, the nice result of all that was that we only had to wait about 15 min for the shuttle bus at the airport instead of the 2.5hours we were expecting…..so for once the delays worked out (could have done with the wait in Melboune instead of the LAX floor!)

The dog was VERY excited to see us all, I think she really missed us, she did not settle down for hours!
The house was in very good condition, the house sitter did a great job, the car is filthy!, the garden needs a tweak, and the lawns are not too bad, so all in all, things survived the time away, which is great. Really appreciate Milly and Brian taking care of things for us.

The bike started first hit, so that was great, it was nice to ride it again……really, really nice, I missed it more than I realized!

So, in conclusion? Was an interesting trip, there are some really neat things to come out of it that I will talk more about when the time is right. We saw a lot, we drove a lot, we talked a lot, we got very little sleep, Freddy is on the mend, Amy is borderline with the throat thing, Terry is a little jet lagged, but we are all really glad that we did it.
I am looking at either getting an online photo thing working, or doing a web page or two with some of the photos we took on it, probably do the web page thing as its quicker for me….. so hang on for that some time soonish.

Thanks for your comments, support and following along, it was an eventful trip!

Chow for now,

Ben, Freddy, Amy, Terry and Cassie.

We had a very enjoyable afternoon tea and dinner yesterday…… It was about the most peaceful and relaxing day we have had since we got here. The kids got to hang with Brittany in the evening and went to see a movie (Which one, I just forget).
The only downer of the day was that we spent some time trying to chase down the new Leatherman Charge TTi, and did not find anyone with one in stock, so, again it was pretty disappointing, it seems that more and more stores are moving to online only, not sure what people like me are going to do….. Im sure I am not alone in wanting to hold, or try on what I am going to buy.
Its raining here at the moment, the first time in a long time according to the locals. I don’t know how much we have had, but its nice and peaceful, just a nice steady shower…. weird thing is that 90% of the houses here do not have any guttering, so it all just runs straight off the roof and chews out the gardens that are around the house. Also I have seen very few water tanks on houses.

Today is packing day. We have the large shoe collection to pack and a few extra clothes that we have picked up from here and there.

So thats about that. We will spend the day just kicking back having a holiday with Jason and Brittany. I will mess with the Linux laptop that I bought them for their webcam, hope I can get the wireless card going, it has not been a case of plug and play, so thats annoying, but somewhat typical of Linux…….

Chow for now from the US of A.

Ben.