thebaldgeek

Its been a busy few days. We have had a bit of a chance to relax, but we have also been a little busy looking at different things.

Thanks to Dan we have the weather back up and running. Turns out that it was one of the two 8 port network cards in my main HP switch had failed. Go figure, that has never happen before and should not have happen at all…. Anyway, I am not going to retract my first statement that the Windows computer had crashed, it was probably the OS that caused the card to crash…… yeah, Hi Gary!

We have a special church dinner tonight, then church tomorrow, then the next day we fly to Dallas, so its not long now till we see some very different country. Looking forward to seeing my Uncle and Aunts house and spending some time with them. We were due to have dinner with their son and his family, but they have come down with a pretty nasty bug, so they are going to miss the dinner, which is a real shame, but it sounds pretty contaigius, so we are glad they are not spreading it around.

Still need to get a photo of the car, the sad thing is that we have hardly taken any photos, not a lot to do in that regard…. I must get some of the car soon though, we may not get the same sort of car when we get back.

Well, thats about it. Thanks again Dan for fixing up the home network.

Chow for now,

Ben.

We are just back from a great day and a half at Opto22. Was really good to catch up with all the regulars, and to spend some time with Bryce and get to know each other better.

The traffic there and back was Ok, guess you can get used to it.

This afternoon we went to the Pasadena Brewery, It has about 400 hundred beers from all over the world, one guess what they had from Australia….yeah, the only non beer we make, Fosters! Never mind, in honor of my good friend Dan, I had a Canadian beer called Mooshead, it was Ok, not as good as the other I had that I totally forget, It was really nice!

After that, we went to a friends house for dinner.

Thats about it, I guess I need to add that I should listen to Gary and Dan, my Windows PC at home has crashed, and the house/dog sitter cant reboot it, so the weather is down until we get some thing arranged….yeah, well, not a lot I can do!
Chow for now.

Well, we have been here a day and a half, I would have said so sooner, but Jasons (the friends we are staying at) ADSL modem died the morning before we got here, we tried all the usual stuff to get it going, but it was dead, so we went and bought a new one today, and have it all set up and working (except for the wireless stuff, but we hope to get that going tomorrow)….
Anyway, we had a great flight and it was really smooth, so we are really happy about that. The ginger tablets really helped a great deal as well.
It took about 3 hours to get our luggage and clear customs, the first check, the passport one, it only took about 3 minutes….go figure
We booked the rental car weeks ago, asking for a mid-sized 4 door, we got a 2 door sports car. The kids are ticked, but Freddy loves it, it has electric seat heaters, and I like because it looks pretty nice…..goes like a slug, but looks nice!

Went to a local collage today and looked at their Opto22 stuff, was very interesting, have not seen to many other Opto22 systems, so was great to see some other systems.

The kids have settled in pretty quick, they have some new games for their GameBoys, we bought them 2nd hand, pretty cheap. We have been looking for some shoes, found some nice stuff, but have not bought any yet, still time. (No Dave, your shoes and hat has not arrived yet, any day now Im sure).

The GPS works, we have used a few times to go to and from a few places, I really need to buy the mount for it, its a pain just prop’ed on the dash of my Pontiac G6 sports car (photo soon).

Freddy is doing well, she is really enjoying her time with Brittany.

We went and fixed Brittany’s Moms car this arvo, she was broken down on the side of the road, it was a vacuum hose, it had blown off an intake, we could not find it, so we used the gum that Amy was chewing, it got her home, and she was so appreciative of our help.

Tomorrow we are taking the kids to their friends place and dropping them off for a few days, then duno what for the afternoon, I’m sure the girls are thinking some shopping would work for them. Then we are going to get home and chill out with Jason, he has some stout for me to try and we have a movie we want to watch (Better than sex) while the kids are not around (see my movie reviews).

Speaking of movies, all the ones on the plane trip over were duds. Man of the year, A good year, happy feet and casino royall…..I will do some mini reviews some time…..or not…

Ok, really got to get to sleep, its 11:45pm here, and 4:45pm where most of yous are, and my body is telling me its about 2am, so Im off.

Chow for now.

Well, we are up, showered, dressed, fed and packed, so, I guess that means we are ready to
go!
Freddys sister is picking us up and taking us to Ballarat Airport, from there we take the
shuttle bus to the airport.
A few hours milling around in lines while we check in, and get on board, short hop and
“lunch” in Sydney, then the fun really starts….
Makes me wish I had an MP3 player that took real batteries like the kids, I was planing on
making a “C” cell recharger for mine, but 2 weeks on my back meant that I did not get time.
So, I know I only have about 5 hours music, I have to save it for when we need it….I suppose
I can listen to the kids collection, some of its ok……Blah, we will suffer though it.

Hope your all well, thinking of yas (Well, some of yas!)

Ben, Freddy, Amy, and Terry (and lonely Cassie the dog)

P.S BenL, no, we are not stopping, best I can do is wave as we go over, looking forward to
catching up when we get back, I wana hear what you have been up and what you are doing
now, you will love to hear that we only just this week got a *real* Opto to web page interface
going!
JoeB, thanks for a great night Saturday night!
MattB thanks for reminding me about the spark plug boots, had totally forgot!
TerryD can you please email me Ruths email address please. Thanks.