BBB rolls around again

Bookkeeping Business Boardroom that is. There is talk about only doing this Australia wide PB promotion and sales trip once per year. In the mean time, the 2nd trip this year is underway with the east coast cities done, while the south and the west are still to go.  The aim is for 30 new customers. 

Bookkeepers stamp of approval

Movin Movin

No huge furniture removals truck for us, just your average sized van with your average sized blokes, even a bit weedy into the bargain.  If you have downsized the pile then I guess you get downsized vans and blokes.  They repackaged these boxes into bigger boxes and off they went in less than 30  minutes. 

More time is spent arranging than loading the truck

Roll out the Green Carpet

Took a ride down to Williamstown for a warmish 40 km return trip. Along the way there was a crew renewing the green cycle lanes. I always thought this was a type of paint but they sweep the surface clean, roll on a layer of glue then shovel green glint onto the glue and spread it around before it drys out. They come back in a couple of hours and suck up the residue.  The beach had a few people, although a school group was hogging half  of it. I spied a potential snorkel location but you would want high tide.

How Green

Not many shelters

Gloucester Reserve

Bye Bye Yaris

This truck was invented for tow away zones.  A fully automated remote controlled tilt tray car remover.  No measuring, estimating, weighing or debating. In less than five minutes the car is driven on, tied down and out of sight.  There is one other step where it will be transferred to a car carrier then next stop QLD.

Death by Chocolate

I have seen some birthday cakes in my time but this creation by Sue Sandford goes to the top of the cake tree.  It is a Black Forest cake variation dotted with the smallest Mars Bars I have seen as well as Maltesers.  I did fit in a piece after the barbecue snaggs.

Every - month is Movember

62 Chocolates

Frame Update

These kinds of historical illustrated family trees never stay up to date for long. This latest iteration has a bit of expansion space and a number of newly updated photos as well as five new additions.  The layout may still change but the first version and the next are recorded here.

Original

Update - Who are the five additions?

NBN revisted

We have a need for speed, and as long as the network is up the speed is OK. Our problems are the drop outs.  We have just had all the connections retapped including one inside the house, three at a splitter on the outside of the house and one in the street.  I still haven't seen any fibre  in our part of the network.  Another call has been logged about a degraded signal in the street which may take some weeks to be followed up.  There are other things that can be done. Step 1 remove the second Foxtel Box. Step 2 remove the last Foxtel box and dedicate the wired network to the internet only.  Foxtel can then be accessed by installation of a satellite dish.

This pit has some corrosion from water seepage

Ride to Drysdale

Today we took the other direction along the rail trail to Drysdale. Its at least a year since we last went this way.  Some sections have asphalted down a gully, also there is a new accommodation block for bike riders just as you approach Drysdale.  There are at least two of these now as the bottleman lives next door to the one in Curlewis. The War memorial at Mannerim has been upgraded with plants and a couple of tables.  This was a bit of  wreck last time we saw it. We also ticked off  using the coffee truck at Drysdale Station.

Scotty -  Beersheba Cavalry Charge

Iced Coffee to go

Collendina Report No 4532

Not your average Vannin day although we did do some usual things like ride to Queenstown where we stopped for an iced coffee at the Queenscliff General Store which is actually out of Queenscliff.  But one of the unusual things were the dying bees which seem to crawl along the ground as a last option.  However when I went to grab my shirt off the sand I got stung by a bee in its last throes determined to go out with a bite.  But the best thing was a fully kitted up aquanaut which I have never seen in 17 yar of observing stuff on our beach just strolling past in his scuba tank and disappearing into the surf in front of us.  I spied him an hour later, emerging from the surf, so after accidently wandering into his path I saw the biggest crayfish I have ever seen cradled into both his arms. He wasn't stopping, I'm not sure if he was in a hurry because he had poached a cray.  I said whats out there, he said reefs, lots of them and disappeared up our stairs.  There is a reef about 1km further down which is viewable at low tide but he was much closer. 

Cray Man

Iced Coffee Jar

Collendina Report No 4531

We started off the day with more birthday celebrations at Jane Austen's tea rooms.  It's becoming a second home!  There was much discussion about the various houses that have been purchased recently.  Then we finished off the morning with a few travel films particularly around St Malo. It only took a split second to decide to pack a bag and head off to the van.  This may be our last chance before Christmas.

Check out the Origami folding of Jane Austen's name

Big Breakfast

A Place to go

And everyone in their place.  There has been a raft of house buying recently but of course the bottom line is that no one needs to move back here.  House buying is nerve racking even more so when finished off with a successful auction.

Red Mars

This book is every bit as detailed as GOT but this is SciFi history not fantasy, although some of the robots that are used to develop Mars are fantastical.  Elon Musk needs to read this book if he hasn't done it already.  Robots don't need air so they can do all the heavy work.  A classic view of life on Mars.  There are many scientific terms used in the detail so I needed the dictionary a few times. I liked the reference to that other Martian crusader from Edgar Rice Burroughs.  Only two volumes to go. It seems you can't put pen to paper unless you have three names.

Little Thai Kitchen

I need to remember how close some of these places are as walking there would have been about the same distance as the walk to and from the car park.  I notice there was a Thai massage place over the road as well.  The food here was quite tasty and a good price as well.

Collendina Report No 7834

An Identical day to yesterday except for the fat drops of rain at around 5:00pm although there were only about ten of them despite the black clouds.  We did a similar bike ride earlier but have not been stopping for coffees lately. I can report on the latest ship movements. We saw a bulk car carrier for the first time. New cars now arrive via the Eurasian Highway.  We knew this because we have been watching the new car terminal being built at Port Melbourne which is now unloading cars, as the only way you get a new one now is via importation.

Eurasian Highway

Collendina Report No 7833

Got the bikes going for a short 20km ride to Barwon Heads.  Just on the corner  up from the pub an old weatherboard house has been revealed. Ancient scrub has been removed and a huge block with  a U shaped cabin was underneath.  It will be another beach view development.  We spent the afternoon on the beach in ideal conditions. We saw off Wide Charlie (container) on his way to Adelaide and Goliath (cement) off to Devenport. We've been on the beach so long we can even name the ships.

Cabin House

Wide Charlie

Plover Season

Collendina Report No 7832

At first things look the same but if you are away for a while you start to notice.  Like the men's side of the toilet block now allows pesky females, as in unisex, as in a bunch of 12 year old girls titerin and chiterin for an hour in the shower.  It seems the female side of the block is going to take some time to be retiled.  I went to the Woollies store and could not find anything as it has had a complete rebuild inside. The sushi man has been promoted to his own kitchen. I was allowed some freebie films but the kiosk was gone, fortunately the next kiosk let me have the film anyway even though the offer date had expired. 

We used to pee here

Titanic

This mystery tour was a bit of a disaster. haha.  They used that joke a lot.  The cruise ship theme seems to be coming up a lot this year.  First the cruise liner museum then our cruise out of Southampton and now the Titanic restaurant. WhoolyDhooly first got us going on the Williamstown water taxi (waxi) and then we whiled away until boarding time.  People were doing dressups for the dance floor, all very entertaining. This place his been sinking for the last 26 yar.

Life Jacket Drill

We didn't get wet

Where is the mystical tour?

These are good days out but where is it too?   The Uberman is picking us up at chinese dentist time.  Some ideas below???  Dress code has to be just so.

Wings away

NBN Issues

We have been having multiple drop outs here. There were four yesterday and two today but the restarting of the modems doesn't always work first time.  We filled out the ombudsman's  complaint form and sent it off.  This was handy, as after we got through to the Optus man, we seemed to get a better response having mentioned sending our compliant.  So there is more that can be done other than power cycling equipment.  He got us to do a hard reset which picked up a new set of config parameters that he downloaded for the Optus modem.  Then he restarted from the exchange end. This is going to be monitored for 24 hours and we will receive a call on the results.

A paperclip is needed for the hard reset

Chiba

I seem to be getting the knack of using Chop Suey Sticks. We went to Chiba last night for another round of the Sushi boat.  I think my Sushi making is just as good as this place although they don't seem to feature too many pieces with the rice on the outside of the sushi. We had enough leftovers for todays lunch.

31 today

Aldara

Sounds like a holiday resort somewhere, like an island with snorkel reef waters filled with fish or maybe its a cream that you rub on nasty sunspots. A cream requiring  skin scrapes and tests and paperwork with approval codes to be entered on your script. Where the powerful nature of this stuff can give you some unwanted side effects. Where you can only buy it in single use sachets for a one use application on the given day but need enough sachets for 5 or 6 weeks. The subsidised price is $80 but otherwise you might be up for $400 to $500.  Hopefully this stuff works. Not to forget the Insolar I am trying to find and the Turmeric and Staphelex I am already taking.

Scarred again

Birthday Public Holidays

This birthday holiday thing is spreading.  I have never paid too much attention to horse racing but at this time of year you can't help it.  One of these days I will go along maybe to the Moonee Valley track, although I have eaten there plenty of times.  My official pick is "Bondi Beach"  seeing we were just there for some sculpture viewing.  The closest I have come to the races was riding home from work on Oaks day some years ago.  The crowd had spilled over to the other side of the river. Their bottles, bodies and shoes scattered everywhere. It was easier riding on the grass.

At least she still has her shoes

The Whistler

I bought this book as part of a birthday haul.  John Grisham churns out this stuff on a regular basis.  I saw another one advertised called "The Rooster Bar" and I thought it had the same cover.  These are overpriced at $33 each and there would be a heap of this style in the secondhand store. This one was fairly predictable as well so don't pay full price.

Just insert title here

Take a Punt

Also known as the bicycle ferry. This has been operating for years and was a direct result of the lack of bicycle paths being incorporated into the Westgate Bridge. We took Moonee Ponds  creek to Docklands then the Capital City Trail through there to the Port Melbourne track alongside the tramline.  I have never used the Punt before today. It is a regular all day non stop service at weekends and $5 per crossing per person. We reckon the PTV would get $1000 per day, easy based on the numbers we saw. Having crossed to the Spotswood side we headed to Yarraville and had lunch at "the Bank".  I know a bookkeeper who used to do the books for these guys.

Theresa Orion

Punt

Filing Cabinet?

Just Desserts

Our catering can be a bit uncoordinated at times but you can never have too much of a good thing. We got through about half of these desserts but the leftovers wont go to waste.  We have Shirl's baked jam & apple, Andrea's tiramisu, Beryl's rhubarb rhubarb rhubarb, Laura and Rick's signature cheese cake and not to forget the orangerie birthday cake.

We need a bike ride now.

They come in threes

We watched a rerun of the War of the Worlds where Tom Cruise does a lot of running from the bad guys.  Then during my daily ripping of the old record pile I plucked out the War of the Worlds music version by Jeff Wayne.  I can't even remember buying this and it's a double album.  It is music song and a narrative by Richard Burton and this time it is set in England.  I remember listening to this story numerous times from one end to the other and you need at least 100 minutes for the whole thing.  I must have had plenty of spare time once.  Finally, the mail came and inside was a copy of Red Mars filling another gap in my Hugo  List.  The Martians are invading this address at least.

Baby Doco

I was scanning an album of old photos and found a number of other documents in there as well.  Not sure if I have seen the tag that was attached to my toe before.  I  must have had big toes because the string is more like a piece of rope and there were two of them denoting the birth stats.  There were a few cards as well with three different spellings of my name.  I guess it was all too new back then.  Note how long you were allowed to stay in the hospital back then, nearly two weeks.  These days your lucky if you get two days. 

Neal as well as Neel

Lost 7 ounces

8:05 am just in time for breakfast

The Big Time

This is one of the older SciFi Hugos I have managed to find and was awarded in 1958. It is one of those first person narrative styles like Harrison Ford in BladeRunner.  The author was raised as an actor and this book is really a play but written as a book. It all happens in one room where time travelers come and go as needed.  They are all participating in a Change War much like the humans and robots in Terminator. As usual there were other volumes written later but I am already chasing a number of series so I may not get back to this one.