We returned to Brisbane and booked into Lawnton Showground.
No sooner had I set up but I got a call from Mel to tell me that the LCII wouldn't print. I asked some questions and realised that I had failed to upgrade the Chooser in the newly installed System when I had changed the hard drive. Mel insisted that I not put myself to any trouble but, on Thursday, Al and I drove to Sherwood Forest in the Little Motley with the other SCSI hard drives. The fix took no more than five minutes and we had afternoon tea with the assembled crowd, took the mick out of Mel about drinking raw carrot juice and returned to Patricks Rd in time for tea.
Adrian and Sam who were on a short holiday to the Gold Coast dropped in on Saturday. Adrian had brought the eternal hard drive cases that Al needed for the new 80MB backup drive and the 4MB music drive rescued from the dead Kid's iMac. All was installed and Al was able to back up the Marretts iMac and install System X.
The plan is to use Rendevous as the networking software for the various machines including mine when I'm there to facilitate file transfer, printer sharing and internet connections via the ADSL modem. It all works wonderfully with all the resources being instantly to hand on all the connected machines. There is a little problem getting my iBook to see the printer but I'm sure we'll beat that one sometime. I can now leave a long term backup on the new hard drive as an added precaution against failure.
The iMac has had a problem for some time which had been diagnosed as a fault in the video drive hardware. When System X was installed the problems with playing DVDs went away but a new problem emerged with the screen freezing for long periods with short periods of non-freezing in between. It was suggested that there might be a fault in the RAM so Al did some experiments swapping the two SIM cards in and out with no resolution of the problem but with some indication that there is a fault on one or both of the SIM cards. As memory is particularly cheap at the moment, we'll probable buy a new SIM card to see if we can resolve the problems.
We finally gave in and bought a new SIM card from a local PC shop at an extraordinarily good price - $62 for 256MB of PC133 SDRAM.
In the same shop I also found a wireless mouse for half the price they wanted at the Mac shop. Installation was a breeze once we set the channel correctly and charged the batteries. OSX immediately recognised the device and all of its buttons and the scroll wheel. I now don't have to fight with a mouse cable and can even play solitaire with the mouse on my knee!.
I spent some time redesigning the database for Uncarved Women. Sarah has signed the lease on the new studio and hopes to move in in a few weeks so setting up the new computer system has become a high priority. I still have a few problems to solve but it's all looking pretty good.
I did a demonstration to the team and got them to specify what reports they want so now I can finish the job.
The Bannister's arrived from Canberra on Saturday night for a few day's visit. Max's birthday, which was on Thursday, was celebrated on Sunday when I cooked a big curry feast with trifle for dessert and we drank copious quantities of Max's very good red wine.
Jean had an appointment with the Endocrinologist which she was not looking forward to. In the event she was given a warning that the trend was in the wrong direction. She was advised to make a strenuous effort to lose weight and the kick-start soup diet was suggested. We downloaded the diet from the web and put it in place forthwith.
The diet was pretty severe but the soup was tasty and one could eat any amount of it so Hunger wasn't a real problem. There is always the inconvenience of not being able to join in with others at meals but the results are said to be worth the effort. The diet requires 30 to 40 minutes of exercise each day which Jean managed to maintain. I have had some problems with legs and feet and only got what exercise the normal daily activity provided.
The first week's results were pretty impressive. Jean lost 4 kg and I lost 3 kg. There is a restriction on how long you can stay on the strict diet of one, or maybe two, weeks but there is a follow up regimen based of the soup and low GI food which should be sustainable for both of us. We bought the book by Jenny Brand Miller, a Professor at Sydney University, the originator of the GI Revolution. It all looks pretty hopeful. Jeans BGL two hours after meals are right down at the bottom of the normal range so perhaps all will be well. I think we will be able to stick to the new diet as we have become accustomed to the low carbohydrate regime without too much hunger. I plan to continue to make soup as the hunger stopper so that we won't be tempted to eat big meals.
I had called on the guy who was recommended to me by another motorhomer for metal working and I ordered a new 160 litre stainless steel water tank, a set of four jerry can holders for the trailer, and a modification to the car ramps to make them fold up rather than being stored under the tray of the trailer. These mods will make my life considerably easier. In particular, the folding ramps will obviate a particularly hard physical task which was getting harder with every passing year.
The tank and the jerrycan holders were constructed and we put the Motley in for a day for the installation. I still have to do the plumbing but that will be easy once I have visited Camec to buy the necessary bits.
Out of the blue I got a phone call from Sue Lowe of the Sydney Morning Herald who is writing a piece about Esther Abrahams on the occasion of the publication of some convict records from eighteenth century England. She wanted a photo of some of Esther's descendants. She had got a hit on my website and somehow got my mobile number. I told her that all my family members who would be interested in the piece were not in Sydney. Getting the call was a bit spooky because I was working on the family tree at the time.