Another repair.

My computer eyes broke yesterday morning, I imagine my adjusting them for a better fit a while back weakened them. Anyway I wasn't going to lose any sleep over this loss when a new set of eyes only costs $20 or so, but I used a cheap little blowtorch on the break and pushed the molten ends together. The weld has held thus far.

Nice.

I noticed this nice flower in the yard yesterday, I suppose it's some type of noxious weed but it looks OK to me.

Brooch.

I got this Garnet Brooch as a present for Grace, Garnet being her birthstone.

Nice unit for the small amount of money it cost, I think I'll buy another colour for her too.

At last.

After two dismal but edible failures I finally scored a decent loaf of bread out of the breadmaker I bought last week. Then sat down to a nice low fat Vegemite treat.

New to me.

I haven't seen this bridge to nowhere before, I must explore if the rain will ever stop.

Plaything.

I fitted a fancier bottom bracket to the pushbike the other day, mainly out of curiosity but I'd calculated correctly that its shorter length would straighten up the chainline.

These units are way easier to fit than the usual old time ball and cup ones because they don't require adjusting. That may mean something to a bicycle store that cares about what it sells but the Chinese makers just do everything up bar tight with a rattle gun so no need to worry about the time taken to get it right.

Of course since buying the bike every time I want to use it, down comes the rain.

Skippy.

The rain of late must have them fairly comfortable but one of them must have been suspicious of the fat bloke with the camera, so it hid among the plants knowing I couldn't see it.

Happy birthday Mega.

Yep it's the 9th of November or I suppose culture may rename it 911 but somehow I don't think so.

Anyway here's a shot from about 30 years ago with Mega in the purple jumper, and me in the red jacket.

I think it may have been taken at Amaroo on one of the last Castrol 6 hour bike races in 1981, it was also possibly the coldest most miserable day I've endured due perhaps to being unprepared and unequipped for bleak weather.

Not so pretty now.

Flowers don't age very well.

I tried but failed.

Rhonda drowned her hard drive in beer when she visited, I've since replaced it and her laptop is doing fine again but I had to try and recover data from her old drive since like most people she never backs up any data.

I managed to buy another same model drive on eBay that was dead but thought I may have some luck changing the circuit boards. Sadly that was a no go, so I then went down the last chance routine of internal surgery and swapped the platter. Nope, I suppose the drives had the same fault but I had to have a go, nothing ventured nothing gained.

Typical.

I did some tyre juggling and naturally the zipper for the spare cover broke despite me taking care not to damage it, I would have saved 10 minutes of toil if I'd just snapped it off in the first place.

Anyway I actually got a brainwave and realised velcro would be a handy thing to fix it.

I was caught in the messy position of tyre juggling, the left front tyre had worn slightly unevenly and was at the point of illegality, also the spare was getting old and needed to be used, so I fitted the spare to the car and spent $105 get a new genuine Zetum brand tyre which has become the spare. I've also given the wheel alignment a slight tweak to hopefully sort things out, also may well improve fuel economy since the steering feels a bit lighter.

Easier now.

I made the trip to the Doc yesterday, which naturally resulted in much pain and another lifestyle change coming up. Anyway this year all I have to do is push a button and their machine spits out a receipt, simple plus it shows how much the taxpayer divvies up to fund my painful visits.

I wish the pharmacy could run like this, I still have the chore of having to sign for my pills, very hard when you can barely write. Well I can write but I can never read what I scratch.