Category: Diary (Page 11 of 38)

We’ve just spent the last three days in Palm Desert, at the VFP Developers Conference.  Palm Desert is about 4 hours drive from Las Vegas, mostly through desert.

We dropped the cats off at Creature Comforts on Saturday, then drove out of Las Vegas at about 5:00am on Sunday to avoid the heat. On the way out of the valley I had to stop and take a picture of the Moon setting behind some mountains lit up by the rising Sun, pretty cool.

We had a late breakfast at Peggy Sue’s Diner outside of Barstow. Very 50’s. Very pleasent.

Just outside of Palm Desert there is a bunch of factory outlet stores, where we stopped and got something to drink, and I bought a pair of swimming trunks (they gotta be red ones). The heat was almost unbearable, though, and we didn’t linger.

I meant to take a bunch of notes while at DevCon, but by design we really ended up working very hard with Richard.S who had basically come in from Seattle especially to work with us. I think we made pretty good use of our time there, and it was certainly good to meet up with some old friends such as Reiner from Germany.

The drive back was pretty tiring. Peggy Sue’s seemed like a good halfway point to stop, even though it wasn’t really a mealtime.

We arrived back in the Vegas Valley on Tuesday, in plenty of time to pick up the cats before Creature Comforts closed.

We’ve spent a quiet few days. The house looks great, Lisa did tell me she was getting some cleaning done, although where she found time between being sick and working, I’m not sure. We did go shopping to get some perishable food in the house, in the middle of the day – 97 degrees! Bit of a shock coming back from late autumn rain in New Zealand to an unexpected heat wave in Las Vegas. It’s not normally this hot this early.

Next day it was 106 degrees – 11 degrees above normal! Well, it doesn’t look so bad in Celsius.

Day after that, it’s 106 degrees outside. When I went to put our outgoing mail in the mailbox, my sunglasses were steaming up on the inside from moisture vaporizing off my eyeballs…

It’s back to work next week, plus, we have a trip to Palm Springs coming up for the annual FoxPro Developer’s Conference. We’ll be driving in the heat, argh.

Travelling East across the Pacific, you cross the dateline and suddenly you’re as far West as you can go and you arrive before you left. That’s what happens.

Los Angeles was a bit hectic. They let me back into the country, but you have to go through customs with all your luggage which is a nuisance.

I got on the correct shuttle bus this time, but got off at the wrong Terminal.

Tired.

I spent most of the day working on Mum’s laptop, either with her or without. I also tried to get USB support working on one of Dad’s computers, with no real success. It now has the USB support, we just didn’t have access to any drivers for any USB device we tried. There’s a good chance that the appropriate drivers are on the CD that came with the camera – but that CD is in Walter’s care.

Early afternoon I scooted up the hill to see Paul’s parents, Valerie and Armor. They were supposed to be away but had returned back early enough for me to catch up with them, which was very lucky for me, I think.

On the way back I dropped Armor at the service station where his car was being repaired, filled the Rented Rhinoceros up with petrol, and scooted across the valley to go out with Paul one last time.

We found decent coffee at a place called the Screaming Turtle in Petone. Very nice. Good brownies, will spoil my appetite but what the heck.

I’m in a strange place in Wellington. It’s part of the Library at the Civic Center, I think. It’s a combined Cafe/Bank/NZ souvineer/internet cafe. It’s pretty cool. I’m using an eMac because it’s the only type of computers they have here.

I had an initial problem because HotMail.com kept coming up in Japanese characters. It turned out that the previous user was still logged in to Passport.net – I could browse their InBox and everything (it was full of garbage, nothing interesting). Now, at least, I’m back in regular roman text.

It is great to be wandering around Wellington, poking my nose into shops and wishing Lisa was with me to share it.

Wellington is now proliferated with a new Bagel/Cafe called “Wholly Bagels” with a little red imp as their logo. I’ve bought a dozen. I’m going to have dinner with Uncle Howard & Aunt Fran at their new place on the waterfront, so I’ll bring them some. The rest can go into Mum’s freezer…

It turns out that Mum’s NEC laptop doesn’t come with Windows .CAB files on a CD. However it does have a special floppy disk that you boot from, that unlocks a secret 2GB hidden partition that wipes the disk and reinstalls Windows XP from scratch – along with all the OEM utilities. There’s supposed to be a way to convert this hidden partition into a “master restore” CD – but the utilities mentioned in the manual do not appear to be available from the Windows Start menu. It requires the presence of a CD-RW drive, naturally. Also, the manual is not up-to-date for Windows XP, it keeps talking about WinME etc.

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I had a good talk with Howard and Fran.  They’ve sold their big old house up on the hill, and now have an inner-city apartment on the waterfront (street view not harbour view) and a regular sized house up in Waikanae in which they intend to spend the weekends but I understand they have not yet finished painting, or finished moving into.

Fran cooked pesto pasta. Pasta! How excellent.

Fran was interested in the “laptop for mum” project because they currently have their office set up in the apartment’s “master bedroom” space and they need a second computer for Fran. So she grilled me about Quay Computers and what decisions we made in choosing the perfect laptop for mum. I told them they probably didn’t want this model but should either look at the Shuttle + flatscreen option for portability, or stick with a more capable laptop. I also talked about networking, Pentium-Ms etc. I’m sure I sounded like a salesman!

Actually I think I talked way too much the entire evening, only slowing down when cousins Rob and Ben turned up later on. It was great to see all of them.

I did some research this morning on the “Laptop for Mum” project, then scooted out around the Hutt Valley to visit some vendors.

I found an interesting place in Naenae called “PC Recycling Channel” which is partly government funded and takes donations of old PC equipment; refurbishes them and distributes them to schools, and if they can’t make it work, they crunch up the components and extract the good stuff.

They don’t have many laptops, and those that they do have are very obsolete, but it is good to know that the place exists.

After lunch I will probably drive into Wellington and check out the vendor situation there. I hope to check out a place called “The PC Zone” which seems to be mail-order only but perhaps they will let me look at one of their product offerings – a Compaq Presario 2133 that seems very competent.

Later:

The PC Zone thing turned out to be Not Good. Mum had an afternoon free and seemed keen to go shopping with me, so we drove into the city together, and on our first stop (Quay Computers) we saw just the thing: It’s an NEC Versa Premium 7521N. It’s not the latest model, not ultra-high specifications or anything, but seemed perfect for Mum.

Later on this evening I’m going to pick up Peter from Upper Hutt college where he will be having a basketball game, and take him back home to Tawa for dinner.

Drove up the coast to Kapiti this morning to visit my aunts, Wendy and Helen.

Kapiti Island is a protected nature reserve just off the coast of the “mainland” North Island, about 45 minutes drive North of Wellington. The township there is called – not surprisingly – Kapiti, and Wendy and Helen moved out there about two years ago, and the work they’ve put into their property has resulted in a wonderful, restful place.

After admiring the house and garden, we went out for a walk with a picnic lunch. Walking around their local pond, I saw spoonbills, paradise ducks, lots of things, I forget their names now but lots of bird life.

On the beach where we stopped for a rest and sandwiches, we saw “kite surfers”, basically windsurfers except they use a huge kite thingy instead of a sail. We saw them making these tremendous leaps off the waves. They must have some way to alter the lift provided by the canopy, because otherwise I don’t see why they didn’t take flight and blow away.

After more walking, including stops for coffee and mushrooms, it was time for me to leave. I really didn’t feel like it, but Mum was expecting me back for dinner, so, I had to make my farewells.

The drive south was uneventful.

Mum and I went out for a walk into Lower Hutt to do some shopping on this fine Sunday. We were looking for a birthday present for nephew Jonathan and I think we found the right thing.

On the walk home we passed a church and saw the congregration going in, including Paul & Julia and family. I got to say Hi to Paul’s elder brother Bruce whom I haven’t seen for yonks, so that was timely.

This evening I’ll be going over to see P&J again to give them a copy of the game “Cosmic Encounter”. Lisa suggested it, and I think it was an excellent suggestion. After that, we’re going to have dinner out at a restaurant in Petone, called Zilli’s. Turkish/Middle-eastern, which will do the trick I think.

Later: Cosmic was a definite hit with Joel and Ben.

My good long-time friend Paul A rang up this morning. Ben has a hockey game in Upper Hutt, would I like to come and watch? I can do better than that: with my big rental car I’ll do the ferrying there and back!

It was a good game, although the opposing team had a goalie and Ben’s team didn’t. Also, the coach didn’t show up! But Paul stepped in to the role with his usual competence and I have no idea which side won but it was fun to watch. Some very good plays were made.

After the game we drove into Upper Hutt for a lunch at McDonalds, did some shopping, and drove back to the house, where I left them and returned to my parent’s home briefly before driving out to Petone to see nephew Peter play indoor cricket.

After that, Peter and Trevor came back with me for the shindig. Lots of people came, including Paul & Julia & family which was neat.

I got to meet many cousins and nephews and nieces and yes, they’d all grown.

Joel and Ben got on really well with Barnaby and Gregory – Joel and Barnaby are both dead ringers for Harry Potter, which they both kind of HATE. It’s funny seeing them together though.

Elizabeth sat in the corner reading an old book of nursery rhymes for a long time, then I sat down and asked her how she was doing. She told me about her favorite nursery rhymes are in a book of mixed up ones, where everything is different (Mother Hubbard couldn’t find the bone because the dog took it and ate it already – his stomach was out to *here* and the werewolf boy wasn’t going to go to werewolf heaven because he wasn’t a *real* werewolf, but his parents knew something was up because they saw footprints outside his bedroom window, and… etc etc) She would come up to me later on, telling me more favorite bits that she just remembered.

My aunts Wendy and Helen were there, and I had a nice chat with them. I’m going to drive up the coast tomorrow to Kapiti and have lunch with them and maybe chat without so much pleasently noisy family around.

After dinner Trevor and Margaret & Barnaby took me into town after dinner to see a Jazz pianist at a bar/lounge upstairs at the Embassy theatre (complete with mega-sized Gollum peering over the facade of the theatre but now it’s showing Matrix Reloaded rather the Two Towers).

The Jazz pianist was called Jonathan Crawford and he played some numbers and then was joined by a female Brazilian vocalist with a pretty interesting and deep voice accompanying. It was pleasant, but I did feel that the bassist and drummer were kind of sleepwalking through it. Occasional good moments though – definitely worth seeing, thanks guys.

I definitely have a cold. I’m sure I picked it up from either Ryan or Zoe. So far the only symptoms are a sore throat and a mild runny nose, but I suspect a cough followed by loss of voice are the next ones.

I drove into town to have lunch with my sister Vivienne and Graeme today, which was very pleasent. The house is looking really good now that they have finished the extra room upstairs. (This is old news to locals, but new to me.)

At around 2:30 Vivienne and I took the big Mitsubishi Daimonte rental car to pick up Rosemary & Jessica from school. Well, I was warned, but it was still startling to see the twins (technically identical) looking so different. Rosemary has shot up in height but Jessica hasn’t started her growth spurt yet. Rosemary is about 1/2 foot taller than Jess! (Taller than her elder sister Elizabeth.) They are both happy and bouncy, great fun. And they are different in other, more normal ways. Both very cute though!

We had time to pick up Elizabeth from her school as well, which involved directing the wagon through some narrow gates and around some dodgy corners but I managed ok. Elizabeth is looking great too. Very grown up and responsible-looking.

When we got back to the house I was ambushed by David who sprang through a door and gave me a hug. I did not give my permission for him to grow so big – but then no-one asked me and that is as it should be.

Elizabeth absolutely refused to let me take her photo, even though cute black cat Tui was in a perfect pose on her shoulders. I had to give my word I wouldn’t even try to look at her through the viewfinder. Jessica did not make any such stipulation.

David came with me in the car as I took Rosemary to her advanced swimming lessons. They both shouted contradictory driving directions to me while I tried to stay on the left side of the road.