Monday, November 30, 2009

Formatted and Ready to Go!

Ok! So I bit the bullet and formatted the laptop. By doing that it - of course - solved all our problems. Once a computer gets all full of junk there's really only one way to get it working again.
The main problem was the "virtual memory" which means I didn't have enough RAM for what I
wanted to do. This was kind of a curious problem since I was only running Firefox.
Another curious problem occurred after we formatted and I went to get online... It wouldn't work. Glen set up a wireless network in the house a few days ago so he tried fiddling with that and it still didn't work. We hooked the computer up with the cord and the internet started work. Didn't do us much good when we wanted to be wireless... Anyway, we installed some updates and voilĂ ! It worked! Who knew you needed more than service pack 1 to use wifi (clearly not us)?

Anyway, all I have to do is find my photoshop disc and I'll be ready to do some serious posting.

(I don't know how people can format so often, it takes ages to set everything back up!!)


Temperature:
Sunrise: 5:52am
Sunset: 8:26pm

Wednesday, November 25, 2009

It's Not That I Don't Have Anything to Say...

There has been a lot of exciting and fun stuff happening here but there's one problem -- my computer. I installed an update (I suspect flash) which has made my computer run like a snail. Because of that, when I type, the computer starts to lag and then Firefox throws a hissy fit and closes. It's VERY frustrating.

I'm going to format one of these days but I'm lazy. It's also one of my least favourite things to do.

For now I'll give you the list of exciting things and will hopefully follow up with pictures & a real post soon (of course I'm writing this now and the computer is FINE *rolls eyes*)

1. My stuff arrived! YAY! (nothing is missing or broken as far as I can tell)
2. Because of that, there has been knitting - yay!
3. Went to the city to see the Christmas tree and the Myer windows.
4. Got some awesome pictures of a sulphur crested cockatoo in the backyard (and fed him some seeds).
5. The weather here has been OUTRAGEOUSLY hot.

If I can figure out how to do a scheduled post I'd type up a few when the computer's not acting like an ass... Anyone know how to do it?


Temperature: +18C
Sunrise: 5:54am
Sunset: 8:20pm

Monday, November 9, 2009

Weekends Away

It seems every few weeks Glen gets two (rarely three) days off in a row. We've decided to take advantage of this when we can (especially while I'm not working). This past weekend we decided to go to Wilsons Prom.


The spiky things are the flowering tops of grass trees. The flowering cycle is stimulated by bushfire. Wilsons Prom was affected by the February bushfires which damaged 25,200 hectares (50%) of the park.

Wilsons Prom is the southern most tip of the Australian mainland and the national park covers over 50,500 hectares. Wilsons Prom is a 3-4ish hour drive from Melbourne. We decided to stay in Foster (where we stayed in 2007) which is a nice little town about 45min from the park. We were originally planning on going to Phillip Island but there was some car racing thing going on so we decided to save that for another time.

We arrived mid-afternoon on Saturday and went straight to the beach. Squeaky Beach is probably my favourite beach (so far) for a few reasons. One is the wow factor. It has brilliant white sand and crystal clear water. Growing up, all the beaches I went to were covered with rocks/sticks and had seaweed and gross water. Swimming here can be hit and miss though. There can be strong currents and big waves. We were lucky that the two days we were there the water was pretty reasonable (we enjoy doing more jumping in the waves than actual swimming). We tried to do a bit of swimming at Tidal River on the second day but the water was pretty cold so we got out and went back to Squeaky Beach (otherwise Tidal River is the ideal swimming spot for safety reasons).



The cool thing about Squeaky Beach is the sand is made from rounded grains of quartz and when you walk on it, the grains rub together and squeak (a lot like really cold, packed snow does).

We managed to see some more wildlife on this trip and I got to cross off two more "quintessential Australalian animals" off my list.



We saw emus both days and besides crossing an animal off my mental list, I got to highlight it in my bird book! (I bought a bird book in 2007 and highlight birds I've seen in the wild). It goes without saying that they're HUGE. It was pretty weird to see them lumbering across the road and it's kind of hard to link them as being birds since they are SO massive and don't act like typical birds (y'know, sitting in trees and flying around!).





Can you spot the Emus?

We also managed to spot an echidna on the side of the road. Once it figured out that we had stopped the car and had gotten out it quickly made it's way into the bushes on the side of the road.






We picked a great weekend to go as the weather was fabulous and HOT (all the locals were saying that it was unusal for it to be so nice in November). When we heard the weather forecast we decided we wanted to be somewhere near the water so this trip definitely satisfied our being near the water requirement (we looked into going to a few other places but I think everyone had the same idea we did and we couldn't find anywhere to stay).


In other news, it looks like the weather in general is on the upswing and after weeks of me complaining about the cold (it's cold in the house when you don't have a furnace!) the house is anything but cool today.


Temperature: +34C
Sunrise: 6:05am
Sunset: 8:03pm