Ooops

In an attempt to move a library book away from a potential danger this morning, I managed to knock my laptop to the floor. It isn't happy.

That was an unfortunate (and expensive) mistake!

 

For Jeanette, here's the critter that got the dogs a bit excited when we were talking on the phone:

Turns out it is a beetle! A very strange looking beetle. If I am right it is Enchoptera apicalis, a wasp-mimicking beetle. Who knew there was such a thing?

Isolation

A few days ago we used up our monthly internet data allowance. When that happens we get "speed limited" for the rest of the month - meaning accessing anything on the internet is almost impossible. Fortunately my phone has a data allowance that I rarely use. So this morning I had my phone as a data hotspot to allow me to use my computer to join my first ever Zoom meeting:

I have sat in on a couple of Zoom sessions before, but this was the first time I had to actually join the meeting from my computer. It was an interesting experience. I would not have travelled to Melbourne for the meeting, but joining in from home was relatively painless. But I didn't feel like I had actually participated in anything. Most of the participants seemed to know each other, but I have met only 3 of them in real life. No-one said "hello", or interacted with me, apart from one person asking how my name is pronounced. So in some ways I felt more isolated than I would have if I hadn't joined the meeting at all.

In the afternoon I went to visit my mother, but she was fast asleep so I didn't disturb her. I had taken my sewing kit with me to fix a bit of the binding on her quilt that was coming loose, so I did that and left without her ever knowing I was there.

As I was in town anyway, I went to visit my sister, but that was my third alienating interaction of the day. There are a lot of topics we don't discuss because we just have opposite points of view. And today I found a few more.

It was actually a relief to spend the rest of the day at home, really on my own. I did a bit of quilting while listening to an audiobook in splendid isolation.

New Friends

Meet my new best friends:

Hearing aids! They are sitting in their charger, where they spend the night. I've had them since Tuesday, and since then I haven't had to ask anyone to repeat themselves once. Hooray! Too bad I can't test them out in meetings at the moment, but one day hopefully I will attend a meeting and hear everything that happens.

GPS Beanbag No-No

Warning: Do not do this!  It is not legal in this state. The GPS has to be attached to the car.

My new GPS has a window mount, but the windscreen on my car is a long way forward - too far to reach from the driver's seat. So today I made a little beanbag for it to sit on:

Side view so you can actually see it:

I filled it with crushed walnut shells, so it has a bit of weight to keep it in place. To test it out we went for a drive this afternoon. The beanbag held the GPS at a good angle and didn't slide off the dashboard, so I think it is a success. And the dogs enjoyed our trip to the Ballarat Botanic Gardens:

Wind Farm Tour

The company building our local wind farm arranged a bus tour of the work so far, plus the opportunity to get close to one of the turbines. They had free food and real coffee, and face-painting for kids. They chartered a 55-seat bus for the tour. How many people do you think wanted to attend?

I rang up to book seats the day I heard about it, and the person I spoke to was surprised that at that stage they had over 100 bookings, so would have to run the bus twice. So we made it onto the second bus load,

and after us the bus made a third trip. And beyond that there were people who missed out all together, and will have to wait until the opportunity is repeated some time.

Since I showed the first turbine assembled back in January, a few more have been erected:

Mount Buninyong in the distance. Of the eventual total of 38, 13 turbines are up so far, with one more like this:

Unfortunately we didn't get to see a blade being lifted, as it was too windy today! Wind farms have to be in windy places to generate power, but they need still days for the construction cranes to work.


Highlight of the tour was getting out of the bus and standing under one of the completed turbines.

It is tall! The tip of the top blade is 160 metres from ground level.

It was a very interesting tour, with the chance to ask questions as well as see the work up close. The turbines are all on private land, so these events are the only chance to get up close to them.

Wind Farm

Two weeks ago we went to look at progress on the Lal Lal wind farm (which is not actually in Lal Lal, but a few kms on either side of us). This is what we could see on the 5th of January:

A few towers beginning to grow, and on the ground beside each of them, three enormous blades.

Who knew the blades have serrated edges?

While out driving yesterday afternoon I saw that one of the towers has now got to this point:

Sorry about the terrible photo. I did not have my camera with me, so had to zoom in with my phone. I was about 3km away from the tower, to give you some idea of how much zooming I had to do and how big it is.

Finger Light

Today at Sit and Sew, one of the other quilters showed us a purchase she had made at the Craft and Quilt Show:

A finger light! I didn't see those when I was looking around at the show. I hadn't seen one in real life before, only on the internet. Various sites sell them in sets of multi-coloured lights, but for sewing only the white would be useful. An inidentified stand had just the white ones, for $3 each or 5 for $10. They take hearing-aid batteries, but I don't know if the batteries are replaceable, or how long they last. It is something that looks like it could be handy, but I suspect that they are the sort of item that will just add to the world's plastic waste problems.

Welcome Home. And Comments Chaos

Welcome home to my trusty Elna Lotus!

It has been out of action since the 29th of March - nearly 8 weeks. The problem wasn't in the foot control, as I had suspected. It was a burnt out capacitor in the motor somewhere. I actually got it back earlier this week, but late today was the first chance I had to set it up and do some sewing. It is so nice to have my old friend back home again.

Ignore that sticker from Statewide on the machine. I do not endorse them as machine repairers. They put that sticker there in 2009 and it has a permanent adhesive so I haven't been able to remove it yet.

Comments.

If you have left a comment since some time yesterday, I have not received any notification. If you are also a Blogger user, you may have noticed the same thing on your own blog. Thank you, Google! Presumably this is something to do with changes made for the EU GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) on 25th May. But there are no answers on the Google Support site, only a lot of bloggers asking what on earth is going on.

I will try to reply to comments where I can, but it is quite likely I will miss some. So please excuse me, I'm not deliberately ignoring you! I hope Google can sort this out quickly, because it is a bit of a nuisance.

Creepy

Meet "Creepy"; an Aldi special this week. Tool or toy?

I don't normally name machines, but this little guy seemed to need one. He creeps along, with his little whiskers spinning around, collecting up dog hair and other detritus. He is a bit like a crab. The dogs aren't very impressed with him, but they tolerate him better than the regular vacuum cleaners. And he did find several of Dot's balls that had disappeared under furniture, so that made her happy.

What do you think? Tool or toy? My initial thought was "toy", but he can get under beds and cupboards that a regular cleaner can't reach, so maybe...

New Phone

I ordered myself a new phone a couple of weeks ago. My old one wasn't capable of running apps I need, such as the Vic Emergency app which notifies you of fires in your area. I thought the new one was coming from Melbourne, but apparently it had to travel a little further than that.  A couple of days after ordering the phone, I ordered a cover for it, which arrived 5 days ago. I've been checking the tracking details for the phone several times a day, but it hadn't moved anywhere since its initial despatch. Until today! When I got up this morning I checked the tracking again, and found that the phone was at my local post office, ready to collect.

Old (5.5 years) phone on the left, new phone and pretty cover on the right. Next step is to choose a carrier that actually has coverage at my place, so I can re-join the mobile world.

The Old and the New

A couple of weeks ago I mentioned that my Kobo had stopped working, and then that it had been revived. Unfortunately the revival didn't last. My Kobo was dead.

Yesterday its replacement arrived:

Old Kobo on the left, new Kobo on the right. Fortunately it fits in the cover I made for the original one, although with a bit of room to spare. It has a few fancier features than the original, like a touch screen and a light for night reading. Here's hoping for years of eReading ahead!

Annoyances

Yesterday I drove my Sweet16 to Geelong to be serviced. On my way my windscreen was hit by a stone thrown by a passing truck. There was a loud "bang", but I was relieved that I couldn't see any damage. However as I kept driving, a crack started growing up the windscreen. It was about 45cm long by the time I got to Geelong. So this morning I've had a new windscreen fitted.


Last night as I was going to bed my Kobo refused to start up.

It hangs at this start-up screen. Now it is eReading: no time, no place. Seven years and 9 days after it was given to me, the Kobo is no more. I didn't know I needed one when I got it, but it has been fantastic over the years. I've read 58 of the 100 free books that came pre-loaded on it, and lots of others over the years. I am/was 80% of the way through my current read, so will have to find an alternate way of reading it. None of the libraries that make up the Central Highlands Library conglomerate have a copy.

Crimson rosellas have done this to several of the roses:

New spring growth snipped off. The electric fence around the garden has stopped wallabies eating the roses, but it can't protect them from flying critters.

This morning, several cockatoos were wandering around in the same garden bed, doing this:

Snipping leaves off the lamb's ears. I don't think they were eating the leaves, although when I went outside one cocky flew off with a piece it had snipped:

Hard to see in the photo, but it is holding the piece of lamb's ear in its left foot. It sat up there thinking about the situation for a while, then dropped the lamb's ear before flying away with its friends.

Penguin March

This week I've been working on my mystery quilt, which I still can't blog details of. It is getting close to the end, though.

I'm still managing to do 10,000 steps each day, and apparently today I reached penguin distance!

Slow Marathon

Apparently I have walked over 42km since Tuesday:

That "Earned on" at the bottom is wrong. The fitbit must be working on US time zones, as it didn't "award" me this badge yesterday.

Good-Bye Garmin

My replacement tracking device arrived today. It is a Fitbit Zip. So here is the last reading on my Vivofit, showing the little plus sign that means I made it to 10,000 steps today (194th day):

The Fitbit only shows 3,600 steps because I didn't collect it from the postoffice until this afternoon.

So from tomorrow I will know how close I am to my goal during the day, rather than being in the dark until the 10,000 clicks over. Hooray!

Plus Sign

Yesterday the "10,000"s figure on my Vivofit stopped working. A couple of weeks back I suggested that once that happened the device would be useless.  However, I discovered I can still tell when I've reached 10,000 steps by this little plus sign:

This is the screen that tells me how many steps until I reach my goal. The plus sign is pretty tiny, and I can hardly see it, but for now it means I can keep using the device. I'm hoping it will last for a few more days. Today I purchased a different pedometer device on Ebay, and I hope it gets here quickly! I've walked 10,000 steps every day for the last 185 187 (I can't count) days, and don't want to break that run.

Finished and Almost Finished

Today I finished stitching down the binding on this UFO from 2014:

Bonnie Hunter's mystery, "Grand Illusion". Another finished quilt to cross of the list.

Meanwhile, my Garmin Vivofit has just about reached the end of its useful life:

Can you tell how many steps I've done? Many parts of the display have stopped working over the last few months. At first it didn't matter, as I could sync the device with the computer and read the total there. But the syncing process stopped working in April.

I know that I've reached at least 10,000 steps, because of that half a "1" on the left-hand side. But no part of the "thousands" column shows up at all any more, so until I get to 10,000 I'm in the dark. And if (when!) that remaining part of the "1" fails, the Vivofit will be of no use at all. I bought it in October 2014, which was the same month I started getting together the fabrics for Grand Illusion. But it has reached the end of its useful life just as the quilt's life is beginning.

Wildlife Spotting

For the last couple of days, I've been fascinated by the Wildlife Spotting website. It is set up to allow members of the public to assist with scientific research into wildlife. You look at photos and identify what animal is in the photo, or if there is no animal at all. The photos are from 6 different research projects, all round the country.

Here are a couple of examples I've seen. Is this a bettong, a bandicoot, or a rat in far north Queensland?

Bandicoot, mouse or rat on the outskirts of Melbourne?

If you aren't sure, there are photos and extra information you can consult. And if you get it wrong it doesn't matter too much, as each photo is looked at by 5 different people, and the answers compared. If they are all different, the researchers know to take a look for themselves!

Lots of the photos don't show anything at all, which while it is disappointing, saves the researchers time because they know which photos they don't have to look at. The Tasmanian photos in particular rarely show an animal. So it is a bit exciting when this happens:

Tasmanian devil!

Test One Two

Trying out these after a hearing test today:

At first they were very weird, as I could hear the air travelling through my nose, and the sound of my hair moving against itself if I touched it. I don't like the sound of my voice! And the car seems very noisy. As does my computer keyboard.

I have the hearing aids for a couple of days to see if I like them. So far I've tested them out in a shop (I could actually understand the announcements!) and at afternoon tea with the neighbours (I could understand what everyone said, even if more than one person was speaking!). Will have to try doing some machine sewing before I take them back.

Not Happy, Garmin.

A couple of days ago there was a software update applied my Garmin Vivofit, and it seems to have changed the way time spent on different activities is calculated.

Take yesterday for example. I walked 13,220 steps, a distance of 9.9km. Here's how the steps are displayed:

So between 7am and 10am I was fairly sedentary, and then again between 4 and 5pm, but for the rest of the day I was moving around to some extent. Here's how that is shown in percentages:

63% sedentary! Only 7% active! Compare the breakdown with one I posted in June, where I walked less steps in the day, but it was calculated as 32% active:

With these new calculations there is almost no chance I will keep my Sedentary time below 50% (one of my original goals). It looks like I would have to spend three times as long walking, and cover a distance of 30km, to bring my Sedentary time back below 50%. And that is not going to happen every day, if it ever happens at all.