Succulents

When I was last down in Melbourne, I was given half a dozen succulents with some instructions that some needed repotting soon. With all the rain, one of them has taken off, doubling in size over a week or two. So I repotted the two bigger ones. I need to get some dirt to repot the rest.

Dinner in Eastwood

My father and step-mother came up to Sydney as Stephanie wanted to see some old school friends visiting Sydney from the USA. So we met up with my uncle and his wife and had dinner in Eastwood. The restaurant was good, while not great for the price they charged.

Cisco QOS training

I did my first ever Cisco training, a five day course squeezed into three on Cisco QOS. This was not enough time. It needed at least 4 days. But I learned a lot.

First ride on my bike since 2000

Well, the bike has been sitting in the underground garage for 12 months in this place. Looking sad with it's flat tyres. I decided last December that I should start riding into George street but needed to get the bike going. Also, I have decided not to get a new lease car, so at the end of March I will have no car. I have no intention to get another one in the immediate future, but I have some longer term plans. So from April, I will ride to Paddington. It is a short ride with no hills of significance. If it is raining I will catch the 355 bus.

But I had a problem. The bike was locked. An hour of searching found lots of old keys to who knows what, but no bike lock key. So I had to take the bike up to the bike shop (Mick Mazza Cycles) with the back wheel locked. I got one comment form a Greek man on the way. In the shop, the assistant thought I was a bike thief and wanted nothing to do with it. But the owner cut the lock off, sold me a new one , replaced the rubber liner for the front wheel and cleaned and regreased the bearings. I can't believe am so slack I did not do this myself. In the future I will do it myself again.

Yesterday I walked around looking at the other local bike shops. The one in Marrickville Road is good but it had a very limited selection of add-ons and did not have what I wanted. I found that a shop on Kings Road (king street cyclery) was excellent and had the things I wanted (clip on pedals/shoes and a handle bar bag. I forgot to ask about racing handle bars. But I did not buy any of this. I'll have to get the bag first.

Today I purchased a pair of black dunlop runners so I have shoes that fit in my existing toe clips. They will do for now.

I did not go for a ride yesterday as I was not completely set up. Today I did. I rode around the cooks river and past the airport. All in all about 6km. I feel really good for the exercise. Though my left arm is hurting while I ride. I will have to see the doctor about that. I think I might had RSI. But I do not know.



I took a few photos and one movie with my mobile phone. When I get the bag, I'll have to connect the phone to it so I can take movies while I am riding.

N95 bluetooth troubles

For the last month or more, the N95 has refused to send bluetooth files to the mac. it will synch. the mac can browse it all using blue tooth. But send a file from the phone and the connection failed. A quick look on the internet discovered the problem. Probably with one of the last mac updates there was a new preference for file sharing for bluetooth devices. It was turned off. Turn it on and hey presto! the bluetooth file send works again...

elvis festival - gospel slide show

This is a slide show of all of the Parkes Elvis festival 20009, but the sound track is from the gospel service. Mostly the sound is ok, but for one song there is a lot of distortion. The photos are from my collection on flickr. I did the slide show on full auto and some of the cropping is not the best... oops.




Other posts on The Parkes Elvis Festival 2009.

Elvis Festival - Getting there

Elvis Festival - First Impressions

The parade at the Parkes Elvis Festival

Elvis Festival - Staying in Forbes

Chinese New Year Parade, Sydney 2009

Well for the second year in a row, I went to the new year's parade. Though I have something else in mind for next year. Unlike last year, this time the parade was held at dusk and this time I went with the SPB.

We met at Central Station and then headed to the Edinburgh Castle for a late lunch/early dinner. Even though James had said otherwise, the kitchen was closed when we arrived and we had to wait 45 minutes till it opened.





We then headed down into China Town and picked a spot along the parade route to spend the evening. It was an hour and a half before the parade started.





The parade got off to a slow start. There was some problem that we could not see and a fire truck came trough the crowd and went up george street. A while later the parade started to come down to where we were.



The first part of the parade was local groups. They came with the floats from last year, but now lit up for the night time.








Some people took the higher view of the parade.



And then came the professional groups from China. One woman from Anhui provice spoke with me during the parade. She was very proud to be here and of her troupe. And I think I played the drums with one of the drummers when I was in Harbin a few years back.












Some more photos of the crowd.



And the police.



The end.