Victorian TAC Christmas Ad revisited

We ran this last year.  Are you going to be driving again this Christmas?

You NEED to watch this.  Confronting I know, but if this gets the message home to one person I'll be glad.

Click Here to go to YouTube.  Need I say any more?

Wulfe HWS

It was uncanny that a few days ago I wrote "things happen in threes".  I really didn't mean it and have no time for superstitions generally.  Well, it sort of didn't happen in threes, but as I type, Michael from Mizu Plumbing is currently installing a new Vulcan hot water service in the cupboard under the stairs.

It's actually been leaking for years, but it has come to a head and we've been investigating where this mystical water leak is coming from.  It has destroyed the walls around it, the bottom plate and the skirting board.  But it hasn't been real clear exactly where the water has been coming from.

Well, it's been the hot water service and the reason why we haven't been able to identify it is that it only leaks when the electricity to it is turned on and the element is heating. And because that's on Off Peak Tariff 2, that's only really between 11pm and 6am of a night.

Night before last after I had removed all the damaged gyprock and skirting board to try to get to see where the leak was I went out and the channel I had cleared was full of water.  Given that it had been almost dry an hour before I reckoned I was in a prime spot to see the leak and I was right.  Yep.  The hot water service, which was thirteen years old and not a very good brand according to our plumber who has had to replace quite a few of them.  There was a sure and steady drip of water coming out from the base of it, and falling exactly where the water had been accumulating.  It had been running around the channels where the bottom plate had gone and wicking up the studs and into the gyprock.

So the third thing has been fixed within the last couple of weeks: the water tank pump, the personal video recorder and now the hot water service.  That'll do us for a while thanks.  Which is just as well, as I now have a lot of carpentry and gyprocking to do.  Here's the extent of the water damage:

Bianco Pump Back

Wow, things are happening in quick succession now - today a BRAND NEW Bianco Pump finally came into stock which the wife brought home after work, and not only that, I reinstalled it today as well.

We now have the toilet and washing machine connected to that completely full 5,000 litre rainwater tank in the back yard, and to celebrate, I flushed the toilet FULL FLUSH three times!  (Okay, I was clearing the air out of the lines, but it was slightly celebratory).

The new pump is quieter, and has a longer mains lead on it, which is great as the previous one only just reached the power point before.

Our next in-home repair is going to be a water pipe in the laundry which is looking like having tiny pin-prick corrosion holes in it, which is causing water to slowly drip into the laundry wall and rot the bottom plate out.  It is going to be interesting to see what happens.  If all goes well with our plumber, he's going to be here after lunch time when I get back from having an Xray done.

Homecast comes home

On Thursday the Homecast PVR returned home in working condition!  The electronics technician I dropped it into was fairly busy.  I dropped it in Monday, and then rang on Tuesday afternoon.  "Have you had a chance to look at it?" I eagerly asked.  Alas, no.  "Just so you know: we're missing it" and I left it at that.

On Wednesday I thought I'd leave him to his own devices and not bother a very busy man who has a phone glued permanently to his ear.  Well, every time I dropped in he was on the phone talking through procedures!

On Thursday morning he rang me.  Early.  "It was a couple of capacitors and a resistor, and it's all fine now - $99.  And I'm leaving early this afternoon at 3:30, so you can pick it up Friday if you want".

I interjected that I'd be there within an hour, and he said that'd be fine.  I'll say that'd be fine.  The thing came back home, I checked it out and re-installed it in its pride of place.

It had recorded a show at 8:30pm on the Saturday night, but it hadn't recorded "Insiders" which is on ABC1 at 9am on Sunday mornings.  So it failed between then and then.  Was there a power surge, Saturday night at all?  A couple of caps, a resistor and a pair of diodes in the power supply chain sounds suspiciously like a bit of a power surge to me.  Anyway, we'll never know, and the Homecast is back in heavy service as usual.  Didn't even get the VHS machine out while it was absent, although it was starting to look like it was going to be fired up again.  Sheesh, I wonder if it actually still works?

Bianco Pumpz

Things happen in threes, eh?  Well you know all about the Homecast PVR breaking down; yesterday it went in for repairs.  Yesterday I dropped off our rainwater tank pump in for repairs as well!

We got rainwater tanks installed about three years ago - we have a 5,000 round tank which is connected to a tap, the washing machine and the upstairs toilet cistern.  We also have a 2,000 tank for only watering the garden.

We use water from the big tank a lot more than from the small one, but due to the locations on the block, we can gravity feed from the 2,000 litre tank into the big one almost all of the small tank's capacity.  Well it will leave about 500 litres there.

We only have one pump - on the big tank, of course, so if we want to use water in the front yard, or at high pressure, we can hook up to the big tank and use the hose off the pump, and it comes out at a great rate of knots!  We can sort of pay it back, as technically the big tank is on Stage 2 restrictions, by "borrowing" water from it and the replacing it from the 2,000 litre tank which is completely unrestricted.  In any case, we've never had empty tanks since they were installed - there's always been SOME water in them from rainfall.  We did get low once, but again I topped up the big tank from the small one and we made it through all right.

That is until a few weeks ago, when the pump completely karked it.  They have electronic controllers which sense the back pressure, and turn the pump on or off depending on whether it needs to be on or not.  EG flush the toilet, and the back pressure drops, the pump senses it, and then operates the pump for a minute or so while the cistern refills.  It then turns off.

Sometimes, at random and for no apparent reason, the pump comes on.  This is because the pressure in the lines has dropped and the pump senses it has to recharge them.  It's certainly uncanny when you're out in the backyard when it happens!  Also, when we get visitors staying in the downstairs spare room, we'll often switch the pump off and use Town Water again for the toilet, as the pump is right outside the window and at 3am it can be a bit of a shock when I go to the loo as I am wont to do.

So the pump is in for repairs.  We have a dilemma.  The repair will cost $177; or we can buy a new pump with a fresh two year warranty (mind you, this one has died after 2-1/2 years) for $250.  I still haven't decided: there are pros and cons that are almost even.  The pump has been dead for a few weeks now (no chance of repairing it while the show was in production!) so another day or two deciding is not going to make much difference in the scheme of things.

If you, dear reader, are out there and pondering this, please suggest what we are to do.  Initially I thought repair, however more recently I have been coming down on the side of replace...

Not the Homecast again

We came home yesterday from an overnight stay in the Hunter Valley (doesn't that sound nice - in reality we stayed overnight at my in-laws') and lo and behold, what was to greet us on our arrival was a dead Homecast Personal Video Recorder.

This machine has been not totally reliable, although it is a very handy piece of technology and means we haven't used a video cassette for a number of years now.  But it simply wouldn't boot up.  It's not completely dead - it passes through the RF signal to the TV, and the hard drive spins up all right, but as for it proceeding beyond these rudimentary features, forget it.

It's been the subject of a few blog entries in the past, actually, if you want to go searching.  It cooked out its hard drive last year and that had to be replaced, which turned out to be quite a simple repair that I did.  (And the 320 gig drive was replaced with a 500 gig drive as it was cheaper to buy a 500 gig drive at the time).  For now, however, it's a little bit too technical and it's going over to meet an electronics technician at West Gosford in about ten minutes.  Fingers are crossed, as I'm all set up to use it now re software and cables and everything else.  The lovely thing about it is you can get digital broadcasts off the machine, on to a computer, edit them (top & tail and if on non-ABC cut the ads out) and burn them to DVD.  Download a DVD cover for a movie and with a digital input, your DVD is almost as good as a commercial number, minus the special features, of course.

I wish it well.  It's in the front seat of the car at the moment in its original box for transport.

Caught in the Net for the last time

Well, well, well.

On Saturday 20 November, Caught in the Net came to an end at Wyong Drama Group.  This was a project that had occupied virtually my every waking moment for the last month, and a substantial amount of time for the two months prior to that.  That's why there have been no blog posts for ages.

The show was, without doubt, the best thing I've ever directed, and it was the funniest thing on stage I have ever seen.  It's a real testament to both the cast, and my crew (Sharon, Scott, Josh and the rest).

To see more specific info, including a hundred and fifty photos, podcasts and videos, see the Drama Group web pages at www.wyongdramagroup.com.au/caught_in_net.htm and you'll be pleasantly surprised.

Sounds good, doesn't it?  Well, there is a nasty taste in my mouth from certain drama group members who seem to be a little upset that the show was as succesful as it was.  I normally DON'T produce farces, but this one was a real tour-de-force.  My respect for Ray Cooney jumped umpteen-fold after getting to know this play pretty well from a three month rehearsal period.  Whereas before I was dismissive of farces in general, I can see just how much detail Cooney has put into the play.  There are a number of setups where the payoff doesn't take place for ages.  For instance a snorkel and mask is dropped as a setup on page 27 when the wearer has to answer a phone.  This action is quite insignificant at the time.

Yet on page 43 the payoff comes when another character unseen to the audience, puts on the snorkel and mask and uses it to hide his identity in one of the (many) funniest moments of the show.  Sheer comic genius from Cooney, and the play was full of so many details that you can see it must have taken him over a year to write the thing.

With all these positives, why the negatives?  I can only put it down to jealousy.  You could see during the leadup to the show that the group wanted it to be a success, but just not TOO MUCH of a success.  The laughter emanating from the audience during the second act, and that final incredibly appreciative applause at the end for the Curtain Calls was an absolute joy to behold.  It made it all worthwhile.

But alas, not all is quiet on the Western Front.  At a committee meeting, four days after the play was over (I am Treasurer) several members of the committee saw fit to really put the boot in over absolutely petty issues that weren't even my fault.  I copped a grilling for an hour and ten minutes.  Whilst I did get support from a couple of committee members, the other four went out of their way to make things hard on me.  And they didn't really have to - they chose to do so.

Given the success of the show and all the positives that came about, it's a real pity that our Drama Group mission statement went completely out the window:  Wyong Drama Group Inc. strives to provide a variety of quality theatre for the community, and to support, nurture and showcase the diverse talents of its members in an atmosphere of fun, friendship and enthusiasm.  What a joke.