Being sick sucks :(

For the past three days or so I’ve been fighting off a cold or flu – congested chest, occasional runny nose, aches off & on, temperature fluctuations and a muzzy head. So far it’s not as bad as the last nasty one I had earlier this year but, like that one, I’m pretty sure I got it from my office. Seems the place I work has a high incidence of illness and when one person comes in with something, it’s not long until all of us have had a go with it. Perhaps it’s one of the joys of an “open plan” office (along with noises, interruptions and distractions).

Worst bit about all this is that I’m in no state to do my usual morning exercise routines. As a result my burn rate is lower so I’m trying to cut back on the amount of food I’m having. Hopefully I don’t bloat up before I can get back onto the bike.

Meanwhile, it’s rest, warmth and lots of water. Looks like it’s going to be a quiet weekend.

Not the car’s fault

So, remember my previous post about having car problems?. Well, it seems it wasn’t entirely the car’s fault that it wouldn’t start.

After leaving work early on Monday arvo and getting to the car, I called the RACV to arrange the tow down to Greg’s shed. The truck arrived about 40 minutes after I called and did a great job of getting the car on the back and down to the shed in record time. I’d tried to leave early enough so we beat the worst of the traffic and it was a surprisingly good run down the expressway and on from there. Awesome.

The first 20k are free so I only had to pay for the last 10k which meant the whole tow cost me less than $40 – handy. Greg arrived back at the shed with a starter motor to suit my car – $125 – ouch – lucky me to have such a unique vehicle.

We cracked the hood and I demonstrated the lights, camera, no action problem. “Wait a minute” says Greg “Do that again?” – lather, rinse, repeat and Greg goes “Ahhhh – hang on.” He heads into the shed and comes back with a small hammer which he then proceeds to whack the battery terminals with, knocking off a bit of corrosion in the process. He adjusts the leads onto the battery and tells me to try again.

Vroom – Houston, we have ignition!

Bloody hell…

Seems that the battery had power, the lights could work, the windows go up & down and so on, but the connection wasn’t solid enough to supply the current required by the starter motor (the Cranking Amps). So, when the RACV guy had a look at the battery, it appeared fine, but it just couldn’t enough power down to the starter.

So, if I had known to double check the battery connections I would have saved myself a stack of hassles. However, seeing all the lights come on and so on, I figured the battery was fine.

Looks like it fooled the RACV guy too. Greg reckons he should have done the same thing anyhow, even though the battery gave good readings on the meter.

Frak!

So, the car is working fine, Greg’s able to return the expensive little starter motor and get his money back and I’ve learned yet another lesson about electro-mechanical systems. Hell of a way to learn, no?

Joys of older cars

What a “fun” day – my car broke down at the Queen Victoria Markets this morning. I got back with my load of shopping, jumped in and went to fire it up. Lights, camera but no action. No cranking at all.

Called RACV and had to wait over 2 hours before their roadside assistance guy could arrive (busy day). He worked at it for a bit but couldn’t get it to fire up and confirmed that the starter was shot. While they have starter motors for a number of Mazdas, the RX-7 is not exactly common so there wasn’t much they could do for me.

Fortunately RACV membership includes a taxi ride up to $50 to get you home if your car breaks down, so I used that to get myself and the shopping back. Of course, that didn’t go smoothly as it took 2 taxis to get one who could find where I was. DOH!

So, the car is sitting in the parking lot overnight but security knows about it and will keep an eye on it where possible. I’ll arrange for RACV to tow it to my mate’s shed where we’ll see about trying to fix it. At least I get a discount on the towing – all part of the service.

DEVO – great concert – could have been awesome

Just got back home after seeing DEVO live at Festival Hall. We got there in time to catch Regurgitator’s set which was fun.

Average age of the crowd was easily 35+ and there were flowerpot hats everywhere.

DEVO’s set was great – opened with a video clip that was fun, out there and very them. The set itself had lots of classic tracks, the yellow suits, energy, etc. Amazing to see the main 4 guys who are easily 50-60 now up there and bouncing around the place banging out the tracks. Really enjoyed it all right up to their last track – Beautiful World. Perhaps my favourite track and something of an anthem for me – it was bringing tears to my eyes when they started to play it. Then, the lead singer comes back on stage in the “Boogie Boy” outfit and does the whole thing in falsetto. NNNNOOOOO!!!!!!! :(

Heartbroken – left totally flat & cold at the end of it – wondering why the frak they did it :(

Had the sung that track as normal, I would have left that gig on such a high. As it was, I came out going “Yeah, really good, glad I went, but…”

So, in the end, if you’re a fan of DEVO I’d definitely recommend catching the show, but if Beautiful World is your favourite track, just be ready to be a tad let down at the end.

Oh well, now to see how long it takes for the ringing in my ears to end. I figure they should have dug their way back out of my skull by Saturday…

House of Insanity

Yesterday was a “curriculum day” at Nykolai’s school (a “kid free” day where the teachers review curriculum issues, cross train, etc) so I worked from home for the day. Many of the other parents aren’t able to work from home so during school holidays or on curriculum days it’s not uncommon for our place to host a few kids for the day. Yesterday was no exception.

Nykolai and three of his mates took over the lounge (with the heater) while I moved a couple of laptops and the phone into the kitchen (no heater) and worked on the table there. We’ve got a Wii, PS2 and Xbox plus the kids all have their DSs. Throw in a few computers hooked to the ‘net and it’s Kiddy Paradise in the lounge (for all ages of kids).

So long as I limit their access to heavy sugar items (no candy, no sodas, etc) then we can get through the day without too much chaos. Trust me, the lesson has been learned from a previous event where cans of solo/lemonade/etc were served at lunch along with some Freddos (small chocolate bars). Huge mistake!

Fortunately the kids spent most of yesterday playing 4-player XBox games. Even though the Wii had 4 remotes, I don’t think they got to it. Beating the crud out of each other and various bots in a Star Wars based game seemed to be the preferred option for the day.

Aside from having to turn on the gas burners on the stove a couple of times so I didn’t get too cold, all went well. I managed to get work done, the kids had fun and the house wasn’t trashed. Throw in some happy parents who didn’t have to take a vacation or sick day, and everyone wins.

Nykolai meets the X-Files – ooops

I picked up Season 1 of the The X-Files as it’s a series that Kitt and I want to work our way through. We thought that Nykolai might enjoy watching them too but tonight we discovered that we may be a couple of years too early. He made it through the pilot episode but it spooked him and left him uneasy about it.

He acknowledges that, like Batman and The Lord of the Rings, it’s made up and its on TV so thus it’s not real. BUT… Seems he just can’t shake that creepy, spooky feeling and so isn’t interested in watching any more of them.

Oh well, I guess that this series will be joining Battlestar Galactica, Family Guy and South Park in the pile of “Watch while Nykolai’s not around” DVDs…

More Culture than a tub of Yoghurt

We’re having a go at being cultural types lately and have been catching exhibitions instead of going to movies. Don’t worry – we’ve been seeing a few of them too, but I’ll update you about them in a later post.

The first exhibition we went to was the Art Deco exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria. Em & Jeremy were in town from Sydney so we caught up for lunch on Degraves St and then staggered over the river to the NGV. NOTE: we crossed the river via a bridge – it’s not *that* polluted.

While Kitt enjoyed the exhibits (especially the fashion), Nykolai and I were through the whole thing in about 15 minutes, dodging the crowds and getting a quick look at the items. Our favourite pieces (the ones we stopped and really enjoyed) were the two old cars. Awesome beasties – especially the old Cord that has a Lycoming V8 in it (they make the engines in the aircraft I usually fly). There were also a couple of snake-based items – a lamp and a vase – that warranted a pause as we passed by.

So, Nykolai & I were out pretty quickly and after a quick drink at the cafe, decided to go explore the rest of the NGV. After breezing our way through art from all ages we finally wound up hanging out in the back garden where Nykolai and some other kids were climbing a rope based installation (don’t worry, people were allowed on it).

Kitt eventually made her way out while Em & Jeremy spent a bit longer really drinking it all in.

A couple of weeks later, Nykolai and I went to see the Game On exhibition at ACMI with Kitt’s brother and his two kids. Ahh, the joys of those old arcade games that I sunk hundreds of 20c pieces into all those years ago. So much fun to go around and show them to Nykolai in their cabinets and tables. Of course, he’s played a few of them in the “retro collections” on our consoles or his DS. The kids really enjoyed the handheld collection (all chained to tables but running so the kids could play them) and spent a bit of time playing the old Star Wars arcade game. Man I loved to play that one back then.

I held off on playing any games – partially to prevent embarrassing myself when I couldn’t clock a high score, but also as it was pretty crowded and I didn’t want to get in the way.

We checked out the other exhibits (history of various games & genres, well known characters, etc) and the kids got to play a bit of Halo 3. Eventually it was time for Stuart and the kids to leave so we all split and headed for home.

OK – so it wasn’t quite as cultural as Art Deco, but at least Game On was an exhibition!

Next Saturday we’re off to see the Bell Shakespeare Company’s Hamlet, at the end of the month we’re seeing Devo live and then in September we’re taking Nykolai to see “Just MacBeth” – the Bell Shakespear Company meets children’s writer Andy Griffiths on a Scottish moor – woo hoo :)

How not to market your services…

Back at the start of June, I realised that my mcherron.com domain was coming up for renewal. Now that I’m hosting with DreamHost, I figured I should use them as my registrar as well (“first domain registration free” did have an influence :) ).

Both mcherron.com and another of my domains were with an Australian registrar who were charging about AUS$40 per year for a .com – ouch! When I tried to move them to DreamHost I couldn’t find the registry keys anywhere on the current registrar’s control panel. Nor could I unlock the domains so they could be transferred. Most annoying.

So, I logged a support ticket on their web based system and figured I’d give it a few days as it wasn’t critical. A few days later and there’s no response, so I update the ticket to put more info in and ask for a prompt response. Another few days later and it’s been over week with no response, so I call their 1-300 number. Fortunately I get through to someone pretty quickly and they knew what they were on about, unlocking the domains and emailing me the keys. Yay.

I pointed out that I’d logged a support ticket and been waiting for over a week. The guy said it sounded like that queue was stalled again and that he’d organise to clear it out. Nice one…

So, with the domains unlocked and the keys in hand, I went straight back to DreamHost’s control panel and kicked off the transfers. Within about 24 hours the domains were transferred and renewed out another year each. Excellent.

There the issue would have remained had not the Australian registrar demonstrated that stalled support queues were the least of its problems. From out of the blue a few days later I get an email from a person at a completely different company stating that they’d noticed I’d asked to transfer my domain so could I please confirm it so they could allow it. If I had any questions I could contact them or my “account manager” who was also at this entirely different company.

Fortunately I knew that the organisation that sent this “out of the blue” email was actually the owner of the registration company I used to be with. Of course, there’s nothing on either group’s web pages to say this.

I replied advising that the transfer had already occurred so thanks for asking but there’s no need…

Once again, you’d think that’d be it, but no, there’s more. I received a snail-mail letter from the ex-registrar which was dated a day or two BEFORE the transfer took place but arrived just over one month after the date it was printed. It was a reminder to renew along with an invoice to make it all easier. It also featured vertical stripes and fades associated with a printer that badly needs its toner cartridge changed. Such a good look, both in presentation and in content.

Then, I get an email a few days after that which also sought to remind me that my domain was due for renewal – you know, the one I transferred away from them over a month ago (and renewed in the process). Ummm, hello???

So lets see:

  • There’s no way to unlock a domain or find its registry code
  • The online support request went into a stalled queue
  • I get a “please confirm your transfer” request after the transfer is 100% completed
  • I get a “domain renewal reminder” letter/invoice a month later
  • The letter shows that the printer that produced it desperately needed a toner cartridge change
  • I get a “domain renewal” email over a month after I’ve completed the transfer to a new registrar

Way to go gang – a great example of “how not to keep your clients.” Still, at least their phone support was pretty good…