What have you been up to lately?

[Lady Fraktor]

The adventure begins, currently -15°C and still dark.
At least for the return trip I will have stopped at my favourite čokolatier!

[DeanD]

Driving to Viedeň tomorrow morning. Distance is around 850 km return and will take around 10 hours.
The crazy half ordered two new studio monitors but the shop quoted € 2.700 to deliver them!!
Since a tank of diesel is only € 62,53 and I am on days off guess who will not be paying € 2.700 for delivery!

I hope the trip goes really well Gabby. I want to see a piccie of them on the back of your bike!

(PS: that price is insane! It is even worse than the crazy quotes I get to have things delivered from the USA to Oz.)

[Butterfly Maiden]

The schools are on holiday for 2 weeks for Easter here this weekend, so I am getting more young girls wanting their nails done.

Usually they want some sort of theme done, or more outrageous colour schemes

I don't mind of course, it makes them happy, and some of the designs they request are quite funny.

They come along with their mums so at least I know the design/s have parental approval

Easter is the current theme, and they want to impress their friends with their latest design at the Easter parties.

Below is an example of the sort of design I am doing. This one is a water-based decal, so nice and quick to apply and remove afterwards.

I think I 'nailed' it for this particular girl (sorry, I couldn't resist the pun there ) - she was delighted with the result

[OzEclipse]

Second Night on my road trip to the total eclipse, 1250k down, 3750k to go.

I got held up and only left at lunchtime yesterday. 520k yesterday, 730k today. Next two days are sub 500km with a little exploring then two 700+km days sees me in Perth for 3 days rest before heading north.

No photos yet, just boring driving.

Joe

[GCoyote]

Second Night on my road trip to the total eclipse, 1250k down, 3750k to go.
joes TSE progress copy.jpg

I got held up and only left at lunchtime yesterday. 520k yesterday, 730k today. Next two days are sub 500km with a little exploring then two 700+km days sees me in Perth for 3 days rest before heading north.

No photos yet, just boring driving.

Joe

Safe trip and clear skies!

[Lady Fraktor]

Driving to Viedeň tomorrow morning. Distance is around 850 km return and will take around 10 hours.
The crazy half ordered two new studio monitors but the shop quoted € 2.700 to deliver them!!
Since a tank of diesel is only € 62,53 and I am on days off guess who will not be paying € 2.700 for delivery!

I hope the trip goes really well Gabby. I want to see a piccie of them on the back of your bike!

(PS: that price is insane! It is even worse than the crazy quotes I get to have things delivered from the USA to Oz.)

The trip was enjoyable, the hardest part was finding parking close by.
Each crated monitor is 80 x 45 x 55 cm and weigh 38 kg (64.5 x 33 x 44.5 cm and 35.1 kg unpacked)
I had a discussion with the shop owner about the ridiculously high delivery cost. He said it was ensuring the cargo arrived safely.
I do not think he liked my comment that it should also include a marching band and installation for the price.

[OzEclipse]

Driving to Viedeň tomorrow morning. Distance is around 850 km return and will take around 10 hours.
The crazy half ordered two new studio monitors but the shop quoted € 2.700 to deliver them!!
Since a tank of diesel is only € 62,53 and I am on days off guess who will not be paying € 2.700 for delivery!

I hope the trip goes really well Gabby. I want to see a piccie of them on the back of your bike!

(PS: that price is insane! It is even worse than the crazy quotes I get to have things delivered from the USA to Oz.)

The trip was enjoyable, the hardest part was finding parking close by.
Each crated monitor is 80 x 45 x 55 cm and weigh 38 kg (64.5 x 33 x 44.5 cm and 35.1 kg unpacked)
I had a discussion with the shop owner about the ridiculously high delivery cost. He said it was ensuring the cargo arrived safely.
I do not think he liked my comment that it should also include a marching band and installation for the price.

I was offered a Simulation Curriculum SkyFi3 for $50 after a fault occurred in mine. Very nice gesture on their part since it was 6 years old. All I was doing was asking for some technical info about the device. But the freight was US$170.

When you say studio monitors, do you mean speakers or computer displays? Both are called 'studio monitors.'
glad your trip went well.

Joe

[Lady Fraktor]

When you say studio monitors, do you mean speakers or computer displays? Both are called 'studio monitors.'
glad your trip went well.
Joe

Thank you, the trip was enjoyable. Are you still travelling?

They are recording studio monitors Neumann.Berlin KH-420
https://www.neumann.com/en-en/products/monitors/kh-420/

[pakarinen]

Had to give my printer back to my now former employer, so I went out and bought a new HP today. Yay. Exciting. Not.

[OzEclipse]

When you say studio monitors, do you mean speakers or computer displays? Both are called 'studio monitors.'
glad your trip went well.
Joe

Thank you, the trip was enjoyable. Are you still travelling?

They are recording studio monitors Neumann.Berlin KH-420
https://www.neumann.com/en-en/products/monitors/kh-420/

Wow, beautiful looking speakers. I have a pair of much cheaper JBL LSR305P active recording studio monitors. I think they were on sale and cost me the equivalent of about €150 each about 8 years ago. Currently around €500 a pair. They don't have the low end of yours nor the high end but I can't hear the high frequencies at my age anyway. They have built in amplifiers so all I needed to add was a bluetooth receiver and I can connect to them from any device. I use them much more than the multi component audio setup I had before.

Still travelling. I have been driving 3.5 days so far. Today is a rest day and I am about 100km short of the half way mark. 2300km down 2500km to go. I'm staying at the Western Australian border for 1 day.

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I have been most driving without taking too many photos.
North of Adelaide, I had to put my car on a ferry at Caddell to cross the Murray River.

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Southern Australia has beautiful fresh seafood. Even small towns have small takeaway joints or restaurants with beautiful fresh seafood.

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This is the oyster barn in Ceduna, a town of 3000 people. Although called the oyster barn, they also serve beautiful fresh King George Whiting locally caught. It is just a hole in the wall, not a restaurant...think the Seinfeld soup nazi episode

The south coast of central Australia is called the Great Australian Bight, a very old sea floor that was uplifted about 100m and now forms long cliffs.

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On arrival at Eucla, I finally caught up with the Jones express, TSS member Phil Jones (@scribbly) his wife Marg and her twin brother Peter. I went and had a camp dinner with them last night.

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They left 2 days ahead of me but are doing more sightseeing on the way over. I am planning to do more sightseeing on the way back. We'll meet up again in Exmouth for the week of the eclipse next Saturday.

A couple of weeks before departure, I installed a 160W solar panel, 120AH 12V Lithium battery, charge controller, distribution panel and a 60L car fridge. It's completely independent of the car's electrical system. It's all working reasonably well. On the 2nd day however, the charge controller output went dead. It was still taking power from the panel and charging the battery but no power coming out. I left the Lithium battery charging and used another cable to connect the fridge directly to the car electrics while I was driving. When I stopped at sunset, I connected the fridge to the lithium battery. I removed the charge controller but could not open it without voiding the warranty. Next morning I reconnected the battery to the charge controller. In noticed the display was indicating power was available for distribution so I reconnected the distribution panel and voila, all working again. Fingers crossed it keeps working.


Joe

[DeanD]

Sounds great Joe! Must feel good to have finally caught up with (and passed?) the Jones'!
(Although how can you really compete with someone who uses a tablecloth in the Outback? I think they might have stolen my Mum's old one(!) )

You will be getting towards 1/2 way around when you get to Exmouth: are you thinking of heading north to get back?

All the best for safe travels, and I hope you enjoy the rest of the trip (especially those special 63 seconds!).

Dean

[Lady Fraktor]

Travel safely Joe! That sounds like quite the fun trip.

The monitors are for the crazy half recording studio, not for regular music listening.
I did listen to a few pieces while she was positioning and tuning them and the sound was amazing.

[DeanD]

Travel safely Joe! That sounds like quite the fun trip.

The monitors are for the crazy half recording studio, not for regular music listening.
I did listen to a few pieces while she was positioning and tuning them and the sound was amazing.

My son would be very jealous: he is busy setting up his recording studio in their new house in Margate. He has got a nice mixer/amp thingy (is that a technical term?) though: https://condesaelectronics.com/products/carmen-v
(I make quite a few of the wooden cases for these, but I have no idea about the electronics! )

[Lady Fraktor]

Travel safely Joe! That sounds like quite the fun trip.

The monitors are for the crazy half recording studio, not for regular music listening.
I did listen to a few pieces while she was positioning and tuning them and the sound was amazing.

My son would be very jealous: he is busy setting up his recording studio in their new house in Margate. He has got a nice mixer/amp thingy (is that a technical term?) though: https://condesaelectronics.com/products/carmen-v
(I make quite a few of the wooden cases for these, but I have no idea about the electronics! )

I am the same way, the extent of my electrical knowledge is light goes on, light goes off.
I am just a extra set of hands around the studio when needed.

[OzEclipse]

Sounds great Joe! Must feel good to have finally caught up with (and passed?) the Jones'!
(Although how can you really compete with someone who uses a tablecloth in the Outback? I think they might have stolen my Mum's old one(!) )

You will be getting towards 1/2 way around when you get to Exmouth: are you thinking of heading north to get back?

All the best for safe travels, and I hope you enjoy the rest of the trip (especially those special 63 seconds!).

Dean

Hi Dean,

I told them that my caption for the photo was going to be, "Keeping up with the Jones"
That was the plan. January floods washed away almost a large part of the 500km of the A1 Highway between Broome and Kunanurra plus 7 bridges so the whole of northern WA is a no go zone at present. It will take them years to rebuild.

So I am coming back across the south. Also, making very good wages in this temporary contract so it makes more sense to minimise this trip and do a much longer trip when they have recovered and need tourist $ and I am gainfully unemployed (=retired) once again.

Cheers
Joe

[helicon]

Had to give my printer back to my now former employer, so I went out and bought a new HP today. Yay. Exciting. Not.

Now you get to spend much more on ink cartridges than you ever did on the printer.

[Makuser]

This was my project for this last week. I was in a hurry to get this problem of the water leaking in front of our refrigerator so I didn't take any pictures. However, here is the video that I used to learned how to do this and what I went through with my old body. My back, legs, and shoulders were sore for days, but it's fixed now:

[Butterfly Maiden]

This was my project for this last week. I was in a hurry to get this problem of the water leaking in front of our refrigerator so I didn't take any pictures. However, here is the video that I used to learned how to do this and what I went through with my old body. My back, legs, and shoulders were sore for days, but it's fixed now:

Well done Marshall.

Aching limbs aside, you must have saved yourself a fortune on repair bills from a company.

I am afraid we would have to call out an engineer to fix a similar problem in our house. Neither of us are capable of doing such repairs

[pakarinen]

Geez. We have old oak floors in the kitchen, so we intentionally did not connect the ice maker / water dispenser when we got a new fridge. Too many people told us horror stories of ruined hardwood because of a leaking fridge. Actually, I cut the water supply line in the basement so even if the valve fails it's only going to flood concrete.

I'll probably have to connect it when we sell the place though.

[ewomack]

I've been up to the usual lately. Reading too much. Thinking about when the weather will clear up so I can look upwards again, etc., etc.

On the materialistic side of things, I picked up a Byzantine coin. It's around 1,200 years old and shows the Emperor Theophilus, who ruled from 829 to 842. He was the last Byzantine Emperor to openly support iconoclasm. Yes, you're either into this sort of thing or you aren't.

Then I added a specimen to my growing Zasu Pitts card collection, a cigarette card from 1935. If you haven't heard of Zasu Pitts, you're probably not alone. She died in 1964 and was most active in the 1930s and 1940s. She did make it on to a US postage stamp, though. Why do I collect Zasu Pitts cards? Because it's easy to collect things that nobody else wants. That sounds reasonable enough to me, but I could easily repeat: you're either into this sort of thing or you aren't.

Finally, I did pick up a copy of "Turn Left At Orion," a book heavily recommended by this and other forums. Now I just need to read it.

So, I've apparently spent some time consuming recently. I've had plenty of training in that, after all.