jim-hill.com

As usual I go through these bursts of enthusiasm, then I end up with a month or two of pathos. Time is tight though. In the next few weeks I have to go from general lethargy to extreme action!

My lawn is a mess. There are weeds and bad grasses all over it. So i went ballistic with the Roundup yesterday. Once the worst of it is gone the following is what I picked up at the garden centre yesterday:

1. Ammonium sulphate is good for couch and bad for the broadleaf meadow grass.

2. Senstive weed needs to be treated with lime. It can’t tolerate the pH change.

3. Singapore daisy needs to be poisoned with double conc roundup. But I might try transplanting it onto the bank at the back of the house. It’s supposed to be a pretty good anti erosion thing.

So 2010 will start with me looking for a way to earn some money. I need to get some routine into my day: The hardest thing about working from home is to keep at it. Otherwise I’m not too concerned.

Shot 79 yesterday. Australia is getting a new handicap system so it will be interesting to see how mine comes out. I have a feeling I might lose as much as a shot.

Don’t know what to do for New Year. Would love to do a dive trip, but I haven’t got enough spare cash for that. If I get my income level up I’ll reward myself with a trip after April perhaps.

I haven’t been updating the blog because I’ve been a bit busy trying to set up a new web site. The idea of the site is for me to publish my writing on line for everyone to read.  The ads on the site might generate a bit of income for me. I hope.

I’ve also been doing a bit of security stuff and now the forum and the blog should be okay to open for new members and comments respectively.

So let’s see how it goes.

Ha. I won on Saturday shooting a 79 for a nett 65.  Won a $50 voucher for the Baron Valley Hotel. I suppose a couple of bottles of wine might be the go… Anyway, well pleased with the round. Kept a six off the card.

Played my second round match in the matchplay tournament on Sunday and won. Also got 38pts in the comp. My handicap hasn’t been cut yet.

Singing as part of a five part Harmony for Ol Man River in the Malanda show. It will be very interesting to see how that comes out.  It could be very good. Otherwise I’m trying to do the Billy Birmingham Ritchie Benaud accent for the role I’m playing. Ha.

By the way, if you want to comment on my blog then I’ll give you a user name to do it with. You can’t get a username unless you can figure out how to ask me for one. Which means that you should know me before you get one. Spam control I’m afraid.

England have won the Ashes and Australia are starting to appreciate the reality of test cricket without Shane Warne and Glen McGrath. Now that the cricket and the golf are over (they are all sit up late at night things) I’ll be able to get back to a schedule that allows me to get as much daylight per day as possible. In effect, I need to get up at 6am  and hit the sack at 10pm.

It’s on of the biggest drawbacks of living in the tropics. I miss the long summer evenings of the higher latitudes. Particularly now that I have a garden to look after.

Rates demand came in. Ouch!

It’s hardly worth the exclamation mark, but I came second in the B Grade for the John Cole Toyota tournament at the weekend. So thank you John Cole for the chair with attach mouse table. It’ll come in very useful for using the computer. Haha. In Fact it’s a deck chair with attached drinks table flap thingy. Anyway, there you go.

I shot a lot of pars, but too many double bogeys. Quite happy with the new shorter swing. Driver is the only problem, which I’ll have to sort out.

The Malanda show is getting going and while I still object to wasting Sundays indoors, we’re making progress. I’ve been given the high line to sing in Ol’Man River, so that’s proving pretty tricky. Have to hit an A about four times.  Still, it keeps me off the streets.

Been doing a bit of work on the FNQATA web site, with not much support. With any luck people will see the value in it. Need to get the drama group up and running too. Need to choose and evening and get whoever wants to be in it to come along. Need to contact writers too.  Tropical writers group might be a good place to start.

Whiskey is losing a bit of hair. Might be his diet. Will try one of the science diets and see how he goes. Otherwise he’ll be off to the vet.

Took Roxy walkies last night with a new short lead and choke chain. Trying to get her to walk at heel. She did pretty well for a first go.

The Old Fire Station Yungaburra

Here’s a picture of the old fire station in Yungaburra. It’s now been replaced by a big red and blue shed.

Won an auction on eBay for a motherboard, E8400 intel chip and a bit of RAM. I’ll upgrade the old computer next, so that I have a newish machine to run Windows XP on. Plus I have the video card I took out of the new computer to use. Some of the old games don’t run in the new Vista 64 operating system.

I’ve been playing adventure games again. It’s ages since I played an adventure game and yet they were a staple of the early days of computing games. I looked up a few reviews and discovered that the Broken Sword trilogy were highly recommended. And then on a visit to the local computer shop to enquire about new parts I discovered the self same trilogy selling for $5. Bargain.

Currently stuck in the first game, Shadows of the Templars. I suppose the answer will come to me soon.

Whiskey seems a bit unwell. He’s been sneezing and he’s got the runs.  If he gets any worse he’ll be off to the vet.

I’ve enrolled in the cast of Malanda’s next production called Razzmataz, the Malanda Musical. Loads of people involved and it’s a good opportunity to meet all the people there.  I decided I couldn’t wait any longer for them to put on something I actually wanted to be in. Nothing happening at the APA at the moment. Mainly due to the wrong person being president. Hopefully this is something we’ll fix soon. Then we can maybe get on with organising some theatre rather than yapping about unimportant stuff.

SI got married on Sunday. I went along to the bash after the ceremony.  Fairly quiet affair and best left to the family. I only stayed a couple of hours to offer my congrats etc.

I had a 10 on the fifth on Saturday!!! Did well to come out of it with an 89 in the ends, considering I was 12 over after 5. Thats a mere 7 over for the remaining 13 holes which would have been OK. I’ve got to concentrate on starting now. I blame the new swing I’ve developed, which is only a sort of half swing but I do hit the ball in the centre of the club more often.  I’ve come to the realisation, after a mere 38 years swinging a golf club, that how well you hit the golf ball is more important than how hard you hit it.

I wonder how I change the spell checker in Safari.

Had a brilliant idea to put together some cheap furniture fast.  I bought some steel shelving units that other day for the spare room and they are pretty good, but they look like they should be in a shed. But they have a pretty good construction so that the outside rails are completely flat. So I reckon I can cover them in some pine, stain it and varnish it. They should look good without all the hassle of building wooden frames for furniture if I was to do it all myself.

The shelving units only cost $75.

Will post pictures when I get down to it.

Why is it that people here want to rehearse theatre on Sundays during the day? There must be a better way. When the working week is done there is only 24 hours of daylight for doing things that you can do in the sunshine, that it seems an awful waste to do things that can be done at night during the day. If that makes any sense.

Still, I had a chat with GH about the Malanda show and we’ll see how we can progress. They haven’t finalised the part I’m playing yet, and hopefully my aversion to daylight rehearsals will produce a part that doesn’t require too much Sunday work.

Went to see Ravenshoe Arts and Theatre Society’s production of Ali Baba on Friday. Very rustic but very enjoyable. Just shows that theatre doesn’t have to be done to some ill-defined standard of professionalism to be entertaining. It could have done with some music for the songs though. Even someone banging out the melody on the Joanna might have helped.

Yet again, failed to win the lottery.

Played better golf on Saturday. My new short swing is starting to lock itself into place. Shot 81, but missed a stack of short putts, and three putted a couple o greens. Tee to green it was pretty good.

I bought one, for the garden. So now I can shred all the garden waste and turn it into mulch. But it is going to take time, there’s a fair bit of waste there and the shredder, being a cheapish model, takes its time.

Roxy has learned to drop the ball, the new computer is super fast, but I can’t install Silent Hunter III on it and I’ve stopped writing. I must start again. I think the angst over the future of the APA has caused a loss of creative energy, but things are looking better now.

Must do an update on the APA site too soon.