Of Macs and Old Age With A Panda Thrown In

I have had a birthday.

This birthday may or may not be the end of my marriage. The cause is sitting on the table in front of my husband.

Let me start at the beginning.

Fifty years ago, on her due date, my sainted mother brought into this world a squalling, squirming 7lb 8oz bundle of baby girl. That was the first problem because, had she not bothered to reproduce, my husband and I would not have been here tonight snapping at each other over my birthday present (see picture above). It was also the last time I was ever on time in my life. But I digress.

I mean, what does one get for one's wife who has everything her heart desires? Obviously!
An imac! Poor woman, for years she has been struggling with a PC. All that blogging and facebooking and occasional schoolwork; she needs a Mac to avoid the viruses, crashes and go slows of the PC world because everybody knows that Macs are perfect. Right?

Of course the flaw in this plan can be summed up in two sentences:
1) We are not all cut out to be teachers.
and
2) You can't teach an old dog new tricks.

The photo above was taken before he tried to teach me to use the thing which is why we are both smiling. Well, I am smiling, that other expression is the closest Himself gets to smiling unless there is sailing involved and even then only if there is winning involved :-D

The first problem was that the imac was too clever for our old wireless router. They couldn't communicate (a familiar problem around these parts). Try as he might, Himself was unable to connect me to the internet without carrying the whole kit and caboodle into the family room and connecting me up to the router via *gasp* a cable!!! This obviously left the 'i' brand a little tarnished since he had spent some time telling me how well everything worked on a Mac. My husband does not do 'tarnished' well. There was a great deal of stamping and swearing and after several days he had to admit that we needed a new router. I call this the 'New Technology Domino Effect'.

So now we were 'airborne' so to speak, and he was able to wax enthusiastically about the benfits of my new system.

• It's fast. Reeeeally fast, especially when compared to my 6 year old PC which of late has taken 10+ minutes to boot up. Everything is onboard!
  

• There are no peripherals except for the external hard drive from which I am importing all my photos. 61.5GB of photos.

• It has iphoto. "You are going to LOVE iphoto".

I do not love iphoto.

For one thing it has no 'save as' command. Instead it has 'export'. I cannot work out how to make albums within albums. It lists folders as 'events'. When I enhance a photo (quick fix) in the editing suite it changes the file size from 1.7MB to 5.4MB unless I tell it otherwise which requires an extra step which I did not need to take on my old dinosaur program.
I do not love iphotos.

Except for the fact that you can load photos directly to facebook. :-D
But not directly to blogger. :-(

A week into my 51st year and my husband and I are finally discussing the subject of the imac civilly.

Here is another attempt after a bit more iphoto practice and a marital 'cooling off' period.


In the photo above you can see the BA thrusting forward the lovely flowers from my lovely mum and dad and me clutching the set of three lovely Stieg Larsson books the lovely BA gave me.
Oh! and Small Boy excelled himself by getting me a present for the first time ever. I am now the proud owner of the DVD 'Australia' so I can sigh over Hugh Jackman in the bush shower any time I like :-)

So what does a girl choose to do for her 50th birthday ten days out from Christmas when most of the world is unavailable due to work 'dos' and Christmas prep?


She spends the day with A Free Man, Boy Z, Not Max, the Baby Angel and A Small Boy on the River Torrens. On a boat. Called Popeye.

Sit down boyz! For Gawd's sake keep away from the edge!!!!!!!


Oh yeah, and we ate 'good food' aka hot chips for the first time since I started my diet in October.


But we did go to the zoo as well where we saw the lovely meer kats,


the sad giraffes (such a small enclosure)


and the new, you beaut, 'not quite sure what all the fuss is about' pandas.


And Boy Z navigated.


And not Max slept.

But not until his lovely Auntie Arizaphale rocked him to sleep in his stroller. Clever Auntie. Ah you learn a lot in 50 years, like: 15 month olds do not eat ham sandwiches and require you to bring a bottle with them on outings. Should have just asked me AFM :-D! Still he did ok on two icecreams and half a pint of tomato sauce eaten out of the container by way of a 'hot chip dip'.
No more sauce for me thanks Not Max.

Seriously though, we had a lovely day. If the next 50 are as good as this...........

Missing In Action

I admit it. I've kind of been living at ebay and facebook lately! I don't know what's the matter with me; I don't feel like writing. Maybe it's the weather? Over 37c again today and forecast to last til Saturday!! :-(

I'm currently in the market for an overlocker (serger for you US types). I lost out on one the night before the big wedding because I was so busy sewing the BA's dress that I forgot to check on the auction progress. I've got a lot to learn about this ebay thing. Turns out that one didn't do rolled hems which are apparently a big plus and certainly would have been a good thing on the BA's dress (I felt the hem I had painstakingly hand sewn looked neat but heavy; rolled may have been better) so maybe it was for the best.

I've tried to do a little research on the various brands but there's remarkably few user reviews. It's also tricky to find out whether the second hand machines on ebay do the rolled hem and whether they have an automatic setting or need a cumbersome needle and plate change. Predictably, companies are more keen to tell you about their current models.

There's a Janome Mylock 654D (I think) going and I'm in the running but I'm trying to decide whether to go over the Au $150.00 mark. Postage has to be considered as well. Does anyone know this machine and whether it's worth it?

Aside from that I had a very interesting weekend catching up with a friend from Teacher's College whom I hadn't seen for 20 years! She had tried to find me some years ago, phoning everyone in Sydney with my maiden name and asking if I lived there. I was deeply touched. Finally she found me on 'friends reunited' which lists people against their schools and training or tertiary institutions. I signed up for that site in 2000 and am still listed under my maiden name.

I picked her up from the airport on Friday night and we had a wonderful catch-up at the BA's netball match (they won and she played VERY well). Unfortunately, with a sleepy BA on my hands I had to drop her at her accommodation that night and meet up again the next morning.

Boy we can talk!

We talked all through the morning, all through lunch (Italian), all through my drive by tour of the city, scenic trip through the hills to my place, tour of the house, drive back to the city, pre dinner drinks, dinner (Thai) and nightcap. By 11.30pm my eyes were rolling in my head but I attempted to continue carrying on a conversation, surrendering only when I started talking about staircases in my sleep whilst sitting upright at the table!

I camped responsibly over on her couch and then took her to the airport in the morning, after MORE talking.

Well, we had a lot to catch up on :-D

Back to school today and I'm on a course about Numeracy Support for two days. So far it has been quite interesting and challenging. Much of the basic stuff I am familiar with but the challenge is how to apply it to disenfranchised teenage learners.

And just because I have been lazy of late and because you haven't heard much from my classroom babies, try these little beauties from the recent Y8 test on Co-ordinate Geometry and Line Graphs.

A graph is presented showing the weight and length of puppies on the y and x axes respectively. Pupils are asked to order the puppies according to length and then to order them according to weight. Surprise, surprise the order is different. The final question asks:
" Is it true that longer puppies are always heavier? Give a reason for your answer."

Here are some of the responses:

" No because it says Spot 's length is long but he ways (sic) the least of all of the dogs.
I had a dog really short but he weighs a lot."

"Not all the time and it depends what dog it is."

"No because Oscar is the heaviest dog and he is not the longest." (errrrr yes he is.....)

"If a puppy is longer than another it's going to be heavier because it has more fat and skin and bones."

*sigh*

Now I'm off to mark the Year 10 Taxation and Depreciation/Interest tests.

Wish me luck............

Devastation or: Let Me Eat Cake or: You Can Never Have Enough Diggers

Did A Free Man claim that the 2 year old Boy Z was 'devastated' when his sensational Digger birthday cake was cut up and served? Let me tell you, you cannot believe everything you read on the internet. Photographic evidence now, that is a different story!

Firstly, I give you the sensational Digger cake in detail. Well done Dr O'C. If this was a 'first effort' I can't wait to see where your skills develop!


Next a slightly worried Boy Z, but that was only because a number of strange people were singing him Happy Birthday.


Now, a tentative 'try'.


What is this orange stuff?


I think he likes it!!!


Hmmmm....these supporting struts taste pretty good.


I wonder what happens if you put it in this way.


OK, this could be a knife and fork job.


Huh. I've had enough of this. I've got more important things to get on with, like.....


.......opening presents!!!!!


Happy Birthday Boy Z!! Thanks for having us :-)