Last month

August already! We'll be in Seattle in 5 weeks! The solar hot water service has not needed the electric booster since the first night. On the weekend, I tested the water temperature by running the hot water into a glass & standing one of Julie's cooking thermometers in it - it was nudging 50C (about 120F). Julie is VERY happy with her morning shower! Today, after a cloudy day yesterday, it was 40C, JUST enough for the official hot shower, with a zero cold water mix.

Funny. After leaving work a little early & riding home tonight in light traffic & (relatively) nice weather, I noticed how different it was after I came home in the freezing rain earlier in the week. That night, I was breathing heavily for several minutes & it really had nothing to do with the struggle to get all the gear off. On review, I figured it was probably the adrenalin still running, after riding with a howling wind trying to push me off the bike, concentrating so hard I'm gritting my teeth & almost holding my breath, as well as riding extremely carefully, particularly on the turns & curves, not particularly wanting to slide off the road. Sometimes after rain, you can actually SEE the oil slicks sitting on the road! My beloved says that if I die on the road, she'll kill me (again). Now there's female logic for you.

Speaking of females, Julie was in with doctor a few days ago, after a splinter on her knuckle degenerated into a large open sore that was clearly not healing. April chose that precise moment to call her on her mobile & Julie explained that she was in with Doctor Susan & that she was considering amputating the finger. "Here, talk to the doctor." "Yes, it looks like we'll have to amputate, possibly all the way up to the armpit." Dead silence. "DON'T SCARE ME LIKE THAT!" Much hilarity at this end. Turns out that the finger area, like the shin area where my coral cut was situated, doesn't get much circulation (which also gets worse as you get older), so it doesn't have the healing power that it should. Couple that with the constant movement in the knuckle, & the sore just keeps getting split open, so we now have the whole finger in a waterproof, air-proof plastic bandage, supported by multiple layers of bandaid things, so that she can't move the bloody thing until it does heal. Doesn't do much for her typing speed, though.

Riding home tonight, it felt like the wind was blowing off the snow somewhere, so I looked up at the ranges to check. Yes, I have finally regained enough confidence that I can look around occasionally & enjoy the scenery. Sure enough, there was the big bank of snow clouds over the ranges, but even more to the point, there was another bank over the much lower (& closer) ranges, just over the other side of the Murrumbidgee River. That's only about 10 Km away! Illustration - I was riding on Cotter Road past Curtin towards Weston. I could see Mt Stromlo but no further. So the snow clouds were right down over Uriarra Forest & Pierces Creek forest area, & probably down over the Tidbinbilla area too. In the background, the state border runs along the high peaks of the ranges.

Another trip to Sydney to get my back worked on has been & gone. The highlight was driving back directly into what was described by the weather forecaster as probably the strongest cold front this year. We drove in past from Goulburn with sleet & the occasional snow flurry hitting the windscreen. Good time to be in a heated car, not on the bikes! Approaching the Lake George area, there was snow on all of the surrounding ridges. Actually, I recall that particular stretch of road being closed by a snowstorm a couple of years ago. And this morning, there was a substantial patch of snow on one the closer hills of the Brindabella Range, which is quite unusual.

News from April: Well your grandson is starting to grow up! WAAHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! He can now put on his own shoes (Velcro only), dress himself to a point of getting stuck with his head trying to go out the arms of the shirt, and putting both legs down the same hole in the pants. He loves to help clean the dishes, I wash them, and he helps put them in the dishwasher. He will take the broom and sweep the floor. MUST have his bed made, before he can go anywhere, I did not teach him that. He has learned to peddle his tricycle, and is almost TOO big for his green cycle, so I think that the motorcycle fairy needs to pay a visit to our house here soon...wink wink wink. He loves to dance, and sing. And get this he loves to listen to piano music. Grammy was playing it one day, and he just stood there with a big grin on his face, he loved it!!!! And yesterday after I put him in the car, he burped and said Excuse me. He has never said that before! I am amazed about how fast my little guy is growing up. ITS NOT FAIR!!!! SNIFF SNIFF......

You guys will be amazed when you see him on how grown up he looks, he is starting to look like Mikey again, but boy does he ever have a temper....wonder where he gets that from!!!!!!!! he he he!!!! He has only thrown one tantrum in a store. And Mikey picked him up and took him to the car, I finished shopping, and then we went home. Since then he has not done that again. Phew!!!! :0)

Julie was back at the Doctor's today, but this time to get her photos authenticated for her citizenship application (yes, we do use Colgate). While there, she showed the Doctor her finger, which is now heavily taped up, so that it CANNOT move. She approved. And I am pleased to report that Julie's cold turkey from Zoloft has finally taken effect & that the weekend tantrums are now behind us.

Meanwhile things are ticking over, as we prepare for our trip back to Seattle. we must be getting old hands at this travel thing, as we have calmly laid out everything to go on the spare bed, for packing to take place in due course. The month ends with the KAZ Annual Ball tonight. Julie has been in partial work mode, firing off emails to the staff member who will be on duty tonight. We have decided to stay the night at the Crowne Plaza instead of trying to make our way home in a questionable condition. We're going to a friends place for Julie to get "made up" & then we'll drive into Civic, check in & give her time to go back into work mode for a while before she relaxes. Photos will follow if I manage to take any decent ones.

And on the tech side, the PuppyCam now (finally) appears to be working properly. It's taken over 600 photos in the last 2 days. I believe the problem revolves around which cameras & how many of them are connected to a particular USB channel. Too many on one channel & either the machine crashes with a Blue Screen of Death & reboots itself, or the cameras on that channel just stop working. Then there is my YardCam saga, where I installed a spare camera, so that I could use the existing one elsewhere, only to discover that the driver (or the driver options that the hardware enables) doesn't include the ability to auto control the iris, so the beautifully clear picture in the morning becomes a washed out glare of white in bright sunlight. The supplier is sending me a new driver.