Monday and Tuesday this week I helped Rebecca’s dad with some building work. I popped in both mornings on the way north to see her and Sienna first.
This morning I drove up to see them again since Rebecca had to go to Centrelink and Sienna would be bored with that so I suggested I go up and look after her and get to spend some time with her. We popped into Dick Smith Electronics to find a Cat 5 crossover cable. DSE had them for $10 for a 1m cable. WTF!?!?! I don’t think so. It took me ages to get to Rebecca’s place as there was an accident on the motorway.
I started heading home about 11:30am when I realised I had driven 30kms and had forgotten my mobile, so I went back to Rebecca’s to pick it up. I drove back home again and popped into the Post Office to pick up my mail. I then went to BiLo and got some groceries I needed, then on to The Disc Shop where I purchased a 2m cat 5 crossover cable for $5! Hmm. $5 for 2 metres compared to $10 for 1 metre. *COUGH*ripoff*COUGH*
I came back home and connected up the PC with the new cable and turned off my switch. I won’t need that any more for routing. I went to put the washed clothes on the line but realised instead of setting my washing machine to start washing in 18 minutes, I had set it to 18 hours!!! I thought the maximum "18" (which I thought was minutes) was a bit short. Oh well. Now I know why! I reset the washing machine and started it at 0 hours which meant it was washing straight away this time hehe.
I used my new Voice-over-IP service to ring the local bicycle shop and ask if they would be nice enough to take the chain off my bike and put it on the right way since I obviously had no idea what I was doing! They were nice enough to do it for free and even adjusted the gears since they weren’t set right and the chain would have just slipped off.
I came back home and dropped off the bike and rang a local Honda recycled parts place to see if I could get the washer set for my back window. One of the hydraulic arms had come off and the old washer and nut had a stripped thread. He said that is a common occurance since it is only an alloy but the only place to get them is from Honda themselves. I asked for the address of the local Honda place and popped over to see if I could get one there. It turns out there’s actually three parts to it and you buy them all separate. One part is $2. Another part is $3. The last part needed is $22. ARGH! Oh well. I’m sick of not being able to open the back window and leave it locked open while I load and unload stuff. (It was especially difficult with getting my bike in and out of the car).
On the way home I popped into a small shopping centre to see if I could get a small pocket radio with batteries since my car radio isn’t working and I don’t want to spend heaps just to listen to the disc jockies crap on in the mornings. They had nothing at Crazy Clark’s nor any other shops. I headed for home when I saw the Strathfield Car Audio shop. I went in, not expecting to find anything of the sort. I looked around the shop and was about to leave when I saw some bins in the corner full of cheap stuff. I went over and there was one bin with portable radios for $10 each. Eureka! I grabbed one and found some AA batteries which were $3.95 according to the label. I bought them, but they only charged $5 for the radio and $2.95 for the batteries. Must be a way to make you feel good. Shopping ploys. Advertise on the shelf a higher price then when you buy it cheaper you feel good that you got such a bargain 
I was happy anyway.
I headed for home but popped into the Medical Centre. My right ear has been sore for a few weeks. I think I got some water in there while showering some time ago and it’s just not come right since. I was ushered into the doctor’s office after waiting about 5 minutes and he gave me a prescription. I went straight out to the chemist and bought the ear drops and got back in the car and came home. Once I was at home I fixed the back window on the car (YAY! 
) and put the washing on the line. I’ve just had dinner (forgot lunch since I had a bit of pizza at Rebecca’s at about 10:30am) and will go for a ride on my bike to get some much needed exercise.
Also happening this week: My modem was set to do the PPPoA connection to my ISP (iiNet) but I needed a PPPoE connection and preferably the modem would only do bridging and the linux box would do PPPoE, NAT, routing, firewall, etc. Last night I got Tomcat on the phone and he logged into my linux box and we both got to work figuring out the problem. After much reconfigging (due to changing from ETH1 being the internet to PPP0) the firewall and other settings, we finally got it going. I’m glad now because it means my VOIP works and I can make phone calls using my PC which means I get cheaper rates and can call anyone with an iiNet internet connection for free. SWEET!
