We had to return to Brisbane for my didge lesson and to put the Little Motley in for service again.
Jean had dinner at Patricks Rd while I went to school. The lesson was very good. The teacher, John Bowden, seems to know what he is talking about and claims a very high success rate. He suggested that I learn on an easier instrument, one made from 40 mm plastic pipe, as this will simplify the learning of circular breathing. He also suggested that I should modify the mouthpiece of the wooden didge to make it easier to play. He asks that we all practice at least 30 minute a day, 1 hour if we can make the time. The problem is finding somewhere to practice that will not irritate the neighbours. I am using Sarah's backyard and haven't had any complaints - yet.
We spent the day with the Marretts and had dinner there before returning to Aspley.
When we arrived at Patricks Rd for the scrapbooking session, we found that the whole family was going to Cafe Zanetti so we didn't get any scrapping done. The weather had turned very warm to hot so we retired early to the Motley.
We spent the middle of the day at Patricks Rd. Al and I fixed the fan belt tension on the Beep and mended the dishwasher which had been donated by the Brown's because it didn't work.
I had to buy a hose clamp which took us, Al, Ross and I, inevitably to Mitchelton where the car refused to go past Cafe Zanetti until we had had a coffeeAl wanted to borrow the CD-ROM burner but I had forgotten to take the software CD so he had a very frustrating time trying without success to download it from the iomega website.
In the afternoon, we all went ten pin bowling at Aspley. The kids had a bumper lane while we experienced bowlers had a normal lane. We fellers had four games, all won by Max. The kids attention span isn't really long enough for bowling, but the system allows players to skip turns so they were able to play elsewhere and then come back to the bowling. We all had a good time.
The day was devoted to getting the CD burner to work. This involved downloading several updates and then switching things off until the conflicts were overcome. The prime purpose of all this was to allow Al to copy a game to a new disc to allow it to play more smoothly - what! It seemed to work. I wanted to do a new backup but my upgrade to System 9.2.1 had put the mockers on my use of the CD burner also. More work downloading and upgrading and switching inappropriate extensions off brought it all back into working order.
Al, Sarah and I watched the Super Bowl live from New Orleans. None of our teams were playing so we had to adopt teams for the day. Sarah and Al went for the Patriots and I went for the Rams. In the event my team lost in the dying seconds of the game.
We spent some time at Cafe Zanetti and then we retired to the Motley.
Laundry and shopping day.
I finally filled out the Centrelink pension application form so we went in to the office at Chermside and proved our identity - again. I hope that we will get our pension back now that we know that we can declare the Motley to be our principal place of residence and so that it is not counted as an asset.
I went into the Telstra shop to try and make some progress with my internet-over-CDMA problem. I was advised to ring a group called Data Support. Perhaps there is a solution lurking in there somewhere. I got some info on the GPRS service which might be of use but only if I change from CDMA to GSM. It would be good to have an always-on connection but the cost would be prohibitive for web browsing and for ftp web site maintenance.
In the evening, I went to didge class and we started circular breathing. It will need much practice but I'm sure it will come.