Up really early and connected to the internet. Back to bed for a bit more sleep.
In the afternoon I mowed the front and most of the back lawn. There is a bit to do tomorrow and the back paddock is knee high with all sorts of weeds and grasses. I survived this extensive bout of hard work with no problems except sore legs.
Reading the Xmas New Year edition of New Scientist I got new proof that the 21st century is characterised by processes which are broken. The story told of the first flight of the F-22 Raptor from Hawaii to Okinawa in February 2007. As the aircraft crossed the international date line the navigation instruments and flight instruments went dead. The pilot was unable to go anywhere safely but was able to see the re-fuelling tanker which was heading back to Hawaii so he just followed it home.
The first flight of the Ariane 5 was a disaster because of a software error which, a few seconds into the flight, resulted in a buffer overflow which resulted in a command to do a 180° turn which was obeyed by the flight controls of the vehicle which returned to earth under full power. We all assumed that this experience would result in better software testing procedures to avoid such faults in future projects. But no! The Raptor software was so confused by the change of date, presumably received from GPS satellites, that it went catatonic and was unable to do anything. One is reminded of the USN Yorktown which went dead in the water on its first voyage.
Surely history repeats itself. Perhaps Project Managers should read Henry Petrovsky's book "To Engineer is Human" which describes many engineering disasters, attributes their cause to the human fallibility of the engineers but shows how learning from these bad experiences is what powers our technological progress. We went to bed before the fireworks on the grounds that so much public money being spent on such ephemeral entertainment for a minority of Sydneysiders would just have irritated me.
Some people seem to think that midnight last night was a very special time because it was the end of the year. I find this a classic example of the irrationality of a large section of the population. The calendar is just an arbitrary man-made device which is useful but it has no supernatural significance. I was reminded of all this when the television news remarked that the new year still hadn't come to some parts of the world. San Francisco will reach this "magical time" in another three hours as I write this at four o'clock in the afternoon.
I was out early trying to finish the mowing. After about half an hour my legs demanded that I take a rest. I took a morning tea break and then had a short rest. I got back to it and finished the mowing before lunch. After lunch I took a nap and then got the whipper snipper out and did the final trim. I had to top all the grass on the gravel mound where the old tanks came out. There is a creeper growing there but the grass was taller than the creeper so it had to get trimmed. I still have to spray the weeds again and trim the hedge before our next visitors arrive next week and I will probably have to mow again though it will be easy next time as it will only be a few millimetres (a bit of an inch) high.
We had a call from Mell asking if they could come to stay today. I said we had to go to Tamworth but we would be back by three o'clock.
I needed to go to Tamworth to check the operation of the modem which has been failing to connect in Barraba for a couple of days and to download a bunch of software. We assembled a list of supplies which we can't buy in Barraba so we went shopping too.
We reached Tamworth at half past ten and visited the Elgas office, the doctor's surgery, the Rivers Clearance store, Tamworth Camping World, Centrelink, Dick Smiths, and The Shoe Warehouse. Having done all the chores we needed to do, we went to The Homestead for morning tea and to download the software I needed.
I tested the modem and found that it didn't work in the middle of Tamworth. I diagnosed either a hardware failure or a case of corrupt software. The second possibility was easier to test for so I uninstalled the modem software and re-installed it from the original download disc image. Lo and behold, everything came good so I was able to rule out a hardware problem.
As I was waiting to get access to an ATM a guy came up and said how often are you taken for Thomas Keneally? My reply was " They usually say 'You're Richard Attenborough' and I reply 'No, I'm Thomas Keneally'."
We went to Woolworths to buy the necessary supplies and went to Muffin Break for a spot of lunch.
We headed back to Barraba at two o'clock and reached home at three o'clock. I rang Mell to ask where they were and she said that they were at the RSL waiting for us to return. They came to Gotha St and set up in "Mell's spot" in the back yard across from the Motley. When they had finished their setting up they came up to the house and we sat on the front porch chatting until it was time to get ready for dinner.
Up at sparrowfart again. The day was bright and clear and I spent some time working on the MacBook. I only got a few chores done during the day because I'm "on holiday".
We had morning tea with Pip'n'Mell and a very happy hour with Pip'n'Mell and Vicki and John Samin. John noticed a lady he knows from church getting out of a car across the street and called her over. She is our newest neighbour who is moving into the house opposite sometime in February. She was happy to join us for happy hour and revealed that she would love to become a motorhomer but her husband isn't keen. She seemed to enjoy the company and we invited her to call on us whenever.
I woke up really late and realised that I had failed to go to the Lions Board Meeting last night. I also realise that I can't get into the next task in the kitchen until our visitors are gone because I need to turn off the power to the circuit I need to extend before I can reline the laundry wall. As I said yesterday, I'm "on holiday " anyway.
I went to town early to get the paper, pick up the medications, and do a little shopping.
In the afternoon I cleared the gravel from the gutter in our driveway, cleaned out the rainhead and got rid of the grass in the rear garden bed which had grown to one and a half metres (five feet) high.
Pip and Mell joined us for afternoon tea and hurried back to the Icecream Van before the rain came in. I booked our site in the caravan Park at Dicky Beach where we are having a family gathering with the Fitzhardinges and the Marretts.
It rained overnight and we were a bit worried about Pip'n'Mell getting bogged. It was OK. They took a little trip out and had no trouble.
We spent the day sitting around, watching the cricket. We gave up watching after an hour of no wickets and few runs and found out later that the last few overs were really exciting with Australia getting the last three Indian wickets in the last over with only seven balls left to bowl.