I must go down to the seas again ...

 What better way to escape the sunshine and cooling breezes of the North Carolina mountains than to head down to New Zealand for a month.  Oh how I am looking forward to the cramped surroundings of a 747 (at least I have had the common sense to fly Air New Zealand who recognise that not everybody is 4'9" tall).  More anon... Anon is here.  It was actually a very good flight.  I had decamped to a less crowded part of the terminal at LAX to avoid sitting in a crowded departures area and, much to my surprise and credit, remembered that I had done so about 20 minutes after boarding was supposed to have started.  A feverish semi-trot to my gate got me there was before my row was boarding and, to my immense distress, my earlier assessment of how full the flight was turned out to be over-optimistic.  I tried to emulate my success in previous years of beng asleep by the time we took off but no such luck this time.  So I read a couple of chapters of Infern...

 What's on the menu today?  As I mentioned in yesterday's post, first job was waking up which I did a pretty lousy job of.  I've been sleeping with the curtains open and relying on the sunrise reflected off the ocean to inform me that it's time to awaken.  Well, it was cloudy this morning, wasn't it?  So I surfaced around 9 o'clock.  Way behind schedule, not that I had anything to do, time-critical or otherwise but I chomped breakfast while finishing the map of the world jigsaw.  I'd seen changes going on at the next pier north far in the distance (about quarter of a mile north of Floyd Cottage and I wasn't getting into that again) and was a bit curious.  So, as I had some shopping to do anyway (Gawd help me, I bought two more second hand jigsaws), I trundled up there.  I had decided to wear shorts, the weather gods had decided that I was a bloody idiot so, having driven half a mile past Surfside Pier, I got back in the car and drove three qu...

 Been busy doing ASG work accounts for a few days but what about yesterday and today?  Well for starters it has turned a touch nippy - I am reliably informed by NOAA that is it 27 degrees F outside and I'm prepared to take its word for it.  For just about the first time this month, I have all the doors and windows closed. Having had my car most ably serviced by Beach Boyz autos in Surfside last week, I pretty much haven't driven anywhere.  I did go and have a stock up at Lowes (groceries) on Saturday and, somewhat to my surprise, I seem to have eaten and drunk most of it.  Why did I choose Beach Boyz?  Largely because every time we've take our cars to one of the big boys lately, they've always found some vital component that also needs replacing.  So off I trot.  "Do you know your front left wiper is broken and the right one is knackered?"  Oddly enough, I did so I let them replace them.  Final bill was $30 less than one of the big store...

 Tidy up, Tidy up, Put stuff away Bloody awful weather today.  NOAA says we can expect ice overnight. Here's what we look like right now - it's 3 pm so it's not unreasonable to expect it to drop below freezing in the next hour or so.  The local TV news people are of course saying that it NEVER snows here.  Suffice to say that my habitual long walk on the beach was a lot shorter and at a faster pace than usual today.  Even the dairy, to which I went for yet another gallon of milk, was shut with a sign in the window saying they may be shut tomorrow, too.  Don't really care as I have loads of food. Today's main excitement was taking my car for an oil change at Beach Boyz garage (really didn't fancy the "Look what we found under your hood" treatment at one of the big places though they did notice that my front wiper blades had seen better days).  Nice bunch of blokes and pretty cheap, too considering that 6.4 quarts of oil were involved. Then what?  D...

Working today.  Plan A had, of course, been to spend a few hours cleaning up my code, packaging a maintenance release and generally doing what generally qualifies as "Odds & sods".  Hah!  Not to give away too many trade secrets, my code which had been behaving itself has decided to pack a wobbly on me.  Even my expert mate, Ed, is shaking his head and calling me "Dude" which is a 100% sure way of knowing he's pissed off.   So I worked all day, achieved bugger all and then went out to the local dairy (which they're not called in the US but it's not my fault) for a gallon of milk and some Post-Its.  Bloody freezing out there and my chosen attire of shorts & swannie probably didn't help.  At least I put shoes on. I now have a gutful of pork chop (tough and tasteless though the tomato sauce I cooked was good) and Rocky Road ice cream so I may just have time for a movie before the Spacex launch at 9 pm if I can find one. Big thrill tomorrow is ...

It's a public holiday today but I've decided to work so I get a long weekend.  It's sunny but there is an evil cold wind from the south.  Well, that was the plan but something has gone seriously kerblooey with what I'm working on and the guy I go to in such circumstances has literally gone fishing so I've pulled the plug.    Shorts, big check shirt and bare feet (avoiding the nasty prickly weeds on the way to the beach) . Into the water go the feet but the storm of yesterday has left plenty of foot deep holes in the sand so I had to watch my step as my camera doesn't claim to be waterproof.  The water is 5 degrees below the average for this time of year but expected to hit 60F by the end of next week.  If this wind will bugger off, I may have another swim although we are expecting "possible snow" on Friday. My favorite fishing boat is back.  I like the pelicans just hanging out waiting to be fed.   And after yesterday's gruesome weather pictu...

While Susan was reveling in the joys of a decent dose of snow, I got rained on.  Ferociously and horizontally.  Reminded me of Wellington.  I wonder if the local tourist board would pay me for these pictures taken shortly after midday.  The first one is the best as it is looking north towards the Kiss-Me-Quick of Myrtle Beach, completely concealed by the rain. So I spent most of the day indoors.  I did take a walk to the local corner 7-11 (which is neither a 7-11 nor on a corner) to help satisfy my sudden craving for a lunchtime omelette but, it being Sunday and this not exactly being the height of the holiday season, they were closed.  So I had a 1 egg ham omelette.  Oh the depravation. The next picture is the living room of my flat, taken from the kitchen for no other reason than that I was in the kitchen with my camera. Note the parka conveniently draped on a chair to grab on the way out and the pot plant I have shifted from the middle of the table....

 Got to do some organisy stuff today.  First off pay the cable bill for home and put it on the right credit card, not the one that gives me frequent flier miles that I can't use.  Then find out where my drugs have got to.  In case you haven't been paying attention, I can't just grab my cancer drugs at CVS, I have to get them shipped from a specialist pharmacy.  Not much good having them shipped to home so I had changed the delivery to come here (actually to the local CVS!)  I hadn't had any notification of their arrival so I phoned everyone I could think of to discover that they hadn't apparently been ordered or shipped.  It's not a huge panic as I don't think I need them anyway and am taking them "just in case".  I'll lose no sleep if my favourite oncologist has decided to pull the plug on them, especially as my new 5mg low dose costs 3 times as much as my old 10mg dose, Having done that, it was hit the golf course time to see how much better ...

 Last time I went to Charleston I spent the whole day, more or less, at the naval museum and I thought I left of the city untouched.  So I went back there today to check out the old town, a large indoor / outdoor market and generally fossick.  I really wish I had known my way around better and that the sun had been out as there are some gorgeous old homes - not the antebellum slave owners' gin palaces but brightly painted two storey wooden houses packed tightly together.  I nearly brought home a couple of back bumpers from nosing at them. So I parked instead by said market and wandered through. Expense being no object, I decided to buy a lavish chocolate bar at one stand until I discovered it was 7 bucks which I thought was steep in much the same way as the Matterhorn is.  So I settled on a couple of goodies for sundry kids. On the way home I came across a Lowe's supermarket and wandered around that like a lost soul failing to find what I had gone in for and mak...

 Today I had absolutely nothing to do.  So I blobbed in bed until nearly 6:30 and then got up to watch the sun rise which it was indeed kind enough to do for me.  Sausages, toast, orange juice and coffe for breakfast as a result of which I learned that microwaving sausages really isn't a good idea as they don't brown at all.  They look like something you'd get at McDonalds.  Time for a walk.  The beach here goes forever in a southerly direction and I walked forever, finding several substitutes for Floyd Cottage in the process.  Most of the vacation rental offices seem to be closed for the duration so that's as far as I got on that front. I'd made the wise decision of walking into the wind so the return trip, which I did up to my knees in water, was easy yet again. Much to my delight, the air temperature was in the mid 60s F,  The sea was at a bracing 57 F so what else to do but get my togs on and dive in.  I had the entire Atlantic to myself ...

On yer bike, Lad Today I got my bike out of the car, pumped up the tires and headed off in search of Floyd Cottage.  We used to rent it fairly regulary but apparently the owners got sick of the beer bottles and brother-in-law Dan's accent.  And how better to get there than along the beach? Easy answer to that question - not along the beach at high tide with road tires on the bike and a 20 knot head wind blowing.  After multiple encounters with soft spots in the sand I took to the road and / or footpath (on which virtually nobody was walking).  I think it's legal to ride on the footpath and as I was being overtaken by joggers, I don't think I can be accused of being a danger to life and limb. Eventually, frozen half to death, I located my target and, as nobody was home, shoved a note under the door asking nicely if we could rent the place again.  I'll refrain from posting a picture to preserve their seclusion. The return trip was far more relaxed as the wind pret...

Doing The Charleston Yup - off to Charleston today, mainly to go to the Naval Museum.  There are two things I always like to do at Naval Museums.  One is to be staggered at the size of the engines and associated odds and sods and the other is to tour the submarine - my Mum's Dad was in submarines - and be eternally grateful to get off the bloody thing an hour or so later.  Today's big ship was the aircraft carrier USS Yorktown and I thoroughly enjoyed wandering around and chatting to various old sailors who run the place.  I couldn't show off my knowledge of how to negotiate a companionway at high speed and in safety as they've mostly been safetyfied to stop you doing it.  Result being I banged my head twice.  And the submarine was closed. I'm always on the lookout for old computers for a quick trip down memory lane.  Did I ever tell you that the first computer I worked on occupied a 20'x15' room, had 8k of memory and 2x20 megabyte disk drives?  Y...

 The Weekend Starts Here ... to quote Ready Steady Go .  One program fix in the can (as in film can, not the toilet) and another one being decidedly bewildering but that can wait til next week.  The sun was out all day and the beach was tempting but I kept my proverbial head down and bum up to get things wrapped up for the weekend.  Not too much to report but here goes... I almost cleaned Kroger out of Fuji apples, the newfound love in my life and did a proper stock-up meant to see me through the weekend: I still don't have the guts / stupidity to eat indoors at a restaurant yet, especially as South Carolina has a lot of  - er- non-mask wearing and presumably unvaxed people.  As the main place I intend to hang out is the beach which seems to peak at about 1 per person per acre, that doesn't worry me too much. Dinner, for anyone who is interested was devastatingly brilliant saute spuds done in olive oil with some pretty awful flounder (a favourite fish of mi...

Playing / fighting with new gear While messing with the new speakers last weekend I managed to screw up the mic input and the speaker output on my laptop,  Two for the price of one, today only!  So I bought a new cordless headset at a local Office Max on Monday and gave it its first serious outing today.  Sparing you the technical and obscene language, it works although the combination of its sleak finish and my new crewcut means I have to keep my head still while using it or it falls off. I got here with two work problems to deal with.  Number one finished testing and packaging part A today and gets packaged as a fix tomorrow for them as don't want to update the entire package.  Number 2 looks a lot trickier - I am failing to find a record in a file with thousands of records and preliminary investigations reveal that it really isn't there.  And that raises all sorts of questions, mostly variations on "Why not?" and "Then why are you looking for it?" Sea ai...

Day 2 - All work and a bit of play     Well that’s fun.   The whole of Surfside appears to have been knocked out by a power cut.   The moon is a veritable nail clipping so that’s not much use, either.   Glad I wasn’t in the lift.   Oh – the lights are back.    So what was new today?   Not much as it was designated a work day (by me).   That mostly consisted of spending seven  hours thinking and scribbling on my new big Christmas pad and then half an hour on a to-do list followed by 20 minutes doing it.   Not quite the 27 hours that some people spent in a traffic jam on I-25 closed by snow.   Sounds like Wellington. I did take a long walk on the beach for some serious think time – if I hadn’t, the to-do stuff would have taken much longer and needed a few iterations.   Now that I have...

In which Jack hits the road As is traditional, the day started well enough.  NOAA had got it right - it did snow overnight but not enough to coat the drive.  So all the effort I had put into carting icemelt and snow shovel from the crawl space was wasted.  I had an appointment to have a lump carved out of my arm at 8:30 so hanging about was not allowed.  I was halfway through my brekkie when the phone rang - "We're not opening the office until 11 - can you come in then?"  A quick calculation showed that, if I did that, I would roll into Surfside after dark and, considering what a nightmare the last 10 miles usually are, that seemed a crappy idea.  So said lump removal happens next month. The drive was amazingly uneventful and my determination to stop at every rest area meant that it was done completely without crossed legs. Whoever developed this area clearly didn't want anyone visiting it as you breeze in along roads steadily heading the necessary southeas...