f is for furniture

…and flat-packs.

A couple of months ago, I helped a friend move house and there was an almost array of items to deconstruct and reconstruct…not to mention additional items bought for new place. I seemed to spend forever stuck in a sort of Ikea-laden purgatory. At the same time, I was getting new stuff for me, including a new bed…moving from a double to a queen. Finally a new, decent mattress too – been two months and the mattress is still awesome.

However the bigger bed has presented one or two challenges in my room arrangement. On one side is a bookcase and side table and the gap on the other side is rather narrow. I had initially planned to have the bed against that wall but it proved too awkward to change the sheets. Was ok with the double, less so with the queen. the width is roughly equivalent to the depth of a shallow bookcase, about 240mm. I failed last weekend as I didn’t have measurements with me when I went to Ikea and bought a small billy bookcase…which wasn’t small enough.

Yesterday, I was wandering through Kmart and found a bookcase that is 235mm deep. I am just about to put it together…though dreading the construction. It does at least look more straightforward than an Ikea version. It’s just 16 screws with no odd twists. Fingers crossed.

e is for ears

I’m a bit of a deaf bugger (maybe a lot :-) and require hearing aids to be able to hear well in many situations. I inherited my current pair from my father when he passed away. I had new molds made for my ears and the aids were re-programmed…literally. They were connected to a computer via wires and had their settings modified. Dad got them new in 2002 and I was fitted around 2006. At the time, they were still pretty much state of the art and there hadn’t been new developments.

Now it’s 2013 and the hearing aids are coming to the end of their life. Hearing aids generally last around 6-10 years and anything greater is exceptional. Just as well as they’re rather pricy with the current pair costing dad about $4,000 per ear. I have embarked on the process for getting a new pair, which take several weeks, and has already proven to be a bit of an emotional roller coaster. I went to see a doctor last week to get my ears de-waxed and lost hearing altogether in one ear for a few hours. While I knew logically the ear would be ok, the shock was rather upsetting. This week, I’m doing it again and have drops in my ear prior to seeing an ear specialist tomorrow. Because I was mentally prepared this time, the loss of hearing has been more comfortable.

However, this is but the first stage. Once the ears are de-waxed, I then need to see an audiologist for a full hearing test to see where my ears are at now and whether I’ve lost any hearing since the last test a few years ago. Then I need to look at what sort of hearing aid best suits and what options I like.

While there had been relatively few improvements in 2006 there have been substantial improvements since then. A big improvement is that you can now get water resistant models: one of the things I’ve been paranoid with the current pair is getting them wet. I was told to avoid such and they could only handle a few drops. Given the expense I went way out of my way to protect them and always carry a protective beanie if there’s a sudden downpour. Otherwise I take them out and restore them when inside.

Colour! My current pair are a sort of grey, ugly colour. The new models come in a variety of colours including red and blue. I’ve been very tempted by bright, red ones but have been concerned about coordinating my wardrobe around so may choose a dark blue instead. Blue would go better with my eyes too. Other options include being shock resistant, some models have a remote control to provide greater flexibility. My current pair has about 20 possible settings but I can only ever have 2 or 3 active. To change them currently, requires a visit to the audiologist. A remote control would mean I could change them myself on the spot. And so on…

d is for dockhand

There’s a conversation on twitter about other jobs library folk had prior to becoming librarians. While working my way through uni, I spent several years as a dockhand on the loading dock at Grace Bros Burwood (now Myer). Over the course of 5-6 years, I worked my way up from casual dockhand to second in charge of the entire dock. Most of my time was as a regular casual though I did spend 18 months working fulltime while I paid off a car. I became rather adept at manipulating pallet jacks and stacking boxes…not to mention crushing boxes down for recycling.

I went to uni in Wollongong and when I changed to fulltime work, I planned to take a couple of years off uni altogether. However, I really missed the mental stimulation so after several months, I started studying two nights a week, driving from Burwood to Wollongong (about 90 minutes in peak hour) after work. The only subjects available in the evenings were in the History & Philosophy of Science (HPS) dept which I loved and ended up majoring in. I had initially been studying Philosophy and Computer Science, and had always wanted to try HPS but hadn’t been able to squeeze it in. Ultimately I finished off with majors in Philosophy and HPS and finished all the core components of Computer Science.

c is for calendar

An issue I’ve long had is finding an easy way of coming events across all my varied systems. Actually the big issue is getting round to resolving it effectively :-) Mostly I keep track of things in my head, afterall my social calendar tends to be fairly light though occasionally populated with periods of intense activity. In my old job on vendor side, I had an iphone and laptop that went with me everywhere which made keeping track of things a little easier. Outlook on the work machine had the ability to maintain multiple calendars ie one for work and one for personal and I could sync it with the iphone.

However I changed jobs and have been back to relying on my head. Since mum died, it’s been hard to remember things, and stuff falls out of my head all the time ie I’m very forgetful at the moment. I no longer have a work laptop, nor access to work stuff and calendars outside of the physical office. This was intentional though it hurts a little :) At work, I have a desktop machine running XP, plus my Transformer Prime hybrid laptop/tablet running Android. At home I have a Mac Pro running MacOS and an Android phone.

For many years on XP, I’ve been using a calendar called Rainlendar, as it sits on the desktop barely visible unless needed. That was great for estimating dates and checking weeks ahead. I’ve since discovered there’s a mac version and have it installed at home too. I finally set up syncing for google’s calendar for my android devices but to feed that into Rainlendar required spending actual money (about AUD$12) and buying the licensed version. That license covers personal use on both my machines.

There’s probably many ways of doing all this but this has worked for me, and once I finally pulled my finger out and tried setting it up, it proved to be easy and took less than 20 minutes. A couple of hiccups as I’d had syncing turned off on the phone to conserve battery life but easily resolved. I can now enter info on any device and get reminders via any device. I’ve got one of the home screens on my phone devoted entirely to displaying the calendar.

All good so far :-)

b is for book

…though for the moment, the lack thereof. I am otherwise something of a voracious reader, not to mention book collector. I have gone a little silly in this direction, more times than I can count. As I’ve mentioned elsewhere, my mum passed away just after christmas. Since then I have been unable to read any books, nor have any desire to buy interesting books. This is not unusual, and has happened with previous losses.

I was 2/3 of the way through re-reading the Malazan series at the time, literally halfway through one of the books and I haven’t been able to touch it since. I have attempted to start several books including easy reads but not been able to get more than 2 pages in. I don’t actually miss reading or long for it, it just doesn’t seem to be a skill I possess at the moment.

The lack is primarily book reading. I can read newspaper articles ad infinitum, blog posts, and of course twitter. Shorter stuff requiring minimal commitment. On a related note, I’m aware that my creative/imagination switch seems to be stuck in the off position eg for work, I’m fine for operational stuff but not so hot for thinking strategically.

This state of mind will pass and I will return to books, hopefully sooner rather than later.

a is for active

Following on from flexnib’s example, I’m going to attempt doing an A to Z of topics ie each post will be based on a word based on the current letter of the alphabet, starting with A and ending with Z. Con is doing it in 26 days as it seems to be an April challenge. I’ll give that a go, but mostly I’m just aiming for 26 posts.

I last blogged nearly 4 months ago, and I have not been active in the blogosphere in the time since. My online activities have waned. To some extent, I suspect that’s a side effect of the death of my mother at the end of December…no sympathy required and I’m doing ok; her passing was not unanticipated. I’ll cover another side effect when I hit “B”.

On the other hand, I have picked up on physical things. I am walking more. I even did a 3 hour walk around Northbridge on the weekend. That’s not a particularly big deal, however I’m aware that my fitness has lagged and I’ve not really been up for the sort of tramping I did for Routeburn in December 2010. I’d like to get back to that level of fitness so I can return to New Zealand and explore more of their Great Trails.

words of oz

A friend mentioned in conversation the other night, the last episode of the First Tuesday. This is a show I used to enjoy and watch regularly; the downside of not watching TV, or but rarely, is that you forget to watch the good stuff. At times like this I love iview, and similar such services, which allow me to catch up. I remember many years ago, when Babylon 5 was screening locally, turning up to screening parties with folk who’d had friends in the US physically post VHS tapes of recent episodes. No longer! Most such things are but a click or two away.

Last week’s episode of First Tuesday was a countdown of the 10 Oz novels one must read before they die. I don’t think I’ve read, in its entirety, any of the books on the list bar one:

1. Cloudstreet – Tim Winton
2. The Book Thief – Markus Zusak
3. A Fortunate Life – A.B. Facey
4. The Harp in the South – Ruth Park
5. The Power of One – Bryce Courtenay
6. Jasper Jones – Craig Silvey
7. The Magic Pudding – Norman Lindsay
8. The Slap – Christos Tsiolkas
9. The Secret River – Kate Grenville
10. Picnic at Hanging Rock – Joan Lindsay

With that said, I was reminded yet again, that I really need to read Picnic at Hanging Rock and Ruth Park’s Harp in the South. I love Tim Winton’s stuff, particularly Breath, yet I never got round to finishing Cloudstreet. This is disappointing as it as an easy read and he writes with a light touch. Last time I started it, I got about a third of the way through then got distracted and never got round to returning. I got about that far with Peter Carey’s History of the Kelly Gang. Both books are intriguing, interesting and easy to get into: I have no explanation as to why they remain unfinished. I have at least read The Magic Pudding…and of course The Muddle-Headed Wombat. And loved them both.

I have The Slap in a nice hardcover and I suspect in e as well. I’ve never heard of Jasper Jones and have no great desire to read Bryce Courtenay; though I would like to read the Book Thief which I think I have in e. Which brings me in a roundabout way to AB Facey’s A Fortunate Life. I never studied this at school yet, as mum was an english teacher, there were always copies about. I have a strong visual memory of the cover. Yet I’ve never opened, never attempted. It is probably the book I most strongly connect with as being “Australian” – whatever that might mean. Unread but required reading.

Currently I’m re-reading Malazan – I read the first 4-5 books, one every year or two, then the remaining one after the other in quick succession. I read the first 3 in 3 weeks while in Borneo, recently finished the fourth and and am now into the fifth. As much as I loved it the first time round, so much more now makes sense. Not to mention that I hadn’t quite realised that one of the semi-minor characters in book 4, features strongly in book 5 which is set prior. Now the world flows from one story to the next. Yet at the same time, I’m hitting the point where the story is fresher in my mind. All the more am I now looking forward to some of the climactic end scenes of books 8 and 9, and of course 10, the final book.