It’s a beautiful day today. The sun is out; the deep blue sky is lightly dabbed by fluffy white clouds, the grass is dotted with fresh spring daisies and there’s a hint of warm breeze that’s gently drifting around. Spring days in rural Victoria don’t get much better.
For lunch today Lisa made up a plate of sandwiches and we went and sat on a rug near the paddock.
Our alpacas are starting to settle in really nicely. They’re pretty comfortable around us now.
Lisa, The Kids and I went to a family friend’s this afternoon. Big Kid spent the afternoon playing with the other kids, Lisa chatted to the boss of the house, and I spent the afternoon watching cricket with the man of the house.
The man of the house is the head wine maker at Warrenmang, one of the local boutique wineries. We emptied two bottles while we watched Australia take the game away from India. First up was a very crisp sparking white, and that was followed by a lovely sparkling Shiraz. Very nice. The Shiraz was a 2000 vintage, and wasn’t labeled, so I’m tipping it was part of the private stock that the winery keep for themselves. It had definitely not been sitting around in a bottle shop.
A very enjoyable way to spend a lazy and hot summer afternoon — lounging on a couch doing nothing but watching cricket, talking bloke stuff about cricket, and being served some very nice wine.
Finally, a true Australian citizenship test.
Here’s a world clock with a twist.
Interesting video with a bit of buzz around it.
Lisa’s car failed her on the road today. Just the Maryborough side of Clunes the battery light came on, the aircon stopped and steam started coming out from under the bonnet. Put all three together and you’ve got some kind of drive belt failure. The RACV are on their way (not there just yet) and will almost certainly have to tow the car to the workshop.
I called the local workshop we always go to, and Nola answered. “Hi Andrew”. I said Lisa had car trouble and the RACV are towing the car there. She asked which car; I said the Mazda, and she didn’t need to know any more. They’ll fix it quickly and properly; they always do great work.
It’s good having a friendly first-name basis relationship with people in a country town. The people who fix your car are the same people you meet at the supermarket for a bit of a natter. Everyday life is so much more laid back, friendly and intimate than in the big smoke. It’s the way life should be; small communities, friendly faces and everyone willing to do what’s needed to help each other out.
Update @ 12:45 – Lisa’s Dad has arrived, and they’re pulling chunks of a failed belt out of the engine bay.
It’s no big secret that Apple unveiled plans for an iPhone at CES overnight. It’s a blend of phone, iPod and handheld internet access (mail, web, mapping, etc).
There’s an interesting post up on 37signals explaining why Apple will succeed. It isn’t about features. It’s actually the opposite.
The mobile phone world is littered with crap. The interfaces are tragic. The materials are cheap. The build quality is marginal. And of course the sound sucks.
These are the things people complain about. They don’t complain that they can’t video conference with their friends. They don’t complain that they don’t have advanced voice recognition. They don’t complain that their phone doesn’t open an Excel spreadsheet and sync with Quickbooks. They complain because the sound sucks, the interface is miserable, and the phone is falling apart.
Apple can change this because that’s what Apple does. They can look at the crisis points of a typical experience and erase them one by one. Not by adding a lot of new things things, but by removing the crap and paying attention to the basics.
Totally, totally true. Couldn’t agree more.
Oh, and if you want a new iPhone, there’s a bit of a wait. US later this year; Europe last quarter, and the rest of us plebs in the third world some time in the next year.
Who said what?