Diary notes

by Jean Weber

I mentioned last time that I had moved twice: first to Eric's place in Faulconbridge, then to Airlie Beach. That was the short version. Here's the long version.

Moving to Airlie Beach

I caught a head cold from Eric soon after I moved to his place. The cold hung around getting better, then worse, and we were trying to decide whether I should make the second move as soon as the apartment renovations were finished, or wait until later. But we had a lot of other things planned, so "later" sounded a bit dubious, and besides we wanted to check on the renovations before we made the final payment to the builder.

So... we booked the removalists and my flight on rather short notice, and I went. I was concerned about flying with clogged-up ears, but fortunately they did manage to pop when required on takeoff and landing, so although I couldn't hear worth a damn, I was otherwise okay.

The trip took a bit longer than expected. Going from Sydney to Proserpine, the airport nearest to Airlie Beach, I have to change planes in Brisbane. On arriving in Brisbane, I noticed that the connecting flight was delayed over an hour and was listed as "Rockhampton and Proserpine" instead of the usual direct flight. I was both puzzled and annoyed, but I had a book to read, so I settled down to wait.

I found out what had happened when everyone got on the plane, which was totally full, and the woman sitting next to me said, "Is this your first or second try?"

"What?" I asked, feeling like I'd missed the plot.

"Oh," she laughed, "you must be going to Proserpine. Most of the rest of us took off for Rockhampton several hours ago, but the plane had problems and we had to come back. Now we're trying it again."

She and the others seemed fairly cheerful about it. Apparently many of them were heading for some academic conference at the University of Central Queensland in Rockhampton. They were all going to be late, but they'd been networking in the airport during the wait (probably in the bar, judging from the level of cheerfulness), so all was not lost.

So we flew to Rockhampton (giving me two more pressure changes that my ears could have done without), left most everyone there (I almost wrote "dropped them off") and went on. To compensate for the delay, the airline served free drinks to those still on the plane.

After we got to Proserpine (pronounced "pross-er-pine" with "pine" pronounced like the tree and the accent on "pross" which rhymes with "dross"), we boarded a bus for the final 30 km to Airlie Beach. Most of the people who take this bus are here for a vacation, so the driver has a running patter for much of the trip, pointing out the local sites, such as they are, and playing an advertising video. When both he and the video finally ran down, he put a (particularly obnoxious) regional radio station on the speakers. I loathe patter, videos, and commercial radio, and I wasn't feeling well to start with, so I was in a thoroughly grumpy mood by the time we got to my stop.

Eventually I got to the apartment, checked it over, and met the removalists when they showed up at 7 AM the next day. Hours later, when they left, I started unpacking - just enough to get by for a few days. The builder dropped in to finish off a few last-minute things and I pointed out a few things I'd noticed that needed to be done, but overall I was very pleased with the renovations. The place looks great!

Photo: Here I am, on the balcony of our apartment, with the bay in the background. Click on photo to see a large version.

Adventures in plumbing

A few days later (a Sunday), I decided to do some laundry. My washing machine and dryer had been installed in the area provided, so I loaded the washer and got it started. A bit later, I wandered back into that part of the apartment and noticed that the floor was covered with water. Panic!! There were over a hundred boxes of paperback books stacked up just meters away, getting wet. A mad scramble ensued: turn off taps, open door, sweep water out door (where it ran off the landing in the same way that rainwater does), move boxes, sweep more water, find some towels (mostly not yet unpacked) to mop up water, move more boxes -- ! Not fun, especially when I was still ill with the cold.

After I'd rescued the boxes, I collapsed to rest, rehearsing what I'd say to the builder when I caught up with him, as it appeared quite clear that the drain for the washing machine was blocked.

The reality turned out to be strange, almost surreal... the drain went down two floors and ended in a concrete plug - it had never been connected to the waste water outlet!

Picture this: the resident manager, the builder and I, all standing in the parking lot under the building, staring intently at a spot on the underside of the concrete slab of the apartment below mine, saying: "but the taps for the inlet water were installed and working, and the drain was in the floor - why on earth wouldn't it have been connected?" (The builder doing my renovations was not the one who originally built the block of apartments. He had tested the drain by throwing a couple buckets of water down it; they went down fine, so he thought it was okay - but all he'd done was fill up a two-story-high pipe.)

The next question, of course, was: whose responsibility (and expense) was it to get this fixed? It's not in my unit, it's on common property, so it should be a body corporate matter. But I could just imagine waiting for a committee to deliberate the matter, so I phoned the relevant person and said "Do I need permission? May I have permission? If necessary I will pay for it," and everyone fell all over themselves to be helpful. I paid, and the body corporate reimbursed me with no fuss or delay.

Out of curiosity I wandered down the hill, looking at the undersides of the other 5 buildings in this complex. Four of them have pipes in the relevant spot, and 3 of the 4 are obviously afterthoughts. Apparently none of the laundry drains was connected when the buildings were constructed. (The plumber who connected my drain said he'd done several in this complex in recent years, but he hadn't been in the area when the place was built, so he didn't know any more than I did.)

The problem had never been discovered because the unit had been rented furnished (mainly to transients with few things of their own - this town is run by travellers who stay 3-6 months and then move on, often back home, wherever home might be) and no one ever installed a washing machine before.

Fortunately only a couple of books suffered minor damage, and my back didn't seize up following the excessive lifting and shifting.

Trip to Hobart

After only 10 days at Airlie Beach, I flew back to Sydney for a few days, then on to Hobart, Tasmania for the Australian NatCon, then back to Sydney for a few days, and back to Airlie Beach.

As you might guess, the Hobart trip had been planned for some time (about a year), so although I wasn't well through all of this, I didn't want to miss it. A writer friend, Leanne Frahm, who lives in Mackay (now a mere 150 km away from where I live) was Guest of Honour. George RR Martin and Parris would be there, as well as Neil Gaiman, all of them having been guests at the New Zealand NatCon the weekend before. And, of course, various friends who live in Tasmania and whom I rarely get a chance to see.

So we went, and enjoyed ourselves, although I slept a lot and partied even less than I usually do, which isn't much. My ears never did clear up until a couple weeks after I got back from that trip. We didn't attempt to do any sightseeing, though we did take advantage of some pleasant weather to do a bit of walking around downtown Hobart.

Eric moves to Airlie

At the end of July, Eric left his job, rented his house, piled a lot of leftover stuff into my car (which I had left behind in Sydney) and started driving north. He's written about his trip in some detail in his own fanzine (which he will eventually publish, at least on the Web).

I flew to Brisbane, where he met me at the airport, and we continued driving north. As it was last afternoon when I arrived, we didn't drive very far, stopping the first night to visit some friends of his who were staying at Noose, a pleasant (if rather too upmarket for my taste) resort on Queensland's Sunshine Coast north of Brisbane. The next day we wandered around Noosa in the morning, then drove a few hundred kilometres to Bundaberg, the home of the distillery of our favourite rum.

On Saturday we toured the rum distillery, had a chance for a bit of rum-tasting (yum, yum), bought a lot of silly souvenirs, ate lunch, and headed off again. A few kilometres from the main road, I hit the broken edge of the road and blew out two tires. Fortunately we were close enough to the nearest town for our mobile phones to work, so we soon were rescued by the local auto club person, hauled to town, and got the car fitted with new tires. We drove on to our next stop, Rockhampton, without further sightseeing.

Photo: Jean at the Bundaberg rum distillery. Click on photo to see larger version.

The next day (Sunday), our enthusiasm for touring considerably lessened, we drove all the rest of the way home to Airlie Beach, unloaded the car, and collapsed.

Then Eric got to work unpacking, and I got back to other work.

Trip to Sydney

In October I made a 10-day trip to Sydney, to attend a 2-day course and a 2-day conference (at which I gave a talk on editing web sites), run some errands and see a bunch of friends. I had a great time, and much enjoyed showing everyone the photos of my "office" and its view.

Trip to USA

In late November, Eric and I went to the USA to visit my parents, for an early celebration of my father's 80th birthday. His birthday is actually on Christmas Day, but neither my sister nor I can get there then, so we celebrated at Thanksgiving.

The trip over did not leave us nearly as exhausted as we'd expected, despite it being much longer than any previous trip. We left Airlie Beach on Sunday, November 22, driving to Mackay where we had dinner with Leanne and Kerry Frahm and spent the night at their place. Leaving the car with them for the month we'd be away, we got up at 5:30 AM and were driven by early-bird Leanne to the airport to catch a 6:45 AM flight to Brisbane on Monday the 23rd. Hung around Brisbane for awhile, then flew to Sydney. These flights were on Ansett, because they are the partner airline for United, our overseas carrier, so we had the chance to examine a terminal in Brisbane that we don't normally see.

At the Sydney domestic terminal, I saw signs to "International transfer lounge" and insisted that Eric come with me to find it. He was reluctant, because the Ansett person in Mackay had explained to us that there wasn't any shuttle bus provided by the airline, and we'd have to go out and catch the public bus. Turns out they were wrong (years ago there was an airline shuttle, then for many years there wasn't, and now it's on again, so I'm not surprised that the far-flung parts of the Ansett empire haven't quite caught up).

The whole terminal is under construction (major expansion to handle the Olympics crowds next year), so we wandered about following the signs and eventually discovered the transfer lounge, where we didn't have to wait very long before the shuttle bus arrived to take us to the international terminal.

The ride was interesting, because it went along behind the terminal buildings and past the cargo terminal inside the airport fence, thus giving us a view of several parts of the airport that one normally never sees.

Arriving at the international terminal, we were sent up some steps and along a corridor, whereupon we discovered that we were behind the outgoing immigration barriers! However, as we had not checked in and got our boarding passes for the overseas flight, we had to detour through the normal departure hall. We quickly went through the Business Class checkin and back into the immigration hall. Then to United's Red Carpet Club lounge, where we lunched on free snack foods until our flight was called.

I'd heard about United's new Business Class seats, both from their advertising and from someone who'd come over in October from the USA. Well, they certainly lived up to their advance publicity! They had so many adjustable gadgets that they came with a user's guide! We spent about an hour after getting settled, saying "oh, look what this does!" Meanwhile taking full advantage of the free drinks and chatting enthusiastically with the flight attendants.

So we left Sydney around 2 or 3 PM and flew to San Francisco, arriving around 7:30 AM the same day, Monday November 23. Thanks to the wonderful seats, we both got quite a bit of rest and even some sleep, so we weren't in too bad a shape The flight was early and the usual arrival-hall crowds non-existent, so we got through in plenty of time for a long leisurely stroll to catch the next plane, to Seattle.

I had a business class seat on this flight, too, but Eric didn't. There was only 1 upgrade seat available when we booked our flights, so our travel agent assigned it to me. Eric was in the row behind me, and wanted me to pass him free drinks, but I didn't.

Three of the other 7 seats in business class were occupied by people from the Sydney flight that we'd been on; the men in the row in front of me spent quite a bit of the flight comparing notes on their business travels and the best places to stay in various cities. As we neared Seattle, one man pointed out his house (almost, but not quite, waterfront property) to the other, who riposted with "you can't see mine from here; it's on the other side of the plane."

Finally, in Seattle, we again didn't have to wait too long for our minibus for the last hour of the journey down to Lacey. I commandeered the back row and lay down to sleep. It seemed mere minutes later that we arrived in my parents' driveway around 3 PM.

The visit itself was enjoyable, but nothing to write much about. My sister Barb and her husband Ted did manage to get there, though they had to leave early because Ted had just started a new consulting job and had to be in Los Angeles to give a major presentation the day they'd planned to go home. We had a great time, cooking Thanksgiving dinner and drinking Barb's deadly Mai Tai's (made with rather more rum than even Eric would use). Things got a bit ribald at times.

After they left, we had a few more quiet days with my parents before going back to Seattle to spend a few days with Cliff Wind and Marilyn Holt, attending a Vanguard meeting, having lunch with Janice Murray and Alan Rosenthal, and other activities.

And so to Las Vegas, where we stayed in the Sahara Hotel, the cost of which was included in our airfare package. This time we're didn't go for Comdex. We saw some friends (fannish and otherwise) and did a lot more sightseeing.

One highlight was the Hilton's The Star Trek Experience. Of considerable interest to me was the "timeline" - a long display showing where each of the films and major video episodes fits into the future history sequence, accompanied by photos, videos, and displays of artifacts used in the show. The "ride" part of the experience was great fun (though more exciting for anyone who has never ridden a simulator before). I would really like to do that again with a group of Trek fans who could get into character. Our small group consisted mainly of middle-aged smart-alecks who tried to derail the script by interjecting comments and questions to the actors. The actors mostly handled it well, and it was all fairly entertaining, but the ambience was rather different than I'd expect if the tour group "got into the act" as well.

The trip home from the USA wasn't nearly as long as the trip over, because we only went from Vegas to LA to Sydney, then spent a week in Sydney before continuing to Mackay.

Arriving in Mackay was a shock. We stepped out of the plane into a wall of hot, humid air. Yow!! Leanne said it had been like that for several days. We didn't stay, but immediately loaded up the car and drove in air-conditioned comfort back to Airlie, where we left the air conditioner on in the apartment for a couple of days until the humidity outside blew away in a late afternoon storm on Tuesday. The rest of the week was very pleasant.

Work stuff

Since the move, life has been both more hectic and less hectic. I've had the usual periods of too much work, punctuated by periods of too little work. The latter have been very welcome, giving me some time to pretend to catch up on other things, like reading what I want to read and working on my web site.

Airlie Beach is billed as a party town, and it certainly uses any excuse to live up to that reputation. From my balcony we get a great view of the fireworks displays that seem to be put on at least once a month, to mark the end of various events (often, but not always, involving sailboats). We also get a great view of the sailboat races.

My computer stopped working in early October, and when it stopped it scrambled the file index (yes, I know that's not the technical term) on the hard disk. This happened one Sunday afternoon, just before I did my weekly backup. Gone was an entire book that I'd almost finished editing, and the latest version of a conference talk I was preparing.

Eric was able to rescue the text of the book (fortunately unformatted) and my talk (short enough that reformatting it wasn't a problem). and, of course, living in a multi-computer household meant that getting back to work didn't take too long. We had also recently put all our hard disks (for the desktop machines) into removable drive carriers, making it much easier for me to just shove a drive into Eric's machine and carry on.

Further research determined that the hard disk controller (built into the motherboard of my desktop computer) had died (this is its 3rd motherboard in only 16 months); the hard drive itself appears to still be good, once we reformatted it. But some stuff is gone forever, mainly things I'm not in the habit of backing up, like my email files.

Condo tales

Eric and I have attended several meetings (formal and informal) of the other owners, and we've learned a lot about the history of this buildings in this complex. The complex was built as a resort (in the early '80s) and owned in total by one company for some years. The basic structure of the buildings are solid, but the finishings (inside and out) were cheaply done and the original owners did minimal maintenance. Presumably anything optional (like working drains in unused laundry areas) wasn't done.

Photo right: View of our apartment complex. Click on photo to see a larger version.

In the late '80s the buildings were changed to individual titles and the units were sold off, mostly to absentee owners. However, the new owners soon discovered that a lot of work was needed to keep the place in good enough shape to attract the intended customers, and ended up spending quite a lot of money to replace roofs, rotting steps and retaining walls. Recently many of the units have been renovated internally.

Photo left: Eric with some of the flock of rainbow lorikeets that have adopted us. Click on photo to see a larger version.

Photo right: One of the birds takes a closer look at me. Click on photo to see a larger version.

Health matters

In Sydney after the US trip, Eric saw the heart specialist for his annual checkup and was pronounced in fine shape. We both saw the eye surgeon. Eric's eyes are nearly perfect. My corneas are now the way they should be (therefore that isn't the cause of my continuing double vision in the right eye), but the surgeon says I'm beginning to get cataracts in both eyes. Oh joy. Not that this is exactly a surprise to me - my mother and her father had cataracts. The surgeon said it could be 2 to 10 years before the cataracts are enough of a problem to require surgery.

A tropical Christmas

We had a very nice Christmas buffet lunch at one of the other resorts in town. The buffet featured cold ham, cold turkey, cold cooked prawns, lots of salads, as well as some hot meat, vegetables, dressing, gravy, and plum pudding. The temperature was around 30, but a stiff cooling breeze was blowing, and the champagne was flowing like water. We had a fine time, but passed up an opportunity to swim in the hotel's pool afterwards. The cover photo on this zine shows us with the sea and some other guests in the background.

The next week I got very busy for quite awhile, doing fill-in editing work while other people were taking their annual leave.

The weather's been alternating between days of gusty rain and days that are beautiful and not too hot or humid. On one of the beautiful days, because we needed to test-drive the car on a long distance run, we drove to a shopping mall - in Townsville, 300 km away. A pleasant drive, visiting towns along the way and confirming that the nearest traffic light north of here is 280 km away. I bought two swimsuits and an ice cream and we drove back. Not something I'd want to do every weekend!

The only low point of that trip was having the car alarm go off while I was trying to start the car. Honking horn, flashing lights - the whole catastrophe. Very embarrassing! Especially since I didn't even realise the car had an alarm - I knew it had an immobilisation system, but not an alarm. Hmmm... maybe I should read the user's guide after all.

Meanwhile we've been swimming every day in the resort pool - it's not really long enough for serious swimming, but it's a lot better than nothing. Walking quickly, especially over any distance, isn't something I do well (and I can't keep up with Eric), but swimming I can handle.

New car

I bought a new car (Laser 5-door hatch). This was done in my usual style: think about it for a year, then go into the car dealer's, look at the one car that met my specs and was in the clearance sale, drive it around the block, notice that it costs more than I wanted to pay but the dealer's trade-in is than I'd expected (obviously he wants to sell this car), bringing the cost to me down to what I intended to pay, and say "can I put it on my credit card?" No problem. (I needed a couple of weeks to get the money out of my investment account.) Eric was in mild shock even though he should be used to the way I buy things.

Home on the Web

Not long after moving to Airlie Beach, I finally got around to registering a business name. For years I've been unable to decide whether to register "WeberWoman's Wrevenge," thinking that prospective clients might find this a bit too silly, weird, or otherwise offputting. Now I've decided that if they have a problem with that, I probably don't want their business anyway. So I sent in my registration form (and fee), and received the approval within a few weeks. As I expected, there was no similar name already registered.

Immediately after getting the business name approved, I applied for a Web domain name - having already selected the website hosting company I intended to use (webcentral.com.au). All of this came through within two days, so I was set. I promptly transferred all my professional pages off CompuServe; while waiting for approvals, I'd also been busily converting Wrevenge files into HTML.

Since then many things have changed:

• In mid-2001 I bought a new domain, jeanweber.com, and moved my professional pages ("The Technical Editors' Eyrie") there.
• In mid-2002 I abandoned the jeanweber.com website and moved the remaining fannish material (mainly out-of-date checklists of women writers of sf/f, and book reviews) to a temporary(?) home.

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Page last updated 29 March 2002