Issue Number 55
      (June 2000)

Diary notes

by Jean Weber

When last seen our hero was learning to drive a truck, heading off to the USA to visit her parents and attend Corflatch, waiting to see an eye surgeon about the cataract in her right eye, planning a trip around Australia in a large motorhome, writing a book, and standing for GUFF (a fan fund between Australia-New Zealand and Europe). In her spare time she was reading sf, publishing two e-mailed newsletters every two weeks, and failing to keep two websites up to date, though she did manage to publish a fanzine.

How did I ever find time for life when I had a job?

Motorhome news

I got my truck driver's license on the first try (in early February). I only got a few non-critical demerits on my test—mainly not looking in the mirrors often enough—and a friendly chat about practicing my down-shifting a bit more; my shifting is a bit jerky. (I didn't tell the inspector that my gear shifting in a car isn't much smoother.)

Eric failed his test. He hasn't had a chance to try again, because the lead time to get an appointment for a test is about a month, and we were going overseas soon thereafter. Since we've been back, events have conspired to delay things further, as you'll discover if you read on.

The first problem was a flat starter battery, which we took an outrageously long time to get around to doing anything about. Eventually, after Eric had tried several do-it-yourself remedies, we stumbled upon a local expert in batteries and solar power technology for boats and motor vehicles. He came up with a plan to fix the system so the truck batteries can be charged from the solar cells or the generator, and the truck can also be started from the solar-cell batteries. Eric wanted to do this, but he didn't know enough about the details to feel confident of getting it right.

We finally made a weekend trip to a nearby camping area at the end of May. To my surprise, I had no trouble driving and in fact rather enjoyed charging along the country roads at top speed (which in most cases was nowhere near the speed limit). Now I'm looking forward to taking off on a longer, more ambitious trip.

Lousy weather and flu

Both of us have had a lingering flu. We think we picked it up at Corflu, because a lot of people seemed to have some illness, but fortunately the symptoms didn't really appear until after we'd returned home. (I could tell, on the plane, that I was getting sick.)

We were home over two months now before we'd completely shaken off the thing. Just as well that other events had slowed us down.

The weather, for example. December through April is the wet season, and parts of the country had a lot of rain, even places that don't usually get much. At least one normally-dry lake (Lake Eyre) in South Australia is full of water. Several places we were planning to visit in Queensland and NSW were flooded. I don't yet feel confident enough in driving the truck, to set off into boggy road conditions, even if it does have 4WD.

Cataract removal

I had the cataract operation on my right eye on March 23, with an intra-ocular lens implanted. My vision was soon sharp and clear, but a bit odd until the 3 stitches were removed 5 weeks later. Since then the vision's been sorting itself out.

The new lens is great for distance and not bad up to about 4 feet, then rapidly goes blurry. The left eye is my close-up eye. It has fairly clear vision out to about 2-1/2 feet, then drops off rapidly to a slight blur at all distances. So I still need a left spectacle lens for driving. (At the moment I have eyeglass frames with a left lens only.)

Computer work is mostly in that in-between distance which neither eye sees well, so I got new reading glasses for that.

US trip

In late February – early March, we attended Potlatch and Corflu in Seattle, then spent a few days in Las Vegas, seeing some of the fans there, and finally 1 day in the SF Bay Area.

The main purpose of the trip for me was to visit my parents and check on my father, who is not doing very well. He has pulmonary fibrosis, which is slowly getting worse, and breathing is difficult (he's now got portable oxygen equipment).

Gadgets

This year's first gadget is a digital camera, Kodak DC240. I haven't used it much yet, but the few photos I've taken have turned out well, and I think it's going to be great for taking photos for the Avalook website. The resolution isn't quite "photo quality," but I don't intend to print the results, and I usually compress my web photos quite a bit to get the file size down to something reasonable, so I don't need high resolution.

GUFF

Eric and I are standing for GUFF, the Get-Up-and-over Fan Fund which operates between Australia-New Zealand and Europe. If we win, we will be attending the British Eastercon in Blackpool, UK, and plan to make an around-the-world trip, stopping at various places in North America as well as UK/Europe.