Issue Number 57
 (March 2001)

Diary notes

by Jean Weber

In November 2000 Eric and I made our usual trip to visit my mother for two weeks around Thanksgiving. This year my sister Barb and her husband Ted showed up for a few days. It wasn't as happy a gathering as in 1998, since father had died in June, but we all enjoyed getting together and my mother particularly appreciated having the whole family there.

Before Barb and Ted arrived, Eric and I had been telling Mother about our travels plans for this year (we got the news of our GUFF win the day we arrived at her place). She, of course, asked how she was going to be able to keep in touch we us, and we chorused, "Well, if you were on e-mail...."

"Perhaps it's time I got a computer," she said.

That was all the encouragement we needed. We immediately collected all the advertising we could find, including the local computer trader free newspaper, and visited as many stores as we could get to (as a good excuse for taking our daily walks).

At Thanksgiving we checked all the sales, and there at the local Office Depot was the perfect purchase: far more machine than she needed, but fairly entry-level these days, and after mailing in a stack of rebates, it would only cost about US$400 for computer, scanner, printer, modem, and 17" monitor. We could hardly get a secondhand machine for that price.

After Barb and Ted arrived, all five of us traipsed off to the store and bought the computer -- plus some extra memory and a few other bits and pieces. Mother stood there looking overwhelmed but determined, and paid for it. (She's enjoying her status as "wealthy widow," and the fact that she can now make her own decisions without having to okay anything with Dad. Fortunately she's just as frugal as he was, so we're not concerned that she'll waste her money, at least no more than we waste ours.)

The boys then put the computer and all its bits together while we girls cooked dinner and got an early start on celebratory drinks. Assembly involved going back to the store the next day to get the correct printer cable. (The box clearly said it took a parallel cable, so that's what we had bought; but the printer actually needed a USB cable.)

On our trip to get the cable, we also purchased a computer desk to put all the stuff on, having determined that none of Mother's furniture was suitable. Then I set to work setting up the software to my preferences, getting rid of icons that she wouldn't need, adding or renaming icons for things she would use, installing the printer and scanner drivers, testing everything....

Meanwhile Mother came in now and then to ask "where's the instruction book?" Of course, there wasn't any, other than the installation guides for everything, which didn't include what she wanted to know. So... back to the store to buy a book. One with lots of pictures, and explanations that started with "this is what the left mouse button does; this is what 'click' means..." I also wrote a 6-page mini user guide, complete with diagrams and screen captures, starting with "here's how to turn it on" and "this is the icon to start the e-mail program" ... all cross-referenced to the relevant page of the book we'd bought.

One of Mother's friends teaches beginners' computer classes at her retirement community, and has come by her house a few times to help her get going. I've yet to receive any e-mail from her, but the time will come.

Meanwhile when we talk on the phone, she says things like, "I didn't know I could scan my own photos and print my own Christmas cards! I didn't think I'd have any use for a scanner, but this will be great." For years she and my father had taken a photo to the camera shop and got personalized cards, to which she often added personal artistic touches (she's quite a good painter); now she's excited about doing her own, every step!

Adventures in self-publishing

I published my second book, Editing Online Help, in October 2000, and my third book, Taming Microsoft Word, in February 2001. The latter is a revised and expanded version of two chapters from the 1999 book, so it didn't take nearly as long to research and write.

Health news

I'm sure I mentioned having the cataract removed from my right eye last March. That went well, and I'm very happy with the results, although that eye is now a bit more long-sighted than I'd prefer. The surgeon says that can be fixed.

I was planning to have the cataract in my left eye removed in December, but the surgeon and I decided to leave it for another year as it wasn't causing any problems that glasses weren't correcting.

Travel news

After visiting Mother, we stopped for a few days in California, nicely timed for a PenSFA meeting where we saw lots of friends, includ-ing John Berry and Eileen Gunn who had only recently moved to San Francisco, and David and Andrea Evans, who moved to the Bay Area from Australia earlier in the year.

We stayed with Karen Schaffer and Mike Ward in San Jose, and I enjoyed Web surfing using their high-speed permanent access line. Karen and Mike were out most of the time, as Karen was selling her wonderful home-made jellies at several events in the area.

On Sunday, before we left to catch our plane back to Australia, we helped set up party decorations for that evening. A highlight for me was the chance to talk with artist Freddie Baer.

Eric and I leave on our GUFF trip on 26 March, stopping in Boston for Corflu before arriving in the UK on 2 April. We leave the UK on 14 May, stop in Seattle to visit Mother, then attend Wiscon before Eric goes home, arriving around 3 June. I'm going back to my mother's for 3 more weeks before going back to Australia.

After a quick turnaround, we plan to head off in the motorhome for about 10 weeks. The window for pleasant outback travelling (that is, not unbearably hot, nor pouring rain) is a bit short, from mid-June thru early September.

Miscellaneous news

Christmas and New Year's were uneventful. We stayed home, the electricity stayed on, and we enjoyed the chance to relax and just read a book and appreciate our view.

On January 8 the new Airlie swimming lagoon opened for public use, and we've been going swimming almost every morning around 6 am, before the sun gets too hot and the crowds arrive. At that hour there are usually about half a dozen people our age leisurely swimming laps, plus a younger couple pelting along rather more energetically. Quite a contrast to a few hours later, when the place is full of hundreds of people of all ages.

The lagoon is a huge concrete swimming pool with an artificial beach, nice landscaping, picnic shelters, electric barbecues, and a toilet block (but no change rooms, much to everyone's annoyance).

Above: the children's pool; the wading pool is under the shade sails. Click photo to see it larger (138 KB).

Above: the children's pool from another angle; not visible beyond the little bridge is the main pool, about twice the size of this one. Click photo to see it larger (122 KB).

In February we celebrated Eric's birthday by going to dinner with some new friends, Kurt and Ingrid from Switzerland, who found us through Eric's Airlie Beach web page. They had retirement-entry visas for Australia and wanted to move to Airlie Beach (they'd visited the town in the past and liked it). Eric and Kurt had had quite a long correspondence by e-mail before they arrived. They turned out to be delightful people in person, though disgustingly fit, and serious scuba divers. They're our age (mid-50's) and we share several interests including comfortable and leisurely 4WD travel, so we'll probably be seeing a lot of them over the next few years.

Later in February we celebrated my birthday by going to Mackay for dinner with Leanne and Kerry Frahm. (Leanne's birthday is a few days after mine.) We went to a seafood restaurant not far from their place, where the food was wonderful though the service left a lot to be desired.

Also in February we had a quick visit from Craig and Julia Hilton, who were driving south after finishing their year at the Doomadgee hospital. It was great to see them again, but they had to leave all too soon. They were headed for Melbourne and really looking forward to being in a city again.

Meanwhile I designed a web site for a techwriting recruitment agency —a minor consulting job that will help pay for the GUFF trip. It was fun too.