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Alas for what might have been....jawaproSat 05/12/2009 06:18 PM
One of my best mates, Trojen (aka Daniel) is back in the state for a couple of days. And he brought his Landrover.
If only I hadn’t screwed my Padge, we could have headed up the bush somewhere.
Doh!
Regardless, it was great to catch up with him again, even if it was only for a while. When the Padge is back on it’s feet, I’ll have to head west and visit Trojen in WA.
Ironicly, Trojen had to replace the clutch in the rover too.
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What a week!jawaproThu 03/12/2009 09:58 PM
The weekend was Church Camp. It was actually the second one this year, because some of our members decided the other one was a little too formal and ‘planned’ and wanted a more relaxing sort. Congrats to those guys - and thanks heaps for organizing it. It was brilliant - although it rained most of the time. There were dorms though, so we all chickened out of the idea of tents. Camping in the rain is ok - but packing up wet tents afterwards is bad.
After camp, Turkey came back to my place and this time he brought Alister as reinforcements. Alister was up for some help with school (there’s an awesome teacher in Burnie who was giving him a hand). Unfortunately for Turkey, this meant he had to drop Alister off at said teachers house each morning so Alister could get a lift through to Burnie. So much for sleeping in until 11.
In theory Alister was doing homework after school, but in practice he seemed to fall asleep a lot. Lol - he did homework too though.
Thanks to Turkey for agreeing to mow the lawn for me while relaxing at my place for a week and a half.
I took one day off so I could relax a little too, and spent most of it playing Age of Empires II against Turkey. After one match where my Vikings creamed his Tectonic Knights, we had a rematch. This time I was the Spanish, and Turks was the Chinese. I didn’t know this, but the Chinese get machine gun style cross-bows, and are awesome. The Spanish get guns, but seem to have been learning from the French, and are useless.
Both Turks and I build stupidly awesome bases, and used all the stone from the map. Turk’s archers weren’t able to take my base, and my army wasn’t able to survive his archers. As I had control over the majority of the map, I had slightly better economies than Turks, and ended up extending my base all the way into his so my towers could kill his archers. This was made far easier when Turks eventually stopped trying to win and focused on merely annoying me. After about 4 hours, I finally destroyed his castle, and then had to chase down his king which had run away. Awesome fun for such an old game though.
Turks and Alister have gone home now - so everything is quiet at my place for now. Looking forward to Turk’s next attack (in January) - he’s planning to bring about 5 other people with him (I have stated that they have to sleep in tents - that many people WONT fit in my house). Should make for an epic game of AoE2 though!
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Good News / Bad NewsjawaproWed 25/11/2009 10:11 PM
For those who haven't read about my 4x4 trip, skip this post and read the next one first.
Ok - time to play Good News/Bad News.
Starting with the Pajero.
Bad news: The Pajero still isn’t starting.
Good news: I know why.
Bad news: The starter motor broke and tried to melt itself. That was the reason for the warning light too (it went off when I disconnected the starter).
Good news: I have another one.
Bad news: I haven’t tested it yet.
Good news: It’s a public holiday on Friday for the Devonport show.
Bad news: I still don’t know what’s wrong with the clutch.
Good news: I have a legendary friend called Tim who has a plan to drain the clutch fluid and see if that helps.
Bonus good news: I know what a clutch looks like now, thanks to Tim and a conveniently dissembled Evo.
In other news:
Bad news: I have had an ingrown toenail for 3 years.
Good news (sorta): I finally decided to get it fixed at the podiatrists.
Bad news: It’s not cheap.
Good news: It was done yesterday, and my big toe hasn’t been hurting since. That’s amazing since it’s been sore for years and has just been hacked into. You'd think it'd be screaming with pain.
Bad news: The bandage around my foot hurt all my other toes last night (very tight) and the pain was so bad I couldn’t sleep. Doh - the only one that didn't hurt was the one I'd just had surgery on.
Good news: I ended up reading a fair bit of my book because I couldn’t sleep.
Bad news: It was still painful and I still couldn't sleep.
Good news: The bandage/dressing is off now and my toes are recovering. The pain is mostly gone.
Bad news: I was too tired to go to work.
Good news: Work gave me the day off.
So that’s my news. I’ll have to be careful of my foot for a few weeks while it heals, but it should be a permanent solution.
As far as the Padge goes - I should have some more to report after the weekend.
UPDATE:
The starter motor wasn't quite the right one - and wasn't able to start the engine. The place I bought it from are reconditioning my original starter and I should be able to collect it on Monday.
Not looking good for going 4x4ing with Trojen next weekend though. Still need to work out what's up with the clutch.
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Montezuma Falls 4x4jawaproTue 24/11/2009 12:46 AM
My mate Tim invited me to come 4wding with him and some of his friends - but ended up pulling out so he could focus on replacing the engine in his Evo (melted pistons).
Turkey and I still went though. Turns out it was just us (along with Zeke) and a Patrol containing Jason, Russell, and Shane.
We drove down almost to Zeehan (quite a haul) to head into Montezuma Falls. I’d been once many years ago. That trip we had come from the other direction, but that’s been closed off and is now only a walking track.
The Montezuma track is an old railway line. Occasionally there are still sleepers from the old railway.
It was graded as a ‘medium’ track, and had quite a few puddles, climbs, and other challenges.
Nothing that would stop us though.
The closest we had to serious trouble on this track was when Jason almost backed over the edge of the road on this steep climb section.
We didn’t get any photos of the moment in question, as we were all too busy yelling at him to stop reversing.
Eventually the road ran out just short of the falls. There was a very short walk, and a suspension bridge to cross to the other side (which Turks and I found pretty daunting). The bridge wasn’t here last time I was.
Turks likes heights about as much as I do.
Montezuma Falls. Depending where you read, it’s either the tallest waterfall in Tassie, or one of the tallest. Not the longest single drop, but overall it’s very tall.
Zeke tried to climb to the top.
On the way back we did some tree climbing.
Instead of just going back the way we came, Jason wanted to try the Ring River Road. It’s considered to be a ‘hard’ track. I didn’t think we’d make it through, but was willing to give it a look.
Some nice muddy sections here.
So far the day had been great. I just wish we’d stopped there.
One puddle too far.
After I pulled Jason out - he did his best to convince me to give a go. Stupidly, I agreed.
My Padge went swimming.
I got mud all through the carpet on the passenger’s side (we had Maccas for breakfast).
Worse, I did something to the clutch, which had no pressure (peddle went straight to the floor).
I was able to drive out of the track, but on the actual road heading back towards Devonport, my clutch was getting worse. I could get into first and fifth, but that was it. Changing from first to fifth is an interesting situation.
I was surviving that - when an exclamation light turned up on the dash. I pulled over to work out what it was, and the car wouldn’t start again. Great!
We pull-started the car so the engine was going (for power steering etc) and Jason towed me home. On a positive note, my fuel economy was brilliant, and I had no trouble keeping up with him.
We rocked up at Tim’s (he wasn’t there though) and cleaned the Padge and tried to work out what had gone wrong.
The day had been brilliant, but ended with a broken car. Not exactly the ideal outcome from my first trip in the Padge.
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Turkeybrain invades...jawaproSun 22/11/2009 10:21 PM
The Devonport Geek Retreat was open for business again this week.
Turkeybrain (occasionally known as Martin) is on holidays from Uni, so decided to come up to my place for a week and do nothing (which is what people generally do at my place).
It might be small, unorganized, and the food is generally a help yourself menu, but my place has become quite a popular destination. Turkey, Klutz, Loopy, and a heap of Turkey’s friends have all stayed here. Turkey’s coming back in a weeks time for a while, and his group of friends are planning another trip early next year.
Anyway - Turks was up for a week. As Left4Dead 2 came out this week, that took up a lot of our time (mostly his as I was working during the day).
We were invited out to the Coles’s place on Tuesday (Turkey is their cousin, and I am the bringer of the Xbox so we both got an invite).
On Wednesday we took the tour of Tim’s place to check out all the cars (including the Evo with the melted pistons from the weekend prior) and Turks talked about restoring Jags with Tim’s Dad (an expert) as he’s quite keen to give it a go.
On Thursday we were invited to a Nerf war with Tim, Tom, Jim, Wes, Zeke, and Bec. We called past Kmart so Turks could equip himself with a Vulcan (pictured). It’s a far better gun than I expected.
On Friday we finally did the food shopping we’d been supposed to do at the start of the week (somehow we’d survived this long) and prepared my car for the following day. But that’s a story for another post...
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