A Depressing Statistic

Friday was a successful day. The website I'd been working on went live after a brief intermission while the DNS played catch up. It was rather satisfying to see it live after a reasonable amount of work. I now have a basic design that I can reuse - just change the colour scheme, edit the menu and get to work on a Photoshop banner. Phoebe came home from school with an award certificate celebrating her success at reading. She really is coming on in leaps and bounds and her confidence is growing by the day.

I found out on Saturday that there are 72 web designers in Tauranga. Sigh. Well that figure is wrong because there are 73 now. I got myself added to the list. With that amount of competition it's going to be rather hard going drumming up business. My Google ranking also needs a little work. Careful analysis of the pages that are coming up first seems to be the order of the day. One thing I did notice is that Google seems to pay quite a lot of attention to the contents of the "alt" attribute of the "" tag. I've never really bothered to set anything meaningful in these attributes before other than making sure it was present to stop the various HTML validation tools from complaining, but it seems I have learnt a valuable lesson.

In the evening we went to a party/barbecue at V&W's next door neighbour's house. We got invited I think because he's a Norton Commando owner, and I'd passed on some service tools I found lurking in my tool box. We met quite a few interesting people, and I even managed to pass on a business card to one who apparently had paid $3500 for a "basic" 5 page site. I wonder why I never manage to find that sort of customer. A basic site, probably only takes a day or so to put together and most of that's Photoshopping. Maybe I'll get lucky. The testimonials page is coming on nicely, though, and maybe that will help.

On Monday Di started at her new job. Well, started is probably a bit strong - she went into the office and met everyone, and then went and blew the company's money on a new phone. She didn't spend the whole amount on a phone, but kept some of the available funds for phone credit. She has, perhaps unwisely IMHO, decided to use her private number for business purposes. This will mean the phone's never off which may prove to be an issue at some point in the future. The other less than ideal situation is that she's switched to Telecom XT, because that's what the firm uses and they were throwing money at her to switch. Given all of XT's recent failings, this again may prove to be a disaster.

In the afternoon we went to do our house inspection. The woman had forgotten/not been told we were coming and attracting her attention was a bit of a challenge, but we managed eventually. Everything seemed to be working except for a blown light bulb. We also found out that the place has mains gas - quite a rarity round here. Sadly it's an electric hob but we do have the possibility of switching. The water heater is also gas powered, so it should be cheaper to run.

All Change

Monday was spent hacking some PHP code I found that generates a Shockwave Flash file on the fly from a collection of jpeg images. I'm intending to use this on the charity site I'm redesigning. It ended up working pretty well and I was most pleased with the results. I applied for a position as a "trainee application developer"! I'm a bit old to be called a trainee, but they want someone with all that Micro$oft .NET stuff which I don't do. I don't expect I'll hear from them again but it was worth a shot. We were interrupted mid-morning by Vicky's kids who seem to have developed an inability to get past our drive way. In a slightly flattering and a little bit stalky way, Vicky & Wayne have decided to move house too, and are following in our general direction. Apparently they've found a place between the golf course and the beach and now poor Wayne doesn't know whether to reach for the surfboard or the golf clubs. Di went to see what another firm of agents had to offer, but couldn't find anyone senior to talk to. In the evening I abused Wayne's hospitality again and offered my assistance with viewing the Chinese GP. A British 1-2 was declared a fine result, especially as poor old Mark Webber was much further back. Gotta keep them Aussies in their place.

Tuesday I received a phone call from our solicitors who wanted to make an appointment to sign the house papers. Next Tuesday at 10:30 is the date. We still have to arrange our pre completion inspection and this is now a priority. I spent the rest of the morning writing some cunning code to scrape information off a web page and import it into another using XML/RSS feed technology. Really boring, but very cunning. Better this than being idle. I order myself an 0800 number which will be available in four working days, apparently. The guy I was talking to about this turned out to be from Surrey so we had a reminisce about the old country. Diane has a mob of agents chasing her hide and wanting to force a job on her. She seems somewhat keen about this mob and their persistence may well pay off. Later she and Sam went to see the new Sam Neil vampire movie - Daybreakers. Apparently it was a complete blood fest and the most bloody film ever. I was also quite pleased to find out that Halo had finally received the money I beamed to them. Phew. Di also had the first of her two adverts in the B.O.P. Times. Apparently before you can apply for your real estate licence, you need to give the great unwashed the chance to shout "Oi, You, No!" if the person in question is a bandit. It doesn't stop most agents being bandits of course, but they are at least showing willing.

Wednesday Rhiannon was supposed to go to a school disco but apparently had lost her ticket. Various phone calls were made and the relevant persons notified that a tall year 9 pommy kid would be showing up with no ticket and would need to be let in. The messages were apparently received and their was no shouting and screaming when she returned later on. Di's second advert was in the paper, and with that Di headed over to Caroline to get a character reference.
I spent the morning getting all arty and down and dirty with photoshop, creating a banner graphic with all sorts of layer masks, fading gradients, drop shadows and more levels of opacity than you could shake a stick at. I was rather pleased with the result and although far from a photoshop expert, it is starting to become less of a complete mystery. Out of the blue I ad an email from HiFX claiming that they were now happy with my proof of address and asking me to confirm the "Unique Reference Number" which they apparently send me on the 8th April. Hmm - I got a load of stuff from their NZ office, but no idea about that number. It's not a priority now, since all the cash has gone through Halo anyway. Di went to see yet another firm of agents. This lot were really keen on her starting with them. Can this woman do know wrong? Am I in the wrong occupation? It has crossed my mind that I ought to consider giving it a go too, but then I probably wouldn't be able to keep a straight face when turning on the BS the way my good lady does.

Later than evening, Di told me we were going over to the darkest reaches of Papamoa to help one of her friends set up her hubby's wireless router. It turns out that he'd bought a "router" from the Warehouse, but it wasn't an ADSL router. It needed to be plugged into an ADSL device in order to work. This inter breeding was hampered somewhat by a patch lead composed mainly of thin air but once I'd got into both router and modem, it looked like a right pain to get them both talking and playing nice since they both wanted to own the DHCP service which is a recipe for disaster. It further transpired that they had a UK spec Belkin router which they claimed wouldn't work. This was I suspected a case of changing the VCI setting to 100, rather than the UK specific 38. Sure enough, after a few botched attempts at entering the login details and switching to PPPoA rather than PPPoE it burst into life.

Thursday I thought it would be an idea to start exploring moving the phone line and broadband to our new house. But what's this? Telecom initially said that they had no "ports" available on the exchange and that we might have to go on to a waiting list for broadband. WHAT!!!!!! Fortunately they did some proper checking and decided that it would be available on the day. Phew! The only slight worry was that I might have to call them from the new house if the current occupants don't arrange a cancellation but they claimed the switch would be made there and then. This is I suppose to stop mischievous and malicious requests to transfer lines. We also rented a truck, $70 a day plus 45c per kilometre. It has a tail lift and should we hope fit down the driveway as it's not much wider than a car. Di finally decided which agent she was going to work for. After all the fuss, it turned out to be the one that her lecturer recommended. Sigh.

We popped in to see Vicky, who was full of beans because our neighbour (another member of the Zumba gang) has decided to move into Vicky's place. She has been looking for a while largely because the rental she's in (which shares our driveway) is rather ramshackle and tatty. Vicky's old and new place are both private rentals with no rental agent involved, so there is a great degree of flexibility on dates and Vicky has cunningly arranged to move on the same day that we do, which means that we can share the truck. I wouldn't be surprised if we don't end up moving our neighbour, too.

Thieves, Sharks and Hookers

Monday afternoon after Di returned from the Poly, we wandered over to Blake Park, and let the kids loose on the monster skateboard ramp. The girls were a bit wimpy about even sliding down on their bums, but eventually managed it. Only Freya was brave enough to attempt it sat on her skateboard, but she did it twice - the $5 bribe I offered proving to be irresistible. Di went to an interview with a local estate agent, in fact the one who we bought our house off. She returned later pleased that she'd been offered a job. Another agent rang while she was out and wanted to arrange an interview. She seems suddenly to be in demand. The UK website I am redesigning was well received, and some more ideas were put forward. It looks like it could become a very tidy little site and a good reference.

I spent Tuesday working on another site, redoing a quick and dirty one I'd put together for next to nothing not long before I left the UK. Most of the effort was put into a "creative" banner for the top of the page which forced me to rapidly acquire some new Photoshop skills. Wayne popped in to borrow one of out spare mattress for some guests that had arrived from the UK. He was full of irritation about the proposed mining of the Coromandel Peninsula - a part of NZ we never got to see on our holiday two years ago and was determined that we should write a protest song. I wasn't so sure, but as he showed me some of the lyrics, I agreed to have a go. I had an email from HiFX wanting our new address and proof of it. Alas the only utility bill I had with both our names actually has Di's initial down incorrectly and they went off on one when I sent it in. They will have to wait until Trustpower send the latest bill with the correct name on it. Most annoyingly, we discovered that the stop loss order placed on Friday had been triggered, and thus we had bought at$2:12. The really annoying thing is that it was a momentary dip before it headed back up again. Needless to say this is a pain in the but and has probably cost us $3,000.

Wednesday I chased up Halo Financial to make sure that they'd received the money I'd sent. They confirmed that they had, which was a major relief since the thought of that amount of cash going astray did not bear thinking about. We just have to wait for the dollars to hit our Westpac account now.

Thursday Di and I went out for a curry. We decided to visit Bombay Brasserie in the mount. It was OK, but nothing exceptional. The same crummy size poppadoms and the inability to order madras without being asked how hot it should be. Our bank account is now bulging following the deposit of half a house in it. Phew.

Friday Di had her assessment at the poly, and she passed. She has to place two advertisements in the paper and assuming nobody objects she can apply for her real estate licence. She had an interview with another agent who also offered her a job. I must admit to being a little miffed about all this unbridled success. I've been looking for a job for seven months and not even the sniff of an interview and yet the Mrs. gets two job offers in a week. But then both of these job offers are commission only with no basic salary so it's not quite the same thing as a proper job. Di also went back to the dentist for a check up following her extraction. Another $110 left our bank account but there were at least a few more tests. A comprehensive ultrasound examination revealed lots of micro fractures which meant that any remedial work was likely to cause a much larger fracture eventually. This explains the repeated visits Di had to endure back in the UK. The extremely hard amalgam used to fill the teeth doesn't give when you bite down on it and causes the tooth to fracture. The work done in the UK was apparently mediocre rather than incompetent and the technique used to crown, i.e. a post and cap is not the best method although standard practice in the UK. The preferred NZ method is apparently a sealed cap adhered to the root filling which stops any rot getting under the crown. It also stops the post insertion fracturing the tooth.

Saturday we ended up over at V&W's for a couple of hours. Di told Vicky all the gory details of estate agency while Wayne and I contented ourselves with watching the F1 qualifying on Sky while blowing the froth off a few cold ones. We got involved with a Facebook chat with a mate in the UK and persuaded him to install Skype and had a face to face. Kudos to Chas for not only getting Skype installed, but also getting the webcam working. Well done, mate.

On Sunday we ended up at Fashion Island in Papamoa, in search of a pair of school shoes for Imogen. On the way back, suitably shoed up we stopped in to see Caroline who was eager for news of Di's impending new career. As a licensed agent herself it was a conversation that I wasn't really into, but the flaws and benefits of various firms in this neck of the woods were discussed at length. Some are more scrupulous than others and when you look at the deals they offer their sales people, it seems that the only party to benefit is the firm. Not the seller, not the buyer and certainly not the salesperson. Little wonder then that the names of these various firms were subtly altered in order to produce a semi-amusing blog title. Hookers, however, were left untouched - something of an oxymoron if ever there was one.

Selling Your Hind Teeth, Pussycat

Di went to the dentist today. It turns out one of her back molars had cracked and the rather large filling was loose. The only solution according to the dentist was to root fill it and crown it. $3000 please. SAY WHAT!? You've got to be bloody joking! Apparently not. Di has the back two missing on one side already and doesn't miss them and insisted that they pull it out. This cost $290, still daylight robbery. Neither of us can believe quite how much dentists charge in New Zealand. We were never able to find an NHS dentist in the UK and so we'd gone private and were used to paying £500 or so for a crown, but being charged three times as much is beyond a joke. The worst bit is that one of Di's other molars is in need of a crown and one of the ones done in the UK has apparently been botched (same dentist as the kids, who have had all their fillings replaced for much the same reason). So we could quite easily have been spending the thick end of ten grand on teeth. Ringing around other dentists, we discovered that they all charge pretty much the same price. They are without doubt a set of bandits. It would be cheaper but more carbon intensive to fly back to the UK, get your teeth fixed, take a holiday and then fly home again.

Thursday was also a dead loss since the power went off at 8:30 and did not return until 16:00. Apparently it was a scheduled maintenance period, but nobody told us or any of our neighbours. I was expecting a couple of emails, and managed to get on line by plugging the wireless router into a DC power inverter which in turn plugged into the fag lighter in the car. Fortunately I had brought a ten metre phone extension cable with me (sockets/plugs are the same as the UK) and this was just about the right length to reach from the bedroom to the car. The speed was probably down a bit, but not noticeably.

On the web front, a friend in the UK wanted my opinion on their site which they're doing using a diy flash set up. My comments were that it was unlikely ever to come up in a Google search because the Googlebot cannot read flash. As I am in need of a few reference sites I offered to take on the design of the site. He bit my arm off. What have I done?

I investigated getting an 0800 phone number today. I am minded to sign up for a VOIP number with Kiwilink which costs $10 per month, assuming nobody phones you. It strikes me that it looks more authentic to have a land line number rather than just a mobile. Di returned from poly today with news that one of her friends on the course may want me to look at her web site and give it the once over. Apparently it's been put together by a graphic designer but they get no hits. It looks the part though, but it seems it doesn't work. I also considered whether I should register for GST as I'm going to be dealing with businesses. Registration is voluntary if your turnover is less than $60k but it would mean I can claim back GST on any expenses which will be useful. On reflection I decided to leave it until we move otherwise it's more paperwork to change the address.

We noted that the estate agents had visited us and there's now a large "sold" sign slapped across the advertising board at the end of the drive. It would appear that we're definitely sold. Nice of someone to tell us.

Di and the kids had gone to V&W's in the afternoon and later on I wandered on down as well. Wayne was just about going mental with all the kids milling around. He insisted that I accompany him to Bayfair for a spot of shopping. Sadly this included a twelve pack which we set about demolishing over the course of the evening. We temporarily removed ourselves for a spot of dinner and that's when I got a call from Halo Financial. They agreed to take a 0.7% commission on currency exchange, so I went with then for the first half of the house money. Getting the bank to arrange the transfer involved a few phone calls back and forward in order to verify I was who I claimed to be. Fortunately this all proceeded OK and the transfer was made. I have also put on a couple of buy orders which will either buy when the rate hits the right value or buy when it's about to plummet, a so called "stop loss" order. Which ever one triggers first cancels the other. Thus we don't need to panic if things start to go south. Obviously we may need to make a manual order if the rate doesn't move either way.

Returning to V&W's, we finished off the beer and wobbled off home in the wee small hours.

Saturday started with a hangover;-) Not massive but just enough. The major irritant however was the stray cat which seems to have decided we are its owners. It has apparently gained the name "Tigger" on account of being a rather cute grey tabby. The damn thing keeps leaping in through open windows and generally trying to ingratiate itself with all and sundry. Naturally it has done a remarkably good job on the kids, particularly Phoebe and Freya who keep picking it up and carrying it around and generally making a fuss over it, wanting to give it bowls of milk and food etc. Di went on a mission to try and track down its owners (it has no collar) but all the neighbours had no idea. At this point with a house move pending the last thing we need is an animal about the house (we have enough two legged ones;-)) and thus I am now officially Mr. Grumpy because I want nothing to do with it. Although it is a cute and cuddly pusscat. No! Stop it!

Something To Get Your Teeth In To

I've not managed to find time to write anything for a while now but I intend to bring you up to speed. The job front continues to be non-existent. I have therefore decided to attempt to start my own IT services/web design business. Whether I'll make my first dollar remains to be seen but it can't hurt to try. I have been spending rather a lot of time trying to put together a clean, easily navigable attractive web site with which to tempt potential clients. I've had a logo designed by a local graphic designer and ordered some business cards. I've also been tarting up some of the other web sites that I've done so that they can act as reference sites. It's proving to be rather time consuming, not least because of the dumb rubbish browsers that Microsoft has put out over the years that people still use. As and when the site is finished, I'll add a link. Until then, you'll have to bate your breath.

We had a letter from our solicitor asking what sort of property ownership we wanted. I was rather disappointed to find two egregious spelling errors on the first page of the flyer that accompanied the letter, on top of the incorrect spelling of our surname. The error of their ways was made known to them.

Imogen's recently refilled teeth had been acting up, so I rang the school dentist for an appointment. She offered 11AM, which meant I had to retrieve Imogen from intermediate, and drive her to the junior school. The dentist covers four schools in the area, and spends a term working at each one thus you have to follow her around. She said the fillings were rather deep, necessitated by replacing the leaking UK mercury fillings (kids fillings are white over here - no mercury) and that she might need root canal work. This was not really what we were expecting, given that Imogen has only just got some of her adult teeth. It turns out the school dentist doesn't handle root canal work and gave us a referral to another dentist that did. She recommended a practice on Elizabeth Street in Tauranga. Phoning round later, this seemed to be the only place that would actually accept the work. It seems dentists the world over are reluctant to treat anyone who doesn't want a full set of veneers.

Di and I went to the "Irish" pub, Rosie O'Grady's in the mount to meet up with Rhiannon's friend's parents and Rhiannon. I proceeded to thrash everyone at table football and managed to win at darts, although by the time I actually landed double 1, we were all on the same score and at the point of having to rub out the top of the score board to "wrap around" the scores.

Wednesday was the first day of the Easter holidays, so the kids were all off except for Rhiannon who finished on Thursday.

Our insurance documents arrived on Thursday. The $600 premium contained about $200 of fees and levies for various organisations such as the fire service. There was also a bit about a maximum of $100,000 from the government in the event of earthquake or other natural disaster. I understand some of those levies are paid into a central pot which is used in the event of "the big one" happening. Later we had a visitation from Vicky who was in house hunting mode. Sadly, with no deposit the range of affordable housing in the Mount is quite limited but we took a look at some within walking distance anyway. Diane also did her best to talk Vicky out of buying a cross leased property in Welcome Bay. Cross leasing is an old fashioned method of sub-dividing a plot of land that technically is not allowed to be divided. The down side to this dodge is that the other property owners on the plot must agree any changes you wish to do to your house and vice versa. It's OK if your neighbours are reasonable, but like a box of chocolates, you never know what you're going to get. This particular house had a railway line at the end of the garden, too.

We decided to make a stand against the turning weather on Sunday and organised a BBQ and had V&W round. The BBQ worked well in the absence of any wind, something that had blighted its performance back in the summer. The clocks went back on Saturday night, putting NZ a mere 11 hours ahead of the UK but more importantly curtailing the outdoor activities. Wayne invited me back to his place to watch the Malaysian Grand Prix, an offer I accepted due in no small part to the immense pile of washing up that had developed.

Sadly the washing up was still very much in evidence the following morning and I ended up doing the whole lot. My shiny new business cards arrived on Tuesday morning. I had turned down the offer of having them designed for me since it seemed a waste as I'm going to be moving soon and have no idea if the phone number will be the same. I did the "design" myself in open office and pumped it out as a PDF file. There wasn't much to get wrong, really, just the logo, name rank and serial number, etc. but they do look quite smart even if I say so myself. V&W deposited the kids on us in the afternoon while they went off to see a mortgage consultant. Meanwhile I was required to pick up madam from the cinema on Elizabeth Street (there are other streets in Tauranga, honest) and bring her and her two friends back home.

Today, Wednesday, I took Imogen for her dental appointment in Tauranga. We arrived early for the 9:15 appointment and were just about to pay for parking when someone who was leaving gave us a ticket that had another hour left. Imogen was called in early for the appointment. Dr. Bob, an English dentist, took Xrays, but these were apparently inconclusive. The decision was made to see what develops especially as the sensitivity had abated recently. Imogen has some other teeth coming through which might be what the issue is. We were told to make an appointment straight away if there should be a recurrence of the problem.

Di rang at lunchtime to tell me I had to take her to the dentist tomorrow, as her tooth ache is getting worse and paracetamol is not touching it. This will undoubtedly cost a packet as dentistry for adults always does. We'll find out tomorrow.