WarFlail's Archives - October 1999

Go to WarFlail's Archives - November 1999

We got stuck into unpacking the many boxes that remained, trying to get our home to absorb all the things we had brought from the rental unit. Later in the day, we headed back to the rental unit to clean all the windows - what a tiring job that was! I swear, if we don't get 100% of our bond money back from the rental agent, I'm going to do some serious harm!

Moving Day! The removalists turned up right on time and managed to take everything to our house in under three hours. While I was directing and assisting their off-loading, Scully and her mother and grandmother got to work cleaning the rental unit. Devenish my father-in-law helped by affixing a bracket for the dryer on a laundry wall in our new house, as well as drilling in screw holes for a double towel-rack in the ensuite bathroom. Meanwhile, I went back to the rental unit after everyone had cleared out, to let the carpet cleaner in dry clean the carpets. While the cleaner was busy, I painted the shower recess and one of the walls of the bathroom. Then it was back to the house again, to make a start on unpacking all our boxes.

If we were stuffed yesterday, we were just about dead from exhaustion by the end of today! Still, we had made a surprising amount of progress, so it was quite satisfying.

Scully had the day off from work today, which was extremely useful since we effectively had about 9 carloads' worth of portable things to take to our house. What we wanted was to keep the removalists' time to a minimum by getting them to move the large and/or heavy items (e.g. bed, dresser, dining table, refrigerator, etc). By the end of the day, we were stuffed!

I've been flat out today with chores. I painted the recess where the kitchen cupboard used to be, cleaned all the walls of the rental unit with sugar soap (hard work on the arms, believe me), and shuttled back and forth between the unit and the house ferrying portable items. I would have had a more relaxing day at the office, I reckon! Tomorrow's going to be just as busy, but at least my wife Scully has the day off from work to help. The removalists are coming on Saturday to shift all the furniture so we are working like maniacs to prepare both properties for the Big Move on the weekend.

Since I've taken this week off from work to prepare our newly-purchased house for the move this Saturday, Kuma came over to help me dismantle the kitchen cupboard (we won't be able to fit our refrigerator in the recess otherwise). We also saw that there were gaps between some of the exterior walls and the eaves (I later learned from the neighbour that these were recently caused by some compacting work that's been going on nearby - the whole area is on sandstone and the vibrations have been carrying through to all the houses in the neighbourhood, apparently). So out came the squeegee gun (technical name) and we splurged sealant everywhere it was needed - good, messy fun. *Sigh*, the trials and tribulations of being a home owner... :-)

Remember how I was raving about The Sixth Sense, starring Bruce Willis? Well, my old schoolmate Leonie tells me that the writer and director of that excellent film - Manoj Night Shyamalan - is married to someone we went to high school with back in Hong Kong! Not only that, but our mutual friend - Bhavna - was one of Leonie's closest friends! Talk about a small world. If Manoj can make more films as clever as his last one, he'll be famous in no time at all. Good on him.

Settlement Day! We are now officially home owners! No more rent, no more landlords, no more evictions - all right! Although we aren't moving the furniture to our house until the weekend, we made a start by moving across some of the more fragile items.

We dropped in to visit Kuma's cub Madeleine (pronounced Ma-de-lane, not Ma-de-lin), since the whole family is now down here in Perth, after about a month and a half in Singapore. She is so tiny! But she looks healthy and is considerably heavier now than at birth, weighing in at a hefty 2.4kg.

I paid the balance of our deposit and settlement fee for the house today. I've never written such large cheques in my life! If any cyber-thieves were planning to steal from our bank account, they're too late - we're completely cleaned out!

Pe-Le Jaks married his fiancée Helen today at Harold Boas Park in West Perth. The wedding was scheduled for 6:30pm but Geoff - who was supposed to do a reading - arrived late so the ceremony took place in the dark! Lucky there was a full moon, otherwise we wouldn't have seen anything by the end of the ceremony. Oh well, it was certainly a memorable wedding and Pe-Le and Helen looked to be very much in love.

Indonesia has a new president. Much to my (and a lot of people's) surprise, though, it's not Megawati Sukarnoputri, who was seen as the most likely candidate for the presidency. Instead, the leadership went to Abdurachman Wahid, a Muslim in frail health. So what happened next? A bomb went off inside a car near parliament after the vote (another one went off near Hotel Indonesia before the vote as well), which, incidentally, killed one person, and another person was killed during violent clashes that are happening right now between thousands of angry Megawati supporters and security forces. What is wrong with these people?! It's just like East Timor - "Yeah, okay, let's vote on it, but if I don't like the result I'm going to kill you." I really want to know what it is that causes these fanatics to want to kill everyone who doesn't see things their way.

I made a trip to the BNZA this morning and handed over all the signed and witnessed documents required for borrowing money for the mortgage. The certificate of currency for the insurance on the property arrived today from the insurance company, so that went to the bank too. The white ant inspection certificate also arrived today, so that was sent to the settlement agent. Since we  paid the hefty stamp duty last week, all that's left now is for us to hand over the balance of the deposit, mortgage insurance and a whole list of fees and charges (our biggest outlay yet), right after we inspect the property one last time to make sure that all the locks, taps, electrical fittings, etc, are in good working order. We are aiming for the settlement date to be next Monday.

Gryphon's 10-month old daughter Eloise underwent open-heart surgery today in Melbourne, to repair a damaged mitral valve. Everything went well, but whether fixing the valve will cure the pulmonary hypertension she has been suffering, only time will tell. She is still under observation.

Went to see "The Sixth Sense" tonight. I don't normally rave about movies but this spine-chiller was brilliant. Definitely a must-see film, but the less you know about it before you see it, the better.

Recent-Daddy Kuma has announced that his little baby Madeleine has now been released from hospital in Singapore, after staying there for 42 days. (Has it been that long already?!) Check out Madi's website for more details and pics. They will be flying down to Perth tomorrow night. I can hardly wait to see them!

I was pleasantly surprised to discover that my copy of HârnManor had finally arrived on my doorstep. Good of it to reach me at last - Columbia Games had only billed me for it three months ago! (I'm sure that's not entirely legal of them...) Anyway, I've only had a chance to briefly read through the module but so far it looks very useful and should prove to be an excellent base for campaigns.

Since Scully and I are going to be moving out of the unit we've been renting in less than 3 weeks' time, we decided to spackle up the holes we made in the walls (for wall hooks, brackets, etc) and paint one of the laundry walls. Thanks to Scully's dad Devenish for his invaluable assistance! Unfortunately, the paint we bought looks to be a few shades lighter than we expected - we might need to paint the entire laundry...

Kuma tells me that his little girl Madeleine's website is now up and running. Check it out - it's very entertaining!

I received a replacement UPS from my supplier. He understandably expressed concern about what the hell I've been doing to it to make it blow up... I'm concerned, too - Liebert UPS's are supposed to last for ages without ever breaking down. I only have a PC and monitor hooked up to the UPS, so surely it can handle a small load like that! I hope this one doesn't fail me.

Excellent news: we received confirmation from our mortgage broker at Mortgage Choice that unconditional approval for the home loan has been granted by the lender (Bank of New Zealand). This means we've got finance! We are one more step closer to owning that house in Attadale... :-)

It appears that RAM prices are still soaring through the roof. Contrary to what some people are saying, this isn't entirely due to last month's earthquake in Taiwan (as terrible as it was - even more powerful than the big one that hit Turkey in August, although with considerably fewer casualties). Can't blame anyone for saying that, since Taiwan is a key production centre for PCs and semiconductors, making about 80% of the world's graphics chips, 60% of all motherboards and 40% of all notebooks. However, that is only part of the picture. It's probably more to do with RAM manufacturers halting production in an effort to reduce the "oversupply" of RAM around the world... still, it beats me how a slight drop in supply could cause a threefold increase in prices. Is consumer demand that strong? Have a look at Review Zone's RAM price watch and CNET Shopper to see just how crazy the prices have become. Let's put it this way: now is not the time to buy more memory.

My mate Kuma sent another pic of his daughter Madeleine, who now has her own e-mail account even though she is the equivalent of a 36-week old unborn baby! Now that's getting online early! Anyway, she appears to be doing fairly well and is on her way to achieving the target 2kg weight that the hospital in Singapore insists she reaches before they release her. The only challenge at the moment is to wade through all the red tape to make Madeleine an Australian citizen - right now, she is labelled "stateless".

As for Gryphon's baby Eloise, she is still under observation at the Royal Children's Hospital in Melbourne. She appears to be stable but the doctor wants to observe her progress for the next two weeks. We hope she won't require surgery and will be able to come back to Perth soon.

Since we were all the way up in Morawa, we stayed overnight in Al's house. Well, five of us did - three others slept in a caravan and Pe-Le Jaks decided to pitch a tent and "rough" it. Unfortunately, I didn't get much rest last night: I suffered a terrible attack of hay-fever and could barely breathe, let alone sleep. I guess I should have seen that coming, since Morawa is in the heart of Western Australia's wildflower country and it is spring...

After breakfast (Al and Dixie even returned from the local hotel to cook for us - how's that for country hospitality!), we bid our goodbyes and drove back to Perth. Well, perhaps "raced" would be a more appropriate term than "drove" - those long roads were so boring, we couldn't resist pushing our V6 rental cars to excessive speeds! All good fun.

I returned to Perth and found to my dismay that my replacement UPS had died! How can this be?! The power button no longer functions, regardless of whether a fresh fuse is in the fuse box. Back it goes for another replacement. I hope that the third time's the winner.

Today is the first anniversary of my website. Happy birthday to WarFlail's Armoury! :-)

Very early this morning, a group of nine of us went in a convoy of three cars (I hired a brand new Ford Falcon Forté - not bad!) to attend our friend's wedding in Morawa, in the Mid West Region some 500km north of Perth. Big Al finally got married - we think Dixie is perfect for him and are happy that he has chosen to settle down with her.

Go to WarFlail's Archives - September 1999

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