I’ve just installed a new plug-in which should allow automatic cross posting between my Wordpress blog and my facebook account. I had previously resisted getting an account on facebook because I already published my own Wordpress blog, and didn’t want to have to update another site. But the pressure to get a facebook account was quite significant because almost everyone I knew (and their dog) had a facebook account. I finally caved in and got a facebook account in part because I was trying to repair my daughter’s computer and needed facebook access to check her facebook home page, which was the site giving her problems.
This new plug-in solves my double posting issues. This is the first post that ought to be automatically cross posted to my facebook account.
Incidentally, my daughter ‘unfriended’ me soon after her system was repaired!
Yesterday evening (or early this morning rather), I discovered that this blog had been hacked. After the upgrade, I was checking everything out and discovered I had an invisible ‘admin’ user. This fellow could come in anytime and erase/deface/spam my site at will. And because he was invisible, it was not a straightforward matter of deleting him. In the end, I had to go into the database directly to look for his ID and delete him. I hope that’s the end of that!
Death, pain and suffering to hackers (in that order)!
I’ve finally taken the time and effort to upgrade my Wordpress blog to the latest ver. 2.8.4. I hope nothing is broken, and if you come across any errors or bugs, do let me know. I think I will soon update my blog’s theme, and change the layout etc. It’s about time…
It looks like our bathroom renovation is finally at an end, after a litany of errors and delays. Even after the new acrylic sheeting finally arrived, more problems occurred. The shower door was found to be too tall because they didn’t take into consideration the height of the shower-base when tiling the wall (They normally install the shower first before tiling, but because of the delay in arrival of the acrylic sheeting, they proceeded with the wall tiling first and made these mistakes). So a new side panel and door had to be located. This arrived the next day, sans the door. So another trip to get the door. Then this time, the door was found to be too wide! Another day of delay before they finally sorted everything out today, just in time for Nat’s arrival next week. Now I just have to get the ceiling painted.
I think I shall delay my final payment to them for a couple of weeks!
Jack and Jill went up the hill, to fetch a pail… no they went to get engaged. A few weeks ago, we attended a party hosted by Adrian and Penny, on the occasion of James and Jill’s engagement. The party was at Adrian’s house, which was a very nice and big place. A delicious lunch was followed by desert and some ‘entertainment’ provided by everyone asking James and Jill questions about themselves, which they barely passed.
Of course, our own maestro, Mr. Henry Chia, gave a rendition of a popular song…
In the word of little Ren, we went for a ’snow adventure’ last week. Dinner Plain was recommended by the Chias and was described as a ‘fairy land’ of snow. I’m pleased to report that the description was accurate. Dinner Plain is about 10 minutes drive from Mt. Hotham, a popular ski resort. We stayed 2 nights at Dinner Plain, at lodge called Alpenglow.
The drive to Dinner Plain took about 5 plus hours, including a couple of stops for breaks and buying Maccers lunch. Fortunately, I hardly drove during the entire holiday, as Ian did most of the driving. Jie did a bit of driving too. On the way up to the resort, we had to hire snow chains and we actually had to put them on the next two days. The boys did the messy job of putting on the snow chains. It’s good to have teenage boys around in situations like that.
We arrived quite late in the afternoon and checked into our lodge, which was really warm and comfortable and clean. Even the bathroom floors were heated! Dinner Plain itself is a quaint village with pubs and small shops catering to the skiing community. There was no lack of snow, and in fact, it snowed quite heavily most of the time we were there. The kids wanted to try snow boarding instead of skiing this time around, so we went straight to hire the equipment on the very first evening, in preparation for an early start the next day. This time around, feeling a little old, I didn’t join in the skiing or boarding, but spent the time taking videos and also playing snow with little Ren.
Anyway, we drove to Mt. Hotham the next day where I paid through my nose for snow boarding lessons and lift passes for the kids. I stayed to video them for a while, then it got too cold for me and I headed back to Dinner Plain to join Mary and baby for some snow play. The little fellow enjoyed tobogganing and building a snowman. In the meantime, the older kids enjoyed there lessons and managed to snow board decently after that. They berated me for not being around to video them in action, cause no one would believe they can snow board otherwise.
We left about mid morning two days later, after checking out of our lodge, and took a leisurely drive home. All in, a very satisfying and enjoyable holiday, if a little costly.
Over the last month or so, I’ve been working on my workbench, which is the largest project I’ve tackled todate, in terms of size and volume of work. I finally finished it last night, more or less.
The size and thickness of the wood required me to laminate smaller pieces together to get the larger sizes required, and since the pieces were large, I couldn’t easily use my machines on them, so had to resort to quite a bit of handtool work.
It’s very satisfying to have finished this bench, and I look forward to building more stuff on it!
I’ve been busy with my woodworking and making more stuff, and getting a few more tools for my workshop. Since my last post I’ve completed a box (which I like very much), a cross and a firewood holder.
Guess which was easiest to make? If you thought the cross, then you are wrong. It looks easy, but because of the rebate and mortise (hand-cut) it was not as easy as the firewood holder, which required only cutting to size, mitering, gluing, sanding, staining and finishing. The box was the hardest to make and took almost 3 weeks because of the dovetail joints.
