It’s the weekend-odd and ends from the past week or so

A couple weeks ago the Scientist and I both installed Windows 8 on our computers. Last weekend, I had a problem where my computer wouldn’t move out of sleep mode and something must have gone wrong because no amount of recovery would work. Eventually it was decided to do a clean installation and also to replace the hard drive as it was kind of old and started to get crowded. The installation went fine and I’m still trying to install some of my missing software. I ran into some troubles when I tried to load my outlook mail files and have yet to find the most recent files. I do, however, have files going back five years or more. Most of my email in recent years has gone through my gmail accounts so I should be able to retrieve most things but it doesn’t feel right for it to be missing.

I finally replaced my stolen camera last weekend too. After buying the required items from the computer shop, the Scientist and I ended up dropping in to Camera House in the mall. It’s not the one we usually visit as it’s a bit further away from the local store, but it seems to be one of the better stocked stores in the chain. It happens that the model I wanted, an Olympus Pen PL-5,  had just come in a couple days before and hadn’t even made it out of the box yet. I looked at it and also the “mini” version plus the Canon G15, which is very much like the camera that was stolen. I even had a quick look at a another Canon but that one was really not what I was looking for. I eventually bought what I’d expected to buy and brought it home. When you’ve used cameras from the same company for a few years, it’s a bit weird to be faced with totally different operating systems and controls. I found it overwhelming at the start because it really is quite different than any of the others I’ve used. But I’m getting more used to it and learning the controls little by little. Hopefully I’ll be up to speed with it before the next birthdays and holidays.

Monday morning, I logged onto the computer early to buy tickets for the Neil Finn-Paul Kelly concert happening next March. I really enjoyed the one-off show they did last year so I imagine the next one will also be pretty special. It was kind of funny because I happened to comment a couple weeks ago that it looked like we wouldn’t be seeing and Finn-related shows this year. While that is true, this tour was announced just a few days later and now we have the anticipation of the next show. I’m hoping to take my new camera with me and try it out on the low lighting of the venue.

A couple days ago I was taking our family friend, an intellectually disabled man, to the library and gym as a carer. While at the library I decided to check out a couple of books. I haven’t used this card for a while so it was necessary to update details. It was a bit of a shock when the librarian read out my alternate contact as my friend who died earlier this year. This really surprised me because I do recall using her as a contact for a couple of libraries. But it was weird feeling to have her name pop up like that. Today would have been her fiftieth birthday so I’ve been particularly feeling her absence today. Her name also popped up on Facebook as she had an account that she hardly used. I keep thinking I should remove her name from my friends list but it doesn’t feel right to do that for some reason.

My shoulder is starting to feel better now. I’m still taking pain tablets daily but I was able to drop down to just one a day this week. It’s been hard having to avoid exercises using these muscles but I’ve mostly managed it so far. All going well I should be able to start moving back to my usual exercise next week. I’ll have to be cautious, though, because I seem to suffer more pain hours after exercise than I do while doing it. Meanwhile, my legs have been getting a pretty good workout on the cardio machines lately. To end on a really positive note, the woman who owns the gym has said she wants to do before and after photos of the Scientist and me in January as we’ve both made some good progress since we started. The Scientist has already lost 10kgs since the end of August. My weight hasn’t dropped a lot but my other measurements have gone down pretty steadily and it’s obvious by the way my clothes fit.