I talked to the little brother last night.  And I thought *I* was stressed about everything.  Not only does he have mum's house to worry about getting stuff out of, but a close friend of his has decided to sell his house as well.  Note this friend keeps an entire railway museum in his house, and so it's in a much worse state of clutter than this place.  And David can't get away from work to be able to actually spend any time here so he's not in a good way.

Meanwhile I'm just depressed about the whole thing.  I was counting on having many more months to take my time to try and find new owners for things rather than seeing the whole lot just thrown out, but that idea has gone out the window.  

Mum on the other hand is all excited about moving to a new place and wants to sell this house as soon as possible and throw everything out and just go.

So she's happy, but we're in a mess.

Anyway, I've put up photos of everything we've documented so far - http://kazza.cia.com.au/freecycle-como/ and there is much more to come.  I've only had two responses on Freecycle, but at least they're going to take a couple of things..

Please pass this around and help me clear this place out by taking things (I can bring smaller stuff back to Canberra, but if you know people in Sydney please pass this on!)

Also, public transport sux..  (well people suck really)..

I had a thoroughly craptacular day today.  Following on from the craptacular month I've had.

Spent most of the day fighting with, and getting epic stressed over, a problem that probably didn't have anything to do with me, but I still ended up fighting with and stressing out over.

And then the dude didn't turn up with our dishwasher cause he put the wrong day in his diary.

*sigh*

Last Sunday I borrowed @CLBradley's car and headed up to Sydney.  Got it down to 7.0L/100km which is pretty decent.

Hacked some portals while I waited for mum to get home from her lunch.  We did a bit of cable de-ending, and pulling stuff out of the back alcove.  Dinner was scotch fillet steak.

Monday night we went out to celebrate Mum's birthday at the Tradies.  I had bbq pork ribs which were amazing, but I couldn't finish them, so brought the leftovers home.

We didn't do any more garage cleaning that night.

Tuesday was takoyaki day at Sushi and Grill.  This time I had it with grilled pork dumplings.  They were ok, but a bit difficult to manipulate with chopsticks.

After work I met up with Marc and Jo for a drink at Jet in the QVB, which turned into several drinks and then dinner.  A great fun night.

Partly demolished garlic bread

Supreme pizza.  Sadly we ended up getting too full to finish it :(

Calamari - yum

We didn't do any garage cleaning that night.

Wednesday was Peking Duck with @StuartCRyan.  We decided to be sensible this time and only have the pancakes, and get the san choi bow as takeaway.  So we didn't stuff ourselves silly for a change.

Work has been *insane* the last little while.  On Wednesday I was just about to go catch a train home when I got smsed by henrch to ask me to stay and help fix an app.  I sat there for two hours with next to no communication from the developer, which was super super frustrating.  And when I could finally escape I was in a rush to catch a train, so forgot about the san choi bow in the fridge :(:(:(  Hopefully my colleague remembered to take it.

We didn't do any garage cleaning that night.

In the end I decided to stay the night in Sydney, and go home the next morning.  Of course I was grumpy and stressed about work wasn't I, so couldn't sleep, and then got up at 4:30am the next morning to go home.  So I was pretty much a zombie the next day.  Went to bed at 8:30pm on Thursday night.

Blerf.

Accidentally overflowed the pool last night.  AGAIN.  Fricken.  Fortunately the heat was keeping us awake and Stu heard it shortly after it started overflowing.  Almost broke my ankle racing downstairs in the dark (and in a state of delirium) to turn the hose off.

This morning I emptied many buckets worth onto the front garden, because it's completely parched.  Then this afternoon Annie wanted to come over for a swim.  Which was fine, but the pool was still completely full, and the displacement of five people (well, seven actually) was going to be a disaster.  So I spent ages emptying more buckets onto the garden.  Then did a backwash and rinse of the filter which needed doing anyway.  Was hot and stressed but felt better after the swim.  For about five minutes until the heat made it unbearable again.

Watched some Sherlock with the sweetie but otherwise just sweltered and tried to keep the fish tank temperature down with ice.

It's very hot.  So hot the fish tanks have been overheating.  The lights are off, the lids are off, but the four foot is over 30C in the water - too hot for little fishies!  I've been adding ice as fast as I can make it but the weekend could be problematic, since there's no letup for at least two days.  Stressed ..

Christmas Eve was a nice morning tea at work, followed by an early mark.  Went to Potty's to do a water change and bring home some lego.  Had lunch at KFC then came home and had a small siesta.

In the evening we got the Dominos wagyu three ways pizza and watched carols (or half watched really, I was playing on my phone).

Christmas morning I finished off some last-minute cleaning of the house, then prepped lunch.  Annie and family came over and we sat around and nibbled and chatted while the Stus played Diablo.  Then had a roast pork and potato (and other things) feast.  Sadly the crackling wasn't as good as last time I did a roast pork.  Oh well.  Several food comas were had by people during Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, and we also watched the beginning of Monty Python and the Holy Grail (keeping with the theme).  The others went home and we finished watching it.  It was a lovely afternoon, pretty much stress free which was good.  Hurrah! :)

Didn't get any photos of all the food except for these cheese and bacon balls - cheese, bacon, more cheese, more cheese, sweet chili sauce and chives.  They could have done with more bacon.. next time.. :)

In the evening we watched the 7pm Project, and then Shrek the Third.

Today, Boxing Day, I got stuck into some holiday projects I'd been hanging out to do.  Tidied the shelves in the spare room cupboard, got half way through dismantling the Millennium Falcon, downloaded some bank statements and organised things there a bit, downloaded all the photos off all my cameras, started preparing my year in review post, built my nanoblock Schloss Neuschwanstein, and watched Storm Boy in the evening (I haven't seen that movie in probably thirty years).

Wednesday saw us at Windy's for dinner.  Nanette cooked a pretty awesome butterfly lamb, and an equally awesome almond praline cheesecake.  The lamb was demolished in short order (the remaining pieces below were also finished off) and the cheesecake made a great morning tea the next day.

Thursday I started feeling a bit off colour and by the afternoon was definitely feeling wrong.  Struggled through the two beers of the week then went home feeling pretty miserable.  Watched Annie on dvd before collapsing into bed but being very uncomfortable.  Friday was also a bit blah - the bowels still weren't happy with me.  

Friday night after work I met Stu out at the club.  We had the place to ourselves which was pretty nice.  I started reading a book and finished it Saturday morning.  Also started a jigsaw and had a swim before we came home.

Last night we got pizza and watched Star Trek and played Diablo and did jigsaws while I generally stressed about having to go to Sydney.

All of this actually started in March. My alternator died so I had to get a new one. Then in August that alternator died. So I had to get another one, which I was not happy about. Fortunately I didn't have to pay for the alternator, just the labour.

The next weekend I went to Sydney. I noticed the engine seemed to be running pretty rich, and the car was using more petrol than it should. Then on the Wednesday night when I went to come home and the car wouldn't start - the battery was pretty flat and wouldn't turn the engine over. So I clutch started it and came home without any issues.

A couple of weeks passed by and a couple more trips to Sydney.

Then three weeks ago I was about to leave for Sydney when my garage door broke. The power had tripped and when that happens, the door goes up and down to figure out if it's up or down, and in doing that it broke off the bracket that holds it onto the motor. So Damien and Stu manually wound it round so I could get out, but then my was *completely* dead. No power whatsoever. So I thought it was the battery. Because I had a new alternator and all. So got NRMA to come out and give me a new battery.

Off I went to Sydney again, and came back no problems. Left the car parked outside because the garage door was broken. A week later I went to start my car. Dead. Dead dead dead. Brand new battery and it's flat. Stressed about how much damage I've done to a new battery, that I probably didn't actually need a new battery after all, that I needed the car on the weekend and it wasn't working. I caught the bus to work, and Stu connected up my charger. But no lights came on. And in fact when I got home on that Friday night, there was still absolutely nothing. Super super stressed now to the point of feeling queasy. But then Tony was able to come by with his charger and it seemed to work. Same brand, but a different model. So I'm thinking my charger is dead too. Yay.

The Saturday morning I had to go to work, and luckily Tony's charger had worked and I was able to start the car and go to work. I took the "scenic" route to make sure the battery was fully charged. After work it started again no problems, and I went out to the club. Next day came home no problems.

Potty came over with his manly man friend, and they were able to fix the garage door! They reckoned that if I'd had to get a professional, they probably would have declared it too hard and wanted to sell me a new door. So that was pretty awesome.

But my car problems remained: the engine was still running rich and my battery kept flattening. Something had to be done.

So I took it to the mechanic the Tuesday after Family and Community Day and told Mick of my dramas. I told him that I wanted a *real* laser alternator that has a third wire to power the choke heater. I told him I was convinced there was *something* in the alternator that was draining my battery while the engine was off.

Wednesday I got it back. They couldn't find a laser alternator, but he'd had an autoelectrician in to wire in power to the choke. Dubious, I took the car home. At least the choke now worked and turned off when the engine was warm. I measured the voltage on the battery when I got it home. 10V according to our crappy multimeter. Kept an eye on it for the next few days. It stayed at 10V until Sunday morning, where it had dropped to 5V. So my battery problems were still there :(:(

Sunday lunch, the little brother came by after finishing working on the train at the museum. With his multimeter he was able to see that the car was drawing 0.25A of current. We went through all the fuses testing stuff but still there was current being drawn. Then he disconnected the alternator. The current stopped.

!!!!!

How can a mechanic *and* an auto electrician not figure this out? I was furious.

David was able to trace the alternator to a 40A fuse in the engine bay that I can pull out when leaving the car for more than a day. So next time I'm in Sydney I think I'll take it to Bargwanna's and see what they can do. Because I don't think I can ever go back to Melba Motors again.

As a side note, it seems my charger isn't actually dead, but won't work with a completely dead battery - only a mostly dead one.

And thanks *heaps* to David.. have I ever mentioned how much my little brother rocks?!

So after being awake for several hours on Saturday night, I decided that it would be too stressful to take a broken car to Sydney on Sunday.  I thought I'd take it in to get looked at on Monday and maybe go up Monday night.

Got up and went to Pulp Kitchen for breakfast with Daniel and Fi.

Daniel was pretty stoked with his bowl of hot chocolate and breakfast ;)

As I was with my breakfast raclette with a side of Pulp Kitchen bacon ;)

Daniel and Fi then went off to their own thing, while I caught up on things like downloading photos.

By Sunday night my phlegmy throat had turned into a very sore throat and I felt pretty crappy.  Decided that it'd be too draining to go to Sydney for just a couple of days, even if they did fix my car, so decided not to go at all this week.

But I was on call, and they don't pay you overnight if you don't turn up for work, so I went in Monday morning with a still sore throat.  Dumped the car at the mechanic and said please fix.  And gave him a few days since I hadn't booked it in.

Monday afternoon I numbed the pain of the sore throat with a pint of Wig&Pen Two Knuckles Deep and then two half pints of Smokey Olde Spice - which I *loved*.  Such a nice beer.  Reminiscent of smokey whiskeys to some extent.  Daniel and Fi tried a couple of things, then got two "tasting trays" of four different beers each.  So they basically tasted most of the Wig & Pen beers on one night!  I was impressed :)

We also had dinner there.  I had a butter chicken.

Then went home and I had a great night's sleep.

Tuesday at work was ok because I'd had such a good sleep.  But then Tuesday night I couldn't get to sleep til 1am :(  Damned insomnia :(  It's a bit after 9pm now and I thinking about crashing into bed already ..

At least I got my car back today.  It was the alternator, as suspected.  And even though he said it was out of warranty (you only get three months on second-hand parts, and this had been five months), apparently his supplier hadn't charged him, so he didn't charge me for it.  So that was lovely of him.

Spent all day today (it felt like) cleaning and tidying the house.  Succeeded with that, however didn't get other things done, like getting caught up with my blog.

Daniel and Fi came over for dinner tonight (they brought Dumpling Inn takeaway with them).  So that was a very pleasant evening.

Have been in bed for a while and did get some sleep, but have been awake stressing about my car, and having to cancel dinner next week, and needing to book a doctor's appointment, and forgetting to check in, and having to go to Sydney making everything that much more complicated.

Hopefully by writing it all down I can put it aside and get back to sleep .. maybe ..