Sustainable Energy Expo

Yesterday we decided to train into Perth to visit the Sustainable Energy Expo. We drove to the train station and got the free trip for oldies. We left from the Murdoch station and it is about a ten minute fast trip into the city centre. One thing I hadn't noticed before is the smart escalator. If no one is riding it it slows right down but if a passenger get on board it speeds up. Maybe I need to get out more!

The so called Sustainable Energy Expo was a bit of a swizz. There were a number of booths selling solar power roof units, but mostly it was the Royal Show type of booth exhibition and selling all manner of household products, including steam cleaners, vacuums, spas etc etc. We did glean quite a bit of information about solar power units and a representative of one of the companies is to visit us this week to look at our needs and household set-up. We think we will end up purchasing before the state government subsidy is terminated at the end of June. After the subsidy of $8,000, the cost to us is about $2450.

We had lunch in Perth city and as we seldom visit the city were surprised at the crowds there. Perth and Fremantle have seven days trading. There didn't seem to be as much trading as parading!

On the train home there was a young bloke coiffured and dressed and to stand out, taking up a priority seat. He was encouraged to stand for us and proceeded to sketch nothing in a sketchpad and then read a picture novel from the back page forward. When a spare seat became available he grabbed it putting his feet on the seat and taking up both seats. Needed a good slapping!

Today has been a computer fixing day. A friend who is a Mac Guru had damaged the power input to a hard drive, so I visited with my soldering iron (which is not made of iron!) and re-soldered the broken joints. Next, a friend had a spam attack telling him that a scan of his PC hard drive had found 164 virus attacks and a dozen or so worms in various places on his Windows something directory. Trouble is he is running a Mac and I believe the message is a trap to get young players to purchase their anti viral software. In this case old players!
The message is set up so that the computer operator cannot just delete the warning message. It hangs around like a bad smell until (in Firefox) under the Tools header you delete personal data including cache etc. Lastly my brother Graham had a bit of trouble scanning a document on his new Canon all-in-one printer. I visited and ran through the process with him. Whilst there he gave me a little job; to make an invitation to his 60th birthday in the form of a Summons to Appear.