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Year View| Summary| 2001 (Year View – Showing Highlights Only)

2000 | This Year (2001) 2002 | 2003 | 2004 | 2005 | 2006 |

31.01.2001 – Wednesday 31 January – Silas’s

• Rested at Silas’ place in Cairns. Relaxed. Went on Chat and caught up with lulu and my other chat friends again. Marvelled at the amount of obese people, and realised how few I had seen while in India. Ate Australian food. Went to a supermarket and bought normal things with Australian dollars. Bought some ice cream, some cream, and some custard. Relaxed more.

01.02.2001 – Thursday 1 February to Tuesday 6 February (6 days) – Arrive Home

• I stayed in Cairns for a few days with Silas, and then flew back up to Cooktown. My parents picked me up from the Airport and I went to the supermarket. It was a little strange being back, and everything just the same. Psychologically some how I had expected things to change. I guess going to India has been a big experience to me, and I myself have changed while those who were at home haven’t changed.

15.02.2001 – Thursday 15 February – Junior Certificate

• I went to town with Bob and finished installing the air cons at the wharf. I received my year 10 certificate. I got VHA’s in Science, Math and Graphics, and HA’s in SOSE and English. I went on the Internet and chatted to Shan for a while. I also emailed Silas.

• 111,111,111 x 111,111,111 = 12,345,678,987,654,321

17.02.2001 – Saturday 17 February – Ella’s Birthday and Election Day

• Jones came over here on their way back from voting and stayed for a few hours. I then walked over to Joneses and stayed the night. Sarah came over later. I only got 1½-hour sleep.

23.02.2001 – Friday 23 February – UPS

• I went to Bobs and got my UPS. Helen and him were busy fixing the suspension on their car. I also went over to Home Rule. Shan and I drove the Nissan with Shan’s computer in it back over here. Jade and Ella didn’t stay as Sarah is sick with a cold. Shan and I linked our computers together and played games.
  We didn’t go to bed until 4 AM.

26.02.2001 – Monday 26 February – Diary Goes Online

• I went to town with Joneses in their Commodore. Jade drove. I forgot my wallet and had to borrow $50 from Peter. I put three ads for Ric’s falcon on the notice boards in town. I went to Centrelink re away from home rate (I am not being paid it). Ray said that she’d phone me when they got back to her. I went to the radio station and copied another 2 CD’s worth of mp3’s. About 400 mp3’s. I now have over 700 (713) files in my play list. Its past midnight and I can hardly think let alone write or spell. I went on the Internet and started downloading drivers for Windows 2000. I also went on chat. And now I need to go to bed. Oh, I also bought an IEC socket (plug?) for plugging into the back of my new UPS, which I got from Bob.
  I decided to make this Diary and most of its associated files into an Internet page.
  

27.02.2001 – Tuesday 27 February – Ric returns from India

• The Internet page is completed.
  I phoned the blankcd mob whom Shan and I ordered RAM from. I also phoned BSDE. They said that they would phone back (which they did). BSDE said that I could sit for a BSSS Senior External examination this year because I completed year 10 outside of normal year 10 age. Ric phoned and said that he was in Cairns and could I come and pick him up this afternoon from the airport. I went to town and picked up Ric from the plane at 5:20 PM. On the way to town the windscreen wipers would not work. However, once I got to town, and went to Peters, they fixed with a slight touch from a pointy object in skilled hands... Fuse holder is bodgy. I went to Centrelink whilst in town and enquired as to whether anyone had phoned yet. Answer: No. So I will phone them tomorrow. Miracles have been known to happen, it is possible that they will sort out all my problems.

22.03.2001 – Thursday 22 March – Phone in Caravan

• I did school early. The power failed on and off all day. Mum and I went in to town in the afternoon. I withdrew $500 and paid Mum $100. I got a phone double adaptor and some cable for the UPS from Peter. I made the UPS work and set up a phone in the caravan.

02.04.2001 – Monday 2 April – Hard drive and Sony DVD order

• I did both my Math’s and my Physics tests. They were hard and took a long time and I had to phone up my Physics teacher. Mum went to town to go to the Doctors about her broken thumb. Malarchy is sad, as there must be another dog on heat somewhere. I went to Joneses in the afternoon and we went for a swim at the halfway spot. I went on the Internet at night and ordered an IBM Deskstar 46 Gig hard drive and a Sony 12 times DVD drive for nearly $500. lulu was also on chat so I told her about my collapsed lung. The pathetic implementation of stifleware that Microsoft refers to as Internet Explorer froze the computer again. I was very surprised that such a reliable program would cause such a serious error in such a stable operating system. I would be nice to be able to run Outlook at the same time as being connected to the Internet though, I must admit.

07.04.2001 – Saturday 7 April – Rossville Rubbish Day

• I out of bed when I did. Clock was 11:30 when I did. I out of bed to eat. The phone rang. We used the extension to speak both at once for the first time. I eat then walk. The shop sold me some lollies. The Home Rule Bridge saw me walk by. Sarah went with me. We met them at the allocated spot. They hid themselves in the bush, as if to frighten us. We scorned them, and walked on. After an appropriate time we returned to our starting positions, and had dinner. Then I started the computer and went to bed.
  Today was the Rossville Rubbish day.

• It’s strange, isn’t it? You stand in the middle of a library and go aaaaargghhhh and everyone just stares at you. But you do the same thing on an aeroplane, and everyone joins in.

14.04.2001 – Saturday 14 April – Silas’s Place

• I awoke and made my way to the markets to purchase some breakfast. They were slightly bigger than normal, but had less breakfast available. I went home and phoned Silas’ mum, and drove to Kangaji (Silas’ parents’ home). I arrived roughly 45 minutes later. The road was very rough but I did not scrape on anything, although the front drivers side wheel began to make some strange noises from the vicinity of the brake. Silas’ picked me up from wharf and took me up to his parents place. It was a 45-minute boat ride, and it was a bit rough with a bit of a swell. We passed the Bloomfield Lodge and a neighbour and moored at what appeared to be a bed of rock. There was a track behind the rock leading up to a house. It was surrounded by a nice garden, and was altogether quite a nice place to live. I stayed the night, not getting to sleep until late.

17.04.2001 – Tuesday 17 April – DVD drive arrives

• I went to town with Mum and Sarah. We stayed in town all day as Mum was taking Sarah kickboxing. My DVD Drive was at the post office. I went up to Mathew’s and borrowed his BBC “The Planets” DVD set. I also hired “Gone in 60 Seconds” (DVD) from the video shop. I got a lift home with Bob and installed the DVD drive straight away. The install seemed to work without any problems. Mum, Sarah, and I watched “Gone in 60 Seconds”. It is slightly jerky but seems to work well. There is a problem with the display driver, however this seems to be a general windows problem as I have it in many other instances as well. Probably the nvdisp.drv file?

• Everyday I beat my own previous record for number of consecutive days I’ve stayed alive.

18.04.2001 – Wednesday 18 April – Ordered 40 GB IBM HDD

• Sarah and I went to town with Mandi and Jade. I took the DVD back to the video shop. Sarah stayed in town, and I went back out to Home Rule. I went and checked Bob’s governor, which seems to be in perfect working order, despite Elsie telling him “lots of smoke came out”? Harold is drawing about 32 Amps at around 220 volts, 46/7 Hz. It must be right on the regulator’s limit. It clamps the voltage back drastically when the speed drops to prevent stalling, probably what keeps it regulated. I walked back here, meeting Mum at Jacks’ old driveway, where she had just given him the drill that Bob had fixed ($35 for trigger and $10 labour).
  I then went on the Internet and downloaded Creative’s SoftDVD player (Based on their Playcenter version 145 and InterVideo’s WinDVD). It seems to work well (although I still cannot work out how to change the screen view from anything other than widescreen 16:9) and also seems to support 4-speaker output, although I cannot notice any amazing surround affects; but it definitely sounds better than the standard TV. An added bonus was that it fixed my faulty Mp3 playback problem that I had with all my Creative products. I also checked the www.blankcd.com.au site and they have 40 Gb hard drives for $329, which I think was about what the 45 Gb drive cost before. I probably should order one straight away before they become unavailable again. I downloaded as many DivX things that I could find. From what I can work out it is a compression format that either allows the conversion of DVD to MPEG-4 and WMA, or something like that. I went back on the Internet (after being disconnected) fairly late. I ordered the IBM 40 GB hard drive from www.blankcd.com.au and also 10 Verbatim 80 minute blank CD’s and an audio cable for the CR-ROM. I transferred the money and forwarded the receipt. I wrecked PowerDVD by using DVD Genie to null the region code.

22.04.2001 – Sunday 22 April – �

• I awoke late (not surprisingly). � Sarah and I went for a walk with Malarchy up to the Terrex Dam and down a creek near to it. I installed WinKeys, allowing me to customize the Windows key on the keyboard. I changed the mouse cursors up to a large size. I had a small sleep in the afternoon, missing out on hot chips that Mum had made.

26.04.2001 – Thursday 26 April – HDD Arrives

• I did school. Mum went to town and came home with my new IBM Deskstar 40 GB 7200 rpm hard drive. I put a new fan in the computer, a new audio lead so that both CD drives now have analogue audio to the soundcard. I then put in the new hard drive as primary master. My old hard drive is the primary slave. The DVD-ROM is secondary master, and the CD-Burner is secondary slave. They all have 80 wire UDMA EIDE cables now. I partitioned the new drive into 4 equal sized parts. I then installed windows 2000 onto the new drive. I went on the Internet for a while. Shan phoned up to say that his Internet was not working, but then it did. Silas emailed to say that he would not be coming up over the weekend.

13.05.2001 – Sunday 13 May – Mothers Day

• Sarah and I stayed at Joneses until lunchtime. Jade, Ella and Sarah went down to Home Rule and borrowed the DVD “Shanghai Noon”. Jade drove us over here and we watched it. It wasn’t too bad. I went on the Net for a while, until the power failed for a very short time, failing the modem. The connection stayed alive, but the computer lost its connection to the modem so I had to disconnect anyway.

• I could tell that my parents hated me. My bath toys were a toaster and a radio.

22.05.2001 – Tuesday 22 May – Sarah’s Birthday

• I did schoolwork, and phoned Mr. Pavouris. Mum went to town to the Bowls Club. I went on the Internet at lunchtime, and saw Dale for a short time. I went for a jog with Malarchy and met Shan. I went on the Internet for 4 hours at night, as well.

12.09.2001 – Wednesday 12 September – World Trade Centre Destroyed

• (11 September in the US) Two hijacked passenger jets crashed into and destroyed the World Trade Centre in New York City, while another plane smashed into the Pentagon in Washington DC. Yet another plane crashed in Pennsylvania. It was a night of much stress with myself being too interested to sleep, watching the drama unfold, and waiting for the media to get over the hype and report what was actually happening.

21.09.2001 – Friday 21 September – Internet Account and Glandular Fever

• I signed up for my own Internet account, having previously shared Shan’s. Sarah went to the doctors and was diagnosed with Glandular Fever.

• Why is it that doctors call what they do “practice”?

31.10.2001 – Wednesday 31 October – Flew to Cairns

• Flew to Cairns for exams, A quick painless 45 minute flight in an 8 seater Cessna Titan.

01.11.2001 – Thursday 1 November – Math Exam

• Sat two 3-hour Math exams. It wasn’t the most fun day. I won’t know the results for some time.

02.11.2001 – Friday 2 November to Wednesday 7 November (6 days) – Study in Cairns

• I studied (in Cairns), stressed and practised having a break down. Considered a mid-life crisis but figured would have nothing left to do next time needed to stress.

08.11.2001 – Thursday 8 November – Physics Exam

• Sat two 2 hour 40 minute physics exams. A relief to have them finished.

09.11.2001 – In between above and below (5 days) – Cairns and movies

Movies

• Watched several movies at the theatre, generally managing to overdose quite well...ooh neck; always sit in the front row. For those technically minded people, I saw “Lantana”; “The Tailor of Panama”; “Enigma”; “Rush Hour 2”; “The Truth About Cats and Dogs”; “Legally Blonde”; “Scary Movie 2” and “Training Day”, over 3 days.

Food

• Went to a few restaurants, drank some good coffee and various other things most people do all the time, but am unable to do living in a remote area. To put it generally, spent lots of money.

14.11.2001 – Wednesday 14 November – Silas’s accident

• Bought a Leatherman Wave (external link). While just sitting down preparing to have dinner with a friend, waiting for another friend to show, a car at an intersection nearby was violently run over by a city bus. Ended up being my friend. He was stopped at the lights, they had just turned green, and a city bus came from behind and simply never stopped. It made a nasty mess of his sedan. He wasn’t injured apart from a very sore neck. The car was destroyed. Closed two lanes of traffic and was worrying enough to require 2 fire engines. Very exciting ;–)

Comment by Ned – Thursday 19 April 2012, 10:44 PM

  I was sitting with Dale. The friend who was hit was Silas.

15.11.2001 – Thursday 15 November – Home from Cairns

• Caught an early taxi to the airport and flew back to Cooktown. Uneventful flight, very cloudy, mildly bumpy. 8 seater Cessna Titan.

18.12.2001 – The Week Before Christmas (7 days) – Digital Camera Present

• Got my first and greatest birthday present – a Sony Mavica FD-92 Digital Camera. I spent some time taking photos, not surprisingly. It is really excellent having a digital camera, something I have always wanted – ever since it first occurred to me.

25.12.2001 – Tuesday 25 December – Christmas Day

• My Birthday. Hot and dry, many mosquitoes. An enjoyable day, I ate for most of the day.

31.12.2001 – Monday 31 December – New Years Eve

• :–)

2000 | This Year (2001) 2002 | 2003 | 2004 | 2005 | 2006 |

Year View| Summary| 2001 (Year View – Showing Highlights Only)