Pics coming soon…
Brendan and Liz are in the country for a few days for a wedding and we managed to catch up with them in Noosa. I say ‘managed to’ because we nearly didn’t… they didn’t know we were coming and we couldn’t get into the backpackers where they are staying so I walked around shouting “Brendan” until he heard us 😀
Pics coming soon…
Hi lovely friends!
Here’s your next Jacobs Journeys update
Short version
Long version
So we’ve been in Australia for about a month and a half now. We’re continually grateful for how blessed we are in our situation – we have a free house to live in (Trent’s parent’s house while they are away on business), a car to drive, family in the near vicinity who are super helpful, and we’re not working. What a luxury to be able to just chill like this! Despite this, our days fill up pretty fast with activity. Like this:
Mornings: Spiritual and physical fitness
We’ve both started programmes to read the Bible in a year, so we start off with the reading for the day. It’s great to have the time to meditate on the words of God and let them soak in. Even the soap opera stories of Genesis (when last did you read ch 29 & 30!?).
Next comes our daily gym session. Trent has stuck to his Mr Universe weights routine, and has duly impressed me with repeatedly lifting more than his weight on the barbells. I’ve been trying not to worry when the whole machine lifts up, his eyes nearly pop out and his face contorts into evil grimaces involving bared teeth. I, on the other hand, have mostly stuck to trying out group classes, the most scary being kickboxing. Expecting a nice aerobics class with a few kicks and punches choreographed in, I was given boxing gloves and a muscular woman with cropped hair as my partner, and then told to punch and kick her, after which she did the same to me (thankfully there was padding involved). I thought that was tough until I tried the Swimfit class in which the warm up was 600m (24 lengths)! These Aussies can be hardcore when they want to be!
Lunch time: Washington DC
Lunches are generally accompanied by an episode of the West Wing, masterfully accessed from our new Apple TV box-thing. The West Wing, we’re convinced, will fully educate us on American politics and Washington DC. The plans to go to Washington DC have been shaky, but now if all goes according to plan (is that a snigger I hear?) we should be going at the beginning of November.
Afternoon: In pursuit of happiness
Afternoons are filled with the mission of the moment. At first it was a lot of admin – getting health care cards, drivers licences, bank accounts etc sorted out. Since then it’s been time to pursue our passions. Mom Jacobs has a gazillion recipe books with every kind of baking pan and accessory imaginable, so it’s been my heady pleasure to try to use them all. I also convinced Tarryn, my sister-in-law, that she really needed to get to know her sewing machine, and twisted her rubber arm into trying out a Sewing for Dummies pattern. We are consequently both proud owners of made-it-myself aprons!!
Trent has taken the opportunity to work a bit more on SongSmart, improving the existing version. He’s also been developing a new-look website for Epoxy Solutions (Dad’s company). Besides that, his iPad continues to mesmerise him, and has basically become an extension of his arm. It reportedly does all kinds of Really Useful Things, like working out gym performance, sifting through newspapers, and flying iCopters…
Evenings: Work/ life balance
Trent is doing some part time project management in Singapore from Australia for his employer in the UK (yes…global village and all that). It entails a daily 6pm phone call (plus other stuff) that is keeping him sane, as he does not idle well. Regarding my work, I ran ahead and spoke to an employment agency who were gung-ho for me to start, but I had skipped the step of registering with the Board of occupational therapists here first. That’s now in progress. Strangely, the most difficult thing to prove was that I speak English.
Weekends: The Great Adventure
Our relatives living here have been amazing in helping us to feel welcome and making sure we have everything we need. Lionel (Trent’s brother) and Tarryn included us in what has been a highlight so far – a camping trip with a great group of people on a nearby island. Accessing the campsite involved driving a convoy of 4×4’s through an estuary (see amazing pic!) and 30km along a beach to a rustic campsite (no water, electricity or ablution block) next to the sea. Wildlife included dolphins jumping around in the sea, 2-foot long prehistoric lizard things roaming around our campsite and a kangaroo mother and joey lounging about near the tents. Combined with kayaking in the sea, fishing and sunbathing it was the most fun we’ve had in ages.
We’ve done a bit of church shopping and have been impacted by the number of churches that are actively involved in their communities with a passion to spread the love of Christ. We’ve decided to stick with the Vineyard church here for now because the teaching has really connected with us, the presence of God is almost tangible there, and we see in them a loving community. To link up more meaningfully, we’ve joined a home group which has been interesting because a few of the members have come to know God through the church’s Mercy Centre (a kind of drop-in coffee place/ charity shop). A few have only recently met God, and their perspectives on Him and what it means to live a life led by Him, are so fresh and real. My curiosity has led to me starting to volunteer at the Mercy Centre too, which has been…colourful.
Beyond the bubble…
So that’s our average life at the moment. It’s a strange little bubble of living in limbo, but we’re taking full advantage while it lasts. Coming up next is a trip to Sydney in October. Watch this space.
As always, we would love to hear what’s going on in your lives. We miss you all, but it’s good to know you are just an email or Skype chat away.
Much love and blessings,
Caryn
Hello from Oz to all you special people!
For those with a Trent-like attention span here’s the short version:
For those with a Caryn-like interest in the details here’s the long version:
Our flight to Oz went remarkably smoothly and we arrived safely on 15 August, with all our declared goods being allowed through, even our sentimental twig-covered lamps from Egypt – phew. It still amazes me that we can virtually cross the globe in under 24 hours. Kept having to tell each other that this is now the place we call ‘home’.
We were so pleased to be able to see the Jacobs’ parents for a day before they had to leave to Weipa on business. The evening before they left we had a hearty welcome with a good old South African braai (barbecue) with all the Brisbane family. Was great be reunited with everyone and see our nephews and my cousin’s beautiful children again. In the days that followed we got our first impressions of Cashmere, the suburb in which our family live. There’s a lot of (gum tree?) forest surrounding the houses, and we have already been treated to visits from the local wildlife – possums and kookaburras. Mom Jacobs has coaxed the kookaburras into the garden and they visit promptly between 5 and 5:30pm daily for a snack out of our hands.
Unfortunately I managed to contract a cold somewhere in transit between continents, so had an enforced chillout time from Day 2 until today, which seemed to be the turnaround point. Meanwhile, Trent had been salivating after an iPad since it’s release, and so of course managed to visit an Apple store on Day 1, and purchase an iPad by Day 3. It is now my greatest competitor for his affections. However, I knew I had not lost when he suggested that we go handbag and shoe shopping today (because I had disposed of handbag and most shoes in my ruthless packing regime), AND THEN accompanied me for the entire trip as my personal shopping assistant, making excellent suggestions and helping me make highly satisfactory final choices.
And so now, with good health, we will start some more exploring of this new land. In some ways it feels overwhelming because everything is new. We’re not familiar with geographical areas, shop names, bank names and even some road rules. However, in other ways we have been so welcomed that it bodes well for future friendships. Everyone is so friendly. Our neighbour popped in last night just to say hi and to see if there was anything he could help us with. We were offered dinner at his house that evening and left with the agreement that we’d have a bbq together with him and his wife and 4 kids sometime soon. His brother-in-law also happens to be an occupational therapist, so he’s going to put me in contact with him. How nice is that!?!
We are truly blessed
Coming up next (terms and conditions apply):
Will keep you updated, and would love to hear what’s happening with each of you guys too, so please keep in touch!
Much love,
Caryn (and Trent)
Pics coming soon…
Executive summary: It was hot. We dived. It was nice.
Full story: About a month ago we decided to take a break, and after a few years of Caryn holidays (i.e. touring old towns and visiting every cathedral, museum, castle, bread museum (yes, really…) and [add tourist attraction here] we decided to do a Trent holiday (i.e. snow skiing, coasteering in Wales and [insert awesome holiday here]. I’ve always dreamed about doing a diving course in the Red Sea, so after a bit of convincing (hardly any at all actually!) Caryn was up for it.
Day 1 was the travelling. Let me start by saying that Thomson Airlines (yes, they have their own planes now) did a great job of getting a quality set of planes together. I’m sure they paid the seat testers (pygmies) well. The only way I can describe it is to imagine yourself not as travelling with the person next to you, but rather as spooning the person in front of you. For 5 hours. If you’ve seen the movie “without a paddle†then all I’m saying is “I for one choose deathâ€.
Ok so we got there in one piece. So much so that they had to get a crow bar to separate us all into separate pieces again. We bought our visas and braved the queue at customs, showed them the visa we just bought (yes, really) and got waved through.
If you haven’t been to Sharm El Sheikh before then you really have to – this place is amazing! Our 5 star hotel has it’s own private beach, swimming pool, gym, 5 different restaurants, and funny water things that shoot fountains of cold intrusive water up your nether regions. Apparently it’s better than toilet paper. I tried it once and maybe it’s because I don’t sit on the toilet properly, but is shot straight out the toilet and hit the toilet door. Really makes you miss good old two ply.
Day 2 was the first day of our diving course. We’d already finished the theory part of our course in England so we only had to do the 5 confined water dives and the 4 open water dives to finish. We did, however, have to do a quick refresher test before we could start the dives. Caryn and I were the only ones in the class so our instructor left us in a room to do the multiple choice test. He left the answers right next to me.
We passed.
Our instructor was a real character, an Egyptian guy with VERY curly hair. His name is Curly. His idea of a confined water dive is to dive in the ocean but not very deep. He also wasn’t big on smiling, explaining, or english. We did get him smiling, and 1 out of 3 isn’t bad! (He kept telling us to ‘shill’. This apparently means ‘chill’ in Egyptian.) We were completely thrown into the deep end (which was in the shallow end) which meant Trent was happy and Caryn was panicked. To be fair, Caryn’s panicked state didn’t last long. Her thought process was “AAARGH! There’s so much to remember! Breathe in regulator in inflate BCD deflate BCD equalise ears do buddy check ohnoiamgoingtodie… ooooh look – fishies!†After that she was fine.
I REALLY struggled to equalise my ears and even at about 2 metres I was in serious pain, but I got it sorted out and after that it was simple, although I was told to get a nasal spray.
Pharmacy visit #1 – Nasal Spray.
Day 2 of the training was also fine, although Caryn was starting to feel ill with stomach cramps and nausea.
Pharmacy visit #2 – Medication for stomach cramps and nausea.
Day 3 was supposed to be a dive from the boat but we both woke up feeling horrible. Caryn still had her cramps and nausea, and I had a serious case of dribbleys (AKA Pharaoh’s Revenge). We had to cancel our diving trip and we both went straight to bed. After about 8 visits to the toilet I decided it was probably worth figuring out the squirty water toilet paper replacement thing. There’s only so much toilet paper a man can use without feeling guilty about his carbon footprint.
Pharmacy visit #3 – Medication for Pharaoh’s Revenge.
The afternoon was spent dead in bed and Pharaoh, obviously unhappy with the level of revenge being meted out, added a chronic headache to the list.
Pharmacy visit #4 – Headache tablets.
It’s nice being on first name basis with the local pharmacist.
Day 4 was our final day of training and the 2 dives we did were amazing. It’s like being in the world’s biggest fish tank. After that we were finally PADI qualified divers. We still weren’t up for celebrating with local cuisine so we played American Tourist and got a couple of Big Macs and slept early.
After that it was all boat dives and they were all amazing. Incidentally, we learned it’s important to discuss the hand signals. For example, Caryn thought that a random wavy wiggly motion of her arms meant “the current is moving usâ€. I thought she was doing the dance to the Little Mermaid song “Under the sea†so I laughed and got my mask full of water.
Oh – here’s a miracle for you. I usually get seasick when I walk on damp grass, and I just spent 2 full days on the boat and didn’t feel sick at all.
Anyways, that’s long enough. Well done for making it this far. In summary – diving is awesome and we’ll be doing it again!
I am an electrical engineer. I am hesitant about saying this, because finding out I’m actually an electrical engineer is like Luke Skywalker finding out that Darth Vader is his father – it’s probably true, but it’s a major twist in the story and to be honest there isn’t much by way of evidence to support the theory.
Never the less, it’s true.
So, in celebration of my birthday, my family clubbed in to buy me a bucket load of resistors, capacitors, connectors, jacks, valve sockets and valves, all of which should set me up to building my own hand-made all-valve 5 watt single ended class A guitar amp. Said procurement was done through the helpful people (well, Barry) at www.ampmaker.com, and within a few days I had in my grubby paws all the components I needed, plus a pre-punched chassis and a circuit diagram.
I refer you to exhibit A:
What I really liked about this kit was that it wasn’t just Lego level 7 – you really had to follow the schematic.
Step 1 was to lay all the components out onto the turret board. This at least was fairly simple since there were examples to follow, but i had to remember how to solder…
Here’s the final result of the soldered turret board:
The next step was to put the chassis together, attach the face plates and lay the amp out how it’s going to look when finished. Here’s the turret board in the chassis:
The next step was to take all those leads and do something useful with them. This actually took the longest because I had to sit with my voltmeter, the schematic and the turret board layout to try figure out what needed to be connected up. Here’s the final innards (you can see I’ve just connected the power cable for the first time to run some tests)
Finally, I put the valves in and ran the final tests. The only issue I have at the moment is that the EL84 plate dissipation is a touch too low (currently 8.9W when it’s supposed to be between 9 and 11 W) which means I’m not getting the most out of the output valve, but I’ll fiddle with some components to get this sorted out. Here’s the ‘finished’ product…
…and then there was the all-important first test! I got Caryn to film the first sound test… (yes, she filmed it sideways, but if you don’t like that then just be patient because it kind of rotates a bit. It’s artistic…)
And finally, my new amp (she’s been named Long Grass No 1) along with her bigger (and much louder) brothers…
