The big L

The past few days I've been doing a bit of studying. Well, you can hardly call it studying. It's more like... sharpening your common sense. I did lots of example tests for my drivers theory-test online (http://www.raa.net/page.asp?TerID=192 - click "multiple choice questions" for a good laugh) and thought that today I'd give it a go so we went to the office and lined up.

I found out where those magical license plates come from! I have to get one of myself one day. It will say "KING". Or "K1NG" or "THE KING", you get the drift. Oh, what about "UR KING"? ;-)

Anyway, I did the 8 "give way" questions. Can't make any mistakes there otherwise you have to pay $20 and try again! (nice of em eh?) I passed them so I was allowed to do the other 42 questions (multiple choice - 32 must be correct to pass). I passed those as well with only 1 error and thus I walked out (after paying another $40 for material they gave me and my actuall license pass) with my temporary paper license. WOOHOO! Adelaide, be afraid. Be veeeeeEEEEEEeeery afraid! ;-)

I'm now allowed to learn how to drive a car when I have these stickers on my windows and a fully (normal) licensed car driver is in the seat next to me.

I went for a first testdrive tonight and it went rather well. Tried lots of starting and stopping and changing gear from 0 - 2. The car is too small for me. My right knee was killing me when I got out and my back was all sweaty...

I might have to buy a Jaguar as they are nice for tall people aparently.

The day got even better. After we came back I tested the phone and found out that the cnuts from AAPT had disconnected us, W00T! We immediately called Telstra to hook us up coz god forbid we delay our internet any longer, and they're sending a technician here next thursday.

Lets keep our fingers crossed!

The big tired

Nicole was on the phone once more. A bit of history:

- We signed up with them mid November. This took 5 (FIVE) minutes.
- We were told a phoneline would be ready in 3-5 days.
- Nothing happened so we started calling. They said Telstra (owner of ALL phonelines) was working on an upgrade in our neighbourhood and that they couldn't help us untill they were done.
- We talked to the Telstra guys doing the actual work a week later and they managed to give us a line. HU-FUCKING-RAY!
- From early December till now we have had a phoneline. According to AAPT (*spit*) we were not able to get any other services but local phonecalls on this line.
- We called AAPT (*spit*) about 9 times now and WITHOUT EXCEPTION the time untill we got to speak to the first person has been 50 or so minutes. It's gets kinda frustrating after a while.

Even if Telstra can't hook us up any faster, we want to get rid of AAPT (*spit*) now because of the ridiculous waiting times. So:

- We cancelled with AAPT (*spit*) yesterday and were told that after 24 hours we'd be disconnected from them and free to go with a new carrier.
- Called Telstra (phone company we want to hook up with now) after lunchtime today (more than 24 hours later). Of course nothing had been cancelled (AAPT (*spit*) has to cancel our line at Telstra).
- Called AAPT only to be told that:
a) It takes 3-5 days to cancel
b) The managed can only call us back (as fucking if!!)

So the score up till now is:
The cnuts from AAPT are keeping us from getting a new carrier for even longer. Their service is aparently even worse than I thought yesterday. It has knocked me right off my feet to be honest. I felt like a zombie the rest of the day.

In despair I figured maybe we should get a dial-up modem, since we can make local calls... So we drive up to Internode and what do we find there? A "we moved" sign... YAY! FUN!

We got there as it was not far away from the old place but we haven't signed up. 56kb/s modems still cost $80 here!!!!

Shopping was a dream today because due to the whole phone thing I was so stunned I couldn't care less!

Sanding when we came home. Hmmmm, sanding, I love it ;-)

If you can't beat them...

Nicole on the phone with AAPT or Telstra, I can't remember. AAPT are absolute cnuts. We phoned them about 7 times now and WITHOUT exception the waiting time before you get to speak to the first person is 50 minutes give or take 4 minutes. When I called, I had to wait the standard 50 minutes PLUS another 55 minutes before I got put through to the NEXT person, who basically could do fuck all for me. Very, very disappointing.

Our talks with street personnel AND people on the phone from Telstra on the other hand has been wonderful. They seem a little bit more expensive but at least when you call them you got someone talking to you within 5 minutes.

So today we cancelled our order with AAPT and we will sign up with Telstra the coming days.

Even in The NL I have not seen customer service as bad as displayed by AAPT and that says a LOT!

Good times, Terry. Good times.

Good times arrived indeed in the form of our first belongings. It was the box we sent while at my folks' place. It contained some paperwork, modeltrain stuff (pretty exciting for me), a few books and... coats, one of them being my Mulligans bomber jacket. I love that jacket to bits but god knows when I'll be wearing it here.

The rest of the day was a bit boring. When that happens we usually play solitaire on our computers (not quite the same as World of Warcraft but alas) or...

... we watch TV. The Australian open is on and with my new found interest in tennis this can be rather an entertaining activity.

The uber-cactus

We walked spacey Masey (can you tell which one that is? *grin*) today for more than an hour. He's listening better and better. Because we're not huge fans of the "choker" we bought him a harness today. After some getting used to it worked fine and he seemed to even pull less! We had a very enjoyable walk with him today that made both Mason -and- us a bit tired (not to mention sweaty!) ;-)

Somewhere in the hood is a house with a gigantic cactus in the garden.

It's full with flowers about to open.

Telstra is still at work in the neighbourhood. We're ready to piss our pants of happyness when our internet connection gets here...

Mason decided to have a nap against our door. He seems to love that place. It's nice and cool, in the shade, next to the birds and close to humans, his bestest friends ;-)

My first slab

The little bird was there to greet us again this morning. it seems to like this hangout on the fence, judging by the amount of shit it leaves there...

Here we see the Leists in their natural habitat, the kitchen.

In the woolies carpark today a fancy smenzy oldtimer called "TNT". Parked on the disabled spot.. hmmmm.

When we came home from shopping we drove by some workmen from Telstra that Vicky had spotted before.

I couldn't resist the urge to get out and ask them if their work would improve or speed up us getting a bloody connection finally. The apparatus shown in this photo is actually the device that connects lines from the exchange to lines coming from the houses. It was aparently a miracle that people could still use their phones, that's how big a mess it was. The mechanic who opened it before, from AAPT (whom we wanna get hooked up with), already said it was a bit messy. It's going to take these guys a week to figure it all out and get it organized in a way that it's workable again.

This photo was taken without permission by the way and during a moment the work dude wasn't looking. And also nobody told me to write this either.

After all this I was ready for a beer so I bought my first slab.

It was warm today and we needed our fix of icecream. Next to Cibo is the BP Solar shop where I wanted to have a look for a long time now. They sell ready made kits that they can install on your house to provide yourself with solar powered electricity. The government gives rebates on this etc to make it all more attractive. The cheapest setup would cost us $6500 and the most expensive one $16000 or so. I would love to have solar power. Any excess energy will go back in the grid for which the energy company pays us then. Isn't that the bomb?!

Eventually we got to Cibo. Ace and banana are my favorites.

After walking your feet dusty and sweaty in your crocs all day there's nothing better than to walk straight into the sea with them, which we did.

We went to Larg's bay where I actually ate a broodje kroket because the former owner of the snackhouse there was Dutch and the new owner hasn't changed the menu. It was allright actually.