There was a bit of breeze on the coast but it was damn hot. Luckily the sand was bearable and there were umbrellas to shelter under between games. We took water. Lots of water. Mara had another no-show (Keegan) but Ed was there, an indoor volleybal player, and we had a team of three. First match was against a team I had seen Mara and Sally play a couple of weeks ago and who had been practising and it showed. We were kinda competitive but went down 2-0. As the season's scores are overall points for/against (or something) we played and won a 3rd game to leve it at 2-1.
Our second match up - like the first agaist 4 people, you do not need evenly manned sides in beach - was again 2-1. We took the first, lost the second and in a time shortened 3rd we lost 18-16 or something like that. Overall for the second match up we lost 59-54. It was my first time so I thought we did OK, and there were definite signs that with practise we could make a good side. There were other signs that I was about to pass out in the heat, but less about that. A shame that I won't commit as the timing is not so hot for me and the diving I hope to get back into.
It's a frustrating game, with odd moments where it all seems to click and others where you move and you shouldn't have, you stay put when you should have moved or you try to move and the sand kinda makes you move somewhere else. Every team seems to be at or around the same level and commitment and that makes it nice and competitve. The leap into the Maroubra beach ocean to remove the sand that has you looking like a schnitzel it very refreshing.
Something that Australia has - maybe - thought about and come up with a great solution/invention. The money is plastic; not the coins but the notes. So they are pretty well sea and beer proof, handy when major pastimes are being in the water or the pub.
You can read about Aussie currency here.
Australia was the first country in the world to have a complete system of bank notes based on plastic (polymer). These notes provide much greater security against counterfeiting. They also last four times as long as conventional paper (fibrous) notes.
The innovative technology by which the notes are produced, developed entirely in Australia, offers artists brilliant scope for the creation of images that reflect the histories and natural environments of their countries. At the same time the polymer notes are cleaner than paper notes and easily recyclable. Australia’s currency consists of coins of five, 10, 20 and 50 cent and one and two dollar denomination; and notes of five, 10, 20, 50 and 100 dollar denomination.
All very well, but water and hence beer proof is all I need to hear.Sadly some car manufacturers are going the other way and loading ever more electic bits into the key fobs that are part of the key. Bloody useless if you want to jump in the water and don't feel like tucking the key under a rear wheel arch or a rock.
So while Mara and I sweated our arses off Sal and her folks, Mike and Maureen, went house hunting. They viewed two properties in the East, one in Clovelly close the Green Mango Cafe (very nice but no land for a dog and 850k), another on Darley Road (potentila but with ceilings falling down and on a busy road you can stick your 795k) and a dark horse in Willoughby on the north side that I need to take a look at on Monday and Sal is already picking curtains for. It does look very nice though, with a big dog-friendly yard and plenty of underhose storage for the toys. I thought the ad should have had more bikinis though.
The other exciting in a geeky way news of the day was the re-visit of cable guy to set up our cable modem. A shame that the construction of the building means we can only have the wall port in Mara's bedroom and therefore we are unlikely to get cable tele (Foxtel) but at least we now have our superfast internet running wirelessly through the unit. I, of course, did my best to screw it up straight away. The key we were given was a string of zeros and there was no firewall. But! I am an IT professional! Firewall is easy, click a button. Limit wireless access to just known MAC addresess, also easy. Change the WEP key, also easy. Of course when I generated the keys, while wirelessly connected, the admin app timed out and I therefore did not have the new keys. Kiss goodbye to the internet. Some semi frantic scrambling around and I had an install CD (left under Mara's bed, would have been nice if cable guy had handed it to me) and a USB cable and we were back in business.
The day ended gently for Sal, me and the folks. We sat around and chatted and once the folks left Sal and I organised (meaning threw out) a load of our 3yr old paperwork of bills etc. I spoke to Dad and then to JCJ to arrange a morning dive. The day may not have ended so peacefully for Mara, last seen heading to a party with 2 bottles of vodka.
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