The incident was at the very bottom edge of this photo.
My house is near the top edge. The corner pub is
the smaller sandy patch (early Google photo - it's built now.)

Hey, it’s not every day your suburb gets mentioned on the national news.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-07-02/police-charge-woman-after-security-guard-hit/4793286

It’s not exactly the news we like, but the woman was from Balga. I heard a chopper in the mid afternoon yesterday and went outside to see the Seven chopper hovering motionless in the sky nearby. It stayed for quite a while and I wondered if it was a car crash or something. But all is revealed – a shoplifter and an altercation with a Coles security person. Quite a serious altercation.

It’s a pity the ABC couldn’t get their Google Map reference right, though. They show the incident in the next suburb north, Alkimos. C’mon ABC, it’s not that hard.

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Then last night about 8.30pm I heard a crack and a zing/whistle, like a sky rocket. Then another, and another. There were five in all, but I got to the door just after the fifth and couldn’t see any cause, except for a reflected red glow on something metal nearby. It may have been in the pub carpark, on the ground.

Never a dull moment around here. Well, quite a few dull moments actually.

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Reading the alarm instruction manual yesterday, I thought I’d change my PIN, since I’m still using the PIN the previous owners had. It looked simple to do.

Well, I know now that the alarm and siren works! I followed the instructions, but neglected to verify that it was in Program mode. That triggered the alarm. I had to hurriedly input the code and it’s hard to do when there’s a siren/squealer going off. Did everyone come running to catch the burglar? Not a chance. No-one takes any notice.

That means I haven’t got the right Master Code number. I’ll have to ring the makers, I think, or just carry on with the existing PIN.

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Did I mention that I met my other side neighbour last week? She seems nice. Now, if I can just get her yapping dog to know me …

I managed to get Minnie to come out to the front yesterday and watch the street, which she likes doing. She spent an hour or more out there, then when I brought her inside, she wanted to stay on the carpet next to me. She has trouble staying on her feet on the ceramic tiles, you see, so is reluctant to walk on them. Has to be done, Minnie. Take it slowly.

Cairns 1987  © PJ Croft 1987, 2013

I must be feeling better. Yesterday I did a 45 min round trip walk via the chemist (across Marmion Avenue) and Coles then back home. Without stick.

Today I did the beach stairs, again without stick, and then did half the flights again. My aim is to reach the stage of getting up all ten flights without stopping for breath, then maybe do it twice. I can feel my legs improving.

Then today I followed the path at the top of the cliff for about a kilometer to see where it goes, and found a slightly easier way down to the beach. It’s a dog beach there too, but I don’t think Minnie would be up to it. Anyway, it’s such a struggle to get her in and out of the car. Hard on her, and me.

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What a warm winter. Every day 20-21C. Perfect weather really, but where’s winter?

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Oh, nearly forgot. If you buy (or look through) Australian Personal Computer mag this month, on page 12 you’ll see my mug shot looking out at you, with “Peter Croft says” beside it. The editor asked me to send him a shot of myself a couple of months ago, so I knew something was coming. I hoped I might win a prize, but no such luck. He’s actually used another mug shot from 2008, not the one I sent him.

Then in the list of suggested advertising slogans for PCs, mine is the second in the list: “The PC. When you’re serious, come and see us.”

It’s all about how tablets and laptops are outselling desktop PCs, but are really useless for serious work such as CAD, 3D animation, HD video editing, audio editing, large spreadsheets, serious writing and page layout and so on.

Another tachycardia last night. That was the second since I came home from hospital. I was trying to get to sleep again and just felt odd – a bit breathless. I felt my pulse and sure enough, double rate. I tried the fingers-over-the-nose-and-blow-hard trick and it took four tries, but it worked again. Thank goodness.

There seems to be a link between lying down in bed and the fibrillation starting. Maybe when I lie on my side, the lungs move and press on the heart to cause it? It settles down after a while, but it’s definitely still a problem.

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I’ve started to build up the TV/hi-fi bench shown below, and it’s the most complex IKEA item I’ve built. I’ve been going about four hours so far and only got about 1/3 done. Still, I enjoy it. It’s like the old Meccano or model aeroplane kits.

But it’s too low. I don’t want to bend down so low all the time, so I’ve been looking for a way to raise it. I bought some large (75mm diam.) castors yesterday for $4.45 ea. but they’ll look a bit unsightly. I need to make a front skirt to hide them. At the old house, I had a workshop, but here I can’t cut wood easily. Maybe the skirt will have to come later. Hah! It’ll never get done.

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We’ve started the wheels turning to hold another Northam Senior High School Reunion next year, because 2014 will be the 50th anniversary of our Leaving year. Amazing, ain’t it? Fifty years on and we’re still in touch, a lot of us anyway.

We have 155 names on our list, but I only had 62 email addresses. I sent a heads-up to them all last Friday, and 25 bounced, so that cuts it to 37 active email addresses. And only 13 people replied. We have phone numbers for almost all the names, so we’ll have to get on the phones. Still, we’re looking to hold it in October next year, so there’s plenty of time … or is there? Some of the names on the list have passed away already.

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I changed the battery in my alarm system on Sunday and now the Program icon is flashing continuously. I downloaded the manual and boy! the programming is amazingly complex. Surely you don’t have to start from scratch? Luckily there’s a Perth phone number, so I’ll have to ring them and ask if it has a basic program stored in ROM that I can load. Surely it must?

4pm: Er, yes, why didn’t I think of that? Read the flippin’ manual. When the Program icon is flashing, press P then E and you’re in Normal mode. Solved. There’s still a lot to learn about this unit, though. The programming instructions are about 40 pages of tables.

I also discovered the external blue light and siren box today. That’s good.

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I used to use Quicken Personal finance software to keep track of my bank accounts, but it’s very closely guarded by the makers and I lost control of my copy a couple of years ago (I changed the hard drive – that’s enough to stop it from running! You can reinstall, but it forces you to re-register and that’s difficult.)

I just visited the Reckon Australia web site on Sunday to see what the latest version is, no more. But bingo! Next day I got an email from them asking if I want to update my Quickbooks. Just from visiting their website, they knew my email address and to start sending me stuff. Big brother is watching!

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While cleaning up litter in the back lane, I just met my other neighbour as she drove in. Her name is Barbara and we had a good old chat. She’s off on a trip soon, so we’ll talk more later.

Bugger. I felt really good yesterday – more energy and there had been no more fibrillations since Tuesday.

But lying in bed this morning I got two short bursts, about 3 – 5 secs at low level of fibrillation. Damn. I don’t want this!

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At least I’ll be able to fibrillate in comfort. I’ve finally managed to make decisions to get some IKEA furniture and it was delivered yesterday. Two full sized armchairs, two tub chairs, a 1.8m wide gloss white TV bench/cabinet, two bookcases and two CD/DVD towers.

This will be the first time I’ve had comfy chairs for a few years, rather than using office chairs. There’ll be more cabinets to buy, but this lot will take me some time to assemble.

Hangin' in there

Busy few days. Last Sunday I felt bad again as soon as I awoke – a bit breathless, pulse feeling funny, but not as bad as last Friday. It went on all day.

Monday morning it was still the same, so I phoned the cardiologist’s office to ask for an earlier appointment. She could hear my breathing and asked what I was feeling, then went and spoke to the doctor. He said come in to Hollywood Private Hospital. Barry, my great friend, collected and delivered me.

In Assessment my tachycardia and atrial flutter were clearly visible on the ecg. The cardiologist arrived about an hour later and said they needed to do an ablation. He passed me over to the ablation specialist Michael Davis, who I’d met before. Very self confident, commanding bloke and very friendly, so I felt good. Operation scheduled for Tuesday at 1.30pm.

Tachycardia and flutter were still going the whole time – they wanted to be able to see the result of the nerve ablation, so I spent the night feeling a little wonky.

Tuesday it was back into that old familiar Catheter Lab. I’ve been in there so many times now that I know it well. This time they let me walk to the table and sit myself up on it. It’s always been so hard to grab and drag myself over from the trolley before. I made a joke about going into the “female” (femoral) artery and the nurses found it very funny.

I was immediately injected with “jungle juice” as the surgeon called it, Fentanyl and Midazolam, to make me drowsy. It didn’t seem to have much effect. He ordered some more and that didn’t work either. No matter, I was OK.

But then he started probing with a long needle for the femoral vein in my right leg and couldn’t find it. Lots of needle sticks, some a bit painful. Then he switched to the left leg and spent some time probing that too, calling for a longer needle, 9cm!

Eventually he called for a fellow surgeon to help and he used ultrasound to find it. They still couldn’t make a big enough entry hole so had to put “two in one”. All this took more than an hour.

Once he got the catheters in, it only took about a minute to get it into the heart and onto the nerve between the upper and lower chambers of the right side. I could see it on the X-ray display. Then three minutes of diathermy heating and Bob’s your uncle. Another 20-30 mins waiting to see that it stays OK, while we had a chat.  Then he pulled the catheters out and it was done. Off to the recovery area where the nurse pulled the plastic tubes out of my groin. I tried to get her to give them to me, but she wouldn’t. Too messy, she said.

So back to my room and four hours of lying flat on my back, not allowed to raise my head, to ensure the vein doesn’t bleed. No problem, but your bum gets sore!

Ever eaten spaghetti bolognaise in that position? I was like a kid again, spaghetti all over my neck and face. But I was hungry enough to eat it all.

So another night in the ward, then home on Wednesday. No problems since. I hope that fixes the atrial fibrillation too. That was really getting to me. It’s all good so far.

One thing I didn’t realise is that the surgeon has to wear a lead lined gown, because the X-ray machine is on continuously. They’re in danger from radiation. The gowns weigh quite a bit, apparently.

Shocking

Another day of excitement yesterday – another ride in one of those green and white taxis.

I’ve been having a lot of atrial fibrillation lately, and as I was going to sleep on Thursday night I felt a few short bursts. But they stopped and I went to sleep.

But as soon as I woke up at about 7.30am I felt wonky. A bit trembly, shaky, puffing a bit. I realised my heart was racing, about 100bpm I thought.

I had a shower and got dressed but it didn’t settle down. About 10am I started thinking about ambulances and after asking my new next door neighbours to look in on Minnie, which they very readily agreed to do, I called 000 at about 1030am.

The ambo guys agreed I had a problem (tachycardia) and so off we went. At the hospital (in bay 13!) it was still going at 130bpm and a dose of a beta blocker about midday did no good.

So the next step was an electric shock. We see all those TV images of the body arching in spasm so I was a bit apprehensive, but they explained I’d be given pain relief and although I might feel a bit of pain, it wouldn’t be bad. I’d also be given a sedative.

So at about 1pm I was wheeled over to the resuscitation room, where sticky pads were placed front and back (no paddles to the sides of the chest like you see on TV). Nervous!

Then a long wait for a senior doctor to come. About 1.30pm they injected Fentanyl and some sedative and I got a bit drowsy – still aware, but not caring much. Then I felt a sort of convulsion for only 1-2 seconds and they said, “OK, that’s fixed it.” I could see on the monitor it was down to 65bpm. No pain at all, nothing.

So then it was another long wait for the sedative to wear off and I was let go at about 3pm. I asked if there was anything I should do or not do, but no, just carry on. But see the cardiologist asap. I probably need a beta blocker as well as Amiodarone. Another tablet to add to my long list!

That great guy Barry visited me in the morning and then took me home about 4.30pm. A true friend. Can’t thank him enough.

I was very happy with Joondalup ED this time. I must write a letter saying so.

Dunes on Mars

I’ve got my letterbox back again, right after I bought a new one yesterday.

I was out the front this morning as the newspaper lady came by. I apologised for the rubbish bin acting as my temporary box, telling her mine had been stolen.  She said, “Oh, is that yours over there?”

Sure enough, there it was stuck into the ground on the vacant building site about 300m away. That makes it “young people” for sure, just causing mischief.

Unfortunately, they’ve wrenched the rear door off, breaking the plastic (it’s 6mm perspex). I think I can fix it, although it won’t be easy. I may have to find someone to cut me a new door from a piece of plastic, but who? Where?

It looks a bit damaged, but not enough to discard it. Luckily I haven’t opened the packaging of the new one and I have the receipt, so I’ll be able to return it. $92.50! Pity, because I like the new one better than the damaged one. It opens from the top, rather than the rear, so it’s easier for me. Maybe I should keep it. I’ll be bolting it down, though.

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I’ve got new neighbours on the east side and I introduced myself yesterday. They’re a retired couple from the UK (everyone is around here!) and they’re the same age as me (well, he is anyway). The guy’s a London East Ender and I got his life story in about 45 mins of listening to him. Why, oh why can’t people realise they’re dominating the conversation?

Never mind, I think we’ll get along fine, especially as I was able to show them how to program (and turn off) their reticulation. I’ve been invited for a cuppa and to use their pool in summer.

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Did the beach stairs again this morning. Sure is nice down there.

Hawker food, Singapore 1993 © PJ Croft 2013

Bloody hell! Someone’s stolen my letterbox. I’ve only had it about a month. It cost around $100 with the pole it was on. They’ve just pulled it out of the ground and made off with it. Damn!

I suppose the only thing I can do to prevent its replacement from going too is to set it in concrete. I just banged this one deep into the ground with a sledge hammer. Not enough to stop this low life thief.

PS: I’ve just been thinking – whoever did this is going to place it out the front of his house for me to see. It’s very distinctive – it’s bright red. I’ll do some driving around. But how am I going to prove anything?

When I get a replacement letterbox, I’m going to write my name on the inside. Or better still, get my name engraved on the front.

PS Tuesday morning: it’s occurred to me that the thief didn’t get the keys to the lock. Unfortunately, I hadn’t locked it, but if I found a letterbox the same, on the same skinny pole, and my keys fitted the lock … but I don’t think it would be enough proof for the police.

Lesson number 1 – lock your letterbox.

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This on top of the scam calls I’m getting on the phone. Five times today I’ve been called by people with Indian sounding accents in a very noisy call centre saying, “Mr Croft, this is Dave, I’m calling from Telstra in Melbourne.” I don’t believe them. I think this is a scam, but hang up and they call back again. I asked for a number for me to call him back and he gave me a 1 300 number, but I just don’t believe it, so I didn’t. Why have they all got Indian accents and why is the call centre so noisy and the line so bad? If Telstra want me, they’ll write me a letter.

Bloody hell, as I write this, I’ve just had another one! That’s six calls today. How do I stop this?

Seven calls. They just tried again, but hung up on me this time.

Eight calls. They’ve just tried again!

Tuesday morning: Nine calls – they called again about 5pm! This time I left the phone off the hook for about 90 mins, i.e. I kept their line open, I didn’t hang up. Meanwhile, Do Not Call register.

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I’ve done the beach stairs two days in a row. Today there was a cormorant sitting on the railing near the bottom. I thought it would take fright, but it just sat there as I slowly went past. I was only about 2.5m away. Nice.

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I bought two flat pack steel shelving systems 2m high by 1200mm wide by 500mm deep yesterday. I hope I’ll be able to get the pile of boxes into some sort of order with these. I need my Canon multi-function printer, but it’s buried too deep at the moment.

Singapore 1992  © P.J. Croft 2013

I’m still here, albeit a bit quiet. The last week or more (more) has been pretty ordinary, fending off the black dog circling me, but it’s improving quite noticeably.

But at 1015pm I’m sitting at the computer when I’d really rather be in bed. Atrial fibrillation. My heart has been doing a mad dance for the past 90 mins, fluttering and jumping around, missing beats, then running at double rate. There’s no pain, but it makes me breathless. It’s been happening a lot recently and I’m seeing the GP tomorrow so I’ll ask about it. As far as I know, there’s nothing I can do to stop it. Just take an aspirin to ensure nice clot free blood.

SCGH told me to just “ride it out” and come in if pain gets too bad. There has been a little bit of pain (angina) in the past few days, but none now.

So I’m just waiting for it to settle down, which it will. But trying to go to sleep with it like this is a bit hard.

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I picked up my new glasses today, two pairs, one for close work and one for distance (since I said I don’t like bifocals). But wow, they are so different. Wearing the distance ones, I can’t read the fine print on food packaging in the shop, but there’s no way I could wear the reading glasses for normal walking around.

I’ll give them time to settle, but I may have to go back and ask for bifocals I think.

However, good news. My peripheral vision is absolutely fine and the prescription for both eyes is the same now, -3.0, whereas they used to be half a dioptre different at -3.25 and -3.75. So apart from age related inability to focus close, my sight has actually improved. No problem with glaucoma either.

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I bought a Bunnings brand (Ozito) line trimmer yesterday. I used to have a Ryobi and it was fantastically powerful, but cost $120. This one cost $39.95, a third of the price. Usually I don’t buy the cheap stuff, but for the small amount of grass I’ve got and at the price, I’ll take the risk.

It’s a big dilemma for manufacturers. If you make good quality tools, your customers buy one and it lasts forever and they don’t need to buy it again. Many, many of my tools are one offs, which I bought 40 years ago and they’ve lasted because you bought the best quality you could afford then. There was really no choice.

But technology and quality are improving so fast that people are prepared to buy cheaper and more often to get a better model. So the quality maker has to go down market or risk losing sales. Catch 22. Luckily, down market stuff is greatly improving in quality so we’re the winners.

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11pm – still irregular heart rate. Waiting, waiting.

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I had the carpets cleaned today. I’d got used to the smell after Minnie christened the rooms, but the guy said he could smell it straight away. Smells good now.

Luckily Minnie wants to be outside, but she surprised me last week by coming in, unnoticed by me, and sleeping in the darkest bedroom one afternoon. I didn’t realise until I went in there. No problem this time – she didn’t do anything wrong and came out the back door to wee on the grass later.

I’m working in the garage at the back to reduce my stock of books. I’ve got far too many. I’m being ruthless. Unless they serve a purpose (i.e. they are some kind of reference), or I’m definitely going to read them, out they’re going. Out to the Save the Children Fund collection depot, that is.

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The carpet cleaning guy talked today about the future development of this area and it fits with what I saw in the local paper yesterday. There is going to be huge residential and commercial development just north of here, to rival Joondalup, he said. Fine with me. Even Joondalup is 14Km from here. Whitfords is 18Km. I want more shops nearby. Target is being built at Clarkson, 10 mins drive down the road. Good.

The Italian cafe on the corner near me is applying for an alcohol licence too. Fine with me. The pub is across the road, so it won’t make any difference to me.

1986 © P.J.Croft

Crumbs, I’m getting jumpy.

Last night while watching TV I heard a loud crash from the back end of the house. I’ve been a bit nervous about someone jumping the back fence and attacking my back door. It’s only a sliding glass door. This sounded like it.

I didn’t immediately get up, but I realised it was a book shelf in one of the bedrooms had broken away from the wall. There are these shelves that appear to have no supports – they have rods driven into the wall and the shelf slides onto the rods. I’d put a load of books up on one, but it seems they don’t support many books, hence now they’re all over the floor.

Now, at 1145am, I heard another knock on the door – just two quick, polite knocks. It was so clear that I got up and answered the knock. No-one there!

I forgot to mention – there was also a loud crash yesterday afternoon from the patio area. It sounded really bad and I immediately went to investigate. It turned out it came from next door. We’re only 3m or so apart.

PS: Later – I took the shelf down and found it should have easily supported the books, if it had been put up properly. It uses a substantial steel “frame” screwed to the wall with four screws. But whoever put it up drilled the holes in the brickwork too large for the green wall plugs. As soon as any weight was put on it, the plugs pulled out.

This is easily fixed. I just use the next size of wall plug and screw the bracket on again with heavier screws. But there are six of these shelves, four in one bedroom and two in another. I’ll have to check the others now. Bugger.

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I saw the doctor yesterday about Actos, among other things. She wasn’t aware of the severe side effects or the US class action, but she knew about Avandia (another glitazone class drug) and how that was banned in Australia, so was very receptive to me stopping Actos immediately, which I’ve done. No substitute. We’ll see what my next HbA1c is in three months, then decide.

That makes two drugs I’ve had to stop recently. The other was the diuretic Frusemide. Diaorrhea! Yes, listed as one of the side effects. It didn’t show up immediately, but was terrible recently until I realised what was causing it.

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I’ve just bought myself a present to cheer myself up (yes, the first lot of pills were definitely not working, so I’ve gone back to the ones I used to use).

Doing as much driving as I am now, I want to listen to DAB+ radio in the car. But I don’t want to lose AM radio because DAB+ isn’t available everywhere. Up to now, DAB+ car radios were rare, and they usually sacrificed the AM band to make it DAB and FM only. No good to me.

But now I’ve found Kenwood make a DAB+/FM/AM/CD player car stereo. That’s what I want! So I’ve ordered one from Ryda.com, that mob in Sydney who gave me good service for my phone order. $198, a reasonable price I feel. I’ve had to add $30 for the wiring plug assembly and another $9.95 for postage. Fair enough.

Now I hope to be able to get my car’s dashboard back to proper shape. I’ve had a double height unit in there, and it doesn’t fit properly, so the dash is a mess. This should be a lot neater.