Chinara’s
Quite cloudy but still dry and warm
After breakfast this morning there were a couple of mission critical software issues that had to be dealt with urgently. Raw conversion of images in PPP seems to have a major glitch – the blue channel seems to have taken over. The current version uses ufraw, so the strategy was: 1) exchange ufraw for dcraw and test if it works; 2) should dcraw also fail, the attempt an option of using the jpegs for stacking, advanced tone mapping and thumbnailing; 3) try a reinstall of ufraw 0.18 or an older version; try to determine when the deterioration of ufraw set in. But that was the second problem.
The first was that KML_C (which custom converts the GPS tracker data into KML) was not quite finished and I needed a procedure for dealing with points that are in fact random noise by applying a distance filter. This was built into the program and yesterday’s hike was converted. Surprisingly, the distance came to barely 6 km; with lots of break, the speed when moving was about 2.5 km/h. Ha, those must be the famed kiwi kilometres. I felt that the hike was very manageable and for those few km it was extremely strenuous.
What needs to follow for KML_C is that instead of dropping points that fall no more than 10 m away from the previous point, is to recalculate the average, making it more accurate.
On the net there were messages from yesterday’s hikers and Bruce was asking for the GPS data which I sent him. Then I set the computer going on PPPing yesterday’s pix and went off and bought two sausage rolls with dead horse and some lemonade for lunch. The program seemed to be getting on OK; only one change was necessary to take out the automatic brightness control. I reset the files and started it up again.
On my way back to the house was buttonholed by a largish woman in the driveway who in a very business-like fashion gave her name as Annabel and wanted to know mine and whether I was the owner of the next house along (Chinara’s). I had, of course, no idea of who she was, but it was Annabel Langbein – perhaps I should have asked her for a quick course in cookery. Anyway she had a question about the houses’ insulation cladding which I was to pass on to Chinara.
Then it was time to go into town for the jandals. Walked up and down Queen St but could only find a couple of pairs for $50 which was way over budget. Finally tracked down a goodlooking pair for just over $30 at a sports shop before stumbling upon numberoneshoes with a range of models for $12-$16, with a 30% discount at checkout. I could have bought a suitcase full of them. Settled for a pair for $9 nett.
Was soon back home. PPP had been successful on yesterday’s pictures so I set it to work on the day before’s and added a couple of pictures to the blog. Camila returned home seeing me stuck in front of the computer in much the same pose as when she had left this morning. I waited for a bit until after 6:00 to see if Chinara was coming home because I was thinking of getting some washing done. That will have to wait for Christchurch.
Time for dinner. I had spotted a slightly less posh looking Indian restaurant on the main shopping street than the one I had walked into yesterday (Masala) and decided to give it a go for Tandoori chicken which they had for $12, glass of water and aperitif chip included. Delicious meal with basmati rice and onion and cabbage. Only thing was that the chef seems to do for anatomy what I do for geography, when it came to cutting up the chicken.
Planning for tomorrow I realised that the higher price for a bus ride into town from in front of the shopping centre was due to a zone boundary, and that if I used the bus stop on Onewa Road, the buses are fairly regular (every ten minutes or so) and cost $1 less.
