beans, beans the musical fruit

I mentioned a while ago that I had a breadmaker being geared up for something other than breadmaking...

Here's the teardown and modification session - I pulled out all the electronics and fitted a switch to run the motor continuously.

Then fill it with some green coffee beans, and whack a heat gun in there. Here's some decaf, so it starts quite brown rather than green in colour.

The cool down. A day or two's rest and it should be perfect for brewing. Yum, fresh coffee!

Napier and Taupo

Well it's been a few weeks since I've posted, mostly due to a lack of interesting things to report on: "Went to work, worked, came home, had dinner, went to bed" isn't exactly exciting news...

But anyway, we spent last week down in Napier, which is in the south east of the North Island, on Hawkes Bay. We stopped off in Taupo to break up the drive there and back. Down into Hawkes Bay is a very pretty drive (well, once you get past the endless pine plantations) - lots of windy roads (that I didn't get to drive, but Jo hustled along on pretty well), ever-changing scenery and mountains, spring lambs, and green, green hills everywhere.

Taupo has some interesting geothermal sites, including a hot spring that gets some use for bathing, and a weird valley of steaming holes, called "Craters of the Moon". Huka falls also run from Lake Taupo, cutting through a narrow gorge.

Down at Napier, we arrived to a couple of days of bleak wet weather, but it cleared up for a few fine days. Plenty of Art-Deco-ness to see around town, plus we drove around checking out some wider scenery (a daffodil farm with supposed views of the mountains, and a few wineries to gather supplies from, and sample a few along the way...). In all a nice little getaway, beats working for a week that's for sure!

Apart from overlooking the beach (and a carpark that hosted New Zealand's Crappiest Sunday Market), the apartment we stayed at in Napier was home to the World's Worst TV. Not that there was anything wrong with it once operational and set correctly, but I've never come across a TV before that:

• takes over 30 seconds to "boot up".
• Occasionally jams up and won't respond to the remote, if you try to do more than one command a second.
• responds to a volume change command by going all the way to minimum (or worse, maximum) volume.
• has a remote that also controls the heater (volume minus lowered the thermostat, channel 4 made it oscillate...)

Well, back to the excitement of work this week, so it may be a bit longer before the next update... here's some photos.

Love to all,

matt.