And a good time was had by all.

As advertised, we went to the wedding over the weekend and jolly good it was! The bride looked wonderful, the groom was very well behaved and the best man and father of the bride were both very succinct and very clever with their speeches. The food was excellent and the weather was good, what more did we need?
On the day after our return, Hazel went potty with paint and brush and has, all but, finished the downstairs paintwork. I shall do the final bits tonight.
Hopefully, I have stemmed the flow of spam that purported to have been sent from my oldest email account. The  address has been deep frozen until I consider it safe to use again. In the meantime, those who need to know have had another address sent to them for use. It was the first time it had happened to me and I was amazed at the speed the problem travelled at.  Within less than two days, most of my friends had been encouraged to buy Viagra on my say-so. The most outraged was my god daughter and I don't blame her.

There will now follow, a short break in transmission whilst I change jobs and feel a bit poorly for a while.

All the edges

or at least, most of them. I did the skirting and architrave yesterday and it looks good. Except for the bits I missed. My excuse is that it was dark and I was knackered after possibly the heaviest day at work in years. I hope to tidy the missed areas up and, maybe, paint a couple more doors this evening. Then, tomorrow, it's off to Yate to see the family and go to the wedding.

Your door it was apricot................(corrupted version of Carly Simon lyric)

I painted the inside of the front door yesterday, apricot. It seems a trifle bright to me but it's Sally's choice and, after all, she is the one who will have to look at it most. Tonight I hope to remove the lock, undercoat the bald spots and then refit a lock for overnight security. A some point, I will fit the new white lock and also replace the old door furniture with new. Tonight should also see the next door or two painted although I should really paint the skirting and architrave first.
I am really peed off about my email situation, I have taken great pains to protect my addresses and now, suddenly, I have been hacked. I am lucky, in a way, as I have made a point of, not only having many more email accounts, but also having total control of my accounts so that I am able to switch off the .org.uk stuff and switch to another one.

Time on my hands (Song from the 40's)

Not quite yet but Trev is back and I am managing to keep up still. I also finished the undercoating in the hall yesterday so, this evening, I intend to do some fine sanding and then, on with the top coat.

Fairy footsteps

Image via Wikipedia

Well, an interesting day, yesterday. I have continued to add software to my office PC and feel less depressed about it as the hours go by. I managed to do the first coat of undercoat on the new middle door and second coat on the surround to it. Later, I watched "Animal House" for the first time in about 30 years and laughed myself silly. I had forgotten just how good that movie was. The whole family are sleeping like the dead at the moment, it has to be something to do with the weather, I'm sure. I am normally a heavy sleeper anyway but just lately, I don't wake until the alarm beeps at me and, even then, I could just roll over and drop off again. In addition, I have begun to hanker after another holiday break. This is always a sign of boredom normally. Am I bored or is it something else this time? Retirement is looking inviting again.

Don't do as I do, do as I say!

I have, for over eight years, successfully fought off the re-imaging of my PC at work. It was a struggle but I managed it despite many insidious efforts by colleagues to pressure me into doing the foul deed.

Yesterday I was hog tied and my arm was twisted so far up my back, i could kiss my own hand in reverse.(I know what I mean!) In plain English, my PC crashed and no amount of pleading would let me in. Now, because I'm a techy type, I have ways of breaking and entering recalcitrant computers and extracting all the data needed to be saved away from the local hard drive to a place of safety. This I did and then, most reluctantly, I set about re-imaging my own PC. The new image was safely written by going home time yesterday and this morning I began the long task of re-installing the most important software. I have now completed that task and I will begin installing the less important stuff whilst trying to carry on working.
On a lighter note, Ian and I moved the freezer out to the laundry yesterday which has created major amounts of extra room in the kitchen at long last. We did try to move the big reclining chair from the attic to the front bedroom but couldn't take the back off so we gave up and will try again soon.

Midnight, come and gone.

The book arrived on Friday, I read it over the weekend and passed it on to Sally to read. We will both read it again within the month................sad 'innit? Hazel, Lulu, Samuel, Kian and I went to West Hoe park on Saturday and the boys had a whale of a time on the train and bouncy castle. Ian and I loaded the van with old furniture and electronics from the house and shed and took it to the dump on Sunday, made a lot of room.

And a bit more.....

Image via Wikipedia

I did a little bit more painting yesterday and then relaxed as Fred came to see me. The first half of the Chinese order, the thruster pod and the American e-book all arrived this morning. I was well pleased but I was expecting the new Terry Pratchett novel, "I shall wear midnight." and I have yet (16.24) to see it.

Paint, paint and then, more paint.

I have managed to, amongst other things, paint the second coat of undercoat on all of the skirting and architrave at long last. In addition, the inside of the main front door is single coated and the door mat is highly artistic! Tonight, I hope to second coat the front door and begin a first coat on the lounge door and inner door. We shall see...........

Not a failure but.......................

not a total success either. The terrace leak is improved considerably and the main roof leak seems to be OK but I am still not breathing gently yet. Time will tell.

Inching along

I checked the cement, very well set. I sprayed it with bitumen as an added water proofer. I crawled into the loft and found the leak above the stair well and sprayed that to within an inch of it's life. I emptied the drip bucket, just in case. I slid out of the loft on my knees and danglys, oooooouch! This morning, the heavens have opened. I am keeping everything crossed, apart from my danglys, in hopes of it all working.

Whew!

At the last minute, on the way home yesterday, I remembered to turn into Wickes and buy some materials with which to waterproof my home. I was looking for the exterior Polyfilla cement having used it successfully in the past. Didn't find it because I found something else first. Wickes do a small plastic pouch with powder in it that you top up with water, re-seal and massage into a cement mix. It's cheap, £3.50 ish and you can squirt it into place and then spread it with the supplied plastic tool. It did a very simple and quick job and I was well pleased with the result. The next heavy rain is due tomorrow so we shall see how well I have done then.

Oh Calamity!

Image via Wikipedia

Again?

I managed to keep reasonably cheerful over the weekend until, on Sunday evening, the rain finally got the better of my roof and began to enter in three separate places. At nine o'clock yesterday evening, I was crawling into the loft to empty a bucket of rainwater. I should have taken the car keys out of my shirt pocket first though. One bruised nipple later, I did. The worst ingress, though, was back in the bedroom. The fix has stopped working yet again and needs to be given a serious talking to. I had to remove all the items on the top shelf of my bedside cabinet and drain them into a bucket. 

Cheeky monkey!

All the time I have been working on the new door, Hazel has be pestering me with, "When can I start to paint it?" Yesterday, I announced myself satisfied with the work and painting could now begin. Her response? "We can start tomorrow then." We?

Woooohoooo!

I bought the catch.
I fitted the catch.
I fitted the door handles.
It all works.
Next is to fit the two remaining draught strips and a bit of filling here and there.
Then, I hand over to the painter.

Oh dear, I have just broken an SDHC card. Not a lot on it apart from our visit to the aquarium..... It might not be completely lost but I suspect so.

Not so bad after all then!

I have spoken to several people now and they all agree that the National Marine Aquarium is a tiring place to walk around. I feel vindicated. I spent Saturday and Sunday working on the door again and I have nearly, but not quite, finished it now. The door itself and frame are done, but I have yet to fit the catch and keeper. I had bought a set but it seems either I bought the wrong one or the instructions on the packet are wrong. Whilst I suspect the latter, I am happy to carry the can as I should have checked anyway. So a swift trip into Wickes on the way home methinks.

I'm gonna get you little fishy!

Image via Wikipedia

..............................Cat in Red Dwarf.

I was at the National Marine Aquarium yesterday. Not such a big deal as it sounds as I live about a mile from it. Sally and I took Samuel for an afternoon out and, boy, did he have fun? He wanted to see everything at once and then go back to see it again. We all had a good time but I was totally knackered by the time we got around the first time. Thank goodness for aunties!

Fractionaly further forward

The skirting board has now stuck properly.
That's it, no more.

This time next year Rodney..........................

I may just have finished this job. Friday evening was a washout. Saturday was spent with Samuel and Hazel driving around the various shops we needed to visit and then trying to teach a little boy how to play snap. He calls it slap and gets bored after the first two or three cards have been laid. In the evening I was chatting to Russ so, whilst not a wasted day, it was a dead day for working on the door. Sunday was much the same until midday as Sal had been working the previous night and wasn't awake until midday. Then I managed to cut and fit the other inner panel and the top one and also do most of the filling. At this point, I had intended to fit the final couple of pieces of skirting board but discovered that the first piece was not quite stuck as well as I had hoped so I ended up making a better job of it, I hope.

Still going weak!

Well, no-one would ever say I was going strong.

I have fixed the frame on both sides now and the first edging strip is in and ready to be finished off. Tonight, I hope to fit the other side and the top. If I can then fit the first of the skirting boards on the inside I will be doing well. Then, tomorrow, the outer side of the frame and the skirting boards in there as well as the final pieces of skirting going up to the stairs and on the corner. Once these are fitted and stuck, they will need filling and sanding and then, finally, they can be painted. Of course, I still have to address the lumps on the plaster and re-paint the walls at all the points where I have damaged them by hacking out the old frame...................
Not to mention fitting the door handles and catch................

A deadly weekend.

Two whole days to fit a door and still not finished? Sadly,yes.

The problem is, as always, because we live in a 125 year old house. In those days, everything was bespoke and the frame of this door is set into the walls, the wood is original and I have tried, unsuccessfully, to remove it. So I have had to shave it down and make the frame fit the new door as I really don't want to mess with the door. I have managed to get the frame on the hinge side in and fixed and I have just hung the door. Now all I have to do is match the opposite side of the frame to the door by inserting some small slices of wood and then fit the top in a similar manner. Once all that is done, I just have to fit the door handles and catch.

I'm living in interesting times again!

I have just spent, over the past two days, a couple of hours carefully destroying and then re-building two web sites. I still have no idea what caused the damage to both my Joomla sites but they both disintegrated at much the same time which prompts me to suspect an update may have caused the problem. They were both upgraded within 24 hours of each other and both failed shortly afterwards. BUT!!! I have re-installed from scratch in both cases, pushed the update to them and they are still both functioning well...................

An expanding universe?

Or just my small, but perfectly formed, world.

The evemed.co.uk domain developed a serious glitch and wouldn't run the holding pages I had there. I suspect it was just a licencing issue but, whatever, It kicked me into putting a proper site there. So now, it's my robot site and I shall, over the coming months, be uploading photos of my own robots and designs for part assemblies as well as my collection of links.

Was she worth it?

I have no idea, never played bingo.

The fix, see below, worked a treat. Driver installed and all raring to go then I discovered that one of the gear units wasn't turning even though the motor was running.......... Missing pin inside gearbox. Twenty minute job to disassemble arm, put in spare pin and rebuild arm. Worth it though, it works really well and to watch it in programmed mode is a joy. Now all I have to do is assemble the second arm and set it up on a real test bed system.

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.

As it was a Monday yesterday, I decided to have a quiet evening and just fiddle with the workstation. I have Titch to keep me company and we settled down to a pleasant couple of hours doing some non critical fiddling on the workstation. A good time was had by all until I decided to install a new driver for some robotics work. Wouldn't install, couldn't install, refused point blank to install. But it didn't tell me why. I eventually went in through the back door and installed it with full reporting. It refused to install. This time, however, it told my why. Up until my "Brute force and ignorance" install, I had not one error message other than, "I don't think that worked, want to try again?" or words to that effect. This time it told me the truth, "You are trying to install an unsigned driver on a 64 bit OS". Thanks a bunch Microsoft, if you had told me up front, I would have been in bed ninety minutes earlier and not felt like death warmed up now.

Somewhat later;
I have managed to find a fix for my unsigned driver problem and all should now be well with my install this evening.

One does get carried away at times, doesn't one?

I did manage to clean the whole of the door frame, inside and out, ready for gloss painting. I also bought the new middle door and frame so that we can, at last, have a proper door that shuts when you want it to. Sally and Hazel have bought the paint for the woodwork and Hazel has bought a lot of picture frames for her collection of art cards and posters from France. Other than that, not much else was done from my check list.
But we did have one major achievement. On Saturday, we bought a Dulux powered paint roller kit and used it to considerable effect on the downstairs hallway. It was fairly expensive but, with a house as big as ours, we think it's a pretty good investment.

Come back Victor Meldrew, all is forgiven!

I was on the way home yesterday and realised I needed to put some fuel in the camper. I pulled into the service station and, eventually, I was able to pull up to a set of pumps. I climbed out of the vehicle into heavy rain, walked around to the filler, got it ready and was just about to begin filling when a public spirited taxi driver shouted to me to move forward as I was stopping the driver behind him from pulling up to the third pump. His request would have been fine if only he had used more appropriate means of asking. saying, "Come on, they do stretch you know" and "He's been waiting in the road for ages" are not calculated to encourage a middle aged man with rain running down the back of his neck and in a certain amount of pain from an arthritic old body. Even when I got back in the cab and moved forward for him he couldn't leave it alone. "There now, don't you feel better for doing that?" is not going to help at all. He even continued his inane ramblings up until I left the forecourt and then honked at me as he swanned away in the bus lane whilst I sat in a long queue of traffic. And, no doubt, he will be calling me all sorts of names because I was snappy with him...........Wazuck!!

When we eventually got home, I cleaned off the woodwork at the very top of the top landing and found that the wood itself is in good condition and very solidly fitted. It doesn't need to be removed or replaced thank goodness. I will paint over it with plaster paint and that will be a much quicker job than undercoat and gloss topcoat for an area that no one ever sees up close anyway. Also, as I now have the wood, I will fit the last three pieces of new skirting board and smooth down the already filled wood ready for painting.

Hard work never hurt anyone........................

Oh, it can! Believe me it can.
My brain is hurting every evening when I return home after a hard day at the office. Today is the lowest staff level ever I suspect. Just my line manager, Dave, and me. Everyone else is either sick, on leave or on secondment. Life is just wonderful! There are, of course ups as well as downs. I am probably learning a lot and, I hope, gaining credibility within my new job. Yesterday, I had a short meeting with a student who is doing a survey for the uni about ITIL, just don't ask, OK? She was very nervous and was obviously having problems with her speech and her poor grammar. So after the interview, I drew her out and discovered what the problem was. I then went into overdrive to try and build up her confidence and point her at ways of helping herself to improve her life. I hope it helps.

Weekends, I've had better.

I bought the final pack of skirting for the ground floor and attic as well as some odds and ends to complete work on both house and camper. It was a Samuel weekend and he and I had a good time together on Saturday. The rest of the weekend was pants. Hazel and I are very unhappy at present and we are clinging to each other for comfort.

Slow progress

Well, I have an excuse, of sorts. Sally had a friend in yesterday and as she, Peri, is also a girl that Hazel and I have known for quite some time, I didn't want to make too much noise and mess with their conversation or TV watching. I told you it was only a sort of! Well, I did go out to the lean to and I fitted two of the angle restrainers to the roof but, at that point, I just gave up and watched TV until it was time for bed. I was very tired.

I have just discovered Tiny Basic, a very simple programming language from Microsoft. It bears more resemblance to linear Basic and Logo than any other I have seen in a long time and I find it very easy to use. It does have some minor drawbacks but, in general, is a very useful tool. 

With a little help from my..................wife.

It will never be a hit though.

I have managed to get the lean to roof panels back into position and I have also cut and drilled the brackets to hold them there. Next job will be to fit them, to fill under the top line and then to seal the joint with waterproof sealant. It's not the correct way of doing the job but it should outlive me so...

Life at the office is getting more hectic. Trevor is off with dry rot and asbestos so I am holding the fort. I am coping by the skin of my teeth.

Sally has now moved home again and is doing her usual tidy up. She spent ten minutes yesterday telling off her mother for being a poor housekeeper.She doesn't tell me off as she is fully aware I really don't care.

Some you win..............

The conference call test was a total washout. I am not doing this correctly and I have no idea how to correct it. I must go back to school.

The rest of the plans all went swimmingly, however and much fun was had by all. I spent two hours chatting to Mo on Friday and another two hours chatting to Russ this evening. I also went out onto the terrace again this evening. I think a permanent set up is called for.

A busy week.

With Trevor out with dry rot, I am having a fairly intense time of it this week. Chris and I are managing to find odd moments when I attempt to bring him up to speed on subjects I am barely up to speed on myself. We seem to muddle through OK but I suspect this is more to do with Chris' capabilities than mine. I at last have enough USB ports for my varying activities, both at home and at work, as my two, seven socket, powered expansion units have arrived. I am impressed, they work very well and, more to the point, they are very small.
I had a brief video chat with Mo this morning. Not very productive due to all the work and sitting in the middle of a large open plan office. We will try again tonight and I have also scheduled a conference call on the uni server and I will test that out over the weekend as well with Russ and possibly Mo. 

And then there are good days.

The internet, the world wide web, what is it good for?

Well I like it and yesterday my faith was rewarded. An old friend popped up, out of the ether and, after over 30 years, we are back in touch. As I get older, I begin to forget things that happened yesterday. I can still, however remember with some clarity things from forty years ago. It's a well documented phenomenon and it comes to us all. My friend Mo was more of a pen friend than anything else but when she wasn't there, I missed her. Now, she is there again and we may well resume our written friendship by using - You guessed it - the internet, the world wide web, that's what it's good for. 

Further forward chaps!

The various bits and bobs needed for several projects are beginning to arrive. The carputer is detailed in the janis blog so go there for that information. The five metre USB extensions are for use in the attic and they have arrived along with a couple of ten foot VGA cables for various long term projects. I also have ideas about the new desk and drawer units I need there, I am thinking Ikea, possibly. I must talk with number one daughter about that.

A frustrating week made better by an old frustration.

Very devious that, eh?

I have had a very irritating few days because of the problems already shared both on this blog and my janis blog. On Saturday evening, I was due to chat to my friend Russ. The attic, where all the PCs etc are, was unbearably hot. I had a brainwave, steady! I set up the new USB monitor with the built in camera and took it out on to the terrace that, as detailed previously, took us nearly two years to get planning permission for. It was great, I even got a bit chilly towards the end of our chat, magic. I will try to install a permanent presence sometime this week.
The post has just delivered my power adaptor for the small playback PC and very nice it is too. I shall fit it this evening and, from then on, I hope to never touch it again. It should just work!

I hate computers!

Actually, I don't but the bu%%er factor is rampant in computer technology.

My new SATA optical drive arrived this week and I fitted it yesterday evening. All but the power connector. The power connector is a new type that is much smaller and is now used on optical drives for laptops etc. I don't complain about the supplier of the drive, they are in the same predicament as me, I simply wonder whether the same smaller connector could not have been used on all SATA drives in the first place. I have had to order a new connector on Ebay in order to make my new drive a useful member of the community.

New smaller power connector, 6 pin slimline on left and standard SATA data connector on right.

The keyboard, on the other hand, is just wonderful. Once batteries are fitted and the dongle plugged in to a computer, any computer with a USB socket, it just works really well. It's also very light in weight but still quite rigid and the track pad works a treat as well. This is an ideal buy for anyone who needs to access PCs on a regular basis but doesn't want a keyboard and mouse plugged into each one. Simple but very effective.    

PS I couldn't stand that horrible green any longer. This looks a bit better but I'm not finished yet!                

Isn't our Post Office wonderful?

I placed an order, I was told, "Delivery on Wednesday at your home address." I organised people to be in the house all day Wednesday to receive the parcels. The Post Office delivered on Monday. Life just keeps on getting better.

The goodies were, my new HD 23" monitor, The sound system for same, a wireless keyboard with touch pad and a new portable style DVD drive for the playback PVR.
I saw the LG monitor on the web site and liked the look of it, then I read the reviews and got quite excited at the amount of praise. Now I have it, I can see why it got all that praise, the picture is wonderful. I also now know why most reviewers single out the on/off switch for particular mention, it's really great and very clever and you really need to use it to fully appreciate it. The sound system is a cheap Sumvision, less than £40.00, but very good value for the money. I have yet to do anything with the keyboard or drive so more about them elsewhere.

Normal service may be resumed later.............

It will be obvious to anyone reading this that I have indulged myself and tried the new design stuff here. It will either work or not, but it will be fun playing for a while. The janis blog was easier to fiddle with and I feel that it works quite well, this one must be considered as a work in progress I am afraid. The current style is meant to reflect my hay feverish life at present and when that situation changes, I will change the style again.

Eerrrrcha!!!!!

Hay fever is with us in a big way today. I felt it coming yesterday when I left work with a headache but, this morning, I woke to a sneeze and it's just gone on. As I sit here, my eyes are itching and my head feels dull. I am achieving my goals at work still but I am also feeling the strain a bit today. Having the building work going on next door is not helping.

I did some work in the attic yesterday evening and I have taken the first set of pictures for the "Build your own carputer" article. All I need now are the adaptor cards and I'm away. 

Rolling along........

Back a week already and longing to be on holiday again. Not a lot of chances of that happening though. I have blogged my weekend with janis elsewhere so you will have to look there for detail. 

What I did on my holidays 2010

Have a look at some of this years holiday snaps, click on the glacier.

That's another one under the old belt then!

Or some such nonsense.

Back home from a holiday that should have been in Italy but was, in fact, in France. Passports were stolen, along with a lot of cash and a Swiss vignette. We ended up doing all the things Hazel has been planning for years and never got around to doing............... no, I don't think she nicked the passports. We had a pretty good time anyway and Paul, brother-in-law, and I got to do some stuff that we would never have been able to if we had not been together. Hazel has a problem with high places. She has a tendency to  panic on the top deck of a bus and going up the side of a mountain in a rack and pinion rail car was not easy for her, so visiting a glacier was a very big deal for all of us. Paul and I had already visited the largest gorge in France in the first week so we were hardened to all this by now.  

Well, not quite.....

tomorrow.

I was at The Royal Eye Infirmary yesterday for my check up. My eyes are OK but dry. So I have to use more of one of my existing eye drops and now have to also use artificial tear gel as well.  Life just keeps on getting better eh? I haven't done much else as bad weather and a high work load, both in the office and at home, have got in the way. I have achieved some good results in both areas so I feel, at least, I haven't wasted my time.

At Last...........again

This really is "At last" as janis is through her MOT and at a cost of only just over £200.00.

This is the sort of price you expect to pay for an MOT and some work these days so for a twelve year old commercial vehicle, this is good. I shall collect her this very evening and I will report back tomorrow.

Cometh the sun, cometh the workish feelings.

I managed to shake off the winter apathy at long last this weekend. I began the great tidy-up in the attic and I have moved the washing machine to its new home. I still have to run in the electric cables and connect them but the water is all done as is the drainage. The sockets for the washing machine side are already in but I have to install the pair on the freezer side next and then connect into the ring main. Fortunately, a short link only needs to be removed and the two feeds will re-connect the circuit again.

Woo Hoo! (Homer Simpson)

My test on the new PVR was very successful so I have now purchased a set of AVS software for it. This brings the family total of AVS licences up to three, I think we should get a discount! Joking aside, it's very good software and not particularly expensive either. It's good to be able to use tried and tested applications on important hardware.
On a much sadder note, I have just discovered that a close family friend has died of a brain haemorrhage this week. Young, compared to me, and with two teenage children and both parents still living. I didn't know Steven very well, we had only met at a few family weddings and parties but my mother was very fond of him. He will be missed greatly.

It's astounding....... Time is fleeting.......Madness takes it's toll.

Yes, I got into a time warp yesterday. After a trying day at work, I decided that the two dual core Atom computers were going to be conquered and made to toe the line.

I began with the new PVR based on the new Zotac mini itx motherboard with the latest NVidia chip set. I needed to install an operating system and I didn't have a DVD drive available. So I had to remove the drive from my work station and cobble it up with a USB adaptor just to install the OS and software. Once I had the basics working, I was able to remove the DVD and use the network for the rest. The results are stunning! This is a very fast and capable system. It's so good, I am going to buy a second set of AVS software for it.

Then I moved over to the carputer. I had already installed the OS on this one so I fitted a temporary mains power supply and set up the new Mimo 7" touch screen monitor on it. Once again, stunning! The computer is very good but the monitor is amazing. There will be pictures soon.

Well worth the wait?

Image by Brandon Cirillo via Flickr

As has been documented elsewhere, I have been experiencing difficulties with janis and they have made my life somewhat complicated for a while. Now, most of that is sorted out and, pending the MOT, life should return to normal very soon.
As a result of the good news, I was able to enjoy my visit to "The Rocky Horror Show" on Saturday evening.
A wonderful show and a great cast but a few very annoying members of the audience who decided that nasty heckling was OK. I know that TRHS is supposed to have audience participation of a sort, but these few went much too far and could have spoilt it for the rest of us had not the cast managed to stay well in command.
On Monday, Hazel and I cleared our bedroom and laid the 3ply flooring prior to the new carpeting to be laid when all is ready. It doesn't sound much but it took all day and we are exhausted.

I got it right that time eh?

Norfolk was very sunny last week. I got sun burned on my little bald spot.

We lived in a house boat for the week and it was very nice apart from the toilet system......... Least said, soonest mended. We also went out for a day on a small cruiser and that was very good fun. The only advice I would offer here is don't go out and back in one day on the Broads. It is a fairly remote area with little of great interest except, maybe, to birdwatchers and the speed of travel being limited to four mph for most of the time can make the return journey somewhat tedious. Please don't take this the wrong way, we loved the whole area but I think we got it wrong with our plans. Next time, I want to travel about and see much more of the area by boat.

Oh this year we're off to sunny..................

Norfolk.

It just doesn't have the same ring to it does it? However, as I have always wanted to go to Norfolk, I can hardly be said to be disappointed. The problems with the Merc are detailed elsewhere so suffice it to say I am really looking forward to not thinking on my feet for a week or so.

My thumb is just now returning to normal after a week of discomfort. It took several days before I could type without pain and even longer to be able to hold a pen and sign my name. The problem, I think, was more to do with the arthritis than the fall but, either way, it smarted a bit!
I re-sealed the roof last evening and I will check it tonight but I really think I have cracked it at last. Despite some rain over the past four days, nothing has come into the house so we live in hopes.......

So far, so good?

Well, no sign of any more leaking despite heavy rain yesterday. I will probably remove the tarpaulin this evening and give it a good test over the next couple of days. I may even be able to do the first spray just before we go for our holiday.

A real fall this time.

With all my weight on my right thumb. Ouch!

There I was, on the floor with Samuel. We had the track just about set up and my knees began to scream at me so I tried to get up. Well, I managed half way and then descended very rapidly on to my head. To save myself from serious head damage, I put out my hand and, somehow, only my thumb connected. It is still hurting now and is actually stopping me from typing because of the pain.
We all spent some time at Pauls caravan over the weekend and a good time was had by all. On Monday, I did some more work on the leaking terrace and may have solved the problem for good this time. We have all watched the new Dr Who now and most of us think it's pretty good, even Ian who, for a while, threatened not to watch it because David Tenant had left. I also managed to catch the Jonathan Creek special on Monday and liked it well enough although I thought the plot was a touch weak in places.

Every so often,

the news is stunning and totally unexpected.

Anyone reading this will know that I have a smashing grandson called Samuel.

Before the year is up, I should have two smashing grandchildren as Lulu is 'with child'.

This is a most happy event, and you all have my express permission to be happy for me.

Not too much, I tend to get carried away.

The Micro Scalextric has now reached it's logical conclusion as I have bought as much as I need to, for now. I will set up a large track tonight and Paul and I can have a play ahead of everyone else.
I managed to fix the tarpaulin properly yesterday so we are no longer bothered by it flapping all night. I used the saw I bought cheap at Halfords for the first time and it was very good. My other new saw arrived yesterday, I bought an Exakt 320 for about half price and I am now equipped to saw almost anything at all.

Knees' up, pat him on the bo-bo................

Let's hear him laugh. (Popular song from the 1950s, much used by The Goons)

I have been loitering around ebay a bit this week. My original intention was just to buy a couple of Micro Scalextric cars for my grandson. Then I spotted the prices that Micro Scalextric was going for so I bought some track. Then I began bidding on a couple of second hand sets. It's all getting out of hand and I have still spent less than twenty quid in total.
When I arrived at the dentist, the receptionist looked at me blankly and did a quick search of her diary. I had arrived a day too soon! The original appointment was for today but it was brought forward by a week. I then picked up on the original reminder slip as my second appointment and just turned up. Still, I was seen and the stitch came out and I still feel great so alls well etc.
I have yet (16.15) to have a message about my baby so I am assuming she won't be ready for me until tomorrow. I miss her.

A good knee is hard to find.

Well, Hazel had her operation, I lost my tooth and the Merc went in for it's very expensive transplant.

Of the three, the tooth was, by far, the least painful. The Merc simply needed to be organised and paid for. So the only major trauma was to my wallet. Hazel, however, was in a great deal of pain almost from leaving the medical centre. She didn't sleep on Wednesday night and, within reason, neither did I. By Thursday night, I was crawling up the walls with sleep deprivation so I was very glad that Hazel did, at last, find some relief and get her head down. Things have got steadily better since but she won't be fully recovered for some time yet.

janis went out to the transmissions garage and is being worked on as I write. I hope to collect her tomorrow.

Also tomorrow, I go to have my stitch removed. It still seems the least painful happening in the last week.

Life's a beach and then you fly?

Or something like that anyway.

This week was always going to be awkward because of the knee op for Hazel and the tooth extraction for me.

Now we have the new gearbox for janis to worry about as well. I imagine that, come Saturday, we will both be very glad that a new week is in the offing.

Hands, knees and boomps-a-daisy

Hazel has had a very painful knee for a couple of years, I have had a trick knee since age fourteen. They have never coincided before. Last week they did. I suspect that, in my case, it was mainly due to the major improvements in my back and neck mobility causing me to walk at a different angle. Today, just as mine is beginning to go away, Hazel tripped at work and has hurt her good leg as well as giving herself the beginnings of a black eye and some nasty carpet burns on her hands.

Caught at last.

I have, for many years, fought a rearguard action against mobile phones. I got along fine without them for sixty years, why should I need one now? Well, unfortunately, my job has changed slightly and the security system in use for all the computers on campus requires me to telephone in to a central point in order to be able to work on a computer in the field. For almost all situations, this means a mobile phone. So I am now carrying and using one at work at all times.....................
The up side is that I am learning more and more as I go and that pleases me greatly. I also seem to be getting fitter as the weeks go by, as my back and neck problems have almost completely gone. I was used to waking up each day with stiffness and, sometimes, pain. Now, all that seems to be a thing of the past. Woohoo!

There's a hamster loose aboot this house!

On Saturday, Lulu was disturbed by a scuttling noise behind a vent in her kitchen. She was concerned it might be something hairy so she sprayed a goodly amount of Dettol into the hole behind. She then forgot about it until the following day when Ian said, "anyone know where the hamster is?". Instant panic and a fast run down to the kitchen. Ian removed the cover and a little black nose appeared followed by an even blacker body. This is a very lucky hamster.

Well it should have been a quiet weekend!

I was looking forward to this one. No children and no urgent jobs. Wrong! Our fluffy cat dropped a large, smelly and gooey spanner in the works by leaving a present in my wifes pajamas. Instant panic and demands that something be done about it. My suggestion about visiting the vet was not appreciated. OK, I came up with a plan. I will carefully remove a glass panel from the french doors in the back room and replace ot with a sheet of wood. Then I will mount a super duper cat flap that only accepts cats with the correct ID chip. Great idea, do it now. So, on Saturday morning, I ring the vet and order the cat flap - £75.00, I buy a very solid piece of ply wood to fit the frame exactly and I begin to remove the glass. The new tool was a godsend here as it was actually designed to do this sort of work. Sadly, my eyes aren't quite so clever and I run out of daylight whilst still only half way through. Sunday morning and it doesn't take me very long to remove the glass and clean up the frame. I cut the wood and fit it and now I am stuck for something to do as I can go no further without the dimensions of the cat flap. In the meantime, young Fluff, the cause of all this upheaval, has decided to behave like a lady and begins to use the litter tray in the way it was intended to be used.............

I spent the rest of the day editing movies for the library.

Well I never..............

One of the monitors and the Sonicrafter have arrived! The monitor is only a little thing but if I can get it to work, it will be going into the Sprinter as the sub screen for the carputer. The Sonicrafter is magic. It weighs a ton, well not quite, and just oozes quality. The cost of the extra bits is quite high but, fortunatly, it came with everything I need immediatly. Also, I can see why the accessories are expensive, they have to be able to withstand a lot of power being pushed through them.

A penny spent...........

is a penny gone forever.

I spent a few yesterday, ebay and a new tool (or toy as my wife calls it).

The ebay stuff is just a couple of monitors I picked up cheaply. If they work, I have jobs for them right away.

The tool is an oscillating saw/grinder/rasp/file/sander I saw advertised on TV and have just bought on the web. It's called the Worx SoniCrafter and was expensive but it looks very useful. The action is based on technology I first saw on Tomorrows World being demonstrated by Raymond Baxter. Since then, it has been used by hospitals to remove plaster casts. The saw, or whatever, doesn't spin, it just oscillates very quickly and only cuts anything that resists it. If it hits skin, it just vibrates the skin and won't cut. Very clever, very small and no torque to worry about.

The weekend starts..............

Image via Wikipedia

on Satuday morning, usually.

It certainly did for me last weekend. I'm still buzzing. I slid down the stairs at about 10.00 (late for me) and checked the post. Lo, there was a death certificate waiting for me. I had taken a chance and sent for it on the off chance that this was my great uncle Pierce Bowen. Happy, happy, joy, joy, it was him and I had a reason why I had been unable to find him before this. He was called John Pierce Bowen! This now made even more sense as it underlined the possibility of my Bowens being from the JerryJohn Bowens. Later that same day, I did a search for Jeremiah Bowen again and happened upon a family in Kinsale who could have been his second family. Although I have no proof, it does seem a possibility that these are my family as the dates all match so well. On Sunday, I discovered that Kinsale and that close area was a hotbed of Bowens at the turn of the century.

Sometimes you just get lucky...............

In no particular order, I

1. Found the black tape.
2. Enabled the network over the 1Gb hub.
3. Moved the server into position.
4. Moved the Super-PVR into position and connected up all four feeds.
5. Fused the lighting circuit!
6. Fixed the lighting circuit.
7. Fitted a temporary PCI-Express card to the workstation.
8. Did all sorts of copying and formatting on various drives.
9. Watched a bit of TV.
10. Ate a hearty meal.

All in one evening.

And then, on the other hand...............

I've got four fingers and a thumb...........(Tommy Cooper gag.)

The LNB feeds are all in place now, and once I have the server positioned I shall move and connect the super-pvr. I have managed to activate and use the SharePoint server but, it would seem, only for the intranet. I am still unable to even ping the ip address from the uni.

You win some.................

The hole in the wall has gone very well, I have it all finished and looking very neat. Sadly, the white self amalgamating tape is useless so I want to use the black. Can't find the black. The server is working fine on the internal network and can see the internet very well. Unfortunately, the internet can't see it! As yet, this is no big deal but it will be necessary before too long.

Hazel and I visited Eileen on Friday and we sorted out a lot of questions about her family in order that I could procure the next set of certificates for the research. This morning, I ordered the next three. These should tell me more about her father, her fathers cousin and her g grandparents.

We had Samuel this weekend and he has really settled now. He drifts around the house playing and engaging in obscure conversations and always has a grin on his face at long last. He is happiest when he can use his imagination to it's fullest.

Sometimes, you just have to hit it with a hammer!

So I finished off tidying up the super pvr and then got down to the server.

First problem was that the drive I wanted to use had been formatted for 64 bit raid and the 32 bit server software refused to touch it.

OK, I'll use another drive. The install suggested that I should stick with the current system so I did. I got to the first re-boot and it totally lost the plot. So I went through the whole thing again and did a quick format. This time it worked perfectly.

Now where's that hammer?

Where there's a will,

There's usually a lawyer...........................

I have got the super duper PVR up and running now. I bought a new Gigabyte motherboard and a quad core Athlon 620 processor and I am running it at half power (two cards) until I pipe in the extra feeds from the octo lnb on the dish. Media Center seems more than happy with the set up and is chugging away with over 400 hours of recording time to play with.

The next job is to re-build the old test pc and convert it into the gateway server. It should work fine but I will be treading carefully to make sure I don't have to re-install later.

The Atom will be used for a while as a nearly dumb terminal for Hazel to work from home whilst she recovers from her knee operation in a couple of weeks time.

Oh, KOFF, KOFF, dear.

Struck low by a bug and reduced to a juddering wreck for a whole week. My age is showing big time now. There was a day when I could shake off a common cold and just carry on working. No longer, I have been confined to bed and / or chair for the whole week.
Before I collapsed in the corner, I managed to re-install the new motherboard and get everything up and running again. I now need to buy a third motherboard and run the quad core and 8Gb of ram on it and buy a new CPU and ram for the current new motherboard..................confused, you will be. (I stole that from Soap, a sitcom)
In addition to all that, I also have to buy one of the new mobile mini-itx cases and a 60Gb ssd for the camper (as and when the gears are fixed).

ooohs been a busy boy den?

Well, I have I suppose.

I made the new motherboard a happy soul by putting in the new graphics card and it all worked splendidly. Then I got cocky and re-installed the old motherboard and it wont even boot..........it shows every sign of being a short somewhere. The snow has been and, hopefully, gone leaving only the dog mess that it covered and we all trod in. Is it just me, or is there a lot more canine faecal matter around these days?

I dropped into Waterstones looking for a Dummies guide to Sharepoint and they didn't have one. So, on the way out I rummaged in the bargain bin and bought a very cheap Dummies guide to Ruby on Rails. Then I looked on Amazon and found a Dummies guide to Sharepoint for the same price so I was well pleased and bought it there and then.

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A Happy New Year (and custard)

Well, it's all been and gone again for another twelve months. The food was good this year and the presents were very nice too. As my idea of a good drink is orange juice, I was pretty happy in that department too. Paul and I visited janis on the Sunday after Christmas and got her running again. More on that on the other blog.

Samuel had some smashing gifts including a micro Scalextrix set from Paul and a Thomas carry around set from Hazel and I. On the second of January, we played the re-named 'Dodgy Santa' game and had a lot of fun for a couple of hours and that, pretty much, was our Christmas this year. Very quiet and most enjoyable.