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.