Early Risers.

[Purley Oaks]

I imagine that most private car hirers want something that best suits their budget and size - a very tall person won't want a VW Up! f'rinstance. I guess that we all want a car for our needs - I'd book a VW Golf, for example, or a Ford Focus, because there's room for 2/4 people with reasonable baggage space. Think the car hirers have way more large cars than they need and too few smaller ones - someone booking a large saloon will be pretty p*ssed with a VW Polo, so it's easier to grade-up than grade-down.

 

Changeable weather here, lots of rain some of it in rods but some warm sun in-between.

 

Have fun

 

Mal

[New Haven Neil]

Mad busy at work today, knackered.

 

Baz, the cold/cough etc took me over 3 weeks to beat - curries and Thai meals included.  I felt pretty grim a few days when we were away.   Just kicked the cough this week.

 

Not much else to report.

[Happy Hippo]

They're not expensive if you print them on your own printer. (I printed that 00 sample here in smokey Idaho.)  One kilogram of the plastic costs me less than $20.  You could print an awful lot of 0 gauge turnouts from one kilogram. The prints are not actually solid plastic - they have a solid shell around a much less dense fill - usually around 30% density. The downside of printing them yourself is it takes time, but once you get going you can let the printer chug along while you do something else.

 

I use Martin Wynne's fabulous (and free!) Templot for the turnout designs. I import the 2D design into TurboCAD and use it to plonk the various timbers and chair models into the final 3D model.

 

0 gauge is probably a better candidate for home printing than 00. It's a better match for the printer resolution. I made a few tweaks to my printer to improve the resolution that would be unnecessary for larger scales.

 

(I use TurboCAD because I had to learn it 20 years ago when the cheeky blighters at the US Patent Office rejected a patent application on the grounds that my hand drawings were carp.)

 

EDIT: BTW, a satisfactory 3D printer (kit) currently sells for around $250 in the US. You'll see ones that are much more expensive, but underneath they are all basically the same.

 

Thank you very much for that information as it just so happens I use TurboCAD as well.

 

When I have some time to spare I may very well be picking your brain for more info.

[newbryford]

My favourite rental car anecdote.

 

Family NB turned up at Charlotte NC airport expecting a midsize car.

We were third in line for one. A couple and a single business traveller. There weren't any immediately available, but some would be along shortly but if you want a truck, you can have one for the same price.

There were two parked up.

 

The couple took one and the single guy was thinking about it until he turned round and saw the look of disappointment on my and Junior NB's faces.......

He then said "I'll wait for a midsize" much to our gratitude.

 

It was only when loading our luggage that we discovered that three full cases, three flight bags and three passengers was a bit of a tight fit as we weren't leaving or luggage in the open loadspace.

 

This was a great vehicle to blend in in NC, SC and GA. All it needed was a gun rack.

 

 

Lots accomplished at work on the tracklaying front. The double triangular junction has been laid on the section above the boss' desk (he's away for a few days) and most of the elevated trackbed section is in place.

 

A few customer service jobs tomorrow am and hopefully finish the whole elevated section.

 

Have a good Tuesday folks.

 

Cheers,

Mick

Edited August 7, 2017 by newbryford

[RhBBob]

Lovely day on Sunday playing golf - sort of - with the younger version of me.

 

Great day today finishing decking frame for Darling Daughter.

 

Rain starts at midnight tonight ....and finishes at 2 pm on Wednesday.

 

Hmmm; hibernation looks like a distinct possibility......how about the garage/workshop/layout room ?  Yeeeeessssss !

[Gwiwer]

Evening All

 

Waited in as arranged for Mr Electrician.  Mr. Electrician did not show.  I rang the agent and reminded them that this was the fifth occasion on which I had waited in half (or all) of the day for someone they wished to come and do something but who has not shown up and has wasted my time.  No apology.  They re-booked him for tomorrow.  I wasn't going to be home anyway tomorrow but at 4.30 came the call direct from the electrical firm to say their man had gone sick and wasn't coming tomorrow either.  I offered my empathy at having a chap go sick.  they asked of they could come in late September.  I was very firm in my reply.  "I do not have my work roster that far ahead.  It's not your fault as your man went sick but I have now taken five days in the past three weeks off work waiting for people and only one has actually turned up.  I am not prepared to make any more appointments."  They saw my point.  We left it with the electrician noting their file (as they said) that they would have to deal with the agent if they were serious about actually turning up.  

 

It has become very wet.  I have received several texted alerts of forthcoming heavy rain.  According to the Met Office we are expecting between 40 and 85 cms on Wednesday alone.  I'll alert Noah.  I suspect - nay hope - they mean mm and someone has got something a bit wrong.

 

Never had too much trouble with hired cars as I book the mid-range (known as Band D) which is typically described as "Skoda Octavia or similar".  You always get the "or similar".  But not a thumping great SUV when you haven't booked one.  Nor a bubble car either.  Most often recently it's been a Hyundai i30, once a Dacia Duster.  The next booking starts on Friday.  Wonder what it will be this time round.  

 

Only one thing to do when the night is as deep and foul as it is.  Eyelids require several hours inspection.

 

Night all.

[Purley Oaks]

Oh yes, footy - season here underway for 3 days already!

[Barry O]

great day at Headingley..2 games umpired, 2 games watched, free food and drink...

 

But totally worn out..so 

 

Sleep well!

 

Baz

[laurenceb]

Night awl

[PhilJ W]

Goodnight all.

[The Stationmaster]

G'night all

[BSW01]

Great swim this evening, it turned out to be warm enough to not bother with my wet-suit, I managed a mile in just over 48 minutes.

 

When ever we have been in the US, I've always pre-booked a compact car and we've never got one yet! Instead we've had an up-grade when turning up to pick up the hire car, the best one was a Ford Mustang convertible, we drove everywhere with the top down!

 

Goodnight all.

Edited August 7, 2017 by BSW01

[andyram]

Evening all. The third week of the school summer break began today - the holiday seems to be sliding by rather too quickly. I was awoken early this morning to deal with various members of our growing feline clan. The new cat seems to be settling in well, but her presence has thrown one or two out of their usual niche so we still need to find the best way to settle them down at night. No luck in finding the owner - three different families have now come forward via social media, but this cat does not belong to any of them. 

 With Sarah out at another Avon promotion, I had Amber to amuse for the morning. We went off to the a model shop near Burton to purchase a few more bits and pieces for the new project. This evening I made some more progress after Amber had gone to bed. More can be viewed on the project's layout topic page. 

 Sarah's Avon seems to be dominating the week. This afternoon we were out posting more books and tomorrow we are at the church coffee morning to collect various orders. She has now told me that she has another job centre event scheduled for Thursday. This did not go down well as I had planned to visit Llangollen on Thursday whilst MiL was visiting. However I will now have Amber to amuse for the morning so alternative plans will need to be made. 

 My best wishes to you all. I do hope things are ok for Debs and John.

 

Night all.

[Tony_S]

I had a good day today. I can't say I felt well this morning but after lunch I really felt better than I have for ages. We went down to the park and I walked about with Robbie while Aditi went and collected prescriptions from the chemist.

Tony

[NGT6 1315]

Mawnin‘ awl. Yes, I believe it is!

 

Having just brought in my tram...

 

 

...from seemingly deserted nocturnal streets, I shall now grab a snack and commence eyelid inspection subsequently.

 

Later.

[BR60103]

We're off in the motorhome for the week. I have to do my computing on the iPatch and I am missing some of my passwords.

We had nice neighbours yesterday who played the same classical music station that we were listening to. They shifted to a different site today.

Today was our equivalent of bank holiday -- called Civic Holiday sometimes, but with a different name in each municipality. Here it's James Cobourg day, at home John Galt day, lots of places Simcoe day. (Help yourself to Google.)

[grandadbob]

Good morning all,

Dry outside at the moment but rain is forecast. Lots of it. With thunder. Hooray - no gardening for me!

Cricket duly watched and enjoyed yesterday followed by athletics in the evening. More of the latter later. 

I have put on some weight. Not really surprised because of all this sitting around watching sport. I must get off my backside and do something. Not gardening though.

The Boss was deposited at work earlier grumbling about how many more early starts she's got until she retires at the end of the year. I have a feeling that she may bring the date forward. Great. I mean that because it means I won't have to get up at 4.00am to take her.

No kids or their offspring visiting this week as they jetted off to sunny Spain yesterday. It will be quiet around here.

Have a good one,

Bob.

[Robert]

Morning All,

 

The roads were surprisingly quiet on the way to work this morning.  However, it is the last week of the Summer Holidays, so perhaps quite a few are having a last minute holiday!

 

It is quite a reasonable morning weather wise.  Broken cloud, and reasonably warm.

 

Time for a coffee!

 

Have a good day everyone...

[emt_911]

Morning all. A wet start to the day.

 

Yesterday went well on all fronts and I even managed to get back to the office early.

 

An afternoon management meeting which spilled into the evening and we moved from the office for a meal and a couple of drinks and finished rather late which meant that I didn't check in last night. I will catch up on yesterdays posts when I finish today.

 

Time for another coffee.

 

Have a good day everyone.

[jamie92208]

Morning all from a slightly damp village that may well remain south of the Jewish cemeteries for the foreseeable future. A good evening was had at the club and more books got sold. The boss is off out this morning to various things then this afternoon is going to be tidying. We are trying to get the house ready for sale and between us we have cleared our wardrobes of unwanted items. There are some 10 sacks of shoes and clothes at the top of the stairs. I suspect that I will be taking them to various recycling sites and charity shops. Not a lot else is happening at the moment as the cats have been fed.

 

A good result in the cricket yesterday. I'm looking forward to the Ashes this winter.

 

Regards to all.

 

Jamie

[TheQ]

Morning Awl, Inner Temple Here,

A good nights sleep was had and without waking to back pain...

The forecast on the way in said we will continue to have scattered showers, well that's what we certainly had, dry roads, then deep puddles, Dry roads, then deep puddles all the way in, accompanied by mist of varying densities.

 

This mornings cockwomble award goes to a BMW who over took me on a corner to find a lorry approaching. then further on he attempted to overtake a lorry passing a cyclist. when the lorry moved back in, there was a line of vehicles coming the other way..

 

Yesterdays work on a major system went well, which I should think so as it's less than a years old. today, Finish the ACV run left going overnight, followed by a couple of left over resistance measurements, followed by ACI.

 

My list of car hire tales

 

Car hire bookings, many years ago I was due to work at RAF Leuchars for a week, on the final installation of some equipment, I was gratified to find we had run out of company cars and they issued me with a top of the range Omega estate, it even had a mobile phone bolted between the seats.( remember them? with a full size hand set like on a home phone). So I loaded up in Milton Keynes and set off... On the Thursday My boss flew up to Edinburgh for the hand over of the equipment and got issued with....a bottom of the range Rover 200. He spent Thursday afternoon and Friday Morning trying to get the Omega off of me.. He didn't succeed...

 

On another occasion coming back from Leuchars, we arrived at the car hire place to find the idiot of the team (on an earlier flight) had taken the big estate car, and left the four of us with big tool kits and a weeks luggage, with a small hatchback...

 

I arrived at Heathrow, from Saudi, which normally arrives around 06:30. Picked up the hire car (a Renault) and headed out onto the motorway, to find out that the speedo was only marked in Kilometres per hour. My brain struggled to remember how many Ks per MPH, after an overnight flight which followed a day shift.. and you know how many speed cameras there are on the M25...

 

Time to...Opps  I should be working...

 

I arrived at work to pick up the car and found there was a set of golf clubs in the boot, so they came with me for a week, much to some managers annoyance, he thought he would come in, in the morning a clear the car... I often left a silly o'clock  as I had secure equipment to collect and deposit. Having to be at say Leuchars by 15:00

 

On a similar theme one of my compatriots, opened the boot to find it full of rubble, another manager who had found the city dump had closed, and hoped for a quick run out in the morning..

 

We often had Hire cars for several weeks, passing from person. the cars were supposed to be parked up from Friday night to Monday morning in the company car park, managers thought otherwise for themselves...They also often didn't refuel the cars as they were supposed to do at then end of a job, which meant lots of paperwork transferring costs...

Edited August 8, 2017 by TheQ

[roundhouse]

Good morning from ancovercast but dry Surrey.

 

A trip to mums last night to read through the building surveyors report. A tasks written down for her to follow up with the solicitor such as getting a CCTV report of the drains, and obtain electrical test certification and gas safe certfcate. She wants to move the boiler from the loft to the ground floor of the bungalow so she ,might aswell get a new boiler installed. Generally the bungalow appears to be structurally sound which was the main thing. Now she needs to decide if she will move in straight away or have a fair amount of the work carried out beforehand.

 

Started moving our late friends railway photos from Mums to our house. The slide magazines have been stored there since his relatives cleared his house. These we're going to be skipped and I couldn't see that happen. Will take so,e t to me to get them scanned as even with a slide scanner that can do 100 at a time loading and then unloading the cassette that takes the time.

 

Off to work we go on day 2 this week.

[Barry O]

Morning from a very overcast North West Leeds highlands. It is due to chuckitdarn for most of today so I await the phone call to say my cricket today is off.

 

Hire cars... Had lots of them..quickest one a Rover 800 Vitesse...worst one a Fiat Uno.

 

My company car sometimes became a Citroen long wheelbase box van for model railway show purposes (As it was bought on my contract I made sure it didn't have a company logo on the bodywork.)

 

Now for some tea and wait for the phone call...

 

Have a great day and more positive thoughts to anyone suffering from any ailments.

 

Baz

[BlackRat]

Once had a plod boss who was noted for his rudeness and arrogance.

 

On a shift hand over he came into the office, threw the keys to the car he had been using across the table and demanded we "Fill it up".

 

So we did.

 

With about 5 bin bags of shredded paper.

 

Well he didn't specify what to fill it up with, so we used our initiative.

 

He complained to the Super, who made him apologise to us, and made him drive th oldest car at the station for a week!

[45156]

Morning All

 

Managed to get up to speed and all contributions have been read and rated.  And as I have a stint at the charity bookshop this morning, this will be a quick BTW, it is the Oxfam bookshop in Lancaster if any local ERs want to browse the railway books, or indeed, to drop off any surplus books for me to price and sell on. Apparently  I am now officially a transport book "expert" according to the store manager, and will appraise any books on that subject which come our way.  It does seem to be a very friendly place to volunteer, and has a number of specialists with their own areas of expertise.  I was looking at some medical books which had come in as a donation, and was very flummoxed, and one of the other ladies started to look at them, and in short time said that none were much good.  So I asked her how she reached that opinion, and she answered that she was a retired doctor, and on further discussion, it turned out that she was actually a retired consultant anaesthetist and a specialist on palliative care.  Now that, to me, is a real "expert".  Still waters certainly do run deep.

 

Not at all a good night for us, as the dog has a harvest mite infestation, and is on steroids, an insecticide spray, and has to be bathed in a special shampoo - bit still gets very itchy, and decided to wake up and start scratching about half past one this morning.  Once we got her settled (wees, then a session with the fan switched on which cools her irritated skin down)  we were both too awake to get back down to zzzing. 

 

Back later

Regards to All

Stewart