Early Risers.

[Robert]

Morning All,

 

It is a rather damp morning in this part of the world.  Everywhere is looking rather sodden, given that it has rained for nearly three days continuously.  However, according to the forecast it is due to get colder tomorrow, with a possibility of snow in the more low lying regions.

 

Oh well - time for a coffee!

 

Have a good day everyone...

[chrisf]

Good morning one and all

 

Yesterday was not a good day IT-wise.  Quite apart from the period of forum outage, my broadband supply was distinctly flaky for much of the pm hours and erratic with it.  This causes expressions of frustration which are not for repetition in polite company and, at one stage, desperation to get some e-mails and a PM out before it all fell over again.

 

Apart from all that, I found myself wondering if some of my worldly wealth is in quite the right place. The well-known insurance company concerned kindly wrote to advise me of changes to the management of the portfolio.  My name, address and account number were quoted correctly but imagine my surprise to find a married couple with my surname mentioned in the subject heading and salutation.  There are not many of those and I have reason to believe that they are my uncle and aunt!  A swift e-mail to the head of customer services was followed by a phone call.  Some hours later an e-mail got through to me.  It was from a very apologetic gentleman at the insurance company apologising for having messed up the mailmerge process and assuring me that he has now been taught how not to do it again.  It evoked memories of my now distant working life.  What a pleasant change to receive an honest apology!  My uncle was an accountant 40 years ago and has clearly not lost his acumen.  In a way I am reassured that if this outfit is good enough for him it is good enough for me.

 

Today I will entrust most of my seasonal greetings cards to the postal service, leaving but a handful to be delivered personally.  Tonight is the HMRS area group meeting, where we shall discuss progress or lack of it on the camel [a group layout project in case you have forgotten].  Before that I may need my hearing tested as I'm sure there was something on the news about re-opening railways closed under Beeching.  Update: there was!  I've just heard it again!

 

Andyram, better an incompetent boss than a bully.  I have had both in my time.  More of that anon, maybe.  For now, the usual warm thoughts and best wishes to all in distress and recovery.

 

Chris

[emt_911]

Morning all. A chilly start to the morning but no frost.

 

Hopefully today will be spent in the office with no problems to deal with.

 

Time for another coffee.

 

Have a good day everyone

[TheQ]

Mooring awl Inner Temple Here,

About 5 hours solid sleep followed By about 1 hour doziing on the sofa,

 

Going home last night was "interesting"

First a cockwomble had parked their car in the middle of the top of the T at a T junction, the top of the T being the through road, and it being very close to two schools at kick out time.....

A few hundred yards on and a water main has burst at a of set cross roads. This morning they  have replaced the normal traffic lights with road works lights.. Just how badly do have they have to be set up, to cause long traffic queues at 06:15 in the morning where I never normally see a car?....

A few miles later heavy breaking was required when a woman pulled out of a garage with out looking. Heavy breaking in 1.5 tons of Landrover 33years old, can be interesting..

A few more miles later and an extra long wheel base high top transit Mini Bus pulled out on me, just what is it with people, do they think all landrovers are driven along the roads by farmer Giles at 25 miles and hour?

This morning at nearly  the same spot  as the transit, a very soggy cold motorbike rider kneeling in the grass verge attending to the back wheel of his bike, Now why do I use 4 wheels at this time of year?

 

Work today ... a repeat of yesterday but on a different syste. plus all those resistors again...plus the last line of my Assessments must be written and it forwarded to my boss..

[AndyB]

Morning all,

 

Not much to report since my post last night.

Wishing you all a pleasant day. 

 

Oh, and for the record, Blue is the colour. Corporate blue.

[TheQ]

Yesterday they were deciding where to put a monitor on the wall in the outer lab.

They selected a pillar,

I pointed out that it is reinforced concrete and they'll probably hit some steel,

This morning I'm glad there is a wall between me and them as I hear the drill protesting as to what they want to do...

[grandadbob]

Good morning all,

Dry and frosty here and a cold windy day with some sunshine is expected. There may be showers as well.

The Boss brought tea up to me in bed earlier. It would appear that once again "we need to get a move on." This is Chrisspeak for "Move your lazy ar$e, the whole house needs to be  completely made over in time for your birthday bash on Friday."        I do know that there is an oven that craves my attention.   I will try to give it the love it deserves later. 

There is the possibility of parcels arriving today that may divert me from the above task.

Have a good one,

Bob.

[Barry O]

Hey up

A bit of blue sky up here in the North West Leeds Highlands this morning.

 

What is it about backpacks and mobility scooters....seems like they are the biggest problems we face in life today....if Only!

 

A lot more tidying up to do today then off to see and hear Phil Collins (who did have a model railway layout in Switzerland),

 

Enjoy your day!

 

Baz

 

Ivan, even if you find a switch do you think it will work? Perhaps a visit to the wiring loom with a multimeter may be in order? Good luck!

Edited November 29, 2017 by Barry O

[roundhouse]

Baz

 

Been reading about Warley and rucksacks thread. I find some drivers of wheely bags to be a bigger issue. I suppose we all have our pet hates.

 

Our hump day has already passed as Friday we drive north. Been thinning out the bags that we take to shows. Now need to thin out the electrical devices so as reduce the number of items to be tested when we set up on Friday in Manchester.

 

Drinking establishments near our accommodation in Altrincham found.

Edited November 29, 2017 by roundhouse

[AndrewC]

Morning all from the boring borough. 

 

Work is still carp. No proper projects just fire fighting other people's feckups. Job interview yesterday morning went well so we shall see. Notwork Fail managed to live up to their name and it took me 2 hours to get home thanks to problems in the Sidcup area. Once again Southeastern's circle routes mean one disruption causes chaos on all their metro lines. TfL added to the misery by having 2 busses in a row go out of service prior to my destination. 

 

Getting a tad miffed at Rapido. Still waiting for my FA-2 that was paid for 2 months ago and was supposed to have shipped in early October. Chased them and had an email on Nov 2 that said I should get it in a week. Still nothing, and no reply to my latest email. One more chance and I will recover my payment through PayPal and my outstanding orders will be cancelled. 

 

Today I shall mostly be filling in for a junior administrator. Yawn. Additional coffee on standby. 

 

Enjoy your day. 

[TheQ]

On the Local radio this morning,

The Weather for today and tomorrow... Rain, Hail, Snow, Sleet, Sun, Thunder, High Winds, not necessarily in that order...

 

I too heard they are reviewing the lines closed by Beeching, however the line I'm modelling was sabotaged by BR before Beeching (usual thing, change all the connections / train times so no one could use it and then say there are no passengers).

[Tony_S]

Morning all.

Very quiet here. I didn't put the bins out, Aditi did it as she was awake. Our rubbish used to be collected at about the same time as children were delivered to the nearby school causing some interesting vehicular movements. Someone sensibly rescheduled the refuse collection for later in the morning.

I believe a day of pottering about is forecast.

Have a good day.

Tony

Edited November 29, 2017 by Tony_S

[jamie92208]

Morning all from a slightly cool but bright village.   The boss departed early for Weightwatchers so I have the house to myself.   I got the dining room tidied last night but mutterings were heard about "Why can't people ​do this or that" as I'm the only other person in the house I presume that the words were directed at me.  As a result I have set myself a few domestic tasks for the day along with a trip into Morley for some minor tasks.    Tonight I'm out at the Huddersfield railway Circle Christmas meal where I have to reply to the toast.   I just hope it's not burnt.

 

Regards to all.

 

Jamie 

Edited November 29, 2017 by jamie92208

[Simon G]

Bright and cool here as well today, but with little or no wind, which is welcome. A walk on the beach beckons later today at low tide, so before then, some more layout wiring. With a little luck, the wiring will soon be complete and I can construct the control panel to link it all together.

 

Tonight I will hopefully be catching up with some old work colleagues I haven’t seen since I retired 2 and a half years ago.

[bbishop]

Evening all. A quick check in to offer my good wishes and thank those people for their kind words recently. The boss popped in to ask me if I was ok. For the record I do not think this one is a bully - just incompetent!

 

Noted Chris's response.  I took my second redundancy because my boss could not manage a paper bag - but that was my decision because I could afford to leave financially.  But I could have gritted my teeth.

 

The first redundancy was due to a boss who was so weak that he couldn't stand up for his staff.  So his team was stripped and the incompetents moved in from other teams.  That's the one to watch out for; I thought "oh-hoh" the first time I met him.

 

Bill

[TheQ]

You lot are worrying me, My own boss, retires 6 months after me so thats not a problem, but his boss retires early next year...

[PhilJ W]

Morning all from Estuary-Land. A mite cold this morning but tomorrow is predicted to be even colder, we might even get some sleet or snow. Last night I found a pool of water in the fridge part of my fridge freezer, fortunately it turned out to be a blocked drain hole so panic over. Not a lot else to report so bye for now, be back later.

[81C]

Good morning all,

Dry and frosty here and a cold windy day with some sunshine is expected. There may be showers as well.

The Boss brought tea up to me in bed earlier. It would appear that once again "we need to get a move on." This is Chrisspeak for "Move your lazy ar$e, the whole house needs to be  completely made over in time for your birthday bash on Friday."        I do know that there is an oven that craves my attention.   I will try to give it the love it deserves later. 

There is the possibility of parcels arriving today that may divert me from the above task.

Have a good one,

Bob.

Sod that just get Over-clean round to do it   then buqqer off down the pub.   

SWMBO   announced that the entire downstairs will be cleaned today its open planned so the whole lot has to be done so she says, I will endeavour

to remove the old storage heater if it has cooled down sufficiently, all I got was "don't make a mess".

 

I see there are some ER's that are seriously lacking in knowledge of G.W.R. locomotives. Pah !

[Happy Hippo]

I've just been looking at the Warley thread.

 

Does anyone here think 'Back Packs Vs Mobility Scooters' has the makings of a Hollywood Blockbuster?

[TheQ]

I don't know about hollywood but I've been there many times for Crufts and various other dog shows in the past when we lived nearer. We never had these sorts of problems. In fact the only problem was when the ladies, took over the gents toilets, as the queues for the ladies toilets were huge!!! (The dogs have their own toilets hidden at the back of the halls). Crufts is big enough to use several halls.

[The Stationmaster]

Morning all,

 

I was rucksacked twice at the Warley show although neither attack was serious and I only retaliated with a gentle shove to the offending object - one of which was strapped to the person of a henwomble (a first for me at a show).   If I were to note the number of instances of folk parked along the T of road junctions here I could fill a page on here everyday as I can't even get out of our road without encountering some of them the halfwits concerned seemed to be totally unable to understand either the Highway Code or ordinary commonsense but that is simply part of the local parking scene I'm afraid where many people seem to think the idea of those pretty double yellow lines is to indicate where it is permissible to park, idiots.

 

The layers of next door's patio are now well into week 7 and the patio is actually appearing but she tells me they're likely to be here for a couple more weeks.  I do wonder if they saw here coming as a lot of what it appeared they were doing was simply going over what they'd already done; glad I'm not paying for 15 man days per week!

 

Herself is off to be chiropracted and I'm left without orders so the internet will be my friend for a while I think.  Enjoy your day one and all.

[grandadbob]

Pah! Part way through oven cleaning and someone has just said "I'd have paid a firm to do that to save you the job."

 

Thank you dear. For nothing! 

[Gwiwer]

Morning all. We apologise for the delay caused by server failure and regret any inconvenience caused. If your post has been delayed by more than 30 minutes you may be entitled to compensation under our Delay Repay scheme.

[AndrewC]

Seems that RMweb's hosting has been taken over by Southeastern. 

[The Lurker]

 

Last night I decided to test the errant PSU and to my surprise, it sprung back to life!   Reconnecting it to the PC it came from and the lot booted as normal. This negates the necessity for a trip to the PC-emporium 4 towns along, thus saving considerable amounts of modelling survival tokens 

 

XMas: over here we have an additional feast on the 5th of the last month. This is the original/real "Santa Claus". The Santa marketed by the Americans is a weak imposter, devised sometime in the 17th century by New England colonists who came across the Dutch practice when taking over the Dutch American colonies. By then the "Dutch" Santa, which was devised in the Middle Ages here in the Low Countries, was already an established festival, based on a late-Roman bishop in modern-day Turkey. This chap, Saint Nicolas, was known for his compassion, which made him a saint in the first place. At the time this feast was derived, Turkey had already been 'islam-ified' so the setting was changed to Catholic Spain (freshly conquered from the Moors and the King 'owned' the Low Countries). It was this feast Dutch settlers brought to the new Dutch colonies in America, where it was picked up by the English who, while sympathetic to the idea, couldn't accept the Catholic origins (remember why the Mayflower sailed in the first place!) and changed the date to Xmas instead. So there you have it, the origins of Xmas marketing is actually Dutch   It also means that when Xmas really got 'marketed' in recent years, it clashed with the Dutch feast and some sort of truce was reached: only when the Saint left, was Santa allowed in. It mostly still holds. As a result, most Dutch (and presumably Belgians too) don't put up Xmas decorations until the 6th, with exceptions of course. Me, I don't even have Xmas decorations   Besides, where would I put the tree in this already full house?

 

Weather: wet. From what I understand this has led to a heavy morning rush-hour, with lots of traffic jams in places not normally having these at that time of day. Being unemployed, I didn't need to find out for myself

when did the Svart Piet bit come in?