Early Risers.

[Barry O]

Evening to most.. forgot to post the picture below yesterday for Anzac Day

 

One of the giant sized figures who, in their own words explained Gallipoli

 

 

This is the last of 8 figures. Having survived Gallipoli he went on to fight in France..and survived. The poppies around his feet and legs have hand written notes from the many visitors. A poignant exhibition and the stories brought it all to life.. 8 People - 8 different stories and outcomes

 

Baz

[Barry O]

Mugadecaff and.. time for some sleep.

 

Sleep well!

 

baz

[Gwiwer]

Evening all.

 

Avoid journey planners.  Far better to use common sense than expect electronic logic to offer the best solution.
Avoid spill chuckers and predictive text.  English is as English does.  Sulphur and similar words are spelled with a ph because everyone knows there is a ph for everything in chemistry

Avoid Thai restaurants the week after they suffer an immigration raid.  Definitely the B-team in the kitchen tonight and only one waitress on duty when there are normally three.

 

And avoid operator-specific train tickets unless you know what you're getting into.  Customer today arrived from Gatwick Airport brandishing a ticket to Newbury.  Asks where the Reading trains leave from.  Shows me the ticket.  The ticket is marked clearly "Valid only on Southern trains and necessary connections" and under Route it clearly says "via Southampton".  The poor chap had the option of back-tracking via Gatwick on the Southern service to Southampton via Chichester, then heading up to Reading and on to Newbury or paying for the entire Gatwick - Clapham - Reading - Newbury journey which would probably take him one third of the time at three times what he paid for his original ticket.  Ah the joys .....

 

I'll sleep on that.  Tomorrow is another day.  Here's to you all.

[pH]

Aluminum - first named as such by the famous British chemist Sir Humphry Davy.

[Simon G]

Evening all,

Today has been a good day for me. Firstly, after two good nights sleep, I am no longer shattered all day. Then I got a call from my consultant about my CT scans results from last week. Last Thursday, I was told that the scan showed that the chemo is shrinking the lymphoma as was hoped, but that it also showed a “lesion in one of my bronchus”. The consultant has discussed this with someone who is better qualified for these things, and the consensus is that the lesion might just have been some mucous. At any rate, they are not concerned, and will use my next CT scan to check it, when I have finished the chemo in June. I am happy with that, and Mrs G also seems much more relieved.

[bbishop]

Evening all.

 

Avoid journey planners.  Far better to use common sense than expect electronic logic to offer the best solution.

Avoid spill chuckers and predictive text.  English is as English does.  Sulphur and similar words are spelled with a ph because everyone knows there is a ph for everything in chemistry

 

 

Er Rick, how does work out journeys nowadays without technology?  The staff at Grove Park have a vague knowledge of the London to Sevenoaks services but couldn't find anywhere more complex.  I reckon if I asked for Ewell East, I would be sent to Yeovil.  The guy at Lee is far better.  Actually, I have found a decent planner - it's called Deutsche Bahn.  I kid you not.

 

There's no "ph" in chemistry, but there is one in physics.

 

Bill

[Gwiwer]

The DB planner is good.  Possibly because they now operate a fair chunk of British trains.  Alternatively you can ask me ......... 

[laurenceb]

Good news Simon

Hope Debs starts to feel human soon, there have been some dodgy posts latey!

Night awl

[Smiffy2]

Aluminum - first named as such by the famous British chemist Sir Humfry Davy.

 

FTFY

[The Stationmaster]

The DB journey planner has long been very good but be warned - it cannot cope with NR's failure to adhere to UIC timetable information release horizons which means it often misses out NR engineering work driven timetable alterations.  But NR is hardly any better in recent times so they have made a bad job worse.  

 

If the National Rail Journey Planner does not work on your PC or Mac simply go into it via Google, delete your old bookmark or favourite and then create a new one off the working link - don't ask me why this happens but it occasionally does for some reason known only to those who reprogram the site or fiddle about with it.

 

If you want to do it the old fashioned way then either collect timetable booklets or go to the section of the National Rail site which gives the links to the train operators where you can download timetables for printing.  Real Time Trains is also a useful site for platforming information although it only reflects what's planned and not changes 'on the day'.

[BSW01]

Evening everyone

 

Many thanks for all the positive ticks with regards to the radiator covers. Funnily enough, I wasn’t very good at woodwork at school, in fact I hated it, much preferring metalwork instead. But that could be down to the fact that we didn’t make anything that I thought was useful, so I didn’t put in the effort. When Sheila came home she had a look at the radiator covers and was absolutely delighted with them. The cellar is now looking a lot clearer now since the two radiator covers have gone and I’ve put away all the tools etc that were required in their construction.

 

After dinner I spent a bit more time in the cellar and then went to the workshop, putting back the tools that I’d been using in the construction of the radiator covers. Whilst there, I had a bit of a stock take during which I found a few things that I’d forgotten I got/ or where I’d put!

 

I’m not sure if we have a second pair of robins nest building in the garden, or wether they have decamped and started afresh, but there is definitely a second nest location, this time a little further down the garden, but very close to the apple tree. However, we did see a cat very close the the site of the first nest and we haven’t seen them there for the last few days, so that may have something to do with it.

 

Simon. That lesion/mucus result must be a bit of a relief.

 

Fingers crossed that Deb’s starts to feel better soon.

 

Goodnight all.

[PhilJ W]

Goodnight all.

[The Stationmaster]

G'night all

[newbryford]

Much testing of a large object mostly consisting of wood, metal and plastic has been carried out tonight. All mostly good with a couple of minor things found and sorted out

Golf was played earlier with an awful start to the round, but finished off with a flourish.

 

No chance of a POETS as I'm already off Friday, but working Sat/Sun.

 

Back to the S word.

One of my previous employments was as a control system engineer (small "e") at a chemical producer, responsible for two sites. One of them burned sulphur in the boilers to create steam and Sulphur Dioxide.

The SO2 was then ducted around the works to make various other products such as Sodium Bisulphite and Sodium Metabisulphite (found in the likes of Lucozade!)

The final section of the SO2 ducting had an electrostatic scrubber that removed the last vestiges (or as far as practically possible) of the gas before it was expelled to atmosphere via a rather large chimney. It pretty much consisted of large lead electrodes hanging in the ducting running at about 10kV

The last item in the ducting was a fan driven by a 40kW motor. 

The speed of the fan was manually logged every half hour or so  It used to have a standard analogue meter and the records showed that it maintained a steady 1400 or 1410 RPM and everyone was happy.

And then someone (not me) decided to fit a digital display in it's place.. All of a sudden, the fan was now 1401/1409/1407/1400/1410/1403/1412 etc and complaints were received from the operators about the fan speed now becoming inconsistent.

The solution - cover up the last digit with a "0" sticker and the operators were now happy that the speed issue had been fixed...............

 

The sulphur arrived in two forms - liquid in road tankers as a by product of oil refining at Ellesmere Port - this was stored in a very large tank containing about 200 tonnes of the stuff - I had to install a microwave level probe on the tank to measure the contents. Not a good atmosphere above liquid sulphur.

The other delivery was solid sulphur that arrived in 40Te tipper trucks - usually unloaded from a ship at Glasson Docks near Lancaster. This was stored in a large semi-open building containing about 1000 Te and then dumped into the melting pit by a JCB...... The melting pit was heated by the steam from the previously mentioned boiler.

 

One thing about working in and around the melting pit - it certainly cleared up any colds/coughs and sinus problems.....

 

Have a good Friday if you can folks.

 

Cheers,

Mick

[BR60103]

Bit of fussing around today getting ready for GBTS this weekend. I can get in to set up at 3. Then 2 days as the Craftsman. SWMBO will go in on Saturday with me and fardle around until closing time.

[pH]

.

And then someone (not me) decided to fit a digital display in it's place.. All of a sudden, the fan was now 1401/1409/1407/1400/1410/1403/1412 etc and complaints were received from the operators about the fan speed now becoming inconsistent.

The solution - cover up the last digit with a "0" sticker and the operators were now happy.

An organisation I worked in got a new CEO who embarked on an 'efficiency' drive. On a visit to the mainframe computer room, and seeing the various indicator lights flickering, he opined that this indicated inefficiency. He said that he wanted the computer to make better use of the CPU and various peripherals, so causing these lights to stay lit for a higher percentage of the time.

 

So the operators got one of the systems programmers to write them a program which they could load and run any time the CEO was seen near the computer room. All it did was lock the indicator lights on solidly. The CEO was happy - and so were the operators.

[AndyID]

An organisation I worked in got a new CEO who embarked on an 'efficiency' drive. On a visit to the mainframe computer room, and seeing the various indicator lights flickering, he opined that this indicated inefficiency. He said that he wanted the computer to make better use of the CPU and various peripherals, so causing these lights to stay lit for a higher percentage of the time.

 

So the operators got one of the systems programmers to write them a program which they could load and run any time the CEO was seen near the computer room. All it did was lock the indicator lights on solidly. The CEO was happy - and so were the operators.

 

According to my (not necessarily reliable) sources, at a certain computer manufacturer adjacent to the M8 East of Glasgow, when the mainframe crashed the operators arranged for the front panel register lights to display FU**. Not only that but the front panel was clearly visible from the visitor area.

[Robert]

Morning All,
 
We have a nice bright, sunny morning in this part of the world.  TGIF - Plus, a long weekend into the bargain.
 

On a visit to the mainframe computer room, and seeing the various indicator lights flickering, he opined that this indicated inefficiency.

 
Facepalm!
 

According to my (not necessarily reliable) sources, at a certain computer manufacturer adjacent to the M8 East of Glasgow, when the mainframe crashed the operators arranged for the front panel register lights to display FU**. Not only that but the front panel was clearly visible from the visitor area.

I am not sure of the veracity of the story, but you don't often hear "mainframe" and "crash" in the same sentence.  I only ever saw it once when our Vax cluster crashed, but that was a PEBKAC^* problem - The sysops had disabled the user process limit for testing and one of my colleagues managed to make a code mistake which spawned two subprocesses, and then the spawned subprocesses spawned two new ones.  The system fairly quickly ground to a complete stop and VMS needed a restart.

 

Have a good day everyone...

 

*PEBKAC - Problem exists between keyboard and chair

[Barry O]

My first boss told me that it was always a good idea to have items moving and lights flashing flashing any time you showed visitors "n0ew" ideas and equipment. Used tot work like a charm!

 

Anyroadsup good morning/evening/Night to al Ers.

I hope that you have a good 24 hours on Planet Earth with especial thoughts to Debs, Tony & Aditi, AndyRam, Mal and to Simon...keep up the positive results!

Off for a mugatea then Moreasons shopping time.

Baz

[BlackRat]

Morning campers.....damp and miserable here, the weathers not so good either.

 

Early departure in a mo, appt. with Neuro Surgeon at 0815 and have to negotiate Plimuffffs ridiculous road systems.

 

Rather pleased to be able to tell him I've lost a stone and a half since my last visit a few months ago, mainly due to an overactive pie gland and not being able to do fizz.....a first for me!

 

Best wishes to all.

[Happy Hippo]

The 'P' is silent, as in "bath".

My P is silent when I'm in the bath, it's only when I stand up...........

[TheQ]

Mooring Awl , Inner Temple here.

A good if short night sleep,

Heavy dew this morning although the roads were dry even under the trees.

 

One cockwoble in his Discovery had modified his number plate. it should have read J 10  XXX with the placing of the black screw plug it read H0 XXX with the H having a bent leg..

 

 Bacton gas works which is actually 4 gas workses?  three incommers and one outgoer into the grid.  The site I was on had  a 174ft tower as the final outlet for the H2S plant, and we also had a sulPHer tank to which a tanker would turn up and get loaded every so often, to where the tanker went I know Not.

 Many years ago 1981?  a friend reprogrammed the computer that sent boxes squares and other  minor information to highlight aircraft of interest on the consoles at RAF West Drayton, the new Programming said Merry Christmas..The problem was he didn't get it to end properly and it was still sending Merry Christmas  some hours later.....

 

Back in the "Good old Days" of BR I went and bought my ticket early for my trip Home for a holiday during training, and they information office at Weston super mare said the route to Edinburgh was about 12 hours and had numerous changes.

 Getting back to the barrack block, I dug out my timetable and found one change at Bristol and a journy time of around 7.5 hours....

Why did I go get my ticket early?  thousands of other trainees all turning up at the station at the same time on the day..

 

Time I went and did some work...

Edited April 27, 2018 by TheQ

[AndyB]

Morning all,

My trip to the principality west of here didn't get of to a great start. 

 

The rental car organised by my company didn't get dropped off. 

I know this as the spaces on my drive that I left for it were empty. 

So, it was somewhat bemusing to learn that the rental company (begins with a E and ends with car) insisted that they'd left it on the drive the afternoon before.

My office duly mentioned this to me and I was able to show them photos of how my drive was quite clearly denuded of cars. And no, it wasn't on any neighbour's drive. And no, there were no keys or paperwork  pushed through my letterbox.

 

So, it takes a special kind of stupid for said rental car company to carry on insisting that they had dropped the car off n my drive. In the face of the very obvious photographic evidence to the contrary. 

You could feel their supplier rating slipping with each email I was copied in on. 

 

Eventually my company got bored and said that to help them out locate their car they'd get the police involved. 

Not surprisingly they folded like a deckchair and offered not to charge my credit card on this occassion. Wow.

 

Now, I'm no expert, but if I'd not managed to deliver something to a customer I'd put my hands up, apologise in the reasonable expectation that an apology goes a long way. 

 

The only reason we use hire cars instead of paying petrol is based on cost - and when it takes hours of chargeable time to book and dispose of a car you've got to ask yourself....WHY DO WE DO THIS AT ALL?!!!! 

[TheQ]

 Little top up to my previous post, one with relevanace to previous postings.

Two company emails, one said from Monday, the default language on our computers will be Worldwide English (therefore not American English).

 

The second says we have a MANDATORY, meeting early on Monday. Now the problem I have is that although I am employed by one section, I work for two other sections each is technically a different company. The room they have chosen is not big enough for the entire factory, so it doesn't apply to everyone. SO the chances are I have a manatory meeting to attend that has nothing to do with me...

 

I think rental car companies are one of the most incompetent companies going. Over the years I had many problems, more to do with the collection of cars. On one occasion they arrived with the new car for the next trip out, and left.. I still had the car from the previous trip, two weeks before, on the drive.

I've also had the problem that I returned a car to Heathrow, then received phone call IN Saudi why hadn't I returned the car? luckily I had all the documentation...

[jamie92208]

Good morning to all and the AWL from an overcast village.

 

Yesterday took an unexpected turn. In the morning I spent an hour or so at the container and got the first pallet strapped and wrapped. Pallett No 2 was then loaded to my neck height and the first strapping put on. I've now got to decide whether to put another 2 foot of stuff on top before wrapping. Someone asked me if Beth helped me with this process. I replied NO and that I was much happier sorting things out on my own.

 

Then at lunchtime Beth got a text asking if she could help out a local church choir that was singing in a civic service in Leeds, as a lot of people had given backword. It emerged that they also needed men so I got roped in as well. The afternoon was spent ironing to the strains of Neil Young, followed by Oasis then after tea we set off. First stop was Drighlington parish church to be lent robes and surplices1then off into Leeds to Leeds Minst (the posh new name for Leeds Parish Church) there we all did our bit in helping the congregation to sing the hymns. Various other organisations performed, some rather better than others) and a good time was had by all. Our local MP sang I vow to thee my country, but her CD player had broken down and she had to do it acappella, she has a nice voice and good legs. All in all a good and unexpected evening.

 

Anyway we are due to venture back into Leeds this morning for various things and no doubt some more boxes will get filled. The evening will be at the clubroom hopefully.

 

Regards and positive thoughts to Mal, Simon, Debs and all others who are ailing.

 

Jamie