Early Risers.

[PupCam]

16 hours ago, iL Dottore said:

Hmmm,  sounds like just the man to join the Captain Cynical team.

Excellent, I'm sure my expert level cynacism, fine tuned to perfection by 45 years in industry, would be a positive asset to Captain Cynicals endeavours.

I feel sure that mutually beneficial terms could be agreed.

 

16 hours ago, iL Dottore said:

Does puppers do “favours” in exchange for CAKE?

Yes and also for giant bars of Toblerone and plain, hard cash.

 

 

12 hours ago, polybear said:

Soldering Iron?  Bear does hope it's one of these models

 

 

 

Unfortunately not.  

 

I have to make do with my trusty Antex which unfortunately expired recently.     I was going to buy a replacement element which requires soldered connections .... Doh!

 

In the end I bought a replacement Antex and a replacement element.   I now have two irons for delicate / electronics work.   Using "Big Bertha" to build the Arduino based projects for which Puppers is getting something of a reputation as a result of his new found freedom is just not going to work 

 

9 hours ago, iL Dottore said:

Tomorrow's POETS day

To think, I'll never have another POETS day (unless the International Man of Cynicism job materialises) 

 

5 hours ago, polybear said:

This is where you discover just how much sh1t all the builders and tradesmen have left under the floorboards over the years....

This was something my son, relatively new to the property ownership game, learnt recently when we were sorting out a leaking bath tap which necessitated the removal of his bath panel ....... 

 

I was also reminded of it myself when my Artexed hall ceiling developed a 2.5" sag from the slowly leaking trap in the en-suite shower immediately above it.        During the investigation phase of the repair operations I removed over 6kg of broken bricks, mortar, bits of wood, plastic pipe fittings and general detritus.    In this case the carp actually performed a useful function, deflecting the ceiling so that eagle-eyed Mrs Puppers could spot it.

 

Not wishing to have to re-Artex the hall ceiling, Puppers hatched a cunning plan to soften the plaster board and, over a period of two or three weeks, "persuade" it and the Artex to return to something approaching flat.    This was achieved with the aid of four long studs screwed into the joists, a flat braced board sitting over the studs with four big springs applying pressure to the board and hence the ceiling.   The plaster board was then kept moist from above for the duration and a DTI (Dial Test Indicator) recorded the progress.   Whilst the ceiling did not return to Metrology or Opitical flatness standards it did get to a state that was "Good enough for rockets" (a term often used during my employment).  

 

Puppers classified that one as a narrow escape!

 

[tigerburnie]

G'night all

[J. S. Bach]

3 hours ago, polybear said:

 ...snip... Chocolate, Ham AND Mayo??  That's WEIRD, even by Bear standards.....

No, the Chocolate is the weird one to me!

[J. S. Bach]

3 hours ago, PhilJ W said:

When I went to North Wales I stopped off at Caernarfon and booked for a couple of nights in a B&B at the local tourist office. Nice clean room and a decent (full English) breakfast and at a reasonable cost. Only bugbear was that it was supposed to be 'en-suit' but the bathroom was outside the room off of a half landing and down a few steps.

That reminds me of a hotel in downtown San Francisco that I stayed in for a couple of nights while attending a model train convention; the bathroom was down the hall and the window looked out onto an airshaft. The room and the bathroom were clean, though and the rates were quite reasonable. In fact, the widely photographed cable car turntable at Market Street was only a half block away.

[Ozexpatriate]

15 minutes ago, PupCam said:

... four long studs screwed into the joists, a flat braced board sitting over the studs with four big springs applying pressure to the board and hence the ceiling.   The plaster board was then kept moist from above for the duration and a DTI (Dial Test Indicator) recorded the progress.

An ungainly contraption to be sure. I'm a bit surprised it was effective - thinking that the springs might rip out of the joists before they applied enough upward pressure. They are certainly attached to a hefty threaded rod. I'm glad it worked sufficiently well.

[J. S. Bach]

1 hour ago, Ian Abel said:

I'll be interested to hear how the second one goes ...snip...

I had the Pfizer. The first shot I had absolutely no reaction other than the feeling of a minor bee sting when the needle went in; with the second shot, the same bee sting but a little later (a couple of hours maybe) there was a feeling in the muscle area below the needle hole of a "lump" as the vaccine dispersed but no soreness. I did feel a little more tired than normal but that may not have been a reaction as I was somewhat more active around then.

[Ozexpatriate]

3 minutes ago, J. S. Bach said:

... a hotel in downtown San Francisco

Plenty of quirky hotels in the neighbourhood of Union Square and the Powell Street cable car line.

 

A quite posh one in an historic building did have ensuite bathrooms. These were of course retrofits of previous rooms with the result that the bathrooms were exceptionally small and oddly configured - requiring one to (almost) sit side-saddle on the throne.

[brianusa]

Its hard to believe of a downtown hotel especially in SFO with a bathroom down the hall, in this day and age.  The last time I stayed in San Francisco was at the Sir Francis Drake on our honeymoon, a long time ago now but it did have a bathroom

     Brian.

[PupCam]

11 minutes ago, Ozexpatriate said:

An ungainly contraption to be sure. I'm a bit surprised it was effective - thinking that the springs might rip out of the joists before they applied enough upward pressure. They are certainly attached to a hefty threaded rod.

'tis true, not an attractive contraption but it was function not form that was critical.

 

The studs themselves were made from hefty wood screw threads with the heads turned off  (to screw into the joists) silver soldered to lengths of 8mm (IIRC) studding for the plate loading section.        Trust me, those studs weren't anywhere close to striping out the joists.

[polybear]

23 minutes ago, PupCam said:

Excellent, I'm sure my expert level cynacism, fine tuned to perfection by 45 years in industry, would be a positive asset to Captain

 

 

Bear can indeed confirm that Puppers' cynicism is indeed VERY finely tuned, which is unsurprising considering all the sh1t we had to suffer.....

 

23 minutes ago, PupCam said:

 

Not wishing to have to re-Artex the hall ceiling

 

A good scheme indeed, since finding people capable of applying Artex in a professional manner is getting very hard indeed - Bear looked for one six years ago to do a repair job and extensive Google searches revealed lots of people who were adept at plastering over Artex, yet very, very few who could apply it.  I found one in the end, and BOY, did he charge....did a nice job though - undetectable repair.

The so-called designers of this world told everyone that Artex was the "in" thing, and as soon as everyone had covered every wall and ceiling they suddenly decided that Artex was now out of fashion.  Once it's all been skimmed over it'll suddenly come back into fashion.....

(The asbestos thing didn't do artex any favours either - Artex actually stands for Asbestos Reinforced texture.  The asbestos content was removed many moons ago, yet there's still plenty on walls and ceilings.  Leave it alone and it's about as dangerous as ice cream, yet some still freak at the very thought).

 

In other news:

From the number of replies to Bear's post regarding Dishwashers it's apparent that many ER'ers fall into one of the following categories:

(a) Those who spoil their SWMBO's

(b) Those who are scared of their SWMBO's

(c) Those who's SWMBO tells them to do the washing up

(d) Those who are single and hate washing up

 

Bl00dy hell, it's 2306 - beddy byes time.....

[J. S. Bach]

5 minutes ago, brianusa said:

Its hard to believe of a downtown hotel especially in SFO with a bathroom down the hall, in this day and age.  The last time I stayed in San Francisco was at the Sir Francis Drake on our honeymoon, a long time ago now but it did have a bathroom

     Brian.

It was many years ago and the hotel had other rooms that contained complete bathrooms but cost about twice what mine cost. I wish that I could remember what its name was. A quick Google streetview search was not too helpful; the Hotel Union Square (current name) may have been the one. One other thing that I remember, it had a manual telephone switchboard. One lifted the handset and asked the operator for an outside line; she dialed and then connected you. It also required her to connect you on a room-to room call. Ah, all of the modern conveniences!

[Tony_S]

29 minutes ago, polybear said:

Those who spoil their SWMBO's

About a year after we were married Aditi said she was off to Southend to buy a dishwasher and would I sort out the plumbing. Like everything else we had then it was purchased on six months free credit which was quite the thing then. In those days there were people who seemed to think dishwashers were immoral and only used by idle people. Aditi’s parents had purchased a dishwasher in the mid 1960s so Aditi didn’t think that.  The amusing thing was they had bulk purchased the soap from a cash and carry warehouse and twenty years after they were still using soap from cartons mentioning some Mexico City Olympic promotion. 

[PhilJ W]

The B&B I stayed at in Newquay had an en-suite shower and toilet. Converted from what must have been a broom cupboard. It was a little over two feet wide and about five feet long. The wash basin was in the room itself. It was as cheap as chips but it was clean and the full English breakfast was good. I booked through Travelzoo which is a remainder shop for holidays.

[PhilJ W]

Goodnight all.

[Tony_S]

I and many other teachers of technology subjects were occasionally lured to hotels on the south coast for a few days to share ideas and be lectured to by someone from the Manpower Services Commission or similar. We were in Bournemouth and at breakfast my boss said he hoped I had appreciated that he had got me a room with a bathroom. I hadn’t noticed but after breakfast went and investigated. What I thought was some panelling turned out to be the door to a oddly shaped bathroom. I looked from outside and there was a turret on the end of the hotel and my bathroom was in it. 
 

[The Stationmaster]

2 hours ago, monkeysarefun said:

Was that the bathers pavilion? I went there for breakfast in 1988, still paying it off.

 

I remember it mainly because the posh couple beside us sat down and made a big show of putting a bulky briefcase on the table and opening it to reveal that it was not a briefcase but actually  the first  'mobile phone'  I'd ever seen.. That'll never catch on I thought.

No, just a relatively ordinary - but on the front - and rather nice café.  It was a good breakfast which wasn't over expensive compared with UK prices and there was plenty of grub for the money.  But at the daily expense rate it ate a lot of my money for the day, hence me pushing for a much bigger rate.   On the larger rate lunching on weekdays in a CBD food court plus fruit and occasionally barramundi & chips in the evening normally kept me a bit in profit.

[BSW01]

Good evening everyone 

 

Well I’m pleased with what I’ve got done in the cellar today. As I mentioned earlier, everything is now covered, I’ve also removed all screws, bar one that secures the gas pipe that feeds the dining room fire and all the cable clips holding wiring in place. Everything is now ready for removing the ceiling, which, after covering the dining room floor with heavy duty dust sheets, will start on Monday. I’ll admit I’m not looking forward to this task, but it has to be done and it will make putting the new lights up and all the associated wiring a lot easier. I’m also hoping to get the cable that feeds the workshop, which is currently clipped to the surface of the ceiling, hidden behind the new ceiling. I also need to put the socket wiring in there too. Hopefully by this time next week it’ll all be done and then I can get the plasterboard purchased.

 

We’ve also stayed at ‘The Judges Lodgings’ in York and really enjoyed the stay. 

 

Below are a couple of photos of one of the dining chairs,

 

before

and after

[BSW01]

Goodnight all 

[The Stationmaster]

G'night all

[monkeysarefun]

4 hours ago, Ian Abel said:

I'll be interested to hear how the second one goes. The Mrs, myself and our daughter all fared extremely well after the first one, nothing more than a sore arm at the shot location for one of the three of us.
The second shot was rather different, the following day we all were pretty much fatigued with flu-like symptoms and a total lack of energy all day. 24-hours later just fine!

 

 

Second shot? Compare that to  here, what with  blood clot dramas and the EU taking our stuff,  its all fallen in a bit of a heap. We had a schedule up until Tuesday when the government said that we no longer have one.

The government has cancelled our Johnson and Johnson vaccine order and advised against the  AZ for everyone under 50, while at the same time endlessly giving us "Things that are more dangerous than getting the AZ vaccine"  such as bees, mobile phones  and getting pregnant in order to convince us to go get it anyway.  

 

Everyones all "No worries she'll be right  we'll get round to getting it when you've got it all sorted" cos no one knows anyone who knows anyone who knows anyone who has actually had covid here, but with Deloitte saying that at the current global vaccinne rollout rate it'll be 2024 before we restart international travel we could all end up slightly stir crazy and talking to coconuts.

 

At least theres always New Zealand I guess. 

Edited April 16, 2021 by monkeysarefun

[J. S. Bach]

1 hour ago, monkeysarefun said:

 ...snip... we could all end up slightly stir crazy and talking to coconuts.

Yes, but when they start answering .....................................

[J. S. Bach]

Night Owl from the Piedmont.

[PeterBB]

6 hours ago, J. S. Bach said:

I had the Pfizer. The first shot I had absolutely no reaction other than the feeling of a minor bee sting when the needle went in; with the second shot, the same bee sting but a little later (a couple of hours maybe) there was a feeling in the muscle area below the needle hole of a "lump" as the vaccine dispersed but no soreness. I did feel a little more tired than normal but that may not have been a reaction as I was somewhat more active around then.

Ditto with Pfizer following the second jab apart from he sore arm lingering somewhat longer.

 

San Francisco - mid 60s and back packing had a stroke of luck - a friend of a friend knew John Pettit of Yellow Car Company and instead of a YHA he booked me into an hotel for a couple of nights and provided me with a free trip on one of the buses.  The other thing that has come to mind is seeing the conductor waving like mad to warn traffic coming up 'the  hill' to move out of the way while trying desperately to put the brake on.  Fortunately there were no injuries.

 

BSW01 Chair - if it was truly two pictures of one chair then the speed of change was phenomenal.  Joking aside the finish looks superb.

Edited April 16, 2021 by PeterBB

[iL Dottore]

17 hours ago, Barry O said:

I had a new boss once (Sales Director)  who said.."don't take any holiday when travelling for the Company"..

My lot were pretty relaxed about me tacking on holidays at the end of a business trip.  As long as, when I did my expenses,  I made it very clear what was a holiday day (assuming I stayed in the same hotel as I did for the business trip) and that on the holiday days I paid for my own food, drink and travel arrangements, then if I had holiday time to use, I could use it.  This way I was able to enjoy Colorado and Japan on holidays added to a business trip.

16 hours ago, Tony_S said:

I would, I presume mistakenly, have taken that to mean the chocolate, ham and mayonnaise bap had eaten iD!

You’re quite right Tony, iDphagia  does mean “eating ID“ (just like coprophagia in dogs means they are eating excrement).  To be honest, I really couldn’t think of a better term on the spur of the moment. Perhaps hyperphagia would be a better term? So the condition would be called iD’s hyperphagia.

15 hours ago, JohnDMJ said:

..Judging by that combination, I hope you're not pregnant! That would be news in The Lancet! "(Phantom?) pregnancy caused by Moderna vaccine"

That’s most unlikely John, given my underlying biology (one X chromosome and one Y chromosome) no matter what I may “self identify” as (currently I am “self identifying“ as a 3500 year old 7th gender biological construct)

14 hours ago, brianusa said:

....Another German mystique shattered along with VW and Mercedes!

      Brian.

It’s difficult to determine why German products have gone downhill, but I suspect it is a combination of expanding the market to lower income customers (who want the product name and badge but I don’t want to pay the premium price) and outsourcing production to  non-German factories that have a lower production costs and thus increasing the profit margin for the parent company.

Having said that, the quality of items produced in the Far East (as most of things seem to be nowadays) is very dependent on the quality of the QC set up by the commissioning company.  This is certainly true for guitars (and probably everything else as well): there is one company in Indonesia making guitars for various commissioning companies,  One company has very, very strict QC requirements and has very demanding production specifications and the guitars produced for this company are up there with the quality of the guitars produced by the company in the US.  A second company, using the same factory, with the same machine tools and the same workforce produces just “OK“ guitars

13 hours ago, Ian Abel said:

I'll be interested to hear how the second one goes. The Mrs, myself and our daughter all fared extremely well after the first one, nothing more than a sore arm at the shot location for one of the three of us.
The second shot was rather different, the following day we all were pretty much fatigued with flu-like symptoms and a total lack of energy all day. 24-hours later just fine!

Which, according to my immunologist friends, is proof that your immune system is all geared up and ready to take on any virus that comes your way

13 hours ago, brianusa said:

 

Our philosophy is: when away from home, spend to get the very best!  Its turned out well as we have rarely been disappointed by the hotels we have stayed at.  You don't usually do it very often so enjoy yourself.  Along with a nice hotel, pick restaurants that look good enough to enjoy your meal, not just eat!  Rent a posh car, preferably a convertible if they are available.  That should be a holiday to remember!

     Brian.

I couldn’t agree more.  This is even more applicable if you are doing a lot of business travel.  If you have spent six months travelling a lot in business class and staying in upmarket hotels, then you really do want your holiday to be special.   And for me, travelling to and returning from my holiday destination HAS to be in comfort.  I always find it somewhat amusing, when perusing “luxury holiday“ brochures that no matter the luxury being offered at the destination, the holiday organiser will invariably ship you there in economy class!  Mrs ID and I did this sort of thing only once (it was a last minute booking made when we both had a mutually overlapping gap in our agendas).  We travelled to the Caribbean in economy, stayed in a very nice hotel, returning in economy.  Needless to say the appalling discomfort of long haul economy more than eradicated the benefit of the Caribbean holiday.

12 hours ago, PupCam said:

..To think, I'll never have another POETS day (unless the International Man of Cynicism job materialises) ..

Err, I’m not sure how to put this, puppers, but Captain Cynical’s minions (and Captain Cynical himself) do not do POETS day (or POETF, POETM, POETT or POETW for that matter). Team Cynical(tm) operates 24/7.  You don’t become the super villain’s super villain by working 9-to-5, Monday to Friday!

9 hours ago, monkeysarefun said:

we could all end up slightly stir crazy and talking to coconuts.

I thought that was the ground state of being for Australians. 

 

Up early, although I did have a very decent night with no post vaccine sequelae. I’m looking forward to the weekend as I am going to try my hand at making choux pastry. I’ll start off by making Profiteroles and if those turn out well, I will move on to making Eclairs, then a Paris-Brest (with a homemade praline cream filling) and if those go well I will then move to bake (upon request by Mrs ID) a Gateaux St Honoré

 

And for those of you who know of such things, I bid you a happy POETS day!

Edited April 16, 2021 by iL Dottore

[chrisf]

Greetings one and all, with continuing warm thoughts for Dave’s Dad.

 

Where to stay when away from home?  I find it something of a lottery.  In general, I find Travelodge or Premier Inn not too bad but if I can find a decent b&b that would be my preference.  For many years when Scaleforum was held at Stoke Mandible I stayed at one near Tesco and opposite the cemetery.  I had to make my own breakfast from the ingredients provided but that was no hardship and it was probably half the price of a room at one of the chains.  In Leatherhead I found a b&b that did not serve breakfast!  This was because most of the regular customers did not want it.  Oh well, I thought, it will have to be Wetherspoons in the town centre.  I don’t know where in Cardiff Mike Stationmaster used to stay but there was, and may still be, a whole row of b&bs in Cathedral Road, most convenient for the scout hut at Pontcanna where the Cardiff Small Show is held.  Some towns are better served than others.  In Wakefield there is a nice b&b where I have stayed s few times but when Scalefour North was cancelled in 2020 said b&b would not refund me for the cancelled room.  I am therefore not inclined to stay there again.

 

Nothing lasts for ever, and this is just as true of hotels as of anything else.  In July 2019 I returned to a Premier Inn on the northern fringe of Bristol and stayed for two nights.  Its only serious flaw was its inability to make tea properly, a defect which it shared with much of Switzerland.  Once I know for certain whether I will be in Bristol on a certain weekend in July I will have to hunt around for somewhere to stay because I cannot return to the Premier Inn.  It burned down three days after my last visit.

 

J S Bach, was it you that reminded me of Crosby Stills and Nash before?  A few months ago I had planned to reach Marrakech by train but I’m going with Sleazyjet now – not nearly so songworthy.

 

Best wishes to all - and thanks to Andy Y for fixing the forum!

 

Chris