Early Risers.

[TheQ]

Note in my sums above, the average person has never afforded to buy the average house. That is because most house buyers are young ish on low wages, most house owners are older and have accumulated assets. Although it seems I had an average house, living down south ish it was a very tiny house.. ( two of the three bedrooms were 7ft 6 inches by 6ft each)

 

This morning after the quick visit to the former place of employment, then went to the big orange shed and spent 2/3 of a Deltic. Surprised to find there is a new burger van on the car park with new ownership replacing the one that disappeared a few weeks ago.   Long queues at road works on the way back.

 

Back home, very very humid, as last night's rain evaporates in the sunshine.

Four battens fixed horizontally along the back of some cupboards that are a room divider, two packs of cladding affixed to those battens, 1.5 more packs ish to do plus finishing trim. The room now looks a lot tidier, even though the jobs not finished.

 

Of memory cards we've just found 2 x 8Gb micro SD cards and 1x 4Gb all new boxed in the stuff we've inherited from SWMBOs brothers left overs.

[Ozexpatriate]

1 hour ago, TheQ said:

(59533/100)*17%=  £10,120

Not sure I follow your sums. 

 

(59533/100)*17% = 101.20

 

Unless you mean 59533*17/100? (being annual interest on the whole principal - assuming simple fixed interest)

 

I can't imagine a lender ever loaning someone anything where the interest payment essentially consumed their entire paycheque - though I assume you were trying to illustrate just that.

 

"Averages" are misleading anyway - given inequities in wealth distribution. "Medians" are more useful in this context.

 

Curiously, over the weekend, CNN provided an interesting interactive tool (US only) to track US home affordability during the 21st century by time and region.

 

CNN: Buying a house is the hardest it’s been in nearly 30 years - See what affordability looks like where you live

[Ozexpatriate]

6 hours ago, zarniwhoop said:

Probably only available to subscribers.

It's available to everyone - not just subscribers.

[Ozexpatriate]

Today is the Juneteenth Federal holiday - which is the newest recognized holiday, beginning as such in 2021. I don't know if it is one most companies actually give their employees off on the day or move around as a 'floating' holiday.

 

Apparently yesterday's weather was 'interesting' across the area. While I saw heavy rain and small hail, an eastern Portland metro suburb saw 'rivers' of hail and water flowing in the streets. Statewide there was an EF0* tornado and a waterspout, along with mountain snow.

 

* The smallest kind and not usually damaging

 

Portland saw about 25mm of rain - a record for the date. June is not usually very wet.

 

Last night's weather forecasts suggested we might tie a record cool daily high temperature today (16°C) but there's been enough intermittent sunshine that I wonder if we will exceed the forecast high. Out walking this morning saw clear-weather precipitation. Looking toward the sun, it was clearly raining, despite mostly blue skies. (There was a hint of a grey cloud overhead.) The raindrops were very fine and didn't last long.

 

Some hours later it is quite overcast.

 

Edited June 19, 2023 by Ozexpatriate
Spelling

[Tony_S]

1 hour ago, Ozexpatriate said:

can't imagine a lender ever loaning someone anything where the interest payment essentially consumed their entire paycheque - though I assume you were trying to illustrate just that.

Well it could have certainly completely used up one of our pay cheques and a  chunk of the other. However unlike some people in our road at least the value, whatever that means, of the house was always bigger than our mortgage loan. When we were seeking a mortgage in 1990 it was scary the amount some lenders were prepared to lend us. 

[Coombe Barton]

... So we got austerity, we got lack of investment in many areas, all because of an unchecked Excel cock-up. ...

https://johncolby.wordpress.com/2023/06/19/virtually-level-for-new-and-existing-cases-cameron-austerity-not-to-blame-for-nhs-really/

[PhilJ W]

Evening all from Estuary-Land. Well my e-mails are back after almost twenty hours. I was expecting dozens to plough through but there was only four. It doesn't feel as muggy as recently so it should be a comfortable night. The weather forecast is for some more rain but the weekend should be a scorcher.

[pH]

After waiting two hours for the house to heat up to a comfortable temperature (it is the second half of June, after all), I gave in at lunch time and put the central heating on.

[PupCam]

Evening All!

 

5 hours ago, TheQ said:

The base rate went to 14.88 % in October 89,  mortgages were generally 2% above base rate so if you were unlucky your interest rate was 17%.

 

I remember that period very well - it really made the pips squeak!     We had taken on a similar size debt, lost a salary and gained a small, noisy one.

 

Somewhere I have a graph of Puppers bank balance throughout the year.   It was plotted on an HP7225A plotter (great plotter) using low level HPGL commands programmed on a Fluke 1720A Instrument Controller (great bit of kit in its day) on data transcribed from bank statements during lunchtimes.   No speadsheets available in those days (well, not to me anyway).   A good percentage of the plot was below zero and the trend across the year was downwards and negative at the end.    I took the chart to show the bank manager ........   Remember them?    He was impressed with the chart if not the prospects!  

 

Now I come to think of it, old habits die hard.    The cardio team are well impressed with the plot of my blood pressure diary from the last 2.5 years.    The fall and rise of Reggie Perrin Puppers! 🤣   (I'm hoping the prospects are better now though)

 

5 hours ago, TheQ said:

Note in my sums above, the average person has never afforded to buy the average house. That is because most house buyers are young ish on low wages, most house owners are older and have accumulated assets. Although it seems I had an average house, living down south ish it was a very tiny house.. ( two of the three bedrooms were 7ft 6 inches by 6ft each)

 

 Our first house (middle of terrace cottage) was something like 10' wide by 18' deep with the front door opening directly on to the pavement (like so many, many thousands of similar properties) and had a right of way immediately behind the property.  The back garden actually started some 60' away behind someone else's garden.   One day we had a knock on the front door.  I opened it and a smartly dressed double glazing salesmen stood at the bottom of the step that jutted out on to the pavement.   His first line was of course along the lines of "I'm not selling anything but I just happen to be in the area and we are doing a great deal on patio deals at the moment if you were interested?"     I took great delight, descending onto the pavement and showing him the full extents of my mansion.    I suggested to him that if he could find somewhere to put patio doors I would gladly buy them 😀    He thought for a second and then suggested that they wouldn't really be appropriate.   I had to agree!

 

In Other News

 

Not a lot.    

 

Struggling with getting multiple encoders working harmoniously together at the moment for the super dooper controller for things that can't be mentioned.   Much internet searching has revealed plenty of videos of loads of them working in parallel , some with jazzy lights, but no actual clues as to how to actually get them working with the information available.   I'll keep at it.

 

I made the collimation cap for my mate today.    It's not quite as deep as I would have liked but it was the only bit of scrap ali that I had to spare of a vaguely sensible size for the job.    Still, it will do the job of placing a small peep hole in the very centre of the focuser.   Seems to work on my telescope (there's nothing to go wrong!) so should be fine on my mate's telescope.

 

 

 

UPDATE:   I forgot to mention; the modified extrusion for the window blind fits perfectly apparently.     I might award myself a tick for that.

 

I'd better get a wiggle on.   We're looking after the most junior of junior junior Puppers tomorrow.    I maybe worn out ......

 

Night All!

 

Edited June 19, 2023 by PupCam

[PhilJ W]

Goodnight all.

[BSW01]

Goodnight all 

[Erichill16]

Evening All,

A rest say here so not much to report. Hopefully all those suffering, and there seems a fair few at the moment,  will get a good nights sleep and feel more like it in th morning.

Buenas noches.

[southern42]

' night all and nos da.

[pH]

We now have the largest wildfire in recorded provincial history (in terms of area burned) out of control in the northeast of the province. 
 

At the same time, we have wet snow falling on roads in mountain passes in the south of the province.

[BR60103]

We bought our first house in 1977 for $50K (approx) with a reasonable interest rate fixed for 5 years.  After 5 years, we renewed at 18%.  During the year we found a new development that had secured a lower interest rate and would buy our house. It was also within walking distance of the railway station.

My father bought his (only) house in 1959. He had a 25-year fixed mortgage; later he could have paid it off but couldn't justify getting rid of a 2.5% (IIRC) loan.

 

[iL Dottore]

They seem to have better quality graffiti on the trains in Japan 😂

Kōnotori Limited Express: Osaka to Kinosaki Onsen.

As an FYI, I think the reason that JR West, JR East and the other JR companies can provide such services, is because when JR was broken up in the 80s, each new JR group (which is privately owned) also kept all the railway structure and the land JR owned around the railway: and that land around the railway makes some serious money for the various JR groups! 

[polybear]

BH....

Much the same 😒  diddy bits done but not nearly enough.  TC's

Some b'sterds need to die v. slowly + painfully; bear didn't watch video - text woz enough.  🤬🤬🤬🤬

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-65951188

BG

[AndyID]

4 hours ago, pH said:

 

At the same time, we have wet snow falling on roads in mountain passes in the south of the province.

 

I'm not surprised. It went down to 41F here last night at not much over 2000 feet.

[Barry O]

Ey up!

 

A trip to Driffield today.. the forecast indicates we will be watching rain fall. Bugggggrrrrrriiiitttt!

 

@polybear agreed!

 

Left our garden gate open last night to see if Mr Fox can find the rat hiding in our back garden.. we wait and see.

 

Time for my mugatea!

 

Baz

[AndyID]

14 minutes ago, polybear said:

BH....

Much the same 😒  diddy bits done but not nearly enough.  TC's

Some b'sterds need to die v. slowly + painfully; bear didn't watch video - text woz enough.  🤬🤬🤬🤬

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-65951188

BG

 

Our son has a duck pond. The ducks produced quite a lot of ducklings. Unfortunately it turns out the pond is also inhabited by snapping turtles who have wiped-out twelve of the ducklings.

[jamie92208]

Good moaning from the Charente.  It's warm and a bit muggy and  we may have rain today. Much tidying, washing, drying etc got done yesterday and we did some initial research into a potential fly drive trip to the UK at Christmas.  Hire car prices killed that idea, over £1k for a week.  

 

Today i'm off shopping in due course.  Not a lot else to report. 

 

Jamie

[TheQ]

Mooring Awl,

4 hours sleep 3 hours sleep, good for me.

In the gap between caught a bit of the Fred Dibnah trip round the UK, with his traction engine. It was the one where he crosses the Forth Bridge, visits the Bo'ness and Kineill railway. With most of my family living in Bo'ness it's of interest to me.

 

Ben the smelly Collie, let off a big fart, he promptly left his bed, and went out to lie down in the corridor..

So when he requested out I wasn't going to refuse.

Quite breezy out there, heavy dew, 50% cloud cover.

 

When we got our first mortgage they offered 3* main salary plus 1* the second. When we needed our second mortgage they offered 5* the main mortgage plus 1* the second... I wasn't doing that.. the risk to us was just too great..

 

Plan for today

Finish the wood cladding.

 

Time to go make breakfast.

 

Edited June 20, 2023 by TheQ

[grandadbob]

Good morning all,

It's been raining steadily for the past couple of hours with a couple of lighting flashes and rumbles of thunder in the distance.  Sunny spells and more thundery showers are on today's menu.  18°C now rising to 26°C possibly.

There were multiple curses of the turdy kind in The Shed yesterday afternoon as it seems that several days of track laying have gone to pot and beyond. Even though I was checking as I went along I seem to have laid it all wrong and although locos negotiate it OK coaches and wagons do not.  Track lifting may possibly start today unless I decide to blow the bl##dy thing up!

Some trepidation for The Boss this morning as she has to visit the dental mechanic for a filling.  She's always had a bit of  a phobia about such things although since changing to my dentist this has improved.  Normally I would accompany her but need to wait in for a parcel.  I'm sure she'll be OK as all of the staff at the surgery are lovely people and know about her fears.

Rain has stopped, for now anyway and the sun has appeared.

I'm off to look for my dynamite.

Have a good one.

Bob.

Edited June 20, 2023 by grandadbob

[Hroth]

2 hours ago, polybear said:

BH....

Much the same 😒  diddy bits done but not nearly enough.  TC's

Some b'sterds need to die v. slowly + painfully; bear didn't watch video - text woz enough.  🤬🤬🤬🤬

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-65951188

BG

 

I was thinking that the effers should personally re-enact some of their videos on the principal of making the punishment fit the crime.

 

Hahahaaa....

 

 

Edited June 20, 2023 by Hroth
A more humane Mikado....

[PupCam]

Quick!       Build an ark!