Early Risers.

[Tony_S]

Morning all.
Damp outside, not cold though.
Strange dreams (former senior management turned into zombies chasing me round school science labs) last night terminated by falling out of bed. 

I have a little list of shopping. I haven't decided which food emporium to favour yet.

Tony

[AndyB]

Morning all,

A sunny day here spoilt by it being overcast and drizzling / rain.

So, to remind everyone what blue sky looks like...

 

 

Picking mum up from hospital today. She's much better now that there has been a proper diagnosis. Whereas she thought she might need a hip and knee replacement the condition is actually arthritis which is more easily treated by pain killers and mobility gadgets etc. I should also say that our local cottage hospital has been a revelation. All the care was joined up and I didn't even need to contact the care agency or pharmacy - the ward sister had done all that. Well done NHS!

 

Anyway, got to dash. Have a nice day everyone. Andy

 

 

[AndrewC]

Morning all from a grey and drizzly boring borough. Our little 5 day escape is over and the reality of back to work has reared its ugly head. Just glad I don't work up on this scaffolding.

 

 

Have a great day everyone.

 

 

[AndyB]

 

 

We've decided our downstairs loo needs replacing (it's likely the flush mechanism is past it), and the one plumber we've had round said it will take a lot of work to replace including taking up the floor and breaking tiles off the wall. Now Mrs L says we should rip out the shower in the room as we never use it and completely revamp it the whole room, including possibly taking out the ventilator (the room is totally internal). Hardly know where to start with looking up people for quotes. I guess checkatrade is a good place to start.

 

We had good and speedy service from RatedPeople for a fence replacement and also tree felling. Similar to checkatrade, I guess. One tip, the ask how much the job is worth so that a finders fee can be charged to those quoting. What we found was that the price bands aren't that granular so you get options of £100, £500, £Loadsamoney. The flip side is that the tradesmen seem to take this as a cue for how much you might pay. Not necessarily the case!  

Definitely worth getting the 3 quotes they provide to come and actually look at the job. We had quotes ranging from £1300 to £2500 for the same length of fence. 

[Oldddudders]

Morning all

 

Glad Andy B got to ed's Virgins first, as I'm sure my remarks would have been less family-friendly. Come to think of it, virgins don't have families, in the main. Always wanted one of those tee-shirts that said "Help stamp out virginity!" Bit old for that sort of mullarkey these days though - I generally think the mum would be more fun!

 

Chance of a shower today, followed by rain tonight. Glad I've spent a few hours gardening over the last couple of days, therefore. The wet-then-warm weather had brought grass etc up quickly, so the strimmer struggled on the boundary fence areas. Looks a bit smarter now.

 

Need a trip into Le Mans to see the insurance co and get a refund on the Skoda policy. It'll pay for a week's shopping, at least.

 

Sorry il Dottore has iffy joints, and note Sherry's experience that alcohol makes things seem more comfy. I don't have skeletal problems yet, but share her findings anyway!

 

Hope your week proceeding in an orderly fashion.

[shortliner]

Morning all from a grey and drizzly boring borough. Our little 5 day escape is over and the reality of back to work has reared its ugly head. Just glad I don't work up on this scaffolding.

 

DSC_1776s.jpg

 

Have a great day everyone.

#

Never mind working up there - it's the putting it up there in the first place that would bother me!

[edcayton]

 

 

 

 

Need a trip into Le Mans to see the insurance co and get a refund on the Skoda policy. It'll pay for a week's shopping, at least.

 

 

 

Have I missed something? What happened to the Skoda Ian?

 

Ed (and his virgins)

[The Stationmaster]

Morning all,

 

sort of wet outside - the stuff that doesn't seem like much until you find you're soaked through, 'real' rain is promised for tomorrow.  And at least it means that I can't carry on with grass cutting/assaulting the increasingly verdant, and tall, overgrowth at the far end of the, hmm, garden.

 

I did wonder about Ed's Virgins especially as he didn't mention their impending arrival during breakfast at Railex a week or so back;  maybe it's not the sort of thing you talk about while you're eating?

 

 And on that cheery note - have a good day one & all.

[edcayton]

 

 

 

 

I did wonder about Ed's Virgins especially as he didn't mention their impending arrival during breakfast at Railex a week or so back;  maybe it's not the sort of thing you talk about while you're eating?

 

 

 

 

If I had let on you would all have wanted a piece of the action.

 

Ed

[Jock67B]

Good morning from Clacton where the sun is trying to break through and spoil the rest I'd planned!

Ed, enough said about 'virgins' already and I now align with Ian's musings on the matter. The computer change was forced on me just over a year ago - the desk-top PC in the study, used mainly for photography and storing modelling information, died at c. 10 years old. I decided on a completely new start and now have an 'Intel' dual-core processor, super fast graphics card and 1TB of memory with a new wireless scanner/printer/fax and a wireless 24inch HD monitor - these allied to BT's recently installed fibre optic broadband give fantastic

performance and all for less than the original 'tower' cost on its own! I'd thoroughly recommend it.

AndrewC, you have highlighted a particular problem that seems to haunt me with that picture! Wherever we go, Cologne, Paris, Moscow, Prague, Vienna, Minsk, Helsinki, Bratislava, Budapest, Luxembourg, Brussels and many, many, more, I get scaffolding in my photographs of the Cathedral!! Is it only me?

Off to the library to pick up 8 railway related titles that have arrived at our local branch. A super service that I use a lot and one which has supplied many images of the place and period I hope to model one day! View their catalogue and order on line and they write to let you know when the book is in - well worth finding out if your local branch does the same!

Hope you have a good Tuesday whatever you choose to do,

Kind regards,

Jock.

PS For those who are interested, Thomas a Becket was consecrated Archbishop of Canterbury in 1162 (can't do accent on the 'a' on the iPad!)

Edited June 3, 2014 by Jock67B

[Barry O]

Trip to opticians went well. Invested in some artificial tears as my eyes dry out on occasion.

 

Leaky joint in downstairs sink to be fixed but first weathering 9 off On3 coal bogie hoppers.

Baz

[bbishop]

Jock,

 

Try alt0224

 

Bill

[Oldddudders]

Ed, enough said about 'virgins' already and I now align with Ian's musings on the matter. The computer change was forced on me just over a year ago - the desk-top PC in the study, used mainly for photography and storing modelling information, died at c. 10 years old. I decided on a completely new start and now have an 'Intel' dual-core processor, super fast graphics card and 1TB of memory with a new wireless scanner/printer/fax and a wireless 24inch HD monitor - these allied to BT's recently installed fibre optic broadband give fantastic

performance and all for less than the original 'tower' cost on its own! I'd thoroughly recommend it.

 

PS For those who are interested, Thomas a Becket was consecrated Archbishop of Canterbury in 1162 (can't do accent on the 'a' on the iPad!)

The Skoda was sold to friends a few weeks back. At 12.5 years old, I got just over £1k for it, which isn't bad, especially as it's RHD in France. At least the new owner is English by birth, even if studying at a French uni.

 

1TB of memory strikes me as exceptional, Jock, with 8+GB being more common, I think. Is that 1TB of storage, or has memory addressing technology improved that fast without me noticing?

 

Becket - ah yes, vague recollections of A Levels, where I seemed to end up studying Anouilh's play of that name in French, and Eliot's "Murder in the Cathedral" in English!

[edcayton]

Did you buy one of those GT40's then?

 

Ed

[Jock67B]

Correct analysis Ian - Brain slip!

Regards,

Jock.

PS Studies sound familiar - must have been the same era but don't tell everyone!

Edited June 3, 2014 by Jock67B

[AndrewC]

Good morning from Clacton where the sun is trying to break through and spoil the rest I'd planned!

Ed, enough said about 'virgins' already and I now align with Ian's musings on the matter. The computer change was forced on me just over a year ago - the desk-top PC in the study, used mainly for photography and storing modelling information, died at c. 10 years old. I decided on a completely new start and now have an 'Intel' dual-core processor, super fast graphics card and 1TB of memory with a new wireless scanner/printer/fax and a wireless 24inch HD monitor - these allied to BT's recently installed fibre optic broadband give fantastic

performance and all for less than the original 'tower' cost on its own! I'd thoroughly recommend it.

AndrewC, you have highlighted a particular problem that seems to haunt me with that picture! Wherever we go, Cologne, Paris, Moscow, Prague, Vienna, Minsk, Helsinki, Bratislava, Budapest, Luxembourg, Brussels and many, many, more, I get scaffolding in my photographs of the Cathedral!! Is it only me?

Off to the library to pick up 8 railway related titles that have arrived at our local branch. A super service that I use a lot and one which has supplied many images of the place and period I hope to model one day! View their catalogue and order on line and they write to let you know when the book is in - well worth finding out if your local branch does the same!

Hope you have a good Tuesday whatever you choose to do,

Kind regards,

Jock.

PS For those who are interested, Thomas a Becket was consecrated Archbishop of Canterbury in 1162 (can't do accent on the 'a' on the iPad!)

 

Jock, I know what you mean. Just about every bit of architecture in Europe worth photographing has a nasty breakout of scaffolditis.

 

For the iPad and iPhone if you want accented characters or things like ö tap and hold the base letter, that will give you an alternates bar above slide your finger up and to the appropriate accent. For example touch and keep touching the letter o, then slide up and to the left to get ö . Simples. Much easier than activating a dozen foreign keyboard setups.

 

Its amazing how much the price of computers has come down over the years. My first really "powerful" box was a 386 tower with a 50mb hdd. That cost in the region of £1500. Later I started building my own. Generally around 2/3 the price of a commercial product but with the specs I wanted. Last one I built was a dual core box with 4Gb, twin 256Gb discs, etc etc, full heavy duty graphics card. Cost around $500CAD 10 years ago. Less than £230 at the time. Can't seem to do the same in the UK though. Parts are a lot more expensive here and there is enough competition in the market to keep commercial machines prices down. Current box is a laptop, i7 quad core, 16Gb memory, 1Tb disk, blu-ray writer, 17" screen. Cost around £350. Why bother building anymore.

[Tony_S]

 For the iPad and iPhone if you want accented characters or things like ö tap and hold the base letter, that will give you an alternates bar above slide your finger up and to the appropriate accent. For example touch and keep touching the letter o, then slide up and to the left to get ö . Simples. Much easier than activating a dozen foreign keyboard setups.

 

Its amazing how much the price of computers has come down over the years. 

I don't have a iPad or iPhone but I'll try that on my iPod. EDIT I haven't tried it on the iPod yet but the advice works on my Blackberry too.

I think even the DiY bundles from Maplin are really priced for those who enjoy building rather than bagging a bargain (and if they are Windows phobic)

Edited June 3, 2014 by Tony_S

[Jock67B]

Learn something every day - only had this device (the iPad Air) since last November. It was one of my generous leaving presents from work! Thanks Andrew, simple when you know how - ö - should maybe have read the instruction disc on my PC perhaps? It's fun(?) switching between the two devices, but the iPad is so handy when I'm lying down to rest which the extreme weariness associated with my illness requires! Seems a long way from the slide-rule I still keep in my writing desk since uni days!!

Kind regards,

Jock.

[Robert]

Its amazing how much the price of computers has come down over the years. My first really "powerful" box was a 386 tower with a 50mb hdd. That cost in the region of £1500. Later I started building my own. Generally around 2/3 the price of a commercial product but with the specs I wanted. Last one I built was a dual core box with 4Gb, twin 256Gb discs, etc etc, full heavy duty graphics card. Cost around $500CAD 10 years ago. Less than £230 at the time. Can't seem to do the same in the UK though. Parts are a lot more expensive here and there is enough competition in the market to keep commercial machines prices down. Current box is a laptop, i7 quad core, 16Gb memory, 1Tb disk, blu-ray writer, 17" screen. Cost around £350. Why bother building anymore.

 

Tell me about it!

 

At my first job, I just missed the PDP-11's (now there's a nice architecture), we had a VAX mainframe cluster running Open VMS.

 

Later we upgraded to a couple of Alpha Servers, and doubled the user capacity overnight.  They were powerful for their time, but nothing compared to today's hardware.

 

I am not Windows phobic, but I prefer Unix, simply because I know a lot more about what makes it tick.  Primarily Linux and Tru64.

 

By the way Jock, I still have slide-rule in my desk drawer.. 

[Oldddudders]

Did you buy one of those GT40's then?

 

Ed

My fault - folk are now thoroughly confuddled about what and when. This last weekend was the Test Weekend for the 24hrs of Le Mans, which event takes place in 10 days time. Most of the 56 invited cars (there are always far more applications than can be accepted, with 56 being the current number, governed by the number of boxes in the pitlane) were present and keen to evaluate performance against their opposition, but only for bragging rights, as I noted.

 

In just over a month, the 2014 Le Mans Classic takes place, for vehicles of a type known to have taken part in the 24 hrs in ages past. It is also a great jamboree for sportscar owners, who can come and parade with their exotic car, on-track (at a price) or just in a long display line of their marque. If you want to see a lot of Morgans, Ferraris or Porsches, this bi-enniel event is the place to be. There will, I am sure, be an auction, and maybe a GT40 will be on offer, but 7-figures is well beyond my purse just now, hence I drive a 2006 Nissan Note! The 1/32nd Ferrari Breadvan slot-car I have on order - handmade in Italy, and resin, not plastic - cost a little less.

[New Haven Neil]

Afternoon.

 

I'm afraid further TT reporting will be curtailed as my best friend was killed in an RTC this morning.  Open roads, not racing, and he was an experienced, thoughtful and steady rider.  RIP Gary Hubble.  He leaves a lovely wife Jayne.  No details as that would be prejudicial.

 

We are devestated, absolutely gutted.

[Jock67B]

Afternoon.

 

I'm afraid further TT reporting will be curtailed as my best friend was killed in an RTC this morning.  Open roads, not racing, and he was an experienced, thoughtful and steady rider.  RIP Gary Hubble.  He leaves a lovely wife Jayne.  No details as that would be prejudicial.

 

We are devestated, absolutely gutted.

Desperately sad news Neil, you both must be shattered. All too timely a reminder how vulnerable we are on two wheels. I have obviously been in the same situation many times my self, no consolation but my heart goes out to you both at this time - wish there was more I could say.......

Kind regards and commiserations,

Jock.

[Robert]

Truly terrible news Neil.

[edcayton]

So sorry Neil.

 

Ed

[Ian Abel]

Afternoon.

 

I'm afraid further TT reporting will be curtailed as my best friend was killed in an RTC this morning.  Open roads, not racing, and he was an experienced, thoughtful and steady rider.  RIP Gary Hubble.  He leaves a lovely wife Jayne.  No details as that would be prejudicial.

 

We are devestated, absolutely gutted.

Neil,

  So sorry to hear about your friend. There's never a way to make sense of these happenings, just be assured that everyone around you feels for your loss and is supportive in such a difficult time...

 

Condolences,

Ian.