Early Risers.

[TheQ]

Sorry, remind me when the footie season starts again....?

PLEASE DON'T remind me..

[PhilJ W]

Morning all from Estuary-Land. I nearly bought a Fiat about 35 years ago, it was a camper van based on one of those small rear engined forward control vans based on the 600/Multipla's successor. The only reason for rejecting it was when I sat in the drivers seat my head was up against the roof. The camper/caravan bit was OK for travelling in and stopping for a brew up but as for spending a holiday in one no way, it was so cramped. Tony, be thankful that Robbie doesn't like rhubarb considering its usual effect on the digestive system. By the way, rhubarb is a vegetable not a fruit (and a tomato is a fruit not a vegetable). The difference is a fruit contains the seeds within the fleshy part that gets eaten but a vegetable is the seeds. leaves, stalks and roots of the food plant. Another point is rhubarb leaves are highly poisonous and Robbie is probably aware of this. Apple pips contain arsenic and cherry stones contain cyanide so don't bite on them. Bye for now, be back later.

[tetsudofan]

Morning from a (currently) sunny south east. Today is one of the "auspicious" days in my life......

 

Back on this day in 1966 (Sunday August 7th 1966) I made my way to Waterloo Station with my parents and brother plus some other friends for me to catch the 1:30pm train to Southampton which had special coaches and a baggage van attached to the train which, upon arrival at Southampton, were detached and taken alongside the P&O vessel Chitral in the docks.

 

Can't remember much about the train journey apart from it being hauled by a Cl.47 but was unable to get the number as the loco was off the end of the platform - and I was busy saying my good-byes etc. Do recall my father's brother and wife coming on board the ship at Southampton to bid me farewell before the ship cast away and started the journey to Hong Kong.

 

When I look back on it I'm amazed at what I did. I was only 21 and had never been away from home but here I was on the way to Hong Kong. A few months earlier I was bored with life at Barclays Bank and had seen an advert by the Chartered Bank (now Standard Chartered) encouraging me to "Go east young man". An application letter went of that evening

 

Shortly after my 21st birthday (the age when one could sign a contract) I was called to the Personnel Department and advised that I would meet with the Court of Directors and would be appointed as a Sub-Accountant at the Hong Kong branch and would be sailing to Hong Kong less than two weeks later!! The contract was signed, was given my ticket and sent off on posting leave. 

 

The contract was for 4 years with NO holidays except Bank Holidays...... but at the end of the 4 years you got six months furlough before your next assignment. As it happens I only did 3 and a bit years as they reduced the contract length to 3 years whilst I was abroad.

 

Things have certainly changed these days but, looking back on it, I'm glad that I did what I did.

 

As the song says "I did it my way"..... and maybe that's still what I do today.

 

Keith

[PhilJ W]

Sorry, remind me when the footie season starts again....?

I had to fillet the football pages from the centre of last Sunday's paper so its not far off.

Edited August 7, 2017 by PhilJ W

[Gwiwer]

Today has taken a sharp turn for the better. I have just located a £16.15 fare from Strawberry Hill to Penzance including the cross-London tube hop. Even better is that this is on the very date and train I was looking for.

 

I feel another home run coming on!

[The Stationmaster]

Sorry, remind me when the footie season starts again....?

 

It has started - this past weekend saw the first league matches.  Meanwhile last night not satisfied with showing athletics on one channel the BBC decided for some weird reason to show it on too simultaneously thereby delaying the start of Poldark by the better part of 10 minutes and even wasted further time by showing adverts for more sport after the flippin' athletics - they're clearly not paying their idiot employees enough when they get that sort of decision making and schedule mismanagement and I shall write to a national newspaper demanding a major increase in the salaries of BBC staff.

 

And good morning all,

 

Glad too that I'm not the only one noticing these modern swollen BMW Minis - two versions of them tower above my car in Tesco's car park to the extent that I sometimes wonder why people buy such things if they want a small car; silly me, such buyers clearly don't want a small car.

 

Laddo has set off to work in a somewhat unhappy mood as today he will be handing in his notice and no doubt - as so many of us do - feeling something of a wrench at leaving a good employer for something new;  ah well upwards and onwards and more money for shorter hours and no weekend working must have some advantages.  For those of us at home thinking about him the G word has not been mentioned by the V (for vacuum cleaner) word is in repeated use - must be some kind of hint I think.

 

Off to do a bit of research before wending my way through RMweb - have a good day one & all and hoping that Debs & John are facing a  brighter day.

Edited August 7, 2017 by The Stationmaster

[newbryford]

Sorry, remind me when the footie season starts again....?

 

S*d the football. Ice hockey starts in four weeks.........

 

Cheers,

Mick

[Horsetan]

After the highs of the end of last week, the lows of a new week:

 

- one of my clients has had her appeal hearing (scheduled for next week, after waiting months for it) unilaterally rescheduled by the First Tier Tribunal and put back to....December! Her husband received notification of this on Saturday, whilst we have yet to receive any notification and my reaction when he told me was "They've done what??!??" All of us have become rabbits of negative euphoria.

 

- Counsel in another hearing for tomorrow has identified several holes in my client's case, which I had thought to be straightforward. My client works in Saudi Arabia, and getting clear communication with him is difficult because of his job. The questions I asked him last week haven't yet had a reply. If I don't have a reply, then I don't have proper instructions, and tomorrow will be affected. Meanwhile, he's paying for all of this!

 

It's not looking good from where I'm sitting.

[Gwiwer]

rabbits of negative euphoria

Must remember that one!!

[Ian Abel]

Morning all...

 

Having negotiated the long boring flight to NY, I arrived at the car rental location - National Car, to be recommended, I've used them for years and always very satisfied - to discover only large or HUGE SUVs left <sigh>

So here I am running a 2+ mile commute from the hotel to the client and back in an enormous trans-continental people carrier. Oh well, that's what happens often when you're scheduled to arrive at midnight.

 

Coffee in hand, armed with appropriate sweater, as I'm STILL in the sub-zero conference room, the 4-day week starts.

 

19 and light rain driving in, expected to be 22 for a high with heavy rain and "local flash flooding" according to the morning seaweed twirler lady!

 

Have a good start to the week.

Edited August 7, 2017 by Ian Abel

[Happy Hippo]

Morning all...

 

Having negotiated the long boring flight to NY, I arrived at the car rental location - National Car, to be recommended, I've used them for years and always very satisfied - to discover only large or HUGE SUVs left <sigh>

So here I am running a 2+ mile commute from the hotel to the client and back in an enormous trans-continental people carrier. Oh well, that's what happens often when you're scheduled to arrive at midnight.

 

 

Build a layout in the back.

 

I can come and help lay the track as I'm very good with sleepers chairs and butanol

 

Stuck in traffic will take on a whole new meaning!

[BSW01]

Well the trip to the DIY emporium finally hapened mid morning. Everything I wanted was purchased and upon my return home it started to rain, so I had a cup of tea. Then the sun came out again, so i went to make a start fitting the new guttering, only to find that the clips that I hand in stock for holding the guttering DON'T fit, despite getting them from the same store, conclusion, they've changed the manufacturer of the guttering that they stock  I'll call latter in the week and get some that do fit.

 

I also noticed that the orange and lime peel has failed, one cat even had the nerve to sh!t on top of the peelings  Now I like cats, but I just wish they'd go and sh!t somewhere else. 

 

It then started to rain again, so I gave up and went in for my dinner. 

 

After dinner I mad some soup, potato, courgette and cheese, we'll have some for tea shortly.

 

Off swimming after tea, but I expect that I'll need my wet-suit tonight, it's been quite cool here today!

[AndyID]

 

Having decided that in the time I'd wasted looking for the damn thing I could have made another couple, my attention was drawn to a rather fine plastic sculpture on the baseboard where the errant butanol had fused together a fine collection of sleepers, chairs and slide chairs. 

 

 

You could always dump the butanol and that stuff and get yourself a 3D printer.

 

Edited August 7, 2017 by AndyID

[BSW01]

oops, I seem to have posted twice!

Edited August 7, 2017 by BSW01

[Ozexpatriate]

Having negotiated the long boring flight to NY, I arrived at the car rental location - National Car, to be recommended, I've used them for years and always very satisfied - to discover only large or HUGE SUVs left <sigh>

An inevitable consequence of their "choose your own car" policy. (Of course even Hertz has now adopted the same policy for their five-star tier of members.)

 

At one point Hertz wanted to rent me a top of the line SUV. (I want to say it was in the Infinity QX family, but I don't remember.) It was a beautiful machine and very comfortable inside, but way more vehicle than I wanted to deal with.  I was in an unfamiliar city and was meeting a client near the city center and really didn't want the hassle of such a large vehicle. The Hertz agents were surprised when I told them I wanted something else. 

[Happy Hippo]

You could always dump the butanol and that stuff and get yourself a 3D printer.

 

DSCN3363a.jpg

Believe me I have considered it, but the cost of a 3D printed sleeper and pair of chairs in 7 mm scale gets a bit pricey, even if you do it yourself.

 

Which program would you recommend for the artwork?

 

A 3D printer is on the distant wish list, but currently it's well behind the laser cutter which would be of far more use at present.

 

I await the post Brexit free trade deal with Oz so I can get a Darkly Labs laser cutter a bit cheaper than you can at the moment.

[roundhouse]

On the way home. First working day of the week out of the way. Got a woman behind me on the train who hasn't stopped talking on her mobile ten minutes before departure and now 20 minutes later still talking all the cliche work phrases. Drive me nuts, well worse than I already am. Only another 20 minutes or so to go and she's still talking.

 

To add to that the flip down table dropped onto my iPad with some force as the train jolted departing LBG. Luckily the iPad seems ok apart from having alter most words that it's changed.

 

Off to mums tonight to read through the building surveyors report and send it to my brothers so no doubt will have thee different views as to what mum should do but me having to actually action it all as I am the lowest to mum by along way.

[Ozexpatriate]

With all the smoke blowing in from wildfires it's like a Loch Fyne kipper factory here. The good news is the smoke is keeping the temperature down a bit. The bad news is the air quality is worse than Beijing.

We had a reprieve on Saturday with a day that did not exceed 90°F (32°C) - probably due to the smoky skies. At one point a record string of 12 days above 90°F was forecast but Saturday interrupted that.  I suspect you have worse air quality than Portland.

 

The house has been closed up for well over a week with the A/C turned on (running to a temperature schedule). I used the broiler to cook dinner on Saturday. (I did run the stovetop extraction fan.) At about 4:00am (having only gotten to sleep at 2:00am - with insomnia cased by sleeping in Saturday morning after a tiring week) I was awoken by the smoke detector in my room - which then went off as I fled out of bed beneath it. Of course I madly searched the house and found no conflagration nor the smell of one. My eyes were too bleary, but there did appear to be some haze when looking into the lights.

 

Why does this sort of thing only happen at 4:00am? That's the time the low battery warnings always seem to happen in smoke detectors. Peep - followed by silence long enough to start to drift back to sleep. Peep.

 

I can only imagine that some rogue particles finally found their way upstairs from the broiler - either that or the atmospheric haze made its way through the air filter. Supposedly the air quality is worse at night due to the particulates sinking in the cooler denser night air. It makes me uncomfortable heading out of town for a couple of days.

[pH]

At one point Hertz wanted to rent me a top of the line SUV. (I want to say it was in the Infinity QX family, but I don't remember.) It was a beautiful machine and very comfortable inside, but way more vehicle than I wanted to deal with.  I was in an unfamiliar city and was meeting a client near the city center and really didn't want the hassle of such a large vehicle. The Hertz agents were surprised when I told them I wanted something else.

 

I don't get the assumption that everyone wants a bigger vehicle.

 

We once arrived at the Alamo office in Maui to be told that the compact car we'd booked wasn't available, but we could have the pick of any car on the lot (all bigger than compact). Since there were only the two of us, and there's a distinct shortage of 8-lane freeways on the island, I really didn't want have to handle a Canyonero, so asked when a compact might be available. They called the "returns" area, found one had just arrived, rushed it through wash and vacuum and delivered it still dripping. That kind of service, plus the friendly and helpful attitude at the checkin (no attempt at upselling insurance etc.), plus the way they handled a small problem the next day, resulted in me writing to the office manager the only letter of appreciation I've ever written for a car rental company.

[45156]

Afternoon All

 

I've managed to catch up now, and have rated all posts.  However, time is not on my side, so generic greetings are the best I can do.

 

Managed to price and display a good selection of transport books at the bookshop, and am back there tomorrow to generally help out. 

 

On the bigger than wanted hire car front, I once booked a Ford Sierra, but as I had a frequent flier card, I was entitled to a complimentary upgrade to an Audi 80S.  However, on arrival at the airport, my booked car hadn't been returned in good order, and needed attention before being hired out again, and I said I would go back down to the Sierra.  They didn't have one. I wound up swanning round Edinburgh in a Mercedes 190 automatic.  I then had client visits,  in North Berwick, and Berwick Upon Tweed, then Newcastle ending up with a drop at Newcastle airport.  To say the least, it was daunting, driving an unfamiliar car, on unfamiliar roads, and to add insult to injury, they charged the refuel costs for the group that the Merc was in, not the group I'd booked, which was the original deal.  As it was on a company credit card, I was not too worried,

 

Back at some stage tomorrow.

 

Regards to All

Stewart

Edited August 7, 2017 by 45156

[Horsetan]

.....On the bigger than wanted hire car front, I once booked a Ford Sierra, but as I had a frequent flier card, I was entitled to a complimentary upgrade to an Audi 80S.  However, on arrival at the airport, my booked car hadn't been returned in good order, and needed attention before being hired out again, and I said I would go back down to the Sierra.  They didn't have one. I wound up swanning round Edinburgh in a Mercedes 190 automatic. .....

 

The first time I went back to Ireland in 1998, I booked a Peugeot 106. On arrival at Dublin Airport, it turned out they didn't actually have a 106 to spare. What they did have was a Nissan Almera saloon (on Offaly plates) and sure they wouldn't be charging me for the bigger car, so I had two weeks of hammering the suspension on that.

[Ozexpatriate]

We once arrived at the Alamo office in Maui to be told that the compact car we'd booked wasn't available, but we could have the pick of any car on the lot (all bigger than compact). 

My favourite car rental story was the opposite. My family visited when I got married, as they do. (This is about 27 years ago.) I had reserved a minivan from Avis to trip around California from my home base in Orange County.

 

(This is back when minivans were a new thing and the exemplar of minivans was the Dodge/Chrysler Caravan with its original, under-powered 4 cylinder engine. The seven passenger SUV as we know it did not really exist yet. The Chevy Suburban of course existed, but was not in the rental car fleet at that time.

 

Arriving at the rental car desk I was informed that no minivans were available. I persisted, insisting that I had reserved one and they needed to try harder. After some unhelpful suggestions like offering me a station wagon (aka estate, something that still existed in the US at that time) which I indicated was unsuitable for seven passengers, and lots of back and forth a solution was found - if I was willing to wait.

 

Everything went well (excepting the usual travel dramas). A stop at Taco Bell on the way north caused some Montezuma's revenge for some of the troop. We happened to be in San Francisco, the night the 49ers won the SuperBowl (the Marina district was a war zone) and we were caught in a heavy snowfall in Yosemite. Finally relaxing after a white knuckled drive out of the park (following a tour bus that cut a path through the freshly falling wet snow) we had an early dinner in sunny Mariposa.

 

After dinner we headed to the hotel. Strangely a California Highway Patrolman in his big 80s black and white Dodge cruiser followed us all the way from the restaurant. As we unloaded ourselves from the minivan clown car-wise he wanted to see my license and registration.

 

"Registration? It's a rental."

"Where's your rental agreement then?"

"Your tags are expired."

"What? it's a rental!"

"I don't care, I'm writing you a ticket anyway."

"How am I supposed to register a vehicle that doesn't belong to me?"

"That's your problem. Work it out with them."

 

It turns out that to satisfy my insistence on a minivan, Avis had pulled a vehicle from their 'for sale' lot of vehicles retired from rental service. Supposedly they took care of the ticket. I was pulled over again in California (I had earned that one) and wasn't arrested, so I assume they did.

 

The moral of the story is beware of bored Highway Patrolmen with nothing better to do.

 

Then there was the car I rented from Gatwick. It was still wet from the interior being extensively cleaned and had a very strong deodorizing smell about it. After being parked for the afternoon at Didcot with the windows closed in wan November sunshine I twigged to why this was so. The car had a weird vent in the console between the two front seats which contained the dried remains of vomit. The car stank and nauseatingly so.  I exchanged it at Heathrow as promptly as possible.

[Ozexpatriate]

... I once booked a Ford Sierra, but as I had a frequent flier card, I was entitled to a complimentary upgrade to an Audi 80S.  However, on arrival at the airport, my booked car hadn't been returned in good order, and needed attention before being hired out again, and I said I would go back down to the Sierra.  They didn't have one. I wound up swanning round Edinburgh in a Mercedes 190 automatic.  I then had client visits,  in North Berwick, and Berwick Upon Tweed, then Newcastle ending up with a drop at Newcastle airport.  To say the least, it was daunting, driving an unfamiliar car, on unfamiliar roads, and to add insult to injury, they charged the refuel costs for the group that the Merc was in, not the group I'd booked, which was the original deal. 

Many years ago in the second half of the 1980s, I (and some colleagues) had a pre-lunch meeting in San Jose. I followed my colleagues up the steps* only to be body checked (almost literally per the ice hockey term) at the door by a flight attendant saying "We're full, you're bumped".  (This was during the American integration of Air Cal. I ended up on the next flight with extra miles and a free domestic ticket anywhere American flew.)  I reserved a car while waiting for my new flight.

 

* Orange County/Santa Ana still used steps back then.

 

Arriving in San Jose late for the meeting, but in time for lunch, there were no compact cars available. Instead I was given a black Cadillac Sedan DeVille. This was the last of the breed of big 'tuna boats'. It wallowed as it drove, but there were no bumps. All in all, it was a fun day.

[AndyID]

Believe me I have considered it, but the cost of a 3D printed sleeper and pair of chairs in 7 mm scale gets a bit pricey, even if you do it yourself.

 

Which program would you recommend for the artwork?

 

 

They're not expensive if you print them on your own printer. (I printed that 00 sample here in smokey Idaho.)  One kilogram of the plastic costs me less than $20.  You could print an awful lot of 0 gauge turnouts from one kilogram. The prints are not actually solid plastic - they have a solid shell around a much less dense fill - usually around 30% density. The downside of printing them yourself is it takes time, but once you get going you can let the printer chug along while you do something else.

 

I use Martin Wynne's fabulous (and free!) Templot for the turnout designs. I import the 2D design into TurboCAD and use it to plonk the various timbers and chair models into the final 3D model.

 

0 gauge is probably a better candidate for home printing than 00. It's a better match for the printer resolution. I made a few tweaks to my printer to improve the resolution that would be unnecessary for larger scales.

 

(I use TurboCAD because I had to learn it 20 years ago when the cheeky blighters at the US Patent Office rejected a patent application on the grounds that my hand drawings were carp.)

 

EDIT: BTW, a satisfactory 3D printer (kit) currently sells for around $250 in the US. You'll see ones that are much more expensive, but underneath they are all basically the same.

Edited August 7, 2017 by AndyID

[PhilJ W]

Evening all from Estuary-Land. Roundhouse, I once worked with a pillock who's conversation was riddled with the business speak cliches. On one occassion he was heard speaking on his mobile whilst in one of the toilet cubicles. Another one of my colleagues then stood outside the cubicle and produced one of the longest and loudest f@rts I had ever heard. There was an immediate silence from within the cubicle but what happened next I couldn't say as I had to leave the room as I was laughing so much.

Edited August 7, 2017 by PhilJ W