Early Risers.

[TheQ]

try Saudi Arabia Definately no Chrismas celebrations there..

Edited December 17, 2018 by TheQ

[Ian Abel]

Moanday, not too much to moan about here though.

 

Weekend was rather a busy one it seemed;

Friday evening out for dinner and a show with friends

Saturday - out for brunch with the Mrs, then some casual shopping and after that a party/get together put on by some relatives of hers, we stayed later than expected, result tired!

Sunday - Precious little as I had to get on a plane by 2PM. Unusual choice but cost and not wanting to leave NYC/JFK on Friday (Friday before a Christmas weekend - ARRRGGGHHHHH!) were major factors.

Uneventful flight out, on time amazingly, even though it was raining at JFK when we arrived - that usually doesn't bode well!

 

4 this morning driving to the client, suggested again that this is COLD according to the NY weather man on the morning news! Pah! Going to make 8 for a high - balmy...

 

Hope your week starts well.

[AndrewC]

Afternoon all. Deliveroo are absolute shitgibbons as far as delivery goes. I know a few smaller pop up food businesses that refuse to use them anymore after food was delivered in poor condition or went missing. Deliveroo blamed them instead of the driver. They treat both the supplier and the customer equally bad. 

 

We've used Just Eat for the past few years and never had a problem. As far as hygiene ratings go we check these online before choosing the restaurant/takeaway. The downside we have found is some places will cancel their subscription, vanish for a couple of weeks, then come back as "under new management". That means any saved orders vanish and I have to start over. Annoying, as our favourite Chinese does this every 3 months or so. Their menu is so large and disjointed that it can take 15 minutes to find everything. I think it is a way of getting a discount from Just Eat as a new subscriber. Sort of like the Sky TV scam, where you subscribe until the discount ends, then cancel, and get someone else in the house to subscribe, and repeat. 

 

Little else of note. Work trundles on. The Festivus dust magnets have all been strategically deployed as has the Festivus bush. 

 

Enjoy what is left of the day. 

[Gwiwer]

Afternoon all. A fine day if a little fresh to start. And the last full week before a certain festival.

 

“Christmas jumper” took on a new meaning this morning when (yet another) person-versus-train incident occurred. This was at Berrylands which resulted in all our four main lines being closed between around 08.30 and 10.45. Many Monday mornings were heavily delayed. I learned that the auto-announcing system can cope with such things as “has been delayed by two hours and fifty-seven minutes” which is nothing if not trivial in the bigger picture of things.

 

We have also been required to sign a notice forbidding the wearing of any seasonal attire or embellishment which is red, yellow or green in colour and / or contains any reflective material or illumination. Safety is one thing. This doesn’t leave us too many options. Although one of my colleagues was seen wearing a white-fur lined black Santa hat!

 

Back home for a mugga and snooze before what could be a busy evening. I may pop in before bed if I find time.

 

Kind thoughts and best wishes to all.

[southern42]

' Evening all from red dragon land.

Dry earlier and we managed to get the shopping done before it rained.

 

Yesterday, it was rather wet in the morning so, when we left for Joys of Life Railway for the Christmas Lunch, we did not expect to see any running.  Wrong! 

After lunch it was damp, misty even, with only the odd spot of the wet stuff.

 

The carriages on the right had just come in, the "Douglas" on the left was on its way out.

 

Our time was mostly spent watching and helping someone else's Polly II come into steam. (Ours is out of  its steam ticket.)  It got there in the end by which time my feet were cold. 

 

 

Daylight level was low so the photos are rather soft focus but it did mean that the lights shone - better than in the photos - and made the scene look very festive.

 

We departed at three to pick up some milk on the way home and it chucked it down.  Thoughts went out to those still hauling passengers.

 

A good day.

 

 

[PhilJ W]

Evening all from Estuary-Land. I was checking my e-mails this afternoon when they disappeared from the screen, I then tried to reload but it just timed out. I suspected the scam e-mail that I received a couple of days ago so I ran the anti-virus and that done the trick and everything was back to normal. The scam e-mail was sitting in my spam file as I intended to pass it on to Google but in view of what happened I deleted it altogether.

Edited December 17, 2018 by PhilJ W

[81C]

Evening All 

I've been a bit busy with the 009 layout today I mamaged to fix the viaduct and girder bridge in place and get another yard of track down just another 3-4 yards to be laid on a downwards 

spiral and there will be a complete loop I've still not got my Baldwin back from repair I'm hoping if this pannier stays on the track the Baldwin should it's a heavier loco the is going to be a lot 

more scenic work to do I under guessed this, I think I will draw all the bits out on paper before embarking on putting the embankment walls in, tunnel mouths and any other bridge work the

layout might need.

Tomorrow we are off to Kew Gardens late afternoon to see the light show I just hope it don't pee down as it's all out in the open still if we get wet we can dry out a bit on the coach home I

think the 3 in 1 winter rally coat will be a must it's good to -20c.

Right I'm off now "Her" has beckoned my time this PM to tidy the top cupboard in the kitchen as she can't reach it.

 

Phil    nothing on Reg today he went out a 6am and has only just got back home you know when he is about as he coughs his gut out all the time whatever is wrong with him knocks him for six

for weeks on end yet he insists on  being outside getting soak he has a screw loose or he can't stand being indoors with his family.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                 Enjoy Lugga Wallah 

[New Haven Neil]

Evening.

 

Bit stressed.  Not with busy-ness - that's OK we're geared up for it, just the decision of several inanimate things to go wrong, all at the same time, on one of our busiest days of the year!  Computers, door locks, you name it, it fell off, broke or wouldn't work today.     

[Tony_S]

Evening all.

I went back to sleep this morning and woke up at lunchtime. Aditi said it was a lovely day and we should go out somewhere. We went to Hyde Hall Gsrdens and admired the winter displays, the dogwood is splendid this year.

We had lunch there and drove back via the post office in Benfleet. We now know how to pay a cheque into our bank account now that the banks we try to bank with have all closed their local branches.

Not a lot happening otherwise.

Tony

[Tony_S]

For Rick,

 

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-46593190

 

Tony

[lightengine]

Many moons ago we had a discussion on here about scaffolding and if they leave it erected at places as a storage facility. I have just looked back in the forum,it was the end of May.

My neighbour whose roof conversion was practically completed THEN is just having the scaffolding removed today.

False alarm it wasn't removed today.

[Ozexpatriate]

The Festivus dust magnets have all been strategically deployed as has the Festivus bush. 

Strictly speaking, I thought it was a Festivus Pole - very minimalist seasonal decoration for those less inclined to endure the hassles of a tree.

Edited December 17, 2018 by Ozexpatriate

[Ozexpatriate]

For Rick,

 

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-46593190

 

Tony

I have a feeling that battery installation technician (or recharge technician) is going to be a big thing - one of many unskilled jobs in the robot economy. Somehow I'm thinking of electric sheep.

 

Locating rental electric scooters, recharging them and then distributing them fully charged is already a cottage industry, 'career' option in many cities. Generally it requires you to own some kind of truck or van with the capacity to collect a sufficient number of scooters. Payment is volume based. I don't know whether they have GPS locators or how their 'phone home' capability works, but the 'rechargers' get paid by the number of scooter recharges they perform.

 

My son was recently between jobs and worked for "Grub hub" delivering food in the interregnum. It was surprisingly remunerative - the drivers get to keep all the tips, but I'm sure it put a lot of wear and tear on my son's car.

[PhilJ W]

False alarm it wasn't removed today.

He's yet to put his decorations up.

[Ozexpatriate]

He's yet to put his decorations up.

Presumably the scaffolding needs to stay up until it is time to take the decorations down as well.

[lightengine]

Afternoon all. A fine day if a little fresh to start. And the last full week before a certain festival.

“Christmas jumper” took on a new meaning this morning when (yet another) person-versus-train incident occurred. This was at Berrylands which resulted in all our four main lines being closed between around 08.30 and 10.45. Many Monday mornings were heavily delayed. I learned that the auto-announcing system can cope with such things as “has been delayed by two hours and fifty-seven minutes” which is nothing if not trivial in the bigger picture of things.

We have also been required to sign a notice forbidding the wearing of any seasonal attire or embellishment which is red, yellow or green in colour and / or contains any reflective material or illumination. Safety is one thing. This doesn’t leave us too many options. Although one of my colleagues was seen wearing a white-fur lined black Santa hat!

Back home for a mugga and snooze before what could be a busy evening. I may pop in before bed if I find time.

Kind thoughts and best wishes to all.

Teignmouth station was repainted in red, green and cream 4 years ago including all the canopy stanchions. Red & green everywhere but I dont suppose that was considered.

[Ian Abel]

I have a feeling that battery installation technician (or recharge technician) is going to be a big thing - one of many unskilled jobs in the robot economy. Somehow I'm thinking of electric sheep.

 

Locating rental electric scooters, recharging them and then distributing them fully charged is already a cottage industry, 'career' option in many cities. Generally it requires you to own some kind of truck or van with the capacity to collect a sufficient number of scooters. Payment is volume based. I don't know whether they have GPS locators or how their 'phone home' capability works, but the 'rechargers' get paid by the number of scooter recharges they perform.

 

My son was recently between jobs and worked for "Grub hub" delivering food in the interregnum. It was surprisingly remunerative - the drivers get to keep all the tips, but I'm sure it put a lot of wear and tear on my son's car.

 The scooter recharging gig may be rather less remunerative, buddy of mine thought of trying it as some "extra retirement cash" along the lines of "how hard can it be?".

The MAJOR stumbling block in terms of reaping rewards is that you don't get to choose an area or get assigned scooters. They appear on the tracking app and it's first-come-first-served in terms of who collects them. You could find yourself spending hours being "second" and end up with a lot of driving and no scooters at the end.

There's also, as I recall, some minimum number they want you to get/recharge per period, not sure if it was hours or days...

[Barry O]

Night all!

Baz

[PhilJ W]

Goodnight all.

[roundhouse]

Noenver used a food delivery service, always waay overpriced around here to use it. Its take out or eat in for us or cook at home.

 

Free xmas ale tonight just as we were about to head home - .

 

Beer tomorrow afternoon in a nearby brewery and on top of that a friend who we call 'No Longer Canadian Bob' wants to meet for a few pints tomorrow before he flies to USA via Canada but  I suspect that we will have to wait a few more days to fulfill that request.

 

Cuurently listening to T-Rex but its bed time now.

 

Goodnight all.

[laurenceb]

Just been reading the deliveroo reviews, how do they stay in busines? Standard reply seems to be"hope you will try us again"!

Night awl

[andyram]

Evening fellow ER’s. Generic good wishes are offered to everyone.

 

Today has been a day off, which has been spent on the delights of Christmas shopping. The day has rather crept up on me this year and I am nowhere near organised. I have had to resort to Amazon for several items after failing to locate them in the shopping centre.

 

The afternoon involved a trip over to the Cats Protection centre to drop off some goodies followed by a pub lunch. Whilst out, my friendly neighbourhood fraudster put in another large order. That is three in the last five days. Tomorrow should see me having various conversations about this situation.

 

Best wishes

 

Andy

[BSW01]

Good evening everyone

 

Painting the chassis extensions/modifications was the first task I completed this morning. I then altered the fixings in the body, instead of using self taping screws, I glued in some 2mm nuts and will be using 2mm set screws instead. The next task was to replace the moulded safety valves as they weren’t very good. I started by drilling them both out using a 1mm drill and replaced them both with two short lengths of 1mm brass tube glued into the holes. I the fitted a pair of Alan Gibson clack valves and added oil feeder pipes that run down the sides of the boiler with some 5A fuse wire.

 

Unfortunately, quite a lot of the motor can be seen in the cab, so I reduced the size of the motors rear mounting bracket and painted it and the back of the motor black, which has made a big difference, but it can still be seen. There was no cab floor or any cab detail with the kit so that was my next area of work. Using plasticard ive made a floor and a section of the rear cab below the windows. I’ve made this whole section is removable, so that the motor can be removed if necessary.

 

Goodnight all

[AndyID]

Strictly speaking, I thought it was a Festivus Pole - very minimalist seasonal decoration for those less inclined to endure the hassles of a tree.

 

We actually unearthed the fake Christmas tree today and put it on or deck. It's been in a box for many years but a family contingent is arriving on the 27th so we thought we better make an effort. We usually wait until the 24th before we put up any sort of decorations then leave them up until 12th Night. The neighbors rip everything down on the 26th

 

Remarkably warm here for the time of year. It was up to 8C today. A White Christmas seems unlikely. It's usually about 50/50 here.

Edited December 18, 2018 by AndyID

[Ozexpatriate]

Remarkably warm here for the time of year. It was up to 8C today. A White Christmas seems unlikely. It's usually about 50/50 here.

We're in the middle of a pineapple express in Oregon. It's less intense than we were expecting, but we're still anticipating around 2" of rain in the next couple of days. Snow levels in the Cascades will climb in that period and much of the snowpack at the ski resorts is expected to melt in the rain.

 

Weekend temperatures are forecast to drop.