Down tools

As we prepare for an influx of relatives this weekend on account of a first birthday party, I've taken the drastic step of tidying away the tools, screws and general mess from the bathroom and hallway.

It's not that the work is finished (still....) but that it's harder to cover up for the fact in it's taking so long when the walk from the bedroom to the shower in the morning is a bit like playing Indiana Jones.

Anyway, we're nearly there. The remaining jobs are:

• sort out the ceiling, which is the original artex supplemented with a splattering of tile adhesive
• get the grout off the floor, which stuck to the non-polished tiles....doh
• fit the extractor fan
• fit mirror, toilet roll holder etc
• perhaps fit a new cupboard to make more storage space.

Have I forgotten anything? 

I took the old bath to the tip today. It went into the landfill skip. I felt so guilty. I'd tried leaving on the drive (no one stole it, although they took the sink) and advertising on freecycle (no replies).

What else can you do with an old acrylic/fibreglass bath?

Nearly there

I didn't do any work on the bathroom tonight. Instead, I seem to be addicted to failblog.org. I sit here laughing at page after page of people getting things wrong in the stupidest ways possible. 

I suppose the fact that I could be finished with this long overdue project in a few evenings,  if only I could face getting the tile cutter out again to do that one last bit of tiling, is something of a FAIL.

Darkness

Today was the first day of the year when I actually had to get up when it was still dark. On the upside, I suppose I'm making efficient use of the available daylight. But I didn't mind the darkness because I used the new shower for the first time!

Why wait so long after fitting it? Because there seems to be a shortage of shower curtain rails. Would you believe it!

I looked in B&Q - the only suitable one (i.e with brackets, rather then the weak-looking friction-fit job) was £60, which was more than I wanted to pay and it didn't look that good anyway because it looked like the curtain would fall off the hooks. I looked in Screwfix, they had exactly the same one as B&Q at £25. (Yes less than half the price - B&Q is so expensive for such things) but were out of stock. In fact they had no stock available for any that I liked. Even ebay had nothing, for once. 

Finally I found one on the internet, which arrived yesterday and was fitted immediately.

Also last night, I tackled the problem in the sink. After being away for a couple of days on a trip, it was not a pleasant job. Wearing latex gloves I tackled the smelly mess.

The problem was of my own making (in two senses of the word). Having been bitten once trying to reuse an old waste trap, I made sure that I bought a new one for the sink. Knowing that space was tight, I bought a nice tidy compact trap.

However, last week, when fitting the front of the sink unit is on, it became clear that there would not be enough room even for this trap: the semi recessed sink sits so that the waste hole is so close to the front of the unit. So I tempted fate and put the old trap on the sink, which was a simple U-bend in the form of a P-trap.

Of course, it was a bad idea.

When I fitted it, it dripped slightly, so I ended up over tightening it onto the waste. This, in itself caused no problems, but when I want to remove it, of course it was stuck tight. Turning harder (which is pretty hard because you cannot really get a spanner to it once the sink is fitted into the unit) just managed to unseat the waste unit itself.

In fact, the trap was stuck so tight that I had to resort to a saw to remove it. 90 minutes later and I had the waste and trap out. 10 minutes after that I had the waste re-seated and sealed, and a new P-trap fitted.

With a sigh of relief, I soaked the few tools that I had used in bleach - I really don't want any chance of a repeat of the events of last weekend.

Sinking issues

I learned two things over the weekend. 

1. A 3am Sunday morning, I learned that the toilet is close enough to the sink to provide a possible solution to simultaneously dealing with both symptoms of Gastroenteritis.

2. At 3:15am Sunday morning, I learned that the possible solution above isn't actually a very good one.

The sink is now out of order.

Apart from the illness delaying work, it's quite a setback to the bathroom progress because it looks like I'll have to remove the sink again.

Shower!

Well, the shower manufacturer don't really want to know that they've got the labels on the pipes wrong. They even suggested that it would be hard to prove that I hadn't swapped the labels round after. A very sympathetic guy from customer support suggested that I ask my customer if they would mind if I fit it upside down...I said that I don't think that the idea would go down well.

For reference, here is the unit with the stickers the wrong way round.

Midas 200 with wrong labels

I decided to tackle the problem from the hallway, rather than taking down any tiles.

Here is the quite neat "before" shot.

And here it is "after", not looking nearly so good.

Pipes the right way round.

The little U in the hot pipe is because the pipe is quite rigidly fixed at the bottom and I didn't want the expansion to stress the also-rigid, push-fit shower fitting. I'm not sure how effective it will be, but it's probably quite effective at reducing the flow rate in the shower.

Soldering those pipes was tricky: the plastic shower fitting is fixed to the wall (screwed from the front, under the tiles). The pipes are rigidly fixed somewhere (especially the hot). So you have to assemble the pipes and solder in-situ, it would be impossible to solder and then insert them into the shower fitting. It looks like I didn't melt the plastic, somehow.

And here's the end result - it actually works. If only I had a shower curtain....

Shower!

Incidentally, someone stole the old sink, radiator and a broken toastie machine from outside my house on Monday. Now all I need to do is get rid of the old bath.

Back to front ARGH aka Public service.

You may recall the effort spent plumbing the shower fitting in the wall. You may also recall the effort tiling it. The finish is now complete, grouted and sealed. It looks great.

Unfortunately....well, see below.

From: Ian Broster
To: Aqualisa Technical Support
Date: Saturday 19 September 2009

I have just fitted a Midas 200 - but it 
does not adjust temperature correctly.

I have double checked that the inlet pipes 
match the makings on the tap (i.e. the left
one closest to the output pipe is cold).

Please can you confirm that the markings on
the shower unit are correct?

Regards
Ian

And the reply

From: Aqualisa Technical Support
To: Ian Broster
Date: Monday 21st September

Dear Ian Broster,

Thank you for your e-mail.
This does sound as though the stickers on 
the valve may be on the wrong way around, 
if you look at the front of the valve with 
the outlet on the bottom left, the hot 
connection should then enter in the rear 
on the left as you look at it.

...

There have been so many opportunities to get this right! When I first did the plumbing, I noticed that the pipes were the other way round to the old shower, a different model from the same company. So, I did a quick check.

I searched in the documentation and installation guide for confirmation, but it only refers to the "markings" on the valve. It does not say which is the right way!

I even searched the internet to see if anyone else could confirm which way round, but I could not find anything relevant.

So, thinking 'how can anyone get two really important stickers the wrong way on a production line!' I went ahead. Damn.

So, in case any one else happens to have this shower, and are not sure which way round they go...then now you know.

In Hot Water

With the cold weather approaching, there is a certain pressure to get the heated towel rail fitted. It's not that we need cosy warm towels that urgently, but that when I moved the radiator pipes, I didn't bother to refill the central heating system again, thinking that I'd save some time (and inhibitor solution) by leaving it turned off until the hot towel rail was properly fitted. This means that we have had no heating. During the summer months, of course, we didn't notice.

Anyway, after spending a long time drilling a few holes in the tiles (and probably ruining a nice masonry drill bit in the process - how can it take 10 minutes a hole to drill through 9mm of rather fragile ceramic?), we have a nice new heated towel rail (and a cosy warm house too).

I never thought I would liken drilling breeze block to drilling into soft cheese until I tried drilling through a breeze block wall with tiles in front of it; the contrast is spectacular. With some irony, the next day some new proper tile drill bits arrived for me in the post. I'm sure that they turn my tiles into cheese too.

Almost Done Tiling

It's been a long time since the last update. Since then I've been tiling. And that's about it. Tiling for weekends and every evening for over 2 weeks. I have fitted over 300kg of tiles to the walls (I really hope they're strong enough).

Perhaps I'm just not a fast tiler. Perhaps I can blame it on the huge tiles. Perhaps I can claim that I had to buy a few extra tools (which is certainly true).

In any case, I really have almost done tiling. It only remains to tile around the extractor fan (I'm waiting for a 110mm diamond hole saw to arrive) and a tiny bit of boxing to make and tile.

I've grumbled about large tiles but now that I'm at the end, it doesn't seem so bad. The large tiles generate quite a lot of wastage, however. There were 35kg of offcuts, 12%, counting only the bits that I bothered to save (the larger bits that might conceivably be used somewhere else).

I only broke one tile (actually, not broke it as much as somehow cutting it in mirror image).

The one upside of the large tiles is that the grouting was easy, completed in only a few hours. It's looking good. Finally. Pictures will come when the tiling no longer almost done.

Still Tiling

Yes, the tiling is going very slowly. Did I mention how awkward it is to work with huge tiles?

I'm averaging about 5 tiles in an evening (3 hours) at the moment, mostly because each tile needs to be cut into so many pieces.

Anyway, here are some photos.

Around the bath

You'll notice around the bath, there is a row about 10cm high. This is perhaps unusual, the typical advice being to make the row above the bath just less than a full tile. Again, this a the problem of large tiles. It is important to get the border at the right height (not too close to the sill, not hitting the sink, etc.) and the large tiles don't leave much room for manoeuvre. There were no options that hit all requirements, but the best option was having a thin row above the bath.

Here's a bit of carefully constructed boxing that's about 70% of the size of the previous boxing but holds the same pipes.

Boxing

And finally, an example of an awkward tile, yet to do, that needs to be cut around the door.

Tiling Around the door.

Despite an appeal on facebook, I failed to find someone with a 110-120mm diamond hole saw to lend me so that I can cut the extractor fan vent. Although they're not expensive for a tool (about £10-£15), as I'm only going to drill one hole with it, it's an expensive hole! Once the rest of the bathroom is in a better state, I'm going try a tungsten carbide jigsaw blade instead.

Slow motion

I expected the tiling to go slow, and it is. I've only covered half of the bathroom after a full day at it.

One issue is the large tiles we chose. Almost every tile needs some unusual cut doing to it whereas with small tiles, most cuts are just straight breaks and any odd corner ones are fast to cut because they're small anyway.

I have had some successful tiling however. The holes for the shower outlet look good and it will be easy to get a watertight seal there.

Show outlet

The next issue will be tiling round the extractor fan. I feel the need for a new tool here.

Extractor fan

P.S I notice from the logs that there are quite a few people regularly reading this blog. I once tried to work out who was following it, feel free to add a comment from time to time, whoever you are.

Visible progress

There is visible progress today - I've started tiling! The end is in sight...

Wall tiles

Unfortunately, my tile cutter is too small for the big tiles we bought. After failing to hire one for a week because all(?) the hire shops in York are closed on Saturdays, I've ordered a new one from ebay at 1/3 of the price of B&Q.

Here are the nicely drilled floor tiles fitted. These hole cutters are brilliant.

Drilled Floor tiles

Finally, the sink didn't come with any clips to hold it to the worktop. I queried this with the supplier, who asked the manufacturer. Apparently the silicone sealant is meant to be enough to hold it in place. However, it's semi-recessed, so half of it overhangs the edge; if you fill it with water and lean on it, will it be secure? I don't believe it. So I'll have to be inventive and make some sort of clip....

Balancing act

And of course, the stupid bath waste is still leaking...I've added more silicone..again.

Making holes

I didn't do much tonight in the bathroom: just primed the walls ready for tiling. 

And re-sealed the bath waste again. If this doesn't work I will have to buy a new waste, this one is not appropriate since it requires a good seal against the underside of the bath, which is not smooth. It really is not a good thing to try and make a seal against a rough surface.  

However, I did play with a new diamond hole saw with excellent results!

Round holes:

Yesterday, Robin commented that you can never get a spanner anywhere near the nuts under a bath once the bath has been "tiled in". This is true and is what I was thinking when I brought all the pipes out to the side of the bath within reach. If you want to change the taps, for example, at a later date, then the only awkward nuts to tighten are the back-plate nuts for the tap; all of the water pipe connections are either in reach, or can be done before putting the taps onto the bath.

Accessible Pipes:

Functional

I didn't write anything last night because it took too long to fit a new trap to the bath. You'd think that changing a trap would be easy. But of course not. Somehow, removing the old trap I must have pulled a bit too hard on the waste of the bath. When I fitted the new trap, the seal had gone. 

So out came the bath completely so that I could remove the waste, clean up the silicone and reseal. On that note, the design of the bath waste is rubbish. It needs to make a seal against the bottom of the bath, which is a rough surface made of fibreglass. So the only way to get it watertight seems to be to use lots of silicone. And if that doesn't work, just repeat.

Anyway, after too long, we have a nice, small, watertight trap on the bath. If only I'd done that in the first place then I wouldn't have wasted an evening taking the bath out again.

Also, this one is a slimline one that doesn't need a hole in the floor to accommodate it. If only I'd done that in the first place then I wouldn't have had to cut a hole in the floor, which presumably is now a great place to have a leak.

New trap:

Today, however, was finally a productive evening!

I took the opportunity of the children being happily entertained to use the remaining daylight to cut the worktop for the sink. This was not as easy as you might imagine. Without instructions or a template, I guessed and marked and measured twice and marked and measured twice and marked and measured twice and still got it wrong. (But intentionally, it was the right way sort of wrong, so that was OK.)

So the sink is fitted and tested.  It isn't, however, attached to anything except pipes. I can't see any easy way to attach it to anything; there were no clips, extra bits or even instructions.

And fitting the replacement loo that the nice people at Maddisons delivered was easy. It didn't leak...

So now it's functional. We have a working bath, toilet and sink. 

Functional:

The main remaining jobs are basically (not necessarily in this order):

• tile the walls (slow and awkward)
• build some boxing around the pipes (awkward)
• attach the sink to the unit and the unit to the wall (easy, if I can find some kind of clips)
• attach the toilet to the wall and floor (easy)
• fit the towel rail/radiator (easy as long as my guess for where to put the pipes was about right)
• finish tiling the floor (I have new toys to cut the pipe holes, ebay is great!)
• shower fitting (apparently, it's "easy fit")
• finishing touches (erm)

It might be finished by Christmas then.

Tiling preparation

This evening we prepared the walls for tiling - mostly removing old adhesive.

Actually Karen did most of that. I mostly did some thinking (and removing the toilet, which will be replaced tomorrow by the nice guys at the bathroom supplier). There are just lots of unknowns to think about.

• What height to have the border/trim so that we don't get tiny bits of tiles to cut around the bath/sink/window.
• The tile adhesive gives strict instructions about using the right sort of primer...is all this really necessary for previously plastered walls (even if the old adhesive didn't really stick well).
• The border/trim is porous. Do I have to seal? Before installing? Before grouting? With what?

At least I've decided on the height and drawn a nice horizontal line rather higher than I expected about half way up the wall.

Going nowhere fast

It was a disappointing few hours this evening.

I thought I would assemble the sink/vanity unit. But...there's a cupboard missing and there's no point cutting the worktop to size until I know exactly how big the cupboard is.

Empty space:

I thought I would adjust the legs of the bath properly. But...the idea of reusing the old trap wasn't a good one, and it's leaking. So the bath needs to come out again.

Old trap:

I thought I would test to see if the toilet is still leaking. It is. Despite putting silicone around the gasket. After 20 minutes of prodding, poking, shining bright lights down the holes, I hit upon the idea of blowing down the screw hole to see if the water is actually entering the screw hole through an invisible fracture in the basin. The toilet is indeed faulty - water can get from the inlet to the bowl to the screw hole. 

Leaky toilet:

I know that I could probably "fix it" by filling the screw hole with silicone when I put the screw in. Had the cupboard not been missing I probably would have done so. However, a general lack of progress tonight puts me in the mood to ask the supplier to replace it.

Finally, in an attempt to not have had a completely wasted night, I leveled the patch in the wall and attached the door (ready for a visitor tomorrow night who might value some privacy while she doesn't have a bath and doesn't use the toilet or sink.

Wall:

Door:

Bathroom - day three

Today I had an extra pair of hands; in a few hours we had almost tiled the floor, almost patched the wall where the shower is to go and almost fitted the loo.

1. Almost fitted the loo: needs to be a few inches to the left, with a new waste pipe, but if only I could stop it dripping when it flushes! There's a gasket between the cistern and bowl that just doesn't hold the water back.

Perhaps I'm fitting it wrongly. The toilet comes with very brief fitting instructions. However, I was surprised to find that the toilet seat comes with a 36 page user guide.

2. Almost a floor: time to invest in some new tools. Perhaps a diamond hole saw?

3. Almost patched the wall: close, but not quite flat.

I also discovered that the bath waste leaks. It's not one of the connections that I made, but the pre-assembled connection from the overflow to the waste. Some silicone will help I hope.

Bathroom - day two

It was not a busy day, with a lie-in (late start) and watching Slum Dog Millionaire in the evening instead of working. There was, however, some of progress on the bathroom.

After finishing the floor (screwing it down and some waterproofing), it took me too long to realize that the installation guide for the bath was wrong. The baseboard for the bath (a fundamental, structural part) was not a separate item, as per diagram, but was actually built-in to the fibreglass itself.  

Before fitting the bath, it thought that I would try to fit the shower, while I had good access. The shower came with an "easy-fit" option. I should have taken that with a pinch of salt. "Easy fit" unless you are replacing an old shower, with one pipe coming from above, and the other below, and with the hot and cold the other way round to the old shower.

After a few hours, and accidentally cracking the plasterboard on the other side of the wall, I have the shower plumbed in (at least the back end of it - I suppose that the next step is the "easy fit" bit) and a great hole in the wall to plaster over. I did manage to re-use two of the copper pipes from under the old sink.

And then the joy of flexible tap connectors that are just not quite flexible enough, so you have to extend the copper pipe in odd directions just to get the flexible tap connectors to fit. 

It all seemed OK though, and I finally had a bath tonight. We were only without bath/shower for one day. Not so bad after all.

Bathroom - day one

If there was a reason for putting off replacing our bathroom, it was because I didn't know how long it would take.  I know that I could manage with a building site for a bathroom (I could use the shower at work), but I'm not sure how we'd bath the kids if it wasn't warm enough for a padding pool. It probably wouldn't be warm enough if it took until November anyway. 

I know how there are always unexpected things that crop up, don't go to plan, or just take a long time.

So, with after a certain amount of peer pressure...we ordered, made a plan and I started.

A plan was carefully crafted to minimize the amount of time that the bath/shower would be out of action. So, I removed the sink and the lino floor. I didn't take a photo when I started, but I did take a photo at this point.

And that's the point I realised that the plan would have to the thrown out. The floor was rotten under the WC and would need replacing. (So I couldn't simply add 6mm plywood reinforcement over the 18mm chipboard, I would have to go to the backup plan and replace the floorboards with 18mm plywood, which would be more work but better because the floor would be lower).

As for the backup plan? The joist that I had planned to replace the boards up to, wasn't where I thought it was. It was under the bath. So, any opportunity to keep the bath in place until just about everything else was finished was gone.

So the bath came out, and so did the floor.

Some new pipes - moving the radiator.

And a new floor, with new pipes in the right place for the towel rail and sink.

All creatures great and small, and then there are wasps

I'm told (and Wikipedia says so too) that wasps are an important part of the biological cycle. Specifically, "Wasps are critically important in natural biocontrol. Almost every pest insect species has at least one wasp species that is a predator or parasite upon it. Parasitic wasps are also increasingly used in agricultural pest control as they have little impact on crops. Wasps also constitute an important part of the food chain.

However, I do find them to be the most intolerable of all the common forms of life that are found in the garden, county, city, park. Well, everywhere. There's just no escape. At this time of the year, you can't eat anything outside without at least one buzzing around.

I thought that we were OK living out in the countryside; for the past two years at least we have had relatively few. It was far worse in the city where there are lots of rubbish bins and other soft targets. 

However, this year we've been hit as well. Last week there were a dozen or so buzzing round the wheelie bin, which contained little more than dirty nappies. They somehow got inside too. Yesterday, there were at least fifty around our compost bin.

Later in the evening, I did turn the compost so that any food scraps in it were buried deep within, rather than being near the top. That certainly helped with the composting as well as wasp reduction; there were none near it today.

In looking for reasons (other then reminding me to turn the compost from time to time) to justify to myself why these things deserve a second chance at survival if they come near me, I search the internet and discover that there are many different kind of wasps.  The family Vespidae includes over 5000 different species of wasps. I'm sure you only see one or two kinds though, probably the familar looking Vespula vulgaris, the common wasp

I came across this forum question that says that wasps are good for getting rid of carcasses, and the BBC's article explaining how Teesiders should love wasps because they are good at recycling (erm..making nests out of chewed up wood).

I'm not convinced.

As I look into my garden tonight, I see lots of bees, hoverflies and other flying things all eagerly visiting all the flowers. They are so interested in the flowers don't even notice when I walk past. I'm glad they are enjoying them and I'm glad to help the dwindling bee population.

A solitary wasp floating near the bin (now empty) makes a wasp-line for me as I pass, I'm sure it's looking for a fight, stinger at the ready... If I had been suitably armed, that wasp would have not survived the night. Lucky for him, I was not.

Wasps: room 101.

Much Better Way

Today at work I almost started only one small task, although I achieved a great deal more.

All I had to do was do a bit of budgeting and financial planning - cash flow, profit, the usual thing. After consistently failing to get the numbers to add up (literally) for most of the morning, I decided that our over-evolved financial planning spreadsheet was just not up to the job and could be done in a MBW¹.

The problem with TOW² is that as soon as you try to tie financial transactions that occur on different dates together (for example, you invoice in May, so you show a profit in May, but you get half cash in July and the rest in September, before paying the VAT to HMRC in November) you easily generate spaghetti links all over your spreadsheet. This is just error-prone, particularly when things change (you don't get the order until June so you invoice in June instead....which formulae do you change?...).

So after some thought, I ended up with a much better Openoffice spreadsheet-based financial forecast that actually works. It's based on the same principles as typical accounting packages - basically nominal codes and double entry bookkeeping and so on. It's got clear inputs, outputs, bits you can edit, and bits that you should not.

Not only does this mean that there are far fewer ways to break it, but it ties much closer to the accounting software that we use for the real accounts. It's faster to use, will save me lots of time in the future and it probably also gets the numbers to add up too.

So, today I did great things!

And tomorrow, I'll actually do the budgets.

^1.Much Better Way.

^2.The Old Way.

Binless Wifi

The "departure" area of the Eurostar at St Pancreas appears to have no rubbush bins, but does have free internet access.

Tube

Someone put a video of me on You Tube.

Fame at last.

Mystery of Modern Houses

Where, in a typical modern build house, do you keep your:

• vacuum cleaner
• washing basket
• towels (the ones you are using in the bathroom)
• recycling bin(s)
• 2nd car (either yours, or a visitor)
• server room

?

Space Age Security

We all know that using a password like "password" isn't very sensible if you want to stop people guessing your online banking passwords. Actually the very fact that "password" is too guessable indicates that we don't all know it...but anyway, I was most surprised to find a web site that insisted that passwords:

• Consist of at least 8 characters
• Contain at least 1 uppercase character (A, B, C)
• Contain at least 1 lowercase character (a, b, c)
• Contain at least 1 numeral (1, 2, 3)
• Contain at least 1 symbol (` ~ ! @ # $ % ^ & * ( ) _ + - = { } | [ ] \ : " ; ' < > ? , . /)
• You password can't contain:
• Spaces or non-English characters

So, now we all know how to make a super-strong password like "Passw0rd."

Another website insisted that as well as a password, you have to fill in information that only you can possibly know (but that's another story..) i.e. the name of your first and last school as additional security questions.

Even with such easy questions, it took me less than 20 minutes to get myself locked out of the site. ..how did I manage to not know the name of my last school 20 minutes after typing it in?

The kind gentleman on the telephone in their "Reset my password" department obviously had visibility of my log-in attempts and only when he politely informed me that "Please note that the security questions are space sensitive" did the penny finally drop.

The answer was simple. When you first enter your security questions in, you type them in a normal text field where you see what you are typing. However, when you log in and you are asked to type them to confirm your identity, they appear in a "password" text box, and the characters you type are replaced by asterisks. 

As you know, super-strong passwords cannot contain spaces and when I type the name of my school into a password box, my brain automatically skips the spaces between the words. It does this for at least 3 consecutive tries, plus a further 3 times after clicking on the "Lost my password" button.

Normal Service Resumed

After a short break from both posting here and air travel, I'm back in the emergency exit seat again. I should have taken the train to Paris last week.

In other news, I am so pleased that I took a TomTom with me!

My planned 30 minute taxi ride from the station to the airport was shattered by the discovery that a suburb of Paris was lacking in taxis. According to TomTom, the 30 minute drive was only a 40 minute walk..so I gave it a try. TomTom took me on a pleasant walk through the countryside, up hills, round a lake through the woods. In smart shoes and trousers, mud was no object and I arrived safely at the hotel, although hot, sweaty and muddy. Yes, it seems that TomTom knows all the muddy footpaths in Paris!

Marketing

When did "Excel" become a synomym for "spreadsheet"?

Walking away

We've all read the books about how you must go into a negotiation knowing your walk away position. However, I find that it is rare to fail to reach an agreement, so you never really need your walk away position.

Today I discovered that there is something satisfying about walking away from a negotiation.

I was looking for a new pair of shoes. In the first shoe shop I found (Clarks), I found a nice pair of shoes at a reasonable price. Unfortunately, they don't have the right size for my foot. (This is no great surprise, I don't have a large sock.)

They do however have my size in this very similar pair at £70. They were indeed comfortable. I had aimed to get something under £50. In the current economic climate I decided to see if they would be tempted to reduce the price to get the sale.

You aren't meant to reveal your walk away position, but the salesman's generous offer of (shocked face) "we don't do discounts" didn't quite do it for me.

So I walked away, wearing my old, worn out shoes and a smug smile on my face. I'm sure there's some irony here.

The shop round the corner had an almost identical shoe for £20 less, which did me fine.

Grumpy Science

Are bus drivers grumpy? After a spate of particularly grumpy drivers a few weeks ago, I decided to do some science.

Hypothesis: most bus drivers are grumpy.

We'll need to know what grumpy means though.

Definition of Grumpy

Exhibits one or more of:

Facial expression is one of general displeasure

Makes a negative comment

Emits grunting sounds in a negative manner

Does not acknowledge the passenger except for dealing with ticket

Eye contact limited to glaring or frowning

Complains about something

Definition of Cheerful

Exhibits one or more of:

Smiles or has generally positive facial expression

Makes smalltalk, excluding where it consists mainly of grumbles or complaints

Emits a positive comment

Eye contact, excluding glaring or frowning at passenger

On each bus journey I take, I'll record whether the bus driver is grumpy or cheerful when I board the bus.

The results will appear in another post.

Powerless

Today we (most of the east side of York apparently) had a power cut for about 2 seconds.

What mayhem this caused!

At work, most office computers and a server rebooted, some work was lost, a quite important file was corrupted. And we all had to stop for 10 minutes to discuss technical reasons why the building's forced ventilation fans didn't restart immediately after the power cut.

At home, I've only got to reset the time on nearly all the clocks in our house (binary clock, cooker etc.) and turn on a few things that have soft power switches.

We are far too reliant on a stable 240V AC supply. Can you imagine what would happen if we had to go without electricity for any serious amount of time? We probably wouldn't be rubbing sticks together for energy, we'd be working out the details of installing a UPS (uninterruptible power supply) to keep the PCs running.

Office Move

We moved to a bigger, shinier office today. The move went smoothly (and I didn't have to organize this one). The new office is really rather nice and spacious. And still tidy.

We now have more than twice as much window, which is really nice. There's a nice leafy view, but unfortunately one more obstacle to really feeling like we are playing in the green fields: none of this vast expanse of daylight actually opens to allow the scent of spring into the office. Doh!

Plumbing sanity

If there is one thing that is essential when designing something intended to hold water (like a sink or a toilet cistern), it is that the holes in it (plug hole, and where the flush comes out) must be able to be sealed...right?

Typically, a seal is made by squashing a bit of rubber tight against a flat surface. 

So, why is it that:

 1. My new sink's hole for the drain does not have the top and the bottom of the hole parallel? That is, you put the drain in but and the nut + washer at the back are at an angle to the surface they are meant to make a seal with!

 2. My new toilet cistern does not have the base of the cistern at right angles to the back of the cistern....so that the flush mechanism fits wonky. If you make a good seal, the flush mechanism cannot align with the button on the lid of the cistern, or if you want the flush to align with the buttons, then you cannot have a good seal.

If these simple design details were right, then the fitting the appliances would have taken a fraction of the time it's taking me now. Surely, everyone who buys these items will have the same problem.

After a couple of false starts, the sink was not too bad: plenty of silicone instead of relying the rubber washer did the trick...but the WC is still a work-in-progress. I suspect that since I prefer the fail-safe (no leaks) over functionality (being able to flush),  I'll end up with something can can only do single-flush, not dual flush.

Do real plumbers have these issues...come on, what's the trick?

Gremlins

Watch out! The gremlins are about..

They've already beheaded our compiler (by making it eat its own stack), caused the simple software update that was meant to fix the compiler to break network file handling, and made my web browser crash.

Otherwise, it's an ordinary day.

Gushing Water and Another Mystery Solved

I woke up this morning at 2:30am to the sound of a header tank in the loft quietly refilling. I don't know how that woke me up, but it did.

Part 1 - the gushing water

Coming to my senses, I realised that no header tank has any business to be refilling in the middle of the night when no one is using any water. Earlier that evening, I had removed the toilet, radiator and other water-related things from the WC, so I thought it prudent to take a look downstairs.

During the night, one of the (disconnected) thermostatic radiator valves had started to leak water; which was now gushing all over the place where the floor would have been, if I had not removed the floor earlier that evening too. So now it was just gushing fairly harmlessly onto the concrete sub-floor.

I checked that the thermostatic radiator was set to "0" (off) and then managed to tighten the thermostat a bit tighter onto the valve which stopped the water. So, I let the water system fill up again, ran the pump for a bit and bled the radiators, before checking that there was no further leaking and returning to bed.

Just as I was falling asleep again, could I hear a header tank filling up...?

Part 2 - A mystery solved

Some time ago, I fitted thermostatic radiator valves to our radiators. They are easy to fit and apparently save you money. However, they came with an extra bit. You can choose whether to screw the thermostat onto the valve, or you can choose a normal non-thermostatic "tap", like the old valve that I was removing.

At the time I didn't understand why I would want this extra bit - the whole point of the product was that it was thermostatic. I kept the bits anyway (I'm like that).

Perhaps it was the fact that I was now shivering in my dressing gown and slippers, standing on a soaking sub-floor that was at outside temperature in January that made everything finally fall into place.

What is that  extra bit for? It's for when you don't want the thermostatic radiator valve to be thermostatic, of course! For example if there is no radiator connected to it and it's freezing cold because there's neither floor nor heating. On a thermostatic valve, "0" does not mean "off", it just means "very cold". So when the temperature really gets very cold, it turns the valve on.

So, I grabbed the non-thermostatic extra bit, stopped the water with my thumb while I switched it over, and of course it turned the valve off properly. I  let the water system fill up again again, ran the pump for a bit again and bled the radiators again, before checking that there was no further leaking and returning to bed again.

And the moral of the story?

You can bleed radiators in the middle of the night without waking up the household.

Moist Maker

If you ever saw the friends episode with Ross' sandwich and thought it sounded nice, I can confirm that it is in fact excellent, especially if warmed slightly in the microwave. Yum.

Christmas Presents

Great Christmas presents for the geek who has everything.

• Meccano 
• Lego
• Binary clock (for the living room!)
• Domino race
• Big garden loppers

I had a great Christmas! :)

(OK, the Lego wasn't actually for me.)

Rates

Today:

Savings rate on my ISA (4.75%) > my tracker mortgate rate (3.75%)

So I guess that answers the question.

Inflation is 4.1%, which is higher than the mortgage...what does that mean for the building society?

Mortgage vs inflation

From time to time, you hear of little celebrations: "I finished paying my mortgage this month!" On enquiry, you find that they won't really be much better off; their mortgage payments being £25 per month, or some incredibly low figure compared to a typical mortgage payment when you buy a house today.

This repayment amount presumably was a considerable burden on the monthly outgoings when the mortgage was taken out. The repayment schedule is not affected through the years, but due to general inflation, the amount becomes a less significant fraction of the income towards the end of the term.

While it is clear that over-paying the mortgage in the early years will drastically reduce the interest paid, is it worth bothering when the actual "cost" of the mortgage will probably decrease to such an extend that in 30 years you won't even notice the payments?

I'd get out a spreadsheet and play with some numbers...if I ever have enough spare cash to have to decide whether to pay back early or not.

The best website for babies

Instructions:

1. Open web browser
2. Follow link
3. Adjust volume
4. Ahh, peace at last

It's not Tetris

For the complainers that thought that the last entry was too techy, try this...

It's not Tetris, but what a great idea that anyone with children and building blocks can relate to!

99-bricks

Linux on Dell XPS

I remember the days when installing an operating system like Linux on a computer required: building a custom kernel, getting that kernel to boot, hacking device drivers, building another kernel, messing with settings and if you were lucky you might get X to run.... Today, I cannot believe just how easy it was to get Ubuntu to install on my (finally repaired) Dell XPS M1330. For future reference, here's what I did. I used a Ubuntu CD, version 8.10 (October 2008).

1. Test that the Ubuntu Live CD boots and recognises enough devices (it does).
2. Use Vista's partition manager to shrink the Vista partition to about half of the disk. Note that this is primary partition 3.
3. Boot the Ubuntu Live CD.
4. Partition the disk. The Ubuntu partitioner didn't seem to get it right, so I used gparted. Delete sda4 (this is media direct). Add extended partition to fill the disk (there is a small 2MB unallocated bit left). Add logical partitions inside sda4: 4GB for swap and the rest for ext3.
5. Start installer. Select manual partitioning and configure the partitions as / and swap as above.
6. The rest is automatic. Grub was successfully installed; Vista and Ubuntu are detected and boot correctly. Vista did some automatic reinstalling device drivers, but all seemed ok after that.

The only remaining thing to do is disable the media direct button. Apparently if you press this to turn on the computer, it trashes the partition table.

5 boards for worse

As an incremental update to the fourth motherboard for my laptop, this fix seemed to have a loose connection to the speaker (or something), so I'm now on number 5. The status when the engineer arrived was that the computer worked (except for the speakers). The status when the engineer left was that the BIOS self-tests pass (but nothing else works). The engineer made a hasty exit, citing vista problems. Apparently they will call me back yesterday. After some fiddling of my own, I can now boot in vista safe mode, but I'm out of my depth diagnosing vista boot issues. Ironically, I intended to install linux on this machine when I first got it, but I never quite found the time. It would have been a lot easier to work with, but I am aware that according to Dell, changing the OS on a computer invalidates the warranty...

4 boards for worse

My laptop has just received its fourth motherboard, in the 11th month of its waranty. While the reliability of this particular machine could be down to bad luck or other factors, you can barely fault the tech support. Anyway, an engineer is coming again tomorrow to fix it. This time the speakers have broken apparently.

Express Morning Delivery

It all happened fast, relatively speaking anyway. In a blur of NHS organisation, I very nearly delivered the package myself. Despite us being in the hospital for four hours, a midwife could not be persuaded that we were reaching the end of labour (or take the time to check). Still, a head appearing pretty much made the point and then Daniel was born, 2.87kg (6lb5 in old money). All are doing well, and the hard bit begins (for me anyway). Speaking of NHS organisation, you'd think that there would be a procedure (or at least a checklist, even a well-oiled routine) for something as important and as frequent as childbirth. Either the procedure has radically changed in the last three years, or everyone just makes it up as they go along and somehow things seem to turn out generally OK. I am determined that this site does not become yet another series of rants, so I'll end by saying that most of the midwives that we encountered were great! We don't have any plans to come back though.

Go-faster resistors

I've always known that there is some magic required to get high frequency signals to go down a wire and actually appear at the other end, but for 31 years I have managed to get by by simply knowing that "there is some magic required to get high frequency signals to go down a wire and actually appear at the other end". Usually, a resistor here and there makes it work good enough (I am a software engineer afterall, we do not concern ourselves with such low-level issues...) Finally, necessity dictated that I needed to actually understand what that magic is. My thanks to the guys who wrote this site and taught me some transmission line theory. It seems that what I wanted to do is quite impossible. Perhaps I'll just stick a go-faster resistor across the terminals and see what happens anyway.

Outdoor activities

We spent today panting: boobs and pants. Apparently. It's about time Jonathan learned to pronounce the letter L.

ShamPoo

We near the end of potty training, so I have shampooed the carpet for the last time, again.

Nothing to add

I have just returned from a business trip to Sweden and yes of course I ended up in the emergency exit seats again. Despite cutting the end off my finger, having the motherboard in my laptop die the middle of a presentation, I'm relieved that my family has not yet received a new addition.

Outwit

My two-year old can memorise the location of every card turned over in the "memory" game, flawlessly. He's far better than me! ... Fortunately, his attention span is still a lot shorter than mine, he loses interest before he wins, so I'm still in with a chance.

Boundary Conditions

Tesco is to change the wording at it's checkouts. "10 items or less" becomes "Up to 10 items". The reason is that one should say "10 items or fewer", but some people are not sure. The nice thing about the old wording, from a software engineer's point of view, is that it provies a clear specification. It uses wording that (despite the English faux pas) has a well defined mathematical meaning. Unfortunately, they are going from the frying pan into the fire with the ambiguous specification of "Up to 10". Does that mean the the maximum number of items is 9 or 10? Up to 10, or up to and including 10? I don't think I've ever bought fewer than 11 items in a supermarket, and I don't foresee me generating test cases for the boundary condition.

What a waste

I overhead someone grumbling that they were 'fed up' with the two-weekly rubbish collection from the council; their bin, it seems, is always overflowing after one week, let alone two weeks (...) Last week, being bank holiday, I completely forgot to put out our bin, so the chances are that after four weeks, it might almost be ready for collection. With the recycling collections, how can anyone possibly fill a wheelie bin every week (or even every two)? What can they possibly find to throw away on that scale? On a related note, now that Tesco have stopped giving out carrier bags, please will the recycling collection men stop taking our precious carrier bags that we put our recycling in for collection?

Discontinuities

I happened to notice the google maps view of the Humber Bridge, one part seems to have been photographed in the morning, the other in the evening: google maps. At least they made a better job than Microsoft/Multimap where it looks like the bridge builders made a bit of a miscalculation.

More Rainwater

The Internet is rich with ideas for harvesting rainwater. How can I use the 100 litres of water that I seem to be catching daily? Short of an expensive plumbing project, connecting water butts to toilet cisterns, I'm out of ideas.

On a scale of Green to not Green

Keen to reduce our water usage (during that hot, dry week a few weeks ago) I ordered a water butt to use for watering the garden. It seems a good idea to use rain, instead of tap water in the watering can. I fitted it yesterday and within 24 hours of unspectacular British summer, I had 100 litres of fresh rainwater. It's all very exciting. But what have I actually saved? It cost quite a lot (£70) including a downpipe so that I could put the water butt where I wanted. I use about 5 watering cans (of 5 litres) to water the garden, that's 25 litres. If I do that 30 times per year (assuming that there is sufficient water in the butt) then 750 litres per year. It doesn't seem an awful lot. To put things in perspective,

• Apparently, having a shower uses 35 litres, flushing the toilet uses 8 litres, so that puts me on about 22,000 litres per year, just from the bathroom.
• The average water consumption per person is about 140 litres per day, so 51,100 litres per year.
• A few weeks ago I reported to Yorkshire water that there was a water leak on a busy road in York. It had been leaking for about 6 months. Judging from the amount of water that was going upwards to the road this leak might have been far wetter than our dining room roof during drizzle. So guessing at 200 litres per day, that is 73,000 litres per year.

Ironically, I got stuck in the traffic jam on Sunday caused by the water company fixing the leak.

Pure Brilliant White

The problem with painting skirting boards is that when you finish one, there is always another one, or a door frame, or a stair rail. The job is never done. After painting all evening, I'm worried that the probability of accidentally leaning/kicking touching one of them before they are dry is rapidly approaching 1.

I'm Swimming in the Rain

When it rains, the attendants at the outdoor swimming pool (that we can see from our office) call the people indoors. We've joked about it being to stop them getting wet, but we now wonder if it's because the life-guards don't want to get wet (presumably not getting wet is not in the job-spec of a lifeguard!)

Jobs

I was once in the routine of doing one "DIY" job every day, perhaps only something small each day, but something. It was a good routine because it got things done and I didn't spend the whole evening in front of a laptop writing reports. I don't know how I got out of the routine, perhaps one day there were no jobs to do(!) There certainly are jobs now, however. I am hoping that by writing this down I'll stick to it this time. Sunday: garage door frame undercoat. Monday: garage door frame topcoat. Tuesday: err. TBA In case I "can't" think of anything one night, here are a few things to keep me going:

• fix that annoying bit of skirting board that keeps coming off
• paint the gloss in the dining room
• water butt
• paint that bit of polyfilla by the dining room window
• put some trellis by the compost
• floor of downstairs loo
• gloss paint in downstairs loo
• put up coving in living room
• paint coving
• fix loft hatch
• paint loft hatch
• move header tanks in loft (probably several evenings...)
• knock down the wall in our garden
• check the sealant around the sink
• write a new list

Buzz off!

There has been a great increase in flies in the last few days. Presumably due to the warmer weather. Living next to a cow field, you expect a fly or two. However, the number at the moment is just, just...just buzz off!

Gadget Shopping List

1. MoGo Mouse
2. Suitcase for handluggage: less than 56cm x 45cm x 25cm. Any suggestions?
3. Garden Shredder Why don't these seem very gadgety any more? Am I getting old...?

RSS

Like most new technologies, it took me a little while to discover RSS, but I've been using RSS for a couple of years now. It's such a useful little thing that I am always surprised other people don't. In case you also don't know what RSS is...it's a way of getting automatic updates about websites, news, blogs, etc. Most web browsers, email clients etc can read RSS; just click on the little icon in your browser that looks like this: . However, one of the most useful ways to read RSS is using google. You can setup a web page with lots of RSS feeds on it so you can keep up to date when people post blog entries, with news updates etc. I can really recommend this technology. If you have not tried it...why not have a go now?

The first computer

According to the Easyjet inflight magazine (which I happened to be reading today during a particularly boring flight to Madrid): Manchester boasts that "The world’s first computer was built in Manchester in 1948. A working replica is housed in the city's Museum of Science and Industry." A few pages later, Sofia, Bulgaria has a similar claim to fame: "The inventor of the first electronic computer John Vincent Atanasoff is of Bulgarian origin. He and Clifford Berry tackled this task at Iowa State University, between 1939 and 1942." So which one is right? (And why didn't the same person proof-read the whole magazine?) I'm sure that I remember something about the Z1 in 1936.

And exams aren't getting easier...

1 mark for spelling and 1 for an inspirational insight.

Planes, trains and spaghetti

I have travelled quite a lot, in Europe at least, but never have I had such a stressful nor disastrous trip as my most recent to Venice, Italy. I don't know whether I am lucky to be finally waiting in the airport lounge for the return trip, or unlucky that I had such a hard time to get here. My glass is generally half-full so I'll go for the first option. It should have been a nice week at Ada Europe, a small conference for people who care that software works correctly, in a beautiful city and lots of good food. Instead, this trip involved manning a booth without a booth (at first at least), flooding (in Venice!), a projector that broke just before I gave a technical presentation (yes, I dictated source code and waved graphs with my arms), missing the last train of the day, being stranded on a motorway (on foot) three miles from the hotel at 1am and carrying a 30kg box from Venice to Mestre on a 30'C day. However, the food was indeed good and apparently the presentation was actually quite memorable, there's certainly a novelty about an oral code review. This trip also broke the jinx of the emergency exit...on Easyjet you get to choose your own seat.

The best pizza

Despite what the Italians say, the best pizza I have ever eaten was a Hoi-sin Duck pizza. This pizza is basically your typical Chinese restaurant aromatic crispy duck (with hoi-sin sauce, spring onion on cucumber) on a pizza base (instead of the pancakes) with coriander and a light touch of cheese. I had it at Felicini's Bakewell and thoroughly recommend it!

Bindweed

I didn't recognise this pretty flower quickly enough last year....now we have an infection of this invasive nuisance weed! Every 24 hours I am pulling up handfuls of new shoots. Apparently, at best, I will be doing this for at least two more years (more drastic method such as digging out the soil to at least 5 metres deep might reduce this to one year). On the other hand,  I might just introduce it to the back garden, see if I can kill of that horrible conifer hedge...

Emergency Exit

On an aeroplane I usually sit at the emergency exit seat. I really don't know why I do, it just seems to be that way. Today makes the 6th consecutive plane journey in the emergency exit seat. I'm not tall, I don't need the leg room, and I much prefer to be able to keep my bag under the seat in front of me (which you can't do in the exit seat). This trip, I double-checked at check-in that I wasn't in the exit seat. "No problem sir, you're in 9, the exit is 11". It turns out that 9 is the exit. The last trip, they allocated me the exit seat, but I changed it at check-in. However, on boarding the plane the staff take me aside and ask if I will swap tickets with someone...so that I can operate the exit in an emergency.

Bovinophobia

When we moved in, at the bottom of our garden was: 1. 2 metre high wooden fence 2. Barbed wire 3. 2.5 metre high hawthorn hedge, about 1 metre deep 4. Holly hedge What was this high security perimeter for? I can only assume that it was to stop the cows in the field behind us looking in the garden for greener pastures. What were the previous occupants thinking? Should the cows manage to scale the fence (without getting caught on the barbed wire) and survive the vicious spikes in the hawthorn then the holly would put them off... I have now removed most of the features from the bottom of the garden, reclaiming a good 8 square metres of garden and a pleasant view of a few friendly cows.

Railway Sleeper

When my neighbour offered to take one of the railway sleepers we happened to inherit when we bought our house, I did not imagine quite what he would be doing with it. He did mention that it would be a nice training tool for his Tai Chi training, but while I was imagining him doing "Karate Chops" or perhaps wax-on/wax-off for a nice bench... These things are heavy, especially the water-logged ones I had. I can barely move them. Apparently the Tai Chi exercise he had in mind (and then demonstrated) was effectively letting it fall from the vertical onto one of his forearms and pushing it back up again. Suddenly feeling rather insignificant, I silently vowed to do some weight-lifting.

Like a diamond in the sky

While playing "Super Shape Challenge" game (for two year olds): Mummy: "What shape is this?" Child: "Errr.." Mummy: "T....." Mummy: "Tr...." Mummy: "Tri..." Child: "Triangle!" Child: "Look! I've found a Rhombus over here!" I can just imagine in a year or so "unlearning" the name for an equilateral parallelogram at nursery or infant school: Teacher: "What shape is this?" Child: "A Rhombus" Teacher: "It's diamond!"

Venetian Blind

I had always, naively, assumed that there was some technical logic in the sizes of ready-made blinds. I now believe that there is absolutely no forethought or design, whatsoever, in choosing the range of sizes for blinds. For example... We have a window that is 126.5cm wide and we decided that we would fit a Venetian blind. The range of Venetian blinds that we choose includes 120cm and 150cm wide blinds. We tried the 120cm blind, it being almost right. However, with a 3(.25)cm gap at each side, it did look a bit silly. So I exchanged it for the next size up, 150cm, so that we could shorten it to exactly the right size, just as I had done quite easily for another window (just clamp, hacksaw and then file the corners). It turns out that due to the placement of the cords, the cord catch and the twiddly thing that adjusts the blind, that the minimum width that this 150cm blind can ever (without serious modification) be adjusted to is 131cm. I have spent almost three hours fitting this blind tonight. And it's still not finished. Further modification, requiring a tower drill or drill stand, is still needed before it will adequately fit my simple 126.5cm window. The conclusions? 1. There is no sane logic to the sizes of ready-made Venetian blinds 2. Buy made to measure next time.

Administrator Woes

Well, our new employee seems to be everything we hoped for. All is going really great and I've had a few days of actual software-related work to do. I'd forgotten how good it is to get your teeth into a real technical problem. In this case: making every byte in every file identical across all platforms including different big-endian and little-endian architectures. (Actually it's quite painful, but a welcome change.) So the woes? The problem is that when I was doing every little odd-job that needed doing, my day was full of standing up, sitting down, reaching, answering phones, lifting, walking, fetching and carrying. This week, I've sat still in my chair, working hard on the computer. I've got slight eye-strain and a back ache. How can I force myself to take breaks and move around when my job has suddenly got so exciting?

Administrator

We take on a new member of staff next week, a professional at handling much of the company's administrative work that I seem to end up doing. Now, what was that software stuff about? that thing that I learned about when I was young?

Sewing is not woodwork

I have always managed to get by with a needle and thread, mending clothes from time to time, but faced with shortening two pairs of curtain by hand, I decided to buy a sewing machine. Sewing with a machine is fantastic! You can get intricate, accurate stitches (in a straight line), quickly and easily. My new curtains are the perfect length, and an old pair of trousers are also mended (because I can...). How did people ever make any non-trivial items of clothing/linen/curtains before the computer-controlled sewing machine was invented? I liken the experience to the first time that you use a circular saw - perfect straight cuts with no effort. However, there are two important differences compared to cutting wood. 1. Fabric stretches. Draw a straight line on a piece of wood and you know what you have. Draw a straight line on a piece of fabric and depending on how you happened to place the curtains on the bench/floor, you could have drawn any piece of modern art. 2. You can un-pick stitches a lot easier than you can undo any kind of woodwork.

Babysitting relief

We went out last, intending to leave Jonathan in the capable hands of two terrified friends who kindly offered to babysit, even though they knew that they would have to put him to bed. As it happens, he was so tired (aka grumpy) that we put him to bed before we left. I'm not sure whether our babysitters were quietly relieved or disappointed at having missed the opportunity. Personally I'm just shocked at how (after having a child) I'd forgotten how refreshing the Guzzler is.

Early Riser

A couple of days ago, for the first time in months, it was almost dawn when I got up for work. In fact, apparently the sunrise tomorrow is at 6:46am. On the 9th March, I will be getting up exactly at sunrise and then after that, it will already be light when I wake up! When we lived in York, I had the luxury of getting up at whatever time I liked. It was a short cycle to work, and flexible working hours. This was a luxury that I took full advantage of! At that time, I was around some very respected and influential people who were early risers. They were people who seemed to be in the office and full of energy before everyone else in (my) world were awake. They were generally knocking off, having done a full day's work, about the same time that I was just getting my brain warmed up. At one point, I began to wonder what was wrong with me! I really wanted to get up earlier. I could see all the practical reasons why I should! However, despite trying to convince myself that I was going to get early, when the alarm goes off I always re-convinced myself that going back to sleep was always more sensible. When we moved further away from work, I did it with the full knowledge, slight excitement and a very real fear that the bus timetable is little lean, the only practical bus to work leaving at 7:30am. Would I be able to do it? Looking back, the change was remarkably easy. When you don't have a choice (get up now, or don't go to work at all), you get up. And you soon get into a rhythm. It all seems similar to this approach to becoming an early riser. I am not sure that I would have had the motivation to do it without an external influence, but the principle is the same. I am now an early riser and I wish I had done it years ago. Good night.

Olive Ice

After protestations from Spanish people around the world when I planted an olive tree in our garden last year ("It won't grow in your cold English weather") I can confirm that not only did it survive the winter, but that it even produced a crop of olives in the autumn. I admit that the olives were only the size of peas, but I didn't really expect to harvest any once I realised that you can't eat them off the tree - they take lots of preparation.

Insurance refund

It is a pity that I didn't take a photograph of our car. I can describe it however. It has two windows (off-side), a V-shaped roof and a rather odd-shaped front. Oh and apparently it was upside down. The insurance company were very nice and gave us some money to buy a new car. So, we bought a nice new car and updated the insurance policy so we could drive it. The insurance premium actually went down. What a nice surprise.

Spoilt for Choice

"Deux biers, s'il vous plait." "Oui, d'accord. You prefer the Heineken?" "Or? ... Ou?" "Just Heineken."

Public Transport:

If I hear one more comment that begins "Oh my God, you know how many people she slept with..." then I will never use public transport again. Cordially yours Grumpy old man. P.S. For the first time (ever) I have arrived in a foreign country and their trains (á Paris) had longer delays than ours. P.P.S Google, please note: the fact that I am currently in France does not change the fact that I am writing in English. You know this already because I gave my details as UK, and everything I have ever done is in English! Merci.

Pixel Mania

This week I have received by email (from two different customers): - a printed and scanned version (as PDF) of a quotation that I produced (as PDF) - a printed and scanned version (as PDF) of a purchase order generated from a spreadsheet I wonder if I should print the purchase order out so that I can scan it and reference it from the invoice...

Background noise

With another RapiRun under my belt today, and arriving in the office 20 minutes earlier than usual (7:30am), I felt ready for anything today. I even replaced a CPU fan in a server that had been getting noisier every day for the last two years. You eventually get used to background noise, but it really couldn't wait any longer. It was so loud that I had turned it off earlier this week because it was keeping me awake at night. Consequently a couple of websites are now up again... I wonder if I'll be able to sleep without the "hum" coming from the server room in the loft.

Gaseous Emissions

According to the BBC, Abu Dhabi is going green, with a 50,000 person city having zero-emissions of carbon dioxide. How is this achieved? By using Hydrogen as a fuel. And how do the make the hydrogen you ask? Using solar power? Renewable energy? "Hydrogen will be manufactured from natural gas by reactions involving steam, producing a mixture of hydrogen and carbon dioxide. " But it gets worse! "President Bush's administration is also pumping money into hydrogen. The CO2 can be pumped underground, either simply to store it away permanently or as a way of extracting more oil from existing wells, using the high-pressure gas to force more of the black gold to the surface."

1. Storing your waste gases is not a viable way of reducing long-term emissions.
2. How can they justify using the waste CO2 to extract more oil?!
3. Moving the problem somewhere else does not solve it.
4. Do they think that natural gas is in infinite supply?

I cannot believe that this was reported in a positive light by the BBC.

In search of buried treasure

Yesterday we we went on a geocache hunt. It was quite a fun day out! The idea is basically:

• there is a big database showing the coordinates of hidden "treasure" all over the world (treasure means a sandwich box with bits and bobs in it)
• you go and find one, using your GPS unit, and have a nice day out walking with a bit of fun
• you exchange a bit for a bob and put the treasure box back again for someone else

It all sounded like a nice excuse for some fresh air so we set off with our cool new TomTom One, 3rd edition GPS through the woods. We knew that we were looking for a small sandwich box hidden in Wheldrake woods under a pine tree. I had programmed the coordinates in and the TomTom said that it was right next to a track through the woods. It is rated as "difficult level 1 of 5" (very easy). It didn't quite match up to where it looked like it should be according to the OS grid reference, but I figured that the GPS must be more accurate then a 1:50 000 landranger map. After a short walk, we knew we must be close. On the screen was "us" right on top of the "goal post" icon. The hint said look under a pine tree. As helpful as this was when walking through a pine wood(!) at least we knew had to look down, not up. We looked and we looked and looked some more. We got caught on brambles, we approached the spot from the other side, we went up and down the road, we searched every pine tree in the area. We walked home having had a nice day out, but disappointed to have not found buried treasure. Back at home, after cross-referencing the location on other maps, it turns out that our GPS doesn't really like walking off-road. It "corrects" every destination to the nearest road or track that it can find. So in fact the real treasure (allegedly) was something like 300 metres from where the TomTom had decided to take us. According to everything I can find on the Internet, this "feature" cannot be turned off. Although someone has developed some (free) off-road walking software for TomTom hardware, the TomTom ONE v3 is not compatible with it. I wonder if TomTom would like to do a software upgrade. Until they do, it's firmly "Not recommended" unless you want to drive everywhere.

Gone in 10 seconds...for good?

As a followup to Gone in 10 seconds, see you next week, my favourite female recruitment agency rep. called today. Perhaps I imagined it, but I'm sure I heard the office cheer when I firmly informed her of our lack of interest, was (ever so slightly) less than polite and put the phone down on her mid-sentence. Sorry babe, but we honestly do not need your services.

The Price of Power

In Monopoly, the probability of paying anything to the the electric company (by virtue of landing on it) is about 0.026040 per turn (assuming that you don't own the electric company). If you do have to pay anything then you have to pay 10 times the value of a roll of two dice (assuming that both utilities are owned by the same owner, which nowadays seems pretty likely). The expected value a single payment is £70 and therefore expected value of payments to the electric company is £1.82 per turn. Not in Monopoly, things are a tad more expensive (£600) and a lot more likely (1). When we moved into our house, some 18 months ago, we arranged to take over all the utilities (gas/electric/water/phone). However for electricity, we got a nice letter back saying that they were not able to setup our account because the current supplier had objected and that we should find out who the current supplier is using a look-up service and contact them for an explanation. We discovered that it was British Gas, so I phoned the customer helpline and listened to lots of music dubbed with "Your call is important to us". After 30 minutes, I had to attend to other things (my time not free!). Thoroughly frustrated I tried again another time. After 10 minutes, I gave up. (I did notice several letters from the supplier addressed to the previous occupant over the next months, these were returned to the sender since we do not have a forwarding address.) And that was where I left it. We did not receive a single bill for electricity. Today, someone arrived to disconnect our electricity supply (according to the note through the door). As it happens, the meter is indoors and we were all out. The caller had left his mobile telephone number, and it turned out that he was a nice man called Ray who helpfully worked out that the arrears was just under £600 and that I could pay half of it now and the rest by direct debit over the next 12 months. This seemed like a very good option to me. We'd had 18 months of free credit but mostly I was pleased to have an instant fix without wasting any time in a telephone queue. Next time I have a problem with a service I might just be tempted to stop paying and wait for them to contact me.

Gone in 10 seconds, see you next week

We have all had had telesales/telemarketing calls to our home number. In recent years, my experience has been quite good, with only a few calls getting through. I am of course registered on telephone preference service, which stops all reputable callers. Therefore any telesales calls at home are immediately classified as disreputable and won't get very far. I have used the famous EGBG counterscript before, it's great. However, at work a whole new set of rules exist. It all started a year ago when we advertised a job opening on the Internet and in a relevant publication. We had very specific requirements for the job and had expecting some recruitment agencies to pick up on it, we had written "Strictly no recruitment agencies" on the advert. Within minutes of the job advert going live, we had a telephone call from a recruitment agency. We politely explained that we didn't want to use a recruitment agency. Minutes later another, and another and another and another. By the end of the day our responses were getting more and more curt. We were getting better at handling them. In fact, we have something of a standing joke in the office about who could get rid of a recruitment agency the quickest. Some of them are quite clever at hiding who they are from the outset. "I'm calling about the position advertised on the Internet, could you explain a little more...." before you realised that it was not a genuine applicant. These phone calls could take a minute or so. Gradually, we got used to the routine and recognised the names of the agencies. The standard response is now only a few seconds. "We have no need for any recruitment agency, thank you for calling. Good bye. (click)" To the ones that try to prolong the conversation further, I get quite rude. Unfortunately, there is one agency in particular that I still struggle with. For starters, the sales rep is a woman. I find being overtly rude quite difficult, especially to women, so that puts us on the wrong foot to start with. I think that I am quite clear when I say to her "We do not, and never will, have any need for any recruitment agency. Please do not call again." But she also has clever questions that you cannot say "no" to. You somehow find yourself being tricked into having agreed to a callback in a month. She might have won the battle, but she will never win the war. Even if we did need a recruitment agency (which we don't!) the last one on earth that we would ever turn to is one that contrives, tricks and wastes your time every 4 weeks on the phone.

New lamps for old

I had a lovely day yesterday taking Jonathan to York's National Railway Museum. It's free entry and quite a good day out for a toddler! The £7 car park fee is expensive of course, but if you pretend that you're paying for the museum then you don't feel quite so duped!

I realise that I have a some misconceptions about technology when I look at the amazing engineering that was in use 50, 100, 200 years ago. In the days before the transistor, I sometimes imagine that engineering was crude and simple.

In reality, the designs are amazingly complex, the mechanics beyond what I could invent, the mathematics is well thought through, the hand-engineering skills of truly high quality.

Today, we are not better than the engineers of yore, in fact I think we lack the patience and attention to detail that is clear on the older trains. There is always pressure to create something quickly, and there are tools to make this possible!

But if you know that it will take days to construct a simple iron component by hand, then you first must be really sure what that component should be.

On another topic, I have been writing this blog for a little while now, but I have no idea who might actually be reading it though. According to the web counter, some people are!

So here is a little test.

If you read this then next time you see me, make a sentence using the word "raillery". If you don't see me, then leave a comment instead.

If enough people do this then I will be inspired to continue writing this blog.

Wellington boots

Following the recent wet weather, Elvington main road was flooded again this morning under about 6" of water in places. I noticed this Evening Press news article: Elvington celebrates as flood defences are finally completed, 3rd January 2008. I suppose it's a slightly misleading headline. The key part of the flood defenses is a pump to move water from the beck in the village into the river Derwent, which presumably can have a higher water level than the beck. According to the article, the pump will be connected to the electricity supply tomorrow. As a software engineer, I am used to working with the assumption that connecting something to the electricity is somewhere near the start a project, not the completion! There then follows significant testing, bug-fixing, adjusting, tinkering and redesign. Back to Elvington: apparently, there is a temporary pump working though. I wonder what's gone wrong. Today's worry is that last time the road was flooded, the bus home took a detour, turning off the road before the flood. No problem, except that I would normally get off the bus the other side of the flood. I wasn't awake enough to think about wellies when I left the house at 7:15am.

Out of breath

Our CEO completed the Great North Run last October. Returning full of enthusiam, two days later the company's RapiRun running club began. The aim is so that the whole company could compete in the Great North Run next year. It was greeted with the sort of universal enthusiasm you might expect. It would not be out of place in a Dilbert cartoon. Nevertheless, about one third of the staff, including myself, are now regular participants. Although I doubt that I will run the Great North Run next year, I have certainly seized the opportunity to actually do some good, regular exercise. With two runs before Christmas (10th and 30th October) we didn't exactly get off to a good start though! Nevertheless, with lots of Christmas pudding inside us and at least one new year's resolution behind us we have done two runs this week. Both of which have proved that I am thoroughly unfit and desperately in need of the club!

The smallest room in the house.

After putting off dealing with the broken tiles and generally bad decor in our bathroom for 2 years since we moved in....it's time to "do" the bathroom. In our small bathroom, we simply want "bath with shower, toilet, basin, tiles". Nothing elaborate, designer or expensive. We also decided to get someone else to install it, time is in short supply at the moment. According to the bathroom shop, this will cost "£5,000 to £10,000". Now, this is a little more than we were hoping to spend. I think we are going to change our plans...it's about time I learned to fit a bathroom. It cannot be that hard, can it? I suppose the first thing would be to make a shopping list. Bath £300 Toilet, cistern £180 Sink & vanity unit £250 Shower head £300 Mixer tap 2*£150 = £300 Heated Towel Rail £150 Floor Tiles 3sqm*£30 = £90 Wall Tiles 12sqm*£25= £300 Grout/adhesive £80 Misc (wood/boxing etc) <£100 Pipes. drains etc £200 Furniture (toilet roll holder etc) <£100 New light £150 Shower rail, curtain £80 Total £2580. Hmm, still expensive. That's more than we spent on our kitchen, which is definitely not the smallest room in the house! I wonder if we can re-use anything already in the bathroom, perhaps we can just fix the cracked bath panel and put some new grout on the tiles.

Snowball on ice

At 7:20am this morning queuing for the bus, the whole world was covered with beautiful white snow. Untouched by mankind. I felt a youthful flush as I remembered the days of snowmen and snowball fights in the playground. Hardly without a thought, I eagerly scooped a handful of crisp white snow and packed it into a perfect sphere. It was just the right sort of snow. Looking round for an easy target, I saw another person waiting for the bus glance quickly away. I raised my arm slowly and carefully... Suddenly glowing hot with embarrassment, I lightly dropped the ball harmlessly into the ground, my body language screaming "I meant to do it".

Double Top

Some time ago we inherited quite a nice pub dartboard and cabinet. After the endless petitions about good aim, I finally agreed to put it up in the house. In the dining room as it happens. Two "legs" and one hour (!) later, we have a door covered in holes and all proclamations of good aim are thoroughly disputed. Will we improve our aim or decorate first?

The end of the turkey

We bought a small turkey crown to cook for Christmas dinner, so I just don't understand how it lasted until today. I am rather paranoid about cooking meet thoroughly, so as usual the meat was overcooked: dry and chewy. I did discover that you can bring it back to life by simmering it in some chicken stock for a few minutes. The last of the turkey became a turkey curry; and Jonathan (age 2) agreed that it was rather nice by eating two bowls of it immediately after he had finished his real dinner.

Shelves

With no biscuit jointer in my Christmas stocking, tonight I put up some shelves joined with rather tidy routed lap-joints, which fit together perfectly. But in 15mm laminated chip board, the joints are quite frankly not strong enough to hold up much. So there is a large piece of skirting board screwed across the joint. Still, once I get them loaded up with junk in the garage, I have a feeling that the joints will suddenly become invisible.

A Christmas Message

We didn't see the Queen's Christmas message: we were half asleep and half hoping that an excited two-year old would have an afternoon nap (a vain hope). I was rather pleased to receive one of those "whistle to find your keys" key fobs for Christmas; to save me asking Karen "every" day if she has seen my keys. Unfortunately, it responds to many other things as well as a whistle, for example: a two-year old's voice, bangs, other Christmas toys, keys jangling... I might have to keep it in a different pocket to my keys so that it doesn't keep beeping when I am walking. I'll watch the Queen's Christmas message on YouTube, just as soon as I get Linux working on this new laptop.