Uncategorized Archives - Page 4 of 11

Seek and ye shall find

One of my jobs today was trimming the hedge. This is quite a task. Fortunately I have an effective petrol hedge trimmer which is up to the task (even if I may not be!).

Anyway, part way into the job quite suddenly the handle on the trimmer felt “peculiar”. After stopping the engine, a short inspection revealed that a screw had fallen out and that the handle was now well and truly loose. The trimmer was now dangerous to use. My how I cursed!

Before I went to the bit box, I decided to have a look around on the off chance that I would find the missing screw. And… fortunately I found it. So, the proper screw is fitted. It and its mate have been tightened. The hedge has been trimmed. And I have learned that I need to do more than a visual inspection of the hedge trimmer each time I put it away (and get it out to use it).

No harm done, and a nice optimistic story.

Floor heave and rising from the dead!

(Mass was on Saturday 6th August 2011)

I attended mass on Saturday evening and heard, and saw, the most extraordinary thing.

In the announcements, the Priest announced that there had been a problem with “floor heave” and that the baptistry (a part of the church to one side of the alter, where the font is located) was now out of bounds. It is expected to remain so for some time.

After the service, naturally a lot of the congregation went up to have a closer look at what had been described to us. What we saw was quite astonishing. The effected area of the floor was a rectangle at least a metre wide and a little longer. It had risen several inches above the normal floor level. On of the younger lads said it looked like “someone had been trying to rise from the dead”. I think he can be forgiven the blasphemy, because that is exactly what it did look like.

The area in question is floored with quarry tiles. They have been arranged in a geometric pattern. The upheaval has broken quite a number of them. That’s right – has broken thick quarry tiles. Some of the other members told me that this had happened during the week when a service had been in progress and that the noise (of the tiles breaking) had been frightening. I can quite believe it.

All I can say is, if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, I would find it hard to believe.

The visa is on its way

I’ve been told by the agent that my visa is on its way and should be with me by 17th August. I’m going to delay buying the bus tickets until a little closer to the date.

In the meanwhile, I have found something interesting which might turn into a different job. I will find out more on Wednesday. There is a slight problem in the the “new job” and the “Trip to Russia” overlap a bit. Still, these problems are there to be dealt with. Should be fun anyway.

“Communication is a problem to be answered”

and I’m sure 10cc were right, even if they didn’t mean communications between computers!

Noreen bought a new laptop yesterday. Ironically enough, it was purchased because the old one had a faulty wireless adapter and had a problem somewhere in the comms software stack. Being old, it seemed like it was better value to replace it (and get all her data streamed across) than spend more money on a 4 year old machine.

Connecting it to the router was no problem (enter the “key” and that was it). Connecting to eMail was no problem either (having all the details in a “little black book” helps. And if anyone wonders, isn’t black, it isn’t a book, and I’m not going to tell you what it is, where it is or what else it contains!). I noticed that the wireless connection “dropped” once, but put it down to gremlins. Connecting to the existing wireless printer proved much more of a problem. The instructions say that I may have a problem with the firewall. Well, that may be so, but I disabled it for the installation. I also noticed that the wireless connection is “dropping” quite a lot.

Yesterday evening, Noreen and the girls were using the internet on the new machine. Everything works well, when it works which isn’t all the time. The signal strength is reported as varying from “Good” down to “Poor”. Other things (like this laptop) connected to the same router have no problems. I guess it’s back to Anthony, the fellow who supplied the laptop, on Tuesday, after the break.

Setting up eMail accounts – capchas

I’ve just finished helping my wife set up some eMail accounts. Well, I did one and she did two after I had shown her. Such a simple task, but a little tedious. I’m glad I don’t have to do loads of them. And of course, it’s made that bit more tricky by having a “capcha” in the middle to prevent bots from creating loads of accounts automatically. I understand the need for them, but I do find them irritating. My character recognition doesn’t always agree with the machines!