Early Risers.

[grandadbob]

I have got a Will made many years ago and have been thinking of changing/updating it. However with my track record lately that may be tempting Providence a little bit. lot. 

Edited December 8, 2016 by grandadbob

[The Stationmaster]

Earlier this century we got my parents to alter their tenure of the bungalow plus make new wills - no tempting providence there.  However we also sorted pre-paid funerals for both of them and when I duly called the undertaker following the death of my mother the first question I asked was when did the pre-paid arrangement take effect and was told it was from the date the policy had been returned duly accepted by the insurer.  To which i replied, that's great - it arrived back three days before she died.  Probably didn't save any money but it did save a lot of hassle.

[Horsetan]

I have got a Will made many years ago and have been thinking of changing/updating it. However with my track record lately that may be tempting Providence a little bit. lot.

You may find yourself outliving your intended Beneficiaries, to say nothing of your Executor(s).

[BSW01]

Good afternoon everyone

 

Still not 100%, more like 40%, not getting out of bed until 11:00 this morning. I should have been returning back to work tomorrow, but I've spoken to my doctor this morning and she has given me a sick note until next Friday, so I'll return to work on the 18th.

 

Back later

[jonny777]

a few years ago we had an, admittedly brief, snow-storm in Inverness in July - we were in a supermarket at the time - but several drivers did imitations of waltzers as they tried to leave the carpark.

 

Re Bin collections - here, if the lid of the bin won't close - the bin-men won't take it - one or two have learned the hard way!

 

I hardly use by refuse bin, so I tend not to notice how infrequently they turn up.

 

We recycle just about everything, and kitchen scraps/peelings go on the compost heap. The recycler and food waste lorry comes every week, which gets rid of most things, and the green waste every fortnight (but we rarely use that either because we have a shredder and everything ends up on the compost heap for use on the allotment at a later date).

 

We waste as little food as possible, unlike a lot of folk apparently - who appear to chuck out kilos of the stuff - and at this time of year old meat bones and the like tend to end up on the living room fire.

 

They only items the recyclers do not take is black plastic, because their computerised sorting system cannot cope with its opaque qualities (or something like that), but they tend to make good firelighters on a day when there is little draught.

 

I have no idea why others cannot do the simple sorting and recycling; but one Christmas when it snowed the refuse men lived up to their cynical name and refused to do the rounds because the routes were iced up and deemed too dangerous. Many people left their black wheelie bins in the street because we had no idea when they might come again. After less than two weeks the chap in the house opposite could not close the lid on his bin, and when the lorry eventually turned up, another 10 days after that he had a second bin piled high with 'waste' of varying descriptions; whereas we had not even filled our normal bin.

 

I get the impression that a certain section of society see taxes as regular payments for slave labour who should be grateful for the job of clearing up peoples' mess two or three times a week. Oh dear, I am close to another rant - it must be the festive season.

[Horsetan]

....I'm staying away from that solicitors....

You might want to stay away from this hospital too....  

[Wigan Wallgate OO Gauge]

Whoopsie! I did it again, it's 02:15 here in NZ....I need to set limits for time on here

[TheQ]

I hardly use by refuse bin, so I tend not to notice how infrequently they turn up.

 

We recycle just about everything, and kitchen scraps/peelings go on the compost heap. The recycler and food waste lorry comes every week, which gets rid of most things, and the green waste every fortnight (but we rarely use that either because we have a shredder and everything ends up on the compost heap for use on the allotment at a later date).

 

We waste as little food as possible, unlike a lot of folk apparently - who appear to chuck out kilos of the stuff - and at this time of year old meat bones and the like tend to end up on the living room fire.

 

They only items the recyclers do not take is black plastic, because their computerised sorting system cannot cope with its opaque qualities (or something like that), but they tend to make good firelighters on a day when there is little draught.

 

I have no idea why others cannot do the simple sorting and recycling; but one Christmas when it snowed the refuse men lived up to their cynical name and refused to do the rounds because the routes were iced up and deemed too dangerous. Many people left their black wheelie bins in the street because we had no idea when they might come again. After less than two weeks the chap in the house opposite could not close the lid on his bin, and when the lorry eventually turned up, another 10 days after that he had a second bin piled high with 'waste' of varying descriptions; whereas we had not even filled our normal bin.

 

I get the impression that a certain section of society see taxes as regular payments for slave labour who should be grateful for the job of clearing up peoples' mess two or three times a week. Oh dear, I am close to another rant - it must be the festive season.

We use our bin so infrequently , that they often drive past and ignore it when we do put it out...they are already looking at the next house.

[Shedman5]

Afternoon, I had a plan in my head when I awoke this morning,

 

Other half going shopping and meeting a friend for lunch add to that it was pouring down with rain equalled in my brain no outside jobs could be done which then equalled modeling time!

 

Alas it stopped raining! so new outside lights put up and various other tasks done. Good news is I have decimated my to do list and tomorrow I am refusing any more additions and thus the shed beckons.

 

Waste collections never a problem here, starting to think we are very lucky.

 

Enjoy whats left of the day

[grandadbob]

You may find yourself outliving your intended Beneficiaries, to say nothing of your Executor(s).

 

I honestly hope I don't.

[Ian Abel]

BIN day here (too!).. interesting discussion of BINs and the collecting thereof.

Over here in Trumpdom, of course, it's not related to rates/local taxes etc., so given we pay directly to whomever we want for collection - gotta love capitalism <not always> - they are generally pretty good about taking anything/everything.

We dumped one "provider" as they had a nasty habit of deciding not to take a slightly over-full bin and sundry larger items that wouldn't fit. Our current (several years now) provider is a charm of a company, and the owner and his family work the routes. They take anything/everything, are always friendly and on time.

The BONUS is that they are a "greener" company, running a fleet of smaller more efficient trucks than most of the other companies, promote that feature, AND they wheel the bin back up the driveway (60+ ft.) when they are done! If we forget to take it to the end of the drive they even come up and retrieve it - that is service.

 

Yesterday little to report, save my Wednesday lunch buddy was out sick (unknown until shortly before lunchtime), so I could have avoided the drive in. Since the office is STILL freezing cold - heating system in the building seems to be iffy/uncontrollable in our offices - I therefore left as soon as I found out.

 

<BUSINESS RANT>

The "Long Island client", as previously reported, is running on a cloud based system.

Notified yesterday by the cloud provider that the "reporting system was utilizing 90% of the disk space and could we address it/clean it up some". Since I'd already addressed this several months back and stated we needed probably the space we were using AND MORE, requested they increase the disk space.

Reminded them of that, and that therefore maybe we still needed more, they replied with the fact that they'd doubled the disk space before...wait for it..

from 100GB to 200GB! They therefore are reluctant to provide more! My desktop PC had a 250GB drive JUST FOR WINDOWS!!!!!    

 

I'm about to go ballistic with them as it seems to me 200GB of disk space is a pittance for a business environment, and since even for commercial systems they can probably add 1 TERRABYTE for around $200 (cheap consumer carp is down to $50 per TB now!!) the fact we're even discussing upping the available space by such small amounts is laughable. <grrr>

<END RANT>

 

OK, done with that.

 

-8 and overcast this morning, wind chill -16, with a light dusting of snow overnight. A high of -4 expected then down to -12 overnight.

Next week expected to actually get cold  as we are going to reach ZERO or below - before you all smirk, I mean ZERO FAHRENEHEIT, as in -18 CELSIUS.

Remembering they report in "F" here, we're looking at our first "zero degree overnight" probably next Tuesday. Good thing I'm in Long Island next week

 

Hope your BINs get suitably serviced, carpe rubbish.

Edited December 8, 2016 by Ian Abel

[The Stationmaster]

Just to give you something else to think about Ian here's one with you (and Gemma) in mind (although you've probably seen it)-

 

[Ian Abel]

Just to give you something else to think about Ian here's one with you (and Gemma) in mind (although you've probably seen it)-

 

Indeed, saw that

 

One of the occasional routes Jemma does with an overnight is to Minot, North Dakota - earlier this week they had 12+ inches of snow on the ground with blowing snow and blizzard conditions, everything there was grounded for 24-hours. Fortunately she wasn't there this week!

[AndyB]

I have got a Will made many years ago and have been thinking of changing/updating it. However with my track record lately that may be tempting Providence a little bit. lot. 

 

Just let 81C and myself know if, as beneficiaries, you need our full names and addresses for the new version.  

[Ohmisterporter]

It should have been our green bin emptying day yesterday but the council has decided that if we want it emptying we will have to pay an extra £30. So there will be no fortnightly green bin emptying until January, and only for those who have paid for it. It leaves me wondering what the collecting crews are doing for the next month. Are they having a month of on full pay, half pay, or no pay? If they are being paid what work are they doing? If they are filling their days doing meaningless time filling jobs they may as well be emptying bins. I don't agree with the principal that only the households that use services should pay for them; that is a slippery slope. 

 

Stay safe all.

[Horsetan]

Just let 81C and myself know if, as beneficiaries, you need our full names and addresses for the new version.

 

Be careful what you wish for. He might have left you his entire collection of MTK kits.....none of which have any instructions.

Edited December 8, 2016 by Horsetan

[roundhouse]

Talking of bins we don't put our normal rubbish one out any more. Only the plastic bag bin goes out once a month. The rest gets taken to various recycling places around town or in our composter.

 

Very mild here in The South East.

 

Day 3 of Southern strikes this week. We normally go to Coulsdon Town but the road is closed just up from the bus stop and only found that out whilst waiting along with many others for our bus which went straight down the by pass avoiding the town. Last night took and extra half hour as some buses weren't going all the way to Redhill once I walked to a bus stop that the buses were using.

Tonight we may get off at Reedham station and walk to the bus stop there but it's a longer walk so will probably miss the normal bus.

 

Next week we have the drivers strike aswell so that will no doubt be a lot worse.

[45156]

It should have been our green bin emptying day yesterday but the council has decided that if we want it emptying we will have to pay an extra £30. So there will be no fortnightly green bin emptying until January, and only for those who have paid for it. It leaves me wondering what the collecting crews are doing for the next month. Are they having a month of on full pay, half pay, or no pay? If they are being paid what work are they doing? If they are filling their days doing meaningless time filling jobs they may as well be emptying bins. I don't agree with the principal that only the households that use services should pay for them; that is a slippery slope. 

 

Stay safe all.

 I regret that I have chosen to pay the thirty quid, as we generate a lot of garden waste which is not all that compostible, as we have several large hedges and a few trees which need lopping from time to time, and parting with the "fee" is better than messing the back of the car up with garden rubbish, and driving to one or other of the local tips - even though one is a lot easier to get to now that the new bypass is open.

[45156]

Afternoon All

 

Finally caught up and posts rated and read - I must say that two taxi runs a day to deliver and collect 30747 is making inroads into my day, and what with 30747 also having to work loads of extra sessions, so my tasks domestic are more than normal as well.

 

Anyways, greetings are sent to all my fellow ERs, both ailing and celebrating, and indeed those who just want a greeting for nothing in particular.

 

I'll not be around this weekend, as we are visiting a friend of 30747 who is awaiting surgery, and on Sunday, there are so many jobs looming that I may not even get the laptop switched on.

 

Probably back Monday.

 

Regards to All

Stewart

 

ps Hi Dave, I see you lurking there - come on in, your presence would be welcomed.

Edited December 8, 2016 by 45156

[Tony_S]

I think Ian's cloud provider could rent some space on my IPod Classic. I do know that mission critical super dooper drives cost a bit more than my latest raid mirror backup thingy but it does sound a bit limiting.

Matthew rang last night and said he was thinking of not applying to Sheffield as they wanted to him to change the focus of his research but the the supervisor rang him today and had a chat and he is submitting his application. He is also applying to Sussex. He was quite chirpy last night as he had won a bottle of wine at a bar quiz. It was the first time the geography students had sent a team. They won. Matthew's knowledge of European airports helped!

[PhilJ W]

You might want to stay away from this hospital too....  

I know someone who is in that very hospital, for a prostate operation.

[AndyID]

Bright sunshine here, but a bit chilly. All the way up to -3 now after an overnight low of -10.

 

Our bin day is unpredictable. I usually wait until the bin is full before I truck it to the coup.

[AndyID]

My senior colleague thinks it's hilarious and now calls me the Angel of Death....

 

Any plans to come to the US in the near future? There's someone I'd like you to meet. Ian Abel and I might chip in a few quid.

[TheQ]

I wish they'd decided on a standard set of bin colours round the country, our green bin is for recycling, black for rubbish, our gardening bin would be brown if we had one and would cost £44.20 . But with a 1.5 acres of garden I'd need more than one bin. So the wood goes in the wood burner, twiggy bits on the bonfire, the rest goes on the compost heap.

Edited December 8, 2016 by TheQ

[Horsetan]

I know someone who is in that very hospital, for a prostate operation.

 

Best tell him to go private whilst there's still time..... 

 

 

Any plans to come to the US in the near future? There's someone I'd like you to meet. Ian Abel and I might chip in a few quid.

 

If you mean The Donald, nothing appears to work on him.

Edited December 8, 2016 by Horsetan