Early Risers.

[Happy Hippo]

3 hours ago, jamie92208 said:

As to HH's eyes I think that he shoukd stop looking at green things with copper caps, he even thinks they lok nice these days.

Does any one else here have eyes that have changed colour?

 

I was born with green eyes, and was told my eyes would probably turn brown due to the eyed drops I was prescribed for glaucoma.

 

Not me, they are currently a rather tasteful shade of blue! (Probably nearer TTTE rather than Caledonian.)

 

 

[Happy Hippo]

 

See what I mean?

[Happy Hippo]

3 hours ago, Ozexpatriate said:

The helmeted children of the NFL made fools of themselves this evening with just eight seconds remaining in the Thursday night football game in Cleveland and the outcome in no doubt whatsoever. Just in case anyone is unsure, normally the helmets are intended to protect rather than attack.

 

Over here, calling someone a helmet is considered somewhat of an insult.

[TheQ]

What better colour to see from beneath the water in your muddy hollow..

 

Major system handed back,

 

 10 G ohm standard resistor measured OK,

 

New 1 Gohm resistor is on it's final test, I think it's a load of Carp and will be going back to it's makers..

 

 

Jackpot, I need a 2 mm to the foot, ferry, to be specific the RMS Claymore built in 1955.

The national maritime museum have the line drawings. 

 

Jackpot very small... There are 5 drawings, four at £76, 1 one at £36, mind you the big ones are 6ft long!!!

However that's still too many muddling pennies, So I'll have to muddle through with A4 prints of fuzzy pictures..

 

Edited November 15, 2019 by TheQ

[southern42]

' morning all from red dragon land.

Soggy out but rain stopped for now.  Still cold and windy, though.

 

As to my cold...still lingering.  Plan is to get enough oomph to get some h****work done...and get "fit"(!?!)        for Sunday playtime... 

Er...it does not feel like it...

Still, I try not to indulge in self-pity, and you never know...

so...

DECAF coffee time. 

 

_______________

Best wishes for now

Polly

[Barry O]

moreasons visited, parcels posted, garden pumped out again, talked with little sister... now what?

 

Oh goody model railway time beckons but first ...lunch

 

Baz

 

Bugggritt I have to get organised for my demo at Warley...Pah!!

[TheQ]

1 G Ohm resistor failed miserably, got permission to open up the box (it's actually made from 10 X 100M Ohm resistors. )

the box has  metal Swarf in it!!!! These things are so sensitive you aren't supposed to touch them with your fingers as the grease of the human skin will change the value.!!!  The Boss is going to raise a formal complaint..

[Stubby47]

13 minutes ago, TheQ said:

1 G Ohm resistor failed miserably, got permission to open up the box (it's actually made from 10 X 100M Ohm resistors. )

the box has  metal Swarf in it!!!! These things are so sensitive you aren't supposed to touch them with your fingers as the grease of the human skin will change the value.!!!  The Boss is going to raise a formal complaint..

 

Are we allowed to ask what the resistors are for ?  Your role seems to involve testing a great many very sensitive bits of kit that seem to need a very stable environment in which to work properly - I've been curious for a bit now as to what they could be used for.

[roundhouse]

Afternoon. Been busy in the shed.

 

A Blue Steel finished ready for mounting in the Victor.

 

Currently trying to work out why a brass loco that I have fitted a sound decoder randomly shorts every so often. Now disconnected the motor and all seems well with no shorting on the chassis, so it must be the motor yet works fine some times. Even cleaned the commutator and checked for any swarf in it. Think its going to require a new one.

 

I have been thinking of what I need to take for demo at Warley. The tow decoder containers will definitely be going. A couple of friends have locos for me to fit decoders, one will be my first Swiss loco decoder install as he will pick up the decoder at the show but will be busy with his layout. Other friend has a number of USA HO locos plus I will have at least one Bulleid to fit a Loksound decoder that I had reblown. Had to send the decoder back as they had put UK diesel sounds on it by mistake but all fine now.

 

Talking of the St Georges brewery in Bristol, I used to dislike the smell when Mum regularly drove past there in our much younger days. There is now a new brewery within the redevelopment http://www.lhgbrewpub.com/. gets busy of a weekend though but we managed to find space to sit.

 

Tomorrow, Nottingham for lunchtime beers then Leicester afterwards but back a long way round as line shut South of Market Harborough over the weekend.

Edited November 15, 2019 by roundhouse

[The Lurker]

17 hours ago, tigerburnie said:

I have a couple of Red Barrel pint glasses, I can't think where I got those from...…………………………………………….(students eh!)

When we moved to South Derbyshire I took the kids into Burton on Trent, they were both gagging, wanting to know why I had brought them to such a stinky place, indeed with the wind coming up the A38 we got a mix of beer, coffee from the Nestle factory at Hatton and the sewage farm all mixed in together......nice...…………………...not.

Years ago I had a client in Burton, they were situated in-between Bass and the Marmite factory. They made labels.

 

I rather suspect they had very good double glazing.

[New Haven Neil]

A'noon.

 

Was at the Dr's before the bike (talk) club, so no early post.

 

it is a pleasure to report good news for a change - my diabetes is officially in remission. 

 

Yay. Some other stuff not right though, turns out it is most likely due to taking daily vitamin supplements!  I take those once a day over 50's things, it would appear to be over egging the pudding somewhat.  Have to desist for a couple of months and get another full blood panel, and see if that fixes it.  Probably find something else has fallen off by then of course, the way this last few years has been.  Ageing is the pits, can I get off and just mark time for a while please?  Still it is better than the permanent alternative, I shouldn't complain.

 

New GP shaping up to be excellent, quite a catch for the practice.  He has decided to stay on FR, he's been temporary this last few months while he got a feel for the place.  An Indian chap who tried Australia but didn't find it to his liking. a smaller island is though!  Cultured (unlike moi) and witty, and instils confidence and is much to our liking. When our last GP here left we were gutted as he was good, especially after the joker in our previous practice so we are much relieved.  

[The Lurker]

Greetings all from LBG, where it has rained a bit but is currently dry.

 

The quiz was not a success; the team finished around half way. Far too many questions on celebrities and films for my liking and no history round! It was however an enjoyable evening and many of the questions were suitably testing. Fortunately we managed to score 100% on the round about the company; not every team did!

 

The weekend promises to be relatively quiet. Mrs Lurker is off out for afternoon tea so I am going to experiment by cooking a jambalaya, although I have had to find a substitute for andouille. It should go down well as it wont end up being too different from the paella I often cook. Those who value authenticity look away now; I use chorizo in it. I feel Mr Oliver was unfairly taken to task over that. Many paella that I have been served in Spain have had it in, and the oldest paella recipe I have (from the 1970s) has it in too ("or any other garlic sausage"). Chorizo would have been a rare commodity in those far off days.

 

Best wishes to those who are ailing and recovering, such as Beth and Sharon, and of course not forgetting John.

[TheQ]

1 hour ago, Stubby47 said:

 

Are we allowed to ask what the resistors are for ?  Your role seems to involve testing a great many very sensitive bits of kit that seem to need a very stable environment in which to work properly - I've been curious for a bit now as to what they could be used for.

Most of our equipment is used by lesser labs to calibrate their own equipment and others lesser standard equipment.

 

Those that we do cal directly for include the UK , USA and many other militaries. the UK Atomic Weapons Authority, the civil aviation authority,  Radio Spares, Intel, Seagate, several airlines, the master Calibration Authorities in several countries, GEC Alsthom  (as in TGV), Tesco (well that's our lower standard temperature lab which uses equipment I cal to cal tesco temperature gear). The NHS stuff is done by a lesser lab which uses our gear as is the BBC and ITV.

 

Basically if it's out there and electronic it's calibration comes up through the chain to a top level lab of which we are one of the biggest in the UK (there's only two I know of to our standard in the UK) . Our and their standards are referenced back to The National Physical Laboratories at Teddington not far from GWIWER

 

In the case of resistors, we and sister factories  supply Standard resistors that are meant to be very stable  So they can check the measurement capabilities of DMMS etc, We use Tinsley resistors kept in an oil bath at 23+-0.125C which have a holiday in NPL once or twice a year  where they measure them to an even better accuracy, at an even higher cost. Getting in a 1 Gohm  resistor I measure them several Times over 3 days, after the maker has measured them and deemed them good,  and it has to be stable, less than 10 parts in a million, however we sell them as +-95ppm.

 

I must go, someones just brought me a resistor (1 Ohm) which they've managed to knock off a table. this will mean a measurement now, and several repeated times after to ensure the value hasn't moved, It was 1.000004 Ohms.

Edited November 15, 2019 by TheQ

[AndrewC]

13 minutes ago, The Lurker said:

The weekend promises to be relatively quiet. Mrs Lurker is off out for afternoon tea so I am going to experiment by cooking a jambalaya, although I have had to find a substitute for andouille. It should go down well as it wont end up being too different from the paella I often cook. Those who value authenticity look away now; I use chorizo in it. I feel Mr Oliver was unfairly taken to task over that. Many paella that I have been served in Spain have had it in, and the oldest paella recipe I have (from the 1970s) has it in too ("or any other garlic sausage"). Chorizo would have been a rare commodity in those far off days.

 

I do Jambalaya frequently. The closest match for the andouille sausage is to use a Polish kielbasa. Another trick I learned was to use 50/50 beef and chicken stock instead of just chicken. 

[Stubby47]

Thanks Q, that's interesting.

 

Our software records quality control checks for customer's (3rd parties) electronic portable blood coagulation meters, this includes sample liquids sent from reputable labs with known parameters, which I guess effectively puts us at the bottom end of your chain. Similarly the local hospital has its own lab to test bloods (including those sent as control/excess samples from local GP practices), on bigger 'lab style' machines, which themselves are subject to calibration checks.

[TheQ]

Oh and said resistors aren't just sitting bare , they are the best you can make, hermetically sealed,  and then are generally in a 4 inch square heavy metal case with 5 terminals on top +_ current in, +- voltage out,  and ground.

 

 I'm now at the oil bath Zeroing the test equipment, To compare the dropped resistor against the standard resistor value 1.0000042 Approximately. (The spread sheet actually comes up with 1.00000423318775 but you can't measure to that level) I just got the value from it's history to use, the reference has changed 1ppm in 36 years since it was bought.

[TheQ]

And the value of the Dropped resistor is.. 1.000 0043 Ohms+- 0.54PPM which is what it has been  since June. So he who dropped it hasn't broken it..

[Happy Hippo]

33 minutes ago, TheQ said:

 

 

 I'm now at the oil bath Zeroing the test equipment, 

I saw this man in a muddy hollow zeroing his equipment!

[PhilJ W]

Afternoon all from Estuary-Land. New computer collected. It is now 'tuned in' to my Wi-Fi and set up for my E-mails and RMweb. I need to add a few other links and connect to the printer over the weekend and then it will be ready to go. 

[Tony_S]

We didn't go supermarket shopping. We went for a walk at Hyde Hall Gardens. We were good and had lunch at the restaurant at the top off the hill not the one by the car park. Lunch was really nice, and the winter garden was interesting. We did go in the gift shop for a new rake (cant find the old one) and some grease bands for our fruit trees. 

Now dark and raining. 

Tony

[iL Dottore]

On 14/11/2019 at 00:57, NGT6 1315 said:

What‘s wrong here?  
 

Night, awl...
 

Let me guess: it's Autumn and there are no leaves on the line! (leaving you with no option but to provide the scheduled service )

On 14/11/2019 at 08:23, polybear said:

 

Take your volunteering elsewhere - there's plenty of other good causes that'll be all too pleased to have you.  The Stroke Club will soon see the error of their ways.....

Good advice. If you are not a wage slave then this is very much an option (although I do know that many badly treated volunteers stay put because of a sense of obbligation...) and should enough volunteers walk away, then maybe, just maybe, the clowns running the circus might get the hint...

On 14/11/2019 at 11:02, AndrewC said:

...Watneys: I used to have a tee shirt that said "I thought puking was a city in China until I drank Watney's Red Barrel". Interestingly the last time I saw it anywhere was in a dive bar in Kalispell Montana. No doubt the last remaining place on the planet where its reputation hadn't preceded it. 

What is it with Watneys? (Oooh, I'm being alliterative) that makes it the target of so much scorn. Having spent the "Red Barrel Years" outside the UK, I have never had the pleasure (if that word can be used) of having drunk a pint of Red Barrel. Can anyone describe, perhaps by using wine tasters language (e.g. "reminiscent of blackberries"), Red Barrel to me?

On 14/11/2019 at 17:52, tigerburnie said:

Beer drinking, used to be a lot of fun, then became boring, now getting interesting again with small brewers getting some of the market back...

I am intrigued. How can beer drinking be "boring" (the morning after can be quite tedious - but that's another story). Do tell.

23 hours ago, bbishop said:

I haven't had a bank account for 35 years!...

Bloody hell, Bill. You must have a mile-high mattress!

18 hours ago, Simon G said:

I have spent an hour this evening looking at a layout and vast amount of stock that belonged to a modeller who recently passed away.  There must have been nearly 100 locos, both UK and US, with a mix of DC and DCC.  Providing a valuation is going to be a real task, as a lot of the locos were kit built, and a number apparently don’t work.  The owners daughter (who I haven’t met) may have unrealistic expectations as she thinks it all could be worth around £10k.  In my view, she will only get anyway near that by selling items individually on eBay or Facebook sites, which would be a long task.  She may see what a couple of relatively local dealers will offer, which I suspect would come as a shock to her.

Interesting observation, Simon. I once read, somewhere (perhaps in one of Len Deighton's well researched novels), that widows can often have unrealistic assements of the late husband's collection (in the example I recall it was Philately- stamp collecting to us mere mortals) and there are usually two outcomes: firstly the collection is worth far, far, far much more than the widow imagined - as said late husband didn't really come clean about how much was being spent on the hobby; or, secondly, the the collection is worth far, far, far much less than the widow imagined - as said late husband was siphoning off hobby monies to fund a mistress (or two...)

7 hours ago, tigerburnie said:

I was part of the team that over saw the installation of all the kit into the Toyota factory at Burnaston, I was a maintenance engineer there for 12 years, it took a long time to get to understand the Japanese way of thinking and their system, let alone their language lol. Mata ato de.

I liked working with the Japanese. Certainly, it was a very big cultural adjustment (a minor example, the more senior your role, the further away you are from the door. Apparently this practice derives from the Tokugawa shogunate (if not earlier), when the junior Samurai placed themselves - as protection- between the door and their master). One thing I did like was that the Japanese were usually slow to start a project, because they were busy preparing contingency plans for every possibly feasible SNAFU, which meant that, once they got going and a FUBAR happened, they simply implemented Contingency Plan 14Bii whilst the Americans (who I also worked with on the same project) were running around like chickens with their heads cut off..... (NB no actual chickens were harmed in the creation of this simile)

3 hours ago, AndrewC said:

I do Jambalaya frequently. The closest match for the andouille sausage is to use a Polish kielbasa. Another trick I learned was to use 50/50 beef and chicken stock instead of just chicken. 

Now that IS a useful tip, Andrew. Thanks. I love Cajun and Creole food and whilst I can't find andouille sausage around here, I can probably source kielbasa (if not from here, then just across the border in Germany). Although I say it myself, I do make a pretty decent gumbo. Which, if I am feeling "Cheffy" I can then turn into my infamous "Swamp" Gumbo. Inasmuch as if it "flies, swims, slithers or walks it goes in the pot". A recent "Swamp Gumbo" had 2 types of sausage, chicken, oysters, shrimp and crawdads (crawfish). PM me if you want the basic gumbo recipe.

 

Well, to conclude on a foodie topic, I must dash off and prepare boiled chicken and rice for Lucy as she has been vomiting today (poor thing) and must be quite starved by now. The bland food will also help settle her stomach.

 

Stay frosty guys!

 

iD

Edited November 15, 2019 by iL Dottore
spelling

[Barry O]

Ey up!

 

I have spent some time conversation with young Mister York. he has a plan to enable me to get ERs who haven't PMd me about whether they are interested/can come to an ER meet up to do so.. Once he has OKd it I will send invites out to the ERs. more details soon BUT the venue will be Derby near the station...

 

Baz

[bbishop]

3 hours ago, Happy Hippo said:

I saw this man in a muddy hollow zeroing his equipment!

 

And what colour are his eyes?  Bill

 

 

[Tony_S]

46 minutes ago, Barry O said:

Ey up!

 

I have spent some time conversation with young Mister York. he has a plan to enable me to get ERs who haven't PMd me about whether they are interested/can come to an ER meet up to do so.. Once he has OKd it I will send invites out to the ERs. more details soon BUT the venue will be Derby near the station...

 

Baz

Sorry, I missed the PM request. I shall send one. 

[The Stationmaster]

Evening all,

 

So where did yesterday go?  simples 'you're not spending 3 hours on that computer doing nothing!\. (apparently serious research of n matters railway is 'nothing' but I didn't argue.  The reason being that on Wednesday night senior cat Poppy vanished, very comprehensively - she couldn't be found in any room and there was no aroma of singed cat to suggest she strayed too near to the wood burning stove.  so the managerial conclusion was that she had hidden in the understairs storage area - and she probably had.  So said storage are 'had' to be cleared out and dejunked which meant no 'time wasting at the compute'.  Results were achieved - three bagfuls of various things but mainly unopened games to a charity shop, three boxes of vhs tapes to assess (yes, some work very well but they need to be 'gone through', three large plastic crates of 'your' (i.e. my) 'junk' to be sorted.  so crate 1 was tackled yesterday and reasonable proportion went for recycling, part of crate 2 has been tackled today revealing my stock of Ration signal kits (well about half a dozen of them) plus a 14 BA tap among other small engineering thingies - more to do of course - like a lot more of crate 2 and most of crate 3.   And it wasn't all my (i.e. 'your') rubbish so I have duly shredded a couple of past Community Charge - yes, the 'Poll Tax' - demands among other totally irrelevant nonsense but I did find a summary of my entire railway career from 1965 to 1991 in some pension documentation, fascinating stuff for reminding me about dates that were half forgotten.

 

Today really has been Friday shopping with a visit to the trainspotting branch of Waitrose while the Good Doctor attended her dentist in Tilehurst.  And talking of Watneys Red Barrel one of the oddest sights I saw on my first trip to the mainland (on a school exchange in 1965) was looking out of the train window going up through the hills in Belgium enroute to Liege the border at Aachen and seeing loads of bars with illuminated Red Barrel signs outside - very strange.

 

Enjoy the rest of your days and may recovery continue for Beth and Sharon.