Early Risers.

[tigerburnie]

A pleasant day today, started wet, but milder and got better as the day went on, cycle ride in the morning, a ploughmans lunch followed by a wander down to the beach to watch the waves for an hour then a steady wander back, Skylarks singing overhead, Yellowhammers, Wheatears and a Whitethroat added interest to the walk. A pastie was consumed for dinner washed down with some cloudy cider, there could be some eyelid inspection shortly. ZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

[Dave Hunt]

We heard about two hours ago that Dad's endoscopy revealed nothing sinister in his stomach, which is something of a very large relief. The consultant said that his eating problem is probably just age related as his gastric system has lost some of its efficiency and he has recommended a referral to nutritionists. All we have to hope for now is that he can recover some of his mobility because until he can get in and out of bed unassisted and walk with the aid of a zimmer frame I think he will have to go into a nursing home. For the time being, though, today's news will suffice.

 

Dave   

[monkeysarefun]

13 hours ago, TheQ said:

 

Reporting littering by app.... Anyone the know the Car registration number of the Prime Minister of New South Wales? 

 

 

 

 

Our premier has an unspellable last name so I'll just call her Gladys. Can't say I or many people were a fan when she took over the role but gotta admit she's done well over the last 18 months or so what with bushfires, then pretty much straight after there was the pandemic along with various floods . She fronted news conferences every day during the fires as well as travelling around the state to see affected areas , pretty much seven days a week from November through christmas and into the new year when suddenly the pandemic arrived and she did  the same for that through the worst of it (apart from the touring round bit obviously!) -  then the floods arrived and there she's been again. I dont think she had a day off, even weekends, for at least 8 months.

 

The fact that our last covid death in NSW was in August last year and that apart from a bit over christmas we've been living normally pretty much since mid last year and that there have been practically zero cases outside of the  greater Sydney area  is due to her policies at least as much as the federal governments ones.

 

She's been promoted in many peoples eyes to "not a bad egg" status.

 

Still be fun to dob her in for littering but.  

 

Her number plate is NSW1 from memory.

[Ozexpatriate]

7 minutes ago, monkeysarefun said:

Our premier has an unspellable last name so I'll just call her Gladys.

More unspellable than the premier of Queensland?  Perhaps she should be called "Annie".

[Erichill16]

Evening All,

Just had a zoom meeting with the wheel tappers and shunters club.

We are now proud owners of a semi-derelict church. Only taken seven years.

Watch out for an invitation to our first open day!

Robert.

[monkeysarefun]

18 minutes ago, Ozexpatriate said:

More unspellable than the premier of Queensland?  Perhaps she should be called "Annie".

 

I know, and shes premier of a state that spells beer XXXX so what  hope has she got?

 

Either of them have you wishing you could use names in Scrabble, they'd be worth heaps of points.

 

For the record -

 

NSW premier: Gladys Berejiklian

QLD premier:  Annastacia Palaszczuk

 

 

[pH]

1 hour ago, tigerburnie said:

A pastie was consumed for dinner ...

A pastie?  or a bridie?

[monkeysarefun]

Our federal budget was handed down last night. It is assuming that our borders will remain closed until at least mid next year. (Not including our travel bubble).

[polybear]

Bear had a bit of a result this evening - Mrs Newish Neighbour called round to ask if I'd like some wood off-cuts left over from a chippie repairing their stairs today (seems the stairs broke!! - I dread to think how much they've spent [we're talking tens of £K's here] on the place since moving in, much of which is on putting things right rather than improvements).  Does a Bear like LDC?

The off-cuts turned out to be things like a pristine sheet of 6 x 3 ish MDF, plus numerous reasonable sized rectangular bits of ply that must be an inch thick - stair treads I suspect.  Plus a nice length of pristine MDF pre-painted skirting that might just find a new home in a kitchen before too long....

All I need now is a bigger shed....

[Ozexpatriate]

14 hours ago, monkeysarefun said:

I'm sure its no where near as bad as the movies and the news makes out but there seems to be way too many guns in the US for me to have got out and had a polite word with a carload of strangers.

Don't believe that what you see on television happens everywhere.

4 hours ago, Ian Abel said:

In the words of Dr. Watson (not really but you get it) "No SH!T SHERLOCK"!!

I'm fairly outspoken on those sorts of issues and mask wearing etc., but the enormous uptick in gun ownership here and nut-jobs shooting anyone for looking sideways at them has had me rein in ANY attempts to "help folks understand"...

My little corner of the suburban Portland metro area had zero reported shootings in the last three months. "Theft" is the number one report on the police blotter (42% of all reports and distinct from burglary and robbery). I am quite sure the ladies in the car were more anxious about me than I was of them.

 

Frankly I would have been more concerned about the guy behind me madly gesticulating.

 

There are certainly neighbourhoods where I would not leave my car, but nipping down to the post office is not one of them. The city of Portland has a serious problem. Using 2019 as a baseline, for the first four months of the year, 2020 shootings were at 130% and 2021 is 287%. It's not clear why, though my instinct is that pandemic fatigue is fueling a lot of it.

 

There is a lot of national reporting on gun violence which tends to emphasize it. Overall shooting deaths do appear to be on the rise in the last couple of years. I can't find a reliable trend source later than 2017 but 2020 data suggests that it is at the same level (>6 per 100,000) as per capita historic highs in the early 1970s and early 1990s. (Before 2015 it was actually much lower than historic highs.)

 

According to most sources, gun ownership in the US is not increasing over time - some reputable sources actually suggest it was decreasing. Around 40% of households have at least one gun and this appears pretty consistent. People who do own a firearm, frequently own multiples of them.

[Tony_S]

4 hours ago, jonny777 said:

 

I spent an hour online with an Apple support technician, who decided my phone needs to be taken to a service centre. 

 

I'm not sure why, but obviously they have no idea what has happened. My phone will not access the internet either via wifi or 4G. If I go onto the wiseguy fixit sites via my laptop, they say "in the last resort, restore your phone to factory settings". Yeah right. 

 

They probably have never really tried that process, which involves sending the Apple ID password over the internet. The internet which the phone is refusing to connect to. 

 

I have only had this thing about 3 weeks.

 

iOS 14 will tell you if you have weak security on your wifi but it doesn’t stop it working and if it was working and you haven’t changed anything it seems odd. Even more odd is the  not connecting to the internet via 4G. I can stop my iPad connecting via 4G and wifi but it does require deliberate selection of options in the setting menu.  Hope the service centre can sort it. If you are worried  about the service centre losing your data you can backup to a Mac via a cable. No idea what up you can do with a Windows PC though. 
Tony

[PhilJ W]

Evening all from Estuary-Land. Great to hear that Daves dads endoscopy has not found anything untoward and the nutritionist can get things sorted. After yesterdays trip out I will be planning a few more with my friend and his youngster. The lad has only just become a teenager and he must spend some time sitting in a grow-bag the way he's shooting up. He's also on a see food diet, see food and eat it. 

5 minutes ago, polybear said:

Bear had a bit of a result this evening - Mrs Newish Neighbour called round to ask if I'd like some wood off-cuts left over from a chippie repairing their stairs today (seems the stairs broke!! - I dread to think how much they've spent [we're talking tens of £K's here] on the place since moving in, much of which is on putting things right rather than improvements).  Does a Bear like LDC?

The off-cuts turned out to be things like a pristine sheet of 6 x 3 ish MDF, plus numerous reasonable sized rectangular bits of ply that must be an inch thick - stair treads I suspect.  Plus a nice length of pristine MDF pre-painted skirting that might just find a new home in a kitchen before too long....

All I need now is a bigger shed....

Our local orange shed has a box of offcuts near the exit to which you can help yourself as long as you drop a coin or two into the charity box which I'm quite happy to do so. They also put in the box ex display items and other odds and ends. I found the lining panel from a cabinet unit, some sort of MDF with one side plastic coated, ideal for a backscene.

[Erichill16]

Evening All,

Good news regarding Dave’s dad and let’s hope there’s going to be some good news from Gordon S.

Spent most of the day at work as members of staff are keen to get some of their holiday entitlement used so we’re a bit short staffed. The more I go to work the more I realise I want out. 
Made contact with a couple of builders last week and arranged site meetings on Thursday. So far so good.

Real hailstorm this evening, could hardly have a conversation due to the noise and set two car alarms off. I can still hear the thunder in the distance.

Feeling a bit drained and an early start tomorrow so I’ll bid you all a good night,

Robert 

 

[Tony_S]

Aditi never got round to cutting the lawns before the rain but I did them this afternoon while it was sunny. Aditi was having a nap which is very unusual for her but she had very little sleep last night, just reading late and starting reading again very early.  Must be a good book.

We had a walk round to the post box to send a birthday card. I spent some time on the phone and email trying to find out why my access to the digital editions of BRM magazine had ceased even through the direct debit was being taken. I was told it would be sorted and it was. 
Tony

Edited May 11, 2021 by Tony_S

[Coombe Barton]

... and proportions, not absolute values ...

 

https://johncolby.wordpress.com/2021/05/11/chart-philosophy/

 

[Ozexpatriate]

5 hours ago, Ian Abel said:

... Fleet Farm. It's an upper mid-west store typically in out-state locations and is rather a combination of a B&Q, ALDI, and fishing, hunting and boating supply store, all in one! Groceries to guns and everything in between.

Many of the 'box marts' here have dropped firearms from their 'sporting' goods - famously Walmart after the San Antonio tragedy.

 

We do still have "Coastal" (formerly "Coastal Farm and Ranch") which except for the groceries is much the same as Fleet Farm.

5 hours ago, Ian Abel said:

We had to traverse the Guns & Ammo section to get various boating and plumbing supplies, and the shelving - this is a TWENTY FOOT LONG section with FOUR levels of shelves about a foot deep for HANDGUN AMMO

Have you ever been to a Bass Pro / Cabela's? I think the local Cabela's probably has close to 20,000 square feet of floor space dedicated to firearms* - an estimate based on the store having an advertised footprint of 100,000 square feet.

 

* Including the "Gun Library" for 'collectible' weapons.

[PhilJ W]

Had a quick look in on the Hitachi thread.

7 minutes ago, 5944 said:

 

 

[Barry O]

I made the mistake of reading a bit of the Hitachi thread.. there must be more "experts" on there working from mininal knowldege of what the problem may or may not be and some are quite ready to have a go at technology they have very little knowledge or understanding of. I wonder how many have any experience of fault finding, rolling stock design, aluminiumwelding or railway track design and maintenance?

Difficult to even try to add value to a debate where details are few and far between. Luckily, unlike the 737 max problems a problem was identified before people were killed by any sort of fault.

 

A coroner accused BAE Systems of deliberately designing part of a gun on a Challenger 2 tank to malfunction leading to the deaths of 2 crew members. Shame the coroner omitted to check how the problem occurred. A deliberate act removing the safety interlock by someone who was in the vehicle either before or during the accident. But coroners dont need to be engineers to make statements based on guesswork.

 

Baz

Edited May 11, 2021 by Barry O

[Barry O]

Goodnight all!

Baz

[J. S. Bach]

55 minutes ago, Tony_S said:

 ...snip... Must be a good book. ...snip...
Tony

I have read a few of those; right now SHOGUN by James Clavell. I started that after reading his NOBLE HOUSE and finding out that it is a part of his Asia series, I just had to get the rest. For some reason KING RAT is hard to find; at least at the low/bargain prices of the rest of the series. Note that most of these are quite long and will allow me to have lots of good reading time.

[PhilJ W]

Goodnight all.

[BSW01]

Good evening everyone 

 

The weather did change this morning, but it wasn’t until dinner time, when we had a very light shower lasting just a few minutes. The sun remained out then until late afternoon when it went very dark again and we had another shower, but this was heavier than the dinner time one. 

 

Well despite the changeable weather, I’ve made quite a bit of progress in the cellar today. I’ve fitted plasterboard to the area below and to the side of the window. I’ve also done the adjoining wall next to it, including one side of the chimney breast as well, at this point I’d run out of large offcuts. Where there is bare brick or I’ve applied the tanking solution, I use the dot and dab method, on the sections of wall that still has paint on it, I’ve used 50mm screws, small washers and rawl plugs to secure the plasterboard to the wall. The section wall in the photo below, which has the electrical services, ie, 2 sockets and spur unit - top left, (as will all walls with electrical services), still needs a second skin of plasterboard fitting. This is because the back-boxes are 25mm deep, the plasterboard is only 12.5mm deep and I just didn’t fancy chasing out channels 13mm deep, for the back-boxes and the cable. So, for the sake of making the room slightly smaller, I’ve gone down the double skinning route. The first skin is made using offcuts etc, I’ve done this for 2 reasons;

 

1 - it this uses up waste material that would most likely have been thrown away anyway. 

 

2 - any gaps, exposed screw heads etc, will be covered up with the second skin, so they don’t really matter. 

 

 

The important thing is to make sure the first skin is really secure, as the final skin will be fixed to the first skin using the dot and dab method, which makes things a lot easier. So, by the end of today’s activities, the area below the window and left side of the chimney breast are now ready to be plastered. The black cable seen hanging from the ceiling is the SWA feeding the workshop and shed. 

[BSW01]

Goodnight all 

[monkeysarefun]

1 hour ago, Ozexpatriate said:

Don't believe that what you see on television happens everywhere.

6 hours ago, Ian Abel said:

Due to TV - 

We here are "Live in the US?  No way! way too scary!"

 

 

While the US is "Live in Australia? No way! way too scary!"

 

 

 

Edited May 11, 2021 by monkeysarefun

[The Stationmaster]

G'night all