Sad news
/Sad to hear the news of the queen passing away today. A good, sensible person with a sense of humour doing an impossible job for a very long time. Well done your majesty. You will be missed.
Puncture and Meetup
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I think I’ve found the problem…
I was all set for the Connected Humber Meetup this evening. However, as I was headed down the road I got a warning about low pressure in one of the tyres. It wasn’t hard to see why. Fortunately, I was very close to Endyke Tyres so I popped in to be told that it was time for a new tyre. The good news is that they can get one in tomorrow. So I put some more air in the tyre, drove home very carefully, swapped cars and managed to make it to the Meetup just about on time.
The meetup was excellent. I showed off my oven and bits and bogs. Brian had brought along a really pretty display, powered by a really beefy power supply. He also had his PICO audio device playing Gerry Rafferty.
Ion had brought along a very accurate sine waves for amplifier testing. Ben turned up and finally got his lights with names in. John came along and we talked about bits and bobs. My laptop decided to update everything during a demonstration audio which didn’t go too well but there was lots of other good discussion too.
Great fun. The next meetup is on the 5th of October. If the parts arrive from China I want to do some live surface mount soldering.
John Miles memories
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When I was younger one of my favourite musicians was John Miles. I bought quite a few of his records. I was just getting one of them out of its sleeve (Zaragon - not his best) when this ticket fell out. I must have tucked it away many years ago. Who knew you could get a live band (and support) for the sum of 1.75? In Hull.
Amazing times.
Circus Fun
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I didn’t think we still had such things as circuses. But we do. We went to see one today. Circus Zyair are doing a very good job of keeping the circus traditions alive. There was a mix of acrobatics, clowning and at the end some death defying motorbiking which came as a bit of a surprise to us, especially as we happened to be sat a few feet from the ramp from which the bikes few into the tent. Well worth a trip. Especially impressive if you are five and a half years old apparently.
Day trip
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Spent a bunch of time at one of my favourite places in all the world today.
Wedding Anniversary
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Today we celebrated 40 years of marriage. To each other. Which is nice. We went off to Dalby Forest to walk around some rocks and then came back to a slap-up meal. Good times. Here’s to even more.
Keyboard virtuoso
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Spent most of the day writing. But I still found time to do some piano practice. I’m moving from “can’t play one tune” to “can’t play three tunes”.
Writing
/Spent today writing. Not sure if I have enough words left to write a…
Beach Huts
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I took this picture at Whitby last week. I wonder what would happen if you painted your beach hut a colour that broke the sequence?
My oven is coming
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My oven is now in the country. Rather excited.
Home time
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We took our guest home today, which was rather sad. But we’ll be picking her up later in the month.
Fun Furby Autopsy
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What do you show a young guest who you’re trying to impress? How about the insides of a dead Furby. Not my idea actually, she saw them in a box and wanted to take a look. We went through all the various bits and I described what they did. And then we had a performance from the two working ones…
Whitby Traction Engine Rally Fun
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I know that this is not steam powered, but by gum it was fun to watch.
it was really nice to be able to go over to Whitby for their steam fair. It’s the first time we’ve made it in a few years and it was lovely to see it back to its best in beautiful weather. And we managed to fit in a fish pie at the Magpie too. That’s what I call a Sunday well spent.
Got guests
/I don’t think anyone who arrived today was actually that impressed by how tidy my room now is. Although they probably appreciated the way that they were able to walk from one end to the other.
Happy tidying
/I’ve spent the entire afternoon tidying up. I can now see most of my office floor. I’m starting to like this tidy thing.
Paid My Tax
/What better way to start the day than by handing a chunk of cash away to the tax man. Actually, I don’t mind it that much, in that if I’m paying tax at least that means I’ve earned something in the last year.
Great Birthday Fun
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Had a fantastic birthday today. We headed up town for a coffee and then took a walk around Hull Museum Quarter. The weather was excellent and the wonderful transport museum had even laid on a special exhibition of classic cars for us to look at. Then on to Berts for lunch. After that it was back home for cake and and fun and games. We spent the evening playing the excellent Point Salad and DownForce games. Great stuff.
Fan hunt
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One of my biggest fans……
There’s a very popular program on the BBC called “The Repair Shop”. In it a bunch of highly skilled crafts folk mend the heirlooms of families that have fallen into disrepair (that’s the heirlooms - not the families). I felt a bit like one of the crafts folk as I surveyed the collection of fans that I’d just got down from the loft in preparation for the “Deadly Heat Wave” (tm) that is coming.
All the devices were a bit grubby. I took them to pieces, cleaned them up and put them back together. I also checked the mains plugs and re-seated the cord grip on one. At the end I had three fans that were good to go (although the bearings on one have to be heard to be believed).
Bring on the heat….
Found it!
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“|t is a truth universally acknowledged that the best way to find a missing cable is to buy a replacement”.
Yesterday I lost a cable. So I bought a replacement. Today I thought I’d take a look at the original cable order. It turns out that I’d forgotten what the cable looked like, so for the last couple of days I’ve been searching for the wrong thing. A quick scan of the desktop and there it was. Oh well.
Bought an oven.....
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My first thought when I ordered my printed circuit boards was that I’d solder them by hand. I’ve since had a look at what this involves and changed my mind. And bought an oven. I managed to get the one above for around thirty pounds from AliExpress (search for 110/220V UYUE 946C), plus vat but with free postage. Lots of companies are now charging for delivery, which is rather annoying, but I managed to find this one, which does not. The device is mains powered and gets very hot, so I’ll give it a good checking over when it comes.
I should be able to pop some solder paste on the pcb, drop the components on top and then heat the whole board up to 200 degrees, at which point soldering magic happens. I’m quite looking forward to when it arrives. The delivery date was given as around September (such s the price of free shipping) but with a bit of luck it might be sooner than that.
