Central Heating Update 5

Got a call from Lesley at work today, all excited she was. Fulcrum Connections had come a day early, dug up the pavement, tunneled a pipe through our garden and fixed a box to the wall, in the correct place no less. Bit of a surprise.

Hopefully they'll be back tomorrow to fill in the large hole in the pavement, and to give the neighbours something else to twitch their curtains about.

British Gas are due on Saturday afternoon to fit the gas meter and the Heating Engineer is all set to start ripping up the house on Tuesday. Happy days.

Category:

• Personal
• Home
• Heating

3D for everyone

Well, Google have made their first move with SketchUp after they acquired it a couple of months ago. A free cut down version along side the "Pro" version still costing cash.

While the free version has nearly all of the features found in Pro the main omissions are quite limiting. No 3D import or export. You can only save in SketchUp's native format (.skp) or images restricted to your screen resolution.

Fair enough for the masses. Seems to have upset a few folks at SketchUp's forums though. A few business plans will need to be rewritten methinks. Give it a go, it really is an amazing bit of coding.

Category:

• 3D
• Google
• Sketchup

The First World War

I was reading in the paper today that there are plans to give the last World War I veteran a full state funeral lying in State, St.Pauls, Her Maj and our great leader etc... the full works along with a national day of remembrance and thanksgiving for the passing of the last of a generation.

Apparently there are only a handful of British/Common Wealth veterans left, all of them well over 100 years of age. When I was young every town in Northern Ireland had a few such veterans (mainly members of the 36th Ulster Division and all of them heroes of The Somme). As a Scout I was usually involved in laying the wreath at the town's Cenotaph for a good few years and I remember once, the weather was so bad, the wreath laying had to take place under the cover of the British Legion. One old Soldier caught my eye standing alone, tears running down his cheeks he was well into his eighties and probably not much longer for the world to be honest, it was a very emotional moment for me to stand there in his presence, something I've never forgotten.

To this day the 1st of July is still marked to remember all those of the 36th Ulster Division who fought and died at The Battle of The Somme.

They shall not grow old as we who are left grow old.
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning,
we will remember them.

Category:

• Personal
• Northern+Ireland
• Remembrance

Sprechen Sie Deutsch? Update

Brushing up my language skills is going quite well. It's amazing how much I remember from my time spent in Germany. I'm ready to delete the first 2 disks from the iPod and load the next 2.

Interestingly, in the past month or so, we've picked up a new European Business Development Manager who's from Germany and still based there (technically we should be working closely together on new products/markets).

Added to that we've also got ourselves a new head of the R&D team who works out of the US but originally comes from Austria (we in Scotland will report to him). So maybe my newly honed skills will enable me to impress the boss (as my Engineering skills have resolutely failed to be noticed, even though I am a genius). At the very least I'll be able to understand him when he says something in German, under his breath, when faced with the latest project delay ;)

Category:

• Language
• German
• Michel+Thomas

Digital Plumbing

So, I'm sitting here watching the clock tick down towards the 2nd of May when the central heating installation begins. The cost, I've come to terms with, the disruption, I've not.

The house will be a bomb site for the 3-4 days the plumber will be here. He's got a good reputation for clearing up after himself but while the work is being done the sheer mess will be hard to cope with. Carpets lifted, floor boards up, holes being drilled everywhere, no hot water for periods, furniture moved to accommodate the installation, hell, sheer hell. I wonder if I can pack Lesley off to her mothers for a bit (she'll be hell to live with).

Anyhoo, that's when I thought of a silver lining to all this disruption. Grab the opportunity of the carpets and floor boards being lifted and run a few lengths of CAT5 cable around the place (specifically from the office upstairs down to the living room and sun lounge). Wireless is all very well but when it comes to transmitting serious data around the place you canny beat some cable. Video to the living room from the office, recorded on the PVR, nice. Maybe some MP3s playing in the sun lounge on a networked media player like the Roku or SliMP3 streamed from a Network Storage Device, heaven.

Cable is cheap, might as well take this opportunity now and digitally plumb the house for future gadget purchases :)

Category:

• Home
• Network
• CAT5

I Can Definitely Smell Sh*te Update

As I expected, it would appear that our drains are blocked again, almost certainly as a result of tree roots. I've done a bit of research and learned a lot about drains, sewers and the law applying to them regarding their repair and upkeep.

Apparently, when drains from two or more properties join on private land before joining the main public sewer they are known as "private sewers" and must be maintained jointly by all the owners. Any repair or costs should be met and shared by all those up-stream of the problem. So, I have to tell the old dear next door that she's going to owe me a lot of money to contribute towards a CCTV Drain Inspection and repair work.

First thing to do is contact the Council to confirm all this and see what the best way to proceed is. The biggest question I have is how to find out how many properties are connected to my "private sewer"? I know next door does but what about next door to her? Obviously the more people connected the better it is as the costs will be shared among more people. I won't enjoy having to go round everybody telling them the bad news :( but this needs addressed urgently.

As the blockage appears to be on my land it's up to me to get the work done after getting agreement from all interested parties to share the costs. If, however, somebody refuses there's not much I can do but get the work done and try and claim it off them later. Also, I need to check whether I can claim some of this on the buildings insurance (which is due for renewal at the end of the month). Bugger, why me?

Category:

• Drains
• Sewer
• Dynorod