Week of 10th May, 2004

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Monday, 10th May

Early shift starts today, although I've got Friday and Saturday off for the May Day festivities. And it's busy - although why I keep mentioning this, I don't know. It's always busy these days.

It's made worse when a programme distibutor announces that some music used in a series is unlicenceable in one or more of our territories. Said distributor then provides new master tapes, with corrected audio.

Luckily the replacement master is identical in length, to the frame (1/25th of a second), albeit it's widescreen format, rather than the letterbox format we use. So muggins gets the job of patching together old pictures and new sound. And then I had to make a new version for Channel X, with music and effects laid down, as well. Two episodes - a one hour main show, and a half-hour recap and behind-the-scenes show, both for air tonight.

And there are another 12 of each to do, albeit we've only received 8 so far. So the last few should have correct, licenceable, music from the start.

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Tuesday, 11th May

I gather that the distributor of the series I mentioned yesterday wanted to supply replacement audio on DAT cassette - which we, of course, cannot use, since we have no DAT deck. Not to mention the fact that doing a layback from DAT to an edited programme tape would be a killer, without pictures to match against. I tried doing it in the early days of Channel X, and it's an absolute swine - not something I'd wish on my worst enemy.

Tom the cat has had no success clearing the blockage in his internal plumbing, so I had to take him to the vet. again. Where it turns out that there is very little that can be done without major spending at each reoccurrence, which is seriously unfair to the little moggy, even if we could afford it. So I decided to have him put to sleep, with Jane's agreement.

Poor puss - but at least he's comfortable now. He looked very woebegone when I left him at the vet.

Here's the last picture I took of him, as he explored the interior of my car, before we made the final trip.

Tom cat - the last picture

This is the first time I've used the Nikon digicam in earnest. It's a 4 megapixel image (2272 x 1704 pixels) downsampled to 400x300, to keep the size reasonable.

Rest in peace, Tom.

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Wednesday, 12th May

It's Katy's 18th birthday today, and bunking off school is not an option. But she's taken my car, and we'll go out for a meal tonight - Katy's first where she can legally drink. This is not to say that alcohol hasn't passed her lips before, but now she can do it legally.

Later: And a fine meal it was, at a local Italian restaurant.

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Thursday, 13th May

Today I'll have to collect the kit for the May Day procession and maypole dancing. There are rumours that the speakers are faulty, so I'll collect the gear a day early, just in case work is required. I have undertaken to fix any faults, if possible. If so be as there is something that needs done, experience suggests cable/connector problems.

Later: Well, I've collected the kit, and tested it. No obvious faults found - at least no showstoppers. I don't want to use realistic volume levels in the back garden, so a full power smoke test will have to wait until Saturday morning, when I've set up on the field. But thus far all is well.

Everyone pray for clear weather, please. The weather liars seem to think that we'll have a ridge of high pressure over the UK on Saturday, which is good, but any prayers you may care to put up, to your deity-of-choice, will be gratefully acknowledged.

Later still: One of the guys at work is on dial-up for Internet access, but he has at least 3 machines, 1 desktop and 2 laptops that I know of. He could, of course, use Internet Connection Sharing, but this means that one M$ box would have to be running all the time. I personally don't like this - I don't trust the security of M$ machines, and when he upgrades to broadband... think Blaster, Sasser, and what-have-you, and then tiptoe away.

So I've offered him the loan of my old dial-up server, a D-Link DP-802, together with the US Robotics modem that works with it, and a Netgear EN104TP 4-port hub, so that he can gain some experience with networking.

He wants to use wireless for the laptops - to him, a laptop is portable, so it doesn't have wires attached. He can add his own wireless access point, and get into the delights of 802.11b, or even 802.11g. I'm staying away from that, and I'm recommending that he should, too - to start with. Get it running with wires, then go wireless.

Following this route means that, if and when broadband becomes available, he can replace the DP-802 with an appropriate broadband router, with almost no effort - all same I did. I still recommend a separate wireless access point, so that he can turn off wireless without killing his Internet connection, although having a combined broadband router and access point is likely to be cheaper.

I've removed the Demon-specific settings from the DP-802, and written a How-To on configuring it. That, and the manual, should be enough to get him up and running. Albeit 33k6 speed, not 56k - the USR modem is old.

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Friday, 14th May

While I was down in Wales last weekend, the driver's door lock (the actual key lock you secure the door with) broke. No way could I lock or unlock that door. This means un locking the passenger door, and stretching over to lift the interior lock button on the driver's door. The central locking does the rest. Note that climbing across into the driver's seat from the passenger side is not practical politics...

So, on Wednesday I visited a local Peugeot dealer to see if they could sell me a new lock set. That's both door locks. I could have asked for a new ignition lock as well, but that would be a garage job - I think I can make shift to change the door locks myself.

Note that I said "could". They want to, but replacements may no longer be available - Hopalong is 16 years old (1988, "E" prefix registration), and the model hasn't been sold since the "J" registration year (1991/2)

Comes now the 'phone call - they've got the lock set. Already, despite saying that it might be a couple of weeks. So I walked down to collect it - Hopalong is full of sound gear for the May Day, so I didn't want to move him, and Katy has Ally. (She'd better not get used to driving to school - next week it cuts back to one day a week, chosen from days when I'm not working or in Wales)

Despite some argument from a veteran mechanic, who thought the specific lock set wasn't right (wrong size - he thought the correct set has a larger barrel diameter) I came away with 2 lock barrels and 2 keys, and an assurance that if they don't fit, I can return them. Fitting will be next week, Jupiter Pluvious permitting, after I've returned all the sound gear.

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Saturday, 15th May

The May Day celebration today, when the local children process around the streets, before congregating on a local sports field for maypole dancing and country dancing, before a tea party and evening disco.

The event is organised for charity, of course, and the children, if enrolled to take part, are expected to attend once-a-week, after school, classes in performing the dances for some weeks beforehand. The high point is the crowning of the May Queen, a senior dancer, who is selected by her peers - the organising adults have no say in this. The post involves a few ceremonial appearances for charity during the May Queen's reign, until the next year...

You get one chance - you are eligible  to be elected in the year you become 12 years of age. In her day, Sarah was eligible, but was passed over in favour of her friend Cheryl. Katy and Jenny dropped out before they became eligible.

Past May Queens are expected to grace the proceedings in following years. Indeed, in 2002, at the 90th celebration of the tradition, a past May Queen from the 1950s attended, and processed with her younger peers.

The whole event runs quite smoothly, but there's always a slight air of shambolic disorganisation - which is part of the charm, for me.

This year, the procession marshals will have radio communications, courtesy of a set of PMR446 walkie-talkies that I bought some months ago. The Kenwood TH-D7 will also tune to PMR446 frequencies, which, strictly speaking (don't tell the Home office!) is illegal.

On the day: All went very well. Fine weather, the Boys' Brigade brass band provided the marching music, and my part, the sound reinforcement, went fine. There was one minor problem, namely one of the speakers (re-entrant horns, of max power rating 35 watts, designed for 100 volt line drive) was set to a lower output level than the others. A quick rearrangement of the connector on the back of the driver assembly sorted that, and Robert was my uncle once more.

I'm told that there was some hassle from doting mothers who believed that the registration and practice requirements did not apply to their little darling. Several mothers actually arrived with daughters fully decked out in procession rig, and expected to be able to walk with the ones who had been fully enrolled. There were some quite abusive arguments, I gather.

Meanwhile, Katy had driven off in Ally, for a Duke of Edinburgh practice expedition - she and a friend were assisting and monitoring, not practicing. They're camping down near Dorking, south-west of London, and will return tomorrow.

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Sunday, 16th May

Back to work today, just for the one day. I could have taken leave for this one, as well, but didn't feel the need.

I took the networking kit in with me, only to discover that workmate has already ordered a one-box combo system - Wireless router with stateful packet inspecting firewall, 10/100 Ethernet switch, a USB printer port, serial port for a PSTN modem, and a built-in ADSL modem. He can run via a PSTN modem until Postie deigns to provide ADSL service, and then upgrade - the router box will preferentially use ADSL if available, and falls back to dial-up if ADSL goes casters-up. Which is better than I could do, Demon took away my dial-up access when I upgraded to ADSL. I could have retained it, but that would have been another tenner-a-month, and a different hostname, so I passed.

And about 4 o'clock, I got the news that I had been hoping not to get... Katy has had an accident. Apparently, some young woman drove out of a side street in Kingston, straight at her. Frantic avoiding action (no other traffic, around, thank $DEITY) left Ally with dents and gouges in both driver's side doors, but no-one was hurt. Katy had sufficient presence of mind to get the other driver's name and telephone number, which is good. I'll get the rest of the details tomorrow.

Now to report it to the insurers, who have a 24 hour 'phone number for such things.

And that's done - I still need to get other driver details, and estimates for repairs, unless I want to accept the insurer's repairer. I'll try a couple of local firms I know.

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