Week of 8th August, 2005

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Monday, 8th August

 

Due to cash flow problems with all the things Jane wants to do, we need to borrow some few thousand pounds to make all come out even. The cheapest way is to reactivate our dormant mortgage, which will allow borrowing at 4.79%, fixed for 2 years - and re-fixable after that. Today, I negotiate with the Building Society - we only want UKP20,000, so there should be no problem.

Later: For the amount we want, there is no problem - but If I'd wanted a lot more there might have been. The Building Society would only lend up to UKP38,000 plus change. And they wouldn't say why. This on a house that's worth UKP400,000 conservatively. I need to query my credit rating - which is pending with Experian, I just need to chase it.

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Tuesday, 9th August

 

I need more recordable DVDs. Having had good results from the spindle of 25 Verbatim DVD+Rs, I decided to get more. The DVD writer in the Acer is 8 speed for +R and -R, and will write DL discs, so I decided to order a spindle of 50 Verbatim +R 8x speed from here, as recommended by a workmate. That was yesterday.

This morning comes a parcel, from dvdr.co.uk, via DHL. That's quick - but it's wrong. They sent 2no 5pk Verbatim DVD+R in jewel case - spindle of DVD+R to follow. It should have been 2no Verbatim DVD+R DL in jewel case. Same price, but picked wrong - the packing note distinctly says DVD+R DL. So I've sent e-mail pointing this out - they're like Dabs, no contact 'phone number. And since they're only 10 miles away, or less, I could personally return them - it'd be cheaper. Now to wait and see what happens.

Talking of Dabs, Jane ordered some things from them over the weekend. Sarah's birthday present, a Creative Zen 20GB MP3 player, a mains brick for Katy's iPod (the current batch of iPods come without mains chargers) some iPod Socks (knitted sock-like bags for iPod Mini, and very pretty they are, too) and a docking base for Jenny's iPod, with amplifier and speakers complete. There was a bit of a snafu over payments there, but the things were delivered today, after I cancelled and reordered - Dabs' website doesn't allow you to change payment details ex post facto.

Later: I've submitted the paperwork for the additional mortgage. Shouldn't take long.

Today was a bit of an event. The decorator unsealed the door to the dining room - it's been sealed since he started, in hopes (vain) of keeping all the dust under control. Still, he's making good progress - we're a week into this room, another week to go. He seems slow, but he's very thorough.

And the Shuttle Discovery landed safely at Edwards Air Force Base this morning, after many dramas, and not a few firsts - notably, the first spacewalk to carry out repairs to the shuttle's heatshield (or indeed any part of the craft) I suspect NASA management heaved a loud collective sigh of relief after Discovery exited the re-entry communications blackout - in their shoes I would have. But NASA have a lot of work still to do on the Shuttle systems - they have got to prevent the insulation breaking off the External Tank. I have read suggestions that the entire ET should be encased in a "condom", possibly renewable after each launch. If feasible (and I see no reason why it shouldn't work) it has to be better than running the risk of bits of foam breaking off and possibly damaging the Orbiter - the which, in the case of Discovery, was only avoided by pure luck. To quote Larry Niven, "Thank Finagle for his forebearance."

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Wednesday, 10th August

 

Yet Another Day of Channel X work (YADCX - remember it!) and the same problems.

DHL delivered the spindle of DVD+Rs (16 speed! I thought I'd ordered 8-speed) this morning - or tried to. At 7:05 yet! Jane was in the shower, and I was asleep. So the delivery man posted a card through the door. I will say this, though. He came back this afternoon, and delivered. So now I have plenty of optical media to use - and dvdr.co.uk have acknowledged their error, and will send the +R DL discs I ordered. What they want me to do with the jewel-cased 4x speed DVD+Rs I don't yet know.

It has been pointed out to me, by my friend at work (thanks, Dave!) that something like Nero Recode will shrink a DVD .iso to single layer size. Which is, of course, true, but I want to test the Dual Layer write capabilities of the drive in the Acer - which WinXP identifies as a QSI SDW-082.

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Thursday, 11th August

 

Although there was a lot of Channel X work, I avoided it - there was enough non-Channel X that I could keep busy. The other shift can have it over the weekend.

But before that, having picked up the winding key for Dora's wall clock, I went round with Jane and wound the clock - which had stopped. The repairer could only wind it enough to run for about 4 days without the key. So I wound it, and set it. And very nice it looks and sounds too.

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Friday, 12th August

 

Hopalong has gone in to have his engine looked at - new radiator, new water pump, new thermostat switch for the electric fan, new brake servo. In the afternoon, I got a 'phone call, "Since we've got the front end apart, should we replace the cam belt?" Sure, never a bad idea to do that, although I thought Hoplaong's engine didn't have a cam belt. They'll replace the other 3 belts as well.

Jenny needs tickets booked for her trip to visit Durham University next week. I'm the only one with the money and spare time to do this, so I was elected to the job. A quick Internet search gave me the desired times (for UK only, try the Trainline, where you can buy your tickets as well, but I have issues with their privacy policy) and then away to the local station - where the booking process is glacially slow. The erk disappears for minutes on end, while he bullies a computer - out of your sight. He then comes back with a printout, and proceeds to retype the information into the ticket issuing machine - a very clever box, which also reads your credit card and issues a (ticket-sized) slip to sign. No Chip-and-PIN, yet.

In the process, I discovered that if you want to use Railcards to get discount, you need the Railcard. So I 'phoned home to ask someone (Katy) to bring them to me. And it transpires that Jenny's Railcard has been mislaid - no-one knows quite how - since the Duke of Edinburgh trip last month (the one where Hopalong overheated dramatically) So I had to get a new one - which required new passport photos, to stick in the Photocard that goes with the Railcard.. A nice exercise in recursion.

After that, tickets were easy. But this last part required Jenny's presence - and she was in a foul mood as a result. So was I, but I wasn't gritting my teeth in anger. Quite expensive, this exercise - about UKP180 in total. Jenny is going - obviously. Katy is going with her, and Jane decided to go as well, to look round the town of Durham

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Saturday, 13th August

 

Our poor decorator is sitting outside the house, with a bunch of rubble sacks, waiting for a contact of his to turn up with a lorry with which to cart away all the rubble from the decorating of the dining room - you may remember that this required the replacement of the ceiling. Hopalong is still at the garage, otherwise I'd be deputed to do transport duty, while Jane tries to convince Dora that a snitch of wet, mildewed, smelly carpet is not a Good Thing - wouldn't she like this piece of nice, clean carpet as a replacement?

11:30 The lorry has arrived, and the rubble is gone. So is our decorator... poor guy. Still, once he's finished with us, he's going to one of Jane's childminding clients. So he's doing not badly.

I've found the Experian credit report, and there's only one point on it - if I'm reading it correctly, there's one payment that was 6 or more months overdue. No-one told me about that - and the actual debt is moot, anyway. It was part of the mortgage, that was cleared back in March. So I need to go and bang on a desk - if this was overdue, why didn't you tell me? Or if it wasn't overdue, I want my credit records made whole, immediately if not sooner.

Taking of credit, the latest batch of credit card bills are coming in - as they do, monthly. And there's only a few thousand - much better than earlier this year, when the mortgage alone was UKP100,000. Thank you, Mum - Rest In Peace.

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Sunday, 14th August

 

Well, Jane got the worst bit of carpet replaced, and some of the rest cleaned up - but Dora started objecting to everything, so Jane gave up. There will be more later - that flat needs a lot of refurnishing to get it acceptable (to us, that is - Dora doesn't see anything wrong)

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