Week of 5th October, 2009

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Monday, 5th October

October, already? Doesn't time fly when you're having fun.

Speaking of which, Jupiter Pluvious is also having fun - it's hissing down with rain as I type this, so no work on the car. I don't have a covered workspace - read: garage or carport.

And I've just added another item to the to-do list. Having purchased a stand-alone (no PC required) PSK31 modem from the home website early last year, I've decided to upgrade to the latest add-on for it - that's a USB interface that can, among other things, log QSO traffic to a USB stick for posterity. The upgrade is available in several formats - anything from bare PCB to factory install. But since I'm no metalworker, and the case needs a few holes punched in it, I'll take the factory upgrade option. This will also let me fix the shipping ding in the upper case. I'll post the device back for upgrade tomorrow.

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Tuesday, 6th October

I have to take Mum to that other hospital today for the bone scan. This will also be fun, since parking is limited to non-existent; Mum doesn't walk well, so we need to be close; and this is in an area that is somewhat depressed. And we'll be there for several hours - about four, I gather. Most of which will be waiting for the chemical jollop to diffuse through Mum's body.

And it's a hospital, so no radio transmitters.

I was expecting problems with the trip to the hospital. But the ones I was expecting - traffic and parking - didn't materialise. Except for larcenous parking charges, that is.

No, the problems we had were why we were there - Mum's hip joint. She doesn't walk well. So for the second trip, we requested a wheelchair - and got it. Much easier. First trip, administer radioactive tracer (probably Technetium, but that's a guess based on the screens of the scanner) and take a scan run of Mum's pelvic area. Then go away, and return later - 3 hours - for a full body scan.

All of which worked. Results from Mum's surgeon, in December.

Then I went out to the storage room, and recovered the NUE-PSK PSK31 modem, ready to send off for updating, as per yesterday's post. So put a new box around it, and send it off, Royal Mail Signed For, with added insurance. Sarah had a box of stuff to return to one of her mail-order suppliers, so I did that as well.

She's also catching up on my SF TV DVDs. Farscape, if you please. So I recovered Series 1 from store, finding the rest of them in the process. After that will be Andromeda, and the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica. Plus any Stargates I can find.

Talking of which - the new Stargate Universe starts this evening. Double episode to launch it, then weekly.

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Wednesday, 7th October

It's raining again, so no work on Nicole.

This evening, Jane and I delivered, stealthily, a bunch of balloons and other goodies to her Mum's house. I say steathily, because Jane went in first and engaged Mum in conversation (the which is not difficult) and I followed with birthday balloons. These will be put up by the family that are staying with her, pending resolution of a visa snafu.

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Thursday, 8th October

Mum's 89th Birthday

It has occurred to me that maybe I shouldn't fit the aerials into Nicole until I've built and bench-tested the CarPC. This is due to the fact that the aerials are a vital part of the system. So I won't. Next problem is that I need table space to work on the CarPC, and Jane will get annoyed if I try to use the dining room table - there's no other accessible flat space, and Jane uses the dining room (and the conservatory that opens off it) as her child-minding area. Soldering irons and lots of dangling cables don't mix well with busy-fingered 3 and 4 year olds.

We took Mum out for dinner to a local Italian restaurant. It would have been impolite not to extend an invitation to her house guests, so we were 9 for dinner. And a great time was had by all. The guests are nice people, the wife is an Italian, a former exchange student visitor of Mum's - 15 years ago. She's here, with her German husband and their 9-year-old daughter, in transit from Europe to America, while a visa snafu is sorted out. This has now been done, so they'll be continuing their interrupted journey back to the States - they've been living there for several years, but visa problems brought them back to Europe.

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Friday, 9th October

The insurance on Nicole expires in just under 2 weeks. I've had the renewal paperwork, but (obviously) if I can save a bit on premiums, I will. So I had a telephonic word with the company that carries the risk on the house and Jane's car.

And they were more expensive for me, although Jane's car policy was cheaper. So they passed me on to their open market search department. And they were even worse! In excess of UKP2000 per annum - my current policy costs just over UKP700. So that's a bust. I'll let the default renewal take it's course.

And before you ask "Why so much?" - 4 named drivers, one with business use, two under-25s, one of whom is a provisional licence holder, aka learner driver.

Next up - speak to my pension consultant about her proposals for debt reduction and resultant reduction in outgoings.

Then I can go out and buy a few bits for the CarPC. I keep finding little bits that I need - each one of which requires a trip to a components shop, a Tube ride away. All commodity bits, so cheap, but it's still an inconvenience.

<pause>

Well, I've got the bits - but of course, as is always the way, I forgot some. Still, the trip was not wasted.

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Saturday, 10th October

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Sunday, 11th October

Should have done some work on the CarPC - on the dining room table. But lethargy, and a book called "The Apocalypse Troll", by David Weber, got in the way.

That book is reasonably good science fiction - the basic premise is that of backwards time travel, and the possibility of future history change, tied in with a xenophobic race (and it's cyborg proxies) attempting to eliminate humanity several hundred years in it's past. I had a little problem with the way Weber complicates and recomplicates the present-day problem (or rather, present day on a parallel time-track to ours - the book is set mainly in 2007, although it starts 400 years in our future) by adding extra abilities to the cyborg's arsenal, although the climax requires those abilities.

It's a good page-turner, if you're a science-fiction fan, and worth your time.

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