Week of 29th July, 2013

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Monday, 29th July

Ulysses is now at the Seat dealership, to have his locks fixed. And they will check out the cold starting problem as well. So I don't expect him back before tomorrow, at the earliest. Even as late as Friday wouldn't be too painful.

MCR overtime tonight. I should be able to borrow Nyree, so public transport shouldn't be required.

Proms recordings from DAB continue apace - up to 3 a day (e.g. today) but finding the time to edit them down is a little bit difficult. MCR nights are ideal - I managed to break down 4 recordings last Thursday. I routinely record 5 minutes early, and continue until 10 minutes after the billed end, so a 1 hour concert scheduled at 13:00 would involve a recording from 12:55 to 14:10.

So first I remove the excess material at head and tail, and then work backwards from the end extracting any unbilled fillers the Beeb have put in. They routinely schedule live concerts (which the Proms are) longer than the expected running time, and fill the slot with short items from disc. There can be some gems here, so it's worth keeping them.

Finally, I clip the interval talk(s) (if present) out of the middle, and save the result. So I end up with the concert, any interval talk, and fillers, together with a text file containing the blurb from the website describing the concert and the performers. It takes a while - most of which is spent waiting for Audacity to import the .mp2 off-air recording, and export the resulting subfiles as .mp3.

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Tuesday, 30th July

Garage phoned this afternoon. They've fitted the new lock, and programed the new central locking remote, but the door doesn't lock and unlock properly with the key. This was the initial symptom when the lock broke some weeks ago, and I suspect something is disarranged in the lock mechanism internal to the door. But they say their Seat specialist is away until Monday, which is somewhat of a problem - I need Ulysses over the weekend. But they can have him back on Monday. At least I can lock him now, via the remote. No mention of whether they've fixed the cold starting problem.

None of the new goodies have arrived yet.

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Wednesday, 31st July

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Thursday, 1st August

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Friday, 2nd August

And they have indeed not fixed the cold start problem, so Ulysses is still at the garage.

Jane and Jenny have left for their fortnight in Dorset. They've taken Ben the dog with them. I had thought Katy would be going as well, but not so - it would seem that she and Sarah are taking a week together in Crete, starting next Tuesday. They fly out from Gatwick that evening.

Bits for the Nexux 7 have arrived - a case (complete with stylus and screen protector) the Bluetooth audio transmitter (which is not recognised by the Nexus) a USB OTG cable (claimed to be compatible with a Nexus) and the car charger. So that's good

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Saturday, 3rd August

The case for the Nook is here, as is the Li-Ion battery for the TH-D7. That last comes with a separate charger , since Li-ion batteries need a different charge regime from that required for Ni-Cads. And the charger is universal voltage, but American format, supplied with the usual Chinese adaptor - which is not a good fit, probably because the charger has its pins slightly too far apart. But it works.

The battery is perhaps twice as thick as the OEM ni-cad, but the belt case just fits over it, so I can still carry the rig on my belt. The battery has a snap-on belt clip, all same the OEM Kenwood, but I don't use that - it's plastic, and prome to breakage. My case has a metal cored belt clip, so it shouldn't break.

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Sunday, 4th August

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