Week of 24th March, 2014

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Monday, 24th March

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Tuesday, 25th March

Lots of TV archiving these 2 days, and I'm just keeping up.

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Wednesday, 26th March

Back to work today, to finish up the nights. But before that... Postie delivered 3 Jiffy bags of stuff I've ordered.

First up was a replacement 64GB USB thumb drive, by PNY. This is to replace the original one I had - which I used to clear Katy's 32GB SD card, when she sold her Samsung Galaxy tablet to a friend. I've not seen the stick since then, and Katy claims not to have it.

The other 2 bags contained bits to allow me to carry the camera monopod and umbrella strapped to the side of the Dunsfold Rucksack, which has the military MOLLE webbing grid sewn onto it. That's 1 inch (25mm) webbing sewn down to make 1 inch loops, into which you can affix straps that will fix similarly webbing-equipped pouches to the grid. Such webbing is often sewn onto mil-spec load-carrying vests.

To fix the monopod and umbrella I need webbing straps oriented in the horizontal plane. I found the necessary on eBay, here. I ordered the shortest, 0.5 metre length - more would have got in the way, and even that is too long. To fix them to the webbing on the rucksack I needed clips, like these. Four straps and clips needed, two per item.

So let's see what I got -

The clip opens and slides under the webbing loop -

I show it here closed over the webbing loop. Then I can add the strap -

and finally, in use holding the umbrella -

There's another clip-and-strap at the bottom to keep the umbrella steady, and I'll do the same on the other side for the monopod. I'll be lookig a bit like the geographer and broadcaster Nicholas Crane, who is in the habit of carrying a walking-length umbrella in his rucksack. Mine isn't quite that long.

All this appears to work, after a brief test. More after I've tried it in earnest, in a week or so, on the trip to York behind 60163 Tornado. Jenny will be with me for that - in fact, the trip is at her behest.

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Thursday, 27th March

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Friday, 28th March

Last 2 nights of this fortnight completed with no problems. No more now for 10 weeks, which will be mid-June.

Mum has got it into her head that her CareLine monitored alarm (her "button" as she calls it) isn't working. This is a landline-connected box with a radio link to an emergency button the user wears on a lanyard around her neck - press the button, the box dials a pre-programmed number, the monitoring centre, who then talk via  effectively a loudspeaker telephone, and can call assisteance as required.

Of course, if the landline is down, as was the case a week or so ago, the box no workee - in fact it beeps at you incessantly, and the only way to shut it up is to pull the power. Which I did - but repowering causes various funny noises, and this is what's worrying Mum. But she still has the emergency function on her mobile phone - which she forgets about. To her, emergency is her "button" - the CareLine alarm.

I mentioned the trip to York behind Tornado a day or so ago. No sign of tickets for that, yet, although they've billed me, so I decided to make enquiry of of the booking agency - who stated that final schedules are still not available, but they expect to post tickets in about a week. Note: that's post, as in Royal Mail, not e-mail.

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Saturday, 29th March

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Sunday, 30th March

Nights scramble your sleep rhythms - not to mention the change to Summer Time (Merkin: Daylight Saving) last night. I'm only just getting back to normal, now. Time was, I could do this almost without thinking about it, but I'm not so young anymore, and it does have an effect. Still, absent overtime, I don't need to think about 6 in the morning until June, which has to be good.

I'm slowly transitioning to the new Dell Inspiron Win 7 laptop, ahead of the end of official support for Win XP in a week or so. If you practice safe hex, as I try to do, this shouldn't have a dramatic effect immediately after April 8th, but you never know - after all, the bells and whistles, and chrome, that M$ have added in Vi$ta, 7 and 8 are probably layered on top of much the same foundations as XP has, and if an exploit is discovered for (say) Win 7, it's quite likely to work on XP, too. So the transition needs done, but not drop-dead urgently.

And once I've made the transition, I may very well convert stinker into a Linux box. More on that later, if so be as I get my finger out and do it.

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