What is happening

[granath]

Good luck to Kibby in her new job, and congrats to you for getting your new computer maw!

I'm at home with either influenza or a severe cold, which is why I'm posting at this time of day.

I had a great Christmas except that none of us were really well. I've had a really stressful fall and early winter at work, and once the pressure let up for the Christmas break, I got sick. Typical!

[Moonlady]

Wishing you a full and speedy recovery, granath.

Mawra, my thoughts are with you, your nephew, and your family. Wishing the doctors wisdom and clarity.

[P'ter]

Got through Christmas okay, despite having 14 year old living with me! Now got a putrid throat.

[Hans]

Happy New Year everybody!

[granath]

Happy New Year! Thanks Moonlady, I'm feeling much better.

[GinnyStar]

Same thing here weather related cold, and we are still , when we see his GP doctor, he going to get an earful, for he didn't RX any antibiotic medication the first time, even after his care giver, + RN asked too.

He got his influenza shot, and them not having an in stock, they could have asked for some from a different department, my allergy dr. has it in stock got mine, then.

Found some that gave me a chuckle http://airwolf.wikia.com/wiki/Henry_Darrow_%28Actor%29 is an actor. and http://talentsuniverse.wikia.com/wiki/Henry_Darrow I got a

[mawra]

Some of the insulation upstairs came down, it has been COLD upstairs. It is suppose to get put back up this week end.

[Moonlady]

Sending healing thoughts to everyone who is sick.

Happy New Year and may 2016 be a better year for everyone!

P'ter, teenagers are often the reason why adults drink.

[GinnyStar]

Well I'm glad I was able to help Eann get back here.

I just pick up Kindle copy of her Book Healer's War https://www.amazon.com/Healers-War-E...Healer%27s+War, I'm still learning how work the the two. but between http://www.amazon.com/The-Healers-Wa...2066233&sr=8-1. I'm reading it.

I might have more later, but I hope things go well for our caregiver/RN skin cancer is not fun, on Thur. I'm stiffer then normal.

I just updated http://kck.st/1Uw1wEW

[Zelandeth]

Been a while since I've been on here...

So my father's still in hospital following his hip injury just before Christmas. The hip replacement went smoothly, but he's been really really confused ever since. The hospital staff really didn't seem interested in investigating that, but he's now been transferred to the community hospital closer to home and they have actually shown more interest. Going theory is that it's mainly a combination of stress from being in hospital and the pain medication He has seemed slightly better in the last couple of days. They're hoping to get him sent home on the 26th, and plans are already underway to get a carer to check in on him a couple of times a day and to assist with shopping, cooking etc which I'd been trying to get done for the last year and a half...So I guess some good can come out of this if that gets arranged...

In other news, my old Citroen is (briefly) off the road following it starting to make a truly horrible metallic rattling noise which was quickly traced to the air con compressor free wheeling pulley - it had been rattly since I got the car so I wasn't hugely surprised. Will bypass it for the time being and change the compressor later in the year (I technically could change the pulley, but after 200K miles and 17 years I don't know how much life is left in it, so for all the cost involved I may as well change it), but that will get the car moving again.

I can't really blame it for complaining a bit, given that it did about 3000 miles over the last year and a half - yet in the last few weeks has done nearly 2500! I don't think it knows quite what is happening.

Christmas was a nice quiet family affair (a welcome change from the previous few weeks!), and in the last week or so I've treated myself to a present with the money my grandmother sent.

I've always enjoyed what few opportunities I've had to play organs, even though I don't actually know how to play properly - I can noodle around sounding vaguely musical (much where I am with the guitar too...), but have always wanted to learn. As a few folks know I also enjoy restoring electronic kit from the 50s-70s.

So, it seemed that the most logical way to cover both of these bases was to grab an organ from that sort of era. Quick rummage around on eBay revealed that the market for these things is pretty saturated, and I ended up tracking down an honest 60s model T-202 tonewheel Hammond that was local and bagged it for only GBP100.





Little bit of water damage to the bottom of the cabinet from the recent torrential rainfall where a bit got into the storage unit it was in, but nothing that can't be sorted out with a bit of time and patience, it's structurally sound, just the surface finish that's damaged. Inside it was utterly filthy, but devoid of any signs of previous bodgery which is a welcome sight.

After a few electrical sanity checks and properly oiling the tone generator, it was fed electricity for the first time in goodness knows how many years and sprang to life. Everything works, we had some random buzzes, pops and crackles when it was first powered up, but everything settled down after it had run for a while. Save for some scratchy contacts on the drawbars, it's working well now.

This model was launched in 1968, and as far as I've been able to tell this appears to be a 1968 example as the latest dated component I've found so far dates from 17th week 1968, so quite an early one.

These models seem to take quite a beating from the purists and are generally pretty unloved, whereas the earlier A and B series organs change hands for mega money. As far as audio is concerned though I'm very impressed with this one so far, really does have a depth to it that I've not seen from modern kit - certainly not that you can get at this sort of price. Has to be said though that it's so much more of an impressive thing in its own right than a plastic cased keyboard these days...I mean look at it and tell me that's not a conversation starter...

It will be getting partly dismantled shortly though - for the simple reason that it needs to go upstairs eventually and it is simply too heavy in one lump...roughly 135kg (about 300 pounds) according to information I've found online - all I know is that it nearly killed me and my other half getting it out the car and into the house, no way on earth it's going up the stairs in one piece! The tone generator is about 50kg of that, so with that out the rest should be just about manageable I reckon, if still heavy and awkward.

...Now I just need to learn how to play it properly! May provide videos or something of that in a few months when I (hopefully!) start to make progress with it.

[GinnyStar]

Reminds me of my grandmother one, I'm tone deaf, nice

Good to hear that your father is getting help. And that the local community hospital it taking more understanding about this.

[Moonlady]

Thanks for the update, Zelander. Enjoy your gift and I hope things continue to improve for your dad.

[Kugai]

Ditto

[Jolin0288]

Not a heck of a lot on my end, besides the new puppy

[mawra]

My poor nephew can't catch a break. He will spend his 6th birthday at UVA. He was sent home from school last week because his hip was hurting so bad he couldn't walk. E.D said infection and did blood work. On Friday he went to Ortho who sent him to hospital. He has an abscess deep in his thigh muscles. They finally said rather than a normal infection it is MERCA, they think it is a secondary infection with the main infection in a bone, some where. The keep changing their mind on rather to do surgery on it or not. There is no pediatric ortho in Lynchburg so they are sending him to UVA.

The problem with that is the roads are very bad, lots of snow for two days and cold temps mean icy roads. They are sending a truck of national guard soldiers with them incase they run into problems. I just hope they figure out what they are going to do, SOON. They only thing they can agree on is that it is not related to the Chiari.

[Moonlady]

My thoughts are with you nephew and family, Mawra. That is hard.

[mawra]

The hospital on Tues did not give him any meds at all. They did nothing except refer him to ortho. Ortho did nothing when they first saw him except schedule an MRI for Friday. He went back to hospital on Thurs because he had a high fever even on Ibuprofen. they sent him home, again without meds. It was late Friday afternoon before they started him on antibiotics.

[mawra]

Wed. night Seth was worse. The main talk was on doing the surgery to remove abscesses. Thurs he woke up fine. The abscesses were mostly gone, he was eating, playing acting like a normal little boy. There was no sign of infection in his blood work. He was sent home. He is acting normal, no sign of being sick at all.

[mara]

that will be a relief for you all.

[mawra]

A big relief. Seth goes back to school Tue.

[Greenrider Tresa]

I'm glad everything turned out well.

[Allen]

Before Christmas I burnt out a laser on one of my engravers. So I decided to try a different engraver along with replacing the fried one. The new machine is the largest one I've seen available in what is termed "desktop" size, which generally means it's a hobby system, not a large, free-standing, commercial, CO2-cooled unit....... but I had to clear off my desk, and either of my other lasers will easily sit inside the framework of this thing.

Along with the new machine came new software, which was a nightmare of a learning curve for an old fart like me. First problem was that there was no way for me to reset my monitor's resolution to a format that would allow me to view the software's whole screen because I was using a television for a monitor, and it was only 780p capable. I needed 1080p. So now I have a new Samsung monitor, too.

Then there was the replacement laser that I couldn't get to work. Turned out that the new one was 12V and the old one was 5V. So new laser wouldn't work with old control board. So now I have a new 12V board to go with the 12V replacement laser. Haven't tried it yet.

But I finally have the new giant machine figured out..... well, almost, anyway. This was a trial run of something I was thinking of making for a customer:

It's actually not very large at all, but I learned a lot while I was setting it up. What I ended up with for the customer was the plaque below. It measures over 14 inches tall. I can only run any of the lasers no more than 2 hours at a stretch, then let them cool down for an hour. So this plaque took quite a while to finish. With only running it when I was home to monitor it and shut it down at the end of two hours (longer when I went to bed, of course,) it took over 3 days for just the large head. The small picture at the bottom presented its own problems. But actual burn time on it was almost 5 hours, so..... Anyway, this is the finished product:

And after all this, Maw's plaque was finally sent to her!

[Kugai]

Cool

[Lily]

That's magnificent, Allen, congratulations

[mara]

that is one way of getting new things.
It is very nice .

[GinnyStar]

https://www.facebook.com/12357643449...032920/?type=3 For some reason I'm thinking of Anne McCaffrey, Pern, and the Ford of Red Hanrahan, and Jan Regan and the size of dragons early years

And memories

[P'ter]

Yesterday I had an embarrassing accident!








I was waiting for a train at an interchange and was bashed into by a crowd of young football supporters.

The lower set of my false teeth flew out, landed on the tracks and broke.

It wasn't worth the risk of a �1,000 trespass fine to go and get the bits.

Today I've been informed that, despite the NHS, it will cost me £224 to replace them.

[Moonlady]

Beautiful work Allen.

P'ter, Wishing you and the group a better week.

[granath]

Lovely work Allen!

How unfortunate. I hope you get new false teeth soon, P'ter.

[Zelandeth]

Random event of the month for us this afternoon.

Quiet day, we're all minding our own business and suddenly there's a deafening bang followed by a loud crash from the lounge area. After we peeled the dog off the ceiling and scratched our heads for a while we figured out what had happened.

The middle shelf of our TV cabinet had for reasons best known to itself detonated. It's one of those things where the shelves are made out of very thick tempered shelves, and the middle one had decided that it had had enough of life.

This is about 50% of the way through the cleanup operation.



Obviously the TV and games consoles from the top shelf had been evacuated in blind panic here while we tried to unearth the rest!

The blast radius was about 15 feet all told, and I really wish that I'd had a high speed camera trained on the area when it happened as it must have looked quite spectacular.

All I can say is I'm extremely glad that it was the middle shelf that went pop rather than the top one, as then instead of looking for a new TV stand and spending half a day picking up bits of glass, we'd be looking for a replacement for a 50" TV and whatever out of the couple of grand worth of games consoles underneath it took exception to having that much weight dropped on it.

You will not be surprised to hear that the replacement we picked up contains a grand total of zero tempered glass.

[Priscilla]

Wow! I'm just glad nobody got hurt! What a mess. You would probably have been peeling me off the ceiling along with the dog.

I do believe I am seeing guitars in the corner? Our daughter's boyfriend teaches Middle School chorus and also plays bass and sings in a local band. Fun times!

[Zelandeth]

Those ones are actually game controllers for Rock Band - though there are several real ones upstairs as well, (we've got acoustic 6 and 12 string covered, an electric and a bass as well).

[Priscilla]

There needs to be a "Like" button here!

[P'ter]

I'm surprised you didn't get a visit from a swat team thinking you'd been attacked by Islamic terrorists.

[Hans]

Good grief. Gives a whole new meaning to "well tempered"

[Kugai]

You could say it was ill tempered glass


Quite a mess though. Wonder what made it explode.

[P'ter]

A patch of high heat in one small area compared to the rest of the sheet?

[Zelandeth]

Ill tempered indeed!

From what I've been able to find on the subject on thick sheets like these it's almost inevitably caused by a manufacturing defect, usually due to poor thermal management during manufacture meaning that part of the sheet has cooled more quickly than the rest. That sets up a stress point which will eventually cause failure.

The other time that I've seen it happen was with a car window. Rear left one on (I think from memory) a Ford Mondeo that was at the far end of the workshop just spontaneously shattered with quite a bang one afternoon. Took us a good ten minutes to figure out what had caused the bang as it was parked with that side facing away from us.

[GinnyStar]

Reminds me of that bit with the glasshall workshop at Landing, from All the Weyrs of Pern and the glass that was broken was made the old way the new stuff didn't crack, from The Skies of Pern

[granath]

Wow! Luckily you weren't in the room when the glass blew, or you might've been updating us from the A&E instead...