Category: General

So, I have lacked in productiveness, at least at home in the last few weeks. This is not (broadly) my fault. I had work (uni work) to do (and still do). But mainly work has been incredibly hectic. As in, I come home and sit on the sofa and do nothing because my feet, calfs and knees hurt. Actually hurt.

And so the list of things that need doing remains unchanged, indeed it’s slightly longer, because I should look at the brakes on Chester, as they’re sticking a bit…

Okay, so let me preface this by saying, sometimes I’m a dumbass.

So, when we were doing the house, I think we considered insulating under the floor. I certainly vaguely thought about it, but with the exception of the last house, haven’t really thought of the floor as a place of great cold. Which is dumb, because when I think about it, the floor has always been a cold place. It’s just, when I was a kid, I’d sit on the floor with my back against the radiators (for USian readers, remember, most houses in the UK are heated by hot-water radiators, not by forced air). I didn’t really think about the floor, anyhow.

Our last house was on the chilly side in the lounge because, I assumed, I’d put the radiator on the wall away from the window. This is because it was a hideous, hideous experience to grovel around under the floor. And also, because it saved me a chunk of money not to do that. And also, it saved me taking up another floor.

Anyway, for many reasons I decided not to bother. ISTR that I didn’t bother in the bedroom either, for the same reasons, but the bedroom was never quite so cold. Clueful readers will realise that since I overspec’d the radiators for the rooms, the rooms should have been warm anyway, unless, perhaps (dumbass) there was cold air pouring in from somewhere. Doh. Anyhow, in this house, the radiators were spec’d by the plumbers (with the exception of the bathroom one, where they told us the minimum and we picked one that would do, and the kitchen where we’re a little underspec, but it’s the kitchen, and I tend to think of kitchens being somewhere that you cook, and so it warms up while you cook, and lo, it does’t matter if there is marginally less heating in there than you might ordinarily want).

And yet, it’s been cold here. Cool, anyway. Not freezing, but never terribly warm, and the heating’s been working it’s ass off – running much of the day – trying to keep up with the warming the house.

And every so often, I’ve looked at the gaps under the skirting (baseboards) and thought I should seal them. Then yesterday I got around to submitting the meter readings for our gas and electricity bill.

We use 100% clean electricity. Gas – not so much. It’s gas. It comes mostly from the North Sea. So, I still have guilt about gas. I have guilt about clean electric, too, because of things like wind turbines near wibble’s house, but our electricity usage isn’t too much of a problem. However, the gas bill came as a teeensy bit of a shock. Not an unpayable, dear god what have we done size shock. No. But a ‘oh arse, I really should have fixed that’ type shock.

So, in the last day, the inch wide gap betwixt floor and wall in the hall, where the was no skirting board – fixed. Taped over and then new skirting cut, fitted, and sealed against the floor and the wall. The lounge? Today I cleared each wall (‘cept the piano wall), taped it, sealed it, and put stuff back. And whilst I was doing it I was horrified – because I don’t spend that much time grovelling in the corners of the room – and it was like lying in a gentle cold breeze of fresh, cool, air. All that energy we were pumping in to the room was being gently wafted back out of the room. Arse.

There’s still one wall to do, which is sitting there mocking me. I’ve done the corridor – at least, the bits of the corridor outside the hall cupboard, and that too was a chill refreshment. I need to run the network cable up and then I can seal behind the skirting too (because where the ring main runs down the wall, there’s no plaster at the moment). And while I’ve been grovelling I’ve been thinking about insulating under the floorboards. I had not seen how cheap the (60% recycled glass) rockwool is. I hate rockwool, incidentally. I think it’s awful, awful stuff. But 12 quid would essentially insulate the underside of the house.

The problem is, I can insulate the main body of the kitchen (but not either side of the fireplace, I think); and the hall, that I can do, but I can’t insulate under the lounge without taking out some bricks to make a passageway into the lounge. And I imagine that they’d have done that rather than cut holes in the floor before now, but they cut holes in the floor rather than do that… so I assume there’s a reason for not doing so. I’m still pondering it, it’s not likely to happen for a few weeks anyway, but now as I hear the drone of the fan-assisted kitchen heating I think ‘should we not be doing that’. Of course, doing it before we had the all the floors down, say, whilst they were reflooring the kitchen? That would have been a clever plan. At least dropping the stuff down there so I don’t have to drop down under the stairs, drag it to the front of the house, then drag it back down the length of the corridor to get to the point where it splits off to the kitchen, dining area, and back room. Feh.

So, today I forked out for a 1945 copy of (the) Cycling (magazine) Book of Maintenance. I was going to get a 1938 reprint, but it was cheaper, even with extortionate postage to get the 1945 original edition. I’m led to believe this includes details of how to service a BSA three speed hub. Look forward to excitement on that front.

I’m wondering if it also has details of how to change the hub on a Westwood rim, because the bearing in the front hub is a bit iffy. Ideally I’d just change the bearing, but I’ve no idea if you can do that on a cycle hub. I’d assume so, but again, no idea what I’m doing here. It’s an interesting experience.

I’ve also ordered a new set of brake shoes, which will hopefully be arriving in a few days time. Impressively, it was cheaper for me to buy the book second hand and pay £5.00 for shipping from Abe Books and to pay £2.00 shipping to get the brake blocks from another online retailer than it was to buy the reprint and the blocks and pay the shipping just the once from the other retailer. Can’t say as I’m overly impressed with their pricing.

Also, whilst at the M-Shed yesterday (we went with my Sister, her Husband and their kids) I saw this:

Now, looking at the back of my bike there are a large number of small holes in the mudguard:

Which, I suspect, once held a similar wire thing, presumably either to stop panniers or skirts from landing up in the spokes. My question to the assembled masses is how in hell to I recreate it? I’ve still got the little metal dobble on the back at the axle to which they would attach, but the wires, where to get them from?

So, today I rode a bicycle in the UKs best bicycling city – alledgedly.

I collected Molly from the Bristol Bikeworkshop, who’d been terribly positive about the chance of fixing her gears…

She had been rather lackadaisical about gear selection, leaping randomly around and making riding somewhat entertaining. I was also wanting some new brake shoes, the original 40’s ones seeming to me to be… lacking in braking facility.

Anyhow, they rang yesterday and said that Molly was ready for collection. They were pretty keen for me to collect, on the basis that they were lacking in storage space, so I turned up after walking* there and hopped onto my trusty steed. Well, not quite.

See, I’ve not ridden a pushbike for…years. I mean, the last time I rode any proper distance was riding Kate’s pushbike when she moved to Bristol…which is probably 8 years ago? And the discussion at the shop I discovered that they (a) had no new brake blocks (and thus I’d be using the ones that came with the bike to get home), and they (b) had only managed to get two of the three gears working. Still, the general once over and service cost a tenner, so I was happy enough to pootle off.

I pulled out onto the road, and a quick test revealed that my brakes weren’t really going to stop me in a hurry. Or indeed, necessarily at all, if the road were steep enough. However, on the slope I was on, both brakes together would bring me to some kind of halt, albeit one which needed to be booked well in advance. I pootled off down the hill again, some trepidation filling my bones, and attempting to see as far ahead as humanly possible, so as to ensure that there were no surprise stops required.

At the bottom of the hill I looked, hopefully, for some kind of direction as to what they’d like cyclists to do. Having looked and considered the matter, I feel that what the city planners would like cyclists to do is die. Horribly. I have decided that in future I’ll skip quietly up onto the pavement and skidaddle across the huge paved section because having made it part way round cabot circus on the bike I decided that enough death was enough, and that I’d rather hop up on the pavement where I might not be crushed by some distracted driver. Again I mention, Bristol is apparently the UK’s best city for cycling. The best. This is the veritable Peak of British Accomplishment in the arena of cycling. I only mention that as an aside. Something one might wish to consider as we continue our journey.

So I waited for an appropriate gap, slipped back out onto the road and (stopping at red lights as they occurred trundled down the road. As I crossed one of the bridges a bus (from the company abus, I think) pulled infront of me, and then promptly stopped at the bus stop causing me to quickly write in triplicate the stopping request, send it urgent same day delivery to my bike’s brake levers who replied with only a few bureaucratic and procedural concerns which I was able to address promptly, and forthwith some marked degree of retardation was applied, allowing me not to trundle straight into the back of the bus. Whilst I wasn’t exactly whipping along at speed, I suspect such an experience would not have endeared me to cycling, the bus, or the bike.

Having slipped around the bus I headed for what is probably the only decentish bit of the ride. Around Temple Meads station there’s some fairly modern / decent road planning and cycles are granted a route around the massive roundabout which, should they decide to take it, takes them well away from the traffic. I liked that bit. I wasn’t quite sure where I was meant to rejoin the road, but scootled along for a while and dropped back onto the road where there was a dip. Then I head over the bridge and to a set of traffic lights that have traffic sensors. That resolutely refused to change. Now, my bike has more steel in it than most modern bikes, so if it were going to change for someone, I’d be a good bet.

But no.

Fortunately, it wasn’t busy, and I headed through the tunnel in a gap and headed onward to the bit I was least happy about. There is a road near us which has a ‘cycle lane’ in the least accurate sense of the phrase. A cycle lane in paint only. They slapped some paint down and went “there y’go”. It’s not the worst, no, not by a long way. My favourite is this (I’m sure this isn’t the worst cycle lane)

View Larger Map

Which involves the cyclist dodging lamp posts and trees. Lots of them. And is horribly uneven. And next to a busy, narrow road.

Anyhow, this is not a patch on that. It’s just a busy road, on which people tend to drive faster than the limit, and which has cars parked all the way down one side. This means the cars coming the opposite direction to the cycle lane are slightly on the wrong side of the road, which means that cars going the same direction as the cycle lane tend to occupy the cycle lane. It’s not their fault, it’s simply poor design.

And then there’s the more fun bits, like the lane starts of nice and wide… and then sloooowly gets narrower, before finally (and cyclists will already be expecting this) stopping. No warning or signage. One minute you’re on a bit of road officially marked as a cycle lane, the next you’re fending for yourself on a busy main road. So that’s nice.

Despite all that, I actually rather enjoyed the experience, the bike was fun to ride, and didn’t hurt my body in any more than a kind of ‘You are seriously not used to this activity’ way, which is good, because it’s been really painful before. Now I just need to find a 1930’s book on hub gear maintenance, and see if anyone’ll sell me spares for a BSA shifter, otherwise I fear I might have to get a new wheel / hub. She could also do with new front bearings, at some pont.

* Yes, I walked the 3 miles to the bike shop. Go me.

That, my dears, is the sound of a very flat battery driving the starter motor on a GT550.

Thanks to my dear friend John, the as yet unnamed Kawasaki now sports a working ignition system. Despite the LIES of the previous owner (just laid it up and the battery’s run flat my arse) it seems, so far, to have just had the two faults:

This was the earth strap:

Having replaced that, however, there was a disappointing lack of life. Although the battery’s not in great shape, we were getting about 11.5v at the battery, but at the ignition we had only 1.3v. That is a bit weak, and it turned out to be impressive that we were getting anything because a small chunk of the once copper wiring which had been the ignition positive had corroded away to become a thin layer of copper oxide:

Having lopped it off, and replaced it with a fresh connector (not a chocolate block) and sealed it with self amalgamating tape (optimistic, I am) this was achieved:

Well, that and the aforementioned “Whirrrrr….click”. So I guess now it’s time to get some fresh petrol and a new battery.

I also, being as I was in the fixy mood, repaired the cable on the worklamp which I noticed was a bit flickery. I think I’ve noticed that before, and tightened the screws in the plug, but it didn’t work. Today I looked a bit more closely and it looks like the wireclamp on the plug was done up by someone wanting to do some kind of test of strength. It’d nearly chopped the cable in half…so I lopped the end off that, popped the plug back on and lo, working lamp. Then, just by chance – well, while I was testing that lamp I noticed the plug on the extension lead (that came free with our chopsaw and) that I’ve been using down in the garage a fair bit, was awfully hot. A quick look at that revealed something fairly horrendous:

Not only were the cables sickly – there’s no earth. Seriously, no earth on an extension lead in a workshop. Geeze (Louise). It now sports a brand new cable, sadly PVC so not quite as flexible, but it has three cores and has a whole bundle of safetyness that was previously lacking.

Productive, today, I feel.

I also modified the carrier / pannier rack off my old hybrid bike to fit my new (older) BSA. Unfortunately, I need slightly longer bolts to hold it in, so I’ll have to go source them.

Oh, and had a trip to Halfords that removed all the impressedness that I got yesterday, but never mind :)

So, I potentially have a new job. Nothing confirmed yet. Not handing in my notice until I’ve got it written in old fashioned…errr…laser toner on dead tree format.

But there it is, I’ve got a new job.

In preparation for this, on Sunday I shall be tootling down to the garage to see if I can resurrect the Kawasaki (possibly on Saturday, it depends on which day other social things are happening). I’ve also, because I am weak and fear the internals of a 1930s three speed shifter, booked the bike into the Cycle Co-Op for them to fix it. In his words ‘incredibly there are still loads of these that still work, so hopefully we can fix it’. Yes, I’m weak, but also I’m time-restricted.

Things to sort also, on the bike front, are lights (it does have a lamp of some sort fitted, but I’d like something of the ‘visible from 500 meters’ sort that I’ve started to see around, a reflector, and… yeah, we should be good to arrive at work exhausted. :)

On the plus side:
Money to be saved – at least £120/month
General improvement in fitness

My beloved told me I was working too hard (possibly the falling asleep all the time was a hint) – and having come off nights I’d singularly failed to actually take any time off*, and so today, that’s broadly what I’ve done. I eventually got off my arse and emptied boxes of clothes out, and endeavoured to sort them into ‘charity’ and ‘keep’. I’ve got rid of lots of tank tops that don’t really fit, skinny fit teeshirts which don’t look good on me at the moment – and are, frankly, a bit worn out. And various other things.

But other than that I’ve pretty much chilled out on the sofa, read more Three Men on a Bummel**, listened to podcasts… and thought about my desk.

See, I was talking to Nikki on Sunday about her desk – and we discussed that she’d not built a standing desk – which is kind of the new in thing, well, slightly new, slightly in. Y’know what I mean. Anyhow – she has done a big rearrangement of her home office and not ended up adding standing. Given my job, in which I’m often standing or walking much of the day (sometimes more or less the entire shift), I want a sitting desk…for those days. But I quite fancy a standing desk for the days off. Really, what I want (as usual) is both.

And then it came to me. I could perfectly well have both. My cake may be available in edible form.

I have a ridiculously cool concept in my head, which involves counterbalances, and scaffolding and funky things like that. Basically I want to use victorian sash window concepts to make it so that not only can the desk be either in the sitting or standing position, but also so that I don’t need to lift the entire weight of the thing each time I shift it. Essentially so I can get home and it be a case of me just dropping it or raising it to the position I’d like.

My brief (very brief) experiment with this says that the standing height I want is about 10″ higher than the standard(ish) sitting desk height. Unfortunately, me being me, each itteration of the desk’s design is more complex than the last and I now have a suspicion that what I want to create involves running metal cables though the inside of the scaffold poles to a central counterbalance weight***. I don’t know if I’ll actually create said object, because frankly any desk would be nice at this point, but it’s awfully tempting.

* I got home, chopped wood for my mum (with the table saw), did university work, then the day after drove all over the country with Nikki to collect my piano**** and a new wardrobe; then yesterday more uni work and moving the piano and wardrobe in (and this, unlike the last wardobe we bought, is a large and high quality bit of Edwardian furniture).

** My dad used to read me Three Men in a Boat when we went on holiday, when I read it I can still hear my dad’s voice… Kathryn spotted a double edition of Three Men in a Boat and Three Men on a Bummel – and got it for me for Xmas, which is awesome, because my dad’s copy of Three Men in a Boat was disintegrating even when I was a kid – so having one I can read that’s not damaged each time I open it, and that I’m deeply attached to, that’s very nice. Also, I’d not read Three Men on a Bummel – and it’s so far as hilarious as Three Men in a Boat.

*** I was originally thinking of counterbalance weights at each end of the desk, but the massive weight of the wooden desktop and the record deck (and potentially amp, monitor, and any other things I may be putting on there) meant that I’d need a massive weight. I will still, probably, need a massive weight, but I can hide it inside a box – or somesuch – which means it doesn’t have to be something pretty.

****

I’ve been very unmotivated to do my uni work, or indeed the house, of late. I keep planning it all, then the moment arrives, passes and I’m sat doing something else. I mention this purely because I think that they’re linked.

See, I’ve been jogging. Jogging, properly, for 3 weeks now. And I’ve cheerfully done 2-3km every couple of days. Not a lot, but enough. I’ve cleaned the bathroom, and the lounge, and the kitchen… I’ve got the stuff in from the garage to sand-and-paint. I’ve washed the work clothes (hell, I’ve done 7 loads of laundry in 2 days*).

The problem is I’m prevaricating (like I am at this moment). I think when I was thinking about my course before I started I imagined I was going to be better at managing my time than say, 22 year old me. Or than 18 year old me. It turns out I’m not. I’m just the same as I was. I put it off, wait, do other things (like this), and then finally get around to it as we near the end of the available time.

Which is broadly okay, so long as I get it done, except that… well… I’m not really managing on this bit of the course (not least ‘cos I’m a bit bored of it) and also, because the catalogue of jobs which I should be doing is getting bigger, and I’m not doing them because ‘I should be doing my coursework’. But I’m not doing my coursework because I’ll do anything else. And that’s beginning to annoy me about me. So now I’m going to sod off and do some coursework. Feh.

* Yes, it did get out of hand, but that does include several loads of work clothes and dust sheets.

So, our DSL is sickly. We don’t know where the sickness is coming from, but much testing has revealed that the main fault is either the box, or something obscure with the line. We should be getting 10Mbps, we top out at 4Mbps. However, further testing (albeit with a potentially sickly box) has revealed that our house phone ‘network’ is hurting our broadband speed. Quite a bit.

Like, from averaging 4ish Mbps on the master socket to Averaging 3Mbps on the socket on which it’s normally used.

And given the crappyness of our incoming ADSL* this is quite a concern. Unfortunately, the wires are now plastered into the wall, and I am not, come hell or high water, changing them. They also are held in place with clips under the floor in a region that’s inaccessible. And the phone wire was of reasonable quality, at least, as far as I’m aware.

So there’s a couple of things we can do. Disconnecting the ring wire, that’s something I shall probably try soon. The other plan is a bit more cumbersome, but essentially revolves around moving the router out to the utility. Whilst this actually puts it further from the incoming phone point, my thought is that I can slap the ADSL filter in-line at the master socket such that the run to the ‘phone in the lounge is filtered, and the run to the utility is ADSL only. However, this does then put a whacking great extension lead, in essence, in the way of the router.

The other option, as I see it, is to hide the router under the stairs, whence it could reach both the alarm’s power supply and the master socket. However, that means locating the never connected network cable which runs to, currently, under the floor by the master socket.

Of course, the best plan would be to go back in time, and when I was specing the house mains wiring to remember to put the mains socket next to the phone point under the fuse box. Which was my original plan. That would eliminate this problem, because I could do the filter-at-master socket trick, and not be stuck with either no power cable, or no network cable, which is where I’m at at the moment. Bother.

* All this is because I don’t like Virgin’s position on things like privacy. And I don’t want to give (B)Sky(B) any money, ever.
** Sort of