Mostly lemon based

Category: House

  • Variously titled, but fundamentally the big, late update

    Welcome to the combined Kate’s Life 2007 update package. This package will update your Kate’s Life Information on the following issues:

    – Thanksgiving
    – XKCD is in my head again
    - Stuff of a housey nature
    – Random photographics
    – Other sundry informatorial updates may be included.     Click here to install this update

    So, yes, I’m behind again, aren’t I? So, we’ll do things in kinda an order. First up, XKCD is in my head; I’m now at a state where I have no properly working computers. The laptop’s power cable is fubar, so I need to find the spare supply for it (which is probably in the attic, fortunately, and not in the ‘spare room’ which is currently full. The G5 still needs a new power supply; I’m hoping to sort that out this week, if at some point before friday I have a working car. The PC downstairs still falls off the wifi, it is to be fair working in all other respects. And the hackintosh remains without network. There was no small degree of frustration after spending hours on it, I realise now that I need a USB WiFi dongle *anyway* (my brain kept saying, no you don’t; you won’t need one when you get the G5 working because you’ll just stick the homehub up there as a wired / wireless router – but it’d just be easier if everything can be wirelessed). So, yes. We’ll see what happens.

    Anyway, so, Thanksgiving. We celebrated thanksgiving with friends (thank you for coming Jordax!), producing a not-quite traditional (but real) chicken (there were only 3 of us though, and we still had *loads of food*), stuffed with home made stuffing consisting of (veggie) sausage, raisins, celery, onion, and herbs; sweet potato and pecan casserole (that was delicious, if mostly sugar :) ), US style biscuits (very yummy), green beans, carrots, brussel sprouts, mashed potato and cranberry sauce, all washed down with some rather nice red wine. This was followed by an excellent Lemon Icebox Pie made with real proper Graham Crackers imported from the States… (and this is the best description I can imagine of a Graham Cracker: “…if a Digestive were ever to get a Ryvita into trouble, possibly at a wild party behind the cheese board, then the resulting progeny may well end growing up to look a lot like Graham Crackers“). Anyhow, proper thanksgiving tradition being followed we attempted to watch clips of the Macy’s day parade, but they were a bit short and required more attention than we wanted to give them (next year, can someone please post the whole damn thing to YouTube or GoogleVideo? That’d help. Ta), so we switched and watched the Peanuts / Charlie Brown Thanksgiving Special (1973) :)

    And then we settled down to play Squabble for a bit (Kathryn won :) ), chatted, drank and whiled the hours away before heading to bed. Sunday was spend doing absolutely nothing useful whatsoever (apart from some laundry and all the washing up in the entire universe).

    Anyway, I know it’s rather bleached from the flashgun, but here’s the thanksgiving dinner…

    And here’s a bit of old news; I drew a person…

    Raaaa!

    So, stuff of a housey nature (Which I should, really, be doing now) – the bathroom has water. Water! The taps work and everything. Well, the cold ones. Jobs left for us to do are (in order, ish):

    – Cut and prime wood for behind toilet cistern.
    – The rest of the grouting, most importantly finishing the shower and polishing the area behind the radiator.
    – Painting the woodwork behind the radiator.
    – Continue to strip radiator.
    – Seal sink drainer (because it’s leaking….le sigh).

    Day 2
    – Paint wood for behind toilet cistern.
    – Silicone sealing around the shower.
    – Continue to strip radiator.
    – Sand radiator and paint… hopefully.
    – Silicone seal around toilet

    Day 3
    – Switch over to chrome flush lever / chain / etc.
    – Mount toilet cistern, connect up, pray it flushes okay.
    – Connect radiator.

    Other non-urgent jobs are to finish the rest of the grouting elsewhere, put a second coat of paint on some areas that missed out on the walls then mount shelves on those walls, and to – once the plumbing’s all connected up (hot water, specifically), fill in the last segment of tiles (over the currently removable panel work) and to grout everywhere that’s left.

    It’s close, but this made me ridiculously happy:

    And finally, for various reasons I’ve been trying to get some artsy shots of the Viva (well, one specific reason) – so, here’s one or two:

    Uh, so there you go, closing with pictures. I’m going to end the update there, hopefully that’ll sort people’s complaints about lack of pictures ;)

  • She Rocks!

    So, for once I’m not talking about my girlfriend; although she does also verily rock.

    Today’s been a bit of a struggle; having seen my mum yesterday we got to bed not late, but later than normal (we went to see a bollywood film in Sloughs amazing deserted cinema, more on that later), I got up this morning and had – how shall we put this – well, let’s say I felt a bit unwell. Several visits to the bathroom later and I was feeling better, but less than perfect. My stomach still isn’t sure about the whole food concept and I keep running alternately hot and cold, but hey. Being ill never stopped me before. So I ordered the new ADSL, I spent some time freaking about trying to work out costs from electricity suppliers (Argh!), and I rang up about getting my beloved mog up to the restoration place.

    JLH Minors are well known in Moggie circles, and after a friendly chat with John a day was agreed. Then I explained that Rebecca’s not been started for a year. He wished me luck and said he’d see me on the day – and if I could ring before I head up that’d be great. So, plan is book tickets for my return journey and then start making my way up early in the AM.

    However, I knew Rebecca needed a new battery, I’ve borrowed hers a few times to start brick, and it won’t really hold a good charge. It’ll do enough for a few goes (about 3, shortish attempts) before the starting attempts start to sound tired. With that in mind I checked the spec of the old battery, decided what bits I needed for the globe taps (I hope) and tromped over to B&Q, and then wandered over there. I can’t say as I feel great, but having got there I sorted out the bits I needed, spent some time evaluating shed-locking-options and then headed down to Halfords.

    At halfords I made a sound somewhat like a suckling pig. My last battery was about 30 quid… they’re now, well, start at just shy of 60 quid. Having stared at them a bit, I made my way somewhat further to Jagdev. I can’t say as Jagdev autos brings a smile to my face, nor is their customer service anything to rival millards (nor do they have the fun 1960’s asthetic of millards), but all the same they are cheaper. And 50 quid (for what I think’d’ve cost me nearly 70 at Halfords) later I wandered (slowly, car batteries are not light) back to the house.

    Now, you have to respect this: I turned over Rebecca by hand a few times, just to make sure nothing had siezed and to try and slide some oil over all the surfaces; and then with some trepidation stuck the battery in. I can’t say that after her year off she started first time (and to be fair she’s got a mechanical, not an electric fuel pump, so had to pump fuel though the lines to fill the carb while turning over); I can say however that she gave it a go and coughed a few times sufficiently to disengage the starter. I can however say that second try, after a year of sitting, she fired up and ran. Not particularly well; but the engine *is* due to go for a rebuild. The idle was somewhat uneven, one of the cylinders was clearly somewhat less enthusiastic than the others. But she kept running, and I am more than impressed; I am stunned. I was expecting to be getting new plugs, cleaning distributor caps and rotor arms, and getting the easy start out. But no need, for Rebecca is a car of many virtues.

    So, wish her luck next week, for it is a long journey.

  • Poot

    So, my calculations on the bath; wrong…

    I’m not deeply upset, it’s more of a ‘how do I get around this’ issue. The cold water and hot water pipes are approximately 7mm out of line with the taps. However, with some wiggling I’d got the cold one close enough to do up – and made a discovery. I’ve not fitted the globe tap correctly – i.e. it leaks. So, I’m going to go and have a chat with the plumbing people – because quite honestly I’m not entirely sure how to make it seal. I suspect what I do is simply remove the doojit that’s there and put much more ptfe tape in the thread.

    I’d prefer to get a nice rubber washer for the bath though, all that B&Q had were the thin pvc ones which didn’t seem right anyhow. I’m also wondering if, with a bit of care, I can squeeze a flexi-plumbing thing in there to get rid of that 7mm difference. It’s such an annoyingly small miscalculation, presumably because the bath (at the time I measured it) was propped on a bit of wood instead of it’s proper feet, and also I was trying to take account of the bathroom tiles, before they were laid. I should’ve checked it before putting all the woodwork around, really. Either that or made it a flexi pipe in the first place. But I don’t *like* flexi pipes, they’re not that neat.

    Unfortunately there’s one other thing that was wrong, that I didn’t calculate, I just assumed would be fine. The bath drainer’s “shallow” drainer, it’s actually not shallow enough for our 1890s bath, and the bath is currently sat on it. Whoops. I’m going to have to look carefully at whether I remove a bit of tile or try and trim the bath plughole doojit. It’s again about 5mm of difficulty. Fooey.

    So, I briefly turned the water on today, the sink doesn’t leak, the shower *now* doesn’t leak. I’m hoping the tiles in the shower have survived the veretable torrent which got sprayed on them when I turned it on…

    Of course, it’s all by-the-by at the moment, because my mum’s decided to come and visit today instead of at the weekend. Which is fine and lovely, but less good in that she’s not getting as much time away from the house as she’d like – and I now need to spend the next hour cleaning. Ah well.

  • late night ponderance

    See, nights. I always try and swing my body round to night shifts by staying up insanely late the night before; thus allowing me to sleep late into the day before my night shift. That’s the *idea* anyhow. Which means staying up late at night, which means pondering and thoughts and kind of wondering about things.

    So, I’ve got various things lurking in my brain; the Viva project (which I’ll unveil at some point when Zesthost have sorted out the problems with billing which may be internet explorers, my, or their fault (I don’t know how it happened….)) lurks in my mind distracting me during the day; the house – obviously – continues to be cold and I keep thinking about the bills (including the TV licence :-/ ), and trying to work out whether it’s better to fork out 80 quid on a tool that we need, or leave it and rent it (at 40+ quid a day); and funnily enough I’ve got a strong desire to make a Super 8 film again.

    A couple of days ago I finally showed my cine films to Kathryn and it’s left me with a strong urge to get the camera out again. I’ve been missing the video camera – having played with John’s camera my little Aiptek which shoots at less than half tv resolution it just feels – well – exactly what it is, a cheap point and shoot which does video. But cine film has a certain quality to it; not so much a timelessness as a feeling of being fixed in time. Having hunted e-bay I can see a variety of options; well, two really. The Ektachrome colour film (I need to check any of my cameras will take this), or a black and white film.

    Either way, I have a distinct urge to get the camera out; only I’m not quite sure what to film. Anyone got a script that can be shot in 5 minutes (or so)?

    Anyway, the plan for tonight, such as it is – having watched Long Way Down (which I was seriously beginning to struggle with watching until about 2/3rds of the way into this episode when suddenly it became much more about the journey and the people than just an endless struggle to get the miles in), is to go and sort out the Mac. The only problem with that is that it’s in a room that’s cold. Cold and upstairs. So, thought for the moment is that when I’ve done this I’ll make myself a little cup of tea, grab my nipod, my copy of Accident and Emergency Nursing and head upstairs – taking with me a fan heater (well, I’ll use the bathroom / workshop heater). It’s a shame, ‘cos the gas fire’s just made the lounge nicely habitable. But hey.

    I need to get the Mac up and running really, because I’m fed up of using IE on the laptop – but I daren’t reinstall the laptop until I’ve got one other machine working. I’m slightly concerned about the Mac also because when I switch to the BeBox, as I intend to, I’ll have to pick up a wireless card for the Mac… and so far the ‘it works perfectly’ squad of Hackintosh people have produced for me a machine which has never worked the way they said. I’ve still no sound… and the latest Hackintosh software’s only succeeded in giving me more problems (that had no sound or networking). I don’t have the skills / interest / time /energy to care enough or to fix it; so it’s back on an earlier revision which just left me with no sound. Something I can deal with thanks to the nipod, and the existence of the laptop. But it’s not something I have any urge to live with permanently. Thankfully, my life behind the technology curve just got much better, with the addition of a G5 Mac. Only teeny little problem – it’s a dead G5 mac. So if anyone’s got a spare G5 power supply kicking round it’d sure come in handy right about… now.

    Anyway, I should get on :)

  • World of Boredom

    See, when I started doing venepuncture they gave me a book to do with ‘a few questions’. Only the few questions actually turn out to be all the questions in the world. At the time they gave it to me they said you don’t need to get them all done before you do the venepuncture training; only for when you’re ready to be assessed on venepuncture. I’ve actually done all the mandatory ones (at least, I have as far as the venepuncture side goes; I’m just faintly nosing at doing some of the optional ones.

    I’ve also been loading up the new nipod; it has a few unfortunateisms; one of which is that it doesn’t draw power from the USB and the other of which is that it has to be plugged in when transferring data. Oh, and you have to use the database software to transfer stuff, if you want it to do playlists and such. Still, despite the software being clunky like woah, it seems to be working. I’ve been taking the opportunity to home rip some CDs which I originally downloaded. Yes, it’s true, I torrented the odd album, and guess what, now I’ve bought these ones because I liked them and am re-ripping them at the quality I like (ridiculously high).

    In other news, the cut on my thumb looks vastly less impressive when not pouring blood. This isn’t an invitation for it to pour blood, but more a comment on the fact that I thought it was a bigger cut – but I guess it was mostly deep, not wide.

    I’ve done no work at all today, as is commensurate with my plan; which is to not be so tired I want to die when doing my night shifts. My only ‘workoid’ type thing was discovering that the name of the ‘channel cutter’ which I’m sure I’ve heard it called before is actually a ‘chasing machine‘ (which is a far more fun, but less helpful name). I need this because whilst I obviously wouldn’t dream of rewiring the kitchen (it’s against the electrical regs), I do intend to recess wiring into the wall, because it’d be untidy to leave it hanging everywhere. I’ll even pop it in the proper plastic tubes; then there’ll be some plastering, and lo, we shall be sorted. But with a chasing machine that’ll take a weekend, rather than several weeks.

    And in Viva related news the painfully expensive new Servo has arrived; sadly not in it’s original box (although packaged in much paper’n’stuff, and what looks like it was once the lid of the box); and also the new domain name is now mine. Due to a small technical foof (either on my part, or the part of the billing company) my hosting is not yet ready, but once it is world be prepared, for I have a plan of much evil.

    So, that’s my world of boredom.

  • Warning

    Here’s some advice for you, don’t try and align pipes which have landed up out of line by placing your thumb on one side of the (apparently very sharp) connection and using your fingers to prise it past. You may end up attempting to remove a chunk of your finger which will by turns be bloody, painful, and make you feel like you’re going to hurl.

    I think I’ll stop work for the day now.

  • Do you know everything?

    I spent several minutes this morning staring at the radiator trying to remember which ‘tool’ I used for scraping the paint off; then I remembered – old stanley blades. I’ve no idea how many of them I’ve got through; but it’s quite scary.

    One side of the radiator is now stripped back to a joyous black / cast iron layer. One other side left to strip; then sand it, then clean it, then painting. Oh, so simple ;)

    In addition to which, my productive morning has included attacking brick’s brake lights, which are hopefully now working. I can’t actually tell; but if not it’s definately an earthing issue. The brake lamp holders look like someone’s rather cruelly dipped them in rust inducer and then placed them conveniently near the sea on a particularly humid day. I spent several minutes attacking both of them with sandpaper (yes, I know, but I’ve run out of emery paper). Having produced something akin to steel (rather than the attractive iron oxide layer that was there before) I produced lamps which at least are now both on, but I can’t tell if the brake lights are working. If not then I guess I’ll have to give it a more thorough clean. It may be the brake light connector that’s gone as well, which concerns me as it’s also corroded quite badly and would be a pig to replace.

    I’ve also cleaned up (a little) the space behind the washing machine and dumped some fresh concrete into the (two!) holes where mice could potentially have gained entry. I knew there was one, but having cleaned up a little a second became apparent. it’s not there now though… I felt guilty buying ready-to-mix concrete because it was so much more than getting sand/gravel/cement, but it’s so handy to have around (really!) because I can just wander out scoop some into a bucket, add water and lo, I have concrete. Hopefully that should fix those pesky mice (although we finally caught one on Friday night, and had to stop and let it go free elsewhere).

    Hrm, oh yes, and I’ve grouted the wall where the radiator goes. That can be ‘polished’ later, leaving just the painting of the skirting board on that wall; I’ve sprayed the last bath foot with it’s first coat of primer, and done the second coat of primer on the two shelf brackets. Distressingly I’ve run out of propellant in the primer can; it’s quite annoying ‘cos it’s blatantly got a fair amount of primer in it still. Anyhow, few coats of gloss should see that last foot sorted which’ll mean that for the first time in goodness knows how long that bath will actually have a complete set of feet.

    And finally in my busy morning of catching up I’ve put silicone sealant round the sink. It was terribly frustrating. I’ve never been great at silicone sealant, but I’d got some quite neat looking ones around; but this one just went a bit pear shaped. For some reason when I smoothed it, it went lumpy. I’ll have to see what I can do to fix that, but that’s a job for later I feel. It’s not perfect, but it’s servicable.

  • Bloody Rodents

    Chrissy’s right; we should get a cat.

    I got the mouse trap this morning and off I went on the 2 mile round trip to some fields where I planned to release it. I must admit I wasn’t entirely convinced there was a mouse *in* the trap once I’d picked it up; but hell, we have to try these things.

    So off I went, and after my mile long walk I opened the trap and lo, it was empty. Bloody rodents. Were we not building at the moment, I’d be sorely tempted to go get a cat, because we both *want* a cat, and it’d solve the mouse problem. So I shan’t block up the mouse hole today, but will instead continue with attempting to get the hang of grouting.

    Poot.

    Oh, and my hosting for my website may be having an issue – in so far as I may be looking around for a new host; the company that provide it have much improved, but appear to have ceased to offer the package I was on (which was horrendously cheap); so as a useless expense, I may have to move to a cheaper company. Which’d be shedloads of fun :-/

    Still, we’ll see what happens.

  • Discovery of the day

    I’m much less good at grouting than I remember. After an experimental hour in which I challenged the concepts of standard grouting I can now safely say I suck at grouting. I hope Kathryn doesn’t mind doing the rest, and fixing up the hash I made in the shower; I’ve cleaned it up but I just couldn’t get it right. So I think I’ll do prepping for grouting ahead of her, and she can grout, if that seems reasonable to her.

    I’m gonna start stripping the radiator (more) after I’ve had my tea though. In other news the tiles are all attached to the walls. Apart from the area I’ve left (because if I need to get to any of the pipes I thought it’d be easier if there weren’t great chunks of tile to have to remove first.There’s no ‘user servicable’ bits behind the boxing, apart from the two valves that came as part of the flexi-hoses for the sink (which you can’t get them without, at least, they didn’t have any without) and since there’ll be hot/cold valves for the entire upstairs, downstairs, then I’m not worried about hiding it all behind tiling.

    But until I know it’s all sealed okay I’d like to have some access available.

    Hopefully, if we can get the ‘areas’ done today, I can put the shower in today. Maybe tomorrow’ll be bath day :)

    Ra.

  • Another day another visitor…

    It appears that we have visitors in our house. Well, at least one visitor who I have to say is not welcome. We’ve gained a small brown furry thing of the mouse variety who (unfortunately for him or her) crossed the kitchen last night while I could still see (him or her). Small and brown and moving swiftly. So this evening we shall be off out to purchase some humane traps, and our unwelcome’d guest will be taken on a free tour out to the local countryside.

    I spent some of last night sticking flour/sugar/etc into boxes, and have some concerns about the rice (which is open, and I didn’t think to seal). I have an idea where they’re coming from though – it came from the larder and sprinted all fuzzy like towards the fridge (bloody food orientated creatures), but on thinking about it I recalled a hole, a hole located behind the washing machine. When they took out the wall the floor there was a bit lower than the floor in the rest of the room, and there’s a small gap where what was once the hearth has crumbled. I’m not afraid of mice, but I don’t like them in the house for a variety of reasons, one of which is their tendancy to get in all your food (and make you have to throw it away), another is their tendancy to urinate and defacate everywhere. So, catching the buggers is high up on the priorities list; and sealing that hole (and checking the larder, which is more of a dog than you might believe, since the new boiler’s being stored in there and it’s not light) is also very high up.

    The problem is, with the building work there’s boxes and things stacked everywhere, which makes life a little more difficult.

    Anyhow, progress: yesterday I finished painting the ceiling above the shower, not a huge thing I realise, but it meant that the missing light could go into it’s snuggly little hole, which means that the room is now much warmer again. The tiles are done bar 8, which I’ll have to cut and do today, and maybe a nasty little shimmy-tile because of a wall that’s not straight.

    So then it’s on with the grouting and the painting. I may clear the area in front of the radiator-space so I can paint that today. Then it’ll be top-coat-able by tomorrow. Yes. So. That’s basically the plan for the day.

    In other news, this talk by Larry Lessig is very good / interesting… And Brick still lurketh at the garage.