Category: Technology

A Toy off the Rack – 6 October 2023

Posted on by Zogman

A new, well, nearly new lens.

So, I slept on it, as I said I would, and decided to add the Sony 85mm f1.8 to my armoury.

Scamp was out in the morning to go to her FitSteps class. I phoned WEX in Glasgow and asked the lady to put the second hand Sony 85mm f1.8 lens aside for me and I’d be in to collect it in the afternoon. When Scamp returned from her class, just over an hour later we drove in to Glasgow.

First we went to John Lewis to have a serious look at fridges, freezers and fridge-freezers, the trio we’ve been mulling over for the past week. I don’t think either of us was fully committed to the idea of a combined fridge and freezer. If one part of it breaks down, does that mean the other half dies with it? Scamp seemed reluctantly resigned to an undercounter freezer and separate fridge. The two of them were sitting beside each other in the JL basement, like Tweedledum and Tweedledee. We were really looking for a Goldilocks fridge. The ones on show were either too big or too small and she wanted one that was in the middle of the height range. Eventually,Scamp spoke to an assistant who very helpfully went away and returned with a model number for a fridge that was indeed the nearest thing to a Goldilocks. Now we need to find a picture of it, or better still, somewhere that has it in stock, because JL in Glasgow didn’t have one.

Feeling we were another step forward, we left JL behind and walked up to WEX, checked the lens I’d play tested yesterday and paid my half of the money. Of course I immediately knew that I’d made a mistake as the Buyers Remorse kicked in, but I just ignored it. I had a toy off the rack.

Coffee in Nero on the way down a Sausageroll Street that was being chopped up, dug up and generally destroyed in ‘improvements’. They’d even cut down most of the trees. Sometimes I fear for the sanity of these urban planners, other times I know they are all just morons.

I had a look for a new raincoat to replace my old faded blue one that’s not as waterproof as it used to be, despite being proofed regularly, but didn’t find anything that impressed me. Heavens some of them only had two pockets. TWO? What use is that to me?

Drove home and that was when the rain started and it’s still raining. It doesn’t look like I’ll get a chance to try out the new toy until at least Sunday. Heavy rain predicted for tomorrow.

Today’s PoD was one of my regular shots of the changing face of Glasgow. It seems that every month there is another change to the skyline. Some are for the better and some are not. I think the call it progress, but I’m not sure. Anyway, after a bit of jiggery pokery again, I had a photo that looked interesting.

Today’s Inktober prompt was “Golden”. It’s my wedding ring which, over the years, has been chopped off my swollen finger, soldered back together and then chopped and soldered again to make it slightly smaller to stop it from falling off my finger. It’s definitely Golden.

Tomorrow rain is predicted, lots of it. We may go out for lunch and not discuss White Goods.

Just Chillin’ – 3 October 2023

Posted on by Zogman

Today we went in search of more white goods.

Scamp and I prefer to see our intended purchases with our own eyes, rather than believing the hype the so called reviewers give us. Nor do we really believe the photos we see in online adverts. So we took our own eyes with us to Currys in Bishopbriggs to find out what they had in the way of freezers, fridges and fridge-freezers.

Inside Currys it was like walking down a canyon, not that I’ve ever walked down a canyon, but it was what I imagined that would feel like. Great towering monoliths on both sides of us, nearly all the same shade of grey, probably the ubiquitous Space Grey. They had big freezers, small fridges and fridge-freezers with various different arrangements of fridge and freezer. They even had an AI fridge-freezer! I don’t think I’d feel comfortable with an AI fridge watching me every time I went in to get the butter. Would it know that I keep my Toblerone on the top shelf and only allow me to have one triangle each day? Would it count how many blueberries I put into my porridge? It’s a scary prospect.

We were just on a recce mission today. No money changed hands, no card was tapped and no PIN was typed in. Today was just about looking in the most convenient white goods (or should that be Grey goods) store to get an idea of what’s out there and would it fit into the available space. We got some answers and a whole lot of confused messages from Currys who seem to stick any bit of paper on an article and then presend it’s the God’s honest truth. Like the fridge that was labelled as A++ for efficiency, but on another sticker as E for efficiency. Personally I’d give Currys a Z for efficiency.

Scamp left to go shopping in the new M&S food store and I went to browse the ‘toys’ in Currys. I wasn’t really considering buying anything other than an SD card reader, but I did have a play with the iPads until I saw the price of them. That’s when I left without the card reader I’d come to buy.

We drove home through an improving weather picture and had a late lunch back home, discussing what we’d seen in the shop and thinking that we might go to John Lewis tomorrow to see what they had in the store.

The weather was looking a lot better with a fair amount of sun so I took my A7 out for a walk in St Mo’s. That’s where PoD came from. It’s just three trees with the low sun shining through them, but it was quite effective. Low viewpoint, low sun and an ultra-wide angle lens.

Today’s prompt was Path and I tried painting and sketching in ink but finally settled on a daft wee sketch that was done in about fifteen minutes. Easiest is best, sometimes.

Tomorrow is going to be wet. We don’t have any plans, but might go visiting JL to see what their chilling boxes are like.

Two new cameras – 15 September 2023

Posted on by Zogman

Well, not exactly new, but not been used in a very long time, so maybe nearly new.

<Technospeak>
Scamp was out keeping fit in her FitSteps class and I was looking for an SSD I’d misplaced. I eventually found it, but not where I thought it would be, and in the process I came upon two old cameras I hadn’t used in a very long time. One, the E-PL1 is really ancient at 13 years old and beginning to show its age. The other, the E-PL5 is 11 years old and still going strong. Both are based on the four thirds system where the proportions of the length to the height of the images is in 4:3. Both have much smaller sensors than my full frame camera, and for that matter my APS-C camera, but today I got them both working and producing some decent images. The E-PL5, especially, would make a decent pocket camera with a couple of compact lenses. I was quite chuffed with that Friday morning’s work. Not sure Scamp agreed. She’d much rather they were consigned to the bin, but she doesn’t get a vote in the photography stakes!
</Technospeak>

Lunch was a Piece ’n’ Banana each, then I went out to get the makings of tonight’s dinner which turned out to be a disaster. We’d made it last week and it ended up a claggy mess. Tonight the result was the same although we had the correct ‘Skin on – Bone in’ chicken thighs and were using paella rice instead of orzo. We hardly ate any of it and settled for a bag of M&S puffy crisps instead. I think we’ll just cut that page out of the magazine and burn it. Such a waste of good ingredients.

While I was waiting for the oven to warm up so that I could start the Disaster Dinner, I watched two blackbirds and a starling stripping the rowan berries from the tree in the back garden. What was I thinking? I had no PoD and here was not one, but two perfect subjects. But alas and alack, when I returned with the camera, they had gone. I waited a while and when they didn’t return I put the chicken in the oven to roast. Then I saw a thrush wandering around the garden, possibly scrounging the rowan berries the other birds left behind. I didn’t think twice and took a series of shots on an old manual focus Tamron 70-300mm (that’s long) lens and with a bit of work in Photoshop, ON1 2023 and Lightroom that became PoD.

After we shared the washing up we discussed plans for tomorrow because it’s a Saturday without an early rise to drive to Brookfield. As usual if and where we go will depend on the weather. I might even take one of my new cameras!

Lucky 13th – 13 September 2023

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Not very lucky, though!

The Dishwasher Man arrived right on time and started by asking when we last cleaned the dishwasher. I told him we’d run the cleaner just the other day, but then he cut me off and showed us the muck that had gathered round the seals, especially at the bottom. This he said was the probable cause of our problem. And, give him his due, he got down to it with a scrubbing brush and a bucket of water and by the time he was finished the inside of the dishwasher was shining. He pressed the start button and after about five seconds the “Check Water” light came on. An hour and a half later he admitted defeat and told us the problem was most likely in the PCB at the head of the machine and that meant it was time to replace rather than repair. We paid him his call-out fee and I knew Scamp was aware of the path this conversation was taking and had been teaching for prices for a new dishwasher.

Also, while the work was going on, Hazel had phoned and was waiting for a call back to say we were free again. We spoke for a while and heard about the decision Neil and her had taken about the Deaconship. Probably now what either of them had wanted, but they were being realistic about the situation and giving up the plans for the deaconship was the sensible solution. We also talked about weddings and the need for a new dress and shoes. I say ‘We’, but I mean Scamp and Hazel, of course.

After we’d put the kitchen back together again, we drove over to Coatbridge to see what Currys had on offer. Not a lot was the answer. They had three slimline dishwashers that would fit into our tight little kitchen, with prices ranging from around £250 to over £500. We’d hoped for a better selection, so drove over to Bishopbriggs. After driving through the stupidest signage ever at roadworks we found that we had four choices with roughly the same price range. After a coffee and a bite to eat in Costa that served as lunch we came to the final decision that was a Hotpoint. Not the cheapest, but certainly not the dearest! Hopefully it will arrive some time on Monday. Until then it’s basins and soapy hands!

Tonight was the new dancing night and I was actually looking forward to it. The practise sessions at home over the last week had helped greatly. Before we got started a girl came over and said “It is you!” She had worked at the office in the school and for some reason, her name jumped into my head. We talked about folk we had known, some good ones, some not so good.
The dancing tonight was the final part of the four week set of Waltz Nioli and with at least one tricky bit, may need more ‘home schooling’ to get it polished up for next week.

I didn’t have very much chance to take photos today, so today’s offering of PoD was a sunflower growing in a pot in the back garden and living up to its name!

Tomorrow Scamp is meeting Mags for lunch and I’m hoping it stays dry enough for me to get some decent photos.

Dunfermline – 5 September 2023

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After a short discussion we headed for Dunfermline for a day in the sun.

Scamp had a dentist’s appointment this morning, but only for a checkup.  I had an appointment with a dishwasher.

I thought while Scamp was out I could have one more try at clearing out whatever was clogging up the outlet from the sump of the dishwasher, because I was sure it must be the exit pipe, not the inlet.  But before that I thought I’d try the machine on a different program, a short wash.  Maybe something was clogged in pipework connected to the program we’d been using.  It worked! It went right through the wash and rinse cycle without any mishaps.  When Scamp returned, it was just finishing the program.  She suggested we do no more to it and go out for the day.  That’s when the short discussion took place in the kitchen with the carpet rolled up and tool all over the worktop.  We were going to Dunfermline.

Drove over the Kincardine Bridge to Dunfermline and parked in a space in the park.  A place I haven’t been in for years, but it was a legal parking place and there were spaces in it while the main parking area was full.  We walked down to the Peacock cafe in the park. This cafe sells the worst coffee I’ve ever tasted.  I once watched the woman making a latte and a flat white. Both had exactly the same amount of milk and coffee in them! Either they were both lattes or both flat whites, but neither of them was a coffee.  It must be a change of staff today because Scamp said her latte was quite strong. I opted for tea and it tasted like tea.  Yes, it must be new staff, things are looking up!  We both had a scone with butter and jam and that’s when things went a bit skewiff. The scones were suffering from soggy bottoms.  Maybe the woman who used to make the coffees was now doing the baking!

We left the cafe and went for a walk round the glasshouse which isn’t always open. The heat in the glasshouse was quite oppressive after a short time inside.  I got some photos of the flowers, using the same lens and camera as yesterday, but being more careful to check the photos. Next we walked round the formal garden which seemed to be mainly roses and Echinops which Scamp thought were just past their best. I knew she was desperate to deadhead the roses and any other plants that needed the chop, but she was a visitor today, not a gardener.

We left the garden and walked into town for lunch in Wetherspoons. Fish ‘n’ Chips for Scamp and American Burger for me. Both were small portions but the cost was small too, so no complaints there. A quick scout round what used to be a bustling shopping arcade, but which is now a collection of second hand tech shops and pound shops.  Much like most of Scotland’s retail areas these days.

Drove home and managed a seat in the garden for a while Scamp with a G&T and me with a Guinness.  I’ve happily switched my allegiance from Guinness to Brewdog stout, and after drinking that Guinness, I know why.  Try it Jamie, you might like it.

PoD turned out to be a mono conversion of a Hogweed seedhead in the park in Dunfermline.

Tomorrow I’m hoping to meet Alex in Glasgow for a photo-walk and Scamp is off bargain hunting. Dance class at night in Cumbersheugh!

Last Dance Class – 2 September 2023

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… for two weeks!

Drove to Brookfield for the last dance class for two weeks, well, the last Ballroom Basics dance class because the teachers are off on holiday. However, Scamp has managed to inveigle us into another dance class in Cumbersheugh to make up our dancing time. It won’t be the same dances and Kirsty’s style will be slightly different, but the language will be the same and a change is as good as a rest. Best of all, it’s just up the road, literally. No miles and miles of roadworks to navigate through!

But today we did have to navigate the 50mph then the 40mph and back to the 50mph and then back to the 40mph before we were suddenly allowed to do a heady 70mph then 60 mph then back to 70mph again all on the same stretch of motorway. It’s confusing.

Dancing today began with Tina Tango danced to Shivers and then a never-ending extended version of Sweet Dreams (are made of this) by Eurythmics (10:23 mins), thankfully cut short by Stewart. After that we went straight into the new Cha-Cha with the Cross Basic which I think I have now conquered. I even managed to get the ‘drunken sailor’ right a few times! A couple of Blue Angel Rumbas finished off the first set.

Feeling quite pleased with myself I expected the next set would be Joy’s Waltz, which we had both practised and were happy with. But surprise, surprise, it wasn’t. It was the Quickstep which we hadn’t practised. However, after bit of one to one with Stewart, and encouragement from Scamp, it fell into place. Another section of this difficult dance done. Just to make sure we were all exhausted, we finished with one track of the Midnight Jive which is non-stop kicks, spins and cross steps.
It felt great to walk out into the sunshine after all those mind bending dances. Hopefully we’ll get a chance to practise them on Thursday at the tea dance.

Back home I re-read an email from Churchill insurance to make sure they really wanted THAT MUCH! for a year’s car insurance. No way was I paying that. That was before I logged in to Money Supermarket and found out that Churchill’s was actually a sort of middle ground insurance estimate. Scamp checked Saga and Esure just to be sure and they were coming up with close to the same numbers. Maybe Churchill aren’t so far away from the mark after all.

Scamp was desperate to get the grass cut, both front and back and I thought I might go out and take some photos later in the afternoon. So that’s what we did.The grass does look a lot better cut short and I did manage to get one photo I was pleased with, so we both achieved our stated goal. I phoned Scamp from St Mo’s to ask what she wanted for dinner. Fish ’n’ Chips from the chip shop in Condorrat was the answer. That suited me too, so I set off for that place. The phone call was also a test for the new connection. EE is now gone and has been replaced by Tesco Mobile. Double the data for less than I was paying for EE, plus the price is frozen for the 24 months of the contract. Best of all, the phone works better with the O2 masts that Tesco use than with EE’s. At least for now, anyway.

PoD was a male Common Darter dragonfly sitting on the boardwalk of St Mo’s. Lovely warm light from the late afternoon sun.

Tomorrow I think we’ll go out somewhere for a walk.

 

Recovery – 25 March 2023

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A day to recover from yesterday’s excesses.

Yes, a day to recover from yesterday’s excesses, and also to recover from the morning’s dance class!

Drove through a fair bit of traffic this morning to get to Brookfield for today’s class. It started with a couple of easy sequence dances then it was into the Foxtrot. Suddenly my mind went blank. Thankfully Scamp was there to whisper the count and the next steps that were coming up. Stumbled through it without too much trouble, but I wouldn’t call it elegant. On Strictly it looks so smooth and classy. That’s all a con. It takes a lot of skill to get to that stage. Well, it takes me a long time to get to that stage.

Next another sequence dance to get our confidence back and to clear the Slow Foxtrot out of our heads, because next up was Jive. Scamp has been working at the jive steps and the different moves that make them up. She has this ability to remember sequences of moves and fit them together in the correct timing. I have difficulty remembering g the moves themselves. The jive we’re doing now seems to bear very little resemblance to what Michael taught. The footwork is different, the hand and arm choreography is also different. I made a mess of it and I know it. I can only apologise to Scamp because I feel I’m wasting her time. It will get better, I know that, but it doesn’t come easy to me.

Worse was yet to come, because next was Quickstep and I was ready for it … except this was a different quickstep routine. Not the one we’d worked on for months and had it almost perfect. This one had Fishtails in it. It took me months to master fishtails with Michael, but I must remember that Stewart & Jane are much better teachers that Michael & AnneMarie. We danced our almost perfect quickstep instead of the new one. We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.

The drive home was a nightmare. Juggling with lane changes to find the best route through the traffic. In the end we weren’t all that much later than a normal Saturday, but it felt like we were.

I went for a walk in St Mo’s in the afternoon, taking the A7 with the LensBaby and an old Zenit lens, a Helios 44. The results were better than I anticipated. It’s weird working with a totally manual lens like the Helios. PoD was a shot taken with the LensBaby of a whin bush.

I finally went not the chat line for my internet provider and the person on the other end talked me through the installation of the SSL. Thankfully that should be me sorted until next year, all being well.

Dinner tonight was roast chicken and roast veg. Very nice indeed. I really enjoyed it.

We have no plans for tomorrow yet.

… and the lights came on – 12 March 2023

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Actually the lights weren’t affected by the outage, but the central heating, the WiFi, the freezer and the fridge were in part or completely useless. It’s nice to have heat again!

The friend of a friend, Owen the Electrician arrived dead on 10am. He started by checking all the plug sockets beginning at roughly the middle of the ring main, which, coincidentally was where I thought the problem might be. We had to haul out the washing machine to get to the socket. There was a fault in it, but he also found a socket he though was dodgy and when he took off the cover to check, all the wires were loose inside. With that fixed, he started to systematically check round all the sockets on that ring main. Thankfully he didn’t find any other problem sockets, but was very careful to double, and even triple check all of them again. Finally after reassembling the one with the loose wires and checking it, he worked out how to deal with the socket behind the washing machine. To do that he neutralised the socket with a fancy little disconnector thing, then put a new cover plate over the now disconnected wires. Two hours he was at it and then he was off to pick up keys from somebody to start work tomorrow on an industrial unit.

For two days we’d been without heating and access to some of the electrical goods we take for granted. I’d managed to rig up an extension cable from the upstairs hall that wasn’t affected by the outage and used that to keep the freezer working. We also had a somewhat smelly De Longhi oil filled radiator that kept us from freezing. Blogs were posted using a hit and miss hot spot from my phone. We got by, but it wasn’t much fun.

We’ve agreed that we need a new distribution board, but the good news is that Owen says we don’t need the house rewired.

After the electrician left we had tea and toast for our lunch and watched the thermometer rising steadily. Later while Scamp put all the things back in place, I walked round St Mo’s and took today’s PoD which is a bunch of catkins. Then I walked down to the shops in the rain for a pizza and a trifle. That became dinner.

We watched the last ever Endeavour, and then discussed what had happened and how far back that story went.

Tomorrow I may go out with Val for coffee, because the rest of the week will tight.

… and then the lights went out – 10 March 2023

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Another bright and cold morning. The thermometer read -0.3ºc when we woke.

While Scamp went out to FitSteps I struggled with renewing the SSL on my website. I got the first part ok, I think and have the encrypted code for the SSL on the computer, but the next stage getting the CNAME registered is beyond me. I can’t understand the language and the video explanation of how to go about it is just so vague, it could be written in invisible ink. Eventually, after an hour of struggling I gave up and solved Wordle and Spelling Bee instead.

We’d talked about going in to Glasgow for a pizza lunch, so that’s what we did. We drove in to Glasgow. I couldn’t be bothered getting the bus and after all, that’s what we bought a car for, the convenience. Walked through JL and then along Buchanan Galleries then down to Miller Street to Paesano. Scamp had a variation on her usual and chose tomato and spinach – no cheese. I had a number 3: tomato, mozzarella, anchovies and olives. Both were great, just great, not excellent. PoD was the view of the Tron Church in Buchanan Street with some lovely reflections from the building opposite.

Wandered round the town afterwards and had coffee in Nero on Argyle Street. They claimed they had to use take-away cups because they were short of staff and refused to use the normal cups on the shelf behind them. Then they filled a large take-away cup almost to the brim with hot water and dropped my single shot into it. It was like drinking brown water. I thought I was in a Costa. They might have been short of staff, but they were definitely short of toilets too. The entrance to the downstairs toilets was blocked off and that left one toilet for the whole shop. I sensed an irate email coming on. We walked back up through the homeward bound office workers and drove home.

We sat and watched a recording of The Apprentice at night and were almost at the end of You’re Fired … and then the lights went out!

We thought at first it was a power cut, but housed across from us and next door had lights on, so just us then. Checked the fuse board and sure enough it was the something in the downstairs sockets that had tripped the switch. Went round with the torch on Scamp’s phone switching off all the sockets but still it tripped. Next we unplugged all the devices connected to the sockets. Still no go. That’s as much as I can do, so we phoned the electrician we usually use and he said he couldn’t come until Monday. This was Friday night. No heating, no power downstairs for two days wasn’t good. Then Scamp remembered Jamie using their emergency cover from their insurance. We phoned the number and the person I spoke to confirmed that ours was a valid claim, gave us a claim number and said that someone would phone in the morning to arrange a time to come and visit.

That’s where we are at present. We still have power upstairs and I’ve run an extension cable down from the landing to keep the freezer powered until we can get this fixed. I’ve brought a heater down from the back bedroom so we will get some heating although the central heating won’t work because there’s no way to power the boiler. Scamp says we can still use the cooker, so we won’t starve, but it’s unlikely we’ll be dancing tomorrow! I think we need to get the distribution board replaced and maybe we need the house rewired. That’s for the near future. For now we want to see what happened at the end of You’re Fired!

This blog comes courtesy of a mobile hotspot! No plans for tomorrow :-\

 

Two walks in a day – 7 March 2023

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Today we went for a walk. We liked it so much, we went for another one later.

Walked down to the shops in the late morning for essentials like milk and bread. Came home and had lunch then thought it was a shame to waste another beautiful day, so we got properly dressed for a walk with boots and big jackets and headed off again, intending to walk round Broadwood Loch and out into the forest walk. That was the intention, but they are ‘making improvements’ at Broadwood, hopefully repairing the paths and fixing the drainage in the forest walk, so we were limited to the boring ‘round the pond’ walk. It still got us out, but Scamp was disappointed.

Back home, dinner was White Pasta, also known as Pasta Carbonara, while Scamp made Just Soup. While we were starting it, a bloke knocked at the door offering to deliver milk. I said ‘No’, then though about it and called him back. So we’ve ordered a four pint carton to be delivered on Monday. We always say we should support local companies. Today we did it.

Watched a complicated episode of Endeavour apparently the second last one ever! Definite shades of Clockwork Orange in the acting and the music. We were intrigued.

PoD was a photo of a little Christmas decoration I saw on our second walk.

Nearly broke the Internet tonight trying to send Alex one of my holiday videos. If anyone’s broadband went down tonight, it wasn’t me. I didn’t notice that the file was 175MB!!!

Tomorrow we may get snow. Might not be going far.