Category: Technology

Computers, Drumpellier and Drives – 28 December 2021

Posted on by Zogman

The computer was still acting up today, but walking in Drumpellier woods was refreshing.

It was the blue sky this morning that made us want to get up and go out somewhere. The somewhere Scamp suggested was Drumpellier and I agreed.

We walked round the pond in a clockwise direction which was the opposite to our usual mode of travel. Again, it was like walking on a travelator, everyone walking in the same direction at almost the same speed. We accelerated and walked past a lot of folk. Overtaking on bends too because we were accomplished walkers and could do that sort of thing. Scamp suggested we walk away from the travelator and head up towards the cricket pitch and that’s what we did. The walk took us out into the woods and then we followed our noses until we found a likely side path to travel on. There are literally hundreds of side paths in Drumpellier and today’s one was a path we’d walked before. It was really mucky and I don’t think Scamp was all that impressed with it, but the light was good and there was a fair bit of gentle climbing then a sharp descent on the far side. All in all it was a good walk and most enjoyable. The only down side was the lack of an ice cream van, not surprising really since it is nearly the end of December.

We drove into Coatbridge proper and I went to Currys to get yet another external SSD drive. The computer is still playing up and one possible way to fix it is to remove almost a year’s worth of photos from the internal HDD and put them on to an SSD, so creating over 300GB of extra space. Long story short, the move worked, but the problem is still there. I’ve a couple of possible fixes still in my head, but both of them are more severe and I’m loath to apply them.

Tomato soup for dinner tonight with toasted croutons. Slow cooked roasted tomatoes and peppers, the ones Scamp had bought for less than a pound yesterday. It was a bit thinner than the last batch, but it still worked. Some left for tomorrow’s lunch.

PoD went to a trio of walkers ahead of us just cresting the rise before the descent. I really liked the light on the bushes and trees.

No plans for tomorrow, but it looks wet, so maybe more computer antics.

Back at the Fort – 16 December 2021

Posted on by Zogman

Feeling a bit flat today.

No, it wasn’t the tyres. We were going in Scamp’s car today except I was driving, but when I turned the key, nothing! The battery was flat. Possibly there is an earth leak somewhere or perhaps that cold snap dragged the battery down because it had only been run once in the last month and that was a fairly short run. Whatever, it was my car that I drove to the Fort.

Scamp was going to Next, M&S and Boots. But she had to score Boots off the list because they were counting them in and counting them out today. That’s not supposed to happen until Saturday, so maybe the staff were getting some practise in before the big day, or maybe they were just doing it to screw up the punters day. It didn’t seem to bother the folk who were queueing all the way along the frontage of Boots shop and that’s a really long front.

I was lucky, I was going for two sheets of thin neoprene and a roll of sticky backed velcro. Found both and waited about five minutes to pay. Heaven knows how long the punters outside Boots would have waited for their goods.

Drove home and after peering at the sky, decided I’d go for a walk first to grab some of the available light before it all disappeared. A walk in the woods at St Mo’s got me the PoD. It was an oak leaf with raindrops on it. The detail in the leaf really impressed me as did the colours that were there. No fancy filters or presets were used in it, just an adjustment to the levels (tones) and a bit of judicious cropping. Otherwise it was SOOC or Straight Out Of Camera. Walked down to the shops and felt a bit nervous about being in a crowd of people. I’d felt the same in Glasgow earlier and I did the same thing again, I put my mask on, at least until I was out of the crowds. How the media hype things up makes you think and act defensively at times.

Back home we hadn’t long to wait for the man from Virgin. This one was on the ball. No delving into the innards of the modem, he just tried twice then deemed that the modem was at fault. He put a new one in and it worked right away. All the websites we couldn’t reach without a VPN were now right there. Poor bloke had been working from 7am and didn’t finish today until 8pm. That’s a long shift. He gets 10/10 for everything in the evaluation email that’s coming soon.

Scamp’s been labouring all evening trying to fit a quart into a pint pot. I swear when one of the recipients of a Christmas parcel cuts the tape the contents will expand to fill the room. You have been warned!!

I think that’s the day covered. Scamp has a booking with the Witches for a Christmas lunch tomorrow. I have things to do and a Tesco delivery to find places for until someone tells me where they should all go.

A long lie-in – 12 December 2021

Posted on by Zogman

At last a lazy lie-in. I did enjoy that.

We had booked an engineer’s call today and he arrived just as the final F1 GP of the year was starting. Poor guy, Simon was his name and we think he was Polish. He looked a bit out of his depth. He did all the things that I’d already done. He reset the modem to factory settings and he tried connecting using what we thought was his phone and he got through to all the sites we couldn’t reach. However, neither Scamp nor I could. We were still getting the error message. After a few phone calls back to base he tried using what was his personal phone and hit our problem. His previous connection had been done with his Virgin PDA which he admitted had a lot more software on it that allowed it to shortcut the normal wireless routes.

In the midst of all this I asked him about all the corruption we were getting on the TV and asked if it was just cables needing cleaned. He agreed that it was the usual cause. However once he’d checked the connections, he said that wasn’t the case here, it was the hard drive in the TiVo box that was giving the problem. He went to his van and returned with what looked like a new modem, but it was a new set top box, not a TiVo this time. He fitted the new box, and set it up while still struggling with the modem problem. Eventually he gave up, gave me his phone number and told me he’s go and discuss it with his manager and get back to me.

We sat there in amazement. We’d been trying for years to get Virgin to admit that the corruption was due to a dodgy hard drive, but they insisted it was just the cables that needed cleaned. All we needed to do was book a service engineer and Bingo, a new set top box appears. It’s about a quarter the size of the old one and much, much faster. All this time I’ve been blaming the TV for taking so long to connect to iPlayer and it was the TiVo box all the time.

He did phone back and said that it looks as if some of the sites have blocked our IP address. We need to phone Customer Services and ask to be put through to the Faults Team who should be able to change the default IP address. I realise this is just gobbledegook to you Jamie, but maybe your sister will understand it a bit better.

The story doesn’t end there. The window cleaner came to get his money tonight and he said “I think you’ve left a brief case out in the rain” pointing at a very wet black shape that did in fact look like a brief case sitting on one of our bins. As I reached for it, I realised it was our old TiVo box. Poor Simon, he was so bamboozled by our problem that he left the box sitting there while he went looking for the external connection box to make sure the problem wasn’t there. It’s lying in the kitchen now drying out gradually, but I don’t think it will ever dance with the Bolshoi again!

Watched a confusing F1 GP on and off while the repair was going happening. It was more ‘Off’ than ‘On’ as the new box was taking ages to boot up. Great to see Verstappen win, but to be honest, neither of them covered themselves in glory. It was also good to see that smug smile wiped from Toto Wolf’s face when he realised what was happening. So much hype, so much macho posturing from the team principals, so much bad feeling. Then the the drivers themselves fist bumped and behaved like sportsmen on screen despite what they said off screen. A strange day. It might be worth watching the highlights just to see how stupid it all was.

Almost no chance for photos today. The furthest I was away from the house was to bring the car down to our parking space from where I’d parked it last night. PoD was a shot of some starlings sitting in the bare trees trying to find some berries for their dinner. Ours was beef burger for me, veggie sausages for Scamp, both served with roasted veg. Scamp’s Christmas Sponge for pudding, served with custard.

Tomorrow we’re going for the messages and to get Scamp’s meds. I also need to call the faults team.

Hoovering the grass – 27 November 2021

Posted on by Zogman

Just like hoovering the living room, but better fun.

Last night Storm Arwen dropped a bundle of leaves in the front garden, a big bundle! I think it was the way the wind was swirling round the houses that caused a mini whirlwind which gathered all the leaves then when it ran out of energy it dropped them in the front garden. First task today was to gather them together and dump them in the bin. Luckily, a few years ago I got Scamp a leaf blower for her Christmas. When she cuts the grass, she uses it for blowing all the grass cuttings off the path and into the wooded area across from the house. It came with attachments that turned it from a blower to a ‘sooker’. I used it in ‘sook’ mode this morning to hoover up two black bags worth of leaves from the garden. As well as sucking the leaves up, it also chops them up, so we now have the garden refuse bin full of chopped up leaves. Some of it will go into the compost bin when I’ve time to decant them. It seems a shame to just chuck them out when they could be helping to make compost. With the path now clear and most of the garden holding only a sprinkling of leaves I reassembled the machine back to a blower again and it went to sleep in the cupboard again, dreaming of blowing grass again (not that kind of blowing grass 😉) .

After the ferocity of yesterday, today was a welcome relief. Just a quiet, cold Saturday. The furthest we went was a walk to the shops to get a chicken for tonight’s dinner, and, of course some ice cream cones, 99s. The shops were really busy. I don’t think people wanted to go far today because it was just above freezing and there were hints in the forecast that snow wasn’t out of the question, even to lower levels. Luckily none of the white stuff has been seen yet.

We watched an embarrassing special broadcast headed by Boris explaining the new procedures to tackle the latest Covid variant, Omnicron. Neither of us can understand how that man got into the position he is in. When reading from a script he is bearably literate. As soon as he goes off script he just rambles into unfinished sentences. The poor man is totally out of his depth and really should admit it.

PoD was a little Cyclamen battered and bruised from last night’s storm. I photographed it in the back garden this morning when the sun was shining and the temperature was just above zero.

Tomorrow we may go for the messages, just to get out of the house and I might remember to book a Tesco delivery too!

 

Baking – 23 November 2021

Posted on by Zogman

Get Set … Bake!

Tonight was the final of the Great British Bake Off and to celebrate I was making Multigrain Rolls.

I had a few of the Bakedin boxes that I hadn’t had time to start, so today was the day. For what were basically rolls with porridge oats on top it was a complicated recipe. Grated Linseed, Wholemeal flour, Oat bran, Milk and Eggs were some of the ingredients. It really was the stickiest dough I’ve kneaded in a long time, but they did come out looking and tasting like Multigrain Rolls, which made all that faffing about with baking trays and ”Shaping a claw with your hand and rolling a 90g piece of dough in a circular motion” worthwhile. They tasted good too, although I’d have added a bit more salt.  I might apply for next year’s Bakeoff! Aye Right!!

That was the overarching work of the day, but in between the proving and forming and kneading I made some ‘Just Soup’ which looked like it was going to end up being a vegetable stew, but with help from Scamp it turned out ok, just ok. That was dinner today along with Rice ’n’ prunes for dinner, made by Scamp.

Something happened to the NAS drive yesterday and it seems to have blocked itself. I can’t quite figure it out yet, but I do know it’s something to do with the installation of a new version of Lightroom. I’ve tried looking for help from the Synology website, but it’s the most user unfriendly ‘help’ site I’ve ever used. There are almost no simple instructions there for a newbie user like me. Everything seems to be aimed at those with a degree in Computer Science. Maybe I need to look for the Topsy and Tim version of Synology.

I also managed to squeeze in a drive down to Auchinstarry with just enough time to scramble up the steep path to Croy to record a lovely stripe of golden light on the lower slopes of the Campsie Fells. That made PoD which was lucky, because I hadn’t taken any more photos today. To be honest, I couldn’t be bothered taking photos today, there are just too many things going on just now and not enough daylight time to fit things in. I must take my own advice again and get some photos taken earlier in the day.

We made our first foray into private health care and are in the process of getting a referral from our optician for a consultation at The Nuffield. Let’s hope they are more help than the NHS at Hairmyres were.

I think Scamp has booked Annette for tea and a natter tomorrow morning, so that might give me a chance to go and get some photos if the weather is behaving itself.

Glasses – 19 November 2021

Posted on by Zogman

Driving in Larky on a Friday. Not a task for the faint hearted.

I’ve often thought that the best place in the world to have a driving test area would be Larky. If you can drive there, you can drive anywhere.

At lunchtime today we got the phone call to say that the glasses had been found and were ready to pick up. I was expecting a delivery from Amazon and with their usual helpfulness they gave us a window of about eleven hours. Somewhere between 11am and 10pm. Why bother? With that in mind, Scamp volunteered to wait in for the parcels while I drove to Larky to pick up the glasses. I decided to park at the Co-op because I had a parcel to post and the Co-op houses a the post office for Larky. There were cars abandoned everywhere and although there is a sort of one way system in the car park, nobody paid any heed to it. Lorries, delivery vans and a multitude of little old ladies with steely eyes were determined to either get into their parking space or out onto the road again and they were giving no quarter, but expecting everyone to get out of their way.

There was a queue of ten people all waiting with their parcels and only one person serving. I gave up and went to pick up the glasses. Got them and as I was leaving I asked the assistant where I could post a letter. She told me the sorting office was across the road and I could drop it in there if it was open. It appeared that the sorting office had different opening hours for every day of the week, but luckily it would be open for another half hour. That gave me enough time to go back to the car and collect my parcel and get rid of it too. It was while I was walking back I noticed that nearly everyone seems to park on the wrong side of the road in Larky, some even double park on the wrong side. That’s considered normal in the town. I even saw someone trying to reverse park into a space on the wrong side of the road. Truly, Larky on a Friday afternoon is in a different world.

I drove home and handed over the glasses in their case. Scamp was delighted, they fitted, were comfortable and most importantly she could see with them. Not perfectly, some things like door frames are still a bit rounded, but much, much better than the glasses she had been suffering with for the last few days. That was a relief.

I’d taken my own advice today and gone out early to get a photo. I got more than one, but not a lot more. That meant I didn’t need to go looking for pictures on a dull afternoon. I did need to get tonight’s dinner, so I got ready to walk to the shops and just at that moment the Amazon man came to the door. I got the parcels after I’d read out my six digit code, Amazon’s new security system that might last as long as a week. The bloke seemed to breathe a sigh of relief when I read out he number. I imagine he’d seen a few blank faces this week already.

I left the opening of the parcels until I came back from the shops. The external SSD I bought is tiny and has a capacity of 1TB. Really fast too. It’s been play tested tonight.

PoD today was a little mushroom with a tiny beetle sheltering inside.

I’m hoping for a bit brighter day tomorrow. We really deserve some sunshine.

The last dance – 14 November 2021

Posted on by Zogman

One more breakfast of champions, One more morning walk through Perth, One more tea dance. Then home.

Breakfast was a bit quieter than yesterday with a lot more empty tables, but the same selection of fruit and fries. Not all the tables were fully stocked with cups, cutlery and napkins. Just another little niggle that showed this was indeed a three star hotel. I’ll bet Bonnie Prince Charlie didn’t have to go and nick his cutlery from another table!

Fed and watered, we went for a walk along Perth’s riverside. It was a bit colder than yesterday and a lot duller too. Neither of these inconveniences stopped us walking through the park for half an hour and neither did it stop me from getting a photo or five, more like twenty five though. The one that eventually, after some post processing, made PoD was a slow shutter speed shot (alliteration of ’S’) of the upstream bridge over the Tay with the smooth water that only comes with shutter speeds of 1/8th of a second or longer. I knew you’d want to know that Jamie!

Walked back and we were ready for the final dance of the weekend. First we all observed the Minute’s Silence, then the dance began. I was expecting a couple of dozen folk to be there, but there must have been around fifty. All still raring to go. It was only an hour long session, but it finished off the weekend perfectly. Said goodbye to the folk we knew.  After that we handed back our key and got a QR code to scan into the parking ticket machine which gave us a 50% reduction on our parking costs, once we worked out the sequence of scans to do it.

Drove home via M&S in Dunblane to get tonight’s dinner, because apparently we have to make our own dinner, and breakfast here in Cumbersheugh!

It was an interesting and exhausting three days. Now it’s back to “auld claes and purrich” as my dad would say. Tomorrow we’re hoping to have a more relaxing day.

Walking in sunshine! – 9 November 2021

Posted on by Zogman

Out photographing with Alex.

I’d watched the weather predictions for this week and Tuesday looked like the best day. Alex and I agreed that we’d go and walk round Baron’s Haugh which is another name for the Dalzell estate on the outskirts of Motherwell. It dates from around 840 when it was a Royal Hunting Forest. Today it’s a maze of roads and paths with lots of odd buildings dotted around the grounds. We walked round the south side of the park, taking the path between the wildlife pond and the River Clyde. Lots of evidence of flooding with the path having been swept away recently.

After we reached the end of the path and after Alex had consulted his Photographer’s Ephemeris app, he decided that the light would be just right for some decent photos of the Big Hoose, Dalzell House. On the way we passed the Japanese garden and made a mental not to go back and photograph the Japanese maples there after we’d photographed the house. We did get a few shots of the house, trying for the best angle to capture the light on the building, but lose the cars in the carpark. We were just finishing when a bloke came out of one of the cars with a tall monopod with what looked like a GoPro on top. It was a telescopic monopod, as most of them are, but this one extended to about 15m! Although there was very little breeze today, there was enough to cause a bit of a sway at the top. He seemed to be using a phone to control the camera. I hoped he had set a fast shutter!

We walked on because the best of the light had left the building and we walked back to the Japanese garden. Talked to one of the gardners who was sweeping up those red maple leaves. It turned out he was in charge of a group of volunteers who were cleaning up the garden and the burn that runs through it. He was happy for us to photograph the trees gave us free rein to take photos.

By the time we had finished there and said goodbye to the gardener, the light was definitely on the way to the horizon and it was time to go. Dropped Alex off at his house and drove home with really dark clouds ahead of me and the prospect of rain that didn’t appear.

While I was out with Alex, Scamp was out for coffee with Shona so she could hand over our house warming present. Yes, Jamie, it was towels!

Dinner tonight was Scampi chips and tomatoes. Scampi, which was baked in the oven, we agreed was just ok. Not sure we’d have it again.

PoD was one of the views of the Big Hoose after some delicate Lightroom work to remove offending cars.

Tomorrow looks a bit like today as far as the weather is concerned. Perhaps not quite as much sunshine.

We went for the messages – 22 October 2021

Posted on by Zogman

We drove to The Fort for messages and for lunch, after a technology breakdown.

I wanted to see if my covid vaccination status had been updated, but the app wouldn’t work. It simply refused to accept my password. I finally gave up and uninstalled it, then reinstalled it and started fresh. When it asked me to scan my driver’s license I realised what was going on. People in Scotland had been reported as getting in to a nightclub, then passing their phone back to one of their pals. That allowed them to get in with an other person’s phone. The problem was there was no biometrics check on the app. Now there is. It took me two tries before I could get the thing to work, then it crashed just before the final stage. After the first two failed attempts I had to go right back to the start and go through everything again. On my last try at a restart it just took me through all the screens without having to do anything. No license scan, no facial recognition scan, just a QR code. Of course, Scamp got right through first time! Now we’ll be able to get into a nightclub!

With our new covid passport, Scamp went looking for towels, a house warming present for Shona, in M&S and I went looking for my next book in Waterstones, but found none that interested me. Then I went to Boots to get fine tweezers. Just the thing for picking off nasty little ticks. The first pair I saw were £23. I was thinking more about £2 or 3. I found a pair, thankfully, for £2. Then I saw a sign of the times. The bloke at the set of Pay Here cubicles asked if I wanted to pay cash or card. I had enough ready cash in my pocket to cover the cost of the tweezers, so I said cash. He pointed to one cubicle at the corner and said “Wait until that one is clear.” There was one cubicle for pay cash, the other five or six were card only. I swiftly changed my mind and paid by card. It cost ME the same amount of money, but I’m sure Boots got less from me once the card company’s share of my £2 had been deducted. The shape of things to come.

Met Scamp and we went to Wagamama for lunch. Checked in (will we always have to do that from now on?) Ordered shirodashi ramen (pork belly) for me and shu’s ‘shiok’ chicken (curry) for Scamp with a couple of sides. Ebi katsu (prawns in crispy panko breadcrumbs) and Vegetable Tempura. Scamp’s main was only just warm, but was replaced without question. Mine was very spicy hot, but tolerable. The Ebi katsu was lovely as usual but the tempura was far too oily. Not Wagamama’s best day.

We went to Morrisons for the messages and bought a fair amount of stuff, then drove to to Hobbycraft. Scamp was looking for ring moulds, but they didn’t have any. I was looking for a paintbrush, but they didn’t have the one I wanted. We drove home.

After a while I put on my boots and went for a walk in St Mo’s to see what I could find. PoD went to a golden leaf. Not real gold, just gold leaf 😂🤣. Sketch for today was ‘Open’. My thinking was the door to a shop that is open, but the restrictions on entry mean it’s closed. I liked it although the sketching and painting were rubbish.

We’re having John and Marion over for dinner tomorrow, so tonight we started our prep. My soup didn’t quite hit the mark, so I’ll have a rethink for tomorrow, but Scamp’s main is looking good.

Tomorrow will be busy. Work will hopefully start before we go out to Bridge of Weir for dance class.

Somewhere we hadn’t been for a while – 29 September 2021

Posted on by Zogman

That was what I said yesterday and that’s where we went today.

We left early and drove by M80, M8, M77 then off the motorway on to Nitshill Road to Rouken Glen.

We parked and went for a walk, but half the park seemed to be cordoned off with great barriers either being put up or taken down, it wasn’t clear until we read a notice that Boy George, Nile Rodgers and some other has-been pop stars had been performing at the park at the weekend. It even gave a timescale for the removal of the stages and the barriers. Now we understood why there was a covid rapid testing bus just outside the car park. Oh well, at least we didn’t come on Saturday and have to endure that noise!

We found or way around to the Meadows which is really just a big park with rough cut grass and some craggy boulders. Wild but in a ‘contained’ way. It’s always good to find a path you haven’t been on before and that’s what we found. The path took us around the perimeter of the park on the border between park and golf course. I found a few chessies that I’ll plant in a pot full of dry compost and leave them to overwinter in the greenhouse. By the spring they should hopefully be ready to plant out properly and hopefully some of Glasgow will grow in Cumbersheugh.

The path didn’t look as if it was taking us anywhere interesting, so we took a side path, there are lots of side paths to explore. Our path took us beside a burn and eventually brought us out at the waterfall. The water from the falls drops about five or six meters and flows out through a bridge under the path. The bridge had been plagued by padlocks for years, but was now clear with signs warning that padlocks would be removed and destroyed. However, the thoughtful council had built a “Padlock Wall” for people to put the locks on and still display their everlasting love for all to see. There must have been hundreds, if not thousands of padlocks of all shapes, sizes and colours. That photo made PoD.

Further on we found the boating pond with the Boathouse Cafe on the far side. That was our lunch venue. Two Fish Finger Sandwiches, one each. And there was that strange warning that they had no machine coffee, only filter! Why are coffee machines breaking down everywhere? I think the real reason is that you put a fair few spoonfuls of coffee into a filter machine fill it up with water and set it going. You can get a three or four times more cups of dodgy filter coffee from the the same amount of coffee beans that would produce one cup of barista produced espresso. It’s a fiddle and I blame Brexit.

After lunch with tea to wash the sandwiches down, we headed back to the car via the “Garden Centre” which was already “Beginning to look a lot like Christmas”. Heavens, we’ve not even had Halloween yet. In fact it’s only September!

Back home I took the bull by the horns and phoned EE. Was offered 2GB data for £9. Told them I could do better with Tesco. I got the usual spiel about Tesco being a supermarket and so on. He asked me what the Tesco deal was and when I told him he said he could better that. Long story short, I got a 12month contract for 11GB for £10, plus unlimited text and calls. Thought about it for a while then phoned back and sealed the deal. I could probably have held out for more, but why? I’ve not really had much bother with EE and I don’t need the faff of moving my number. Happy Bunny.

Scamp had closed one of our dormant bank accounts yesterday and in doing so lost her breakdown cover. Tonight she booked and 18 month cover with RAC. Cheaper than AA and not the same strings attached as with some of the cheaper companies. Happy Bunny.

Tomorrow we’re both intending to go out for coffee at Costa. Scamp with Isobel and me with Val. Parcel due for me from DPD tomorrow too. Hope it doesn’t clash, with the coffee and hope they actually have coffee!