To stop the tears from Biscuit’s departure we bought a youngster, who now goes by the name of Fudge. He seems to have a special ability, I’ve never seen a hamster jump so far!
R.I.P. Biscuit
Yesterday, with a heavy heart, we decided to take Biscuit to the vet because she was very lethargic and had swellings in her pouch and abdomen, and was losing hair. Vet told us it was Cushing’s disease, for which there’s no treatment so we had her put to rest to save her from suffering any more. She was a good age for a hamster though, we’ve had her almost 2 years and she wasn’t a baby when get got her.
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Snow
What is it about snow that gives kids today the impression that it’s perfectly okay to assault complete strangers in the street?
All the schools are closed so where are they all? Lying in ambush on every bastard street corner!
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TV Drive
We had ntl’s TV Drive installed today. The STB is a Scientific Atlanta – Explorer 8300DVB Spec sheet (PDF). which so far hasn’t exhibited any major problems. There’s a FAQ available here which explains a lot but my personal first impression is very good.
The picture quality appears better than the standard box with less pixelation on fast moving scenes, the guide is far better with none of the infamous “Searching for programmes…” more than 6 hours into the future (I set two series to record, the latest starting next Tuesday) and the interactive menus that I’ve tried have just appeared, none of the “Please Wait…” of the old box 🙂
The STB has 4 tuners, contrary to the FAQ, but one is reserved for data with ntl leaving 3 for TV. You can record up to 2 channels while watching a third but you can’t (as yet) record 3 together. This has yet to be tested by me but I’m sure it will before too long 😉
Anyway, as I said, first impressions are good. Let’s hope I remain pleased with it 🙂
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Trauma Clinic #4
Not a good day today. Wind, rain and non-show buses made getting to the hospital a gloomy process, but I did get there in time for my 10.30 appointment and was immediately told to go for an X-ray.
Then I waited. About midday I was called in and shown to a cubicle… where I waited. About an hour later I felt like I’d been forgotten about so attracted some attention and was seen within minutes. Basically, and I quote, “It’s healing, but it’s taking its own sweet time about it.”
So, I’m told to carry on doing what I’m doing and make another appointment for 3 months time, April 19th.
Buses back were just as bad, missing one and the next being 5 minutes later, feeling cold and damp. Change of bus meant another 10 minute wait, no heaters running on any bus I was on… though getting off the last bus I noticed the cab heater was on, which didn’t improve my mood any. It all felt like a waste of time really, even though I know it was necessary.
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Back To Work
Yesterday saw me ride a bike (new one) for the first time since the accident and I have to admit I was very nervous to start with. I decided to use it because I had a resumption medical in Bristol and the medical centre is just over a mile from the station and cycling a mile takes about 5 minutes as opposed to 20-30 walking.
Anyway, the doctor there passed me fit for work 🙂
This week is all rest days so I start back Monday. Although I’m still not completely free from pain it’s no longer continuous and isn’t bad enough when it plays up to stop me working, so even though I could still probably stay off without prejudice should I wish I choose to return and I’m even looking forward to it 🙂
Posted in Cycling, Positives, Work
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Packaging
Overall a good time was had over the Christmas period but while unpacking some of the kids’ toys a thought occurred to me: do manufacturers ever pause to think how their customers are supposed to get these things out of the flaming boxes?? I lost count of the number of cuts I got while trying to remove those annoying metal/plastic ties behind sticky tape behind some sticky goo in some cases! Hard to remove plastic blisters glued to boxes, or worse, more hard plastic packaging that’s been so well constructed you need an industrial set of cutters to even get close to opening were another obstacle to easy access, and what if you wanted or needed to keep the packaging? No bleeding chance!
Come on guys, is it really necessary?
Posted in Family, Negatives, Thoughts
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Trauma Clinic #3
Well here we are again at the hospital, arriving at 10.10 for a 10.40 appointment. No waiting time displayed yet.
10.25 I’m called in for 2 X-rays. 10.40 and it’s back to the waiting game. Loads in the sub-waiting area so I’m not expecting a short wait.
12.40, just as extreme boredom, thirst and hunger are setting in, I’m called. It appears to be healing well but not healed yet. The consultant gave me a sick note for 4 more weeks and another appointment in 6 weeks, though he suspects I’ll be feeling up to returning to work by the time the sick note runs out.
One bit of luck was the direct bus home arrived as we got on the stop 🙂
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HD Failure
About time I got around to writing about this.
Dateline: Wednesday 22nd of November I get home from skittles to find error messages all over the place on my Linux machine and the secondary HD remounted as read only. This is normally solved by a reboot but not this time. Nothing I could do could access it and no recovery program I tried had any success. That’s everything in the /home directory so no “mission critical” stuff, thankfully, with the exception of the IRC server, but a lot of personal stuff. Most of the really important stuff is backed up so it’s more time loss than anything else.
Anyway, I discovered something about superblocks and with the aid of Caz discovered the locations of backups on the HD. With this information I was actually able to error check/fix the HD! Trouble being there was so much corruption that what I did get back was quite limited, but useful all the same. With this data copied off the HD using my Windows machine I thought I’d return the HD to its rightful place. Bad idea. Lots and lots of errors so it’s basically knackered.
All back to full running strength now but with half the storage. It’s still enough (this is Linux not Windows after all 😉 ) but I’d like more so I’m going to be on the lookout for an 80GBish drive soon.
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Trauma Clinic – Take 2
Appointment time was 10.50, arrived at 10.30, called at 12.40, seen at 13.00. The consultant examined me and instructed me on some light, low physiotherapy I have to do three times a day (pendulum like actions) and that was it. One fresh sling and another appointment in three weeks and we were out at 13.10.
I’ll see my G.P. tomorrow for some more painkillers and another sick note. I wonder if I’ll be back at work before Christmas :-/
Posted in Thoughts
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