Your Day (apart from gardening) - what took place?

It’s a duvet day for me with a chic flick and chockies . it’s miserable and cold outside BRRR !

 

Are you still there?

My weekend has been eaten up working on a project for work.
I didn't ask for it, I didn't want it, I didn't need it and, I'm not being paid for it! However, we have an anniversary coming up and it's all hands on deck and that was the card I was dealt
It was clear that they had no idea what a big ask it was! I was thrust some tosh and told: you can make xxxx from these.
What they gave me combined with what they thought I could do with them are poles apart! In a nutshell, you can't make a silk purse out of a sows ear!
I bought some additional supplies on Friday and set to work yesterday ... and .... today ... still not finished and won't be ready for taking in tomorrow (my self imposed deadline). Have limited time after tonight, but, hopefully, I shall get it to them by close of business on Wednesday: if I'm lucky! Trouble is, having been given the project, I want to do it "right" (definition of right: to my standard! I'm a hard task master ) and not the half hashed effort they have conjured up in their naivety - which would have been naff given the "tools" I was presented with.

Now, my back aches! Roll on next weekend

 

Haven't done much today, only the usual, making breakfast, walking barley, doing lunch, walking berry, making dinner, walking berry, had dinner, done washing up, walking berry. In between making cups of tea.

 

No golf or gardening, so I did a bit of servicing of my vintage audio kit.
Nothing drastic, just a spray of the "magic Servisol switch cleaner," on pots, switches and latches.
It prevents unwanted noises caused by an accumulated dirt when using switches or rotary controls.

This is one of my two vintage wall boxes, manufactured in the late seventies.
These would either be connected to a parent jukebox via a "stepper" or to a "hideaway," a 3ft cube box in a back room or cellar of a bar, containing, the record carousel, turntable power supply and amplifier. Just the boxes and speakers in the bar itself.




What amazes me is the complexity required to just transmit pulses on a sender similar to a dial up telephone. Much of this kit would be assembled by hand. How much it would cost to make these if there'd been no advances in technology, is mind boggling.




The "hideaway" has now been replaced by this, the size of a matchbox.



Connected to one of these, second-hand 3rd generation i-Pods bought on e-Bay for not much.





Then my vintage tuner/amp and speakers.




I have a spare title card magazine which with a third i-Pod increases my options to 3 X160.

I have to be careful with these as the titlecard Toblerone shaped holders are rotated by a notched plastic belt made from "unobtainium."




It might seem a lot of effort to go to rather than play mp3s in a stick in the side of the TV through the soundbar, but it's all about a "nostalagia" fix for me. I also for some reason enjoy taking the old fifty-pences out of the coin box when it starts to fill up.

 

Housework and walking the boys.

 

An unusual day today - car broke down - took to garage - diagnosis catastrophic engine damage due to cambelt failure - cost to repair 4 times the value of the car .

No transport - but at least I managed to get some shopping in before the car broke down - and I don't need the car for work - so every cloud has a silver lining as they say .

I was helped by some Highways Officers (not the Police) - they safely got us off the busy road - and made sure that we were OK. So a big thumbs up to them.

 

@Logan i was at the housework also this morning

 

Sorry to hear about your motor @clanless and i hope you manage to get it sorted mate

 

That's a real pain. A penalty of "built in obsolescence." When they go, the pistons mash the valves if one piston doesn't go through the block.

In the old days, you had a timing chain with a tensioner. The chains could wear after many, many miles, but you got a warning as they became noisy and anyway never actually broke.

There's no warning with cam belts, they just go, other than something in the handbook service schedule which indicates how many miles you should travel before having it changed. (if you can find it after the three hundred pages at the front on 'elf n' safety).

 

With our MG ZT @ARMANDII it's 90,000

 

My 2005 CRV has a chain, not a belt. So it's presumably good for the life of the engine.
As I've only done 52,000 miles since I bought it new, as my old dad used to say in later life, about anything my mother wanted replacing. "It'll see us out."

For the most part, he was right.

 

Well it's the same with us regarding doing that mileage...very rarely it's used and i stand corrected by hubby it's 90,000 miles or every 6yrs but there's been a debate about this on his forum he's with...what if you motor never reaches that...do you still do them

 

You have to find something to do when the weather's not good enough for golf or gardening.

(I wish!)