And so it ends

Another week of nights is, thankfully, over. While the week has been in many ways not that bad, you have to remember that a week of nights is - fundamentally - two weeks worth of work crammed into the space of one. It is, therefore, hard going.

And today is, as usual one of those days which passes in a blur of chaotic blurred thoughts.

Anyhow, so, my iphone is currently driving itself insane, it's too flat to come on, but since it's connected to the laptop to charge it's endlessly cycling through powering on, vibrating, attempting to complete start up before going back to sleep because it's flat. After a few cycles it manages to get charged enough that it's okay, but it's quite entertaining to watch.

Yes.

So, before I came home from my night shift (this has got to be worth bonus points) I paid my 3.50 and dunked myself in chlorinated water. 16 lengths later (yeah, not that many, I know, but hey I'd just finished an 11 hour shift) I toddled out of the pool feeling quite awake, and also wanting a variety of things at the same time.

I recall, back when Bristol North Baths closed that part of the argument was that it was run down and needed a heck of a lot of money spending to bring it up to current standards. Seriously, if that's the case, I invite the whole lot of Bristol's city council to come look at Arthur Hill pool. It makes Bristol North look positively pristine. The pools base appears to have been re-tiled at some point - the base being random-mosaic tiles, rather than the big chunky tiles that'd match the ones on the sides. Sections appear to have lost these mosaic and have been ? painted (it was a lane'd swim, so I wasn't diving and swimming along the bottom). It looks tired, the tiles are chipped and cracked and battered, and in place of Bristol North's hidden glass ceiling it appears to have a 1970s utilitarian chique tin roof. Mind you, it's exactly the kind of pool I like, reasonably deep at one end and just for swimming. It's also sensibly priced.

Anyhow, it's prompted me to finally upload (onto Flickr) the many shots of Brizzle North.

And thinking of the 'Retro' theme, I was reminded of this:



Which I captured near Liberty's in London; it's a vending machine which appears to still be in service, and which appears to have not been updated since the early 1980s. I think that's a hybrid of a Metro and an Ital, and the hair, oh the hair. It is amazing how far graphic design has come, really, isn't it.

When I finally got back home after my swimmette, my body's end-of-nights confusion kicked in, I wanted to clean my teeth, go to the loo, get moisturiser on my hands, drink lots of water and eat breakfast; the only issue being that I wanted to do all of these at once (at least none of them had overriding priority) and my brain was struggling to work out how to order things. Eventually we got an order and I'm about to start working on breakfast...

...then, plan is, off to get the old radio out of the Volvo, and pop in the new one (pray that the connector matches) and then a bit later collect the sewing machine for Kathryn :)

Ra? Ra indeed.

And in other news...

So, I am planning to mail my (expensive) CRNBC application off today, a scary act because I then need to sit an exam at some point which enables me to work in Canada. This is all very well and shiny, and I've even got the link to get the transcript required from my university (more painful expense)... but just as I feel like I'm getting things together to get out of here, I suddenly find the world being terribly unhelpful.

Kathryn had pointed out that house prices weren't quite so shiny as when I last looked. I'd resigned myself to having made nothing much of a profit but having got my money back... only now very similar houses on the street are fetching a whopping 185k. Down somewhat from the heady 220k that they were when I bought it (ours wasn't that much, obviously, being as it was a dump), and down from the 200k where I was happy to sell, and down from the 195k where I could reasonably cope with selling.

What happened to up? I heard up had been mentioned. I didn't need sustained up; in fact, frankly I had an absense of figs to give* on the matter of a sustained up. I don't really deeply care about the survival of capitalism, so long as the individual people survive.

Anyhow, it's going to be another 6 months until we sell, at the earliest, so if you could all attempt to destroy the earth with rampant consumerism for 6 months, that'd be dandy**.

Anyhow, so that's something I have to look forward to - checking over the paperwork - and I need to ask someone at work to be a reference for me too, I forgot about that.

So yes, that's in the plan for the week - as was (and is) fitting the 'new' radio to Chester. Chester's original Volvo radio/cassette (actually a Philips one) had several problems; first and foremost was a persistent failure to actually come on. Picky as I am, this is one of my favourite features in a radio, coming on. I'm almost as keen on it as 'switching off' and 'being able to control the volume'. To be fair, I also like 'being able to tune it' too, but the first thing that I like to do is switch it on.

And that, the original radio was not...entirely...willing to do. Indeed, despite my protestations, my pleading and my generally poking at it, it frequently declined to come on at all. At least in any meaningful way. Certainly it'd glow a pleasing green colour, but as to actually displaying anything on it's little digital display or, indeed, doing such things as might be considered playing music or making speech related noises it seemed unwilling.

It also likes to swallow tapes. I don't know if someone neglected to feed it for the first 20 years of it's life, but I put the tape-adaptor in (just wondered if that 'bit' of the radio worked) and, well, it was unkeen to give it back. Indeed at various points I thought it was not going to give it back. A somewhat uneven struggle ensued involving me, an eject button, my fingers, and some cursing. The tape-adaptor did, thankfully manage to escape the clutches of the radio-cassette, but at that point my mind was made up****, and a new radio was sought.

And thus I sourced the rather shinier Blaupunkt Florida 168. A CD Player in a car I own? Shocking.

Anyhow, so having forked out the exhorbitant amount of money that Halfrauds wanted for the radio-removing tools (£4.99! They're £2 ish online) I discovered that the Volvo does not sport an ISO connector. No it does not. It sports a big 'ol chunky block connector. Halfrauds did, however, inform me that I could get an ISO connector adaptor, from them, for a bargainous £12.00. I declined and wandered off holding the ISO connector and the Volvo connector and sat on the lounge floor with my soldering iron, solder, wire cutters and wire strippers and debated cutting and chopping and generally abusing the cables to produce one joyous cable.

Well, I did. Then I thought I'd look on e-bay. And for £2.98 plus £1.99p&p I could obtain a proper cable, which saves hacking up the somewhat special original Volvo one. So if someone, one day, wants to reinstate the original Volvo interior radio, for the sake of originality, they can.

And since the car is off to be serviced tomorrow, and I therefore am not in the hugest hurry to have the radio fitted, I decided I'd wait for the e-bay one. 5 quid being somewhat less than 13.

Which leaves a big hole in the dashboard for the minute. But never mind... I'm sure I'll cope.

And in other good news, Dollhouse and Big Bang Theory are back on. Awesome.

* As in, 'I don't give a fig', for those who are confused***.
** I don't mean that, obviously. I want everyone living fulfilling, happy productive lives which protect the pretty little blue green planet on which we live (in the unfashionable western spiral arm of the galaxy).
*** Like me, given that I've been up 20 hours.
**** Well, more at the moment I realised that if anyone ever disconnected the battery I'd never be able to revive the radio, because it's a security code one - and while you can pay to get them unsecuritycoded, on a grotty old radio-cassette which doesn't like turning on it's not really worth the hassle.

Adding to the 'stuff'

So, freecycle Slough finally came up trumps, and in our kitchen sits a sewing machine. I've been trying to find one for *ages* - mostly for Kathryn, because frankly my sewing is laughable. But occasionally it's seemed like we could do with a machine. I was hoping to pick up an ancient singer with the hand-crank. This would be easily transferable to Canada but after countless lost auctions (and annoyingly never by much) I'd kind of stopped poking. And then this came up.

The Alfa 50 sewing machine. I've no idea of it's exact age, but it's an external motor/belt driven whatsit. It's in need of a thorough clean but after lord knows how many years in the shed I checked it all turned over and moved okay - plugged it in, and pressing the foot pedal spurred it into life.

I'm quite impressed. It does, however, weigh the same as an African elephant.

I'm hoping that Kathryn knows how to thread it too, because to me sewing machines essentially look like a way to generate a cat's cradle very quickly. She, however, is possessed of clue on the whole 'sewing machine' issue, and therefore there is a possibility that she could just by the power of her mind discover the correct routing for thread.

Otherwise it seems to be about a fiver for the manual - downloaded...

Anyhow, Kathryn's home now...