Kelly Slater 11x world surfing champion

A big firework came up to the window I was looking out of and said “don’t be nosey”

Not a thermostat per se but Mrs Ming has the wood burner running flat out and its 10C outside!

“Because the flames look nice” apparently.

Patio door is open to dump some heat before me and the Sith Hound melt!

Imperial festiveness to everyone, you may all have a day off tomorrow. Eat, drink and be merry……………

…….or the Secret Police will pay you a visit! 😀

Day off today but had a very busy weekend as a result of the Preston Park Cable BBQ, slightly miffed that Great & Glorious Leader completely failed to mention our dept in dispatches yesterday!

So pottered round Sainsbury’s this morning and felt any xmas spirit evaporate in about 30 mins of experiencing the greed and rudeness that is the human race in a supermarket on xmas eve.

Electrician.

Live working is:

a)Not for the faint hearted
b)Done after training
c)Performed using special insulated tools

A few years ago some cowboy contractors were employed to work on a 415v distribution panel at a London Depot. For some reason they thought they could live work with a pair of standard molgrips. Contractor 1 died, Contractor 2 “lived” after the depot staff put him out with fire extinguishers.

OK a house supply is “only” 240V but plenty enough juice there to kill.

From someone who’s had one, avoid high mileage(60K+) Focus 1.6 TDCI’s. Ours had the standard gasket leak around no.3 injector which then turns the oil sludgy and eventually kills the turbo. Also the DPF needs new cleaning fluid at 75K which is a dealer job. Cam belts are supposed to be good for 125k but don’t believe it.

What about a thorn in the tyre?

140mph in a car

186mph on a bike.

Lovely shots, very jealous. Hopefully back in 2013.

East Croydon to Eastbourne, 7 hrs of sitting on trains pretending I didn’t work for a rail company after a landslip shut the main London to Brighton line and the coast way services got stuffed with a major signalling failure.

He no longer plays the xylophone 🙁

I already know I DON’T WANT AN Empire MX-6, it would be completely unsuited to the South Downs……..

Must resist…..

Idiots, the lot of you, guns are far too noisey, it has to be a crossbow! 😀

Stay signed off, even with a back to work note the temptation will be there to help out and you could put yourself back (I’ve been there with a busted scaphoid).

Set the sag first and then fiddle with compression and rebound.

Too little compression and the fork plunges through its travel easily and too much means you shake your fillings out as the fork doesn’t react to bumps.

Rebound sets the rate at which the fork extends after it’s hit a bump, too much and the fork packs down on long descents meaning you run out of travel as the spring cannot “recover” between hits, too little and the fork will “pogo” and top out (again feeling horrible).

It’s also very subjective as well, what works for one person won’t for another and what was good on the South Downs may not necessarily be good in the Alps or at a trail centre.

The Beeb’s website hosts updates and progress reports, apparently the test rocket burn showed up some issues (it could have gone bang), but as the article says that’s what testing is for and it’s a relatively easy fix.

Yep, had a couple of me shouting and him listening sessions when he tried to bully me. He’s much better now.

ker ching, bloody expensive, doubles our electric bill over winter months

Hmm bought a chinese 1200 lumen light as a trial a few months ago, nice head unit, charger and battery but I think most of the 1200 lumen’s makes its way into some parallel universe because my old hope HiD and Mrs Ming’s 2 led Hope both slaughter it on performance so it’s been relegated to dog walking duties.

Next time fork out the readies and buy Smudge or Trout, lesson learnt.

Battlestar; including the Pilot opener and Razor. Sometimes it was more about surviving the 45 minutes of an episode than actually enjoying it, but very compelling.

Now waiting for “Blood and Chrome”

They’re a charity. Big difference

More like a Hedge Fund masquarading as a charity.

In all my years of dealing with them when involved with Ferret Rescue they came across as at best hopeless, at worst dangerous and potentially fatal to the ferret. I would never give them a penny.

Motorbike, at telephone numbers, came around a corner on a nasty piece of what was dual carriage way (since reduced to a 50 and single carriage way after many bad accidents) to find a load of turf had fallen off the back of a lorry. I slowed a little bit but had nowhere to go and hit a roll at about 90 with the bike cranked over. The bike took off, I thought this is it, the bike landed, had a bit of a wobble and carried on as if nothing had happened. I got home, put the bike to bed and got very pissed.

I look back on this now am so glad I was on a lardy ZX7R and not the nasty little R6 I had a few months later.

Put a porcupine in the garden……

I’m sorry…….

Bandersnatchi

Watchmaker (a non breeding one if that’s possible)

oh and a pet velociraptor (more “that could be a child’s face” comments than a staffie!)

Eels – Novacaine for the Soul

Ghostbusters…………van speakers were not very well after that came on.

AVOID, I have a pair, they regularly eat front and rear bearings. It got so bad with the importer denying there was an issue and a long term sitting with them in warranty limbo that my LBS’s chief shouty person harangued the rep at a trade show in front of lots of people and they sent me a new wheel. The rear wheel has had some new internal bits and maybe better but I’m so paranoid now that they only get put on for the one month of summer we have.

I wish I’d bought Crank Brothers instead……….

Pandora, failing that, Dartmoor

@ Spooky, got so bad with my new “manager” doubting my technical abilities (testing batteries for **** sake) that the van with 100K’s worth of test gear nearly ended up in Sovereign Harbour with the words F..K Y.U scratched into the body work.

I used to work very efficiently and adjust old analogue radio’s for the railway. Since devolution I now work VERY inefficiently for the railway adjusting the same radio’s BUT now with three times the paperwork, a daily rather than four weekly plan and a management team that think continual change is the same as progess. Oh and I’ve inherited a pile of crap from a colleague since a boundary change as well.

Same here, was not spotted initially, so sent home with a sprain and after 3 weeks of failing to MTFU went back and was told I’d broken it, NHS stalled hoping it would heal but after 3 months they admitted defeat and grafted and screwed it. Twang it occasionally or catch my wrist on an edge and that hurts but other than that almost as good as new 10 months after the op.

I wasn’t allowed to drive for 8 months whilst mine failed to heal due to late diagnosis and me being an idiot. I tried that wrist brace but it’s not a patch on a cast in terms of reminding you NOT to use it.

If it doesn’t heal you get a bone graft and one of these:

Which reminds you it’s fitted every time you ride over cobbles, catch you wrist bone on an edge or clatter over roots.

I could cross my fingers ok when it was bust, even rode my bike(painfully) but opening jam jars was impossibly painful. As in eye wateringly, knees buckling, dissolving on the floor in agony painful.

Don’t mess with this bone.

Healing vibes, as the owner of a grafted and screwed scaphoid I’ll offer the following advice; DO NOT USE the injured wrist for anything, the bone has a rubbish blood supply and takes ages to heal. Let it heal and then let it heal some more. If you don’t it will need a “herbert screw” and bone graft and then 12 weeks minimum to heal. I broke my late August 2011 and was only able to ride again in April 2012!

A+E, if it’s a scaphoid do the jam jar test, if it’s excruciatingly painful then you’ve probably broken it. Make sure they have a proper look at the xrays and any doubt get it plastered and pop back in 2 weeks to get it re checked as it’ll be showing up more by then.

This is gonna sound weird but I find sitting in the shower really helps relive my annualish migraine.

Note to Spooky, local stone will not be suitable! 😀
Sleepers rot (even concrete ones)!

Doctors receptionists

The security manager at a well know exhibition centre in London who declined my request to park in a huge EMPTY parking area opposite where I needed to work “because there was a show on” meaning I had to lug 100 kilos of test equipment an extra 250metres.

The bloke who said “your names not on the list you’re not parking here”, even though we’ve used that parking area for at least the last 10 years.