I suspect Yodel might be branching out into taxi services, after the muppets we used last night. Rang the taxi company, asked for a pick-up, and asked specifically that driver comes down the drive to the house. It’s a long, steep drive and I’m wearing dress shoes, my wife’s in heels.
“No problem sir, there’s a driver on his way, he’ll be with you in five minutes”
“Great, thanks”… fifteen minutes later, ring them back:
“Hi, I ordered a taxi about fifteen minutes ago and was told it’d be here ten minutes ago”. They’ve got a number recognition system so he knows the details of the request already.
“Oh yep, [gives address]. He’s just dropping off a fare now, he’s 2.5km away, should be with you in five minutes”
“Last time you said he was on his way already, but never mind. And he knows to come right to the house, not wait at the kerb?”
“Yes, yes, we have that on the file – down the drive, plenty of room to turn around at the bottom.”
“That’s the one. And the driver has that information?”
“Yes, absolutely.”
Another 15 minutes later we go back into the house, and ask the babysitter to drop us off. My wife picks up her phone, which up to this point hasn’t been used (she had intended to leave it at home for the evening), and sees a missed call. Tries the number, no answer. So off we go, son in the back, babysitter driving. The wife’s phone rings, it’s the taxi driver.
“Hi, you weren’t there when I came to pick you up”
“Yes we were, we were standing outside of the house for the best part of half an hour”
“Oh. Well I didn’t see you. I tried ringing you”
“Did you ring the number that was used to order the taxi?”
“Yes”
“No you didn’t. The number you are calling right now is a different phone to the one used to make the order.”
“Oh. But you weren’t there when I came.”
“Did you come to the house?”
Starts getting a bit vague…”errr, yeah, I didn’t see you there”
“Did you actually come to the house or just wait on the road?”
“On the road”
“But we asked for you to come to the house”
“Yeah, I saw that. But your drive looks really long…”
At that point my wife hung up.

And then on the way home we had to use the same shower of muppets. The driver stopped at the wrong building for the pick-up – we could see a taxi coming down the road, and he stopped outside a bar about 300 yards away for a few minutes before starting up again and coming to the right place. And then he went the long way round a particular section of the route home, missing a short cut which would have taken a mile or so off the journey. Claimed he didn’t know about it. I could even see that his sat-nav had directed him on it, but he said he was driving the way he knows, and doesn’t follow the sat-nav because it can send you the wrong way…

I think my first aim is to take photos that I like and improve my composition and learn what all the different modes on the camera do. So maybe choose a project which I can’t think of and start snapping etc. Just I’m useless at inspiring myself.

Join one of the forums mentioned by others up there ^^^. They often have a ‘weekly challenge’ which is just a theme for you to base your photography for that week. Then you post up one or two pics on the forum and will get some feedback. So one week it may be ‘straight lines’, the next it might be ‘red’, then ‘speed’, then ‘old’, then ‘seating’… you get the picture. The point is not the subject itself, but it will give you something to focus on. You can generally interpret the theme whichever way you want, and you will be surprised at the many and varied ways in which others will interpret an apparently simple theme. It will open your mind to different ways of thinking about a given subject matter.

So you go about your daily business looking for things that fit that week’s theme. Once you spot something, you can start thinking about how to shoot it in an interesting way.

Set yourself the goal of submitting a photo for each round, don’t shy away from one because you aren’t immediately hit with an idea. Have the theme in the back of you head at work, on your commute, while you browse Flickr for inspiration. If you see someone else’s pic and decide to take a similar one, do credit them. So you might post up your pic by saying “I was inspired by <this picture> by <name> over on Flickr, here’s my interpretation of it”

The best way to get better at photography is to take photos, and weekly photo challenges are a great way to a) take lots of photos and b) push yourself to think outside of your normal lines of thought.

I’ve got one of these:

which knocks off 1/4 acre of slightly-sloping, irregular shaped lawn, with various trees and a big trampoline in the middle, in about 30 minutes. On average I’d need to do two empties of the catcher, if I’m not mulching.

Before I got the ride-on did it with my old 4-stroke push mower, took about three hours, most of which was spent emptying the catcher. Was good for fitness, mind.

Maintenance has so far been a doddle, it’s not a very complicated bit of kit. Do try to have a test ride on a few different models, though. Forward/backward motion on mine is controlled by hand, using a lever next to the seat. Others are controlled by a foot-pedal, similar to a a car. I have been told the latter are better, but didn’t see much of difference myself. The steering is very light and easy to do single-handed. The main advantage of the foot-control seems to be that you can steer with one hand and hold your beer in the other :D

I admit this is falling for sharkattack’s issue, but is your 2yo really running around totally unsupervised? We’re talking about you leaving your house here if I’ve understood correctly, so assuming he’s not being left on his own the answer appears rather obvious.

Spot on, if I’m off out in the car then my wife will be at home with the boy. He’s never unsupervised, but the garden is a couple of acres, so sometimes he’s supervised at a distance. Always within line of sight, though, and as long as we know what he’s up to. So we’re happy for him to go off exploring ‘on his own’ but one of us will be following him discreetly. I don’t even know why I’m writing this, as one of the trolls parenting experts will no doubt be along shortly to explain how this will lead to delinquency and untold other problems down the line.

In reality, though, it is extremely unlikely that he would ever be behind the car while I’m reversing. If one of us is in the car, he will be with the other one of us, who will be aware of the car and keeping an eye on him. But there is still a blind spot there, which is a hazard I don’t like, and a camera would help to eliminate it.
Nice gate, trail_rat :-) except the trellis looks like it would be a great ladder to get up to the big circular window (assuming it’s unglazed…). To be honest he could probably just squeeze though one of the gaps, he’s lean as a whippet. And it’s not a yard with a neighbour’s fence conveniently close to the house, between which I could put such a lovely climbing frame gate.

Note to self – in future, just stick to simple requests for info, such as “I want a rear-view camera for my car, which one should I get?” without trying to give any context or background info… :D

sharkattack – I’ve lurked on here long enough that I knew what to expect – and also that there’d be some useful answers mixed in there too. So thanks to those who contributed :-)

Like the idea of a collar, except he never stops moving so the noise would drive me nuts!

And b r, have considered using mirrors but I’d need two or three, ideally convex. Still might be worth a shot.

But I like gadgets, so I reckon a camera is the way forward for now… an ebay special might find its way under the Christmas tree.

I agree that fixing the issue is the ideal situation, but that basically means fencing, and lots of it, given the layout of the garden. Reversing into the drive isn’t an option – it’s 250m long, single lane, not even vaguely straight, and 1:4 gradient for about half its length. Have to do a 3-point turn at the bottom to drive out forwards again, and usually reverse into or out of the car port.

Cameras still have blind spots, personally I wouldn’t be able to forgive myself if I reversed over my kid because I was looking atba TV screen rather than addressing the issue.

Totally agree with this, I’m thinking that a camera will allow me to check/eliminate a known blind spot before I start reversing. I’m not planning on reversing using just what I can see on the screen.

I basically see it as continuing to do as I currently do, but with the added bonus of being sure he’s not right behind the car as I set off. A small improvement on the status quo.

MarkLG – was yours an OEM/car specific one, or a generic model? Is the wiring easy? Guess it depends on how easy it is to get internal panels off and on again?

This

A single piece of paper scrunched up. Kindling piled like a teepee around the paper. Once the paper is lit, give enough air for wood to take, then add ever so slightly increasing bits of wood until you have proper log pieces.

and this

Ours, bit of ash, bed of scrunched newspaper, chuck kindling on top, place log on top, light, leave door open about 1cm. Bingo!

both work for me. The key difference is that with the first you have to keep tending it, adding bigger bits of kindling, then bits of wood, then logs. With the second you spend maybe 30 seconds building it, light it and walk away. Around fifteen minutes later (time will vary according to your stove, wood type etc. etc.) the log will be roaring away merrily, well on the way to becoming a bed of embers and you can just chuck more logs on top.

If I have the time I much prefer the first method, as I like playing with fire :twisted: but if I’ve just got in from work and need the fire on asap and also need to get tea on or something, the ‘top down’ method, as it is known, wins every time.

A morepork. Got at least one in my garden, I can hear it/them calling, but have never seen one. Will have to do a stake-out one night…

The car was clearly hit by the prop of a very small plane…

A bit like this, but smaller:

Not had one myself, but I occasionally work with a guy at our local council who has just had both knees replaced with titanium ones. Says he wishes he’d had it done sooner, is now living entirely without pain and without having to take any painkillers. Only downside is the extra paperwork required to get through international airports…

I just bought one of these off ebay: Click

Seems to work ok so far, plenty of light output, can adjust the light level at which it comes on, the sensitivity and the duration of the light when on sensor mode (PIR), or can be just switched on-off like a standard light.

There aren’t a huge number of long back-country routes. Me and some mates did the Moerangi route recently, it’s only 35km but has some testing climbs. It’s remote, and you’ll need to organise a ride/pick-up there or back. There’s a farmer nearby who’s set up with a bike trailer and van who can do this, a quick google should find his details.

Alternatively you could spend a couple of long days at Rotorua without riding the same bit twice. A lot of it is very trail-centre-ish but it’s through stunning scenery and there are some great outback-type trails out towards Blue Lake and Green Lake.

Taupo is an hour from Rotorua and there are miles of trails at Craters of the Moon, plus a pleasant trail from Craters down to the Aratiatia dam and back up along river to the lake.

Ask on vorb.org, it’s way, way quieter than STW but there may be some locals to give more detailed knowledge or offer to take you out and show you some trails.

I’ve always used between a level and a generous teaspoon (about 5-10g) of Irish moss added to the boil 10-15 minutes before the end. I then usually ferment for at least two weeks, usually closer to three, maybe even four if I’m busy and don’t get time to bottle/keg it. I never use a secondary FV (mainly cos I’m lazy, partly because each time you transfer you risk contamination). I’ve mostly had perfectly clear beers, occasionally one with some ‘haze’, but never anything that remotely resembles cloudy.

Sounds like you’re already achieving a fast cool-down post-boil using your immersion chiller, so between the Irish moss and the chiller you should achieve clear or almost-clear beers every time.

Also, you say you pour the cooled wort into the FV, perhaps try siphoning instead. Once you’ve cooled the wort, put the lid on and leave it for half an hour for the break material to drop out and form a layer of sediment. You could even do a poor-man’s ‘whirlpool’ at this stage, which is a fancy way of saying give it a good stir in a circular fashion, as fast as you can, then leave it until it goes still, then leave it a bit longer for good measure as there will still be movement under the surface. Eventually the suspended solids should form a nice tidy cone in the middle of the bottom of the pan. You can then siphon the clear wort into the FV without disturbing the cone.

Even if you don’t whirlpool, try leaving the wort for a bit after chilling, as solids will still drop out. Then, either carefully siphon into the FV, rather than pouring, or if your boiler has a tap (as per John Drummer’s suggestion above) you could use this as it will empty the vessel from above the level of sediment.

One thing that took me a few brews to get my head around, was building losses into my process. That is, just accept that you will leave a bit of liquid in the boiler/pan when you transfer to the FV; you will lose a little more if you transfer to secondary; and lose more still when you transfer to bottles. The bit you lose is the last few hundred ml before you hit the trub/sediment. You basically sacrifice that small amount to avoid transferring unwanted solids with your wort/beer. Don’t try to get every last drop of liquid with each transfer.

You could also cold-crash after fermenting, which singletrackmind described. Basically, once you’re happy that fermentation is over, move the FV to a fridge for a couple of days (or more) and various proteins – which can cause a hazy/cloudy appearance – will drop out. You can then bottle it and bottle-condition. Even though a lot of the yeast will drop out with the cold-crash, some will survive and should be plenty for the tiny amount of further fermentation needed to carbonate the beer.

There’s a corner near my house on my commute where this used to happen a couple of times a week. Going round a tight 90-degree right-hand blind bend, the centre line widens to about 600mm of hatching around the curve. If drivers overtake on the bend, which they frequently do, they tend to give so much room that half their vehicle is in the oncoming lane, and they have about 10m of visibility ahead…

While they may, on the face of it, be doing me a favour by giving me 1.5 – 2m of space, any car coming round the bend the other way is going to hit them and drive them backwards and sideways directly into me… So now I just take the lane, but even then I have to pretty much ride on the inside of the hatching to stop drivers attempting the overtake.

Back when we first got together, me and my wife went camping at Nant Peris, with the aim of doing a few walks. Stayed in what was essentially just a field, opposite the pub. Got up and packed early, drove four hours there, pitched the tent, had an early lunch. We then set off up Snowdon, noticing that the summit was poking into the clouds. We got to the top, visibility was <20m, took photos at the trig and set off back down, expecting to get out from under the cloud pretty quickly.

Except the cloud was dropping as fast or faster than we were, it was right down to ground level at Nant Peris, and starting to drizzle. The drizzle turned to rain. The wind got up. And then got stronger. We tightened all the guy ropes, even tied on the ones that we’d never quite got round to fitting when the tent was new, and moved the car (Audi A3, so not particularly big) to act as a wind-break.

At this point the wind was getting ridiculous, and there was a group of cubs on the other side of the field who were obviously starting to struggle. Their tents were old-school flat-sided canvas things. Their mess tent was huge, and was acting like a sail, with tables and cooking gear getting knocked about when the wind ripped the tent and the sides stated flapping about into the tent. So I left my girlfriend standing in our tent, propping up the poles from the inside to stop it collapsing in the stronger gusts, and went to help the cub scout leaders as best I could.

About an hour later, the rain still lashing down sideways, I got back to our tent soaked to the bone. We huddled in the tent for a bit, watched some small tents get ripped from the ground and blown away, decided ours wasn’t going anywhere and went to the pub.

We had some massive gammon steaks and a drop of ale, then stayed in the pub until we decided to brave it back to the tent for the night. We legged it across the boggy field, dried off and went to bed. A couple of hours later it was still belting down and the wind was even stronger, our tent was being flattened over us (pretty much to the ground) during strong gusts, and popping back up inbetween, which meant we couldn’t get to sleep, and by now the tent had developed leaks where the seams had stretched under the strain, so we were getting wet.

So at 1am we moved the car facing into the wind, and backed up to the tent. We opened the boot and just folded the tent into it straight from the ground, full of gear, and drove 4 hours home.

All in all we were only away from home about 20 hours!

I took my son to daycare in a front-mounted seat from 7 1/2 months. 7km on quiet roads and off-road cycle lanes (concrete/asphalt). Back then I’d slow right down to walking pace for things like dropped kerbs, even a 1″ kerb face causes a reasonable bump. But then my son is a bit of a monster physically (99th percentile height & weight) and very, err, robust, for want of a better word.

There can be a world of difference physically between kids at that age. Some will be pulling themselves up on furniture, some will not even have rolled over yet. Most will be somewhere in-between. So while it may be generally unsuitable to put a kid in a bike seat that early, for some kids it is fine. Having said that, off-road is a whole different beast, even the small but constant wobbling from fire roads could be very tiring for a big head on a small neck.

I have, but I suspect it won’t be of any use to you… NZ Post do their own re-shipping from the US and the UK to NZ. Works a treat :)

Oh well… at least your thread is back near the top of the pile for a few minutes.

Houns – Member
Hmmm anyone ever use a bell to grab a drivers attention??!

No, I use my AirZound[/url] for that. Works a treat, has caused a couple of drivers to back off, who would otherwise have caused me to take evasive action.

6’2″, 34″ inside leg, 20″ five is spot on.

It’s the gubbermint getting to you through your car, you clearly need to give the car a tin-foil hat – start by covering the roof, you may need to go the whole hog though:

bigyinn – Member
You do know the brake hose is meant to run on the inside of the outer leg?

You might just be right, but I haven’t got my STW conformity guide handy to check… In fact, come to think of it the hose is about an inch too long, too, but that’s the way it was set up when I got my grubby mitts on it and it’s not caused any problems in five years so that’s the way its going to stay. So nerr. :wink:

Some random grom at my local skate park. Not a spectacular move, but it was his first ever drop in, he spent about 10 minutes at the top building up the courage, had the whole crowd cheering for him.

Jamie – Member

I just sold mine. I know it’s the style, but it squished everything a bit too much for me.

Most have a little slidey knob thingy on the side that both locks the lid down when not in use and also allows you to set the mimimum distance that the plates can get to each other. This allows you eliminate overly-squished sandwiches.

And shredded roast chicken, avocado and cracked black pepper FTW.

Every winter my grandma puts a white poinsettia on a side table in the living room. One year my grandad found a very similar plant – same shape, number of flowers etc, but with red flowers and switched it. My grandma was convinced it had magically changed colour overnight, and was even more shocked when it kept changing colour every three days or so…

In a similar vein my mum’s favourite painter is Jack Vettriano, and one year my dad bought her a print of her favourite work, which lives on the living room wall:

At some point he bought another print:

And swapped it with the one on the wall. She walked past it numerous times a day for months and never noticed, so he changed it back. Again she never noticed. My brother and sister both noticed when they were at home visiting (I hope I would have done too but live overseas!) and asked my dad, so they were all in on it for about a year before mum cottoned on.

I can’t for the life of me remember where it is, but somewhere in north London there’s a hedge growing through a landrover. Kinda like this:

(Not my pic, belongs to this person > click[/url]

Currently, it’s Where is the Green Sheep?, but prior to The Boy arriving… as a kid I read the Famous Five, Secret Seven and Hardy Boys series probably a dozen times over. Terry Pratchett’s Diggers, Truckers and Wings also got read a few times. As a teenager/adult, I’ve read a couple of the Discworld novels a few times and Stephen King’s IT, The Stand and Pet Sematary four or five times each. Oh, and Robinson Crusoe.

These days I’ve generally got a backlog of books that I haven’t read yet, so find it hard to justify re-visiting something I’ve read before.

This is nothing new, there was some fuss last year when some Brits were refused visas on the grounds of weight.

It was the same when I moved here 5+ years ago, part of the visa requirement was a medical, they could have refused me on a number of health matters, obesity being just one. Luckily I am proper lanky, so no probs for me 8)

Cheers folks. I’ve seen a few vests online with floats in, but they all seem quite bulky. Might need to keep looking. Good point about swimming with older kids, he’s the youngest at his daycare (small group, in-home place) and has come on in leaps and bounds. He’s ahead of where he ‘should’ be with a lot of skills and watching him play with the others I think it’s due to trying to keep up with the big kids.

A wee-ride non-believer here… had one and didn’t get on with it at all. There’s a wee bit of flex in my frame/seat post, so that when I adjusted the wee-ride bar to the perfect length off the bike, when I sat on the saddle the bike ‘stretched’ enough that the wee-ride bar put pressure on the steerer tube and made the steering sluggish. Admittedly I had the wee-rise bar attached to a spacer under the stem, as it was the only place it would physically fit (Spesh Rockhopper). I’ve not heard anyone else mention this problem though so it may just have been user-error. And the straps were a faff, although this was an older model and I think they’ve changed them to something which looks more sensible now.

I ended up with a Yepp Mini, which is brilliant. IMO it outperforms the Wee-ride in every way. Overall it’s lighter than the wee-ride. The bracket which stays mounted to your bike is smaller, more discreet and weighs less than the wee-ride bar. The seat can be clipped and unclipped from the bike one-handed in 1-2 seconds. It also sits slightly higher and further forward than the wee-ride so doesn’t get in the way of your knees as much.

McMoonter, a DIY splitter would be ideal, except:
1. I have no idea where to source cheap metal bits (I’m in NZ, not UK)
2. I don’t have welding equipment
3. I can’t weld
4. Taking into account how much I faff during projects like this, and how much spare time I have to build one, it would take years.

I watched a few youtube videos of manual splitters and they certainly are slow, but seem to do the job.

Northwind – Member
Those manual splitters are seriously slow- good for doing problem logs and quite satisfying (though really twisted logs kind of explode rather than splitting, has the potential for trouble!) but I wouldn’t want to do a lot of splitting that way.

I actually quite enjoy chopping wood by hand, so I think this might be the route I end up taking – getting a cheap manual splitter for the tough stuff but doing the majority by hand.

I might even look into renting a powered splitter for a few hours once I’ve done everything I can do by hand.

Anyone used one of these, or similar:
?

Powered ones are mucho expensivo, and not worth the outlay considering I could really do it all by hand, given enough time. Some tougher bits are a real bugger though, especially knotty ones. The one pictured is a 10t splitter, so is it too puny? Or would it be too time consuming compared to a powered one?

Looks much easier than the 7lb splitting maul I was using all day yesterday (desk-jockey during the week, so feeling it today!)

Unfortunately only about 20% of my wood is knot-free like the bits he’s chopping :( Some of it has defeated me and will instead be dissected with a chainsaw next weekend.

The tyre trick looks good – half of the effort seems to go on picking split wood off the floor, but I’d need a truck tyre for some for the bits I’m splitting…

I have the same problem as my boy is about to grow out of his front-mounted seat and I wanted to avoid the ruck-sack-in-the-face situation. That, and I have two bags to carry – the boy’s rucksack and my pannier.

I currently have the Xtracycle bits in the spare bedroom ready to turn the commuter into a cargo bike (see Stoner’s post above), as it worked out about half the price of a cargo bike (I’m in NZ though, so price comparisons may be different for you). Part of me can’t wait to do the build, part of me still wants to get my money’s worth out of the front seat – the boy has almost outgrown it at 19 months…

I reckon if the herc was going as slow as possible, and Mr Macaskill was riding backwards towards to the ramp – i.e. facing the front of the plane, but travelling backwards – then he did one of those annoyingly-easy-looking-anti-gravity-hops off the end of the ramp, he’d effectively hit the ground the same as if he’d just done a small jump off a ramp at 50mph, or whatever the plane’s equivalent ground speed was. Might be a bit hairy for second or two but I’m sure not that dramatic compared to some of the stuff he’s done before.

Not really an overtake, but my commute home takes me on a dirt path along the edge of an estuary, and there are sections with trees/bushes on both sides and overhead, giving a tunnel-like effect. Recently I startled some small birds – sparrows maybe – which were enjoying a dust-bath in the middle of the path. They took flight and flew ahead of me for about a hundred meters or so, going at the same pace, climbing and diving all over the place. They were just a metre or two in front of my bars, looked ace, kinda like the Deathstar chase scene (but with sparrows instead of X-wings).

I bought a chainsaw when we moved to our current house, as the garden is mostly jungly hillside. When using it I am almost paranoid about safety, and always remember something written on a past STW chainsaw thread – “there’s no such thing as a minor chainsaw injury”.

The main thing I do is to check before every cut that there isn’t something behind the branch I’m cutting, which the tip could come into contact with and cause a kick-back. And also, for every cut, run through the whole cut in your mind before you start and work out the flight path of the bar/chain if there is a kick-back. Then try to avoid having any body parts in that path… it’s a slightly time-consuming process but time very well spent IMO.

I also spent a bit of time practising kick-back, that is to say, deliberately experiencing it in a controlled way so I know what it feels like and how it occurs. Search youtube, there are plenty of examples of how to do it safely with the minimum amount of risk.

Just to drag the thread back on topic… when I was about six my family was on a camping holiday in Wales, Aberystwyth I think, and I was riding my Raleigh Burner round the site wearing nothing but a pair of shorts (and they were fairly short shorts, this being the 80’s).

I had a bit of a wobble and landed in a ditch full of nettles. The old couple in the caravan nearby heard the sobbing and rescued me, and covered me in calamine lotion dabbed on with pink loo roll. I have had a hatred of pink loo roll ever since! :|

Ladies and gentlemen, my mother!

A couple of weeks ago my mum ‘liked’ a picture on facebook which was basically a short text bemoaning the fact that your average illegal immigrant in Britain gets hundreds of pounds a week without having to work or pay taxes, a free five-bed semi and generally leads a pretty cushy life, while a proper British pensioner who paid taxes all their life only gets thrupence ha’penny and lump of coal to suck on.

I typed the first line into Google and it returned a Snopes page, which I sent to my mum.

To be fair she was just being very naive, and asked why someone would post it up in the first place if it wasn’t true. She generally tries to see the best in people and it just hadn’t occurred to her that someone might post that bilge to stir up hatred.

NZO Dobies or Ground Effect Supertankers are both quite slim fitting.