technolog's tales of domestic bliss, DIY & other nonsense

[Des]

Jack - I have laughed so much at your blog in recent days that I wanted you to know you are just a top top bloke.  One of the best.

[Laxie]

FML. RSQmastery awaits. It"s been nice knowing yer.

Was a little bored with it to be honest - but my enthusiasm has been renewed

I was robbed...ROBBED I tell ya.  Prepare for ZERO mercy on reveal night Mr.!!!

Or you could just, you know, introduce APATers to it...

What kind of quiz do ya think we"re having in Killarney then?  They"re going to get the introduction of a life time!!!

[technolog]

FML. RSQmastery awaits. It"s been nice knowing yer.

Was a little bored with it to be honest - but my enthusiasm has been renewed

I was robbed...ROBBED I tell ya.  Prepare for ZERO mercy on reveal night Mr.!!!

Errm, Dawn?

Will you be wielding the big whip and donning the thigh lengths?

[technolog]

I must have somehow made my way into my room (a minor miracle in itself). I"m guessing that I must have got up to go to the toilet. By the way, which idiot decided to put the bathroom door right next to the door to the hotel corridor?

I obviously made the fateful error of taking the corridor option and it was at this point, on hearing the "click" of the door locking behind me, that my eyes snapped open like roller blinds in a Tom & Jerry cartoon and my long-lost sobriety was at once, total and assured.

I must have stood there in stunned disbelief for several seconds, possibly minutes, as I came to terms with the stark reality and downright terror of the situation I found myself in. It didn"t take too long to realise that my options were limited. I had no phone, no clothes, no clue as to friends" rooms. No options.

It dawned on me that I would have to make my way to the hotel lobby and get a new key card.

F.

M.

L.

All I can say is that the seven, long months of dieting & exercising to lose 7 stones, 18 months previously were worth it a thousand-fold just for those few, short seconds of still-humiliating embarrassment.

And I"m sorry kinboshi, but the fact that the reception was staffed that night by a man is definitely proof that there is a God.

Hmmm......just to make you feel a little better Jack, I did exactly the same thing in Newquay in 2002. The person in the next room had had room service so I had a napkin (plenty big enough) to hide my modesty, but with the principle difference being your weight loss and my lack of it ...., I"ll never forget the look on the night porters face, nuff said.

I have "previous" too Rich. About 17 years ago, I went wandering round a (much) smaller hotel. On that occasion I managed to make it back to the room without meeting anyone. Think I might have left a damp cupboard somewhere though

[technolog]

Jack - I have laughed so much at your blog in recent days that I wanted you to know you are just a top top bloke.  One of the best.

Ok Des, what is it? Do you need to borrow some money or summat

[technolog]

FML. RSQmastery awaits. It"s been nice knowing yer.

Was a little bored with it to be honest - but my enthusiasm has been renewed

I was robbed...ROBBED I tell ya.  Prepare for ZERO mercy on reveal night Mr.!!!

Or you could just, you know, introduce APATers to it...

Now there"s an idea Adam!

Come on guys and gals! Come and join in ripping the michael out of me, over on blonde

RSQ 44 - or technolog gets his @rse handed to him

[duke3016]

So going to enter this one

[Curlarge]

I must have somehow made my way into my room (a minor miracle in itself). I"m guessing that I must have got up to go to the toilet. By the way, which idiot decided to put the bathroom door right next to the door to the hotel corridor?

I obviously made the fateful error of taking the corridor option and it was at this point, on hearing the "click" of the door locking behind me, that my eyes snapped open like roller blinds in a Tom & Jerry cartoon and my long-lost sobriety was at once, total and assured.

I must have stood there in stunned disbelief for several seconds, possibly minutes, as I came to terms with the stark reality and downright terror of the situation I found myself in. It didn"t take too long to realise that my options were limited. I had no phone, no clothes, no clue as to friends" rooms. No options.

It dawned on me that I would have to make my way to the hotel lobby and get a new key card.

F.

M.

L.

All I can say is that the seven, long months of dieting & exercising to lose 7 stones, 18 months previously were worth it a thousand-fold just for those few, short seconds of still-humiliating embarrassment.

And I"m sorry kinboshi, but the fact that the reception was staffed that night by a man is definitely proof that there is a God.

Hmmm......just to make you feel a little better Jack, I did exactly the same thing in Newquay in 2002. The person in the next room had had room service so I had a napkin (plenty big enough) to hide my modesty, but with the principle difference being your weight loss and my lack of it ...., I"ll never forget the look on the night porters face, nuff said.

I have "previous" too Rich. About 17 years ago, I went wandering round a (much) smaller hotel. On that occasion I managed to make it back to the room without meeting anyone. Think I might have left a damp cupboard somewhere though

Perhaps we should "room" next door to each other in Killarney and have a secret system so as not to alert anyone else just in case

[Laxie]

FML. RSQmastery awaits. It"s been nice knowing yer.

Was a little bored with it to be honest - but my enthusiasm has been renewed

I was robbed...ROBBED I tell ya.  Prepare for ZERO mercy on reveal night Mr.!!!

Errm, Dawn?

Will you be wielding the big whip and donning the thigh lengths?

Damn!  I"ll be in Paris as it happens.  Although the attire while there?  Suppose that"s a possibility.....

[technolog]

My boiler went tits up on Monday. I"m an electrician by trade so was able to diagnose the internal fan as the culprit.

I checked a few places and managed to find one in stock locally at £158 - fml. It wasn"t too bad actually as the other prices I"d seen on the net were £300 and £178.

I didn"t look too closely at it and assumed that the only way to get access to change the fan was to take the boiler off the wall. As I didn"t want to be messing with gas connections I got the phone number of a (semi-retired as it turns out) plumber and arranged for him to come and change it on Wednesday morning whilst I was at work (under Petch"s supervision after his night shift).

Before I went to work I got the new fan out for him and it was immediately obvious that it actually fitted from below and could be replaced with the boiler in situ. Bugger. The plumber was on his way now anyway and it would save me a tricky job so hey-ho - gg another £55 for his 45 minutes work (actually I can"t really grumble at that).

So, fan changed, the boiler sparks up and plumber man gets on his way.

11 minutes later, according to Petch in a call to me at work, the boiler goes off again and won"t come back on. God love him, Petch is a fantastic bloke and in some ways very clever. But anything technical and you might as well forget it. So I took it with a pinch of salt and assumed either the programmer or roomstat had switched off.

However when I got home I soon found that the boiler had in deed packed-up again.

By now, after a couple of days without heating and one night"s good frost, it was a little chilly to say the least.

I set about finding the cause of the problem. It was clear quite quickly that it was a totally different fault.

Eventually I found the fuse for the heating in the airing cupboard had blown. I changed it and the pump beside me immediately sprang into life. However the boiler steadfastly refused to fire.

I"ve made some further investigations tonight, following the fault-finding flowchart to a dead end

I can only assume it"s the printed circuit board. Initial searches put it in the £150 bracket.

On closer inspection, I think I found the cause of the fault. On the casing of the new fan there"s a tiny little "splash" mark as if something shorted to earth. There"s a pressure switch adjacent to the fan which I had to change a year or two ago. When I bodged repaired it, I taped up the terminals after I"d removed the insulating boots for test purposes. I reckon when he changed the fan, he shoved the pressure switch back in a bit tight against the fan casing and the terminals cut through the tape & touched the casing, blowing the fuse and damaging the PCB.

I"m a bit nervous though as the PCB looks absolutely perfect and £150 is a lot to spend on a hunch. I reckon I"ll ring Baxi, the manufacturers, and run it past them to get their opinion.

All being well, so long as I can get a replacement, I"ll be nice and toasty this time tomorrow

[duke3016]

GG WP NH

[Des]

...yeah, and summer"s coming anyway....

[technolog]

Having trouble sleeping at the moment

It"s something I very rarely suffer from. Normally I"m asleep within 5 minutes of my head hitting the pillow and don"t stir until the alarm. I only have 5 or 6 hours but it"s high quality stuff.

Since Christmas I"ve been struggling to get off - as in hours rather than minutes - not every night but enough for it to become a pain in the @rse. I think I"ve fecked my body clock up or summat. I was watching the cricket at Christmas and had some really late nights. These carried on somewhat after my return to work in the New Year - stopping up until lunch in the cricket and only getting 3 or 4 hours on a pretty regular basis.

I"ve also had a couple of big weekends since Christmas too. I don"t think this has done me any favours either (despite snatching a few minutes on the way to my room one night )

Now I think it"s got to the stage where I"m worrying about not sleeping There"s nothing worse than lying in bed not being able to drop off.

So after 3 bad nights on the trot I decided to see the doc. As I said to him, I reckon I"ve lost more sleep in the month and a bit since Christmas than I have in the last 10 years. He asked if I had anything on my mind (yeah, right!) or if I had any weight loss . He checked my blood pressure and found it to be very high - I think he said 180/110 . This is very disappointing because when I was at my lightest and going to the gym regularly my blood pressure was absolutely perfect. I"ll have to keep an eye on that (I"ve got my own machine).

So he"s got me in for a blood test on Wednesday to check for liver function (I reckon he read about the Bolton trip) and thyroid problems. Personally, I don"t think there"s much wrong as I feel absolutely fine.

He also prescribed some sleeping tablets to sort me out short-term, amitriptylene. I had my first one last night and it seemed to do the trick. I reckon I"ll just try "em for a week at most to see if that allows me to get back to my normal pattern.

[duke3016]

It"s the lifestyle Jack - drinking every night, red meat, smoking, no exercise - oh wait - move on nothing to see here.

Look after yourself.

[Laxie]

It"s the lifestyle Jack - drinking every night, red meat, smoking, no exercise - oh wait - move on nothing to see here.

Look after yourself.

You wanna start me off again Mr.?!