Mostly Harmless

Blowing off steam

The sins of my "reputable local builder":

1. Sheeting-over an upstairs extension while the roof was still open, prior to a rainstorm - but leaving an unstopped gutter-end protruding under the sheet...
2. Telling me I'd be without a bathroom (the one where the bath is) for two-and-a-half weeks. So far it's been six...
3. Offering me a discount which turned out to be 100.5%  of the retail price from the same supplier.
   
4. Failing to tell me they'd chipped the shower tray.
5. Accidentally destroying the shower tray anyway (after it was tiled-in).
6. "Modifying" the new shower door, with an angle-grinder, in order to more easily assemble it incorrectly.
   

 Well, that feels better!

Posted at 02:05PM Sep 09, 2008 by John Alderson in Life, Jim...  |  Comments[0]

Swotwiches

Most weekdays, in term-time, I am shuffling about the kitchen making packed lunches for wife and kids before 7 a.m. (Yes, I know, they should do this themselves.)

Over time I have got fed up with those little plastic "sandwich bags" which come on a roll (I was fed up with clingfilm already). For one thing, the sandwiches change size and shape depending on what loaf we are using, while the bags are always the same size - namely too baggy or too tight. For another thing it seems like a large number of plastic bags to be throwing away just for the sake of defending an apple from a bit of mayonnaise for a couple of hours.

So, one morning when I was feeling less groggy than usual I grabbed a bit of greaseproof and string and did it the old way. It was fiddly at first but after a few mornings I became quite slick at it. When we make things more convenient we often make them duller. I look forward to tying up the sandwiches now because it exercises a small competence, and it is possible to take pride in a neatly tied bundle.

Anyway, things haven't stopped there. One of my brood reports that she is a bit behind on learning German vocabulary. She understands that just spending 10 minutes a day on this will make all the difference but she never remembers to do it. I note that she does, however, remember to eat her sandwiches.

The consequence of this observation is shown below - and has been a runaway success. But is it Green Synergy, Lateral Thinking, or Just a Bit Weird?

Posted at 11:59AM Mar 22, 2007 by John Alderson in Life, Jim...  |  Comments[2]

A Spark from The Past

To the right we see a CASIO fx80 - a 20th century design classic, leaning on the heavy cardboard box I made for it around the time I did my A-levels. These days it is regularly used for household accounting.

Centre-stage is the pair of AA batteries that came with the calculator. I installed them some time in 1979 or 1980 and since then they have never left the battery compartment until I took this photo a few days ago.

I took them out because the display was going dim. But when I put a new pair in the display was still dim - so it looks like the batteries have outlived the device they were powering!

When digging one of today's "top of the range" batteries out of a remote control, which had been damaged by leakage after only a year, I would think wistfully "if only I could install a pair of those sublimely overspecified CASIO batteries". Now it looks like I can. I mean - what's a mere 27 years to one of these guys?

Posted at 01:21PM Mar 21, 2007 by John Alderson in Life, Jim...  |  Comments[2]