Author Archive.

Pragmatism and Purism lose out to Painkillers and Purlins

Posted by on May 28th 2009 in Astrostuff, Health, or lack thereof, Making stuff, Projects
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The Coniston Fells rematch has had to be postponed due to my lack of confidence that my back will stay the course. It's a great disappointment on several levels, not least because I was hoping to take Ella with me for her first wildie. MWIS predicts that the weather's going to be really good over the weekend, so it would have been a great opportunity to introduce her to a couple of days and nights without most of the techno-trappings of life as she knows it.

Never mind, there'll be plenty of other chances.

It looks like I'll be taking it easy and finishing the observatory roof and the bathroom refurb instead.

There's no peace for the wicked, eh?

At sixes and sevens

Posted by on May 25th 2009 in Just for fun, On the box
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Another "WTF?", this one is brought to you from Freeview:

Observatory progress – Phase 6

Posted by on May 24th 2009 in Astrostuff, Making stuff, Projects
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OK, we now have the beginnings of a roof, thanks to the help provided by Ella during the last two days:
 

 

 

Tomorrow we'll see if it fits.

New theme

Posted by on May 23rd 2009 in Site update
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OK, I know it looks pretty much the same as the old one, but this one's easier to adapt and seems to be loading a lot faster than the theme I was using before. Just in case you're wondering, the theme is Mike Little's Journalized Theme Version 2, with a skin that I've copied and hacked to get the colours and placements that I wanted.

There are still a few minor changes to be done before it looks and acts as planned, but I'll have to sort them tomorrow. The "to do" list includes:

  • Add the link to the contact page Done (there's a link in the page nav)
  • Add the Copyright and Creative Commons statements Done
  • Add the Link Badges widget Done
  • Add the IYA link/logo Done
  • Add the Comment Ownership statement Done

For now it should all be working fine, but if there are any serious glitches, I'm sure you'll let me know.

Observatory progress – Phase 5

Posted by on May 22nd 2009 in Astrostuff, Making stuff, Projects
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Construction of the observatory continues apace, mainly due to a complete disregard for the useless instructions included with the parts. Phase 5 is now complete:
 
The sides were double-proofed inside and out before assembly, and the few gaps have been filled with mastic. The walls are now up, square and level, cross-braced where required and fixed with many more than the recommended number of screws. The instructions said to put the walls onto the floor panels, but that's just mad - if ever the flooring had to come up, the walls would have to be taken down first, which would mean taking the roof off (if fitted). Commonsense said to put the walls directly onto the floor-frame (see previous post) and then fit the floor inside.
 
The supplied 9mm OSB floor-sections were dismantled and their boards, along with the 9mm OSB roof-boards, were used to line the inside of the walls.
 
A proper 18mm "waterproof" T&G chipboard panel floor was fitted, complete with a lift-out section surrounding the pier to allow easy access to the fixing malarkey and the concrete foundation beneath it.
 

obsystitch

 

obsmay003

 

The coming week should see the completion of Phase 6 - the fitting of the roof, which should be a masterpiece of timber over-engineering.

Time will tell.

The postman arrived early today

Posted by on May 18th 2009 in Rambling on...
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... about 3 years and 2 months early, by my reckoning:

 

cheeky

Cheeky feckers!

:evil:
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