Other What currently makes your life awesome?

This morning I finally vanquished my nemesis and fixed the damn toilet downstairs. We are now back to having two working toilets in the house.

Yesterday I re-arranged the lounge to give us more space in there, and I finally have some space for "proper" VR gaming again. Telly feels like it's an awfully long way away now, but it's a much better use of the space overall. Didn't take me anywhere near as long as I thought it would.

For the first time in a long time, today I genuinely felt like I hadn't just wasted my weekend. Happily spent several hours parked on my arse gaming this afternoon and didn't once feel guilty about doing it.

 

Satisfying indeed. I need to do work on both of ours. The one downstairs needs a new seat and a SUPER deep clean, including inside the cistern - it just doesn't get a lot of use so has water stood in there for weeks at a time and the upstairs one needs all new cistern internals for both filling and emptying, plus a new seat. The seat isn't critical and works fine, a little loose in the hinge, but we want to replace it with a Japanese style one at some point, just need to save the pennies and work out how I am going to sort out the wiring.

 

My daughter's bedroom is clear the other side of the house from the stairs - so lots of shouting through the house for her to come downstairs. Half the time she can't hear it anyway (or so she claims), and if she's in her bathroom with the extractor fan on, no chance.

Technology to the rescue - have text-to-speeched a few announcements (e.g. downstairs please, 5 minutes etc) preceded by a pleasant harp chime, to play through the in-ceilings in her bedroom and bathroom, triggered from a menu button on the downstairs touchscreens.

And I'm unreasonably pleased with it.

 

I love this. Time to spend some money

 

For added effect, I've added a flash of red to her lights for the most urgent of the announcements. I may also change the announcement from a pleasant and inviting voice to one that's a smidge more ominous.

 

I'm willing to bet she isn't as enamoured as you are with this new development.

 

I'll find out if she ever ignores the first polite request.

 

My daughter has an alexa we do similar with, as well as a DECT phone, an ipad and an Android phone, that never leave her side, I can send a message across them all to no avail, I like your optimism though

Stopping the internet brings her into range very quickly

 

We went old school for our solution, which surprisingly worked rather well

 

The first step was eliminating plausible deniability.

Ours is still mainly entertaining herself with non-electronic devices... she's good about coming down when she hears, but gets lost in her own world when getting ready for school and the like.

Plenty of escalation options from here to raise the stakes... cutting off all of her devices is a good shout - maybe a one-minute warning announcement and a cut-off timer that can only be cancelled from the touchscreen in the kitchen. If all else fails, maybe the most annoying sound in the world (TM) at max volume until she emerges.

 

That's no way to talk about Radiohead!

 

passed my phase 2 training assessment this set and get to be part of a raid next shift, gotta go practice my police shouty voice.

 

Driving instructor has one of their other students with a test date they will not be ready for and has suggested we swap. My original appointment was October and this one is in two weeks. Bit of a jump.
Its two days before we head down south for a holiday, so would mean I could take some of the driving off the wife. Fingers crossed.

 

I've heard tests are near impossible to get, might as well take a stab at it?

 

Good luck, get plenty of time on the road and run the test routes.
My youngest has hers in 3 weeks, so we're out a bit now school has finished and getting the experience built up.

 

When I booked mine about 6-7 weeks ago the first they had was October. Where I am isn't the busiest place in the country either so I can fully believe test slots being rarer than hens teeth.

Thanks. My instructor has been running me up and down the test routes since I started with him so hopefully that pays off. And good luck to your youngest.

 

My son passed his theory last November, he had to wait until May this year to do his practical - which he passed first time and he has been driving since. It is actually useful him being able to drive, he drove my wifes car to the garage the other day for a service and I picked him up in mine, saved me a taxi journey.

Although he has already put a dent in the wife's car but that is another story altogether.

 

A driving instructor I follow on YouTube did a video on this recently:



TL;DW: Don't book your test thinking that you'll be ready when the time comes. If your instructor tells you you're not ready and you refuse to postpone your test then your instructor will likely drop you. Book your test when you're ready and not before. If you are waiting a while for the test, keep doing the lessons.

 

Strange number calls me gone midnight, it's my son on his mates phone in Ayia Napa, dad I've lost my phone (iPhone 11 - 3 months old), logged onto iCloud, used my son's credentials, tracked phone to bar, told him and his mates to head there then put a lost phone message on it with my UK mobile number.

5 minutes later I get a call from a UK mobile, hey I have the phone. 5 minutes after that my son is reunited with his phone.

Dude apparently would not accept any drinks as a token of thanks from my son and his mates, the guy even rang me back to say that my son had his phone back. My faith in humanity has been lacking lately, this does a little to restore it.

 

Small win yesterday evening. Came home to Mrs A unhappy with the downstairs PC WiFi connection, keeps dropping out & is slow despite being in the same room as the dreaded VM router.
Had a quick look, reconnected the WiFi and got 50 in fast.com. A quick physical exam later showed me it was only equipped with one aerial, added a second and bam! we have 170 on fast.
Also pleased that my son passed his gruelling final exam yesterday at the end of his 1 year management training programme with a large car rental company.