Other What currently makes your life awesome?

It’s almost a bit of a cliche to say that for all the problems the NHS has, it’s there when you need it. It’s very easy to say, but to actually experience it is something else.

My other half was taken into A&E by about 10am on Friday morning, and by about 6pm the next day she’d had urgent surgery on her spine and was on her way back up to the ward.

We are somewhat lucky in that Cardiff Heath Hospital has a top-tier neurosurgery department. But it’s not just the surgeons, everyone that either of us have interacted with has been amazing; even the rather old-fashioned matronly nurse who, in no uncertain terms, ordered me out had my OH’s best interests in mind.

The word “gratitude” is insufficient.

 

@Byron C, I hope your missus is on the mend.

I've not had to deal with the NHS very often, but on the 3 or so occasions (2 child births, 1 kidney stones that I can remember), anybody that we've interacted with have been amazing. I've always made sure to drop in with tea bags, instant coffee and biscuits for the given department. It's a very cheap thank you, but it's always been appreciated and saves them having to spend their hard earned money.

 

Winning. That's what makes my life awesome !.

So over the past several years my distance bike has become a project. It is now at the point where there is barely anything made of steel left on it. It is all alu, carbon and Ti.

Last weigh in was 17.6lb. I knew I could make it lighter, though. See, the bottom bracket in there is heavy AF. They mostly all are. I found a Ti one last summer for £25 and thought I had won the lottery. Then I realised I hadn't..... See, none of the bolts I had fitted and they were missing. After an exhaustive search I realised there were none for sale anywhere in the entire world. That would explain why it was £25, and not anywhere near the £400 or so original price. Fudge. So feeling a little dejected I tossed it to one side. Problem is with these things is that the manu *will not* tell you the thread type or pitch. It's their little racket, and YOU WILL pay £30 for two bolts, if they are even still making them.

Problem is if they don't you end up with a nice paperweight.....

This is the bike BTW.



Well around the end of summer I was working on a BMX bike and converted the axle from male to female. For a laugh I grabbed said axle (14mm) and it only threaded in !. Problem was it turns out this male axle is M14 x1mm. ONE MM. Standard is 1.25 fine and 1.5 coarse ffs. So THAT is why none of my other bolts fit.

So, I found two M8 Ti bolts for £5 on clearance and then had my mate do some machining. And (he can't make bolt heads or allen holes btw). We now have this.



M14 x1 to M8 standard plugs (fitted with thread lock, machined out of 7000 alu so they weigh sod all !)

I then had to design the shoulders.



And as you can see?



Not only does it work but it weighs F all.

 

Internet has finally been installed, going from 40-50mbps on speedtest to 400+ near the router and 300+ elsewhere in the house initially. (all wireless)

However, only getting 80/90 on my main PC which is via powerline adaptors, so will do some testing later to try and work out if it's the adaptors or simply the wiring of the house and maybe I should look into the best/current ways of getting wireless on your PC!

 

Yeah I mean I know the wiring will be limiting, but I've got older 600 rated adaptors I think and so it's quite likely they'll be a limiting factor as well, so just grabbing a new pair might be a nice easy jump without having to change the way anything is setup. Always been anti wireless on principle but don't really want ethernet cables going around the place (or at least the wife doesn't!) so may be the best option, for both this PC and the media PC which is just the other side of the room from the router, but again is via powerline at the moment as don't want cables going past doorways.

These are the adaptors:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B01G5Q9E0O/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Definitely not the latest and/or greatest!

I wouldn't complain at 80Mbps considering it's a 500mbps line , so max in theory is a bit over 60Mbps? Did a quick download test and got a bit over 10 which makes sense.

 

Been a while since I've paid any attention to any of that and yeah I was just being lazy with mbps I was meaning Mbps.

But yeah so you were getting what I'm getting makes sense, although just checked the media pc as I popped downstairs for a drink and that was only getting 65-70ish, definitely need to look at wireless options I think! No point paying for 500 (well I'm only paying for 150 but even then the point stands!) and not even being able to use it.

 

Other half is being discharged today (context). No idea when today, but definitely today. So... I'm sat round waiting for a doctor to make their way to her ward and give the nod.

A couple of people I know (now including my OH) have had some major life-saving and life-altering treatment on the NHS.

About a decade ago a friend got diagnosed with breast cancer a few months after becoming pregnant, and had to go through a mastectomy and all the other treatment & chemotherapy while carrying a baby... Baby was fine and is now a healthy 10 year-old, mother is still here and still cancer-free.

About 8 or 9 years ago, a (different) friend found out that their youngest had cancer at only a year or two old (I lose track of time these days). After a couple of years of treatment she survived just fine, is now nearly 6 years cancer-free, and just about the most adorable and cheeky little thing.

And now my other half has just had emergency spinal surgery to prevent her from becoming paralysed from the waist down. She might still have some long-term effects, and it's going to take time for her to recover, but we'll deal with that if/when we get there.

You can't ever re-pay things like that. If we were in the US we'd have been bankrupt before my other half had even gone for surgery.

A while back I became aware of Blood Bikes Wales (one of a number of Blood Bikes charities around the UK): they provide an out of hours courier service for the NHS, delivering blood samples, plasma, donated human milk, documents and other items. The NHS does have its own courier and logistics service, but Blood Bikes is offered free of charge, covers all hours of the night, and even operates on Christmas Day. I'd been thinking about volunteering for them off and on for a few months, possibly even becoming a rider. I've got some other priorities right now, but in the next 6-12 months or so I'm almost certainly going to sign up to be a rider for Blood Bikes.

 

The Blood Bikes is something that I have been involved with over the years through my membership of the Freemasons. Various parts of the organisation and the sub sections have long provided money to buy and run the bikes and the ones that we see local to Nottingham have the square and compasses on them. It's kinda nice to see.

I am also a long time blood donor (79 donations as of yesterday) and I have no doubt that a little bit of me has been carried on one of those bikes on more than one occasion as my blood can be used for emergency and neonatal transfusions (universal donor - O-) and gets sent all over the country (I get a message saying where my blood has been issued to a couple of days after the session) which is a nice thought to have when I see them out and about..

 

Pop some proper Cat6 in there and job's done. Powerline stuff is always a bit... Flaky and patchwork-ish, IMHO

 

Just remembered I have had a bobcat mining helium / IOT for a few years and completely forgot about it. Also found the wallet and looks like it’s done well, left unattended and still chugging along in the loft.

 

Ah, fantastic, that's great to hear.

I'll likely sign up as a volunteer in the next couple of weeks. It'll be a while before I'm throwing my leg over a livieried bike, but they need "back office" administrative type stuff as well so I can definitely do something in the meantime.

 

TIL that a vehicle that I belived did not qualify for commercial vehicle road tax in fact does.

Net result being a handy £2300 reduction in the day-one tax and £220/yr reduction thereafter.

Bonus.

 

26-27. YES!

I'm done. My nerves are shot.

 

Sean Connery - "They don't get any closher than that"

 

This little lot

I can’t quite describe how amazing it is to have a mattress that’s properly supportive after spending 7 or 8 years sleeping on a pile of mushy foam crap. Didn’t even get that much sleep last night because the other half was struggling to sleep so much (I think I slept from about 0030 to 0300, then maybe 0400 to 0600), but I don’t feel anywhere near as awful as I would have on that slab of shyte we used to have.

 

I know exactly what you are saying. I didn't get a ton of sleep when changing mattresses, but what I did get was a country mile better than before. It deffo takes quite a while to become at one with a mattress, but you can feel the benefits immediately.

What took me a while to get used to was the fact it was sprung and memory foam. I had not slept on a sprung mattress in over 14 years, so the wibbly wobbly took a while to get my head around. But yeah now? I bloody love it.

 

Our previous mattress needed the addition of a memory foam / gel foam topper as it was not the best and one side where my wife sits down after a shower or when getting dressed had kinda collapsed. We tried the topper on its replacement and it was so wrong, kinda defeated the whole purpose of having a stiff sprung mattress (both have back issues), so that now means that there is another thing rolled up and being stored away... Not going to get rid of it, might need it again at some point.