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HEM
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Posts posted by HEM
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1 hour ago, JennyMorgan said:
In my days at school we were taught carpentry
I actually got "O" level woodwork!
Came in handy many years later building a set of very stable shelves in the cellar of the house we were moving into.
Some of the skill helped in the years of aeromodelling.Quoteand basics of practical household maintenance
Totally missing at school.
QuoteBoys only school
Same here - its now a co-educational Grammar School
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2 hours ago, OldBerkshireBoy said:
Sundays used to be a busy day in A&E due to diyers and sport injuries.
Here its said the waiting rooms at othopedic Drs. are full on a Monday morning with people who fell off their horse over the weekend.
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11 hours ago, SteveO said:
If this goes on much beyond summer, it is going to wipe out whole sectors of our economy.
In many countries.
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23 hours ago, grendel said:
Lets hear your good and bad sides of working from home.
My last employment (for just short of 20 years) was with Sun Microsystems / Oracle where I ended up in Global Hardware Support (mostly involved with the introduction of new hardware products). Reached retirement age just over 2 years ago.
I'm not sure when I started working from Home Office but it was for probably about 15 of those years. I have to say that none of my immediate colleagues were in the local office - I had one team guy (also a Brit) in Dusseldorf, two in Denver & managers either in Belgium or in the US. My children were already of school age & I had a separate room for work.
The advantages:
- Avoided the 30-45 minute drive each way through Hamburg traffic & could put that time to better purpose.
- Able to concentrate much better on my work without being disturbed.
- Flexible time-wise: could take a few hours in the morning for the fitness center & then be available in my evening for conference calls. My last manager was in San Francisco area with 9 hours time difference - we had a one-hour "meeting" every 2 weeks!The disadvantages:
- One missed snippets of useful information that come from chance overhearing of conversations in the office.
- Tendency to become a hermit & still be in pajamas at 11am.
- When you do go into local office for quarterly work's council briefing or similar you get met with "oh - you are still here!" -
1 hour ago, BroadAmbition said:
Surely its easy to keep 2m apart for social distancing at 6000ft?
You would think so, particularly when flying solo. Even when training (I am not an instructor) there are only two on board.
The poor winch driver is alone, the log-keeper usually also. But there is bound to be a small group at the take-off area (gliding is teamwork on the ground).However over here all sporting activities have been stopped & gliding is undeniably a sport.
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21 hours ago, Chelsea14Ian said:
Me also,three steps on a ladder is enough for me.....
Same here - I feel most uncomfortable going up 3 or 5 rungs on a ladder cleaning the gutters on the house.
QuoteYet I love flying.
Same here (& I am at the controls) - though I do sometime wonder "what am I doing here" when thermalling under a dark cloud at over 6000'. Currently we are all grounded due to this virus...
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9 hours ago, HEM said:
First day of "Summertime" and the snowflakes are hitting the window panes.
That was in the morning. The last few hours have strong sunshine, clouds streets and a bitterly cccold NNE wind.
Not so much the Siberian Blast - more like the Norwegian version - straight from Spitzbergen.
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First day of "Summertime" and the snowflakes are hitting the window panes.
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17 hours ago, SteveO said:
Wait until you are 66 and the young folk start talking down to you as though you are senile.
I'm 67 and its not that bad yet...
16 hours ago, grendel said:(all are electrical engineers)
and why not?
At the beginning of March (i.e. just before the shutdown) I was in Budapest to attend the Plenary meeting of the International Gliding Commision as the deputy delegate forthe German Aero Club (how I as a British Citizen came to be in that role is a longish story).
The Hungrian organisation was superb - led by Andras (in real life a Meterologist) and his wife Diana. They all spoke very good English. I nearly put my proverbial foot in it by asking Diana whether she got the opportunity to fly - she said she was lucky in that flying was her hobby & job. I thought maybe she worked at the airport - with a certain amount of pride in her voice: "I am captain B737 since 12 years". Given that she is 43 that means she was captain at 31. Not bad!
Photo from Google...
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32 minutes ago, grendel said:
working from home- after trialling several computers, the most comfortable one with a decent sized screen to work from home is my laptop in the bedroom....
I worked from Home Office for about the last 15 years of my working life (which ceased just over 2 years ago). In the final years I had a company-supplied desktop workstation with a fairly large Dell monitor - I attached a second not-so-large monitor as I found it very useful to have the mail tool of browser on one device whilst working on text files on the main one.
Also when comparing two documents to each other (one per screen)...Now that I work almost as much (just don't get paid) I have a similar setup attached to my own PC.
Very handy when editting videos on the main screen & being able to search directories for photos etc. on the second one. -
10 hours ago, Turnoar said:
Roll on asparagus season...
How "big" is asparagus in the UK? When I lived there (until 1982) Asparagus mostly appeared in Beatrix Potter' Tale of Peter Rabbit. I can only recall once in the 30 years my father bringing asparagus home from the local market.
Here in Germany asparagus is almost a religion where there is a race to offer (at exhorbitant price) the first shoots of the season. Often eaten with smoked ham (delicious). Actually we find frozen asparagus from Lidl to be just as good & saves the work of peeling.
3 hours ago, ChrisB said:Assuming that there is someone to cut Asparagus! Many cutters come from Eastern Europe countries, to first cut Asparagus and then move onto salad products. But many of their countries now have travel restrictions.
Similar problem here - with less water in the way. Asparagus farmers moaning about no slaves being available (& the asparagus is early this year).
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Good News at last: The Eurovision Song Contest has been cancelled.
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18 hours ago, YnysMon said:
The OU is now advising staff to work at home if possible, and that it’s okay to take monitors, laptop docking stations home.
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On 15/03/2020 at 23:49, JennyMorgan said:
In at least one of my local hospitals the worry relates to a probable shortage of doctors. Doctors, just as are nurses, carers, cleaners etc (and their families) are all likely to go down with the virus at some point.
It was a doctor (a children's doctor at that) that first bought the virus to Hamburg - into the main hospital! Which is where my daughter works - but in a different department (forensics).
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You have a dog? I raise you a young horse (will be 2 years old in June).
This is "Lenti" ("Lenticularis") - belongs to my daughter...
Photo taken last Saturday.
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Six months ago I had booked a week's vacation to Mallorca / Majora to start tomorrow & was really looking forward to it until family members started putting pressure on me to cancel it (of course with loss of payment). That & the not unreasonable fear that there could well be a total lock-down in Europe during the week I'd be there led (forced) me to cancel. Grrr.
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1 hour ago, JennyMorgan said:
Back to the harsh reality. It would seem to me that anyone contemplating a holiday abroad must by now be fully aware that there is a very real risk of being quarantined, either at destination or on return home.
I fly tomorrow to Budapest (from Hamburg) to attend the annual Plenary Meeting of the International Gliding Commision IGC which is held on Friday & Saturday - I'm the deputy delegate for the German Aero Club (how I came to be that as a British citizen is a longish story). Delegates from all over the globe! Just have to hope that the Chinese delegates don't come (they have not the past 2 years) but the Japanese always attend.
Our chairman has already communicated "We are all friends, but no handshaking, hugging or kissing!!".
My return flight is Sunday afternoon...
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19 hours ago, floydraser said:
I've been using Apache Open Office for years with no problems.
Same here - also going back to when it was known as StarOffice & briefly Oracle OpenOffice.
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In recent years we have had a lot of cranes (Kraniche) flying overhead - in Autumn they are often to be seen on the fields.
We thought we saw a group yesterday (high speed to the East due to the winds).When flying one usually hears their call before seeing them (if at all).
I have not met any in the air - occasionally have a stork at my wingtip; more often a bussard.
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Been very windy all day here in North-Western Germany with the wind (South-Wersterly) ramping up. Now its started to rain.
At least that means we will not get severe flooding in the centre of Hamburg as the river Elbe is oriented towards the North-West thus NW storms are very bad here.
German railways are shutting down their long-distance services.
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On 02/02/2020 at 21:30, ZimbiIV said:
Sorry. this is not really for those that do not remember the years before computers/mobiles.
I remember when computers were only for universities & filled a room (Atlas, MU5)
To quote Simon Lavington (one of my lecturers way back when) "now your washing machine has more computing power than Atlas did".
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1 hour ago, hazelgirl said:
Not far from me is Chadderton, only 4 or 5 miles up the now built M60
They lived on Broadway not far from where the A627(M) ended. My father originally came from Oldham.
At that time we lived in Bramhall & later my parents moved out to between Northwich & Knutsford.Long time ago...
Another aunt taught mathematics in an Oldham Grammar school for girls.
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1 hour ago, addicted said:
School dinners! Oh yuk!
I second that. At senior school the meals were awful & you had to take them (pay for them).
Many years later (the school had changed from being a 'direct grant' school to a 'private' one) I revisited & was invited to stay for lunch in their new canteen - a WORLD of difference.
Last April (2019) my wife & I had a short vacation in the North-West & we were given a guided a tour of the old school. But they didn't invite us to stay for lunch!
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19 hours ago, ChrisB said:
I know it was a long time ago but The Winter of Discontent was 1978/79. The 3 day week was from Jan 74 to March.
I thought it was early in 1975. I remember because I was trying to write my M.Sc thesis in "advanced Computer Science" at the time. I'd been booted out of home because my parents were looking after my dying grandmother & I was staying at my other gradndmother's & aunt's on the North side of Manchgester (Chadderton). This was of course well before the days of text processing - luckily one of my aunts was secretary at a hospital & she typed up my whole thesis - as long as we had power to be able to see in the evenings.
This was early 1975 as I started gainful employment in May that year.
There had however been a Winter of power cuts whilst I was an undergraduate. 1972?
Pink Moon ?
in The Broadscot Lounge
Posted
Not only is there the moon - but planet Venus is a brilliant light well into the evening in the West (& has been for some weeks).