Today I mostly .....

[happiness stan]

I think my job just got a tad harder........ http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/ ... -hospitals
at least it was kept out of the papers for over a year and can I just add for anybody who may be thinking of coming in for an operation, we now use the correct WHO safety check (audited by me )

[excossack]

I'm back as well!

[excossack]

Got back from a week in Spain at a mates house in the hills of Mora d'ebre doing some labouring

Helped rebuild the brake callipers on his Landy
Did some grading/levelling with his Massey Ferguson tractor
While over there I picked up some chainsaw spares from my mate for my chainsaw which is minus a few bits namely Chain, Blade and an exhaust.

Helped collect some pine logs from his front garden and he got his Landy stuck in the mud while towing the Sankey trailer. So between us we got the trailer and Landy out with the help of the tractor and a tow rope.

Then we looked at making a rear mounted tractor back hoe/digger into a tow-able version......So, we took one standard David Brown three point linkage mounted back hoe/digger and chopped down the mounting arms, removed an axle off an old Discovery, removed the half shafts and diff, then did some cutting, grinding, and ARC welding and made up a mini trailer chassis and mounted a hitch that came off the rear of a Sankey trailer.

Got the trailer hooked up to the back hoe, connected the linkages to it, hitched up to the tractor and connected the PTO hydraulic pump (after overcoming some minor clearance issues)

All was going well (Despite the tractor lifting the back wheels off the ground due to the weight on the rear hitch).....Until during testing the bolts holding the hitch both sheared off(at least the welds held), the digger fell backwards, and the hydraulic return hose popped off covering the tractor in fluid.
After this we decided that the only way it would be to move the axle even further back but this would stop the digger arm from working...So idea scrapped and a JCB will need to be brought in to dig out trenches and for the Septic tank.

During the weeks work the GenSet welder packed in. All going well and then it packed up. Engine just cut out and would not restart. Checked the basics, and then we discovered that the pull start crank pulley just span with no resistance. So broken con rod/ crank / piston suspected.

And then flew back today, but that's another story

[excossack]

It was a good week doing some stuff I wouldn't normally get to do.

How was your week ?

[excossack]

As simple as that...

You want fries with that.....Ya all take care now.... Missin ya already...

[excossack]

Had a fun day at Girona airport...

Checked in and handed over my rucksack and went upstairs to departures. Went into the security scanner area, and removed my steel tow-capped boots, phone, wallet, and change put them in the trays for the scanner then went through OK.

Whilst browsing the duty free I heard a an announcement for my name to go somewhere, but could not catch the rest of the announcement so asked a lady who worked in the shop what was said (after trying to explain as best I could) and whilst I was trying to explain it was said again, and this time with some hand gestures, the lady sussed what I was asking.
Just as she was explaining where to go, the lady who checked me in spotted me and explained there was a problem with my baggage and I was to go with her.

So off we go. In broken English she explained that there was something in my baggage they didn't like.....
By now we are on the ground floor and heading through another door and into another airport checking area. Again through a metal detector and was met by two other airport guards and I was taken onto the tarmac area and off to another building and told to stay were I was and hand them my passport.
The two guards came back and took me into a small room with a bench on one side and chair in the other. The guy explained there was something metal the scanner picked up. I mentioned oh, it probably the chainsaw blade, so dug that out the rucksack and showed them...Nope, that was'nt it. He explained it was bigger... ahh, maybe steel tow-capped work boots in the bottom of the rucksack, while getting these out I ended up removing most of the items of clothes from the ruck sack and then thud.... It was the exhaust for the chainsaw the scanner picked up and that was the item they wanted to check. The guards looked a bit confused once I showed them what it was.

Repack bag and get passport back and then back up stairs to the first security check and then onto the departure lounge ready to wait for the gate to open.....All fun and games

[excossack]

I guess that really causes them concern

[Zelandeth]

Dissected my parent's laptop which decided to pack in this week. Nothing obviously amiss, though it's had odd power management issues for years (about five). 2003 machine (Toshiba Satellite Pro A60EN), so hasn't had a bad run really, in spite of always running hot enough to fry eggs on.

Sadly looks like it's destined for the scrap heap, so I'll need to keep my eyes open for another second (or third) hand machine for them. This was a hand-me-down from me orignally, but sadly my last laptop died before it got to them (some catastropic semiconductor failure which nuked a whole bunch of MOSFETs). This one was second hand when I got it from a friend who upgraded and was just going to bin it (was about a year and a half old at that point!).

Hate it when I have to just give in and admit something's broken - especially when I can't pin down the cause!

[excossack]

What does the laptop do / not do ?

[Zelandeth]

What does it not do? Anything whatsoever. It's just being a large blue and black slab of plastic at the moment. It is absolutely and completely dead.

Power supply's fine (tested both on and off load), power's getting into the motherboard, and the only SMD onboard fuses I've been able to track down all check out OK for continuity.

[excossack]

Managed to watch the most F1 I have seen all season!

[Zelandeth]

Yep. Sadly tracing it too far through the motherboard is pretty tricky given how many layers there are, and that Toshiba have in their infinite wisdom as far as I can see used one of the inner layers to route supplies away from most of the regulation circuitry that I've been able to suss out.

Fault finding on the component level of something like this is beyond me I think, especially without being armed with a decent schematic and layout diagram. Though goodness knows how many pages the schematic for something like this would run to.

I can generally reverse-engineer my way around a TV or something like that - but there are just so many bits of this thing, and there's really no logic I can see to a lot of the layout! They really do seem to have just shoved components where they happen to fit (not least around the half pound or so slab of metal and dual fan assembly used to try (and often fail) to keep the CPU cool).

[happiness stan]

You want to get your ass right down to either A&E or an emergency clinic so they can poke around and give it a good clean out. One of the major problems you can get if you have no feeling in your feet is stuff stuck in them, it can go proper manky even if you think it's clean, and I mean proper manky and you wont realise until it starts to smell. Make sure it bleeds and irrigate it with salty water for a good few minutes if you can't get out tonight and go to your doctor tomorrow. Trust me I work in a hospital.

[happiness stan]

imagine what would have happened if you couldn't feel it! Lots of nasty bacteria in the soil, gram negative so they can live in really hostile environments, Clostridia are the one's which do most damage... tetanus and gas gangrene. plus the ones that live on the skin but get pushed into the wound by the object.
If you get a cut with a dirty piece of metal make it bleed (within reason - if your arms hanging off try to stop it bleed ). Run it under warm water to open the blood vessels, the blood will flush out the bacteria and dirt. Then run it under cold water to stop it bleed. Then assess it, tape it up and get it glued or steri striped if needed. Sorry the (ex) nurse in me coming out

[happiness stan]

Hang on 3 answers in one post. 1- Spikey I see your treading on lego/plugs and raise you kneeling on the blighters it's an experience that needs a new swearword.
2- Simon my feet are also glass magnets with the added burden of pain. It's amazing how small some of the fragments are when you eventuallly dig them out.
3- Gadgetboy I agree with you and you would be suprised to find the majority of hospital based doctors also agree. There are different levels of hygiene appropriate for different situations. Don't get me started on the misuse of antibiotics.......
To end on a not feeling things note, my brother once drove for about an hour or so sitting on his balls, when he transfered back to his wheelchair he was horrified to find his testicles were about the same size as cricket balls and just as hard. At that point he was happy to not have any feeling.