Trainman's Trash
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Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in
gunzel412's LiveJournal:
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| Friday, July 25th, 2008 | | 12:27 am |
| | Wednesday, July 23rd, 2008 | | 11:34 pm |
| | Saturday, July 19th, 2008 | | 7:00 pm |
Flu
A man came to our house today with the flu. He gave it to me. Now I have the flu. And it is happily expelling smoke from my heater.
He was supposed to turn up at 11:30, but didn't arrive until after 13:00. He left at 16:00. He replaced two and a bit sections of flue pipe, swept the rest, repaired the hat and extended the outer flue all for $100 less than he quoted. Now the fire works a lot better, because the smoke can actually get out of the fire box.
Current Mood: warm | | Thursday, June 19th, 2008 | | 8:50 pm |
| | Saturday, June 14th, 2008 | | 1:18 pm |
Eurovision Just turned the TV on to watch a DVD. SBS seems to be running a repeat of the Eurovision song contest, and as there is noone else here, I thought I would try to enjoy it more than ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) rubbergirl did. It is now quite cold outside, so I am grateful for having a heater inside. I've just heard there are MAJOR train delays to all lines except the Illawarra due to overhead wiring problems at Central. It is a shame it isn't a weekday. Current Mood:  relaxed | | 12:19 pm |
Relaxing Went to the spa last night at about 20:00. I didn't see anyone else at all. I fell aslep in the spa, and woke up at 22:00. Went back to the cabin and went straight to bed. Woke up at 06:00 for a bladder download, then went back to bed. Woke up at 11:00 feeling much better than I have for the past week (04:00-06:00 starts at work). Cooked cheese and onion rissoles for breakfast and said hi to Will. At 12:00, the clouds came over and wind started up, so I have just got dressed, and might put the heater on and watch some DVDs. Current Mood: relaxed | | Thursday, June 12th, 2008 | | 4:50 pm |
Letter to my credit union "I am furious that it is now necessary to keep changing my password! I actually closed an account with another bank because of their internet banking password policy. Before you say that it is for my protection, just think about it. You require me to use a password with at least 5 characters, two of which must be numbers. You also state that it cannot have been used before. I can't remember complex passwords such as these when I have to remember different passwords for a range of other services. The only way to guarantee that I will be able to remember yet another complex password is to write it down. How does that protect me?!" Current Mood:  angry | | Tuesday, June 10th, 2008 | | 7:16 pm |
Facebook Did I mention that I hate Facebook? Tonight, I get this message: "Your account is temporarily unavailable due to site maintenance. It should be available again within a few hours. We apologize for the inconvenience." If you have time, read this: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/jan/14/facebook | | Friday, June 6th, 2008 | | 10:03 pm |
Happy Trainman
I'm happy for a change. It's all a bit of a shock.
I was on the 21:02 arrival at Campbelltown tonight, and had resigned myself to a 1 hour 38 minute wait for the train home. I got blocked at the signal before the platform, so I leaned out the window and asked the second person on 1293 in the down refuge when they were going. They told me after the XPT, so I asked if I could get a lift to Picton, and they said yes. Then the signal cleared, so I took my train up to the platform and got relieved. Then the SPI showed "Does Not Stop" as the next train, and Nathan came out of the signal box with his video camera. Cool! No sooner than this had happened, 1293 came out of the refuge and slowed to a stand next to me, and I climbed on board. I was home by 21:45 instead of 23:10! The driver was excellent and had the train sitting perfectly on the speed boards without any coupler runs - a true master of train operations. I bid them farewell at Picton, and they roared off into the night with a few thousand tonnes of petrol for Canberra, just as my would-be train left the other platform to go to Campbelltown. | | Monday, June 2nd, 2008 | | 9:01 pm |
Big Bertha Just spent 3 hours stripping down, cleaning and overhauling the HP LaserJet 4500dn. I decided not to replace the drum kit yet, as it still has 14% life left. The fuser kit is down to 10% and will be first to die. The transfer kit has 33% left. Current Mood: angry | | Sunday, June 1st, 2008 | | 12:12 am |
Heater$ OK, so the heater in the loungeroom has the following part missing: http://pivotonline.com.au/product_info.php/cPath/21_24/products_id/29Two of these are broken: http://pivotonline.com.au/product_info.php/cPath/21_24/products_id/43I don't think it has any of these: http://pivotonline.com.au/product_info.php/cPath/21_24/products_id/71And this doesn't work: http://pivotonline.com.au/product_info.php/cPath/21_24/products_id/34This part is complete, but the nut is missing from the bottom: http://pivotonline.com.au/product_info.php/cPath/21_24/products_id/696The bills keep stacking up. Was going to dismantle and overhaul the colour laser printer, but I can't get to it due to all the shit on the floor. My job for next week was supposed to be freelancing on the Illawarra line. WTU rang me up and changed it all and now I have road knowledge training on Sector 2. I have only been driving sector 2 full time for about a week, and I'm not qualified for Flemington sheds or Maintrain, even though it is part of the training. RailCorp's training is really dodgy, and it is getting worse due to short staffing. I asked the OSMs and DM to qualify me for Femington sheds, but they refused as "Campbelltown don't go there." Fine. I won't. I don't know how the trainees are going to get qualified, but I suspect it will be a case of reading the exam answers to them just prior to sitting it. Luckily I won't be at Petersham, because I don't want any part in it. I am this || close to resigning my position as a trainer and just driving trains which is what I always wanted to do. My expectations of the trainer position were nothing like what it has turned out to be. Management keep adding extra duties and are now trying to change our job description under "managerial prerogative". Current Mood:  depressed | | Thursday, May 29th, 2008 | | 7:57 pm |
Facebook
After much avoidance, I have finally succumbed and started using Facebook. It seems to be an incredible waste of time, and is very cumbersome and difficult to use. Plus unreliable. It is, frankly, shit. But I will persevere, but I won't like it.
I should go to bed now, as I need to catch the 04:26 train to work in the morning. | | 7:53 pm |
Wood Fire For years, the old Heatcharm wood fire in the lounge room has shat me. The electric fan is gruntful. Every time I strip it down and test it, it seems fine. Then I reassemble it and it works fine. For about 4 minutes. Then it gets slower and slower until finally it stalls. I had a look on the internet, and finally found a place that has spare parts for these geriatric heaters, and a new fan unit is $165, including the motor and the squirrel cage fan. Both need replacing, and it is a simple two wing nut changeover. Seriously tempted to fork out (scarce) cash to try and make woosang happy. | | 5:45 pm |
Tel$tra
Well, the technical dude rang up today and said I had been charged at 2G rates, not 3G. He asked what phone I used. They know the answer to this, but I told him it was a NextG phone. He then told me that the $27.50 internet connection should, in fact, have been $2, due to the data rates. All the other smaller connection charges should have been free (hence "Free to browse"). So that should knock the bill down a bit.
I don't think I will have any joy on an appropriate plan for my phone come July 1, so my 0427 number is on the endangered list. | | Tuesday, May 27th, 2008 | | 8:28 pm |
Tel$tra
I had two things I wanted to talk to Telstra about tonight.
1) Why they charged me $30 for 48 seconds of use (1.2 MB) I think this was when I used internet banking on my mobile. Outrageously overpriced, considering you can get 8MB for $5 a month if you pay in advance. Total rip off merchants.
2) They are discontinuing my phone plan and want to double the monthly access fee and remove my bonus option.
After bouncing through two consultants, I was transferred to the data section (which is open 24 hours) and put on hold. After 56 minutes, I talked to a consultant who couldn't answer my question, but put a request for more information through. That answer will take 3 days to come back.
Because that call went for an hour, when I tried to ring back (20:28), I got a recorded message: Our office is closed. Please call back between 8am and 9pm Monday to Friday. They really need to change the message to reflect their actual hours.
Grunties. | | Wednesday, May 21st, 2008 | | 12:27 am |
| | Tuesday, May 20th, 2008 | | 11:27 pm |
Finally
Well, it's taken a month, but I think I have finally got the new NAS working.
It is a D-Link DNS-313. Do not buy this device. Ever. It is crap.
I bought it, stupidly thinking that it would be better than the one I bought from Jaycar, which runs too slow.
It is dead easy to install. No tools required. Just insert hard disc, plug it in and turn it on. Run the CD and everything will just work.
Bullshit.
I sent it back to D-Link, and they couldn't find anything wrong. I rang their useless technical support call centre in India numerous times. I took it back to the shop I bought it from, who also said it worked, but there was a problem with DHCP.
To make this paperweight work, it is necessary to:
1) Do a hard reset on it.
2) Plug it directly into a laptop
3) Edit the laptop network settings to 192.168.0.*
4) Do not attempt to ping the paperweight on 192.168.0.32, because it is not there.
5) Run useless setup disc
6) Hope that setup disc can find paperweight.
7) Allow setup to format the hard disc, then reset device
8) Unplug power lead from paperweight, then plug it back in again.
9) Run setup disc again, because the first time will crash and not work
10) Format the hard disc again
11) Restart the device again
12) Open advanced settings. Username/Password is admin/admin. This is not documented anywhere and is at odds with what is written on the side of the box (admin/blank)
13) Turn off DHCP. It doesn't work anyway.
14) Assign an address in the correct range for your router (I used 192.168.1.131)
15) It now disappears from the laptop.
16) Reset all your laptop network settings back to how you had them before the nightmare started.
17) Unplug the LAN cable from the paperweight and plug it into your network switch
18) Log in from a different computer to the new IP address
19) If that doesn't work, tie LAN cable to towbar of car and take it for a drive
DO NOT BUY THIS DEVICE. | | Wednesday, May 14th, 2008 | | 9:58 pm |
| | Saturday, May 3rd, 2008 | | 12:04 pm |
| | Friday, May 2nd, 2008 | | 11:29 am |
Borscht
The Hot Water System blew up. Well, it blew the fuse anyway. I didn't have a spare fuse, but I did have a 16A plug in circuit breaker. This morning it was tripped. No real surprise there - the HWS is rated at 4800 Watts (20 Amps). I reset the breaker, hoping to get enough warmth out of it before tripping again. The kWh meter was turning slowly, so I put an ammeter onto it. 1.5 Amps. The element is screwed, with the occasional shorting to earth. I can get a new element cheaply, but we don't like the Hot Waetr System in the laundry anyway, so now seems as good a time as any to replace the whole damn thing. I can get a new system for around $1000, but the price goes up to $1600 to move it out of the laundry. Grunt. A new solar HWS is $4000, but there are currently $2650 worth of government rebates to install solar, bringing it down to about $1500. So... For the same price, we can get a new solar hot water system installed and slash our electricity bill a bit.
The catch is, they can't install it until Monday. So, today, they are coming down to replace the element in the existing HWS to give us hot water until Monday, when they will replace it. Isn't that nice?
The only issue now is supervision. I am at work from 06:00 until 18:00, and Yvonne is at work from 11:00 until 23:00. Can they work unsupervised, or does Yvonne have to swap shifts?
It's all too hard sometimes. We don't need this expense either. |
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