Shades of Grey

Something peculiar happened at work yesterday. We have some monitoring boxes in our machine room that meaure the room temperature & humidity, as well as providing a low frame rate picture. They are fairly long in the tooth and are becoming increasingly troublesome.

I noticed this morning that two of the boxes were playing up so I performed an Engineer reset- i.e. I unplugged them for a few minutes. I tinkered with their controlling Server as well but they weren’t playing ball.

Returning to the main office area, we have a number of display screens called “the bridge”, which is an old Computer term for the mission control area where all of the systems can be monitored. I then noticed from the camera view that someone was moving round in the room. This was rather puzzling, because I had been in there alone. He looked familiar but I didn’t immediately twig who it was. On finding that the room was indeed empty, I immediately thought of a “Mission Impossible” movie plot threat where cameras are compromised. However, seeing as how the only people who checked these devices were ourselves, it seemed a little unlikely.

After much head scratching and watching of images where this mystery person kept wandering about, I eventually twigged who the intruder was- it was me! The box was stuck in some sort of a loop and randomly disgorging old images every six seconds. By the time I got round to capturing these images at lunchtime, they were starting to get a bit fuzzy. I have now purged the ghost in the machine but it got me thinking.

When I was an impressionable age, I speculated whether ghosts were people reliving their lives. I decided it would be rather interesting to come back as a ghost and effectively follow my young self around. When I thought about this longer though, I realised that for every two hours of fascination visiting an old theatre or some other highlight, there would be hours of utter tedium reliving all the boring bits in between. So, a present at the pearly gates of a total immersion video where you relived your life complete with remote control (even with fast forward & rewind) would eventually become regarded as Dante’s inferno.

I have never had a ghost type experience, although I have got spooked once in an old theatre reputed to be haunted. I didn’t see or hear anything, I just experienced a feeling of dread, all by myself in an abandoned gallery bar area when there was no-one else in the theatre apart from the manager in his Foyer office. Of course, it just may have been not knowing where the light switches were and old buildings do occasionally creak & groan.

When I was a small lad, there was a boarded up house near us that we found was no longer secure. It was absolutely pitch black inside and we dared each other to go further in. There is something primal about fear of the dark with fear of the unknown and we got really spooked from slight noises inside. (Probably just a cat!) However bearing in mind that the floorboards were probably rotten it is a good defence mechanism. These days, I’d visit armed with torches…

(On a disappointing note, the 28 Days Later UrbEx site has decided to no longer accept new reports. It was providing a valuable public service by revealing things like the Derby Hippodrome damage).

Gizmo thanks enquirers as to his health and assures us he is recovering some mobility in his right leg. He is eating well, his waterworks are fine and he is alert & cheerful. He is missing his covered area but was having difficulty getting in and out so it has been temporarily removed. (We put his grass house at the other end of the cage when we clean out the hay end and he quickly gets himself into it but he is then stuck and has to be rescued afterwards!) His left leg still doesn’t work yet but it is warm so the circulation is fine. He was also amused to hear that David thought that “TLC” was some kind of medicine!

Here is our new fence in the bright Morley sunshine. There are another three panels to the left but artistic side shots didn’t come out too well. After all, it is only a fence, not the hanging gardens of Babylon. Perhaps we should plant a bit more in that bed now!

I’ve previously mentioned “Understanding Science”, an Encyclopedia in parts from the early sixties that I devoured like a sponge when I was a Junior.

There were a few knocking about the house, and when I was about Ten, I asked my Mum if we had any more as I was interested in a particular one (about the heart) that I could see reference to in the index but I worked out we had the ones before and after it. My Mum looked at my Dad, said that I was old enough, then opened up the top cupboard in the lounge (the one I couldn’t reach, probably santa’s hideaway!) and produced some bound sets.

As luck would have it, I found a full set on eBay a couple of weeks ago and picked them up for less than a Fiver. (The Parcel was three times that!) So, thank you grandma Dot, for a great 50th Birthday present. (I doubt she thought I’s spend the cash on that…)

The surprising thing is, I recognise most of the illustrations in the first three volumes, so familiar were they to me from such a long time ago. I’m looking forward to enjoying the other nine!

Of course, being from the sixties, they are very much of their time so there are no integrated circuits, digital electronics or quantum mechanics. Whilst there are transistors, most of the electronics articles are about valves (Merkin;-Tubes). It is lavishly illustrated though and this picture below of what would have been a modern dentist will be so familiar to many. (although most of the ones I saw were black or cream enamel).

Our house is now twelve years old and whilst it is in sound structural condition (apart from the window frames, that we had to replace a while back) the fences are now past their best. We have some decorative brick walls but the gaps were simply wooden posts and overlapping flimsy boards. Despite regularly sealing them, most of the posts have rotted at ground level and many of the panels have blown down & been nailed up again.

A few weeks back, we got together with two of our neighbours and agreed to go halvies on a much better fencing system with concrete uprights & plinths. The builders have now been and gone, leaving a substantial fence system that should stand the test of time. In the event of very strong winds being likely, we can even lift out the panels and secure them so that they don’t take a battering.

As the other two houses face the fence, we agreed that they could have the dressed side (where you don’t see the cross beams), although to be fair to them, there was the offer of going halvies on a double sided fence if we really wanted it. (We didn’t regard it as overly important).

Our garden is on a slight slope and originally the fence height varied along the way in a number of jagged jumps. This time, the top is level throughout, giving us a bit of leaning room at the top of the slope for over the fence chat whilst retaining privacy for the rest of it.

We still have a bit of shared old fence on the other side of the garden, however the guy that side has been proactive on keeping it sound, seeing as how he parks his car next to it.

Yesterday’s St Georges day event was a little bit of a wash-out, if it wasn’t drizzling it was squelching underfoot. David was wondering what all the holes were on the pitch at the Rugby Club, not having made the connection with studs.

It was too wet for me to get my new camera out, alas.