A Geek Diary

Perhaps the glass is just twice as large as it needs to be?

Archive for July, 2012

BT and Biscuits

Posted by Kate Glover on July 11, 2012

I’ve just filed another fault report with BT.  I’m hoping that humour, goodnaturedness and chocolate biscuits are the way to their operatives’ hearts.  The story so far is covered, in brief, at the beginning of the report…

Details of the issue:

My ISP is PlusNet, however the BT OpenReach saga has been ongoing since I switched to a Fibre connection.

The first guy came to fit it for us – great job, lovely bloke, went above and beyond to get the job done – no problems there and really appreciated the good service.

Then a second guy came about 4-5 days later, and broke it while I was out. Bit miffed with this one.

The third guy came and found that the second guy had plugged us back into the copper system – and that’s why my fibre kit wasn’t connecting at my end. He then plugged us back into the Fibre line. All seemed fine, he checked it was working, and left. Fair enough.

Now while it is pretty stable most of the time, when the wind and rain get up (particularly the wind we think) the line drops and I can’t even get an external IP address. This annoys the hell out of us, as all 3 of us have occasion to work from home – one of us all the time, and while he can’t work he doesn’t get paid! Only working when the weather is nice isn’t a great thing, nor is only being able to watch iPlayer when the sun is shining outside.

We even waited when the weather started to deteriorate over the past couple of days to test our theory before reporting it. It’s definitely the weather, and this makes us sad 🙁

I’m sure you can understand our disappointment and concerns with the current arrangement. If can make one house of geeks very happy this week, we’d really love it to be ours. Please can Jim (or whoever you are) fix it for us to have working internet 🙂

Many thanks,

Kate Glover (yes, I am The Account Holder 😉 )

PS: We have chocolate biscuits. Nice ones.

Do you think that’ll work?  I do hope so…

Posted in Technology | Leave a Comment »

Dan’s Baptism Present

Posted by Kate Glover on July 9, 2012

Personally, I consider myself agnostic/non-committal when it comes to religion – however my mate Dan from Uni invited me to his full-immersion baptism at the end of last week.  I’d seen one before, but it was quite different.  He seemed happy and comfortable with the event, and happy in what he was committing to for the future.  He’s my mate.  I’m proud of him, and I’m glad that I drove over there to support him on his (and his cousin’s) “big day”.

As I had no idea what one should buy one’s adult friend as a baptism gift, I asked if he’d like me to do a painting.  I knew he was quite into angels and often felt temptation getting in his way – so I suggested that I paint him an angel for his room, so that he had one watching over him at home. He liked the idea and I set to work.

While he didn’t want “spoilers” – I did make sure that I ran ideas past him (such as the anime style) so that I’d be sure there would be a chance that he’d like it!  I started by spraying the canvas with silver/chrome car-paint, then using house paint (plus acrylic for the black) to paint the wings, Kaworu (from Neon Genesis Evangelion) as the angel, and the verse on the wings.  I wanted to pick something I thought might give him strength – and the wording of 2 Samuel 22, verse 33  – taken specifically from the New International Version – I felt did a good job of putting across the sentiment I was trying to convey.

I also wrote a personal note (including the date) around the back of the frame, as a memory for him, and to tell him that I was proud of him as a friend.

A painting

Posted in Drawing/Painting, University | Leave a Comment »