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Tech fail!

August 15, 2024 in Flotsam and Jetsam | Permalink

No – this blog post is not about my shiny new computer – the which is humming away gently to itself whilst solving complex problems with one hand tied behind its back! In that department things are currently going well (though there is, of course, still plenty of opportunity for everything to go t*ts up!).

This is about a couple of other technology failures which caused one of us (The Girl) considerable inconvenience, and cost the other (me!) a packet of money.

Those who know me well – or who have hung around these pages long enough – will know that I drive a black Lexus SUV (a GX470). This splendid vehicle was no spring chicken when we purchased it shortly after our arrival in Canada. It dates from 2003 and is now, of course, getting on for a decade older than it was when we acquired it.

Now – I love the thing to bits and it has served me very well for a relatively modest outlay – helped by the fact that I don’t put that much mileage on it these days. Even so sometimes things do go wrong with it – and a little while back it started exhibiting a whining noise that had not featured before. I figured that I had better take it to our friendly local garage and get them to take a look.

I had to go downtown anyway a couple of days later, so I though I would stop by on the way back. As I drove cautiously back up the Pat Bay highway the whining noise was suddenly joined by an entire son et lumière of flashing warning lights. This did not look good. I had to queue for a while to turn left in the middle of the ongoing construction on the highway and had visions of the Lexus phuttering out on me – the which would have caused no end of problems at that particular spot.

Mercifully it kept going and I was able to pull into the garage forecourt. I turned everything off and went to find ‘the guy‘. When we came back to start the vehicle so that I could to demonstrate the issue there was no sign of life at all – not a click, not a whine, not even a grinding noise… nothing!

Oh well – if the thing is going to break down completely the forecourt of a garage is not a bad place for that to happen.

Apparently the battery had failed spectacularly (a dead open short) and the alternator (in trying to charge it) had burned itself out. Fortunately we were going away for a couple of days so it mattered not that the car was out of action until we returned.

Just before we left on our short trip (more on this later) The Girl was summoned on our return, to Kamloops (and beyond) – for her work. This would mean that after we got home on the Sunday she would fly out again on the Monday evening. Flying is routinely such a pain these days that the subsequent news during the day on Monday of delayed flights and suchlike did not come as a surprise. The Girl made it to Vancouver and then had to wait for a considerable time for her onward flight to Kamloops.

When it finally boarded it was already quite late. The plane taxied out to the runway, waited its turn and then lined up for takeoff. Throttles open and the turbojet surged down the tarmac…

…only for the pilot to abort the takeoff half way down! Now this sort of thing is definitely bad news! After returning to the gate and spending a lengthy period being assaulted by out-of-control kids and the sweltering heat (and having nothing to watch except the mechanics scratching their heads) the airline bowed to the inevitable and cancelled the flight. Cheap hotel rooms for all concerned and up early the next morning for another attempt.

Guess who was not impressed…!

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Today’s forecast…

December 23, 2022 in Life in BC, Photos | Permalink

…Holy Moley – I can’t feel my face degrees!

The winter weather is doing its bit to make the run in to Christmas something of a challenge! Notice that I didn’t qualify that with: “Here on the west coast of Canada“. I am well aware that we are not alone in experiencing exceptional climatic conditions. We have had quite a lot to do of late (as of course have many people at this time of year) and needing to keep a constant eye on the weather only makes things more exacting.

Here are some ‘highlights’ – complete with pictures:

Last weekend we made a overnight trip up island to Nanaimo – for a Christmas visit with The Girl’s mum – stopping on the way back on the Sunday for lunch with a dear friend in Duncan. As ever we took the Mill Bay ferry to avoid traversing the Malahat (always a good idea when there is snow in the air).

Photo by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson ReidWe figured that the snow would start to fall at some point during this trip and sure enough it did – whilst we were in Nanaimo. We stayed overnight in the Coast Bastion hotel overlooking Nanaimo harbour – with which we are very familiar from previous visits.

Photo by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson ReidWe had a lovely visit with both family and friends – dined splendidly at the Nanaimo Golf Club, the Minnoz restaurant at the Coast Bastion – and, of course, with our lovely friend in Duncan. Happy Christmas to you all.

Once back in Victoria the winter storm really swept in and soon everything disappeared under about a foot of snow. This was the view from my studio window by Tuesday.

Photo by Andy Dawson ReidThe Girl had taken most of the week off as well-earned pre-Christmas break, but the weather put paid to any notions of a relaxing run in to the festival itself. The Volunteer Agency of which The Girl is one of the mainstays delivers meals to elderly folk every week – with teams of volunteers driving routes around Greater Victoria to make deliveries to more than seventy locations. Given the weather it would have been totally unreasonable to expect these excellent volunteers – many of them elderly themselves – to be out on the roads in such treacherous conditions. It fell to a number of us folk with 4x4s equipped with snow tyres to get the food parcels out to the elderly in time for Christmas. This is – of course – is just the sort of thing at which Lorelei excels and she did not let us down. Here we are en route…

Photo by Andy Dawson ReidI guess the big question now is – will we get a white Christmas? Today is the 23rd and temperatures are starting to rise – though to this point they have only reached the ‘freezing rain on top of compacted snow‘ phase – so today we are going nowhere! We will see how things pan out tomorrow.

 

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Ralph’s to the rescue

May 4, 2022 in Flotsam and Jetsam | Permalink

As I mentioned a couple of posts back, The Chanteuse and I are moving into the final phases of recording our new collection of carefully crafted tracks for eventual release to eager listeners. In that post I outlined the processes that we go through at this stage in order that the end product be as close to our imaginings as is humanly possible.

One of those steps is the settling on a final mix for each piece. This is where both the individual sounds are polished up as well as the overall balance between them settled upon. This is perhaps most closely the equivalent of editing the draft of a book, or perchance of using Photoshop (other brands available!) to ‘perfect’ a photograph.

There are many tools available in the world of recording with which this process may be effected – a fact that the evolution of the art into the digital realm has merely amplified a thousandfold. At the end of the day, however, the most important tools are the producer’s ears. It matters not what fancy gadgets are employed; it matters only how it sounds to the listener (the which is, of course, highly subjective).

Just as when one is trying to chose a paint colour for a room one must look at samples of the paint under many different lights – so too with music. The same mix of a song will sound completely different dependent on what audio system it is played upon and what space it is played in. When I am mixing tracks I listen to them in a variety of different ways. I listen on headphones in the studio as well as on several different types of studio monitor. I also listen to the tracks on my cell phone using in-ear monitors or earbuds.

Finally I listen to the mixed recordings on the audio system in my car. This latter is most important because – since I listen to a lot of music in the car – I know exactly how things should sound in that enclosed space. If it sounds good in the Lexus – then it probably is good!

It came as a considerable shock, then, that just a couple of weeks back the Lexus’s audio system suddenly started making hideous rasping noises whenever I played anything. Something was clearly amiss. Being a reasonably smart boy I immediately consulted The Girl (whose turf this is) to see if she might know of a concern that specialised in car audio systems.

She at once directed me to Ralph’s Radio Ltd in downtown Victoria, the which – as you can see from their card (pictured above) – has been in this business since 1949. I called the current owner, Justin Miller, who not only knew at once the details of the particular system in the Lexus but also the most likely cause of the problem.

The long and the short of the matter is that – within a couple of days and taking just an hour and a half (whilst I sipped almond lattes in a nearby coffee shop) – Ralph’s replaced both the bass speakers and the tweeters in the front part of the car. Justin showed me the bass unit that had caused most of the trouble. I don’t think I have seen a speaker quite so comprehensively wrecked. The cone had torn away from the mounting most of the way around its circumference and the coil had popped out of its mounting and was vibrating against the shell of the unit.

Needless to say it now sounds great again and I am back in the mixing business.

My grateful thanks to Justin and to his tech guys. Their customer service is excellent – they are friendly and extremely knowledgeable and they got me back up and running with the minimum of fuss and at an entirely reasonable cost.

Kudos – gentlemen!

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Mileage may vary

October 10, 2021 in Flotsam and Jetsam | Permalink

“As it is with all stories, fast cars, wild bears, mental illness, and even life, only one truth remains: your mileage may vary”

Jenny Lawson

Last November I posted to these pages a brief item which celebrated (should that be the appropriate expression) the fact that my much loved Lexus GX470 had just passed the 200,000 mile mark (miles rather than kilometres since she is of US origin).

That post went on to muse upon the annual mileage that this now eighteen year old vehicle had clearly done throughout its life to date.

Based on the mileage that was on the clock when we purchased her she had to that point apparently averaged some 14,000 miles per annum. Since coming to us she had enjoyed a considerably less energetic existence, covering only around 6,000 miles each year…

…until last year!

The COVID-19 pandemic has had many side-effects, one of which – as you might expect – is that we have all stayed home a great deal more than we had done previously. Working from home and not being able to travel or to get out on the town as we had been used to doing, meant that our vehicles have only been used for short, essential(ish) trips.

I mention this here because just the other day I noticed the odometer click over 203,000 miles. Now – I know that there is another month before a year will have elapsed since my last post on the subject, but I will be very surprised if I cover more than another few hundred miles in that time.

I can’t be entirely sure – but the last time that I did such a low annual mileage might well have been the year that I started riding motorbikes – back when I was in my very early twenties…

…and a lot of water has flowed under a great many bridges since then!

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Milestone

November 22, 2020 in Flotsam and Jetsam | Permalink

The very lovely Lexus GX470 (which goes by the name of Lorelai) first made its appearance in these posts back in July 2015, when The Girl and I purchased her from a kind soul who lived not far from us here on the Saanich peninsula. She has appeared many times since then in postings, often in the background of photos and usually tirelessly performing one of the many tasks for which she was purchased. I love her to bits and she has been an inspired choice for this part of the world.

When we acquired her she had a little less than 168,000 miles on the clock (miles rather than kilometers because she had originally been registered in Portland, Oregon). Now – that is a reasonably high mileage for many vehicles on the road today – but for the Lexus  (which is basically a Toyota 4Runner with a fancier skin) it counts as next to nothing. If looked after 300,000+ miles should be quite do-able. As she dates from 2003 this means that for the first twelve years of her life she averaged some 14,000 miles a year.

The reason for my posting this now – of course – is that we have just passed a major milestone. We were down in town the other day and when we arrived home the odometer revealed that we had just passed the 200,000 mile mark. The mathematicians amongst you will already have done the calculations: since she came to stay with us the Lexus has done another 32,000 miles in about five years and four months – at an average of just over 6,000 miles a year.

Well – I am supposed to be retired!

Back in the day when I used to commute into London every day in my little city car (Pearl, my much loved Mercedes SL300, only came out of the garage on sunny days) I would regularly clock up around 14,000 miles a year myself and I am absolutely delighted not to have to do that any more.

Now – at the current rate it will take more than another eight years for the Lexus to reach 250,000 miles, by which time she would be twenty five years old and I would be in my middle 70s.

As for 300,000…? Not sure either of us will last that long!

 

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Time management

September 15, 2019 in Flotsam and Jetsam | Permalink

“I am definitely going to take a course on time management… just as soon as I can work it into my schedule.”

Louis E. Boone

As I start a new term (my fourth) in a new academic year with a new group of eager(?) young (mostly) students I am made aware that the honeymoon period for this particular post-secondary lecturer is over…

…in timetable terms at least!

If I am more honest I should really admit that – as a term-contracted semi-retired part-timer – I am rightly considered the lowest of the low when it comes to the allocation of teaching slots.

I teach one course – two days a week. On each of those days I lecture for sixty or ninety minutes and run a lab session for ninety minutes. I am also obliged to spend a couple of hours a week in my (shared) office so as to be readily available to students. The rest I can do from home. Until now I have been fortunate with regard to timetabling. None of my starts has been early and on each of my teaching days the lab sessions have followed hard on the heels of the classroom lectures.

Not so this term. I teach on Mondays and Wednesdays – at 8:30 am!

Now – I really can’t pretend that the early start is an issue. It takes me about half an hour to get to the college – even in the morning ‘rush’ – and let’s face it, compared to to my pre-retirement commute this is a complete doddle.

My issue is that on both of my teaching days the lab sessions are scheduled in the mid-afternoon – at 2:00 pm and 3:30 pm respectively. This means a gap of four and six hours on those days during which I am somewhat stuck. A couple of hours are used up as office time and of course I do have preparation and marking, but I find both of those easier to do in the comfort of my studio at home.

If I lived close to the college I would simply go home in between lectures and labs. Indeed, that is what I will doubtless be doing for the longer of the gaps on Wednesdays – but that does mean wasting another hour a week in the car and the Lexus (which I love to bits) is not the most frugal of beasts…

I simply have to remind myself that this is very much a first-world problem and to get on with it. It is, after all, only for fourteen weeks… well – twelve now!

As you were…

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Not-bad Samaritan

February 14, 2019 in Flotsam and Jetsam | Permalink

Photo by Andy Dawson ReidOn Sunday evening – just as the storm winds from the weekend were beginning to slacken but also as the first of the serious snowstorms was starting to dump its icy load all over Victoria and the peninsula – I was on my way downtown to pick up the three members of a Halifax-based theatre company who had been performing the previous night as part of Intrepid Theatre’s OutStages festival. My task was to run them to the airport so that they could start their long journey (three hops) back to Halifax.

As we started back up the Pat Bay highway the snow really set in and the residual winds whipped it horizontally across the carriageway, reducing visibility quite dramatically. It was shortly after five o’clock and the temperature had dipped below zero. The compacted snow that had already fallen began to freeze into ice and – though snowploughs had clearly been up the highway at some point – there was no sign of them nor of gritting trucks at this juncture.

The airport is at the top of the peninsula, about five minutes drive from us but around twelve miles out of the City. The road climbs steadily from Downtown and there are long stretches with gentle but persistent inclines – both up and down – as one heads north.

It rapidly became clear that most of the vehicles on the highway (which was quite busy with people trying to get home) were not equipped with winter tyres. As a result there was much lateral sliding as they fought for grip on the slippery slopes. We began to see accidents as cars and other vehicles slid into one another or off the carriageway entirely. We could see places where the traffic coming south had stopped completely.

The Lexus – with permanent four-wheel drive and fitted with a practically new set of snow tyres – sailed serenely through, though dodging other uncontrollable vehicles proved a challenge.

Slowly but steadily we made our way to the airport. The grateful thespists were decanted at the departure lounge and I headed for home. We had been checking continually as we progressed that the flight was still scheduled to depart on-time, but when I got home I thought I would check once more. The news was bad. The flight had been cancelled – as had all others by this point. Furthermore the Pat Bay highway had also been closed shortly after our transit thereof.

Much telephoning ensued on the part of the Intrepid Production Manager, to try to find an hotel near the airport that could put up our performers for the night. I headed back to the terminal so that I could transport them wherever they heeded to go. Naturally everyone else with cancelled flights was doing exactly the same thing and no rooms were be found. Thus it was that I brought a weary troupe of thesps and their equipment back to our now snowbound house, where we entertained them, fed them and put them up for the night.

When we struggled from our cosy beds the next morning (Monday) to be faced by a veritable winter wonderland outside, the first order of the day was to hit the phones again. We heard a sniff of a flight leaving within the next hour and a half so we rushed to get ready, dug out the Lexus and headed once more to the airport. After much frazzled to-ing and fro-ing it was determined that no seats were to be had after all and that many other flights were once again being cancelled. This time Intrepid managed to find our new friends a room at an Inn in Sidney and having deposited them there I headed for home as it once again started to snow in earnest.

They were now scheduled to leave on the Tuesday mid-morning. At around nine o’clock I received an urgent text telling me that they were struggling to locate a taxi. Once more I set to work digging the Lexus out of the snow. Fortunately word was received of a suitable conveyance having been found and I didn’t need to venture forth again. We anxiously watched the flight status online and traded texts with our new theatre-buddies as other flights were again being cancelled, before breathing a sigh of relief as theirs finally took to the air.

We heard later that the storms had extended all across Canada, that their flight had been diverted to Fredericton and that they had been put into a taxi for a four hour drive through the night to get back to Halifax very early this morning (Wednesday). Blimey!

The real hero of this whole adventure was a Lexus called Lorelei. I am completely in awe of this incredible machine which – equipped with the right tyres – is simply unstoppable. It goes about its work with the minimum of fuss, simply floating over anything that gets in its way. A fabulous piece of design and engineering!

A grateful thanks – say I!

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Under-tow

January 14, 2016 in Flotsam and Jetsam | Permalink

Photo by Andy Dawson ReidI have to admit that – in spite of my advancing years and general all-round good fortune when it comes to opportunities for adventure and experience – I am still a neophyte in many regards. There are skills and proficiencies that I have yet to attempt, let alone to master, but at which others seem to have been practicing since they were able to walk.

Some such – hunting, fishing, flying, parachute jumping, skiing and so forth – I am not even sure that I much care about, although I am aware that they arouse in others a mighty passion. Other competences I have attempted in my later years, mindful that a chap probably really ought so to have done. Riding was one such. I didn’t stick at it for long – sad to say – discovering that (although like everyone else I must surely have already known) the pursuit is massively expensive and also that (and this was news to me) all horses are actually a fair bit madder than their owners.

The subject of this post is – however – none of the above. I was – until a couple of days ago – a tow virgin!

I know – I know!

Though I was for several decades the proud possessor of a 12 seat V8 Land Rover County Station Wagon (named Katy after the 4×4 army ambulance that John Mills cajoles across the desert in ‘Ice Cold in Alex’) which I even took off-road on occasion, I never did get around to towing anything with it.

My only real experience in this regard was assisting our dear friends here in Saanichton a few years back in taking their boat to the launch. I had to drive the empty trailer back to their farm on my own, the which I duly did with a certain degree of trepidation. I must admit that after a few abortive attempts at backing the trailer into its parking space I gave up, uncoupled it and pushed it in by hand. Not feasible when fully loaded of course.

Since I firmly intend to own a boat here on the island and will definitely need to trailer it, I already had on my agenda for the coming months some time spent in a quiet spot practicing. This gentle approach was blown out of the water in snowy Kamloops earlier this week when it became apparent that we would need to convey quite a large number of boxes back to Victoria. The only feasible method of so-doing was to hire a U-Haul trailer, to tow it over the icy mountains to the coast, to take the ferry across to the island and – having unloaded – deposit the beast at the Victoria U-Haul depot.

To say that the prospect aroused in me some apprehension would be to put it mildly. I had no real experience to call upon and – though the Lexus is supposedly well up to this sort of task – I had no way of knowing if it were fully equipped so to do.

In the event – and with some extremely cautious driving on my part, particularly when it started to snow – we made it back in one piece. We took the Fraser Canyon in preference to the Coqhuihalla – the former being nowhere near as high a pass, with Jackass Mountain being the only really tough stretch. The weather tends to be a little kinder as well on this route and the only downside is that it adds an hour to the journey. The Girl estimated that departure from Kamloops at 10:00am would see us reach the ferry at Tsawwassen at 4:00pm and she was bang on the money!

The hardest part of the whole proceeding was back in North Saanich. It was dark by the time we got home and raining heavily. I had to back the trailer off the road and into our steep and fairly narrow drive. It took two attempts and I nearly put the Lexus into a ditch in the process. Fortunately the natives are friendly in these parts and the few passing motorists forced to delay their journeys indulged my amateurish attempts with patience and the minimum of heckling.

Considerable amounts of practice will be required before I attempt that with a boat!

What I did learn is that the Lexus is a magnificent vehicle for this sort of thing. It scarcely turned a hair at having to lug a heavy trailer over the mountains in snow and ice and at no point gave us the slightest cause for concern. I am also extremely glad that we spent a packet fitting new winter tyres before we headed inland three weeks ago, a feeling amplified each time we saw some hapless soul in the ditch on the more treacherous stretches of the road.

The Lexus is clearly currently far better equipped than am I. Back to school for me!

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Lorelei

July 30, 2015 in Flotsam and Jetsam | Permalink

Photo by Andy Dawson ReidStrange the way things turn out…

As I posted on Friday of last week, we were off on the Saturday morning to look a 4×4.

My choice of vehicle is based on the firm conviction that – within the next year – I will purchase some sort of small power boat so that I may indulge my piratical whims about the Gulf Islands.

Much research and diligent enquiry suggested that the ideal vehicle for the job was the Toyota 4Runner which has – in its V8 incarnation – sufficient power to drag around some 7000lb in its wake. Furthermore, the truck is built like a tank and will pretty much go on forever – making it entirely possible to find a ten year old model with yet plenty of life in it. The only downside is that this famed longevity keeps the used price somewhat on the high side.

Such it was that we viewed on Saturday morning. Unfortunately, through the vehicle was itself sound it had not been loved and the interior was in a pretty poor state. We decided to pass.

4Runners of the requisite vintage are in short supply and it looked as though a long trip to the interior might be necessary to effect a purchase. Then, almost by chance, the Kickass Canada Girl – on glancing through the online version of ‘Used Victoria’ came upon an advert for a twelve year old Lexus GX470. Aficionados will be aware that the Lexus is basically the 4Runner platform with a rather more luxurious facade atop. Even better, this particular specimen was but a few streets away. We paid a visit.

Though being of a considerably higher mileage than we would have liked, the Lexus looked pretty much as though it were fresh out of the showroom. Not only had it clearly been well loved, but it was also complete down to the least detail – the handbook and service record au naturelle, but also the comprehensive original Lexus toolkit and first aid kit.

The owner – the vehicle’s second – had advertised it at a very reasonable price but had no bidders, so had just dropped the price by $2,500. The Girl – as is her wont – enquired as to whether there might be any ‘wiggle’ room. The owner – without so much as a proper haggle – stated his bottom price, some $1,500 lower yet.

We asked if we could get the vehicle checked over – the which we did on Tuesday following – and were informed that the brakes needed renewing. The owner most kindly went halves to the tune of a further $500!

What a bargain – and a completely unexpected one.

And ‘Lorelei’?

Well – a vehicle as sophisticated and elegant as this one can only be a lady, though perhaps one with a mischevous spirit. The Lorelei was – of course – a siren, luring innocent(ish) men to their doom.

Seemed like a pretty good match…

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