powerrabbit

The Samsung Galaxy S111 and all the extras came in the post today, I had to take a trip to my local mobile phone store though as the SIM from my other phone was too big to fit it so I had to get a micro SIM, fitted in store, activated and no charge. Terriffic phone! Also, browsing the market hall 'kiosks', one selling computer equipment had a very nice nearly new Acer Aspire One 'Happy, netbook for sale, asking the price was told £135, a little haggle later it came down to £110 so I grabbed it! Don't really worry about the colour being lilac and white, looks quite good really, comes with a colour co-ordinated laser tracking mouse, also Acer, the mains charger unit and he even gave me a free carry case for it. It's on Windows 7. Bargain!

I've got several of those front loaders Robert, they fit quite a number of 1980's Britains tractors with very little or no modifications, looks especially good on the Britains Renault 155-45 and 145-14 as fitted to the real Renaults as they are Franchi loaders. Still have 3 to fit to something on day. The loaders I have came from Nathan.

Couple more gadgets to add to the technology collection. A very nice but cheap in-car dv camcorder, I can video idiots on the road now! Also just bought from fleabay a Samsung Galaxy s111 i9300 phone. I've wanted one for some time but price has always been the issue but this one comes with loads of extras which are worth quite a bit of money, 2 years warrantee and it's only 2 weeks old. Just awaiting its arrival now.

Just come back home from a visit to and tour of Sparex warehouse at Exeter next to the airport. First time I've been on a tour here, very interesting.

The new G&M Originals David Brown 2D in 1:16. I'm once again having the prototype wich should be with me on Tuesday. comes with plough attachment.

Noticed that my AGA temperature was dropping last night, took longer to boil the kettle so I let it out before going to bed to let it get cold enough to de-carbonise the burner early this morning. The burner carbons up over time in the last inch of the oil inlet pipe, up the bend and into the inlet gallery, took 1/2 an hour to do and once re-lit was hot enough again by 11o'clock to do my toast on the hotplate.

That's a lot of dosh Barry, just think how many packs of washing powder you could buy with the difference!

No Barry, it's an LG. looked at several other brands like Bosch, Seimens, Panasonic and other lesser makes but for the price and the spec the LG came out best. Certain brand names seem to carry a price premium, the exact same machine by Bosch was just over £300 more, no point paying motorcycle prices for a pushbike!

The only time related aspect of the old machine was 'time to get a new one'. Just contacted the phone number on the new one to 'register' it for the manufacturers warantee, cost another £129 but that covers it completeley for 5 years come what may, it's an 'upgrade' to the standard 2 year warantee, with the 2 year, if anything goes wrong you have to pay a £75 'call out' fee but upgrading to the 5, you don't have to pay anything. The motor is on the drum, what they call 'direct drive', no belt to worry about and the motor is guaranteed for 10 years. It even weighs the laundry you load in it and tells you, when you've put it on the desired programme, how long it will take to complete the full cycle and run for that exact time, something to do with 'economy'. In registering for the warantee I found out that LG is a branch of JVC. You learn something new every day!

A new washing machine. Turned on the old one this morning and it caught light fizzing an popping filling the room with smoke. The old one has given good service, it's done me for the last 15 years and was second hand when I had it so can't complain. Something that was not on the 2013 purchase list!

I bought a brand new mountain bike 18 years ago, all singing all dancing 21 gears Shimano, front suspension etc. Never used it!, still in the utility room. Same spec bike is over £700 now. Anyone want to buy an as new mountain bike?

3 months ago my Brothers Daugther lost her beloved ginger cat, he spent most nights out and was always back home the next morning with his nights hunt but one night he went out and never came back. Ever since 10 year old Anna has been very upset and pining for her cat and not sleeping too well so, last night my Brother dissapeared somewhere and came home with this. They've called her Molly.

Warmed up here a couple of degrees today, heavy rain and strong wind here and the snow is dissapearing fast, not going to affect me here but the ground is still frozen and the water is running well.

Sorry Aaron, Didn't reply to your first post in the negative as may have been thought, guessed what you really wanted to know and you've had some good replies. Type of welding masks and helmets will suit different people and the type of welding they intend doing, either in their job or as part of a hobby. Heavy industrial welding requires a full helmet where when you're getting up close to your work, lets say shipbuilding, large hot stuff is going to fly and you need full head protection whereas if you're doing light welding then a basic hand mask might be good enough and then there are different grades of darkening in the glass and for that matter, for heat and 'spatter' purposes different grades of glass. The concensus however seems to lean in favour of the type of helmet mask with battery operated graduating darkening glass. Hope that the replies up to now have helped you in making your choice.

I bet anything that everyone at some time has, switched on the welder, wound up or down the dial (arc welder that is) lined up the end of the rod to the metal, nodded head forward to lower the mask and when the ark is struck, you were miles off! Yes, those helmet/masks that darken as soon as you stike an ark are undoubtedly the ones to go for, a no-brainer in my opinion.

If we knew what the questions were Aaron we might be able to answer them.

Now the local forecast is for milder temperatures from Thursday on with heavy rain so now the low lying areas are on an amber flood alert with a combination of predicted rainfall and snow melt.

Well, this is what it's like here today after another 4" overnight.

We've had nearly 2 inches now, still snowing hard and swirling around, I think everything may be at a standstill tomorrow. It's coming from a NE direction which is bad news. I'll see if I can take a few pictures tomorrow morning. Going to watch the local news and forecast now.

Nice pictures Tris, must be a lot colder over your way, it is pretty open country though.

The 20 JD tractors and snowploughs that Masons Kings supplied Teignbridge Council were off the road over the weekend, they hadn't realised that the wheels on the ploughs are only meant for a max speed of 30k and they've been using them at 50K and they've all disintegrated so they can't use them, the wheels keep the blade 2" off the surface to stop them ploughing up the road surface, poor design. Still snowing here too and the wind is picking up. Local TV said earlier that it was getting pretty bad North of Okehampton and have told everyone that's out to go home and those that are home to stay there.

The rain we've been having all day, all 11.4mm of it, has now within the last 20 minutes turned to snow and up to now has deposited about 1/2". The chap that keeps some of his cattle on my farm has just looked in after coming over from Princetown on Dartmoor where he farms said that on the road at the Warren House Inn, which is the highest point coming toward me across Dartmoor, is a bit dicey, he pulled out 3 cars and a lorry that wasn't going anywhere. Snowing quite heavily here now.

Heavy sleet/rain here at the moment, they do vive the temperatures rising over the weekend but it only needs to drop a couple of degrees and all that could change in a very short time.

Everybody complains bitterly when we have a bit of snow, most say that we in the UK are very ill prepared opposed to other countries that have snow in the winter as the norm but it's quite right what they say, we here get the 'wrong' snow and being at 52 degrees lattitude and an Island surrounded by sea our climate has a very high humidity and the snow that falls is wet whereas in other more Northern lattitudes the humidity is much less so the snow is much drier and 'powdery' which makes it more managable and does not compact to ice as it does here so you can travel on it ok. plus in these Countries it is a legal requirement that you fit winter tyres to your vehicles at this time of year. Over 1/2 the people driving on snow covered roads here have no need to whatsoever which makes for big problems for those that do have to so if you don't need to, then don't, let the idiots smash up their own cars and not involve ours and cause even more chaos and misery and un-needed expence!