No More MrWhiteRabbit

MrGrumpy and LittleMissNaughty are missing the visits of MrWhiteRabbit.
His last visit was on the day they left for vacation before Christmas.
Since they have been back there has been no sign of him :-( They took a walk around the complex but still no evidence of him.

First week and Technical Bit & Bobs...

Well LittleMissNaughty is getting to the end of her first week at work, she is finding it a little stressful, not surprising really given the last time she started a new job was 17+ years ago. MrGrumpy thinks that it won't take her long to put MrLegalEagle into his place and realise who is boss.

After lugging his old Windoze laptop back to the US, MrGrumpy decided to see if he could make it a usable machine again. It was so slow, you could measure the startup time on a calendar. So what could he do with a 2006 vintage laptop? It originally came with WindozeXP, he had updated it to Windoze7 (which was fun as none of the drivers were available from the suppliers site). With only had 2GB of memory the machine was maxxed out, OK, "it's only a 32bit 1.6Ghz CPU and OS but should be able to squeeze it up to 4GB" MrGrumpy thought. MrFarSide supplied some memory that was destined for the skip, he put in 2 x 2GB modules and to his surprise it showed up as 4GB (well 3GB available) - so that was a win.
Next step, SSD, this would cost a little but after some deliberation he decided the machine would at least get some extra life if it was usable, so he ordered a 120GB Samsung SSD from MrAmazon... which arrived next day. 30 Mins later he swapped over the cloned SSD into the laptop and it booted... Not amazingly quick, but better (and silent, except for the fan), few tweeks here and there and it seems much better.

Word cloud from this Blog...

Back to the Future...

MrGrumpy and LittleMissNaughty had their holiday back in the UK, they very much enjoyed seeing lots of their Family and Friends. MrGrumpy did drink and eat far too much, so much he feels more like MrBlobby at the moment...

The Flight to the UK seemed to take forever, maybe not helped by them being at the airport 6 hours before the flight. Also the jet-lag and not being in there own surroundings extended their non sleeping to almost a week...

In contrast the return flight did not seem as bad, maybe the "extra leg room" seats helped. Within a couple of days they had recovered back to an almost normal sleep pattern.

There was little to annoy MrGrumpy at the airport, except when they tried to check-in and the "system had gone down", which added a 40 min delay where they just stood around waiting... oh and the extra 30 min on the plane while they refueled it with a thimble.

Upon return to the US, they have not seen MrWhiteRabbit at all :-( , it is unlike him to not be in the garden at all for several days.

LittleMissNaughty starts her new role today, she finished off her volunteering before our holiday and now starts a new chapter with MrLegalEagle in downtown SanJose.

Rare post these days

It has been quite a while since MrGrumpy has posted to the blog, he has been quite busy and generally quite ungrumpy (ish).
Today is his last day at work for this year, littleMissNaughty and MrGrumpy head up to SFO on Monday and back to the UK for Xmas.
It has been several years since MrGrumpy has traveled so little, he has been constantly in the US since early April, no flight, therefore no airports to annoy him, this may all change on Monday, he hopes not...

MrGrumpy and the small room...

As many of you know, MrGrumpy and DIY don't really mix, but the new home is in need of some updating. LittleMissNaughty thought it would be a good idea to start of with a simple little project...

The project was to update the smallest room in the house, yes the downstairs loo...
So LittleMissNaughty began by removing all the things from the walls and the getting the paper off, all well and good so far.

This is where MrGrumpy then took over, he removed the vinyl flooring (which left quite a bit of it's backing on the concrete), also when removing the flooring there seemed to be some kind of plant like growth around the toilet base... Only when he removed the toilet did he find that there were tiny roots finding there way up around the inch gap between the outlet pipe and the concrete... "oh what joy" he thought (or words to that effect).

The outlet connector was not in great shape, it was not flush with the floor so MrGrumpy decided that had to be replaced, several YouTube moments later... he hacked through the ABS plastic and managed to remove the existing connector without breaking anything else.

Skipping over several trips and to HomeDepot and various other DIY stores... All that remained in the room was the Vanity unit, the light and the fan.

To be continued...

Follow the White Rabbit...

MrGrumpy and LittleMissNaughty have followed  MrWhiteRabbit, they saw him whilst looking at a home for sale and now after a few weeks of not knowing where they were, they have moved in...

The very same day they moved in, MrWhiteRabbit appeared in the yard as if to welcome them and confirm they had made the right choice (only time will tell on that one...)