The solution seemed simple. Order a replacement seal. Fitting it however was a problem.

Indesit decided to make this model un-servicable. It’s not possible to get enough access to the drum to fit the seal without, well removing the drum. So what should be a 30 minute job took 4 hours. The case is welded together, and apparently the drum was lowered in in the factory.

Now I’m sure this makes sense for indesits sales and operations management. I assume it simplifies manufacturing, and makes it cheaper, by easily allowing the factory to assemble different machines on the same line by just changing the pre-made cases and drums. What it also does it creates a unit that for most people is un-serviceable, leading most likely to the machine being trashed and a new one being bought. Not great for the environment, not great for the consumer, but good for indesit.

So when this machine finally does pack it in an need replacing. I’ll be replacing it one that I can do basic maintenance on. Probably not an indesit if our current machine is typical of them.

The Chinses symbols dangling from the ‘roof’ are there mainly to stop a particularly stupid crow from attacking itself in the mirror early in the morning! There are a few plants in bloom. The first is the dianthus, not strictly an alpine variety but has a strong long lasting red colour at the front.

The ‘ball of long grass’ as Min calls the Armeria Maritima.

And then there is the ‘little ball of  grass’, Silene acaulis Mount Snowdon.

The Sempervivums are not ‘in bloom’ but look well as their offsets are shooting. Sempervivum Sprite

Sempervivum ‘Director Jacobs’. Min’s favourite.

sempervivum arachnoideum densum. You have to love the web like filaments on these.

Note the absence of a cat in that photo. I joked with Min when we were buying this thing that the cat would probably be more interested in the cardboard box it came in than the scratching thing. Sure enough:

But not only is the box more interesting, the plastic wrapping that this post thing came in got more attention!

Needless to say the various toys we got her get ignored. That green bit of rope in the top picture however, which is a discarded piece from an old Ultras flag, is the greatest toy ever.

*sigh* At least Simon understands.

We got my mum a new bed recently. Turns out the cat was rather fond of the old mattress

So let me put the scenario into perspective. Ireland cannot borrow from the market at the moment, we are apparently going to stay a free market capitalist country, so we will be getting money from there again. What we need is money from the EU/IMF in the interim to get us through the mess we are  until we can borrow money cheaper from the market than the IMF.  The silly rate we initially agreed to was never going to be paid, the idea was that by making the money available the markets would open up again to Ireland to cheaper cash. That hasn’t happened, so we’ll need more money, and we’ll be taking it at a sensible interest rate. And by sensible I mean a rate that the Irish economy can actually have a hope of paying back. That’s the rational thing to do. And if they don’t give it to us at a sensible rate the precious Euro will collapse. And the longer that the rest of the EU takes to cop on to this the heavier a battering the Euro will take in the precious markets.

The last government may have gone cap-in-hand, the new lot, even if I don’t like them, seem to realise that we have plenty of cards in our hand.

After a couple of iterations I came up with a beater that seems to work well. The challenge is to come up with a beater that sounds right when hit hard. I had a proper beater to compare to and also a nice big surdo to hit. The neighbours probably didn’t appreciate the testing.

So heres the optimal way I found.
Materials needed:
sweeping brush handle.
old (clean!) thick socks
baloons
duck tape

1. Cut the top 10cm or so off the toe of the sock. This will be the covering on the beater.
2. Cut the rest of the sock into strips.
3. wrap a strip around the head of the beater and tape in place. repeat until you have no more sock, or until is about the right size and shape.
4. Cut the bottom off the baloon. Then stretch the baloon over the the material. Do this three times. This compresses the material the right amount.
5. Lastly fit the sock over the baloons and duck tape it in place.

Hat tip to Cardinal Fang over at instructables http://www.instructables.com/id/Make-your-own-drum-surdo-beaters/ for the idea.

Tasting it tonight its clear that its going to need to mellow a bit. Well, a lot. I might try a bottle after 6 months, but this stuff might not be drinkable for years!

Still, once this is in bottles I can get onto something else

So any suggestions on what I can use to create these? Data is in a mysql database; need to be able to script the graph generation also.

By the way Dalkey got down to -6.3C during December, and snow on the ground does seem to cause an increase in light pollution. It’ll be interesting to compare some of this against an identical sensor on the top of the physics building in Trinity and if we can get it, air pollution data for the month. Basically we’d expect the increased albedo to increase light pollution, but snow has a reputation of clearing particles form the atmosphere so perhaps with less particles the light pollution is somewhat reduced. Lots of questions to answer

Heres the basic data for most of December to give you an idea at what I’m lookng to merge:

This video from TEDGlobal 2010 confirms something I have always felt. The warm fuzzy feelings you get when you tell people what you are going to do, gets interpreted by your brain as a reward for doing it, or at least for making steps towards your goal. You have done nothing, but your mind feels it has made some progress. I suspect we’ve all been here. I certainly have!

What I didn’t realise was that this not only be detrimental to your progress but can actually stop you achieving your goal. It can even stop you starting your goal!

Whats less clear is how telling people affects your goal after you are on your plan to achieving it. For example if your goal is to run a marathon, how does say sharing your running times and distances with friends affect your performance? Or sharing how much weight you have lost? Does the pat on the back from your peers cause you to sit back or does it force you to proceed and improve I wonder?

In any case I wont be telling you my new year resolutions! And if you have any it seems best if you don’t tell me, at least not until you are actually on the way to achieving your goal.