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[alanball]

Hi Steve,

saw your comment about being with the police in Stoke-on-Trent, do you come from that area? I originally came from Burslem, but lived in Newcsatle-under-Lyme before moving out here to NZ in 1978.

[sjj1805]

To prevent your response from taking a thread off topic I have moved it here.

Other than training courses or in my early days with the Police, or attending the Stoke City Football Ground, I didn't work in that area.

I have been based in the following areas
Aldridge
Brownhills
Walsall
Lichfield
Darlaston
Handsworth (Birmingham)
West Bromwich
Wednesbury
Old Hill (Cradley Heath)

I met quite a few Fellow Police Officers and Police Cadets from the
Stoke on Trent and Newcastle Under Lyme areas - including Burslem - whilst training or attending various Police Cadet Training Camps.

I began as a Cadet in 1971. Regular in 1973. "Retired" in 2003 but still working at West Bromwich doing a job as a civilian that I used to do as a Sergeant before the post got 'civilianised.'

Hope you are enjoying your new life in New Zealand - I bet it's nothing like West Bromwich

[Ron P.]

That subject title is real misleading, at least for where I'm at...

There's been a long-standing saying in Kansas for visitors, "If you don't like the weather, just stick around for a day and it'll change". This just occurred once again. This is our weather within the last 24 hrs..

Yesterday it was 64 deg F, very windy but yet warm. Some places in the state reached 74F. Midnight last night, it was still about 54F. At about 8am CST this morning it dropped to 30F, the winds kicked up to 35mph sustained gusts to over 45mph from the north, temp dropped to around 15F. At 1pm we had white-out conditions (snow). By 4pm, the sun was shining, no clouds to be seen.

However it is still cold, windchill is around temp: -5 to -10 F.

So as the saying still goes, Don't like the weather, stick around...

White-Out conditions: Snowing and blowing snow to the extent, visibility is near zero.

[Ron P.]

Today our state celebrated it's 147th birthday. So throughout the day a local TV station would present little bits of information concerning the state. I found this one quite interesting..

In 1861 Kansas became the 34th state to enter the union. Later on in 1953 Dwight D. Eisenhower, grew up in Abilene, Kansas, was elected as the 34th President of the United States..

[Ron P.]

For years scientist have been mystified by why the drains in the Northern and Southern hemispheres flow opposite. If you have not noticed that water draining down the sinks, or toilets in the Northern Hemisphere turn clockwise. In Southern Hemisphere countries like Australia, the water turns counter-clockwise.

If the scientists only knew that there answer could be found on this forum. We have a possible theory as to why this strange phenomena is occurring..

Ken, that's because you're in Australia.. You're toilets even flush backwards..

Not necessarily. May be a Vista effect!! Though I mean that seriously.

So Microsoft may be to blame for this...

http://phpbb.ulead.com.tw/EN/viewtopic. ... 523#145523

[Ron P.]

Yes another typical Kansas day is in store for us. Yesterday was a beautiful day, temp reached 72F, and light winds. Not the common blow you to Maine, winds.

Today we get the "wait 5 and it'll change" weather. It's starting out with Thunderstorms, and changing to Thunder-ice or sleet, and will finish with snow. Anywhere from 1-8 inches. Oh, but don't get discouraged, because by Friday and wer're back to spring, and maybe do it all over again..

Looks like I'm turning this into my personal blog, instead of it's intended purpose..

[Black Lab]

vidoman wrote:
Ken, that's because you're in Australia.. You're toilets even flush backwards..

Doesn't that make a mess?

Sorry.

[sjj1805]

Looks like I'm turning this into my personal blog, instead of it's intended purpose..

OK I'll describe my last 24 hours.
Well actually it started a little earlier than that, just before starting a night shift Sky One TV were broadcasting the first episode of Series 4 of "Lost" so I set it to record on my Sky+ box. I had previously swapped the hard drive in the Sky+ box for a 250GB monster and had amassed about 150 hours of recording yet to watch. Off I went to work.

Finished the night shift at 7am and decided I couldn't wait until the afternoon so prepared myself some breakfast and sat down in front of my TV, pressed the buttons on my remote to watch LOST and ---- yep you guessed it - all my recordings were Lost! The hard drive had packed up.

I thought don't do anything hasty lets see if I can repair the hard drive so as not to lose all those recordings. Off I went to bed to "sleep on it."

I have some software to transfer a Sky+ hard drive to another - they do not use normal hard drive formats like FAT32, NTFS etc. So I checked my large collection of hard drives and also the free space on my 4 computers - groan I don't have a spare 250GB anywhere.

I had been thinking of getting a 1TB external hard drive for my laptop which only has a measly 160GB so this gave me that push I needed to go out and get one, thought - back it up onto the 1TB hard drive, reformat the broken hard drive and copy it back. In the meantime my sister in law turned up at my house with a brand new still in its box laptop and a brand new still in its box printer. She bought it for her fathers 70 birthday and asked if I could "set it all up."

I then found she hadn't bought a mouse - I'm useless with that pad that sits in front of the keyboard - and if her dad is 70 I reckon he will be too.
Also found she had forgotten to buy the USB lead to connect the printer to the laptop. So in a way it was good timing and I was able to get the external hard drive, mouse and USB all in one go.

Then I began sorting out the new laptop - they seem to put all sorts of rubbish on a new computer to use up that hard drive space you have just paid for. Trial versions of this that and the other. Whats a 70 year old going to do with Napster? you get the idea - get rid of the unwanted stuff to make room for stuff that he would be more interested in.

Anyone installed Vista lately? it takes about 20 minutes to install and about 2 hours to download and install all the latest updates and security fixes - arghhhh.

In the middle of doing all this my wife nags me that her laptop has rozen for the third time that day, so I then have to run a defragment, registry editor and so on - I discovered 447 errors.

In the meantime I had connected the external 1TB hard drive to my laptop to format it to NTFS - they come pre-formated FAT32. Slow - a snail moves faster, it took 14 hours to complete!!

So here is the scene in my house at 0330am just before going to bed, and I haven't even looked at the Sky+ hard drive yet!


After getting up out of bed I find the external 1TB hard drive still hasn't finished formatting and had to wait another couple of hours for it to finish.
First thing to do with the new hard drive is get a Ghost Image of that laptop - it came with Vista on the hard drive and a note stating "great news - you don't need a setup disc - its all on the hard drive - so if it breaks you do this that and the other" - Oh yeah - suppose the hard drive packs up?

I then thought here is my chance to test that USB Hard drive out on my desktop - I'll burn the Ghost image to DVD's from that machine. Previous attempts with (home made) external hard drives were not that successful - but this one was purpose built. No such luck it crashed. Checked the external hard drive on one of the laptops - works fine. So I thought perhaps the built in USB 2 ports are crap. Off I go again to the computer shop and get hold of a PCI card that provides you with 4 USB 2 ports.
yep that worked - so thats why I had never had any luck with external USB Drives.

I then come to tackle the original problem - the broken Sky+ Hard drive.
Bad news - completely had it, couldn't even format it with XP or even Partition Magic. So tomorrow I shall be on the internet looking for a replacement. My wife and I have decided we are going to swap the entire Sky+ boxs for a PACE model, after reading reviews on the internet our old Amstrad model is notorious for faults.

So hows your day been?

[sjj1805]

Another rotten day on Thursday, Set my laptop up with my new external hard drive and went to connect to the internet to log on to the forum and......


Didn't get broadband back until this morning!

[skier-hughes]

attending the Stoke City Football Ground, I didn't work in that area.

I have been based in the following areas

Lichfield

And I thought you were a nice guy, Graham - Baggies Fan

When were you in Lichfield, I worked there from about 83 to 2003, but not in the police station!!!! Though I did visit it often enough

[sjj1805]

That was in the early 70's.
I was also born in Lichfield and I now have a son who lives in Lichfield.

[Ron P.]

More weather....

As I had previously posted about the unusual winter we have been receiving, this has continued. About 2 weeks ago now, was the most bizarre day I have experienced in my nearly 50 yrs.

The day started around midnight, when the weather started out with a thunderstorm. Yes with lightning and all. At about 5am, it started to snow, lightly, then by 7am, it was snowing hard. By 10:30am we had 2.5 inches of snow on the ground.

My wife works as a dispatcher for the local sheriff's office. She had to call out the road crews to start clearing the roads. They of course responded and began clearing operations. Now comes the bizarre part...

By 2:30pm the snow was gone. I mean completely melted away. Not a trace left. So what had happened was the temp started out around midnight warm enough for a thunderstorm (spring like weather), cooled around sunrise to around 30-32 deg so that the rain turned to snow. Then sometime around noon, warmed again to around 45 deg, melting all the snow.

Well fast-forward to today, March 2nd..

Yesterday we had a very spring like day, our temps almost setting records for this time of year. Our temp hit 72 degs. Overnight it only cooled to around 55 deg. Now today we are in a Winter Weather Advisory, and they talk of a Winter Storm Warning. By tomorrow noon we are to have 4+ inches of snow. So the roller-coaster continues, which I dislike..

[Devil]

I have been based in the following areas
Aldridge
Brownhills
Walsall
Lichfield
Darlaston
Handsworth (Birmingham)
West Bromwich
Wednesbury
Old Hill (Cradley Heath)

You have my sympathy

[etech6355]

Ron,
I have never heard of such bizarre weather.

Do you have a generator for the house?
I guess a UPS gets put to good use in your area.

Sounds like your headed for very hot summer. ( Who knows, might even snow in July! )

[Ron P.]

No generator yet. However I should invest in one. The last couple of days with the wind blowing 35-45mph, we were constantly getting short power outages. It was caused by the power lines slapping together.

We missed the snow this time.. Just thunderstorms, then for the rest of the week it's not suppose to get above 40 degs. That's not good for starting off a new job.

I'm to start work on Thursday, running machines, dozers, trackhoes, ect., building a runway. This kind of weather really screws things like that up..