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Post by Deleted on Apr 3, 2013 11:46:06 GMT
Oh no!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Post by mossie on Apr 3, 2013 14:31:36 GMT
Disaster Have you tried taking the battery out and putting it back, sometimes kickstarts the thing.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 12, 2013 7:21:24 GMT
The problem is dust flakes inside the lens. The repair people tell me that it is a common problem with all makes of digital pocket cameras. It is the action of zooming and and out that gives the dust access to the innards. In the future, I will try to remember to at least symbolically wipe the zoom cylinder before retracting the zoom.
Meanwhile this morning, I blew a fuse for the very first time in the upstairs room (and that lamp is going in the rubbish!). It is good to have two completely different fuseboxes to simply the search for the proper fuse, but the problem with the upstairs fusebox is that it is in a top opening cubboard on which I had piled at least 5 years of junk. So I had to remove everything to replace the fuse. I guess this was a useful trauma, though, since it forced me to do a little extra cleaning.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 12, 2013 18:56:28 GMT
Now I have a moral dilemma.
Checking my bank account this evening, I saw that I have been credited for 722€ (we can call it $1000 for those of you more familiar with that currency) as a cancellation of a debit made a few months ago. This was the penalty for my little accident in the snow during the winter in which the car was not damaged.
Trouble is, Gold Mastercard already refunded me the same amount more than a month ago when I decided to test their car rental insurance guarantee for the first time.
So I have $1000 too much.
I guess that I will wait for a couple of weeks to see if either party suddenly wakes up -- and maybe more than that, since I have no intention of spending that money anyway. I just don't feel that it is my responsibility to contact anybody and tell them that they appear to have made a mistake.
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Post by bixaorellana on Apr 12, 2013 22:10:57 GMT
If you decide to keep the money, you can use it to rewire that lamp (not a big deal).
Hmmm. I think I'd go ahead & tell them about it in order to keep from fretting or wondering when the other shoe might drop.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 12, 2013 22:30:41 GMT
But I don't know who made the mistake -- the MasterCard insurance or Europcar.
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Post by bixaorellana on Apr 12, 2013 22:58:41 GMT
Oh ~~ that didn't show on your statement? What a pain. Guess you have to call the bank.
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Post by lagatta on Apr 13, 2013 16:55:45 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Apr 13, 2013 22:17:23 GMT
I have not opened that bottle of wine yet.
As for my building, from what I have been able to determine, it was an outlying customs post on the road to Paris and was surrounded by fields at the time, although the Jeanne d'Arc chapel was only about 150 meters away. The street I live on is the original Roman road from Paris to Brussels (and London) and everybody coming from the north had to pass that way, so the customs post story seems quite credible.
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Post by lagatta on Apr 13, 2013 23:01:31 GMT
Yes, "real-life" friends of mine used to live on that street, so that is credible. But what I have seen of your building looks very typical of many 19th-century buildings in the area. Guess it was largely rebuilt?
My own petty personal trauma is the really shitty weather, although I see that spring is nasty and cold in much of Europe as well. We got about 10cm of wet melty snow yesterday, though most of it is gone now. It does make everything filthy in cities as soon as traffic has passed.
A year ago, there were spring flowers everywhere...
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Post by Deleted on Apr 19, 2013 17:09:28 GMT
Yes, "real-life" friends of mine used to live on that street, so that is credible. But what I have seen of your building looks very typical of many 19th-century buildings in the area. Guess it was largely rebuilt? Just as an example, during the last ravalement (renovation), they removed a coating of old plaster, cement and junk 20 cm. thick. I have a picture somewhere and will try to find it one of these days. Meanwhile, new mild trauma today -- I could not find my mobile phone (almost brand new) today, so I called myself from my land line. No sound at all in my apartment. So I went downstairs and searched my rental car for the weekend, but still nothing. It was only when I opened one of the back doors (although I had of course not been in back) that I was able to see the phone wedged between the driver's seat and the hand brake. Those damned phones are too thin now!
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Post by Deleted on Apr 25, 2013 18:00:00 GMT
Why oh why do those accidental 'delete' incidents happen only when I have completed 95% of my post? Why can't it happen when I have only written 5%?
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Post by Deleted on May 28, 2013 5:57:10 GMT
Damn, my kitchen light burned out after 22 years. You can't trust anything anymore.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 24, 2013 5:59:57 GMT
Two of my flower pots on the kitchen windowsill disappeared over night. No more dill, no more wildflowers.... I didn't think it had been that windy.
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Post by htmb on Jul 23, 2013 20:44:41 GMT
I'm pretending this is petty, but I think I'm still in a bit of shock. After working downstairs most of the day, I went upstairs to get ready to go run some errands only to find water streaming down around the light sockets over my bathroom sink. The section of roof over this part of my home is flat and was horribly designed. I had a leak this time of year, three years ago. It was repaired then, but it appears I have another one. It's rained so much that the water on the flat part of the roof is not draining off fast enough. It's not so bad since its in the bathroom and hadn't had a chance to damage rugs or personal items, but its dripping into a drop down frame over the sink and I'm sure that frame is filling with water. I'm waiting to hear back from the roofers now, but it appears I will also need some interior work done, and will also need to call an electrician.
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Post by mossie on Jul 24, 2013 7:42:06 GMT
Not good news, water and electricity is a lethal mixture.
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Post by htmb on Jul 24, 2013 17:53:41 GMT
Well, the roofer/handyman guy and his helper came and did a little work. Now we have to wait and see if he patched the right spots. With all the moisture and rainclouds in the air it shouldn't be long before I know if the job was a success.
Funny thing, but as the roofer, who is just a few years younger than me, was walking by a bookcase he saw my high school yearbooks. It turns out we graduated from the same central Florida high school. So, that tells me he didn't get a great high school education.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 24, 2013 18:00:32 GMT
It looks like I am going to have to contact the building management syndicate because those girls next door are sending foul water to fill up my bathtub through the drain, just like in a horror movie.
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Post by htmb on Jul 24, 2013 18:02:11 GMT
Dang.......that's worse than my problem, for sure! At least my rainwater is fairly clean.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 24, 2013 18:06:31 GMT
At least I have two completely independent drainage circuits in my apartment. Kitchen and toilet (+ additional lavatory) are on another drainpipe, so even if I have to abstain from a shower or bath for a couple of days, I still have places to wash.
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Post by htmb on Jul 24, 2013 18:15:42 GMT
So you could take a bath in your kitchen sink with no problem. ;D ;D
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Post by mossie on Jul 25, 2013 7:05:13 GMT
That was where our first two had their baths ;D
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Post by tod2 on Jul 25, 2013 8:16:02 GMT
Kerouac, it sounds as if there must be a blockage from the girls hair strands building up over time....are you not allowed to tip a quantity of that drain-cleaner down the plughole? Also obtainable from the supermarket are canisters of compressed air which is used by simply turning the nozzle downwards over the hole an applying pressure. That air is so powerful it blasts most gunge away. Hope your problem is solved soon!
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Post by Deleted on Jul 25, 2013 11:40:03 GMT
I tried the compressed air once (and it doesn't appear to be available in stores anymore), and it blew loose my drainpipe and flooded my downstairs neighbour! So I would never use that again.
As for the drain cleaner, theoretically it should be avoided when there is a total plug, because then the caustic soda just makes a bigger plug of crud. Plungers reputedly work best when you can't get a "snake" down the drain. But I have a small plunger and should probably buy a full sized one.
I also have a snake, but it is only 2 meters long and that is not long enough to reach the problem.
The bathtub has finally drained after two days, but I will continue to work on the drain, because now that the weekend is arriving, there's no point in contacting the building syndicate which wouldn't send anybody before Monday anyway. Another factor is that a real plumber will obviously cost money -- mostly not my money since I can prove that it is not a "private" drainage but a "building" problem since more than one apartment is concerned, but we end up splitting the cost on the quarterly building fees (although I appreciate that I only own 7% of the building and therefore only pay 7% of such bills!).
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Post by tod2 on Jul 25, 2013 14:25:11 GMT
Geez, sorry to hear the compressed air cannister can be so violent! I believe that stuff like shampoo, soaps and the like can coat the pipes with build-up. Boiling water?? At lot of boiling water...... Here's holding thumbs your plumbing attempts will pay off!
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Post by Deleted on Jul 25, 2013 14:28:03 GMT
I think that pure bleach is also supposed to help -- but never mixed with drain cleaner!
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Post by Deleted on Jul 25, 2013 15:23:12 GMT
I have a leak in my pond which I'm unable to detect where at this particular time. It will involve having to net out the fish (around 60 carp), drain the pond, clean and dry it, and see what I can find and hopefully just have to patch. A laborious and tedious task to say the least... I am not looking forward to this task.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 25, 2013 16:38:30 GMT
Where do you keep the fish when you do something like that?
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Post by tod2 on Jul 25, 2013 16:46:44 GMT
I think I saw someone put them in the bathtub once .......
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Post by Deleted on Jul 25, 2013 16:53:31 GMT
I have large heavy duty plastic tub that I will put them in with some buckets of the existing pond water that they are accustomed to. It'll be crowded to be sure but they should be fine. I've seen fish at pet stores and garden centers coexisting in much smaller quarters. I am a wee concerned about varmints such as raccoons and the like while they are in the tub but plan to put a mesh screen over the top of the tub to ensure their safety. (As an aside,they are known as "the Betty's" because a neighborhood 3 year old who frequents our garden when posed with helping me name the fish looked at them and because there were so many, said," Oh my goodness, there are just too many to name Ms. C!!!!. Why don't we just call them all Betty?") Henceforth, they are known as "The Bettys" Got to love it!! ;D
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