Travel Update
Jan0
Well the last week has been quite strange. Weather wise people are saying they don’t remember anything like it. It was enough to keep me off work for two days while the university was shut. Transport has been difficult in the Manchester area and for me it’s highlighted a few things.
So Manchester’s quite a big place, if you look at the number of local papers alone, lots of people are here and lots travel using the various methods of public transport. What surprised me was the lack of integration with technology. I won’t go into the intricacies of the city’s integrated transport woes, suffice to say that it was all run by one authority and then it got privatised and is a bit of a mess. Now i’m not a regular user of the system, it has always worked fine for me but I think we as a city look at London’s amazingly oiled machine TfL and wonder why we can’t have that as well?
Here was my specific gripe this past snowed out week:
Why should we have to resort to using something line the Manchester Evening News’ crowdsourced traffic news (which it has to be said, has been amazing – incredibly useful)?
Why don’t the transport operators update quicker? We want whatever information you can get your hands on as fast as possible. It’s no good for the commuter waiting out a remote bus stop in sub zero temperatures if they have to wait for 30 minutes on your website to hear that their service has been suspended.
Yes I understand there are many services but you shouldn’t be running more than you can handle, the detail about the why’s can come later.
A case in point has been the Metrolink. I like many people have about a 20 minute walk to a stop, now if the service is suspended like in the past week it can be over an hour before it is resumed. I would quite like to know what is going on before I leave the house.
I think they’ve got better at it since people have complained about them on the MEN’s Travel news. But even so, many of the official sources such as Manchester Airport on there are employing twitter feeds and proper information pages, so why can’t the Metrolink do the same?
So with their now more regularly updated status page I’m doing some screen scraping and having a twitter client periodically update during rush hours to inform people when Metrolink have updated their page. Not that they’d provide something like a useful RSS feed themselves.
It’s likely to be highly unreliable and nowhere near as good as GMPTE could build themselves in a few minutes if they bothered. But it’s better than nothing I think.
3G Dongle
Jan0
Bought one of these while dithering about buying broadband, o2 had an offer on and it works out cheap enough. It turned out to be quite handy really – quick enough and the ability to get your laptop on the internet without wifi anywhere it’s pretty handy so we bought it for future times when away and want to look up things (settle IMDB arguments, etc).
However, don’t let your cat stand on it – they’re not made very well and the connector got broken. Went to the o2 shop and they were a bit narky about it and ummed and arrred but where clearly not going to do anything about it, which we kind of expected. All they could do is point at it and tell us it must be broken (um we knew that? That’s why we came in?). But having paid for a months internet I saw no choice but to get a new dongle and stick the old SIM in it.
Oh well. Another lesson learnt.
Broadband
Jan0
I’d been putting it off a while, not entirely sure why but during the holidays I tend to try and stay away from the internet. I can’t quite manage it any more, especially with the iPhone but I find it worthwhile to try and get my head in the real world for a bit.
So i’ve been putting off getting ‘full broadband’ since we moved house, partly also because I hadn’t changed my address with the bank but having done that and having no more excuses with christmas being in the way I ordered it.
I’d done my research before we moved, as you may have read in this blog – I’d decided to go with o2, not only because of the nice discount for mobile customers but also because their network was mainly built by Be Internet, who a few years ago had an excellent reputation but were sadly slightly expensive.
Now here’s the impressive bit. I ordered it online (using a 3G dongle – another story) on the 29th December. They said that we’d have had the router delivered by the 4th and it’d be activated by the 6th and I was happy with that what with new years eve and all. But by the time we came home on New Years day, the router had already been delivered and when I hooked it up on the second – boom – we were online. Proper Internet, how I’d missed thee.
This one’s for Mike…
Jan0
I will rate every single film I see this year and try to rate one’s I have seen also.
DIYing Slowly
Dec0
There’s lots of jobs need doing around the house and not much time to do them in. Last night our fridge arrived and it took me two hours to get the doors to hinge on the other side so it’ll open and you can still reach in with it being next to the dishwasher. Of course I haven’t yet plumbed in the washer or the dryer let alone the dishwasher and I only just managed to fit in drilling a hole to run a plug for the cooker before slumping on the sofa in exhaustion.
Of course there’s a million shelves that need to be put up, need to get more storage for DVD’s and clothes too and I still need to run in some cables for speakers and extend a phone line round to the sky box.
Oh and a doorbell! That would be useful.
The good news is the windows are being put in today which should help keep the heat in the bad news is we missed the BT appointment yesterday despite Kate being in all day waiting. Some complaining got us fitted in for the 3rd so fingers crossed that happens smoothly and then I can order up broadband, which I actually miss more than I thought I would. On the plus side I managed to get Kate’s Xandros Eee using the o2 3g dongle we bought (you have to edit the ppp config file to switch between chaps and pap authentication.
I even remembered to put the bins out, although I suspect more rubbish could have gone out than I put there. I just hope they’ll take bin bags that aren’t in wheely bins.
Travails of Being a Homeowner
Nov0
Having picked up the keys this week there’s quite a bit of work to be done before we move in our things. We’re stripping back the kitchen, redecorating the lounge and haven’t even begun on the upstairs.
It’s going to be a long process I think.
One of the first hurdles is the fact that the lino has been taken from the kitchen. Now we were expecting to have no white goods in there, the cooker a mild shock but to be expected, but the lino – why? So we’ll go an buy some tonight after measuring up, Kate’s painting the room today and i’ll hopefully lay it tomorrow morning with Tony.
Other things? Well I can’t find where the TV aerial is. I can see it on the roof but I can’t find any sign of aerial points in the house. Not a huge problem as Sky is getting installed next week but a minor niggle as I think it needs to be done anyways.
BT are also coming next week but it’s an agonising wait becuase I’m not so bothered about having a phone line, more that I have to wait for that to order broadband (you do don’t you? I’m not going crazy? I’m new at this).
Last night we had some quotes for double glazing which is another story in itself. My main quick tip is buy local.
Keys!
Nov2
Yesterday we picked up the keys to our new house, we are now officially home owners!
A very exciting day yesterday after a jam packed weekend of transporting various furniture and belongings in a large van from Salford Van Hire around the country. We got the call from the estate agent about 1 o’clock and then went to get some lunch from Tesco and sat on the floor in our living room to eat it.
Later on in the evening after a trip to B&Q it was dawning on us the amount of work needed to be done and it’s going to be hectic for a while I think.
Twilight
Nov0
Saw New Moon last night (midnight showing). There’s going to be lots said elsewhere on it so I won’t even try. I did enjoy it, especially the bit where the Thom Yorke track came on – worth seeing the film just for that.
Trip Planning
Nov0
I don’t know but I assume other people do this, plan a dream trip away. Kate and I want to go to America and there’s so much we want to see there it might take many trips (which is OK). But you have to start somewhere and while Kate was out last night I was watching some documentary about high speed trains (I have no idea why but it was on). It gave me an extra idea for the fly-drive trip we want to do to Boston and Washington.
Manchester
Nov0
View Places I have lived in Manchester in a larger map
September just gone I have been living in Manchester for six years. Unbelievably i’ve spent over 3 in my current place.