Busy week.
After a couple of days of minimal manpower, the house was swamped with contractors by Friday and we now have a number of jobs enticingly close to being complete. The living area and main bedroom have been re-tiled and assorted plumbing, electrical and construction jobs have been almost completed. But nothing can be signed off, partially because they are awaiting the installation of new windows and a kitchen; and also because the contractor ran out of time.
His current assignment is a complete house refurbishment for a friend of ours; and he took time out from that job to work on our house. But now he has to get back to his main project until the end of July, and will return in early August after our new windows and kitchen are in place.
This is not a real problem, especially as we are waiting for some special tiles to complete the bathrooms, and they are two weeks from being delivered; but it is rather frustrating to have work grind to a halt. In the calm before the next storm, we will purchase the many plumbing and electrical fittings that she who must be obeyed has carefully listed; and might even transfer some furniture into rooms that are not involved in the overhaul process.
Yesterday I decided to box up my music CDs. Music has been an important part of so much of my life; and my eight hundred or so CDs trigger so many memories of the past. Problem is, I have not played a CD for at least ten years; everything sits on a hard drive. With a move to smaller location it was time for a clearance. I am donating them to the Jester’s Care For Kids fair; and all I had to do was put them in a box and someone would come and pick them up. I started by picking up individual CDs and re-living the music stored on them and the time of my life that they represented. But then it became emotionally difficult to place them in the box for disposal. So I reverted to taking large handfuls and stuffing them in the box without looking at them. Even so, once I had finished there was quite a strong sense of loss.
Then I moved onto the DVDs, of which there are hundreds. This was a little easier, with some being retained because I now I would want to re-watch them several times; but most being stuff I would never bother watching ever again. I was surprised to discover that I own three copies of Apocalypse Now.
Next will be the books. Already had a clear-out of those a couple of years ago so should not be so many; but I can guarantee you a wide choice of music, video and books at the Children’s fair this year.
The major disappointment of the week has been that the contractor has been bloody excellent and provided zero fodder for a blog post. Compared to some of the dumbnuts that have entered my accommodation, light of head and heavy of hammer, he has been a revelation. I should have him stuffed for posterity.
Comments 🔗
2014-07-13| BlogDaz saysSo spike, lots of bargains to be had at the Children’s Fair, and possibly an example of your taxidermy skills. Don’t be impatient though Spike, or we may have more calm after the storm before the storm or even in-between the storm…..
2014-07-14| Clive saysLike you, I digitised my audio collection a while back, using iTunes and Apple lossless as a format. The main reason I chose AC4 was because I can recreate wav files from the compressed alternatives, from which I can reconstitute the original CD if required. In other words, as long as you didn’t rip to MP3, the departure of your audio collection should not have an impact.
For your DVD collection I would recommend Pavtube Ultimate, which costs about USD $50. This can rip any DVD and almost all blurry into a variety of formats (which you can effortlessly select via the software). I have discovered that the “Apple TV2/3” format is perfect - it takes a DVD and converts with zero loss of fidelity whilst preserving a Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack. Resultant files are very roughly 1GB per hour of playback. I have kept all. Y original. Edia (boxed, in the garage loft) but can stream the content from NAS box to Mac Mini and then onto main TV effortlessly via iTunes. As an added bonus, I can also download to my iPad if required.
Can thoroughly recommend…
2014-07-14| Clive saysBlurry = BluRay. Gotta love auto-correct on my iPad…
2014-07-14| Richard H says“Gotta love auto-correct” And M’s right next to delete, as I keep finding the hard way, hence y and edia. But why is it starting a new sentence?