Wow, what a week it’s been for me. You’ll have to excuse the length of this post, there is quite a lot to say.

Anyone who knows me and has me on Facebook will have been following this (or perhaps not, maybe I annoyed you so much you blocked my statuses, who knows!). This has been the worst week of my life so far this year. Doesn’t sound bad really but for me it’s been a royal pain in the arse and a huge let down and disappointment.

So that new car I got just over a month ago? Well on Monday I hit a dirty great pothole which managed to snap one of my suspension springs. Sure these things happen and we get over it. Well, we usually do. This time for me however the garage has severely let me down. Let me explain…

Monday

On the way to work this morning I took the route as I normally do. I was minding my own business and navigating a round about as you do, when suddenly *BANG*. What the hell was that?! The car was still moving, I still had engine power and there were no odd noises coming from it. Then it clicked. That noise was the sound of a suspension spring snapping. It wasn’t a bang as such, more of a twang instead. I pulled over to investigate, but upon inspection I couldn’t see anything obvious. Regardless I took it easy all the way to work just in case. It might not have been a snapped spring. It could have just been dirty great big stone.

When I got to work’s car park, turning the corners I heard some rattling. That was the dead give away that it was the suspension spring. With that, I sent an e-mail to the place I bought the car asking them to book it in for repair. Later that day they told me to take it to the garage in the morning. I arranged with a guy at work to pick me up from the garage and get me to work.

Tuesday

After a careful journey home yesterday I had to make the same careful journey back towards work but diverting off to the garage. I made it in one piece anyway.

The garage called later in the day to confirm it was a broken spring and said they would order the part, but it wouldn’t arrive until the next day. That was fine, and I arranged a lift home with one of the guys at work for the cost of fuel. It also stated that their main mechanics wife had gone into labour so he would be on maternity leave for a week now. This left only a single mechanic to do the work which meant delays were possible.

Wednesday

The next day at about 2pm I got an e-mail to say the part was delayed and had not turned up in that days delivery, so it would now be the next day before it turned up. I was a little annoyed but there wasn’t much I could do at this point. I did however receive the news that my air conditioning was now repaired. Brilliant! With the weather heading towards summer temperatures shortly it’ll come in handy.

Thursday

By Thursday I was getting pretty impatient. They’d had the car 2 days now and it still wasn’t fixed. At about 11am I got an e-mail to say the car should be ready today as the part had arrived. Brilliant! I was feeling pretty happy by that point.

3.30pm came around and I received an e-mail to say I would not be getting the car back that day, but there was no explanation as to why. I was very annoyed now as I had been told it would be back today. Very annoyed, I accepted the fact and looked forward to the next day.

Friday

Finally the end of a very long and irritating week. Well, in 8 hours it would be anyway. I was looking forward to the long weekend getting out and going places again given I couldn’t go any great distance all week. 10am I received an e-mail stating that the garage promised I would get it back today. The owner of the garage had even said so (the guy who was off on maternity leave) and that it would be prioritised.

At lunch time my Mum messaged me asking for a lift out that evening, to which I said not to rely on me as I may not have the car back. Yes I’d been promised but some how I knew that was going to go wrong.

3pm

I got an e-mail saying it would be ready to collect at 5.30pm. Brilliant!

4pm

I got another e-mail saying it now would NOT be ready by 5.30pm. WHAT?! By this point I was absolutely livid. I went and made a phone call to the garage to try and find out what was going on because this was turning into one huge piss take.

I was on the phone for about 5 minutes in total. The words that were spoken were very concerning. I was told that the guy doing the work didn’t like anyone who worked there, and nobody liked him either. He had no regard for his work, didn’t stick to deadlines and generally couldn’t give a crap. Woah, stop. That is NOT the kind of person I want working on my car at all.

I asked what they were going to do. I was told it might be done tomorrow, it might not be. Not good enough. They’d had the car 4 WORKING days now. That’s 36 WORKING hours for a 2 hour job to replace a spring! I told them to make sure the car was in a condition where it could be given (i.e. not in bits) and I would collect that evening and take it somewhere else to be repaired. They agreed.

5pm

5pm came around and I got to the garage to collect the car. My friend who gave me the lift stayed with me to make sure I got it alright. While we were there he asked how long the 2 cars inside the garage had been there. The guy in the garage asked what he was getting at. Why are those two cars in there and not mine was basically what he meant. He replied saying they’d been in there hours, and that any work they do is, and get this…

Work is prioritised by the amount of money they will make!!!

I was shocked at hearing that. I couldn’t even speak to him any more so I left and headed to the place I bought the car. I had an air conditioning repair report to pick up and a conversation to have with them.

When I got there I was greeted with apologies, even though it wasn’t their fault. I told him exactly what he’d said and he was as shocked as I was. He said they would likely fall out over this issue, and to be honest it’s probably doing them a favour as well. After some general conversation he advised me to go to another garage to have the repair done, to which I agreed and had already decided to do anyway if they would not choose another garage themselves. I was paying for the repair anyway so it didn’t really matter that much since it wasn’t a warranty job.

The guy phoned the garage to advise them to give me the spring so I could take it to another garage and get them to repair it, that way it saves time ordering the part. However when he called, he was greeted with “I’m busy call back later” and then he hung up. He tried again from another phone and got the same again. He was obviously pissed off, with a customer, or both. He told me to go there anyway and ask, and tell them to put it on their bill for now. I’d pay them when the spring was fitted. I agreed, we left and I picked the spring up without incident.

I thanked the guy from work for his help all week. He’d been a life saver to be fair! He was totally OK with it and said he didn’t mind if I needed help again, which was good to know. But despite the offer I didn’t want to rely on his help, it’s not fair.

6pm

On the way home, driving slow like a granny, I went to the garage I intended to use for the repair. When I got there I explained the situation and they were dumbfounded by the whole ordeal. Anyway I got the car booked in for Tuesday afternoon straight after the bank holiday, which was fantastic. However, when I mentioned the fact I had the part, his face dropped and he shook his head. He told me they can’t use customer supplied parts because of insurance reasons. Alright, I was OK with that as I had heard a few other places do the same. I hadn’t paid for the new spring anyway so it didn’t matter. I asked them to order it and I’d bring the car in for repair.

It would cost me a bit more but at the end of the day if you need a job doing properly and in good time (and that was practically “same day” service if it wasn’t for the long weekend), then you do pay for it. Anyway, that’s where we stand at the moment.

Oh, I almost forgot, I had to let my Mum down as well. She was disappointed but it wasn’t a big issue. She got her husband to drive them there and they had to leave the car and get a taxi back, and then pick it up again the next day.

Well, this is the longest full text post I’ve made so far I think. I think I’ve been very patient waiting all week for this very simple job to be done. Any other garage would have had it done in no more than half that time even with the delay on getting the part. Still, we live and learn, and I will definitely not be using that garage that’s for damn sure.

Those who know me will know that I run a few websites, most of which I’ve designed myself over years gone by. What most of you won’t know is that most of these sites have gone through dozens if not more designs before I finally settled on one I actually liked. This is a common problem, and not just for me but for other developers as well.

Let me give you an example. BetaArchive, my main website of focus these days, is far overdue a new template and various other updates. Over the last 2 years I have tried to design something new that will give the site a new edge in it’s little corner of the Internet. Unfortunately I have what is called “Designers Block” most of the time I make designs. This is the act of designing something from an awesome idea but it never quite lives up to that standard. And because it’s not to the standard of the original awesome idea, you scrap it before it’s finished.

To put this in perspective, in 2 years I’ve come up with 9 designs, of which all have been pretty much scrapped. I’ve kept them in my archives because some ideas I could re-use, but the designs as a whole just don’t work. I’ve had this same problem with other sites as well, even this current personal site which took 3 designs, then I stuck with the “Facebook Look” site.

What can we do about this problem? It’s simple. You get a proper website graphic designer to do it for you. The company I work for specialises in many services and one of them is Web Design. We have people in that specifically design graphics and websites, specific people to code the designs and specific people to do the back-end coding. That way, the graphic designer just creates the look of the site to the clients needs, then it gets passed to the coders to break it up and create the template. All while the back-end coders (sometimes the same person as the template coder) works on the back-end functionality.

Now trying to do all of these jobs yourself is hard. You can’t be your own client, designer and coder, it just doesn’t work well. You know what you want but you can’t express it properly, and this is the issue I have. I’m one person with one set of ideas, but using the business model above you get the ideas and expertise of several people throughout the creation of the site.

What can you do to avoid designers block when you only have yourself to do all of the jobs? Well, if I knew I wouldn’t have designers block! However a quick search on the web brings up some valid points that anyone could try.

Design it on paper or in a graphic design suite first

Going straight to the coding is never a great first step. You might have the ideas in your head but unless you have something visual to work with your ideas can go off track. Make sure your ideas solid before you begin.

Find inspiration

Nobody can think up the best ideas on their own. Sometimes you need inspiration from someone else, just like the business model. The best way to do this is go and search the web for your theme and see what those site have to offer. You could find a design with certain areas you like the look of and can utilise (with modifications) into your own design. Never copy someone else’s design though, this won’t end well!

Time

Lets face it, if you want this design to work you won’t do it in a single day. Take your time and spread your work load over as long as it takes. Don’t rush any stage.

Take a walk

Walking is a great way to clear your mind and think about new ideas. Fresh air always does you a world of good, so give it a try.

Deal with it another time

No this doesn’t mean walk away and forget it all, just move away from that aspect of the design and onto something else. Come back to it later with a fresh set of eyes and fresh ideas.

Ask a friend

Asking friends for ideas is a great idea, but don’t overdo it. Friends are more likely to be truthful about a design, so don’t ask them what they think of the rest of the design just yet, just ask them to contribute ideas for a certain section instead.

In conclusion if you’re on your own you’re going to encounter designers block at some point. Don’t let this tempt you into giving up as this is only going to make it worse. Just find the courage to carry on and look for more ideas.

Image credit: mirror.co.uk

You probably saw the news today, fuel tanker drivers are going on strike again! Yay! Not… You see the problem with this is it disrupts the entire country when it happens. So you might be thinking why they’re striking anyway? To get back at the government for the stupid fuel prices? Oh no it’s because they want more money for themselves! They already earn an average of £45,000 a year, what bloody more do they want?! I know lots of people who would happily do their job for half that wage and not complain. If they don’t want their job they should give it to someone else, plain and simple, otherwise shut up and get on with it!

If this strike was over the newly proposed and accepted 3p increase in fuel cost coming in August this year, I’d be all for it. The government simply won’t learn. The UK fuel cost is over 150% tax on the price of the fuel itself. That’s how greedy our government is. They just tax things they know the UK economy just can’t be without. No fuel, nobody drives to work, so people MUST buy it no matter the price. Panic buyers have been out everywhere today filling their tanks. I was no different, I need my car for work too so I filled it up to the top at a ridiculous cost of £88, and it wasn’t even empty!

That £88 should last me about 600 miles at worst. I do 150mi/week to/from work plus a bit of leisure so we’re looking at 3 weeks tops I can last from that tank. Not a lot really but hopefully after 3 weeks the strike should be over and everything back to normal. The army is apparently going to step in and take over these lazy arse selfish self centred drivers jobs at a fraction of the pay so the disruption should be minimal.

Anyway, what can we do? Besides threatening to bomb the petrol stations or something stupid to get their attention, they’ll never listen. Tens of thousands of people take to the petitions etc. every time this happens and they get nowhere when they get to the people that can make a difference. They just slap another few pence on instead!!!

So yeah, we’re going to have to learn to live with it unfortunately. Our government are a bunch of idiots (and that’s the polite name for them). The sooner we get rid of them the better. We need Clarkson on our side, he’ll sort the bunch of idiots out!!!

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Right, my 2nd rant is about road works and how much they annoy the f**k out of me! I’m not talking about all road works, some I agree are required to keep the maintenance of the road, but the ones that annoy me the most are the ones where nobody appears to be working on it… EVER!

Take this example. Yesterday evening around the junction I come off at for work on the motorway, they’d laid cones out for some work they would be starting that day. Fair enough, but why was there ZERO notice that any work would be carried out? It didn’t affect traffic much that day thankfully but the issue still stood.

The next day (this morning) we were met by a 2 1/2 mile tail back from that junction because of these road works. All it was is a closed off lane, but nobody was doing anything on it! The actual work in fact was on an adjacent junction and they just wanted to “clear the traffic” for work they were doing. I’m sorry but the work that was being done was 400 yards further down that adjacent junction and it was on the pavement!!! What sort of crazy people think it’s acceptable to block off a full lane of a motorway slip road for that work?! They did the same on the roundabout by the way, one of the three lanes was blocked off.

This caused huge disruptions for a lot of people. No thought went into it at all. With any luck tomorrow will be different and they will have realised the disruption caused today, but I’m not holding my breath…

Rant over. I needed to get those ones off my chest as I can’t stand either of them!

OK so I didn’t have the best of luck with my new car and just 5 days after getting it I broke down (this was last Thursday by the way, it’s Tuesday now). In some ways it was good that it broke now and not further in the future. Let me describe what happened.

I was travelling to work as I do every weekday morning and everything was as normal. But as I was a mile or so from my junction off the motorway the car suddenly lost all power, it made a bong sound from it’s instrument panel and “engine fault” appeared on the display. That was it, car dead. I had just a few seconds to move from the outside lane to the hard shoulder before I lost too much speed (I was going up a slight incline too).

After pulling over I shut everything off and after a minute or so I tried to start it again hoping it would have reset the ECU. It didn’t, and it just cranked and cranked until I pulled the key. Great! First time in 4 1/2 years of driving that I’ve broken down. Thankfully I had AA cover, so a quick call and 25 minutes later they were there to rescue me. I got them to take me to the garage I bought the car from (phoning ahead so they knew) and get them to sort it under the warranty.

This got me thinking it might be the fuel injectors as it was on recall and was one of the things that can cause the engine to point blank refuse to start. I got the garage to diagnose it and they said it was an injector. They recommended I get in touch with VW, which I did, as the injectors would all be done under their recall warranty scheme. £3000 of work for free! I’m certainly not complaining. However the only down side was it would be 4 days before they could fit me in.

I hate being without a car, it’s like a lifeline to me. It gets me everywhere from work and home, to friends houses, etc. 4 days would be a long time! Anyway it passed and today I got the car back with brand new injectors and she runs really smoothly again.

Now the rant. Why can the car not run without a single injector having failed? Well I know it’s a safety feature to protect the engine and/or catalytic converter from damage from excess fuel being shoved into it etc, but at the end of the day I’m the driver! I should be the one to make that decision! The worst part is that it fails in the blink of an eye, no warning. You could be anywhere, I just happened to be moving at a speed that allowed me time to pull over safely.

So yeah, safety systems might be saving the engine but they could put you in one hell of a situation if it fails in the middle of a street! End of rant on that one anyway… Lets see if my luck changes and I don’t have any serious problems from now on!

It’s about time I got a new car, and since I finally had enough money to get one I went out hunting last weekend. I knew that I wanted a VW Passat for some time. 2 of my friends have got them and they’re highly reliable. Nobody else I know who has or has had one had much of a problem with them. I visited a few garages and saw a couple of them but this one caught mine and my friends eye.

Upon closer inspection it’s pristine in pretty much every way, both inside and out. One of my friends told me I’d be stupid not to go for it. For the price of £4690, ~92,000mi on the clock and made in 2005 it was a great deal. A little older than I wanted but despite that still pretty good. We had checked the usual stuff out and it was all good. It had a full service history indicating a new cambelt 5k ago and services throughout it’s life by VW. You couldn’t get any better than that.

I did a test drive (I mean who wouldn’t?) and I loved it as soon as it left the forecourt. We drove on a variety of roads and by god does it shift! So much better than the Peugeot 306! The 2.0L TDi engine produces around 140bhp and 250+ lb/ft of torque (much better than the 92bhp/155 lb/ft from the 306) and it shows too.

When we got back after the drive we headed to the pub next door and mulled over the cost and various other factors. After some persuasion by my friends I decided to put down a deposit on it. We sorted out the finance that I would need (1/2 of the price) and off I trotted eagerly awaiting the results from the finance company. Two days later (Monday) I heard back that I had got the finance (Woohoo!) and I could drive it away the following Saturday (today).

A few removals from the Peugeot (bits and bobs from the boot, the tracker and the radio), and it was ready to part exchange. They offered me £350 for it which was a great deal considering I paid £500 for it 3 1/2 years ago! I couldn’t say no. So today I picked it up and paid the remaining money on top of the deposit to pay for half the costs. Within 20 minutes I drove away a happy person!

We immediately went to the first garage and I filled up £50. Guess how much the needle showed after that… Can’t guess? Half a tank! HALF! Bloody expensive to fill that’s for sure. A day of random driving enjoying my new purchase shows an average of 44mpg or so which is mostly down driving. On the motorway I would expect I’d get a fair bit more, closer to 50 or higher.

Now this car is modern, which means a lot of things are electronic from the throttle to the very dodgy parking brake. I should point out by the way the parking brake has already failed once! It wouldn’t disengage after I wanted to drive away and told me to consult the manual. I did, and found nothing. I decided to play the old “turn it off and on again” tactic. What can I say except it worked. It retried itself and it disengaged. It’s been fine since, but I expect this won’t be the last time it will happen. We live and learn I suppose.

The other thing is the air con not working, but I suspect this is a simple fault that can be rectified (low gas, blown fuse, etc). I will contact the car centre as soon as I can to report the problem. Everything else is pretty flawless.

So do I like it? I love it! The power is a nice change, and the low end torque is immense but it does hesitate a little on the low RPM’s. That’s to be expected because of the hybrid turbo. It does judder a bit but I’ve been told at low RPM this is to be expected, however despite that I’m going to research it just to be sure since it doesn’t sound normal.

Anyway, I’ve posted some pictures on my gallery and I will add more as and when I get them. I’ve spent most of the day driving around so I never got chance to take pictures!

If you do, check out this pepperoni pizza website. It has facts and history of pizza, and makes an interesting read.

I’m going to make a pepperoni pizza from scratch one day as it seems like a nice idea. I wonder if it will be any cheaper than buying one? Initial thoughts say not but from the results I’ve seen the look far more appetising!

Image Source:
bcbrownbooks.blogspot.com/
2011/02/book-thief.html

Last night I came home from work as usual and as I walked down the driveway I noticed something wasn’t right. Something was missing. It took me a second to realise what it was but it was my bloody trailer! It had gone! Half inched! I didn’t even put a second more thought into it, as soon as I was in I called the police to report the theft. I used the new non-emergency line on “101″, since this wasn’t an emergency really. It’s only the 2nd time I’ve ever had to call the emergency services in any shape or form, and the last was 7 years ago when my friend Tom jumped off a short cliff edge (2 meters high) onto some rocks, landed badly and broke some bones.

I should probably mention at this point that the trailer wasn’t empty.

It contained the poles for a tent which are probably irreplaceable now due to the age of it, but it’s such a great tent it would be a shame to lose it. That’s what I was more concerned with, not the trailer. They’re easy enough to come by and for fairly cheap as well.

Anyway I called up the police station and was through to someone within 20 seconds. They took some details down and gave me a reference number. This took about 5 minutes and then it was done. I was told by the woman on the other end I’d receive a phone call in the next 24 hours for a proper statement. By this point I was happy it was getting looked into.

As a typical Facebook user I thought it might be a good idea to post there to my friends who live in the area, just asking for them to keep an eye out for it. I even posted a picture (which didn’t work for some reason, so I went back to text only). This sparked up suggestions to check eBay, gumtree and I thought of trying freecycle as well. Stolen items often seem to make their way onto those types of sites fairly quickly. I did some checking but it wasn’t there.

After a few hours my friend James suggested I contact the landlord in case it was them who had moved the trailer. I dismissed the idea as even plausible but instead thought of asking them about the recent contractors that had been renovating some of the building, just in case they had seen anything. I fired off a quick e-mail and that’s pretty much all I heard about it the rest of the night.

The next morning one of my workmates who carpools with me turned up. I told him the full story that I’m telling you now. We head to work and all sorts of scenarios are spoken about and before we know it we’re at work. As soon as I got in I told all the guys there – some knew already because of Facebook, others didn’t and were fairly shocked. “Who would want to steal a trailer?!”, I asked. “Someone who wanted to tow something I guess!”, was the response. We all laughed, it was a stupid question I suppose!

5 minutes after I sat down my e-mails came through and there was one from the landlord. It went to the tune of “We’ve received your e-mail and we’ll ask around the contractors”. Great, it’s a start at least. Nothing more was said.

About 10.30am comes around and I get another e-mail from the landlord.

“We moved your trailer”

What?! I kept reading. “We believed it belonged to a previous tenant who was evicted in the summer, so we removed it believing it to be abandoned.” OK, fair comment, but it has my number plate on it! It’s hard not to know it’s mine! Then it was pointed out that I was at work and they had nothing to compare it with. Doh!

Anyhow, the e-mail continued; “It’s still with our contractor so we will arrange to have it returned to you”. Great news! I was relieved so much. I e-mailed back saying thanks, and asking if the contents was still intact as well to which the reply was “yes”. That’s all that mattered. The poles are the bits that I want back the most otherwise our camping holiday would have been completely ruined in a sense. We rely on the large tent as our common tent for everyone to cook, eat and chat in. Without that we can’t all be in the same place socialising etc, outside gets too cold in the evenings.

Now that I know it’s safe it’s a big relief. It’s not been returned yet, they’re going to let me know when the contractor has time to return it. That way I can make sure it’s been secured and I can remove the contents. I’m not letting that happen again!

You might be asking why I’ve even bothered telling you all of this? It’s simple. Don’t take ANYTHING for granted. If a trailer is not secure, it WILL be stolen (or in my case, removed). And DON’T leave anything of value in it! That’s the mistake I made, and I almost paid for it. I’m just glad my luck was for the best here and it was someone I knew who removed it in the first place and would return it.

Now, all that said, keep safe everyone, and keep your belongings locked up.