What bemused you today?

[greypoint]

Hmm - well having worked in the motor trade for longer than I care to think about, I can see both sides. Often there are jobs which are labour intensive and if you're spending a load in labour costs to have a job done it's often worth replacing a worn but still working part while you're in there. For example, when replacing cam belt/tensioners we ask if the customer wants the water pump [exchange unit so quite cheap] changing at the same time - we've had a couple of cases in the past where the water pump went a few months after cam belt replacement and there was another 3 or 4 hours labour to pay for. We advise - the customer decides - then whatever happens in the future they can't say we did'nt give them the facts! Bottom line is, the customer is the one who pays and the customer is the one who makes the decision - we're  not all rip off merchants

[picsfor]

"So you want to change a part that has nothing wrong with it?"
"Yes"
"You may not do any work on my car, I'll come and collect it and take it somewhere less likely to steal from me"
Rang another Ford dealer, they were astonished and assured me they only change broken bits. Car is booked in with them.

You should also drop a line to Ford and the local Trading Standards. That is a breach of the dealership mandate as well as a trading regulation. Can't remember which one but they definitely need pulling up or having their dealership taken away. It is that sort of thing that is giving the motor industry a bad name.

[picsfor]

After a days shopping in Eastbourne, my wife and i headed back to the car and past a Jessops.
She merrily leads me in and points to a 7D and says "is that what you'd like for a second body?"
Thinking my luck was in i politely said yes and waited for permission to purchase.
"Do you think they'll have them in stock for Christmas?" she said as she turned round and walked out leaving me trailing in the dust... 
Why? 

[Al Birmingham]

Hmm - well having worked in the motor trade for longer than I care to think about, I can see both sides. Often there are jobs which are labour intensive and if you're spending a load in labour costs to have a job done it's often worth replacing a worn but still working part while you're in there. For example, when replacing cam belt/tensioners we ask if the customer wants the water pump [exchange unit so quite cheap] changing at the same time - we've had a couple of cases in the past where the water pump went a few months after cam belt replacement and there was another 3 or 4 hours labour to pay for. We advise - the customer decides - then whatever happens in the future they can't say we did'nt give them the facts! Bottom line is, the customer is the one who pays and the customer is the one who makes the decision - we're  not all rip off merchants

If the car wasn't under warranty and only 3 years old such an offer would make perfect sense, as would replacing both tensioners. However, if the other tensioner fails a couple of months later (or, indeed, the water pump) then they too will be covered by the warranty so expecting me to pay for them to be replaced early is unacceptable.
I know that not all dealerships are rip off merchants, I usually head for the smaller outfits who will thrive or die by the reputations. This was a big dealership and I won't be making that mistake again.

[Alfonso_Frisk]

Well this morning I completed my last shift after 33.5 years of employment due to site closure
Left school on on the Friday and started work the following Monday.

So, what is bemusing me ??
I am on 3 months job search and 12 weeks notice with full pay, which takes me to October
therefore I am not unemployed as such, yet I have no job.

Strange feeling.

RR
Alf

[picsfor]

doesthat mean you'll have all summertime to look for a nice photo job 

[Jonathan]

Well it was yesterday actually.

Nikon sent me a lovely diary.  Obviously the first quarter is for notes about things I've already done.

Cue jokes about how Canon would have got it to me sooner but slightly blurred and Sony would have printed a diary with 600 days in it but which was incompatible with all pens apart from Sony ones.

[Graham]

   Well at least Nikon send me my calenders on time!
                 Graham.

[spinner]

Just got back from North Carolina suffering the worst allergy attack I can ever remember having. Got caught off guard because allergy season doesn't start here in Canada for at least another two months. Never seen it's like, after 4 days at my friends house in Charlotte our car was covered in a coating of yellow dust. It was so bad I stopped trying to take photographs my eyes were so blurry and watery I couldn't focus on the eye piece. I'd taken about 20 shots in a local park and every one turned out blurred. When we got home yesterday I went on a U.S. weather site I use whenever I go visit south and discovered Charlotte is the 3rd worst city in the States for allergies. 

[Graham]

Just got back from North Carolina suffering the worst allergy attack I can ever remember having. Got caught off guard because allergy season doesn't start here in Canada for at least another two months. Never seen it's like, after 4 days at my friends house in Charlotte our car was covered in a coating of yellow dust. It was so bad I stopped trying to take photographs my eyes were so blurry and watery I couldn't focus on the eye piece. I'd taken about 20 shots in a local park and every one turned out blurred. When we got home yesterday I went on a U.S. weather site I use whenever I go visit south and discovered Charlotte is the 3rd worst city in the States for allergies. 

           And more, much more than this. You did it your way!
                    Ol' red eyes!

Get well soon.

[Al Birmingham]

Hmm - well having worked in the motor trade for longer than I care to think about, I can see both sides. Often there are jobs which are labour intensive and if you're spending a load in labour costs to have a job done it's often worth replacing a worn but still working part while you're in there. For example, when replacing cam belt/tensioners we ask if the customer wants the water pump [exchange unit so quite cheap] changing at the same time - we've had a couple of cases in the past where the water pump went a few months after cam belt replacement and there was another 3 or 4 hours labour to pay for. We advise - the customer decides - then whatever happens in the future they can't say we did'nt give them the facts! Bottom line is, the customer is the one who pays and the customer is the one who makes the decision - we're  not all rip off merchants

If the car wasn't under warranty and only 3 years old such an offer would make perfect sense, as would replacing both tensioners. However, if the other tensioner fails a couple of months later (or, indeed, the water pump) then they too will be covered by the warranty so expecting me to pay for them to be replaced early is unacceptable.
I know that not all dealerships are rip off merchants, I usually head for the smaller outfits who will thrive or die by the reputations. This was a big dealership and I won't be making that mistake again.

Funny old thing, I dropped the car into a local Ford dealer this week, a small outfit. Both tensioners are being replaced under the warranty now! As I said before, small dealerships are the way forward.

[spinner]

Spent about 2 1/2  hrs. at a friends house last night trying to get her internet up and running on a brand new PC she'd purchased. I'd previously instructed her just to plug all the wires she had, into the new PC like they'd been on the old one. The old one was still there and plugged in so I thought it's simple just swap from one to other. When I tried to log on the web it wouldn't connect and it was suspected the passwords had been changed and not remembered. She called her provider and got a help centre in some spanish country, I think Mexico. The tech guy spent a good hour trying to take us back through the procedures I'd already done a few times before we called. I told them all we need was a password reset but he kept insisting on going through the install a dozen times.
After an hour the tech in Mexico decided her modem was broken since he could see it from his end but we couldn't connect. After he arranged to have a new one shipped to my friend and hung up I looked at the modem for the umpteenth time and when checked to see if the cables were seated properly I came to the realization that some how my friend had plugged a phone cable into the ethernet jack and when I replaced it with the ethernet cable, of course, it worked. I come home and explain to my wife why, what I thought was a ten minute job, took 2 hrs. She responds with, Isn't checking the cables Tech 101?

[picsfor]

Amusing story - especially as i've done similar several times. Though my son-in-law gets the award for the last time when i was allowed to look smug.
Daughter rang up to say he had played with the computer and now it wouldn't work.
2 hours drive and battling the M25 in rush hour, i walks in with rucksack full of Discs, hard drive and tools - takes one look inside the case and plugs the hard drive power cable back in. Voila 
I made a quick exit stage left to the other daughters to avoid being caught up in the domestic that followed   

[spinner]

More on the saga of my friend and her computer. She asks me to take the old one home and try and recover their photos and I agree. I pull the harddrive and  plug it into a linux box I play around with. I recover the photos and burn to a disc. I then nuke the hard drive to wipe her personal data.
Now back in March I'd spent  the better part of a week of evenings trying to rid this machine of viruses etc. I thought I'd succeded but a month later the daughter tells her the machine is done. She dutifully goes out and buys the new machine to the tune of several hundred dollars. My curiosity gets the better of me and after I nuke the hard drive I test it. Passes with flying colours. I then put a repair disk into the DVD and boot up the old machine. I run a series of mobo tests and that passes. Long story short, I've installed Ubuntu on her machine. As I write I'm transfering 54gigs of music from my main PC to an external hard drive hooked up to her machine, while streaming music and surfing the web and everything's is running just fine. I think daughter downloaded a bunch of virus again and conned mommy into a new machine.  

[Oldboy]

All UK airports are closed due to the ash clouds from Iceland. We are all Doomed! Doomed! 

New research suggests we get colder winters due to the sun been quite at present!!!!