Fozzie

Got some news. Before I went on holiday, I was told I was being made principal engineer. When I came back, I was told they needed to speak to me urgently. I suspected it meant I wasn't going to get the role, and I was going to get an apology accompanied by various assurances. Possibly a pay rise. Not what happened. I've heard someone near the top of the business asked around about me and my work. And I got some good reviews from people who are considered to be very high up in the business. And in short, it was decided I was suited to a role I'd applied for several months back, and would quickly grow into it. So I'm not going to be principal engineer, but the electrical technical director. Feeling pretty good about it, going to be a big undertaking though. My good lady, as ever, got straight to the point. Her first sentence was "OOOOOH! Does that mean we can afford a house here now?". It has been a hot topic recently as we are looking to move to a house soon, but still

It depends how far you want to go. I would try and get an old Honda CB500. They are bomb proof, but they also come apart a lot easier than the equivalent Kawasaki. But are big enough that you might ride it about when it's all fixed up. I have an ER5 project, and that little bast*rd has fought me on everything. But I love it in a way. It keeps springing leaks, the coolant does not want to stay in that engine. It's due to corrosion so I've had to get a bit hardcore and grind/polish the areas coolant pipes sit so that they don't tear up the o-rings. The cylinder head has some obvious signs of an old piston ring cratering it, so I expect the head gasket won't last forever and I will need to replace the head on that engine. Annoying, as I just replaced the cam chain, and cham shafts, as well as all gaskets/rubber seals. I've just bought a 17k mile engine, but intend to rebuild the 52k mile engine with fresh bearing shells down the line. The CBR125 I have, other than a problematic crank that was clearly meant to be replaced, and not fixed as I've chosen to have done, has been much better. And I find with Honda's, they come apart more easily, and tend to be more built to last. A 1995 track day CBR600F goes through my garage occasionally for servicing, and it's a joy to work on. Other than tricky to reach fuel components. I've spent a small fortune doing my present 2 up. But I just like it. As you're an amateur, scour Ebay and Facebook for something that has only *just* gone into an MOT fail territory. Make sure the engine is good. Those projects are always a breeze and it's "where the money is" if you are into it for that. As they can be turned around relatively easily, given an MOT and sold on for a good profit. If you want to really explore/build your skills though, buy something that is really cheap/rough so you can take it apart without worry of how it goes back together. As get it wrong, and you haven't been left too much out of pocket. This is where a cheap 125 of some description would be better.

Good morning!

Happy birthday! I hope you’ve had a great day

The staff must be feeling a redundancy is on the way or the company is going belly up. That's the only thing I can think of to have caused the service to have plummeted so suddenly and so quickly. It's been bad for a while, but now it feels like it has fallen off a cliff edge. Time to renationalise it. Maybe this time they won't run it so badly that privatisation looks attractive.

Some quick thinking there! I made a similar mistake very recently. I got the dreaded "Bali belly", which by ignoring became a full bacterial infection. Me being the silly sod I often am, got home and thought some clean living would sort it. I ate a peanut butter sandwich, and then followed it with a can of grapefruit. I had forgotten that grapefruit disagrees with me. Call it natures spring cleaning, in what it often induces. The mix of peanuts and the grapefruit seemed to conspire to form a very violent mix. I even suspect I found a synthetic fuel for the future. I made it home with the worst cramps I'd had in a long time to jettison all solids both digested and not digested as well as gas into the toilet. On the plus side, the bacterial infection seemed to be cured after this event, which I presume was because it was blasted out the hatch at what felt like the pressure found at the base of a Saturn 5 rocket at launch. My good lady was not impressed with the various metaphors I later used to describe it to friends...

Boredom can lead you to some very odd parts of the internet... Apparently the same applies for retirement

Good evening! Got something weird happening recently. Someone keeps periodically trying to access my e-mail. They haven't got in as far as I can tell, and I'm not sure what they'd do even if they did. I don't keep anything particularly personal in there, unless they want to see what I buy on eBay. The only pattern I've seen emerge is both recent attempts happened when I returned from holiday. But could just be good timing. Suspect it won't be long until my facebook or something is hacked, and I've seen a few people lose access to their accounts. Hopefully the two factor authentification holds up!

Blimey. I was 17 when I made this post. A couple of months shy of 18. Had never owned a 4-stroke before and found the valve train a bit like black magic at the time. I was buying this at the time: Cheap little Spanish made bike that had Yamaha mechanicals from an old off-road bike. There was a off the shelf high performance cam/cylinder kit that took them to something like 180cc that were dirt cheap. Most people told me to buy a bigger bike, and I couldn't even fathom the extra insurance costs, so was getting frustrated with that being touted as the main option. I gave up on the plan as I bought a car to do the getting around duties. I moved to London that November, and bought a GPX400 for a few hundred quid. Didn't like it, so essentially traded it for a CBR125, which I did like and I spent many a night in the garage doing various services it didn't need, but I wanted to learn. And is why I have a little CBR125 project in my garage now.

Royal mail... When are they going to go belly up as it seems to be it can't come soon enough. Out of the last 5 packages I've sent, 3 have been lost. 2 of them turned back up fine. 1 of them had to have me harangue staff into looking for it, and it was found in some kind of holding area (reason for why, unknown). The most recent, sent 48 hour service last week. So it should have been delivered Friday, Monday at the latest, and the tracking still stubbornly says "we are expecting it". Which as I dropped it off 5 working days ago for a 48 hour service, is code for "it's lost". It's a crank as well, which was being sent off to have a new conrod/bearing pressed onto it. I insured it fortunately up to £1000. But I've experienced their claims service before, and felt like I was being treated as a criminal. One lady queried how a box weighing 6kg was worth £800. I actually laughed as I thought she was making some kind of joke I hadn't got. I offered to send them a full receipt showing the break down of the parts they'd lost, and added "I take it you've never been in a jewellery shop before if you think £800 is a lot for 6kg worth of stuff. You'll have an aneurism".

Seems to be a case of that, and better than the old man who caused me grief after seeing into my garage. He doesn't live here, but inherited his late mothers flat, and polices the area/causes management problems. He accused me of running some sort of illicit business out of my garage, and cited "high end motorcycles that appear suspect". I assume he thought I was peddling stolen bikes. The 1998 R1, fair enough... The £700 CBR600F, not so much. I've had a few "apprentices" over the years. In London I helped out in the old DIY service centre where you hired a lift/bench/tools. It was so addictive I started offering to help others, and got involved with some fun projects that first timers had bought, and sought out help with, making some good friends. When I moved back up north, I bought a house next to an elderly couple, and the old boy loved bikes. In his mid-80s, he laughed he was the oldest apprentice in England, and before he died I was able to wheel him into the garage to watch me rebuild a Blackbird I'd been given for free (it was that rotten). I occasionally pop over to have a cup of tea with his wife, and sort out any broken appliances, blown bulbs etc. Will make a welcome change having a youngster learn the ropes. And I find it cool how something as trivial as working on a bike can be the catalyst it has been. @rennie - I hadn't thought of that, and well noted. The garage door, when open is in direct line of site of the mothers flat window. And I will be pushing a strict safety protocol. Safety glasses and nitrile gloves on at all times, no loose/unsuitable clothing. And very limited access to the power tools Also, sad to hear Sue is having a rough go of it. A blocked bile duct can be quite uncomfortable!

Good afternoon, I've picked up an apprentice. Lady in the middle floor of my building lives there with her son, about 12 years old I'm guessing. Knocked on the door to say her lad has seen me working in my garage a number of times and loves bikes. Wants to do some tinkering and help me with my projects. I've agreed as I do feel bad he's not got a dad in the picture doing this sort of stuff. Hopefully encourage some young blood to get into bikes, and hit the road with mechanical sympathy!

It is actually sunny today, but I've been told a very brief heatwave arrived, and gave way to cold, and rainy weather? For me, it was hot everyday but even in dry season there's a 70% chance of rain most days. It just tends to be brief. Or not turn up at all, the weather report was really poor for that area though I can understand why. I did weirdly like the days we had big rain storms though. I had a CB150X, which actually featured in a review on here a while back. It was a good bike, reminded me of a Varadero I had when I was younger but with more pep. Some of the hills I went up were severe, and in the rain you had a torrent of water flowing down towards you. Felt very dodgy, and even more so downhill. If they did a 250cc version, I suspect I'd have one.

Good morning, Back to work after 2 weeks off. I was in Bali, Indonesia. I feel I haven't had a proper adventure like this in years. My sister flew up from Australia to see me and my girlfriend, and we had a week together, and then it was a week with my mrs doing some adventures around a nearby island, and finally the southern part of Bali. I did a silver making course, climbed a volcano in the small hours to see the sunrise, hired a bike for a week and rode through some seriously challenging conditions and roads to get to the less visited northern part of the island. Hired a scooter on one of the islands and did a lot of off-roading as the roads were non-existent. And wrapped it all off with a water park and huge resort. Here's some snaps of more than 1000 pics taken.

I feel like I've seen a real decline in just general behaviour in the last few years, it seems to really stand out since covid. But lately, with driving there has been a big uptick with lane hoggers, and aggressive driving. Confronting it with a quick flash of the lights or a blip of the horn, results in what appears to be a tantrum. Alternatively, you are cruising in lane 1, and come up on a car sat in lane 3, they do all they can to not make eye contact with you as you pass on the inside. Usually I give a slightly unimpressed look, and if they catch my eye they bolt their head forward, almost as if they're used to it happening. I've seen more right lane hoggers in the past year, than the last 10 combined, I'm fairly sure. No idea why it became so popular recently. If I get distracted and lane hog accidentally, and I'm flashed, I usually get out of the way and wave sorry to signal I don't usually do that. Must be exhausting to just think with your feelings and lose the plot over something like that.

A couple today. Had a BMW cut in front of me from the left. Two cars ahead of me moved to the right to take a right only lane, and he was marginally ahead. As I accelerated into the now cleared lane, he floored it and cut in. I had to brake to avoid hitting his rear quarter. When I beeped, he waved his arm around frantically like he'd done nothing wrong, I didn't make any form of reply, just shook my head a little. We would have hit had I not been quick on the brakes. He then decided to make some obscure point following this by doing what appeared to be at least 50mph in a 30 area. Along a road primary school kids were walking. Nob number 1. Then a mile later, I'm steadily moving along. Move into the right lane to pass some cars, and there's a corsa behind me. I clear the cars and indicate, begin moving to the left, but the Corsa, having to go in the gutter and cutting up the person behind him on the left to do so, has floored it up the inside to undertake. I had maybe had the freedom to move over for 2-3 seconds tops. Again, I gave a 1 second press of the horn to say "what the hell". This chap then did some dodgy overtakes, and I carried on my way. I arrive in the carpark and I end up directly behind him, which I found a touch funny given all he did to make progress. He then races down the wrong lane at the multi-story to get to the next up ramp, and pushes in front of 2 cars. One of which beeps. He then speeds by a number of empty spots, goes up another ramp, and then throws his car diagonally across a family only bay. Bizarrely, he then didn't seem to be in any rush. We both end up waiting for the same elevator. I glare at him, he sees this, and he pulls out his phone and stares at it. I do hold the glare for quite a bit, just to see if he says anything. I catch the other chap who beeped at him smirking at me, who cottoned on to what I'm doing. Seeing more of these types these days, the type that feel they have to "assert dominance" but run away the second they face any form of feedback.

When the young ones start to migrate, I always think it looks odd as their wings appear undersized even when they are adults. They have to flap a lot to maintain flight. Baffling when you think of the distances they cover! Good evening all! Still working. Coming up on a holiday to Indonesia though, where I celebrate the 5 year anniversary with my partner, and see my sister who is travelling up from Australia. Cannot wait to be on the plane, putting my headset on and drifting off, knowing I won't have work for 2 weeks.

Happy Birthday!

Is this Puffin island leaving Beaumaris? The timings vary, you usually see some this time of year. By July it's usually all over. I always find May the time they are there in big numbers.

Good morning! Most of the week is gone and I feel I haven't got anything from the list I made on Monday done. Keep being dragged into other things to answer questions and actions. Right now I know there's 2 things I need to respond to... I can't remember what they are... Only that there are two things. It will probably hit me like a brick wall just as I finish for the day

Thanks chaps. Looking forward to growing into the new role. For quite a while, I've been doing the job of a principal as I've largely backed off on the "design" side of things. And I'm getting involved on numerous projects, and taking on the big issues the designers hit in their projects with regulatory compliance, client issues, or consultants pit against us. I've been batting off people with "principal" and "consultant" in their job title for quite a while now so it's good to get the recognition.

Good afternoon folks! I've been told earlier this week I am being promoted. I went for a technical director role, but sadly, I wasn't grey haired enough (quite literally was said at one point). I have however, been told I am being promoted to Principal engineer. Scarily, and very antagonising for my imposter syndrome, this will make me the highest ranking engineer (who isn't a manager) in the business currently. I will be having a couple of drinks this weekend with my good lady to celebrate.

Impressive seeing that on the neutral side. What on earth (pun intended) happened?

I have checked with a couple of people, and other groups, and your outlook is mostly shared. It was a really bad move on the part of the hiring engineer. I've cancelled the interview and given a fair explanation. Personally, I need to have certain ducks in a row before the boss gets involved, like am I 100% on moving to the new company? Where will the better opportunity be? This situation now puts my boss in a position to call my bluff, no offer has been tabled, so they don't even know if I would have landed the role. So I'm going to play it straight, and avoid the office politics. Ultimately, I'm being offered positions higher than I am now in other companies that are of a similar reputation. I applied for a role in my own company, and they've left me hanging 4 months while they interview other applicants, and as I understand it, no one has been able to get beyond the bar I set... However, I lack the grey hair they seem to envisage someone having for that role. My question to them will be simple "you won't put faith in me to take on the new role, but you also don't want me to leave, discuss".

We need a thread for cringeworthy incidents as nob is perhaps too strong. The chap who set up my second interview for a rival company. Who after I accepted the interview from my personal e-mail, sent me a chaser to my work e-mail, which included the meeting details, auto-populating my teams calendar. Which is shared, with my boss, and was noticed almost immediately. Now I've received the curly finger from the big boss... Yeesh.