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Hello from Last of the Summer Wine territory.

PostPosted: 16 Nov 2016, 11:59
by ParisinGOC
Hi all.

Thanks for the size of the signpost - I would have missed anything smaller!

A working lifetime designing the virtual future and I now get the chance to do something that can be held and caressed.

No workshop, but lots of wood squirreled away, some of which have made window reveals, a bathroom, kitchen work surfaces, letter boxes, an office out of the smallest bedroom, etc, etc.

I have a natural antipathy to power tools as they seem to allow me to create mountains of dust and waste a lot quicker than would otherwise be the case, but my practise time with the alternative has been too little to allow me to become anything but (as Snoopy once had it): "a merely competent amateur".

I have lots of ideas but, even now, so little time . . . .

Greg

Re: Hello from Last of the Summer Wine territory.

PostPosted: 16 Nov 2016, 12:09
by Andyp
Hi Greg and welcome again. It is surprising what can be achieved without a workshop, if the missus is prepared to put up with the dust in the house. :D

Re: Hello from Last of the Summer Wine territory.

PostPosted: 16 Nov 2016, 14:36
by Robert
Welcome to the forum.

I'm the reverse of you - power tools whenever possible :)

Re: Hello from Last of the Summer Wine territory.

PostPosted: 16 Nov 2016, 14:39
by Tusses
my 1st workshop was a lean to corrugated plastic roof on the back of the house (open all sides), and a B&D workmate !

Re: Hello from Last of the Summer Wine territory.

PostPosted: 16 Nov 2016, 14:57
by Malc2098
Welcome, Greg. I'm newish here, too. I've just started a workshop build and have being doing the wood thing in the darkest of damp garages for the last so many years, so I'm building myself a proper shop!

Re: Hello from Last of the Summer Wine territory.

PostPosted: 16 Nov 2016, 17:17
by TrimTheKing
Hi Greg and welcome

Designing the virtual future eh? Tell me more...

Cheers
Mark

Re: Hello from Last of the Summer Wine territory.

PostPosted: 16 Nov 2016, 21:32
by ParisinGOC
Hi Mark.

Starting with a Degree in Computing Science when 32k words (that would make it 128k bytes these days, but I seem to remember the manufacturer still had machines using 6 bits to a byte so it may well have been 96k in modern money!) was a boardroom decision which then had to be craned in to the 4th floor, after removing the external walls.

I retired from it all in 2003 after having been "IT Manager, Strategy and Planning" in a small part of one of the big banks before then moving on to a strange post where I had no staff, no budget, but had responsibility for the on-line banking service AND the call centres, but only when they failed . . .

My job at such a time of crisis was to know all the technology end-to-end and all the people who made the technology work and the processes they had to go through to make it all work. At the point when it failed, I became responsible for ensuring all this could be put back together again, using all the correct processes, but executed in minutes and hours, rather than the months and years it normally took to change things.

Put briefly, I knew everything but couldn't actually do anything!

Now, what do you want to know?

Re: Hello from Last of the Summer Wine territory.

PostPosted: 17 Nov 2016, 13:01
by Phil
Welcome to the forum Greg.

Lots of excellent knowledge around here.

Cheers
Phil

Re: Hello from Last of the Summer Wine territory.

PostPosted: 17 Nov 2016, 13:44
by RogerS
ParisinGOC wrote:.....At the point when it failed, I became responsible for ensuring all this could be put back together again, using all the correct processes, but executed in minutes and hours, rather than the months and years it normally took to change things.

...


No pressure then ? :D