Sometimes you need to code

The Gorse Fox was up long before the rest of the family and quietly sat and read the paper, Face-ache, and Twitter. Once everyone was up and about and we'd had breakfast, the Gorse Fox settled down with some ironing whilst the girls performed their interminable ablutions. By the time they were finished, so was he.

They say that a change is as good as a rest. Today, the Gorse Fox wanted to write some code. It's always a great pleasure to challenge yourself with a little bit of coding. This was hardly rocket science. This was not the sort of problem that would set Richard Feynman aflame. It was, however, something that he had been promising himself for several weeks. It was was just a basic housekeeping routine which would clear down old logs and old SQL backups, but it needed to be done. The Gorse Fox was bored with going in and clearing them manually. It didn't take too long to write and test and once done it was plugged into crontab on "peregrine" to run daily. Sorted.

The Silver Vixen, Urban-Cub and Ellie had gone out to do some shopping while the Gorse Fox was indulging his need to code. They got back in time for us all to have lunch together.

This afternoon the Gorse Fox returned to the videos from 1992. The Silver Vixen was sewing and Urban-Cub was having a quiet afternoon with Ellie. The Gorse Fox has now added a video of his business trip to South Africa in August 1992. He started off in Jo'burg where he called on several clients and gave several lectures; then we hit Pretoria for another lecture; finally we flew down to Cape Town. In Cape Town we, again, saw several big clients, and had one lecture to deliver. After the business side was done he had the chance to take a look around - Table Mountain, Hout Bay, Cape Point, and False Bay. It really was quite a trip.

On Charge

There's very little to report, but the Gorse Fox supposes that after 98 days of lockdown, that doesn't come as a huge surprise. The morning was taken up with various domestic tasks, with meter readings, with accounts and so forth. 

It was only after lunch that there was a modicum of excitement when the Gorse Fox realised that the battery on his MacBook Air was not really holding its charge very well and on running diagnostics he got the message that it needed servicing (i.e. replacing). The Gorse Fox spent some time looking for a local Apple Repair specialist and finally found one within a few miles. He called and spoke to the chap. He was assured that the only thing he couldn't do was replace the batteries in a MacBook. (It was at this point that the Gorse Fox remembered he had phoned him when the hard drive failed in his iMac... and was assured that the only thing he couldn't;t do is replace the hard drive in an iMac of this vintage). The Gorse Fox bit his tongue. It would obviously be a trip to the nearest Apple Store, which for us is Brighton or Southampton. That can wait fo now.

The Gorse Fox spent the afternoon finishing the video from our 1992 holiday in Cornwall and then correcting the dates on some old photos in Google Photos. (The timestamp from the vides gave him direct correlation with photos taken at the time and not previously timestamped).

Headlines

And the headline from the BBC says "Two households can join up in Wales from Monday". This begs the questions: which two households? and do they have to go to Wales?

Down and out

Pistol Pete brought Ellie back while the Gorse Fox was preparing dinner (lamb shanks, if you must know). As Urban-Cub and Pistol Pete were talking, she noticed the down-pipe of the (town)house opposite had come loose from the gutter and was waving about in the wind. The Gorse Fox was called.

The Gorse Fox went over to alert the neighbour. (This was not the first time she had a problem with the downpipes, but it had been "fixed'). We went and took a look. There was a wall fixing that had come away,  the pipe had detached itself from the roof gutter and also from the gutter over a bay window. Despite this, the joint seemed firm (if not actually glued) and the Gorse Fox couldn't lift the top section out. This was a real safety hazard as it was blowing about over a footpath.

Pistol Pete came over to help and held the bottom of the pipe while the Gorse Fox went and got a step-ladder. We tried to put the ladder somewhere secure and the Gorse Fox gingerly climbed to the top. He lifted the pipe out of the joint. It was at this point he realised that 20 feet of down pipe in a high wind was not conducive to balance. The pipe started to fall and the Gorse Fox tried to direct into the flower beds rather than the path. As the centre of gravity shifted the ladder toppled back, the pipe toppled forward and the Gorse Fox realised that not having wings was a serious disadvantage. He was flying through the air, but his trajectory was definitively downwards. He braced and hit the ground with his feet and by accelerating straight into a run, managed, after 20 feet or so, to regain his equilibrium.

He waited for the judges scores, expecting a full set of 10.0s; all he got was Ellie crying because Grandad couldn't fly after all. The neighbour was thankful and would contact the builders in the morning.

Hung and drawn

The Gorse Fox and Silver Vixen had a quiet evening. Urban-Cub was staying with Cousteau-Cub and Ellie was at Pistol Pete’s. We settled down to binge-watch the last 5 or 6 episodes of Bosch series 6. What excellent TV that is. Now we have to wait for Series 7 and who knows when that will be filmed and released.

There was only one real task for this morning. The Gorse Fox had to finish fitting the pull-out baskets in the cupboard. Fortunately, he had the knack based on yesterday’s experience. It still took quite a while to finish and clear up, but then the Silver Vixen had to take over and reload the cupboards. That took her ages and the Gorse Fox is sure it will take a while to get used to the fact that the cupboards have swapped contents and the shelves have been reloaded differently.

This afternoon the Gorse Fox returned briefly to the video editing, starting on a 1992 family holiday in Cornwall. The first rough cut has been done, but there’s a lot of work still to complete.

Basket Case

The Silver Vixen has had a bee in her bonnet regarding the accessibility of "stuff" in the kitchen cupboards. The solution adopted by Two Hats was to install pull-out wire baskets. The bee became focussed on the wire baskets. These were originally ordered pre-lockdown and were the wrong size so returned and re-ordered as the lockdown commenced. Eventually they have arrived and as Ellie was to be with Pistol Pete and Urban-Cub was going to spend time with Cousteau-Cub this weekend, it seemed like the ideal opportunity to install said baskets.

The food cupboard was emptied and spread over the kitchen. The doors removed and then the existing shelves. The existing shelves were cut down to become a central partition within the erstwhile double cupboard. After a great deal of effort, the central partition was installed and the runners for the first basket were fixed. The Gorse Fox grabbed the wire basket. It didn't fit. He consulted with Two Hats. It still didn't fit. He consulted with the Silver Vixen. It still didn't fit.

The solution to the problems was to switch cupboards. Two Hats, in an identical house, has two cupboards like ours. One slightly larger, one slightly smaller. We too have a similar pair. The difference is the position of the larger of two cupboards. For us it is in the middle of a run, for them it is on the end. It was the cupboard on the end we were trying to address. The solution was to re-purpose the two cupboards. Crockery would move to the end cupboard, food would move to the middle, larger cupboard.

The Gorse Fox dismantled the small cupboard and re-installed shelves (taken from, and cut-down from the larger cupboard). Then he re-installed the partition in the larger central cupboard. The process of installing the runners began again. The first attempt didn't fit, but the Gorse Fox realised the central partition had slipped during installation and was the problem. The runners were removed and the central partition refitted. Runner installed again, and wire baskets finally fixed. It has taken him about six hours but he has finished four of these baskets. The other two can wait until tomorrow (assuming the Gorse Fox can even move by then).

Desert South West

Ellie slept through the night, without incident. At about 7:15 this morning she woke and was happy to come downstairs with Grandad (as long as he showed Fireman Sam on the TV). He obliged.

Urban-Cub was back by mid-morning and while Ellie was delighted to see here, she turned defiant later in the morning. Defiant to the point that the Gorse Fox had to step in and tell her that it was time she behaved and showed some respect to he mother. The Gorse Fox suspects that the shock did the trick as she has been fine for most of the rest of the day.

The Gorse Fox managed to complete two further videos today. Both from our holiday in Arizona in 1990. The first covered trips to Tucson, the the Old Tucson studios, and through the Superstition Mountains and along the Apache Trail. The second was our trip to Sedona, through Oak Creek Canyon, and on to the Grand Canyon. It may be 30 years ago, but the memories came flooding back... particularly the bit where the Gorse Fox commented on the views of the Painted Desert in Utah, and how long it must have taken to paint it. At this point Urban-Cub chimed in and asked who actually did the painting.

Mid-afternoon, we went along to to Sales Suite for the development. We were moving to the next stage of the purchase process and Urban-Cub needed to be shown all of the nitty-gritty details of the house. It took well over an hour, but we left feeling well-informed and under no illusions regarding what she would get for her money.

Karma

The Gorse Fox was presented with a conundrum. The Silver Vixen had been to the farm shop for some dry food for Jasper. When she got in the car to return, the Dash Cam played its start-up chime, then continued to chime all the way home. Could the Gorse Fox fix it?

Firstly, he thanked his lucky stars that he didn't tease Old Bill about the problems he had been having with the Dash Cam on the Mercedes. (Karma could be a bit of a devil). Then he set about trying to find a solution. The first problem was to find out how the camera actually fitted in the car. It turns out that it is held in place by an immensely strong magnet. Then he had to download the latest firmware update and find out how to apply it.

It didn't seem to make much difference what he did; as soon as he powered up the chiming would start and it wouldn't do anything else. Eventually, he found a tiny recess that said "Reset". A paperclip was applied. The chiming stopped. The SD Card was removed and reformatted on the Mac and the firmware update moved onto the empty disk. Power was disconnected then reconnected. The firmware update was applied and everything started to behave as it should.

Urban-Cub is at work today, so G-Force are on duty until the morning.

Stay Alert

It's been a fabulously hot day. The Gorse Fox had opened up the house first thing and has managed to keep a few through-drafts and some rooms have remained cool, thank goodness.

Urban-Cub and Ellie went off to see the Princess and her family today, leaving the Gorse Fox and Silver Vixen to fend for themselves. The Silver Vixen had her Zoom Pilates this morning and the Gorse Fox used the time to work on a couple of videos from a holiday in Arizona in 1990.

Now, perhaps the Gorse Fox should explain that today is Tinkerbell's birthday. In the spirit of neighbourliness we had agreed to meet at a suitable distance for a cup of tea in their garden. Knowing how worried she has been during the pandemic of disease transmission, the Gorse Fox though it only fair to take suitable precautions when we wandered over this afternoon.

He doesn't consider this overkill, bearing in mind he had just been to Sainsbury's, and it is only fair that he is cautious when visiting after so long.

It did make it very difficult to chat, drink tea, and eat the chocolate biscuits that we had taken with us.

We did have a lovely afternoon chatting sociably for the first time in months and covering every subject from COVID-19 to 5-star accommodation on the Isle of Wight and everything in between.

 

Biking

Urban-Cub had arranged for a friend to come and visit, that meant that the Silver Vixen and Gorse Fox were double-teaming on Ellie for much of the day. Even though she had woken up in a bit of a strop, she was actually very good as we kept her occupied with one thing or another.

This afternoon, the Gorse Fox took her out for a ride on her bike. The Gorse Fox had a strap attached to the handlebars to keep her close by and in the end it turned out useful for carrying the bike. Her technique for riding a bike is to sit on the seat and push down with one foot, and back pedal with the other. Then she pushes down with the same foot again. She will end up with one leg with well-developed muscles and the other quite normal. As it happens, this technique is not ever so efficient and after the first 50 yards she got off and walked, leaving the Gorse Fox to carry the bike.

The Gorse Fox had taken the gimbal with him and had the iPhone set for video. He was very impressed with the stability of the image he was capturing (bearing in mind he had the iPhone on the gimbal in one hand and the bike in the other). He also used the face tracking feature so that the phone swivelled automatically to keep Ellie in the picture as she moved around. He's very pleased with the DJI Osmo 3 gimbal but really can't claim to be completely au fait with all it's features and functions. He will clearly have to get a lot more practise.

Cracking on

It's been another lovely day. The Gorse Fox has taken a couple of opportunities to go out and sit in the garden. It's just too nice to stay inside.

After some early morning chores - vacuuming, then steam cleaning the floors, the Gorse Fox returned to study. The first task was to consolidated the naming convention that he has evolved for all of the videos. This meant going back and renaming quite a few of the oldest ones and then reseeding the Plex Media Server. Once done, he powered through several more videos. One, from 1999, was taken in Tenerife when the Gorse Fox first bought his digital video camera. Being a new toy, this featured dozens and dozens of clips of various lengths. Each had to be reviewed and either rejected or the best best selected for inclusion. It took ages. The finished article, however, is pretty good.

On a related note, the Gorse Fox has just found out that you can trim video using the Mac's built-in Quicktime Player. This is useful for some of the old videos that were transferred to DVD and, in some cases, had huge amounts of dead air at the end. It's much quicker using this method that using one of the video editors. 

Urban-Cub is back in LA this afternoon sorting out the various who-takes-what decisions for the house before bringing Ellie back. The Gorse Fox suspects it is quite stressful, but it has to be done.

Masks

The Gorse Fox did pop across to Sainsbury's for some commodities missing from our Ocado order. Was please to see far more people wearing masks than of late. What was noticeable was that far more men were wearing masks than women. No idea why there was such a marked difference, but the Gorse Fox thinks that as lockdown releases, the use of masks becomes more important. The virus has not gone away. It is just not spreading so quickly because of the precautions taken. As these precautions are released, we have to be careful that we don't allow it to become rampant once more.

Fathers' Day

It has been a lovely Fathers' Day. The early morning rain soon dried up and the sun came out. We were able to spend most of the afternoon in the garden, with glass of wine, chatting. Urban-Cub and Cousteau-Cub were both here and made a fuss of the Gorse Fox.

We chatted about our joint memories and also about the Gorse Fox's memories of his Dad. It made the day very special.

Back to the videos

The Gorse Fox has returned to the huge backlog of videos. He picked a year at random. He decided that year would be finished off. And hour or so later, 2003 was put to bed. All raw footage had be reviewed and processed.

He picked another year. 2002 was under the microscope and by the end of the day it was cleared. The Gorse Fox was surprised, however, that a holiday in Tenerife that November had spawned nearly 90 minutes of raw footage. Several hours later it had been whittled down to 13 minutes with soundtrack from Santana.

Progress is slow, but there is a credible oeuvre of family video building up, with some 62 separate films in the library, ranging from a few minutes to about 40 minutes. There is still so much to do, though.

Pushing It

Like most 3 year-olds, Ellie is starting to push her limits. In a few moments of defiance this morning she excelled herself. Urban-cub had explained to her, repeatedly, that she would not open a sachet of new paints. Ellie had shouted and demanded they be opened. Urban-cub held her ground under the onslaught. In the end Urban-cub said "Ellie, I'm fed up with saying No to you and you ignoring me". Bright as a button, Ellie replied "Well, don't say No to me then".

The Gorse Fox was over by the cooker preparing his porridge and with his back to action. He started to giggle, and ended up crying with laughter (while trying not to be seen by Ellie and thus encouraging her).

Oh well, she's spending the rest of the weekend with Pistol Pete.

Threading needles

It has been a day. The has tucked by at a rate of 60 seconds per minute and 60 minutes per hour. This is a fairly typical distribution, as it happens.

Urban-Cub had various administrative tasks to get through regarding the sale of the house and the changing of various accounts. The Silver Vixen pottered for a while, then sat down at the sewing machine to finish a dress that she had been making for Ellie.

The Gorse Fox returned to the study. An old video from 2003 was recut and filed before he put on his apron and headed for the stove. It was time to make up a batch of curry sauce. Some would get used tonight, and the rest would be batched up and frozen. It took a while to get things underway. The Silver Vixen was using one section of the kitchen surface, and Urban-Cub was using another bit for Ellie's lunch. The Gorse Fox couldn't be his usual expansive self. Once the sauce was done, he returned to study.

A video of a holiday to Tenerife in 2003 started to take shape. That's when the phone rang. Was it Virgin offering the Gorse Fox his refund? Nope. Was it VIP Attractions offering the Gorse Fox his refund? Nope. It was Urban-Cub. She had gone along to see Cousteau-Cub and the Coventry Hobbit and help the Coventry Hobbit collect a sofa bed from a seller in Barnham. The problem was that it was so big and heavy that they couldn't get it into the house and up the stairs.

The Gorse Fox pulled his pants on over his tights, donned his cape, and leapt into action. By the time he had got to Chichester the Coventry Hobbit had removed the bed mechanism from the sofa. Despite this we had an absolute nightmare trying to thread the sofa through the door and then up the stairs and into the target bedroom. Once it was finally in the right room, we then had to reinstall the bed frame mechanism. This, again, proved to be an absolute devil of a job. A little bit of logic, a lot of brute force, and and some sheer luck finally came together and so did the sofa bed. What was it about threading a camel through the eye of a needle? Hopefully, this will be the last of Cousteau-Cub's brilliant online furniture buys.

Excitement

A day full of excitement. This morning Urban-Cub had to go back to LA for the formal valuation of her old house. The results are already in, the document has been sent to the right agency, and they have confirmed everything is good to go.

The Gorse Fox got chatting with Old Bill (from a resettable distance, of course). He is looking at getting a new laptop. A few weeks ago he was considering a Lenovo, but now he is seriously contemplating making the life-affirming switch to Apple and getting a MacBook. The Gorse Fox could only encourage such a move.

This afternoon we all went in to Chichester. The Silver Vixen wanted to look for some fabric for a dress for Ellie, Ellie wanted to tag along, and Urban-Cub was bullied into joining us by Ellie. The Gorse Fox had an appointment at the chiropodist. Despite an amber warning for thunderstorms and lightning, it remained dry and pleasantly warm. The Gorse Fox was impressed that all of shops he looked in were taking the use of hand sanitiser and of masks very seriously. Even walking down the streets, most people had masks round their necks ready to don on entry to a shop.

After 87 days of lockdown and with such an exciting day behind him, the Gorse Fox may have to lie down with a cucumber eye-mask for the evening.

ATM

The Gorse Fox actually went to an ATM to get some cash. First time since the end of February.

Editing Suite

The Silver Vixen had her usual Zoom-based Pilates this morning. Urban-Cub too Ellie out and they met up with friends down by the beach. (She also managed to collect a parking ticket, so wasn't best pleased).

The Gorse Fox retired to the editing suite. He was a man on a mission. Videos for 2003 in Nerja, 2004 in Fowey, 2018 in Jamaica, and 2019 in Jamaica have all been created and filed in the Plex Media Server. It's really beginning to look quite impressive. The best part is that it can be accessed from any of our TVs, our tablets, and our phones.

Currently there are 58 family videos in the library, but there is plenty more raw footage to create more.

TV Pundit

In keeping with the comments made about the Bosch Series 5, the Gorse Fox thinks it only fair to comment on another excellent bit of TV. Over the past three nights there has been a documentary-drama recounting the events surrounding the Salisbury novichok attack. It is rare that the Gorse Fox gets enthused enough to even watch one of these genre of programmes, but was immensely glad that he did. This was excellent TV by any measure.

Corporate dreams

The Gorse Fox was disturbed by his dreams last night. He had, ostensibly, been asked to go into Oxford to review their requirements and set up their whole archiving and backup strategy for historical documents and Council documents. Now, this maybe something he feels passionate about, but he really doesn't need to take on the Dreaming Spires.

Alert, alert, alert

The Gorse Fox is getting concerned Urban-Cub and the Silver Vixen have been discussing paint colours and wallpaper patterns. This is unlikely to end well.

Talking of things that do not end well, the Gorse Fox saw a comment that you can download Lotus Symphony and use it to access old Lotus files. The Windows laptop was retrieved from under the desk. Power was switched on. The usual Windows updates were applied and then the Gorse Fox was able to download Symphony. Finally, it burst into life. The Gorse Fox accessed the NAS to find some of the old ".SAM" files created by Amipro which was subsumed into WordPro which was eventually part of Symphony. Nada. Niet. It wouldn't even open the files let alone convert them to something of use. That was an hour or two wasted.

The Gorse Fox finished off a video of a holiday from 2008. This was a trip, with Urban-Cub, to Nerja in Andalucia. It was only a week, but it was a lovely holiday. He's now started to work on a video from 2004 when the Gorse Fox and Silver Vixen went down to Fowey for her birthday.

Bish, Bash, Bosch

We just finished the last episode of Series 5 of "Bosch" on Amazon Prime last night. Like all of the previous series, it was absolutely superb. It was well crafted, true to the spirit of the Michael Connelly books, and cracked along at a sensible pace that allowed the various side stories to develop alongside the main theme.

We have series 6 lined up, but have to decide whether to wait a while so we don't overdose or to go for the fully leaded immersion / binge.

Epcot and MGM

No the Gorse Fox has not been out on his travels. It is lockdown, after all!

Today has seen a first "rough cut" video edit done for out day at Epcot Center and another day at Disney MGM back in 1989. Both require a lot more work, but the bones of each of the videos are there. There's work to do on the audio levels, on fades, and on continuity, but the first cut is done.

While the Gorse Fox was busy in "the editing suite" the Silver Vixen, Urban-Cub and Ellie went to the shops for some stuff for Ellie. She came home with some "dressing up" clothes and had to give grandpa a fashion show.

Urban-Cub managed to find a bargain for Cousteau-Cub and the Coventry Hobbit. It was a small Flymo styled lawn mower. This will be ideal for their small patch of lawn and at £25 was quite a bargain. She went and collected it from the seller in Bognor and whizzed it across to Chichester for them.

Who is that masked stranger?

It's been a relaxing day. A leisurely breakfast was followed by a return to the study. Several of the videos that the Gorse Fox reviewed yesterday were candidates for some further tweaking. In the end three videos were recast and rendered. This took the whole morning.

The Gorse Fox headed across to Sainsbury's. There were several items that Ocado couldn't provide this week, and it was time to restock. In his ongoing count of masked strangers the Gorse Fox observed one other shopper and one member of staff wearing face masks. 

The afternoon saw a first rough-cut of a video from our day at Disney's Magic Kingdom, in Florida back in 1989. This will need some serious review and further editing as it is still nearly 30 minutes long and hasn't yet had any work done on the audio track. It did, however, bring back some lovely memories of when Cousteau-Cub and Urban-Cub were little.

Pan and zoom

It's been a fruitful day. Several videos have been reviewed and the Gorse Fox has noted where refinements are required. On top of that, yesterday's video of Thailand has been re-edited as many of the effects, automatically applied by iMovie, turned out to be sub-optimal. (A picture of the Silver Vixen that pans from her feet to her chin is not really ideal. A few minutes with YouTube and the Gorse ox saw how to pan and zoom in DaVinci Resolve. The original photos were edited into the timeline and the pan/zoom effects re-applied. Voila! We now have a sensible clip. Watching the video this evening, we have realised that further work is needed on the soundtrack. That can wait until tomorrow.

The Gorse fox has also created two new videos. One told the story of the family when they joined the Gorse Fox in Poughkeepsie in August 1991. The other was the video of our day trip from Poughkeepsie to New York. What is poignant is that most of the clip features the World Trade Center.

Unfortunately, the rest of that holiday didn't get recorded. The Gorse Fox had problems with the video camera and failed to record our trip along the New York State Thruway to Buffalo and across into Canada. Our trip to Toronto, our day at Niagara, our day at Canada's Wonderland, our flight round Toronto with Agent Mulder, our trip around Lake Ontario to Montreal and down into Vermont, our visit to the Trapp Family Lodge and to Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream factory, our journey through New Hampshire and stay in Boston, and eventually the trip back through Rhode Island, and Connecticut on the way to JFK for our flight home. 

On a separate note, Cousteau-cub and the Coventry Hobbit arrived late in the afternoon. They wanted to borrow the Karcher jet spray so that they could clean their patio and paving. They should have some messy fun with that!

Saved for posterity

The Gorse Fox was up first, as usual, but today he had a mission. He was heading across to Durrington to collect the batch of DVD's that had been created from the old Video8 tapes. He timed this to perfection. A very clear run through Chichester and Arundel, but as he approached Durrington on the A27 he could see blue flashing lights up ahead. The road was closed but the Gorse Fox was able to take a different route to avoid the trouble. By the time he had picked up the DVDs and headed back, the A27 was queued way back from the closure. As he said, the Gorse Fox had timed it to perfection.

Back home he started the task of ripping the DVDs down onto the hard drives, while running up and down to play with Ellie and her Play Dough.

This afternoon he returned to DaVinci Resolve and the video from Thailand in 2013. The tasks were firstly to clean up the audio track. This was achieved by using one of the supplied Noise Reduction plug-ins and a lot of experimentation. Secondly, the Gorse Fox had to add some suitable background music. This was less of a problem, but still tool some careful manipulation.

Ellie has just been collected by Pistol Pete. She will be staying with him for the weekend. All of a sudden the house seems very quiet.

More of the same

(Blogger has changed the input screen... the Gorse Fox doesn't expect it will make any difference to the quality of his content, but it's always nice to see that there is still some development under way).

In terms of what we've been up to, the Silver Vixen has been busy with her sewing. She's preparing to make some outfits for Ellie. The Gorse Fox has been in the study working on the videos. Those he made yesterday need soundtracks, and one needed to have some further rise merged in with the master. The most time consuming part was getting the right soundtracks.

Once that was finished, he started on the video for our 2013 trip to Thailand. Again, the basic selection of images (from a collection of over 3200 photos) took quite a while, but then he had a large chunk of video to merge in. In terms of the visual content, the film is about right. The audio, however, has a long way to go. The problem with video taken near the beach is that there is a huge amount of wind noise. This needs to be filtered out (if possible) so that we can hear the voices.

Late in the afternoon the Gorse Fox heard from The Cine Film Factory. The tapes he dropped off last week have now been processed. Funds were exchanged and the Gorse Fox has arranged to collect the DVD masters in the morning. The Gorse Fox probably said this last week, but again, he cannot stress enough how important it is to process your old Video 8 and Super 8 video tapes. The compound from which they were made is degrading rapidly and you cannot assume that any images or memories you have stored on them will last too much long.

We heard from Cousteau-Cub just after dinner. She confirmed that her broadband has been switched on and that it is very fast. That's good news as it will make life a lot easier for her. 

Scam

The Gorse Fox has just received the HMRC scam call...

"This is to inform you that a fraud case is registered in your name. You must press..."

The Gorse Fox hung up and blocked the caller.

Breaking the cycle

Just to break the cycle, there was no movement on any outstanding refunds today. The Gorse Fox shakes his head in amazement.

Urban-Cub got back from work mid-morning and Ellie has been her shadow ever since. The Silver Vixen locked herself in the lounge for her Zoom Pilates session throughout the morning. The Gorse Fox wonders if we can play football over Zoom? At least it would be non-contact.

The Gorse Fox , you will be astonished to hear, spent his spare time working on further videos. He cracked through quite a few, in terms of rough-cut. They will need further work and some audio tracks when he gets back to the iMac. (He should explain that his study has been in use all day by Cousteau-Cub who needed to work but hasn't yet got broadband switched on in the new house, though it is due today.

Keeping count, as he has been, he only noticed one other shopper in Sainsbury's wearing a face mask.

Refunds, another episode

The Gorse Fox was checking the accounts this morning. In fact, he checks them most mornings. He was delighted to find that a refund had been credited to his account for some pull-out kitchen baskets that were the wrong size and had to be returned. This happened back in March just as the lockdown set in. The store has only just started trading again, so the Gorse Fox phoned them. They looked up the details and said they would get onto it. Two working days later the refund is in the bank. If only Virgin were as efficient.

Urban-cub had to go into work today. She dropped Ellie off with Cousteau-cub and the Coventry Hobbit. The Gorse Fox went along to collect her in time for dinner.

Much of the rest of the day was spent creating or editing family videos to add to the Plex Server. Several more have been tucked away today: Madeira, Falmouth, a couple of picnics, and he is in the middle of preparing one for the 2015 trip to Thailand. He may not finish it tonight but should tuck it away tomorrow if not.

Refunds Series 27, Episode 23

The Gorse Fox has actually lost count of the number of interactions he has attempted with Virgin regarding the refund for our Jamaica trip. It occurred to him that it is now six weeks since he chose to have a refund rather than rely on the voucher he was offered. In that time he has sent them several messages and just received stock answers. He hadn't even had confirmation that his refund was somewhere in their queue.

Enough was enough. It was time to at least get some acknowledgement.

He started:

"It is now a biblical 40 days and 40 nights since you contacted me regarding my holiday (ref:xxxxxxx). Your email included a voucher, but I chose to take a full refund and filled in the online form accordingly. The emails said "We'll call you back to process the cancellation and organise your refund." but I still have not heard anything."

He received the usual canned answer.

He switched from iMessage to WhatsApp:

"On April 28th you cancelled my holiday xxxxxxx and I requested a refund. It is now 6 weeks and I haven't even received an acknowledgement that this is in process. If I do not hear from you I will have to initiate a chargeback on my credit card."

He received the canned response almost immediately, but was prepared for this, and volleyed back:

"A canned response is not acceptable. I want a clear acknowledgement that my refund is in process."

Lo and behold! The bots obviously passed this on to a human and the Gorse Fox got a response. 

"Hi I can see from our system that a refund has been requested for you, at this time I cannot give you an exact date when this will be with you. As we are dealing with and exceptionally … difficult times… longer than usual… blah blah"

Is the Gorse Fox happy? No. But he does, at least, have an acknowledgement that his refund is in their system.

Gone fishing

Urban-cub is not having a good day. She went out this morning and forgot her purse, only realising as she approached Rustington. She's lost her ankle bracelet and on returning home she dropped her car keys down the drain.

This called for an imaginative solution. The problem is that it is a very deep drain. Magnets were clearly going to be the answer. It was at this point, however, that the Gorse Fox had to take the Silver Vixen into Chichester for her appointment at the hospital.

When we got back, the Gorse Fox and Two Hats teamed up and used some gaffer tape to attach 5 neodymium magnets to the end of a very long bamboo pole. The pole was plunged into the murky depths and slowly moved around. Suddenly it felt heavier. The pole was raised and the keys nestled at the end. It took a bit of cleaning up, but everything is now sorted.

Refunds, encore

The Gorse Fox has just sent, yet another, message to Virgin Holidays:

It is now a biblical 40 days and 40 nights since you contacted me regarding my holiday (ref:xxxxxx). Your email included a voucher, but I chose to take a full refund and filled in the online form accordingly. The emails said "We'll call you back to process the cancellation and organise your refund." but I still have not heard anything.

This is getting tiresome.

Mouse

The Gorse Fox thought that the forecast was for rain. In fact we have had lovely sunshine throughout the day, so far. Indeed we have been sitting out in the garden this afternoon, making the most of it. Having said that, it is clouding over now, and there are dark clouds gathering.

As the Gorse Fox has been editing his videos over the last few days he has had problems with the sensitivity of his wireless mouse. At first he put it down to a low battery. He changed it. Then he wondered if the old mouse-mat was getting a bit gungy. He ordered a new one. Today he wondered if it was the mouse itself. He swapped the mouse with another. The problem went away. It was the damned rodent. New mouse is on order.

Several more videos have been processed today. More importantly, the Gorse Fox has set up the Silver Vixen as a user of the Plex Server so she can now get to all the material. It's all set on her iPad, but the iPhone can wait until later.

Still going

The Gorse Fox is still going. He had no idea how much raw video footage he had. He started the day by wondering if there was some way to easily embed the videos in his private (Wordpress) blog. Certainly, it should be possible, but as far as using a player within Wordpress to play a video served by Plex, seems beyond the wit of the Gorse Fox at present. Then he thought about Plan B. What about linking directly to the NAS and playing it? It should be easy enough, but at this point, he still hasn't cracked it. What he doesn't want to do is to upload the videos as media into his Wordpress server and thus duplicate the storage. This will have to sit on the back burner for now.

Giving up, he returned to DaVinci Resolve and the task of editing individual videos from the huge forest of raw footage. Three more videos have been completed for events in 1990 and 1991.

Meanwhile, downstairs the Gorse Fox can hear the Silver Vixen's sewing machine or overlocker humming away as she works on new outfit for Ellie.

Masks

The Gorse Fox observed in Sainsbury's that, other than him, only two people were wearing masks. People are getting complacent.

Editing

The morning was spent on domestic chores and shopping. Late morning Urban-cub took Ellie across to LA to spend the weekend with Pistol Pete. The Silver Vixen returned to her sewing and the Gorse Fox to his computers.

With the newly transcoded DVDs ripped into the iMac, the Gorse Fox was able to complete three separate projects. That is now 40 family videos he has tucked away in the Plex server. He also had the opportunity to test whether he could access this media when outside the house. He was delighted to find that he could.

Video 8

In the late 1980s and through most of the 1990s the Gorse Fox had a video camera that recorded on Video 8 tapes. These were great at the time, but even though he has captured most of them, the quality of the images was poor. The Gorse Fox decided that enough was enough. These tapes contain significant family stories: holidays in Florida, in Arizona, in Poughkeepsie, in Toronto; days out at Waddesdon Manor, at the Vyne, in Boulogne; and family get togethers such as Christmas.

He read an article last year saying that the compound used for the Video 8 and Super 8 tapes was suspect and that they were deteriorating at an alarming rate. Many snapped as soon as they were played, others had a type of mould that destroyed the images. This needed to be addressed. The Gorse Fox found a small independent company in Durrington that would process these tapes and convert the to DVD. He had sent them two tapes to start with. He had the opportunity to collect the finished DVDs today (and deposit a load more tapes for processing).  The guy that runs the place said how difficult it had been and the first few machines he tried to use wouldn't't extract the images, only the audio. Finally, one of his big professional decks was able to get the image and record to DVD.

The Gorse Fox has had the opportunity to rip the DVDs into his compute and look at the finished article. Boy oh boy! The quality is fantastic. In fact he thinks it is better than the images projected from the tape originally (using the camera). Now, he has the challenge of editing the hours of original film into sensible video films... but at least the images are saved for posterity.

The Gorse Fox recommends that if you have any old Video 8 or Super 8 tapes tucked away in your cupboards, and the content has value to you or you family, the get it transferred to a medium that will not deteriorate.

The Gorse Fox does not advertise, but he does recommend places and services that he has found to be of genuine value. The Gorse Fox strongly recommends: The Cine Film Factory; Email: transfer@cinefilmfactory.co.uk

To be fair

The VIP Meet & Greet service referred to in yesterday's post, to be fair, got back to the Gorse Fox. They have realised their duplication of requests and asked for the Gorse Fox to provide contact numbers so that they can call and arrange the refund.

Numbers have been sent along with a reminder that we are 5 hours ahead of them - the last thing the Gorse Fox wants is a call coming in at 10:30 at night!

Now he awaits the call... and some contact from Virgin Holidays.

Moving

Today has been a big day. Cousteau-Cub and the Coventry Hobbit have moved in to their new home. Urban-Cub and Ellie were up early and headed across to Chichester to help with the move. There was van to pick up, and furniture to collect from various hide holes and suppliers. The Gorse Fox has no doubt the day was "full on".

The Gorse Fox and the Silver Vixen stayed at home... available if required, but still conscious of social distancing. The Silver Vixen spent the morning with her ladies on Zoom doing their collective Pilates session.

The Gorse Fox, meanwhile, returned to the huge pool of unprocessed video he has squirrelled away. That basically consumed the day. Several more videos have been crafted from the original clips and holidays from 2001 and 2002 are suitably documented.

Refund

It can be quite a hassle dealing with refund requests. Our vacation in Jamaica, in addition the the Virgin Holidays package, had a number of ancillary services booked around it. One by one, refunds were requested back at the beginning of the pandemic. Acknowledgements were received, and in most cases the refunds have occurred. Two, however, are outstanding. One from Virgin Holidays, and one from the VIP Meet & Greet service. This latter one has proved puzzling. Back in March they acknowledged our claim, and said that the refund would take between 60 and 90 days. A bit slow, but in the circumstances, acceptable. Overnight the Gorse Fox has received a further acknowledgement from them, offering several options, for for word the same as that received in March. The Gorse Fox responded that he had answered their email 68 days ago and they had acknowledged its receipt and promised the refund in 60-90 days... The Gorse Fox is concerned that they are trying to reset the clock. We wait.

It's been a relatively uneventful day. The Silver Vixen has been pottering with the flowers, Urban-Cub has been looking after Ellie, and the Gorse Fox has redeveloped an old video from our trip to Barcelona in 2005 and curated a new one from our trip to Seville in 2008.

Fiesta time

Well after so many days that tend to blend into each other, there was a bit of a change today. Urban-Cub had to go up to work and won't be back until tomorrow and Ellie was collected at lunchtime by Pistol Pete and will spend the afternoon with him.

With Urban-Cub at work, we moved the Silver Vixen's car and the Gorse Fox gave it a good wash to remove the accumulated dust of the last few weeks. He also fired up the Fiesta. It took two or three goes, but the engine fired and he reversed out of the garage for the first time in about 10 weeks. There was method to the madness. He had contacted the chappie in Worthing who does the video transcoding and he was able to accept a couple of tapes. The Gorse Fox arranged to drop them in during the early afternoon, and decided to take the fiesta to give it a bit of a run. There were no problems. It ran as sweet as a bell and the Gorse Fox even managed to get up to 49.9 mpg out of it, despite the effort the alternator was probably having to put in to get the battery fully charged again.

Ellie will be be back after tea, and G-Force will be in charge over night.