Good day, cat!

For Sinter Klaas my nephew got a 'My First RC Car' type present.  He loved it, and was busy running everyone over thinking it was a great joke.  My niece (who is older) also loved playing with the car, and said that she wanted a pink convertible for her birthday.  I immediately thought that would be something nice to build - and i had an old car that I thought I could rebuild in the attic.

Coming from a council estate, and growing up in the 80's and being a petrol head I have always had a soft spot for fast Fords.  It's odd when you think about it - whilst Fords may be the peoples cars the fast Fords rarely are.  These days I prefer fast Volvo's to fast Fords - another oddity, once you get to the point where you can buy and insure a fast Ford you wonder if you actually want to buy one (the Volvo is nearly as quick, much less in your face - in fact it looks almost the same as a slow Volvo, and so much more comfortable on a long trip).

But, when in university, and still driving a 957cc Fiesta that was only 2 years younger than me, I was still into them.  And so I treated myself to a toy:

It was a fun project - you had to build everything - including the gear boxes and differentials.  And if you get a chamfered washer the wrong way around in a differential it makes the world of difference.  Or in other words, it doesn't work and you get annoyed :)

I haven't used the car in years, but had not thrown it away - it was sitting in the attic gathering dust.  So we had a choice of trying to find a toy car that fitted what she wanted, or rebuilding this and having something that was possibly too grown up for a 5 year old to play with.  We went for the latter, in the hope that she gets used to it fast enough not to destroy it before he has really played with it.

I dismantled it to down to the main components (I did not want to have the issue of rebuilding the diffs, or rather not being able to rebuild the diffs) and gave everything a good clean.  We brought new wheels, a new battery and speed controller (an electronic one that makes it easier to control) and a new convertible body.

As she is a huge fan of a certain white cat with a red bow we decided to make the new car a tribute.  Mrs Stace is the artistic one and drew three of the cats on the car, long with a couple of flowers and a butterfly.  I sprayed it a pearlescent voilet / blue (depending on the light).

To finish it off we brought on of the said cats and, err, how can I put this...  Decapitated it to use as the driver of the car.  We were really happy with the finished result:

The car went down a storm, and survived the huge impacts it had within a couple of seconds of her getting the controller.  But she learnt very quickly not to go full speed, and without being told figured out that you an use reverse to stop the car quicker.  The good thing about the flexible top is that it doesn't break very quickly in an impact, and when it gets dented you can 'ping' them almost completely out.  It doesn't look quite as good as these pictures any more - but it's not too bad :)

I have no doubt that in 6 months I'll be spraying another top for her - as long as the chassis remains unscathed the tops are fairly cheap.

Seeing her face when she unwrapped it made the effort of rebuilding the car so worth it :)

I can do without those moments!

This weekend has been a little more stressful then I would have liked... 

My neice has said that she wants a radio controlled car for her birthday.  As RC cars used to be a bit of a hobby of mine we offered to get one for her.  Or rather I offered to rebuild the one I brought when I was in Uni (it's got to be better than buying a throw away one).

So Saturday we were in the local model shop to get the bit's that we needed (wheels, battery, speed controller and as she wants a pink convertable we have had to replace the Escort top with something sporty that we can paint).  We got all the bits needed and I last night I started with the rebuild.  All went well, everything easily removed was cleaned (down to the chassis, but not dismatelling the mechanical bits - I don't have the instructions to put the diffs and AWD transmission box back together :p)

Until this afternoon...  I got the rolling chassis finsihed and was putting in the receiver and speed controller...  New new one doesn't fit...  The connections are all wrong - so it's back to the shop to see if there is another one...

And then the other stress...  I was dressed this evening...  Watching TV whilst Mrs Stace was washing her hair.  Suddenly I get an SMS - 'Your mum and dad are here, can you skype us please'.  Holly crap...  Sent an SMS back - can I call?  My laptop is not set up (good excuse I thought, though it was also a lie). Got another SMS - we wanted to show your parents how easy it is to skype.  Crap.  Rush upstairs and scrub my face clean, quickly change into jeans and t-shirt.  Then try to find my web cam.  It's not anywhere I was looking.  Crap!  In a rush I got my small laptop I use in the train (I have a DTR and an ultra portable - but the DTR has no build in webcam).  No Skype installed.  Crap!  Try to download Skype.  Need my username and password.  Which I forget...  Crap!  Really starting to stress at this point!  Got a reminder sent (at least I have an IMAP account to my email on this machine) and managed to log into Skype and download the installer.

Panic over, called my uncle and got my mum on the screen - who asked my just how long my 10 minutes were!  I could hardly tell her why it too so long with my aunt and uncle listening in on the conversation!

Phew, breath and relax...

Some degree of normality returns

I think I have enough going through my head right about now, so time for some avoidance therapy :)  And a bit of a bitsa post I’m afraid…

Christmas is a couple of months away – that means that it’s time to start the cake!  My Dutch colleagues are always surprised when I say I am starting it this early.  One of them made the joke – if you start it now it’ll mature by the time you eat it.  He was surprised when I just answered ‘Yup, that’s the idea’ :)

It’s in the oven at the moment, another 3 ½ hours to go until it’s ready to come out.  I hope that it goes well – the eggs, sugar and butter didn’t mix as well as they normally do (well I say normally I’ve only made the cake for the last 3 Christmas’).  Fingers crossed!

The weather has turned over here in Holland.  It’s wet, windy and grey.  The bike has stayed safely locked in the garden for the last couple of weeks (I’m not so much a fair weather rider, but riding on damp, slippery, leaves is not my idea of fun!)  We woke up yesterday and opened the curtains to find the BBQ and bike covers where they shouldn’t be (ie not on the bike or BBQ :p) and were storing enough water for a paddling pool – if only it was hot you could cool off in them :)

The main down shot of the weather is that the cold season has begun again in earnest.  I should be preparing for a 5KM run in Amsterdam today, but as when I ran on Tuesday I could barely complete 1.5KM’s I thought it best to let someone else take my place.  I’m pleased that I did.  Over the week it’s got slowly worse – my throat is starting to go, and my nose is starting to get blocked.  Fingers crossed that it stops soon!  I could do without another winter of almost constant colds and all that goes with it!

Mrs Stace had her birthday this week.  Her father is a sculptor in his spare time and this year her and her sister were offered free reign (almost) to pick their favourite sculpture.  Mrs Stace chose an Owl in (IIRC) Italian marble.  It’s a beautiful piece and has pride of place next to the TV, we just have to find some way of illuminating it during the evening.  I’d love a strip of LED lights – but then you would see the lights which would spoil the effect somewhat.

And finally I spent the last half day setting up a new TV in the living room.  In order to create space for the Owl we needed to remove some of my toys.  The cable digi-box was the easiest to remove, provided we got a TV that had it built in (and the decision was in no way influenced by the chance to upgrade the TV ;p) An issue with someone in the shop translating Dutch to English (he was trying to be helpful, I’m not blaming him) made the job much harder than it was.  When setting up the TV he said you must use ‘Fast’ otherwise it will not pick up any channels.  There was no ‘Fast’ option, and after an hour (IT’er hanging her head in shame at that amount of time just for setting up a TV!) I found out that he meant ‘Quick’ which I found in one of the sub menus.  Using that the TV set-up was finished in about 5 seconds (it really was quick!).  And we settled down for Strictly and then watched Wall.E that my parents brought Mrs Stace for her birthday.  It’s a fantastic film, though neither of us can imagine a child sitting down and watching it all the way through.

Right, that’s it from my – time for breakfast, coffee and to catch up on what I wanted to finish in the office this week!

Stace

Another year older

Well today I have been walking this earth for 34 years (well I suppose 33 - I have no idea when I started walking ;p)

I drummed up the courage to ask my sister in law for cash as a present to put towards a new outfit, and apparently it was not unexpected (and I really that transparent?).  With the money I got from my in laws I may even have enought to buy the outfit from Mexx that I wanted...  (with some nice black shoes to replace my old cheap ones)