Bit of a yawn! & Oh no! not the dripping tap - - again!

If someone else yawns do you "catch it"

Its all related to age and energy levels, say the US based scientists commissioning the study.  Sounds like a very slow day at the university for this to have got off the ground!
The story of course is peppered with "data" to expound the theories presented by the "experts"
In like the one at the bottom of the article by "Robert R Provine" have you ever noticed that American men will almost be referred to or their names will be written with First name, then initial and then last name, while American Women will just be first then last name???  Anyway, goiod old Robert R Provine sums it up by saying
"Contagious acts such as yawning and laughing remind us that we are often mindless beasts of the herd, not rational beings in full conscious control of our behaviour."  
Thats it Bob "Dont hold back will you!"  lol  - - -

Now Here's a guy you have to admire

Self made multi millionaire and what looks like all round average bloke whenever he appears in front of the media.
Well in this article he sets out his 10 tips for success so come on lets all be millionaires.

I like number 10 tip the most! - - -

 Singapore - recently heralded as the most expensive city to live in is questioned,

Does Singapore deserve its miserable tag?"  in this story.  Having visited it a couple of times in recent years some of the revelations come as a surprise but I guess there will be other cities where the quest for the $ outweighs everything else!


Closer to home 
The birdfeeder has seen a little action lately

yesterday a squirrel, quite a regular visitor, we haven't seen the one with the damaged tail for some time. was helping itself to some nuts

While just now a rather plump pigeon is having a look around for titbits

I was bemoaning the less than perfect performance of my La Crosse W2350 weather machine.  It's rigged to record the various data once an hour and is responsible for showing the current weather every 5 minutes on our weather website.  Without fail it will lose the data each night and requires a physical reset to get it going again.
The instrument has a wifi link to the console and is meant to have a range of 100 metres but I have failed to get it to work at greater distance than 20 metres.
Having had no data showing on the site for the whole of our recent holiday I started looking for an alternative.  All the ones I was prepared to buy had reviews that more or less mirrored the problem I had.
Before scrapping mine I thought, "just one last idea" was worth a try.  Its not that the wifi signal doesn't work but it can be deflected by so many things around it therefore making it unreliable.
I tacked a simple piece of tin foil behind the transmitter which also acts as the thermometer and link to the other instrument, in an effort to "direct" the signal towards the console in the kitchen

 In the 2 weeks its been like this it hasn't missed a recording and the website has always had the data displayed.  I could, I thought make the tin foil look a little more presentable but its a typical case of "if its not broke don't fix it!"

Oh no! not "the saga of the dripping tap" - - - again!

Back in Aug 2011 our kitchen tap started to drip and it took me ages to resolve it.  You would think the inside of the modern tap would have fairly standard bits to it.  Not a bit! "its a nightmare" I was told down at a plumbing outlet as I proffered the offending bit the brass bit in the pic.  In the end I managed to look back through my kitchen project invoices to find out the model number and manufacturer/supplier.
I contacted them by phone and paid for the replacement part.  They promptly sent the wrong item.  I e mailed pics to them with the part number etc and they then sent me the part for the "hot side of the tap rather than the cold which I wanted! Finally! I received the correct part and the drip was stopped!
I noticed a few weeks ago the tap was "dripping again" Not wanting to go through the whole sorry tale again I looked through my trusty Screwfix catalogue and sourced a replacement for a fraction of the price of the original!
Looking under the stairs, which is a depository for all kinds of things at our cottage I found the first item sent by Jacuzzi UK in their attempts to supply the "right part".  Transferring my efforts to a container of "other things" under the sink I located the "hot side of the tap item" that I had thrown there in frustration 3 years before.
Maybe, just maybe I thought it could be the hot side that's dripping, a quick bit of turning various stop cocks off proved "successful"  ten minutes later "Result"  

With the good weather "still with us" yesterday I ventured up to our logging area for another load to stock up the wood shed.

With a bit of a breeze blowing I took the opportunity to burn off some of the discarded branches from earlier felling.  Trees covered the whole hillside in the background once.  The lone pine tree a former Christmas tree had to be left standing as it was planted by Jim our friend some considerable time ago when he was a young boy.
Enjoy the day
Follow this link to see  our weather website

Or this one just to see  the streaming birdfeeder cam