CUT FINGERS AND BOILED POTATOES

A few days ago I was about to cut something with a brand new super sharp, Stanley type blade, that I just took out of the packaging. I had the blade in my right hand, while holding the item to be cut (mounting board) with my left hand. Just as I was about to cut, Rocky (my boxer dog) came into the room and decided that it was time to play. So he ran up and nudged me (Ok he pushed me) and I ended up slashing a 1 1/4" deep gash along the side of my index finger. When I say a deep cut, I could see the inside of my finger before the blood started to pour. The best thing at the time would have been to go to the doctor or hospital so they could stitch my finger back together. However, as I just did not have the money to get a taxi to the hospital and pay the hospital fee. I ended up treating the cut myself. Just so you know, if it happened to anyone else, I would advise them to go to hospital.

Anyway, I grabbed my first aid kit and taped the gash closed and then made a splint from a pencil before bandaging it up. I have to say I did a really good job and now, five days later my finger is well on the way to healing. I have now taken the splint off and after cleaning and redressing the wound, my finger seems fine. The only thing is, if I bend my finger, I am fairly sure the wound will reopen and I will be back to square one. Ok it is a bit awkward as I have to wear a rubber glove when washing, but the worst thing about my injury is, it looks like I'm permanently pointing at things with my left index finger. In a week or so I am hoping my finger will be ok and I will be able to take my bandage off for good.

When I was cabinetmaking, getting cuts on my fingers, was almost a daily thing as I would be using sharp blades or getting splinters and also cuts from sharp edges of the raw materials that we were using at the time. However, the most common cut of all was when we were hand sanding and the skin on your fingers would just get worn away after a few hours. As you need to use your sense of touch while working on fine finishing, on a peace, it was impractical to wear protective gloves. We all used to end up, wrapping masking tape around each finger as the skin wears away, so you could still use your sense of touch with your remaining fingers. As most woods have antiseptic properties, most, if not all cuts would be healed within a day or so and by the time you had your weekend and are back to work on Monday, your hands would be back to square one for another week of cuts and grazes.

So if you ever buy a handmade piece of high quality furniture, you can be sure that real blood, sweat and tears have gone into it's construction. Don't let that put you off as there would not be any blood on the furniture by the time the finishing sanding was done and it was ready for polishing. I miss doing that kind of work.

I have always found I strange that people tend to look down on the guy that works with their hands. They assume that if someone works with there hands, it must be down to a lack of both intelligence and education. They dont seem to concider how creative and inventive this kind of job can be. I have seen this a few times when I worked in an office environment, and have heard work colleagues make remarks regarding people doing physical jobs rather than sedentary jobs like sitting on your arse all day in an office. I used to put this down as pure stupidity as some of the dumbest people I have ever known, worked in the office with me. Well in fairness I can't really say they were dumb, I think to be truthful, they just lacked the life experience to know any better or more commonly, they just had an opinion about themselves. In truth I have only came upon this once or twice and what made me remember this more was the fact they were upper class twits, who had everything handed to them from the day they were born. OMG, I really better stop as I am starting to sound bitter LOL. 

The hardest work I ever did in my life was when I was still living at home in Donegal (still at school) and it was helping a local farmer to pick potatoes. On our days off from school, I would have to get to the field with a gang of others, at 7.30am and we would spend the whole day bent down, gathering potatoes till about 6 or 7 that evening. I can tell you, this is really hard work and your hands would be in bits by the end of the day. The worst thing was the pain in your fingers as the soil would push up between the nail and the finger all day. But to be honest, it was the pure numb ness of being bent over and gathering spuds into large baskets before filling the spuds into sacks. You would just about be finished before the farmer would open up a fresh drill with the potatoes spinner on the back of the tractor. The combs of the spinner would rotate like blades of a propeller that hits the drill and throws the soil and potatoes out, five or six feet. As the tractor passes, you are expected to gather them into baskets as fast as possible, before the whole cycle starts again. As hard as the day's work was, it was always a great feeling at the end of the day and the farmer pays you for your time. 

I remember going home and trying to wash the soil from under my nails before tucking into a dinner and supping a nice hot cup of tea. Some of my friends would skip school to join a digging gang for the autumn and by the time they went back after a few weeks, they would have earned a small fortune. I wasn't allowed to miss school so I couldn't join.  It would have been nice to earn money back then.

Now of course, most farmers have potato harvesting machines that will do most of the work, so it seems that the days of potato picking is over for most of us in Donegal. It's strange how I look at this with nostalgia, when at the time it was really hard painful work that had to be done in all weathers, wind, rain and even sleet. I wish I was 17 again although I would only be for the physical fitness of youth.

Now after all that, I'm going off now to make a dinner with some Donegal grown potatoes and a nice cup of tea.

The trials and tribulations of my Archos 101

An Archos internet tablet.

How lucky am I?

Last year I wanted to get one of those internet tablets, so I put away €5 a week and stopped buying junk for a few months.

So after I was so impressed with my brothers new Achos MP3 player and his new Archos ebook that shows films and also doubles up as an internet tablet, last October 19th, I headed down to PowerCity and bought an Archos 101 which I found to be fantastic for €199 reduced from €349. (PowerCity is an Irish retail electrical store.)
It also plays films and music, I can get email and internet and I can even play games on it as well as look at my photos. What else could I ask for?

That lasted for a few weeks and then after beating my high score on Angry Birds,  the Archos shut down, telling me it needed to be recharged. After recharging the Archos over night, I could not get the dam thing to turn again. I tried recharging and restarting, but I had no luck and with me after getting hooked on Angry Birds, I  was forced to bring my beloved Archos 101 back to PowerCity as it was under guarantee. BUT GET THIS, they say they would only exchange it within the first 28 days and after that, Archos take up the warranty. As you can imagine my nose was a wee bit out of joint that PowerCity would not take responsibility for the warranty (consumer law says different) but to a degree I understand as Dunne’s Stores (Dunne's Stores is an Irish retail store that sells food and clothing throughout Ireland and Northern Ireland) started selling the Archos 101 with double the memory for the same price and I suspect customers were trying to cheat Powercity by bringing the one they bought there, back and demanding a refund so they can get the 16gb Archos 101 from Dunne’s Stores instead.

Anyways, Powercity advised me that I had to contact Archos as they would be able to resolve any issue with the product. So I rang Archos and they ran me through a few fixes, but to no avail. The only thing for it was to send it back to them and they would fix or replace it under warranty, but the catch is I had to pay for the postage at €12. So in mid-November I posted it back to Archos and within a few days I got an email saying “product has arrived”.  So I patiently kept an eye on my online Archos account and emails to see what would happen and as it was getting near to Christmas I understood that it may take a while for them to resolve the issue.  I’m normally a very patient guy so it didn’t bother me that much as I had other things on my mind at the time.

So came the 10th of January 2012 and the email I waited for stated that Archos have shipped a brand new Archos 101 8 GB out to me.  I was a little disappointed that they didn’t upgrade it to the 16gb model taking into account the inconvenience and extra cost to me, however, I was glad that this was resolved (although I wished I hadn’t wasted my money and just paid my bills instead).        Well after getting the confirmation that a new item was sent out to me, I ended up having to wait another nine days for it to arrive from the UK. Nine days, I mean?  

 Anyway, after receiving my new Archos 101 8 GB, I checked everything and it all seemed to be working perfectly, just like my first one when I turned it on.  Now, as I was well used to this product and to a large degree, the novelty had worn off, I just charged it and made the recommended firmware update and left it like that. THEN, two weeks ago, I eventually went to use my brand new replacement Archos 101 and turned it on. It worked fine for a few minutes and then out of the blue, it shut down, stating that it needed to be recharged (or words to that affect). Now after recharging the unit, no matter what I do. I cannot get the dam thing to work again and it seems to be the exact issue I had with the old internet tablet. Because I didn’t want the hassle of sending it back again, I instead did a bit of research and went on to loads of web forums and internet discussion groups, just to find out if there was any solution other than contacting Archos again.

I found that there were a few customers that had the same issue as me and they had no choice but to send it back to Archos. However I also found customers that were able to get their Archos 101 to restart after doing a few things. So I followed some of their advice (apart from the guy who said I should sacrifice a chicken on a full moon, while dancing the tango with a 100 year old virgin) Well I tried almost everything from holding the on button for anything from 10 seconds to 10 minutes and tapping the on button ten times before recharging it and I was almost driven to hopping on one leg while blowing up a balloon and wearing high heels, before recharging the device. Let me tell you now folks, that does not work, plus it takes its toll on a guy’s ankles if they’re not used to wearing high heels, or so I would imagine.

So after all that rigmarole, my brand new Archos 101 still won’t work.  So I finally gave in and with my ankles bandaged up (OH that was because I hurt them playing football, Yeah that’s It! I was playing football) I just had to ring the Archos help line once again and inevitably, they advise me to post the product back to them once again and at my expense of around €12 post and packaging.  So that will be an extra €24 that I had to pay for my Archos that was supposed to be such a good deal.  Funny in a way as I thought I was getting a real bargain when I bought it. Now I know why it came down in price so much.

So now I have to hobble off to the post office and send the blasted thing back to Archos. I just hope this is going to be the last time I do this.

The lesson this year is to pay my bills and not buy anything that I can’t afford. Well at least until I find a job, that is. I suppose I didn’t buy that much last year when I consider that I have stopped going out (apart from my date with Slingback girl) and all I bought last year was my Sony laptop, rechargeable battery for my Pure One radio, and that fekin Archos 101 8 GB. What a bummer.

Please leave a comment if you wish.

 Oh! I also bought a small plot of land in the highlands of Scotland that comes with a title which entitles me to be called Lord instead of Mr. 

 But hay, that’s another story.