Great Western Coffee Shop

A duck swims serenely on a flowing river and that's a sight of great beauty and elegance, but under the surface the duck's feet are kicking like mad to keep it there. And this forum is somewhat similar - there's the moderator and admin stuff and a deeper server maintenance level too.  And the software being over-mature at the moment means that occasionally things go wrong and rather like a heritage locomotive need hitting with a hammer to loosen something up or very, very rarely a bit of welding.

I'm away for a few weeks in the autumn and I know that whilst I'll be able to see the server and contribute / do moderator and admin work, I won't be able to get at the deeper stuff.  Red Squirrel has kindly agreed to be available as an emergency accessor, and also to take off site backups on a weekly basis. With his Linux knowledge, a map of roughly what's where on the serve, and some tips on which points need hitting with a hammer far more than I like, he'll be providing a significantly reassuring second string support while I'm away.  He visited on Friday and we've been through what's where, and he'll be logging in / having a look around and trying a bit of wheel-tapping over the next couple of weeks so that anything needed in the autumn won't be totally alien.

The long-awaiting significant software upgrade will NOT go live until I'm back.  Change software and run to where I cannot offer total support would be rather silly. And when that upgrade has happened I would be very hopeful that after inevitable teething problems the hammer and special stuff would be very much less required than at present.  However, I would hope that Red Squirrel could be a part of that process too so that he's available for calling on – once in a blue moon.  All of which is very much amongst our steps to make the forum robust and continuous for the next decade.

-- Out of Office Message -- ... Lisa and I are away from 1st September for a somewhat longer period than our typical vacations.  The forum has a tremendous moderator team, so I don't expect you would notice my absence ... just in case of server issues, Red Squirrel who's a bit geeky too has been briefed on some of the stuff that goes on and will provide second level support.  But this is an "Out of Office" message and not an "Away from Keyboard" one.  I expect there will be copious opportunities between listening to lectures, eating, touring sights and cities, eating, learning to waltz, taking in shows, eating, swimming, drinking and eating to catch up online.

Each morning, connectivity allowing, I plan to put up a "where is this" picture, all taken by myself earlier this year.  Some will be easy, some not so and a little out of the norm - "day in the life of" which has at times been a lot of meetings. I may not be back online to give quite as quick a confirmation of the identity of the place, and what's "morning" to me may turn out to be afternoon to you folks.

Really hope you enjoy your break.  Thank you for all your forum efforts, very much appreciated.
I noted not too many drinking comments for your break, but many eating breaks.
Surely equal quantities of each? You DID take up the inclusive drinks package ((per cabin)) didn't you?  ;D ;D

I don't know what he means!

Bon voyage, grahame (and lisae) - and remember:

Mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam
Be it ever so humble, there's no place like 127.0.0.1

You poor sod..... ;D

BBC "Strictly" next year?  ;D

And they're off!

Bon voyage Graham and Lisa. :)

Enjoy your holiday Graham & Lisa. I hope the weather treats you kindly

Apologies for the down time this evening. The server needed a metaphorical kick.

grahame, via Facebook Messenger, was able to talk me through the steps, and I've given the server a damn good thrashing!

Either that or you've found the pile of 50ps that were left for you 😀

Massive THANK YOU ... bit of a storm of two issues at once and my connectivity is exceptionally poor.  Having done that once it would be easier for bignosemac to do again another time, but I'll look to putting a trigger in to look at doing it automatically too (from Friday 13th!).   Still sorting things from here - will be around for a couple of hours yet, I expect!

With a large tree branch I hope.
JC.

If there are any computer experts out there who would like to assist with problems on another railway-related discussion forum, the Bristol Railway Archive Index forum has been down for a few weeks now.

Perhaps some members here have come across the forum befpre, or perhaps have even posted on it. I have been a member since 2009.

The site owner, Peter Lawson, emailed me last night with an updateL

"Currently the version of php that runs the wiki part of the website (ie. The non-forum bit) cannot run with the required version of php that is required to run the forum.  I’ve tried various fixes that are on the internet, but non have worked up to now. I’ve not given up on it completely, but it’s not looking too good. I’m currently looking at maybe hosting the forum elsewhere and just linking to it from my webspace, but this option is possibly going to be too expensive.

But I shall persevere!"

Unfortunately that means very little in practical terms to me - does it give anybody else some clues?

http://bristol-rail.co.uk/wiki/Main_Page  Clicking on "This way to the forums!" just leads to a holding page.
 

Might like to and in normal circumstances would be right up my street - no exactly where he is coming from ... however,  "Out there" this month is on an icky connection in the middle of the Atlantic so there is a huge difference between "like to" and "can" for the next weeks.

Have him email me at least.

Tanks Graham - I've now emailed him again and passed on your email address

Tomatoes have gone tinned. They started off really fresh but that freshness was lost in a few days, and they were best avoided for salads though OK grilled for breakfast.  I note for the last day or two they are tinned at breakfast.  I suspect our ship will be resupplied in New York and we'll see a similar series of steps played out as we return across the Atlantic later this month.

Greetings from Boston, where our ship arrived early yesterday evening; immigration inspection of every passenger took us will into dinner time, and based on public address calls the crew were just about all checked by the time went to bed. Today will be a full day in the city - no substantive travelogue as I suspect we'll end up exhausted, but if I find anything travel-interesting I'll post tomorrow - at sea on the way to our next port of call.

I had not intended to be "blogging" every day this month – but some things which could be of interest have cropped up and I've written them up here.  For the first week, that was all about the vessel and journey itself, and for the second week it has morphed into a look at Canadian Atlantic cities with a bias towards their transport.   For the next weeks we'll be on the eastern seaboard of the USA and back to Canada, then a further Atlantic run; some write-ups will follow but I'm going to try to avoid posting just "more of the same".

A big Thank You to the members and others holding the fort on the Coffee Shop and at home this month - appreciated more than words can say, and indeed far more than is described here.   You know who you are.

Ah, Boston... last time I was there, the dominant feature was the hideous Central Artery of I-93 (a.k.a. the Distressway) - an object lesson in where you end up if you allow highway engineers to dominate town planning. I understand they've spent $22Bn fixing this little oversight...