Well House Manor

So many keyboards

2007-12-24T04:28:00.000-08:00

... and so silly in most cases! Take a look here and let me know what you're favourite is - no promises for Christmas of course but... ;)

I had trouble waking up this morning..

2007-12-19T08:51:00.000-08:00

...the week before Christmas is turning out to be particularly long and tiring, and my alarm clock just doesn't seem to cut it any more. The answer seems to be this:

A flying alarm clock. When the alarm goes off the rotor launches itself out of the top of the clock, around 9 feet vertically and then refuses to shut up until the rotor is reinserted! Great idea huh? At least until you get the idea that unplugging it would shut it up rather easier!

New Member of the Team

2007-12-18T09:01:00.000-08:00

This is going to sound a little cheesey, but I'd just like to welcome a new member of staff in this post. Sarah's joining us part time covering some of our evenings and weekends, and generally filling in as required. So "Welcome to the Manor, Sarah!"

See cheesy, but well meaning!

Wind up MP3s

2007-11-27T05:59:00.000-08:00

A short one today, just sharing a link I found with you all : a wind up MP3 player. Never mind being better for the environment - never running out of battery power sounds wonderful!

The only problem seems to be its size - only 2 gig - nowhere near enough in these days of 100gig plus players.

Hotelympia

2007-11-20T11:19:00.000-08:00

Well our tickets are booked, and the times filled into the diary for myself and the owners to go to Hotelypia in Febuary next year. It bills itself as the worlds leading foodservice and hospitality show, running for over 75 years.

It's going to be my first time there, and looking through the list of exhibitors theres load there. More tomorrow when I've had a chance to read through properly and decide where I'm going first!

2007-11-19T10:07:00.000-08:00

Model or Paintshop? Surprisingly model. Its a large white paper sphere suspended on a wire, with four projectors. And the best bit? Its animated - it actually seems to spin and to have weather patterns - have to pop in and see it the next time I'm in Harrisonburg!

Top 10

2007-11-18T09:25:00.000-08:00

Stumbling around the web a few minutes ago I came across a list of Top Ten Science Fiction Novels and as a fanatical sci-fi reader I don't agree with most of the choices here. Oh, they're all good books, but best 10? Not really in some cases.

So naturally this leads me to ask what would my top 10 be?

Well in no particular order:

Dune - agreeing with the other list here, a complex and deep far future space opera, even if I'm not a huge fan of the sequels and prequels.The
The Nights Dawn Trilogy - A huge space opera and horror crossover, and possibly the longest single story I've ever seen commercially - to all of you who don't know it put is this way, its at least 50% longer than The Lord Of the Rings, even ignoring its prequel.
The Day of the Triffids - No one does end of the world as well as Wyndham did, particularly with his own very eccentric twist.
The Uplift War - a set of six books loosely bound together, set in a nice twist in a galaxy where humans are a small unimportant race who can't resist sticking their nose in where its not needed, with predictable consequences.
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress - In my opinion Heinlein's finest hour, and a book every should read once. Seriously if you haven't read this you're missing out.
Childhoods End - The phrase not with a bang but with a whimper might be made for this book, which deals with the end of humanity, not through war but through evolution away from what we would understand as being human. Moving.
Excession - My favorite of Ian Bank's Culture Novels, largely dealing with the Cultures Minds (AIs) and the attempted use of the titled Excession (a visitor from another universe) to pursue their systematic brutality.
The Forever War - What would really happen in an interstellar war if Einstein is right about the speed of light and time dilation? This book less with war and more with the alienisation of the soldiers who fight in it, 100s of years removed from their own culture.
The Stand - Well what can I say about this? A virus with a near 100% mortality rate gets released by accident, and the world is basically over. The book follows two sides, clearly shown to be good and evil in their attempt to rebuild and to mold the future in their images.

Anyone agree? Disagree? Any I've missed?

Heard of Google Earth?

2007-11-12T08:27:00.000-08:00

Of course you have - but have you heard of Google Moon? Its nowhere near as detailed as its bigger brother, concentrating on the Apollo moon landings, but its still fun to have a poke at.

You can't do the normal satellite thing though and see if you can find your house, which is a shame - anyone for a Fall of Moondust?

Awesomely Pretty

2007-11-11T11:28:00.001-08:00

Machu Picchu high in the Andes in Peru. You really do find some good stuff on Flickr occasionally!

Solar powered keyboard

2007-11-11T11:05:00.000-08:00

A wireless solar paneled keyboard might seem like a really great idea at first look - no more fiddling with batteries and having it get confused every couple of months.

Until you hit on the slight flaw in the scheme - solar panels work on sunlight and computers - especially desktop computers get used indoors. Oops. My question is - did they really not think of this when they built the keyboard, or did they think "Hey, everyones saying they want to go green these days - how can we cash in?"

Was it stupidity or greed? I'm not sure which is worse.

Murphy's Technology Laws

2007-11-07T08:54:00.000-08:00

We've all heard of Murphys Law, that things will go wrong in any given situation, if you give them a chance, but how many of you have heard of Murphy's Technology Laws?

Heres a few :

Nothing ever gets built on schedule or within budget.
New systems generate new problems.
The primary function of the design engineer is to make things difficult for the fabricator and impossible for the serviceman.
If you can't understand it, it must be intuitively obvious.
Standard parts are not.
Never trust modern technology, trust it only when it is old technology.
Everything is always in the least practical unit; for example velocity is measured in furlongs per fortnight.
Any tool dropped will fall where it will cause the most damage.
The repairman will have never seen a model quite like yours before.

Anyone else got any good ones?

Just Because

2007-11-06T05:13:00.000-08:00

Completely unrelated to anything hotel, travel or business, but just because it was cool. Real time internet satellite tracking. Completely pointless, but strangely addictive - can you pick a random point on the globe and find a satellite near it? Did you know there were that many satellites up there? Can you tell me what the individual ones are for?

I thought it was cold last night...

2007-10-30T06:11:00.000-07:00

....but at least my car was in a better state than these poor peoples!

And no, as best I can work out it isn't a photoshopped image, but is sunny Versoix, on the shores of Leman Lake in Switzerland. You have to look at those pictures and wonder why people parked there!

Skype Mobile Phone

2007-10-29T06:53:00.000-07:00

I was watching Breakfast on the BBC this morning, waking up to the news as I usually do, and in the Business section, with Declan Curry, there was an interesting anouncement. 3, the mobile phone network, is bringing out a handset, alowing you to make free, yes, free Skype calls.

Sounds wonderful - there's gotta be a catch though. They claim they'll make their money on regular calls, but I know personally that the vast majority of people I know already use skype for their calls, and given this I wouldn't make many regular phone calls anyway..

So - time to Google it! And, the new PAYG (Pay As You Go) version of this phone costs £49.99, and £10 per month basic top ups.. Hm.. Reasonable. Maybe its only skypemobile to skypemobile? No, Skype is Skype aparantly... Ugly handset? No, seems reasonable enough..

Hm. This bears thinking on. And whats this I've found - its free on pay monthly... For only £12 a month with 100 free normal minuites.

This really does seem too good to be true, and possibly it is. But I've yet to find the catch, and if I can't in the next few days I'm very seriously considering it as a communications solution better than my current layout.

So please, if anyone finds a catch, comment and let me know!

The Clocks

2007-10-27T06:32:00.000-07:00

Tonight in the UK our clocks go back by an hour. For most people after the initial confusion this is just a matter of going from room to room and changing their clocks.

For me running a small hotel this is rather more complicated. I've been listing what clocks I have to change, and so far I've got to:

The wall clocks throughout the building.
The radio alarm clocks in every room.
The TV clocks in every room
The computers, both the customer use ones and the admin ones.
The electric locks - a big job as they are individually programmed and an hours difference particularly on check out times is huge. Locking a guest out of their room after they've gone down for breakfast isn't a good way to get repeat business!
The heating - individual timers for every room, and the public areas
The water de-lime scaler - set to go on just after lunch at the least intrusive time
The external lights - three separate circuits here.

And these are just the clocks I can think of at the moment - I guarantee I've missed one or two!

I'll report back tomorrow on how well it went, and what I missed!

UPDATE Well I've been round and I can add the phones, fax, coffee machine and microwave to the list, but am happy to report that with the exception of the microwave, everythings now on the correct time. Anyone know how to reprogram a Sanyo 900W Microwave/Grill?

Ever Seen...

2007-10-23T06:06:00.000-07:00

Have you ever just seen something, and thought - I want that. If I had that my life would be better and easier and more efficient. Its cool!

You know its unrealistic, you know that it's unlikely that it would actually work properly and that there's no chance it would make life more efficient, but you want it.

Well that was my reaction when I saw the Blue tooth Laser Virtual Keyboard,

Isn't it pretty?

And even better the specs say it'll work with my PDA! Never mind the fact that it requires a flat surface, meaning I could just use my laptop, never mind that its almost 200 dollars or that typing on to a solid surface has got to be difficult in the extreme, its pretty!

I want one.

Outside help or onsite staff?

2007-10-22T06:09:00.000-07:00

Well I'm proud to announce that after weeks of work our on site laundry room has reached another milestone in its refit. We've finally finished the ceiling and walls, and all that remains is linoing the floor and putting shelving in.

This room was originally a large point of discussion in the company - do we slowly refit it as staff hours are available, or do we quickly pay an outside contractor to do it?

The aregument for outside contractor ran that it would be quicker, there would probably be a better job overall and that it wouldn't distract staff from their normal responsibilities. The counter argument ran that it wasn't a customer facing area so the work didn't have to be perfect, that the time factor wasn't an issue (we've run the old way for a year and another week or two wasn't a problem) and that if we were paying the staff anyway, why not use up the slack periods?

To cut a long story short after much debate it was decided to have the staff do the work, and what a marathon it's turned out to be. To start with we've had damp problems and so many other demands on our time that its proceeded very slowly. But after putting a few minutes here and there into it, its sort of become ours. Its a very odd feeling to walk into a room and remember the damp, smelly and peeling place it used to be a see straight, dry white walls and say - "We did that!".

A contractor would have been quicker, it would have been easier, but doing it ourselves let us change the place ourselves, not a lot but it makes us more of a team. Defiantly something to do again in the same situation.

How Many Search Engines!?!

2007-10-17T11:45:00.000-07:00

Think about it for a second, and tell me which search engines you can think of:

Google - easy.
Yahoo - Likewise.
LiveSearch - Well you've heard of it even if you haven't - its MSN.
Ask.com.

Now, if you'd asked me a few hours ago, I would have come up with that list, and maybe one or two more like Alta Vista and Lycos.

Ever heard of GigaBlast? WiseNut? ExaLead? Me neither, and they're amount the more popular of search engines out there.

What about Lucerne? Xapian? Nutch? Or even the unpronounceable Ht://dig?

Turns out there's literally thousands of them out there if you include the specialist engines, and they're all steadily spinning their spider webs throughout the web..

Travelling a long way?

2007-09-19T09:16:00.000-07:00

These days we've all got our iPod or MP3 player to while away the journey, but if you're like me you get a little bored of that much music - to say nothing of the headache.

Instead why not try spoken word? I know this brings up images of large numbers of casette tapes and confusion, but it's far simpler than that these days. Go to somewhere like LibriVox, pick yourself an classic, download and play.

Easy.

So you're going away

2007-09-16T07:21:00.000-07:00

Going away on a business trip or on holiday, and not sure what to bring with you? Try the Universal Packing Tool , and don't miss any of those little details.

If there's one thing...

2007-09-15T06:42:00.000-07:00

... I've learnt over the last couple of weeks its write it down. Get it into a list, and it might actually get done. I've always like writing things down and keeping records of what I do and when, but the last weeks have brought it home to me.

So how to write it down? Well, first there's the time honored notebook and pen. This works, but you can't search for stuff easily, it gets a bit ratty after a while and you find yourself puzzling over your handwriting days later. I did start off here using this method but quickly went on to..

A PDA, GooSync and a Google Calender. The PDA to have it all with me wherever I am, the Google Calender to read and alter it on my PC, and GooSync to synchronize between the two.

I've Been A Bad Blogger

2007-09-05T07:10:00.000-07:00

A very bad blogger. Here I am a week and a half in and I've only got 3 posts on my blog. Dismal isn't it?

Well I would resolve and promise to do better, but really theres so many other things going on that its hard to find time for anything which is non-essential. For example this blog is fitted into five minuites between waiting for representatives of drug companies to turn up. We're running an open afternoon for the local GPs and have drug companies here to sell their wares...

Its interesting, unusual, and something I never would have expected to be involved with....and I'd better get back to it.

More later - I promise.

Little things make a big difference

2007-08-29T09:42:00.001-07:00

Have you ever noticed how a small detail can transform you view of something? How something that should be insignificant becomes crucial, just by being done well?

Well, In my third day here at Well House Manor, I found something little that makes that big difference, and it turns out to be blinds. Yes, blinds.

Here - take a look :

Small aren't they?

But perfectly formed, perfectly fitting wooden blinds that completely block out light, even around the edges. And the best bit? The whole unit folds away from the window, letting the maximum light and air in at any point.

Simple idea, brilliantly designed and well crafted, making a feature of something most would ignore.

First Day Over... Almost Anyway

2007-08-27T12:37:00.000-07:00

The first day has almost finished, and its been a smooth one, but instead of reviewing it here as would be expected and cliched, I'm going to leave it a few days and talk about my journey into work instead.

Not, I hasten to add an amusing anecdote about my trip in this morning, but a general discussion. I live 19.3 miles and 37 minutes away for my work - according to the AA, anyway - so will spend around an hour and fifteen minutes in the car every day. Now, being slightly green in inclination, I'd love to find a more environmentally friendly way to make this trip, so lets see what google can find me.

The first and most obvious way to cut down on my emissions, would be to ride a motorbike instead of driving a car - smaller engine, less bad gasses, and probably a quicker trip. Well, much as I would love to in some ways, you can't carry anything with you, get cold and wet and most importantly its dangerous. Next!

Next would be the humble bicycle, fun, cheap and I'll get really healthy doing it! So its got to be a winner! Except I'm not that fit, its cold, I can't carry anything with me, theres two really big hills on my route, and it'd take me around an hour and a half to travel, on a really good day. Next!

Well if I can't do it under my own power, why don't I let the train take the strain? A quick flip over to the National Rail site, and I discover if I wanted to get from my local station to the Melksham station tomorrow morning in time for work, I should already have left. Hmm. Next!

Except there isn't really a next, and I'm faced with the conclusion, that my car may not be the worlds most environmentally friendly, but without a viable alternative it is a necessary part of my life.

The Dreaded First Post!

2007-08-24T04:00:00.000-07:00

On Monday I start a new job - Job Title Hotel Manager. I've been a manager for nine years, but this is my first venture into hospitality.

The hotel I'll be working at is the Well House Manor Hotel, aka The Manor. A small business hotel in the heart of Wiltshire, with five bedrooms and two conference rooms.

I'm quite excited about starting there, and am looking forward to it. Little nervous though and lots to do, even before I start officially.

Iron shirts, check. Polish shoes, check. Haircut, check. Car oil, tyres and wash, check. Always make a good first impression - actually change that. Always make a good impression.