Fat Birds

Here is something we don't encounter everyday. While I was doing up the CCTV for the customer, one of them told me the camera was out of alignment. She even showed me the footage. Sure enough, within a few hours, the camera was moved.

The question is, by what or whom? At first I suspect the neighbours whom, with a long stick, can do a lot of mischief. But looking back carefully at the footage, no nut would do this under a hot Sun. Moreover, the incident was gradual. So, which brings me to the second conclusion: Birds.

In a post earlier, I did mention about the stand not having any grip material. This means the CCTV camera was secured to the stand via a metal-to-metal contact. Which is not a good thing since it was angle downwards. And so, when the bird or birds perched onto the camera, its weight, plus minimal grip at the stand, made the camera move.


This was the original shot

Suddenly, the camera pointed more to the left

And two minutes later, it pointed more to the left

And much much later, well, it went all the way
to the left.

And so, I got my boys to put some
silicon on to the stand. Serves them
right for taking the silicon tube. I
shot the camera from a window
pointing upwards. No, I did not
check for any bird droppings to
confirm my theory.

The 45 minute Furikake

Belated post[28.10.2009 20:40]

I have to be fast this time as Peter will be here about 9-ish. Anyway this time, I am not going to put salt. And also, I will fry the garlic and onions for a few minutes, just enough to get the aroma but still a bit raw on the inside.

Later on, when I tried it with the oats in the Office, the garlic was too raw for my liking. Sure, the flavour is there but the garlic tasted a bit bitter. The next attempt, I will make sure they're really cooked and I will fry the onions last.

Maybe I should not have left the tuna too long
in the fridge (nearly one week) as it turned
brown in the frying pan. As for the half-cooked
onions, the flavour was not there and its not
even crunchy.


Anyway, this time I added more sesame seed
and bigger seaweed flakes. (OK, so I was in a
hurry and could not make the seaweed flakes
smaller and separate the layer)

The Silicon Treatment

Belated post[27.10.2009 14:13]

When I mentioned about the CCTV cameras getting a Silicon Treatment, what I meant was to apply silicon sealants to make them waterproof. This is something new and might even void warranty to the cameras. But since its not ours and the customer did not purchase from us, *ahem*, we can practically do what we want with them to get the desired end result. Not only that, the supplier in China did advise us to do so in their E-mail, just a day after I suggested to the customer.

Ha ha ha.

And so, the customer bought another two CCTV
cameras to replace the ones affected by the rain.


Note this design does not have any rubber grommet
or bung or anything to prevent the water from going
in. But then again, no one else would pointed them
facing downwards.

And so, we sealed their butts and also, the stands.
This was because the stands did not have any
rubber parts to grip onto the cameras. I will tell
you what happened later, in another post.


And so, arriving at the customer's place, not only
we were required to replace the two affected
CCTV cameras, the customer also bought another
five dome-type CCTV where we were required to
install them as well. How I wished they told us
earlier as it is difficult to put a ladder in the car

Alas, the new China-made power adaptor needs
to be converted as well. So, since the customer
does not have any of these converters or even a
3-pin plug, I took them from other non-essential
electrical items such as the China-made Kenwood
Walkie-talkie chargers.

Not only that, one of the doors were claimed to be
going haywire. And so, they managed to wrestle a
free control unit from the manufacturer, which I
used to replace the wonky one. The one above is
mine after I asked the customer to give it to me.