a fairground life

Tuesday-Thursday
Last week my wife and I attended another wedding. It was a three day affair in a prominent Scottish tourist town. The first night in the hotel was more or less a meet and greet. The wedding ceremony was in the hotel the next morning. Just as well as no one was in a fit state to drive anywhere. The reception was for over 400 guests! The toast master was another showman, he was superb and had us all rolling with laughter. The last day was the wind down, finished off with a kareoki and disco. For three nights we never got to bed before 4am. We were all exhausted. What a great time, glad I wasn't footing the bill though.
Friday
Had a late lay in and then off to do a shift on the train.
Saturday
Went to open at the mall. While thawing out the rides "r" noticed a hissing sound from the DZ. I was a bit unsure of what it was at first, but "r" knew right away. It was the emergency blow off on the compressor for the restraints. On closer inspection we could see it was not clicking off (switch stuck) at the set pressure (100 psi). I took off the pressure switch and re adjusted it to a much lower setting and then re set it to 100 psi again. This solved the problem. Then on further inspection of the ride I found a broken wire on the brush gear. The ride has power rails the full height of the tower. These have metallic contacts (brushes) that run up and down to power the gondola lights,compressor,safety systems etc. When a brush loses its contact the ride stops. They are a pain in the a*@e! The brush has a thin metal leg that the wire connects to, these thin parts break off regularly. So an improvement was needed. I got a 100w soldering iron, filed off the stub and soldered a 60mm length of copper wire to each brush. Bingo, the period between brush changes has increased twenty fold. As I have said before, things are ok in theory, it's only when you are working with the equipment that you can honestly say you know what is what. Next it was onto the miami, the speed was slower than usual. I went to the most likely cause-the battery charger. (the miami is controlled by a 12v dc dynex, the joystick provides a current from 0-10v to activate the ride. The higher the voltage the faster the ride goes). Right enough the charger was switched off, but how? It was on last week, no one can get to it as it is in the back of the ride! Mystery! Anyhow it was a quick fix.
Monday-Thursday
spent the last few days clearing out ready for christmas, all the old unused toys,books,clothes etc. Four bins full! Well there is only so much room in a wagon (no attic to pack it all in). While doing so I found some old fuel receipts from 1994. It frustrated me as 400 liters of gas oil cost £50 (£205 today) and 15.84 liters of derv cost £9 (£17.80 today). At that time the average price of a ride was around 80p, now a ride is £1.50-£2 so are we any worse off?, probably on the gas oil side as the increase is four fold.
I have attached a digi clip of the Bride and Groom for the first waltz (a tango in this case), they had been practicing for their big day. All I can say is "They were SPECTACULAR!!!" It was nice to see proper dancing and not the usual two foot shuffle around the floor.