Of Data Collection and Procrastination

25th October 2020

“Be wise to-day; ’tis madness to defer;
Next day the fatal precedent will plead;
Thus on, till wisdom is push’d out of life.
Procrastination is the thief of time……”

(Night-Thoughts on Life, Death, & Immortality, Edward Young, 1742)

Arriving on site

I’ve been asked to write about Data Collection. Tracey has been pushing me for weeks. Well perhaps months, but who’s counting, yet today I’ve luxuriated in a binge of procrastination following a lunch of carrot and coriander soup and cheese and hams. I normally siesta to Columbo but today it was “The Meg”.  I made it through the first five minutes and woke up to “Hey Mickey” which accompanies the credits. Not bad for a 1h 52m movie. With data Collection always on my mind I had to first find out who the singer was and was delighted to discover that her name is Pimprapa Tangprabhaporn. Regrettably she prefers to be known as Pim.

Janice, Donal, Max, David

I did fire up the laptop but then it was time for tea and a Madeleine and our autumn/Christmas stash of wine had arrived during my absence on site work (yes, I’ll come to that in a moment) and Rosie and I then simply had to prioritise that. Stacking, not drinking it.

I buy our wine from Philip Portal, of “Portal, Dingwall and Norris”, (a name I covet; much more impressive than Van Walt), merchants to the trade and based in lovely Emsworth.  I’ve known Philip for a few decades and his recommendations never disappoint.

Some years ago, a man walked into a branch of Lloyds Bank. He announced himself to the then manager as a business colleague of Vincent van Walt and somehow managed to open a joint bank account. That same day he transferred £60,000 from both our business and my private account into that new account and absconded with everything the following day.

The Defender, the best off-roader and perfect for these conditions

All rather neatly done, although perhaps a tad incomprehensible. The Italians might say “Buona Fortuna” but it did leave me in a bit of a pickle as all my accounts, cheque books and credit cards were blocked and it took months to sort out the mess. I can tell you that is not handy on the day prior to a three-week holiday in France.

To get back to the point; (yes, I’ll get to data collection in a moment Tracey), at that time I had an invoice to pay to my friends at Portal Dingwall & Norris and Philip called me asking me ever so gently  if I might pay my outstanding bill. I had to tell him that it was impossible for the foreseeable future. He asked me: “Did you enjoy the wine?”, Yes, I replied. “That’s all I wanted to know”. What a gentleman. Thanks Philip. It was two months before I could finally pay him.

Max doing what he does best.

You see? Procrastination is not the thief of time. It is a gift of the gods and we should all be thankful. But I really must leave this subject and I do that with the wise words of a friend: “Never do today what you can do tomorrow”.

Boat on the roof rack. Where else?

The installation and commissioning of environmental Data Collection equipment is like decorating. It’s all in the preparation. To bake your cake, mix 70 parts preparation to 20 parts physical installation and the remaining 10 percent is just luck. Luck in finding yourself working with a good customer, luck with the excellence of your colleagues and luck with the weather.

Max having fun

On this latest project we’re measuring water level and EC and meteorological data in 41 different locations within a 5000 acre site.  Just three DataHubs will collect the data from all the radio frequency DataSlaves dotted around the landscape. We’re excited to be involved in this project and another two weeks will see us with a well peppered dashboard of units pinging important data every 15 minutes. Data invaluable to maintaining a healthy ecology in a beautiful area.

Thank you: Rachel, Donal, Rob, Janice, Jess, Lewis, Max, David and the team back at the Van Walt base. You’re all helping to make this a success.

Vincent van Walt, Haslemere, October 2020