Beowulf 3D

After doing some Christmas shopping in Milton Keynes yesterday I went to see Beowulf in 3D.

The effect was pretty good although not without fault. I did find it distracting for the first 20 minutes when there were a lot of sequences which were really only there to show off the 3d effects. After the first 20 minutes either the heavy 3d scenes were less prominent or I started ignoring them a bit more and started in enjoying the film.

The glasses weren't uncomfortable and the colours on the screen weren't affected by wearing them, the only fault I could see with the 3d effect was on bright objects at the front and side of the screen which had a ghost effect pointing towards the center of the screen.

Honda Heated Grips

I've just heard back from the garage about my bike, the reason the heated grips aren't working is because the left grip has failed - again. I had these official Honda grips installed by a bike garage last November because the grips which had been on the bike when I brought it a year before that stopped working when the left grip failed in exactly the same way.

Honda are suppose to have a reputation for relibility but I'm really doubting that with these grips. How can 2 seperate sets of grips fail within a 13 months of each other with the same fault?

OK, so I'm not the average bike ride, average bike does 2000 miles per year and I'm doing 25000 miles per year, but I don't leave the grips on for all that time so it's not like the grips have been running for tens times as long as a normal biker because for most of the year the grips are turned on. I suppose it could be because I ride the bike at least twice every day, including during winter so maybe it's not the running time of the heated grips but the number of times it heats up and cools down but I still think that something with 1 moving part (the varible resister used to control the temperate) should be able to last more than a 13 months.

I must admit, I don't actually like the heated grips that much in terms of asthetics, and thats coming from someone who rides what it possibly the uglest honda bike in the range; and I don't really like the control, in theory it's nice having infinate range of temperatures but in practice that just makes it really difficult to set the temperature at the right level and I have felt that a simple switch of off/low/medium/high would be much better.

Since I can't trust the reliability of the Honda Heated Grips, buying another replacement just seems like throwing good money after bad, so I've decided to not get the grips heated, and when I have the time I will be removing all the cabling, the controller, the grips and replacing with the standard equipment. Instead, I'm going to try some more passive heating options, starting with thermal glove lines to see if they can keep my fingers from freezing.

Bloody Honda, a waste of money

Brrrr

It's been a bit chilly recently, made significantly worse by the fact that my heated grips have stopped working again. grrr. I only had those grips fitted last year, unfortunately they are just outside of it's warrenty.

I did think about booking the bike back into the shop which fitted it, but I'm so fed up with stuff they do having little niggling problems afterwards that I've decided to book it into a garage in cambridge and see if they can find the fault. It's probably just a short circuit somewhere but without a multimeter I don't stand a chance of finding it.

While looking for the fuse for the Heated Grips, I noticed that the exhaust has a small hole in it so I've brought some putty and I'm going to try fixing that at lunch time.

Chips away

Tonight was the last night of the sculpture class. For the last 2 classes i have been carving a number plate for my house. I couldn't finish it but you can see what i was aiming for.

Loafing about

I've tried my handing at baking again. This time it actually looks like a loaf me bread but i haven't tried it yet so dont know what it tastes like yet

Seal fur boots

Today i went to donna nock to see the seals. Here is a cub which was in a photogenic mood

Like. Chill out man

Went to the sculpture class last night and we were working with wire. I modelled a leaf but for some reason i now have a desire to listen to some reggae.

End of the holiday

On my way home now. The weather this morning was warm and sunny but by the time we left it had turned cold and there was a little snow in the air so i think we had the best of the weather

Beddgelert

Katie and Wendy above the village where we are staying

Snowdon

Today we climbed snowdon. Very cold and windy with freezing pain and no view :(

Arriving in Wales

Mountains stir the soul, this place is 5 minutes from our cottage.

Mobile blogging setup

This post should setup blogging from my phone

Stuff In General

I've got my new phone working with Vodafone but unfortunately Vodafone don't seem to be able provide the right settings for MMS or WAP. I've phoned them, visited their store and emailed their technical support (who haven't yet replied).

I'm going to give them until Monday to get my settings sorted out before I move to another company.

My bike is in the garage getting serviced today but the new front tyre hasnt turned up so I've left the bike with then end I'm current getting the bus home. I'll pick the bike up tomorrow at lunch time.

Thursday and Friday I'm on holiday. I'm heading to Snowdonia for a long wedrerd with Katie, Wendy and Katie's boyfriend Nick (I think that's his name)

hmm, tasty

Last night I went into town before my adult education classes to find something to eat, I'm getting bored with pizza so I went I decided to try a small chinese resturant called Resturant (I think).

I was tempted by the sushi but in the end I settled on dim sum for a starter, then the Beef in Black Bean Sauce and some Egg-fried rice for the main course. It was very nice. I'm going to have to go back to try some of there other items.

The only down point was that the food was quite slow to arrive but then within the 10 minutes of my arriving another 3 tables came in so that was understandable give how small the Resturant is.

After finishing my meal I went to the sculpture class, this week was stone carving. I can't say I got on very well with stone carving, it kept chipping and splitting and I felt like I was always fighting the material rather than working with which is how I felt about the wood carving we did last week.

Towards the end of the course we get to work on a single project for a few weeks running, at the moment I'm going to go with wood carving and maybe make a number plate for the house.

Camping

This weekend I went camping with my sister Jen, Matt, Claire and Richard.

We stayed at Riverside Camping and Caravaning Park in Littleport which is a nice, quiet, clean site. This weekend was also the first night of the year where we had 0°C temperatures.

The first night I stayed up talking to jenni and Claire putting on a extra layer of clothes every hour trying to stay warm.

That first night felt very cold, l had numb feet l was woken up a 4am with a massive cramp in my left calf which was very painful, after 15 minutes of massaging my calf l was forced to go fur a walk to try to looser up the muscle.

On Saturday after a massive fry-up we headed into Ely to do some shopping, visit visit several pubs and have an Indian for lunch.

I then headed back to the site because I was knackered while everyone else headed into headed into town to watch the Rugby.

In terms of the amount of ice around in the morning, Saturday light was colder then the first night but it didn't feel like it to us. Either we were better prepared the second right or we had grown use to the temperature.

On Sunday we had another massive fry-up before breaking camp and heading to Ely for a goodbye coffee.

It was as a great weekend and i have to admit I like camping when it's cold, it makes the Bovil and Hot Chocolate taste better although my equipment isn't really designed for such low temperatures and I would really need a new sleeping bag to go out in anything colder than the weather we had this weekend.

Sculpture, Ice and Camping

Last night I went to another sculputre class with the Adult Education group in Bottisham, this week it was Wood Carving and I loved it, spending 2 hours beat the living #*&% out of a lump of wood was really good fun and surprisingly easy, unlike drawning or modelling, you have a 100 hits to get it right as you are chipping away at the wood one tiny bit at a time.

Actually we were really doing wood engravings since there isn't time to sculpt wood in the 2 hour lesson but the principal is the same, I carved a spiral into the wood as a way of getting the feel of the tools and then carved a small turtle on the cut off end of a branch, they weren't perfect by any means but I felt I had enough control to be able make what ever shape I wanted.

Tonight and this weekend I'm going camping with my sister, should be fun, except this morning I had to chip ice off my bike before leaving for work so the weekend maybe a little on the chilly side, still, I've got hats, gloves, jumpers and coats to keep me warm during the night and hopefully jenny will have as well.

2 thumbs up for Ben Hayward Cycles

On Saturday I went into Cambridge again and brought some more bits to put onto the bike I'm building up.

This time I got, the Chainset (big cog wheels where the pedals are), the chain, and the 2 derailiuers. Last night I tried to fit it all to my bike but I didn't have any Crank Bolts (holds the cranks to the bottom bracket).

I gave Ben Hayward a ring this morning to explain the problem and whether the chain set I had brought should have included the bolts, he said they didn't but if I come in he would give me some for free - result.

So I'm now the proud owner of 2 shiney Crank Bolts which cost me nothing, ok, so normally they would have cost all of £5 but it's the principal that counts, not the cost.

This is the second time in a week that I have got free stuff. Last wednesday I went to see Daylight at Cineworld in Huntingdon, because I knew it was going to be really tough getting from work to the cinema in the 20 minutes I had I decided to stop off on the way home on tuesday and buy the tickets in advanced. When I got the cinema on wednesday, the film had been cancelled so I got a refund on my tickets and didn't have to pay to see an alternative film.

I choose to see Run Fat Boy Run which turned out to be much better than I expected.

Moral of the story, if you need any cycling bits and bobs go to Ben Hayward Cycles and if you can't make up your mind about which film to see, give Run Fat Boy Run a chance, it's much funnier than the trailers make it look.

Splish splash

This morning I went swimming for the first time since buggering up my ankle (technically it's the second time but the first swim 3 days after damaging it was so painful I gave up 10 minutes)

It was surprisingly comfortable, I'm able to kick properly and the only time l came close to hurting myself was pushing off from a wall at an angle to go around an OAP.

Surprisingly my fitness hasn't dropped to much, I'm still able to swim the entire length in a single breathe although the last 5 meters were starting to hurt.

I think I might give the walk on Sunday a try because the ankle has felt much better over the last couple of days.

We are the Champions

Went to the pub quiz this evening and felt that the questions were really easy, luckily the other teams didn't :-)

We came second in the first quiz which means we have £8 of drinks behind the bar and came first in the second quiz winning us the entry fee pot of £48.

Now what to spend my windfall on?

Brrr

It's turned a bit chilly on the bike recently, not so much during the day but after it gets dark when coming home from Evening Classes or the Cinema.

I've installed the thermal line in my coat but I haven't put the liner into my trousers yet since the engine can keep my legs warm.

I've had to disconnect the audio cable from comms unit on the bike because the cable must have come loose and is resting against an HT lead and every time the engine passes 5000rpm I get a loud buzzing in my ear. I'm thinking about building a box to hold the starcom controller, my ipod and all cabling to make the installation cleaner, I'll see what maplins have at the weekend.

Hop-along Cassidy

I decided to go to A&E after work tonight because my ankle is still painful after twisting it yesterday on the walk.

After much hanging around I finally got to see a nurse. Then I waited some more, then I saw a second nurse. Then I waited some more, then I saw a third nurse. Then I waited some more, then I had an X-ray. Then I waited some more, then I saw the third nurse again.

I learnt two things tonight, when going to A&E bring a book aid bending your foot over 90 degrees tends to tear tendons.

I have to keep my leg elauated cud put ice packs on it.

Ouch

Yesterday I lead the walk for the Ramblers to cover for Jo who was unable to lead the walk.

It was a small group, only 10 of us, but it was a very nice walk and we were lucky with the weather.

About a minute before getting back to the car park where we started the walk I tripped and twisted my ankle quite badly (I heard something crack but I assumed it was a stick or twig which had tripped me) but it wasn't hurting too badly so I decided to walk it off by climbing the hill in front of me instead of sitting down for a few minutes to let the ankle recover..

In hindsight that was a mistake, the climb was steep putting a lot of pressure on on the joint which in turn became more painful with every step. I reached the top of the hill, lent against a wall to take the weight of the foot and promptly fainted, apparently I was out for about 20 seconds, I woke up with gravel in my mouth and I nice big cut on my chin.

It's been about 18 hours since I tripped and my ankle is still painful, especially when going down stairs, although it is much more bearable on flat surfaces now. If it still hurts by the time I finish work tonight, I'll head to Addenbrookes to get it checked out.

I reckon Jo owes me way more than a J20 for leading that walk now, I should get danger money.

New Toy

Went to the BMF End of Year Show in Peterborough on Saturday.

The show is definitely going down hill,no manufactures were there, it was just a lot clothing resellers and food stalls.

But I did pick up a new toy while I was there, a Starcom1 Digital Comms unit as a reward for getting a new job a couple of months ago, not that the new job isn't it's own reward (in case any of my new colleages ever find this blog :-) )

I can now use the phone and listen to my iPod while riding. Who knows, if any of my friends ever get around to getting a licence all I would need to get for bike-2-bike comms would be a radio (hint Matt).

I think I have everything setup and working now. The crackling phone calls seem to have been solved by moving the phone to my top pocket and further away from the HT Leads, it makes you wonder what all those RF spikes are doing to my tender areas which are much closer to the engine than my phone ever was.

The only problem I still hare is that if I try to sing along to the iPod, the Starcom thinks i'm trying to talk on a radio or phone and so mutes the music feed :-\

When will I, will I be famous

I can answer that
I can anwser that

Following on from my "Deer Me, That Was Close" post late last night, I got contacted by Chiltern FM for a quick telephone interview.

I've done that and the radio guy is going to get some quotes from a Highway Safety Office before putting together a "becareful out there" type of news slot but I don't know when it's going out.

Who knows, maybe the public will strongly related to my smooth seductive voice and ability to recount harrowing experiences calmly and clearly and demand more reports from the Biking Adventurer. Soon I'll have my own regular spot on local radio, then promotion to national radio before being sent on exciting missions with my reports being syndicated worldwide.

OK, I might be getting ahead of myself a little, but it could happen.

Deer me, that was close

I was coming home from the pub quiz tonight, we won £8 incidently.

Coming down the St Neots Bypass I can just about make out a small green light at the side of the road, at first I thought it was a broken bottle reflecting my headlight.

Then the bottle moves into my path and very rapidly turns into a deer. I slam the brakes on, the front of the bike dips enough for me to lose track of the deer in the headlights, as I come to a stop and the bike rebounds to it's normal position and there is the deer standing 1 foot in front of me.

I don't think it even knew I was there, it just carried on calmly walking across the road as is it was strolling though a field.

Stupid animal, but it was a perfectly executed emergency stop finishing in first gear without locking either wheel - perfect I tell you.

Project Europa Stalled - again

The time has finally come, I have both spare cash and free time to do up the bike frame that the thieving scumbags decided to leave for me when they cleaned out my shed so I went into cambridge and got the first few bits I needed, a bottom bracket and cogset and the tools needed to fit them.

I decided not to get the grease I need to fit the bottom bracket since I have had a tub of Lithium Grease hanging around since about 1998 almost completely unused, except that now I need it I can't find it anywhere and due to emergency Ramblers duties I didn't have time to go to cambridge to get some more so i'm going to have to wait until next weekend before I can actually start fitting the bits & bobs (complicated cycling term) to the frame.

Ce sera sera

PYW Social Calendar

Last night was the Social Events planning evening for the winter program.

On the way there l decided to have some fun and went via the fens, I love the fens. Pretty good surfaces, long straights and lots of sweeping bends and sharp S-bends, and best of all, hardly any traffic.

The meeting was held at The Cuckoo in Alwalton.

I had two suggestions,

1) an evening at the dog track which has been put in for early march

2) a 21 mile Night Hike around Rutland Water which is going to be April 19th

After the planning was completed, we hung around for a while finishing off drinks before we all started heading home.

I had planned on coming home via the A1 but if you think Motorways are boring in a car, you should try riding a bike down them. So I ended up going home via the Fens again which are even more exciting in the dark

Camping Weekend

The camping weekend was great fun, there were 6 of us camping, Me, John, Gordon, Roger, Katie and Wendy.

I got up at 6am on the Saturday, I had a shower and read a copy of MCN for 30 minutes or so while I waited for someone else to get up.

When Katie and Wendy got up I put the kettle on and made us all a cup of tea.

When everyone else got up, we headed over to Hayfield to climb up Kinder Scout, it was cloudy for most of the day but it never really rained so the walking conditions were good. The hike was about 11 miles long with some great views when the clouds lifted. It was Wendy's first hilly walk and she was suffering from a cold so she did really well. We still completed the walk quick than we did when the ramblers did the walk as an official group walk a few months ago.

In the evening we went to The Plough in Hathersage for food, the meals were all very nice and the pub staff did everything they could to fit us in considering how busy they were, but I think the general feeling was for the price of each meal, the portions were a little stingy.

Sunday morning, I was awake at 6 am again but it was raining hard so rather than read in the tent I had a shower and then tried to make a cup of tea, unfortunately this time the stove didn't light. I gave it a few more bumps and got a tiny flame in the burner but I noticed a white vapor escaping from where the fuel lines meets the fuel tank - thats not good I thought so went to turn it off but unfortunately the vapour reached the flame before I could shut it down and the whole stove burst into flames.

Luckily I saw a tent catch fire when I was a scout and so I never cook anyway near my tent, I switched the fuel off but that didn't really help because the leak was closer to the tank than the fuel switch, I had hoped that the pressure would drop off but since the petrol was escaping and then running down the sides of the tank before burning, it was just heating the fuel tank up more and more and so the tank was pressurising, I tried water from my kettle but could get enough water on the stove fast enough to smother the flames, I then got a fire extinguisher but they were all water based and none were carbon dioxide and no fire blankets.

In the end I carried the still burning stove by the burner ring (the only part of the stove which was cool enough to handle with bear hands) over to some long wet grass which I hoped would be wet enough to smother the flames without catching alight - it was. The flames went out almost as soon as I had pulled the grass over the top - yay me, I saved the day.

I handed the stove over to the campsite warden, explained that it wasn't safe and asked him to dispose of it. I've already started eyeing up a replacement stove.

On the sunday was the Curbar Edge walk that I was leading, I met the rest of the ramblers in the car park at 10:25 and we set off on the walk at 10:50 when it became clear that no one else was going to arrive late.

I had some sweets in my pockets for the first person to find a picture of a sun carved into a rock which although situated in a Neolithic Farm site was actually made by a WWII Morter shell because the army used the Rock outcrop for target practice when training with live ammonition.

The rest of the walk went very well but in the afternoon it rained really really heavily and spoilt the views I was hoping to get on the way home which in sunny weather were spectacular.

After the walk everyone went home seperately and it chucked it down on me for most of the way :(

Camping weekend

This weekend I've gone camping with some ramblers.

I rode up straight from worki leaving as hour earlier in what proved to be a vain attempt to beat the rush hour traffic.

The an was at a standstill all the way from Cambridge. The the A614 had a major accident and was closed with no diversion information.

In the end I arrived at the campsite after dark which made putting the tent up fun but everyone else arrived late as well so we were all in the same boat.

The site is very good. Isolated but with good facilities.

Sickeningly Cute

Follow the link below to see how a Panda Cub Develops.

http://patrickcrosley.com/?q=node/657

Altogether now.... arrrrrr

I am a Numpty

I got to work this morning only to realise that my house keys weren't in my coat pocket where they normally are.

So i went back to the swimming pool to see if I dropped them while I was getting changed this morning but they hadn't seen them so I then went rode home to find the keys hanging in the door. I forgot I had to go back into the house this morning because I had forgotten to put the rubbish out and must have left the keys in the door then :(

Thats a lot of riding for a 15 second lapse of concentration.

Trivial Pursuits

There is nothing on at the cinema at the moment so last night everyone piled around Martina's house for Sausage & Mash and a game of Trivial Pursuits.

The game was very close but in the end me and Martina lost because we couldn't get the sports questions right.

It was also very wet and windy yesterday, on the way to work I was being blown all over the place.

I've also noticed that the air is much cooler these days and l'm beginning to miss my jackets' thermal liner when i'm riding around after dark - it's the middle of august and i'm already starting to think about insulation.

Idle Hands

I've just signed up for a sculpture course with Cambridgeshire Adult Education starting in September.

I will be sculpting in Wax, Clay, Metalwork, Mould Making and Armture Making (posable wire frames for stop animation models like Wallace & Grommit).

Now I just need a muse.

Misleading Advertising

My mobile phone contract with T-Mobile is coming to an end at last - yay.

I've been looking at what I want from my replacement phone service. I see two possibilities.

1) a very simple Pay as you talk, for the little I normally use a phone this is a cheap service can expand in those odd month where I go crazy with my mobile.

2) a decent phone with a data package which would allow me to cancel the landline broadband at home.

My preference would be for option 2. The only reason I have a landline at the moment is because of the broadband connection but there is a problem.

I've found lot's of Mobile Companies offering Unlimited Data packages except that once you start reading the Terms and Conditions none of then are really Unlimited, most are limited to about 1GB/month which is fine for email and a bit of web surfing but no good if I add gaming and downloads to monthly bandwidth usage.

Which leads me to question;what is the point of 3G services if you can't have a reasonable data plan?

I suppose the Mobiles would argue that the point of 3G is really video calling but I'm not intrested in video calling and I'm certainly not interested in downloading and watching the latest Big Brother or Football clip.

So l guess I will have to continue renting two communication services even though I could use 1 service if the terms and conditions were abit more favourable.

Grrr.

And another hot weekend

On Saturday, I decided to walk around Rutland Water to see if the route is suitable for a night hike.

There is a cycle route that runs all the way around the reservoir which is about 21 miles long. The track is wide reasonable smooth and easy to follow for the whole route which should make it good as a route for a night hike.

I parked up at the Horse & Jockey in Manton which is a starting point that the ramblers have used before and contains plenty of free parking.

The biggest problem I had while following the route was once again the heat, it was far too hot for my liking but despite the heat the route only took 4h 45m to finish. I reckon in the dark and as part of a group thevroute will take about 8 hours.

Now we just need to decide on a night to do the walk.

On sunday I went to the pub quiz as usual where our team came 4th again.

And the sun beat down

Summer has definitely arrived at last.

On Saturday, I went into Cambridge to ask about the bits I need for Europa such as the Bottom Bracket, as soon as my Credit Card bill is sent on I can start buying bits.

After that I met up with Matt and watched Transformers (the second time I've seen the film). It's a long film but it doesn't seem like it while you are watching and was very enjoyable until it start's getting a little too sentimental at the end.

On Sunday I wont walking with the ramblers at Belvoir Castle near Grantham.

The walk was beautiful and at 11 miles was longer than normal walk's the ramblers tad to do. The distanst was just right for me but the heat was close to be unbearable and most of the walk, especially in the afternoon, didn't have much shade.

After the walk I rode straight to Cambourne for the pub quiz but on the way down there I realised that I was for too early for the quiz so I look a detour into the Fens going from the A1 to Yaxley, Ramsey, tluntiigdon. St Ives, Papworth Everard and finally Cambourne.

We came 4tn in the quiz which didn't get us a prize :-(

BMW F800 Test Ride

Today I had a test ride on a BMW F800 ST from Balderston's in Peterborough.

It's a great bike, small and light which makes it fun to ride. Powerful and comfortable which should make it good for touring and it's meant to be very economical which will make it good for commuting. It's the best all rounder I ridden so far.

The core of the bike was very good. The engine was very smooth and the belt drive was really impressive. The engine was also very quite which I liked.

Handling was pretty good, I'm quicker through corners on my Deauville but thats just because I know how that bike handles where as the F800 was a new bike, I would get quicker as I became more experienced with it.

The riding position was very comfortable at first but after an hour I found my palms were starting to hurt.

The bike feels small and it made filtering through traffic very easy.

Overall I liked it but that's not to say there weren't faults but all the faults I found were things which can be fixed with after market parts.

The biggest issue were the Mirrors, I could not find a positions for them or for me that gave me a good view of the road behind me, the stalks that the mirrors are mounted on need to be about 2 inches longer but on the plus side there was no buzz from the mirrors regardless of the speed.

The second issue was the fairing, it protected me upto about 70mph but beyond I had to duck down to remain comfortable. It's good enough for single carriageway roads but a long Motorway journey might prove uncomfortable. I think a screen with a flip-up edge should sort that problems.

There is also one unknown factor with this bike, it was only released last year and the engine was designed for it so both the bike and engine have not yet had real world long distance usage yet. The highest mileage F800 the salesman had seen was 6,000 in a little over a year. I'm doing that distance in 3 months and he's not heard of one with the 25,000 miles I expect to put on it in 1 year. Servicing is every 6000 miles which means I would need to get the bike back to Peterborough every 3-4 months.

Dispite the faults I found, there are all minor and the bike is definitely on my list of possible replacements for my current bikes when I decide to get rid of Big Red.

Super Snitch

Today I start my life as a Police Informant, riding into work this morning I came across a car which overshot a red light by a cars lenght.

OK I thought, everyones allowed a mistake, but following him down the road he then went right over a mini roundabout and then went straight through a second red light.

Stuff that I thought, so when I got to work I gave the thin blue line a ring and shopped him. He wasn't driving aggressively, it was just lack of concentration and I did tell the lady on the phone that.

So now I'm an nationally famous snitch, will I have to be put into protective custody in the top floor of a fancy hotel paid for by the tax pay only to be found and face assination attempts by a scantily clad supersexy female assassin ? Only time will tell.

___________________________________________________________
Yahoo! Mail is the world's favourite email. Don't settle for less, sign up for
your free account today http://uk.rd.yahoo.com/evt=44106/*http://uk.docs.yahoo.com/mail/winter07.html

Scaredy Cat???

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/fr/-/1/hi/world/americas/5067912.stm

Cambourne Monopoly Championships

Me, Matt and Martina had a game of monopoly at Martina's house last night. Martina provided the house, Matt the food and I brought the Monopoly board.

The game came about because there was a question about Monopoly at the pub
Quiz last week and no one believed me when I said that there was a Trafalgar Square on the board.

There was much drinking going on during the night, even I was bullied by Martina into tasting some wine but it tasted exactly like I thought it would - a bit like old grape juice strained through a dirty sock.

The game was long as all games of Monopoly tend to be, and quite annoying because within about 30 minutes I could tell who was going to win but it took over 4 hours to finally confirm the result.

Despite the predictability of the end result it was still a good night.

There was worrying talk of me having to cook next time, I offered them one of my favourite dishes, Bacon & Liver with Fennel sauce but they turned their noses up at it - the ungrateful bunch. I suppose I could do a roast or stirfry instead, I'm good at those.

Splish Splash, I was paddling a round

This morning, I went swimming at Impington Swimming Pool. I am so out of shape :(

I could only do about 35 minutes in the slow lane, however the pool is easy to reach before work so I might be able to make swimming a regular thing which will help now that I'm not cycling on a regular basis.

A busy weekend

I have finally got the bike back from the garage so I am mobile again.
I immediately rode down to Henlow to buy some Pet Food where I noticed that my head light isn't working so I then ride back to the garage to get it fixed.
When I explained the problem they said that they had seen the issue but couldn't find the cause and the light just started working again so didn't explore it any further - idiots.
St Neots Motorcycles are reasonably good mechanic's. The bike always runs great after they have seen it but their quality control sucks, I've had tyres fitted but only half inflated, heated grips fitted but only one side works when I pick the bike up because of a short circuit and now a headlight that doesn't work hours after a MOT certificate issued.
In the evening, I went to the Ramblers bbq at Hill Farm which was nice, the location was fantastic rounded off by a brilliant sunset.
Sunday I went for a rideout with some people from http://www.gbbikers.co.uk/, I met up with Tishy at a petrol station first then we rode out to her home in Warboys to wait for the rest of the riders to arrive.
The rest of the riders were running late so we had a cup of tea and tightent the clamp on her wing mirror and just as we were about to go out and look for the rest of the riders they showed up.
The ride went from Warboys, out Hunstanton, then out to Cromer and then followed the coast road around to Great Yarmouth, Lowestoft and Bury St Edmunds before we all split up and headed home. The ride was about 250 miles and with the exception of a brief but heavy rain while having lunch at Great Yarmouth the weather was perfect.

This is roughly the route I took based on what I remember although bear in mind that I have never ridden that area so all the roads where new to me.

http://tinyurl.com/3ax3oz

damn damn damn

Just spoken to the garage, the bike work might carry over to tomorrow, I've got to ring them at 17:00 today to get the final work of when I can pick the bike up.

Tomorrow is the Ramblers BBQ in Peterborough which I was hoping to go to but it's looking like I might not make it, at least not get there as early as I had hoped :(

I have also got an offer for a ride out on Sunday with people from the biker forum that I belong to, it looked like a good route so if I can't collect it on Saturday I might not make that either.

damn damn damn

Am I weird?

That's a question I'm seriously asking myself!

I've always thought of myself as odd I guess but I never realised how odd until the last few weeks.

As my readers will know, I've been bikeless for the last few weeks so I've been taking the bus which has meant a long wait at the bus stop some mornings. While waiting there a normally a couple of girls waiting for a bus at the same time, now these girls are pretty good looking (I use girls here to mean members of the female sex, not jail bait before anyone starts calling the cops).

While waiting for the bus I spend a long time watching the traffic and I have noticed nearly every single White Van man is turning about 110 degrees in their seats as they drive past to get maximum ogling time at the girls. I've noticed that the blokes driving BMW's do it as well but the remaining drivers either have girlfriends in the passenger seat or don't seem to notice at all and keep their eyes fixed straight ahead.

Now between WV man and BMW man, that accounts for about 80% of the blokes going past and it amazed me that they went to such lengths just to look at someone with all their clothes on.

It's a concept that is almost completely foreign to me. Sure I'll check girls out but lets face it, they are just girls standing on a pavement waiting for a bus. There needs to be something unusual to make me look for more than a second or two - like the promotion girls at the Bike Shows (bikers tell their significant other that they are going to look at bikes but it's really about the very attractive girls wearing very skimpy Lycra body suits)

Am I weird not to be doing everything I can to take a peek at anything which wears a bra? (um, that condition may need refinement)

I've always been aware that blokes tend to get a bit "look at the baps on that one" when in groups but I figured that was always group psychology and everyone trying fit in with everyone else (something else I've never really understood to be honest) which means that conversations tend to be a race to the bottom so that everyone can feel like they are part of the group but most of these blokes are in their cars/vans by themselves which suggests that it's something more important to most blokes than I realised.

I've never been a very blokey sort of bloke (I'm making this language up as I go). I don't have any interest in sports, drinking, cars, partying etc. Men Behaving Badly was just a 90's sitcom, not a guide to how blokes actually behave.

Now I understand a bit more why women don't like to walk home late at night by themselves (I always figured women were being wimps and blowing the risks way out of proportion to reality but if the drivers in St Neots are the standard - maybe they are right to be wary)

So the question is, am I in the minority on this issue? maybe I'm not sexually aware enough? or maybe I'm not socially aware enough, or maybe the 2 are intricately linked and a limitation in one is automatically a limitation in the other. Or maybe the blokes who drive past the bus stop at 7am are not representative of blokes in general.

Maybe it's cultural, are all the WV men Sun readers; trained via Page3 to always look at a women and wonder and since I don't read newspapers I've not picked up that trait?

I guess bus journeys bring out my philosophical side.

I don't normally write these messages for comments but I would be interested in what people think either as a comment or privately.

Shopping

07 July 2007 10:57

Today I did something that is extremely rare for me. Shopping!

It's not been a good start, the bus which runs every 30 minutes arrived 28 minutes late and then the driver turned out to be a very bad driver, hitting curbs and breaking really hard at every junction - the sort of journey that makes you give thanks to God when you get off even if you don't believe that he exists.

My shopping list for the day is:
1. New shoes
2. An A1 clip frame to mount a picture in my bedroom
3. Nikwax to rewaterproof biking jacket and my walking raincoat.

In the end I got shoes, Nikwax, some Bluetac instead of a clip frame and a Brita Water Filter (damn inpluse buys).

At least the driver on the way home had some understanding of how big a bus is.

Bike sent to the Garage

01 July 2007 09:04

Yesterday I dropped the bike off at the garage for the accident repairs and it's 8000 mile service.

The garage don't yet have all the parts needed for the repair work but the not expired yesterday so I can no longer use the bike so decided that if it was getting in the mechanic's way it may encourage them to sort the bike out quicker.

Also, since I must now revert to the bus which has tripled my commute time I no longer have time to drop the bike off or pick it up before or after work so I have to use the weekends.

Get well soon Big Red.

Biking is dangerous

I got to work this morning, took my helmet off and tried to put my sunglasses back on but I was still holding my keys in my hand and managed to stab myself in the eye with them :(

Ouch ouch ouch ouch

Crikey, that was a wet one

This weekend was the Ramblers camping and walking weekend in the Peak District.

I decided to go to the camping bit despite it meaning that I had to hire a car because I don't trust my bike not to break down on long journeys at the moment. I ended up with a Peugeot 1007 (the one with the sliding doors).

I tried to book into the Edale Kinder Scout Camping site but they couldn't take any more cars so after some umming and arring I decided to go to a different campsite from all the other campers (grr). Later in the evening we were all going to meet in Castleton but I couldn't find anyone and I couldn't get hold of Gordon to find out which pub they were all at so after 30 minutes or so I gave up and went back to the campsite (grr grr).

Still, I did get read all the magazines I had brought with me.

On the sunday everyone met up in Hayfield to start the walk up to the top of Kinder Scout, and it chucked it down; we all decided that the rain was better than being boiled alive in rain coats while trying to climb the hill and so everyone stripped down to t-shirts to continue the climb - unfortunately no one was wearing a white cotton t-shirt and so there were no wet t-shirt competitions. It was while we were eating lunch in t-shirts and heavy rain that I hit upon the idea of an inflatble rainshelter which you could unpack, pull a cord and it would self inflate into a giant tent, position a ramble at each corner to stop it blowing away and hey presto a perfect shelter.

The walk was great, very picturesque and the rain just made the walk more enjoyable as far as I'm concerned.

2 thumbs up for Diane who lead the walk.

I am a short arse :(

Yesterday I went over Pure Triumph again, this time I was going to try the Tiger on for size.

Unfortunately, I couldn't get my feet down when I was on it which would have meant I would have to fling the bike over to one side everytime I stopped, I need to get leg extensions.

I may need to change my plans for my next bike, all the Big Trailie Bikes I have been looking at have similar seat heights.

In other news. Today is my last day at Plasmon. I'm going in this afternoon to hand in my door key and say goodbye to people.

Gardening Leave Is Hell

How am I suppose to enjoy myself if I don't have anything to do today?

I guess I could go for a walk but I'd much rather rather be at the office with poor air conditioning slaving over of clunking mechanical libraries, who wants to put up with noisy birds and bees humming and rivers chuggling away to themselves.












This message goes out to all those poor souls who have to work today :)

Good News & Slime Go Hand in Hand

This morning, I went down to St Neots Motorcycles to get some Tyre Weld to fix the puncture in my Rear Tyre and while I was down there I was told that the Garage had been authorised to carry out the insurance repair work.

The garage are ordering the bits and will then need to take an existing body panel away so that the colour can be matched at the spray shop.

Hopefully, the bike will be going in for the work towards the end of this week or maybe beginning of next week but at the moment the mechnical can't be more accurate than that the moment.

Also, the bike shop didn't have any Tyre Weld foam but did have the Green Slime stuff so I used that instead.

Hooray for Hastings Direct finally getting the claim sorted out.

T-Mobile Direct Debit Update

For those who were wondering about my whether my T-Mobile Direct Debit form ever turned up (I know you're all on the edge of your seats with anticipation).

It's not shown up yet which means that anyone who was betting on the first 2 possible arrival dates have lost.

Stay tuned for more exciting updates to this ongoing story.

Sussex

I'm back in Sussex this weekend since it's Fathers Day and because of the state of the motorbike at the moment I decided to come down by train instead of riding down.

Yesterday, we all went to a school fete with Anni where I eat a Roast Pork with Apple Sauce roll (yummy) and got a couple more tattoo (and I didn't even cry when they had to hold that cold wet rag against my arms to make the tattoo stick ;) )

Then we had a BBQ and watched Casino Royale; Isn't Bond a violent chap.#

I'm heading back to Cambridgeshire today, train leaves Horsham at about 16:00

Kellogg's Robbed Me

14 June 2007 07:50

I had Cocopops for breakfast this morning but one Cocopop didn't have any chocolate on it :(

It was a naked Cocopop, an Albino Cocopop; it was a Rice Crispy.

I shall buy a bar of Dairy Milk to melt over any other naked Cocopop's I find in order to keep Recommended Daily Amount of Chocolate.

Ocean's 13

13 June 2007 06:16

Last night Matt, Martina & I went to see Ocean's 13 at Cineworld in Huntingdon after our usual prefilm meal at Pizza Express.

I remember seeing Ocean's 11 and loving it but Ocean's 12 was so bad that I had actually blocked it's existence from my memory. It was only when I looked the film up on IMDB that I remembered any of the plot so I was nervous about whether seeing this film would be a better use of my time than spending an evening dropping food near an Ants Nest and timing how long it took the colony to recover all the food (actually I have done that in the past and it's very interesting to watch).

Luckily Ocean's 13 was much better than 12 and I really enjoyed it. The heist plot had lot's of twists but without losing the overal direction which seemed to be the problem with Ocean's 12.

Plus there were no pointless love interest side stories this time around.

T-Mobile Direct Debit

11 June 2007 14:45

The saga continues.

I got my usual monthly phone call from T-Mobile today reminding me that I haven't paid my bill again only this one was different because the lady asked why the payment was late.

So I told her about how I had repeatedly requested the direct debit mandate which T-Mobile had repeatedly failed to send out and the 1 time the mandate reached me, I filled it in and sent it back only for the direct debit to still not be setup and so now I deliberately wait until I get a phone call before paying the bill as a way of maximising T-Mobiles cost for collecting the payment.

The corvesation ended with her saying she would send me the mandate again.

So ladies and gents, l'm accepting bets on when the form arrives.

* Tomorrow mornings post
* Before the end of the week
* Before the next bill (due on 6th July)
* 1 week before the contract ends in September
* 1 week after the contract ends
* 1 month before society evolves beyond the use of money

Geddington Walk

Today's walk with the Ramblers was a 9 mile circular from Geddington.

It was a relatively small group this week, only 10 of us which was a shame because it was a really nice walk.

There were a number of stings from Nettles on the walk and it was very humid all day which sapped our strength so it felt like more than a 9 miles walk.

On the way around, we bumped in the main Peterborough Ramblers group but the wrinklers were doing a longer walk than us and so still had a fair way to go even though we were on the home stretch.

Weeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!!!!

09 June 2007 15:00

This morning I took the Motorbike to my usual garage so that they could give me a quote for the insurance claim. He found more problems with the bike than the original garage which makes me doubt the bike will be repaired so this afternoon I went over to Pure Triumph based in Wellingborough to have a test ride on a Triumph Sprint.

http://www.triumph.co.uk/uk/Motorcycle_Sprint_ST.aspx

And a lot of fun it was too; fast, nimble, comfortable and it looks great. I came back with a great big smile on my face. I have no doubt it would be a great touring/weekend ride bike.

I only have 2 concerns about the bike;
* Price: At £8000 new, it's the most expensive of the 3 bikes that I'm considering buying and although great fun, I not sure it's £8000 worth of fun.
* Commuting: the exhaust pipe on the Sprint runs under the seat, no problem while you are flying along a road but I got stuck in traffic for 10 minutes on the test ride and I was beginning to cook bits of me which shouldn't be cooked.

eBay Sale Item

08 June 2007 09:10

Last month, I tried to sell a spare SD Card that I had lying around the house on eBay, this was the first thing I had ever tried to sell on eBay.

The auction ended and I sent the SD Card off to the winner but it never arrived. After increasingly angry emails from the winner who was effectively accusing me of never sending the item because he had won the auctions at a really low price I just got fed up of waiting on the item and gave him a full refund despite my suspicions that he probably had received the item.

Well, that item arrived back at my house this morning saying that I had underpaid the postage by 6p and that the person I had sent the item to had not come into the sorting office to collect it.

That means the guy sent me a torrent of bad vibes (like, heavy man) my way for the sake of walking to his local post office.

My first thought was, I'll get in contact with the bloke and explain whats happened and that if he wants it at the original price he can have it - then I realised that I really am too nice when dealing with stuff like this and have decided to keep it for myself.

Then I realised that after I had given the bloke his £7 refund, he could just walked down the post office paid the £1.06 (*1) and got the SD Card for a 1/4 of what he paid for it. ha

*1 - there is a £1 handling fee if you under pay the postage which I think is the real reason for making the postage system so complicated these days

Ouch!

07 June 2007 18:45

I just stubbed my toe while chopping up a pepper. It really, really hurts. :-(

More bad news

2 pieces of bad news today.

1. I seemed to have lost be beloved Oakley Sunglasses, I haven't seen them since the weekend. It's possible that they got 'tidied' into an unexpected place in preparation for dad's visit last weekend (things often go missing when I tidy up, I never lose anything when it's a mess). I will have to have a good look around for them tonight before thinking about buying some more because those glasses where great for walking and driving and lasted donkey years compare to other sunglasses I've had in the past.

2. The most heinous news of all, Big Brother started last night which means that we have now got 10 weeks of muppets shouting at each other because someone left the toilet seat up and 10 weeks of people discussing the arguments at every opportunity.Maybe I should start thinking about taking holidays out of the country around this time of year.

Phone Call from Hastings Direct

30 May 2007 11:57

Yesterday I wrote an email to the customers complaints department at Hastings Direct because there seemed to be no progress on my claim and I was stuck in the ridiculous situation where I couldn't get my motorbike serviced (which it is in desperate need of - especially the brakes) because of a claim for some body panels which although ugly were safe.

Today I have had a phone call from their customer service department and I have now got a named person who is going to be responsible for chasing my claim through and getting the bike work authorised. I was seriously considering getting a small second hand motorbike to cover myself while the repair work was going on because the MOT on the Deauville is due in June and if the service work isn't carried out by then it would be illegal for me to ride it. *1

With some luck, the bike repairs will be authorised soon and which point I can get the bike serviced - hopefully I can get the service done before the repair work because it's the service which is important bit, not how the bike looks (no one's ever accused me of being vain).

Hooray for letters to Customer Complaints departments.

*1 - I might still do this even if/when the Deauville gets repaired because it would give me a) a backup bike incase of breakdowns b) a bike to practice bike maintainance on without risking my main bike c) a potentially much cheaper bike to run - I was thinking of something like the Honda CBF250 which is a single cyclinder, four stroke bike which should be easy to keep on the road.

Pub Quiz

28 May 2007 06:32

Last night was pub quiz night.

The ride over there was very wet and very windy, there were puddles stretching across the road, branches all over the place. It was great fun.

The pub was packed. I guess that was a combination of the weather and the bank holiday.

We came about 4th again, as we always seen to do. The final score was really close and the top 6 teams were only sepealed by 6 points.

Then I had to ride home again so I went the long way home so I could see the damage that had been done. The backroads had a lot more branches down but I felt safer on those roads because there was no one else around which meant I could leave the highbeam on all tho time.

Dad's Visit

Dad, Christine and Annie was up today.

I spent all morning cleaning the house but in the end they only spent about 15 minutes in the house because we went out for a walk at Little Paxton Pits.

At the Pits, the mayflies were just coming out which was interesting if you like creepy crawlies, which I do :)

After the walk we went to The Rivermill for a meal both they headed back to Sussex.

I've got nothing else to do for the rest of the weekend so I'll probably just play some web games.

Yo ho ho and a bottle of lemonade

26 May 2007 00:01

Tonight me, Matt & Martina went to see the latest Pirates of the Caribbean which was pretty good, maybe not quite as good as the first 2 bit very enjoyable.

I think the problem with the film was it was a bit long winded and they were definatdy some scenes which could have been cut without loosing any of the story.

Before the film we went to our favourite Indian except it's been turned into a Thai, as it happens it was or very nice Thai and I reckon we will make that our regular fool before a filn place from now on.

Done the deed

25 May 2007 10:49

I have handed in my resignation using a template letter I found at http://www.i-resign.com

My manager took it quite well which is to be expected since she has known that I've beer looking for a job for about 2 weeks and has been approving 1 day holidays left, right and center.

My last day here will be 22 June and I will start my new job or Monday 25th.

Yay Me

24 May 2007 22:56

Today has been a day of interviews again.

I had a third interview with a Cambridge based company who makes Animation software and I had a first interview with a company that makes encryption software.

By the time I got out of the last interview I had an offer from the first company which I have accepted.

Yippee !!

As I have mentioned on this blog before I sometimes sing to myself, on the way hone tonight, the two songs stuck in my head were ''I am the one and only" by Cheesy Hawk and ''Working 9 to 5" by Dolly Parton.

Worryingly I think make a better Dolly Parton

Favourite Links

22 May 2007 11:50

I've decided to start building a list of small websites and blogs which I enjoy reading and which other people might like. The links can be found in the right side menu area my blog.

For the time being there are 2 links there.

Get Rich Slowly

Tight-fisted? I prefer to think of it as Frugal living, and it is something very close to my heart. I don't know why but it always has been and now I found a website for people who feel the same way that I do (actually it's a bit like an alcoholic finding the Campaign for Real Ale website).

It's an American site so the details are not directly relevant here in Blighty but the general principals still apply.

Post Secret

I've mentioned Post Secret on this blog before but I still find it fascinating. People anonymously make postcards that reveal a secret which then gets scanned in and posted on the blog.

Note: the site is not always work safe although this week seems quite tame.

Who knew I would be voyeuristic?

BMF Bike Show

19 May 2007 23:10

Today was the BMF motorbike show in Peterborough.

I had booked a car from Tim Britons in St Neots, this is the second car I've booked a car from them and the second time time that they didn't have a record of me doing so :-(

Last time, the phone call got diverted to Marshals Peugeot in Cambridge who own
Tim Brinton but I didn't realise that at the time and so I got a phone call from marshals after I had picked up a car asking when I going to collect the car. This time there was no record of any booking either at Tim Brintons or Marshals. While the pape work was being perpared I checked my phone log and I definitely rung the number for St Neots branch of Tim Brinton on the 14th at 11:45.

I picked Matt up at his house in Cambourne then we drove over to the Peterborough show ground.

Since I am a member of the BMF, I got my ticket £2 cheaper than a standard ticket, such are the many benefits of being a member of the BMF.

It took us about 4 hours to walk around the show, I sat on a couple of bikes that i'm interested in; the new Honda Deauville, the honda VFR, the triumph Sprint (i liked that one alot), the truimph Tiger. Unfortunately Suzuki were not at the show show I was unable to try the two VStroms on for size whiich is a shame because they are currently my bike of choice (but I really did like that Sprint).

While I wa at the show I found a couple of really cheap helmets which I could use as a backup in case my helmet is ever damaged or lost, this would mean that the I could carry on riding the bike unti I could find a decent repacement at the right price instead of being force to buy what ever the local bike shop has.

The weather was great, the roast pork roll I had for dinner was delicious and the show had lots of stalls for me to browse even if not all the manufacturers were there, as well as Suzuki, Kwakaski were not there either.

A great day out for anyone interested in bikes, 2 thumbs up although if you are looking for all the manufacturers in one place then the NEC show in November is better.

Zombietastic

16 May 2007 22:35

Tonight I went to see 28 Weeks Later at Cambridge Cineworld with Matt.

For some reason the girls didn't want to come which is a shame because they missed out on Zombie attacks, snipers shooting zombies, snipers shooting everyone and helicopter pilots saving the day as in all good zombie movies.

On the way out noticed I loads of cars had been clamped for parking in the car parks of some nearby business's even though all the business's dosed at 17:00 and the car's must have parked there after 18:40 because that's when I arrived and the car parts were empty then. Why enforce parking restrictions like that when there is no other use for the space?

Interview-a-go-go

16 May 2007 14:39

I've been having a busy couple of days on the interview front at the moment

Yesterday I took the whole day off as holiday.

In the morning I had an interview with a computer animation company based in Cambridge. The application looks interesting and the interview must have gone reasonably well since I have been asked back for a second interview tomorrow afternoon.

In the afternoon I had a second inteniew for a financial software consultancy based in Harpenden, I would be the First tester on site and could effectively run the test effort as I saw fit. A fantastic role but I am corcerned about the commute distant involved which would be about go miles cads way.

I have also arranged a first interview with a company that makes security software based in Cambridge for next Thursday although I'm hoping for an offer that I can accept from one of the other companies before that interview goes ahead.

Not a good day

10 May 2007 05:59

Yesterday was not a good day for me.

First there was the much anticipated appraisal which had been delayed from April by the need to arrange more finances from the city.

Last year after having only joined the company 5 months earlier I received a £1000 payrise on account of the good work I was doing as a tester and after another month or so I was made team lead for the SNAZ project, and I took on the role of administering the Software Groups file Server. There was also talk of making me test manager, if I just put the effort in, although it was a role which didn't really appeal to me it did encourage me to put extra time in.

My first project as team lead severely over ran due to issues with the hardware and I had to put in alot of overtime split between the testing project and trying to keep the file server up and running to make any progress. I remember one occasion when my sister was visiting Cambridge for the first time in 3 years and we had arranged to meet at 18:00 but because I got stuck at work I didn't arrive until 21:00.

My second project was completed on schedule which is the first project at work which I have seen completed on time and which I needed to do a little overtime to complete but nothing on the scale of the first project.

So I was expecting a reasonable review this time around given the extra responsabilities and workload I had taken on in the last year.

Boy was I wrong, my new manager really doesn't rate me as a tester at all, scoring 2/5 in almost all categories.

When I asked about the overtime I had done the director just stared blankly at me and asked what overtime despite having worked side by side with him on the project and always giving him a verbal report of progress before going home at night.

Apparently the effort to keep the file server up and running was also considered a side role which bearly rated a mention.

Part of the problem with the review is that it was done by my new test manager who has only worked directly with since I had given up on the company after the snowday holiday decision which effectively tried to steal a days holiday from me despite that fact that I had gone out of my way to help complete the second project on schedule after I had fallen off my bike trying to get to work.

Sometimes I am too cynical but there is that little voice at the back of my mind which says, "well done trev, you've put in a load of extra work for vague promises of reward further down the line at exactly the point when it was needed by the company without actually getting anything for my effort."

Just to top the day off, there was a ramblers pub meet in Peterborough which I had decided not to go to since it was raining, and it's a long way for me to travel just to sit in a pub for a couple of hours but decided some company would probably be good for me and rush to get there on time through the 30 mile of driving rain, unfortunately no one else from the ramblers decided to turn out in their cars for that taxing 5 mile journey. I 've double checked the program, I was in the right pub on the right day at the right time and I gave them 40 minutes before leaving.

Insurance Claim

08 May 2007 20:04

I've just spoken to the insurance company about the bike claim but it turns out that the garage haven't forwarded the estimate on yet which has really annoyed me because it must mean that any decision is at least a week away.

Mean while the brakes are getting worse and I not going to get any work done on them until I have heard what's going to happen with the insurance claim because if it does get scrapped any money I spend getting the brakes sort out would be waste of money.

Grrr

Freeloader Portable Charger

I have just brought a Freeloader Portable Charger from Maplins which I can use to charge my phone/PDA/iPod etc using solar power.

http://www.maplin.co.uk/Search.aspx?criteria=N23CX%20%20&source=15&SD=Y

I've been looking for one of these for a while but Maplins currently have a sale on and so I thought why not.

Once it's arrived I'll play around with it for a few days and then rewrite up a review.

Account Cancellations

01 May 2007 19:17

Today I have been cancelling things.

I have cancelled my lovefilm account, I've been a member for over 2 years and I have run out of things I actually want to watch. That combined with what I see as a deteriation in the quality of services as Lovefilm got bigger and bigger spelt it's doom (ok, that might be a little dramatic)

Then I downgraded my broadband sevice from an 8GB download limit to one with a 1GB download limit because I'm not using my internet connection any more, although I might need to upgrade it again if I ever buy myself a PS3.

Unfortunately the one company I really want to get rid of, T-Mobile, can't be cancelled until September. I have made a note in my PDA to remind me because if I don't let T-Mobile know that I'm leaving by the 05th September then I'm going to be stick with them for another 18 months.

Ramblers Pub Meet

26 April 2007 23:39

Tonight was a Ramblers Pub Meet at the Boathouse in Peterborough which is a generic family pub type of place.

However there was a pub quiz which I don't think was expected when the event was put into the clubs calendar so we broke up into 2 teams and took part in the quiz.

My team won but I think that was only because we were sat slightly closer to the announcer, the speakers in the pub were very distorting. It was like trying to take a quiz via the tannoy system of a train station but it was a lot of fun.

That was close

25 April 2007 10:49

I was riding down a B-road yesterday between Luton and Harpenden when a sheet of plywood which had been lying on the road got flicked up by the lorry in front of me, I didn't even see it coming until the last moment when it's angle to me changed from being edge on to being flat side on. It must have been about 0.5m 1m in size.

The sheet hit my bike head on, then slide around the right hand side of the bike, scrapped my leg and splintered into little bits behind me.

It didn't feel like a particularly hard hit, the bike didn't even get moved from the course it was on, no wobbles or anything and I didn't give it much thought since the impact seems so light.

I guess because the impact was almost head-on hid how much weight that sheet of wood had because when I walked around the front of my bike this morning I found a big hole in the front fairing below the headlight and what looks like a compression crack on my lower right fairing.

I've made a claim on my insurance and I'm taking the bike to be examined next saturday so some pictures can be taken and the insurance company can decided on what to do with the bike. The bike is still rideable so I can't see them doing anything other than authorising the repair.

And then there was 3

25 April 2007 06:57

This week one of my friends is moving back down to Devon to be closer to her family.

That leaves just 3 of us who go out on a regular basis.

Last night we went to Zizzis in Cambridge for a goodbye meal before moving on to All-Bar-One while we waited to fee if Ginny was going to make an appearance.

Quote of the Day:
Martina - "Do you want to put your helmet my boot."

Laser force

22 April 2007 09:06

Last night a few of us Ramblers went to laser force in Peterborough.

It was great fun, we got 2 games with a free drink between the games to cool of and discuss strategies.

On my team was Debbie, Karen & John. On the green team was Gordon, Roger, Katie & Wendy.

Our team won both games and I got the highest score in the first game and the highest accuracy in both matches.

After the game we walked into town for a few pints before going our seperate ways.

These brakes were made for stopping ...

21 April 2007 14:07

... And thats just what they'll do. Even if I don't want them to (ok so it doesn't have quiet the same ring as the song)

Yes, my bike brakes are sticking even after buying a heavier lube last night to try to fix the problem.

After spraying everything in sight with this heavy lube I then drove off down to Harpenden to see what the roads are like down there and was still having problems, I managed to break a key at a layby trying to force the brakes open. Luckily the key was for my cycle lock which was nicked along with the bike so I don't need that key for anything.

I can free them up for about an hour but eventually they will start sticking again sucking performance out of the bike, heating up the pads until they start to fade under heavy braking and costing the earth in needlessly burnt petrol.

I've come to the conclusion that the only solution is going to be to dismantle the brakes, clean the gunk out of the piston and relube it properly.

I would like do the work myself since if everything goes to plan it's suppose to be an easy job but if something goes wrong it is supposed to get very complicated very quickly and I am very aware that it's my brakes i'm dealing with and maybe that's not the best component for a DIY disaster like myself to start messing about with.

What to do?

Dentist Appointment

16 April 2007 21:17

Tonight I had a dentist appointment, just a routine check-up booked last year.

I was in the chair for all of 45 seconds at the end of which the dentist said every was fine and charged me £15.90 for the privilege.

It took longer to enter my credit card pin number and have the transaction authorised than the dentist spent examining me.

I worked out that is the equivalent of £1275 per hour. I'm in the wrong business.

Happy Birthday to my bike

15 April 2007 19:12

Today is the 1 year anniversary of getting my bike.

In the last year I have

* riden 22876 miles
* burnt 393 gallon's of petrol
* spent £4742 on insurance, tax, maintenance and petrol
* fallen off once in the snow
* had to perform 4 emergency stops - 1 cat and 3 myopic car drivers

Oxborough Walk

15 April 2007 18:46

Today's walk was from Oxbraugh Hall in Oxborough near to Thetford.

It was 7 miles going through Brahamwell and Gooderstone in surprisingly hot weather.

I think the heat caught everyone by surprise, we all had coats and only a few of us had hats with us.

I think I'm going to have to buy some walking shorts because my trousers cling to me when it's hot.

Early Morning Starts

13 April 2007 07:03

Since the clocks changed a few weeks ago I have been waking up as soon as it gets light and it is starting to get on my nerves, this morning I was awake by 04:45 and couldnt get back to sleep.

Do you know whats on TV at 04:30 in the morning? Nothing.

I wouldn't mind but because I'm getting up so early I'm also getting sleepy earlier and earlier at night, last night I was in bed by 21:00.

On the plus side, it is giving me some time to sort out the photo album on the computer, review my bank accounts and search the job sites online for a new job.

Meal with the family

08 April 2007 16:39

At lunch today, I ate out at The Royal Oak with Mum, Nan, Granddad, Shirley, Roo, Jen, Matt, Dave & Anita.

I asked for a Gammon Steak but I was later told that they had run at of Gammon :( so I had to change the order to a rare Rump Steak which was very nice but was a bigger meal than I had hoped for so I left a lot of it.

After the meal we all went our separate ways, last right we discovered that Mums car had a blown head gasket and so was prone to overheating.

We debated calling a Breakdown Truck to carry mums car home but decided to drive it home and I would follow on the bike.

People really dont like having to drive at 50mph which is what mum was doing and the number of drivers who got so close to me that I could see the drivers face in my wing mirrors.

One driver in particular was bad, a Mauve Sierra who kept dropped back then speeded up to get as close to my bike as possible before breaking hard and dropping back again.

Both the outside lines were clear at this point so he could have past me and mum very easily but instead decided to play chicken.

I tried slowing down gentle hoping it would prompt him to pass me but that didn't work. By this point mum was a quarter of a mile ahead of me so I accelerate out of his way and when he finally catches us up again he goes past safely. This guy was chasing me for abolt 8 miles for no reason that I could see.

Ian & Sarah's Wedding

08 April 2007 07:53

Yesterday was Ian and Sarah's Wedding.

I rode down to Shirley's house in the morning where I realised that although I had shirt, jacket, tie and shoes I didn't have my trouser :(

I had to run into Orpington to buy a pair of trousers; the cashier, who had I very nice smile, thought it was hilarious and suggested that next time I don't bother bringing any clothes to the wedding and just go shopping on the way to the church.

The wedding was at Ripley Arts Centre and was very nice, after the wedding there were photo's, then some more photo's, followed be yet more photo's - In fact, there was 2 hours of photo's before everyone headed to the reception.

The reception was at flamingo Park which is a local football club. The reception was good but the hall was cold and far too smokey.

During the night I fell back into my old habits and acted as taxi driver taking Nan & Grandad home before returning to take Mum, Jen & Matt home.

Congratulations Ian & Sarah.

Sunshine Tickets

05 April 2007 21:10

Today I have been trying to organise a trip to the cinema to see Sunshine with Matt and Martina tomorrow.

We finally agreed on a time so I went to book the ticket's but found the booking fee is now £1.65 a ticket! The last time I booked a ticket the booking fee was sop a ticket. The money grabbing gits.

So I rode up to Huntingdon after work and bought the tickets in person avoiding the booking fee.

Of course it helped that the weather was perfect and the roads were very twisty :)

Frame Respray Completed

31 April 2007 16:11

APi have returned the frame and forks resprayed, unfortunately the forks I had brought on eBay didn't fit (the steerer tube was too long) so the guy has found a second hand fork and a second hand headset and fitted those and resprayed the forks I had already brought the same colour.

The colour is great, a sort of yellowly orange and the bike is going to look great with black components all over it.

I'll get some pictures uploaded and find away to display them in the blog, I can display a single picture without too much difficulty but displaying lots of photos in a gallery seems to be tricker without me manually editting HTML which I would prefer not to have to do if I can help it.

White Scar Cave

30 March 2007 13:33

Me and mum have just got back from white Scar Cave which is the longest publicly accessible cave in the UK.

It was brilliant. Enough development had been done to make access easy but it had left enough of the natural features to be really interesting.

My only criticism was that it was a tour rather than allowing us to explore the cave at our own pace so there was a lot of pointing at a single feature in each cavern aid moving on to the next area completely ignoring other really interesting looking features such as chimneys and fossils - perhaps because there was a better example further into the cave.

Still it was great fun and well worth the £7.50 entry fee.

Settle Walk

27 March 2007 22:42

This morning mum and me went for a walk directly from the cottage and up into the hills where we are staying.

6 miles of uppy downy footpaths, limestone caves and a baking sun which would not have felt out of place in June.

Tomorrow mum and me eve going our seperate ways. She is going Horse Riding on the Moor and I am going to attempt to do the 3 Peak's walk which is a 25 Mile walk linking the three highest peaks in the Yorkshire Moors.

The 3 Peaks

28 March 2007 20:19

Today I have completed the 3 Peaks walk which is a 25 mile walk which visits the 3 highest peaks in the area. Per-y-Ghent, Whermside and Ingleborough.

Mum dropped me off at the Pen-y-ghent Cafe at 06:50. The cafe operates a Safety Service where you can register your detail's and someone at the Cafe will wait until you get back (upto 11pm) or ring the Rescue Service if you don't show up which is a brilliant idea for lone walkers like me.

By the time I had filled in the form's for the Cafe I finally set off at around 7am.

Pen-y-ghent was the first hill and I climbed it quickly getting to the summit in about 1.5 hours.

Unfortunately I somehow managed to lose the path on the way down, I was walking through a boggy area when the path just disappeared.

I was also stalked by a Grouse in this area although at this point I was still on the path, I guess I was getting close to it's nest and it was trying to get me to go away.

Once at the bottom of the hill there was a long walk to the base of Whernside. Again the ascent was again surprisingly easy and I was feeling good while I was eating lunch.

The descert started off well with lot's of ponds lining the path which were filled with frogs, but once past the ponds the path became very tough. It was steep and very rocky which made the path slow and hard work on the knees but once at the bottom ond the path leveled out a bit I felt much better so decided to carry on and do the last hill, Ingleborough.

Ingleborough was the hardest climb, not just because it was it was the last hill but because the path was really steep end a long climb, I was scrambling up on all four's at one point.

The top was very misty and I couldn't see anything in any direction so I came down after only a short stay at the top.

The descent took about 1.5 hours at which point I met up with mum at Horton station where she offered me a lift to the ail point but I refused because that would be cheating.

In the end, the 25 mile walk took me 11 hours 10 minutes which I doit think was too bad.

I really enjoyed the walk but I am now starting to get stiff and I think I'm going to sleep really, really, really well tonight.

I am a muppet

27 March 2007 08:15

I am a muppet.

I have been posting by email to my blog everyday of my holiday so far but I have just realised that I have just been posting to my private blog, not my public one so no-one can read about what I'm doing.

I will post the old messages to my public posts now but I can't do anything about the order that the posts will appear in or the blog until I get back home.

Malham Walk

25 March 2007 18:33

Today's walk was 7.5 miles from Malham, up to Malham Cove and the Malham Tarn before returning to the car via a detour into the moors.

We were very lucky with the weather, dispite the cold wind when up higher up in the hills the sun was very warm and you only had to be in a sheltered spot for a while before getting hot.

There were some great views, especialy from the top of Malham Cove and 1 will post some picture's when I get back from the holiday.

yorkshire Holiday

24 March 2007 19:27

First day of my holiday in Yorkshire with my mum.

We have got a 3 bedroom Self Catering cottage in Settle which is beautiful, it looks like a traditional Yorkshire Cottage from the outside but inside been modernised inside.

Out of all the self catering cottages I've stayed in this is the one I can see myself living in. The location isn't perfect, it's surrounded on every side by other houses and I've yet to see a cottage which can match The Coachman's Cottage on Dartmoor for location or views.

Skipton and Brimham

27 March 2007 07:24

Yesterday we went to Skipton to do some shopping, I've been looking for a camping matress but I have not been able to find any locally although i know of where I can find one in Harrogate.

After shopping we went to Brimham Rocks and explored the area.

I have brought my camping stove with me but it ran out of fuel half way through boiling some water so we had some luke warm tea - hmm, tasty

Animal Farm

19 March 2007 22:06

I've just been watching Animal Farm on Channel 4 which was exploring genetic engineering in the food industry and was hosted by 1 pro genetics' presenter and 1 pro organic presenter.

During the program the organic guy made a statement which really made me doubt that the guy brew what he was talking about.

He seemed to be arguing that between cloning and transgenics (where you take one animal and put them in other) it was during that was the most worrying science.

???

Surely cloning is just copying a known state. How good the outcome is determined by the orginal animal plus any error's that might be introduced by the cloning process.

Transgenic's however involves deliberately introducing gene's which you could never breed together, and no matter how well you think you understand the process there will always be that element of risk.

The series continues next week dealing with Pharming (where urinals and plant's are altered to produce medicines)

Missed the walk

18 March 2007 10:01

I overslept this morning and got up too late to be able to get to the Oundle walk in time.

Instead l tried to get the shed alarm working but without success, the only thing left for me to try is to disconnect one of the sensor's end see if it work's then.

PYW Pub Meet

15 March 2007 07:17

Last night was the Peterborough Young Walkers pub meet at the Five Horseshoes in Barholm.

I arrived at the pub at 19:50 for the 20:00 meetup but found that no one else was there yet so I got charge out of my biking gear slowly while I waited.

At about 10 past Roger arrived so we went in to start drinking. We sat there together wait for anyone else to turn up.

In the end it was 20:40 before anyone else turned up and Jo and Barbara finally arrived at about 20:45 after getting lost on the way to the pub.

Gordon was the last to arrive at about 21:00.

It was a nice pub although any more people would have beer a problem given the pub was divided into 4 or 5 small room's.

There was much drinking and talking about who has fallen over on walks, the varying effect's different types of alcohol have on next morning's headache and many bad jokes where the punchline was maragled. Although I can hardly complain given how bad I am at telling jokes.

APi Phoned

14 March 2007 10:06

I've just spoken to Andy Palmer at APi which is the company that I'm going to use for the bike respray.

I've had a quick talk to him on the phone about what I want end I've decided to go for the apricot colour instead of black.

Andy is going to pickup the frame and fork's next Tuesday after which we will discuss the option's in more detail.

I need to give him the combination to the shed lock and give him detail's of the chainset if I want him to fit the bottom bracket.

RE: Pub Quiz

11 March 2007 23:50

Just got back from the Pub Quiz in Cambourne with Matt, Chris, Nicola and Matt's brother- Chris.

Once again we came third and and it is Starting to get annoying always being so close but never being first.

Still this week it wasn't that close. We scored 23 out of 30, second place scored 24 but the winners scored 29 - that is some impressive mobile googling.

Shed alarmed

10 March 2007 18:01

Today I have been trying to install an alarm in to the shed but it hasn't gone well, the alarm is constantly sounding.

I think it is because of the layout of the door's has forced me to mount the sensors and magnets at a right-angle to each other.

I'm going to have mount a strip of wood along the top of both doors make the mounting position align without having sensor and magnet at right-angles.

Meal at the Yim Wah

08 March 2007 07:02

Last night I went to the Yim Wah with Matt, Martina, Ginny & Richard.

Since we weren't due to eat until 20:30 I had some time to kill after work so I stopped off at Shepreth Wildlife Park to Pick up a couple of leaflet's and find out the entry price as an idea for the Rambler's.

After the wildlife park I headed into Cambridge to find some security screws for the shed but neither B&Q or Homebase sell them so I'm going to have to order them online.

I still had a load of time to kill so after filling up with petrol I went for a ride making a huge circle around the Chinese.

The food was nice but I think 20:30 was too late and by the time we actually started eating I wasn't hungry anymore.

The Stupidity of Thieves

05 March 2007 23:08

This evening I hung the shed door back on its hinges.

While I was doing this I noticed that as well as all the screw's which attached the hinge to the shed, two screw's were missing from where the hinge attach's to the door.

At first I thought he had started unscrewing the door side hinges before realising that would involve undoing 12 screws instead of just 9 from the shed attachment.

When I tried to put a few screws into the holes I notice that the shaft of the screw's were still in the door cut off cleanly, it look's like they tried to hacksaw through the 12 screw's behind the metal plate of the hinge.

That's what get's on my nerves so much about the theft, the bastards that took my bikes are probably so stupid that they don't even know what they have got.

Project Europa

Project Europa - Low Maintenance All-Weather Bike Building Excerise

This page will be used to as a home page to all my posts related to the bike build. Europa is what the bike will be called once the build is completed.

Last Tuesday (27 Jan 2007) I had my two working bikes stolen from my garden shed, they took my Dawes touring bike (Callisto) and my Fuji mountain bike (Ganymede). The gits did leave 2 frames behind, an aluminum Trek 7000 frame and an unbranded steel frame with a few components on (forks/headset/handlebars/wheels).

I have decide to build the Trek frame into a bike because although the steel frame could be built up quicker and for less money, the components it has are all quite ugly and to make it something I would feel proud off would require stripping the components it already has off anyway.

Note: You can always get to this page via the Project Europa permanent link found at the top of the side bar (over there -> )

Date	Description	Links	Cost
05 Feb 2007	Trek 7000 Aluminum Frame		£0.00
05 Feb 2007	Generic Rigid MTB Forks	Forks Brought	£8.89
14 Feb 2007	APi Discussion	Respray Discussed	£0.00
31 March 2007	Frame Respray	Frame Respray	£150.00
Running Total			£158.89

Bike fork's arrived

05 March 2007 10:03

The rigid MTB fork's I ordered on eBay have arrived they look reasonably good and should look ever better once they get painted.

These fork's have cost £8.98 including delivery.

Project Total: £8.98

Camping in Littleport

04 March 2007 07:39

Last night I went camping at Riverside Camping & Caravanning, Littleport.

This camp was mainly to check my equipment and to check that I have everything I need to go further a field.

What I have got all worked well but I really do need to get myself a matress of some sort because the ground was very cold last night.

Actually the air was very cold as well, there was ice on all the car windows this morning.

The campsite dog came over and said hello after I got the tent setup by sticking his head in the door and giving everything a good snif so if got really hungry I wasnt going to have any trouble catching the local wildlife.

The camping stove worked, Saturday night I had one of those meal in a bag things (Beef Stew and Dumplings). In the morning I had scrambled egg.

Everything fits on to bike for travelling but I don't have enough room to store the camping equipment and all my biking clothes on the bike while I'm off walking. Maybe a helmet loch would solve that problem since the helmet takes up 1 side box by itself.

So I just need to get something to lie on and I'll be all set for going further-a-field next fine.

Milton Park Walk

04 March 2007 15:16

After packing the tent up from the camping last night I went straight to Peterborough for today's walk. Actually straight is misleading because the road from Littleport to Wisbech was flooded halfway along so I had to double back to Littleport and pick up the A10 and the A47 to reach Peterborough - Note to self: investigate inflatable side pontoon's for the bike.

I eventually got to the meeting point with to minutes to spare so thank god that road was shut or l would have arrived about 1.5 hours early.

The walk was 5 miles around a park near to Peterborough so it wasn't exactly challenging, even the constant rain and section's of path which were flooded didn't make it challenging.

I seemed to spend the entire walk catching up with Barbara because we haven't seen each other for a while. Sorry to eveyone on the walk I didn't talk to.

At the end of the walk only a few of us went to the pub, I always go to the pub at the end of the walks which may make me one of the most sociable people - now that's a worrying thought.

Hello, is this Mic on ?

02 March 2007 07:13

You may have noticed that this blog has been quiet for the last couple of weeks, that is because Google have been having trouble accepting posts from emails which meant that the only way to update the blog was via the website which I don't find very convenient.

So what's been happening during the "blackout"

Work is getting on my nerves for reasons that I won't go into on a public blog but the long and short of it is that l don't feel particularly appreciated for the extra effort l have put in in the past, I'm currently working strict office hours and looking for a new job.

l would like to get into technical authoring but l'm finding it hard to get my foot in the door, as a way of giving myself some authoring experience l have volunteered to be the technical author on an open source project.

I have created a first draft of the installation guide but the project owner is not responding to my entails so I can't send him the work or get a prioritised list of feature's he want's documented or essential technical information like version numbers etc.

I have also been robbed, some gits took the shed door off it's hinges and stole my mountain bike and touring bike. They aren't covered by insurance.

The police examined the shed yesterday while I was at work but I haven't heard anything from then since.

The git's did leave the 2 frames so I have decided to build 1 up into a bike.

I won an eBay auction yesterday for a set of ridged mountain bike fork's for £8.89 aid I will now be looking to get the frame end fork's resprayed.

I have decided to document the bike build so I am going to get a cheap digital camera end take lot's of pictures, I have sent off for some argos voucher's from one of my loyality card's to help pay for it.

That just about cover's everything i think.

Categories: Personal_