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.