Spaghetti anyone?

Take one standard VW roof panel, drill lots and lots of holes in it, cover with nice stripey material and add LED's in a vast number. Then tape them all down nicely so that it is nice and neat.

Lovely!

Then proceed to solder them all to other bits of wire to link them together. In an effort to hide the resulting mess (or maybe to keep the wires in place) add vast amounts of duct tape.

Repeat the process on the other roof panel.

Turn over and hopefully it will look a lot neater than the back...

I have also made up three of the four wiring looms to connect stuff to the incredibly neat "magic box" that takes care of the power supply\battery charging\fuse box side of things - all I need now is for the roll of tape to turn up to wrap the loom for the reversing camera. Other than that I need to do a bit more soldering so that the reversing camera has power, remove the passenger seat, run all the looms in which you can't do this without removing the passenger seat (thanks VW) chop out five LED's that would be hitting one of the roof beams if I left them in, patch up the holes where the LED's used to be, put all the roof panels in, build the switch box so that I can turn the scores of LED's etc. on and off, wire the switch box, test everything, wire up the rear speakers, test again, run in the power supply for the "magic box", refit the passengers seat, fit the "magic box", fit the leisure battery, test some more and that will hopefully be the electrics sorted. If I have doubted my sanity at any time during the construction of pROJECT mAYHEM it is probably about now as the weather has decided fuck me over big time - it has decided that Spring has either not arrived yet or it is over for this year and we have just gone into Summer which is obviously the wet season as any climber well knows!

More 'works related stuff

Went to the Climbingworks with Flipper and met my mate Duncan (another Duncan, not the Broken Beagle) down there. Was feeling a bit trashed after a very frustrating day sorting out the roof panel on pROJECT mAYHEM but after a few easy problems had been dispatched it was time to get on it. Did a few Black problems, some of which I had done before and some I hadn't and threw in a few Purples, Purple and Pink Spots and Reds to really work things out. All in all it was an hour and a half of relentless pulling hard and did I know about it today - I am officially trashed. Didn't bother with the campus board as that would just have been a bridge too far - getting 20 press-ups done at the end of the session near killed me as it was.

Anyway hopefully either the Black circuit or the Purple will get changed soon - the Black has been up since before Christmas and it really starting to show its age but the Purple is in as bad if not worse state. The Purple circuit is probably at the upper end of my limit but the few problems that I have done are really good - loads of slopers requiring a lot of shoulder power and a fair degree of core strength and technique as well. The problem is that it the almost unanimously slopey holds (which is half of the reason why it is so good in the first place) are now caked in multiple layers of chalk and grime. Sure they could be brushed but one suspects that it would be a full on work out just to clean half of the holds on half of the problems. Come on you Climbingworks chaps, get to it and give us some nice new circuits at our level to play on!

Bringing out the A-Game

Saturday night featured copious amounts of beer, vodka and Red Bull before finally culminating in revisiting the Leadmill and then getting in sometime around 2.30AM armed with a greasy kebab and fries.

Given this bringing out the A-Game was never going to be much of an option when I finally joined Flipper at the Climbingworks just before 3PM the following day. In all honesty there would be a necessity to add some more letters to the alphabet to describe the sorry state that was my game when I got there and this transferred directly to my feeble thrashings on the first few greens problems in an effort to warm up. From there it was on the the remaining black problems that hadn't been done the session before and things slowly started to improve - it wasn't a tour de force by any means but at least it wasn't a total waste of an afternoon. As an after thought I decided to have a quick campus and amazed myself by being able to do 1-3-5 on the second largest set of rungs and 1-4 on my left on the largest set. 1-4 on my right was not happening though - I could hit the rung but the extra inch or so to latch it wasn't happening but all in all I was pretty impressed given I a was a fat hungover knacker! Next time the mission is to have a go at the new red circuit, nail 1-4 on my right and then try 1-4-6 on both - ah the joys of being foolish!

Bury My Beagle At Bummers Knee.

Got out of work early last night and went to the works with the Flipper last night - turned out to be a good session all round for fat weak punters like us on the Black circuit. The black circuit has been up for ages now and still retains its brilliance but it is really bloody annoying when you are trying a problem that has had a random hold removed from it for reasons that a simpleton like me fails to understand. Why do it - surely the Climbingworks can afford more than one of every hold and not be forced to "steal" a hold from a good circuit for (I am guessing) the comp wall? Just don't do it!

Other than that managed almost half a circuit before I had to remove my climbing shoes which is great as it makes forgetting my shoes on the Wales trip and having to pay large for a new pair seem like a good plan in retrospect. Now getting them through the breaking in period and really happy with them - in fact I am so happy with them I am going to buy another pair when I can afford to which judging by the state of my bank account at the minute will be sometime after 2015.

Saw the Broken Beagle as well who was going to get an assessment from The Clinic chaps but the initial prognosis I heard was 6-8 weeks out of the game which is not good. It was obviously depressing for him as he wouldn't come down the Sheaf for a post climb pint afterwards - punter... ;-)

Edit: just got this update via the power of email about a mate who met us in the pub last night in a state that would be called merry by the extremely charitable:

"...what a mess. He stumbled around, set off home the wrong way, twatted around a bit more, fell into the kebab shop, and thats where I left him! I hastily set off up the hill not looking back. There were no bodies on the road this morning so presumably he got home."

Bless him...

Stuff

Yesterday was a good day if you exclude the fact that I was at work. The leisure battery for the van was delivered so now I have no excuse (apart from the snow) not to start on the electrics on pROJECT mAYHEM. Mere words can not express how much I am looking forward to laying in the road and running the cable for the split charger in but once it is done then that should be that and the next stage of the conversion can start.

To add to the good news the reversing camera and monitor was also delivered and when I got home the coffee I had ordered from hasbean had arrived (super fast deliverey, would buy from again. A* etc.) so at least I will be well caffeine-ated when I am laying in the road and swearing about skinned knuckles, the general indignity of it all and the like.

Last but not least I think I have decided on the project for next winter but I won't say too much for now - I need to finish off the one that is currently occupying me and then get a good summer of climbing in first...

Other stuff

One of the reasons that I have been out of the loop re: blogging for a while is that I have been doing stuff on pROJECT mAYHEM though not as much as I would have liked due to missing the best part of a month down to Christmas and then the wintry conditions which followed.

Another reason is that (for me at least) I have been climbing a fair bit in the last week or so. First outing was a part of a mates 40th birthday do in Wales which resulted in a first time visit to the Sheep Pen Boulders. It wasn't the most productive of trips as I had consumed what could quite rightly be called a prodigious amount of beer the night before but spending the night in the van seemed to have mitigated the worst of the ill effects that I really should have been feeling so off we went. The great plan was also hampered by yours truly forgetting to pick up his bag of climbing gear when leaving Sheffield resulting in a rather painful outlay of £80 that I really couldn't afford but the resulting day spent luxuriating in the relative painlessness obtained by going up half a size helped. Unfortunately the new shoes didn't make the walk in any easier (I thought I was Fiend I was blowing so badly) or give me access to vast amounts of previously untapped talent - if anything the talent available was even less than usual. First couple of problems got dispatched and then I had a major wobble topping something out which rather shocked me and things lulled for a while before going on to try a fair few problems at the top end of my ability and not getting too far. This was largely down to the rather awkward style of climbing on the Sheep Pen Boulders (it might be a feature of the rock but I haven't done enough in North Wales to say). This is not to say that the climbing is bad - it is very good but all of us struggled a bit to come to terms with the movement required. A few more trips to figure out how to unlock the rock and I think I could get quite good (relatively speaking) on it as it seems to suit the basics of my climbing with good edges and quite powerful moves all wrapped up in some improbable sequences. Nice! Finished off the day trying Dog Shooter which is totally my style and should go next time with a bit more commitment and a bit more fitness.

Thursday was the Climbingworks with Flipper and Beagles - tried the green and pink spots circuit which started off OK before descending at about problem 13 into a mass of nasty thrutchy oddness which really didn't find any sort of appreciation from me. Did OK though considering I had finished work at 7AM that morning - flashed one of the black and purple spots problems at about 6a+ which I was pleased with and then promptly ran out of steam. Good fun all round but it proved to me that I need to get some fitness and soon!

Saturday\Sunday was spent at Almscliff - the Saturday wasn't much fun with a baltic wind blowing in and the odd shower following it. Went to have a look at The Crucifix but the ground underneath was a churned up bog so sacked that idea, played on Flying Arête and got the start worked a bit better and then decided to sack it off to the pub as we were fed up with being cold and the weather was closing in again. Sunday was a better day - got Pork Chop Slab first time and then played around on the overhanging 6a problem from a sitter to the left until I pulled something in my shoulder\back which wasn't good. Thankfully it only seems to be a minor pull and seems to have settled down OK so just the ignominy of getting burnt off on a problem that I know should have been in the bag and finished with to cope with now.

Gah!!

How long....

It has been nearly a month since I last rambled on so what is new in the world of butters then? pROJECT mAYHEM continues to progress and the worst of it seems to be over and the end is in sight allegedly. The rear speaker housing has been completed, the speaker cables have been belled out and once a few other tasks have been finished off the van will feature its full complement of 11 speakers but for now though I am just revelling in the sound of phat bass emanating from the working sub woofer. I finally got round to sorting out replacing the amp that was driving the sub (or not in this case), sorting out a few other minor tasks at the same time and getting the HPF's sorted with rather impressive results even though I say so myself. I am still getting a small degree of bass rattle through the passenger side speaker but I was half expecting this and it is only at very high volume so I can live with it for now. Eventually I will get round to fixing the problem permanently as is down to the door card not being fitted correctly but it is a job for a fine day as it is quite possibly the most frustrating job know to man to remove and refit the bloody thing.

Anyway here are a few pics of the rear speaker housing to be getting on with for now - I did take some of the speakers in place as well but they are rubbish so just make up some pretty pictures in your head as they are likely to be just as good as the reality.