Stuff, stuff and more stuff.

The weather actually turned out half decent yesterday afternoon so I got cracking on pROJECT mAYHEM for a while. Finished off the wiring looms and got those cable tied in so they are ready to be run down the B pillar when we eventually get a couple of consecutive days worth of decent weather whenever that will be. Also stripped out the reversing camera and painted the hole where the camera goes with a couple of coats of Hammerite to make sure that any idea of rusting is stopped in its tracks.

After that I got side tracked with a stereo wiring issue on some kids car. It has been a while since I saw a wiring job done with such a lack of skill - it was a classic example of letting a monkey do something that they have the minimal knowledge required to get the end result. Honestly the Albanian Rat Hound could have done a better job of it. As if the god awful state of the wiring wasn't enough as final insult to everything the radio had blown a fuse. The usual thing to do in this situation is to buy a new fuse and trying to figure out why it blew in the first place but the Johnny Cock-Shaft option was to wrap the fuse with a strip of copper wire! Fucking monkeys!! From what I can tell this prize piece of engineering has resulted in the live running to the radio burning out so I sent him off to buy a new fuse for the radio and an in-line fuse as I am going to have to run a new live feed in and there is no way that it is going in without some sort of safety mechanism in place. Thankfully the rain saved me from having any further dealings with it yesterday but assuming that the whole thing doesn't catch fire first it will have to be looked at soon. I can see that I will also end up sorting out his sub which has been wired in with a similar skill level from the brief look I had yesterday - expect some more prime ranting when I get round to dealing with that!

After getting away from that it was off to a really quiet Climbingworks with the Flipper - excellent session all round and contrary to expectation I flashed another CWIF problem which I was rather pleased about - probably 6a+ or really soft 6b but still got it sent first go. Did a load of other stuff - if it looked good we tried it and even though we didn't seem to be pushing it that hard I was ragged after two hours. My tips felt like they were on fire which was probably a result of trying a particularly savage CWIF problem featuring an overhanging arête and ridiculously small holds - bloody brutal and equally brilliant at the same time. One thing I can tell is that I am getting some raw power back again and what I consider to be a base level problem is going up all the time - something that I would have expected to take three or fours goes a fortnight ago I now think I should flash. The one area that's proving to be a big weakness at the minute is pulling hard on small holds (half digit sized) - I can hold them fine but just can not do anything with them which is frustrating. Anyway it will come soon I hope but I suspect that it won't be before next Wednesday...

Minimal Progress

Got a bit done on pROJECT mAYHEM yesterday and was hoping for good things from the weather today but it seems to be mainly intermittent hail showers at the minute which is not good. Still one must persist so I am going to try and finish off a few small tasks in between the showers and then off to the Climbingworks tonight with Flipper and Twitter. Maybe I will flash another one of the CWIF qualifying problems though I suspect that in reality I found the one soft problem in the entire circuit and flailed up it manfully because every other problem I tried gave a whole new meaning to the expression "hard as nails".

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...