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Blog 8 has recently been updated to include some more items of gear I’ve bought. There will be more reviews coming shortly once I’ve properly tested them. So far have a look from here and below. I think the coolest item I’ve purchased recently are the Kayland Super Ice boots, which are at a B3 rating, meaning they have a completed stiff sole. The upper is made up of Kevlar, Carbon Fibre and Leather. I bought them because I’ve been doing a bit of ice climbing and the Salomon boots they offer are too narrow, and quite frankly smell a bit.

The page is becoming a battle of logistics as I seem to have overloaded the page a little. Bear with me as I will be looking at reducing the size of it some how. Twirl-type expandable menus are being considered, but putting the page together is proving difficult.

By the way, just ignore Blog 3 as it’s a little confusing and I won’t be sorting it out just yet. The online pics are from some old nights around the North West, some good, some bad, some shocking. Streaming music is available for you to listen to for free - again, old stuff. There are some other blogs listed to the right which might be worth a gander.

What have you been up to???

24/03/08 - Ice climbing is something I’m getting interested in. Locally to me there is an indoor ice climbing wall which is great for me as I can make use of the thrown-in belayer (I presume it’s for insurance reasons) and practice when I want. Techniques such as leg spanning, tool stacking, pigeon-toe and monkey-hang are being learnt at the moment. Even though I’ve been top-roped I have practiced placing an ice screw used for protection. There seems to be a bit of debate on what angle to choose for placing an ice screw. The chap instructing me says to place at just below perpendicular so that the direction of pull causes the teeth to bite in more than if it were horizontal. This is fine and there is certainly some truth in that, however, the sun has a factor in this. Should the sun 'melt out' the ice screw (a common occurence when multi-pitch ice climbing) then the ice screw will slide out at that angle. To alleviate this some climbers place their screws above horizontal. I don’t know enough to comment on which I think is a better option, and am just trying to get used to dealing with big gloves and the lack of dexterity.

As I’ve become more interested in ice climbing I’ve come to realise which muscles we use the most and which were should parhaps use more. When I started I would try and hold my position with a bent arm as I didn’t have the confident in my foot work to put a lot of weight on them. Holding your weight with a bent arm, gripping an ice axe and pulling your body up puts great strain on the arm muscles and rapidly increases fatigue. 'Shaking out' your arms will help circulate blood (or appears to) and although that helps bicep muscles, it seemed to do nothing for my forearms. My foot work has improved faster than my forearm muscle strength which has meant my climbing has become more fluid and graceful.

I was going to add to the above by stating that the quadricep muscles are perhaps the strongest muscles on the body, but the web seems to say it’s the tongue muscle! Anyway, quadriceps are much stronger than biceps, triceps, or deltoids and so climbing should be heavily reliant on the thigh muscles in order to maintain energy levels. Developing the monkey-hang techniques allows you to reduce fatigue even further by resting the weight of the body on the skeletal system. Placing one arm above lets you lean back on a straight arm whilst you 'walk' your legs higher. Your body does not change height, and you remain hanging mainly from one arm whilst you finish at a squatting position. From there you pull out the other ice axe, and after choosing the placement, stand up. At the same time the recently released ice axe should be planted in the chosen spot above the other placement. As soon as this is a bomber placement, lean back on that arm and repeat the process. This technique will improve overall endurance.

12/04/07 - Got back from my hols. We went to Dubai and then Thailand. Dubai was brilliant, and I’m definitely going back for the Dubai World Cup again. Thailand was just wrong as normal! I’ll be putting a few photos up shortly. I missed not taking my camera, however Ross’ point-and-shoot has certainly done the job.

My plan was to write a journal (notice how I’ve avoided the term 'diary'?) of the holiday from start to finish, but I didn’t really start it until Thailand, and then I just covered what we did in Dubai. Thailand was pretty much the same, so it would have just been the different bars. We went to a lot as due to the guys creating virtual 'shag-blocks' (i.e. if we went back to the same street where a bar was located in which one of the lads lady-friends worked, they would stick to you like a leech) we had to go to somewhere new every night, effectively.

So, I will be adding it with some of the photos from the whole event, at some point. Both eyeballs are feeling like they’ve been rubbed with sandpaper and dipped in vinegar.

We were a little messed around by the Emirates Airlines, but I still rate them as an airline. Plus their voucher helped my stave off my sister’s constant pestering for a holiday present - which of course, was bought on the way home!

What else???

04/02/07 - I’m getting in to compositing as well as my Maya 3D modelling. So after browsing the net looking for some good ideas, or some examples, I found this Peter Sanitra’s website where has has put up a demo reel of his. quite frankly it is THE best demo reel I’ve seen for an awful long time. It’s short, but very punchy. His technical 3D skill are excellent which seems nearly matched by a clever bit of compositing and editing. I strongly advise you to download the demo reel (at highest quality if you monitor / tv supports it).

It’s interesting how he comments on his website about not liking "... the Vancouver / Toronto / whatever style of demo reels, that have 10-15 seconds of work, then 1 minute of breakdowns and 2 minutes of thank you, to all supervisors, mentors and others…" Interesting because virtually all of the other demo reels are in that same style; I find it boring. Peter’s certainly stands out from the rest.

I liked it that much I even got the Linkin Park album which is the featured soundtrack used on it!


05/11/06 - NEC Bike Show 2006 in Birmingham. For those bike and bird lovers out there check out: here

27/06/06 - Recently uploaded some photos from a night out in Leeds for the Save The Children Charity. It was a Bond night, which turned out to be a pretty good night. Have a look at the photos here.

Here you will find a load of photos from a cricket match between Kersley CC and Little Lever CC.

Some random bits

Finally, for now, the image of the month. After trawling through old backup CDs for a mate who was after an old edited photo I did; I stumbled across this photo instead:



This guy is real and still is at a place I worked at some time ago. Bill, the kind of odd job man, or rather odd man.

Bratsworth’s Ringtone

Jonny On The Radio (19.5MB)