Climbing 4s and 5s - 28/01/09
Tonight was nearly a frustrating night. I'd planned to go to the climbing wall, but Phil wasn't getting back to me, so it was nearly a pisser, but I'd actually arranged with Vinny at work to meet him at the wall, so the night wasn't lost. I appeared improved my grade this time; well my climbing was more reliable - only came off once. Was consistently climbing 4s and 5s and managed half way up a 6a, which I was pretty happy with. Sore hand now though.

Shining Clough Crag - 25/01/09
I'd seen on UKClimbing.com that there was a decent looking crag just near Shining Clough, so I decided to have a walk over. Looking across at the wall from 50-70metres away it was difficult to see what was so special about it. I actually thought I had the wrong crag. However, when you get closer its presence was shocking. As someone who isn't the best with heights the 20-25metres it stood above me give me the jitters. I'd love to be at the right skill level to climb it though.

Beer Festival - 23/01/09
Beer festival tonight. Managed to last until 8:30pm with £20. Stuck with a couple of nice beers, which were Crop Circle and Hatton Pale. Both were light in colour, but packed with flavour. Lots of men with too much hair, leather and very round belly!

Dropped - 22/01/09
The climbing wall tonight was good. It's damn hard, although we went straight for 4s and 5s, when we perhaps should have stuck with 3s. In the end we had to do a bit of cheating. It was really good to go and I was shocked that Phil wanted to become a member, which meant he was keen to go again ad carry on going. He did drop me, but managed to grab the rope at the last minute, however!

Run at the Gym - 21/01/09
Went to the gym at work today and ran 4.8km in 20 minutes. Should have pushed myself a little more to get it to 5km in 20 mins, but was starting to get really hot - long-sleeved top and tracksuit bottoms! Am looking at getting the time down to 18 minutes. Was supposed to be going to the climbing wall tonight, but it's been rescheduled to tomorrow. Beer festival on at the moment, yum!

Ice Climbing with Xmas Weight - 18/01/09
Managed to get a session booked on the ice wall. Good to get back at it. The extra weight I put on over xmas and my lack of recent visits to the wall made the prospect of doing some routes a bit daunting. Still, I seemed to get back into it straight away.

All Booked Up - 17/01/09
Wanted to go ice climbing today. The wall was all booked up unfortunately.

Xmas Weight - 16/01/09
Decided that my xmas weight (an extra 3kg) had to go, so went to the gym at work and ran 5km at a fair pace and then went on the exercise bike for 10 minutes. I sweated like a bitch. The run wasn't difficult, but I had two annoyances: 1 I kept having to adjust my earphones as they pulled out, or worked their way lose and sounded tinny. 2 I kept looking to see how much time was left on the display, which just made it drag even longer.

Cold - 10/01/09
-1.5 degree C today. Yowzers.

iFart - 09/01/09
iFart had the office in stitches today. There are a few funny features - Sneak Attack (timed), Security Fart (motion detection), Record-A-Fart (like I need to explain) and finally Fart-A-Friend (email bum outbursts). It cost £0.59, which of course if far ffrom breaking the bank, but I fear it's a slippery slope when I start paying and paying... I was going to install LogMeIn, but then saw the price tag of £18.99!

Google Earth - 08/01/09
I've installed Google Earth for the iPhone. It's a great program on the PC and it's brilliant that I can use it on my phone too.

iPhone - 07/01/09
Decided to bite the bullet and get an iPhone. I was about 6 months after my contract end and had recently found out that as I'd not upgraded (thus renewing my contract) O2 ceased my loyalty discount (despite me paying them every month as per the norm!). I've got for the 16GB version. It's pretty snazzy, however I'm conscious about how easily it will scratch and have a screen protector on it already.

Beckoning Silence - 06/01/09
Been reading Joe Simpson's The Beckoning Silence recently. I've had it for a while and can't for the life of me remember whether I've read it before. It seems pretty good. Think I've sorted the 'BOOT DISK ERROR INSERT SYSTEM DISK AND PRESS ENTER' - it's either a problem with the new disk being added corrupting the old disks' MBR, or it's simply that I had a SATA cable floating around with nothing attached. When the problem occurs leaving the Windows DVD in the drive (but not pressing 'any key') allows the PC to boot - which is odd. I'm guessing it's the cable issue though, but will test properly tonight.

Hot Office - 05/01/09
First day back in the office today... not good. It doesn't help that it's 23 degrees C!

Roast Lamb - 04/01/09
Succulent roast lamb today for dinner - delicious. Added a couple of disks to my PC to make another RAID array and it goosed up the MBR! Have had to run chkdsk /r /f to sort it. Annoying.

Fooood - 03/01/09
Haven't done a great deal today apart from shop for food and then cook it. Made carrot and coriander soup today. Have gammon soaking for tomorrow. Food, food, lovely food.

Chippy Lunch - 02/01/09
Had chips, meat and potato pie, peas and gravy! Oh and a can of Vimto. Quality.

Party Time - 01/01/09
Ughh...didn't get to bed until 6am this morning, but because of the party still going on in the next room I didn't sleep properly. Eventually went home at 10am, then shivered all day in bed. I'm never drinking again. Probably.