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The life and times of Chris Jones

A pretty ordinary blog

Update time. The new car is ABSOLUTELY FLIPPING BRILLIANT. I’ve been driving it for a few weeks now and I can honestly say woo. Woo I say. The best thing is the Air Con. It was the hottest day of the year so far today - Not as hot as where it might be for a lot of people, but with the sun out it seemed even warmer. With the Air Con on, though, there was no need for any windows to be electrically brought down!

I went Quad biking at Catton hall on the weekend. It was brilliant. We turned up a bit early, after overestimating the drive time, but a guy was available, and so it was just us three on the entire 15km course. They’re very easy to drive, as they were automatic. It’s quite the thrill, and I recommend it to everyone, provided you’re over 18.

Last weekend we’ve started preparing ourselves to walk up Snowdon. I could probably do it now, as long as you know that there’s no turning back, but when there’s a car waiting for you back in the car park, the temptation to turn around when tired can prove too much. (Personal experience, Moel Famau) - Which leads me to think we need to park in Llanberis, and take the bus to the Pen y Pass pathways, so we need to press on to get home. Anyway, while walking up a random hill last weekend, I discovered a valley filled with bits of industrial past. Being a sucker for abandoned industrial equipment, I took some photos:

Looks like an old Aerial ropeway!

Hurray! I now have a new car sitting in the drive.

More photos soon! Woo.

I was recently rummaging through some old things. My Grandfather was a fireman (in the steam engine sense) for British Railways in pre-dieselisation days. However, when Dieselisation came along, he took a position as a driver, operating out of the depot at Wrexham.

While rummaging recently, I came across an old book (left) dated 1962. The design is that of Class 55 Deltics, showing its dominance in peoples minds even then. At first, this might be naught more than your standard old book. Inside, to begin with, is a brief history of diesel engines. Seriously, it’s as if people had never considered combustion engines before, and for most railwaymen of the time, they wouldn’t have come into contact with one that often. There are technical readouts of diesel engines and how to perfom simple maintenance and even reparation tasks - A different mindset from today where our health and safety laws prevent a driver messing about with the mechanics. There’s even blueprints of the “Type 4 IC CI”, “Type 4 B-B” and the Class 08. Such a find was interesting, but as I was thumbing through the pages, I came across several old, brown documents. Each was dated 1893 and was handwritten, different from the text I had been reading.

Each one is signed by a Mr “G Grant”, and two seem to regard the Eisteddfod at Llandudno and passenger excursions, and the rest rugby clubs. A single letter is from the superintendent of Carriages and wagons Paddington station, and seems to grant some horse boxes and enclosures for usage. Every letter has been signed by “Mr Edgecombe”, leading me to believe he was filing these documents or was a secretary for G Grant.

I contacted the National Rail museum, but they already have similar correspondence in their archives and are not interested. I will attempt the local history museum and see if they will be interested in taking care of these letters, as I fear their condition will deteriorate if left around here.

I don’t think there’ll be any photos for me to take this weekend, what with the fact that taking my car above 1500rpm might send shards of metal flying around.

This is a shame, as I’ve found the right setting to make the D40 stop overexposing grey skies.

My current car is now on it’s last legs. A trip through a deep puddle at speed has bent a conrod.

 This here’s your typical cylinder setup. Mine has four of these. Now, water entered the engine through the air intake. It rushed into the gap between the piston head and the top of the cylinder. When it was the turn of the piston to come back up to the top, it couldn’t compress the water and all the energy was transferred to the connecting rod (Green) beneath the piston head. This bent it laterally.

A car in front had suffered the same problem, and the AA guy who came out to help him decided to spend five minutes on mine for free. After removing the ignition system and spark plugs (the tall thin element between the valves in the image), and turning over the engine, water was forced up and out of the engine. The car then started, and still runs now. Unfortunately I can’t take the RPM of the engine above 1500 else there’s a chance the seriously weakened con-rod will shatter and send high speed pieces of shrapnel in all directions.

So, a new car is needed. I have the loan money now (£7500), which will also pay for a year of fully comprehensive insurance.

So, what will I get? I’m uncertain, but advice is telling me to go for a 1.6 VW Golf or a 1.6 Vauxhall/Opel Astra.  According to WhatCar?, I should go for the Astra, as it’s very cheap to buy and run. For example, even a 1.7 Turbo-Diesel Astra has cheaper insurance than my current car had.

Any suggestions? Please add a comment below!

It has been decided that I shall ascend it’s slopes on foot. I have the maps and the gear. It will be done after Easter. If it’s nice enough Ben Nevis may be tried later on. It’s not much in the way of climbing mountains (ask johnmit), but it’s a start.

As I sit in my chair, busting open bottles of Stella Artois with my molars, catching a whiff of the dog basket and scowling (that thing’s waterproof and the dog can’t control itself), another week has come to an end. It’s not a particularly interesting week. It’s not even that interesting in my own life, but I just wanted to write an interesting paragraph into which you would read expecting some sort of life story. But you were wrong, you fool.

Today I went on another North Wales wide journey. This time alone, and again, with my camera. I find I can put the strap over the passenger’s headrest and it makes a perfect substitute for my brother. Today’s weather was very strange. It was sunny, yet snow had miraculously appeared on the mountains by the afternoon. I left the house around 2PM, so when I got back around half eight in the evening it was dark. I tried experimenting with night shots but I left the tripod behind so couldn’t hold the camera still enough. I saw some interesting things on my journey that I didn’t photograph. There was a massive bulky fugly crane near Corwen. Not tall massive, but just bulky massive. Next to it were two massive bridge beams. Looks like they’re finally about to replace an old Telford A5 bridge.

It looks, from this photo, that the Snowdon summit cafe is almost finished. They’ve been using the Snowdon Mountain Railway to deliver supplies to the summit, there being no road access. You can still see the summit stone on this photo, contrasting against the grey cloud and snow.

Yesterday I went out to watch the Welsh match versus Ireland. Hurrah! We wins. Last year, when I went to the Murrayfield Stadium only to see us get squashed by the Scots, Fragged by the French, and Electrocuted by the Irish and Italians, it was only a joy to see that we still won versus England. Woo.

However this year it’s all wins. WINS I SAY. WINS.

Next week we have France to beat to with the Grand Slam. It should be possible to beat the French, heck, England beat em, and we beat England! So, here’s hoping to winning the Grand Slam in 2008.

Oh, and check this out. It’s a nifty RTS game that I’ve become addicted to.

Been out in the car again in another phototaking adventure. I’ll make a note to start going to new places.

Finally, a spot of good weather combined with some proper transport other than a sporadic bus has allowed photography!

I’ve modified Tenebrae’s blog title to fit this post! Mwahahahaha!

The car is FIXED. Hurray! Finally I can leave behind the people matchbox known as a service bus, with it’s smoky smell created by unruly teenagers and the exorbitant prices for three miles. For many weeks now I’ve had to wait in all conditions for that bus, and it’s been most very cold and very wet, as well as very dark. As the nights are now continuously getting lighter, greater care can be taken to ensure I don’t make mistakes while driving again.

Where next? I shall wait until April, when I shall get a new car. Why April? My computer tells me that is when I bought it, meaning a full year of credit card. By then my credit limit on my card should have been upgraded largely, as well as the credit rating I have, allowing my loans to be larger. What should I get? Any suggestions in a comment below. (or above, I forget where the button is.)

Looks like the morons in Leeds have sent us a Rover 75 radiator, which is like a third the extra length. Looks like I won’t be driving for another week. However, a quick trip to “Wrexham Radiators” in town bought us the right one. Here’s them compared. The right one is at the top.

Apparently the wrong one is for a Rover 45. Pretty stupid as the rest of the parts we ordered were for a 25. Arrrgh more. However, a quick trip to a local breakers yard has revealed a similar 25, in a similar conundrum, except it was hit on the passenger side, meaning everything we need is really cheap and really intact. Tomorrow we shall be going to collect said pieces.

It seems however, that my car has an alarm related to the bonnet, as it sporadically goes off when locked now, and always goes off when the bonnet is lifted. Evil.

So, I bought a new lens. I haven’t been anywhere with it to be able to photograph anything at all of interest, and the weather is poor, so there’s no “showcase shots” yet, apart from a few on the Flickr.

This weekend, for which rain has been forecasted, is the weekend on which we are to fix my car. Most parts have arrived, and the headlight that didn’t come doesn’t really matter because the current smashed one still works. I only need a new indicator case now.

I also feel inclined to show a picture of the mini Big-Daddy I have come into ownership of:

As can be seen, he is in good health and well cared for.

Reseated the CPU three more times and hey presto, it works. It’s a bit fiddly, this new CPU. I’ve ordered an external 500GB eSATA drive as I’m low on space. I already have an eSATA slot, but it comes with a PCI eSATA card anway. Madness I say.

2007 has been a particularly interesting year for me. It started on a high with my first full time job at Avox. (In fact it’s my first Avoxiversary tomorrow). The working year ended with a nice Christmas Dinner with the fellow Quality Assurance peeps and then a nice Bowling session with all.

As a result of said steady income, I was finally able to get a high end computer, which, right now, has decided to play silly buggers with the even newer Quad Core CPU I bought (more below). I’ve also been able to obtain a proper Mp3 player, a Creative Zen Vision:M, which seems to be built like a tank (it once fell off the dashboard out an open window on a mini-rounabout in town, and I still retrieved it unscathed). It’s also filled with all sorts of features. I’ve also gone through four digital cameras, starting with a medium-low end Olympus, then even further down to a shitey ViviCam (seriously, wtf?) 5660, then up to a top of the range (for a compact, and at the time) Samsung NV11, and now finally onto a Nikon D40 DSLR camera. Hurray! Apart from that I’ve bought practically every new well anticipated game this year that isn’t still held in a box by the publishers.

I’ve also attended the TT-Forums meeting in Birmingham which was really fun, for a pub, and then there was Gran Canaria, which, while hot and sticky (I hate hot weather, give me cold, while perfect visibility), was also extremely seedy and tacky. Seriously, even the cheaply obtained goods try to sell you things. “YOU’VE WON A FREE HOLIDAY HOUSE JUST BY MAKING EYE CONTACT” - Gah, please, I’d rather France. Everyone just doesn’t care there, and that’s all you need.

Then there was also the incident involving my car and the other car and the damage incurred. Well, I’ve gotten most of the damaged bodywork off now, and everything underneath is looking quite unscathed. I only need the new radiator and light to get it on the move. But gah, really, they just don’t seem to be arriving. >:( If I can’t get my car fixed soon I’ll just stop caring and buy a new car.

Here’s to 2008, may it be an even better year, assuming I don’t die or the apocalypse happens. (I’m an optimist, me.)

Now, my computer. The CPU. I had this problem while installing it, it was just a case of reseating the CPU and heat sink to make it work. The only problem is that the current Intel heat sinks are so shitty to install correctly, it gets really frustrating. What made it even more frustrating yesterday was that after I’d put the old, surplus heat sink on quite simply and quickly (even thought it’s identical to the current one), I realised there was no thermal paste on it and didn’t want to risk anything so resorted to the newer one again. I finally got the newer one on after much pressure and worrying that I’d break the motherboard, only to find that reseating it didn’t work. I’ll try again later, after I have something to remove stray particles in the actual CPU socket.

Well well well, another year gone. It’s Christmas again, and the season of giving has arrived. Amongst some of the things I got are:

• An electric shaver; Finally I can erase those hairs with ease!
• A “Quad Trekking Experience” at Catton Hall.
• Bioshock Collectors edition - With a small Big Daddy! Woo.

For myself, using a large amount of money I came into, I bought a DSLR camera. It’s a Nikon D40, which, after trawling through Wrexham’s shops today, I found to be the cheapest, but I got it with a 3 year extended warranty just in case. Cue photos;

Now. I realise that in the space of only a single year that this is my fourth camera this year. (1 2 (TT-Meet peeps may remember this one) 3 4), but so what? I must just like buying several cameras!

The parts for the car still haven’t arrived. Grr. I need them so I can get out there and take some photomographs!