Friday 14th September, 2007

A sign of things to come…

Posted by at 11:42 am in Great Escapes, Just for fun, LMAO!.

I'm packed and ready to go, I'll have to be wary of the road signs, though. Methinks it's a p155-take!

🙂

Thursday 13th September, 2007

Deep Thought

Posted by at 11:18 am in A bit of a rant, Rambling on....
Maybe I'm being a bit dim, but how is it possible to have multi-grain corn flakes? Multi-grain flakes... yes, I can understand that concept, that would be flakes made from a range of different types of grain, one of which may or may not be corn... but multi-grain corn flakes? Is it possible to have multi-grain corn? Whatever, it still doesn't sound right.  

  While we're on the subject of confusion, how can a cinema matinée be an afternoon showing, when the word is derived from the French for "morning"? Finally, what's the point in providing a template for drilling the fixing holes for radiator brackets? Today I used one to fix a new radiator to the bathroom wall... after the brackets were screwed on, I used a spirit-level to check that the brackets were the same height, them put the rad on... the result? - a 4-degree slope on the radiator. OK, rad off, recheck brackets, rad back on, check seating of backstraps in bracket-slots, all's fine but got the same result. I downed-tools for 90 minutes, two ciggies and a cup of tea while confusion reigned, then I had a look at the back of the radiator to find that the tosspot manufacturer had welded the backstraps on in the wrong place. So now I've got to reposition one of the brackets to compensate for somebody else's shoddy workmanship. Feck! It's all too much. I need to take a break. Hopefully this coming weekend away in Wales will suffice.

Sunday 9th September, 2007

Ho hum… bored yet?

Posted by at 12:39 pm in Name and Shame, Rambling on....

Yet another thread about Gear Zone.

!

Saturday 8th September, 2007

Nice one, George

Posted by at 6:22 pm in LMAO!, Video (YouTube, Vimeo etc.).

I laughed so much that it hurts!

Thanks, George.

Friday 7th September, 2007

Maybe next time?

Posted by at 2:54 pm in Just for fun, LMAO!.
Due to, er, family commitments, I didn't enter the 2007 World Beard & Moustache Championships. It looks like fun - I must remember to get my entry in for the 2009 event. The trouble is, they don't seem to have a category for "Wild and Unkempt". Maybe I should contact them to see if they can sort it out?

Tuesday 4th September, 2007

Making stuff

Posted by at 7:14 pm in Camera kit, Making stuff, Projects.
Tags:

At last I got some time between DIY jobs to make a few of the things that I can't be arsed to buy, or which just can't be had at the shops.

First up - I made a footprint for the Vango Spectre tent. Same plan as usual - get a cheap green woven plastic tarp from the Pound Shop (cost 50p, no, I can't figure that either), cut to shape, fold over the cut edges and iron them down to make them stick. The addition of three plastic eyelets (10p each) is the only other cost. Making a few X-shaped cuts in the fabric (for drainage) finishes the job.

Next up - a reflector for the Nikon remote unit. The D50's IR sensor is on the front of the body, so it doesn't detect a signal from behind. There are a few proper gadgets available for dealing with this situation, all of them involve an unwieldy fixed-attitude plastic reflecting plate that's attached to the lens with a bit of bungee cord, like this:

 

 

I made a more compact hinged version by cutting down a redundant sd-card case and attaching a rubber band. Using this, the remote works a treat from behind and from the side, and the whole thing is a better fit into my camera case.

Finally - pull-loops for the latest batch of Alpkit Tikes. These pegs come with a length of heavy-duty red cord attached, it's fine for most applications but I find that a) the bulk takes up room in the pack which I could use for something else, and b) the red colour is difficult to see at night. Said cords have been replaced with off-cut lengths of fluoro-yellow dyneema which is much easier to see in the dark and which has very little bulk. You can just about see them in the following picture of the "big red slug":

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