The life and times of Chris Jones

Conquering Mountains

Well, on Sunday the 21st March, me and two friends from work successfully climbed Snowdon, the highest mountain in England and Wales, at 1085m (3500ft (ish)). Three weeks later, we climbed Cadair Idris. With Snowdon, the journey was filled with much peril and adventure but we persevered and made it to the peak and then back to the car park in eight and a half hours. That’s more than a full working day. Hell, throw in the drive times and intial picking up of people it was more than 13 hours!

We made it up and down with no major problems, apart from a ridge near the top which was very narrow and flanked by steep, near vertical 1000ft drops. The weather was horrible, although initially sunny and clear, this became cloudy. Then overcast. Then rain. Then heavy rain. Then heavy, freezing rain. Combined with the Snow at the top, which in places was in excess of 8ft, this was the worst weather I had ever experienced. Below is a truncated video of the 13 minute Facebook one. Sorry for the crazy Aspect ratio, first iPhone video.

With Cadair Idris, it was completely different. The weather was sunny and clear all day. So much so that we burned ourselves. The climb was a lot easier, and the views, perfect. We got lost in Dolgellau for a short while, but made it to the Snowdonia National Park Car park for the Pony Path. On the way down, I broke the strap on my birthday watch when I fell and smashed the steel buckle to pieces between a rock and my wrist. Almost two weeks later, and the scratches the buckle left in my wrist are still present. Cadair Idris was particularly busy, so we stopped and waiting on a particularly comfortable piece of grass for people to overtake until we were relatively alone. We made it up and down inside six hours, but the weather was partly to blame of this; we weren’t exactly rushing up the mountain, and stopped several times to take in the view and the weather.

We will be climbing Glyder Fach in May; hopefully we can be photographed on the Cantilever Stone!

Cadair Idris was definitely the better mountain to climb. We will be retackling Snowdon’s other paths inevitably, including the notorious Watkin Path. There’s even been talk of learning to rock climb!

And now for the obligatory photo montage. Only the last two are from Snowdon. I didn’t want to break my camera with rain! Not that it matters much, but there’ll be a post on that in a few days…

Christmas, and 2009

2009 has been an excellent year! Many exciting and different things have happened, from Edinburgh earlier this year to Alton Towers in August and then London just two weeks ago.

There was also the TT meet in York back in July which I hurriedly left to get to the annual unofficial Avox summer party which was awesome even more so. The journey back was perhaps the fastest I had ever driven my car, definitely over 110mph for at least most of the M62. I managed the entire York to Coedpoeth journey in 1hr 35mins! Speeding through towns and villages is dangerous and I do stick to the speed limits there, but the motorways, everyone seems to go faster anyway!

I got quite some things for Christmas, namely a few DVD box sets. I also spent money on other people this Christmas! Not going mad and buying a D40 like I did two years ago when I should have been paying for the car repairs.

I have now come into possession of a fancy iPhone 3GS. I have upgraded my phone, but downgraded my contract. I now pay £10 less!

Of course, the Winter of 2009/10 will always be remembered as the one with all the snow. It first fell, to my memory, on or before the 18th of December. I look outside today, on the 20th January, and it is partly still there. This is the longest there has been a snow covering where I live since the 1960’s. I liked it. I kn The added danger of driving on the snow and ice made the journey to and from work a lot more exciting and varied, a feeling I used to try to induce by trying a new route or shortcut every day. I have only been driving since 2006, but I can tell the amount of traffic on our roads has grown exponentially even in these past four years.

I could once, given a minute or two early departure from Redwither Tower (which we always used to do, running for the cars!), I could be at home by 5:15. Now, in 2010, I cannot get home until after 5:30. The only hope is the industrial estate access road project, the last of which I heard was meant to start work on Dec 1st. This has not happened which has mostly annoyed me!

Oh well, here’s to more blog posts this year.

P.S.: BTW, this is my first attempt at a post with Windows Live writer. It’s quite good, if I do say so myself, for a Windows program (see image below)!!

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A week Off

Just Guess

Last week I had a week off. During that week, I went to Cardiff to watch the Australia vs Wales rugby game, which we lost, stayed over for a night, and then also went to London later in the week.

On Saturday we went to Cardiff. it was a standard drive, I’ve even driven there and back in a day without stopping just as part of one of my random drives once. We have an early start, and then drive. I went in my own car, and arrived first, parking in an NCP next to the Hotel. We then wandered to the Stadium, and watched the game. It was disappointing for us, as the Welsh team just didn’t seem to make any attacks until it was far too late.

Welsh attack!

After the game we walked all the way to Cardiff bay in the pouring rain, but couldn’t find a place to eat, so caught the train back. It was a beaten up old Class 121, which must be the oldest thing on the British Rail network, as it appeared to be made from wood! Once we got back to Cardiff Queen Street, we found it closed, so had to catch another train to Cardiff Central, which was teeming with drunken Wales supporters by this time. We saw quite a few Australians, but this was true of last year as well, they seem to be the only people who make an effort to get here! We eventually made it to a KFC and then retreated to the hotel

The fine urban view.

The hotel itself is The Big Sleep Cardiff, they apparently have a few UK locations. The Cardiff one was an old Office tower block converted to a hotel. It wasn’t bad, and there was kind of a view (left). Fortunately, we all got a good nights sleep, and, as in Edinburgh in February, me and my Dad got in a few drinks at the Hotel bar before bed.

After a few days of really late sleep ins, we went to London, through Wrexham & Shropshire. Although taking a lot longer than alternatives, the service was direct, and generally a pleasure to use, not to mention value for money. Although it was dark outside, as we caught the 5:12 from Wrexham.

Tower Bridge and HMS Belfast

We got to Marylebone at around 9AM – and hopped on a tour bus. This took around around all the major sights, which I promptly took photos of. During this tour I am certain I viewed an A380 flying over the city. Even though they have apparently made a touch and go on the nearby Broughton Airbus wing factory, I have never seen one. Missed a photo though, unfortunately.

After the tour, we walked around some of the minor attractions, and then made motions to head for Marylebone, where there was a pub where we had some beers. Then we got on the train. The return route was slightly different – it avoided New Street and went via Birmingham International instead. Even though this happened, we were only five minutes late. There were a bunch of Shropshire ladies talking about their horses and how slow the train was – I swear those type of people would purchase Easyjet tickets and then complain about the service.

Anyway, it was a good week off, and as Christmas fast approaches, it looks like I’m going to have some more things to post as christmas draws near.

Obligatory photo montage, attack!

Best disaster film ever?

Yawn

It has been almost 20 days since my blog post, and nothing has happened.

This disturbs me very sprites.

To combat this I shall plan a trip to London and also go to Thorpe Park.

Alton Towers!

The journey there was filled with much japery.

So, yesterday a bunch of us Avox types went to Alton Towers. It was a great day out, and as I haven’t been since 2004, a lot had changed, and I was able to try out Rita: Queen of Speed and the Spinball Whizzard for the first times. In all, 11 of us went, and that equals good times.

I got up around 7:30, and left to go get petrol and screenwash at 8am. I was meant to pick up three people at twenty past, but they were late and only came out around half past, the time we were meant to leave! With an hour and a half journey ahead, we were supposed to be at the towers for 10am, however we only got to the rendezvous point with the other cars at Redwither Tower at 9:40. One person also didn’t turn up; we waited for a bus that arrived, then left at 8:45, fifteen minutes later than expected. We drove to the Uttoxeter junction where we were to get off the dual carriageway the A500, and had a McDonalds breakfast, another 15 minute delay. Eventually we were there for half past, but the entrance traffic meant we were in the queue for our first ride for 11:00. A car with two in was delayed after the car in front hit a hound from a chase (it was fine). After an hour of queueing for the Spinball Whizzard (the closest ride to the entrance) without them , we only had six hours of ride time left.

Oblivion, originally codenamed Secret Weapon 4, was the worlds first vertical drop steel roller coaster.

So we quickly sped to the X-Sector, where Oblivion was situated and met with the two late peeps who by this time had been on Rita, after this we would go to Rita, and then the water rides and the Forbidden valley. However, we went on Enterprise, an old ride after Oblivion. Here we split off as two of the group wanted to try other rides and had been on Rita, and two wanted to go to the Sea Life centre and were scared of Rita, so off we five went; however, two people were hungry so went to Burger King instead. At this point, there were four groups, all of two, apart from our own threesome. After queueing for Rita for around ten minutes, it broke down, so we left for The Rapids instead, the burger king was nowhere to be seen, so off we went. This was fun, especially as I didn’t really get wet except for the arse (wet seat), while the others did.

We sped off for Nemesis, and met with the Burger King couple. The queue was maxed out, so we went into the single riders queue again (we had for Rita and Oblivion), and so waited 20 minutes instead of the 45 in the main queue. After that,  we went on Air as well, but two of the group split off (they weren’t fussed about air and wanted to ride Ripsaw). We met with the two that went on the Spinball Whizzard here, and as they hadn’t been on it, being late because of the hound!

If you’re lost, there are now nine of us, I may have neglected another couple that vanished between Oblivion and now. We were outside Duel, a Zombie shooting ride, waiting for the two SeaLife people. They took their time so we went in anyway, we shot some doods, and I was fourth when it came to the score, I think.

The Congo River Rapids!

Then we went to the rapids again. The 9 of us split into groups as the maximum seating per car is 8. I didn’t get very wet, again; but the other were even wetter. Once we were off the ride, two people went to meet the people who went on ripsaw earlier, and two others made motions for leaving the park. After this, our group of five finally headed to Rita, and rode it. The acceleration was immense but I still managed to smile for the camera. However a blue slushie meant my mouth was blue. It was twenty to six when we started queueing, after getting off, the park was closing, and we all made a beeline for the entrance. We did pause for a photo opportunity in front of the towers. The park was scarily empty by now, but as we got near the entrance, the familiar crowds had returned, and the queue for the monorail was estimated at 45 mins. Unwilling to wait in another queue, and with our aching feet beginning to blister, we walked for the car park. It took an age, but when we got to the car, we split into our three cars and left. Our car stopped in the same McDonalds we had that morning, and it was 9pm by the time we got back. I was attempting to catch up to someone using the estimated time of arrival on my TomTom as a reference (I caught up by 10 mins!), but I didn’t due to a series of slow cars.

All in all it was an excellent day out, and if you’ve thought of going, do so. I only wish it was 8am to 9pm opening times or something. It’d be worth it I think for the park!

Group Photo!

Cambrian Steam Tour/Birthday Happenings

The Cambrian Steam Tour

I’ve not been overly obsessed with railways since I was a child, but this was a great day out. On the 17th of August I went with the family on the Cambrian Railway steam train. We started out at 8am, and despite going the wrong way at a contraflow roundabout with a convoy system in effect, we made it to Macynlleth for 9:35. We powered out of the station. I’ve never been on a main line steam trip before, so being behind one at full line speed was most fun. Coal bits kept flying in through the windows, and cars were being left behind on the roads that followed us. We got to Pwllheli and had some fish and chips, before returning for 5:00pm. Seven and a half hours for a return journey was long, but it was a good day out. I believe our engine for the day was 76079, as evidenced by the photo to the right.

4MT 76079

We saw both the Talyllyn and WHHR railways, who both conveniently had locomotives out waiting to greet our train. No better advertising than having a train whistle to the engine only to have it whistle back! There were only a few service trains in the morning, nothing really to wait for. On the way back though we had to wait at several stations for oncoming trains to clear the single track sections. While the level crossings at the stations are barriered, they are activated manually by plunger, so some people got up to leave before the stations!

This was all in aid of my birthday, which was on the 18th August, on the day we went to TGI Fridays in Ellesmere port for a family meal. As gifts, I had some money from my parents that allowed me to invest in some new computer hardware; a Cooler Master 850W modular power supply, an nVidia GeForce 295 graphics card, and a 1TB internal hard drive. The graphics card has allowed for much improved FPS rates in many games, and I’m certain that when combined with better processor and RAM, and a fully PCI-E 2.0 motherboard, will function excellently.

A power supply and 295

Two of the products are shown to the left. Putting it all together was easy enough, I took out the old PSU, then the old 8800GTS, and then put the new 295 in, followed by the PSU. The modular system was really easy to mess around with. Never seen a five pin Molex connector before though. I was surprised it all worked straight away, but then managed to bruise my chin by leaning on the fan grill for two long. There were multiple bruises and they looked like I had a fight with a dot matrix printer.

The guys from work got me a wonderful birthday card and cake, and then on Friday we went out for an Italian meal, and then a visit to one of Wrexham’s newest bars, Groove. I ended up treading on a piece of glass and then falling on my arse on the dance floor. Hurray me.

Finally, on Saturday, I ended up getting a watch from my parents. They originally wanted to get me a gold ring, but I don’t like jewellery, tattoos, not even face paints as a child, so instead they got me a watch. I like the watch, it’s a Rotary one, which means it’s waterproof, and has a leather strap. A photo can be seen below.

My new Watch

Woo new hardware

I have bought myself a BFG Tech Geforce GTX 295 tonight, combined with a new PSU to power the computer with the new requirements. This, coupled with 64bit Windows in October, should really increase performance for the machine. They both should arrive on Tuesday, naturally I will photograph the installation process and post results here!

Also on Tuesday it is my birthday. Woo!

On Monday I’m off to Machynlleth, to ride on the Cambrian coast behind a mighty Steam engine. But first and foremost, tomorrow I am off to the wonderful Llandudno again.

Easy how people forget

A month ago today it was an extremely hot day. We had a few weeks of it being really hot for Britain, and everyone loved it.

A month later, people have completely forgotten this, and go back to the old “typical British weather” complaint.

August is forecast as wet. Shame.

Summer party

A night when a free bar is combined with luxurious facilities can only mean an amazing night out in which all are involved, the social barriers are broken down, and your arms end end up around random people you don’t know them, their name, or where they come from.

Images from this crazy night out can be found here. (You must have a Facebook account and be a friend of a friend)

Llandudno

The Great Orme Tramway has existed since 1902, and it, along with the San Francisco tram network, are the only remaining ones of their type.

Today I went to Llandudno, North Wales. It’s been a while, and now I have my camera, so I took that along with me. I coerced my parents into paying for one of the City Sightseeing tours, as there was one there. It went over to neighbouring Conwy too, and I got many images, all of which can be seen here.

The day began with a 9am start, which is early for a Sunday, for me! We made haste to the A55 and barrelled down it before the traffic could build. We saw many strange and classical cars from a range of locations and times driving along the A55, the strangest was when we were taken over by an Illinois registered muscle car. Getting to Llandudno at around 10:30, we put four hours on the pay and display, and went over to the pier. Every other time we’d have gone down it, but this time we stopped for the above tour, and that took an hour. We saw some interesting sights and learned some of the local history, a lot of which I already knew.

When we arrived back we went to a JD Wetherspoons for a meal. I remembered I wasn’t driving so I had a few pints around now. We then went over to the tram station and spent an hour and a half ascending, discovering, and descending the Great Orme, after which we headed back to the car and home again.

I’ve noticed an increasing amount of dust on the image sensor of my camera, evidenced in recent images. I’m going to have to buy an air blower to remove the dust, as touching it will make it worse. If that won’t do it, I’ve heard cleaning alcohol and a lint free cloth should work, but I really don’t want to touch the image sensor, so I may see if I can’t get it cleaned somewhere. Anyway, I’ve not done an image collage in a while, so here goes:

Wiiiiiidescreen

My monitor died last week. It had a good run – Two and a half years. It seems to be heat issues, but this heat threshold at which it dies is rather low. So, a new one I have bought! The new one is a BenQ G2410HD, 23.6″ in size. I like it. HD programs are now worth the download. 1080p from here on out. The box wants it to be a 24″, but this isn’t true.

Now I have a good monitor, my next purchase should probably be a new graphics card. Saving £500 should be easy, for a top of the line card.

Hot shit.

Redwither Tower

Today I went to the Trafford Centre with some friends from work. Getting there was mad as I went too fast and missed the lane for the M60, so ended up using a route I remembered from many years back which requires you going past Old Trafford and then through Trafford Park, a massive industrial estate.

Most of my clothes buying experiences stem from internet shopping, or the odd shirt I find that nobody seems to use, so it was an experience. I went to River Island and Topshop Topman. The thing I noticed is that there appear to be craploads of hot women around suddenly.

I have some clothes for the Avox summer party now. Excellent.

The Ffestiniog Railway

Rolling past Merddin Emrys

Yesterday I went to the Ffestiniog Railway in North West Wales. It’s been a week since I got my camera back, so took it with me to get some excellent photos from areas not reachable by road or public footpath. I only ended up going because my father has always wanted a day out going up the Conwy Valley by train. It’s a great journey, the only problem being you have to spend time in Blaenau Ffestiniog for a few hours to make a day out of it and the only problem with that is that you have to spend time in Blaenau Ffestiniog. The only two things to alleviate this issue is to do one of two things; Go under Blaenau Ffestiniog in the Llechwedd slate caverns, or get away from Blaenau Ffestiniog on the Ffestiniog railway. The latter made more sense, as it takes you away from that forsaken place.

The day began with an early start on a Saturday. Usually this isn’t an issue, but as I’d not had 15 hours sleep in the previous week, it meant I was really tired. So my dad drove, to ensure I didn’t crash into a wall. Unfortunately we were stuck behind slow moving traffic for most of the way. I’m sorry, but if you can’t do 60 in an NSL where 60 is safe, GTFO mah roads. Seriously, 40 is not a viable alternative.

Anyway, we got to Llandudno Junction for 10:20, ten minutes to park and get the tickets. But there was a problem. This was an NCP car park, it only accepted coins, and we had none. So we needed to get the tickets and the parking. So, I parked by phone using my dads card. By the time I’d gotten off the convoluted automated phone system and back to reality, we were on the train, halfway up the Conwy valley, on the side with no views, and facing backwards, so there are no photos of Llandudno Junction or the train journey up.

Rolling past Merddin Emrys

Upon exiting the tunnel, the doom and gloom of Blaenau dawns on you. It was raining, the sky is grey, the enormous slate tips are grey, the buildings are grey, their slate roofs are grey, the tarmac roads are grey, the pavements are grey, and the only green areas are tiny gardens, and council run playing fields. Lovely.

Upon stopping at the station, we notice an FR train is there in the station. Headed by the double fairlie David Lloyd George, this train was rather empty, being the first train of the day from Porthmadog, probably leaving around 9:15. Most people from our busy train rushed over to the booking office, which was a less than impressive container, which I am sure is the one we got tickets from in Caernarfon a number of years ago (see below)

By this point, it was raining heavily. We quickly retreated to a carriage with space left, in our case, an old heritage carriage from the 1920′s. This had no aisle or end connection to the rest of the train, but every two seats were enclosed, with windows on each side. The seat was comfortable, but the backrest was wooden, and not very. As the train snakes its way out of Blaenau, the train gets so close to walls and other trackside objects that in some places there must be almost no clearance at all, yet the train maintains what appears to be quite a good speed.

The weather improved considerably on the way down, and by the time we got to Porthmadog it was bright enough for the sun to start poking through.

Once we were in Porthmadog, we had 35 minutes to kill, so we walked to the bank, got out some cash, and both a pint each and some sandwiches from the station. The pub there, Spooners, has won pub of the year several times, and you can see why.

The journey back to Blaenau was notably sunnier, and I had several photos by now, but when we arrived back in Blaenau, it was grey again. We boarded the train, but not before I got this classic of both gauges.

We got back to Llandudno Junction, but I was falling asleep at this point, so the way back was quieter. When I got back, I put the photos on the upload, and then fell asleep. 16 hours later, I woke up again, and am completely rejuvenated, but was annoyed to find the upload had put everything up twice, and not in the right set. So I’ve spent the last few hours making things work correctly. Oh well.

Dragon Boat Racing!

It’s been three days, but whatever.

I'm in the bright yellow T-Shirt

On Sunday I went to Chester with half of Avox to experience a dragon boat race. The company was split into two teams, the Tigers and the Dragons. I forget which I was on, and ended up doing being on both anyway, by the end though, I was on my original team, and after wounding one of the other team, we won in a race against them, and also beat their fastest time.

Of course, the weather was better than expected, meaning I didn’t put on any sun lotion and got burned. The fact I was wearing sunglasses made it worse. A lot worse. I looked like an inverse Panda the next day.  Parking was a right arse as well, and I ended up parking in front of a friend to avoid endless walking to the site.

Each team had three races each, and the last race was between the two teams. There were a lot of people around and it was most busy. Between the two races, I wandered out onto a jetty and took some shots of the other team loading.

The other team loads up

Not having my D40 on me, I had to use a *shudder* compact camera, with it’s traditional grainyness and poor zoom and focus. Not to mention the tiny thing didn’t have much power left, with batteries that can’t be charged, and the SD card was gone, meaning I was limited to the poor internal memory. The cable was missing, meaning I had to get a new one, which is why this post is three days late, hence the rambling about this because I can’t remember anything that happened on the day now. Oh well.

There were some shocking team names there, like “Posh and Decks”, or “Sunk and Disorderly”. I was most impressed with some of the teams speeds, and none of the Avox teams were able to get into the final race, a four boat head off. A shame.

All in all it was an excellent day out, with much fun had by all involved, and if you ever hear of such a competition locally, get your scrawny arses over there, because you’ll love it. Next company outings involve the annual company do, and Paintballing! Woo.

In unrelated news, there is now a Photos page up and running. This uses a script that integrates with Flickr, so go and have a ganders.

This weekend I’m going back out to the countryside with my D40. I’ll bring back images. Really.