30/04/06 The joys of working at Wyevale

1. When you encounter no less than FOUR signs saying that the tills don't open until 10:30, and then arrive at the till fifteen minutes earlier indignantly expecting to be served, don't be surprised if I'm short with you.

2. It's a really good idea to put your handbrake on when you park your car, especially if I'm about to be loading fifteen bags of compost into it. The owner of the car parked right in front of yours might not take it too well.

3. The next person who asks for a Tuesday discount on a Sunday will be cut into very small pieces and fed to the carnivorous plants.

3. The next person who says "What, no chip and pin yet?" will be forced to eat their own credit card.

4. The next person who says "Last of the big spenders!!!" or makes any other such witty and original comment, all of which I have heard hundreds of times before, will be fed to the cardboard compressing machine.

5. Customers who jump the queue, shout loudly, talk on their mobiles while being served (then expect me to wait until they've finished), or fail to keep their unruly brats from stealing sweets, cannot expect to be treated in a friendly manner. Courtesy and civility work both ways. Look it up in "How To Be A Human Being 101".

6. If Michael refuses to do as he's told one more time, or does anything else lame or stupid, I am going to lose my temper.

7. Contrary to a quaint and outdated belief, the customer is in fact always wrong.

... There, I feel much better now. A valuable tip: never work at a Wyevale garden centre on a bank holiday weekend. It has of course long been known that 95% of all customers are stupid, but we're only just beginning to realise that roughly 70% of them are rude as well (as opposed to the 50% previously theorised). Plus Michael, one of the newer recruits, is such a massive ponce and lazy git that I doubt any of us will survive with our sanity intact much longer.

Thank God that I only have two more days left to work there before I go back to Norwich! Of course I'll be doing a bit of work there during the first part of the summer, but after that I'm freeeee ...

Posted by Alex at 10:30 PM

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27/04/06 Lovely new gear

Keen to take advantage of the post-Easter sales, I've bought a few new items of hill gear which will definitely come in handy over the next few trips. I'm most pleased with my sleeping bag, the Berghaus Plateau, previously £80 now a mere £30 ... an absolute bargain! I bought it to replace my old 1-season sleeping bag, which is lightweight but has no insulating powers whatsoever. This one is rated down to freezing temperatures so should be ideal for summer camping.

I also have a giant 90-litre expedition duffle bag. It's virtually identical to the well-known The North Face duffle, but only £25 instead of £90 (because it's made by a different company ... we pay for the labels, I guess). The idea is that I can fit all of my gear in a single bag, instead of lugging a 65-litre backpack AND my daysack everywhere. This will make stowing my luggage on trains a lot easier!

The good news is that the trip report has finally been posted in its entirity, including a number of bonus photos from my brother's collection. I'm working on the other site updates.

Posted by Alex at 2:30 PM

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24/04/06 Norrrrrrwich

Back in Norwich again--just for the day--and boy it's good to be back. I've come to pick up my revision notes, because it really is time I started work on all the material I have to learn for the exams in a few weeks' time. I'm also going to pick up a few odds and ends I left behind before rather hurriedly packing and heading off to the Lakes a couple of weeks back.

The site updates are coming--slowly--but there really is a lot of work to do and it's going to take some time. Priority goes to the shamefully late third day trip report, which *will* be posted by tomorrow evening. I have however made a minor global change which you may have noticed: links are now dark green, to improve the coherency of the site's overall theme.

Plans for the next three expeditions are now a little more solid. My solo Langdale trip will most likely take place in the week beginning May the 29th, and I'll be out there for two days before coming back in time for my birthday (and the piratesoc trip the day before). The big, scary Glen Torridon expedition (another solo) leaves on July 21st, and will feature some pretty large and challenging mountains, namely Beinn Alligin, Liathach via the Traverse of Am Fasarinen (eeek) and maybe others. The Wales trip, which my brother will also attend, will begin sometime in mid August--we're not sure exactly when--and will be based in Ogwen. We're hoping to do some climbing on Tryfan and the north face of Glyder Fach ... nothing too hard, certainly no more difficult than Grade 2. Tryfan Bach is right above the campsite for some easy practice pitches.

But until the end of May, it's work for me and little else!

Posted by Alex at 1:25 PM

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18/04/06 Sorry for lack of updates!

I'm finding less time to be online these days, being back home and away from my network connection at Norwich. Normal service will be resumed within a few weeks ... up until then it'll just be the occasional update I'm afraid! Rest assured that I'm working on all the promised upgrades to the site, especially the trip report. I have almost finished the second day's page and it will be online by late tomorrow.

Due to the reduced amount of time I can spend on the site, I'm considering scrapping the manually updated weather service (which I don't update enough anyway) and replace it with a set of links to the Mountain Weather Information Service and maybe a webcam page if I can get permission from the owners. I will also have to sort out something new with regards to the daily picture idea, which isn't working as well as I'd planned.

Work at the garden centre is turning out to be pretty hectic, especially over the Bank Holiday weekend! I'm glad I'm not working there full-time. It is however great to see some of my friends there again. Surprisingly, Jenni is working at Wyevale once again ... I hadn't seen her in about a year so her presence was quite a surprise!

I am also increasingly aware that I need to start my revision for the exams in a few weeks' time, and soon. I will be heading back to Norwich (yay!) for the day on Monday to pick up some revision notes and other items I forgot to bring with me.

Posted by Alex at 10:15 PM

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13/04/06 Trip report (partially) online

I've now uploaded the first day of the trip report for the April trip, including the usual exciting blend of epic photos and accounts of daring deeds in the hills. Read it here! The rest of the report is coming and will be online within the next couple of days.

Please be patient for the other promised updates (namely updates to mountain entries, scrambling files, route descriptions etc). Despite being on holiday at the moment I'm still very busy, as I've now resumed my job at the garden centre to provide a little pocket money for the coming semester. I also have to head back to Norwich next week to pick up some revision notes I left behind. That's right: exams aren't far away now!

And true to form, I've started to put more time and thought into planning my next trips, as I generally do after returning from a spell in the hills. I'm really hoping I get on the final list for the Glencoe Fell Club trip in June, but even if I don't, I'm planning a few days in Langdale towards the end of that month. Plus of course there is the long anticipated Torridon solo expedition in July, and a trip to Ogwen in August with my brother. Both will cover much new ground for me and I'm looking forward to extending my experience and skills into new areas.

It's going to be a busy year!!

Posted by Alex at 11:15 AM

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12/04/06 I'm back ...

... Slightly earlier than anticipated, because we were flooded out of the campsite yesterday morning! The three days we did get, however, were amazing and have to rank among the very finest days I've ever spent in the mountains.

On the Friday, we decided to go for Bowfell despite a menacing sky and a low snowline. The conditions up top were pretty cold with a gusty wind, and we decided to don full winter gear at the highest point of the Band, before starting on the Climber's Traverse. The Traverse itself was under between one and three feet of soft powder snow and was very treacherous, as was the River of Boulders. However we survived the climb and reached the summit, where we were rewarded by the classic view that I love so much. An epic day!

The next day we tackled the ridge traverse of the Crinkle Crags, starting off with the lower peak of Pike of Blisco, one of my personal favourites. We were blessed by perfect winter conditions. The snow had settled down a little and was easier to deal with, plus the sun was out and the conditions got clearer and clearer throughout the day. It was busy on the Crinkles, but I loved it nonetheless ... not least because I have at last climbed the dreaded Bad Step! James managed it too, but was a little apprehensive and needed a moment to think through the problem.

Most of the snow had melted by Sunday, and the morning started off sunny and warm ... so warm, in fact, that we had soon shedded all of our outer layers and were wishing we had sunhats with us. We climbed Pavey Ark by the classic scramble of Jack's Rake, a cleft running diagonally up the face of the giant cliff. I chose a harder variation at the finish. It's a great rock route and I will definitely be doing it again.

We missed out on the Grade 2 route up Harrison Stickle, so I have decided to go on another Langdale trip sometime this June once my exams are finished, and tackle the hard route up the cliff myself. In any case this has been one of the best trips ever. Great Langdale really is one of the best places in the world!

The Himalayan Explorer (me) on Bowfell

James tackling a dodgy section on the Climber's Traverse

Me surveying the base of Cambridge Crag, towards the end of the Traverse

Summit photo! (It was very cold!)

James climbing the Bad Step on Crinkle Crags

James climbing the ridge on Jack's Rake, Pavey Ark

Sun, solitude, and snow-blindness: that's what the mountains are all about.

Posted by Alex at 1:15 PM

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06/04/06 THE TRIP BEGINS!

First a quick update on the end-of-semester wrap-up. I utterly owned the coursework deadline and handed my assignment in three minutes before time. Unfortunately I fell asleep by accident last night so didn't finish all of the work, but I've made a good effort and I'm fairly pleased with what I've completed (about a third of the total assignment). Now I just have to prepare thoroughly for the exam and get a good mark on that.

Anyway this will be my final post before my brother and I leave for the Lake District tomorrow morning. The weather forecast is currently pretty abysmal for the weekend (50mph wind, -15 Celsius, snowstorms, and cloud down to a thousand feet), so we're taking a good proportion of our winter mountaineering kit, just in case. I'm still debating whether we'll need ice axes and crampons.

The forecast is much better for Monday, so we're still taking the rock gear as well, because I'm really keen to climb Harrison Stickle by the hard route. Plus that rock is of such good quality that a little dampness won't matter.

Here is the roll-call of the summits we hope to climb. I've climbed all of them previously except Pike of Stickle and Lingmoor ... after I visit these summits I will have climbed every peak in Great Langdale.

Bowfell (one of my favourites)
Esk Pike
Rossett Pike
Crinkle Crags
Pike of Blisco
Harrison Stickle (hopefully by the Grade 2 route)
Pavey Ark (via Jack's Rake! Yarrr!)
Loft Crag
Pike of Stickle
Lingmoor Fell

This lineup depends muchly on the weather, route popularity, and cloud level. For example I always get lost at Esk Hause and frankly I'd rather have clear conditions this time. Plus I simply don't like the idea of navigating on the Crinkles in poor visibility. I'm a confident navigator, but I haven't had much practice in months.

I will check back in on the 14th, with pictures and more epic tales! Wish me luck!

Posted by Alex at 1:20 AM

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Earlier Rodders badly needs some shuteye

I have now been awake for three days almost continuously, with only six hours of sleep in between. It's always like this at the end of the semester. Everything gets pushed to the last minute and I end up staying awake for days on end trying to get it done, without making much in the way of progress. I'm still getting NullPointerExceptions despite the fact that I can see nothing wrong with my code. And I haven't even started on the GUI yet for crying out loud!

Oh well, it's only 20%, I'll catch up lost marks on the exam ... we have over a month to prepare for that so if I mess that up too I'll have no excuse.

We had a fire alarm an hour or so ago. It's a sign of my current mental state that I actually found it rather interesting. That fire alarm was the most exciting thing to happen to me for a couple of days (due to being holed up in my room chained to my laptop attempting to squeeze Java code out of my brain). Grace was in our flat too and it turns out she's been stalking me again ... saw me this afternoon outside the lecture theatres apparently. Sometimes I wonder about that girl.

Random stuff that's currently swirling around in my sleep-deprived brain:

We're unlikely to get random fire alarms next year.
I'll be missing the movie night tomorrow on account of being out of town.
Boost bars have magical life-giving properties which I should definitely study further.
In 13 and a half hours all my coursework problems will be over ... one way or another ...
Overspawn is a paranoid, bitter person who needs a good kicking. Or maybe just some happiness in his life.
I'm going to grow a grizzled beard next week.

So yep ... my brain is spasming at the moment and I desperately need sleep. Am wondering whether to struggle futilely on or maybe just rattle off a quick report and not worry anymore. Hmmmm ... the latter is tempting!

Posted by Alex at 1:20 AM

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05/04/06 The final marathon

I fell asleep last night by accident ... got a fair amount of work done in the end, but I could have done more. I've now finished the CLI section of the code, and it compiles, but I'm getting NullPointerExceptions left right and centre when I try running it. Meh. And I still have the GUI bit to do AND the write-up. I am doomed ... dooooomed I tell you!

I also have a Maths exam in two hours for which I've done very little revision. Fun, fun, fun.

Some pathetic and inadequate person has defaced Eeevie/Frankie's profile on the forums. She's not a member anymore but she still lurks and seeing that upset her. Note that someone has painted a black eye in there as well which is in very poor taste, as anyone who knows her will realise. Here is the link ... look at it and decide for yourself whether that's justified.

Edit: Fitz has removed it now.

Posted by Alex at 12:50 PM

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04/04/06 Don't vandalise the Wiki ...

... It isn't cool and it stopped being funny about a month ago. If you don't like me or Frankie or anyone else, please have the guts to say it to our faces and not write snide comments on a public website. Unfortunately I can't block the person involved because it's the generic Golden Triangle IP address, but I suspect it's the same person behind the earlier vandalism on both the Wiki and Richiepedia.

To whoever it is: grow up and find something better to do with your time.

Anyway I have made slow but steady progress on the coursework today. In fact I just discovered a glaring error in the first few lines of code that I should have picked up ages ago ... using 2D arrays when I should have been using regular arrays! This does however solve a big problem I've been puzzling over for hours, so I'm glad I noticed it. I have now finished coding the CLI file loader. Whether or not it works, of course, is something else entirely.

I'm still hopeful that I can finish the command line interface version of the software tonight, but I may be up until very late! Plus I still need to do Maths revision for tomorrow's exam, which I will almost certainly fail ... ah well, I don't need CMPS2D4Y for any of next year's units, so it's not the end of the world.

Posted by Alex at 9:35 PM

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Earlier Some progress at last

I have made a little progress on the coursework, having puzzled over it for hours. The dreaded mental block had set in earlier but a bottle of Lucozade and a Boost bar soon solved that. I am forever indebted to Grace for introducing me to the wonders of Boost bars!

Anyway here is my progress so far. This code basically reads a text file and strips the first two lines (which will be integers) into an array for later use. I am currently trying to figure out how to get the thing to read the rest of the file and assign the right data values to the maze[][] array.

static void loadFile (String filename) {
try {
FileReader inReader = new FileReader(filename);
BufferedReader inFile = new BufferedReader(inReader);
String inLine;
while ((inLine = inFile.readLine()) != null) {
int[] param = new int[2];
for(int i=0; i=2; i++) {
param[i] = parseInt(inLine);
}

Gah, this is not fun!

Posted by Alex at 3:10 PM

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Earlier meh

I'm not feeling too happy at the moment. I dropped out of the forum social tonight with the specific intention of doing work, and although I've done some, I might just as well have gone and enjoyed a relaxing night out to be honest.

So I am now facing the prospect of staying awake for the next 24-30 hours continuously just in order to keep on track. Thing is, I hate Java programming and nothing is going to make it easier.

I am also worrying about personal stuff and that isn't helping. The end of this semester is definitely dragging itself out painfully.

Posted by Alex at 12:44 AM

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03/04/06 Some progress!

Went to the Unit Choices talk today. Only a few people turned up but it was really useful. A number of points I hadn't been too clear on were explained, especially the fact that although in theory you have to get your adviser to check over the form once it's completed, in practice that's not necessary. I do however need to sort out timetable clashes and get the signature from the course director. Hopefully I can finish that tomorrow.

My programming assignment isn't going too well--procrastination and all that--but I am going to get several hours of work in tonight, and I'm determined to get the first task done and dusted (that's 30% of the total assignment). It isn't as hard as MIPSim, after all, so I'm confident I can at least get the thing working before I head home on Thursday. I also have Maths revision to do and I'm not looking forward to that at all.

As far as the Feud is concerned, things are looking up. I had a lengthy talk with Bildo over MSN and although I still don't agree with him, I'm relieved that at least he is willing to talk rationally to me about it. The key problem seems to be lack of communication, added to the fact that Bildo doesn't understand Frankie or particularly like her. It does however seem that maybe a cease-fire isn't as impossible as I thought. I'm very relieved about that: I've been worried about her lately, and this added stress hasn't been doing me much good either.

Anyway on a happier note, only three days remain until my brother and I leave for the Langdale trip! I'm really excited about this. Haven't been to Langdale for five months and I've missed the place. Now we just have to hope for good weather ...

This is my new web avatar, the skull-and-crossed-ice-axes. I like it!

(Oh, and I now have proper smilies! Being a forum admin does have its perks ... )

Posted by Alex at 9:15 PM

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02/04/06 Busy

This week is going to be utterly manic. On top of my programming assignment (the deadline for which is becoming acute), I also have to start revision for my Maths exam on Wednesday, sort out my unit choices for next year and fill in the form, start revision for my other modules, update the piratesoc main site, and finish the templates for the new piratesoc forum. The last item may take a while because I've never worked with phpbb before. :S However I am making progress, so I'm confident I'll get it done before I leave for the Lakes next Friday!

Following some more malicious vandalism to Eeevie's entry on the Wiki, the stupid Feud has blown up again. It really is getting childish now. I posted a message on the Underground saying that in future anyone who vandalised articles would be banned without warning, and a torrent of replies appeared labelling me a hypocrite. I've been called a hypocrite before (by Overspawn, surprise surprise) but I resent the accusation that I'm only deleting the changes because I'm biased.

Fine, I'll admit I'm not objective on this. Frankie is my friend after all, and I'm not exactly going to stand and watch while this crap is posted about her. But I do have a responsibility to uphold the rules, and it's perfectly clear that a lot of the rumours that have been circulating about her are lies, pure and simple. I entered into an argument with Overspawn over PM and he made it quite clear that he actually enjoys hurting people and continuing arguments others wish were dead. He also accused me of 'coddling' her and egging her on. Obviously he doesn't understand the concept that people stand by their friends and try to be supportive when they're going through a rough time.

Gah the whole thing is just getting tiresome and I don't need this right now. Frankie and her boyfriend have taken the weekend off to get away from it all ... I hope they have a good time!

Posted by Alex at 3:40 PM

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