Today was very nearly a faultlessly awesome day. Having got to hancocks swing bridge (Bridge 9, Leeds Liverpool Canal) near Aintree with a day in hand we worked through the boat (mainly the engineroom!) cleaning and tidying and doing bit of work on making sure all was in good shape for the canal link down to the docks and the all important mersey crossing the following day.
I re-plumbed the feed water pipework to the feedwater injectors which had suffered frost damage over winter taking out the temporary repair and making it easier to clean as it formed a inverted siphon passing from the hotwell under the floor boards before running upto and out of the injectors meaning it can built up a sludge of boiler treatment and oily residue which then fills the strainer as soon as you get a bit of water hammer in the largely unsupported pipe.
We also talked to some 'youths' as tom (my grandfather) would call them, a group of 4-5 teenagers who after time we invited onboard to look around the boat as they had never been on one despite having them pass there houses all these years. Being a steam narrowboat EmilyAnne attracts a wide range of interest and we often show people around the boat and engine room but someone whos passionate about canals as well as the steam and enigneering and only 23 myself, showing interested young locals around is a fulfilling as anything else, there almost always very positive and very great full and at worst it cant do any harm to the boater-local relationships. All good so far.
Sadly however, for the first time as far as we know in the history of doing this (the boats 20 this year, just three years behind me) this time a rather sour taste was left once we realised that my mobile phone at been taken in the process after i had left it on the table while cleaning the bilges. After searching the whole boat in the hope that i'd not put it where i thought it had we where left with just a empty hollow feeling and a slight unsettlement of the stomach.
- Not just for the phone (an identical replacement sourced for £40 through ebay) or the loss of messages/contacts/calender (last backed in January, sigh!) but also for the sake of the boys in question who stole it after we had talked for so long and shown them the boat and, on the surface, got on so well.
Heyho, while every cloud has a silver lining, all silver can develop a layer of tarnish on the surface.
Life goes on, and a bit of brasso later the tarnish is removed and come the following day we where in Salthouse dock in the center of Liverpool, showing people interested round our boat. Mobiles firmly in pockets!!
Tuesday, 15 June 2010
Saturday, 12 June 2010
Winding up!
Im now in loughborough enjoying my last week or so at a student here, working on the kitcar preparing in for the trackday at the end of the month and for the germany trip, repairing and painting the motorclubs storage container, and various BBQs and nights out with coursemates and friends.
I love summer and I love loughborough, its been a great 5 years and while its sad that its coming to an end Ive learned a lot and im looking forward to what lies ahead.
I love summer and I love loughborough, its been a great 5 years and while its sad that its coming to an end Ive learned a lot and im looking forward to what lies ahead.
Wednesday, 5 May 2010
Busy day - a bit of a brain dump!
Well, that was awful. Very stressful day indeed.
I had two deadlines with one for a 4000 word essay on mentoring and leadership which makes up 40% of my management & leadership module and a group lab write up on Spark Ignition engines (second of two, a follow up to the CI 'diesel lab' ) worth 10% of my IC engines module.
If im honest, Ive been putting off the mentoring report for long time, I began mentoring the second year group at the start of the first term back in September and although I dont stop mentoring them for another fortnight could have started the report a good time ago. As i went along I had jotted down a short hand list of points that I thought might turn up to be relevant and that I might want to include in the report which come the end of last week had developed into around two pages of text, but just random bulleted points, not essay! And I think perhaps somewhat exaggerated and idealised this into being a good start towards report being written. They where very helpful but it was a long way from the final draft for sure!
Work started properly over the weekend, saturday i set myself the target of 1000 works down before mid day if i was going to go to the Loughborough CarClub autotest event at PCC Mallory, which I achieved, and went to Mallory and had a great afternoon, returning to do around another 500 before bed.
My the end of sunday i had got that to about 2500, with around another 500 turning up on the bank holiday monday, interlaced with work on my final year group TPD project and sorting out a few datails for things i might do over summer and sorting the issue with the kitcars brakes. I think its time to the bite the bullet and fit some new front calipers. But i still only had 3000 works of what was a fairly rough draft. And 20 pages of appendix, which is about the only part that was actually full finished.
Tuesday morning i was up at 7 to get on campus and get some data for our Mechatronics project before 9am when we would be kicked out of the mechatronics lab by the other group whos day is tuesday. So I then turned my attentions to the also slightly neglected SI lab write up, at which point it transpired that much of calculations that I thought had been done where either incorrect or not quite what the write up asked for. So that took much of the rest of that, with a short break to read through my second years final report (also due in this week) as im a good mentor like that... :p
I also spent an hour on the phone to my Dad talking over and proof-reading my mentoring report.
But ultimated I was infact up till midnight with my IC engines group writing said petrol lab. The joys. Still, it was done, with another member tee'ed up to print it and hand in the following morning (this morning) which would at lease leave me all of this morning to put the finish touches on my mentoring report and get it wire bound and handed in. So i cooked tea and got to bed for 0100h!
I got up at 8 this morning, computer on, breakfast, and with the mentoring report!
We've got another Mechatronics review tomorrow (wonderful mechatronics thursdays)so at half nine I get a phone call from Dave 'any chance you on campus, im just looking at this kicker unit and....' urrrm, no! Sorry. :S
So for the next five HOURS im working on my mentoring report. How long does it take 'just finish off the last bit' nora! Then off it goes to dad to proof read for typos. That is something ive learnt. If your dyslexic, its well worth getting someone else, almost anyone else, to proof read something important. I swear i lost 10% on some 1st year reports for not doing that.
I also ended up taking about half an hour out to print our SI engines lab because for some reason neither of the other two could get it to print on campus, so my trusty canon inkjet took the hit on another 20 pages. After i'd sorted out why word had thrown and epi-fit on the contents list which was just awash with 'error bookmark not found' after the association between portrait and landscape pages of the report had fallen apart. I dont mind MS word too much, but a bit like CAB files, as soon as it becomes more than a very basic document every time you take a shortcut because your rushing, it comes round twice as hard just when you dont need it to.
So there we go, its 1500h and im in the queue waiting to get my report bound at media services, £2.10, nip over to dept, fill in some cover sheets, persuade a staple through our SI engines lab report (which wasnt worth £2.10) and hand then both in a full hour and half before drop boxes are emptied.
Deep breath, and straight into the electronics lab, from which i emerged at 1800h with atleast a basic idea of what im doing for our progress assessment tomorrow.
Morals of the story?
-Mentoring reports are a sod. but you need to do stuff you dont like early.
-If you think your putting something off, its probably because you are, do it now!
-Everything always takes longer to 'just finish off' than you could ever imagine.
Im going for a shower!
I had two deadlines with one for a 4000 word essay on mentoring and leadership which makes up 40% of my management & leadership module and a group lab write up on Spark Ignition engines (second of two, a follow up to the CI 'diesel lab' ) worth 10% of my IC engines module.
If im honest, Ive been putting off the mentoring report for long time, I began mentoring the second year group at the start of the first term back in September and although I dont stop mentoring them for another fortnight could have started the report a good time ago. As i went along I had jotted down a short hand list of points that I thought might turn up to be relevant and that I might want to include in the report which come the end of last week had developed into around two pages of text, but just random bulleted points, not essay! And I think perhaps somewhat exaggerated and idealised this into being a good start towards report being written. They where very helpful but it was a long way from the final draft for sure!
Work started properly over the weekend, saturday i set myself the target of 1000 works down before mid day if i was going to go to the Loughborough CarClub autotest event at PCC Mallory, which I achieved, and went to Mallory and had a great afternoon, returning to do around another 500 before bed.
My the end of sunday i had got that to about 2500, with around another 500 turning up on the bank holiday monday, interlaced with work on my final year group TPD project and sorting out a few datails for things i might do over summer and sorting the issue with the kitcars brakes. I think its time to the bite the bullet and fit some new front calipers. But i still only had 3000 works of what was a fairly rough draft. And 20 pages of appendix, which is about the only part that was actually full finished.
Tuesday morning i was up at 7 to get on campus and get some data for our Mechatronics project before 9am when we would be kicked out of the mechatronics lab by the other group whos day is tuesday. So I then turned my attentions to the also slightly neglected SI lab write up, at which point it transpired that much of calculations that I thought had been done where either incorrect or not quite what the write up asked for. So that took much of the rest of that, with a short break to read through my second years final report (also due in this week) as im a good mentor like that... :p
I also spent an hour on the phone to my Dad talking over and proof-reading my mentoring report.
But ultimated I was infact up till midnight with my IC engines group writing said petrol lab. The joys. Still, it was done, with another member tee'ed up to print it and hand in the following morning (this morning) which would at lease leave me all of this morning to put the finish touches on my mentoring report and get it wire bound and handed in. So i cooked tea and got to bed for 0100h!
I got up at 8 this morning, computer on, breakfast, and with the mentoring report!
We've got another Mechatronics review tomorrow (wonderful mechatronics thursdays)so at half nine I get a phone call from Dave 'any chance you on campus, im just looking at this kicker unit and....' urrrm, no! Sorry. :S
So for the next five HOURS im working on my mentoring report. How long does it take 'just finish off the last bit' nora! Then off it goes to dad to proof read for typos. That is something ive learnt. If your dyslexic, its well worth getting someone else, almost anyone else, to proof read something important. I swear i lost 10% on some 1st year reports for not doing that.
I also ended up taking about half an hour out to print our SI engines lab because for some reason neither of the other two could get it to print on campus, so my trusty canon inkjet took the hit on another 20 pages. After i'd sorted out why word had thrown and epi-fit on the contents list which was just awash with 'error bookmark not found' after the association between portrait and landscape pages of the report had fallen apart. I dont mind MS word too much, but a bit like CAB files, as soon as it becomes more than a very basic document every time you take a shortcut because your rushing, it comes round twice as hard just when you dont need it to.
So there we go, its 1500h and im in the queue waiting to get my report bound at media services, £2.10, nip over to dept, fill in some cover sheets, persuade a staple through our SI engines lab report (which wasnt worth £2.10) and hand then both in a full hour and half before drop boxes are emptied.
Deep breath, and straight into the electronics lab, from which i emerged at 1800h with atleast a basic idea of what im doing for our progress assessment tomorrow.
Morals of the story?
-Mentoring reports are a sod. but you need to do stuff you dont like early.
-If you think your putting something off, its probably because you are, do it now!
-Everything always takes longer to 'just finish off' than you could ever imagine.
Im going for a shower!
Sunday, 25 April 2010
Mark of Sark.
Mates stag do weekend this weekend, that was interesting.
I shared my course with Mark through first, second and third year before he gradated a year before me with a B.Eng (im doing the masters year in with) And as sarah, the other half of the sark, was my housemate in second year mark was a bit of a surrogate housemate as well. Particularly as his house was further from campus and didnt have a telly for him to plug his Wii into!
The event was a fairly relaxed approach to a stag to, rather than the maybe more stereotypical '25 lads going on a booze cruse for two days' event.
Mark had invited four people, including another coursemate and housemate of mine, a friend from home, and sarahs sisters boyfriend. (brother in law to be). We all came together on friday night and chatted around a few beers, exchanged stories and youtube clips, and ate some good chili and rice.
Saturday saw a BBQ lunch, followed by an afternoon of mountain boarding, and an evening of an all you can eat chinese buffet and a few rounds in the local pub.
I'd never been mountain boarding before, and as someone whos never been able to skate, and spent a whole day not snowboarding one ski trip was a little apprehensive of how it might go. But actaully it was very good. After an hour on the nursery slope we could all just about get from A to B without face planting the ground to much of falling on are arses and we then had the whole of the afternoon to just freestyle it slowly build our confidence while chatting, videoing each other fall over, and generally messing about. Not of cause hindered by the fact it was actaully glorious weather all day and really very pleasant to be outside.
I shared my course with Mark through first, second and third year before he gradated a year before me with a B.Eng (im doing the masters year in with) And as sarah, the other half of the sark, was my housemate in second year mark was a bit of a surrogate housemate as well. Particularly as his house was further from campus and didnt have a telly for him to plug his Wii into!
The event was a fairly relaxed approach to a stag to, rather than the maybe more stereotypical '25 lads going on a booze cruse for two days' event.
Mark had invited four people, including another coursemate and housemate of mine, a friend from home, and sarahs sisters boyfriend. (brother in law to be). We all came together on friday night and chatted around a few beers, exchanged stories and youtube clips, and ate some good chili and rice.
Saturday saw a BBQ lunch, followed by an afternoon of mountain boarding, and an evening of an all you can eat chinese buffet and a few rounds in the local pub.
I'd never been mountain boarding before, and as someone whos never been able to skate, and spent a whole day not snowboarding one ski trip was a little apprehensive of how it might go. But actaully it was very good. After an hour on the nursery slope we could all just about get from A to B without face planting the ground to much of falling on are arses and we then had the whole of the afternoon to just freestyle it slowly build our confidence while chatting, videoing each other fall over, and generally messing about. Not of cause hindered by the fact it was actaully glorious weather all day and really very pleasant to be outside.
Monday, 22 March 2010
A new blog.
The last week have been an interesting time and has triggered me to start a blog to recored my thoughts and feelings as my time at University draws to a close and I move on to the next stages of my life.
A week on Thursday our group had the first of three major reviews for our Mechatronics module, a double weight module that is interiorly coursework based and hinges around a scenario in which we are a technical consultants working for a company to solve a problem they have.
Well in short, although the outcome was ok in the end, the day was I think probably the worst I have had in the 5 years of being at Loughborough and after a day of filling literally sick with apprehension i came home feeling deflated and upset.
I didn't know group we have been placed with for the project before its start and feel we get on well but under the pressure of the assessment day (or harassment day as my spell checker nearly had me write) levels of tension between the members where high and amongst stack of a other issues a potentially rather foolish action by myself did little to ease the nerves or improve the performance of our equipment.
Conversely, the Saturday just gone, was the Steam Boat Association AGM which apart from being in Ashby this year rather than Bristol saw our family win 'Family of the Year' and an opportunity for a day to get away from Loughborough and the stress of run up to end of my last end of term holiday and the melai of chaos that is final year group projects.
Ive also been spending 45 minutes at the end of each day catching up with 'Skins' on 40D and finished the day with episode 6 of series 4 and that saw JJ, one of the quieter members of the cast feature and depicted his happiness at making friends with a girl from work. I watch very little television but I got into a habit of watching Skins with my housemate while on my placement year and its sort of stuck with the memories of placement and having time of an evening to think and relax and made a nice rounded end to the day.
A week on Thursday our group had the first of three major reviews for our Mechatronics module, a double weight module that is interiorly coursework based and hinges around a scenario in which we are a technical consultants working for a company to solve a problem they have.
Well in short, although the outcome was ok in the end, the day was I think probably the worst I have had in the 5 years of being at Loughborough and after a day of filling literally sick with apprehension i came home feeling deflated and upset.
I didn't know group we have been placed with for the project before its start and feel we get on well but under the pressure of the assessment day (or harassment day as my spell checker nearly had me write) levels of tension between the members where high and amongst stack of a other issues a potentially rather foolish action by myself did little to ease the nerves or improve the performance of our equipment.
Conversely, the Saturday just gone, was the Steam Boat Association AGM which apart from being in Ashby this year rather than Bristol saw our family win 'Family of the Year' and an opportunity for a day to get away from Loughborough and the stress of run up to end of my last end of term holiday and the melai of chaos that is final year group projects.
Ive also been spending 45 minutes at the end of each day catching up with 'Skins' on 40D and finished the day with episode 6 of series 4 and that saw JJ, one of the quieter members of the cast feature and depicted his happiness at making friends with a girl from work. I watch very little television but I got into a habit of watching Skins with my housemate while on my placement year and its sort of stuck with the memories of placement and having time of an evening to think and relax and made a nice rounded end to the day.
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