Book review - I am not spock by Leonard Nimoy

I read Leonard Nimoy's 'I am not spock' a while back after finding it in a local book fair. It constantly referenced the early book so I set I out to find a copy. The book was surprising short at 134 pages and only covered the period when he played spock in the tv series and jobs he did for a fee years after. It was interesting but so many of the stories had been covered in his second autobiography. So if you want to know more about Leonard Nimoy then just read his second book, as it contains most of the first anyway.

Tattoo - Next phase - Chest moon craters and duel semi spiral crop circles

Started designing the next steps for my tattoo, and a few doodles on paper I re-drew the preferred ones on Google draw. these are the ones that made the short list:

Duel semi spirals crop circle

I decided the larger duel semi spirals crop circle would fit on my chest and use an existing circle on my chest as the larger open circle and work away from there and try and encompass my other nipple in the design, as i have already used one nipple in my previous designs. I overlaid the design of a picture of my chest, and amended the rotation of the design and made minor tweaks to make it look and fit better. I would have the smaller solid circles follow my chest and not run onto my arm. I don't have the knowledge to create a 3D digital model of myself, and overlay the tattoos in position, so I'll have to cope with 2D versions of 3D objects.

Duel semi spirals crop circle tattoo idea.

With this design it leaves a lot of white space above the new duel semi spirals, I played with adding the other smaller designs but they just didn't quite fit, and I had already decided they would go on my shoulder above the New Zealand Koru and Australian water hole map.

After being inspired by reading Buzz Aldrin's book and watch the sky at night, i spotted a detailed lunascape and the amazing and random patterns left by meteor strikes. i though the patterns would make a great addition to my tattoo. I put some research in to where Apollo 11 landed (the first moon landing) and found Google have mapped the moon rather well http://www.google.com/moon/ and i manged to find a great topography map of the specific area i wanted.

Julius Caesar area  of  Mare Tranquillitatis on The Moon.

Next all I had to do was outline the craters again using Google draw, and then copy the crater outlines onto the picture of my torso. I've used a star to mark the landing site for the Apollo 11 mission but this may change, I chose a star as its such a strong symbol of America, but I've also though about using XI, or an alien symbol. This leaves the below template ready to be printed to scale and given to a tattoo artist.

80% there and ready to be inked.

Something just didn't look right so I've added more circles to the duel semi spiral design, also the circles on the moonscape were a little to oval so they needed a tweak too i'm loosing the star that marks the Apollo 11 mission landing site and replacing it with the Klingon symbol for 11.

Final version, ready for printing and to be given to the tattoo artist.

Book Review - My Time by Bradley Wiggins

I was given this book as a Christmas present and was very excited about reading it. I've always followed the tour de France and have always enjoyed cycling. So when Wiggo became the first British man to win the tour and then go on to win yet another gold at the Olympics  I couldn't wait to find out more about the man and the processes he had to go through.

The book gave a great insight into his training regime and the huge team effort that goes into propelling someone into the yellow jersey and keeping it too.

The book is very funny in places and Bradley's wit and passion come shining through all the way through. He is at his best when he is offended or has something to shout about. His bluntness and simplistic honesty is very amusing and makes him very engaging to read about.

Book Review - Beave new world by Aldous Huxley

I've wanted to read this book for years, it's one of those 'must reads', a 'classic sci fi'. It's mentioned and referenced in lots of sci fi books I've read, so thought it was time to see what the fuss is about.

I was surprised by the amount of sexual content. Not that this book is smutty or racey, it just deals with some quite unusual sexual activities. With my own prudish ways put to one side, the book was very well thought out, with very plausible predictions of the future.

The lead characters were fascinating and engaging and I always wanted to know what was to happen next. The story itself was a little bland with no real conclusion. The moral dilemmas and questions of 'happiness verses freedom' were stimulating to ponder over, but felt a little week.

In summary, I enjoyed the characters and vision of the future, but i felt let down by the plot.

Race - Wild Warrior - 17th Mar 2013

Before, looking clean and warm

Sunday morning was a miserable one, drizzling and grey and chilly. Ness and I loaded up the camper van after breakfast and headed to the site. We arrived just before 10 am and the parking field was already getting cut up and cars were wheel spinning and sliding. The bongo did well and we parked up, and headed off to sign in and register for the race. We then pottered about, went and looked at the new fire and monkey bar obstacles, then just hung around waiting for other mates to arrive.

The pre-race warm up was very crowed on the hard packed surface, and we couldn't really get a decent warm up but I had already stretched in the morning so at least I got my blood pumping a little. From the gun my mate went out pretty hard so I hung on to his heels and chased him to the first hay bales he beat me down the other side but I managed to push past him on the uphill run to the next bales. the ground was incredibly slick and wet and gaining traction was incredibly difficult. Any incline or corner resulted in instant 'Bambi on ice' flailing and sliding.

Best photo ever

This year they added 2 new obstacles of a fire pit and monkey bars. I'm not a fan of fire obstacles mainly because they are usually just a simple leap, and the burning hay gives off very acrid smoke which hurts the lungs and stings the eyes. But the wind was up and the smokes wasn't too thick, and it does make for incredible photos. The monkeys bars only spanned a stream and so I decided to leap as far as possible and grab a far away bar. But that bar was about 20 cm too far away and i just ended up in the stream. I quickly dragged my way out and continued the run (stumble and slide).

Trudging on

Next up was the swamp of doom, 50 meters of waist to nipple deep water; thick with mud and hidden trip hazards, tight corners and testicle shrinking coldness. It is impossible to move through this with any speed, you are simply forced to wade and try and maintain momentum with out taking a fall. The climb out of the swamp is muddy and slippery and a challenge all of its own.

The course now opens up and running becomes a lots easier and you can almost build up a rhythm, but there are still hay bales, cargo nets and water dips to break it up again, and the slippery grass and mud mean that every step is a fight for traction and every slip is a back jarring jerk. Nothing was going to be easy today.

Post mud slide chills

Once the open field filtered into a more wooded landscape the obstacles became harder with spider webs of rope criss-crossing between the trees, and another water plunge, and a run of hay bale hurdles. Next up came the showpiece of the course, the water slide. A 10 meter slide in to, yet more, cold, muddy waist deep water. This is a great, fun obstacle, but unfortunately I managed to get a sharp stone in my shoe whilst wading out the pool. I had to fish it out as it was too painful to run on. it took ages to re-tie my laces as my hands where painfully cold and unresponsive. Most annoyingly it gave my mate a chance to pass me.

None stop obstacles

Once my shoe was back on, I ran hard to try and catch up but obstacles and the rope climb up a very muddy and slick mud-bank. I crawled though tunnels, ran through mud and deep puddles, climbed cargo nets, vaulted over A-frames, teetered over balance beams, rolled under cargo nets, and cautiously climbed over a Jacob's ladder, before starting the second lap. I could see my mate at the other end of the field. it was going to be very hard to catch but i'm going to try. The second 5 km lap was even slippier due to the added footfall of extra runners. Every obstacle seemed higher, deeper, colder, greasier and so much harder. Those sweet spots of grippy, un-crushed grass were become a rare memory. My legs and clothes were heavier and clinging to my skin to add to my discomfort.

With the end in sight

 I fell over much more and actually welcomed the short break of lying or sitting in the brown sludge rather being frustrated by the pace stealing accidents. I met with many more back markers and large groups of charity walkers which always pushes you to run past them to avoid being caught at a the pre-obstacle bottle neck. It was still a hard painful trudge over the final obstacles to the finish lane, with bleeding scraped knees but what a sense of accomplishment. Even through i have ran this course 3 or 4 times now, this was by far the hardest time, and possibly the hardest event I have ran. I moved quickly to the bag storage area to quickly dry and change. But my hands were so cold and numb I had to pull my shoes off with undoing the laces. Getting changed was as hard as any of the obstacles and was fought with lots of grunting and mini victories won with each heavy mud infused layer peeled off. I grabbed a coffee to help warm me up. It definitely warm my hand up as I was shaking so bad it ended up all over my hand and forearm. I walked back through the course to keep warm and cheer on my sister and Ness.

In summary: every step was a challenge due to terrible weather conditions. probably the hardest race I've done to date. but still great fun!

Scores (out of 10)
Course: 8
Terrain: 8
Difficulty: 8
Return factor: 10
Overall: 8.5