Dave Haygarth

Fame on another planet… ACIDplanet

A few years ago when I produced music a bit more prolifically than my current one-track-every-18-months rate, I enjoyed a bit of a following on AcidPlanet – a showcase for people making music using Sony’d Acid software.

I just found out that one of my tracks, Scientific American, is part of one of their podcasts, which has had more than 8,000 downloads during the last couple of weeks. I’ve installed security guards at the door just in case everything takes off in the rock world now. So long suckers.

More here: ACIDplanet Waveform No. 35, created by ACIDplanet.com and presented through ACIDplanet.com

13 Apr ’0815 Apr ’08

Kinder Downfall fell race 2008

My first fell race for ages today was a load of fun in many ways, but also a bit of a release. I haven’t had any competitive outings in any form for three months almost to the day, so whilst I had a lot of mind-rest, I also focused a bit more on today’s Kinder Downfall race a lot more than I’d have liked to. Call it being over competitive, but each time I went out running, I generally thought about being in good shape and giving myself the best shot at the race today.

In the end, it was more a case of ‘business as usual’, with a respectable finish and a slight improvement on my time of last year. In many ways, I just feel relieved that I didn’t let myself down in any way. With a sleet-and-snow induced reduction in the number of starters, my top ten result was nothing to get really excited about, although I’ll openly say I felt great and ran a pretty intelligent pace. Unlike in
last year’s race, whew I ran out of steam (big time) in the last mile or so on the flat, I actually made inroads on the run-in this year, dropping a competitor and making big gains on the one in front. However, after all was done, I just finished in a respectable 12th position and unharmed. If I’ve reached my running peak at 38, I’ll be happy with my lot, to be honest.

Hat’s off to friend Steve Riley on his first fell race of manly distance – his fitness proved a great foundation for a remarkably good first outing and we’ll be seeing more of him in the good end of the results I reckon.

Google Earth track of the course in stunning detail here.

Headline results here

11 Apr ’0813 Apr ’08

Camping trip with Lily to Malham

The school holidays are a bit to cock this year, meaning that Katie’s and Lily’s Easter holidays don’t match up. It’s led to some creative childcare activity this holiday for Lily which in many ways will be much more fun for her than the prospect of getting on her mum’s heavily pregnant nerves.

Lily and I took advantage of the situation by going camping for a night in Malham. Aside from the predictably good bonding opportunity it afforded, it was actually a really good laugh, start to finish. We had a great bike ride with the trailer bike [View in Google Earth] taking in some bleak but very ridable bridleways and byways, and had a couple of really ace short walks.

We capped off by a quick visit to Settle to see Lily’s great grandparents’ grave on Friday as the weather curtailed the walking, which was also worthwhile and led to lots of good chances to chat about relatives, mortality and all that!

Some fine photos here.

5 Apr ’085 Apr ’08

Eleven years on…

Katie and I celebrated out eleventh wedding anniversary today. The weather is prettty much identical; unseasonally chilly and snow flurries, and it’s Grand National day again (the race was famously cancelled because of an IRA bomb scare in 1997). It’s a period of intense of family happiness for us (we’re only two months from our next baby’s due date), and we had such a great walk – and a very long hour or so walking for my blossoming wife – round Entwhistle Resevoir. The good times continue to roll.

31 Mar ’08

World Track Cycling Championships 2008 – a Wheelbase night out

The good people at Wheelbase treated all the staff and team to an evening at Manchester Velodrome to watch a session of the World Track Cycling Championships on Friday. In itself, it would have been a great night out and something different to do. As it happened though, the Great Britain team were in the middle of a gold rush and took two further gold medals on the night.

There was something very familiar, having watched countless medal ceremonies before – at events and on TV, but I suddenly realised on the way home that hearing the national anthem play during the evening, this was the first time I’d ‘been there’ to see someone win a championship – in any sport – for this country.

Five piccies here.

28 Mar ’0829 Dec ’08

On The Nikon D200

Staying at Phil’s house for a few days over the weekend gave me an opportunity to play with his ‘work’ camera’, the Nikon D200. It was a stunning experience. The inordinately heavy body gave the camera an unrivalled steadiness, meaning that short at low shutter speeds were more likely to come out without camera-wobble. The Tamron lens was reliable and very happy with fast autofocus, even when firing off repeated shots.

Here are a few of my favourite shots from the camera over the weekend.

25 Mar ’0813 Apr ’08

The last weekend in South Zeal

As my brother and his family prepare to move up north, it was with mixed emotions that we spent our last stay there over at their house in South Zeal. Mixed, because we’ve had some great times there, as this one was, and we’ll miss it on that score, but the journey back was a killer (getting on for six hours) and the weather wasn’t its usual vintage. Probably not a bad thing – would have been harder to say goodbye to the place in gorgeous spring weather (though I’d love to have given it a try!)

A lovely bonus was a few hours drop-in visit from cousin Adrian with Dee and Isabel – had a great manic meal with plenty of good banter and it was really nice to see Adrian away from the mountains for a change.

We made the most of the freezing northerlies to get to an indoor play area on Saturday, which was obviously great fun for the children and one grown-up in particular who loves these places. Katie took plenty of opportunities for some good rest, and Phil and I managed to get out on the moor a couple of times for short runs, including a straight-up-and-down-Cawsand run which was very rewarding (see here in Google Earth).

89 photographs are here – a mixture of some from my camera and some taken with Phil’s utterly stunning Nikon D200.

Katie and Helen catching up

16 Mar ’0816 Mar ’08

New Clogs

… not for me – but for Lily. Her first pair of clogs were such good value – she got so much wear out of them and a trip to Walkley Clogs is always fascinating.

14 Mar ’0814 Mar ’08

Rochdale Optician – a fitting conclusion.

A good while ago I was chatting (about the importance of search engine traffic) to my friend Lewis as he was setting up his Optician business in Rochdale, and I set about a little task of my own, for geeky fun, to see if I could get onto page 1 in Google for the search term ‘Rochdale Optician”. I managed to get onto pages 1 and 2 of the search results when I built this page.

Well, as if to complete the circle, I’ve just finished putting them together a website. It was a ‘spare time’ job and took way too long but it was a learning this and basically stuff I enjoy doing. So you know where to click now if you want to see the best Rochdale Optician and Optometrist in Norden Lancashire.

What’s nice is I’ve been able for the first time to apply all my Search Engine Optimisation knowledge to a site I’ve built entirely myself, and at ‘mates rates’. Dying to see how it gets on in the search engines as the domain gradually matures. If any of you’d like to put a link in to Craven & Murray from your site, I’d be ever so grateful! Needless to say, if you need an eye test or some good designer frames from the nicest optician in Lancashire, you know where to go.

14 Mar ’0831 Oct ’13

Seven Days On – not addiction, but obsession.

Inspired by out-of-season, what-the-heckery, I decided to keep on runnin’ for a week and ditch the rest days. Steve did the same thing a while ago and it got me thinking about whether I’m a bit too precious with rest days. A much improved toe joint (thanks, Glucosomine & Chondroitin) finally meant that I wasn’t getting foot ache after runs, so i thought I’d go and see what kind of ache I could give myself.

So a week’s running, minimum of five miles every day was prescribed by my closest doctor and coach.

Looking back, I don’t think it’s done me any harm at all. I was a bit low on morale when I set off on days 4 and 5 but I think that’s because I’ve always run when I fancied it – this became a mission so I ‘had to’. The injuries stayed away (No injuries? Call myself a runner?) and I feel pretty good. The weather’s been utter cack so I’ve not missed my cycling.

The stats
38 miles, about 30 of them off road – 8,000 feet of ascent and descent, 5,500 calories. I thought it was worth commemorating the occasion with a Google Earth file of all the tracks from the trusty Garmin 305.

12 Mar ’08

Other-worldly music animation

Quite the most delightful bit of animation that I think I’ve seen since Pixar’s ‘Robots’ – this appeals to me on so many levels; the epitome of how alive sequenced, electronic music can be if you just use your imagination. Wonderful… ten out of ten.

3 Mar ’0813 Apr ’08

The March Mountain trip: Wasdale

Wasdale

For the second year running, the annual trip to the hills organised by my cousin Adrian was based in Wasdale Head. Some pretty dull weather only lifted by the usual good craic that goes on between ten stout fellows. A wonderful time, as usual, peppered with great banter and the odd occasional meaningful chat. The hills are a brilliant place to enable you to do that, especially in a large group of walkers; flitting between people and picking up chats where you left off. The good dose of fresh air also helps the appetite (as if that needed any encouragement) and the yearning for ale.

The power cut that gripped upper Wasdale the whole weekend meant that we had to pile into two cars (thanks again, drivers) to take evening sustenance in Netherwasdale, some 5 miles away. What this lacked in convenience, it more than made up for in truly excellent food and home brewed fantastic beer. I even think I got away with fully masking my disappointment at clearly ordering the wrong pudding.

Three things learnt over the weekend, mainly from John:

It’s wise to take knitting needles into public toilets
Check for ants nests before settling down Horton in Ribblesdale hollows.
The tough green bit in the middle of a tomato is a good indicator on manliness

Photos here.

Saturday’s Walk:

View in Google Earth

Sunday’s Walk:

View in Google Earth

Update:Adrian’s photos here.
Adrian’s blog post here.