Okay, so ‘Boy George’ isn’t dead

I’m sure I had a dream last night when I said to Jamie that Boy George was dead and he was only interviewed on the radio a couple of weeks ago. My mind works in mysterious ways.

Spent the day working on release builds. Mostly working now, did some base profiling, no surprises, in a pretty good place really. Loads of work to do though that’s for sure.

Went to the gym again and did spin, that’s every night this week.

Finally activated new credit card, so providing I’ve been paid I’ll order the arcade cabinet tomorrow, then hopefully it will be here for Christmas. The dining room stands a chance of being painted by then. If only Dillon would stop pissing in it.

Melissa may dream but I didn’t

So took these new pills last night, about an hour before I went to bed. Then finally got to sleep about 4AM, so they worked well. Will try again tonight. They are called ‘Melissa dream’. Yeah right.

Took Sasha to daycare at 6:30AM, Dillon was somewhat put out. Went back to bed just as Jamie came home from work.

Got up, found my issue with blotchy red bits, was due to Nan’s, not a relative (I usually blame my mother anyway), NAN means ‘not a number’. Then worked on ground cover again, which I finally fixed.

Went to the gym and did pump, first time I’ve done it on a Wednesday for about a year. Was good fun. Came back and did far too much work and got far too stressed. Finally sat down to eat at about 11PM. Going to have a bit more food then an early night I think.

I’ve transferred the red and maybe another helicopter arrived

Started at a reasonable time. Spent most of the day working on high dynamic range bloom issue. Such is the excitement of my life. Didn’t really do a great deal otherwise.

Another helicopter arrived, this one’s in a nice case. It’s another fixed pitch one, but it hasn’t been set up by a womble, so should hopefully behave.

Went to spent, done by someone called Paul, who spent all his time shouting ‘touch up’. I think I lost four gallons of sweat. Think I may do pump tomorrow.

Going to try my new sleeping pills out shortly. They are herbal.

You’re not sticking that in me

Just to show how strange my mind works, yesterday morning I had another one of my dreams. I was with a guy called ‘Danny’, now this was someone who I was at school with, but he was killed in a car crash when he was about 18. It was a real nasty one, car went over a cliff, was identified by dental records. Anyway, he was trying to jam a metal pole up my arse. I kept shouting at him, saying that he need to put a condom on it. Then after a while of prodding I said I would contact his dad who’d given me his business card, he was apparently a bishop.

I got up. Went to Tesco’s and picked up some beer. Forgot to buy tomato’s.

Came back and got on with the dining room. Basically it was sanding down bits which weren’t neutralised properly after the paint stripping. Took near enough all day, but done in the end.

Had a shower and then got picked up by Andy and Lisa. Tried to sort out new year, came up with something but that doesn’t look like it’s available now.

This morning, being a Monday I started somewhat late. Then got on with looking at ground cover and the joys of material replacement. Spent near enough all day on that.

Walked the dogs in the rain, it was very cold.

Went to combat. Did a home check for a pair of kittens. Came back and did a couple more hours. Material replacement now all works. Still quite a few other issues to sort out.

Oh, watched a set-up video on the Honeybee V2, I noticed that one of the servo’s on mine is upside down, no wonder it wanted to destroy the dining room. Still learnt a lot, ordered spare parts.

Jamie is working nights this week, so it’s just me and the dogs.

Don’t fly in your dining room

Today I decided to have a bit of a ‘me’ day. So sod everyone else, I’m going to do stuff for me. So started off with a bit of a lie in, watched some videos. They were helicopter set-up videos, not porn. Popped out to the sorting office, collected a parcel (sanding blocks) and picked up a paper. Came back and walked the dogs. The had lunch.

Then I moved the dining table and cleared the area. I then spent the next couple of hours trying to set up the four channel heli. Learnt quite a lot about setup and control. Managed to get it to hover. Managed to wreck part of the landing gear and part of the dining table. It’s surprising the force that builds up in the rotor. Eventually managed to adjust it to such a point where I lost part of one of the bars. So not a crash as such. I tried one of my spare CP3’s. This seemed much more stable until I whacked the fridge and screwed the blades and bent the main rotor stem. Never mind, this is my ‘practice’ copter. Next step is to fix this and the other one and change the receivers so I can use my DX6i transmitter. I can hopefully set them up a lot better. The good news is I had a lot of fun.

Then spent the next four hours tidying my office. Filled three bags of rubbish and one box for the charity shop. Now have a shelf for all my helicopters and controllers and a drawer for the spares. Plus everything now looks tidy.

Did the accounts.

Good day. Enjoyed it.

Now going to have a quick bath and then cook. Tomorrow it’s DIY day, then we are going out in the evening.

Surrounded by model helicopters

Work wise again was lots of tracing code and debugging things. A bit disappointed I didn’t get one bit going but never mind.

Did pump. Another helicopter arrived. That means I’m now surrounded by five of them. The latest is only a four channel and seems to have been modified by a womble as there is no way one of the servos would work the way it was set up. Spent an hour or so setting it up so most of it moves. It needs a hell of a lot of trimming, but I’ll play with that tomorrow.

One annoying thing, my nice Dx6i transmitter isn’t compatible with any of the heli’s. There is a solution though, that requires wiring and soldering, so right up my street.

Bath and pizza time (not together).

I can fly

Didn’t sleep again last night, it’s getting quite annoying now. Got up at 7AM, began the drive to Staverton. By the time I got to the M5 I realised I’d forgotten my wallet. Drove back, picked that up and then had another go. Arrived just after half eight, Captain James was already there and had fuelled up G-OJAN.

After a short briefing about manifold pressures we got in the helicopter. I’d already grabbed a cushion and plugged in my new headset. I was great, it was silent. Went through the start-up check-list and fired her up. James taxied across the runway and took it up to three hundred feet, I then took over. We did quite a bit of upper air work, climbs, descents, climbing and descending turns. I then did a auto-rotation and an approach back to the airfield, brought it right down to 300 feet and then got it into a hover.

Then the fun started. Did lots of hover practice. Then did landing from a hover and taking off again. Spent the next twenty minutes or so taking off, crossing the airfield, bringing it back to a hover and then landing again. Finally flew it back to the hanger and parked it on the grass outside. Great fun. So apart from transitions which I briefly did today that’s everything for flying. So technically I could steal an R22 and fly it about. I would get lost of course as we haven’t covered navigation yet. So I clocked up 1.4 hours today (Don’t ask how much). I’m up to 6.5 hours total, so about 15 from going solo. Really pleased with my progress. Just in the back of my mind I know how much it’s costing, and how pretty much bloody useless a skill it is. Still it’s fun.

Drove home. Started work. Today mainly it was resolving code and building data, so fairly dull. Walked Sasha, Dillon refused to wear his harness. Did more work.

Early evening I did something I haven’t done in years. I went to a spin class. It was with Laverne and was forty-five minutes. That knackered me out, actually really enjoyed it, will be going again. Traffic was awful.

Came back and did a bit more work. Now the in game hud is all in the middle of the screen. Apart from that, all looks pretty good.

Finally sat down and ate. It’s torture porn night, probably go for something light.

So I now have a programmable controller, one day I’ll get round to programming it

So this morning was a bit strange. Alarm went off and Sasha got excited. Got breakfast for both Sasha and Dillon, Dillon thought this was a bit strange. He was even more confused when I tried to get his harness on at 6:30AM. Loaded them both into the car, they were fine. Dropped them off at daycare.

Went back to bed.

Working today on post process effects and an interesting skinning problem. Postman arrived and delivered my Spektrum DX6i, it’s ex. display but perfect condition. This is a fully programmable controller, so I should be able to set the heli’s up properly. I’ll leave that until I have a bit more time to get into it. There are a lot of set-up videos I need to watch, hopefully then the four channel ones will be easier to fly, then I can move on to the six channel ones.

Picked the dogs up. Sasha and Dillon both enjoyed it, they are now very tired which is good.

Went for a run. Did a bit more work. Did some R22 hover practice on the sim.

So tomorrow it’s early doors, drive up to Staverton to fly budgie.

My new headset arrived, it’s very posh

Got up no problem. Postman delivered my new headset. It’s very posh and solid, I think it’s a magnesium alloy or something. Can’t test much of it without a helicopter, but I’ve linked it up to my phone and the speech dialling works well. It all goes surprisingly quiet when you put them on.

Sent a text to captain James, next lift should be Thursday.

Finished buying helicopters, I should now end up with six. Three CP3’s and two V2’s, plus a dual rotor little one. I’ve also ordered a Spektrum DX6i controller so I can set them all up properly. I’m going to start on the V2’s which are just four channel and should fly indoors. I’ve been running a similar one on the simulator and it’s going quite well.

Work wise, all about post processing and most of it is now done. I reckon by the end of the week the whole game will be done. Then it’s just the fun task of making it run quickly.

Went for a run.

Finally caught up with my Trip-advisor reviews

Had a hell of a headache this morning, nothing to do with alcohol, I think it was down to paint fumes. So started work very late after a few pills. Felt fine afterwards.

Working on debugging the main game still. Fixed some crashes to do with damage. Fixed motion blur, now on to depth of field.

Went to the gym and did combat. Not sure what I’ll do tomorrow, either running, circuits or spin, should be interesting.

Came back and did more work, while trying to fly the model simulator. I’m not going to comment on what I’ve bought today.

Sat down and caught up with my Trip-advisor reviews. One for the hotel in Turkey, another for Alton Towers, again for the hotel at Alton Towers and finally for the Italian we went to on Saturday.

Dillon refused to have his head collar on, so he didn’t get a walk. He will learn.

Doesn’t look like I’ll be flying this week due to the piss poor weather which is rather annoying.