Still haven’t sent our envelopes off yet. Jamie’s is sealed, mine is still waiting for an answer.

Started work on time and got a good days works done all in all. It rained all morning, but got out with Sasha later in the day. Walked to Combat, limped through that.

Trying to arrange meeting up with a guy in a field that I met on the Internet. I’ll take lubricant and a screwdriver.

So started this morning with coffee and a paper. Took Sasha out and then drove up to Staverton. Had a check flight with Ben as I hadn’t flown at Gloucester for over a month. We only had a 1500ft cloud base so it was a tad tricky. First auto was okay but RPM was a bit all over the place. Second auto I had to do a 180 degree turn, avoid the power lines, keep the RPM in the green and do all the calls in about 1100 feet. RPM dropped to 90 percent and the horn was blaring, I ran out of flare and air-speed dropped to about 30kts before I dumped the collective and recovered the air-speed. Ben picked some real bloody challenges, but each one I recovered successfully, even if a little untidy. Only once did he have to step-in and that was because I almost did an overspeed on the flare recovery, and that was more to save the helicopter from damage than anything else. To be honest folks, if you had an engine failure, the last thing you could give a shit about was over-speeding the gear box. But as it’s polite to hand it over in one piece, when we practice we keep it within the limits. I was signed off without any problems. These check flights are great fun, but can really make you nervous, they always throw in the unexpected just to keep you on the ball. I was very tempted to buy an R22, it was at a very good price, but if I buy one, I think it’ll be an R44. I’m going to do my R44 type conversion in the next couple of months. It’s about 3.5K but you can then fly four people, its a hell of a lot faster and basically it will cost £111 each an hour, which is a lot better than the R22. Plus you don’t have the same seat weight restriction, so the fat bastard brother-in-law can come along.

Drove back. Weather was shite, so didn’t venture out again. Instead I did an hour on the synth, I’m trying to learn Axel-F, I can now play both main and bass parts, if a little slowly. Did the accounts. Had a bath. Now I’m going to cook a curry. Nice relaxing weekend. The only thing that’s really pissing me off still is my leg.

Oh, and I’m not going to fucking Nice in February. It’s like five degrees and miserable.

Oh, another oh. I decided, ‘fuck it’, I’m going to spend sixty quid and see Burt at the Colton Hall. I’ve ordered my ticket. I’ll sit alone. I’ll have a great evening.

So started this morning with the usual coffee and paper reading. Odd occurrence during the night though, got up for a pee and stepped into the draw that is normally under the bed. Gave it a good shove back under and I hear a growl and a rather disgruntled dog emerging from under the bed. Sasha seems to have become somewhat ‘clingy’ over the past couple of days, I hope she’s okay, walking and eating all fine, maybe it’s just her time of the month, even though all her bits have been removed. Anyway. Booked in with Ben for a check flight tomorrow. Booked aircraft for next Saturday to take my nephew up. I asked if he wanted to go anywhere in particular, he said he’d like to land next to a Dominoes. Walked Sasha. Drove into town. Picked up a couple of bits. Did a home check for a dog. Had a bath. Nice weekend I guess. So check flight tomorrow, walk the dog, may do a bit of gardening.

I must admit I had quite a fun day today. I was getting completely fucked by geometry shaders. But thanks to a bit of support from the manufacturer I got on top of it and finally felt a small sense of achievement. Walked Sasha, we got away with it actually, it just started spitting just down the road. Walked to the gym, in the bloody rain. Did Pump very badly. Walked home. Ended up doing more work. Ah, it hasn’t been a bad week I guess.

Had a rather fun day trying to get some milestone work done. All to do with geometry shaders. Suffice to say by the end of the day they still don’t work. Walked Sasha, weather held up. Then early evening I had to do some some filming for Jamie where it promptly pissed down and everything including me got soaked. Had a bath. Now some random MP I’ve never heard of has just been shot, the guy who did it is either a loon or completely pissed off about something. I remember phoning up the local MP once and calling him a cunt many years ago, but shooting is certainly a step too far. Just waiting for Mr Trump to pipe up and say he was probably descended from a Muslim.

Something completed unrelated happened today which is causing me to lean more to ‘brexit’, somehow I think controlling our own borders is something I’d like to see happen.

Started work bang on time. Finished off what I was doing last few days then had a look at some other bug. Walked Sasha for almost two hours as I needed a good break. Came back and finally started on something I should have done months ago, it will take a few weeks to finish I expect. This evening I popped out and made a map of where all the BT cabinets are, it took almost two hours. There is method in my madness, probably.

Started work very early. Spent all day tracing an ‘infinite’. Appears that on a certain make of video card that if you output a value too large for the render target to the ROP unit and enable blend it will always write an infinite. Which is annoying and took over two days to get to the bottom of. I’ve got a fix but still need to tidy it all up.

Weather is on the turn for the worse, walked Sasha but it was ugly. Walked myself in the evening and it was drizzling. Spent some time playing with an online Z80 compiler and emulator, have the sudden longing to build my own computer based on a Z80 or 6502. Yes I know you can use a PIC for just about anything, but where’s the fun in that.

The above title is the only comment I’m going to make at the moment. I feel a complete rant coming on, but as it includes the words ‘Trump, Nuclear, Islam and Hitler’, I’ll leave it there for the moment.

Spent all day tracing one bug, and after eight hours I’m still no closer to either fixing it or working out its cause. Weather held up, so Sasha did okay. Walked to gym, did Combat, that almost killed my leg, walked home. Still doing all the required exercises. I definitely feel something is happening down there, I’m not sure if it’s a good thing or not.

So Jamie and I did’t eat until gone midnight, then stayed up until gone 4AM watching the Eurovision Song Contest. Must admit, it was a good one. The hosts act at the end was an absolute classic. Scoring was much improved as well.

So got up this morning, okay, rephrase that, got up this afternoon. Jamie started clearing the kitchen. I had the coffee machine to fix. The water sensor hasn’t worked for ages. It’s a reed switch, so is magnetic. I decided just to swipe a powerful magnet down the side incase the switch had become magnetised, worked first time, saves taking that apart. We were thinking of doing a BBQ, but the forecast was all over the place and by the time we had started asking people we worked out that it would probably piss down and we didn’t actually have any food in anyway. So we took the dogs up to the field.

Came back and did some practice with a model helicopter. Then learnt a new song on the keyboard, long time since i’ve done that. Went out for a walk. Did the accounts and had a bath. Now sat down about to watch the Grand Prix highlights. Been a fun weekend, done a few bits. It’s also a non-drinking weekend, so I’m full of gas on alcohol free lager. I’m going to attempt Combat tomorrow, I’ll see how much I can do and always drop out if necessary, Laverne knows the score.

Started this morning far too early. Drove to the gym and had physio. Didn’t even eat or have coffee. Before I went in I had to have a poo though, I don’t think I could have had my bits squeezed without a nasty surprise popping out. I was somewhat disappointed that she didn’t massage my areas again, but instead taught me a number of exercises I have to perform as apparently I’m not using my buttock muscles enough and this is putting severe strain on my ham-strings.

Drove back home and went back to bed now that I couldn’t move at all. Stayed there some considerable time. We eventually ventured out and went to Tesco’s. I hot out the car and had to stand still for quite some time in the middle of the road as I wasn’t going anywhere, severe pain shot through my leg. Came back and I took Sasha out for an hour. Then laid on the couch for a bit and had a bath. I imagine tomorrow will consist of more of the same, hopefully it may just drop off, and the leg.