This morning started off in bed. No problem there. Nothing happened, I watched the end of the F1 qualifier. It was time to jump in the car and head up to Staverton. It was a beautiful day, no wind. I met with Stuart, nice chap, hadn’t met him before. Very professional instructor, captains shirt, tie, nicely turned out. We had a chat, went though a few things and then we went out. I haven’t really flown properly since my birthday back in April. So I fucked up part of the checklist trying to rush it and ballsed the order of the friction and engine RPM. No one died. All set to go. The radio calls today actually were pretty much on the money, shame nothing else really was. Taxied to hell-north, apparently far too quickly, although it was about half the speed James used to do. So walked across the airport at a very sedate pace. I then belted into a transition and up over the golf course, apparently again far too quickly. The first circuit I almost missed the airport completely, let alone the heli marker. I did about another four circuits in the hour, they did get better, but overall I was going to quickly, I wasn’t doing the correct landing / takeoff checks, I was taught a completely different way to get into the hover than James did, it was all a little overwhelming. I’ll just put it down to the moment to being very rusty. The hour was over and to be honest I’m quite glad it was. Now I don’t have much choice, while James is away I have to stick with this guy. I’m sure he’s very good, it’s just that he’s a bit ‘different’. I don’t think this is a bad thing actually, I’m sure there things James does badly and this guy does badly, but I now have the advantage I can take the experience of two instructors and use that to my advantage.

Now. Here’s the big dilemma. My previous instructor James. I texted him when I came back from North America and said lets go for it in a couple of weeks. He sent me a text back, saying, yes, let me know when. I then had all that phone trouble so tried to phone him a couple of times, finally got through to him. He was in a clinic in California and his wife was ill. Now I had no idea what was going on. I assumed he was on holiday and his wife had a dodgy prawn or something. But today I found out that his wife passed away last week. I have no more details, but I’m assuming he was over there for some kind of treatment that didn’t pan out. So James is now off work for the foreseeable future. At some point he will be back, no doubt. But the thing that runs through my mind, if we are at 3,000ft have an engine failure and I’m making a real pigs ear of the recovery, is he going to save us from death, or say, ‘Ah, fuck it’? My moods go through as many peaks and troughs as a 2Ghz sine wave in a year (If you don’t get my obscure references you will have to Google them). I just don’t know if I could trust the mental state of someone in that position. It’s a tough one.

Anyway, came back. Went to Jamie’s dad’s for a BBQ. It was fine actually. We had quite a good laugh with some photo mixing Jamie was doing on his iPad. Food was a bit lacking, I only had one burger and a sausage. Granddad was great as normal.

So a bit of a mixed day overall. Flying again next Sunday, lets see if I can at least get circuits under control again.

So this morning I stayed in bed probably a bit too long. Jamie had vanished hours before, didn’t even hear him get up which is unusual. Read the paper, had breakfast. Then I took the dogs to the field. They had a great time, tired them both out. Had some lunch. Was feeling very tired still, it’s very hot. But drove over to Cotham and walked into town, popped in a couple of shops and walked back again. Came home and had a nap. Then cut down some the greenery outside. No longer have a green bin, so have to do it in stages. Did all the accounts. Did my expenses. Paid for various software which needed upgrading and now added everything to my nice ‘tax deductibles’ spread sheet.

Tomorrow I have flying, which I will enjoy. Followed by a BBQ at Jamie’s dad’s, which I won’t.

So this morning started far too early at around 6:45AM. The dogs thought they were going to daycare, they were so wrong. I had a coffee, rebooted and then headed to Parkway station. Since they’ve built the new car park, parking is now a breeze. Collected tickets, got on train which was bang on time. Journey was fine, I read a magazine. It was the express, so only had one stop before London. The ticket was almost a hundred quid and there were eight people on the carriage. There is something very wrong with the train system. Got on the tube, made it to the office by 9:30. I can’t go into detail, but lets just say, people turned up, but it took a good hour to get the PC and console all up and running which was a little embarrassing. But I did have plenty of questions to fill the time with. Thankfully it all worked in the end though and we were able to carry out various profiles. There was supposed to be another meeting in the afternoon but that got canceled, so we ended up going out for lunch. Time was rolling on, I pegged it back to London Bridge and then back to Paddington. I missed the bloody 15:45, so grabbed a ticket for the 16:15. Sat on the loo for twenty minutes (I paid my 30p, I wanted to get my monies worth). Then headed straight for the train. Sat in coach ‘B’. It soon packed out, so there was standing room only. It was getting rather hot. The air-con in the carriage had broken down. I then spent the next hour and a half in a sauna. Got to Parkway at 6PM. Pump starts at 6:10. I’d already sent a text to Laverne saying I would be late. So hammered it back home, let the dogs out and then headed to the gym. I got there halfway through the back track, so I’d missed the warm up, squats and cheats. Afterwards we had a private session, I lifted some fucking heavy weights. Good to see the body is getting back in shape after the holiday. I’ll keep doing weekly sessions again now with Laverne, you do feel really good afterwards.

So yes, the entire day basically was taken up with two train journeys and a meeting. How the hell people can commute daily to London from Bristol I will never know. It’s a) Very expensive and b) Very unpleasant.

No idea what I’m doing tomorrow yet. Sunday I’m going flying for the first time in ages. Don’t have my usual instructor, he’s off on his hols.

So I woke up this morning with a bit of a head. Got on with work. I had this bizarre idea about implementing temporal coherence, so I did. It worked. I’m now hailed as some kind of god again. Rest of the day was rather frustrating about setting up a machine for tomorrows meeting. Walked the dogs. By the tim I’d finished work it was really too late to do anything. So went for a run and then watched the second half of the football. Watched England be defeated by Uruguay. We were outclassed. It’s all over now for this world cup. Up early tomorrow to travel to London.

So yesterday was pretty run of the mill. Did a lot of GPU profiling. Went running twice, once at lunchtime and then early evening. I then headed out to pick Lisa and Andy up. I left Jamie in charge of the BBQ which had six foot flames erupting from it due to the addition of a wine glass full of white spirit. We had an evening which slowly descended into debauchery and very loud singing. My neighbours must have been impressed. It then ended up in the dining room, playing pac man on the arcade cabinet. They walked home at about 1AM, we went to bed.

Dillon didn’t go to daycare this morning. I was a little bit hanging, must be said. Skipped breakfast and went straight for three rounds of coffee. Then I implemented FXAA antialiasing. Still looks a bit dodgy in places, will play around with a few bits. Really need to sort out specular aliasing issues.

Went to the gym and did Pump. I think I’m pretty much on the money now as far as the weights are concerned. I couldn’t get the plates for the ones I wanted, so ended up going higher than planned. Nothing went bang and my arms still work, so will stick with those for the next couple of weeks.

Read lots of papers about antialiasing. I have a very dull life sometimes. It’s very hot.

Didn’t start too badly considering. This week is all about GPU profiling. Oh the fun. Actually it’s very interesting. You end up producing a huge amount of data, which you have to stare at and then see if you can do anything about it. So far, so good. Found some fairly easy low hanging fruit which I’ve started to tackle. A lot more analysis to go and no doubt quite a few upcoming changes. We have a meeting with dev support the end of the week, so try and get as much in by then as possible.

Walked the dogs. Went to Body Combat. I felt pretty into it tonight and gave it a bloody good go. They was a new guy behind me, who did the entire thing on one side, no matter how much Liz shouted at him, he just stood there. Money says he won’t be back. Came back and did some more work. Got fast depth clears working, needs tidying up now. There are a couple of other oddities which I need to work out what it is.

Having a BBQ tomorrow, on a Tuesday? Yes, not my idea.

Woke up far too early this morning. Phone still hadn’t been ported. Got straight on to O2 yet again. Did all the standard bullshit, “Oh, it won’t be done now until Monday because systems don’t work weekends.” I did negotiate returning the damn phone at no cost and cancelling the contract so they could shove it up their ass. The guy reassured me that I should wait until Monday.

Walked the dogs. Came back and low and behold the original phone no longer had a service. Got hold of O2 again. Apparently the ‘concern team’ had got hold of it, contacted Tesco mobile and sorted the bloody thing out. After a reboot of the new phone all was good, everything worked. Wankers. Range captain James. Apparently he was in a clinic in California as his wife was ill. I let him get on with it. Booked into Heliflight next weekend with Stuart. Can’t fly with Candia as she will probably do my test.

Shot a new video, it’s all about motorway service stations.

Had toast. Headed out to sort of Seamills area. Parked up. Then spent the next five hours geocaching. I wanted to get ten, I think I got eight. Which means if I want to hit two hundred tomorrow I need to get fourteen, which is one hell of a challenge. Came back. Got pissed off with FCPX again for fucking up a data copy. It’s all sortable, but just a pain in the ass.

Made curry. Watched the football. England were crap. I hate football. Roll on the next game.

So this morning started with Carl complaining about a hangover. He only had one bottle of wine, bloody lightweight. I had breakfast, he drank tea then vanished in a taxi. Later that day he was seen on Brighton beach.

I started work fairly early. It was one of those data syncing and waiting forever days. Still all got done in the end, together with a new mutex system. All checked in. Have to visit anti-aliasing again next week, that’ll be joyous fun.

Went for a run. Which wasn’t a great idea considering the heat. I went to Pump as well. Didn’t do a session afterwards, just too knackered, but did put a good effort in.

Came back and finished off work. Now going to hang the clothes up and irritate O2 again before having pizza.

Still working on a lock free task manager thing, which I pretty much got to the bottom of. Walked the dogs lunchtime. Early evening I drove over to Filton and did four geocaches. I then met up with my old friend Carl at the pub down the road. We then sat there for three hours and drank heavily. I got through six pints, he cleared of a bottle of wine and a brandy. We then came back here and killed off another bottle of wine. He slept in the guest room. This morning we both kind of felt rather rough.