So this morning started a bit later than planned. But it was difficult to get Jamie out of bed to bring me breakfast. After that I started sanding. Now after an hour I decided that this wasn’t really going to work. There is a limit to how much asbestos I want to breathe in. So I dug in the garage and found some skim plaster. Ran out fairly quickly, so off to B&Q. Came back, picked up the dog shit and filed the excess wine in the garage. Then spent the next five odd hours brushing skim plaster on to the uneven remains of the Artex. Ran out of skim. Anyway, with a bit of a sand I think it will be fine. Tidied up. Had a bath. Now about to make a curry.

Tomorrow the bathroom stuff is arriving. Need to get the template sorted tomorrow really.

Today I didn’t do any link time optimisation. Instead I looked at rain, well rain drops, and sorted a bug on that. Then I spent ages reducing the number of clouds in environment maps. Who says my life isn’t without these fascinating moments. Not much else happened really. It was very cold again. I went to the gym and did Pump, then spent well over an hour with Laverne doing free weights. We have now actually got to the biggest dumbbell, I’m now doing rows with 50Kg. She said that that was her wait. I said she could get on the floor and I would pump her, but this could easily be misinterpreted.

Anyway, all done, so going for an early night tonight. Get the washing all hung up, then straight on to Pizza and bed as I have a stupidly early flight tomorrow. Will be flying solo again, but this time I think it’s three circuits without crashing, will be a challenge.

So today we had some fun issues with this link optimisation. We do weird things with the library binaries and this optimisation causes the libs to be compressed. So that’s all a bit up in the air at the moment and had to be removed. Then spent a load of time with the renderer to stop it rolling contexts, which is all rather complicated. Very cold again today. Walked the dogs. Got my serial number for Traktor Pro, so will have fun playing with that at some point. I’m still undecided about this model flying club thing, not sure I want to take anything else on at the moment, plus it does mean I would have to socialise, and I don’t really do that sort of thing. I may wait until I have my PPL(H), that needs a hell of a lot more effort at the moment, lots of exams still to pass. I think I’m going to be flying for the next couple of weekends, already booked in for Saturday. Went for a run. Came back and bottled the last lot of wine, which is the red, got near enough thirty-one bottles out of that one. That’s it now on the wine front, may get a couple more kits after Christmas.

Didn’t take Dillon to daycare. I did force them both outside for an hour to play. They weren’t initially amused, but after working out they were not coming in they got on with it. Work was, well can’t quite remember now. Oh yes that was it, link time optimisation. This is quite a fun one, basically the linker will optimise across modules. Which produces interesting code, but eats up shit loads of ram and takes forever. Still, it runs quicker. Didn’t pick up the dog from daycare. Went to Pump, worked on my arms. Came back and edited my helicopter solo video for Youtube. That’s uploading now. Bought Traktor Pro as it was on offer, also bought iDraw as it wasn’t, but hey they are tax deductible. Had a bloody awful nights sleep last night, did I mention that? Bathstore rang, the cabinet that wasn’t in stock now is, so everything is now arriving Monday. Busy weekend then. Need to get wood for template, need to fly helicopters, all sorts of shit.

Oh yes the Athens thing. I keep getting a shit load of spam mail from fucking Greece, yet it all has .co.uk domains, still, just gets added to the spam filter.

Spent the bulk of a very cold day looking for leaks. Memory leaks. Found one in a bit of code which isn’t even used anymore, so ended up just ripping the lot out. Then the afternoon with keyboard input stuff. All fairly dull it must be said. Went for a run, when I came back Jamie had gone out and in the space of ten minutes the dogs had ripped up Sasha’s new basket. It was expensive. Dogs spent rest of the evening outside. I’m still not talking to them, it’s daycare day tomorrow, I think I’m going to stay in bed. Bottled the other white, can’t actually remember what it is, but a small sample and it tastes really good. Just the red to go, hopefully I’ll bottle that Thursday and then that’s everything done for this year. I may get a couple more kits in the new year. Talking of new year, not sure what we are doing yet, probably nothing, last year cost about a grand for one evening, so may just stay at home.

Spent the day doing unsafe mode command lists. Which is really as unexciting as it sounds. Walked the dogs, it’s bloody freezing again. Went to Combat, seven this time. Came back and worked far longer than I was planning. Ordered some more Christmas presents. They are all for Jamie, I don’t actually get any for anyone else. This will make Christmas substantially cheaper after the divorce.

Read through the stuff about the local model flying club. To join you need to come to one of the winter meetings, buy a club tie, do a secret handshake, toss off the club secretary and then get a nomination and a seconder to fill in your form. You can then part with sixty quid for the years membership. I’m not sure I can really be assed with all the politics just so I can stand next to someone who drinks real ale and has a beard show me the best technique to fly a model helicopter. Don’t know, I’ll think about it. I have enough issues with flying the real one. Mind you, I’ve crashed that considerably less than the models.

So today it was back to normality. I had work to do. I must admit though, yesterday I was on a bit go a high. Jamie cooked and it was nice, we went to bed, watched some telly and then did a cross word. One of those is a lie. Anyway, breakfast for three, Sasha kept up her caffeine habit. Then I was on a bit of a time limit, as we had a dinner appointment. Out with the Artex stripper, piled it all on within an hour. Walked the dogs, picked up the dog shit. Then basically it was three solid hours of stripping. Finished it all by 4:30. Had a shower and then off we went to the dull in-laws. Well, they are not dull, I just don’t have much in common with a chef and I think she’s a mental nurse or something. I do however absolutely love Jim, Jamie’s grandad, he is such a fascinating character, he’s very ‘old skool’, but such a fascinating bloke. And I must admit, we do share heavily our political views, which I know for sure the rest of all our families certainly don’t. Now, we had dinner. I was served lamb, which I hate as I don’t eat meat, then served a real cream pudding which I’m allergic to. Dinner was fun. I must admit though, the conversation was absolutely amazing. I was driving, so I had half a glass of wine. Everyone else I think had been drinking since about Tuesday. To paraphrase it, Cathy said, “You certainly don’t get porn by email”, with such conviction. The rest of the conversation basically centred around porn, Ann Summers, La Senza and Jim discussing nudes. It was an interesting evening. After dinner I showed my ‘first solo’ video. Jim shook my hand, he can appreciate that it takes a reasonable amount of effort. Drove home. Then made up for the lack of wine.

So yesterday I was Tom Cruise in ‘Top Gun’ flying quarter of a million pounds worth of helicopter over Gloucestershire, but without the cannon and missiles, and today I was ‘Joe Smith’ scraping Artex from a bathroom ceiling. Quite a come down. But secretly I knew with every scrape, I was wearing a pair of mirrored shades saying ‘Goose, there’s a Mig at 12 o’clock’. Yesterday I joined an elite group of people who can fly a helicopter, a sort of gentleman’s club of geeks with far too much money. But after doing it for fun, I have so much respect of those who do it for a living in the military and search and rescue. Now, I’m no royalist, but my hat goes off to Prince William, I don’t think people realise how difficult his job actually is. There is a highly trained individual who actually does a valued job for a living. Sir you have my respect. If only your dad did something fucking useful rather than talking to plants and waiting for his mother to die. Talking of which, that kind of reminds me of somebody. But all my plants are already dead…

This morning started off as normal, breakfast for three and coffee for one. Sasha needs to stop on the coffee, it makes her very irritable. Then got straight on with clearing out the garage, need to get a bathroom suite in there. Made a pretty good job of it. Soon the time came to drive up to Staverton. Dropped Jamie off at Tesco’s, then off I went.

We had a short briefing, tested on R22 emergency procedures. Then I fixed up the cameras, went through the checklist and James put his hi-viz on. We did about four circuits, first was a bit quick, second was better, third was pretty much bang on. We then did a short circuit with an autorotation and then finally a fourth normal circuit. James then got out. I then got into the hover. It did feel somewhat different without the extra weight in it. So did a few spots turns and things, then landed again. James checked if I was good to go, then it was into the hover again and finally that was it, speeding down at 40kts to the transitional lift kicked in. Up over the golf course. It was easily the most scariest thing I’d ever done in my life. But by the time I was over the golf course it was all pretty much business as normal and flying by the numbers. It was my favourite circuit, up over the M5. Approach and landing was pretty much perfect, if a bit long. Afterwards James came over, shook my hand and then said I needed to be in a high hover so he could take a load of photos. So I posed for a couple minutes, about 20ft in the air. Then it was all over. Well, if nothing else, it will make me grin for the next week.

Now the next probability of death, Jamie is making a curry.

All about pre-cert again today. Bug chasing. Oh and sorting particles. We had a density setting which did nothing. It now does something. Very busy all day really. Went to the gym and did Pump, did session with Laverne afterwards. Came back and did more work, far too late into the evening.

Had a real freakish thing happen today. I sent a text to Captain James saying that I could do any time after 11 tomorrow. Within 3 seconds I had a reply saying ‘2?’, texts crossing in the either. Anyway, we are confirmed for tomorrow. Could be an interesting and possibly very final day. If this is my last entry, then I fucked something up big time.