So yesterday was basically staying in bed until I got a stiff neck. I then got up, walked the dogs and shot two new videos. After lunch I walked into town and looked at suitcases. Yep, that exciting. Now here’s the issue, we can take up to three each on the way there, each weighing up to 32Kg. On the way back we can have two each, weighing 23Kg. So far Jamie has a giant one and I have a medium one. I’m still debating if to get a larger suitcase, but then have the issue of it not going over 23Kg or to take two medium ones. But I think I’ve come up with an alternative plan…Jamie purchased a rather gay small suitcase, which is actually the max size for hand luggage. So what I was thinking was to put my backpack and camera bag inside that, then if necessary I can check it in on the way back. Plus I won’t look like so much of a Chav with an Airwalk rucksack when cruising into first class. I’ll just look like a Chav who’s one the lottery.

Last night we went to Lisa and Andy’s who we haven’t seen since about October. Entirely their fault of course. I took large amounts of my homebrew. Lisa drank two bottles of the Red, at the end of the evening she was sat in the taxi in her dressing gown telling the taxi driver how he had to take care of us, all the time the meter was running. By the time she’d got out, we’d clocked up over a fiver.

Got home, went to bed, drank wine.

So this morning not much happened apart from breakfast. I finally deleted Tinder after someone on there sent me a message, ‘Paedo’, lovely. I decided it was time to clear the larder and fridge out. Two large bin bags later and we now have space, no rotting vegetables and no more fucking Reggae-reggae sauce. I also cleared out the freezer. All it contains now is frozen peas and pizza.

After a couple of boiled eggs I decided it was a really great idea to dig the garden. In the rain. So I did. I got wet. The garden is now partially dug. This is in preparation that when we are away I will have planted grass seed and the dogs won’t be constantly trying to ‘fertilize’ it.

I then started packing. Twenty-two pairs of everything. I’m sure I’ve missed lots of stuff. Oh, I finally ordered that hard drive, and a case for it. Jamie went out on some hot date with Callum, cleverly disguised as some works leaving do. I know what they’re up to, licking each others spicy chicken. Meanwhile I’m at home doing the washing, looking after his kids. Did the accounts. Now masturbating wildly over ‘Dan & Phil’.

I have three videos to edit and upload this week. Busy evenings for sure.

If you haven’t checked out my YouTube channel, Lisa, yes that’s you. You can find it here.

This morning I didn’t wake up bloated which was nice after yesterday. I did however wake up with a bust wrist. I think I tanked it yesterday when I was out Geocaching. So that was giving me minor jip all day. Working on a variety of things, none were mind blowingly interesting. To be honest my heart just wasn’t in it today, I just couldn’t get stuck in. Over done enough hours over the past couple of weeks so took a fairly easy day.

Weather was shit, rained near enough all day. Started on a packing list. So far it has twenty-two lots of underwear and three t-shirts. Went to the gym and did Pump with Laverne. Had to take it easy and alter a couple of the moves due to my wrist. Afterwards we went down stairs and spent over an hour on the free weights. There was a guy there in a black vest who was very pleasing on the eye. I gave it all and really worked on my arms, they need it.

As it’s Friday, new video uploaded, ‘The plasticine model challenge’, where Jamie and I try to make and guess three models. It was a lot of fun to make.

Tomorrow it’s due to rain again, same on Sunday. I want to actually make a couple more videos in the morning so I can line them up for when we go away.

Time for bath and wine. Then pizza.

Today started late. I felt pretty bloated and not great. A lot of the morning was spent drinking coffee and procrastinating about death. I then had a massive belch and felt much better. Cracked on with work. Mainly on anti-alaising, there are lots of issues with that, that I really want to delve into later. Spent the afternoon working on an accessary that I can’t talk about. I don’t actually have this accessary, I’m just doing some render support for it. Actually I’m doing some render support for it, for someone when I’m away. Hopefully it won’t be too problematic. I’m going about it in a weird way, trying to implement the most complex stuff first, rather than the most obvious stuff first.

Walked the dogs. Rather than going to the gym I went out and found a couple of caches. Nice couple of hours walking. Weather wasn’t as nice as I’d hoped, still, didn’t rain.

Also trying to work on a packing list. And a check list. Both are virtual at the moment, I’ll start writing them up tomorrow. Ordered a couple more bits off Amazon. T shirts and vest have arrived. So has the lens filter kit. Only thing left still is this portable hard drive. Need to make a move on that soon.

Couldn’t sleep again. So got up at just gone six and took Dillon to daycare. Ended up waiting outside the place for twenty minutes. Went back to bed, managed to get a bit of sleep. Work was a combination of video player issues and anti-aliasing issues. AA will be the death of me, well if the helicopters don’t get me first.

Busy but dull day I guess. Picked up Dillon. Ordered some more pants. Decided I’m not going into the office tomorrow, I just have way too much to do again. Went to the gym and did Pump. It’s been a week, but it was good to go back. Came back and managed to get the out-tro video on to the laptop, so that’s one job done. Also put a few more locations in the sat-nav for the journey. Then I decided it was time….time to test the UPS. Okay, if I have a power outage it will stay up for over seven hours, but I thought I really should test it on a full power down situation. So I did a simulate power fail (which saves all that buggering about trying to find the correct plug), it went on to UPS perfectly, shutdown both the server and the firewall. UPS then did a power cycle and then it all came back up again. All worked fine. So if we do hit an apocalypse and the space aliens manage to restore power then everything will reboot correctly. I will sleep soundly now….actually I probably won’t.

Got up fairly on time. Didn’t have a great night last night, very kind of ‘dozy’. Still got on with it, spent ages trying to work out an issue caused by point sampling a depth texture and linear sampling a scene texture, finally got it sorted but it’s still a bit cocked in MSAA. That basically took up the whole day.

Wanted to go out this evening but the forecast went from moderate to heavy rain so went to the gym instead which was rather un-forfilling, at least they have a decent shower. Came back and decided to try and sort this laptop out a bit. So the job was to copy the USA trip intro and channel out-tro on to the laptop. So I started off with a memory card, created a new library on it and copied the even over to it. Ejected it, moved card to laptop, loaded up the library. I can access it, edit it, play it. But when I come to copy it, I get some bizarre bloody error about media not existing. After plenty of googling and frustration I find the answer. The media has to be formatted to HFS, not FAT. Then magically it all works. Can’t understand why you can do everything with it except copy it when it’s FAT. Still, there we go. The intro is now on the laptop. The out-tro is spending about four hours copying to a USB stick, but it’ll soon be on here. Installed all the FCPX plug-ins, found the easiest way to do that was to just whack the blu-ray drive into the laptop and install them from the back up disc. I’ve got about 50Gb used, so need to do a bit more tidying up then I think I’m good to go.

Tripod quick release turned up, so did the lens cleaning kit and the spare camera batteries. Just need some extra filters and the external hard drive to go. Oh, and a few clothes. Better sort those out now I guess.

Started off today like a normal Monday. Was working on a rendering issue, the only difference was I never got interrupted every five minutes. Walked the dogs. Had the last of the hot crossed buns for lunch. Gym closed early so went out at about six for a couple of hours, found three more caches out of four. Had a shower after more work. Ate salad, started watching the Grand Prix, but feel a bit tired, think I’ll have an early night. Lots of work to do over the next nine work days.

First we must thank Jesus Christ for dying this time of year and giving us not just one, but two bank holidays.

Also I think it would be nice to give some thought to those that are not with us today, not because they have passed or they are ill, but because we don’t like them.

I would like to do a juxtaposition. First we have Jesus Christ, 33, a carpenter from Galilee. He had a bit of a penchant for leading the Jews and dabbling in politics. Then we have Charmaine, 33, a call centre worker from Essex. She has a bit of a penchant for drinking Lambrini and dabbling in shopping channels.

Jesus was persecuted by Pontius Pilate for proclaiming to be the ‘king of the Jews’. Charmaine was persecuted by her mate Chardonnay for wearing last weeks fake tan colour.

He dragged his own cross through Jerusalem. She was dragged out from her Mercedes C class, across the shopping centre car park

He had soiled bandages covering his arms. She dipped her arm into her Kipling handbag (the one with the monkey on it) and removed a Nina Leonard V-neck knit Kaftan. She shouted out, “Ha, fuck you, today I die, but it only arrived yesterday and I got it on four easy-pay”.

Jesus was hoisted up onto the cross which was dug into the sand. Charmaine was hoisted up onto the cross which was lashed to a sign advertising cut price decking at B&Q.

We know what happened to Jesus….

Charmaine’s blood dripped down on to her Kin & Co. bolero. The sweat reached the end of her fingers, she watched as it slowly wore off the nail varnish. She thought to herself that what she really needed right now was a Leighton Denny 14 piece expert manicure collection to perk them up a bit.

She felt the life drain from her as the sun set over the top of the ‘Blue Water Shopping Centre’. As Charmaine tried to reach down into the back of her white stiletto, she had one last dying wish. She’d strapped her iPhone 5c to the back of her 9 inch heel and what she really needed to do now, was to take a selfie.

With her last dying gasps she shouted out, “Today I die.”, “But tomorrow I will be resurrected.”, “Probably in the changing rooms of Selfridges.” “But tomorrow, will become today, which means at midnight, there will be a new ‘Today’s special value'”.

And with that she passes away. A security guard drives passed and looks up at the cross and shouts, “That’s all I need, another Essex bird who thinks she’s fucking Jesus”.

This morning was mostly spent in bed, with accompanying dogs. I did get up and walk them. I then had lunch and ventured out. I picked up dog food for the holiday. This was food for the dogs, not for us. I then went to ‘Intersport’ but didn’t go in as I decided it was far too pretentious. I parked up and walked into town. Failed to buy shoes. Came back home. Shot an animation for our road trip. Quite pleased with it. Oh, I’ve written a little something for Easter Sunday, it hasn’t been given much time but is quite fun.

So ended up doing a load of video editing. Bought some shoes on Amazon. I’m now going to have a shower then make a curry. Tomorrow is mostly a DIY day, followed by food and much wine.

Started this morning very much in bed and slept lots. Finally got up and had breakfast, followed closely by lunch. Then I headed out, parked up not too far from where I went last time. Got cracking pretty much instantly with about five caches in forty-five minutes. Ended up doing two fairly large circuits. Only one DNF. So pretty good haul. Came back and mowed the front lawn. The back is all mud so skipped that. Did some accounts. Then ended up finishing editing a new video. This one is a collaboration with Jamie. It won’t go live until next Friday I expect. There is a new one going live tonight, but that’s just a new helicopter video. A nice one though, an autorotation from about 3,000 feet.

Bath and pizza time. Need to go show shopping tomorrow.

Work was dull, but fairly productive. I haven’t had a great week with it to be honest. Walked the dogs. Went to Spin.

Then finally sat down and sorted out the last of the bookings. So got both lots of theme park tickets and tickets for Broadway show. I also changed up a bit more cash now the exchange rate is pretty mega. So that’s it. Apart from I think eight days of hotels, all the food and all the fuel, everything is paid for. Purchase wise I think I now have everything apart from the portable hard drive and a shit load of pills for everything. I think I need to have a go through the finances tomorrow and work out where I am. USA road trips and helicopter lessons are beginning to empty the coffers at an alarming rate.

Tomorrow I’m going to go Geocaching if the weather holds. Not sure about the gym, closes early, but may try and do a session with Laverne.