Happy birthday blog. Although celebrations are a bit of a damp squib.

This morning started with a hangover. I didn’t start work until about 11, I just wasn’t in the mood. Had breakfast and fed the dog. Then finally did make a start. The VPN decided to not let me in so had to fart around with that. When I finally did get on with work though it was quite a productive day. Lots of renderer code, going back over the ‘todo’s’ and doing them. Quite pleased with progress although my heart wasn’t really in it, I was happy with the distraction.

Walked the dog, because of the heat she was as enthusiastic as I was, so we kept it sort. I did drag myself to the gym and do Combat, which I was quite pleased with. I enjoyed it. There was a fairly reasonable looking new guy at the back who had the coordination of a pissed giraffe. Came back did some more work, then went over to Sarah’s and watered her plants, although it’s fairly academic as it looks like it will piss down soon. Still, there’s a limit to how much I want dying this week.

Came back and did yet more work. Fucked up a couple of checkins, although they looked fine originally, brain not firing on all cylinders. Anyway, may sit down and watch a film now, in the mood for that, not much else. Need to go to doctors and pick up my prescription as I’m out of happy pills. Now in that very strange ‘limbo time’, between death and funeral. I’ll write an obituary at some point, just not right now.

Oh yes, the blog is one year old. Jamie said I’d never keep it up. I kept the paper diary up for twenty-four years. There’s been a new entry near enough everyday, you try and come up with something witty to say.

If there is a god in heaven then today he was a bit of a cunt

This morning I woke up, which oddly to discover someone else didn’t. I had breakfast and a coffee and then gently dozed. It wasn’t until about mid-day when I checked my email, and then face book. At 5:45 this morning was a message posted to me, from Karen Green, Natalie Green’s mother. It simply read, ‘Natalie is at peace x’. The world suddenly stopped turning, I lost all coherence, I didn’t really have a clue where I was for a few minuets. The girl who I had loved and been with for about six years had gone, she was no more, in her own words she would have said ‘I am an ex parrot’. So sudden, I only had a message the other day that she was ill in Cheddar Hospital and that they had found a ‘mass’ on her stomach, I was planning on visiting next week, I never expected this to happen so quickly. She was about thirty-five, had never done any harm to anyone, she has two small children. Now she is gone. The last time I saw her was at my wedding last year, she made our wedding cake. I only recently sent her a couple of dolls I’d picked up in Japan for her kids. Now she’s gone, she’s never going to pop on on face book again and seek legal advice or bitch about the world in general. It’s very strange.

We did eventually get up. I ate eggs, we visited the mall and I managed to get three more Gromits. Came back and got the BBQ going. Jamie’s mother was coming over. We actually had quite a good time, she slightly overdid the wine and was a bit legless. That took my mind of things for a bit.

I have a feeling I may be dwelling on my thoughts a bit too much this week. At some point soon I will have to meet her family again and I really just don’t know what to say.

RIP Natalie, may your god go with you.

No you can’t can’t have my bloody t-shirt

Started this morning with two cups of coffee to boot the system. Doing about two hours of walking, Body Pump and nine hours of work yesterday was not a good combination. I didn’t even hear Jamie leave for work this morning. I thought the dog probably needed to go out but the patio door was already open, good job as I doubt I would have heard her any way. Got her her breakfast and I had mine. Read the paper. Then we ventured out on are ‘usual’ Saturday walk over to the field in Almondsbury, where she can have a good run off lead.

Came back and had lunch. Then ventured out to find more Gromits. On the way into a town I got stopped by some random guy and asked where I got my t-shirt from, I said it was from a shop in Yokohama. He then got quite pissed off with his girlfriend and ranted that he needed to go to Japan. Incidentally I was wearing my purple ‘Team Rocket’ shirt.

Found ten more Gromits, I think I’m around fifty-eight mark now. Visited mother, where she listed her usual amount of things that needed doing. I fitted her tumble dryer in. I got a fruit cake, fair exchange. Watered Sarah’s plants. Then ventured into Tesco to get a couple of bits for tomorrows family BBQ. Yes, It’s been at least a fortnight since the last one.

Right, bath time, then I’m cooking something with ham, not too keen on that idea.

Well after weeks I finally checked some code in

So today was hot, still. Mr Tesco’s arrived just before 10, didn’t even get a text this time. Yet another driver, this one was ugly. Work wise was the last stage of renderer code cleaning and compiling. Managed to get it all going by late afternoon. So then ventured out for a walk to the doctors, needed to pop the repeat prescription for happy pills in. That ended up taking about an hour and a half round trip. It was very hot. Carried on with the resolving link errors then went off to Body Pump. That was very hot.

Got back and worked on link errors. Finally got them all sorted and the code checked in, that’s quite a big milestone to get passed. Now just have loads of stub type functions to implement. That’ll keep me busy over the coming weeks.

Now really must book that dentist appointment…..or flying lesson….it’s a toss up.

The heatwave continues

Today, once again was warm, hot, almost boiling. I walked to Sarah’s this evening in a a pair of shorts and a vest. I watered her plants, most look like weeds.

Work wise, yes, renderer again. Plodding along nicely. It was very hot, did I mention that? Did some more flying on the sim, need to practice hovering more.

Decided I really most go to the dentist before flying again, I’m getting bad toothache somewhere. Well it’s in my mouth.

Torture porn night, got a good one tonight by the look of it.

Did Axl Rose really think he was stylish in 1992?

Got up far too early and took dog to daycare. Went back to bed. Then back on to renderer code. Today was quite fun as I actually started compiling stuff, lots of work still to do there.

Picked up dog in afternoon, came back and finished off work. Then went flying. Well virtual flying. I managed to take off fine from Gloucester and then fly down the M5 and land at Filton airport. Managed to get the visuals set up nicely so the compass was correctly on the horizon at 70 knots. Landing was also pretty good, then practised a bit of hovering. I really need to get some peddles to do it properly, now I know the flight sim is actually pretty accurate I’ll invest in some.

My new travel bugs arrived for Geocaching, so I’ve attached one to a plastic cocktail glass (which I got from a game machine in Weymouth) and given it a mission of going to a cocktail bar in Manhattan, which seems quite appropriate. I went out this evening and dropped it off into a cache over in Woodhouse Down. Also picked up another one while I was there.

Got back and checked facebook, someone had posted a video of Gun N’ Roses playing in Tokyo in 1992. It’s a great song, but dear Axl, did he really think he looked good wearing very short white lycra shorts?

My thoughts are with a dear close friend of mine at the moment who is currently in hospital, we send our love.

I flew all the way down the M5, okay it was a simulator

My new joystick arrived, which meant I then spent ages trying to get the drivers to install then gave up. The MS ones seem to work okay anyway. Then I had all sorts of activation problems. Managed to fly it fairly stably down the M5 though from Gloucester airport which I was quite happy with.

Work wise, still on render code. Didn’t go anywhere lunchtime but popped out in the evening for a bit and went over towards Filton and did a few caches there.

Warning if you fly this helicopter you will die

I don’t recommend you read the safety briefings at the end of the Robinson R22 manual, you will never set foot in a helicopter again. Low RPM rotor stalls and zero-g roll-overs. There’s one bit which says the rotor will flex so much that it will chop the tail boom, but this is irrelevant as you are doomed anyway. The copy of flight sim arrived.

Spent most of the day on renderer code again, still plodding along quite nicely. Walked the dog.

Went to the gym and did combat, it was very warm. Then came back and did some more work. Finally installed the flight sim and got the R22 up and running. I’m actually very impressed after setting every possible option to realistic it’s just as much of a bitch to handle as the real thing. Don’t have my flight stick yet, so trying to fly it with an XBox controller isn’t easy. But things like airspeed and RPM drop were spot on. It even has Gloucester airport so after I managed to get the bloody thing off the ground I managed to fly fairly stably along the M5. I then crashed it in a field trying to land. I think it’s going to be quite a good training aid, I look forward to doing some more hovering practice.

There and back again, but not as exciting as Bilbo

So got up after sex. Actually it was quite good, Jamie laid on his front so I didn’t get to see the extremities. Had breakfast and a coffee, cleaned up the dog poo. Got rid of a couple of mouldy lettuces. Then had lunch.

In the afternoon I decided that as the temperature had dropped a lot since yesterday I’d go biking. So I pumped up the tyres on the mountain bike and donned lycra. I cycled to the outskirts of Bath and then cycled back again. I stopped for an ice cream on the way and a bottle of water on the way back. Very pleasant ride, haven’t done a decent one since about this time last year. Then came back and red the Robinson R22 owners manual, made the back mistake of reading all the back pages on ‘safety tips’, I’ll probably bang on about this a bit more later in the week, but it’s surprising there are any Robinson R22 owners who aren’t dead that would require an owners manual.

Time for a bath.

Weymouth and Portland

So got up at a sensible time and took the dog over to Almondsbury. Came back and grabbed those couple of travel bugs I picked up last week. Then I went and picked up mother, inserted her in the car and off we set to Weymouth. Took the fairly direct cross country route and got there in a couple of hours. Parked no problem considering the hot weather. We stopped first in a pub and had lunch then walked round a bit. Certainly it’s been a couple of years since we’ve been out but mothers walking ability has rapidly deteriorated, we can’t have really walked for more than an hour. Anyway, we had an ice cream and then went in the arcade and played on the 2p machines. I’ve ended up with a few bits which I can use for travel bugs so I’ve ordered a couple of them.

We then set off to Portland, trying to find some Geocaches, a sod to park anywhere then we ended up in the wrong place several times. In the end I parked up at the top of a hill and just used the phone to find a couple of nearby caches. Found one in a gate and another at an old BMX track. Managed to drop off a couple of trackables in that one. Almost got muggled putting it back.

We then drove back following the sat-nav which decided to take us to a road that was closed, then a 50 mile diversion followed including a trip up a mud track which required some fun reversing. Anyway we got back in the end. Had a shower, something to eat and some telly.

I also ordered the new (or last version anyway) flight sim for the PC, this includes the R22 helicopter, I’ve also ordered some controls. So it will be interesting to see how it handles.