Category Archives: Diary

That’s 30 litres of Chardonnay and 5 litres of Shiraz brewing

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Didn’t start the day quite as early as I planned but still felt pretty good. Got straight on with work, some physics to do and then a bit of AI. It was a varied if not entirely productive way work wise (sometimes no matter how hard you try it just goes like that some times). So need to do a bit more on it tomorrow but that will probably be the end of this little project.

Went out for a run (Jamie’s turn to walk the dog). Came back, did some more work, went to the early evening. Then it was a bit of a mass sterilization session. Bottled the Strawberry and added the oak to it, I’ll leave that to sit for a few weeks and see if it needs further sweetening. Then started up 30 litres of Chardonnay (not a cheap one either) and 5 litres of Shiraz (okay, I didn’t break the bank, I’m not a fan of red). Red is brewing, white just needs to come up to temperature before I add the yeast. Then it’s just sit back and wait. And hope this time it doesn’t explode.

That’s pretty much filled my evening, so now I’m going to have a shower and then eat salad and watch crap TV. Avoiding the wine, which is a bit odd as I spent all evening with the bloody stuff. Early start tomorrow, Sasha off to daycare and cleaners are coming. Just need to take out the bins now.

So your new puppy chewed your cardy, thanks for bringing him back to the dogs home

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Got up, it’s a Monday, so never really a good start to the week. Had several coffees then got on with it. Had to do quite a bit of manual fiddling about on the project today. Got it all done in the end though and looking quite nice.

Took the dog out for a walk lunch time. Had a call from a broker to do with medical insurance (I actually contacted them), it looks like what I’m paying now is pretty much on the money. I may get them to try and negotiate a better deal for me though.

Got the boiler receipt through, it’s a word document with no invoice number, but it looks like the stuff they bung out all the time as the other items on it were correct. They charged £350 labour, most plumbers would charge that for a tap washer. I asked again about the building certificate but I think that will fall on deaf ears, I do have a way round that one though, same for the consumer unit.

Got a call to do a house check for a cat. Also asked about a dog that has reappeared on the website. These things do happen, sometimes dogs just don’t settle. I asked why he was returned, apparently it was he chewed on a cardy or something. There was probably a lot more to it, but it does annoy me when a dog gets taken back because it does a bit of chewing or it pulls on it’s lead or barks a bit. It’s a puppy, they are not programmed up from birth to be perfect, you really do have to work on it. If we panic’d every time Sasha did something vaguely wrong we could have taken her back several hundred times by now. It’s a long term commitment folks, you have to work at it, it’s a two way thing.

Went to the gym, did combat, Liz is back, it was fun. Came back, did some more work. Watched some telly, ate salad. Now going to have a reasonably early night and try and start work at a sensible time tomorrow so I can finish at one.

Mostly I stayed in bed and read a book

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So today I didn’t exactly do much. I woke up, had breakfast in the middle of the afternoon, stayed in bed and read a guide book to Japan. It was a very relaxing morning/afternoon. I then did the dog shit run, stocked up the bird table and had some toast.

Finally got round to doing the pfSense upgrade, which is now almost completed, just need to reinstall and set up NUT. Upgraded the server packages, upgraded wordpress and al it’s packages. Upgraded my Ubuntu box. Stuck a bit more filler around the boiler flu. That needs to be sanded now really to see what a full bloody mess I’ve made of it. Ordered some pastry rolling sheet things. Ordered some more wine kits. The strawberry is cleared ready for bottling, so I’ll probably do that when I start the new ones off so I can sterilise all the stuff together.

Then we went out for a meal. Chose a different place from TripAdvisor. An Italian called ‘Di Meo’, which is at the top of Gloucester Road. Looks a bit of a tip from the outside, but a lovely little restaurant. TripAdvisor review done. Here’s my review of the “Lucky Dragon”. Then came back, got into bed again and did some more reading. Think it must be time for a bath, before, mmm, bed I guess.

I wore the nice pants again this moning

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So woke up, put nice pants on. Had a tamper, Jamie then said he smelled and needed a shower. I therefore looked up curry recipes. After his shower we had a pretty good bumming session. I actually got out of breath, I don’t even do that at Combat. Needed to get out as I had a parcel to pick up from the sorting office and time was getting on. He then goes to the bathroom for twenty minutes complaining that I’ve ‘unblocked something’. Well if I knew I was that effective I wouldn’t have bothered spending three hours out in the freezing cold unblocking a drain full of his greasy frying oil and just shagged it instead. Anyway, he surfaced from bathroom and we went to Tesco’s. He then complained that I hurt is arse and that he smelt of ‘cock’. He didn’t complain during the act and kept saying ‘do it harder’, I’ve knocked down walls with less force. We bought a new throw for the couch. Also supplies for bread maker.

I had lunch. He read the instructions for the bread maker. I left him to it and walked into town and visited mother. When I came back he had actually managed to make bread, which tasted pretty good. And left a mess, which he’s also pretty good at.

I did the accounts. And now I’m about to make a pie. Chicken and leek. A bit adventurous. Oh it looks like we are probably going to go to Japan. Very expensive beer. At least I feel quite tall there.

So that’s the last of the fruit cake and chocolates

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Last night I got through the last slice of Christmas cake. Also now finally got through all the chocolates, biscuits, lager and crisps. So it’s just the biscuits for cheese to go, and I’ve got a hell of a lot of them. Will have to buy more cheese though. Beer fridge is now defrosting.

Spent the morning working on the main project, a few online type things. Walked the dog. Ate a salad sandwich. Actually just before I walked the dog I ran the boiler people, no answer just a machine. Then I actually got a call back, apparently he’s been on holiday. Although I expect that now I’ve demanded a full VAT invoice he’s decided to give up trying not to issue one. I won’t go away, I’m very annoying. Anyway, we will see if it turns up.

Tried to watch some sci-fi film last night. Gave up after half an hour, just couldn’t work it out. Will try again tonight.

Spent the afternoon working on mobile concept, added some sound effects and music.

Went to the gym and did pump. Only just finished work, so bath, phone mother, eat pizza and give that film another shot.

I can feel a summons coming on

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Still working on the mobile game. Spent most of the day trying to register an iPhone5 on test flight, it kept telling me it was an iPhone4. Eventually found out that it was because it was restored from a backup. So lots of buggering about later it decided it was in fact an iPhone5. So first version of that concept out, got some feedback, lots of work to do. I’ll start on that tomorrow. Ended up doing a few bits on the main project, again need to do a bit more on that tomorrow.

Went out for a run. Much to the dogs annoyance. She got her walk in the evening, plus we played ‘bombing the ball down the stairs’, which is always popular and knackers her out after ten minutes.

Still no receipt from plumbers. So Saturday I’ll put a formal request for everything in a letter and send that off. If after fourteen days they fail to respond I’ll send one recorded and then issue a summons. I don’t know why people attempt to piss me off, they all fail.

The Strawberry wine is almost there. Added a couple more sachets of something, now need to let it clear, then siphon it off. Then add something else, bottle it and wait another bloody four weeks. The White wine still seems to taste a bit shit to me.

New flash card arrived and USB reader, I shoved it in the Ubuntu box and it read it fine. So now transferring the latest pfSense image to it, will then try and mount it and copy the config across. Then at the weekend I’ll put the new card in and see what it does. I’m not going to bother putting gag on it this time as that seems to interfere with the automatic upgrade process. I’ll wait until I have a stable image before doing that again. I never updated the MAC address for the network card on the UPS script anyway. They are pretty low power now so the UPS can run for them for quite a while, so I’m not going to worry about it for the moment.

Need to pick Jamie up from the station at midnight. Oh joy.

Apple iOS provisioning portal, how I’ve missed you

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Woke up very early and took the dog to day care. Tidied up some scaling issues on the game I’m working on. Then zapped it across to the iMac and got it running on iPad and iPhone5. Then attempted to build an ad-hoc version, which requires doing battle with the iOS provisioning portal. Which it’s entire purpose in life is just to irritate the shit out of people, it succeeded. Anyway, finally got a test flight build to build, so need to wait on feedback before I do any more on that.

Did a couple of audio library tweaks for a few odd bugs that have been found. Picked up the dog. She is now suitably tired.

Jamie is in EuroDisney or whatever it’s called these days, keeps posting Facebook photo’s or castles and giant burgers, couldn’t he find a salad?

I ran lunchtime, so basically have the entire evening to myself. Good excuse for a bath me thinks. May be a glass of wine or two.

I may get to sue someone else soon, good I was getting bored

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Still working on the mobile project I was working on, but I’m working on it on PC as it’s just easier to work with. I’ve now got it to a stage though where I can transfer it all across to the Mac and XCode and build it for iOS. Then I can start debugging it on the iPhone and iPad. It’s only a concept demo, but these things have to start somewhere.

It was raining so I worked right through lunch and didn’t end up going for a run until about 5PM. Jamie did actually get up this morning to get his haircut, came back with a floppy fringe (yey!), decided he didn’t like it so gelled the fuck out of it (boo!). Shame, it shows off his massive forehead. But the good news is that Google are interested in using it for ad space.

Came back and did some more work. Still haven’t managed to kill new plants yet. Left another message for the boiler fitters to say I still haven’t received a proper VAT invoice yet and that they haven’t filed the correct paperwork at the council and Bosch have no registration of the boiler serial number. I’ll give them until the end of the week then I’ll put it in writing. Then I’ll give them two weeks and then issue a court summons for the entire amount plus costs. I really wish people wouldn’t fuck with me as I am a real nasty bastard. Incidentally Paul Hayes never filed the correct paper work at the council either, so I’ll be after him as well…

Checked on the Strawberry wine, the gravity on that has finally dropped so I’ve added the stabilizer. That’ll need to settle for a couple of days.

Jamie is now packing as he’s off to Euro-Disney tomorrow with another poof from work. At least that means I get an evening of peace and can go to bed without being kept up by the ‘night-light’ of his bloody phone.

I’m attempting to upgrade pfSense again. Remember last time it managed to upgrade itself to itself, which wasn’t exactly what was planned.

I think I’ll do the dished then have a shower. Oh the pfSense box has just reset itself, lets see what a cock up it’s made this time. Oh, the same cock up as last time. Lovely, I’ll try a manual update.

That’s the pile for work clothes, that’s the pile for hoodies and that’s the pile for fancy dress

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So I got, almost on time. Started work, almost on time. Took a little while to get into it, with it being a Monday.

Walked the dog. It was raining and miserable, the dog really wasn’t into it and had to almost drag her round. Came back did more work.

It was 5PM. Jamie was still in bed. He eventually got up. I’ve been moaning to him about sorting out his clothes in the wardrobe. He made a start. I came in the bedroom later, he said he had a pile for work clothes, a pile of t-shirts, one for hoodies and one for fancy dress. He probably could do with one for man bags as well.

Went to body combat, worked hard at that, almost broke into a sweat. Came back, did more work. Sat down and caught up with some telly. Ate cake, didn’t drink anything. Time for bed. Hopefully no rain tomorrow so I can go running.

And then the Chinese buffet occurred

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Started off the day with breakfast, coffee and watching porn. This thankfully lead to sex. I tried a number of adventurous positions, my knee is still aching.

Got up. Removed large amounts of expanding foam from the boiler flu using a bread knife. Stuffed hole with deep gap filler, which has a half hour drying time, which means now at bed time it’s of course still squidgy. Serialised a few more bottles and bottled the rest of the wine. We took the dog out on her new 10M leash thing. Took her to a field and chucked a ball about, unfortunately I chucked the ball 11M, my wrist is now swollen. Did in the end attached the 10M leash to her 8M extending lead, Jamie being a gay, couldn’t actually throw the ball that far so removed the problem completely.

Came back, had a boiled egg.

Attempted to upgrade pfSense to the latest snapshot build. It completed the upgrade process and successfully upgraded to the exact same version which was on there before, so something got tanked somewhere in the process.

Then we went out to a Chinese buffet, ‘Lucky Dragon’ which a bunch of Tesco people, I ended up sitting next to Jason, so spent the evening making suggestive comments and admiring his completely ‘gaunt’ expression. There’s a man who needs to go on a burger diet. Meal was nice, but took ages, we started at 8, only just finished it at 11. Will write my TripAdvisor review shortly. So now back and writing things. Think I will have a bath, a glass of wine and then bed, as it’s now midnight.