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.

Started at a reasonable time. Getting close to pre-cert build, very in fact, it’s tomorrow. So lots of buggering about with certification issues. Mainly to do with GUI scaling. Such is the excitement of my life. Captain James sent me a text and said he would call me tomorrow about Saturday, so God knows what’s going to happen then. Weather has all been a bit shit. Saturday is currently looking perfect with low wind. It will probably all go horribly wrong tomorrow and armageddon will occur. Walked the dogs, move wine bottles around the garage.

Went for a run. Came back and then washed out sixty odd bottles with my giant douche and bottle dryer. The white is unit clearing. Hopefully that will be ready Tuesday and then I can bottle that, then Thursday for the red. I need ti clear the garage out the weekend, so I have room for the bath. Somewhere I also need to stick in about one hundred and twenty bottles of wine. Plus I need to do my Naked Wines order, that’s another two hundred and forty quids worth of the stuff.

Today was still all about bloody GUI. And building data, all day hanging around building bloody data. Cleaners turned up, not sure how long they were here. But they seemed very proud that they cleaned my patio door. Then I come down to the kitchen and find the toaster has been relocated, the chopping board is nowhere to be found and the tin opener is now the other side of the room. Look, I pay you to clean my house, not Feng Shui my fucking kitchen. I’m sure I’ll come down one day and find the bed in the middle of the lounge. The excuse will be, “It allows the East-West winds to flow freely and the dragon can come in and savour the sun”, ah, fuck off.

Weather is still looking shit tomorrow, so that’s it now until the weekend I expect. Went to Pump, using by far the heaviest weights, this is just so I can gurn at myself in the mirror. Came back, did more work, then added the last lot of finings to the wine. Just wait for it to clear now.

Spent most of the morning building data and pissing about with GUI tools which kept running out of memory. Then did a minor render optimisation and finally finished off the day drawing black borders around a resized GUI. Today was bloody cold. Was going for a run but it was pissing down, so went to the gym and did it there instead. Came back and stabilised both barrels of wine, degassed, added the first lot of finings. Second lot will go in tomorrow. Then just need to wait for it to clear. Then it’s ready for bottling. Need t find somewhere to put it all then, that’s close to 120 bottles in total. Need to go to bed and study a crib sheet on R22 technical data.

Oh one pain in the ass thing that happened this morning. Couldn’t access bugger all. BBC news, weather, nothing. In the end traced it to DNS screwing over. Not sure if they’ve changed policy to stop different ISP accessing it, but in the end I just deleted the DNS entries and set it up for forwarding, this seemed to have got shot of the issue.