Today was pretty much spent looking and fixing one bug. All to do with atomics and race conditions. I was adding an item to a lock free ring buffer then kicking a thread to read it. But there was a possibility that that thread would return due to resources and then it would all go horribly wrong. So added additional atomics to do a job count and then a spin, then finally a yield to stop it spinning on itself. Oh, the hours of fun you can have with atomics, threads and barriers. I could write a large book about them, it would be very dull.

Apart from that I’ve done pretty much nothing today, other than going to Pump. That will be the last gym class of the year. I wore my Santa hat again.

Still waiting for this damn thing to compile so I can check it all in. Then it’s bath time. Jamie’s out with ‘Game of Thrones’ boy, probably having a blowy in a car park somewhere, then polished off with a Nando’s.

Annoyingly thanks to the weather there’s been no flying for a couple of weeks and looking at the forecast it doesn’t look much better later in the week either. Never mind, at least I save some money.

Christmas is coming, peace and good will to all men…fuck that. So today was yet again debugging bloody multi-threaded rendering. It was fine, just a bit dull. Caught up on my mass backlog of radio listening. So that’s all show tunes, rave, big band and organ music done. Walked Sasha, Dillon wasn’t interested yet again. Despised my mother, nothing unusual there. Did I ever mention about the Nike Windrunner jacket? Probably not, story for Christmas that one.

Is it possible to despise and love someone at the same time? Ah, probably. The dog has eaten a sock, we look forward to him throwing it up in the morning.

Went to Spin. Laverne tried to make everyone feel Christmassy. See ‘despise’ above. Did more work. We finally put up the Christmas tree. The dogs currently don’t seem very interested, which is good.

Tomorrow I have a nice thread locking bug to look into. And the last pump class of the year.

So today started with taking Dillon to day care at 6:30. I got up fairly early anyway (well for me) as I had to take Sasha to the vet for a check-up and her shots (all okay). Still working on threading renderer type issues, was left with a bit of a bug last night, fixed fairly early on. But then there is massive amounts of testing that needs to be done before you can check code in.

Went to pump. Wore a Santa hat, as we were supposed to wear something Christmassy. Only two of us managed it. I kept the hat on for the entire class, by the time I’d finished and removed it, it was like lifting a goldfish bowl off my head.

Came back and did some more work. While it was all building I signed up to ‘Google Analytics’ so I can see how few people access my site. Currently viewing people? One, and that’s me. I will see what it gathers. I have other tracking stuff running as well, so it’s just an additional one.

New barrel arrived, so sterilised it lunchtime and got the Pinot on the go. I’ve just added the stabiliser to the Australian White, so that will need beating often over the next few days.

Today was a bit weird. Okay, I’m going to get on my high horse here at some point. Yesterday, I was sent a mail by FaceBook saying, “It’s Natalie’s birthday this week, why don’t you write on her wall.” Why? Is she going to read it? It was a little upsetting, but also a good reminder. I have no objection to leaving a memory and some words on FaceBook. Which is exactly what I did, I posted some nice words and a nice photo from our wedding.

Now this evening, “Trial by FaceBook” has started. Her husband, basically is seeing another woman. He met her 14 weeks after Nat’s death. Now how do I feel about this? Well to be honest I’m still a little bit on the fence. In one mind I’m glad he’s moved on, he always seemed very strong to me, on the other….well, if she hadn’t died from natural causes I’d be fucking suspicious. I’m just not sure, I’m really not. Most of me says, “Don’t get envolved.”, but I know at some point or other I probably will.

It’s come to a bit of a head this evening with her sister basically posting that he’s a fraud and that he’s trying to dump the kids on anyone who will take them etc. etc. He’s posted pictures of a birthday cake and pictures of the kids by the grave side. Is it nice? Is it sick? I’m going to have to have a really hard think about this.

I’ve certainly found some things strange over the past few months, some things just haven’t added up. I think now is the time to seriously analyse it all and come to a decision.

From a personal note though, Nat I miss chatting to you and the world is missing a beautiful girl. Did you make a bad decision marrying Dan? I’m not sure at the moment. I just know, when you were alive, you enjoyed every minute of it, and that’s what’s important.

What happens now is in the realms of the one’s who are still alive. If I’m to have any governance or control over that I will have to think about.

Happy birthday Natalie, I miss you.

I was sat down last night watching a bit of telly, Dillon was flat out next to me having his chin stroked. Sasha appeared and nudged me, I thought she needed to go out for a pee, so I opened the back door. She just stood there, so I sat down again. Once more she came over and nudged me. If finally caught on to what she wanted. I shifted over to the middle of the couch, Dillon relocated a bit and then Sasha jumped up next to me, she wanted a cuddle too. It was cold, having two warm dogs next to you was nice.

Work wise, well it was a Monday, I really don’t do Monday’s and this one especially. I tidied up and checked in all the stuff related to that bug I was working on. Then started looking at hiding sets, which is as exciting as it sounds.

Walked Sasha. Dillon may want a cuddle, but he doesn’t want a walk. Went to combat, last one of the year. Good fun. Did a home check for a couple of cats. Attempted to do more work. Did my expenses instead. Need to hit it a lot harder tomorrow or my time sheet will look shit, saying that I did ten hours on Friday so I’m owed quite a bit.

Think I’ll play on the arcade cabinet now. I’m not looking forward to tomorrow from an emotional point of view.

Oh Sarah, the word you need is “Spr@tt”…enjoy.

This morning started off rather loudly, thanks to being next to the service elevator. Anyway, went down to breakfast at about 9:30, met various people who were in various states of death. I think I had five things of coffee before I could even face toast. Left luggage at reception and then dived off into London to pick up a couple of things. Walked back to the hotel and picked up my luggage. Saw Simon there, who looked rough as hell, they had lost his jacket, he had lost the ticket.

I then had to lug this bloody Xbox all through the underground and back to Paddington. Again, not very exciting journey back, weather shit. Got back home. Jamie’s dad was here. I was dying for a shit but had to hang around and chat as Jamie was getting changed to do an extra shift at work.

When everyone had gone I booted up Dragon’s Lair on the arcade machine and after about five attempts managed to complete it. It’s been about 27 years since I last did that. After that I played around with the heli and gyro again. I just can’t get the damn thing working right, it just seems to pulse the rotors. I need to do some more research.

I then did the accounts, I’ve spent an obscene amount of money this month on finishing off the decorating, arcade machine and new years stuff. Still I’m sure it’s all worthy.

Then Jamie came back from work and we went to the new Nando’s. I had chicken and chips. The sauces weren’t as spicy as I thought they would be. The chips had way too much salt on them. But overall, yeah it was okay.

Came back and cooked eggs for my Salad next week. Then I think it’s time to jump in the bath. Christmas coming up, god I hate Christmas.

So the morning started off quite well, coffee, coffee, bran flakes, coffee, prozac. Walked the dogs fairly early. Checked train times, wasn’t really anything useful until early afternoon, so played with heli gyros for a bit. Packed up my bag and then drove to Parkway.

Uneventful train journey. Sat next to a guy with a Windows phone, saw it crash. Decided I’d get off at Marble Arch and walk down Oxford street. Well, that wasn’t busy. Found the hotel eventually. Had a room the size of a cupboard next to a service elevator.

Showered, shit and shaved. Changed into something a bit more formal, then descended to the party room. Where I was all alone, for about twenty minutes. Then people started drifting in. One guy caught my eye straight away, his name was Simon, an Australian who lives in German, so has rather a weird accent. Anyway, he’s posted lots of youtube videos of him mountain biking and other fun stuff. Anders came over and said “It’s Eero all over again….”. So we had great fun winding him up a lot. We were half cut before dinner was eventually served. It was fine but uninspiring. The wine was horrible. Soon we ventured to the gaming tables and played a bit of poker. I didn’t do too bad, considering I’d already drunk my own bodyweight in lager. It was then time for Karaoke, which is where I basically spent the rest of the night. Started with Frank, went through REM and a number of others which I just can’t remember.

Secret santa was done, I got an Ash hat. Prizes were given out, I won for best Karaoke, I think this was more due to my persistence rather than my singing talents. Anyway, won an XBox one. Ended up at the bar and had a few more drinks. I must have bought a round as I found the receipt in my wallet today, although I have no real recollection of it. I think I went to bed at about 2AM and fell asleep within seconds. A good night, had by all.

So today started with my Naked Wines order arriving, which was good. It was then followed by a couple of people from God, which wasn’t. Then followed by my shirt arriving and then by the shopping.

Got stuck into work. Basically I spent the next ten hours trying to find one flickering bug in the forward renderer, I found it in the end. A major pain in the arse.

Went to pump. Had bath. About to eat pizza. Tomorrow it’s off to London for the company Christmas do, that’ll be interesting.

I don’t think that I ever thought when I was 13 I would have a fully working ‘Dragon’s Lair’ machine at home. Okay, it’s an emulator, but that does mean it has the advantage that it doesn’t breakdown every ten minutes with a laserdisc player failure. It uses the original roms and plays the original images, it’s 100% accurate. Let’s not get on to ‘Space Harrier’, which I’ve now completed twice. There are another 4,000 odd games on the machine that I’ve yet to look at. Need to master ‘Dragon’s Lair’ again first though, it’s been 28 years, I’m a little rusty.

Not much else exciting happened today, lots of code testing, which has all gone horribly wrong, but hopefully all fixable after enough coffee.

Went to the gym and did Spin.

Attempted to get Jamie a PS4 from Tesco’s and failed.

So the morning started off very rudely at 6:45, normally it would have started at 6:30 but I’d set the alarm for 6:30PM after the power out, so a good job I woke up. Took Sasha to day care, Dillon howled. Went back to bed.

Delivery lorry arrived at 9AM promptly, and delivered the arcade cabinet on a normal 2M palette. It was all wrapped up fine, so got it as far as the driveway. There was no-way Jamie could help me lift it, so he gave ‘Game of Thrones’ boy a call. He tootled over in his pram. We had to take it in sideways as it wouldn’t fit through the door. But after some extreme manoeuvres it was finally in place. We unwrapped it. What a thing of beauty.

Really really pleased with it. I had to start work, so I let them play with it. It was already loaded with about 4,000 games. Has a steering wheel, pedals, light guns, the works. The most important thing was that it contained ‘Space Harrier’ & ‘Dragons Lair’. I went to work. Had lunch, picked up Sasha.

I even went to pump. Did a bit more work. Then finally sat down on the fancy new stools to play it. Had a great time, ate pizza, a few beers. Went to bed happy for once.

Think I’ll do the living room next….