So we started off at 6AM. Well the alarm did. I had cereal and coffee. We were supposed to leave at 6:30, after Jamie’s large amount of procrastination we finally left at 7AM. To be honest the next four and a half hours were fairly uneventful, apart from a lorry fire on the M25. We arrived at a chapel at 11:30. We stayed there until 11:50, the service started at midday. We had a look around. No one had arrived. We then realised that we were in the wrong place. It’s a good job there wasn’t a speed camera on Manston road as I think I managed to break the sound barrier. We arrived at the correct location, I dumped the car on a patch of grass and we ran. The undertakers were just closing the doors. The guest of honour was in position, Jamie’s dad had a space at the front, he went and joined him and I slid in next to Clinton. Talk about fucking close. The service was a funeral service. A reading of something vague about God, a hymn, “All things bright and beautiful.”, the music included the normal missing verse, the words in the booklet didn’t, this led to some confusion. Also behind me I seemed to have the Welsh National Opera, who were giving it all. There was a lovely poem by one of the grand kids. More prayers, the curtains were closed and 25 minutes on the dot a life was over. Twenty-five minutes for a lifetime is that all it’s worth? The vicar or celebrant or who ever he was, was just going through the motions. Yes, he probably had a meeting with grandad and went through a few things, but he had no connection, no feeling, nothing. It wasn’t a celebration of a life lived, it was a brief due process of disposal. Grandad did the eulogy (read by said vicar bloke), that was the only personal bit in it. He’s a truly strong guy (grandad, not the vicar, I really couldn’t give a flying fuck about him, even though he shook everyones hand on exit, yet more bloody due process). If I can get to his age and just be so not bitter, it will be an amazing thing. I’m pretty certain I’m not going to get that far though. Jim (grandad), seemed…how can I put it, ‘content’. He obviously felt sadness, but again I think he also felt a sense of relief. His dear wife had been ill for a number of years and had been in a home, yet he visited most days. I think inside he had already reached closure some time ago. I think it was summed up well in the words on his flowers, “Thank you for sixty years of your company”. You just can’t top that, hats off.

We then drove to France, well almost. If I went any further south I would have got wet feet. So we were within pissing distance of Dover at some merchant seaman club or something. I get a drink in. The first person who comes up to me is ‘Nial’, now he’s a bit of a wanker to be honest. He’s a thirteen-year-old boy trapped in the body of a decaying fifty-year-old. His first words were, “Hello, notice I haven’t mentioned a certain North American pop star”. Now this is his dodgy reference to Paul Simon. My reply was quite simple, “Its a good job too or otherwise I’d punch your fucking lights out”. He then made light of that would make a great YouTube video. I got my phone ready. He fucked off. It’s a shame, I’m sure it’s a tradition to have a punch up at a funeral. The odd thing is, he turned up again half hour later, and we had a fully coherent and sensible conversation. He’s still a wanker though. We stayed about an hour and a half. To be honest the only people at the wake were family. All the usual cousins, oddly only Jamie and Megan managed to send flowers. Uncle Pete was propping up the bar. It’s a strange family, but aren’t they all? Oh and another thing, the funeral directions stated, no black suits and shit. All the men had black suits and black ties, I was there in a purple shirt and green trousers. Jamie, Megan and I looked like we should have been at a fucking circus. Anyway, all over and done with now. The journey back was even more uneventful, I did it in one stint of about four hours. Every time Jamie dropped off I turned the heated seat on.

Got home. I went for a run. It’s quiet without the dogs. Glad they are back tomorrow.

Oh, now if you are an owner of multiple multiple cats and were thinking of Christmas presents, then I’ll just say that ‘Monty Python Mostly Live’, is released in November and if you preorder now from Amazon it’s just over a tenner#1

#1 I can’t guarantee that I won’t have divorced the porky big shit by then.

Started off this morning testing early depth test, didn’t really get anywhere. Then spent the rest of the morning sorting out buffer formats. Then did some interesting tests with alpha test and alpha blend, and providing you don’t want to write depth then alpha blend is actually faster. Anyway, took the dogs to the kennels. Nasty road diversion. Came back and did more fun stuff.

Met up with a fellow Geocacher in Alveston and we went and found a couple of caches I’ve been unable to find. It’s a shame as all the brambles have been cleared so they were now fairly easy to find. Came back and finished off a bit more work.

Driving to Kent for a funeral tomorrow.

Today’s work was all about using less bandwidth. Basically reducing 64 bits of colour data down to 32. This, after many support requests was quite successful. There is one bit still outstanding, which will require more support requests. Also looked at the joys of ‘re_z’ which is a whole fun area to explore. I need to do a lot of performance testing in this area tomorrow.

Walked Sasha. Dillon hid under the bed. Liz was ill, contacted Laverne, but no Combat tonight. Was going to go geocaching but wanted to do something a bit more athletic. So I did an eight mile run, without stopping and cross country. I haven’t managed to achieve that in a long time, all the walking and everything has paid off. My calf muscles hurt now though.

Off meeting ‘GentryAlveston’ tomorrow afterwork. Need to drop the dogs off at the kennels.

So this morning I woke up and Jamie failed to provide me with coffee, apparently a light was on and he didn’t know how to deal with it. I had tea, I was disappointed. Eventually got up and we ventured to Ikea. I bought Jamie a couple of picture frames for some signed Sonic poster and his World Record certificate (yes, he is a world record holder and it’s not for being a fat cunt). Then I parked up in Cotham and forced him to walk into town. I needed some trousers for a funeral. The requirements being ‘bright and not black’, so I settled on a pair or turn-up lime green skinny jeans, they will go great with my purple shirt. Came back and had eggs. Then fixed the washing line and picked up all the dog crap. Then went for a run. Fixed up the new pictures then did the accounts. I only have seven years nine months to go on my mortgage, then I have to find eighty-five grand from somewhere, maybe look down the back of the couch. Had a bath and watched the Grand Prix.

I did get an email from mother, thanking me for taking her to Weymouth. No matter how sincere it may seem, you just know it’s fully loaded. One of the comments yesterday was apparently from the guys who trimmed her bush, “Don’t your kids help you with stuff?”. No we don’t. I’m too busy flying helicopters and Sarah has her own set of stresses. she did say, “I’m pleased you managed to do what you wanted to do.”. In relation to dumping her for an hour while I sorted out a couple of geocahces. If she mentioned it to me and the time I would have just said, “Well that’s nothing compared to dumping a five year old in an auction house for three hours on a weekly basis with the strict instructions to not make a sound.”. I’m still bitter. But at least I don’t do a massive fart when I go up steps, unless I want to.

Okay, work was rather strange. From the technical side all was good. Working on ‘depth of field’ effect. Well working on optimising it, made very good progress, got about a four times speed up. Okay, had to make a couple of compromises, but the effect still looks good. Got a lot more post-processes still to look at. And then the bizarre incentive came along. I’ve been offered something quite insane, if I manage to get something achieved. It’s all above board. Still rather odd though, gives you kind of a mental kick up the ass.

Worked through lunch. But did head out for a couple of hours this evening. Managed to clear off two fairly local caches. Came back and then worked past midnight. Finally had a shower and sat down and had salad. It’s still like an inferno. I’m going to settle down and watch a film now. Tomorrow I really must get over to the garage and get this part fitted.

I’ve offered to take mother to Weymouth on Saturday if the weather holds. She needs to behave herself.

Got up at 6:30, took Sasha to daycare. Went back to bed. Work was a bit weird, very stressful. Lots of bugs for an upcoming demo. Must admit I got left fairly alone to get on with them so had a pretty good success rate. I’ve got one known left for tomorrow, but that’s more of a tweak than anything else.

Jamie was at work, Megan was here, she looked after Dillon while the cleaners were here. Megan and I then walked Dillon. We talked about Body Pump, depression and the fact Jamie is a completely untidy git that does my head in. The cleaners do their job and he makes a mess within ten minutes. At least she knows how to do lunges without falling over now.

Collected Sasha. Did more work. Dropped Megan at Parkway. Went to the gym and did Pump. Came back, had protein shake, did more work. Finally finished all the bugs, did think it would take a lot longer, I expect a long one tomorrow as well.

So yesterday started off later than I’d planned, I wanted to take the car to the garage but never got round to it. Mark and Alison arrived with Megan. I then shot off and watered Sarah’s plants. We then drove down to Parkway, parked up and had a fairly uneventful journey up to London. We got to the hotel, which considering Jamie picked it, it wasn’t too bad. It had no air-con though. We went out to the ‘Shard’ which was actually pretty quiet. The view was indeed stunning over London. There was quite a low cloud base but it didn’t spoil it too much. We had a nice photo taken, but they wanted over thirty quid for it, sod off. Went back to the hotel. Killed an hour. Then got ready and went to the theatre. We saw ‘Charlie and the chocolate factory’, which was really good. Also in the audience was Russell Brand, we had better seats. It was a musical, it doesn’t really have many memorable songs but does have some fantastic sets. All the kids were great, it was quite a large cast. Afterwards we had some meal deal at a brasserie in Covent Garden. The food was nice but it was pricey as hell. Managed to sleep okay.

This morning we got up and split up, Jamie was going to meet some blue person and I was planning on going to the science museum. I tried to look for some geocaches, but its an awful place, far too many people and the GPS just doesn’t work properly. Ended up walking through the city all the way to the tower of London. I then jumped on a tube and took it back to South Kensington. Spent a couple of hours at the museum, I really like this one. I don’t think it’s as good as the powerhouse museum in Sydney but it does have some good stuff in it. Then I walked across Hyde Park back to Paddington. Again a fairly uneventful journey back.

Managed to let Sasha escape. She ran round all over the place and came across a few cats, oddly all she did was sniff them. We went to Nando’s. I had chicken and rice. It was very average.

Last two days were meant to be holiday, I think I spent more time on the work forum dealing with shit than anything else. I’m now very stressed over it all. Not sure how much of it I will take, I’m seriously thinking of jacking it all in and doing something else.