This morning started far earlier than I would have liked, but still, got down to Gloucester Road at about 9:30 and picked up ticket number sixty-three. So walked into town, around town, up Whiteladies Road, across the downs, took the long way round back to Gloucester Road, had my free coffee and cake. Then walked up Gloucester Road, St. Andrews Park, went for a pee, then back again. Sat on a windowsill for an hour and then finally got called in. Numbers sixty-one and sixty-two had obviously got bored and buggered off, so I shot round and was in the chair. Introduced to Ben Bosten, who sat there in a perfect three piece suit, bald head, with a striking blue mohican. Lovely guy, and I mean, seriously friendly. I said to him, ‘Pikachu, flying a helicopter down the gorge with the suspension bridge in the background’. Didn’t bat an eyelid. Explained all the technicalities. Then joined another bloody queue to get booked into the diary. So I can have the tattoo I want, but it won’t be done until the end of next August. Came back and did a shitload of sanding. Need to do a lot more tomorrow. Had a shower and then we went for an uninspiring Indian. Early night, much work tomorrow.

So spent another night in peace and quiet, mind you I was quite pissed. Which meant I started work before 9AM. Had a good run on the lighting today and got all of it working. Jamie was home, which meant he spent most of the day on the couch doing nothing. Still no sign of washing since about March. Walked Sasha, weather was a bit grot so kept it fairly short. Did mean I had less hours to do though. Walked to gym, did Pump. Then a good session with Laverne, she keeps touching me up and talking about ‘how engrained my V is’ and ‘how big my dimples are getting’. That’s what twenty bottles of wine a week and thousands of tortilla chips do to you. Anyway, I look good in a mirror, that’s what’s important. She and Dave are coming New Years. I’l get her pissed and on the karaoke. Walked back and did a bit more work. I’m now in credit by about fifteen hours. So tomorrow I have a weird, but rather important meeting first thing, with a guy called Ben, he’s apparently very handy with his er, hands.

So after another peaceful night in the spare room (at some point his cold will have gone, probably about June), I spent the day between debugging forward lighting, which is quite fun when none of your test objects are forward lit and sorting out UDP streaming. This is something I offered to do ‘in my own time’. I should have learned after all this time, never try and do anything nice or free for anyone, it will always backfire and become far more of a pain than it should. Still, it will be out of the way soon. Walked Sasha. Ran eight miles in a rather pleasant light drizzle. Printed out a couple of photos for my tattoo design, have to go make an appointment on Saturday. Probably won’t be able to get in though until towards the end of next year.

Woke up nice and early, another night in the spare room away from the constant stomach and flu ward. Got straight on, managed to have a mostly uninterrupted day. Still on lighting, it’s quite satisfying actually. Also did a couple of additions on the UDP streaming. Walked Sasha, it was quite nice out today. Walked to the gym, did Pump. Worked bloody hard on it, upped all my weights recently. Now in a bulking phase, so trying to pack on muscle by eating lots and working out hard.

So had an appalling nights sleep. Wasn’t helped by Jamie turning over and sneezing all over me, I went into the spare room. Still didn’t sleep. I’ve got a load of sleeping tablets, none of them work. Anyway, so this morning started off with the firewall crashing. That took a couple of hours to fix. Then had artists moaning at me about a problem with a particular video card, in the end I’m just getting one ordered up, it’ll be quicker. Then finished off the UDP streaming stuff, finally got back on to spotlights. Went for a run, it rained and was fucking miserable.

Jamie seems to only get one cold a year, it starts on January the first and ends on the thirty-first of December, it’s fucking annoying.

Spent all day working on UDP streaming of telemetry, finally got about 90% of it out of the way. Also have one person with a very strange GPU issue. Car should be fine, but it’s refusing to convert a particular texture format and I have no idea why. Walked Sasha. Walked to the gym, did Combat, the new one is growing on me, but it’s still not great. Did some more work. Ate salad. I’ve taken a couple of sleeping pills, as I’m in the mood for sleeping, not staying awake and analysing everything.

So enjoyed the extra hour in bed. Had coffee. Then got on with much sanding. Preparation is everything and by god does it take it’s time. Much filler was used. So done about 10% of the prep, which included re-drilling the cable TV coax, so it wasn’t halfway up the wall. Went for a run. Then we ended up at the Aztec Hotel restaurant, for Jamie to buy me a celebratory meal for passing my PPL. I ended up paying out £130. So much for the meal on him.

So woke up and got coffee and breakfast for three. Then spent two hours researching flooring. Think I’ve settled on what I want, going for a 14mm engineered wood floor. I’m going to do the entire downstairs in it. Rip up the cheap laminate shit in the lounge and dining room and redo the kitchen and hall so it all matches. I’ll even do the downstairs loo. There’s about four grand in the DIY kitty so should be fine (I put a little away each month for decorating and house projects, of course it’s been Geocaching season, so hasn’t been touched). Went into town, first time in ages, had to rush though as I had a couple of home checks to do in Brentry. Did those and came back via B&Q. They no longer do Dulux mixing which is annoying. I needed about six inches of plasterboard but didn’t want to shell out a fiver for a massive sheet. On a trolly was a completely knackered bit marked up for a quid, so picked that up. Had to kick it in two to get it in the car, but perfect for the small patch job I need to do. So looked at paint colours, think I’ll order a load of test pots and splash them on the wall. No real hurry for it. I’m going to start on the prep for it tomorrow, lots of sanding, lots of filler. I’ll have it complete by Christmas, I’ll probably leave the flooring until next year though as we have the party New Years Eve, and high heels and my nice new floor won’t go. Also spent some time clearing out the larder of out of date and opened but not refrigerated crap. Filled up half a black bin full of the stuff. Need to do the freezer next.

So it’s back to full on DIY season, I quite enjoy it actually. Already working on trunking and cable hiding…

Got a text from Captain James to say the CAA have received my paperwork. It will now remain on someones desk for about three weeks.

So did a bit more spotlight debugging. Rob thankfully solved my point light problem, which was due to an inverted poly in my isodecadragonfish or whatever it was. Then spent a few hours on crash reports. Walked Sasha. Then spent the afternoon working on a telemetry API, it was supposed to be ‘in my own time’, but considering how much overtime I’d knocked up this week I will consider it to be my own time. Walked to the gym. Did Pump, did a good weights session with Laverne, she’s confirmed she’s coming New Years Eve. Did a bit more work on API. Now we are back in DIY season, rather than Geocaching season I think it’s time to look at some projects. Obviously the lounge needs doing, but I’m thinking of doing the entire downstairs floor. May go and look at some stuff tomorrow.

Today was all about spotlights again, actually, projected spotlights, the maths calcs involved in doing that did my head in. Walked Sasha, cold but okay. Did a nine mile run, all was good, it’s actually far easier to run when wearing compression tights, you may look like a bit of a gay queen, but everything holds together, even if your cock jigs about a bit. Did more work. I’m now watching a Scandinavian thriller on Amazon Prime, it’s very good.

Still can’t get over the fact that I can go to near enough any country and just ‘hire’ an R22 and go for a bit of a jolly.