Started this morning feeling ill, it didn’t get much better. Failed to get a doctors appointment. I had constant chest pains and problems breathing. I blame Stephen V and his constant quest for better performance in VR. Oddly it all felt better when I walked the dog. Working today on nVidia SLi scaling, started at 80%, finished at 100%. Quite pleased with that. Finished work and then went for an 8 mile run. Felt fine. Transferred wine for second fermentation, the other one is still clearing. Looking forward to a week off at Christmas and then possible death, it is after all December.

So today I swapped over to nVidia. Had a lot of teething troubles with the API but finally got it all working. Zen have indeed upgraded my line to ‘Fibre 2’, I now have 80mbps down and 20mbps up. That’s not bad for a line that BT said I’d get 20mbps down on a good day. Very mild weather at the moment. Walked Sasha. This evening I walked to the gym, did Pump and walked home. Went to transfer the wine, fucked it up and got sediment in it, so poured it back and it will have to clear again. The other one will be ready for it’s first transfer tomorrow.

Mother sent me a text the beginning of the week, ‘Uncle Henry passed during the night, that’s another one in December’, I thought, ‘well there’s still time for you yet’. I must admit I’d only met the guy about five times in my entire lifetime. I may pop along to Canford for the burn up, he was ninety odd, good innings, God bless you.

Had an horrendous sleepless night. But had a call from Zen this morning about changing my fibre package, I agreed to the extra three quid a month for the potential of almost double the speed. Order went through and processed. Apparently completed but no sign of regrade yet.

Spent all day trying to get video to work correctly on multi-cpu setups. Failed. Walked Sasha. It was surprisingly warm today considering. Went for a walk this evening. Sterilised thirty wine bottles, I’ll do the transfer tomorrow and start bottling.

So Kelly Communications were across the road at about 9:30 this morning, line went down and then came back about ten minutes later. As I expected it maxed the line out at 10mbps up and 40mbps down with a 25dB margin. So plenty more available in the line. Zen haven’t got back to me yet.

Work was fine, spent ages trying to trace an issue, in the end I just changed how it worked. Very moody cold again. Walked Sasha. Walked to gym this evening and did Combat, walked home. Ate salad. Feeling very tired.

So started this morning reading the paper, what I should have done yesterday. Decided to split the day up a bit. So started knocking the shit out of the existing plaster in the bedroom. Then took Sasha out for a walk. By this time Jamie was home, he’d done an eight hour shift and I’d barely got out of bed. PVA’d the wall and then mixed up some plaster. All I had left was some two year old plaster, lesson here, don’t use out of date plaster, it sets in about ten seconds flat. So gave up on that and tidied up. Did the accounts and tidied up. Had a nice bath. Spoke to Captain James. Had an existential crises about being two low over the golf course yesterday, he pointed out that if you put a golf course right next to a runway then that’s what they should expect. Went back over some old videos and noticed that I was about the same height on takeoff anyway, so just over analysing shit again. I will point out that at no point was anything ‘unsafe’, it was just perhaps, ‘undesirable’ as in, I was not at the correct height at the correct time. But when you have an aircraft full of passengers and one of them is your mother-in-law, you are some what under pressure. Anyway, hell Mary’s were said, and I was forgiven, but told to hold 300 feet before final. We live and learn. My passengers all enjoyed the experience anyway. Once again I stress at no point was I in the state of vortex-ring or anything else dodgy, I just may have frighten a few golfers.

We are getting close to Christmas, which means we are almost at the end of another year. Life is accelerating at an alarming pace. I have a feeling if I fart I’m going to be eighty-five and on the verge of death.

Started this morning with coffee and the papers. I forgot that I told Megan to be here by eleven. Anyway, we picked her up closer to twelve and drove to Staverton. Got there early, but by the time I’d done the briefing and the paperwork we took off late. And by God was there some serious traffic there today. Every man and his copilot was in a bloody aircraft. We finally got clearance and I went straight out, hit full power and launched down the 18 threshold, I’d done it a hundred times before, but today I had some precious cargo. Avoided the noise abatement over Staverton and then tracked the M5. My trim could have been a bit better but everything was by the numbers and pretty much spot-on. We tracked across Twekesbury and then followed the estuary back towards the airport. I was still to the north even if a plank was moaning that I was approaching from the west. Landing was fine, second landing was a bit rough on the tarmac, but that’s always an ass anyway. Good flight I guess. I hope my passengers enjoyed it. I reviewed the flight back on the GoPro footage and on the SkyDemon log and it was pretty much perfect, except a minor infringement over Down-Hatherley where I slightly cut into the noise abatement. You can never imagine the shear pressure involved when flying with passengers, I can fly with James or Ben and not give it a second thought, but when you are on your own and have three lives to protect, fuck me the pressure is absolutely immense. Still, I hope everyone enjoyed their day. I know Alison was panicking somewhat, but again I hope afterwards she enjoyed the experience.

Jamie and I went shopping and then failed to buy anything. We were looking at Christmas decorations. Still haven’t decided on a direction yet. Went to the local Indian this evening, we managed to sample it on an up cycle, so enjoyed the food. The price was reasonable as well. In bed by 11PM with a glass of wine. Jamie has to be up at 4:15AM, I don’t.

Today oddly went fine. It was almost quite successful. Still on the crossfire stuff, but basically managed to double the frame rate without too much breaking. Still cold, but certainly not as cold as it has been. Walked Sasha, did my one Pokemon capture and Pokestop. I’ve still got two in gyms so as soon as they’ve gone it’s all over for me for the winter. Walked to the gym, did Pump, walked home. Added the stabiliser to the Chenin Blanc and then beat the shit out of it with a degassing stick and a drill, it’s very satisfying. Tomorrow I’m flying the mother-in-law, James said he’d loosen the door.

So spent a very unexciting morning implementing the crossfire api. There’s not a lot to it, but the implementation side has so far been fairly tricky. Lots more to do. It’s been very cold again. Walked Sasha and then stopped at 4PM. Drove to Staverton, getting out of here took longer than the entire journey up the motorway. Lots of fog here, none there, clear night. Great views. Haven’t looked at the GoPro footage yet, hopefully will be good. Drove home, fog much worse now. Worked. Ate. Will sleep. Repeat.