Another fun day mostly looking at data build and going into a nice full on chest-pain panic when I couldn’t get something to work, or more to the point it never worked well anyway and just got into a situation that looked bad. Still, I did then manage to produce something that worked a lot better. Walked to the gym. Spent the entire Pump class trying to resolve a depth search problem. Came home, looked at code, then spent until almost midnight overthinking it. I thought there was an issue, there never was.

Started on time after another night in the spare room, I must admit I do like the mattress in there. Jamie is off tomorrow so I guess it would be polite to sleep with him tonight. Although he has gone to the pub, if he has more than one cider he’ll be ill. I went for a ten mile run and ate salad. Spent most of the day building bloody data again. Trying to get a couple of alterations to a GUI seems to take forever.

We decided that we wouldn’t actually mind relocating anywhere, providing it was ‘nice’. So nowhere in the UK then.

Spent most of the work day waiting for data to build and by the end of it I’m not sure it’s all working. Got an email back from Amazon lady, have a call planned later in the week. Walked Sasha in light and annoying drizzle. Walked to the gym, did Combat. Spoke to my sister afterwards about our impending Ibiza trip. When talking about clubs I said, ‘It depends how much EDM you can handle’, to which I got the reply, ‘I don’t take anything like that’. I was somewhat amused and had to explain what EDM was, I have the feeling ‘trance’ and ‘progressive’ will come across with the same bemused expression. I need to do some more research, I’ve never found anything quite so imbalanced as reviews of anything remotely balearic. I think we’ll end up somewhere to the side of the main town. One thing there does seem to be an abundance of though is fantastic restaurants, so I’m sure we’ll look like a fucking sea-bass by the end of the week.

Tonights blog is mainly censored by request, but I’m still mighty unimpressed.

Started this morning with coffee and cereal, no problem there. Then proceeded with a three hour dog walk. I enjoyed it, Sasha put up no complaints.

Had a small amount of fruitcake for lunch, perfect Alison, thank you.

Sent an email to the Amazon recruiter who has been headhunting me for months, saying I’m very old and that I don’t have a degree. She responded within eight minutes saying that it wasn’t important and they’d still love to talk to me. It’s a complete move to California including two dogs, no problem as far as they are concerned.

Jamie and I ate out. I’m in the spare room again, this is for operational reasons only. I’m forty-five this year, do I really want to move to the states? Well it’s beats a one way ticket to Dignitas I guess.

So today started how I like a weekend to start. Lots of coffee and reading the paper. I finally got up (after a hand job) and walked Sasha for a while, she enjoyed it. Ate a pastie. And then finally drove towards town. Walked into town. Failed to but anything and then drove home. My left headlight bulb had gone bang which is a minor inconvenience, but fixable. Got home to find quite a distressed Jamie.

Jamie has edited this part of the entry.

Bought sand and crickets. Drank far too much wine before showering, now need to shower.

Last couple of days have all been about VR. I must admit, it’s been quite a fun little diversion. Last night I went out with my old friend from Cyberdrome – Carl. He started off saying that he had a bit of a cold and wasn’t drinking. By the end of the evening we’d polished off a pint of Amstel, a large coke (with no ice), two bottles of wine, an espresso, a double whiskey and a double vodka. I walked home, it was very cold.

Spent today on VR again, had an odd chat with the ‘big boss’, I stated that I was bored and wanted to do something else and he basically ignored me. Still, I got anti-aliasing working with VR and the other usually rather intolerant person I have to deal with thought I was suddenly some kind of god. Walked to the gym, did Pump, walked home, it was wet.

They pulled an R22 out of Los Angeles bay, two fatalities. There’s an awful lot of Robbie’s been killing people recently, need to take one out again soon.

Started this morning discussing bridges to jump off with Steve, he suggested the golden gate, top man, dive off into the fog, like his style. Then spent the rest of the day sorting out aliasing problems with VR. All comes down to input stability causing sub-pixel jittering. I even produced a half gig video on it, wasn’t very exciting. Walked Sasha. Things got busy this afternoon, all the way up to five-thirty where I logged off and haven’t looked at the forum since. Walked to the gym, ready for Pump. We were just about to start, no-one new, then suddenly all the new people came in at once and delayed the class by ten minutes, it was now bloody packed. Walked home. Did a bit more on my V8 engine, just the electrics to do now.

So started back to work. Managed almost seven hours before I was moaned at for being stressy and argumentative. Today I was playing with the Oculus Rift, which was interesting. We have an aliasing issue on it. Actually we don’t. The aliasing issue is general, it’s just its sub-pixel motion which makes it look awful. One thing for certain though, if you use the thing too much it doesn’t half give you a headache. Walked Sasha. Had an online consultation with a GP, he was very nice, failed to prescribe me anything that would kill me, did give me a couple of recommendations though so ordered them. Went for a run. Watching the new Celeb BB, not sure it’s a watcher yet.

Okay, so didn’t get up massively early, but it is technically the last day of my holiday time off. Walked Sasha for two hours, she’s going to have to get used to her fifty minute jaunts again now. Came back and took down all the Christmas decorations and packed everything away. Shunted a load of stuff into the loft. I have a small annoying water leak on the main tank which I’ll need to keep an eye on. Booked an online doctor’s consultation for tomorrow. Updated my CV, sent it off to a couple of agencies I usually use. Did a bit of Googling and found an Indie developer who’s site made me smile, sent a CV to them. Everything is sorted now for starting work again tomorrow. Am I looking forward to it? No. I’d really like to stay with the existing company and just do something completely different, but I guess that’s not really an option. Lets see how things pan out.

As it’s the last holiday day and I’ve incorrectly calculated the number of tomatoes required, I’m having pizza.

So yesterday we wondered into town, I bought a new jumper from SuperDry, did okay on it, label said seventy-five, I paid fifty, no idea why. We spent the evening with my sister and brother-in-law. Low key affair in a fairly quiet pub. We had nice food and saw the new year in fairly sedately, but to be honest, no one was really up for a balls out party, so it was exactly what was required. We did make some interesting plans though….as Jamie is going to Orlando with his sister, I plan on going to Ibiza with mine. It’s still in the planning stages yet, we both need to work out dates. But it will be nice to go there again (okay, I didn’t quite make it to that part of Spain in my youth, but came fairly close). I think the days (or even nights) of spending seven of them in some super-club are well over, but I think we could manage one and then visit some of the legendary bars along the strip. It would also be nice to hire a car and do a bit of exploring. As I said, still in the planning stage and we need to sort the logistics, but it’s certainly something I want to do before I die (at current rate that’s about October).

Started this morning fairly late, Jamie was snoring his head off well past midday, I was reading a good book since 9AM. But when he did finally open his eyes we started the new year off with a big bang. That’s January’s quota fulfilled. I then started on the joy which was my tax return. Spent two hours ‘gathering data’, then had a very late lunch. Spent the next hour actually filing the thing. They owe me over three grand. Then did all the other filing and sorted out the filing cabinets. Did the end of year accounts. Decided that I’m still unable to retire.

The weather today has been awful, cold and wet. I walked Sasha around the block, but she was happy to come home, jump on Jamie’s couch and go back to sleep. Tomorrow it’s due to be brighter. I have the day off as it’s a Bank holiday. No real plans. Tidy up the office and put the vacuum round it I think. I’ve already got the new wall planner up.

I don’t do resolutions or any crap like that, but lets have some fun and hopefully make it to 2018. If not, then I’ll just say,’It’s been enjoyable in parts.’

Depression is a weird thing. You can have an enormous amount of money, a property portfolio, a good job, a pilots license, a dick the size of a horse and family and friends that love you (some of those things may be inaccurate), but you still want to get up (okay, if you get that far) and jump under a bus. It’s very much time for a new adventure, I never wanted to be a computer programmer, I wanted to be a lumberjack, swinging from tree to tree.

Oh and welcome to 2017.