Bye 2017 its been...odd.

As my back starts to feel normal again, I have picked up a cold....lucky I wasn't sneezing all week with a torn muscle in my back.

New Years eve today, I have been invited out but am going to stay in today,  I need to keep Harvey company, he gets very stressed by the firework frenzy that happens here, and I want to finish up a bit of office and studio clean up I started before the back went. Also I really want to have a complete revamp of my guitar set up, which is a pain in the arse really. Lots of disassembling and hole drilling in my pedal board. I just want to put my beat buddy into the system and also make more use of my VL3 as a proper guitar unit, I rely too much on my GR55 for guitar sounds and really I need it for the VL3's guitar options and step features....still like the GR55 a lot though. But I have a full looper on board the VL3 and effects I haven't even tried to use, bit silly having a 900euro unit and only using it for vocals when I don't do that much singing.

Diet has been out the window the last week, but going back on it, can't get to the gym till the back heals properly though so that's at least a week.

Book proof reading was a major pain, and I have to do it one more time apparently, but even so I am looking forward to getting the book out

Going to get the cleaning down, and start 2018 as I ended 2017, new me....new attitudes and new determination.




Ahthankyew

still sore

Not quite gasping for breath sore, but the back is still sore. Thought it was getting better yesterday but when I got out of bed today it was really bad...might have twisted in my sleep or something...


More likely I slept long enough for the painkillers and alcohol to wash out my system..I'll do something about that.



Ahthankyew

oh c'mon....no?

I did my back in, not doing anything even remotely energetic or slightly risqe, nope , I was reaching into the fridge to get some fish and my back just exploded.
Unbelievable pain, had me gasping for breath for several minutes....before I was able to get on my back to flatten it out.

oh man, I was just about to cycle over to Liz and Pete's too, but after that it was very clear I wasn't cycling anywhere.

thankfully though our friend Berrie came and picked me up,...and drove very very slowly to avoid speed bumps. But he couldn't' help but corpse with laughter as I squealed in pain at ever turn and speed change.

Anyway as long as I sat in my chair I was ok and had a wonderful dinner followed by a simply awesome game of poker which saw me as chip leader for a large part of it. Sadly right at the end, Berrie came back into play and some utterly crushing play from him saw me losing more than 70euros of my much hard won winnings... But I broke even and had a great night..before crawling very slowly and painfully into bed after 5am...a good evening with pills and alcohol keeping the pain at bay

My back is going to be screwed for a few days still, but it will get better....I hope.


Ahthankyew

Fame...but not much fortune.

My beginners C++ coding articles have started in MagPi I dunno if this will be 6 months or a year but its still nice to get myself a credit in a published magazine. You can also download it free or pay for it in the shops.
Its really hard to fit in what you want to say in only 3 pages, but I think I got off to a good, if uninspiring start. We'll see if part 2 when we finally get some graphics going will peak peoples interest.





Ahthankyew

Never invite a vegan to a meat party

I had a dinner party for my birthday( bappy hirthday to me) and had a really nice 4 course menu, but I totally underestimated how much effort it would take to provide vegan options for one of my guests, it was a bit of a nightmare for timing and organising.

but though the food was slow out of the kitchen, it was good, and the vegan options were well received.

I even made a vegan cheesecake for everyone...better than I expected... but frankly, I much prefer the real deal..

no point in doing my weigh in, I utterly stuffed myself as my birthday treat, I'll wait a few days till I get back to my diet...It may get destroyed again at Christmas but I'll try do do a bit more of that exercise stuff

Ahthankyew

wtf 94.2?

Eh....but.. I've been good...aside from one slip where I had a chinese takeaway....damn that is disappointing.

ok so havn't actually been to the loo in a day or 2, one of the downsides of eating less carbs, but...still....this is very upsetting.

I need to get stricter on the diet and harder at the gym, not at all happy.


Ahthankyew

93.2 knew it was a blip

yeah, I guessed it was just a blip, back to the strict diet again and 5 mins extra on the rowing machine.

Ahthankyew

92.9 ?? thats...odd

Really not sure how, as I've not been quite so strict this week with my diet, but I have been maintaining my restricted lunch and no sweets/treats rule.

Maybe the increased exercise is kick starting the old skinny me's metabolism back in, in which case I'll be 8 stone again in no time.

wow 8 stone, I was that weight right up till I quit smoking in my late 20's. Don't really want to be that thin again but it will be nice to get to 10.


Ahthankyew

First look at my bookie wookie

I have the first proofs, and am really pleased to see it, not sure I totally like the formatting in places but its still great to see it. I supplied nearly 900 pages in double space and they've crunched it down to 450ish in single spacing...ok well it does mean less paper I guess, but I was kinda looking forward to seeing a big massive drop on your toes and crush them but still its a hefty book.

what is amazing is for god knows how long, the cover page and headers I had the name of the book wrong....wtf..how and when did that happen??? I only realised when one of the notes mentioned changing the name of the book...wtf..how did it change form The Fundamentals of C/C++ Game programming: using target based Development on SBC's... to.
The Fundamentals of C/C++ Game Development: using target based Developement on SBC's...........two developments??
I just blanked it..it must have been there for months...


Anyway the book is clearly registered with its proper name, it was just my title that was mangled for some reason. I will have to spend a bit of time in the evenings reading through...that's going to be fun.


Ahthankyew

93.5 phew, not too much damage

2 proper meals in the hotel didn't do any real harm.

Back to the gym tomorrow (groan)

Ahthankyew

Heading home

Ok thats Finland ticked off the list of places to see...rather cold and grey, and no sign of the northern lights sadly.

heading home on a very comfortable train whisking the miles away with power for the laptop and pretty decent wifi..this really is a nice way to travel.

Sadly in about 30 mins I have to leave this nice train and start the process of queuing up to be treated like cattle on a plane...bah...


Other news..my book proofs are due for delivery tomorrow,  they mailed to let me know, so can't wait to see what they've done with the scribbles and bad screen shots I sent them...

No idea on the weight, didn't eat a lot in Finland but did have a few drinks with meals, so that might boost the calories, but that said, all this walking in snow and running for trains counts.



Ahthankyew

Finland is very cold and very dark....

Well no scales to check so can't tell, but the food is quite fatty so guess it will have an impact...what I honestly didn't realise is they are 1 hour ahead....almost missed my stop on the train thinking I had an hour till it arrived

Just up here to meet up with some people, do some computer chats and have a little nosey around, I'm quite far north so kinda hoping to see the northern lights.


nothing so far.

Ahthankyew