Baby puke and sleeping

Harvey 2 is, so cute, got to feed him last night, and even though  I burped him, he promptly threw up all over my trousers and into my big glass of orange juice.

So..damn cute!!

:D :D :D :D


Ahthankyew

Wonderful week

Well that was a pretty wonderful week. Starting with wonderful baby news, hearing my daughters voice on the phone gushing about the new baby and telling me all about her uncomfortable women's medical problems...she's not shy..booby feeding is now my new favourite medical term.

Then back at home, fantastic rehearsal and even more amazing gig at the NHTV Christmas party, where pretty much everyone was up on the floor, we got so much good feedback, even for the Christmas songs we really hate.....but they went down ok.

New singer Maria has really settled in now and the combinations of the full set of 3 female vocals in harmony is fucking stunning, real hair on end stuff that had me and the other bandmates beaming with joy...it came through on the night for sure.. What a band, we really go from strength to strength.

The book is actually starting to take shape, 10,000 words, 4 chapters in I read it back to myself the other night and its bloody good stuff, still need another 30 or so chapters but I think it might be a good working resource when its done.

Lovely quiet birthday with lots of good wishes and even an on time Birthday card from mum...I was invited out by everyone but chose to have a nice quiet and relaxing evening in, just one glass of wine. Bliss.

And now..its Christmas, work is done,  time to have a well earned rest, go see Danni and spend a bit of time in the UK catching up with family and friends.

I have wi-fi in the B&B so will update if there's anything worth posting..for now, time to go make some crappy music videos and pack a bag.

Merry Chrimbo


Ahthankyew

so many nice people

One thing I try very hard to maintain is keeping my facebook open only to people I actually know.
There's one or 2 hobby followers, a few mad guitar players but 98% of the people on there are people I actually know, work with, socialise with or have worked with or socialised with.. I don't do the collect a friend, first to 1000 gets to win at Yahtzee (South Park mum, you won't have seen it)

So its especially nice to see over 100 birthday wishes from people I know

I was hoping that there was a 1-1000 chance that someone in particular would try to connect with me today, but the hint wasn't taken....maybe next year.

At least I won't be alone at Christmas, I get to go see Danni and her new addition.. Time to spend that Xmas bonus on someone other than me.


Ahthankyew

I'm a grandad, even if I am far too young and cute

Well that was a nail biting 24 hours. After the message that baby Harvey was on the way, I had to endure radio silence for 24 hours. I barely slept hoping to get a phone call, and was on tenter hooks all day at work, but nothing.

Finally after my mum also started to get a bit stressed out with the lack of info from anyone, I called the hospital who eventually put me through to the labour ward.

Who then said they could not tell me anything about what had happened, but that she was no longer in the labour ward.

WHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAATTTTTTT!!!!!!!!!!!! do you mean "what happened"....."what happened???" I was very stressed, even though of course in the interests of confidentiality they were 100% right to tell me that they could not say anything, but "what happened" is a foreboding term...

Sensing my extreme discomfort at that expression, the person on the line, tried to reassure me that its ok, she's fine...phew...and the baby.... Sorry I can't say anything about that...ok ok ok..slightly less stressed but clearly not the answer I wanted as I held back tears.

Can you get a message to her to call her father, so I can let the other family members know they are all ok.

Of course, I'll get a message to them...phew..

And so began the longest 10 mins of my life as I waited to hear...checking on Danni's whatsapp to make sure that her phone was on again, and suddenly there was a read confirmation of my last 3, please contact me messages.

I tried calling but no joy....
Told mum on messenger that I 'd tried calling
tried whatsapping a hello, no response

Then finally a call, from Kieran, Dannis' fella....Sorry the signal in the hospital is crap, Danni asked to pop outside and let me know that she's ok.
Through a broken connection the words, difficult labour, a breech birth, delivered by forceps...(wow that's unusual), but the key words finally came.


"Both are fine and now resting."


Cue floods of tears..and virtual hugs for all 3 of them.
"Will send pic soon"


The feelings of joy at that moment cannot be captured in words..

I don't have all the usual details, like length, weight, time, those will come, "Both are fine and now resting", was all I wanted to hear.

Happy glorious wonderful words....

I got the picture a few hours later, I was sat in a pub quiz I'd been roped into with my friend Richard from The Gadgeteers and burst into tears....followed by lots of back slapping
She made me promise not to post pics online, so I can't show it here...but trust me, he's beautiful

have to go..need to buy more tissues.








Ahthankyew

Baby on way

Danni's in Labour....oh this is exciting, and scary...I'm bursting with pride...can't wait to hear that my little Grandson and my lovely Daughter and her shitting bricks fella are all one big happy family

watch this space...


Ahthankyew

Still no baby...so writing a book

She's still not popped, and she's getting very fed of up me asking if she has..so I'll back off for a bit.

In other news, I've started to document my learning process on the Raspberry Pi, which I am learning to use so that I can give some talks on at uni. quite a few of them want to do assembly coding and cross platform remote development. So the Pi was chosen to make that possible...and your's truly has been the one working it all out.

Since this was my 1st experience with the Pi as an actual target device for programming, it struck me it was a good idea to try to share that experience with others who may be starting out on the machine
After collating a few of my notes I realised I had the basics of a tutorial I've always want to do.

Combining my 1st year starting programming courses with later more advanced, working on consoles.

The Pi isn't a console of course but the process with you work with it using a remote dev machine and VisualGBD to allow you to use Visual Studio, is basically the same so it could be a good introduction to the methods of working I usually use when doing PS4 work without actually having access to a PS4 which of course is the situation for most home coders. A cheap pretend console might be a good way to provide some tips to new coders so that when they come across real consoles the methods are not totally alien to them, even if the software and SDK's are.

Depending on where you look the machine appears to be more powerful than a Nintendo GameCube and on par with a PS2 or original Xbox. There were some amazing games on those machines, so if I can get a working framework together built on OpenGL ES2.0 I'll be a very happy man.

Anyway, no idea if it will end up as anything worth reading, but I have been partially inspired by one of my students who gifted and signed for me a copy of his 2nd edition of a book on Mine craft modding.

If I document my whole journey, from the frustration of getting it working to having that 1st OpenGL ES triangle displayed, to creating a framework to make a few of my 1st year games. It should pad out to a few hundred pages of semi interesting stuff.

I'll have to also break out the dormant 3D skills to write a framework that can cope with models and scenes, but that might be a 2nd book.

Having a book published also takes off a bit of academic pressure I get from time to time over not having a masters degree. so another good reason. Money isn't one of the other reasons, apparently tech books don't really make much cash, or hot the top of the best seller list often, but if I can get it out, I think it will be nice to say I'm an author...even if the plot is a bit dull and the butler probably does it at the end.

Anyway, time to ask if she's popped yet?

.
Ahthankyew

Stll no baby

that is all

Ahthankyew

Not looking forward to it...

Yup December is here again...the inexorable countdown to Christmas.....I hate it, especially on my own...but it simply holds no real joy for me...

EXCEPT!!!!


That by the time it comes I should be a granddad to a lovely little bouncing boy....he's due any day now, and I'm going to spend Xmas over in the UK with my new babba and his mum and dad.


So any day now....I have the most wonderful photo of Danni, ready to pop, but she does not want me posting it on line, which is fine, I've shown it to almost every one I know  and will print it out and frame it, along with the soon to come 1st photo of her and Harvey...yup,,,same name as my dog...not going to let that confuse me...I might end up throwing tennis balls for a 2 week old....

She's also asked me not to post pics of Harvey....and I will honor her request until she says otherwise....wont' stop me taking 100's of them though :D


exciting times...at Christmas....who'd have thunk!!


Ahthankyew

Sat in my dressing gown doing coding, waiting till the suns over the yard arm

Been learning Unity5, I've dabbled with Unity on an off over the years, but never full on taken the plunge and "got into it".

Its a very nice package for a lot of great ideas, but as a coder it just does not make me feel very satisfied... I can do some nice things via the scripts but the overall lack of feeling I'm in control of the whole process makes me feel a little underwhelmed

I suppose I should learn how to write plugins for it, that will make it lot easier to actually feel that I'm doing something meaty with it.

Its not that its a bad package, far from it, its an absolute miracle of modern engine development....but I can't help thinking that I want it to do more, than what it does..I feel limited...even though I wholeheartedly agree I'm no where near imaginative enough to even test Unity's limits
And maybe that's it....Its really a package for people who want to write a game...something they've thought up, can explore their world in, and make it happen, really easy...

As a coder I get my satisfaction from taking a problem and getting it working....Unity does that for me...so where are my problems to solve....I'm not and never have been a game designer, so for me I feel I have little to do.

oh well....I have to become much more proficient in it, to aid students who are going to be spending the next block at least using it...the last thing I want is for students to ask, how do I do this...and me not know.....


only 6 hours will wine o'clock and I'll feel a bit happier about it then.

Ahthankyew

Sad state of the planet

The Paris attacks are still dominating the news, the media being what they are, are not saying a lot about attacks happening elsewhere in the world, but the fact is the world is a sick and twisted place, people are living in fear and dread of what the lunatics will do next.

Its too easy to blame Muslims,Christians, Jews,Hindus, or even bizarrely  Buddhists who are now deciding its a good idea to harm other people.....its nothing to do with religion!

For the most part this is a socioeconomic issue. The poor are hungry and need food they see others wasting, the ignorant are uneducated and grasp for knowledge they feel is the truth, and the powerful, exploit all they can for their own gain, keeping people diverted while they rob and steal and consolidate their power

Religion is often used as a means to exploit the poor and ignorant, given the extent of the harm people do in religons name its hard to see those who manipulate the masses from the pulpits as men of god, they are just exploiters, themselves often exploited, every bit as bad as the political Tsars and dictators in their offices.

Religion isn't the cause of this madness, it certainly fuels it, and feeds the madness,  and we'd be so much better off without the delusion of sky fairies approving of the brutal acts we commit in their names. But its not the cause

But the cause is, as I said, the fact we have poor and ignorant people. On a planet where we're more than capable of feeding and educating everyone, with the means to do so via global communication and infrastructure that allows mass mobility.. We can educate and feed everyone. We can raise everyone's standard of living, we can demonstrate and in time convince everyone of the oneness of humanity and the simple beauty of knowledge. We can do all that...in a matter of a few years if there is a will.

But instead we focus on our differences, our homelands, our language, our skin colour anything that makes us different.
Our tribalism is deeply ingrained in our dna, that we trust no-one who looks or sounds a bit different, or worst has different delusional views on what happens when we die...


And this is just one more self important opinion on an internet full of self important opinions, none of which are listened to, and soon there will be another atrocity, in the name of a non existent god, planned by a deluded nutter, who will be doing the will of someone who's agenda is for themselves.......

We're seriously a fucked up species...our end must be near..

Ahthankyew

Nice weekend...sorta

Been cooking.

I've filled the freezer again with a months worth of food, Curry, Mince and Tatties,, Mac & Cheese. There's still pasta and stew in there, I suppose I should make sure older meals rise to the top so they don't end up getting missed out when I play freezer lottery.
I've also started to take a meal with me to work, I really do enjoy having a nice hot (microwaves are great) meal at lunch, instead of the never ending and rather expensive sandwiches.


It also saves me an absolute fortune on food. One thing I discovered last year was that I waste a freaking fortune on food. Not all of which gets eaten, or it often ends up in the freezer for a year.
If not I was eating far too much takeaway, 2 even 3 times a week, at 15 euro's a pop....nearly 50 quid a week..

But doing this freezer lottery idea has been brilliant, meals work out as only a few euro's each and its all home cooked stuff, ready to nuke as soon as I get home. The only limit is it needs to be a 1 pot style meal, hence curries and stews...but since I like that kind of food, its not a problen


Means I have a lot more money to spend on booze!!!






Ahthankyew

TFI Friday

What a week, busy as fuck, so much time spent with students, several cock ups and getting home exhausted, but at least no actual school work to do when I get home. V2 is proving to be very intense 9-5 but so much easier during my own time.

Am just heading off to work now, hopefully a quieter sort of day, followed by several beverages of an alcoholic nature after work...


Ahthankyew

Still seeking ....something

I had a strange evening last night, I met up with Brenda to give her some  things of hers I'd found, though I stupidly forgot to take the bag of LED lights she'd asked me specifically for. I did get the photos I found on an SD card transferred to more usable USB and CD

Such a strange evening, we went for a meal, and of course it was awkward, I can't deny my feelings for her have not diminished at all in the last 11 months, She looked amazing as always, and her smile still made my heart flutter, though she didn't smile as much as I remember, as much as I've tried to move on this women still occupies all my waking thoughts.....sad innit

As always the problem is that she simply doesn't feel the same way, she's not really moved on per-se but she's also not interested in going back...strange sort of limbo we both seem to be in. I was left feeling incredibly sad at the loss of this relationship that shaped my life and offered so much promise, and that some of the consequences of my bad handling of what was a minor argument could cause so much pain, to both of us.
I'd give anything to try to fix it, but its not up to me, thats also more reasons to be sad.

I don't know why I'm posting this, its not as if she's ever going to read it, or understand, I just felt I should...after  all the whole point of this is to document how I feel about things, good bad or plain sad
Maybe I just need more time, 5 or 6 years might do it.






Ahthankyew

Work+Drink = .....

Surprising results

Been doing a lot of very nice coding work, some to help students and some for me

Hope I didn't put any drunk comments in the students work..

I've shown you this a fuckign thousand times and you're still my Bessie mate

or something!




Ahthankyew

bollloxxx

can't sleep, chronic insomnia has made me nocturnal....

very fed up

probably need to stop doing this to myself

Ahthankyew

Earworms...and the danger of insufficient skills

I've got 2 songs rattling around in my head. I can't get rid of them 1 old one new.

Time in a Bottle, and V. Bozemans What is love.

Time I can play pretty well though the guitar is a bit tricky, lots of arpeggios and up and down the neck, but its do-able, but can't really sing it well enough, and every attempt to record it has failed..miserably, either the singing is crap which has been the case since the mega cold (or since birth), or I mess up the guitar.. Many attempts, but nothing I want to publish on YouTube yet.

The other has an odd timing that throws me on the simple chords, I would be mad to even attempt to sing....but its soooo cool I really want to..but can't sing like an R&B queen...I wonder if a folk version would work ;) maybe a ska version...oh oh, a heavy death metal version?


I will keep trying, if I get one of them sounding decent I'll be happy, then maybe they will get out of my head and get forgotten.





Ahthankyew

Must avoid ranting!

I have a tendency to be a bit too passionate about things I care for... that makes me a little vocal when people say things I don't agree with, no, I need to rephrase that...people say lots of things I don't agree with, and I don't bat an eyelid, so its not that.
Its when people extoll an at odds with me, moral view of something, or a blatantly false view...and then make some claim about it being an opinion or a fact when it clearly isnt'..

Something's will always be subjective... Like, music, sports, even religion, the great unmentionables at a party...But ones view on politics, is interesting, it is subjective but also very telling, the morality that takes you towards a particular political view can be quite disturbing.

I've got into a bit of a political rant on Facebook, with some rather well to do, affluent business types, (I mixed with a lot of affluent business types back in the day when I was, for a short time at least, also an affluent business type). Who are banging on and on about the new Labour leader, (Jeremy Corbyn for those of you reading 3 years from now, when he may we have been replaced) being a ...well you name it, the bullshit that comes some people (including Cameron) makes me roll my eyes in wonder at the manipulative nonsense politics has become

These are mainly very intelligent savvy people, who got to be rich and affluent by being intelligent and savvy, but have lost all connection with reality and are jumping on the bandwagon to undermine and bray at Labour and their perceived enemies, "the left" like donkeys..

I tried at one point to highlight the extraordinary hypocrisy and duplicity of their own poster boys, the Conservative party, and of course, just like religion they don't listen, taking more time to continue to bray and run down any who don't agree with them.

They extoll the virtues of the free market, and trickle down economy as the only way to make the world a better place, and find it odd when I suggest business above all has not made the world a better place (materially maybe but socially...no) something that's been in place in UK and US for some 30 years now, and clearly does not work...for the majority. Those at the top, they clearly do fine, and even laugh at my suggestion that the world we live in now is considerably worse that it was in the early 80's, because ..well, we have a better standard of living now...Do we?

Pointing out that;  the UK has no industry any more, no natural resource harvesting (aside from oil which benefits only the oil companies, I see no cheap petrol in the stations), no steel, no coal, no meaningful lumber, no fishing, no national car/truck industry..no manufacturing industry of any note.

NHS in crisis, social services at breaking point, crime of all levels at record levels,  job security is non existent. High streets are full of pound shops and windows are boarded. Prisons are full,  long term unemployment is endemic. That children leave school illiterate and those that aren't can't afford to pay for university education, so end up in debt.

That there are no meaningful council house building programs, whose tenants now must rely on the mercy of landlords who inflate the cost to screw the government/taxpayers.
That the levels of extreme and moderate poverty are higher than ever, causing even more crime, making the population more and more insular and afraid.
That council cutbacks mean streets are no longer clean or well maintained, roads are slow to be repaired.
That personal debt has never been higher, and peoples debts are traded!!
That national infrastructure is crumbling with motorways constantly under repair and only investment funded (and therefore a return required) options remain, years after the privatising of rail, we've seen no benefit to the traveller..

We see a culture no longer based on the rewards of hard work, but on an ever avaricious desire to take money from people, chasing profit above all other concerns and blaming others when we don't get to buy the latest replacement for our 200" wall mounted OLED screens. Consumer hunger being fed constantly with a wave of media hype and lifestyle expectations.
We live in constant fear of terror, due to successive right and right leaning governments determination to distract the population with wars and threats to stability, mismanagement of foreign policy on extraordinary scales and distortions of fact that would make Herr Goebbels proud.
And the worst thing of all....reality TV....well maybe not the worse but its pretty bad.
There's a 100+ more things I could add here but I have work get on with.
Pointing all this out.....do we really really live in a better world than we did in the 80's?

Some do, and they've never had it so good....Sadly...the majority don't... Its time we put an end to the madness....
The rise of the right wing nutjobs all over Europe has made 1 phrase popular for all the wrong reasons. Its time we took our country back....a phrase that has an ugly and hate filled meaning when Britain First and other sicko groups use it.

But it is time we took our countries back...from the greed and selfishness that is grinding them down and turning us into fodder to keep them well fed.

By the way, one of the main causes of my ire was due to Cameron and his spin machine quite deliberately twisting something Corbyn said during a discussion....here's an image to explain

 

 

Now what Corbyn said made perfect sense and was a comment on the tragedy of the situation in the middle east, idiotic wars, creating tensions and terror as well as the abandonment of the rule of law...quite right that is a tragedy...its a tragedy that a modern democratic country is behaving this way. A trial and verdict demonstrates the right way to do it, but instead we simply behave like the people we are condemning. Soon we can happily let governments kill people so long as we all know they are bad...hmmmm

What Cameron, or rather his speech writers with his blessing did was highlight a small part of that intelligent well thought out statement out of context...to paint Corbyn as something he clearly isn't'.

 

 

Well context is a bitch...the internet has decided it will explain that to Mr Cameron.

Context......removing it really is a tragedy!



Ahthankyew

Back to some music, and hating my mac...

No more health updates...I'm sick of reporting that I'm sick...I am..but who cares...I am slowly getting better

Which has brought me back upstairs to the music room, which has fallen into a bit of disrepair after 2 months almost no use...Time to make some new videos, after I clean up..
I also decided to use a bit of surprising spare cash following a drop in my mortgage to invest in a full copy of Abelton live..I get a 40% discount as a teacher so its not too bad.

I have seen lots of people using this, and after buying a Novation launchpad a few months ago its time to make some proper use of the puppy...assuming of course I can get the flaming mac to run fast enough.
Ever since the last OS X upgrade, the thing has been running like treacle, which is upsetting as it was a perfectly fine little machine for music before. I am hoping the music packages themselves are not suffering from slow down..We'll soon find out

I also have logic pro 9 on this mac which is fantastic in partnership with my m_Audo Project Mix interface...I now have  a pair of Novation midi controllers, a fantastic 8 channel interface, two top of the line pieces of recording software used by the best artists in the business to create wonderful music...............I have no idea how to use them...damn they are complex!

and I'm supposed to be a tech person?

Anyway Ableton is basically a live performance piece of software, and Logic is for studio quality work (yeah like thats gonna happen), I want to see if I can make something decent with them.

once I work though the tutorials which are leaving me befuddled on the 1st pages.

I'm screwed....But I'll muddle along and see if I can do anything with them...if at first you don't succeed, try again, then give up, you're just being an arse.... :D

Videos hopefully soon, at least test versions if nothing else


Ahthankyew

kill me now

I am so damn tired, and looking in the mirror I look it.

The cough has died off quite a bit thankfully, though strangely at night around bedtime it decides to pop back for a visit, keeping me away for a while but I am no longer getting the hacking till 3am stuff again..

Right now main problem is sinus pain...every day I seem to get a mega headache behind my right eyebrow...and its pretty intense. Paracetamol seems to be ok though if I can take it before the pain really kicks in.


oh god look at me...sat here moaning about how sick I am....me!!!! Someone who hates being sick, hates the concept of being sick and refuses to go see docs.

I need to stop posting health updates.. I'm starting to sound like a hypochondriac, the thing I despise more than anything in the world.

In other news.....I'm too sick to care about :D

nah...other things in life are equally depressing right now, still painfully  single, still bored shitless at home, still drinking too much, and not able to make any new music vids till my voice comes back without a cough every time I try to sing.
Made a big batch of chicken curry though...so will have plenty to eat for this month.. Need to blance it up with some Mince and tatties and Spag bol so the freezer lottery can be a bit more interesting.

Bad news though, my boiler needs to be replaced, the annual service reports it is leaking CO and not safe to use...that's a nice new expense to make up for the nice mortgage rate reduction I got the other month..so much of excess disposable income. :(

Life really is pretty shit at the moment isn't it....no money, no woman, no pleasure, no...oh wait..booze... its not that bad.

Work is starting to settle in to a routine, though the new V2 system still needs to settle in. I'm currently working with some new framework software and getting my head around it. Its very good though, and some small improvements from  my colleagues and me have produced a really nice piece of code that the students can make full use off for their projects.

Next week they get to start their main block A project, having done all the prep work for it..they now have to do a bit more learning to learn, and learning by doing...with some gentle pushes from us.

I'm going to make an effort to create a few videos for students on how to use the framework, soon as I don't look like I've just woke up from a 3 week bender... I do not want vids of me looking like crap hovering on any site for years to come.

Oh well coffee break over, back to work...how do I get the new sprite batching system to work with animation.....hmmm

Ahthankyew

ugghhhh

I am in soooo much pain I can't tell you, 2 ocycontins, 2 Solpadine and an antihistime, are not helping...and what is this pain....my sinus's.....yup, finally the cough sorta stops, and now I have about 100pounds of pressure in my sinus cavity, refusing to be released and my head feels like its about to explode. only now with the drugs starting to do something am I actually able to look at a screen, with one eye closed and constantly wiping my eyes, which are weeping without any emotional issues... its just the most astonishing intense pain.

All this from 1 fucking cold nearly 2 months ago....wtf I mean really wtf... I used to shake off colds with ease... I need to start looking for a nice warm country to live in, I can't deal with this shit anymore.

Argghhh just arghhh I am so fucking tired, physically and mentally from silly illnesses..


Ahthankyew