Sleepypete's Pillow

Friday was one of my fave Heinlein novels. He wrote a *lot* of good stuff……..

Spotted this earlier :

Made me chuckle.

It’s been an awkward Monday today. It didn’t start too well cos … you guessed it, I was washing those metaphorical cats again. Oops.

And the heat ! We’re more hardened to the cold over here and we don’t adjust at all well when the heat lamp in the sky gets turned on. And it’s been really hot today, uncomfortably hot in the office. We have thermal strip thingys on the pillars in the office and some of them today were reading 29 degrees C inside. That’s not healthy …

I dunno how much water I drank today (lots!) but I don’t think I quite drank enough.

Talk about Friday … I’m dreaming about Thursday !

The place I’m visiting has far better conditions inside than our offices plus … no bus. I get to sit in my car for a lot of the day basking in the air con. On the other hand, our buses are built for the winter. They have 2 slit windows near the front for ventilation, that’s it. It was quite possibly 35 degrees plus in there. Possibly more. My pooter is saying the cpu and graphics are at 38 degrees C at idle (which is probably around room temp) and it felt warmer on that bus.

Meh. Enough with the complaining !

Yep. Thursday should be good. And now today’s out the way, only 9 more working days until I can get some R&R annual leave in. Hopefully I can heal up some more. Some bits of me are completely fixed (no more Zombie Patches on my face), some are getting there. But I may need to see the doctor again to see what can be done about the holdouts.

You’ve probably been wondering where the subject heading comes from ?

I’m a big fan of Robert Heinlein novels. The guy was capable of novels of stunningly brilliant quality (although there are bad ones in there too like Farnham’s Freehold) and one of them was called Friday. This book had everything. Everything ! And this was just the first couple of chapters. The rest of the book examined what it meant for the lead character, Friday, to be an artificial person living in a world hostile to the thought of that. And it’s a tough book for our heroine too.

And … ~wibble~ Isa Guha is interviewing someone in the cricket. She’s an Ashes winner, she knows what she’s talking about.

Yeah – Friday. Best day of the week, even with it being a teacake free day in the canteen. And one hell of a book too. Not the first Heinlein book I’d recommend someone read (Moon Is A Harsh Mistress, Starship Troopers first) but it’s definitely one of the good ones.

Sport’s dominating at the moment 🙂

We’ve had the conclusion of Wimblydon, a couple of Grand Prix, Le Mans 24 hours a couple of weeks ago and we’re rushing headlong into another Ashes campaign. Plus a Lions rugby tour down under. (I follow Six Nations rugby but Lions tours seem a bit artificial somehow)

Oh ! I have some time off coming soon too ! It’ll be in a couple of weeks and hopefully the heat will be more manageable by them. Don’t get me wrong, I like a bit of sun. (And it’s weird having to shade the eyes in the shower!) But I overheat very easily.

Sun = good. Heat = bad. Global warming ? Yeah, I think they’re right there but I don’t think the temperature will get appreciably hotter, I think instead the Earth will adjust by turning that warming into energy that drives the atmosphere more and we’re seeing that in the more intense storms we’re getting.

Doh. That was a bit of an aside wasn’t it. See ? I do pay attention to the world sometimes !

Although I’m more concerned with a few of the people in it than I am of the world itself. Yep. Got my eye on a few of you and I hope you’ll be ok.

Anyway – sporty stuff. I watch a lot of sport. But I also apply a lot of quality control to what I select for watching. Like avoiding the Lions rugby. I don’t watch all cricket, I’m selective. Like there’s a West Indies game on at the moment, I’m not interested in that.

Another aside (based on what’s on the news right now). Charles Saatchi is a crazy man. To mistreat (allegedly!) and give up someone as beautiful and with the character of Nigella Lawson ? Nuts. I don’t watch her shows much but when I do, I’m entranced by one of the hottest people on telly.

(I think this post qualifies for the scattergun label now, don’t you ?)

Yet another aside – news is showing the Boeing 777 crash story. Comments – it’s a credit to whatever worked right that only two have died (may it stay as two!) but you have to ask questions of “how ?”. My first thought was that it was another sign of why the Dreamliner shouldn’t be flying but I’m wrong there, 777 is not the ill fated Dreamliner.

Back to topic – motor racing. This is very much a mixed bag to be honest.

The Le Mans 24 hour is interesting due to its uniqueness. Here we have 200mph cars racing solid for a full 24 hours. It’s an incredible event. But to watch it for the full 24 hours ? I wouldn’t wish that on anyone ! I did enjoy watching the selection of it that I did watch though.

Grand Prix racing is a curiosity too. It’s better when we have our favourites doing well. I’m only 99% (ok, less than that) keen on it right now because the McLarens are struggling. I like the Brits to do well in all sport I watch. Formula 1 is only interesting because of the incidents that are happening right now. The actual racing isn’t great. Some tracks are better than others. Some tracks are less interesting than watching paint dry. Like the Nurburgring today, Monaco from a while ago and soon Hungary.

Oh it’s also interesting for Suzi Perry. Did I mention that going gaga about ladies with long dark hair thing ? (see above ref Nigella Lawson). Highlights are a good way around the dead time but I feel more connected with sporty stuff when I see the whole thing. There’s a kind of story to the game or race that you don’t get with highlights.

Oh but what was exciting – tennis.

I exercise the quality control here too. It’s very easy to get burned out on a sport. Especially if it’s as repetitive as baseball (sorry baseball fans it doesn’t have the “ball can go anywhere” of cricket) or tennis.

But we did have 2 incredible games over the weekend. I wasn’t sure who to support in the ladies final but when hearing there was someone with strange habits and who falls asleep at random times, yep. That’s the one I’m supporting. And she’s the one who won too. No such issues with wondering who to support in the men’s final.

Well done Ms Bartoli and Mr Murray ! Thoroughly enjoyed those games.

Back to work tomorrow, although I’ll be looking forward to the Ashes starting on Wednesday and you can bet the commentary will be on in the car on Thursday afternoon when I’ll be driving back.

How’s my own cricket coming on ? Haven’t played for a while. That’s partly been down to lack of opportunity (rain, empty teams, full teams) but there’s am outside chance of a game on Thursday. Wait – I said I was travelling … There’s a chance I’d be back in time but I’ve told both captains it’s a “play if I get there in time”. I wouldn’t want to play to be honest as there’s zero chance I’d be able to prepare myself.

Physically, I could play. But that’s me refusing to acknowledge why I shouldn’t as per usual. My skin is much improved, although my arms still look like I’ve been washing cats. My legs are super improved, they’re still damaged but that damage is repairing itself. The reason my arms are still bad is because my discipline has been weak and I’ve been “helping” them too much.

I can ignore the damage to my arms though, enough to play at least. What I can’t ignore is the damage to my hip, there’s damage inside and outside. It’s an old groin injury that’s been aggravated by reinjuring it a couple of years ago, plus it hasn’t appreciated the sitting on floor that I’ve been obliged to do because of treating the skin condition.

So yeah – improving. Looking forward to the Ashes. Definitely looking forward to that time off to chill out.

Oh and hugely looking forward to the promise of cakes that came with a certain very special person’s Facebook post from Friday :-).

And I’m now looking forward to a few days of chilling out (after work finishes tomorrow of course!)

Wednesday saw the craziemob heading off to see Despicable Me 2. If you’ve not seen the first Despicable Me yet, you’ve missed out. It’s a very funny, if rather silly, movie. Despicable Me 2 is more of the same but better in pretty much every way. I think one reason is because all of the character introduction was in the first movie.

More minions !

There’s been a couple of really good movies this year. I’d rate Oblivion and Star Trek Into Darkness incredibly highly. Highly enough that I’ll be looking to buy the blurays early. I may preorder Despicable Me 2. It’s that good.

My movie of the year so far.

Don’t tell anyone (bad for my image) but I had tears in my eyes by the end. Tears of laughter. In fact, it was so good, I’d happily see it again if the right person asked.

So for today.

Today was a travelling day … meetings down in Portsmouth. I don’t mind the travelling. It’s not so much the meetings you go to, more the business you can do around the meetings. Being personally present is much better than conversing over email or messenger. Purely text methods (even the phone) don’t allow you to see what’s going on behind the words. I can convey honesty much better in person than on messages.

And when you don’t have much to tell, then it’s good to have a method of conveying that as honestly as you can.

Oh and it also lets me talk about stuff off the record. Emails have a habit of travelling further than you intended them to. But enough about that. Today’s side business (yesterday’s was the infrastructure guy) was talking to the support lady.

Support is a massive deal where I am. Or it should be … For most major organisations, it’s not the cost to buy which is most significant. Sure, it’s big but it’s not nearly as big as the whole life support cost. We try to keep the support cost down where I can. You can easily put too much attention into the “buy” and end up with something that costs silly money to run. Whereas, if you’d paid attention to the “support”, you could save enough to let you have better shinies (upgrades!!!!) later.

So keeping the support lady on side is very important. It does help that she’s : highly intelligent, very cute and in possession of long dark hair. You know, the type I go gaga about. Seriously though, when we do the bits and pieces that set up the support plans, this little lady will help turn it from best guess into something supremely polished with everything considered and nothing out of place.

I know someone else who does that and she also fits that type. There’s a rare intelligence behind those twinkling eyes and I miss having the chance to natter or just see if I can get the boost that comes with seeing a smile light up that face. It’s things like visiting one team, seeing someone who has switched to that team from the old team and wishing you had the excuse to visit the old team where this lady works.

Where was I ? Working relationships are very important. I like to work in the background. There’s people who make a lot of noise about how they work. That sometimes has benefits, except when they flit from hot topic to next hot topic, without actually achieving anything except for annoying everyone. Unlike today and yesterday where I quietly give the important people a personal update to let them know why I’ve been quiet. And in return, I’ll get Stuff from them that’ll help my work no end. There’s still a few more people I need to chat to though. Maybe next week.

Today’s long day was finished off with a trip to Lexus in Cheltenham, where they were having a launch party for the new IS300h.

Opinion ? Very shiny. My CT beats all the cars my family’s owned, which includes things like Granada Ghia’s, Senators, Mercs and a few more decent marques as well as those. And the new IS is better again than the CT. It’s got some seriously shiny bits to it and it’ll be very tempting to switch to one.

But not just yet. Cos of a moratorium on pay rises, I’m going to be looking for a payment holiday from car loans so Plan A is that my CT is with me for at least 5 years.

So the next car is for another time.

For now – instead of cars, I’ll be thinking of a real someone and hoping that she comes through her current trials and tribulations with the same carefree joyous spirit that made her the heart of my last team.

Buying other things !

I had to get petrol in the car ahead of doing a trip on Thursday (52.6mpg on the last fill up !) so off I toddle to the Mall. Ostensensibly, to do more research for laptop buying but mostly because I wanted to take advantage of light traffic, low pain levels and skin that’s actually fairly intact today.

Yep. I’m going to buy a new laptop sooner or later. The one I have at the moment struggles a bit too much with playing HD quality video, which wouldn’t be a problem if the on-demand video players gave the option to play in lower quality. So to avoid me having to hide behind the sofa (where the TV remote doesn’t have the reach to allow advert skipping), I’m looking at replacing that laptop.

There’s a few must haves with it :

Resolution of at least 900 lines. I like having lots of stuff on my screens and the normal 15.6″ resolution of 1368×768 is too small. No point in having a laptop with the grunt to play HD video if it doesn’t have the display to play HD video. Oh and it also puts more lines in the iTunes window.

Intel processor. AMD and Intel are still relatively similar in terms of performance but AMD do it by pushing the boundaries. Intel chips run cooler, so you can push them harder for longer. My house is quite warm right now which means the cpu in my desktop is running at 62 degrees C at full load with the fan turned down a little. My previous AMD powered machine would need the fan running at full speed (with noticeable noise) and would be 10 degrees hotter in colder conditions. I’d actually shut down the SETI BOINC stuff over the summer so it wouldn’t cook.

And an Acer machine because we’ve had a long history with Acer laptops and they’ve done us well.

Oh and I don’t want to spend a ridiculous amount of cash on it too. I don’t need an ultrathin laptop and would probably knock one over and break it.

The other requirements are fairly loose :
15.6″ at least, 17″ preferred
Touchscreen
At least 6GB RAM
SSD hard disc (preferably as a second drive)
Windows 7 instead of 8
These are all optional to be honest, although 4GB is an absolute minimum.

To be honest, I think I’m going to give up looking for a little while. I reckon I’ve waited just a bit too long to get one of the remaining Windows 7 laptops. I’d be curious about getting a clean laptop and putting Ubuntu Linux on it but would need assurance that iTunes 10.7 (iTunes 11 is getting nowhere near my machines – spit) would run on it.

There’s a new Intel chip (Haswell 4th generation) coming soon too, which is a) causing a lull in what’s being sold and b) will shake up the market when it arrives.

So what did I buy apart from petrol ?

Sorry. Had to be done.

Oh and a few more bits and pieces showed up :
Tintin’s original adventures on dvd (because the bluray is overpriced and has the soundtrack type which will drive me mental with silent blips)
Legend (Tom Cruise and Mia Sara adventure)
Jurassic Park trilogy

That should keep me amused for a while. If it weren’t T20 season on telly 🙂 That’s it for today.

Enjoy your evenings !

Here’s a good one for me right now :

I get the feeling that if I had been able to leave my damaged bits alone, I’d have healed up by now. What I’m desperately trying to avoid in this post is turning it into a Pain Level = High post. Which it is (pain level). But I don’t want to dwell on it.

Different people have different ways of dealing with their problems. My preferred method is to attempt to block it out and ignore it. Definitely to not allow it to get in the way of what I’m wanting to do. That’s one reason why the skin thing has been such a big deal – it’s stopped me wanting to join the work people in town and generally have fun in other ways. It’s got in the way of me doing other things to move on with my life too.

But the baseline stuff, I’ve kept going with that.

I can well understand when people can’t. Especially when the damage is all on the inside. I’m struggling on two fronts right now – internal and external. Fortunately I’ve been able to keep on top of the depression lately but that’s been a struggle because of the constant 2 steps forward, 2 steps back of the skin thing. Especially as a lot of the backward steps have been self inflicted due to me dropping the discipline.

But I’m lucky there. The things that are making me struggle are very obvious :

The skin thing – it’s less obvious than it was but one look at my elbows gets people realising I have issues there. Peeking at my upper arms on a Friday when I’m just in a t-shirt is a good one there too. They’re still rather shredded.

That’s where the Cone Of Shame reference comes in too. My arms look like they’ve been hugging bears … bears with claws. Although they’re not on the bathing cats level of shredded.

Muscles … Ouch. This weekend has been quite painful due to a bad neck. I reinjured it a few months ago (had cramp while driving, ignored it until it went away, it hasn’t) and it hasn’t forgiven me for not finding someone who can give it some TLC. But it’s still possibly obvious from how I’ve given the pained looks or been slow or deliberate in standing up. Neck, back and shoulders are all poorly.

Or maybe not – people seem very surprised when they’ve spotted the signs.

But at least I have the signs. I really feel for people who suffer from depression. I’m relatively up at the moment but I’m utterly dependent on my confidence level. I was having a really hard time of it this time last year, my every move was being questioned and I was being bounced from task to task. If I’d got a good handle on something, I was ordered to stop doing it and would be moved on to something I was unfamiliar with.

Grr. That situation is long gone though. It did have its effect, my confidence was shattered and depression was taking hold. Perhaps that depression was the initial trigger for the skin thing ? (No – I think it was the healthy eating). I dealt with it in my usual way :

Show no weakness
Out last the bugger

I can be really stubborn that way. I also prefer being around other people too. There’s not many problems that we can solve on our own. We often need help. It can be a shoulder to cry on, a person to talk to, someone to give you a cheery wave, colleagues to recognise the effort you put in and who seek out and value your opinion.

The cruellest thing about depression is that it’s all internal. There are no outward signs to show that you’re struggling. And with no outward signs, people don’t believe you have a problem. Their attitude changes and it can go very cruel. People don’t realise that inside, you’re crying out for help and can’t take that first step to ask for it from the right people.

The key word is that V word. Value.

You all have value. You all matter. Whether you believe it or not. And that’s one big root cause for the depression, forgetting your own value.

Even me ! I don’t think I can contribute to the cricket that much any more but my team mates do. I don’t know if I believe them. But I wouldn’t get that positive feedback if I wasn’t involved.

So that’s my plea to the depressed people I know. Don’t withdraw. Let other people in. Share your problems. Let them help you.

Even if it’s just a silly grin because they can’t think of much more when there’s a pretty face in front of them.

Lots going on this weekend.

We have :

Wimblydon
British Grand Prix
Glastonbury

And that’s just the 3 biggest events of this weekend. Wimbledon tends to have tickets available on the day, the British Grand Prix rarely does but they’re available this weekend and Glastonbury is … Glastonbury. There’s also a bunch of Twenty20 cricket matches on this weekend which would have ample tickets.

You have to ask though, how much value do you actually get from going to the events ? Is it better just to stay at home and watch them on the telly ? Do you gain much from being there ?

And that point of “value” has to be considered in terms of the cost it takes to get in there. I’ve just googled “British Grand Prix tickets” out of curiosity :
£75 for Friday’s testing
£100 for Saturday’s qualifying
£200 for Sunday’s race

Oh my god.

It better be good to justify that kind of price. And cricket is guilty of similar excess too with the pricing. The price for a ticket for Day 1 of the Third Ashes test (England vs Aussie) at Old Trafford in Manchester would be £50 per adult, in a not particularly brilliant location.

The trouble is though, the prices are so high because there’s plenty of people willing to buy them at that price. Is it worth it ? For motor racing and international cricket, I’d have to say a definite no. The TV coverage is so good these days with cameras all around the circuit or multiple angles around the ground, plus those ever present replays mean you see on the TV what you miss at the ground.

What you do get though is ambience.

There were still a few people at the IST20 this year talking about the cheating guy who was instrumental in winning the tournament for his team last year. To be honest, he did a lot more than claim a dropped catch, he was a star with bat and ball. But … it’s all tarnished by that dropped catch. And everybody in that stand knew about it. Bit like everyone in the seats at a Wimbledon match will live and breathe every game with the players.

(Doh – quick peek – Laura Robson is playing … time to open up the iPlayer which GP coverage and later the T20 coverage is on !)

I’ve not been to any for far too long but live music is similar. There’s an interaction between crowd and performer that you just don’t get when it’s not live.

I still feel a bit bad for missing out on watching Bat For Lashes when she was in Bristol last year. A very good friend ages ago was practically drooling (yes you were !!!!!) when she was saying how close she was going to be getting to Jon Bon Jovi. I bet another very good friend will be equally ravenous with Robbie Williams tonight ;-).

And for me to miss out on getting involved in a Natasha Khan (Bat For Lashes) performance ? You only have to see the power in the performance even when it’s only in a small Youtube video window to know that a whole live concert would be something very special.

So

Live sport – maybe, maybe not. I’m still thinking about doing the Spa run and I’d definitely think about doing Le Mans next year. International cricket is a no-no, although I’d look into joining a Barmy Army tour trip if there was someone to come along. County level Twenty20 games are a definite possibility, they’re short enough that crowd ambience and “watch your head!” comes in.

Live music – dunno if I’d want to do the festivals. My “too many people” sensitivies (call it paranoia) would interfere with me enjoying one of those. But if it was to see a Bat For Lashes or an Alison Goldfrapp in concert ? Hold me back.

But not this particular weekend. No details but I’ve apparently eaten something that’s bitten back. That’s so rare for me (unless it’s the skin reaction thing). It’s unheard of. I think I know what it is, I’ve been forgetting to have the apples lately so they’ve been getting old in the cupboard. Think I’ve eaten one that’s a little too old, the timeframe fits.

Oh noes ! Laura Robson’s losing ! Time to tune in to BBC1 Iplayer to lend support and feel that crowd.

This post is dedicated to all those people who are struggling right now. I know a few of them personally. They’re hurting so much that they don’t realise that if they just look up, they’ll see a helping hand waiting to pick them up and envelop them into a healing hug.

Hell, I’ve been struggling so much lately I’d have appreciated one of those massive hugs. Like on Tuesday where I thought I was heading back into yet another relapse. I’ve improved back again now, which has actually surprised me.

I can’t give that big hug over the interwebs though. Hopefully I can do the next best thing though by attempting to cheer up a few of those people through …

It’s the return of the music link posts !!!! 🙂 I do enjoy doing these, although I suspect it takes me more time to do them than the cumulative time spent reading them.

Starting off – I’ve been feeling especially broken lately. Hopefully I won’t be totally a lost cause When I’m Sixty Four.

It’s not going to be a summer holiday (more like Autumn) but we just had confirmed a bit of holiday time, which I’m looking forward to already. (And I’ll just confirm right here and now, there is no Cliff Richard in my iTunes library. It is a Cliff-free zone. Although it does have an excellent cover of Devil Woman in it).

This one probably sums me right me up. I still haven’t found what I’m looking for. Yep. True. That darn dust pan and brush is hiding from me somewhere … (dropped something the other day and needed to pick up every crumb instead of being able to do it the easy way !)

Plan A tonight was to go out on the town to party with one of the Finance Angels who is moving abroad. But I was feeling too old and broken to come along. So Plan B – watch the cricket. Doh ! Rain intervened. I was going to link Summer Son to banish that rain but … I’ve linked that before and Halo is more appropriate word for our Finance Angel.

Finance Angel’s reaction ? Disbelief that I was 38 and therefore justifying a bit of that “I’m old” feeling 🙂 Perhaps I haven’t grown up way too fast and my Hourglass still has lots to go. That’s a Mindy Gledhill link, really looking forward to her next album. And I have a signed by Mindy picture too 🙂

And talking of something I’m looking forward to, here’s one from Goldfrapp who have a new album coming soon. This is the one which nearly got me in trouble on the bus last week when I nearly went Head First joining in.

I’m hoping that someone in particular is still reading, this one’s for you ! Shame I can’t pull out those Moves Like Jagger as much now but if the right person is around to smile at me, you never know 🙂

It’s not the overt things that matter though, it’s the little things, the Incidentals. (Yeah – I’ve linked that one tonnes of times but every time I hear it, it reminds me how good Alisha’s Attic could be)

And while I’m in the A’s, this can be a hard life but there’s a bunch of people I know who I could honestly say this to : “You Make It Easy“

To close out, I’m thinking about heading into Bristol centre again tomorrow afternoon. I wonder if I’ll find another Caro Emerald* when I chill out in one of the coffee shops ?
*(would need to be someone who can cope with a 2 left footed person)

Maybe I’ll run in to someone I know again ? That seems to be happening a lot lately. But it won’t happen if I keep hiding away.

Things are improving 🙂

Slowly yeah – but that skin condition finally seems to be under control again, with the bad bits seeming as if they want to repair themselves (slowly).

The secret has been to try and have much more self discipline to stop myself from “helping” it get better. The help has the opposite effect. It does feel good though, to touch bits of me that were quite bad a couple of months ago and find them to be ultra smooth.

It’s not perfect yet, not by a long shot (there’s still bits of me that are well torn up) but I could probably wear shorts in public now without putting people off their lunch.

Erm. Maybe. Hairy legs can really upset some people.

So yeah – I’m in better condition (externally) than I have been since last year, although there’s still a patch on one of my knees which will get scoured again by my knee pads if I played any cricket this week.

There’s two games I could play in this week but I’ve not declared any availability for either. I’m technically available but there’s a few reasons why I’m hiding :

I could do with a few more evenings chilling out
I’d rather see fit and keen people play ahead of me
I’m still far from perfect on the outside and need more healing time
I’m definitely coping with a lots of broken bits inside

But there’s actually a bigger reason – I don’t trust the captaincy (it’s a stand in tomorrow). I’m best in the field where I can get in close and put pressure on the batsmen. I keep moving and keep chatting. I’m involved in the game. However … I tend to get dispatched further out because of what remains of my speed. That’s bad because I can’t throw and don’t trust my eyes at the moment.

I’ll play for the other team next week but I’m a bit more wary about the team with games this week. I actually walked away from one team I used to play for due to the same reason, although that was more because I was driving back from uni on a weekend to play and doing nothing but field. Yawn.

Besides – I’ve been invited out on the town by a gorgeous lady on Thursday which just happens to clash with one of the games. (Finance Angel K is leaving us to join her hubby).

Have you noticed that ? There’s quite a few finance girls I know who are absolute angels. Wonder how that comes about ? Does the finance specialisation/profession attract that type of personality ?

So yeah. I’m technically intact enough to play again but I’m not going to. Partly because I still feel a bit too broken. Although you can bet that if something happened like a pretty lady who needed her car push started, I’d be the first to volunteer and those muscles would help out. (I used to be able to provide enough pushing power to get a small car up to bumpstart speed on my own – no kidding).

I’m rambling again aren’t I ?

Here’s a few more random thoughts :

Putting your hand on your bum and finding it to be very smooth = Very cool feeling.
Still thinking that to be a novelty = sign that you’ve been through something unusual.
Having a shower and having to hide from very bright sun = strange
(my bathroom window is on an angle conspires with the sun at this time of year)
GoG.com sales are dangerous (I’ve bought 7 games so far)
Steam sales are too, unless it’s a Paradox sale weekend
(they make great concepts but something goes wrong between concept and implementation)
Every time I listen to Goldfrapp’s Utopia, it gets ever more incredible.

Yeah – feeling better today. Definitely better than the depression inspired post last week. Perhaps it’s that theory of if you analyse and talk yourself through a problem, it helps you cope with it better. A lot will be down to having a much easier weekend than usual.

Here’s to hoping those improvements will continue. I won’t be all fixed tomorrow or even next week but if a couple of bits fix, then another couple of bits fix then sometime soon I’ll be all fixed.

And that’s what I’m looking forward to. It’ll be a closing of that chapter and possibly the opening of a new one.

Yey !

Kerbals on the Mun. And back again.

I’ve watched a few more videos, learned a few more things, observed what was happening (often with horror for the poor Kerbals), trusted to luck and crossed a few fingers and toes.

This is the latest rocket in the assembly hall, before a few modifications. Like those yellow fuel pipes moving from the top of the tanks and down to the bottom where they actually do Stuff. Lots more struts too to keep the thing from flying apart.

One mistake I’m making is to build too much into the rocket. The best designs (watching the Scott Manley videos) are very simple. The rocket above has lots of boosters and engines down low which will :

Make the rocket topple over on the launching platform
Unbalance it so it doesn’t fly straight
Collide with each other
Flex hugely (which doesn’t help with the collision thing)
Overaccelerate (it’s possible)
Squish the rocket in the middle

All of the above are bad and tend to have hilarious disastrous results.

Anyway – after one incredibly nervous launch, where bits of the rocket were threatening to harpoon other bits of the rocket, it’s up in orbit around the planet and I’m next sending my rocket the way of the Mun.

I have to say here, I’m very lazy and have been making extensive use of autopilot features. I’m pretty confident that I could fly the rockets myself but the autopilots make things so much more efficient. They provide in game calculators to give you that precise time to make manoeuvres. That’s possible to do by eye but fails the “you’re making this way too hard for yourself” test.

Games are supposed to be fun, not hard work. If I need to use a few autopilot or calculator mods to increase fun and decrease tedium, I’ll use the cheaty mods.

Soapbox over ! More screenies !

Kerbals on the Mun :

I was just on the day side of the Mun, which let me get that great shot of the Kerbin home planet and their sun in the same view. I was down to just the lander and return home stage at this point, with less fuel than I wanted because the ascent stage hadn’t done all that I needed it to.

And home time – I’ve cut here to where I’m thinking about setting up how to get my guys home :

I’ve left the Mun behind, with my capsule being the little grey icon in the middle. I’m heading towards the planet at this point with lots of time to go until I can do the next manouevre. Orbital mechanics have 2 important points : Periapsis and Apoapsis. Periapsis is the closest point of approach, Apoapsis is the farthest point. To change one, the most efficient way is to make the manoeuvre at the other.

Plan – drop into the atmosphere to burn off speed. To do this, I have to change that 194.2km periapsis down to below 70km (the edge of the atmosphere). And I have to do that with only 93m/s delta V left. Delta V is the way fuel remaining is measured – it takes into account :
Acceleration (as a Thrust divided by Mass thing)
Actual fuel remaining (time the thrust is available)
And tells you the amount of change of velocity you can do.

93m/s works out to 209mph. It’s the same as being able to accelerate a car up to 35mph and stop it again, 3 times. I bet you’ve done that in traffic, it’s not that much. (3 stops for the bus). At the mid point in the orbit, the ship was doing 350m/s, at periapsis it’s doing around 3000m/s.

Scary. But the braking is still possible … The screenie above shows me manually setting up a manoeuvre at apoapsis, which led to :

That’s a move that skips the ship off the atmosphere and scrubs some speed off. The periapsis is dropped from 194km to 61km by just using 19m/s of delta V. After a few more orbits and braking using the atmosphere (and a reentry that would have been extremely toasty) :

Kerbals on the ground, home and safe.

Yey ! Dunno how much more I’ll do with this game. I traditionally don’t stay long with open sandbox games as I run out of objectives quickly. I will keep following the Scott Manley videos though.

Can’t close this post without showing this one though :

Next time – I’ll ignore the “3 points of contact = best” theory and put a few more legs on the lander.

PS – I’m watching the Le Mans 24 hours today. There was a crash at the start which I thought was fairly ok. Motorsport safety has improved so that injuries are rare and fatal crashes, at this level at least, are now unheard of. But not today. Thoughts are with the family of Allan Simonsen. Shocked to hear that a crash I thought he’d walk away from has actually taken him from us.