I’m editing a wedding video at present. I’m using Pinnacle Expression to write it to DVD. I have a dual xeon 2ghz machine with hyper threading enabled and it insists on using no more than 25% of my cpu…
It doesn’t seem to be IO bound. I’ve tried boosting it’s priority, but nothing I do will make it use more than exactly 25% of cpu. I guess it’s trying really hard to be nice to me, I wish it wouldn’t.
Michelle and I had a skate lesson with Ben Roberts on Saturday morning. It was a group lesson that ended up being just the two of us and which was really good and great value for money.
Ben was my instructor when I had my course at Citiskate. They’ve since gone their seperate ways but Ben’s been in the business for a long time and he’s one of those instructors who just wants to teach people, and it shows.
I have a dream. I’ve just done coding for the day and I’m sitting in a hot tub on the deck of a glass fronted chalet overlooking the slopes; glass panels around the deck so that nothing obstructs the view. Think the really expensive places in Whistler and you’re on the same page.
Well, maybe not yet. The great thing about working remotely for people is that you can do it from anywhere… The bad thing about being able to work from anywhere is that you want to work from somewhere else…
We first saw Catherine Purves’ work at a Hoxton art show, both of us loved the colour and texture of the pieces. We saw more of her work whilst visiting other local art shows but none of the pieces were quite right for the spaces that we had. Eventually we decided to commission her to produce something to our specifications of size and colour.
More pictures on the flat web site.
So, it’s been 35c here in London for the last week and, strangely, my thoughts have turned to snow… We’re off to Saas Fee in September and I’m starting to do the ‘check the resort web cam daily’ thing. Having never skiied in Europe this early in the season it’s a bit nerve wracking. Still, Saas Fee has a good glacier and they are used to this kind of thing; so, finger’s crossed.
We couldn’t skate last weekend as we were in Dublin at the wedding. This weekend was going to be really hot in London (35C+) which isn’t ideal skating weather. We decided to get up a bit early and skate before it got too hot… So we both saw 7.30am on a Sunday morning for the first time in a long time and skated before it got too hot at Hyde Park.
We had a busy weekend. Michelle’s brother Chris married Hilary in Dublin. Good fun was had by all and it was a wonderful few days. The wedding was in Castleknock and the reception was at The Four Seasons in Ballsbridge.
It was a bit of a shock to have to come back home; I could quite happilly have stayed on a few days longer at the Four Seasons and spent the time drinking Guinness and watching the world go by…
So there are 10 guys on a stag weekend in Amsterdam. Much drinking. Lots of foolish games with very fluid rules and fines for people who did not comply. Many fines were collected. At some point during the drinking games on the first evening, number 28 became significant. It was decided that the money from the fines would go on 28 when we visited the casino the following night…
Fast forward to the bar just before the casino and the collection of fines had reached around 135 euros and we started to lose our bottle.
Given that the work I do goes on in my head and can be done anywhere I find that it’s often done everywhere. Anyone got any hints on how to switch off?
Skiing and skating are good for me as I can’t think about other things when I’m doing them. Everything else always has the risk of being interrupted by an ‘a-ha!’ moment where a ‘work’ problem is suddenly solved and I need to scurry away to the study to implement the idea… And then you get in the flow and hours go by and you haven’t spent time with people you should.
We tried the new Carluccios on Upper Street on Friday night. Great food and excellent service. Back to watch the final Buffy (season 6) on DVD (so sad); glass or two of Glenfiddich, bug hunting and to bed. Up early to bug hunt and then skating in Kensington Gardens on Saturday morning. Back to get changed and then off to The Blue Elephant in Fulham for Hilary’s birthday do; more great food, left my unbrella at the restaurant :(.
