Thursday, 24 December 2009

Twas the night before Xmas...

and all through the house, not a creature was stirring... except me... typing this blog :)
Crunch Over!
I'm on holiday now until 4th Jan which is going to be great. Was off today and managed to do very little, and plan on tomorrow being much of the same :).
Hayden is in bed and now believes in Santa - the tree was void of presents except a few from friends when he went to bed, and now it's choc full, and his sack at the end of his bed is full.

I guess you folks in the UK will be woken by your kids in about a couple of hours or so.. 5am?
We're just hitting the sack now at 10 to midnight.

Merry Christmas to all... and to all... a good night!

;)

Thursday, 17 December 2009

Still Working?

Yep still working, 8:30pm.
Really don't want to be working this weekend or over the xmas holidays... so
Still no time to update with photos of the house, answer Skype calls, deal with money issues in the UK or anything.

It's wake up, shower, dress up warm, stand in -12 degrees for 20 hacking at the ice wall formed at the front of the drive by the main road snow plough, brush off car, grab a muffin, drive to work. Work. Come home kiss kids, who are asleep, kiss wife goodnight, sit and have a cup of tea or beer, watch Top Gear, sleep. Lather rinse repeat.

It's becoming addictive!
But I do miss seeing Hayden, Taryn and being able to help Kath out with them - 24/7 she has them at her heels with no respite for 3 weeks or more now.

I must finish a big chunk tonight - will stay another hour or more.

Friday, 4 December 2009

Alpha

Alpha today!

The reason I've been working so late and had no spare time the past 2-3 weeks is the run up to our Alpha build which is due.... NOW!

Luckily the dudes are in Southern California, which is about 4 hours behind us. So they don't leave work until 5pm... which for us is 9pm.
So we have another couple of hours, if need be, to sort out the remaining issue before we send it to them.

Alpha means the first full version of the game, there may be some missing art/audio and there will definitely be bugs, but it needs to be in a state that can be tested properly and bugs reported to us that are meaningful. It's been really important to sort it out, the last build we sent them they couldn't play. This incidentally was not our fault at all. The publishers should have provided audio - which they did... then they went and messed up all their files and file names, making audio go missing or be referenced differently. Suddenly stuff that was working was snow broken, trying to play Voice or Sound Effect files that didn't exist, causing it to blow up!

It really slowed us up, me in particular, as my portions were heavily reliant on the audio. I had them all good, and then they broke, and I wasted time tracking down bugs that shouldn't have even been happening.

Anyway - my hardware build for the device has just finished, so I can now do some more testing.

Tuesday, 1 December 2009

Still working

Been working late for about 2 weeks straight now, have hardy seen Hayden or the baby as they're in bed by the time I get home.
Kath's finding it really hard to have the kids all day long without me, and Hayden's playing up and attention seeking big time.
Was here until midnight on Friday and worked over the weekend.
First time I've ever worked on a Saturday in my life.

I love the job, and coding is not a chore for me, but not being able to support Kath and see that my baby girl is now double her weight from when I 'really' last saw her is sad and frustrating.

We have a delivery to make by Friday and it's been all hands on deck over the weekend. We seem to be making good progress with all the extra hours we've put in, so hopefully this weekend it'll be 'over'. For a while at least.

Can't wait to chill out in my games room - still haven't been down there, I'm awaiting a new TV which was well cheap $299 for a 32" HD - just for the XBox, and then I can get online and meet up with UK chums for some GTA IV and GOW2.

But before that comes spending time with the boy and wife. Hopefully will get out of here tonight by 9 and can watch X Factor.

Wednesday, 25 November 2009

Crunch Time

So I'm experiencing the first proper crunch time on our project. It was decreed today that the team is to work extra hours above our 7.5 day in order to meet Alpha, Beta and our Gold Master.
It's been a terrible schedule, with a huge scope and ups and downs all the way, I'm amazed we're in as good shape as we are.
Anyway, as a result I've not had time to update the blog with pictures of the house or anything.
I'll be working late for the next couple of weeks I reckon, but at least Kath might have time to get her new routine in order at the house.

Tuesday, 17 November 2009

Moving

We moved house on Saturday to the previously mentioned mansion :)

The lads turned up and we had a lot of help, so much so that we were unpacking by 3pm. Hayden helped out as much as he could and Remi saved him small items to take to the new house.

A familiar sight?
Anyone who remembers my March post will remember the big juggernaut that parked in the same spot and unloaded all our stuff from the UK.
Much more modest this time, cheap as chips U-Haul van (it's a play on words!), only $19 for the day. It took two trips plus vans and trucks of buddies.

Sunday saw us get most of the stuff sorted in the new home, but there's still a bit to do and set up. Eastlink, the cable and Broadband provider messed up and didn't come yesterday when they were supposed to, but they arrived today and we're back online. A busy week ahead at work, I had a day off to pack last week - last minute, wouldn't have got fully done otherwise, and so have to make up that time, as well as sort the house.

I'll get pictures of the new house once we've got it all tidy and set up with pictures and stuff.

Tuesday, 10 November 2009

Emotions

Granddad Russell left today, he flew to Toronto where's he's staying for a week before heading back to England. Hayden understood, and was gracious at saying goodbye at the airport.
But later tonight before bed, he threw a complete wobbly, Marilyn Manson style warbling, throwing himself on the floor - it was terrible. After he finally calmed down and we got him into bed, it became apparent that the realisation that he was not going to see Grandad for a long time had hit him hard.
He said 'I don't know why Grandad has to go back to England, he could stay in his home in Canada...' He said he was sad and then starting crying as he gave me a hug.
Bad times.
It was great to see Dad and have him here but it has not been an ideal time all round.
With Dad and Kath's parents here virtually 24/7 for the past 4 weeks Taryn has not settled well at all. She's not able to sleep for long and is quite demanding. The house and environment has just been way too hectic.
Hayden's up and about at 7:30, Kath's then rushing around getting breakfast for us whilst I get get ready for work. Dad's here and Hayden's singing loud and playing with him, come 9:00am Marg and Lee arrive and Hayden starts on the piano and then that's it a house full until 10pm, they're either going out, or packing, or shopping, and the whole day is hectic as hell.
I'm not part of it because I leave to go to work, but when I get back from work at 6 generally, the house is sometimes like a madhouse, Hayden charging about playing light sabres and mad rush to make dinner. People talking, chatting, 2 way conversations, misunderstandings. We've eaten out quite a bit also and then the nights have slipped away.

Now we're at the real pinnacle of the heightened emotions. Kath's not had much sleep since she was in her 7th month of pregnancy. With Taryn not settling, due to the hectic nature of the household since her birth, Kath's starting to get real tired and real snappy.
At the moment the house is choc full of boxes, stuff out everywhere, and now Marg and Lee are staying with us for their final week and have nicked our bed! :)

Taryn's just drank an entire bottle and been screaming for more. She's had so much handling during her short life that she requires body warmth and is far less independent than Hayden was. Therefore she is now on our small inflatable mattress with Kath. There's no room for me, so I sit here blogging. I'll probably sleep on the sofa - it makes sense, but that will probably be taken the wrong way and there'll be huge emotional uproar over it.

I had really hoped to have some extra time off work to at last see Dad, and the 4 weeks have just disappeared. All I've managed to do is get some drinks in at Dooly's a couple of times and have a meal. The weather has been rubbish and everything else has been shared time with everyone involved. There's been some very unfortunate things at work and on the project that has meant it was impossible for me to have even a day off. His stay has flown by, but it was also too long in some respects. With Marg and Lee here also, coinciding, it's really been difficult for us... nay impossible, to sort any routine and start Taryn off correctly. As a result both me and Kath are very strung out. We can't blame Taz, it was always going to be different with another baby and trying to balance Hayden but we had thought the Grandparents would offset a lot of the 'burden' with Hayden and he'd not be so bothered about us spending time on Taz, as he'd be distracted. But it hasn't really worked out that way, he's still needed us just as much and has not substituted the Grandparents for us.

We have Remembrance Day tomorrow, another public holiday, so that's great, but a shame Dad's now gone. At least we can get this packing done and try to return some calm to the household.
Oooh, there goes Hayden crying now... the two of them are like a tag team at the moment!
We need to move and get Hayden a nice room that's all his with his posters and toys in, and Taz into her own room with a cot so she can start getting used to being away from the body.
I might go sleep with the boy actually rather than down here on the sofa.

Roll on Saturday, wish I could have the rest of the week off - ha, the first time I've actually wanted AND needed time off work since I started... and I can't have it.

Next time we have visitors the scheduling must be worked out very carefully, well in advance.