Nose to the grindstone

Got so much work on it's untrue. It's great to be a busy little squirrel hoarding nuts for the winter, this is exactly the position I want and need to be in. I've written a list of things that I need for this winter season and am ticking items off as I earn the money to buy them.

Essentials
Year's lift pass

The big one - just under €700 this time round. Expensive isn't even the word. Still unless I suddenly turn into a combination of Spiderman and Superman we're going to need one.

Avalanche transceiver

A fairly necessary bit of kit, my one's not looking very healthy at all and it's nice to have one to stay alive. I have a feeling it blips when it should blap and vice-versa. This isn't good.

Avalanche shovel/probe

Important for keeping mates alive. My shovel is cracked and I don't really want to be finding out it's not up to the task whilst digging out one of the lads. Better get one in advance. My probe is wonky (it bends to the left by about 8", vicar) and so this requires attention as all the riding buddies are stick thin and this would miss 'em.

Goggles

After having gone through 4 pairs last year (well technically 3 but the last pair have a cracked lens) these need replacing. Also I remember swearing a lot when they fogged up. We'll be trying to avoid hitting trees, dogs, other skiiers, chairlift supports this year with a pair of crystal-clear goggles.

Gimme gimme gimme
iPod nano

After an unfortunate incident slamming into a quarterpipe at the end of last season, my long-loved iPod screen got cracked. It still works but only plays tracks in artist alphabet order. I listen to A LOT of AC/DC and Aerosmith and The Animals these days. It's not essential to have a new one, but I'm going to miss listening to music whilst riding. I've got a backup plan for this tho which involves going to Carrefour and buying a cheapy mp3 player.

Riding trousers

It's generally acknowledged that I have a pair of the coolest snowboarding trousers in the whole of the Alps but unfortunately they're starting to be built of more gaffer tape than material these days. I do have a spare pair, but they're old. Hmmm, I can get another half-season out of the pair of them I reckon. Just wear an extra pair of long johns and deal with the frostbite on my giblets by soaking in a nice warm bath at the end of the day.

Snow booties

Need some footwear for the winter. Last year I missed out on purchasing a pair of insulated wellington boot type snow booties. This year we're gonna have 'em to keep the feet dry and the toes toastie. They don't look stylish but then neither do I, mind you I don't particularly care!

Snowboarding boots

Yeah mine are missing some essential bits. I'm going to try to fix them but to be honest they need replacing at some stage soon. Going to see if I can find a pair of last years model on sale. Something bling baby.

Snowboard

Rodney the Rocket (my main board) and I had a wee bit of an accident last year and we cracked his tail rail. This isn't good but I did ride him for a while after without any serious repercussions. He needs to man up and take the punishment for the first part of the season until I switch to my other board (which I've a feeling I'll snap as it's very spinney) or purchase a new one. I predict I'll be blogging about purchasing a new board 6 weeks into the new season!

That's pretty much it for the gear. Merv needs a service and some snow tires and whatnot but that's going to get done shortly.

Chirpy Days

It's amazing what a bit of willpower can do.

Sister came over for a great couple of days and we managed to get in a meal at Katy's restaurant Le Delice in Les Houches which was fantastic as always. Then a trip into Chamonix with a few friends for some cheeky beers at Chambre Neuf followed by a few later drinks rounding the evening off in the Monkey Bar.

We had a stroll up the Gorges des Diosaz the following morning from Servoz then up to Vaudagne for a brief mooch around and back to Cham for Jen to have an afternoon nap while I boshed out some work. Italian dinner compliments of Casa Valerio and then a movie and a snooze.

Really ideal couple of days to spend together and have a natter and a bit of a wander around the valley - I was really stoked to be able to sort out the free transfers from and to Geneva for her as well as introducing her to my friends out here. All in all it was a great couple of days. My brain was resetting itself quickly - much quicker than normal and really think I might have beaten this thing, at least for the time being.

After an early-morning transfer I managed to get some nice time with Abi too and we loafed around the house eating and having a giggle and watching CSI before crashing out early. We set off from Abi's place this morning to go hike up the Tete de Balme at Le Tour but it was blazing hot and conditions weren't ideal to get to the very top so we stopped midway and admired the valley before coming back down. The view from up there is fantastic and although I mention it a lot - still never tire of it.

The brilliant thing about walking around ski areas in the summer is you get to see all the different hidden gullies and tucked-away routes and interesting features of the mountain. Many of these little beauties were duly filed away in the memory banks, including a rocking alternative option to the Le Tour home run consisting of a really steep, wooded section with a great narrow path. With blue skies and only the sound of crickets chirping us along the walk home it was a beautiful way to spend Saturday.

Well I've made a load of progress with my next contract over the past day or two as well now and am feeling so much better about it all. I hope that I can polish off the old contract this weekend - draw a line underneath it, put in the final invoice and move on. There's a load of work to be cracking on with that's piqued my curiosity and got me back into wanting to program and create and develop and build the project. Awesome.

Speeding Ticket: €45

Got pinged on the 1st September doing a transfer from Chamonix to Geneva. Allegedly doing 108kph through a 90kph zone between Chamonix and St Gervais. It's a static €45.00 fine if payed within 15 days going up to something like €180 after that - I'll be elbowing grannies out of the way at the Post Office to pay it tomorrow then. No points on the license though which is the only good thing. Bastards. If only they'd accept mitigating circumstances...

1) I'd just picked up 7 girls who managed to be 45 minutes late. (Yes, 45 minutes). They'd managed to make me late for picking up clients on the way back from Geneva.

2) I'd not been driving the transfer bus very much beforehand so wasn't as experienced as now.

3) These girls were really getting on my tits. They'd been out downing Lambrini the night before and kept asking for me to stop so they could throw up. This really wasn't improving my chirpy demeanour.

4) It was downhill and with all 8 of us in the van gravity was having considerable effect.

Of course any one of these arguments would hold up in a court of law as the judge would have seen my plight and made a judgment in my favour. There may have even been some form of compensation heading my way for the untold misery suffered during that trip. Unluckily I chose just to swallow it down and take it on the chin when I spoke to Shaun (the transfers boss) about it. He was really good to be fair and appreciated that I wasn't coming up with any bullshit excuses (note: reasons for speeding given in this posting are blatantly NOT bullshit excuses, I just chose not to raise them with him).

Anyways, got me thinking. If the clients are late for the transfer then that's their problem - not mine. The transfer takes 1 1/4 hours and we stick to the speed limits. I know it sounds daft, but it was a good lesson to learn early on.

Seasons Changing in the Chamonix Valley

Two days ago, overnight, the temperature dropped like a lead duck into a pond. Hats, gloves and some hideous neon 80's skiing jackets emerged from the various hotels and residences to be sported around town. The heat of summer is officially waving its last good bye and being replaced with the chillier climes of autumn.

Siberian winds pushing a giant cold-weather system from the north-east.


I'm bouncing off the fucking walls with excitement - snow's coming, I can smell it. Other members of the Narg household are not as enthusiastic and are starting to burn incense, chant melodic ancient parchments and sacrifice live chickens to try and lengthen the hot weather. These people are fighting nature and will not win (with or without my moral support)!

Cold and clear around Mont Blanc (latest webcam image)


There's still the sun and blue skies but instead of the deep azure lustre of recent months, it's a paler more powdery hue. Anyone venturing up high should be prepared with thermal undies and more than just a cheeky grin to fend of cold's frosty fingers. The boys have started talking about the upcoming winter, reminiscing about adventures past and stories of deep powder days are flowing like the house rose in Le Delice.

The frosted tips of the Aiguille du Midi (latest webcam image)


Chris is leaving today to go back to London to work on a contract and we had a bit of send-off last night. Fred and I texted everyone in our phones and the glorious man even put on a promotion of McCrampons - a favoured beverage amongst the Les Houches Royalty (fresh lime juice, ice, Jameson's whiskey and Canada Dry). Loads of friends turned up to send Chris off in style with a great blend of people chirpy and cheerful having a bite to eat and washing it down with plenty of booze. A really good night.

The recent madness of working on contracts when I've not been driving transfers recently is starting to get much easier. I've gotten into a good routine and there's regular additions to the company coffers which is very cool. Shaun (the guy who owns Transfer2TheAlps, whom I am driving for) is away at the moment so I'm doing everything and it's going very well. In fact I built his website and have built a very cool admin section which I've been adding to and generally tweaking. He's very pleased and so am I - the more work he gets the better it is for me!

So I'll pick Chris up from Les Houches late afternoon after grabbing some other clients from Cham then off to Geneva. Dinner and a video - a bit of Indiana Jones no less - will follow upon arrival back into the valley. Who knows, might even be able to squeeze in a bit more work this evening. Life's pretty full at the moment but it's great that it is. I'm enjoying it more and more these days and it always makes me smile to get a wave from a passing friend as I'm zipping around the valley in my magic blue bus. I've even managed to start whisking through iTunes and burning CD's to play in the van on the way back. I've even got a crap 80's collection CD for the tourists so they feel they're on a proper cheesy French holiday.

Untidy workspace

This is my current workspace looking extremely untidy. Note the Calvin & Hobbes desktop on the iMac and the Chamonix extreme skiing video enabling more focus during the evening's contract work.



I think I might just take 2 minutes out to tidy up a bit...

Going mental

Am going mental, can feel it. Just spent half an hour looking for something I then realised I'd put under a keyboard for safekeeping. A keyboard I ask you, what sort of storage device for important things is that?

The good news is that I've managed to set up SQL Server in the office development environment to add to the already long list of supported database formats. Also now my email works seamlessly with all relevant project emails are going into their proper folders. I've got server access sorted out to the new project stuff and am more than halfway finished getting the new development set up.

Just a shame it's meant I can't go out climbing today. Too many emails that need attending to, too many problems that need fixing. Never mind, always tomorrow ... hopefully.

Mad Busy

Just been manically busy for the past week or so and it doesn't look like it's going to let up for a few days more at least. Going slightly mad but I guess I was always slightly mad anyway. In a few more days or a week or so I hope peace will return and I'll be able to go climbing for a few days in some clear skies. I might even try to squeeze in a couple of hours with the newly married Mark from All Mountain Performance today up at Coupeau on the gnarly crag there. I've never climbed there before but it's dead close to Cham and there's some pretty stiff pitches it so should be fun. Plus I've not climbed for a few more than a few weeks now due to the endless tourists in August and I think the exercise is really, really needed.



Moving house has gone relatively well. On the 31st I packed up all of my gear (and Andy's) and put it into storage temporarily until the 6th/7th where I can get it out and move into the office and make it home. I stayed for a couple of days with a friend at her chalet and have done a couple of nights in the bed in the office. Chris is off on the 7th and so will get the final move done then. Looking forward to having a more permanent place to rest my head and I sleep like a log here so tis all good. Plus I know have ... a BATH! Yes! All I need now is a little rubber ducky to play and splash around with.

Contracts are my main stress. I'm finishing up the old one and starting a new one and they've managed to overlap by a few days. The old contract is inches from completion and as ever the end of it is a little more mad than the start. The new contract is in two parts - the reskin/upgrade of a large site and the support for another large site. This is good because it's ongoing and will keep ticking over. I'm just getting my head around what's going on with the technicalities of the site - luckily it was originally built by a mate I used to work with, so know my way around his code which is a major bonus!



Driving transfers is going dead well. I've been taking over from Shaun driving quite a lot recently and have been zipping in and out of Geneva lots. Even managed to get a few hours in between transfers yesterday to go into a shopping mall in Geneva and have a root around. The Swiss are so organised man! They had little green lights above the parking slots in the multi-storey parking that turned red when a car is parked in the slot. How groovy is that! Plus Swiss rush hour is like the least rushed rush hour in the world. Everyone's polite and casually let other cars cross lanes and stuff. It's really trippy after being in London where people would kill for that last place on the tube. These guys are just so ... nice ...



All in all, I think I'm preparing well for the interseason and ready for the winter. Over the next month or so things should solidify and all this hard work will be rewarded by powder days and beautiful snowy adventures.

Climbing delayed!

No Frison Roche the other day - put off by a combination of cloud and work. Stayed in the office last night to get more of this project finished - deadline is Monday and we will be ready! I'm just going to be pleased when all the manic rush is over.

The good news is that we can see the finishing line and it's pretty damn close. I'm driving a few airport transfers on Monday to get a bit of extra cash and then on Tuesday will go out and hopefully do this nemesis climb. The rest of the week I've got a few viewings set up for apartments - Taconnaz, Gaillands and Chamonix Centre are all on the cards.

Bring it on baby.

Work and getting ready for Frison Roche

Time taken up recently has been basically working as much as possible (the earliest I've finished this week was 8.13pm and had several 1am-ers). But this is pretty good as it means we've really cracked on through our side of the project. The client are looking and talking about taking Listingslab on as their development team for a long time in the future, a new area of business has opened up and best of all we've generated a load of cash.

It's been really hard work mentally a lot of the time and both Chris and I have really felt it, but it's also been great to be so deeply embedded into work talking to the clients and solving big problems. The deadline's Monday for delivery and in fact Chris and I are now quite well ahead of schedule on our side of things so the client's asking us to help out with other areas of the site.

As I've been working every day for a while now I'm taking the day off tomorrow to go climb Frison Roche - the 1000 foot rock face under the cable car at Brevent. Louise and I will team up to make the rope and as she's done it a load of times before we know who's going to lead which pitches. I'm really looking forward to getting some exercise and some sun and being out in the fresh air. Going to make some sandwiches and polish my helmet tonight (in a non Benny Hill way) and get my gear together all ready for the big push. Bring it on!

The Beast lives!

We've got a computer in the office called "The Beast". It's been broken for like 8 months or something and I've just managed to fix it. It's 00:52 according to the system clock and I'm bouncing off the walls with happiness. It's just a thing of beauty now - clean, fast, powerful.

I feel like such a hero but in reality I know I'm a total dork.

Never mind tho eh.

New Lease of Life

Good solid day of work done today and finishing up now - about 10pm. Will come in tomorrow and bosh out a load more but really humming along with this project now. Churned out a load of good stuff earlier and going to try and complete loads of it this weekend ready to jump into next week with a big cheesy grin. Chris has chipped off back to the Fatherland to see family this weekend so going to try and cream through the work while he's away so he can come back to something cool.

Feeling loads better after a real low point mid-week. Going to try and get out for a run this weekend too - might even run from the farm to work tomorrow. I'm becoming more and more of a fan of being fit and healthy making a difference mentally. Hopefully in my case even watching sport has the same effect but who knows - I'm not a scientist.

After the 24 festival that occurred when it was pissing it down with rain a few weekends ago, it looks like Sunday evening might promote a bit of a Lethal Weapon festival. Frankly the weather looks like it's going to be shocking. Saturday should be pretty nice though - I'll just slip on my green flash, skin-tight 1970's tennis shorts, headband and my ipod (it's at times like this I wish I had a cassette walkman) and go running around being generally healthy.

Oh! ... and it snowed this week! It's August for god's sake! There was a serious drop in temperature (one that made the log pile deplete in size) and it dumped above 1800m. Go figure - the weather here is weirder than a bucket of soapy frogs sometimes.

Shooting the demons

Feeling chirpy now. Spoken to me ma which is always cool. Now eating banana sandwiches and watching Groundhog Day. Amazing what quality food and educating theater can do for the spirits.

We've dug into the work, come up trumps right at the end of the day and have cleared the decks ready for tomorrow. Got a few apartment ideas and hopefully going to get something sorted out soon so it'll be a good base for the foreseeable future. Time to rock n roll back into society after the cabin fever years at the farm!

Bits, bobs and bastards

Bits
Work is all-encompassing at the moment. Days are long and am going to bed and getting up way earlier than normal. We're doing a contract with a pretty tight series of deadlines for a company based in the states so combined with getting into the office at unreasonable o'clock, we're also doing project meetings on skype that start at 6pm and then finishing up work afterwards.

It's all going very well and they're very happy with what we've currently done and already talking about more work and subsequent phases of the project. Chris and I are learning loads about a new sector of trendy business where there's loads of work out there and we're getting paid by the hour to do so. We've even got our next contracts lined up. Fantastic.

Bobs
Met a really, really nice scottish girl the other day but unfortunately she's gone back to the UK this weekend. But have been emailing each other and whatnot. We're talking about hopefully spinning it so she can come and stay over in a while for a few days and do a bit of skiing for a few days. Hope so anyway.

Bastards
Left my car in Cham the other day tucked away in a little car park close to the station. Some idiot smashed the driver's side window - they didn't steal anything, just smashed the window. As the gendarmes are pretty swift and fairly unyielding I decided to forgo getting his window fixed just yet as there's a few other things starting to go wrong with him. He's been really, really awesome and still has legs but I can hear the faint sound of an overweight female warming up her voice...

I've been thinking to replace Merv as the upcoming winter is really going to test him. He currently desperately needs some new front tyres but over the winter will need snow tyres and more than likely require snow chains putting on and removing every trip to and from the farm - a serious pain in the arse. Also he could really do with a service as he's developed some squeaky brakes and a few minor noises that sound like one of the wheel bearings is starting to stiffen. The driver's side door really needs to be fixed as it's permanently locked and in general he could do with life on the valley floor - not being bounced up and down a cracked, steep, narrow mountain road every day.

In the mean time I've borrowed Crampon's missus' fiesta as she's got a new work car. The fiesta's currently sitting around the farm not being used despite being in extremely good nick despite a couple of minor and very treatable things. The exhaust muffler's been knocked and needs replacing but she's away for a month and we've agreed a deal where I can get the exhaust fixed and use it while I'm getting Merv fixed - or more likely seeing if I can sell Merv and get a better car more suited to the snow (hopefully the fiesta - which already has snow tyres!).

Luckily there's a cheap mechanic who owes Fred a favour or two and can get the exhaust done for an extremely reasonable price. Sweet!

I guess sometimes you just need a prod in the right direction from fate or God or whomever to get something started. Getting new transport has always been on the cards and Merv has been unbelievably helpful. With the recurring work it's a good time to get the situation sorted before winter rolls in.

Woke up, got out of bed, dragged a comb across my head...

This morning was awesome. The views across the valley from the balcony with my morning porridge just rocked so decided to document what was going on a little bit. Geeky I know but hey - I'm a nerd.

Step 1. Make porridge (1/2 milk, 1/2 water - 2 spoons of blackberry jam) and sit on balcony chewing thoughtfully. Look over the three areas I can see:
Rays of sun coming over Mont Blanc and zapping Chamonix.


Les Houches waking up in warmth.


Pure blue skies over Servoz.


Step 2. Drive into Chamonix (6 minutes) via the scenic route through Les Bossons. Find car parking place (dependent on tourist density) and then walk to office on the Rue Paccard:


Step 3. Meander to boulangerie and buy rustic bread and jam for secondary breakfast/snacking:


Step 4. Enter office on Rue Paccard and check mail (our mailbox is second from the left on the bottom row):


Step 5. Eat second breakfast looking out of office up at Aiguille du Midi/Mont Blanc and read mail:


Step 6. Work!

Doing the dev

My brain's fried. Proper fried. Was up til 4am trying to pull apart a 56MB MySQL database dump file on 3 different operating systems. Turns out that a combination of shell scripts, Red Hat Linux and nano text editor is the best combination for splitting the file up.



Mailed it into work and retired gracefully to bed ready for loading it into a database this morning. Turns out the data's corrupt in it and so Chris and I have been trying to sift and clean it this morning. Bah!

All this energy on geekiness is because of the contract which we've started recently. We're having to create a full mirrored dev environment from the production servers in the states to be able to work from here effectively. It needs to be done but my word it's really mentally fatiguing. The good news is that it only needs to be set up once - then it's just the fun part of development - building new things, making them work properly and making it look pretty. The bad news is that the rain and storms of late are no longer with us and there's blue skies and bright sunshine. I really want to get out and do some exercise and be in the fresh air but alas - have to prioritise.

Chris has chipped off to a music festival near Geneva this afternoon and after bashing my brains against the computer for another couple of hours, think I might knock work on the head, grab Digby the Dog and my iPod and go for a run up into the thinner air.

P.S. Had refried beans last night - went for mexican food around Brian's with two of his friends travelling around Europe who dropped in to Cham. Was very cool. My dad's given me a penchant for refried beans over the years and these ones imported via Switzerland were very good indeed. Happy days!

Contracts and climbing

Got a new contract! Woohoo! And it's a rockingly perfect one too. Good money. I'll be on call quite a bit over the weekend but hey - it's all good. It means that I'll be earning consistently and have enough money to save and live a happy life as well as having enough time to go climbing and snowboarding and also be flexible enough to work when I want to.

I'm so, so stoked.

I've been climbing at the indoor wall in Les Houches a few times with Chris, Crampons, Brian (who I still believe got bitten by a radioactive spider sometime in his youth judging by what he can climb!), Louise, Abi and many others. It's getting much better there and am finding it's a great place to train for specific areas of weakness as well as strnegth and technique.

Last Sunday Chris and I went out for our adventure and ended up going to Le Joux (The Wood in Savoyarde - the local dialect). The rock was a slippery technical variety of gneiss and we had a great time monkeying around it with the company of Lousie showing us some new stuff to do. I had an absolute blast and am starting to get the hang of the different holds and techniques to use when and where and really enjoying climbing the different pitches.

It's really good to be feeling like I'm getting better technically, and also finding what type of climbing I'm better at (strength climbing - overhangs, starting to use hand/fist jams properly, heel hooks, etc) whereas not as strong at friction and delicate balance climbing. Luckily Chris is almost entirely the opposite so we compliment each other very well - he can go up the fiddly balancy stuff which he breezes up, and I'll do the bits where you hang around upside down by one hand. Perfect!

Wardo's parents pitched up in the valley today too so we've had a frantic period of cleaning this morning. The house looks mint now too. Unfortunately the cooker was a bit beyond us and we were a bit nervy until we realised it had a flip-top hood. Good mojo - flip the lid and hey presto! a perfectly clean cooker to all appearances.

At least the house is looking and smelling nice now.

The Lost Valley

It's been raining with very minimal pauses for breath pretty much since the ski lifts closed a few weeks ago. The valley looks very cool with clouds rising from the forested mountain sides all around like some sort of primeval rain forest. It's making the whole place have a slightly surreal ambience - probably down to the stark contrast in view to what we've been looking at for the past 5 or 6 months. It really does feel like some valley lost in time Jurassic Park style though.

So woke up this morning and got into work early. It was pretty nippy and the clouds shifted for a moment and looking up the mountain saw that freezing level had dropped so much overnight there's been a dusting of snow above around 1800m! Unreal.

The view from the office this morning.


I've also officially started my new contract today and it feels really good to get into geek mode. There's some really technical problems to solve with compressing databases which need to be done first and foremost. It's also programming in ASP, an older language that I'm intimately familiar with. I've been programming in PHP recently and it feels a lot newer and trendier. But I've got to say it's really nice to write in a language that flows naturally, albeit with its own "quirks" and some horrific syntaxing. It's very cool though, and the bonus is I can write large swathes of it and it just works with no bugs.

In other news, I'm looking after Ava and Digby - two dogs that belong to a friend. I know them dead well and it's nice to come home to wagging tails. Been giving them plenty of pats and tickles and they're very chirpy. I'd sort of like to get a dog but with those two so close it's a wicked substitute, plus it means I just get cool time with them and not have to deal with them chewing my slippers. I've seen a few geckos roaming around on the stone outside the house and have been thinking about catching one and keeping it as a pet - feeding him the flies we catch. I'll release him after a bit back into the garden but would be a fun pet for the summer.

Gecko.

Front page of google baby!

Oh yeah, come to Daddy!

We've made it to the front page of google.com when searching for Chamonix (google search)! This is awesome news as it means we're going to get a bundle more hits to the site (chamonix-valley.com) and make our advertising system we're implementing and selling that much more valuable to customers.

Feel the love!

Worky worky!

So not done a lot of riding recently - just lots of work. I've really got into the habit of going on the slopes for a couple of hours in the morning then coming into the office and working until early evening.

Everything's coming together nicely - money's starting to poke its nose into the business with contracts and whatnot, the site's coming together and there's a decent blend of work and play.

Friends are appearing next week and there's a change in the clientele of the chalet meaning the group dynamic will shift a bit which is good. Change is fun! Plus the boys are staying at the chalet which will be awesome.

I managed to swing up to Brevent/Flegere this morning for a quick ride before work and finished up early to head home. I was getting off the chairlift near the Altitude 2000 restaurant and slipped on the ice and twisted my knee, immediately feeling a spark of pain inside the inner part of my knee. One of those really annoying slow speed spills where you just fall awkwardly. It's already stiffened up and it's a bit sore but nothing's broken or seriously wrong and so I'll leave it be for the next few days and let it settle. There's lots of work to do and to be honest the snow's not really great so I'm not bothered.

It's not a bad idea to take the next week off and let all the small niggles heal up until the lads appear next Saturday as well, so all in all a pretty good time to have a small injury.

Ill and working

So I've had a cold for the past few days - nothing really traumatic but just enough to really take away energy and feel the need to get well. Thankfully I feel way better today and have been in the office for quite a while now. I've done lots of really good work and sorted out a whole bunch of stuff. I really feel happy with the output and earlier even wriggled out to teach a snowboarding lesson which was cool - nice to get a few extra bucks!

It looks like the main Chamonix Valley advertising project is nearing completion and we can start marketing businesses to advertise with us. Awesome stuff and some really good income for the company. Also earlier we found that we've been getting more hits to the site than we previously thought, in fact chamonix-valley.com is really taking a good portion of the market we are targetting, and that portion is increasing. Marvellous stuff!

We'll get the software finished this weekend and with only a small amount of luck and a good bit of work, we'll be rocking and rolling.

I found out this week that a couple of mates are coming out in a week and a half's time as well. This is great - enabling us to finish this software before any "distractions" appear, then having fun with said distractions!