I can hardly hope to beat Mary Robinette Kowal’s recent tails of medical madness but, seeing as I am homebound with little to do, I guess you’ll be seeing a few more updates from me. I had to go back to the doctor today and say “excuse me honourable miss, but your medicine hasn’t fixed me. In fact, my throat has become a heaving pit of puss and my ear drums are about to explode. Also? An oil prospector has decided during the night to drill for black gold inside my head, and I’m already taking more than the recommended amounts of ibuprofen to little effect.”

Or words to that effect.

We (or… she?) came to the conclusion that I need tests for Glandular Fever in the morning. That’s great, huh? (for the ninety-odd percent of people reading this that are in the North America somewhere, that’s mononucleosis, the kissing gift that keeps on giving…) Not only can I eat nothing but Thai chicken soup and overcooked pasta, but I also can’t sleep or even concentrate for the plethora of prescribed pills that I’m shoving down my throat at as regular intervals. Hurrah!

So, when the day was looking bad, my work phone went off and Bridget’s name sparked up! I hadn’t spoken to her on the phone since we were in San Diego, and she’s doing the Chicago show right now, so I figured it was something important. Well, it wasn’t… but it was an ego-booster. She was ringing to tell me that the actress I knew from Los Angeles (who normally plays a character on a popular US show that, err, ends with a north-westerly US state’s name) had come up to her in Chicago, and said “Hi Bridget” then skipped straight to “hey is Chris here? He’s lovely… and cute!” Sucks that I’m in London, then. Haha.

On the subject of shows, here’s a nice article on what we build: NAIAS 2008

I get asked what I do a lot. I never really answer, but sorta duck n’ roll outta there before I find myself up to my formidable chest hair in nerdy technical quicksand. I’ve done all kinds of things, really, starting in film when I was an ugly awkward teenager, before I shot off round the world and went to work in events and entertainment when I got back.

Sometimes I just fix things. I started as a mercenary freelancer on an hourly rate. Kinda swung onto better projects after a year or so, and started making video conference systems for the company I was working for most often, etc. More recently, I’ve gone full time for the main client (although I still do freelance when I can) and have been having much more fun whizzing off to motorshows in Frankfurt and Los Angeles, for the latter building this system, which has been much more astutely described in the format of movie-films in the following article: Digital Stage Makes its North American Debut at the L.A. Auto Show.

As if I’m not making it easy enough for you to get a bit informed on the questions you politely ask me, and I deftly dodge, I’m going to embed a video interview. Look for me in the background… I was there, but God knows whether I staggered into the shot at any time.

I’m off to rebuild the thing (slightly modified) in San Diego over Christmas. So that’s why I’ll be in your shiny country again, humble American readers.