Three Fingered Salute

I was still in at work at 12:10 am last night and I'm back in this morning, when I'm supposed to have the day off. The excuse for a machine in an America is not allowing certain installs and I'm sick of being the one to fix it. I've asked Mr Kack for the email of the local job agency. It should be the guys in the states fixing this, not me.

Well after an entire weekend away from computers. I was building shelves, fixing fences and digging holes. What surprised me was that I enjoyed it, but I made the mistake of tell LSW that. Now she’s going to want more things doing because she’ll think I’ll enjoy it.

I’ve come to the conclusion that the baby is going to be a drummer. I had my hand on LSW’s stomach last night and I swear it was beating out a 4/4 rhythm properly for ages.

I was too tired to code though; so the game is at a standstill, maybe give it a try later. However the penultimate chapter was published on the website over the weekend, the owners now report that they’ve had 300000 hits since they started it and they’re well chuffed. The feedback I’m getting is good for the ego.

Work however, is quiet. Today in Manchester the Main Internet hub has caught fire and work is one of the firms affected. No Internet, No Remote Link and no connection to the outside world. This has led to a very quiet day and it means that I can leave on time at five.

As We've just lost the Main Manchester internet exchange, My work no longer has internet access, so no update today. I have written one but there's no way to get it home. I'll put it up at a later date.

The problem I’ve got now is that I’m so busy. I haven’t even had time to update the blog.

Well, the team went bowling last night. Scooter came last in both, while the ‘Doctor’ and I drew on 132 on one game. One of our old colleagues turned up as well, He seems to be getting on OK, having a great time away from here and to tell you the truth I don’t blame him.

Client Two is winging about the problem last week, so I’ve banged off an explanation. The problem is I didn’t code that and I’ve had to reverse engineer it to discover what’s going on. Problem is I’m not all that articulate when it comes to the explanation so they’ll probably think I’m bulling them.

I’m almost there with Client two, now it’s the machine in America holding me up. It should be me installing this, but there’s no one in America to sort the Machine out. Going to have a word about this.

LSW has got a new trick. She spoons up behind me so the ‘bump’ is next to me and so when it kicks, it wakes me up. She thinks it’s hilarious. I’m sympathising about the lack of sleep, but it’s making me even grumpier.

So f***ing much for things easing off. I had two days to get together three web pages reports for Client Six which should take six days to get done properly and then TMCM comes over and tells me that Client four has priority and drop all. I blew up at him a little, (ok a lot) but I’m beginning to think that I never had this kind of disorganisation with the banks.

Problem is there’s downsizing and outsourcing happening everywhere so I’m kind of stuck. Last time I got this angry about my job, I managed to get a new job within the week (this one) and it felt so good handing in my notice. If I can get through this week then I’ll review my options.

LSW is very tired and that’s another thing on the worry list, it’s a lot higher than the crap I’ve listed above. She seems so tired and I’m trying to do everything to keep her happy and you start searching through the ‘What to expect books.’, but there’s nothing. She should be full of energy and glowing. She’s just run down, tired and stressed, her work is no picnic either.

Things have eased off a little; I’m now working on the new reports for client four, client six and client two. Pressure is building up for me to work later and later in order to stay up with the demand of the various clients but I’ve decided not to anymore. They can’t take me to task because my tasks are coming in under time and under budget.

It’s the support calls I (we) have to deal with that are causing the slippage. It’s their fault for setting the deadlines that are physically impossible to achieve. I’m not going to join the midnight club, that’s the group of developers and management that seem to always be at work at about midnight.

The in-laws were up at the weekend in order to help with some DIY. I’m very grateful to LSW father, he always gets into the dirty jobs before I get a chance to. But it’s amazing how much a shed costs, as does a lot of baby stuff. My jaw hit the floor when I saw the price of a pushchair, as far as the cot and the rest of it’s concerned has got me a little panicked about the future.

I’m going to have to put the car through it’s MOT (going to need servicing as well), go to my cousin’s wedding in the far reaches of Scotland, My father’s 60th birthday, and the In-laws birthdays are both in June. We need to be saving money not shelling out like this. We’re close to the line as it is.

Because TMCM is away, client four is on hold. One of Client Two’s machines is recording funny data and guess who is going to spend all day sorting this out. We’ve got people out at Client Six and so I’m going to have to support them all night. So much for things easing off like I told they might this morning.

LSW is having trouble sleeping. The baby to be is getting into the habit of kicking her awake. So she gets up and then I wake up. I suppose its preparation for the next few months.

Finally got a result with the new display code in the game. Celebration over at http://www.projectk.blogspot.com/

Well, it’s been a very strange couple of days, I’ve been trying to get client four’s work done and I’m almost there, but ‘the doctor’ has told me that two of Client Two’s servers have fallen over after applying the latest release. Strange really, because this was tested at another of the clients sites before being applied to these two.

TMCM is running around giving out high-level guff* to us developers. He’s one of the old programmers where if you don’t know how to program a revolutionary data access layer in C++ in less than 20 minutes, then you should be on the dole.

* High Level Guff – Stating the bleeding obvious in a haphazard business talk type way.

Just what is the point, I work flat out for a week trying to get this piece of code together for client four and what happens; TMCM decides to change the spec. The work I’ve done is signed off and in the system, now I have to pull it all out and start over. Scooter says that it’s all going to be in the plan, but somehow I doubt it and guess who’ll be paying for that one.

Now working for two clients at the same time, more work for client four. I can slip exactly the same code in for client six and will it get noticed, nope.

Think that’s the last straw, I’ve started to look about. Unfortunately, there’s not much out there at the moment. That is apart from working for a Bank and I don’t really want to become a banker again.

LSW has had a letter from the taxman, they’ve screwed up her tax again and so she’s stressing out. They’ve taken an extra £70 off her because they say they haven’t had the payment. I know they have and I’ve even got the receipt, so guess who’s got to phone the b*gg*rs up and get it sorted? Been put on hold three times today, they’re almost as bad as the banks.

Anyway, if you want to know about Internet Flame Wars, there are two fantastic ones occurring on the net at the moment. There is the infamous Derek Smart, this flame war has been raging for seven or eight years about the game Battle cruiser/ Universal Combat. Stalking, Lawsuits and Fraud are all involved at this point so it’s good for a laugh.

The other one, still staying on a sci-fi theme, is this new version of Battlestar Galactica. Bloody hell, you haven’t seen so many fanatics get in a flap since they killed off Captain Kirk. It’s very entertaining to watch though.

Just finished chapter seven on the short story and sent it off to the proofreader. Unfortunatly this leaves the most difficult chapter to write because it involves a very popular charcter and if you get it wrong, you are crucified by people who hold this character very high regard.

Actually PANIC. It seems things for Client Four are up Sh*t creak. The boy upstairs are working round the clock (as opposed to 24/7 because I hate that saying...) to try and get is sorted. If they can't, we're broke. I'm going to start looking for a new Job soon because I don't have much in the way of confidence in them.

Client Two has complained about most of the releases lately and to be fair they have a point. It's had to patched eight times. There is so much pressure on that things are falling over left right and centre.

I might as well introduce the team.

1. Too Much Coffee Man - or TMCM is our department head. He's the one that gives mission statements as specs.
2. Scooter - Our Project Manager, he tries to get everything running smoothly and plays office politics like a pro.
3. QuietMan - He's one of our senior analysts, it would take a nuclear attack for him to raise his voice.
4. CampMan - This fellow is a developer like myself. However there are a few questions about his sexuality which is basically scary.
5. The Doctor - Test Head Honcho. Normally a nice bloke, but can be a real git if he wants to be.
6. KackMan - Another developer who always seems to get all the crappy jobs.
7. Crusty - A developer who's been coding longer than I have been living.

There are others but I'll introduce them as long as I can think of appropriate aliases.

If it's not one of them it's the other, Client Four has problems and these things are going to take a little while to fix.

LSW is really stressed out. I think it's the impact of how much this child is going to cost. I think we'll be fine, but she's worring alot. She's really going to miss the exotic holidays.

OMG! Major bug in Client Two’s system. It explains so many problems with the statistics and although it can be fix quite easily, sorting out the legacy data is going to be a pain. I’m at a bit of a loss of how to approach this problem, as this fix will have to run on every server around the world. Everything else is on hold until this is fixed.

Chapter six of the fan fiction has been submitted. It seems that the sites owners are suffering from a lot of family/illness problems, so it’s a case of be patient and hope everything’s ok.

Went to the gym yesterday, stood on the scales and 15 STONE! Where the F*** did that come from? Think I overdid it though, pains everywhere.

Actually got round to doing a little work on the game yesterday, I’m beginning to realise that I’ve made it a lot more difficult than it needs to be. However ripping out half of the code I’ve written is a pain, but will have to be done.

LSW is running around stressed as usual. I’m worried about her blood pressure, which goes through the roof. She had to go to the hospital last week because of it. She took it easy since then and now she’s back to how she was. I’m going to have to sit her down and try to calm her down.

Well, a couple of days off and the whole place goes to pot. One of Client Two’s machines isn’t working. This is due to some of the work I did, which works ok on a single machine, but falls over on a duel machine. The testing department should have caught the dual machine error but it slipped through.

We’re told that the duel machine tests are not our responsibility and we shouldn’t worry but now, well I think we should all worry if something like that gets through our safety net.

I was supposed to work on the game on Friday, but I fell asleep instead (must be overwork). LSW and myself went shopping for kitchen tiles. It was only supposed to take the morning but it took all day instead, so no work on that day ether. Typical building project, it’s overrunning already and we haven’t even started.

However, we did have a nice time in London with the parents. Saw Thoroughly Modern Millie. It was supposed to star Amanda Holden but they said she was off sick with a kidney infection. In reality she was up in Manchester filming a new Television show. Well, her understudy and Anita Dobson were very good. I don’t think the show needed Ms Holden.

It turns out my father is a big fan of musicals, which got shocked me for a bit. My mother laughed and said that it was the only way he could appreciate other women’s legs without getting slapped.

Well, I don’t know what’s going on with Client Five. The demo went well but now they’re wanting more. They want me to do further work on it but they’re not sure what to work on. There’s no clarity. Strange things are happening with the internal product. It seems I’m now getting mission statements as specifications.

LSW has been getting me to feel her stomach on several occasions, this week. Yup. You can feel the occasional kick and LSW is beginning to act like a proud mother already.

Got my latest FanFic submission back from the proofreader, I didn’t know my grammar was so horrendous. There were so many howlers, that I’ve asked the web publisher to pull it. I’m rewriting it and then resubmitting it.

The game is effectively on hold since the weekend. I’m planning to do some work on it tomorrow when I’ve got some time off.