Three Fingered Salute

Work just stepped up yet another gear. Client Two’s products have been under development by our team in America and now we’ve got it back from them it’s all over the place. I’ve now got to put everything else on hold and sort this out, but there are communication problems.

The US Developer is an Indian Immigrant and although his English is good, he has a very thick accent, which causes a lot of misunderstandings. To be fair, he puts up with the varying styles of English from over here, but the situation is getting worse. TMCM is now taking a personal look at the situation, so everybody is now busy covering his or her backs.

More work was done on the kitchen. There’s only the bottom of the units left to do, Concrete has laid for the shed and we’ve started to clear the room for the nursery. Everyone is very tired. LSW’ Mum and Dad have been up for the last two days helping out. They’re very devoted parents as they’ll do anything for their daughter, but every time I offer help when their helping us, I get a polite but firm ‘no, that won’t be necessary.’ Heck, if that means I can go do something else then I’m not complaining.

Now that a lot of things are getting sorted, LSW is now looking a lot more relaxed and for the last couple of nights we’ve not argued. Perhaps it’s because we’re too tired. She’s worried about money, the house and her job but there’s nothing she does to break out of this worry cycle. There are no hobbies to divert her attention. The only thing she seems remotely interested in is TV soaps.

I think this one of the areas of our marriage I’m going to have to quietly look at. If I bring the subject up in my usual way, then I’ll probably wreak any chances of getting this sorted. I’ll leave this on my to do list.

Progress on the Game has been slow and frustrating, almost put my fist through the monitor on Thursday.

However, the stories eighth chapter is going up on the web site and the Web Site’s owner has been getting a lot of complementary press about their effort in this regard. Keeping with writing though, The BBC has started a competition. Finish a best selling authors short story. I think I’ll try enter an ending once I’ve seen what there is to work with.

No Argument! I’m shocked. I was on the phone to my mother for half an hour last night and she was warning me about Pregnant Female Hormones or PFH as I’ll call it. LSW is getting more tired every day and she’s got another check-up today, so hopefully we won’t have to go hospital again.

Last night was very frustrating on the game writing front. Some of the animations were falling over and crashing the whole thing. Note to self; do not loose temper and attempt a primal scream to get rid of the aggravation as waking up the neighbours is often seen as offensive.

At least I had a good night's sleep. Another argument with LSW, this time about the Alarm clock (?!). She says she can't sleep because the new alarm clock buzzes too loud. So after receiving some abuse, I get the old one and set it up. We switch off everything so she can sleep and then turns to me and says.

"That one's just as bad."

Help !

The new tasks at work have had the goalposts moved yet again, this time more closely back to it's original position but not quite. It's very frustrating and All this argument time is using up development time. It's getting more and more complicated and convoluted as this drags on. Help Help !

Lastly however, the in-laws are commons tomorrow, this means that LSW will be running round tidying up, trying to get everything right for tomorrow, It's going to be hell !!

Help, Help, Help !

The presentation went badly. It seems that the goalposts have been moved again, which I’ve been asked to take into account. I’m not feeling too well either. I got a pain around my eye and when I checked in the toilets. It looks like a blood vessel has burst on the surface of the eye. Looks very dramatic, but I’m now getting a little panicked about my blood pressure.

Well, the weekend from hell is over. I spent a day doing odd jobs round the house with the understanding that LSW would be happy and let me get on and do some work on Sunday. It was not to be, a huge daylong argument raged about the new to be fitted wardrobe in the nursery. I don’t know exactly how it started, but what was supposed to be a hour trip to look at materials and get idea’s turned into half a day of being dragged around various DIY stores.

Things ended up with both tears and tantrums (from both of us) and eventually we said our ‘sorries’. But the day was lost; as was the time for work, so I’m panicking about this presentation I’ve got to do in an hour or so. LSW blamed hormones but there is more to it than just that.

In addition, there’s this competition running with dishwasher tablets (of all things). You find the golden one then you win £200,000. This morning LSW asks if they’ve changed the colour of the dishwasher tablet because there was one last week, which she thought was a funny colour.

I asked if it was like a golden colour and the she replies, it might have been, she’s not sure. Bye Bye possible £200,000. People have committed suicide over less amounts with the lottery. At the moment, I’m working on the theory that she was mistaken and it was just a funny coloured tablet, but in my head I’m having trouble dealing the thought of ‘WE’VE JUST LOST £200,000”.

I’m going to buy a Sh*tload of Calms today!

Well, the St George's cross is making a come back. Normally, this would be waved by the right wing nutters and football hooligans but for one day of the year, normal English folk can use it with out fear of being looked apon like a member of the aformention groups. As a Scot in England, every time you see this flag you get the feeling that your going to get jumped by a load of gorrilas who think that Churchill was great but Hitler had the right idea.

Things between TMCM and myself have cooled off. It seems that after an initial round of shouting, we’ve settled down and looked on the issues and begun to come to some form of consensus.

1. It’s not all my fault.
2. There’s something funny going on with the new websites.

Both Client Four and Five have the same problem with their websites and I’ve been digging into the whys and the where’s this has been happening. It looks like arrays are going missing thanks to Microsoft. It’s a known issue so, tough nuts to you and work out a workaround.

Finally, we have a working Gas Hob. A plumber turned up on time, worked on it and got it working, charged me an hour and then left. As long as the house has not burnt down while I’m away, I’m happy.

LSW is over the moon about the kicking. Although it hurts, she’s reassured with every little punch and kick. Last night I found myself tapping her stomach. For about four minutes, you would tap three times and then the baby would reply with a kick. LSW thought it was fantastic, a way to communicate with the unborn. Pure luck really because she tried later and there was no ‘reply’.

I am rapidly coming to the conclusion that TMCM doesn't like me very much. Our meetings are abrasive, he criticizes or makes snide comments about everything I do or have done. Perhaps I'm just being paranoid but I do feel my card is being marked. He's a bit of a curly bracket man. If it's not in C or Java then it's not worth much and as I come from a visual basic background. Anyway, we have another meeting tomorrow which I'm not looking forward to.

The client one fix didn't work, I don't know why and so I'm looking into it. still working on client four issues.

We've finally got a plumber coming today to get the kitchen finished. It's going to be so nice to get it out of the way, so I'm going to take a late lunch and hopefully it won't take more than an hour. However the concrete will cost almost £150 to be delivered, barrowed and levelled. It would probably be cheaper than attempting to mix it myself, so I'll order it next week and book a day off for when they arrive.

One of the things our friends brought over was a huge belated birthday cake. This thing is made mostly from chocolate and both LSW and myself have been tucking in. However, Last night I came downstairs after the soaps had finished and looked to see that a couple of extra slices of cake had gone. Looking at the empty plate and the chocolate around her mouth, I didn't need to be Sherlock Homes to work out who had eaten them. LSW then played the emotional blackmail card before I could say anything.

"The baby needed chocolate."

Now, she's getting paranoid because she's read that the maximum you should put on when having a baby is two stone. Otherwise you'll never get rid of it. Now apparently that's from the Health Service, not from one of the Magazines she reads.

I've also come to the conclusion that when she gets down, it's mostly because she's been reading women magazines, or the glosses as they are known. I must admit that after reading two hundred pages, which basically tells you that you are fat and ugly, I wouldn't be so full of the joys of life myself.

Rant over. Did a little work on the game last night and finished a chapter of my story. There's a bit of chapter creep coming in and now an Eight Chapter story has grown to nine. It's a bit like performance art, once the chapter is up on the web, it can't be changed and it's displayed warts and all. Feedback has been good, but the hits haven't been high. Still I'm not in it for the hits. :-)

Well, it's been a weekend of Kitchen building, cleaning and coding. LSW's hormones seem to the giving the both of us the run around. It's been dificult to say the least. We spent two hours cleaning up for our friends from Leeds and because we hadn't seen them for almost four months, there were a few arkward silences while we caught up, but after a while we were arguing about the usual politics, music and morons.

Next day, The In-laws turned up and helped to to the kitchen. It took the father-in-law and myself six hours to get the lights in, paint the walls and finish off the tiling for the half of the room. However, nothing can really be done about the other half until we get a plumber in about the hob. This is crazy, we've phoned around eight of them and no-one seems interested because it's just a small job. Looks like I'll have to look up the thompson direct.

Got to get the concreet done by this weekend, it seems that I'm getting nagged about accross all corners.

TMCM has asked about the work I’m doing and when I explained what it was, seemed a little taken back. He then proceeded to slag off Scooter, who’s away on paternity leave, and demanded to see the spec. He wants to put his own input into it and that’s screwed up my day because I know he’ll try and turn it on it’s head.

Campman had got himself into trouble. He was downloading mp3 from various sites and two things have happened.

1. One of the pop-ups on the MP3 website was porn, so slapped wrist there
2. A virus was in one of the MP3 he downloaded. Systems are going ballistic. I’m running a new scan against my machine because you never know.

However client One has just got back to me, they’re quite angry about why the server went down. Time to put the serious hat on and give them the no nonsense explanation.

That cooker is a right pain. The installation instructions said that you had to take the back of the housing unit. The diagram pointed to the back of the cooker. So we spent an hour trying to decide whether to remove it or not. We finally switched it on (with images of a burning house running through my mind) and God it smelt. It was microwaved meals all round last night. LSW fell asleep at 8:30 so I spent the rest of the night playing Deus-Ex II.

I should have worked on the game more, but I was so sick of coding. I really ought to put more into it because if I don't get it working in the next few months then I'll miss an opportunity. It's just difficult to stay motivated.

Things are so quiet at work that it's scary. One of Client One's main servers is not updating but they've been working while an update has been running so it's just a case of sorting that out when there is no work going on. Presently I'm working on something for client four, however this means I'm working on code which was originally written by 'Crusty'. The stuff works but it's like wading to get to the code you want. No comments, no help and no clue of how to make it maintainable. I envy the person who will have to support this. Oh Hell, that would be me !

Dam Microsoft to the fiery pits of hell. For some reason our website no longer works anymore after another of Microsoft’s hot fixes. Client Four and Seven have both reported issues and I’m having to dig into code where I shouldn’t have to. TMCM is now running around like a headless chicken spouting out generalisations about how we look to customers. Put my headphones on and pushed the volume straight up.

Apparently, the demo to client six has been done. They stopped using the machine we spent so long with and put it onto a new one. It installed perfectly first time. Typical, Let down by a hardware issue. I’ll have a to consult our oracle in the states.

LSW has apologised to me for all the shouting over the last week. Hormones were blamed. Some friends will be coming over from Leeds. We haven’t seen them this year. We haven’t got the new cooker working yet, that’s got to be done tonight. Prepare for a fire!

After an almighty struggle, myself and the father-in-law are victorius against an electric cooker. We had to demoish half the kitchen to put the bugger in but woo hoo, now I've got to get concreet and organise a corgi plumber.

A Wedding in Scotland was one of the most expensive shocks of the weekend. My cousin got married to a very nice girl and it was all kilts and beer over the weekend. Let me just say that a large hotel bill is not the best cure for a hangover. It was nice to see the family though, it’s the first time I’ve been able to talk with my brother for months. My mum got her Birthday present of a tree and Dad has no idea that we’re going to surprise him for the Weekend.

The car is getting an MOT at the moment at it’s terrifyingly expensive. It will need new tyres; brakes and the front suspension will need looking at soon. Shame that this car has to be sold due to the arrival of the Bairn. It’s the only remotely sporty thing I’ve ever had and driving around in a Focus like car is not my idea of fun.

The game is progressing well, after the giddiness of last week’s success, I’ve been adding in new graphics and trying to add more interactivity. Difficult work and I’ve not got much time over the next few days.

LSW parents will be coming up in tonight so we can carry on with the kitchen, I’ve still got the concrete for the shed to get and tonight we’re going to look at how difficult it will be to put in the cooker. Plumbing in a sink was scary, but that’s nothing compared to the Cooker.

LSW is now huge with the Bairn. She’s crying a little as well. She says because she feels like a beached whale, but the hormones makes things worse. Over the last couple of months we’ve been fighting a lot more than we used to which is worrying and I guess I’ll have to see how things progress from there.

Work is worryingly quiet. I have one outstanding task on client four, which I’m racing though because I’ve done something similar. We haven’t heard anything back from client six in America and that’s strange. Normally at this time, they are climbing the walls.

The last chapter is also progressing well, A third of it is done, but as you can see, finding time to do this is difficult. Still slow but steady.

Well, here I am back at work again. I’ve had almost a week off (kind of) and I don’t really have any enthusiasm to continue working here but as LSW and myself have worked out, there’s not much point moving until Next Year. I move then I loose my Paternity leave (or at least have to pay it back) and finally any pay rise I do get will be wiped out by an increase in travelling, tax rises and so on and so forth. One of our developers has resigned and will work out his four weeks and I know there are a few who are looking. Still looks as if I’m stuck. We haven’t had anything like a pay review, so I don’t even know if we’re getting a raise.

As far as Client Six is concerned, I’m done and dusted. It’s someone else’s problem now. I’ll set up the multi language things and then walk away. I’ve got stuff for client two and four to do. These new task are variations of work I did for client one when I first joined. It should be a breeze to work through but there are always pitfalls.

LSW is in pain. It’s piles. I used to have them really bad about five years ago and LSW used to have a go at me, thinking I was a bit of a wimp. Now she’s got them, the shoe is on the other foot. There are approximately three months before we have the new arrival (Dunno what to call it yet but as far as here is concerned Bairn One will suffice) and I’m not as scared as I was. LSW is bricking it about the birth and I’ve got no idea of how to support her or distract her from it.

Client Six doesn’t seem to be done with me and now, the project manager from client one wants to talk about something. I don’t have the time. I’m starting a NHS Style waiting list