Three Fingered Salute

To my surprise I’m still here. Looking back at Friday and the weekend, I don’t know how we made it through.

Friday – Work was hell. The Testing department failed the work I did for client two, saying that it was too easy for the user to abuse, so I had to extensively modify it for the end of Friday. It passed at six-thirty so I went home where Little Miss was very vocal, and didn’t let up all night.

Apparently she was OK until just before I came home from work and then she let rip. We don’t know what’s causing it, although I suspect that LSW having Mexican Food before feeding her might have something to do with it. Either that or she’s teething a month early.

Satarday – This day passed in a blur. I was supposed to get up and cut the grass, but due to the problems with Little Miss, neither of us could get up before twelve due to exhaustion. We managed to do a lot of shopping, ie new boots, baby monitor, New DVD player but we were absolute knackered by the end of the day.

Little Miss, when she wasn’t sleeping, was crying and it’s heartbreaking when there’s nothing you can do to settle her. It’s one little belch or a load of hiccups and she starts screaming the place down.

Sunday – A visit to the In-laws. They’re doing fine and we talked to LSW’s Grandfather, Little Miss’ Great-Grand father, for a while. He was complaining about the fact that for years the doctor’s have been blaming his funny turns on the fact he keeps birds, when in truth, it appears he’s got a problem with his heart.

When he bends down to clean things up, then he starts getting problems. He’s 87, very active and fascinating to talk to. Showed FiL the first cut of his website. He actually seemed impressed. And Little Miss was very unsettled the entire day, she eventually stopped screaming at One in the morning.

Monday – A bank holiday, a day off, a chance to do things and catch up. No chance. We sleep in because of the previous night, we go for a walk and buy some food and Little Miss is no trouble. Gurgling, making coo and ahh noises, it was enough to melt stone hearts, until about four. She would just not stop screaming.

Both myself and LSW took it in shifts to hold her because there’s only so much you can take, but by seven we were practically screaming at each other as well. Then there was the phone call. It turned out that LSW grand father had collapsed at his home and had been taken to hospital. LSW went into shock, but thankfully for the next half hour Little Miss Quietened.

We got a call about half an hour later, saying that it wasn’t as bad as was thought but he’ll have to stay in overnight, then Little Miss started off again and didn’t quieten until ten.

It’s now Tuesday Lunchtime and I’m having real trouble staying awake, I’m scared to go home because Little Miss and LSW will be in a foul mood, Client Five has been screwed up on Monday by one of our American staff and it’s up to me to sort it out and I’ve now got to sort out the conservatory, mortgage payments and starting to look into a christening for Little Miss. Help !

It is a universal truth that once one part of your life is sorted then another falls apart. Little Miss has begun to settle at night and so LSW is calmer and beginning to relax a lot more. However work just went nuts.

The work list for today is;-

1. Complete a project for Client Two by 12:00 pm
2. Support issues for client four.
3. Support issues for client one.
4. Explanations are required for client two.

They are all highest priority, but the project managers are coming straight to me not via Scooter so I’m climbing the walls and practically screaming at people.

Little Miss’ cold is back with a vengeance and both her and LSW are suffering quite badly. LSW mostly, she didn’t get much in the way of sleep. All in all, LSW’s holding up very well, considering she only had one hour’s sleep last night. She’s got a Doctor’s appointment this afternoon for her six week check I’ll be seeing how she holds up in a couple of hours.

Little Miss wine and whimpers all the way through the night because she can’t breath and it’s heartbreaking to hear because there’s nothing you can do. I’d hate to think how we’d both feel if it was something worse!

Work has stepped up a gear. I’m supposed to have two weeks to design code and test an application for client two. Due to all the support work I’ve been doing, I’ve now only got four days until the deadline and one day until the Testing department. Looks like a long night ahead.

Client Five phoned up to complain that they’re not receiving data from our system. I spent half an hour discovering that the data they were complaining about, they were not supposed to receive anyway. Someone overwrote my code on client four and I’ve not got to re-implement the solution. I don’t have time for all this!

I did a little bit of catching up with the game last night but no real progress. I spent most of the time either looking after LSW, Little Miss or building a new Chair in the Study. It’s a huge black leather seat. All I need is a little white fluffy cat and I’ll be ready to take over the World!

We’ve had a busy weekend. Little Miss is beginning to sleep through the night. She’s just beginning to kick the cold that’s been plaguing her. She still’s get grumpy and colicky but it’s a great improvement over the last few weeks.

I wish the same could have been said of things between myself and LSW. Sunday morning I was given the choice of making a cup of tea or changing a nappy. Being grumpy and tired, I said I’d make the tea and that upset LSW. She really wanted me to change the nappy. So she got into a foul mood and basically made me feel like the dot above the ‘i’ in the word Sh*t!

Things sorted themselves out by the time some friends turned up in the afternoon but I was working out how much lawyer fees would be in the meantime. Thank goodness for our friends, they were completely able to diffuse any tension and by the end of the day we were best of friends again.

Work on the FIL’s website has been held up by problems with an Access Database. It seems that between XP, .NET and file permissions. I can’t access the database from the website, even by using ODBC. I’ll have to dig through the Help to get these things working. I’ve got to get this website working by the End of the Week, otherwise I’ll look a bit of an idiot.

Work has been strange. I’ve got a VB project to do and getting used to VB6 after 2/3 years of ASP. It’s a culture shock how easy some things are. Client Five kicked off quite badly on Friday night. It was a nine PM finish which meant I missed Campman’s leaving do. There are a few things left to do to knock Client Five on the head (i.e. finish the project) but the worst of it is over.
I’ve been working on AI for the mobile game. It’s a lot harder than I thought but I’m working my way into it. It will be interesting to see how it plays out. I’ve still got some small issues regarding the hot seat version of the game which I really should get out of the way though.

Little Miss has been with us now for five weeks. However for four of those weeks, she’s had a cold. This has stopped her feeding, breathing and sleeping properly and it came to a head yesterday. The poor little thing burst out in a rash, so we panicked and went to the doctor. The rash will fade by itself and we have some nose drops for her but judging by the three hours of sleep I got last night, it’s not working.

Client Two has settled down. This item in question has been fixed. There was an additional panic for client four yesterday, between that and running around after Little Miss, I was pulling my hair out. It seems that our division is not doing as well as we’d hoped. We had one of those Employee meetings. This told us our company, as a whole, is doing very well, however our division is doing pants. We’re not getting quality products out of the door, either that or we’ve just hit a dry spell.

Some game work and web work was completed last night, which I’m happy about. The first bit of progress for a while. FIL’s Website requires a counter and a final web page. Hopefully I’ll have those finished at some point this week. I’ll have LSW check it over for spelling etc.

I’m off to get stronger coffee!

Well, Client Two seems to be sorted now, however we were working on it till seven each night last week. The problem is that the databases are so large that they take ages to restore and test against. For instance, one of client two's is now Eight Gig big. No wonder it's sluggish.

Little Miss has been a pain over the last few days. She will not sleep, mostly because of this cold, and when she doesn't sleep, we don't sleep. Thankfully last night was good, so I don't feel so bad but LSW is still very ratty.

I made a bit of a breakthroughwith the game over the weekend. I got a prototype working on both the N-Gage and a 6600 last night. It looks a heck of a lot better than the Emulator version. problem is the Whole game will not work with the N-Gage.

The version of Java that the N-Gage has does not support Blutooth functionality. In order to get the game to work on the N-Gage, I'd have to re-write the whole thing in C++. Believe Me I was spitting tacks when that happened. I'll revisit that once I have the basic version of the game working.

We've finished the FIL's website. Hopefully I'll have the domain registered and the website online by the end of the week. Got to get the hit counter working before then.

Oh poor Little Miss. She's sick all the time. Poor LSW for putting up with the puking, screaming little girl for all the time I'm not there. Her condition seems to have worsened of the last few days and I'm convinced that the weather hasn't helped. She's so blocked up with mucus that she's got trouble breathing and dependent on what the Health Visitor says tomorrow, we'll go to the Doctors.

LSW is holding up really well, considering. I think she's getting into a pattern which she's finding acceptable. When I'm home, I'm reduced to getting her pints of water, changing nappies or attempting to settle Little Miss when LSW's had enough!

Work has kicked off again. Client Two, our biggest client, is not happy with the latest release of our software. They upgraded yesterday and are very unimpressed with the performance. I'm kind of smiling within myself because I'm dying to say I told you so. I'm just going to keep my head down an get on with this work for Client Four.

I've actually made some progress with the game. I've managed to get it working on emulators which I've been trying for the last four months. Got a new couple of pages out of the way for the FIL's website as well. It's almost ready to go live. The story is the only thing that there's been no progress on.

It seams that I can't get Blogger to function at work. I dunno if they've found out about this blog or not. Hell not as if I care at the moment. Little Miss takes full priority. I had to have thursday off because so was so poorly. I know it's only a cold but you still worry alot, espicially when she's not breathing right.

LSW is looking better. The more sleep she gets, the less snappy she can be. This can only be good news. It's my folks sho are down this week. They're going to help LSW catch up with sleep while they look after Little Miss.

As far as work is concerned, I dunno what our guys are doing at client one, but I had to spend ages fixing the mess they left behind. At least client one are now working but hell there's been problem after problem with it. This is holding up work with client four which I've been doing on and off for the last few months. I think they's put "And can you just put this in as well" on my tombstone.

Still no new work on the game and to tell the truth I'm getting anxious. More games are now flooding the market and I feel I've missed the boat. Still it was a learning exercise anyway but what a struggle it has been with it.

Another paragraph on the story, but no new feed back from the site for a month. I think it's getting forgotten.