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It's been a while since I last visited this space or wrote in my journal even. The reasons are too many for me to write or for you to want to read and by not writing about any of them I could glibly avoid thinking about any of them. So, what's new with me?
Work is quickly becoming a nightmare. Up to this point I have been able to continue moving forward through the backlog that keeps threatening to engulf me but I am now to the point of identifying the tasks that can be safely neglected or abandoned because there just isn't enough manpower to keep up and I can't continue putting in fifty and sixty hour weeks. I just hope that our GM will get the message clearly enough so we can get the MIS department back under control instead of having us run like mad from fire to fire.
In ten days I'll be in California for BorCon. I've been looking forward to attending for about two years now and I'm hoping to get the most out of the training sessions that they have there. If it's really good, I might even be able to turn it into a yearly event. Unfortunately, because I was more worried about getting home as quickly as I could after the conference ended, I'll end up missing the last training session and the closing events on Wednesday. That's one mistake I won't make again should I get the chance.
On a closing note, my Grandma Ormond has been in the hospital for nearly a week now. She had become so weak and she shook so badly that she couldn't even make her legs move to walk let alone stand. I went and visited her again today and, although she is still using a walker, she is able to just zip right around her room. I nearly jumped for joy when I saw that, it's nice to have good things happen now and then. Well, good night all.....
Just a quick note: Yes, I am still alive! Do you like to read H.P Lovecraft, then you'll find the email intercepts from a Delta Green cell rather interesting. Until later....
Shanna's dad went in for surgery today. Everything went OK but the surgeon will be sadden regardless of the out come. If it works, he'll be sorry he didn't do the surgery last year, if it doesn't then he's sorry that he did it now.
Well, we're going to see Attack of the Clones tonight. No, we didn't have to wait in line to get tickets and no, I'm not dreaming. The show starts in an hour and 15 minutes, so I'll let you know what I think when I get back.
If you were disappointed by Episode I, then go see Episode II to renew your faith in the Star Wars saga! Want to know what you get when thousands of clones attack with thousands of droids, a hundred or so Jedi and two nasty beasties thrown into the mix? Then you need to go see this film. If you're a die hard fan of the saga, watch closely for the foreshadowing of events to come ("With our combined strength, we can end this destructive conflict") and so forth. Some of the foreshadowing actually depends upon the characters' positions relative to each other and sentiments expressed more than the actual words used. Episode II and Episode IV rank almost side by side in my book.
BTW, Christopher Lee's performance was very disarming!
Once again, I'm in for the long haul. I arrived here at the airport at about 8:30 AM and by 9:10 AM I arrived here at gate D5 and my flight leaves in about two and a half hours. I'm hoping that the flight will be nowhere near as bumpy as it was down to Phoenix.
Of course fate can't be kind now that I'm headed out of town again. Last night the floor drain in the laundry room (the one that empties into the sewer and to which the laundry machine drains decided that it was once again time to back-up. Thankfully all we've had to deal with is a bit of rust and drain gunk in the tub and water from the washer in the utility room. I just hope that Shanna is able to get someone in there to snake the pipe without much trouble. She didn't seem terribly excited by everything...imagine that!
Merciful heaven! I know that there's a bit of a stereotype that exists in the minds of most people when they think of programmers but it wasn't until today that I had to face that stereotype face to face. As I stood with the masses waiting for the doors to open so the opening keynote address I realized that I was surrounded. The only thing missing was double thick glasses with taped nose pieces. Don't get me wrong, the conference is great but boy is it scary to think I might well be one of them.
Just came out of the product presentation for Delphi, C++ and Kylix. I didn't stay for the C++ or Kylix portion as I don't have the resources for them nor a need at the moment. I was incredibly impressed with the Delphi Enterprise Studio, it included Rational Rose and a intermediary pack from BoldSoft that would translate the UML model created in Rose into a functioning application and the UML modeling processing can go both ways out of or into Rose. Even greater freedom to code was promised as Delphi 7 is unveiled tomorrow. I am hoping it will include the new tools displayed in JBuilder last night. Those tools were absolutely incredible, BTW. Select a bunch of code and you can have it automatically move it into a new function and write the function call with the needed parameters. Absolutely fabulous. It will also tell you why code will not compile...ON THE FLY! Both items received loud applause and gasps of wonderment as they were displayed.
I also heard something which stirred my curiosity last night and has it absolutely brimming this morning: More than once we heard that Microsoft is looking to Borland to lead the charge in the .Net arena. Is it possible that this behemoth has finally acknowledged or is prepared to acknowledge that someone else is better in the programming world (programming languages that is) than the terrible Microsoft? That would be astounding as it might well mean a shift away from VB and VBA to Delphi (please oh please). The greatest advantage this would provide me is the ability to convince Intellution that they need to replace the current VBA implementation in iFix with Delphi or some derivative thereof as so make my life much easier by only having to stay current in the Delphi world instead of both the Delphi and VBA worlds as I do now.
Good things continue. The beginning class on threads just finished and it was great. I won't bore you with the details as many of them I need to read up on when I get home myself. I did notice a couple of odd things while in class but I have decided to boycott my own memory and not write them...I think.
The most important thing to happen to me today (other than a lot of boring stuff you don't want to hear and a lot of hot steamy stuff that you don't get to hear, well one reader got to read it all but hey that's most likely not you now is it?). Where was I? Oh yeah, the most important thing to happen to me today was the discovery of Towel Day. Now, go forth and learn about Towel Day. Personally, I intend to go buy a really nice towel for myself on Thursday and one for the wife if she wants.
