Watt's Up Musings of an original geek

I’ve been doing some programming and I’m psych’ed. Today I really looked forward to going in and working on it. When I got there I started to add to it. Then after an hour at about 9:08 AM I happened to look at my daily calendar, and realized that I had an all day meeting to attend. Oh no! So I stopped my programming and I went to the meeting. Then on top of this meeting I had promised to have lunch at work with my daughter. Because this requires her to be signed in I had to get the paperwork done yesterday. I couldn’t cancel it and anyways she’s worth it. I left the meeting at 12:30 PM. In addition, she didn’t have the car so I had to drive home and pick her up and drive back to work. This alone took about 20 minutes. Regardless we did have a nice lunch and it was nice to talk together. Then I drove her home and returned to work at 2:00 PM. In the meantime I missed a crucial demo and shortly the meeting ended at 3 PM. I returned to my office, talked to some of my co-workers, and soon it was time to go to running class at 4:30 PM. As a result, I barely did any programming today yet I was so psych’ed. Oh well there’s always tomorrow. I’m really looking forward to it.

I did my running this morning, and although my stomach was a bit upset afterwards, I felt really good doing it. Upon returning I had a nice hot shower, and lunch with Katie. Then I went out, rented a DVD for tonight, and bought fixins for Swiss Steak, a recipe handwritten by my Mother and handed down from my Paternal Grandmother. It requires me to beat round steak into submission and cook it with tomatoes, celery and spices. I can’t wait to eat it over a bed of rice. I remember fondly when I was growing up. It cooks for hours to further tenderize it. While waiting, I’m sitting in a quiet house, covered by a blanket, reading a good book, smelling the food on the stove, and appreciating that it’s been a nice day. Ahhhhh.

Kathy is away on her yearly trip to Williamsburg, Virginia with stitching friends, and Katie’s at work. So the house is real quiet. Katie’s job started yesterday, so today is her second day. Her shift is from 5:00 AM to 5:30 PM. She’ll work each day until probably next Tuesday, and have it and Wednesday off. I think Monday is overtime, but I’m not sure of that. Then her week starts all over again. This is all to help bankroll her next two semesters at university. It’s the same job as she had last summer, that is, it’s at Dell as a temp employee breaking down computers. I think this means that her team unloads truck loads (yes, semi-trailer trucks) of previously manufactured new machines (never opened or used ones), takes them apart and puts the components and CDs back into the line to be re-manufactured. In any case the job start-up has been tough on her – the early starting hour and the long shift. I’ve tried to help her by making her lunch so it’s ready when she comes home, and taking her out to dinner. I doubt I’ll keep it up, but I just wanted to get her over the first few days, and in my own way I wanted to tell her that I’m proud and happy with how hard she’s working. She’s quite something.

At work I’ve been doing some planning which I find boring, but it’s got to be done. We’re trying to estimate how much time it will take to do a programming job. It’s based upon some existing programming so I’ve used that as a basis for comparison. Also I’ve used the time and size of the previous work. Given that I’ve calculated that it will take a number of person-years to accomplish. Now I’ve got to figure out how to make it take less resources.

In addition I’ve been doing some protyping to understand the work and to help me find a better way to accomplish the tasks. I much prefer doing this kind of work. I find it very creative. I think I’ve found a reasonable way to do one part of it too. Each day I’ve been changing and polishing this prototype as I learn more. I’m proud of it and want to make it the best it can be. Now I’m on to another piece of the system. So I’m just a techie at heart.