I don’t mean to say so little, but there really isn’t that much particularly to talk about right now.
Last weekend we did the Pumpkin Prowl at the zoo, and then did the trick-or-treating on the waterfront in Seattle, but um… most of the people who read this blog were probably there with us anyway.
Weeks are dragging a bit from a work perspective. Right now, I’d say I’m doing about 12 hours a week of actual work-work. The rest, well… I read a lot, fiddle with systems, and try to tweak queries to be a little faster. I wish I could be more helpful on the project, but the project is written in Java, and I’m not a huge Java guy. The production database has already been designed, and has a dedicated team of folks working it. However, right now I couldn’t realistically see anyone else doing the work. The old system is like 20 years old, and most of the stuff I’m querying comes from that old system. The SQL (the language you use to write database queries) itself isn’t hard at all (no query I’ve written requires more than a few months experience with SQL), but all the damned tribal knowledge required to write the simplest thing makes the whole process ridiculously overcomplicated.
Business Analyst: “You need to make sure you filter out the ‘H’ records.”
Me: “OK, what’s an ‘H’ record?”
BA: “It’s a temporary ADP Record we modified in 1994.”
Me: “But ADP records were the ‘U’ codes.”
BA: “Not for Region 2.”
Me: “…”
BA: “They used the ‘G’ code.”
Me: “…”
BA: “Can I get the icon in cornflower-blue?”
Me: (dies a little inside) “Sure”
I’m going home on Thursday this week, so I hope to have enough time to publish up some new photos. Heather used to send them to be daily, but having a whole week without me does seem to be causing her some difficulties (especially as our children are so young.) Hopefully, the extra day will help Heather get a little breathing time, and get the kids back into a state of something that seems normal.
Tomorrow night is Halloween, where we’ll likely be trick-or-treating in downtown Bothell again. Bothell is great for kids, and the trick-or-treating downtown is a lot of fun for them. Also, it’s done fairly early, so we can get the kids all dressed up in costumes and whatever, yet still down to bed at a reasonable hour.
That’s all for now…
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