E almost Friday

Sorry VG, I missed E Friday. Last weekend one of the computers here at the bank had problems (again). It took me about four hours to figure out what was going on and get it working – which meant that over a hundred phone reps were left sitting at their computers unable to make collections phone calls. Because of that, and other outages, the Collections department has requested better support from the IT department. Of course you know what that means, more meetings. Because I am down at the bottom I, of course, am never included in the decision making process. The end result was my manager coming over to me on Monday afternoon and asking if I would mind adjusting my hours just a little bit. From the ‘normal’ workweek of Monday through Friday 8 to 5 (plus nighttime and early morning support calls) to working Tuesday through Saturday 4am to ? (yesterday it was 3:30, but who’s clock watching). This way I could test the systems before the phone crew gets in at 5 and insure that everything is working and being on site to fix problems. It’s not just me; there is also a networking expert in those hours as well.

So it has been a full week, and here I sit Saturday morning, taking a break from trying to figure out a program, in a room full of cubicles by myself. I spent yesterday documenting how to do the testing, so that when I’m not here somebody else can do it. As I have known for quite a while, I am good at programming but not good at tech writing. I tend to be too tech and not enough writing. But Barb (today’s network expert) was able to read through my document and perform some of the tasks. And she also was able to rewrite portions to make them more understandable. So that kept me busy most of the day. Then I shifted to some other problems and was able to keep myself busy for the rest of the day.

Anyway, enough excuses.

Now for something completely different. I’m listening to Car Talk on PBS radio, and the guys are reading some Haiku that I found interesting:

First, one from Japan, a computer error message:

Your file was so big
It may have been very useful
But now it is gone

And then some from their staff on automotive problems. I wasn’t quick enough to take them all down, but caught one:

Mother driving boys
Don’t you make me come back there
Dreams of birth control

OK, back to E Fridays for VG.

Let’s start with our little helper. She tries to imitate B, and so is now trying to do some yard work. We’re looking for some gardening tools that are more her size, so will probably be off to Toys R Us this afternoon. But here she is trying to rake:


We have a back gate that looks out on the side street. Max likes to stand at the gate, looking through the gaps and barking at whoever walks by. E usually wonders what Max is looking at, and can frequently be seen standing back there also looking through the gaps.


As you can see, she also has a handful of those grapes that she so likes.

We’ve got two swings in the back under the peach tree. One is a kid’s swing, in which E can spend a long time rocking back and forth just watching the birds and the dogs and B working around the yard. We also put in a ‘regular’ swing for the Swedes when they came last year. E is finally big enough to try the big kid’s swing. She used to just lay on it, but did not like just watching the ground going back and forth. She has now learned to sit in it. This is about my favorite expression, and again with the hat hair: (are we having fun yet?)