I was tired and was startled awake at 6AM by my phone. “How could it be six already,” was all I thought. I debated calling in sick and managed to stand and get started. Ugh! I went to the kitchen and started the hot water in the electric kettle. I found a yogurt and a banana to go with the Zabar’s Grind from NYC. I washed the Zabar cup–“I should use that for coffee,” I thought. I trudge all of this to the office in the house. Thanks, Smiths, for the coffee again, NYC coffee!
I started, after coughing and blowing my nose multiple times, an email to take the day off, but then decided to fight my way through it–I could always give up later. I went into eTrade and tried to transfer 1/2 the remaining money into USB, no longer trusting eTrade. I read emails, Slack updates, and the news to prepare for my day. I ran over a bit but rushed my shower and dressing to be ready to board Air Volvo near 7:30. I loaded up the board games as I planned to play with Z during Wednesday choir practice at First United Methodist Church. I made my first meetings and even had a second breakfast supplied by our program for the tester and folks like me who support testing.
Z has a cold, so no games today.
I drank so much coffee, and I was so tired my hand was shaking. I then talked to folks about my other work and offered to help another team that may be overwhelmed by the upcoming go-live. I used to do product support for the legendary system, and I am sure I could help with the new software besides the master data. We will see, but I did offer.
I had lunch–supplied to us testing folks, chicken breast with Mexican-styled veggies and rice, at my desk. I started to read about some technology that has been on my mind. It has been showing up here and there. It was pretty interesting–part of my job is to know tech, so it’s time to learn something. I did the last couple of hours of meetings and left at 4PM
Aside: I was wondering how these high-concurrency databases worked. Basically, you can have consistency, high concurrency, or high scalability. Pick two. Very interesting. So yes, this tech has low consistency–an interesting choice.
I also called eTrade, which locked my account again and blocked my transfer. F**k. I called them and got it unlocked again, and sent it again. Ugh! But they are paying me interest on the money, at least.
At the house, after traveling to the Volvo Cave in Air Volvo, I got a note from Mariah to meet her for dinner at Von Eberts. So after getting the mail and some packages (including more fresh bagels from NYC–Thanks, Joyce), I headed in slow traffic to Von Eberts. It took me forty minutes to get there and park. I got there just after Mariah sat down at table 13. We had beers and were shocked by terrible wings. No longer are the wings smoked, and the wings are no longer so good that the chickens volunteer. This was more prison chicken wings, ugh; now they serve emaciated and over-salted and sugared deep-fried culinary accidents. We will not be back for that. The beer was good still, and the help was more friendly (trying to make up for the lousy food, I thought).
Two beers left me dizzy, and I walked to Powell’s and walked through the giant bookstore until I felt normal. I managed to resist the cookbooks and a book on shipwrecks. I then found Air Volvo and headed home after paying the parking bill.
It is wet, and my pumpkins are still lit by the coin cells and LEDs. I wrote the blog, still lamenting the loss of such great wings.
Thanks for reading.
Alohawild (Michael Wild's) Website 