Entries this day: procrastination

procrastination

7:04pm CST Tuesday 8 January 2002

I've slacked long enough. Gotta finish this project for Dow tonight. I handled a customer service type call earlier and went boasting into Karla's office, "I hate customer service, but I'm a genius at it!" She agreed I am great with the customers and asked what genius I did for them, etc. Then she said she hates being project manager but she still does it. Erg. Fuck. Durn tootin' she's right. I have not project managed my own projects because I just hate it. She enables me to not do it; I don't know if I'd survive working here if I had to project manage. At the same time, Karla shouldn't have to put up with my bullshit of not getting all the shit done and having to ask her multiple times for specs.

I felt guilty as shit, and I know she didn't mean it that way.

It's 7:09PM. I've just been at home and back (second time I went home today. First time I came here I brought my canvas and everyone enjoyed it. I loved all the different things people saw, including a dragon, a tornado, a chicken, a whale. Just like cloud shapes.

Then I left and came back riding my unicycle. Nice.

Then I left for a bit and talked to the guys pouring cement and I got to write my name in it with a nail. ("ROB! 8 JAN 2002") Awesome.

Then I just went back home) to trade my unicycle in for my bike.

So now I'm shall embark on a NIN din as I code this sucker.

7:39pm

Aw fuck. I didn't remember I still have to design a user interface and code that.

Fuck fuck fuck.

8:59pm

Uh oh. This is looking bad. My mind is beginning to stray. The din finished.

9:55pm

Things are looking okay-ish, I think. I'm able to tell if I need to convert someone to a participant, or if they are already a participant. Still need to save the data and check for errors though. There is more to do, I think, but I can't think of it right now.

I'm heating some soup.

I'm eating some soup.

Mmmm good soup.

11:44pm

Soup is long gone. My brain may be with it.

I have begun testing this screen on two different projects at the same time. I had hardcoded some values that should not have been, and this testing revealed those. The data is being saved partially.

Right now the issue is knowing how to update the participant information. This is dependent on if the person is already a participant, and if the admin is just changing the class_number XOR survey_type or class_number AND survey_type.

4:01am Wednesday 9 January 2002

I just took a four hour nap. Little bit groggy, throat and sinuses so dry. I'm thankful that Karla negotiated an extension for us (me).

4:06am

Oh yes; brain is much more alert. I GGP though.

6:51am

Tired-ish again, but I've gotten most of the user interface written. The AND / XOR problem is solved with it.

There's a strange glow on the eastern horizon.

Hungry. More soup. :-)

10:49am

I'm back in the nin din mode the fragile: right. I've worked some, went home and showered, went to Wende's to get a trunk off a tall shelf and show her investment club stuff.

Got back to work and handled a CSR thing and fixed some questions in a dataset. I don't know if the specs were changed or what.

1:10pm

I just went home and took a 30 minute nap. Got back and our system is off. The electrical circuit controlling all our servers is dee ee ay dee dead.

Kevin went to purchase extension cords. I don't know where Karla is.

Ironies:

1) The individual workstations are up and running fine.

2) I had just recently asked that we invite an electrician in to make sure we weren't overloading stuff.

3) We had an electrician in and he said we were not.

Ass:

Dennis just recently (after the fact) said loudly, "I knew that we were overloading them; I knew that electrician was wrong!"

Fuckin fuck you Dennis and shut up. If you knew it, why didn't you say it? Why even consider bragging about it, cause it makes you look like a liar, or intentionally withholding important information.

1:15pm

I just heard the radio crackle of a building maintenance guy.

oh shit Karla just got in. Does she know? She didn't know.

5:24pm

So the power outage wasn't so horrible; my machine never lost power. I'm pretty close to finished with this crunch. I'm going to go to bed for a few hours and come back around 9 or 10pm.

9:45pm

Back to work.

11:59pm Wednesday 9 January 2002

I think I've finished the coding for promoting participants to the next level. Just doing some testing on it and it appears all good.

1:47am Thursday 10 January 2002

Oops. It was not all good, but now it's all good. I have just checked off item 1 from my list of 5 items to do tonight. Hopefully the rest will go a lot faster than 4 hours each. :-)

3:42am

Just finished and tested item 2 of 5.

That's all for coding. The next three steps are related to moving the code and datasets online.

3:54am

Step 3 of 5 is finished. (compare supporting datasets between my test machine and the live staging machine)

4:16am

Step 4 of 5 is finished: move new G3 source code online. (there were only 2 new macros.)

5:51am

Frickin' frack, it's not working. I moved the macros and datasets online, carefully making sure all their parts were in working order. But there's something else not working. I have a guess as to what it is.

During this time I have also been bouncing emails with a woman in Europe, helping her get her feedback entered.

I'm hungry again.

6:41am

I have not been able to resolve the problem moving stuff online. I have emailed a help-request to Kevin, and emailed our client that it's going to be a bit later than AAM. Kevin usually gets in around 10am. That's when I'll come back. Bedtime now.

10:10am

Back at work. Kevin's not here yet. My brain remembers how to fix one of the errors I was seeing.

10:50am

Fixed!!!!

I had forgotten to move online a macro called "nothing"

%macro nothing;
%mend;

This macro is critical to the operation of this project. It allows pointers to macros point to it thereby removing their functionality. The macro is called and nothing happens, just as required.

11:11am

I've tested all the functionality and it all works. I'm closing this journal entry now.

Yay for finishing this project!