Quietly making progress...

I must have finally caught up on my sleep, because I felt much more awake today than I have in a long time. Either that, or something in my internal chemistry rebalanced itself. Either way, a productive day, getting a number of small but necessary tasks taken care of. One piece of work presents itself, and I dive into it with gusto. Much ick is removed from the washing machine (this particular washer has a known problem with mildew on the door gasket - not any longer).

This evening's adventure: The Trans-Siberian Orchestra, a.k.a A Big, Loud Rock Show With Fire And LASERs. These guys are SO METAL IT HURTS. And I mean neither of these things in a bad way.

The show was a lot of fun, though I was in tears with laughter at the opening - a grand, potential Spın̈al Tap moment as three of the principals descend from the rafters on small, lit platforms. All I could think of was a TSO version of Derek Smalls stuck 12 feet off the stage for the entire concert. It was an all-around fun evening, and some genuinely inspiring moments of musicianship, especially from the vocalists (who were underutilized, in my opinion).

Now, to bed and back to the work grind tomorrow. I do find myself in the enviable position of not having to work a full week for the remainder of the year, with a few days of vacation still to use up.

Unknown caller...

After morning routines and greetings out to the community, a day completely off. This included watching The Stand, and a nap interrupted several times by phone calls from "Unknown Caller". I really don't like that guy.

Post-Thanksgiving relaxation...

So a late rise after a very long day yesterday. The day's events include:

- Finshing the soup base from yesterday's turkey. Skim off the fats and aspic that have risen to the surface, add more water and a bit of seasoning, and the broth and meat have taken shape. A little more time to cook down and intensify the flavors, and we'll be good to go with about a gallon and a half of soup.
- Making another batch of gravy for the leftovers. Gravy has always been a weak point of mine, and after talking with my mother yesterday, I learned that I had been going about it backwards. So now I know, make a roux from the fat, add in the drippings and any other liquids, season and voila!
- Finish installing the sink in the upstairs bathroom. I'm doing this as a temporary install, as the vanity needs to be repainted. Until my wife is ready to do that (and paint the rest of the bathroom), the new vanity is going in so we have a functioning bathroom. We've been without this bathroom since Kerry moved in - I'm not waiting any longer.
- General laziness in between bursts of activity. Mostly, this involves watching Anthony Bourdain. Talked with the in-laws yesterday about No Reservations and Bizarre Foods. I like both, but prefer Bourdain to Zimmern. They are the opposite. My wife and I discuss some ideas as to why that might be.

So, I finally leapt into Facebook this week. Not that I don't have enough other places to track my network (including LinkedIn), but this environment has the potential to suck away a lot more of my time. The Twitter-like feature was a surprise, and I'm beginning to see why it's attractive to people.

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A last trip to the grocery store for some soup veggies (leeks, carrots and chinese peas), and some bread to go with the left-over squash soup. Turkey soup is now complete, bathroom is as well, and it's time to kick back.

Thanksgiving Day...

11 people for dinner (of 16 possible). Menu for the day, a break with my "tradition" of not having turkey on Thanksgiving:

Pre-dinner:
Bacon wrapped figs with maple glaze
Butternut squash soup
Crab dip (from Kerry's parents)

Dinner:
1 17 lb turkey + 6 lb
1 6 lb duck
Olive oil & rosemary roasted tri-color potatoes (all from this year's garden)
White sweet potato filled filo shells (from the sister/nieces)
Chicken sausage & mirepoix stuffing
Chilled asparagus with olive oil, lemon, onion and panchetta
Cranberry sauce (from Kerry)

Dessert:
Tiramisu cake
Chocolate pudding pie (from the mother-in-law)

You'd better take care...

Actually, nothing on the internal radio this morning, but a quick thought back on yesterday's 70's FM extravaganza triggers a few other songs. Gordon makes another visit (Sundown, The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald), Barry Manilow (Her name was Lola...), Foghat (Slow Ride! Double sleazy...), and ELO (You got me runnin' goin' out of my mind, bow dow dow dow...). If I had any indie cred, it would be gone by now.

In to work at a reasonable time this morning. Some lingering issues in QA led to a 6:30 AM call this morning. I was already awake, essentially, but this forced the issue. A relatively quiet day, all the releases from this week have settled in, and a few outstanding items to address. Pass on an opportunity to go out after work - having gone out last night, if I can get out earlier today, I need to get a few things done while there's at least a little light out.

Carefree highway

Sometimes the damndest things are in your head when you wake up. This morning it was Gordon Lightfoot's Carefree Highway, and Jethro Tull's Cheap Day Return. No comment on the former, and as to the latter, well, I still like that album.

Rise at 4:45 to pee and have a flash of worry about the run last night. There are three sets of runs for each night. broken into two groups. The first set of three completed without issue - this was expected, since we really hadn't changed much in this grouping. I remembered as I awoke that I had seen elements of 2 groups of the second set come back, but nothing from the third. The flash was that perhaps it had been submitted to the grid, but hadn't actually run due to some error. Got down to the laptop to check, and lo - everything had run and completed on time. From my initial assessment, it appears that the entire release was clean. This for the first time since I've been here, so not a minor event.

Take care of the pets, then back up to bed for a quick doze that turns into almost two hours. Up, morning routines and into work. Final check of runs look good to me, a couple of things brought up by the customer, the major item being clearly explainable and not requiring any further work on our part. So, closer now to consensus on this being a very successful release. Now, on to the next item in the pipeline. Of course, these QA runs are delayed. Even in normal times, this time of year the compute grid is pretty well maxed out. Given the current market, every single cycle on every single node is being used as capital estimates, reserve calculations and all manner of actuarial, financial and accounting calculations are being done to ensure that we're using the money we have in the best way possible.

Down to Orange Ale House for a reunion of sorts with former and current Bayer people. A good turnout, new updates on everyone's status, a few people not only healthier but far slimmer than the last time we all met. Overall, a good time.

Home, address a QA issue, acknowledge the AAD team, then to bed.

Please release me...

So, despite all of our (unintentional) efforts to the contrary, we managed to release our updates today in a remarkably painless action. We're finally (after a year of my being here) getting a process down to ensure a smooth release: better quality testing beforehand, release script testing (always a breaking point), post-release verification. I can take some credit for this, but for the extra push given to me by my manager. Daily check-in calls over the past week helped ensure everyone was still on task. You'd hope that wouldn't be necessary at this point in their professional lives (and the past year of painful releases should have been encouragement enough), but in the end, hand-holding and baby-sitting it the primary qualification I need to see this through. That said, I seem to need that same level of help to get through it.

Our company invites vendors to set up in the lobby of the building and ply their wares. Today I got the chance to indulge in two key therapies: retail therapy and chocolate therapy, the latter in the form of dark chocolate covered espresso beans. Just the thing for a low energy afternoon leading to a release.

In the non-day-job world, trying to get a couple of cords of wood delivered to get us through the first months of winter. I have close to two cords split and on the deck outside, but though it was cut down last spring, it's been on the ground and I just split it. Water content is still a little high to burn (25-30%; recommended is below 20%), so I need more to get me through. I have a feeling we'll be burning heavily this year. This house is a bear to heat and pretty expensive, even keeping the thermostats at 60°. In the meantime, I'm bringing in some of the "wet" wood to put on the radiant-heat floor in the sun room. I'm keeping the plants and one cat warm, so why not use the heat to dry things out?

It looks to be windy, cold and dry for the weekend, so I should be able to get leaves done before pickup starts next week. I do like this town: we still actually have leaf pick-up in the fall.

Take a moment to send good wishes to the AAD team. The agenda for the rest of the evening: Top Chef, some final checks on the evening post-release production runs, and then bed.

Refocus

Rise at 6:15, with a kitten perched on my chest licking my nose. Normal morning routines, good wishes to the AAD.

To work with a bit more focus this morning. First half of the work day in meetings addressing last night's discovery and resolution. Work through lunch to get out meeting minutes, document the chages and reset expectations.

Struggling with detachment at a certain level. It's very easy for me to fixate on things like this and let the emotions dominate me to a point where I lose sight of the aim. Sometimes, it's OK, but I don't believe it is this time. Spent a bit of the morning talking my BA down off the proverbial ledge regarding the same thing. How to maintain balance between focusing on the issue and preventing its recurrence, and letting things go enough so that they can keep moving forwards?

Where does the time go when it's not around here?

Begin the day more deliberately than usual in some respects: feet hitting the floor, acknowledging the work that begins today in the AAD, though I am unable to participate directly. Something also missing: forget to package up and freeze some soup I made last night, no real consciousness on the drive in, mind not even wandering - just going into some thoughtless dead-zone. If the last was intentional (and not while driving) it might have been worthwhile.

Monday greets me with a small service level hit: delay in a production process with a cause that should have been caught yesterday after a scheduled reboot. These simple things continue to elude us.

Checking on the QA runs from the weekend, and results line up as expected. Barring some disaster, we release tomorrow. I have some confidence in this going cleanly, but history continues to temper any optimism I have.

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So, not a disaster, but another delay. One set of parameters were input incorrectly and need to be adjusted. Another small item that could have been caught if we were more attentive. Pecked to death by ducks.

Home in the evening, clean up the forgotten soup, make left-over sauce with bread and fresh mozzarella. Crank the wood stove up again, as the weather is shifting back to late-autumn, early-winter this eveining.