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.