Updates, updates, updates

At the risk of offending Dylan with a mundane writing style reminiscent of Schrodinger's Catsup, this is what's up with me---

Life has finally settled down with the marketing release of Quicken Home Inventory [premiermanagerwhatever]. The name they finally settled on was Quicken Home Inventory Manager but it was kicked around and around for a couple of months.

Regardless, the installer was released with a couple of hitches and a lot of late, late nights drinking pop, coffee, watermelon juice, whatever it took to keep my synapses firing.

At the end of last week, Kim took Lillian and Nicholas on a camping trip with her parents to give me room to finish what needed to be finished.

As it turned out, that was documentation which was typed out laboriously in the living room of my townhouse, with TRON, The Hulk, and I-Poddius blaring in the background. (Not all at once, for sure.)

So, QHIM went away (sort of) with a whimper, rather than a mad rush of activity. Unfortunately, the installer shipped with a known issue that will have to be fixed in a future release, despite the fact that I discovered and repaired the bug before the product shipped. Fortunately, I will be staying with QHIM (probably) for the 1.1 release that will likely take place in November.

With that bitter taste in my mouth, I received a little bit of a spanking by way of “areas for growth” where I was told that I needed to be aware how important it was, on code-freeze day, to be available, and also how important it was for me to have been available on the weekend of that code-freeze, to fix the bug (that shipped with the release). I stood my ground, contending that I was available by phone all weekend and that I had slated 6 hours on Saturday for work, which I spent on some externalization design, rather than the bug. If they’d called me Saturday, or even Friday, when they discovered that the bug hadn’t gone away with my most recent attempt at a fix, it would have been dealt with in time, and the installer would have been more acceptable.

I’m not trying to deflect blame – I accept my failure to properly fix the bug and my lack of follow-up when dealing with QA but I am not wholly to blame. My bosses understood my point of view and accepted that and even rewarded me with a Spotlight Award (see previous post) and a comp day off, which I will use on Friday, to do taxes, change the oil in the car and renew my driver’s license.

In non-work news, Lillian is a crawling monster. Rather than rocking back and forth on her hands and knees, and crying out of frustration, she’s actually motoring around the floor, crying when whatever she’s found to get into is taken from her.

Nick has finished another season of soccer, and I completed my first year as an assistant coach. The year was wrapped up at Chuck E. Cheese, where the Skeeballs rolled and I was presented with a Coach shirt and gift certificates for Tim Horton’s and Red Lobster. It was a good season but there was something missing that made last season great. Kim and I used the Red Lobster card for supper when she got back from camping.

Biking to work continues and I’ve even managed to shed some weight. I played soccer, helped cubicle-mate-Dave move and threw the ball around with Sean “King Kong Awesome” Woods, and by Saturday, everything was back to normal. A faster-than-usual recovery for my creaky body.

As a final note, Serenity, the movie based off the series Firefly, was amazing. I’ve never watched Firefly, but I didn’t feel the lack. I just enjoyed the amazing characters and the fun storyline. “You’ve spent your entire life taking care of me. My turn.” - that’s the best line I’ve heard in a very long time.

---End of update… until next time