Mizblog

I know it’s starting to sound like a broken record (remember those?) but I’m pretty stressed out. I’m preparing for a major business presentation of our software and it still looks ugly. I’ve got to get it looking presentable by tomorrow.

Stress!

I got a UPS yesterday. Well, truth be told I got it Sunday, but I had to charge up the batteries overnight so I couldn’t use it until yesterday. It’ll run both my computers for a half hour if we lose power. I hope that’s long enough for me to get ’em shut down properly.

My hands are still pretty sore. I still type using the eraser ends of pencils, but it doesn’t help very much. I’m feeling consequently less than eloquent so this entry is done.

Today I tried to convert a Sun workstation to act as a DHCP client and ended up corrupting the boot sector. I remember reading the instructions for doing this on the Sun website and thinking “this doesn’t seem too difficult…”.

Heh. Yeah.

So after that Sangeeta and I went to Melrose and looked at all the alternative clothing stores. Then we went to The Grove/Farmers Market and looked around there for a while. Forgot all about computers for a few hours.

I hate computers.

It’s late. It’s Africa late. Tarzan couldn’t take this kind of late.

I can’t sleep so I’m testing and debugging my code. Refining the design. Feeling really bad inside, like I’m going to fall apart. I need sleep but can’t have it.

I hate this.

So, time to wrap up the weekend’s activities.

On Friday a Sun Ultra 10 was delivered to me. I got it set up and running on Saturday, and bought a network cable for it on Sunday.

I spent a good deal of effort programming. I made all sorts of progress. Many of my projects are nearing completion at the same time. How exciting!

I went walking with Sangeeta yesterday. Saw all the nice houses near our neighborhood. I’m hoping the impending global economic collapse won’t affect me negatively (haha, yeah right).

My hands are getting used to being a little sore. It keeps me from typing too much. Putting the games where I can’t reflexively retreat to them has increased my productivity as well as sparing my hands some pain.

The code I’ve been struggling with over the last couple weeks has been tidied, bundled, and uploaded. Finally! A moment’s peace while the testers flood me with bug reports.

Come to think of it, this is all I’ve really been doing since I started hosting my own blog! Time for a change of pace, I think…

It happened as I was struggling with an extension to a wordframe. The phone rang. It was the boss. Seems next week’s meetings have been postponed for a month.

*whew*

Now I have time to do a decent programming job on this thing. Give it some polish. Make sure it doesn’t crash. Figure out why it sometimes turns yellow. That sort of thing.

It just gets worse and worse. Everything comes to a head at the same time.

I’ve got a big presentation to support next week. We need a new feature to show off in our product. I’m working like a dog trying to get it to look nice. It’s slowly coming together, but it’s taking a lot out of me.

I’m also supposed to pick up a computer for my friend and god-brother-in-law twice removed (or whatever) so I can write some code for him. Problem is, it’s been delayed so long that I’ve become swamped by other things. It always seems to happen this way for some reason. Struggling with the Indian-made software that doesn’t work and getting no technical support from its authors for weeks! Then it was a struggle to get the working machine from another company, and they delayed and dragged their feet some more. Now it’s my turn, dammit.

So, the end of the week is finally here.

Unfortunately, my program is not yet done. Sure I have until next Friday to finish it. The Monday after that, if I want to push it. Maybe even Tuesday, depending on scheduling outside my control. Still, I was hoping for a free weekend. ;)

The hands are slightly better since yesterday. I’m trying not to push it.

It was a good day for my programming. I’ve done all the data loading, initializing, storing, randomizing, maintaining, and accessing for word problems. All I have to do tomorrow is draw them on the screen. :)

My hands still feel sore but I worked all day and they aren’t dead yet. I took lots of breaks. I also removed the shortcuts to my Micro$oft games! Those things are the targets of my reflexive “this is getting too much to handle” response.