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Out the DoorInjections... are the best thing ever invented for feeding doctors. Wednesday, November 11, 1998
The Most Expensive Batch File in the World: Of course, things come up at the last minute when you want to get out of the office in a timely manner! In midafternoon I heard from a program manager I work with on stuff for the internal team website: we needed to make a change on an internal webpage that lists daily builds of the product I work on. But he wasn't quite ready to do it right then, and I had a meeting at three, so I said I'd call him when I was back at my desk. He arrives and we start implementing the change that's needed. Of course, the intended solution doesn't work because of <tech>, and <tech>, and stuff. Other team members arrive and start standing in the hall as he and I try different things. Calls are put in to various developers who are experts in certain areas. Security, our ignorance of ASP pages, lack of knowledge of a database we use, and the time factor all combine to make us choose an ugly hack. In fact, we call the directory we create to implement the solution to our problem, "hack". All this, because folks who were installing this special version of our program didn't want to reboot twice as part of the setup process. What babies! Acutally, we ended up not using a batch file at all, but a LNK file, but that doesn't make such a catchy phrase!
I got a flu shot this afternoon, I think for the first time! I remember when I first I heard of a person not in a high-risk category getting such a shot, in the early nineties, and thinking they were doing something slightly improper. But I don't want to get the flu, and have to take time off and lose money and not work. I'd been intending to drop by the grocery store or other local places where they were doing these, but I kept missing out, or forgetting about it. So when email came around saying that this was happening in a conference room down the hall, I hurried on over. I was amused when one of the developers in line mis-filled out the form, writing everything on the line below the intended one. He said plaintively, "I don't think they give you enough room for your signature," as he crammed it in between the last line of the form and the border that surrounded the entire area. Even after he realized his error, he didn't want to fill the form out again. When it was my turn, we actually had to close the conference room door and draw the blinds in the relight (the little glass area next to the door). Of all days to be wearing a long-sleeve shirt! And it wouldn't pull up all the way to my shoulder. It's actually one of my favorites -- black, and on the front is the word "Variety" copied illegally from the magazine logo, followed by a list of the products shipped by the Variety team in 1993. On the back is the charming phrase, "So long, and thanks for all the shrimp!" This relates to a debate current at Microsoft at the time, the shrimp vs. weenies controversy. Too much luxury! Too much being spent on nonessential like ship parties! So since this shirt was produced when they re-org'd the Variety team out of existence (it was part of the multimedia publishing group) this variation on the "Hitchhikers" phrase went on the back. So we closed the door and drew the blinds and I took off my shirt for the injection. I had my choice between a needle and an airgun, and chose the airgun, since I'd never had an injection via that method. "When choosing between two evils, I always like to pick the one I never tried before," as Mae West said in a movie. It still did sting a bit, but not too bad. The nurse said it's really the vaccine that you feel in either case; the needle is too thin! I did get the expected soreness in my upper arm, but no further side effects. It didn't impede my dancing at all tonight.
So I'm done with work until next Tuesday! Tomorrow I'm getting my permanent crown put on, then I need to get ready for Orycon. I'm totally psyched! |
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