Not Done with 2004 Just Yet

[mbarrick]

I had great drunken fun on New Year's Eve, complete with requisite idiotic behaviour, but I'm not quite done with 2004 just yet. This coming Wednesday I get to once again travel to that hub of cosmopolitan wonder that is Vernon to make a presentation upon which my continued employment is riding the the balance. The temptation to arrive, red Swingline stapler in hand, and state emphatically that "I have people skills" is a rather large one. As it is I'm taking it a bit more seriously and I've spent the last couple weeks reading way to much crap about "Total Cost of Ownership" and other nonsense made up by marketing weasels to counter the Luwak coffee the MCSE Ph.D. will be regurgitating. All this to try and convince idiots that a company that believes in February 29th, 1900 is not to be trusted with enterprise level applications (Try this experiment: type 60 in a field in Microsoft Excel for Windows. Change the cell format to "date" and it will come out as February 29, 1900. 1900 was not a leap year! This and other fine software from the people that brought you EDLIN...).

For those of you still in university, this is it: this is where you get to apply your liberal arts degree. This exercise trying to find a way to impart some notion of the real world neatly packaged in point form on the denizens of Plato's cave has felt exactly like doing the research for a thesis presentation. At least this time I am getting paid for it.

Other than Saturday, which I pretty much lost to a hangover and sleep deprivation, I've spent my entire long weekend sitting at my desk working on this damned presentation. I'll put the final touches on it tomorrow before I am off to spend two hours in the dentist's chair getting a temporary crown. The fun never stops around here.

Basically all this is making me feel very much like a grumpy, middle-aged man. Once the pressure is off, regardless of which way the decision goes, I am resolved (and this is not a "New Year's Resolution" - the timing is coincidental) to get a lot more Bohemianism back in my life.

Comments

[http://users.livejournal.com/_disdain_/]

"All this to try and convince idiots that a company that believes in February 29th, 1900 is not to be trusted with enterprise level applications..."

My personal favorite from the past month involves Microsoft SQL Server 2000. One day I fired up Performance Monitor to take a look at the SQL Server Queue and Processes for any performance bottlenecks, and found a rather alarming figure: 400,000+ SQL processes were running. Thinking to myself something along the lines of "Holy f***ing SHIT!" (all the while the rational side of me saying "there's no WAY this is possible"), I decided to do a little research on the particular counter producing the results. The official word from Microsoft: don't use the Server Queue counter, it has a bug and produces erroneous results. Nice.

Best of luck with the presentation -- give the MS Weenie a big kick in the ass if you get a chance ;-)

"...to get a lot more Bohemianism back in my life." Couldn't have said it better myself. I love computers and technology, but the "burn out factor" is pretty high.

amen...

[seymour-glass.livejournal.com]

there aren't enough bohemians in this world...

[mediavictim.livejournal.com]

"complete with requisite idiotic behaviour"

I love you Ryan ....awwww I am ignoring Ryan...hic...(buries his head in Ryans shouler and gives him a big hug)... I will talk to Ry..... (trails off) ...who'sat? Quin?....


You were ever so amusing on New Years