Another one bites the dust...................

Weekend, that is. A very busy one made even more difficult by a severe attack of the trots and the birthday of a grandson. Samuel having reached the grand old age of seven, we had a bit of a do on Monday for him with a trip to our local "Jump" to tire out the younger ones and kill a couple of hours before we had our cake and returned the birthday boy to his mum. The day was not improved by the weather, drizzly and chilly, but we managed to stay cheerful. We all got our respective gifts correct, it would seem from the exited squeals and jumping up and down that went on. The Robosapian  went down a treat and was played with by all three boys on a fairly continuous basis while they were in it's presence. The animals simply ignored it and walked around it sedately, even Alfie couldn't be fussed.

Only a week late.....................

According to the original plan, I had two days to produce the master spreadsheet for this project. That was seven working days ago and I think I am lucky to have made it as far as I have by today. The data I am working with is mostly incorrect and the database itself is very flaky. In addition, I found I needed to produce the spreadsheet from several sources - all on different platforms. I have managed, today to integrate the two disparate sections of the master Access database, the Red Dot list from another Excel spreadsheet and various items from Word documents into a coherent whole in such a way that we can now update by hand once a day if necessary and gradually improve the accuracy of the thing. My greatest joy is that I have taken a five thousand plus item database and reduced it to just two sheets of A4 in order to make the system simpler and more accurate. Whilst feeling fairly pleased with myself, I just know someone is bound to say, "That's OK, but can we do this"? aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh!

Moving right along,

just very slowly.

The new job, or project to be more precise, is finally beginning to take on some shape and form. The requirements and methods have been refined and I am now producing useful information.

Well, sort of. The original problem with the database still stands, it's too big, too flaky and only runs on Win XP. I have moved my old PC over to the new office and I now have four screens to work with. I occasionally get lost! I have printed off many pages of data pro-tem and I even have two bound sets now. Still, the amount of data needed is becoming smaller at last and by refining my methods I have begun to understand the big picture at long last.

Whilst all this has been going on, life at home has been slow and sleepy. Hazel and I are rising early, in the dark, and going to bed early, in the dark, and not doing much else other than eat. We are waiting for her to leave work and then we can order the new bed and mattress and she will be at home to accept them. Until then, we continue to complain about not sharing a bed despite both being very comfortable in the beds we are sleeping in.

Everything hurts!!!

Especially my brain.
It was a very busy weekend yet again with me driving all over the place and grandsons visiting willy-nilly. The boiler problem is nearly solved with a new flue paid for and soon to be installed. duvet has arrived and we now only need to order the bed and mattress to be fully sleep worthy again. To be honest, we had almost given up hope of sleeping comfortably in our own bed again but it might not be very long now.

For a week that started so well,

what a total dogs breakfast it's turned out to be!

I am beginning to get on top of the various data streams that I need to access in order to run this new task I have been given. However, due to the flaky nature of the master database, it's proving an uphill struggle still.

At home, the problems continue with our boiler nearly being condemned this morning. It turns out it's not the boiler at fault but the top half of the flue that's causing the system to fail. John, our builder is frantically trying to obtain another one. This might be difficult as the whole system is obsolete. If we cannot obtain a new flue, we will have to go for a new boiler.................................

The new bedding has arrived for the, as yet, not ordered bed and mattress. We have had a great offer from Lulu and Ian to come and house sit for us when the bed and mattress are due so we can order them earlier than we originally thought.

And again!

More of the same today, I have had to remote into my old XP box in order to work on the database, find umpteen links to the various data sources we may have to use and have a meeting of the four of us supposed to be involved in this job. Of the four, I'm the only one with tech skills and experience of the methodology involved. sigh.

On the plus side, they are all quick learners and keen to do well so no problems there. The biggest problem will be the flaky database and the parts that are there but not changeable by my log in. The rest of the equation pales into insignificance in comparison.

On the personal side, I have ordered my new specs, the new duvet and two sets of bedding for the new bed.

Even better, the cost of the lot was less than £100.00.

Great!

Just when I thought I was clear of the 'dam thing, the PD5 database comes back to haunt me.

When I arrived at my desk this morning, I found an email from my boss asking me to meet up with him as soon as possible. I managed to get to his office by 08.45 and he grabbed me immediately to let me know his latest plans for me. Now, I'd be the first to admit that I'm somewhat flattered by the trust being placed in me with all this but the fact remains that I have even more work to do with the database from hell. Just as an aside, within the past hour he came back and asked me to do another job related to the PD5 database. Between the two, they may well keep me occupied until Christmas.

Add to all this that I have had to move my desk across to Babbage and I am now using a new laptop running Win7 instead of my trusty old desktop with XP and it boils down to one helluva day.

Spooky!!!

My last post was about how much work I had on the go....................... Today, almost nothing.

My weekend was busy, fitting new lights in kitchen, buying new bedroom carpet, having eye test for new specs, returning Samuel home, buying new shoes and fixing the main internet feed after it was broke!

Saturday evening was chaotic with both Russ and I having problems with software and getting through three different video chat programs before we could get one to work. I'm sure it wasn't us, the problems were so dissimilar. I was chatting to Ian yesterday and we got on to the subject of Jimmy Savile, we both felt that, despite the anger at what it seems he did, we also felt very saddened about the fact that a large part of our happy memories have now been tainted for ever. Indeed, as Ian said, the only person completely untouched by this is Savile himself.

Another week, another dollar.

You may have guessed from the almost total lack of output this week that I am having a busy spell at present. At work, we were inundated with logs and at home family commitments and building work had to take priority. The end result was a complete lack of creative writing and little or no blogging. I suspect that this will be the format of my life up until Christmas now.

I hope I get some time to myself this weekend as I need to re-install the cable TV system in the bedroom and then check out the whole coax run to be certain what is causing my poor internet connection.

A case in point! Between these two paragraphs, I have remoted into another PC and set up his printer. This is happening all the time now and probably will until after Christmas.

Sent from my smart phone, please excuse the brevity.

No, not a serious message. I just ran a test yesterday to see how easy it is to log in to someone else's WiFi and blog. The logging in was easy, the blogging would have been tedious so I just left a place marker and pulled out again. That's why, today, I am writing a piece for yesterday.

I am having some problems with my Internet connection at home, with what appears to be a dodgy connection somewhere. I have isolated it to the Virgin side of the house system but that's as far as I have reached so far. As I am not currently in a position to check the cable TV connection, I am having a bit of a struggle finding the weak spot at present but I will get there eventually.

FAQ

Q. Did you enjoy your holiday?

A. Not a lot, the best bit was spending time with Hazel. The worst bit was the rest!

Q. Surely there must have been some other good stuff?

A. Fair enough, we spent some time with our good friends and we re-visited places we had been happy and we ate some good meals and some prices were very low compared to the UK.

Q. But?

A. But Malta was in the middle of a minor heat wave, the air conditioning in our apartment didn't work and the temperature overnight rarely dropped below 85 Fahrenheit the whole time we were there.

Q. But isn't Malta currently having a major make-over to upgrade the islands?

A. True, the roads are all up and the new bus system is all up and running. Also, it seems all non Maltese are being gently pushed into just two areas on the main island. We were in what amounted to a slum for Brits. Most of the shops have hired British staff or are run by Brits so all you hear are northern or estuary English most of the time. The rest of the islands have Maltese owning and staffing them and they all now seem to be moving away from using English if they can, not that I blame them!