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Off to SA tomorrow for two weeks. Haven't packed yet and can only reserve seats tomorrow at 1910. It is manic here at the office. A customer in Europe needs to submit a tax file today and he's on leave for a week once he has done so. I might not have fixed his second problem with it by end of play this afternoon. Our team leader is back from leave on Monday and I don't want to bog him down with sketchy evidence of a problem he'd rather not want to look at. Our European support contact who normally looks after these things is on leave for a week and the tax authorities won't take it too kindly if we're late with the submission. The odds are bloody marvelous that everyone who knows a little and something about it are all on leave at the same time and two people coming back who don't. Our customer has literally thrown me a curved ball which says of the two problems, one might need some follow up and the second one defies logic. 1500, two hours to go. Right now, I see a train smash and I'm frantically trying to document the problem and resolutions. It doesn't help having some 5000+ transactions each of which has an encrypted signature which feed from one to another and you can't insert a card in the deck so to speak. Princess is in the mall and will probably only pack after midnight when I want to get a last decent kip before we leave. My boss wants to know if I'll be contactable but what do I do? I was kind of hoping today would have been a smooth row across still water but all I see is dark clouds, heavy seas, I have a broken oar, taking on water, search parties looking for me elsewhere, piranhas on one side, flipping crocodiles on the other. Another confirmation has just arrived from the customer, to paraphrase, "the operation was a success but the patient died." Bassstard. Double bassstard. 
If there is one thing more dangerous than getting between a bear and her cubs it's getting between my wife and her chocolate.
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Hope you enjoy San Antonio, South America, South Africa, St Augustine or wherever you're going. It supposed to rain in San Antonio the next day or two.
CQ de W5ALT
Walt Fair, Jr., P. E.
Comport Computing
Specializing in Technical Engineering Software
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SA in this case is South Africa. A longed-for break to catch up with family and old mates. It's springtime there and b-i-l said it had been about 25 deg C for a few weeks but some snow might fall on the higher peaks which is where we're spending a week. Brrrrrr. He also has timeshare in a small but very remote game farm. What makes it special is that long ago the committee decided there'd be no TVs, no cell phone masts, no cable or other internet. Bliss. The silence will be deafening. They apparently had leopard in the area a few weeks back which is rare. The nearest town to the place is about 50km away on roads that see but a handful of cars on a busy day. They've already bought the steaks, beers and wine.
If there is one thing more dangerous than getting between a bear and her cubs it's getting between my wife and her chocolate.
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bon voyage !
Google CEO, Erich Schmidt: "I keep asking for a product called Serendipity. This product would have access to everything ever written or recorded, know everything the user ever worked on and saved to his or her personal hard drive, and know a whole lot about the user's tastes, friends and predilections." 2004, USA Today interview
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I came to share something with you mates here. But the fellow CPian- Chris Elston's status message moved me. Moved enough to make me forget what I wanted to share here.
Never mind, I'll give it a try later some time. regards to Chris Elston again! 
Starting to think people post kid pics in their profiles because that was the last time they were cute - Jeremy.
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You mean it was so long you'd completely forgotten what you came here for long before you'd finished reading it 
“I believe that there is an equality to all humanity. We all suck.” Bill Hicks
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No, it's just the computer equivalent of Woking: "Standing in the kitchen wondering what you came in here for" (DNA, The Meaning of Liff
The only instant messaging I do involves my middle finger.
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In a way, yes, it was . By the time I could complete everyone's replies, The original message got overwritten swiftly. Very limited memory here, in unprotected mode.
Starting to think people post kid pics in their profiles because that was the last time they were cute - Jeremy.
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No matter how much memory I buy, I keep forgetting things.
Windows 8 is the resurrected version of Microsoft Bob. The only thing missing is the Fisher-Price logo.
- Harvey
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Before shelling out money on memory, we must check how much an 8 bit DOS on 8086 would support. 
Starting to think people post kid pics in their profiles because that was the last time they were cute - Jeremy.
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Most business owners sued by patent trolls don't talk about it to anyone other than their lawyer; a typical response is to cross one's fingers and hope the problem goes away. It won't, of course. Often they do the next best thing—hope it will go away for as little money as possible.
I'll see your claim and raise you a FOAD! 
Good story of fighting back.
speramus in juniperus
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Made my day.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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Good for him!
Who knows, maybe good for everybody!!! 
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Had no idea that patent trolling was so wide spread and so viscous. FOAD is to kind an expression for the likes of them.
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You could get the patent trolls whacked for a lot less than a million.
I'm just saying...
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by Chris Elston aged 38 and 346 365ths.
So yesterday morning I awoke at around half three with pain in my left forearm, a very strange feeling. I also had some pain in my ribs. I've had a bit of a cold all week.
Kept me awake for an hour or two, couldn't get comfortable, pain wouldn't ease at all.
When I awoke again with my alarm the pain had spread to my upper arm and the back of my shoulder, and the pain in my ribs was quite sharp when breathing in.
I set off for work, but the pain in my arm and chest was worse with the driving so as I was passing I dropped in to the local minor injuries unit (this is a small hospital with no doctors that you go to if you know what is wrong with you) so they could tell me there's not wrong, bugger off to work.
As expected when I reported my symptoms I was straight in and on a bed. I've turned up there with chest pains three times before, once was the onset of a nasty chest infection that laid me low for a couple of weeks, the second was a pulled rib muscle which hurt like elephant (like the elephant was sitting on me in fact), and the third was indegestiony (a friend of mine went to bed with 'indigestion' once and was found dead in bed the next morning.
Anyway, the ECG was swiftly administered after a crude chest shaving, and I was told I wasn't dying in the short term. Unusually for this hospital they also had a paramedic who went through various tests before the nurse said to him "right, let's go outside and discuss this". Thy came back in and said they were sending me off to the big hospital for some more tests, then went to phone for an ambulance from the office next door. As the nurse walked out she muttered something about "better open the blind so I can keep an eye on him".
At this point I phoned the wife to tell her I was off to hospital in the next town and where she could find the car. As I had mentioned nothing to her during the night or that morning her concern was tempered with pissed off ness.
The ambulance lady had just moved into a new housing estate near my allotment, and her husband is interested in one so we had a nice chat. Her son was at the primary school I'd gone to, and we'd been to the same secondary school. As they're wheeling me into the hospital I'm feeling like a massive fraud.
Onto a bed, another ECG and a student doctor comes over to take some blood. "It's ok, I've done loads of these but I need a signature each time I do at the moment" she explains before going to look for a senior enough nurse to supervise. The nurse arrives and says "What if they need a cannula later, you might as well o that now then use it to take the blood". Student Doctor says to me "It's ok, I've done this a few times before".
So, in goes the pointy bit, but she can't get it all the way in so the nurse has a shove and a wiggle before they decide there is a valve in the way in the vein they're in. Out it comes, then onto the other arm where they abandon the cannula idea and just take three vials of blood.
Then the wife turns up as another student doctor turns up to take the history. This is the first she has heard of the half three in the morning thing and lots of pointed looks are coming my way.
There I lay for an hour or so before SD2 turns up and says "We're concerned about the condition of your heart and a blood clot on your lung... But, try not to worry."
Try not to fing worry? I wasn't worried at all until then.
Wife leaves at this point, there is lots she needs to do. Turns out after leaving she had pretty much phoned my parents and boss up and told them I was screwed.
SD2 comes back again and says the lung clot test was clear, the heart test they have to wait three hours then take some more blood. Then I go off for a chest X-ray.
When the time comes for the next lot of blood SD2 turns up with a proper doctor. They have a look at the previous two holes and try to go back in the one on my left arm. After much really painful wriggling they give up and the doc makes a new hole in my right arm to get some.
A short while later he comes back and says that sample was no good for testing, and made another hole in my left arm for some more.
Just after three he comes back agin, says it is all clear, they're putting it down to the virus and I can go home.
Text the wife who is just picking our daughter up from school and says she will be straight over. The town where I am is about ten minutes from where she is, it's a nice day, so I start walking towards where she will come from.
Turns out there was a delay on the road, by the time we met I'd been walking for 45 minutes and was very hot, sweaty, and in quite a bit of pain gain. Queue another bollocking for not waiting at the hospital.
So today I am resting, feel like shite, but at least there is nothing wrong with me that shouldn't clear up on its own in a few days time.
“I believe that there is an equality to all humanity. We all suck.” Bill Hicks
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My family has been fairly resilient so far, my dad is 65 this year and recently started doing triathlons, my mum is the same age and fit and active, my gran is 89 and going strong. My dad's dad was apparently an alcoholic all his adult life (I never met him) and lasted into his seventies. My mum's mum died aged around 70, but she had been ill for a long time. My mum' dad who was 8 years younger than her died two weeks later of a broken heart, nothing actually wrong with him.
Biggest problem from yesterday is that I had a reaction to the glue on the sticky tape they used after taking the blood out so the inside of both arms is red and a bit tacky.
“I believe that there is an equality to all humanity. We all suck.” Bill Hicks
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Always insist they use Micropore[^] tape; it doesn't leave a residue and is hypoallergenic.
speramus in juniperus
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Nagy Vilmos wrote: Have a nice cup of Man The F_ck Up!
I think you'll find he needs Half a cup of harden up.
Michael Martin
Australia
"I controlled my laughter and simple said "No,I am very busy,so I can't write any code for you". The moment they heard this all the smiling face turned into a sad looking face and one of them farted. So I had to leave the place as soon as possible."
- Mr.Prakash One Fine Saturday. 24/04/2004
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Sounds like the national Health Service could have saved thousands of pounds if someone had put you over their shoulder and patted your back for a good burp.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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Hah. I like to think of myself as less of a waste of money, and more as a good training exercise.
“I believe that there is an equality to all humanity. We all suck.” Bill Hicks
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I went to my local surgery yesterday for a quick blow-in-a-tube lung test, but the surgery had installed some new software for their everything, and the nurse couldn't find the patients database, so the "quick" element went out the window.
The highpoint of that was that when she was searching through her handbag, I commented, "I don't think you'll find it in there" (she had it written down, obviously, but the gag still worked).
When she trolled off to find someone to help, I did a quick search for *.db* on their network drive (why do foolish people leave their computers logged on around me?), and had the db connected before she came back ("Oh, is it working, now?"  ).
So yeah, training = good, and I'm glad I wasn't seeing her for an emergency.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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I believe that means that you have The Knack[^]. My condolences to your family.
Windows 8 is the resurrected version of Microsoft Bob. The only thing missing is the Fisher-Price logo.
- Harvey
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I know about getting perspectives on things. Last year I got a gallstone.
Scared the sh*t out of me, my wife and kids.
Take it easy and get well.
Be excellent to each other. And... PARTY ON, DUDES!
Abraham Lincoln
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