A very long week

Gonna be a long one... entry that is. I've got a lot to catch up on here. So, here goes.

Sunday: Probably the worst trip of my life. It started with garlic rubber. Not garlic bread, garlic rubber. Yeah, it sucked because it looked really good in the display. Apparently they had had it there for a while. Got on the plane and just coughed and sneezed and felt miserable most the way. Couldn't sleep, couldn't do much of anything but feel like shit. Got to the hotel and found that they didn't put the hotel on the corporate card. So I had to put my own card down. Aggravating! The week is not starting well. So I go to my room, 6th floor looking out over ... uhm... Dry Creek road... nothing spectacular. It's a dark room... filled with dark furniture... very elegant... but cave-like. No kitchenette. *sigh* ... So I just crashed.

Monday: Went to work and bitched about the hotel. They fixed it. This was the fateful day of the migration. So after dealing with some plurrecords things and house things (the loan, the contract, etc.) we got ready for the migration. Started off bad because no one in the DB group had taken my notes (provided two weeks earlier) and made the required queries. So I had to do it myself, on the fly, at the beginning of the migration. *sigh*. We get through that hump and now it's time for the DB group to take over and start porting data over... a 6 to 8 hour task. So I go back to the batcave. The one good thing today was that the offer was accepted by the seller. So I picked up the fax the agent sent to the hotel, signed it and faxed it back. I was starting to feel a little chilly and realized soon enough my fever was coming back. Yay! So I decided to lay down a little knowing full well the evening was going to suck. Well, it sucked in a worse way (sorta). The DB group had problems porting the data and by 3 am eastern time, it still wasn't ready. So after several interruptive phone calls, they finally agreed to rollback and postpone the migration. Great. Wake me when there's ice cream.

Tuesday: Woke up.. no fever... but by this time the cold symptoms are just intolerable. That on top of the dry weather... my nose is fucked. Add to that some minor irritation I'm getting in my uhm... private area. I figured it was the weather, the soap, something. Ignored it for now and went to work to discuss what happened with the migration and figure out what to do about it. All the while, there's more work being done on the website, Liz is getting more records from Lucas, we made our first out-of-state sale from the site (YAY!!!!) and the house loans are in the process of getting approved. Managing all this starts to get the best of me but I deal.

Wednesday: Woke up feeling worse south of the border but still nothing I think is real bad yet. Oh well. Stuff to do, dammit. Lots of web work done today. Got several things set up properly where we can finally put MP3s up for sale. YAY! I put a couple of mine up there that were decent. I'll replace them when I get home with better versions. Started working on a way to get the sound samples to play in a player rather than by loading the sample into the page. That almost killed me because I thought I had screwed up some code. I get it all done... show it to Liz... and... well... she showed me something else better. *sigh*. Don't get me wrong... what we ended up using is MUCH better and I love it... I'm glad she showed it to me. I just wish I had spent the time earlier working with the new solution (the current solution) than futzing around with a lot of code I had to learn at the samne time I was installing it. Oh well. On top of all this... I did go to work and came home feeling even worse down in Texas. So I decided to find out why and found a lump in a VERY untenable place (not going to discuss where... I know where and that's all that matters). Anyway... it kinda freaked me out. So I figured I'd just bear through the migration (now scheduled for Saturday), and then excuse myself for my return trip and see my doc. Went to bed a little scared.. but okay.

Thursday: BAD PAIN! Woke up feeling like my $@&! was on fire. The lump was bigger and more painful too. So, there was no question... I called my boss and she took me to the emergency room. Turned out to be an absess which they chose to take care right there and then. Whee! Miles and miles away from anyone that I care about or that cares about me... going to the hospital with a doctor I don't know... getting surgery. With no insurance either. Can I get a woot!? Yeah, I thought not. But the good news is, it's handled and they gave me percosets (saves for later, biotches). I spent the day at the hotel working more on the site, trying to download tools that would allow me to utilize the sample player we bought and having no luck. Ended up just chatting with Liz for a bit and watching a couple of movies.

Friday: Woke up today and went to work feeling a little better. I managed to get the tool I need to work with and got the XML files made for the sample player. Signed all the paperwork for the equity loan and sent that back to Orlando, trained new developers on what a credit card is... (joy) ... and went to dinner with the woman I thought hated me. Turns out I was wrong. Always good to find that out. The Denver situation is a little different now. There's a player involved at the highest level that didn't like my e-mail I sent on my last day as a FT employee. Everyone else things I can walk on water (which I can as long as it's on the ground or frozen). Anyway... throughout all of this... I've been working ... a lot... on a lot of things. And coming home to ... well... nothing but my music, a couple of movies and this laptop.

I tried to talk to Liz about it tonite but her mind was somewhere else. When I realized we were on different pages and she was busy with something else, I figured I'd log out so I could concentrate on finishing up the XML files. So I told her I'd be back later and signed off, not really thinking anything else. Got the code finished and the files uploaded. Started testing and tried to message Liz... but she'd already checked out for the night. She left me a couple of messages which were rather terse... I guess I left the chat at an inappropriate time. Oh well... Par for the course at this point. I didn't mean to offend. Just thought I could get some stuff done and then we could both have our "other stuff" done and chat. Text is so impersonal with no emotions, facial expressions or body language. It sorta sucks. Sorry if I upset you, Liz. Wasn't my intention, honest!

It gets so lonely up here, tho. And I know my friends in Orlando have lives and have bad days, bad weeks, etc. And I don't mind listening to them bitch and moan because they do the same for me. Then we get over it and have a good chat. But tonite I'm really feeling it. I feel very removed from everything. The idea of spending another week here... the idea of working ALL weekend... the idea of coming back here at some point... they're all just disgusting to me... and this time I DON'T love it. I miss my family and friends something fierce. The part that kills me is that I know that when their bad day is over... they go back to their families and friends, cuddle up, snuggle up, and let the world piss off for a while. Meanwhile... up in Denver. It'd be different if I was some sort of Jack Bauer type of character with something going on all the time. At least I wouldn't have time to miss anyone. But as it is, right now... I'm in the long dark teatime of the soul and there's little to be done about it.

I did get to chat with my friend Jon in Mass tonight tho. He helped me get out of the funk I was in. I sent him MP3s of my latest mix CD and we listened to it together and chatted. It was nice. I haven't had the opportunity to sit and enjoy some music with a friend for a long time. I've missed it. I hope this business with the house gets wrapped up soon. It *IS* something I want to do... but at the same time... the process is just maddening. It was last time too, though. Being in Denver for part of it is not making it any better, though. Heh.

So... that brings us up to now. I'm sure I've left some things out because I'm pretty exhausted and I haven't gotten to sleep before 3 am any night this week. So I think I'm gonna go crash. Hopefully tomorrow will go smoothly at work and I won't have to worry about a bunch of BS. Even so, I still have a week in Denver (and a plane ticket to fix since I was supposed to leave today and never got the chance to fix the ticket) before I can go home. I miss Liz, Josh, Taylor, Matt, David, Steven, Rob, Laura, Jim, Michelle, Justin, Nicole, Kyle, Mat, Brynja, Ansley, Heather, Rabbit ... ARGH! I miss y'all something fierce... and can't wait until I get home. Keep the home fires burning. I'll get there as soon as I can.