I have nothing against Old Company. I mentioned that, nearly a year ago in my resignation letter to them, and it still holds true. I’d recommend them in a heartbeat if someone was looking to use their services. That said, the contract gig I was on, through them, was a bittersweet experience. I learned a lot, had quite a few good (and memorable) experiences, but still… amidst the other issues I encountered, it was really the weekly RDU-DTW commute which pretty much sucked the most, there’s no way around it. It held especially true right around this time of year — when the weather starts warming up and the trees begin to bud here, whereas all the while Old Man Winter still has his gnarled grasp around the neck of the northeast.

Anyway though, don’t want to dwell on the bad times. Back to the good times, met a few really good people during my time there… and as it turns out, one of the guys from a different contracting firm just got the reverse commute, the (semi-) lucky dog. Long-term commuting can have its suck factor — but I would rather be commuting out of DTW than into it.

I may meet up with him this evening, or have him over… In any case, it will be good to see him. I hope he’ll eventually decide to move down here permanently — he’s Good People, and the more the better.

I guess I neglected to post here that Ayden Daniel arrived in this world on 2/11/2007. It’s been a interesting, albeit fairly sleepless, few weeks — but overall, it’s a great experience. I look forward to reflecting on fatherhood, but moreso looking forward to being a father!

Ayden and friends can be found here.

(apologies to Suicidal Tendencies)

We’re all getting slammed at work, trying to finish up code for a release. Trying to help empty the QA queue, but it seems all the suitable test systems are reserved.

Asking around briefly whether someone might have one I could destroy, I didn’t get a response. I didn’t really expect one, but I was keeping up hope… and then I realised — oh yeah! I could set up a VM.

VM server #1 is stuffed to the gills. Not enough room to create a new VM

VM server #2 is not responding. Again.

This test should be easy to complete. However, lack of resources cause delays in things getting done. Just another example of what kind of bottlenecks occur in software development that can’t/don’t always get easily translated across the chasm to a project management perspective. Luckily, management isn’t wincing about this one little bug — there are bigger fish to fry right now.