working late
I put in 72 hours so far this week in order to get a massive project at work off the ground. I wasn’t running the project and I wasn’t deploying any changes, but somehow I found myself right in the middle of it. I’ve still got some items to follow up on this weekend and plenty of work to get done Monday morning, but all I want to do right now is relax. I might buy groceries and cook dinner. I haven’t seen Lauren in a few days because of my crazy work schedule (I was in the office until 4 AM last night). I’m looking forward to our date tonight, because I know we will probably play some Lego: Harry Potter on the Xbox 360 and, if for no other reason, I know she won’t ask me for a last minute emergency firewall change.
Fantasy Football season is starting up
One of my favorite distractions is fantasy football and my favorite fantasy football league is the one I run every year. It’s a keeper league and we’re starting our 3rd year (technically 4th year but I’m not counting that first season on Yahoo!). The reasons that make it great are the same reasons many people wouldn’t like it.
- it’s complex. I have dozens of spreadsheets and have spent countless hours balancing the scoring. There are several different keeper rules under which you can retain players from the previous year, so the draft is very unique. most people like simple rules, but adding layers of complexity adds layers of strategy.
- it’s competitive. everyone in the league knows what they’re doing and wants to win. the fantasy football IQ in the league is very high and it’s highly unlikely you will get the better of someone in a trade. we don’t play for money, but we might as well. most people like a friendly game, but we take it pretty seriously. if you didn’t win last year, you lost.
- it’s non-stop. year round people are checking the site, trading players for draft picks, and researching stats from last year. most people don’t think about doing a fantasy football league until football preseason starts, but I am thankful to have a league I can check in March and expect everyone else to be engaged as well (in case i’m looking to trade a player).
- it’s verbal. we talk a lot. message boards, email, and even phone calls. no kidding, I got a phone call recently from one of the guys in the league and all we talked about was working out details of a trade. most people just want submit rosters and that’s it, but i just don’t think it’s as much fun unless there’s endless talk.
I took 48 hours to post the leagues keepers after the deadline to turn them in and no less than 3 of the owners got on my case for taking so long. everyone is ready to get started. so I am.
old SQL scripts can be a pain
I’m not a fan of debugging other people’s code. I’ve been staring at the same 23 line SQL script for the same 2 hours and I’m wondering how to move forward. The script hits a Point of Sale database with transactional data and pulls all the sale transactions in a set time period that are account charges. The output is a Fixed Width file sent to our clients so they can payroll deduct purchases from our Point of Sale. It’s adapted from an Access 2000 query so there is some awkwardness.
Lots of substrings and casting.
So I got involved because the SQL script is pulling positive and negative charges and it would be better if it could filter the refund along with the original charge out of the file. It took me 30 minutes to actually pull any data with the script and I’m convinced it’s way off. No way are multiple people are payroll deducting $150,000.00.
I’m tempted to rewrite the thing. I’m also tempted to kick this back. But I’ll probably do it, but it’d be nicer if someone owed me a favor when I got done with it.
UPDATE: I finished this up this week. I created a table variable and inserted transaction numbers where an amount was a negative number. then i added a statement in the main select statement that would select where transaction not in (select transnum from @tablevar). since the refunded amount and the original charge both had the same transaction number, this let me filter out both of them. i’m sure you don’t care. i’m going to go play outside now.
personal email address
a couple things:
- My company is very security conscious.
- I don’t have a company issued smartphone and they won’t let me sync my iPhone to my work email/calendar
- My name is attached as an IT resource on a project that won’t die.
It’s been around for about a year and last month we stopped work and went back to gathering requirements. The project sponsor is on the west coast and he scheduled a meeting last week after 5pm Central time. So I forwarded the meeting agenda to my personal email and created a reminder on my calendar with the conference call bridge info.
A follow up to that meeting is scheduled for next week. And somehow my personal email address shows up on the meeting invite (Microsoft Exchange will update the ICS if it’s forwarded, learned that today). And this follow up meeting is one of those where we rehash everything we talked about previously but this time with the executive sponsors and the budget approvers on the call. So there was a moment of “who’s gmail account is this?” happening this morning amongst the most important people in the company. “that’s me. I don’t have a blackberry and didn’t want to be in the office until 7pm on a Friday.” I’ll be so glad when this project is finished up.
iPhone 4
wicked fast. gorgeous display. great camera(s). and facetime is very cool.
