Sorry I missed yesterday's post, but I came close to missing today's one too... I'm a bit exhausted and sleep deprived, so I'll try to be quick, and if things get weird, the sanity usually returns after a good night's sleep.
Friday was mostly a short day, but I needed to catch up on work, to get those 40 hours in. Not too much happened, but someone had converted some office space to a bit of a Mexican buffet, so that was nice. I also got a good chat with another co-worker, from just across from me. We've had some quick exchanges, but we got to catch up a bit. She also gave me a copy of all the restaurants in the area, so I'll be able to use that as a checklist. There are areas near the office where I can walk, but there are a lot of other, nice options a little bit further too. I'll need to experiment.
I also hear this is a big sports weekend in the states, so I went in with my best Braves jersey. We had a team meeting, and we'll need to see how things go. Oddly enough, it'll be tricky to fit on my own team, but I'm getting good work done on my other team, so we'll see. There's just a lot to do, and with everyone busy, training new people is probably not the best move. I'll see what I can do.
But, after all that, things weren't quite done. Every year, I volunteer for the robotics competition on campus, and since my best solution is to write a program to help do stuff, I handle the scoreboard. This year is most notable, because I won't be there.
Every year, I basically take the old app, toy around with it to handle the new year, and go with that, slowly adding improvements. This year, I had a plan for a completely new system, which would be a lot easier to modify, year in and year out. So, I spent most of the last two days (Friday and Saturday) on that.
Saturday morning, I went out to play beach volleyball with people I met online at a nearby park. There was a lot of rust to shake off. My control was all over the place, and the sun made it very difficult to read plays, or align anything. Also, the sand was really hard on my ankle, so I'll need to figure something out for that too. The good news is, I should be able to get new contacts soon, so I'll be able to use the sunglasses again. Most people wore shoes on the sand, but I'll see what solution I go with.
But, after fun and games, I needed to go back to work. I knew what had to happen, but I wasn't entirely sure of all the details until I started writing parts of it. Things seemed like they were going well, but I got some setbacks, and things didn't want to behave, and I had to keep spending time looking up how to do things right. When it started getting late, I had to start doing triage, and see what I could cut and still get the thing to work. Perfect is the opposite of good, as they say. I tried a bunch of things, but ultimately, the half that needed to work still had issues, and there was too much to do.
So, I put all that aside, found a copy of the old code, and hacked it to make it work for this year. It isn't a perfect fit, we are losing some features they wanted, but I did what I could. Once I rest and get some sanity back, I might be able to get the new system going in time for the finals, but then again, maybe not. We'll have to see. This time difference is a real issue here, because my contact went to bed very early for me, and by the time I wake up, they'll already be up and running.
Either way, I got a system running. I sent it to him, with as much instructions as I could think of. It's not plan A (or even B in this case), but it's much better than nothing. They'll manage. Engineers are pretty good at that.
Well, I'm still conscious, so I'll go fix that. Tomorrow is a relatively big day, and with any luck, I'll finally be able to watch the Puppy Bowl! I also assume people will be in the clubhouse, so I'll be able to meet more people too. That said, good night!
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