Going back

It's been a while since I updated my blog. To be honest I've been rather distracted with work and work related things. The pressure is constant, and the demand for fixing things is getting higher. Take today for instance, problem reported at 845am, diagnosed and a trial experiment to prove the issue out done prior to a noon conference call to update our status on this issue. The fix is made, code reviewed and checked in by 3pm. The build gets churned out and a patch released all in one day.

Now some might think that is no big deal, but to be honest it's quite a difficult thing. Given that I'm not even close to familiar with this code which makes knowing where to look challenging. Getting people on side to approve a change isn't always straightforward and then testing is always a treat. I'm not complaining, work is work and it comes in heavy sometimes and limits what I can do explicitly (I am working late) or indirectly where I may or may not have to work late or some other work obligation which means I cannot make definitive plans. That sucks, since it's totally unfair to others (wife and friends) and means I miss out on some decompression time.

That said, I think it's starting to take a toll, as I'm home very little and things are starting to heat up with respect to our house. I'm hoping to get some rest during xmas break, come back for another two weeks of work, then I'm going to be off for a month to get charged up and do some different kind of work. So I'm off to Germany again for another week, and hopefully that will be it for the year (and I might get some more downtime while there, but not likely).