Wow, it didn't take me long to get behind on these blogs, did it? I fully planned to post something last Sunday night, but things got very hectic here at the office, keeping me away until tonight. Of course, tonight hasn't been a breeze, either, but things are at least doing a little better.

To go into a little more detail, late Sunday evening, a crucial job that controls the Infopac Archives failed, due in part to some modifications that had been made by people in the Dallas branch. The guy who works before me (who's both tremendously smart and incredibly naive) decided to simply fix the coding without contacting the programmers about the problem. Never a smart idea.

Needless to say, I had major problems later on in the night, as none of the important printouts (Kardex, Census Reports, etc) were working. The jobs were working fine, but they couldn't get the needed information from the Archive. I was getting calls, e-mails, tickets, and even a couple of visitors to my door asking where their printouts were. Sigh. It took a lot of work (and the morning lady re-running numerous jobs) but things eventually got fixed. My co-worker was subsequently chewed out, meaning he won't do anything to screw things up for at least a couple of weeks. Yay.

Tonight hasn't been so bad, although the Jesse Effect is in full force. For those who don't know, the Jesse Effect is a term created in our small office area for those of us who replace Jesse in a shift. I would say between 50-75% of the time, there will be major difficulties during one of these replacement shifts, leading some (aka me) to speculate about Jesse's precognitive abilities. Of course, Jesse's out because his dad's really sick, so I guess I shouldn't be joking around about it this time. Here's hoping his dad gets better soon.

Let's see, what else has happened in the last week... well, an update on the DVR situation. Apparently a day after I wrote my last blog, the DVR ran an update through its system and managed to clear the problem, even keeping the programs we had on it. It's a miracle! Of course, the package had already been sent, so I spent the last few days quickly putting several programs (including all of the Heroes episodes) on DVD. Now I just have to figure out how to set up the new box correctly, and everything will be fine.

Only other thing I've got this week is a couple of "Non-Fiction" recommendations for you guys. Earlier this week, Ida and I watched "This Film Is Not Yet (R)ated", a new release on DVD. It's actually a documentary about the MPAA and how movies are rated. It was very eye-opening, seeing how different films with similar subject matter received different ratings (especially homosexual vs. heterosexual situations). It's also hilarious to watch the director hire detectives to track down the 'secret' board that decides on the ratings, revealing several lies that had been told to the public about them. Of course, there's a lot of sex and violence in the clips shown, so it may not be a hit with everyone, but I still recommend it for the stories told by various directors and the investigation of the MPAA.

The other recommendation I have is a non-fiction book by John Grisham, "The Innocent Man". I picked it up yesterday from the public library, since I'm always interested in Grisham novels, but I didn't know what to expect from his first non-fiction work. Trust me, it's captivating. I actually sat down this afternoon and read all 350+ pages, getting into the story about two men who were accused, tried, and convicted on a murder in a small town with barely any evidence other than jailhouse snitches and trumped-up testimony. Honestly, it's hard to believe the story's actually true, which makes it even more intriguing.

Not much else going on this week, that I know of. Hope everyone out there is doing well, as we are here.

Peace
Andy "Ace/Speed" Rasa

"The greatest mistake you can make in life is to be continually fearing you will make one." -
Elbert Hubbard