So I'm sitting here at work this morning dreading the fact I will be working on the Physical Model to bind them all.  It's a stunning day outside and with the long weekend on us (one of only three each year where we northerners can hope for nice warm weather) I'm itching to be anywhere but here at my desk.  While I was sitting here trying to muster the energy to start being productive (some would say I need much more energy), I caught a glimps of some movement out of the corner of my eye.

Floating over the river valley were two hot air balloons.  Occaisionally I see them and every time I wonder at their simple elegance, peacefulness and grace.

For a few seconds I even thought it was worth dealing with Gollum to have this desk and see the balloons.  I, unlike the balloons, have come back to earth now and must appease Gollum with the Physical Model to bind them all.

Today I heard a good one. 

It's right near the end of the day and one of my coworkers (I think we'll call him TheUdderFeller) comes over to Slim and says something along the lines of "I've found a bug but it's not in my code."  Slim, looks at him and asks "What's it doing and where and when?"  TheUdderFeller says something that, to me in my concentrated state, sounds like complete jabberwackey.  Slim then pointed out a couple of possible things to look at and sent TheUdderFeller on his way.

A few minutes later TheUdderFeller drops by Slim's desk again and says something about the error not occurring in his code.  Slim's response is that TheUdderFeller should do one of two things; ask me if I can find the time to look into it for him, or find the erroneous code and get me to walk through it with him until we fix it.  The response from TheUdderFeller:  "I don't have the time to do that." 

This completely broke my concentrated effort to find an error in the error handling code and led me to wonder if TheUdderFeller was yanking our chains.  I figured he wasn't when he left the pod (or quadricle if you're all hoity-toity like Slim) in a state of panic.  Now, I don't know what else was going on for TheUdderFeller, but his daily tasks include coding, coding, more coding, and making sure his code is working.  That last responsibility sounds to me like TheUdderFeller should be debugging code.

Tomorrow I'm not going to go to the meeting with Gollum.  I just don't have the time.

After seeing what Rory did, and having a number of ideas for a number of years, I created a line of Igloo wear.

Have you ever had one of those days where an event sucks the will to live out of you? The type where if you got sucked into a toilet you'd flip the world the bird and leave with a smile?

Well, today was said day. I had a meeting today that was set up to review the physical data model for the project that I'm on. It's not a big model. Actually it's a lot like Twiggy; lean. I wish it was more top heavy like Elle, but alas it's not.

Anyways, back to the meeting. I had scheduled this little soiree for 1 hour as I figured we would get in, get going, get stuff done and leave. I should have known that the wheels of bureaucracy always have a wobble. The meeting consisted of myself (the keeper of the data model -- aka Frodo), the lead architect from my team (aka the path finder Aragorn), the data architect from the client (aka the master of rhetoric Grima) and the solution architect from the client (aka the repetitive Gollum). I arrived, with the data model to bind them all, and Gollum decides that the meeting is better spent discussing the architectural implications of using XML and how our merry band of trekkers. He gets up in front of the group, trust dry erase marker in hand, and proceeds to draw a diagram of the different physi-logical architecture layers that we may, or may not, be using. Then he starts on the XML.

XMLLLLLL....we neeed to think of the XMLLLLL. My precious XMLLLLL. Web ssssservices.....XMLLLLLLL. XMLLLLLLL. Make it pretty like logical model. My precious XMLLLLLLLL.

Unfortunately, I think I transcribed his pontification with far to much intellectual content. I digress though.

So after half an hour of his discussion, excuse me, his oration, on how we needed to fit into the enterprise XML strategy (which of course doesn't exist anywhere except in Gollum's head), Grima finally speaks up and tells Gollum to sit and be quiet. This, after all, is a meeting about the physical data model (the one that, by this point, I'm thinking might not have been read by them let alone will bind them). So Grima starts with the comment that the physical data model needs extensive rework. There are numerous problems with misspellings, bad punctuation and nondescript comments. Remember this is a physical model review. Apparently the most first thing that we do when reviewing a data model is proof read the table and column comments. While this is being conveyed to me (because I am the keeper of the data model that now can only bind them if it contains no non-element capitalization) Gollum sits at the table mumbling "Yes.....Yes.....My precious XMLLLLL".

At one point Grima pushes a piece of paper in front of me and asks "Have you read this standard document?". Not only had I read it, but I now have portions of it burned into my retina as I tried to read through it's run on sentences and non-sequitorial thought processes in an attempt to decipher the naming, commenting, and data model color scheme standards. Instead of pointing this out, I simply say "Yes" and attempted to use the data model to make me invisible. Rather than make another statement about the model, Grima asks a question. "Why are these tables green?" Ummmmmm......because you have a green database and I wanted to colour co-ordinate?.....Hang on you pompous dumbass, it says right in your data modeling standards document why the tables are green. Have you read the standard? Alas, I'm to patient and I only state the obvious (for those of us that have read modeling standards). "They are new tables, and new tables to the data structure are represented with green." Grima appears dumbfounded. Perhaps it was only dumb as I don't think anything with him is founded. "But these are from a different database." Once again my mind runs rampant with all the inappropriate, yet truthful comments that should be, but never will be, spoken. Have you looked at the design documents? Do you know what we are trying to do here? Do you know what project this is?

At this point the mighty Strider steps in and begins to duel with Grima. Because of the valiant acts of Aragorn, I am able to sit, with an appearance of interest and concern, and think about the apprentice plumber program that the local community college is offering. I know that I can make some sexy plumber crack. Ok....shake off that mental image and back to the story.

Strider deftly duels with Grima for a while (not long as Gollum had already used half the meeting to talk about his precious XML). During this time I'm only picking up the odd word so that I can deftly jump back into the conversation when everyone looks at me and shovel the shit that is being spewed forth by Grima. After proclaiming that I am not fit for the English language, Grima proceeds to tell us that comments for database elements are never really input into the database. I'm pretty sure that this is where I turned off all receptors of external stimuli and concentrated on one thing only......alcohol.

The meeting ended (which for me was the high note) and the physical model only has a few things that need rework. Spelling, punctuation, capitalization, and meaningful content. And that was just for the comments section. The diagram also needs to be consolidated and combined. The data elements (tables and columns) all need to have their names reviewed.

Sigh.....I thought I'd never say this, but Buddy is going to have to rework the data layer and I'm actually sorry for him. I'm the Igloo Coder and I wish this were an igloo for one.

I was out and about the other night after work.  Well, out and about in my own special way.  Fine!  I was walking home after buying groceries and yes, that is out and about.

Anyways, back to the main train of thought here.  I was walking home and I inevitably ended up waiting for a street light to change.  So I'm standing there waiting for the little white walking dude to tell me to proceed into traffic at my own risk when this roller blader pulls up beside me.  I may be the Igloo Coder, but I'm not all frigid inside so I notice the nice legs attached to the blades.  I work my way up them slowly (I really need to get sunglasses 'cause I think the other people waiting at the light were whispering about me being a pervert) and notice that this young blader has the body mass of the set of ribs I BBQ'd last week.  I'm not kidding here.  She was so small that I could have easily put my hands entirely around her waist.  When I notice this I begin to physically shake as I think of binge and purge and get the heebi-jeebies.

Luckily for me the light changed and we all ventured out into the street.  As we're crossing the street this blader pulls away from all us pedestrians only to show us her wee-tiny butt and complete lack of roller blading skill.  She tries to power up onto the side walk using the ramped area and almost fell flat on her face when the roller blade went scooting out from behind her.  So picture me, in the middle of the cross walk, at an intersection of two 6 lane streets, trying not to piss myself laughing.  Well, right when she almost took the dive I noticed something on her shoulder.  Sure enough she has some exotic bird along for the ride.  Now I do what's appropriate and stop, dead in my tracks, in the middle of the intersection and let my jaw drop.  A freaking bird!  And the roller blading pirate didn't have it leashed up.

After reconciling that it is possible, in the city, that there are anorexic, roller blading pirates, I pleasantly continued my walk home.  Sure enough I saw this all over again (same person thank freaking god) a few blocks later.  She was turning down a street that headed down to the bottom of the river valley.  I went the other way to avoid the carnage that was going to ensue at the bottom of the hill.

Sigh.  I wish people here were more like those in small towns.  You know, the ones that get drunk and drive their lawnmowers to the liquor stores.  Those people are normal.

I've worked in some environments that have tried to use a decentralized development team.  Perhaps it was the way that they were implemented, but none of them ever were successful.
Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday we have a team standup meeting first thing in the morning.  Yesterday, Buddy the programmer started the morning with a personal phone call.  He was kind enough to halt the call long enough to partake in the meeting and, upon it's completion, started the call again.  The call lasted at least for 2 hours, perhaps 3.  Today it was the same thing, except there was no meeting to rudely interrupt his phone call. 
I understand that people have extenuating circumstances that will sometimes require you to take and make long phone calls at work.  Heck I can even understand that it may happen more than once and even on consecutive days.  Even more against my ways is to listen in on any call that a person makes, but when you're working in a pod of 4 desks, it's hard to miss somethings.
Today's kicker was the apparent personal call (apparent because it wasn't in english) that lasted most of the morning.  Every so often my ears perked up from the utterance of purely geek terms such as connection string, ini and ADO.  Hmmmm I thinks.  This is starting to sound less and less like a personal call.  So I listen a little more intently trying to pick up any snippet of english that I can.
It appears that Buddy the programmer wasn't working in the office, he was working as a remote programmer for some other project.  I have to say that Buddy has some serious balls to pull this off with 3 of us there that can hear him.

So I've slowly decided that when people speak of patterns I'm not going to whip out my trusty Butterick Summer Dress cutouts. Instead I'll actually start to move towards these. Sigh.....I never got to make the clam diggers.

Yes, it's shocking, but MS is giving it away like a prom queen at her last dance. SQL Server 2005 Visual Studio 2005 ASP.NET Sigh....if only I could find a girl this morally corruptable. Well, one that doesn't farm sugar beets.....

I'm certainly a proponent of having the team work in a more "intimate" environment, but some days it's just makes it hard to hide and laugh. Yesterday Buddy and Slim had a very animated discussion about one of the coding standards that we are using. To set the stage, let's first realize that we inherited some standards when we all started on this project. They are standards. Rules to follow so that we are consistent. There is not necessarily a right or wrong, there just is the way. So, back to the story. Buddy has been writing some code and Slim is working with him to figure out a problem, or answer a question, or something. So I'm sitting there minding my own code when I hear the following conversation: Slim: Um, you're going to have to go back through and change all of these variable names so that they follow the standards. Buddy: Oh? Slim : Yep they don't match the coding standards. You've read that document haven't you? Buddy: Yes. The standards are not right. Slim : But they are the standards. Buddy: They are very much for VB. We are using C#. Microsoft doesn't recommend writing C# in the same way that you write VB. Slim : They are the standards and you're going to have to change your code: Buddy: But the standards are unnatural. Editors note: When I hear this, I damn near pissed myself. I might even have start to laugh aloud and had to cover it by starting to cough. Needless to say I was now engrossed in the sure to ensue debacle. Slim : Yep, they are our standards and that's the way it will be done. Buddy: (In an insistant tone) But they are unnatural. Slim : Yep, and that's the standard that you'll use. Buddy: So we are using Hungarian notation? Slim : Yes Buddy: But it's not real Hungarian notation. Slim : That's ok, it's our standard. Buddy: So what would I change this to? Slim : objSomething. Buddy: This is so unnatural. In the end all I was doing was laughing inside and thinking I should swap Buddy's standard keyboard for a natural split keyboard and see what he did. In retrospect, perhaps we should start taking Buddy out on the town with us so we can determine which women are natural vs unnatural.

This is the second post in what I'm sure will become an ongoing serious about Buddy the developer.  Yesterday it was source control being unnecessary.  Today Buddy argued that using the web.config file to store the database connection string unecessarily tied the application to an external file.  Buddy's solution was to use a custom XML file.  Not only that, Buddy decided that he should hardcode the path for the XML file into the app.  Sooooooo......doesn't that method also tie the app to an external file?  Perhaps I'm over analyzing this.

I'm really starting to like my mid afternoon task of controlling uncontrollable laughter.

Yesterday I heard on of the funniest things ever. I have a feeling that this will become a regular thing. It's just the way the guy is. He can't help it. He's funny when being serious. So Buddy decides to go to the guy in charge of the development team and archtecture (we'll call him Slim) and states "Having the code in VSS is such a hassle. When someone has a file checked out I can't work on it." Now let me kick back in my chair and think about this logic. Okay, I've thought about it and I can not find a good argument for that logic. Even saying that you could save the time of not installing VSS doesn't cut it. So Buddy goes on to say "We could just come to an agreement and the part of the code that I'm working on doesn't need to be in source control then." Hmmmmmmmmm....let's put some of the project in source control, but not all of it. In the end the unsaid reason for not using source control was becuase it was too much work for the developer to check in and check out. Ahhhhhhhh.......glad I'm not the one who has to deal with this. I just get to sit in my chair trying not to laugh aloud.

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Marbourough New Zealand --2004 Cloudy Bay, Sauvignon Blanc -- 18.95 --Very fruity. Perhaps a little sweeter than I might expect.

I just wanted to send out thanks to those people who don't know better.  I'm not supposed to be online in my new apartment until Tuesday afternoon (the phone jacks are just holes in the wall right now).  But, alas I figured that I should set up the 'puter and I'd quickly see what there was for wireless in the new building.  There were four networks and *gasp* one with no security setup.  Now I can surf.
Again, thanks to the person in my new building with the network named Laurie (I'll go out on a limb and say that the person is Laurie).  You're a doll.  I owe you beer, wine, tequila and anything else that we may desire after we're drunk.

I hope you all are having a great Canada Day today!  For you Yanks, Canada is the big party that we throw on the 1st of July (we just had to be drunk before you lot) where we barby and drink real beer while wearing the red maple leaf.
I was out and about in my new neighbour hood today and noticed something that I felt was rather interesting.  I've had many discussions with one of my American friends about how we Canadians percieve Americans as being flag wavers and chest beaters.  He claims that, on average, you don't see the media version of a house with flying the stars and stripes as often as we northerners believe.  That said, he says that the Canadian communities he's been in have a greater proportion of homes flying the maple leaf than the US has homes flying the stars and stripes.  So, where was I going with this.  Today I noticed a large number of people, all done up and going to the Alberta Legislature grounds, proudly showing the Canadian colors.  It may have been just a small flag in their hands, a shirt saying "Canadian Girls Rock!", a motorcycle with a small flag or a pickup with the flag flying from a upside down hockey stick placed in the stake holes.  The thing that was interesting is that of all the people that were showing their national pride, they were comprised predominantly of people under 30 and those of non-white ethnicity.  Once we were the quitely proud nation, now we will thump our chest a bit and show the world what we are.
One of my proudest moments was when I visited Melbourne in November of 2003.  I was lucky enough to see Canada play two matches in Rugby World Cup 2003 (Wales and New Zealand).  Prior to the matches, and all done up in my maple leaves, I was crossing one of the streets downtown (Little Flinders I think) and began to feel the warmth of pride surge through my blood as a bloke in a cab stuck his head (and hockey stick mast flying the flag) out the window and spontaneously began to sing the anthem.  I had to stop mid-crosswalk to engage in the singing with this fellow.  Unlike TV commercials, we didn't stop traffic with our patriotism, but we did get one or two others to join in.
Celebrate the day and have a wobbly pop for me.