T'was the Night Before Implementation

T'was the Night Before Implementation, and all through the house
not a program was working, not even a browse.
The programmers hung by their cubes in despair,
with hopes that a miracle soon would be there.
The users were nestled all snug in their beds,
while visions of enhancements danced in their heads.
When out of the elevator arose such a clatter,
I sprang from my desk to see what was the matter.

And what to my wandering eyes should appear
but a super programmer (with a six pack of beer).
His resume glowed with experience so rare,
he turned out great code with a magician's flair.

More rapid than engines, his programs they came,
and he whistled and shouted and called them by name:
"On Update! On Add! On Inquiry! On Delete!
On Batch Job! On Closing! On Functions Complete!"

His eyes were glazed over, fingers nimble and lean,
from weekends and nights spent in front of a screen.
A wink of his eye and a twist of his head
soon gave me to know that I had nothing to dread.

He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work,
turning specs into code, then turned with a jerk,
and laying his finger upon the "enter" key,
the system came up and worked perfectly.

The updates updated, the deletes they deleted,
the inquires inquired and the closings completed.
He tested each program and tested each call,
with nary an abend, all had gone well.

The system was finished, the tests were concluded,
And the users last changes were even included.
Then the user exclaimed with a snarl and a taunt,
"Its just what I asked for, BUT ITS NOT WHAT I WANT!"

Blackrock trail work day...

There was another official Blackrock trail work day on December 10th. I helped the crew cut out a large downed log (actually just dropped it to the trail) and built an A-frame jump/bridge over the top of it. The log we dropped had been there quite a while - people had to duck under it as they road down Bonzai Downhill, and it'd been slowly sinking (so was becoming a hazard).

Here's gallery of photos of work progress.

It took several hours to haul the rungs down, find adequate "runners" (the supports for rungs), and then drop the log and build the A-frame.

Here's the finished feature:


Makes for a fun jump if you are hitting it fast!

PHOTO EVENT: Pringle Creek Cyclocross race (Salem, OR)

On Saturday (12/3), In the Zone Photography provided event photography services for a local bike race event here in Salem (for the Pringle Creek Cyclocross race sponsored by Santiam Bicycle).



Between me and the additional photographer we contracted, we took over 2,500 photos! Just finished post-processing today, and currently uploading over 2 Gig of data to our gallery.

Here's a picture of me working at the event...


Was a lot of fun shooting at a local event. Had trouble with power to begin with, but after discovering it was the extension cord - was nice to be able to call Wendy (who was staying home with Kaylee) to have her bring a new one.

This was good exposure for us. Hopefully, since we did a good job covering this event (got lots of excellent photos), word will spread and we'll be invited to other local bike race events (or, at least, it'll be easy to demonstrate we have the expertise to get the job done when we contact an organizer about possibly providing services for their event..)