Back In The Saddle

A combination of crappy weather and a heavy workload have conspired to keep me from geocaching for almost two weeks. But today the conspiracy fell apart and I was able get out and find four caches.

If I'm lucky I'll find one interesting cache on an outing, but today there were two.

WARNING: There are spoilers below so don't read on if you ever plan on visiting these caches.

The first one said in its description that it was "two meters from the edge of the parking lot". That put it on the slightly raised berm that separated the lot from the woods beyond. But there was nothing there except dirt, small rocks and the occasional tuft of grass.

Stumped, I read the hint, which was "Reddish/Orange". The only thing which matched that description was a small rock about half the size of a computer mouse. It wasn't nearly big enough to hide a cache inside but I grabbed it anyway and sure enough, attached to the rock's underside was a metal tube, about 10cm long, which slotted into a hole in the ground beneath the rock. The metal tube screwed off to reveal the log tightly rolled up inside. Very nice.

The second interesting cache was named "The Friendly Giant", which was the name of a children's TV show when I was growing up. The description said, "There is no need to remove the cache from its hiding place. The log and the cache contents can be accessed by taking the plunge."

My GPS brought me to the edge of a duck pond, still partially frozen over. I was concerned that the comment about "taking the plunge" meant that one had actually to go in the water to retrieve the cache. If that was the case then I was going to have to pass.

The hint for the cache was, "What the Friendly Giant Says", which I took to be a reference to the start of the show, where the camera would initially be pointed at Friendly's feet and he would say, "Look up, waaaay up". So I started scanning the trees and eventually spotted, waaay up, one of those plastic owls that people buy to keep birds from shitting on their patios.

I made my way over to the base of the tree and found a loop of rope clipped to a lanyard, which could be used to lower the owl. The base of the owl was plugged with the end of a plunger. Removing that (thus the reference to "taking the plunge") revealed the log book and other goodies. I couldn't help but smile.

So while it was a short outing, it was quite an enjoyable one.

My cache count is now 224.

Last Week's Sliver Lining

Last week was a rather unpleasant one for me, work-wise. I've already regaled you with tale of the tardy laptop. That had some knock-on effects as there were tasks that I had to do which couldn't be done until I had the new system. One of those tasks was due last Monday. Because of the enormous delay in getting the laptop, the task was not completed in time and as a result our users are going to be getting some rather outdated and misleading documentation. No one is blaming me, but it still leaves a sour taste in my mouth.

Last week also saw the sudden appearance of a last-minute escalation - a high-priority bug which absolutely must be fixed or else we cannot ship the product - in the part of the product for which I am responsible. Indeed, it was one of my earlier bug fixes which had introduced this new regression. So there was a lot of scrambling to get that fixed and verify that we didn't break anything else in the process.

On top of that there was a last-minute upgrade to one of the components that our product relies on. I'm not responsible for the component itself but I am responsible for integrating it into our product. The upgrade was no surprise as the team in charge had warned us about it weeks ago, but given the escalation and the laptop problems, the timing was not good. It also didn't help that I couldn't test my integration of the component on Windows because the $%!#$ laptop wasn't ready, but I've been doing after-the-fact testing this weekend and it looks like the Windows integration is fine. *phew*

Finally, I seemed to be in klutz mode last week, making a lot of very simple mistakes which cost me hours to track down and fix. Part of that was probably due to my being overwhelmed by the sudden onslaught of work and part was due to not sleeping well last week.

However, while the various mini-crises may have been bad for my digestion, at least they were good for racking up the work hours.

Back in October I wrote about how I'd finally eliminated my time deficit at work and even worked up a bit of a surplus. Well, it didn't last long. The surplus grew through the remainder of the month, peaking at almost 24 hours. Then, in November, the darkness (literal and emotional) started to close in again. I ate through the surplus and then some. By mid-January I was back in the hole to the tune of 29 hours.

Since then, I've been slowly chipping away at it and by the end of the week before last it was down to 17 hours. But thanks to the hurley-burley of last week, the deficit is gone and I'm now back in the black again with a whopping 37 minute surplus!

It would be nice if I could build up a surplus of, say, 30 hours before the next bout of depression hits. That might be enough to carry me through it guilt-free. (Or at least as guilt-free as I ever get.) For now, though, I'll be happy if the product gets out the door without any more glitches.