/ geoffand

Plantar Fasciitis is the DEVIL

I have been doing battle with Plantar Fasciitis for about 6 months now.  It first manifested itself on a trip to Australia in March.  Annoying, but it seemed to pass reasonably quickly with lots of rest and vitamin I (Ibuprofen).  

It came back with a vengence when i went to run the Bay to Breakers race in May.  I suppose it was all the naked people that I was surrounded by.  It started in the Right foot, and I did get to a podiatrist.  New inserts in my shoes, stop wearing loafers, daily icing, and 650 mg of aspirin twice a day.

In a month, the right foot quickly healed.  Unfortunately, the left foot flared up.  This was in June.  I have continued the icing, the aspirin.  THe stretching.  All to no avail.  I have been in constant agony.  I returned to my podiatirst last week.  Was prescribed a strong anti inflammatory (one that is risky in conjunction with my heart health), and got a painful cortisone shot.

It is now 4 days later.  I am again in agony.  The pain is back.  The cortisone seems to have had minimal effect.  Even modest exercise of just walking in my neighborhood is excruciating.

Next up is custom orthotics for my shoes, and a long, slow recovery.

/ geoffand

Low motivation – Work on a Holiday

It is Monday, September 5th, Labor Day here in America.  A bank holiday.  Tomorrow starts a week long series of meetings that I have a variety of contributions to make towards.

Alas, I just can’t get motivated.  I just cleaned my spice cabinet.  Perhaps I will clean out my sock drawer next.  Some old ones that need to be retired.

Sigh.  I wonder how long I can keep dodging this.

/ geoffand / 1 Comment

We don’t give date estimates for bug fixes. Quit asking.

As a long time product manager, one of my pet peeves is the bug/hotfix process.  Stepping back, we have a well defined triage process, where a good team of dev, support, and support engineers (as well as myself) sit in a room, and agree on priority, severity, and even whether it is a defect, or just desired different behavior requested.  This works well.

Issues are brought in, verified, assigned severity (and if there is a work around, that lowers the severity, as you would expect), and tossed into the queue.

The maintenance team, 3 developers, then pull items from the queue in FIFO with some stack ranking due to priority.  At any one time we have 30 – 60 issues in queue.

What this rant is about is the constant badgering I get from sales.  “When will issue X be done?”  “Why isn’t {insert pet issue} done yet”, “I am going to go to the division GM if you can’t give me this this week”, among other less printable comments.

As there is a queue, and it is ranked by priority and severity, we get to them as we get to them.  We do not make duse dates available.  I will not commit to more than “It is in the queue, and the team will address it”.  

Sigh, I seem to lose 2 hours a week in these pointless discussions.  I have an idea, why don’t you find a bug in Windows, and call Microsoft support.  See how much “pull” you have there.

/ geoffand

Great drive in music today – Steve Vai set

About 2 minutes into my drive to the office today, a great set of tunes popped up on the ol’ iPod plugged into my stereo.

From the forgettable movie, “Crossroads” (the Ralph Macchio one, not the britney spears one), there is a scene where Macchio’s character cuts heads with Jack Butler (played by Steve Vai), a guitar player who sold his soul to the devil.

The scene has for parts, “Fried Chicken”, “Butler’s Bag”, “Headcutting Duel” and the victorious response, “Eugene’s Bag of Tricks”.  Fantastic guitar work, and the piece de resistance, is the Eugene’s Bag of Tricks.  It is really one of Pagannini’s Caprices arranged for the guitar.  (In the soundtrack, all these parts are played by Vai, naturally).

What a great way to make it into the office.

/ geoffand / 2 Comments

Damn, didn’t need that. Lost my best friend a year ago today

Opened my email this morning and got sucker punched.  I knew it was coming but somehow put it out of my mind.  Not hard to believe.  I set an annual alert in my Google calendar to remind me of the passing of my greyhound Oliver.  One year ago today, I made the toughest decision of my life, to allow him to pass with dignity and grace.  

Oliver-1

We got him in early 2004.  He failed off the track, and never ran a race.  We liked to think that he was too smart to race.  All greyhounds have issues.  They spend their youths only in the company of other greyhounds, and live life in kenels.  It is hard, and it definitely affects them.

Oliver had needs.  He was afraid of most men, but I was the immediate exception,  He glommed on to me, and really was my biggest fan.  He would mope when I would leave on a business trip.  He would be bounce all over when I came home.  He was really a super companion.

As a greyhound, he loved to run.  It was in his blood, and he would turn it loose.  It was a thing of beauty. 

Oliver-3

Then, one day, he pulled up lame.  I thought nothing of it at the time.  He had over exerted him self a lot of times, and always snapped out of it.  This time was different.  Over a period of three weeks, he got progressively worse.  We tried metacam (an NSAID), and other pain medications.  We tested for Valley Fever.  We had x-rays done.  THe hope being that he had a bone chip, or torn cartilege, or some other explanation.  

Alas, that wasn’t the case.  Greyhounds are highly susceptible to osteo sarcoma.  It is a hell of a disease, and really hard on the dogs.  No really good treatment besides amputation, and chemo therapy.  The was never an issue, but research showed that the prognoses even with this aggressive treatment is poor.

On his last night, He was up, restless and whimpering all night.  I laid by his side, and came to the realization that it was time to end his suffering.  Anything else would be selfish.

I guess that since this hurts me so to write (I am blubbering and crying like a baby) it means that he touched me in a very deep and special way.  I miss him terribly, and will probably always miss him.

God speed Oliver, keep chasing those bunnies in doggie heaven.  I miss you.

Oliver-4
/ geoffand

Travel Foibles: Part 4 (of many) – In room comfort

What is it with mid range business hotels?  They all race to the same amenities.  

Name brand toiletries (Neutrogena here at the Hilton Garden Inn).  

They have the wide shower curtain bars (so that you don’t notice that you are standing in your grandmother’s bath tub).

There is a pillow menu for soft to firm.

All to increase my comfort.

You know what would really help?  Getting rid of under window AC unit.  I would sleep tons better if it didn’t sound like a Boeing 747 powering up to a takeoff run.   

/ geoffand

Travel Foibles: Part 3 (of many) – Rental car agencies

You know how hard it is to get a compact or ecnomony car?  

First, the travel agent seems to guide me into a midsize.  It is the “Corporate Standard”.  Really?  We have a standard class for rentals?

Next, the jockey working at the counter says “An economy car.  Are you sure?”  

After I say Yes, they then say “Well, for $5.00 a day, I can upgrade you to a fullsize, or an SUV”  #FAIL.  To me, an upgrage is a Posrche GT3, or a Bugatti Veryon.  Maybe a Bentley.  It isn’t a hunk of american steel in too big of a body size.

I really am just doing a few 10 mile trips, and back to the airport.  Yes, I will fill the tank (and not pay the $8.00 a gallon “convenience” fee).  Just give me the base econobox.  Really, it will be OK.

  • Exception.  When I am in Texas, I always upgrade to the sedab with a V8.  You gotta get up to speed on the freeway PRONTO.
/ geoffand

Travel Foibles: Part 2 of (many) – in room amenities

I love the little boutique soaps, shampoos and other niceties that they lay out in most decent business hotels.

The Iron and Ironing board is also de riguer.  Needed for those with small carry on’s.

You know what I often don’t have, and could really use?  Toothpaste.  Those little .5 oz toothpaste tubes.  I forget toothpaste more than any other toiletry.  Yet, when I arrive in a city after 11:00PM, the last thing I want to do is realize that I need to get dressed and head out to a 24 hour Walmart or a Walgreens drug store for a travel size. 

Because you don’t want to buy a full size tube.  The TSA will just take that away from you, and the next week you are in the same boat again.

Yep, I could buy them by the dozen.  Yep, I could keep 3-4 in my travel plastic quart sized bag.  But I don’t.  

 

/ geoffand

Travel Foibles Part 1 of (many)

As I approach a million miles on United airlines, and lately have struggled to earn even premier status on their Milage Plus program, I am accorded the benefit of “Unlimited Domestic Upgrades”.  This is a nice touch.  But I have yet to receive this “benefit” in the last 2+ years that they have offered it.

Why is this bullshit, you might ask?  Well, today, I was dutifully waitlisted for the “free” upgrade.  I was # 23 in the queue.  There were 12 seats.  So, even if First Class checked in empty, I am not going to get an upgrade.  Pretty scummy, eh?

I prefer the days when I had coupons, and I could exchange them on long enough flights.  This new mechanism is really just wishful thinking.  

And they wishfully think that I will remain loyal?  Ha!