techsoldaten's Journal: Fun Fun Fun

I am part owner of an ASP and have a day job consulting. One of the most frustrating parts of this situation is handling problems with the small business during the day, I have to wait until after 6pm to look at them. Gives me a sick feeling in my stomach when I go home to know the first 3 hours are going to be spent doing QA / bug fixes.

Growing the business is turning into a monumental effort and each new client we add brings a fresh set of problems to work out. Funny, frustrating, USER problems. Today I get an email and a phone call from a new client I didn't even know we have, and he is having a problem trying to upload a CSV file into the database. He has a file that was created on a Mac, saved under OpenOffice on Linux then put back into a CSV file under Excel on Windows. I have no clue what the carriage return codes are for this after travelling so far so fast. Salesforce.com must have had it the same way.

Just driving through traffic is getting to be a pain. I always scan for shortcuts these days and become frazzled when cars get backed up. I am always thinking about how much time I lose to red lights now, never used to be this way in my 20's. My head starts to hurt and my stomach starts to turn when the car stops making forward progress, and road accidents mess me up even more. Listening to the radio is aggravating, the commercials have somehow become more annoying recently and I can't listen to them for very long.

When the anxiety gets to me, I visualize pleasant things in my mind's eye. My list of pleasant things is shrinking, however, as I outgrow some of the things I used to love. I feel out of place when going to see live music these days, I am usually about 5 years older than the rest of the audience. Sometimes it's just teenagers, so I don't do that as much anymore. The batting cage is almost inaccessible to me since I hurt my shoulder last year. Been a while since I broke up with my girlfriend, I find myself thinking about her more often and wishing things had been different. Still like programming, but I never have time for personal projects anymore.

Books are still a favorite pasttime, for the 5 minutes or so each week I get to read. Started in on a new book last week, can't even remember the name now. Was an encyclopedia of horror film characters and cliches, very interesting but definitely not in line with my other stuff. Still read 2600 and Dr. Dobbs, but mostly on airplanes now and mostly on my way to DC. Everyone once in a while someone recognizes 2600 and either stares at me funny or throws me some gang sign to tell me they are a hacker. Would just like to read sometime, and maybe hack a hotel entertainment system.

I hardly ever drink anymore, and constantly wish I had time for a beer. I have a refrigerator full of Heineken and Guinness, I buy some every time I go to the grocery store. I think I lost the bottle opener, it hasn't been there the last few times I thought I might enjoy a cool one.

Everyone tells me I am doing a wonderful job, I think I have finally learned how to offend no one and be successful managing projects. My partners think it is amazing I am able to keep up with the demands of the company and the consulting work. Our business grows with each passing day, and soon we will be hiring more developers. Bothers me things keep happening the way they do.

M