About forty-five minutes before I was supposed to go home yesterday, R. - the guy in charge of the project I'm on - came into our office. "Who wants to volunteer to modify a report?"

Random and I have been grumbling about these stupid reports since September, when we were first put on this duty. On the other hand, what I'm currently assigned to is testing, which is a task I loathe. "I'll do it," I volunteered.

R. gave me my instructions, and I could tell he was more than a little bit flustered. Oh, goodie. Last-minute requirements. The coding phase of this project is supposed to be done today.

It seemed a simple enough modification, at first. Then it didn't work the way it was supposed to. Then I realized that the report I was using as a model didn't work, either. That was serious, because that report had gone into the project ages ago.

Finally, after several conferences with R., I wrestled the SQL into submission (saving after practically every keystroke, because Oracle sucks in ways that my mother would wash my mouth out for enumerating, and Oracle Developer crashes at random moments for no reason whatsoever, saving nothing) and finally got the report to do what R. wanted it to do.

"You get a gold star!" he enthused, when I brought him a sample page of the finished report. "Better yet, you can go home now!"

We'll take care of the other report today. But after a day of mind-numbing boredom, it did feel pretty good to stretch a little before I went home.

<whine>I want winter to be over! The dry, itchy skin is making me nuts, I'm tired of being cold all the time, I'm downright sick of static shock every time I touch anything, and now I'm feeling cottonmouthed every time I wake up in the night to go to the bathroom. (The joy of pregnancy - increased need for liquids, decreased bladder capacity.)

I need spring to be here. A little warmth and a hint of humidity in the air (and I never thought I'd wish for that) would do wonders for my mood. And it would be kind of nice to see all those tulips that I planted last fall.</whine>

--Liz