So as promised, I write some rambling text on Wednesday to extrapolate some thoughts from Tuesday. Hmm, that sounds weird…but oh well.

I randomly came upon a website the other day (likely while Stumbling) where the presenter was pointing out there’s a town in Austria by the name of ‘Fucking.’ I (and certainly many others) got a bit of a kick out of this. It also reminded me of the few weeks I spent in Germany back in 1998. One day we went on a bit of a trip into Austria (into the mountains). While driving along in Austria, we approached a town and the city sign immediately caught my attention: Hard. I got a good chuckle out of it and confused many of the passengers in the vehicle with me (who were all German), because they didn’t understand the innuendo connotation of the word ‘hard’ in the context that immediately popped into my head (after all, I was seventeen at the time…).

After explaining the innuendo meaning of the word hard, everyone got the joke and we all shared a laugh. I sometimes think of the trip that day and driving through the Austrian countryside, and the story about Fucking, Austria brought that back to more clear mind.

So anyway, yesterday was Kirstin’s first real doctor’s appointment (since being discharged from the hospital after birth), at two weeks. Beth had an appointment shortly before Kirstin’s, and due to some various reasons, ended up not able to come along with Dad to the big appointment. It went pretty well, or as well as it possibly could go given that nobody really likes going to the doctor. She’s grown some more, weighing in at 8lbs 12ozs now (which to have gained 8.5 ozs since birth (or more appropriately, 1lb, 2 ozs since being discharged from the hospital) at two weeks is fantastic). She’s gotten a bit longer as well, and her head is getting larger. She’s just growin’ like a weed. Which makes sense based upon how much she likes to eat. 🙂

She’s in the 95th percentile regarding head size at this time, and in the 90th percentile related to height and weight. Still a little peanut. 🙂 And normal and healthy, so that’s a Good Thing. She checked out just fine and doesn’t need to go back for another six weeks (she’ll be two months old then). Woohoo!

Anyway, I’m hoping to do a few short days come Thursday and Friday this week. The real hope would be to pull half-days at the office and spend the remainder of the time working from home. It’s been a bit impossible to do that this week so far (I’ve been here all day Monday, Tuesday, and will be today), and since this week is the week of Tuesday evening meeting and Wednesday evening church, those make for particularly long days. It’d be nice to spend a little more time at home come later this week, especially since a fairly large deadline will presumably be met by late this afternoon, so my immediate need to actually be working at the office will be reduced for a while. I still have a load of things to do, but they can all be done from home (hooray!).

We’re looking at the next public release to become available on Friday, April 6, with a public announcement (alerting the non-curious) probably on April 10. What that basically means is that we’ll probably cease active development by April 3 (allowing enough time for testing and building). This means Matt’s schedule clears up a bit after April 3 (although there are still plenty of things going on and to do), so I should be able to spend more time with my girls for a while before Beth goes back to work (which I know she misses). After about May 15, I pretty much focus on new features for a late summer release. After May 1, almost all of our clients are in their busy season (through mid-July), so the first two weeks in May mostly deal with support issues. After that, most are used to how things operate and it quiets down quite a bit.

That’s one nice thing about working in the Ag industry as a developer — my ‘free time’ actually coincides with our users busiest times, which just happens to be during the early to mid summer. That’s nice for two reasons — I can enjoy more summer time without the burden of strange deadlines, and I can focus on things I normally can’t work on unless there’s nothing else to do. It also really works out nice because Beth has summers free. Go me. 🙂

Anyway, I’ll leave it at that for now. I’ve got to be at least a little productive today — especially if I want to not be at my desk all day tomorrow and Friday. 🙂

Until next time…

–MZ