Cheltenham Festival is Here

Well, on my run this morning I noticed the "Luxury Loos" are set up in the park just north of my flat. Apparently they don't trust folks making their way to and from the racecourse without satisfying the need to "evacuate." Today is the start of the Cheltenham Festival, an event that brings 55,000 Irish and others to this small town, and culminates on Saturday with the Cheltenham Gold Cup, one of the biggest horse races in all of England (and maybe beyond).

So I'm in one of the most happening places to be, for one of my favorite holidays, with friends on their way, and I might have to work. Sucks. My bosses just don't seem to understand the work that I've been putting in (17 hours yesterday alone, and 63 total last week) to try and solve what is basically an unsolvable issue. They keep saying "keep at it" and "keep pushing the guys in Austin" but the bottom line is: this problem is not going away, so we'd better just live with it, and the guys in Austin come in after me and leave before me (fat lot of good they are right now). Regardless, this "problem" is down hiding in the weeds, among the infrastructure. Some of you might understand when I say that some of our jar files, some of their jar files, and the network that they sit on are not playing well together. Short of zipping up the entire network and sending it across the wire, which in impossible for soooooo many reasons (security being the main one), I don't know what anyone can do from over there. I told them months ago that I needed a more technical bloke here on the ground for these last weeks and they ignored me. Now guess who is paying the price? That's right, me.

Basically what I'm saying is Friday is a company holiday (it really is for us) and I plan on taking it. This demo can dangle from my bits and pieces, b/c I'm going out drinking with my friends.

Oh, as of yesterday, I sold my house, which means that, soon, I should have a huge check in my bank account. So it follows that I have no home, no debt (including my car), minimal expenses, a lonely dog, and a perfect excuse to tour the world...