Dissapointing start to the day

[text of an email sent to the McD's complaint address]This morning, after waking early with my 3 month old daughter, I decided that I deserved a treat, and headed to the McDonald's on Baymeadows on the way to work for a delicious bacon, egg, and cheese biscuit.

The drive thru was a little slow, but no matter, in just a few minutes, I would have that wonderful cheesy biscuit to enjoy once I got to work, and give me a great start to my day.

The employees were all friendly and smiling, making the experience even better. I got my food and drink, and headed to work.

When I got to work to eat, my mouth was literally watering at the thought of that biscuit's buttery goodness.

Imagine my disappointment when I opened my bag and found that I had a bagel instead of a biscuit. I thought to myself: 'It's okay, they were probably just out of biscuits, I will just suffer in silence'. Once I unwrapped the bagel, though, I found that not only did I have a bagel instead of the wonderful McD's biscuit, but I was given a ham and egg bagel.

Since I was already at work, I cannot return to the restaurant today to get the correct meal. I would like you to provide me with a free breakfast combo meal, to replace the missing bacon, egg and cheese biscuit.

Hey babe

The music made me think of you. I love ya

Listening to: Love You Out Loud - Rascal Flatts - Melt (Advance) (03:06)

Got Her

Cullen: I have some mail for you.
Cullen: It's your express ticket reservation
Courtney: huh?
Cullen: your express ticket to hell
Cullen: it came today
Courtney: you so funny
Courtney: twit
Cullen: that was a good one, huh?
Courtney: yep, you got me

Listening to: Wisconsin_Death_Trip - Static-X - Wisconsin Death Trip (03:11)

Good luck, Steve

My boss, Steve, just got a call from his very pregnant wife, and left to take her to the hospital. I hope this isn't a false alarm(they had one with the last baby), and I hope everything goes okay.

Listening to: Two-Seater - Bowling for Soup - A Hangover You Don't Deserve (03:55)

New architecture for WebApps

I decided to rework the web apps backend. I had originally written the app as a straight web app, with no OOD. Recently, after getting frustrated at having to open a browser, log in, wait for pages to load, select a page, and type values, I decided that I was going to rework the app some.

I decided to put all the functionality of the webapp into a webservice, and make the web app just call the webservice. I also decided to create objects that represent the different items that can be added, and use those objects to perform inserts & updates, instead of just passing text values.

With the new architecture, I am going to be able to design a desktop app that accesses the same functionality. For V1, I am going to just set up the desktop app to add items. V1.5 will have modify abilities added in.

Listening to: You and Me and the Bottle Makes Three Tonight (Baby) - Big Bad Voodoo Daddy - Big Bad Voodoo Daddy (03:34)

Another one bites the dust

Tiffany has been attacked by the yard. Poor kid. She took a running jump right into a big bush of the stingers.

I am going to get this yard cleaned up as soon as Courtney can take care of Mik for a weekend. I have decided to kill off the weeds, and then till the yard, then kill the weeds again, and then put down sod in the whole front yard.

Sorry Tiff.

SourceGear Customer Service

SourceGear has the best customer service ever! I had a minor problem with my Vault server, so I posted to their support forum. After posting, I did a couple of coding tasks that were waiting for me, and checked back like 20 minutes later.

I had a response, and it was the right response, and the problem is now fixed. Thank you, Eric Sink, for creating such a great company and great product.

I think I'm a convert

So far, I really like this TDD thing. The part I like the most is that writing code that is testable forces you to break it up into really small chunks. Designing and implementing one test at a time really helps make the project seem more manageable.

When I am doing the TDD thing, I don't feel like I am swamped with 5 million tasks; I am totally focused on one task at a time.

I wonder if the other extreme programming practices are as easy to adopt, and will be as useful to me?

Listening to: Shine On - Rascal Flatts - Melt (Advance) (03:02)

TDD Initial Reactions

At first, I wasn't sure how I would apply TDD to a project whose sole goal is to communicate with another machine. The idea of TDD is to only test a small portion of code, and not to test outside dependencies(like the remote ftp server). If I write a test on the Connect() method of my FTP Client, I am testing my code, but I am also testing a whole list of other stuff, too.

Here's a non-exhaustive list of things being tested in this case:

• Local Network Hardware
• Local Network Connection
• Remote Network Connection
• Remote Network Hardware
• Internet Latency

I have managed to test several pieces of the classes already, though, and avoided those dependencies. After about 20 minutes, I have 4 tests spanning two small classes. The real test will be when I start developing the Engine class, though. So far I have just coded/tested helper classes.

I'll keep you informed.

Listening to: Serial Thrilla - The Prodigy - The Fat Of The Land (05:11)

Learning about TDD

Test driven development is a relatively new idea in Computer Science. Basically, what you do is define the behavior of your classes by creating tests of that behavior before writing any code in the classes. Then you add just enough code to successfully pass the test(s), and no more.

The idea is to catch and eliminate bugs as early in the design process as possible, to reduce risk and cost. I am going to try to use TDD on my personal projects, and on the next utility that I write at Fidelity. I'll let you know what I think once I'm done.

Listening to: Mayberry - Rascal Flatts - Melt (Advance) (04:33)

Some Good News

Well, it looks like Courtney is ok. Her doctor thinks she is throwing up because of the pain meds, and in pain because she can't keep down her pain meds and has been throwing up(hard on the abs, you know).

Finally, some good news. He hooked her up with two different scrips, and thinks she'll be fine. We can only hope.

Listening to: La La - Ashlee Simpson - Autobiography (03:44)

Back to work

Today is my first day at work in over a week. Just about everyone I expected to noticed my absence. A couple of people I didn't expect to notice did, too. Always flattering.

I got a call from Mark today, and he tried to be irritated that I hadn't called when Courtney was in the hospital. I let him know that I had more important things to do when in the hospital with my wife than call everyone I know. I pointed out that if any one of the four of them had called us in the past three weeks, they would have known we were in the hospital so Courtney could have more surgery.

On that subject, Courtney has been throwing up today. It seems like she may be having complications from the surgery. The 5 complications they mentioned included increasing pain and nausea/vomiting. She has suffered from both today. I hope they don't have to put her back in the hospital.

I feel so bad for her. Everyone better be nice to her the rest of the year, or I will kick their ass.

Listening to: My Hometown - Bowling for Soup - A Hangover You Don't Deserve (03:02)

Damn the luck

Courtney is going back to see the surgeon at 3:15 today. The pain has gotten a lot worse since yesterday. She called me and told me she was having trouble walking. I feel so bad for her.

Listening to: Firestarter - The Prodigy - The Fat Of The Land (04:40)

Hospital Day # Last

Today is the last day at the hospital, thank god. Courtney feels a lot better today than yesterday. The doc prescribed her a sleeping pill last night to help her rest, and she got a solid 9 or 10 hours of sleep, then a nap for a couple of hours. I think she may be caught up on her sleep finally.

Doc Edwards just came in to talk to us. He wrote Courtney a scrip for Dilaudid in pill form, since the demerrol wasn't working as well as she would have liked. He recommended we call around to make sure the pharmacy had the pill before going, since it is apparently rare. I found the drug at the Walgreens on the corner of Blanding and Wells.

He said he was going to have the nurse give Re a Dilaudid pill to see if it worked, and if so, send her home. I can't wait to be home.

We had a really irritating ACP today. He came in and woke us up like 4 times, and was messing with Courtney's bed. She was comfortable, and in relatively little pain, so I told him to get away from the bed and leave it alone. He came in an hour later and tried to make her eat her breakfast, even though she was still asleep. I told him she would eat it when she was ready.

He was a real pain in the ass.

Source control follow-up

It took me two days to get a project added to 3 solutions that are bound to source control. What a huge pain in the ass. That was a grueling project, and took way more time than it should have.

I contacted SourceGear and got us a 20% discount on Vault licenses, if we switch from SOS.

You go, Granny Hart

Mom took Mikayla for the night. This will be the first time that Mik has stayed with Mom overnight. Mik had been at Pita's all week, but Pita is tired now. I talked to Mom at 10, and she had just put Mik down for the night, and everything went well.

I am so glad that Mik was a good girl for Granny Hart tonight. It sure makes me more comfortable letting Mik stay out, and thinking about taking her on a trip, if she can go into a new place and still get to sleep easy.

Maybe she will be okay in a hotel, too. Courtney is jonesing for a trip, and I think we are gonna try to spend a weekend in Tampa fairly soon. We'll see how that goes. Hopefully it'll be a lot of fun.

Hospital Day #5

Courtney may be able to go home today, if the pain is manageable.

The gas pain attacks came back twice today. That really sucks. Courtney is in incredible amounts of pain, and nothing I do makes it any better. One attack lasted for 45 minutes. I bet Re thought it was 45 hours.

Erin is our nurse today again, and Skyler is back at work and stopping by occasionally.

Courtney's gas pains came back twice this morning. Both attacks were horrible.

On the plus side, the gall bladder pain is completely gone, so hopefully they fixed that.

There have been some minor complications, and Courtney is still in a lot of pain, so we won't be going home till tomorrow.

I am starting to feel like I have always lived in the hospital.

We have another new nurse tonight, and she is another Baptist nurse. The theory is being held up every time we meet a new nurse.

Courtney is off of the IV pain meds, as of 6 pm. That is a big step towards getting home.

Hospital Day #4

Today is the big day. Courtney's surgery is scheduled for 7:45 am. They came to get her at 6:30 for pre-op. Every nurse we saw downstairs in the surgery ward asked if she had anything to eat this morning.

Once they took her back to surgery, I went into the waiting room and read half a book. Doc Edwards came out and let me know that everything went well, and he did see evidence of chronic inflammation on her gall bladder. He told me he looked around and didn't see anything else that looked bad.

Post op recovery went the way it was expected to.

When we got back to the room, we were disappointed to learn that Skyler wasn't our nurse for the day. Apparently, today was supposed to be an extra shift for her, and she decided not to take the shift, and catch up on some sleep.

On the plus side, Erin was our nurse, and she was nearly as awesome.

On the minus side, the gas pains caused by the CO² were much worse this time than after Re's appendectomy.

We had a new nurse from 3-11, Timothy. He was pretty cool too.

We noticed a trend; almost all of the nurses employed by Baptist Health are great, and the nurses that are employed by an agency suck big fat balls.

Today was mostly unremarkable after the surgery, Courtney spent most of the day pretty doped up.

Hospital Day #3

This day started poorly. The nurse last night didn't tell Courtney that she wasn't supposed to eat or drink anything after midnight(or Courtney doesn't remember being told that). They came to get us for her surgery at 10:20 or so. We didn't find out that she was going to be in surgery this morning until about 10:10. Once we got down to pre-op, the nurses started flipping out because Courtney had something to eat at 7am.

She had one chicken finger.

The anesthesiologist wouldn't put her under for surgery with food in her stomach, because he was afraid she would vomit while under, and aspirate the vomitus. Doc Edwards got on the phone with Courtney and was incredibly rude, telling her that she had screwed up the whole day's schedule with her chicken finger. He was like the fourth person to tell her that, and she started crying and freaking out about it.

We came back to the room, since the surgery was cancelled, and Courtney suffered through another day of pain. Courtney's nurse during the day was wonderful. She was younger, about our age, and a lot of fun to chat with. She was the most pleasant nurse I have ever dealt with. Her name is Skyler. We are considering that name if we have another daughter in the future. Skyler has a boyfriend, and his name is Colin. How cool is that? She definitely seems like the kind of person that Courtney and I could hang out with on a friend-type basis.

When the night nurses came on duty, the nurse from the night before got chewed out. Her name is Pat. On day #2, she was real nice and took good care of Courtney. Tonight, she had an attitude every time she came in the room.

When they changed shifts, Pat came in the room and started berating Courtney for eating that morning, and said she had told Courtney not to eat after midnight. A little while later, Courtney told the acp that her IV was coming out. The catheter was visible, and had come out of Courtney's arm by about 1/2". 25 minutes later, Courtney got on the intercom to the nurse's station, to ask her nurse to come into the room. Pat answered, but took great pains to make it seem like it was someone else that answered. It took Pat about 20 more minutes to come into the room to fix the IV. She walked into the room, looked at Courtney's arm, and said 'I'll be right back'. It was another 15 minutes before she came back into the room. She left to get some gloves. The gloves are stored about 25 steps from Re's room. It was clear that Pat was taking her time because she knew Courtney was in pain, and wanted her to suffer, since Pat got chewed out.

Once Pat got to the room with her gloves, she started ripping off the tape that Courtney had on her IV. That caused Re quite a bit of discomfort, since the catheter was loose and moving every time Pat pulled a piece of tape. Courtney reached over and held the cath with her finger, to keep it from moving. Pat told her to move her hand, and Courtney and I thought she was going to pull the cath. Instead, Pat just continued ripping tape off. She kept asking Courtney what she wanted her to do. Courtney told Pat she wanted her to take care of the IV. Then Re asked if Sandy was still on duty. Sandy had put that IV in, and it didn't hurt at all, despite Sandy's need to dig around for the vein. Pat took that request really personally, and got even snippier(even though I didn't think that was possible). She made a smart-ass comment about how Courtney could have another nurse if she wanted one. Courtney told her she didn't need another nurse, she just wanted Pat to treat her the same way she had the night before. Pat told us she wasn't going to get in an argument, and that she was going to go talk to the charge nurse.

I went out of the room a few minutes later looking for the charge nurse. I explained the whole situation to her, and she told us she would look after Courtney for the night. She spent a few minutes getting an IV started again, and told us she'd be back soon. She checked on Re several times during the night, and gave nearly perfect care. My only complaint about her is that she gave Re undiluted Finergan, which ended up closing the vein.

The contrast between the day nurse and night nurse was particularly blaring today. Skyler's wonderfulness made Pat's bitchiness seem much worse.

Hospital Day #2

I don't really know if this counts as day #2 or a continuation of day #1. For my purposes, this day starts at 5am, Tuesday, April 5th 2005. We went to sleep last night(this morning) at 5 am. This account isn't really about my complaints, but 24 hours without sleep, and dealing with the ER to boot, is a long time. I was pretty damn dog tired by the time we got to crash. Re was pretty wiped too; she was dealing with pain the whole time.

Nurses were here at 8 to wake Courtney and get her ready for the Hida scan. The first part of the scan was 90 minutes. Courtney's gall bladder didn't show up on the scan the first time. They had her wait for 30 minutes, then re-did the scan. The tech told Courtney during the scan that a normal gall bladder would contract when they injected the medicine. Courtney saw on the screen that her gall bladder did not contract.
The surgeon(Dr. Edwards) came in during the afternoon. He told Courtney that there was an 80% chance that all of her pain was due to the gall bladder. He couldn't be sure, because the second scan was supposed to cause her a ton of pain. Since she was already in so much pain, and on such strong drugs, Courtney couldn't tell a difference during the second scan. Dr. Edwards recommended surgery as the best course of action, and told Re he would try to get her in surgery the next day or the day after that.

Dr. Edwards specifically told Courtney she could eat anything she wanted for dinner, but that if she ate something fatty, it would cause additional pain. While I was out getting lunch earlier, I picked up some chicken fingers for Re, and put them in the fridge, in case they let her have food. Two people heard Doc Edwards tell Courtney she could eat.

Courtney woke up several times during the night, and ate more chicken fingers. This was the first real food she had in two full days, so she was understandably hungry.