HoundBlog

Good morning! I hope you are all well.

I managed to get some quality sleep last night –went to bed at 9:30 and up at the usual 4:00 am, so I feel much more alert today. Did not have to work from home last night and came in this morning and have already gotten a nice chunk of work completed.

I am meeting Janet and her sister, Martha for lunch today, so I have a nice treat to look forward to. Those two are such nice ladies and I so enjoy their company!

I have nothing on for this weekend, so will spend it catching up on laundry and housecleaning. I’m hoping the lawn mower is back by then, too as the yard is in desperate need of trimming after all the rain we’ve had these past few days.

I ran into a lot of fog this morning on the way in. That is pretty unusual this time of year. Of course there were effects produced by it that I so wanted to catch on disc, but did not have my camera with me — DRAT! 😥 I have missed way too many photo ops lately!

I talked to Eddie last night. He is still working on getting custody of Chrystalyn. His X keeps waffling on whether she will cooperate or fight his effort. It is very frustrating for him. The good news is that they did sell their house in Georgia and close on it 6/22. He is still excited about his new job with the Navy and is looking forward to moving to Washington DC in August. He told me for everyone to use his yahoo address to send him email.

I think that catches you all up on Ken and I. It’s about time for the boss to get here, so I had best close and get my nose back to the grindstone.

Love to all,

Margaret

It’s Wednesday — Kevin made it to San Diego and I made it in to work. We are both sleep deprived at this point and while I can’t speak for him, I am VERY tired! Yesterday was a l-o-o-o-n-g day starting at 4 am and ending at 10:30 pm. Got up this morning again at 4 am and, although I didn’t have to be at work until my normal 7 am, I still logged in from home and started some processes so that I would have one more thing done before the day officially started. Today I have to get the mapping done for completed calls that are awaiting billing and move some of that data over into the test database. We plan to begin testing processes tomorrow and I will need some data to “play” with. I met with Jean, Traci and Rhonda yesterday afternoon to go over the plans to “turn it on” July 2nd. I still have to think through some of the little things that will happen once the trigger is pulled, but I truly think that I’ve planned well for a smooth transition.

I still have to build more reports, so am working more with Reporting Services to get that done. I wish I were smarter or more educated. This is slow going and somewhat frustrating as if I forget a step, it’s really hard to go back and pick it up. In other words, it’s not idiot proof. 🙁

I will probably run reconcile on Sales and Inventory this weekend so we can be sure to start with a “clean” database. Reconcile resolves all those orphaned items that inevitably are created when people bail out of the application in the middle of processing something.

Well, I suppose I’ve bored you enough with my talk of work and projects.

My repaired camera came back yesterday. I am so happy to have it home! I’ve missed it terribly! The Kodak just is no substitute for the Sony! :!:They even replaced the grip on the front that Taji beaked. While it wasn’t something I asked to have repaired/replaced, it’s nice that they did it as now my camera looks brand new again. Then again, it’s lost a bit of personality 😆 I seem to not be satisfied no matter what.

I noticed that the blackberries are ripening. The berries appear to be rather small this year due, no doubt to the lack of rainfall. Of course, now that it’s too late to help the berries, we have had rainstorms the past two days. My fig tree did produce leaves, but there is no fruit this year due to the late freeze we had that blasted all the blooms. While that doesn’t impact me too much, the birds and bees feasted on the figs and I worry that they will “go without” this year. There doesn’t seem to be as many blooms overall on trees and shrubs, so bees and hummingbirds will lack nectar. I do have hummingbird feeders out, but the bees don’t come to them — wasps do, but not bees. Speaking of the hummingbird feeders, I’ve noticed a chameleon has taken up residence on the one hanging in front of my window. She has learned that she can catch all manner of insects that are drawn to it. My goal this weekend is to photograph the colorful but shy skinks that I see scuttling around the house. I’ve admired the blue ones for some time now, but I’m now seeing red ones as well. I must do some research on line to see what they really are and if the reds can breed with the blues or if they are separate species. The reds do appear to be more blunt of body than the blues. You’ll see when I put up the pictures.

Well, I’ve really rambled on today, so must get back to work before my boss gets here and catches me goofing off.

Love to all,

Margaret

Good Morning! Bet your day didn’t start as early as mine did 🙂 I logged in to work this morning at 4:00 am, started a procedure running, then got dressed and drove in to work to meet Brian at 6:00 am. We have been hard at it ever since.

Received Judy’s email last night telling of Kevin’s trek across country. He was stranded in Texas in a sandstorm and that brought visions of him dressed like Lawrence of Arabia, riding a camel with the sand blowing around him in gusts and “Horse With No Name” playing as the sound track. 😆  Ok Sis #2, I will admit to being a bit tetched, but deny outright that I’m crazy 🙄

We are almost to the point of having this project ready to do some intensive testing. It’s so exciting to see the end in sight. I have one more bit of data to set up and my part is pretty much done. That makes me VERY happy! I’ve started building reports — it only took me about 8 hours to create the first one to my satisfaction (although I’m still not 100% satisfied with it). I need to create another report, but don’t have any completed calls with which to do so. Guess I will just have to pull across some that are and see what happens.

Well, I need to get back to it. I hope you all have a great day!

Love to all,

Margaret

Good morning everyone! I hope your Monday has started out well.

We got home yesterday around 2:00 pm from the dog show. While we didn’t win with the Whippets, the Crested girl was Best of Breed on Saturday to garner her first points and snag a major while she was at it. In order to attain an AKC championship, a dog must win a total of 15 points with at least 6 of those points coming from “major” wins of 3 or more points (maximum points you can win at a show are 5). So, she’s 1/5 of the way along and has one of the two majors out of the way. And of course, as per dog-show logic, she was 3rd out of 6 on Sunday 😆

The really down side to the weekend was the terrible headache I had all weekend. It began Saturday morning and by Sunday afternoon I was totally miserable. Ken made me lie down with a cool cloth on my head in a darkened room Sunday afternoon. I also took an Advil Cold and Sinus pill (which meant I didn’t sleep well last night) and by 5:30 was feeling much better! I’m sleepy this morning, but headache-free — at least for now 😉

Well, my boss just walked in, so I guess I had best get on with work.

Love to all,

Margaret

Worked from home today and began my day at 4:30 am, so am pretty much finished 🙂

I have also done my laundry or hte week, done the dishes and sent Ken on his way to Asheville. I’ll leave in the morning with the dogs and join him there.

I still have to groom the dogs and run into town for some dog food, but that shouldn’t take long.

I got one of my Reporting Services books — the Reporting Services for Dummies and am about 3 chapters into it already. So far, it’s been a review of what a database IS and how it works, so nothing new, but a review is always helpful for getting you focused on what’s to come. I’ll take it with me this weekend as I’m fairly certain that I’ll have time to read more.

Talk later.

Love to all,

Margaret

Well, Econz finally got their applications fixed, but it’s too late as the techs have all dropped it from their phones and reverted back to paper. Hopefully this will only be for a couple of weeks while we get Great Plains up and data from the old database migrated over to GP, then we will “turn it back on”. Meanwhile, Wes has communicated to them our issues and frustrations with getting back on track and up to speed. Maybe they will listen…

Acumen is finally showing some progress towards getting the customizations they’ve been working on in place and I’ve been able to map over the headers of the call table. That was a HUGE step and will facilitate techs/ARCs and AM’s being able to see some test data in the test database that makes sense to them. Now I feel like we can begin some testing to make sure the GL accounts are being hit correctly.

I talked to Wes today about attending PASS in September. We’ll see what he can arrange.

I’ve been so head over heels involved in this project and the issues with Econz, that I haven’t had any time to really think about this weekend and the show. I’m really looking forward to the break from all the intensity. I actually broke out in hives Tuesday and had to go to the doctor for steroids and anti-itch medicine as I was so miserable. I feel much better today with both the stress relief from the one issue and the medicine finally making headway.

Well, got to run. Ya’ll take care.

Love to all,

Margaret

Long night last night. Not only did I work late yesterday — leaving at 6:00pm instead of my normal 4:00 pm, but was then on the telephone with New Zealand from 7:30 until around 9:00 and then they called me again around 11:30 for 15-20 minutes. I got to work 15 minutes late this morning. I know — Tuesday is usually my day to work from home, but I’m expecting Brian, Corina and/or Clyde today, so knew I needed to be here.

I’m hoping what Econz did last night has corrected the issues with them for now. I did have to send them around 1800 calls for which I need the completion data for. Maybe they will send it – maybe not.

At least now I can concentrate on the GP project instead of dealing with a forest fire as I have for the past week.

I received one of the 3 books I ordered yesterday. It’s the one on CSS (which has to do with web pages for those of you who don’t know) and it’s starting out pretty awesome. I hope to put some of the new information to work for me very soon.

We are babysitting a dog for one of the people Ken works with. She’s a poorly bred maltese by the name of Millie. I’ve been singing the name game song to her for the past 3 days and caught Ken singing it to her this morning. She seems to enjoy being sung to and having her very own song 😉  She will go home next Monday.

We have a dog show this weekend in Asheville, NC. Although it’s close, we are taking the camper and staying over. There’s a match Saturday night that I hope to enter Kabuki in. Kathy Davis is going to stay with us.

Well, guess I should get back to work — break time is over.

Love to all,

Margaret

I cannot get over that half the year is gone already! Where did it go? What did I spend my time on? How can it be over so fast?? It just blows my mind…

Spent the weekend pretty much lazing around. I did the usual things of laundry et al, but no major projects. I did tweak the website a bit. Made a new graphic for the header and changed the color scheme. I’m not sure I’m in love with it, but there you are. I bought a new book on CSS and am anxiously awaiting it coming in the mail. If it’s half as good as the one I got from the same company on design, then I will be happy. I had some trouble on my site with one division that was supposed to hold a background image, but skewed it to the left and I never did figure out why it did that. It’s as if the whole division was shifted to the left.  I know — only Colin or Kevin really understand what I’m talking about here – it’s all geek-speak to the rest of you 😆 I can hear Ma now.

Econz seems to have part of their act straightened up. They say the issue was a site coming in with no address, but I’ve looked through the records I sent and there isn’t one that’s missing an address. I’m hoping they will tell me which one it was so I can look not only at that one record but also the ones before and after as I think it may only be that there was a comma somewhere that threw the field off in the csv file. We’ll see. Of course, that doesn’t explain why I’m still missing completions from the jobs they DO have. I have a feeling that’s going to be the sticking point.

Brian and Corrina are supposed to be here around noon today. Guess we will get on with the GP project once they get here.

Got to run.

Love to all,

Margaret

Good morning everyone! Here I am again on a Friday writing to you, my fans. No big plans for the weekend this weekend. Just working on my GP project which has hit some snags in these final hours.

Wes wants to “go live” Monday, but since everything is still not in place and no testing has been done, Jean wants to get them to wait until July 1 so that we CAN get training, testing and reports in place. I am in total agreement with her on this.

Meantime I’m still having data retrieval problems with EService data. I’m just NOT getting all of it. It’s really discouraging and I don’t know what to do. Their response is less than sterling on any questions I have. Trying to get them to pull the data manually is like pulling hen’s teeth. Where I could do it for one of my customers in a relatively short time, they take days and I’ve already waited days, so now I’m nearly a week behind in everything. — Econ life sucks 😥

I also need a book on Reporting Services. I’m very unfamiliar with this tool, but need to GET familiar with it in a really short time. Guess I will close now so I can go look for a Books for Dummies on Reporting Services.

Love to all,

Margaret