Breaker

I called to the other men that the sky was clearing, and then a moment later I realized that what I had seen was not a rift in the clouds but the white crest of an enormous wave.
~ Ernest Shackleton

Just another OWP tonight. I had intended taking a wander up into town, but the hailstorm I drove through on the way home (what is this weather all about) put me off. It has been wonderfully sunny since, but there is still a bite in the air. It is colour though!

Sometimes I imagine large problems at work in the way a disaster movie would unravel. You know, the carelessly discarded cigarette smouldering in the paint store, the loosening bolt in a critical joint or the widening crack in a supporting structure. Always hidden from the protagonists until it is too late and disaster strikes!

Yesterday was such a day. Our disaster began four weeks ago with a database upgrade. Unbeknownst to the DBA's though some critical elements were not being updated correctly and while they didn't affect the day-to-day running of the system, last weekend the database had to be restarted. The cigarette caught. The bolt fell away. The structure failed. This meant we walked into a complete mess yesterday. 12 hours later, I walked out having fire fought with my colleagues all day to make sure what needed done was done manually. The problem was still not resolved this morning and indeed we'd started on our contingency extracts for a second day before the problem was finally (hopefully) resolved.

Last night on the way home I noticed Les Misérables and decided to buy it. I'd heard mixed reviews about it and being a fan of the non-musical 1998 drama starring Liam Neeson and Geoffrey Rush, I settled down unsure of what I was about to see. I'm not adverse to a musical. Indeed some of my most guilty film pleasures are the Hollywood musicals of the 50's. There's nothing like them to raise spirits. There is one thing I really hate though; Musicals in which all words are sung. I hate it, and by the time I got to the end of this film, the high pitched squeaking of Mssrs Jackman and Crowe in all but a few sentences was beginning to tell. However, it has to be said, the set piece songs were all great and whether it was down to my current status of emotional wreck or just the tiredness from the long and strained day, I found myself all teary eyed when Jackman's Valjean succumbed at the end. Having not watched it for a while I am sitting watching the other version. Still prefer it, but the musical didn't stink.

Anyway, that was yesterday. Little to talk about today, which is why you're getting yesterday, presented ad nauseam now. I've got a couple of emails I've neglected to reply to and then hopefully I'll be able to catch up with your days!