Charging the batteries

Two blips today because yesterday we just got home too late!
Today’s blip shows me enjoying a sunny cup of coffee this morning.
I started the day in a meeting and once that was over headed back to my office in the library.  I really should have got straight down to work but decided to first relax in the sun with a good cup of coffee.
It was really warm in the sun and I drank my coffee rather slowly as I browsed the latest New Yorker. (One of the advantages of working in a library.)  
At this time of year I really feel like I’m charging the batteries before the warmth of the sun disappears.  The time relaxing in the sun seemed very worthwhile because back up in the office things moved smoothly and the day went really well.  
For over a month we have had problems with our LMS, Moodle.  As we have tried to work with courses parts of the system started to go really slowly, or grind to a halt altogether. Tasks that normally took 2 seconds could suddenly take 4 minutes.  This meant a lot of frustrated teachers and students.  The IT people have been working very hard to solve the problem, even coming in at 4:30 in the morning to try things that required restarting the system.
Today the IT people did another tweak of the “memcache system” (don’t ask me…) and suddenly everything started to flow smoothly, as it should.  We couldn’t do definitive tests because there are often quizzes and exams on a Friday and we definitely didn’t want to provoke a crash when a group of students were halfway through an exam! However, we went as far as we dared and everything we tried worked. There were a few celebratory drinks after work tonight. Now we are quietly confident but over the weekend I’ll run some more tests, and hopefully on Monday we can announce that normal service has been resumed.
In a few moments yesterday's blip will be in place and you can see three more contenders for today's blip here...