Okay – so most of you know my day job is as a tester (Software Development Engineer in Test to be precise) at a … uh… major software company in Redmond, Washington.

I recently moved to a new position in the Security Technology Unit where I can work on fun things like infrastructure for how we deal with spyware and viruses, etc. Exciting stuff every day and right up with my interests.

I’ve been there now for about 2 months and have sunk my teeth into my assigned project finally.

Now, those of you who know me might know (or guess) that I’m a little Type A when it comes to work. I tend to be aggressive and rather take charge and don’t tolerate crap well.

This has been over a week of sheer crap.

Today made me almost postal because:
1) Code Complete was scheduled for 2 days ago – I still have no code and no eta from the developer. In fact I have UTTER SILENCE from him. No code complete means I cannot start testing.
2) All the bugs from said developer are sitting on his plate, still unresolved.
3) One of the internal customers for the product I’m working on decided to have a fit about something is being handled after code complete was scheduled and was trying to insist on a redesign in the middle of the ship cycle.
4) My PM is too green to leave in charge of dealing with said customer, so I end up doing so. After about 5 emails, I finally call her – at 6:30pm my time, and spend 40 minutes talking about what is going on and FINALLY talk her into letting it go as it is and working with the PM to redesign it afterward.
5) My laptop that I started to install a beta build of some software we were all asked to try out has gone into an endless cycle of rebooting. Start the several hour process AGAIN.
6) Test plan review tomorrow – thought of more use cases not included in plan
7) Code review schedule from developer for tomorrow – 3 days AFTER code complete. Sorry dudes, it’s NOT code complete until it’s checked in and I GET IT.
8) I finally get out of the office and home at 8pm. Lovely…. Tomorrow doesn’t look much better but at least my craft night might calm me down. If my friend doesn’t try to get me to debug his code for him.

This is on top of lovely things like finding out that two utility programs either will not work with the new code or will totaly screw up the database.

A developer who *I* am telling how to solve problems and what code to write.

My boss took his fidget toys away from me because he said I was going to destroy them.

The women’s group wants to reorganize their mail list again – all 3000+ members thereof.

I wish I was a drinker because I’d probably get drunk about now.

Reminds self *No punching holes in the wall – you still haven’t fixed the hole from the teenager doing that and hate patching walls*

And today, with my luck, I’d break my hand.

I think I’ll change my sig lines at work and on IM. Someone I was helping gave me a great quote (though I don’t know the author):

“When your purpose in life is to etertain the gods, there’s nothing to do but put on a good show.”

Wonder if “Rampaging like a crazed rhino in rut” counts as a good show?

Let’s see, a few updates are in order…

One is that I’m finally at 71% of RWH and trying to chug on. Sllooowwwlly getting there. It’s not helped by the fact the Day Job is very challenging and eats up a whole lot of time and energy. Just means things take longer.

Ideas for new stories keep pouring in far faster than I could write any of them. I just keep writing them down and stuffing them in the idea box for now. I have a feeling that I probably have more ideas than I can ever write in my entire life. I’m not sure what everyone else does but the Idea Box seems to fill my need to not “lose” the idea but not require me to immediately do more than just write the idea down.

I’m also working on my technical book which is due to the editor 10/1 and I want to beat that by at least a month. I HATE being late and much prefer being very early!

Diet is going…nowhere. I’m hanging in at the same weight for several weeks. Certainly no one to blame but me and the fact that I totally suck a self-denial, especially when under stress – like now.

Guess that’s about it right now. I know everyone was so interested in this that they could barely keep their eyes open but I feel guilty when I don’t mind the blog….

Let me preface this review with the comment that though Alison Kent has been conducting a viral marketing blitz as an experiment with this book, I had already pre-ordered a copy. She happens to be on my autobuy list – for very good reason.

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Deep Breath is the latest installment in Alison Kent’s SG-5 series.

Georgia McLain is a woman who specializes in finding modern day treasures, especially documents. This time she is looking to find a file that may exonerate her late father in a case of national scandal at the time. But she’s caught by another party, Charlie Castro,and given only two days to find that file and turn it over to save her brother’s life.

Harry van Zandt is sent to accompany her but he isn’t the innocent bystander he purports to be. He’s a seasoned SG-5 operative who has his own mission to accomplish – to turn that same file over to his superiors. Since he’d already wanted to use Georgia to find the file, being sent with her as her “helper” suits him just fine. His nickname of Rabbit is a nod to how well he can pull miracles out of his hat.

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This is definitely a book of secrets – secrets kept and secrets shared. Pretty much everyone in the book starts out lying – to others and to themselves. The fact that Alison could take this and turn it into a very enjoyable book that I’m sure to reread is a sign of what a terrific writer she is.

This book actually combines two things I generally do NOT like into a book I really liked.

I don’t usually like books with more than about two or three points of view. Most of the time I become too easily confused and lose track of whose head I’m in at any particular time. Alison made it work, though, and I never struggled to figure out whose head I was in.

I don’t usually like books which display their timeline. I think the root of this dislike is that I have trouble reconciling the actions in the book with the amount of time that has purportedly passed. But again Alison made it work for me. I was so much into the story that the timestamps really coincided with what I felt made sense for that point.

I was a little drawn off by a subplot involving Georgia’s little brother but not enough to cause a lot of distress or disgruntlement.

I really liked the fact that it wasn’t yet another case of the hero and heroine being absolutely perfect for each other. The little issues that remain make them more human and more real to me.