Counting Down

At this time on Saturday, we will be kicking back on a little island in the Caribbean just takin’ it easy.  In the meantime….

…very busy at work, trying to wrap up some requirements and specifications for the latest project that involves lots of little changes to code we just released late last year.   It leaves me scratching my head wondering why we don’t try to plan for these small changes when we are making major changes.  Last year we totally replaced our central reservation system (CRS).  Our CIO likened it to a heart transplant.  Airlines have been afraid (AFRAID) of replacing their CRS’s because of the damage it can do to their business.  Yet we took on this project and retired a decades old system that ran on an antique operating system that IBM refused to support any longer without huge monthly payments, and did it on time, and within budget (well, within reason) and without major disruptions to the business.  So why did our business not require a system where we could price our products in a more flexible way.  I think the answer for that lies in the fact that our when business asks to have a system replaced, they do not think beyond the system that is being replaced, and their strategic IT partner (that’s us) have not helped them to think strategically.

So now, we are taking all the code we put in when we replaced our CRS and making loads of small changes for product pricing that should have been done with the CRS replacement.

…very busy at church, helping with a communications project.  It’s a little like when we started thinking about building a garage for the church van.  When we finished, we had a 2-car/van garage, a multi-purpose building, and a brand new 2-story school building.  This communications project started out by a couple of people asking for an online calendar, and me saying you don’t need an online calendar.  Basically, the symptoms of the disease are lack of communication, not calendaring.  So we went out to talk to groups of church members and school parents and found out what people were really thinking.  What is really true is that most people don’t want the same thing, but most people do want good communications.  At the heart of that is the need to know the basics of journalism: who, what, where, when, how, and why as well as mulitple communication channels.  So now, instead of just an online calendar, I have a team of people thinking about all the ways we communicate and what the best approach will be to make some immediate improvements.  So, I gave up council and gained a committee.  HA!

…very busy at school, Amy is in two (yes, TWO) drama classes (as if a teenage girl really NEEDS any more drama) and this week is their production of ‘The Glass Menagerie.’  At first, they were going to do both ‘The Glass Menagerie’ and ‘Cat on a Hot Tin Roof’ but they had tempermental actors for ‘Cat’ so they were only able to do ‘Glass.’  At any rate, Amy is on the crew, and is expected to be there every night this week…last night until 10 p.m. and that’s in addition to having to do homework assignments.  So…needless to say she will be more than ready for spring break.

…very busy getting ready for some visitors…we will spend only a short time with them, but we pick up Natalie and a friend at the airport on Friday evening (Amy will be at school doing the play) and they will stay with us overnight.  Carolyn will get here sometime Saturday (while we are flying down to the BVI) and will pick up our car and go over to Disney for a few days…then to Vero Beach.  So now I know what you’re thinking…but we did invite them to come along but for various reasons they were not able to join us on our trip.

…very busy getting ready for our trip.  I have the laundry done, the planning done, and all shopping imaginable done.  Tomorrow I’ll go pick up new specs…that’s the subject of a whole ‘nother blog because that was quite the journey.  We leave Saturday morning quite early…we will have to leave the house by 5 a.m. to get to the airport for the 2-hour departure window.  It seems ridiculous to have to sit around for 2 hours, but things are what they are.  So…one good thing is that I was able to borrow a computer from work and will be able to keep up with my blog over our vacation.  Well….we’ll see…. it might or might not happen… but stay tuned!

That’s it for now…