It's Only the Trunk!

I'm telling you, this sleep issue is causing problems.

Well, that's what I'm going to blame for this bonehead move. On July 20th, I went to an allergist in Bloomington. I tested positive for molds/mildew, several weeds, grasses, and trees, and corn pollen. When the doctor first came in the examining room, the nurse asked where me I get my prescriptions filled. I told her and then the doctor started drilling me on everything concerning possible allergy symptoms. She gave me a nose spray to use right then--even before she did the tests. Once the allergies were confirmed, she told me she was going to give me a prescription for Allegra. I was given a folder with my test results and some general information on allergies, and was sent on my way.

A few days later, I opened my purse (yes, I tend to only open my purse every couple of days or so), and found the nose spray. Then I remembered the allergy Rx I was supposed to get filled. I snorted a couple of sprays in each nostril and carried on with my work day. Sometime over last weekend, I opened my purse again and found the spray. I decided I better look for that prescription before I forgot again. It was nowhere--not in my purse and not in the folder. So I just thought I'd look for it later; it was a very busy weekend. I had more important things to do.

Last night I remembered the nurse asking me where I got my prescriptions filled. CLUE!!!! Today I finally remembered to call the drug store to see if the prescription had been phoned in. SUCCESS!!! They had called it in, and the drug store filled it the same day as my doctor visit. Sometimes I just need to be smacked upside of the head for something to sink in...but really, the nurse should've said "We will CALL this in".

I asked my little dog Rudy if he wanted to go to the store. (Yes, I really do ask him questions like this and he always answers.) So Rudy and I jumped in the car, hit the garage door opener and moved the PRNDL to R.

I guess I'd been better off if Rudy had been driving. Suddenly I heard a big SMACK. I looked in the rear view mirror just in time to see the garage door attempting to continue its upward journey. I put the PRNDL into D and inched forward a couple of feet. The door from the garage to the family room opened and my husband poked out his head. "Whaddya do????" came out of his pie-hole and in a most accusatory tone. I fessed up my sins and he proceeded to read me the riot act.

"You tore up the garage door frame! Look what you did to the trunk!"...I shut off my ear drums. I didn't want to hear any more from Mr. Andretti. But I did tell him that at least I managed to knock off a couple of mud dauber nests from the garage door. (Where is a man's sense of humor at a time like this?) Well, he kept it up until I leaned up against the car door and started crying. Men can be such turds at times. Did he think I freakin' did this on purpose? Hell's patoot...my vision is going downhill, my brain is fried from no sleep, and for God's sake I'm 56 years and ready for the nursing home!

I marched into the house and tried to compose myself. I still needed to get to the drug store and pick up that prescription, and the mere thought of crying puffs up my eyes and turns them scarlet. I took a quick peek in the mirror, and thought that maybe the folks at the pharmacy would just think it was allergies.

I went back to the car where Rudy was waiting patiently to go on his ride. The husband was trying to get the garage door's metal wheel back into the track, but at least the door was fully open. I told him to move, or I'd run over him too. He moved pretty fast for an old fart--must've been the threat of bodily injury.

By the time I got back home, the door was back in place. The husband quit his bitching and decided he better be nice to me. Heck, he even said that he's come close to doing the same thing a time or two. Too late. That ploy is not going to work.

I managed to do some studying online for a project management course I'm taking, and then decided to take my phone to get a fast photo of my trunk to send to my son-in-law (who also happens to be my insurance agent). When I sent the picture, I sent it with text that read, "Garage door too slow--or car too fast". In just a couple of minutes, he called back. I found out that since I "collided" with something, this would be considered "collision". Since it's been less than three years that I've had the policy, it would raise my rates. Who wants to insure an insipid old woman anyway; especially one that backs into her half-opened garage door? The car is seven years old and is already dinged and scratched. What's a few more? I'll drive it until it's a piece of crap anyway.

For now, I think I'll use my husband's guilty conscience against him and see if he'll run down to McD's and buy us a couple of $1 hot fudge sundaes. Then I think I'll call my son-in-law to see if this falls under my homeowner's insurance. I was not the only one moving at the time. The garage door was also moving. Maybe it collided with me, making it the house's fault--not mine.

Gotta run and hit hubby up with the sundae idea.

Monitor Code = Z...zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

If you're one of my two or three loyal readers, you know I am an insomniac--a life-long one. But for the past couple of months, it's gotten really bad. I can't make myself go to bed before midnight and many times it'll be 2am. Then I get up at 4 or 4:30 to go to work. The trouble is, I seem to have my days and nights mixed up now and can't function up to par until 4pm--that's quitting time.

I find myself sitting at my desk trying my hardest to stay awake. I need to find some test data, so I open up good old Toad and run a query to knock out all records in a table with a monitor code of Z. Next thing I know, I'm the one with a monitor code of zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. It's a miserable situation and each day seems to last 24 hours. It's hard to think, much less write boring stuff all day long.

I had a doctor's appointment last week and he put me on Ambien. I hate sleeping pills. Every one I've tried has left me groggy the next day. But with this one, I was already groggy. So I don't know if it's a natural sleepiness or it's drug-induced. The last two nights, I've cut the pill in half. Still sleepy, even though I'm taking the pill much earlier. Last weekend I actually slept until 9:45, thanks to the little pill. I'm sleeping more than I have in years, but still find myself nearly comatose until 4pm.

A couple of weekends ago, I was trying to study the online course I'm taking in project management. After ten minutes I gave up and actually went to bed to take a nap. I never take a nap, but just felt like I really needed to listen to what Mother Nature was trying to tell me. I slept from 2pm to 7pm. Now that's a nap!



I hate being this way. I've always been a morning person, but not any more. I'm worried about falling asleep while driving--even on my 20-minute drive to work. In the morning when I wake up, I stagger to my recliner while my husband brings me my cup of coffee (complete with just the right amount of creamer and sugar). The coffee no longer helps to wake me, but it sure tastes good going down. Hopefully, after a couple of weeks, the Ambien will get me on a more normal sleep cycle and I can quit taking it. Life will return to normal and my usual four or five hours of sleep a night will return. I will be able to keep my eyes open at work...unless I'm stuck in a boring meeting. My concentration will return and I'll be more productive at work and at home.



But for now, it's time to take the pill and get ready for bed in hopes of a decent night's sleep.

Stuck Between a Rock and a Hard Place

As I attempt to document the 16 new reports, it becomes painfully obvious to me that these reports have "issues". The new reports have all been copied from the first one created, and evidently each programmer assigned to each report didn't see the "hover" messages above date fields that say "Defaults to the first of the month" and "Defaults to the current date". So maybe three of the reports really do default those dates, but the rest do not. So either really do default the dates or get rid of the damned "hover" messages.

OK, I can work around that problem by checking each report and documenting whether or not it really does default the dates. I could ignore the entire situation and pretend I didn't notice the hover messages. After all, they only show up in a bright yellow box when you happen to move the cursor over the fields. But worse yet is after I run these queries, about four of them have math problems when I hit the Print button. The report generates into an Adobe Reader format, BUT on the screen with the search results, a field that shows an 'average' lists that average as 67%. That part is correct. However, on the generated report, that average shows up as 50%. Now how is that possible? I note these issues in our tracking software. The analyst then sees what he missed when he QA'd the reports. He calls the programmer. She's not happy.

This morning I ran into her in the hallway and was greeted with a "Since when are you an analyst?" statement. You know...sort of kidding, but sort of NOT kidding? OK, I admit...I'm a mere lowly tech writer. But how can I document what doesn't work or what doesn't add up? I'm a whiz with the screen capture software...I can fake a screen to make it the software look like it can save the world. But is that the right thing to do? My choices are to:
1. Fake it to look correct.
2. Document it "as it is", mistakes and all.
3. Skirt the issue and just give a generic "here's what we did"--no screen shots.
4. Bring the problem to the attention of the analyst, even though he's already passed it onto the customer to look at (and chances are, the customer doesn't test it very well either).

So maybe next time I'll do the screen shots complete with all the nice little Oracle errors that pop up, or the totally blank reports that are generated. Maybe I'll leave the simple math errors for the world to see. Wonder what they'd say to me then..."What...are you an idiot? You can't see that this thing doesn't work right? Why didn't you say something?"

...and I'll just say, "What am I???...an analyst????".