I Suck At Installing A Thermostat

today has been a very frustrating day... as evident by the fact that i'm still awake in the wee hours of a friday night doing work.

i suppose i don't really have to be working into the wee hours of night. so i guess it is technically by choice that i hammer away at the keyboard and pulling my hair out in frustration. there has been a project at work that has been driving me nuts.

it was a simple project... in theory. all i had to do was edit some lines of code. it was easy. i tested the code and it worked. the person requesting the changes also approved the changes, so i moved the edited files to our live production environment. that is when the problem started.

apparently, the person who approved the changes discovered what we developers like to call "a bug" with something related to the changes i made. in a state of panic, the person went to all the senior management and started to yell that the sky is falling. okay, so maybe those weren't the exact words... but it was close.

needless to say, the incident makes me look bad because i moved the code to our live production environment... even though this person approved of the changes. truth be told... the "bug" is not even of my own doing. this bug existed for at least two months prior to my touching this project. it just so happens that it was discovered when i moved the files to our live production environment. so, that's even more annoying...

anyway, since i take pride in the things i do... i'm working into the wee hours of night trying to rectify the problem... and hopefully people won't think i'm that bad at what i do.

so now that my venting is done, i suck at installing a thermostat. actually, the installation of the thermostat was very easy. the easy installation is probably the highlight of today for me. (curse you, work!)

my friends (bill and jen) recently moved into a new apartment. so as to not confuse anyone, bill and jen are siblings... not significant others as some people in ireland believed.

bill got a new programmable digital thermostat to replace the old mercury dial thermostat that came with the apartment. as he was hesitant to install the thermostat on his own, he asked for my help. of course, i obliged because i like doing home improvement projects... just not the ones that pertain to my own home. for some reason, doing other people's home improvement projects are much easier and more enjoyable.

anyway, it surprisingly took me very little time to install the new thermostat. for some reason, i was expecting wires galore because bill said there were a lot of wires coming from the wall. there were only two. having only two wires made things easier, that's for sure. well, i hope bill and jen like the new thermostat. (and for anyone curious, we did test to make sure it worked.)

afterwards, i got to hang out with jen and bill for a little while, which was nice. we ended up watching a show called "three sheets". it's basically a show where the host (zane lamprey) goes to a foreign location to imbibe alcohol with the locals. it must be a tough job... to get intoxicated for work. but the show was interesting to say the least.

from jen and bill's, i went to the south shore ymca in quincy... which is probably the other highlight of my day because it was the first time i set foot in the south shore ymca since my son (braden) passed away two months ago. likewise, it was the first time for karen. as it had been quite a while, karen and i planned on meeting at the ymca to visit a few people and say hello.

karen had to do a nutritional consultation with someone that night anyway, so i just worked out before meeting up with her... that is... if you can call it working out. i must have looked awful running 2 miles with my ipod on. it was the first time in a long while (again, at least since braden passed away) that i did any type of cardiovascular exercise. i also did some free weight training, so we'll see how sore i am tomorrow. but i must say... gotta love those endorphins!

anyway, seeing everyone at the ymca was good. my friends (ally and michelle) were there. and as karen pointed out, one of the members in the class sounded like alan alda of mash fame. so it was an interesting time.