today ...

it's ten past seven in the evening. today i had a day full of stress, with zero productivity ... well ... almost.

it was like this:

first, my password expired; so, with only blod in my cofee system, half asleep, i tried to set a new password;

no problem there;

then, i saw a dozen mails needing special attention in my mailbox - that's the type of mail that raises a storm by itself, if not answred in eight hours and 21 minutes - ... locked the system ... then, went for a coffee;

i got myself a good coffee (big, warm, lots of milk ... you get the picture).


then i came back, and i could no longer log on; i tried a dozen passwords; with and without caps lock; and standing on my head; and pretending i was still asleep ... nothing worked!



mystery within mystery!

after another ten minutes or so, it suddenly hit me: i had forgotten my shiny new password.



i figured no big deal!



got to C, two cubicles down the hall, and asked for phone no. to the 'systems' guys;


exactly half a cup of cofee, a second phone call to systems (since first had not been answered) and three minutes and twenty seconds later, i found out that they could not reset my password because the PDC was in never-never-land over the seas and the network connection to never-never was taking a bathroom break.





ok, i figured, Plan B: phone call to help-desk in never-never-land, and ask the guys for a new password;

that had ... some limited success: i had a new password, but the network to never-never-land was still down:



still no logon



i managed however to log-on to my testing machine, since it was still locked with the old password.

the only thing i could use was the internet (the proxy apparently was not yet updated with my shiny, new password).



by noon i was up-to-date with google news, romanian news headlines, scubaboard, /. and bunch of other sites i don't remember right now.



i went to a meeting i got reminded of through sheer luck (i was talking to R and a reminder popped up on her screen while we were talking).

it was a 'round table' thingy: some interesting conversation, lots of new names i no longer remember, preety good issues raised up by the guys, some laughing ... the we all went down to lunch.



i met someone in systems while lunching - is that an actual word? :o)


anyway!


i got told that the network was up and running again;




great!



i came back from lunch, set a new password ( no longer sleepy enough to forget it ;) ), then i went through the mail from this morning.



i found out i had to copy this DB dump from one of uncle sam's servers. and i have no access to the folder!


damn!



so, after trying about five accounts with multiple unix passwords, NT access, asking C for other solutions, her trying some other five accounts, and a quick prayer on my part, that solved absolutely nothing in particular, i resumed browsing again;

i also went to talk to some coleagues, filled in the visa application form for Egypt, and cleaned up my system a bit.



at about seven in the evening, i managed to get someone on the phone in uncle sam's country (it's stil morning there), and explained my little lack-of-DB-dump-access problem.


so now, instead of being home, with some warm chinese food in front of me, and checking if anyone's on the online CS server, i'm doomed to executing java tests with the new DB.


I guess it was one of thse days ...



well ... back to my tests ... :)