Happy MLK day. A day off for some, but I worked. From home, so I did not benefit from what must have been light traffic.
What I did get was the opportunity to walk with Carl at lunch. And again after work, before dinner. About 7,700 steps, and that’s pretty good for a work day.
And a reasonable amount of focused work.
Watching the second episode of River, a British show on PBS. It’s an interesting show.
River
Yesterday was a day. A walk, in the light rain. To the beauty parlor. Well, the discount haircut place. And got some hair cut, because that’s what you do at a discount haircut place.
Tomorrow I will see if the new guy at work still recognizes me.
The Exterminating Angel was the movie we saw a few days ago. Today we watched The Angel Levine on our TV. It’s from 1970, starring Zero Mostel and Harry Belafonte. It was produced by Harry Belafonte as well. It was quite different, but equally enjoyable in a completely different way.
I spent the morning trying to catch up on family arithmetic and bills. Getting ready to start on taxes soon as well. Year end tabulations and transitions. Call me strange, but I kind of enjoy the summarizing the year and comparing with others, looking for trends. This all started when we were first trying to understand how much we would need for retirement, and really didn’t know how we were spending our money. Now we can answer the question about how we spend it now, and at least hazard a guess about the future.
The weather was really nice, for a winter day. We thought it was supposed to be an atmospheric river day, but there was sun! And 40s. So we took a walk. Some of the sights follow.
All players welcome Outside the sculptor’s houseTrying to figure out which couple we identify with the most.The crowd. If you can zoom in, do. The details are worth the effort.
We went to the last entry of the Dennis’ memorial film festival. Tonight was a film called The Exterminating Angel. It’s a Mexican film, in Spanish with subtitles. Reported to be Dennis’s favorite movie. It was worthwhile, and it required discussion afterwards.
We also met a film documentarian who had been hoping to interview Dennis, at least before he died. I was able to give him some contact information about the group that is currently working to gather and preserve Dennis’s collection.
Night, back to the Grand Illusion for Through the Porthole, a Tribute to Dennis Nyback
Another big house. Busby Berklee. Count Bassie. Casey at the Bat. Laurel and Hardy. A pre Al Jolson soundie. A German movie predating the early French Lumiere movies.
It’s intermission, now for the adult fare. Which included, among others, Shirley Temple at 5 yrs old. The film was about a lady in a bar, with lots of soldiers, all vying for her attention before they were called back to work. Except they were all small kids, and “the lady,” took payment in lollipops. War Babies, her first speaking role. Check it out. Rather disturbing.
We didn’t get to any movies last night – the first one that we were going to go to was sold out, and the second one we have on DVD at home. And I was still working.
Today – did work again, but it is a work day. Actually accomplished finishing population for 2022 and doing some checking and clean-up of customer accounts. Basically a good, productive day.
In the background, Carl & I continued to discuss the movie we did see on Saturday – Gold Diggers of 1933. In particular, one of the opening scenes is Ginger Rogers singing We’re in the Money. And the best part of this, or at least the most interesting part is when she sings it in Pig Latin. I don’t have much more to talk about, because – work – but here is a link to the song. The accompanying video is from the movie, with the Pig Latin starting at about the 1:45 mark (of 4 to 5 minutes).
And I don’t think I mentioned the Seahawks game yesterday. It was do or die, and then needing other teams to do their part. I did not watch the entire game. A few moments here and there, including the “would be winning field goal” that bounced off the upright. And then in OT, where I saw a bit more – they were not able to win when they had the ball for the first drive. But neither was the other team, who actually turned it over before they could score (and win). This time the Seahawks managed to kick a field goal and secure a CHANCE at the Wild Card spot. AND THEN – Detroit had to beat Green Bay. I have always rooted for the Lions, since they were the team closest to my home town. But they have not had the greatest reputation over the last several years – and Green Bay had Aaron Rogers (I think). Because the Seahawks won, Detroit was out of the playoffs already, and if Green Bay won – they were in and the Seahawks were out. But Detroit did the cool thing and won, allowing the Seahawks to play for another week. Yeah for all of my Michigan friends have a good last game, and for all of my Seahawk diehards to get one more.
The plus is because it’s tomorrow morning from yesterday.
Yesterday was largely a work day. But after much wrangling I did manage to finish the metrics for December 2022. I hope to finish the 2022 EOY population today. Then it is cleaning up the duplicate accounts that caused me a few days of grief, checking through a new set of data for consistency and finally can get back to other work.
Carl had a conversation with a friend on the telephone on Friday or Saturday. There had been a picture around with Carl sporting a green Mariners knit hat, and the friend commented on the hat in particular. Carl remembered I had been given the hat as part of an appreciation bag once when I was a handler for Wayne Drop (District Mascot) at Mariners Kids Day. And he had never seen it elsewhere.
Then, on Saturday, as we were walking paste the Taste of India’s outdoor seating area, there was a person wearing the same hat!
Started the day working on the Spring Training trip. Organizing what we already have, and then getting tickets to the final game on the schedule. A Cubs game, because they held out making tickets available until today. And their website left a lot to be desired. So after I finally got the tickets I sent an email to the Cubs site. Low and behold, about 2 hours later a Cubs representative called our home phone. One of my complaints was you couldn’t see what seats were available, just choose a section. So after some apologies and a chat with Carl, they moved our seats to the better side of the section. Where fewer people will walk in the aisle next to the section.
Next up was work. Using everything I learned yesterday to start over where I was a few days ago.
And then we went out. The Grand Illusion is doing a Week long tribute to Dennis Nyback, our film archivist friend.
Tonight we saw Busby Berklee’s Golddiggers of 1933. It was sold out. As was the next show, Yojimbo. This is a 1961 Akira Kurosawa movie considered a classic. We’re going to their showing tomorrow evening, if I get tickets. There were only 6 tickets left when we got to the theater tonight.
All proceeds from the tribute week are going to the American Cancer Society.
Was today a Monday?! It sure seemed like it. At least from a work perspective. WARNING this is a brain download of my work day. Feel free to skip it, as it is mostly to empty my brain without boring Carl to death.
A rollercoaster of discovery. Working on a project I do every month.
Finally had the data downloaded
Got through 2 initial sets of data manipulation
Onto the 3rd set of instructions to do my sewer metrics
In the second or third step a query gave me an error I had never seen before.
This query was one that kept getting longer every month.
After poking around, comparing this month’s query with last month’s query, including looking at the sequel statement, I checked Google and discovered that you can only have 16 joins in an Access query. And it has been 16 months.
Time to rethink the query and what I am really using the results for now. When I started this we were trying to figure out how we were going to present and use the data. Since then we have developed our presentation style, and the graphs are developed by exporting the data to Excel, and making charts there. So I don’t need to have all of the data in one Access table.
Excitement
I had figured out the problem.
Now to re-do the query to only look at the current and previous month in the query. This is to allow catching any anomalies in the results, and then adding the results from the latest month into Excel to update the charts.
The update to the query was also going to make it into a template, to reuse without as much rework each month
Get the first draft of new query completed, and look at the data.
And it seems off. It showed no new sewer customers, and in fact there were 5 fewer.
Frustration- a new problem to figure out.
Try to figure out which records had disappeared
A few unmatched queries later I could find no missing records.
What’s the opposite of missing data? Duplicate data, that comes and goes.
Confusion
Looked at several earlier months and found 3 different accounts that had duplicate accounts.
Identified a field in the duplicate record that was different
Checked around to understand what this field was. Not one I use. And based on the answer I got, a little more work to figure out why this account has two location IDs.
This is impacting about 8 out of 20,000 records. Diminimus? If I were looking at just changes over each year, maybe. But looking at customer additions each month means small numbers matter.
I guess I know what I’ll be working on this weekend.
Yesterday I got a bug under my butt, and decided to look for an Airbnb for Carl and the boys for Spring Training, in case the staying with a friend option fell through. So I found a reasonably priced centrally located house with separate beds for just about everyone. And a generous cancellation date.
A good move as it turns out the friend could only put up a few of the boys for a few of the days. I feel good that part of the trip is under control. Now for a rental car.
3 pre-apps, 1 Developer Extension Agreement initiated on a rush request, chatted with a property owner who has a failing septic system about potential sewer extensions, and finally got some time to work on last month’s sewer metrics.
In other activities, we lent our Prius to a neighbor so they could get to their piano lesson. A few days ago a nefarious sort cut the catalytic converters off of both of their Priui. I spent money on a Cat Shield a few years ago so I wouldn’t constantly worry. And our car is parked on a slope, making jacking it up more difficult.
Work continues to be busy in an all over the place way. That means I was working on many different things for short periods of time, rather than working for a good period on one of the bigger projects.
So let’s think about vacation planning.
February to March = Spring Training. Not for me, but for my husband and his baseball buddies. And I serve as the travel agent. So far we have plane flights and tickets to 4 of 5 planned games. What we don’t have firmed up is a place to stay. There is a chance they may be able to stay with a friend. But said friend needed to clear it with his wife. So I may look for an Airbnb as a backup.
On the baseball theme, we need to figure out what games we want to go to, and what games we share with friends (for a price, but face value). People want to make plans, so we need to make decisions. Usually we start by offering games when we will be on vacation. So what are we doing for vacation?
Somebody else’s vacation
There is the All Star game in July. That’s a vacation at home.
When else and where else to go.
This should be a fun thing, and yet this evening it feels like another chore. Maybe something to work on this weekend.
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