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June 29, 2007
Week o' meetings
You know ... it's thursday - and I can't really remember what I did this week. I went to some meetings. In fact, today I went to a LOT of meetings. But we got stuff done. But I wasn't in my office as much as desired.
I guess it's not all bad. I was hoping to have the online housing app stuff done by July 1. That's like monday. So not so much. But no one is crying tears. I should have v1 ready by Aug 1 @ the latest. A little vacation next week should help r3lax0r me and chill me out.
Dale and I have been working on the Scheduler App which is ready for Beta. And it's June. w00t
And Bill and I fixed the oracle EM on one of our servers. THAT's been on my todo list forever.
Tomorrow is SOAR. So I gotta look pretty and talk to parents about computers. Plus I have some politics to negotiate, questions to ask and a meeting with Bill and Alex.
All in all, I'm busy (not bad - except for my diet) - but still getting stuff done. I almost had my todo list down to one page a few weeks ago. But not now. 2 or 3 projects will get the list shorter. And I found that only like 10-15 lines of my 60+ line todo list aren't due before 10/1. Boy wouldn't THAT be nice. Here's hoping :)
To conclude this blog, I'd like to express my general thankfulness for my job. I could have it a lot worse, and I want to be as appreciative and thankful for this job (and the people who trust me in it) as I am blessed by it.
Posted by ellism at 3:21 AM | Comments (0)
June 23, 2007
INCOMING!!!
Well conference heck weekend is just around the corner and we're pretty much as prepared as we can be. Paul and John did some configs and testing today, and Alex helped me make and prep more accounts. I think we're in good shape for Sunday. I'm pretty sure the housing staff isn't looking forward to it.
Now that the 'conference craze' is 'bout done, I can settle back into working on the online housing app. I'm still concerned about some of the future modules, but the basic section should work fine. Politics, policy and programmers could all be obstacles on this one, but I'm confident we'll win the day in the end. Chris and Ann and I met for a few hours and made some real headway on the wordsmithing of the app and getting little details figured out. It might be OK. I just don't like feeling like I'm doing the right thing the wrong way. That's always rubbed me wrong.
It's been awhile since I've had a really funny or controversial blog - I'll work on that.
Posted by ellism at 1:34 AM | Comments (0)
June 21, 2007
Bring out your conferences. Bring out your...
Alas, conferences are not dead, but are alive and wild.
Sunday we move in like 1000 people (many of which will leave within 7 days), but by then everything will be in full swing.
We've had some ... fun ... trying to get everything ready for them. 'Course we have this same complication EVERY year I've been here - making our systems and tools work for temporarily housed conference members (many of which don't use our network). But for those who do, and the many ways they do, life can get complicated. And often does.
So this year, we have probably the best system ever (I always think that), which John and Paul have been instrumental in designing, setting up, testing and deploying. I've been there to ask irritating questions and try to simplify things whenever possible, but the real credit goes to our local Bradford experts.
All in all, sunday shouldn't be a huge issue. We've setup and tested all necessary systems, with a good amount of success (this week we have one conference, which went well). It always seems as though we're behind whenever conferences come to town, but I'm not feeling quite as CRAZY this year about them. I know Patrick's stress level will go down after the end of next week. :)
Now I'm trying to keep up with all my meetings and make progress on the integrated online wou/housing app. Lots of little projects that are all pilling up quickly. Good thing I'm taking most of the July 2nd week off - otherwise I might get caught up!
Posted by ellism at 9:01 PM | Comments (0)
June 12, 2007
Productivity +
Regardless and irregardless of a relatively lousy night's sleep last night, today was pleasantly productive. I had a lot of little projects hanging over my head that needed to be cleaned up and finished, and today I finished them all. Yeah - like All of them. I'm just incredibly happy about it, and now I can focus even more on the online housing application merger. After talking through some details with Summer, I'm not quite as worried about the 7/1 deadline.
The online app requires the unified app, which will be up by 7/1.
Module 2 is the online housing app for paper WOU applicants. That'll need to be up ASAP after 7/1.
Module 3 is the future residents info page, which will be up by 7/15.
Module 4 is the online preferences update page, which will be up probably in 2008.
Module 5 is the roommate match tool, which will be up .... later.
Module 6 is the presignups process where current resident recontract with WOU to live on campus next year. My guess is that we'll rewrite this and go live April 2009.
So this 'online housing application', is no small deal. But now I'll have some real time to work on it.
Tomorrow I'll be in Portland for part of the day attending a Computrition conference/seminar. I hope it's worth the pain in the .... sleep. (9am conference in portland = getting up at 6 am)
Posted by ellism at 3:30 AM | Comments (0)
June 9, 2007
This week
Well I was on vacation last week, then got sick. I've been feeling sick this week too, but still worked on the timesheet program, the online housing app, and did some computer forensics.
I gotta rest this weekend and get all well cuz my deadlines are starting to press in and things are only gonna get busier.
Posted by ellism at 1:28 AM | Comments (0)