Midweek blah's.

Wednesday morning I wake up and I was really tired since I was up late drinking last night after our wins. So, I went back to sleep. I called into work and let them know I would be late. I was about 2 hours late. Oops.

My cat Victor De La Hoya has been acting strange since moving to Colfax. He seems to breathe really deep and is very defensive. He hisses, and wants to attack, even me. So, I am a little bit worried about him.

I got in and worked on ISMan. That is short for Information Services Manager. It is a web application that I built. It uses ASP and SQL Server to track all the computers, software, peripherals, users, and issues with in the county. Before this there was on old out of date access database in use. But it did not track the users, nor the software. We used Tasks from Outlook to track the issues. There was no way of going back easily and looking up an old issue to see how it was dealt with. Problem computers could not be tracked. Now every issue is tracked for a specific computer is listed when the computer details are brought up. This is handy, so I can see the history of problem computers. I can also see at a glance what computers have as software and OS's. I can make sure the computers do have pirated software. The nice thing is that I have been able to build this from the ground up. At first I felt a little resistance from my counterpart, Dan. He seemed a little dubious about the whole idea. I still don't think he is a big fan of it, but I think he is warming up to some of it. It works pretty sweetly. The UI is pretty easy to use, however there are a few things I would not mind changing. It is just sitting down and spending the time to do so. It has been a work in progress for the last year to year and a half. This has also helped to keep some of my ASP skills sharper, since my job is more of computer tech rather than programmer. The other thing that I did with ISMan is add an Virtual In/Out Board. Right now all the workers in IS work in a large room in the basement of the Whitman County Jail. There are five of us who share the office. A building was purchased and is being remodeled for us as we speak, so we will soon have our own offices. It will be so nice in many ways. They also set up zones so we can each keep our room temperature as cool as we want it. Back to the In/Out board. The office workers, when we leave, we write on a white board near the door the location we can be found. And since we share one large office we can quickly look up and see where the others are. However in the new building that will be hard. So, I built the Virtual In/Out Board to take care of that. It lists the employee and his status. Whether he is in his office, or out and about. It is a small window that updates itself every 6 minutes. It can be updated from anywhere in the county. It is pretty sweet if I do say so myself.

I did my other normal work things. Towards the end of the work day I get a call from someone in the health department. She said the printer cable that is on Jackie's computer seems to have a bent pin and will not hook up correctly. This was odd since there is no reason it was off her computer. This is also odd since I just hooked it up and everything was working just fine. Then there is the second issue of a printer we are putting in the front office. I have no pity for people who have to get up from their desk and walk to get a print. All of us in IS have to. So, when someone else whines about it, it falls on deaf ears. In this case the person whining has been under my skin since she started working her about 2 months ago. First she got a deskjet, and it needed TLC when it would print. It did not work perfectly, but it would print. This was too much, so she wanted a different one. We brought a different one to the desk, however, the computer she is using is running Windows NT 4.0. I had to get a different printer cable for it. And I have to say it is not a top priority for me. But to her it is, because she doesn't like to get her fat ass off her chair and walk to a printer. So, yesterday when I go to the health department for a real problem she sees me and asks if I was there to fix her printer. I said No. She said, well, I would like to print on it SOME DAY. With emphases on some day. I more or less blew a seal. I had never done that before with other people in front of them at least. I curtly said "I know!" and walked away. That was about as animated as I get in front of the people I deal with. I try to remain professional most of the time, but she put me over the edge.

5:30 was fast rolling around by this time and I had to be in Pullman at 6:00 for HazMat Training. I made it there at about 5:55. We have training for familiarization of a leak stopping kit we have. We watched a short video on Anhydrous Ammonia and that was about it. I stopped at my office and checked my e-mail, then headed to Colfax to work in IS for a little bit to make up some time I missed out on this morning. After I was done here I moved over to the city of Colfax City Hall. The Police Department's new color laser printer came in and I set it up. It is pretty damn cool. If I had an extra grand I might get one.