Third week

 

Monday, July 10

Italy has won the world cup last night. Through penalties. I hear so this morning on BBC World. I came as far as the end of the actual game last night, which ended in 1-1. I guess this news means I can except lots of sleepy people at the office!

At the office I notice everyone is indeed quite sleepy. Obviously they were all out celebrating last night. Joachim also. Despite his plans of going to the celebration of the Italian football-team tonight, he insists on going to the beach first. It's only twenty or so minutes away from WFP. At first, everybody wants to come along. During the day however, there are some cancellations and finally it's only Joachim, Ferry (who walks in halfway the afternoon) and me. We're going anyway and it's lovely at the beach. In the evening it's not as hot as during the day, so for us North-Europeans this time of day has a nice temperature. During the day it's simply too hot. We're sitting at a terrace of some beach club or so.It looks like the movies with parasols and everything. Combined with the music they play, it gives and wonderful exotic feeling. I feel like I'm on holiday.

Down the beach we notice all kinds of activity. We look at it. Apperently there's a movie being shot there and they're rehearsing for a scene. A moment later they are going to shoot it. Music is turned off and everybody has to keep quiet. Once they're finished, the music is on again.

All of this time Joachim tries to talk us into going to the celebrations tonight. I don't think it's a good idea to go, I'd rather watch the whole thing on television. I don't know what Italy is like, but in the Netherlands these things usually end in riots. Ferry seems to have his own doubts; he thinks we cannot get back to the hotel afterwards because of a lack of taxis. In the end Joachim drops us off at the hotel. I think it's for the best, once I've eaten it'll be late enough as it is.

 

Tuesday, July 11

According to BBC World this morning it was a gigantic party last night. More than one million people went to the Circus Maximus to celebrate the Italian football-team. This means even more people will function on auto-pilot today. And that turns out to be correct; everybody at the office needs even more coffee than yesterdat. This amuses me a lot, because I don't have to suffer from anything.

Since some test reports were supposed to be in my inbox yesterday and they didn't came, I decide to make some phonecalls. Immediately this has effect: the first e-mail I receive less than one hour later. Good!. I process the information immediately. Now I can officially tick off one item in my planning. Furthermore, I'm still wrestling with the loadtest. TNT has been researching some tools, but they turn out to be too expensive. WFP itself is working on one or two ideas, and I think I'll start some research into a tool that was recommended by one of my Vertis-collegues. It looks quite usable and for WFP the good news is this tool is  freeware.

In the evening we decide to into Rome. Ferry has some shopping to do and I'll accompany him. I usually an happy going into Rome alone, but someone to talk to is a very welcome change. We stroll through the city centre, and Ferry succeeds with almost all items on his list. Only the winery is closed when we finally found it. He just has to go for that another night. For the monent it's time to go to the hotel for the both of us.

 

Wednesday, July 12

Today I continue my Swingbench-research. This tool actually seems to be very handy. Since there a six PL/SQL procedures I can use to program my own statements, it looks like there's just enough time to do a loadtest before my impactanalysis must be finished. Today Joachim and Ferry secretly shortened my time with one week: they want to have a final draft by Monday 24th. Then they can send it to their management before the presentation. So now I;m going to have to do a presentation. I'll just keep it far from my mind for now and tell myself it's not scary, then I hopefully will succeed.

 

Thurday, July 13

O dear, Thursday thirteenth. Will this really be just as unlucky a day as Friday thirteenth?

Well, I just have to see what this day will bring me. In the morning things are still looking quite positive, both the conference call with TNT as the meeting with some WFP-collegues that is on today's schedule.

The problems arise in the afternoon. I still cannot get this Swingbench tool running no matter what I try. I ask a Vertis-collegue via e-mail, but he doesn't know the cause of the problem either. I think it's some kind of a configuration problem. Probably one of the necessary files is missing, or of the wrong version. And now to figure out which file it is. I end up seeking contact with the tool's builder, hoping he can help me. It's thirteenth allright!.

 

Friday, July 14

I hope things will today be better than yesterday. In my e-mail this morning is an answer from the Swingbench-developer. This helps me just enough to continue my quest and during the morning I finally get this tool running. Yippee!! I try a few simple benchmarks to confirm it works and report to Alain I got it running and I'm ready to start coding the loadtest-statements.

Meanwhile, Joachim and Ferry are reviewing the first draft of my impact analysis. This should get me loads of comment; I never had to do such a big impact analysis before. Those little ones I did back home were peanuts compared to this. I just hope their comment will help me further along the way to a decent document.

 

In the evening I go to Rome's city centre and stroll through the streets. I look in stores and windows. It's sale everywhere now. It's not until I'm back at the hotel that I remember I wanted to stroll along the Tiber river.....I have to do that next time I guess.

 

Ciao,

Ingrid.