The day got off to a bad start. I was working from home on what should have been a routine server upgrade. It failed to complete correctly, and did not completely work any of the several times I repeated it. The error message was quite obscure. A couple times the SQL Server went down completely, and I was afraid I would have to rebuild it from scratch. That would have been a long and unpleasant process, followed by longer and much more unpleasant conversations with management. Fortunately I was able to avoid that, and I eventually got the systems running correctly, and even saying they had been upgraded. So I am puzzled, but there is no immediate crisis. Still, the whole business left me exhausted and frustrated.

Meanwhile mia_mcdavid had picked up Tom and taken him to Church by herself. She then brought him here. I made a popcorn snack for him, and we later gave him a lunch. Basically things went well….except for when he decided he wanted to try ketchup on popcorn. Not a good idea, especially for eating in front of the TV. We tried to get him out for a walk, but he was not interested. So we took him back to his group home.

While Tom was watching TV I was able to do more configuration of the Linux system I rebuilt yesterday. I did not dare leave him alone to go downstairs for this, but that was not a problem. I had ssh working and so could easily connect to it from the upstairs computer where I could easily watch him. Being able to work remotely is nice.

Afterwards we puttered around Lyndale Avenue, then went to colgaffneyis Staff meeting at the home of c_nocturnum. I do not normally attend these since I am on the Board, not the Staff, and the Board does not want to look like we are micromanaging the Staff. However, I made an exception this time, and nobody took it amiss. Mia had been concerned about how the meeting would go because of a couple issue, but there was no real trouble. I did notice that there were at least two furies in the room. That’s OK. There are some people who need and deserve their attention.