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Launch from the remote firebase occurred at about 1700 this afternoon. It was a little later than I really wanted, but I also wanted to complete the small project I was working on.
The client wanted a report of sales by state. First, I did a quick report to see just how good his data was. As I expected, it was not very clean. I spent a few hours doing some very simple SQL Queries cleaning up his sales data for the state and country fields. Then I was able to his report in Crystal Reports. If you need any work done in Crystal Reports, give me a call. I’m developing a pretty good skill set with that program.
I sat in Dasher-1 with the main engines coming up to full power. I called Karol to warn her I was about ready to blast off. I opened my Zone Bar for snacking and opened my bottle of Mountain Dew for caffeine and sugar body fuels. Then I released the holding clamps and the vehicle leaping into motion.
I was doing well until I came to about mile marker 145 on the Parkway. What was 80 mph traffic became bumper-to-bumper. It remained that way until about mile marker 135. Then normal traffic flow resumed and I was a happier camper. Although, I almost never get aggravated by traffic.
On the way home, I stopped by my office. The power company had stopped by earlier in the week and said they would be taking the power down for about two hours on Saturday – today. I had connected into my system this morning from the client site, made sure last nights backup had run OK, then remotely powered down all stations.
I has some trepidations when I went to restart all machines. I have a couple that have not been powered down for two or three years. Sometimes, when you have a computer that has been up and running for the period and you power it down, it will refuse to boot.
However, the computer gods were with me today. All stations came back up and as far as I can tell, everything is fully operational.
Oh and the “Check Engine” light I’ve been talking about, it continues to remain unlit. I know the bulb is OK, as it lights briefly as I boot Dasher-1. Perhaps the Armstrong luck is still holding.
Posted by Ted at February 28, 2004 9:57 PM