this isn’t one of my typical “intentional” adventures – today was an adventure in the purest sense of the word – a series of challenges that are unexpected, present untold peril, classic entertainment value, and teach a plethora of hard-won lessons.

7:42am – had breakfast with my boss to discuss client strategy.  this was easily the high point of my day, at a time when i am typically and very blearily awakening in the shower, i was planning how to address the biggest project of my career over eggs, bacon and toast.  our plan is rock solid and guaranteed to win.  and as a fabulous bonus, i met JD’s cat, julia, who is gorgeous and delightfully tiny, and i may have found a proper swimming coach to boot.

11:02am – things take a turn for the worse.  load testing of my fantastic search interface yields alarming results where instead of scant seconds, searches are taking minutes to appear on the screen.  i am terrified for the greater part of the day that it is MY code that is somehow causing this problem.  stalwartly turn to face the challenge of pouring over thousands of lines of multiple log entries to find the source of the problem, even though no errors present and all results are served.

12:34pm – thinking that i’ve figured out how the problem is manifesting – but still don’t know why.  Bob helps me to focus my inquiry further.  somehow, the problem is that as the load increases on my search, the requests and the time that they take “snowball” in urgency – they take longer to process and longer to get out to the user.  and then, at a magic point, a bunch of results are served, and bunch of new results immediately come are released from the queue, and the whole delay expands, like a gigantic snowball racing down a mountain.  at a critical mass, the snowball becomes a devastating delay and causes a tragic bottleneck… or so i think.  i’m desperately hoping that my code is not the bottleneck.

3:10pm – after a 10 year relationship with the internet and email, i make the classic and terrifying error of clicking "reply to" rather than "forward" - bleary-eyed from the boredom of my tedious debugging investigation and in an effort to distract bob from his important development tasks, a very innocent invitation to be friends with an attractive and fascinating young woman is forwarded to bob as an inside joke about how "great" it is to be single and dating, except that instead of sending the email to bob, i unintentionally forwarded the email back to the interesting young lady's boss... i'm mortified for the rest of the afternoon and all of the subway ride home that i have inexcusably and irrevocably destroyed the relationship between our company and the client for whom we've built the facebook-like social website.  i am a complete and total ass and will never use email again.

5:31pm – believe that i’ve found the bottleneck, and it’s not in my code.  but i get a new requirement to interpret all of the incoming search results that could definitely result in a bottleneck.  i push back.  and then i go home.

6:20pm – realizing that i have no “sex and the city” to watch, and no vodka for a lovely cocktail with which to enjoy carrie’s escapades, i head to blockbuster in my freshly washed and polished car through the misting rain and mucky roads to return season one and to replenish my expended vodka supply (in spite of the weekend of excess).

6:43pm – manage to get two full years of SATC from blockbuster.  the manager of the store notices that there’s something wrong with the way the dvds are catalogued in the system and proceeds to spend 8 minutes scanning, rescanning, smashing the dvds on the counter, modifying entries in the database, rescanning the dvds and then smashing them on the counter, while i look on aghast.  finally, he charges me $17.08 for the six dvds (admittedly a huge savings over the $17.09 that all of his junior flunkies told him it would cost if he just manually entered them);  i put them in my bag and leave, wondering whether they are now too banged up and scratched to play properly.

6:52pm – i go to the lovely lcbo (that’s a “liquor store” for all of my liberated, privatized friends out west) at st.clair and keele to get my supply of stolichnaya.  i pay with exact change and get my airmiles and leave the store, stuffing my lcbo plastic bag of vodka in my sack.  now, i’m not a clumsy person by any stretch of the imagination, but i sometimes do endeavour to do things with perhaps an unwarranted excess of flair and zeal.  my bag’s centre of gravity is all off because of the bulky but light collection of dvd cases and the massive 40 of vodka.  as i stylishly switch hands between my bag and my car keys as i simultaneously  click the button to unlock the car doors, my bag slips from my hands and smashes into the concrete of the parking lot.  i ponder hopefully on the skill and forethought of the designers of the vodka bottle – hoping that they have built enough structural integrity into their bottle that it could withstand a three foot drop onto concrete while inside of a thinly padded nylon knapsack.  they were not so clever as i imagined.

6:54pm – i throw out the plastic bag of conveniently contained broken glass and place my vodka-drenched knapsack, containing my now vodka-drenched umbrella, ipod nano, cellphone, work notebook, spare toothbrush, rental dvds, chewing gum, lip balm, superman-emblem key-pull and inhaler, in my trunk.  in vigorously pouring out the litre or so of vodka from my bag, i unavoidably spill some all over my jeans and shoes, instantly and indelibly labelling myself as an incorrigible alcoholic.  i head back to the lcbo to buy a new bottle of vodka – after all, i’m still out at home.

6:59pm – i return to the trunk to survey the damage.  i shake out the last of the vodka from my knapsack, laughing to myself about how ridiculous this whole day has been.  i replace the bag in the trunk and close it, ready now to head home.  except, as i search my raincoat pockets, and then my jean pockets, i realize that i cannot find my car keys.  the worst possible outcome flashes through my head – that i have left my keys in the trunk.  but it shouldn’t matter right?  i unlocked the doors before i opened the trunk.  well, yes, i did.  but as a clever security ”feature”, if you don’t actually open your doors in time, the jet-black 2003 honda civic sport sedan will re-lock the doors, safely securing all of its precious contents from unwanted exposure to the criminal elements outside.  or the mortified owner who has just now locked he cellphone, his apartment keys and his car keys all inside of the same stylish black chassis.

7:10pm – imason alumnus, Kam and his wife, Sue drive by to drop off some dry-cleaning and pick up some groceries from dominion.  kam drives over because i seem to be spending and inordinate amount of time admiring my car while it is lightly raining.  i fill him in on the situation and he very very kindly agrees to give me a ride back to my apartment to try and get my spare set of car keys.

7:32pm – I buzz my resident manager to try and get them to come and let me into my apartment (thank god i kept my wallet nearby or i wouldn’t even have been able to verify my bloody identity!).   it seems that it will be a while before he can come and meet me in the lobby, so i send kam and sue off with my most sincere and heartfelt thanks and gratitude!

8:16pm – after several “reminders” that i am waiting (exceedingly patiently, considering i now have to go to the bathroom) in my lobby for someone to come and let me into the apartment, someone does finally come and give me spare keys to get into my apartment.  i very thankfully go to the bathroom and head out to fetch my car.

8:45pm – unable or unwilling to spend more money on this ridiculous day to flag a cab, i walk the 2 – 3 km to the dominion/blockbuster/lcbo where my car is trapped.  i walk past some multi-million dollar houses, jump some rather tall fences, hop over a dozen go-train tracks, and finally get to my car.  i see the lcbo lady who has just sold me almost 3 litres of vodka this evening, bumming a smoke from a customer, and tell her about my evening.  she’s amused and, fortunately, so am i. 

9:07pm – i finally get home and text kam to let him know that i’ve survived.  i’m still in my vodka-soaked jeans and socks.  all of my stuff reeks like a bar and i have no idea how i am going to explain my notebook smelling of booze at tomorrow’s client status meeting.

9:59pm – i am finishing my martini at the same time as i finish writing this entry.

so what have i learned today?  never go to a meeting earlier than 9am, even if the prospect of seeing new cats is involved.  it’s never YOUR code that’s to blame – you can always pin the blame on some other contractor and let him sweat the pressure.  if you smash one bottle of booze, it’s probably a good sign that you should not try and repeat your mistake.  if you must go into your impenetrable trunk, make sure that you put your keys in your pocket – not in that big empty and inviting space that is your almost empty and impeccably tidy trunk.  if your parkade requires that you use your apartment door key-fob to open and close the garage door, as mine does, keep that key in your pants or jacket pocket, rather than in your cup holder.  and don’t bring your nearly full and indispensible work notebook home if you intend to go home and watch “sex and the city” and sip martinis.

- g

song for totally nossing things up - what have i done (to deserve this), pet shop boys (with Dusty Springfield!!)

ps.  everyone's favourite nice guy just had his first baby with his fantastically gorgeous wife - alex, welcome to the planet earth!