It Was Worth It

This election was huge on several fronts. The presidential race of course was high on the list, but Arizona and California both had propositions on the ballot to protect the definition of marriage. (Arizona Prop 102 http://yesformarriage.com/ and California Prop 8).

I am happy to say that both passed. In Arizona, I was heavily involved in the mailing lists and phone lists for Prop 102, while in California, my oldest brother Keith who is a city councilman in Azusa worked hard on Prop 8. Here is a youtube video of him in action: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FH_AWZ8mCwI

Although I spent long hours working on this, and many of them uncompensated, I find that it was all worth it to see that this important issue got the attention it needed to get passed.

It does my heart good to see people stand up for what is right, not for what is popular.

Do I Have Horns?

I must, because I think I'm in hell.

For the past several months I have been eyeball deep and beyond at work compiling data and prepping political mailers, along with building several websites, and many other things. As the the Primary election approached, I soon became burned out on data. I needed a serious vacation.

The day of the Primary election, I let out a sigh if relief, because I figured the pressure was off, and that I would get a few weeks reprieve from political data.

Exhaled too soon.

I got no break at all from it. In fact, it got about ten times worse. I have been consistently working 12 to 14 hours a day, usually with no lunch. It is a constant barrage of "I need this right now!"

Over the last week or so, we have been working on the "Yes for Marriage" campaign (yesformarriage.com). We have been working on a huge mailing (500,000+ addresses), and I was responsible for laying the address info and voter data on the pieces. I got that going, then as I lay awake one of the nights, I had a nagging feeling that something was wrong. It got so bad that I called my boss at 1:00 am and woke him up. We met at work, and discovered that there was indeed a problem. I had accidentally run a batch of 100,000 records through twice, which would have resulted in that many duplicate mailers going out. With that, we only lost about five hours production time.

After we had already printed 150,000 of the mailers, I had another awful realization. I had made and error combining names from same households together. (up to 2 people from one house on a mailer.) The result was that names from completely different counties were being put together on some of the mailers. I had this thought during the day, and we quickly did some figuring and found that a little more than 36,000 of the mailers were bad because of this. CRAP CRAP CRAP!

To my boss's credit on both of these, he remained very calm, and we worked through the problem. He did however point out that these mailers cost about a buck apiece, so that little oversight cost the company a little over $36,000. CRAP CRAP CRAP!

So together my boss and I figured out how to determine which mailiers were bad, and how to get them pulled out of the stacks before they mailed. (Luckily, I found this before any mailers went out).

So I fixed the problem, and started production over again, confident this time that I had covered my bases, and that the product I was generating was accurate. I got to think that for a whole day I think.

The woman in charge of our mailings came into my office and told me (as I heard it) that the barcode in the mail panel was wrong. I happened to have a Sharpie in my hand at the moment, and I threw it. It bounced off the edge of my desk and flew across the room. I sort of kind of yelled. "Don't you tell me there's another problem!"

Once we talked about it a bit, it turned out that my barcode was correct, but the city state and zipcode above it was not correct in some circumstances. AAAAUUUUGGGHHHHH!!!!!!

So, I went to the boss expecting a directive to fill out my own pink slip and kick my own butt out the door. The three of us got together and discussed the problem. It turned out it wasn't as widespread as I initially understood. The mail woman took a batch that had some of the non-compliant pieces to the post office, and they all made it throgh without being rejected. WHEW!

The next day I apologized to her for my outburst. All is well I thought.

FAT CHANCE!

Later she was back saying that another problem had surfaced with the city state and zipcode. The data I used for the barcode was run through a system that gives the most current zipcode. The city state and zipcode, came from year old data. The problem that surfaced was because of growing areas and zipcode splits. Pieces were showing a city and zipcode but the barcode referenced a different city and zipcode. (one city merged into another larger city, and therefore no longer existed).

I pulled the boss out of a meeting on that one. The question was: does the post office actually look at the city state and zipcode, or does their machine simply read the barcode? Once again, the post office trip became necessary. And once again, the pieces passed. WHEW!

We purchased a newer version of my production software that is server based that allows us to produce the pieces a lot faster. So I took the remaining 278,000 records on with that, fixed the mail panel problem, and finished the job.

Holy cow what a ride! I am so tired I can't stand myself.

The past two days have been spent catching up on all the work the got set aside to get this giganto mailing out. So needless to say, everyone needed their stuff done right then, and they kept letting me know that. I worked from 7am to past 7pm most days, and skipped lunch to get caught up.

Yesterday, I knew I had to leave at 5:00 because our neighbor was getting married at 6:00. I had a list of 7 or eight projects to get done in order to make that deadline. Of course nothing wanted to cooperate. I skipped lunch again, and plowed through. I knocked most of it out. A couple of the jobs got delayed because I didn't have everything I needed to finish them.

This whole run has been exhausting and incredibly stressful. I know that Monday and Tuesday will probably still be a bit nuts, but I think I may be on the down slope of my sleigh ride through Hades.

My Niece's Wedding, Golf and Goofiness

Yesterday, my niece got married. In the morning all the men went on a golf outing at the Royal Palms golf course here in Mesa. Each hole had its own competition, and we all had to toss $1 into the pot for each of them.

The first hole had a small pond or a really big puddle, whichever... so the first competition was biggest splash in the pond. The golf course donated the golf balls for that one. Now picture this... I stand atop the tee box (on a hill mind you) and take a mighty swing with my pitching wedge. The ball didn't so much fly as roll. It went down the hill and out of sight near the water's edge. It is questionable if it even got wet. I didn't win the competition.

After that we played the hole. If you recall my golf post for last year, I am no Bobcat Woods or whatever they call him. :) I teed off and.... holy crap! it was a good hit! My brother Ken who has always been a good golfer teed off and it was of course a good hit, right in the middle of the fairway. It turned out that even though mine was out in the rough, that it went farther. I then proceeded to make a nice chip shot followed by a good approach putt and a little shorty putt to par the hole. Astounding!

Then the second hole. Closest to the pin. I think mine landed in Australia.

Third hole was the longest tee shot. I figured that I had used up my good tee shot on the first hole, but I got up there, recalled my lessons at the hand of a pro, and swung. It felt good... and it looked good. In the distance, we could see the litlle white bag that held the $1 pot contributions. My ball was close to it. As we approached, it turned out that my ball had beat it by about a yard. Disbelief washed over me, as I claimed the prize for the longest drive.

Other competitions included shortest drive (won by my son James aka the Bug... about 5 feet.), longest putt, fewest strokes (my dad won that one), most strokes (James almost won that, but was beat out at the last minute). The last hole was designated as "Nick Wins". Nick was the groom. The rule was that the winner of the last hole takes all of the pots from the previous holes. The idea being that we gave Nick and Aubrey some money to play with on their honeymoon.

It was pretty hot even though we started a bit after 8:00 am. We had a good time though. My brother Mike and his family were here from Florida. I didn't know they were coming, so I was pleasantly surprised when he walked up and said hello at the golf course.

After golf, we went home and picked up the Bear, and the golf group went to IHOP and were treated to breakfast by my brother Ken, who is the bride's father. The Bear ordered the big huge pancake that has two strawberries for eyes, and banana slices that form a smile. James "cut it up" for him, but sort of massacred it. It looked like Freddy Krueger did it. :)

The wedding began at 6:30pm at a place called the Wright House. The wedding was outside, but in the shade and covered by big fans. The wedding commenced with the traditional walks up the aisle. Over the speakers came the song "Butterfly Kisses". As it got to the part about losing his baby tonight or whatever it says, that was when Ken was walking Aubrey. It got him, and his face crinkled up and went red. That of course got everyone else too.

The ceremony was very nice, and once photos were taken, the reception got underway. They had fabulous shake that was french vanilla flavored... auughhghhghgh french vanilla (Homer Simpson style). The wedding cake was not so traditional. It had a couple tiers as usual, then a few tiers of cupcakes.

As part of the reception, there was music playing, so we took advantage of it. Here are a couple shot of me and DramaMama cutting a rug:

"Will You Still Call Me Superman?"

And here are several other candid shots from the evening:

Me playing the part of Samson and bringing down the wedding place

Our part of the wedding cake.

Jamesie G

YEAH BAYBEE!

After the wedding, we went to Texas Roadhouse for dinner. We had an "un-birthday" for James. Here he is on the saddle while the whole place gave a big YEEHAW for him.