Ten-hour day

Got to work at 9:30 a.m., left at 7:30 p.m. It's release week, or at least it's supposed to be, and I'm the only docs person. So I'm pretty much responsible for problems with the docs. It would go much easier if I didn't encounter unexplained problems. Like: This morning I did a clean install of the latest build of the product, then later in the day I tested a certain feature. Didn't work for me at all. Complained to my boss, who tried it on his machine; worked fine. No explanation available. It's that kind of thing that really wears me out -- when not only do things act in a contrary manner, there's no apparent reason for it.

In the midst of all our preparations for the release, we went yesterday on a bus to the Napa Valley to a winery owned by the company's Chairman of the Board, a tech industry lion who made all his money with a different company and is involved with us because... I'm not sure why. Anyway, we went up there to celebrate an important business deal. I spent the whole ride up there grilling the Indian guy, Vinay, on the geography and culture of Bangalore, where the characters in my novel-in-a-month are headed. I had cause yesterday to cite the Slut Manifesto, and today I was stunned to run across the very blog of Lizzard Amazon, its author. That's going up on the list of links honto pronto.