I Live in Iowa: Week 188

Oof da. What a long week? My totals for the work week are going to be over 60 hours, and honestly I might hit that again this week. Hopefully the worst of it will be over by this week, but certainly 50+ for the next month and maybe two. Hopefully it's all calmed down by March and certainly April, but the truth is, we don't know what we don't know. Plus, related product experience tells us that things that are a big deal happen, which require people like me to work more at problems we just didn't know about before hand.

I woke up at 4:15 AM five time this week, once was Saturday. It will probably be five more times this week, and hopefully not Saturday.

Long term view, it's all minor problems that I'm dealing with at work at the moment. Some of the issues are like, 'seriously, we didn't catch this before now?' Other issues are like, 'it's wrong because it's hard and it will get better, in fact come look at this, it already is better.' Still other issues are like, 'If we don't catch this now, no one would ever know until it caused a problem, and cost a lot more money.' Not to say that it is all no big deal, in fact, the last couple weeks and next few weeks are probably going to be the most stressful of my career thus far, and for the foreseeable future. That's the positive side to this, I have to answer dozens of questions per day now, but in only a few weeks it will be the random few questions a week and working on the next big challenge, instead of hundreds of little ones.

The other cool side to this, no one could do exactly what I am doing at work. Oh I am certainly replaceable, and my colleagues could be brought up to speed quickly, but things go faster because I am there. It's nice to feel important to the project.

Running went well, I ran 46 miles, did my first workout in months, and took a day off. The workout I did was a little track workout with 2200 meter of quality work in 6:30, which is around 4:45 per mile pace. Nothing great, but after maybe 10 to 11 months not doing a workout on a track, it was nice to get after a little faster turnover. Frankly, it didn't even feel that bad. My ankles continue to heal, I think that it's some sort of bruising from the mountaineering boots, ski boots, and ice skating boots that I've worn over the past three weeks and it's just taking longer to heal. I mean, I ran a 12 mile run, a track workout, and then a faster 9 mile run, I'm not exactly injured, although I would still say I'm coming off an injury.

That's it. I went out to eat Saturday night at a hamburger place I didn't even know was a restaurant until I had been here two years. I'm tired.