I woke up this morning feeling really good, probably because we had a cooler night and I had slept well. As we get older, I think we all have good days and not-so-good days and since I am my father's son, I track each day with a spreadsheet.
In particular, I track medical tests and results and what exercise I am getting. In this recent sample, the green piddles refer to a PSA test involving three sample bottles. The first 3 (or 4) in each line refers to how I am feeling when I get up. 3 is average, the 4 means a better day. The 20 refers to my insulin dose and the 7.1 to my sugar level which I test first thing every second morning. It has been fine for quite a while now and it varies according to the amount of exercise I get the prior day and how many carbs were in last night's dinner. I cooked a pizza last night so the level was a bit higher this morning.
Believe it or not, it's 25 years since Y2K. Occasionally, I meet people who tell me it was all a scam and I then reveal that I was a programmer and that the problem was real and potentially catastrophic. If you can't remember the details, most business programs were written in COBOL and IBM controlled most of the market. It was common practice to store dates as YYMMDD. For example, the last day of the 20th century would have been stored as 991231. Any date comparison with a 21st century date such as today's date 250115 would give an incorrect result.
Consequently, programmers had to inspect every program to see if it contained such a comparison. If it did, the dates involved had to be changed to YYYYMMDD so that the comparison would be 19991231 against 20150115 which would deliver a correct result. Important programs last a long time and many programmers might make changes to the programs over time. The result was often what we called spaghetti code, difficult to read and understand and difficult to fix.
It was a monumental tedious task, but the strategy was to fix the files and programs that were used every day first and move on eventually to the less commonly used files and programs. The biggest problem was with dates of birth. In 1999, did 910716 refer to an eight year old or a 108 year old?
So why didn't the early programmers use YYYYMMDD to begin with? Using those two extra digits was very expensive and there were only 80 columns on a punch card for data entry. Of course, back in the 60's and 70's, we older programmers never thought that our programs would still be in use decades later. For many businesses, it was simpler to buy new modern software that could run on inexpensive servers instead of expensive mainframes and that is what we did, so we saved a lot of money going forward.
The hidden problem occurred in the utility industries where machines were controlled by small computers used for maintenance tracking. These were designed to shut down on a given date if maintenance had not been done. When we were living in the US, we watched the midnight fireworks go off in Sydney to mark the new century. It was 8am local time in Maryland and I didn't look at the fireworks, I looked to see if the lights stayed on in the office buildings. They were still lit and I could relax.
Basically, a lot of people did their job and it worked.
Going forward, we have Canadian friends arriving at the end of March. I met them in Morocco back in 2018 and we have kept in touch. You meet such wonderful people when you do small group tours with Intrepid. Here is Shelley on a mule going up a steep hill.
Later in the year, we hope to visit Tasmania and West Australia. Marianne is now eligible to get Australian citizenship and when she obtains it, we will visit New Zealand.
The big news in Hervey Bay is the arrival of Blubber Boy, a takeout joint that amongst other items, sells a Philly Cheesesteak. What a name! Apparently, the owners sat around with a few beers and this name was the result.
It is excellent and the meat is high quality. The roll comes from our local bakery and is as good as you could wish for. Robin has tried several cheesesteaks in Sydney and none of them approach this quality. The only thing I would change is the Cheese Wiz topping. There was provolone mixed in with the meat but we are not so keen on the wiz topping.
We went to our local market this morning and a woman was selling her homemade ginger beer. Wow! It made your taste buds stand up and applaud and makes you realize how crappy most commercial ginger beers are.
And finally, as I create this blog, this bunch of young guys is outside making lots of noise and exercising with these ropes. It's all go on our beach and life is still wonderful.
