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Issue 21
Angie gets away on holiday, but there’s a guilty secret in her bag and Pete isn’t too pleased when he finds out...
 Monday
Unbelievable - I’m actually on holiday! It was a close thing, as Mike pressured me like mad to cancel due to the ‘minor resilience problems’ (i.e. repeated crashes) we’re experiencing with TEL Phase 1. We’d already booked our apartment though, and Pete threatened to go round and discuss it in person unless Mike backed down. The result is that we’re here in Nerja, 50 kilometres from Malaga in southern Spain and a healthy 1,800 kilometres from the office. What I haven’t mentioned to Pete though is the laptop hidden in my case, or the cellular modem Mike gave me last Thursday to go with the GSM phone he’d given me on Tuesday. I’m adamant that I won’t be using any of them, but have a nasty feeling that I could be wrong.
Tuesday
Pete and I are enjoying a lie-in when my case rings. Guiltily I open it, and find myself talking to a very apologetic Ed, who says the database has crashed and he can’t find the error log. I tell him it’s in the MTS logfile, hang up and try to look innocent, but Pete searches my bag (typical policeman!) and finds the laptop. When Carl rings an hour later, Pete answers it and threatens to arrest him if he calls again. We then head off, phoneless, for the beach. That evening, while Pete takes a shower, I fire up my laptop and find eight messages in my inbox, all flagged high priority. Dinner’s on me, but as we sit on the romantic Balcon de Europa, my mind’s on ASP-hosted VB components crashing MTS. This has got to stop.
Wednesday
Pete’s taken me to the Cuevas de Nerja, an amazing series of underground caverns just outside the town. He’s claiming a sudden interest in geology, but I suspect he’s really chosen it because my phone won’t work down here. He needn’t have worried though, as phone and laptop are back at the apartment, switched off. After the Cuevas we drive to a beach cafe for lunch, then up into the mountains, which are simply fantastic. Back home, Pete goes for a swim. Despite myself, I switch my phone on, and get a text message saying CALL OFFICE DESPERATELY URGENT. I get through to Mike, who says the TEL system’s down again and Greg’s blowing his top. I remind him that I’m on holiday, but he begs (literally) and I say I’ll see what I can do. Guilty again, I grab a towel and join Pete in the pool.
Thursday
It’s 6.45am and I’m RAS’d into the TEL Dev server, having spent the past hour on MSDN finding a fix. If Pete catches me it’ll be instant divorce (or would be, if we were married), so I hope the extra cervezas I plied him with last night do the trick. RAS is painfully slow on dial-up, so I just mod the source, email Mike some instructions, hide the kit and sneak back into bed. Later on the beach, as Pete fetches some ice creams, I sneak the phone from my bag and call Mike. He’s ecstatic - the system works. Gratitude (and promises of no more calls) ringing in my ears, I quickly hide the phone. Pete gets back, I get a strawberry helado, and my troubles are hopefully over.
Friday
Another expedition day, this time to Granada, up in the mountains. The drive is terrifying, with 1,000 foot sheer drops just a few feet away, but the views are amazing (although I tell Pete to keep his eyes firmly on the road) and Granada itself is wonderful, especially the Alhambra Palace. Tired, we stop for a well-earned drink, and my bag starts ringing. It’s Ramon, a developer from TEL’s Spanish partner. He says they’ve got a big COM+ problem, and that Greg’s told his boss I might be able to pop up to Madrid next week to sort it out. I’m literally speechless, but Pete isn’t, and he puts Ramon straight before taking the phone into custody and telling me that I’m strictly incommunicado from now on. Grateful, I say he can have the laptop too, and order more vinos to celebrate the real start of our holiday.
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Issue 21 - Contents
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Issue 1
Issue 2
Issue 3
Issue 4
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Issue 6
Issue 7
Issue 8
Issue 9
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Issue 11
Issue 12
Issue 13
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Issue 16
Issue 17
Issue 18
Issue 19
Issue 20
Issue 21
Issue 22
Issue 23
Issue 24
Issue 25
Issue 26
Issue 27
Issue 28
Issue 29
Issue 30
Issue 31
Issue 32
Issue 33
Issue 34
Issue 35
Issue 36
Issue 37
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