Keeping Busy

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I've been busy this weekend.  Yesterday, I took time to head to the range.  This morning, I had to work as my company was releasing a new software version.  This afternoon, I am going back to trimming bushes around the house.  Tomorrow, the day starts with the NCBC Summer Rally for 2024.  After that, its back to housework.

Let's start at the top.  Friday evening, I had scheduled a lane at my favorite gun range (OnPoint).  As I've mentioned in a previous post, I like to try to get up there to shoot at least a couple of times a month.  This is as much to ensure my continued proficiency as it is to have fun.  This time, I was trying out the new Red Dot that I had just had mounted on my old Taurus G3.  I think I still have some fine tuning of the sight zero, but it is SO much easier to see with my old eyes.  As planned, I blew through 100 rounds of 9mm Lugar.  I like to go to the range with the ammunition already loaded in magazines.  I own 10 mags for the G3, although this time I only loaded 8 of them (4 @ 15 & 4 @ 10).  I was in and out of the range in about 20 minutes.

This morning, my group at work was deploying a new version of their flagship software to the Production server.  As the lead tester of the group, I and my team had been testing the software.  Tuesday, the releast group performed a dry run of the deployment on the Staging server.  This morning, the Production server was taken off line, and the upgrade process was performed.  After about an hour and 45 minutes, the upgrade was finished, and I was able to run an abbreviated Smoke test.  After this, the server was brought back on line, for a total time of about 2 hours and ten minutes.  For our group, this is a new record as in prior releases the usual time is at least 3 hours... and one time it ran 6 hours.  Glad it didn't take so long this time.

After the release, I was able to get out to the yard to continue trimming hedges around the house.  I loaded up my truck with branches, and then took the load to the local yard waste disposal site.  After lunch, I will be loading the remaining material that I have cut down, and taking another trip to the disposal site.

After the yard work is done, I need to get the truck ready to be a support vehicle.  As I mentioned for a previous bike race, I need to mount the bike-rack.  This time, I also need to reprogram the radio with a new repeater frequency.  This involves adding the new freq with offset and tone in a spreadsheet software tool designed to connect to my model of radio.  Then, I use a special cable that plugs into the radio using the microphone plug, and upload the list of frequencies.  I save putting the magnetic Event Support signs on the truck and packing a cooler with water and soda until morning, when I arrive at the race start/finish.

In the morning, I'll be rising at least as early as I would to go to work.  The volunteer meeting for the communications support group will meet at 7:30, with the race starting at 8:00.  This course offers 60, 41, and 24 mile routes to satisfy all levels of riders.  

As I said at the beginning of this ramble, I am busy this weekend.  Then again, it is par for course in my life.  I always have a few things to keep me occupied.



Location: J3H7+H9 Holly Springs, NC, USA

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