Still busy, but there's light at the end of the tunnel. Yesterday (the day I wrote the two-week old entry, one of the hardware engineers working with Mary found a race condition in the firmware. It didn't seem to account for all of the problems we saw, but a quick patch held up overnight, and Mary and a couple of the more theoretical software people figured out why the race condition would be so catastrophic. They're working on a more permanent fix now.
As of today, the trip to BC has been cancelled. The customer is going to wait a while, then do their own work. I guess that's good, though I'm a little disappointed, I was looking at the trip as a way to get away from the stresses here.
Since Susie took over the IT group, the company's networking problems have been much lower. I talked to her about it earlier this week. She's happy with her new position, except for one thing - some of the managers have been disabling the virus scan software we use. As a result of the Lovebug worm (which of course had the side-effect of putting her in her current position) the virus scan software has been updated every couple of days, and it's very irritating to keep up with the required reboots. I find it irritating, and I understand the need for it. Some of the managers apparently find it more trouble than they want to deal with.
She doesn't feel that she has the support she needs to force the issue. She thinks it's because she's a woman that several other managers won't deal professionally with her. She's probably right. Still, she has Ken's approval to look for a more reliable solution, and she has been investigating policy enforcement tools.
Clarice is hurting. She's only about a month away from her due date, and she feels like her feet are collapsing. She's tired all the time. Tomorrow, Brian and I are going to take dinner over to her.