General Life Update…

Last week was my first full week back to my normal routine since the knee operation. Everything held up pretty well, all things considered. I don’t have any knee problems when swimming or Yoga, but I’ll have to go carefully for a few weeks at Karate and keep up my rehab exercises. I found the rehab exercises and gym stuff a little boring at first, but I’m starting to get into it. Fingers crossed, I’m through the worst of it now. Here’s a picture of me messing about before Yoga on Saturday, which shows I’m not exactly struggling with the knee anymore… 🙂

On Saturday night I went so see my friends Jodie and Mel singing backing vocals in a Meat Loaf tribute band called Maet Loaf. There were a couple of technical difficulties with the venue, but the whole band still managed to put on a great performance. I guess a sign of true professionalism is being able to pull it out of the bag when everything around you is not all it should be. 🙂

Cheers

Tim…

PS. I got a speeding ticket. The first one in 20 years of driving. Gutted!

I love it when a plan comes together…

Yesterday I was trying to optimize a data transfer that took the best part of two hours to complete…

After a quick inspection I noticed a couple of things:

  • After the data was transfered from a remote database, it was updated 5 times to alter some of the values. A couple of quick DECODEs in the transfer query and these five updates were removed.
  • The transformation of some of the data was done by a really inefficient function. It was doing date arithmetic by selecting from dual, rather than just using a procedural assignment like, “variable := SYSDATE + 1”.

After rectifying both these issues the transfer time was reduced from nearly 2 hours to just 3 minutes.

I love it when a plan comes together… 🙂

Cheers

Tim…

PS. If only all optimizations were so easy…

Lasher…

Last night I finished “Lasher”, the second book in “The Lives of the Mayfair Witches” series by Anne Rice. As expected, this follows on from the first book, “The Witching Hour”. Same characters and similar “goings on”. Maybe I was distracted by the events of the last few weeks, but I really didn’t get caught up in this one.

Most of Anne Rice’s books have several story lines, each told in chunks, constantly messing with the time, and finally bringing it all together. I seemed to struggle with that in this book. I guess part of that was because I was really into some of the story lines, but quite bored by others. I would reach the end of one chapter, desperate to know what happens next, only to find I had to read 80 pages of dull crap before I could continue.

If the book had been half the size and contained only those story lines I liked I would be saying it was a classic, but it’s not.

Cheers

Tim…

Getting back into the routine…

These last few weeks have been rather odd and I’m really struggling to get back into some sort of routine. I’ve spent a lot of time doing Yoga and general stretching in addition to my knee rehab work. Tonight is my first Karate session since the operation. The physio is pretty happy with everything, so I’ve just got to go carefully on it and see how it goes. I’m not totally convinced I’m ready to go back, but there is only one way to be sure!

Cheers

Tim…

I’m back…

With the operation and Christmas over, I’m back at work. Kind of an anti-climax…

Christmas was a bit weird. After an extended break with the knee thing, having time off for Christmas seemed a bit odd. In total, I’ve been out of the office for a little over 3 weeks.

Anyway, back to the real world…

Andrew Clarke spotted a gaff in one of the examples in my PL/SQL Tuning book. Click here to check it out. Sorry to anyone who has experienced an issue with this, and thanks to Andrew for pointing it out.

Cheers

Tim…

Update: I’ve notified the publisher of the corrections.

My Knee – A New Hope…

I went for my first physiotherapy session today. So far so good. I’ve had all the tape removed and the scars are hardly noticeable. There is still a bit of swelling, but hardly anything. I’ve been given some heavier exercises to do now. Things like squatting with my back to a wall, slow step-ups on the stairs and balances. Nothing to difficult, but it should improve my proprioception.

I went swimming today for the first time since the operation and I followed it up with a session in the gym. I did all my rehab exercises and some leg presses and stiff legged deadlifts. I’ve got to get more muscle around my knees so I guess I’ll have to fit the gym into my schedule. I think I may have to give up work to fit in all my other stuff… 🙂

Cheers

Tim…

The Covenant…

I took a break from reading about witches to see a file called The Covenant, which is about… witches…

It’s basically a “rights of passage” type film for teenagers. A group of kids get a taste of their future magic abilities when they are 13. By the time they are 18 they will “ascend”, which means they’ll get all their magic powers. The problem is, each time they do magic they lose a bit of their life force, so they need to act responsibly or die prematurely…

I guess this is a not-so-subtle metaphor for drink, drugs, sex and just about everything else you get exposed to when you hit your teen years.

It was an OK film, but I guess I got to the cinema 20 years too late for it to have any impact on my life. 🙂

Cheers

Tim…

The Witching Hour…

“The Witching Hour” is the first of 3 books in the “Lives of the Mayfair Witches” series by Anne Rice. The later books in the “Vampire Chronicles”, especially “Blackwood Farm”, had links with this series.

Let’s start by saying, this is a seriously big book. I’m not the quickest reader, so it was quite a daunting prospect, but the events of the last few days have left me with more time on my hands.

The book traces the history of a family of witches and their ghostly companion. The story starts 300 years ago in Scotland and concludes in the present day in New Orleans. It skips between each era quite a bit, but is drawn together by the story of the current generation. A pretty cool story and a good introduction to the family…

Cheers

Tim…

Refunds…

About a month ago I went to a cashpoint (ATM machine) to get out £50. Two days later I seemed to be missing £50 from my wallet and couldn’t figure out where the money had gone. After some thought, I realized the only explanation was that either I had left the money in the machine, or dropped it before putting it my wallet. I phoned the bank, who requested an audit from the company who managed the cashpoint.

It turns out I had left the cash in the machine, and after 30 seconds it had been sucked back and placed in the purge tray. So I’ve had £50 credited to my account. Cool!

Just got a tax bill, a national insurance bill, I’ve got to get my car taxed and serviced and Christmas is very close, but I don’t care because I got my £50 back! 🙂

Cheers

Tim…

PS. The knee is doing good. I think I might go back to work next week…