Breakdown

"You were on the USS QP during the summer and fall of 09?!"

I stare frankly at the wide eyed kid, "Aye."

"Then you know... you know about the threads," he shudders.

I softly reply, "We'd sit alone in our cubicles, or sometimes in groups and and watch the thread count start to rise and each of us would invoke various gods and talismans trying to make the thread count fall. It was all we could do at that point, and sometimes that thread he go away... but sometimes he wouldn't go away. Sometimes that thread looks right into ya. Right into your eyes. And the thing about a thread is he's got lifeless eyes. Black eyes. Like a doll's eyes. When he comes at ya, he doesn't even seem to be livin'... until he bites your response time, and those black eyes roll over wide and then... ah then you hear that terrible high-pitched screamin'."

For those of you thinking I'm babbling about sewing - a thread is a tiny process or subroutine running inside another process, I'm already too deep in the jargon. When you push 'submit' on your browser it will fire off a thread on the system it's talking too. If you wanna be bored to tears or are in need of a good nap go here to learn more about threads. When the thread count starts to rise it means some other process, program, or system further down the line is slowing down for some reason. If the thread count continues to rise then it's good buddy response time will start to rise and that's a very bad thing.

I work for an organization consisting of various groups and departments that pride themselves on delivering the best user experience. We're tiny, we ain't no google but we're staffed with top notch, very bright people and we've been stymied by this problem for months.

A blog is by it's very definition egocentric so you've been watching/reading about my slow decent into madness, frustration, and despair. I want to point out that I have not been suffering alone. There are currently twenty to thirty additional people crammed on the USS QP which is normally staffed by a crew of ten or so. All of them digging deep into the problem, whatever it might be.

Last evening while I was monitoring the system I got the following email, "Good news is we can fix it." It just might take a few days.

Once again I hope, fool that I am.

I was determined to suffer in the gym today so I got in there pretty early around 4:50am or so but any suffering I had in mind couldn't come close to the suffering of the ghostPeople. Tears flowed down their face as one leaned on a treadmill and the other sat in the trainer's chair.

"What's up?" I ask.

"HUSH! This is a real tear jerker!"

What sort of hellish routine has Bubbles or Diablo cooked up now? Forced to watch The Women in Trouble Network... fiendish! Those monsters! I won't even glance at the screen figuring it would drive my HR through the roof. They show me various sweat stains on their shirts and other evidence of extreme exertion before ephemerally disappearing.

I'm more old school when it comes to this exercise thing. I want to Suffer. I plop down on an upright bike, plug in the ear buds, do a five minute warm up and then hammer Bubbles interval routine. As hard as I can. Somewhere around the seventh work interval I want to puke. I mean really. I try and take a swig of water and end up exhaling so hard that my mouthful spews all over me and the bike. How attractive. I'm already out of shape. sigh. I keep pushing it hard, the music on shuffle laid out perfectly for my mindset, nothing too slow, songs about desperation and losers. Then times up.

I exchange a few words with IronMan on my way out. He's looking uncomfortable on an elliptical. I miss that boy and hope to spend more time, soon, when this boat quits rolling and yawing. I also get to see goodMood and Kingsley briefly.

Sigh, that's today's news from the front.