Lissen up, Pilgrim. Iffen you'd had a two weeks like I jist had you'd be pooped too. Lemme tell ya few things, son.

March 13th: The company that supplies the software the Library uses says that it will no longer be developed. Support will run for another 18 to 24 months, then we gotta switch to another product. The company has two similar products and in mone single message manages to piss off nearly all of their 4,000 or more world-wide customers. Customer loyalty, never all that strong, is STILL digging a hole and not finding bottom.

I take my wife to the shuttle so she can fly to DC to be with her mother, who has been hospitalized with a bowel obstruction.

There is a staff-level City Council agenda meeting at City Hall I attend.

March 14th: Danged near every one of the 20 libraries our servers support calls me and asks, "What do we do now?" Like I'm in charge of the Consortium.

Pat flys to DC, comments "Well, I almost had a life of my own!"

March 15: I set up a closed, company-independent discussion group to talk about automation system. I present the Service Level Report to the City Council, meet with the City Council on our agenda items, and crawl home thankful that I don't have to attend the Council Meeting.

March 16: SOS.

March 17: Work in the yard. Pat's mother released from hospital.

March 18: ditto.

March 19: Prepare for Board Meeting tomorrow. Pat's mother has surgery set to repair the inginal hernia that was choking off her bowel and which was caught just before it became gangerenous. Put finishing touches on the budget for next FY.

March 20: Visit doctor to see if I'm becoming a unicorn. Executive Staff Meeting at City Hall. Board of Trustees meeting at 4:15.

March 21: Staff meeting, Capital Campaign Committee Meeting, Staff meeting.

March 22: Off. The Marble Man comes and installs the surround for the basement shower. I cover wires with wiremold, and do a whole bunch of stuff around the house.

March 23: 1.5 hours on the phone with the librarian in Aberdeen over the software stuff. 1.0 hours on the phone with the librarian in Bear Lake about merging databases.

That's sorta the highlights of the last two weeks, pardner. The collapse of the software and need to go to something else has eaten up about 80% of my energy.

Mom knows. And Mom said that just this once it was okay.