Jeff Billimek’s Journal

I woke up a few times last night but still got a lot of sleep and it felt great to be adequately rested.

Jen and I both left around 8am for work. When I got to work I started going through my emails and noticed an invitation to a three-hour meeting with a vendor for a DB2 performance solution product. Carole explained that she wanted me to participate since we indirectly use DB2. I was honored that I was asked to participate.

I made an appointment with Collie at Three 13 for a haircut. $60 for a haircut still seems very expensive to me, but I supposed it’s necessary.

Bob M, Brian S, Alex D, and I went to the Greek place for lunch today.

I built code for a deployment to integration and production and then requested a deployment. I think I need to transition some of these tasks to others. It’s hard to give it up because I know it all so well but one cannot grow if they continue to do the same thing all the time.

The last part of this afternoon I attended the three hour meeting. I was pretty underwhelemed with the presentation and the product didn’t even appear to be an appropriate solution for what we need. I spoke with Jegan after the meeting and he has the same sentiments.

I left work around 5pm and drove straight to Three 13. I got there at 6pm even though my appointment wasn’t until 7pm. They fit me in early. I was approached by a well-rounded girl who turned out to be Collie’s ‘assistant’. I guess they charge so much that they can afford to have ‘assistants’. She introduced me to Collie and then gave me a shampoo along with the fabulous paraffin wax treatment on my hands. I love that part of the whole experience.

While I waited for Collie to finish with up her current client I got a page from the TCC to join a bridge call regarding a production issue. I used my cell phone and joined the call in progress. There were a lot of big players on the call include managers from most of the groups as well as directors. Brent (a VP) was also present.

I requested that someone get Jegan on the call too since he was still at work. When he joined I dropped off to get my haircut but assured Carole that I would come back.

Collie gave me a great hair cut. Jen has been going to her for literally the past ten years so she knew a lot about me and we talked a little.

After the haircut I tipped Collie (it turns out that you’re supposed to put the tip in an envelope and not give it to the hairdresser directly) and left. As I drove to Jen’s house I got back on the call for an update.

It turned out that there was a major DB2 problem. Two indexes had ‘broken pages’ which basically means that the whole index is screwed. The DBA’s attempted to repair the indexes but it didn’t work, so the only solution was to rebuild it. This takes a long time because the table in question has about 250 million rows.

We all decided to end the call until the rebuild completes. Jegan went home and I assured him that I would take care of things once we get back on.

Jen still wasn’t home but arrived a little while after I got off the call. We had some wine together while we cooked dinner (salmon and rice). Dinner was great. I’m so thankful that Jen likes to eat healthy because it’s good for both of us.

While we were finishing dinner, I got a page to re-join the bridge due to the index work being completed. I joined and assisted with the restart of the system. Everything seemed to be fine and we all concluded the call. It was a pretty fun production problem because of all the visibility.