Work, work, work and Mom's weekend away

Megan asked me to update the blog for her as she's too busy sewing and watching Pride and Prejudice. Talk about an estrogen overload...

So...I'll start with the results from the visit from the Bayer R&D guys (Herr Dr. Dr. Von-etc.) We're still not sure what may come of the visit since Bayer is the one who supplies the products sprayed through our machine and would not directly use it. Perhaps they would promote it to other potential buyers. Anyway, its a pretty big deal. The director of Bayer's R&D was interested and he has a yearly budget in the hundreds of millions of euros. The show and tell was nearly a disaster... We had the machine running flawlessly the Friday before their Monday visit and all looked good. There were a few things to be added to the software and so Allan (my boss) went early on the Monday of the event to get the software uploaded and get ready for the show (He and I thought it would be best if I stayed at my office and worked on our next project that was already under considerable pressure). The new software didn't work. "No problem" thought Allan, "I'll just load up the older version and we'll run it just like Friday without the new software features." Come to find out the old version Allan thought he had was actually a different update and the program that was running flawlessly had been lost! So with minutes to spare Allan worked out a way to run the machine on manual to a point and then switched quickly to automatic mode for the other portion of the cycle. It must have looked ok to the visitors, but Allan was running all over the place in the background nudging the machine through the necessary steps of its cycle. I think he's since worked those bugs out and we now must turn our attention to improving the variation in the machine's spray pattern. I'll be sure to take my camera and get some photos and video of the thing working so you can visualise all this.

That alone would have been enough excitement for one month but the fun continues. Meg and I have been pretty flat out with work projects. The next project that I spoke about above required me to work 50-60 hour weeks for a few weeks, culminating in 12, 13 and 15 hour days consecutively to get the last of the drawings out. Megan has been helping provide some IT support for a research project being undertaken by a friend from church. All the while she's still keeping up with her other jobs of web management and web design. All this busyness has been a bit difficult at times but we're looking forward to it all slowing down a little for the next few weeks and spending some time with Megan's Dad.

Yeah, Megan's Dad is coming down on Saturday. We're all really looking forward to it, it should be a great time of catching up!

Last weekend was the Queen's birthday long weekend. Megan volunteered to be a leader at the church's youth camp so it was Dad and the girls home alone for the weekend. Megan really enjoyed her time at the camp and even showed some hidden talents at the music night (you'll have to ask her about her inspirational song). Meanwhile we set up a tent in the living room, roasted marshmallows over an open gas heater, cleaned out the freezer, went to the beach and had some babycinos. I know how to spoil them, eh?



Here's some pictures of the Girls weekend