So on Friday at 5pm we started this implementation of a new web based security thingy. Well, wait. I get ahead of myself.

Last weekend they were doing an upgrade to prepare for this thing. I got a call on Saturday. “So, uh, we’re doing this first half of the update for the login stuff, and it didn’t occur to us that when we did the first half, everything might break until you do the second half next weekend. What do we do?”

That was really the first sign of trouble. It turned out that they had a setting wrong and that everything was ok, but, yeah.

So anyway, Friday, 5pm, we start the thing. Everything is mostly going smoothly, not too many problems, but at 8pm we were supposed to start the first tests to make sure all was well before continuing. All was not well.

By mightnight it wasn’t well yet.

Nor at 3am. Fortunately, being a genius, I’d had them take what we were working on out of the load balancer so that everything else was still working. It was decided that we’d all go get some sleep, but then meet at 10am saturday in the building to all work on this. Oh joy.

Saturday at 10am didn’t offer much new insight. Nor by noon.

Then we had an epiphany. If we set it up as it was intended, to use a type of security X, it wouldn’t work. If we set it up to use no security at all, it worked like a freaking charm… just insecurely, which we couldn’t do.

By 4pm we’d given up. I made arrangements so that we can test during the week, but we backed out the rest of the changes and all went home exhausted.

At 6am Sunday, they sent out an alert saying something wasn’t fixed yet. DAMMIT. Got that taken care of though.

Not so much a hellweek as a hellweekend. It’ll be bad next week as I have to help them figure out why it all done broke.

SO! To celebrate that I have most of a Sunday left to myself, I’ll share the recipe I’ve been using to mix a Tom Collins, which is like a Gin and Tonic but mellower, which is good about now.

You will need:

Gin (Bombay Sapphire), Tonic (it’s supposed to be club soda but since I have so much tonic anyway….), lemon juice, simple syrup (pour 1 cup of water and 2 cups of sugar into a pot on the stove, heat and stir until all the sugar is dissolved and keep it in an airtight container in the fridge), maraschino cherries, ice, a cocktail shaker, a shot glass, and a highball glass (or something similar).

Put four or five ice cubes in the glass.

Fill the shaker about halfway with ice.

Into the shaker goes two shots of Gin, one shot of lemon juice, and half a shot of the syrup. Shake vigorously: remember, you’re trying to wake it up, not rock it to sleep. Strain into the glass.

Top the glass off with tonic water.

Toss in two cherries (and give one to Zoe who hears the shaker and comes running like the cats to a can opener: she likes to dance with the rhythm and knows it means she’ll get a yummy cherry out of it), and maybe a squirt of the cherry juice from the jar. Some folks will garnish with a lemon slice, but it has plenty of lemony goodness already.

Drink, and enjoy. And repeat a few times.