Friday, September 23, 2005

Nervous Nelly Bit Set

I found out yesterday that the project/competition that we had been working on with the purty pictures of hurricanes may be about to be cancelled. No, it has nothing to do with the recent events with hurricanes. No, it has nothing to do with the fact we're supposed to be rolling out our centerwide file system a month before the big conference.

It has everything to do with the fact that the organizers of the Tri Challenge thought that noone had finished an entry into all of the individual Challenges. That wasn't correct. We certainly did. I quickly pointed that out as soon as I heard the (true) rumor. The organizers were suddenly delighted and wanted to make sure that we had, in fact, qualified. We're supposed to hear today.

So here I sit, nervous as hell. Will all that work be for naught? All that horrible paper writing for de nada? I certainly hope not. I have close to $750,000.00 of equipment that's supposed to be delivered to SC05 to make this all work. I have other groups depending on that equipment as well. If this falls apart, I have a hard time getting management to agree to let me get the equipment to SC.

On top of all that, if in fact that we are the only team to have gone through and completed even getting through the gate, then, damnit, I feel cheated and a bit depressed. I was hoping that our technical prowess would be shining here and I'd get to give the smack down on a level that I work on day-to-day. That's been taken away from me if all happens as it seems to be. So, the only thing that will happen is that, well, we're demonstrating that we can get this project organized quickly. That's great! BUT! It's totally unsatisifying. I feel a bit like the gamer that pulled together an awesome army out of nowhere then had everyone else drop from the game. A real pisser this is.

However, we'll win if we are just deemed to have successfully entered and complete what we say we will. My wife spent a good portion of last night trying to prove to me that winning was all that mattered. Here I thought that it was crushing my opponent and mocking their fallen technoidols. Oh well. ;)

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