Today was Gustav’s birthday. His present from the company? A swift boot to the rear. His co-host, Daria, has also been silenced though she may yet find a place elsewhere in the company. And let’s not forget Jayn, about whom I recently wrote nice things, and whose birthday was quite recent. She’s gone too.

As far as the company was concerned, NRK had become two radio stations. The Marconi portion, which had a particular sound and attitude and was bringing in great ratings, and the rest of the dayparts, which sounded and performed differently. Today the powers-that-be swung the axe and have initiated great changes in the station’s line-up.

The Marconi show is going to Seattle to become a syndicated morning show, airing there and here in Portland. The other timeslots will be filled by talent brought in from other markets.

Love it or hate it, that’s how they want to play things. I’m going to miss The Mighty G, Daria (who said those nice things about me a while back) and Jayn (who’s just one of the coolest people you could ever be lucky enough to meet).

I admit I’m sort of apprehensive about the sort of people they’ll be replaced with. Now would be a good time for positive thinking… if I didn’t know the business too well to be anything but darkly cynical.

So. I wonder if one of the new guys is going to decide he needs a chat room. *smirk*

My Monday hasn’t been too bad so far, but the same can’t be said of Jayn. She’s faced mysterious computer troubles and clue-impaired listeners while managing a frantic round of contesting. I figure if there was a Cirque de Soleil act for juggling lunacy, she’d be a shoe-in for lead performer.

While I was paying a brief “house call” to make sure her studio GP was working again, I was treated to what she later insisted was only a sample of how her Monday’s been treating her:

Caller: Hi, I was wondering how I can pick up my prize.
Jayn: Well, you just come down to the studio and pick it up at the front desk. Do you need directions?
Caller: I know how to get there. So, um, do I need to push the NRK button when I get there?
Jayn: No, there’s a door, you just pull on it and come right in…

(another call)

Jayn: … what city do you live in?
Winner: Portland
Jayn: What’s your ZIP code?
Winner: Oregon
Jayn: Ah, I got that hon’. I need your ZIP code.
Winner: Oh.

So if you’re an NRK listener and you call in during Jayn’s show today, please be gentle with her. She’s a very nice woman who’s rapidly approaching the end of her patience, and she deserves a little kindness. Thanks!

I did, in fact, come in at midnight as planned. I managed an hour or two of napping beforehand, over the course of the evening.

I ran the MFSAV, I ran the JDS upgrade, I ran another MFSAV, I ran the electronic invoicing upgrade, and now I’m running one last MFSAV. That’s it. I’m done.

The plan is that five hours from now I’ll go home and see how much more I can screw up my sleep schedule. Between now (5:00am) and 10:00am I’ll probably putter around and do a few odd jobs to earn my keep. Nothing strenuous, mind you.

If anybody needs me today, I’ll be at home. Resting, if not sleeping. Please be gentle with me. Thanks.

Ladies and gentlemen, I’m a moron.

I didn’t come in at midnight. Instead I almost literally crashed at about 11:00, so I decided to come in at 4:30 and skip doing the full system backup I’d planned for midnight.

At least I got a few hours’ sleep.

The first instruction on the sheet as I go to do the JDS release upgrade says, “Do an MFSAV.” Sure, no problem, I can find that in the menus. I thought I did, and I ran a procedure that insisted it was doing the MFSAV. The first time through, though, it halted on a bunch of files because they were in use by another process. I found this out after my attempt to run the JDS upgrade script failed.

So I ran ENDUPM to free up those files, then ran my MFSAV script again. And the JDS upgrade script still insisted I hadn’t done so. At this point I put in a call to JDS tech support.

Who politely, and without laughing too loudly, told me that I was running the wrong MFSAV script.

By now it was almost 7:30, and the MFSAV takes half an hour. In other words, I blew three hours getting to the starting point of a process that was slated to take a total of three and a half hours… so I’d be done by the time the Traffic department wanted to start getting their work done.

So. No JDS upgrade today. JDS upgrade tonight, midnight-ish. And I’m a freakin’ moron.

After many phone calls (already!) this week, here’s what my schedule currently looks like:

Today: Work, go home, eat, go back to work by midnight to kick off a tape backup, start the major software upgrade at about 5am, work through the day…

Tomorrow: Work, and in the evening install the invoicing software about which much trouble has been caused.

That’s right, I’m getting no sleep tonight. Woo hoo, baby. I’m going to need another vacation, and soon…

After putting in 57 hours of work last week, today I only added eight more. Everything went smoothly and faster than expected.

No, really, that’s all I have to say. That, and I’m ever so glad I go on vacation Thursday…