So this is Solstice, and what have you done? I sat on my ass all day and worked with a spreadsheet. Yes, one spreadsheet. It has about 3500 rows and 20 some-odd columns comprising the sum total of all of the constituent data for work. Not a huge database as these things go, but not a bad place to start. The thing is this: there have been 6 different people in charge of maintaining this database in the four years it has been used. Ack! I say again, Ack! Dirty, dirty, dirty data. Filthy. At times even unusable. So as we prepare to implement a new database, I have decided to fill this new database with new, clean data. Who puts old data into new databases?
New, clean data is a beautiful thing, like fresh fallen snow or the newly born light of the sun. Full of promise, all these things are. Fresh, clean, and bursting with possibilities. So, as it turns out, working with the data is not only good for feeding my OCD fix, it is a great way to celebrate the solstice. And of course, as we all know, the solstice occurs because the Earth’s axis is tilted in such a way that each hemisphere gets an uneven amount of light in a given season.
But what of this axis? It is the point around which the planet turns, no? But does it turn? No! There is, theoretically at least, a point on the planet — well two points actually — which do not rotate. Like the center of a wheel, or the middle of King Arthur’s Round Table, this is the unmoved mover. In the Arthurian Legend, this is where the chalice from the Holy Grail is to reside. In the Legend of Sanuk D, this is the place for clean data.