White Lightning Axiom: Redux

ARGH! Stinking comments are on the fritz again. Not sure why ... nothing changed. I've set it up so at least there is something to click on so you can read/leave comments. Durn it. Not only are my comments in the crapper, but he Mrs' seasonal allergies are starting to kick in and work has become a living quagmire of misery and angst. I'm covering for the PM on a project involving private label credit cards and had the joy of trying to run a teleconference this morning. Needless to say, everyone who had questions showed up late. Then, the one person who was absolutely required is out today for eye surgery of some sort. Damn, makes me want to poke my eye out. In the end, we found a different contact at the company who was the crucial link. The way that contact was obtained still grates on me. One of the participants showed up late and announced that she could get the new contact but would have to put the line on hold since she was not at her desk. When she did this, the phone system she was on started to play classic soft rock as hold music. Really loud. Most of the team either has pronounced foreign accents or are 'soft speakers' so the conference line was rendered nearly useless. I had to speak loudly and have people repeat what they said several times just so we could get an idea of what the speaker was trying to say. In the end, the new contact was of no help and I managed to get in touch with a member of the technical staff who I could work with. The issue ended up being the 'armour' on a programmatic pgp encryption routine that made the file incompatible with their version of gpg. One more obstruction demolished ... thousands to go. I think I'll take out my frustration on the lawn tonight.