I think I’ve learnt a few more lessons than normal in the past week — and not just because my parents had to suddenly leave the country, forcing me to become carer for my sister. Although that might have been one factor. Maybe.

• Keeping a blog updated doesn’t quite seem so pressing when there’s shopping to be done.
• Promising to be in different places at the same time, to different people, is not a good thing.
• Illustrating stupidity by saying “how’s the winter?” to a person in the northern hemisphere is, er, stupid.
• Sixteen year olds do less housework than what most husbands are accused of (not) doing … grrr.

On a similar note, I learned a few lessons at work today too.

• When designing a database, care is required. If you’re recording something that’s unique (like, say, a MAC address), many headaches will occur should you fail to specify UNIQUE, because …
• Large imports of data from one source to another pretty much never work exactly the way you want them to.
• Care is also required when dealing with inexperienced users who are confronted with features that are supposed to simplify their work, but end up just confusing them.