IBM - too often the enemy within ranks

Friday was such an interesting day.. and night. I got my Victorian driving license (and sadly had my Canadian one punched and invalidated), arrived at work happy and bouncy as a spring lamb (before they become tasty dinner!), and found everyone stuck, looking for the reason behind the crypto initialization exception.

My first thought - after a quick mental check that it wasn't my fault - was what the hell are we using security for? Then I got all excited, finally something interesting!?

I replicated the actions, got the stack, slightly more descriptive than the others (possibly because I saw the original) and traced it back to the IBM JCE jars. Google led me straight to the answer: "IBM JCE Certification expires on May 18, 2006" .. uh what was the date Friday? hahahah! Nice work. IBM is sometimes (too often) a developers worst enemy!

With the project winding down, still a week until systest (perhaps less), we're all feeling pretty good.. and went out for lunch. I had a glass of wine and mellowed out for once. Not that my life is stressful, but apparently I'm "edgy" ;) I'd say I'm easily excitable. It's all apt.

Went out with an old friend to another old friend's birthday drinks. Had a fabulous time, but once again I found myself wondering why I let myself get led astray into bad habits? Drinking is OK, but not getting smashed, forgetting my reason and smoking. It's not me. It's me trying to be what other people want.

What do you do when your friends are bad for your health?

Folks don't change, they just reveal