2013-10-17:

Fri:
Two jobs in the morning, both a little longer then I expected but it worked out for the best.

They were both cleanouts, and the one was slower because his machine was just dragging doing normal stuff.

The other one was slower because I got all done with what I was there to do, and then she sprung the "can you look at this other one" trick on me. Well, I could, because I get paid by the hour! :-)

She had almost 20,000 messages in her inbox, so hoarder much? Also her Avast! was missing so she got Panda instead.

Came back for lunch, then out again. Saw my parents, and got their replacement cable modem installed. Then bought cake mix and went to get some stuff out of my car. The front looks good, it's all painted, or at least partially, as the guy said tues-wed to get it back. Probably have to let it dry a certain number of hours or something. Auto paint is different then anything I use, I know you have to wear masks and everything because it's nasty stuff.

Then back to bake cakes, and let me tell you, I'm no cake baker. I guess like five cakes a year and not actually watching any "how to" videos doesn't let me raise my rating in the Baking skill. Oh well, it's cake, right? You only look at it for a minute before you EAT IT.

Sat:
CAKE. And game, in which I contributed absolutely nothing! Mizzy did some recon, and fought off three demons. Stan did some recon and became a man. Other Sean and I did nothing. When we found out there were 30+ other demons living there we said "yeah, let's let the Foundation handle it. See ya." And that was that. But we got to eat cake, and Sean opened his gift, the Sword of Omens. Finally can show pictures of the process, and since I had that done, I wrote up how I made Mizzy's gift of so long ago now. The Mass Effect Pistol. Check it out.

Otherwise that day I spoke to a couple of people on the phone about stuff, and did a few things around the house. Nothing too exciting.

Sun:
Worked on the story. Finished chapter 106 and figured out how I basically want the rest of the story to go. With so many things now different between the Susan version of the world and the original version, the final "book" is going to play out quite differently. I wanted to be sure I could make everything fit together though.

Then watched some Tenchi, because I read a fanfic crossover (which died after like 4 chapters) that got me interested again. Stupid stories, why you start and then just die with no explanation? That's why I wanted to rush and get my story done, so I could post it and not disappoint people that got into it. Like nearly every other online story I've gotten into! And yes you stories know who you are!

Mon:
No bank today, but I did get the pieces of the first part of Sean's christmas gift. Now to figure out how to put them all together.

Bought multigrain waffles, and took a look at the nutritional facts on the side. They have less fat, but at the same time they also have less nutrition. Huh? They have less then half the vitamin A, calcium, etc. as the regular ones. I think I'll take the 5% more fat if I get 15% more of the good stuff along with it, yes?

Three jobs in the afternoon of varying complexity. Well, actually four. The first was nearby, an odd flash error that turned out to be an incompatibility with firefox 24. Figures. He said he "hates computers" but I think he really means "I hate PCs" because hating "computers" is like saying "I hate the air." His car is a computer. So is his phone. So is what runs the electric that goes into his house and keeps planes from crashing into the ground. Stop the hate!

What you hate, sir, is people who do inadequate testing, or possibly more generally, imperfect people. And in that case, you hate yourself.

Moving on, way out to almost Sean's house (one exit away) I put in an ethernet card, because he wanted me to. So I did.

Then on the way back I stopped in at York, to see about their beeping machine. It was a different beeping then before, and it stopped when I logged him in. Everything seemed to be working just fine, so I left him a note I had no idea what it was, and let me know if it starts again.

Then last, another close one, just taking care of a few things.

Came home, wrote up how I made the sword and gun (finally) and posted them to the site.

Some work for tomorrow as well, and even Wednesday has some jobs on it. Things are looking better already.

Completely wrote chapter 107, I think the big attack will happen in 108. It's been a long time coming.

Then the story really begins! (after 440,000 words, yeah right. Seriously though, this is were it totally diverges from Rowling and things get interesting.) Can't wait to start the end.

Tues:
Good amount of work today. First I dropped off 10 CDs I made and answered some questions. Got to my 10:30 which was just a cleanout, and that only took about a half hour. Came back here, got the mail, plenty of boxes and a battery for a laptop, which as I expected did nothing because the machine is not getting any power. Ate lunch, then back out at 1:00 for another cleanout, which also went fine.

Then out at 4:00 to way down by The Shops to move someone over to Thunderbird. Which let me down, actually. Apparently it can't import from Windows Live Mail!! And even more frustrating, trying to import his address book into the time warner webmail. That's a system that hasn't been overhauled in ten years, let me tell you. I could get the names in, but not the email address. Even exporting a sample and reimporting that sample didn't work. So I put the email addresses in the name field and left it like that. Stupid… everything.

Then came home, made just a few calls, two jobs for tomorrow. And hopefully getting my car back.

Then worked on chapter 108. Tremendous battle inside Hogwarts, I had 25 combatants to keep track of, what with all the constructs Susan can call upon. Writing that was interesting, let me tell you.

Wed:
Did not get car back, he said he needed another part he hadn't gotten yet. Why are they still putting parts on when it's been painted? Wouldn't that mess up the paint job?

Anyway, only two today, the lawyer guy in the morning, setting up a chromebook for the secretary who didn't realize that's what she bought and cleaning out his laptop. Luckily she only wanted the laptop for typing stuff up, which she could use google docs for. So I guess that worked out.

Came back, had lunch, then picked up the other laptop. Her wireless was off (love those keys!) and her Norton was going crazy and not actually running. So I took care of that and get it all working again. The excuse I read for Win8 not having the safe mode menu is a "hyuk, hyuk, we made windows boot too fast, it won't see the key, hyuk." Really? You couldn't have put a 5 second delay for troubleshooting purposes? You have to make us go through all these gyrations that may or may not work? Thanks for your concern.

Finished chapter 108, where I cheated a bit and didn't run the whole combat. It was getting tedious. Then finished 109 and 110. Yeah, it was a good point and I've been writing it in my head for days. It feels good to finally get it out of there.

Made a few calls, have a couple for tomorrow and hopefully getting my car back!

Thurs:
Rather disappointing start to the day. The 9:30 turned out to just be a busted DSL box. When I got there the DSL and Internet lights were off. I turned the unit off and back on, and it started power cycling about every 20 seconds. FAIL.

Came back home. The car guy called at 10:30(ish) and said it should be ready by this afternoon, so I'll leave here at one and get nee-san back! Yay!

Worked on chapter 111 in the meantime.

Got nee-san back, have to get used to being inside her embrace again. She's much lower, and the gas/brake is a lot different. Not different then she was before, different then Arcee that I finally got used to. But it's nice to have her back again!

Went to my 2:30, changed all her passwords as someone was ordering stuff on amazon in her name. Ran malwarebytes too, just in case. Her trackpad often just stopped working at random, three times when I was there. She thought it was time warner. Uh, no? So that's some build quality right there.

Finished chapter 111.

Game tomorrow, Infinite Vector, going to take over a space station now, so that might be interesting. Work wise, two places to go, so that should be okay. Then visiting my parents.

So not a great week, work wise, but not to barren either. Sheesh, only two weeks to halloween. Have to work on Sean's gift over the weekend, and this first part shouldn't take long. Then I can focus on the others.

Oct. is half Ober so I hope it's going well for you out there. See you next week.