2013-11-21:

Wow, so much has changed in just a year, if you think about it. 

Fri:
Started the day figuring out how he could possibly have rotated his display again. Found out Win8 has a key combo you can press to make the screen go one way or the other. So I showed him how to get out of it, should it happen again. I don't know how he got into that black "high contrast" theme though. I erased it, hopefully that's the end of it.

Once back here I worked on Sean's gift, and got the basic form done. Now it just needs ornamentation.

Brought it with me to show mom, who wasn't around. Oh well.

Came back and waited until 6:30 to get on and do game.

Sat:
Leaves ho! It was nice and sunny too, thank you universe, you can come through for me sometimes, huh? Got all the leaves out and there just the bottom ones hanging on, as usual. Thought about putting my lights up, but as I won't be around to turn them on for nearly two weeks I figure why bother?

Probably won't put the tree up this year either. Oh well.

Went to my 1:00, she just wanted an envelope printer that could import her xls file and be easy to use. Thought I had found one, but when I tried to import the list, no dice, you had to buy it to do that. Super. So I kept looking and found nothing.

Got her old card studio program working though, so that worked out in the end.

Expect for the part that, as I walked in the door she called to tell me it wasn't opening now with some error message.

So I spent another hour and fifteen minutes on the phone with her, trying to get it right. I did a "repair" that didn't work. Putting into "XP mode" did work, but generated an annoying "Yes/No" prompt when opening. Oh look, her address book was blown away. Super, thanks. There's a tip for you programmers out there- make sure customer data is nuked when putting back program files, because that's good programming right there, yes sir y bob.

Of course I had chucked the excel spreadsheet because I figured we wouldn't need it. So now I get to go back Tuesday and transfer it from her old machine again. Joy!

Finally ate lunch at 4:00 and continued work on Starbug.

Started watching season 2 of Kora which just finished.

Sun:
Finished watching season 2 of Kora.

Then went over to my parent's house to get advice on finishing up Sean's gift. It's getting there. Came back here and implemented most of what I had to do until phone call time. Only a couple of things left!

Got some calls over the weekend, so I have a good, packed day tomorrow, with four places to go and two for tuesday, though one is of course mrs ancient version of her card making software again.

Mon:
Not a great start to the week weather wise. Windy, cold, some rain. Ick.

Went to the bank and the teller asked me if I repaired computers. The girl next to her started talking about needing her machine cleaned out and the woman even further over said her sister needed someone. Gave them my card, good thing I had one in my jacket pocket, I didn't have any in the car. She called, but left her stupid work number. Aarg.

Otherwise, got trash bags for $7.77 after my $8.80 rewards discount. Then I attacked and did 7777 damage for the rest of the combat.

Came back, ate lunch, then went out to the hotel to move a "new" machine in. That went fine, went to my 1:30. Over the phone last night she said she was running Vista but the machine was 10 years old. So something wasn't right. Turned out to be XP. It needed more RAM but it was only 1.5ghz so really, it needs to be replaced. I looked over his desktop too.

Then a very quick job just straightening out an *shudder* AOL issue.

Then my 5:00 was right down the street, didn't actually need much, but I answered some questions.

All in all a productive day.

Once home I tediously finished the work on Sean's gift I started the day before. Took me until 11:00, of course there were calls made in there and eating and such. Of course I did it wrong, so it caused me to do some more work, because I can't think things through properly.

Just a tiny bit of work left to do on it, and that'll be done. Now if that tiny piece of Neil's ever gets here, they'll be done. Dad is done. Mom's birthday is done. Getting there.

Lots of work for tomorrow as well, and even some for Wednesday and Thursday already. Sheesh.

Tues:
Called the bank lady first thing, and she had brought it into work as it was a laptop. So I went and got it, and started working on it. Had a very early lunch and went out to work.

First one I started and iPad updating, checked some things out, no big deal.
Then over to card lady, copied the database of names from the old machine, again, no big deal.
Then to the person with the case of the missing drive. Unplugged it, plugged it back in. Done. Talked to her about buying an iPad for her trip. Hey, she's going to Florida next week. Why does that sound so familiar?

Came home as I had until 3:30 by that point, I did something around here… huh.

Then back out, his exe files were all opening Windows Media Player for some reason, but I got that fixed and went through the machine. No trouble there either. Scary.

Came back here, I had brought a machine back from the first one she said was blue screening, but it wasn't. Gave it what it needed, and it's gotten to 4/118 updates in the last oh, ten minutes or so? Windows, Y you so slow?

Tomorrow's agenda- Take laptop back to bank lady, receive thanks, praise and money. Then go down the street to a tuneup job. Apart from that, I got nothing.

Thursday continues to fill, however, as I now have only one conceivable slot left that day. Weird.

Watched some classic Dr Who and the first of the 2005 Dr Who as the 50th anniversary is coming up. I know, I should have been writing or something, but it's Dr Who. Not a jury in the land would convict me.

But seriously I haven't written in forever it feels like. Well, once the holiday madness is over, it's back to the ending of Susan's adventure in the HP universe.

Also, the laptop has blazed its way to 70/118. It's been hours. How is this acceptable, microsoft?

Wed:
Very nice day, sunny!

Light day, but got a lot of calls to make up for it. Of course I already have most of Thursday booked so that's about right.

Anyway, dropped off the laptop as planned, and went to do a cleanup. That also went fine, so I came back here. Thought about what to get various people for Christmas, and I think that perhaps, maybe I have somewhat almost succeeded?

That's about it. Tomorrow will be much, much worse, never fear.

Actually did some writing!

Thurs:
Overcast and cold, but went about is well as it could have.

My 10:00 was pretty simple. Just unchecking "Use SSL" in his email, which the error message, surprise, actually told him to do.

Then at 11:30 a lady with a very well behaved dog. Came over, sat right down. "You may now pet me." Cleaned her machine out, unplugged the telephone cable from her #2 ethernet port. She didn't have telephone service, otherwise it would have totally killed her phones. So there was that.

Came home to eat lunch, wrote a bit of chapter 120. Then out again for my modem delivery. That went fine, and then dropped off the second replacement router for the guy. Hope this one lasts more then a year/week.

Came back here, had a couple of calls today so I have a couple to do tomorrow. Worked out what I want to happen in chapter 120/121 to lead into the finale for the story.

Got a laptop dropped off, so I worked on that as well. Just cleaning it, close to the record, but only 1053 things in mbam.

The guy I saw this morning called again, took 20 minutes to determine, as I anticipated, that he wasn't online anymore. Got that sorted.

Game this weekend, finishing shadowrun rather then DgH, boo!

Have one job for saturday at the moment.

Hey, this time next week I'll be coming home from Thanksgiving. Yup, it's already here.

Have a good one everyone, I'll see you all then.