2013-12-19:

Mon:

Got everything taken care of now that I'm back. Bought tons of food and stuff to change the oil in my car. Went over to my parent's house to get the stuff I left over there. Put things away, listened to my 17 messages from when I was gone. Snow blowed the driveway. Got caught up on my websites. The painted version of my Mass Effect gun sold for $70 which I suppose isn't too bad? 

Put my new wand on display. 

Generally relaxed so tomorrow I can start getting caught up on those jobs because it's about a week until christmas!

Light snow today and tomorrow. 

Returned my calls. It followed the same pattern as usual. The more people I have to call, the less I actually reach. A couple of people said they sorted their problems in the meantime. 

So I have four tomorrow and two for Tuesday. Out of all those calls. Oh well, there's still more people to reach. 

Tues:

Pretty busy for the first day back.

First up, it was snowy and crappy in the morning so it took me about an hour to get to the place 20 minutes away. He had a bunch of odd things to get through, so I did. Hooked up a wireless printer, looked at his internet speed, talked about what to do with his TV to get sound to other speakers, got his video program I had never heard of working, that sort of thing.

A quick lunch and out to a nearby place. They said it hung up but I didn't see any real issues with it. They did have a bunch of toolbars, and other crap, that both Mbam and combofix took out. Hopefully that solves it. 

Not too far away was the next one, just a checkup and getting live mail to accept his gmail account. 

Then at 5:30 getting his router plugged back in, and setting up the usual software I give people.

The afternoon ones all were very fast, so I only got 1.5 hours of work billed. Oh well. 

No calls today? Okay, stupid apex merchant called. 

I reached a few of the people that called when I was on vacation, so I do have a full day tomorrow. 

Still have to get the accountant guy his new PC and the guy really far away his RAM. 

I'm back everyone, you can start calling again!

Wed:

And so the second day back screams through, and again it went pretty well.

The first one was just putting in the RAM I had ordered before leaving. But another customer of mine was there with a laptop he wanted me to sell. So I took that.

Went over to York, their RAID was actually behaving itself. I changed the drive anyway, I mean I'd ordered the stupid thing. And that was an older drive. Couldn't figure out how to make it start rebuilding itself, the process seemed a bit different then before, but I finally managed it. 

Home for lunch, then went out to a mystery job. Turns out he had done something and then someone else had done the "refresh" of Win8, which I can see is going to be a favorite "technique" given how many times I've seen it used vs how many actual Win8 machines I've seen. So I put everything that I had previously done back. He shorted me $20. I put the cash he handed me in my pocket, because you don't count your money while you're sitting at the table, there'll be time enough for counting when the game is done. Turns out he gave me $23 not $43. Thanks dude.

That didn't take too long, so I was an hour early for my 3:30 and she said she was glad she stayed, she was thinking of going out. I'm glad too, I didn't want to sit in the cold car for an hour. Got her scanner working, on Win7 using the Vista drivers as they don't support that model anymore I guess. Couple of other little things. 

Came back early! Made 8 of my new project- Wands. I saw yesterday a guide on doing it with hot glue and chopsticks, but hot glue is not my friend. But you know what I did have? Right- air dry clay from needing a tiny, tiny bit for Sean's gift. Reminds me, I have to wrap that sucker tonight. I digress- I had chopsticks from the package of them I bought years ago, and the air dry clay, so I put the two together. They're drying now, and they look… okay! I'll get them painted up and maybe I can make a few bucks on them at the Shops. I'll have pictures for you next week when they're painted.

Still no payment made for the mass effect gun. Sigh.

Might play the christmas DLC for borderlands tonight. But then again we might not. 

Thurs:

We didn't!

First one today was annoying. Laptop, but with a dead backlight. I plugged her monitor into it but it didn't want to work. Messed around trying various things, and worked on her desktop too. Put RAM into it, vacuumed it, and then it didn't want to boot anymore. I was going to be late and I had finally gotten the laptop to accept the monitor (somehow) so I just took it. Turned out to be one of the modules. I thought I kept track of which were hers (the white slots) and which were mine (the black slots) but when I took the white ones out later at home, it booted again. AArg?

Second one was easy, just putting his system back together from storage.

Came back here, ate lunch, worked on the desktop I had grabbed. 

Then out to see the lawyer guy, not much to do there, actually. Then went over and gave the accountant guy his new machine, and got my money for that, thank you very much. 

Made the few calls I had left, only got one today. So dropping off the machine and one other tomorrow. 

Started painting the wands while waiting for Sean to play some Borderlands, I'll finish them up tomorrow morning and hopefully mom will go up Saturday and put them up? Obviously, the ones in the tutorial look a lot better. Sigh.

So, first week back wasn't bad. Much lighter workload then I expected, as I have nothing for Saturday.

I'm sure it'll pick up once the holidays are over. 

So, everyone out there been good, or what? Because believe it or not, my next entry will be the day after Christmas! 

See you all then.