2014-04-03:

Fri:
Spent way too much time on my morning appointment. She had three machines, not two, and the older two were pentium 3 machines. Sheesh. So that didn't go quickly. Plus one of her monitors was busted so I couldn't do all three at once.

Finally leaving there I went and dropped off the PC (more than an hour late, she wasn't there. I left it on the back porch). Then I went and took care of plugging a guy's router back in.

Ate lunch. Finally back on track I left to go set up a new PC for the company I was at last week, as she wasn't there then. Answered some questions for her, that sort of thing. Then, down the street I went to replace the keyboard and get a new check from the guy. I had been there in January and he reversed the date. 8/1/14 rather than 1/8/14. I was going to just wait until then if I didn't see him again, saw him again and forgot, but remembered that time.

Then over to my parent's house, forgetting the bag I usually bring and the boxes I wanted to bring over. Sigh.

Finally won Chronicles, as I hadn't the day before, and started Ni No Kuni. It's pretty good.

Sat:
One job in the morning, I thought it was just changing her stupid ink heads, but she had more questions to make it worthwhile. So that was good.

Bit more Ni No Kuni. Worked on my Battle Runner program, as Sean had some trouble with it. This was in anticipation of doing more than just finishing my journey down a hallway, getting saved by an NPC, and then leaving again. I didn't know it was going to start being extremely nasty outside, turning from rain to snow as the minutes ticked by.

Nasty snow, we hates it, yes we does.
Coming home from Sean's (very, very early, I left at around 9:00, unheard of) it was snowing like crazy, worse than I had anticipated. I saw 7 cars spun out on my side of the road, meaning there may have been at least 14, all things being equal. Took me about 50 minutes to make the 35 minute trip. I'm glad I had left early, it was really coming down.

I thought it was spring? What, did Stormy win this year, Rainbow? Starlight getting a bit rusty round the fetlocks? For shame, Rainbow, for shame.

Sun:
Nope. Inches of snow greeted me when I awoke. Hurray?

6138 words written, at least. It went in a slightly different direction at the end of the last chapter I wrote, which I think will work out better.

Otherwise, cursed the snow a bit, and played some more Ni No Kuni after writing.

No calls over the weekend?

Mon:
Couple of calls today to make up for it, I guess. Had to snowblow the driveway to get my car out. There wasn't a great deal of snow and it was actually very sunny and decent out, so I figured I would let it melt. NOPE. It had this crust over top of it, the eskimos would have a word for that kind of snow, but I don't. Anyway it was annoying, and my car wouldn't go through it, so I had to tediously move it out of the way. It was tough stuff! It all melted by the end of the day, though.

Shopping then went normally, and I cleaned up a little around here. No job until 3:00, just some questions about photoshop. A Mac running 10.4, and art he had started working on the last time I was there, years ago. At least it was finally done? But boy was his machine struggling to do what he wanted.

Two jobs tomorrow, that should make up for today.

Played some more Ni No Kuni but tomorrow I'll write! Hopefully in warmer temps than even today. And even more hopefully, it might not go below forty this week?

It saddens me that this news almost seems like the best weather news possible. It's not, of course, but considering what came before…

Tues:
Warmish. Sorta. Not really. But it wasn't snowing and awful so I'll take what I can get.

No problem with the first job, but her mouse was an issue. She just had the one fake anti-virus scanner, which was easily found and destroyed. Also needed to replace an optical drive, but oddly it was SATA and not PATA. Huh. Of course I had two of the wrong kind, and none of the right kind. So I will need to go back.

Came back home, ordered the part, did my paperwork and sent in my estimated fees. Woohoo. And I had a small positive balance, too. Aarg. Oddly, March, despite being what I would have considered terrible, was actually better than last year. No lie! I did 6 more jobs, and made $440 more. Looking at least year I see a lot of $20 jobs but this year hardly any $30 jobs. So that's where the difference comes in. But to do more, rather than less? That's very nice.

Then out again at 12:30. Slow laptop, trying to run Vista with only 1GB of RAM. So I sold him some more, cleaned the thing out, and that was that.

Came back here.

Ordered some new business cards from Vista Print, something I've been meaning to do for some time. I picked the hand one as the @ one isn't in the free list anymore, I guess. They offered me a website.

[[image file="2014-04/services.png" alt="My "Services"" ]]

It seemed… appropriate, somehow, with my name. Hopefully you too appreciate the pun.

I so need my own church.

Power went out a few minutes, had to call Time Warner to get my internet back.

And while on hold I found a dead chipmunk in my basement while I was wandering around. Super.

Poured some hot water on the spot I wanted to bury him in and waited. After a time it was soft enough to do the job. Sorry little one, hopefully the next dimension is more kind to your tiny life energies.

A couple of calls today, so that was good. Plus one email from last night, so I have all of two jobs tomorrow too. The ice cream people and the hotel. The others I helped over the phone, which is good, I guess?

Back to writing!

Wed:
The morning one took way too long. Once again the hotel machine that had problems with Office in the past. The wonderful "windows installer" every time it was opened. I actually got the disk though, for a wonder, and reloading it helped a little. There's still some problems, but after working on it from 9:30 to nearly 1:00 I didn't care anymore. I'm reloading that machine, should it develop more problems.

Came home, lunch, then called the lawyer's office to see about her error message. Which wasn't coming up anymore, so that was quick.

A bit more writing, finishing up chapter 13 before I left for my 4:00. 41,328 words. Half done?

The afternoon one went better, actually accomplished things of use to someone.

Many calls today for some reason, leading to a massive 5 appointments tomorrow, which is about my max load for a day. Sheesh.

Thurs:
Day worked out okay!

Though it started poorly. Boy was my first job infected. I didn't think it was too bad at first, but for a fairly recent machine it was moving pretty slow, and Mbam kept finding stuff, the numbers going up into the thousands. After that the network connection seemed to die. Well, it could ping numbers, but not names. Finally figured out the archaic DOS commands to type to reset things just before she had to leave. I was there two hours.

So a quick lunch later and back to a very short job, a guy who insisted he wasn't hitting control T when the action of the machine suggested he was. He said he changed keyboards, so it wasn't that. I used the T key just fine, so he's going to be more careful about it and see what happens. Next was a normal length one, cleanout of a laptop for the carpet guy. His wasn't too bad.

Next up, another cleanout, some add-ons in firefox and the normal stuff. Home for dinner, then out at 5:40 to a customer I lost for awhile because she moved. Well, she's back, and she had some other problems apart from just hooking her printer up. Her apple password worked, but her account was frozen? Her new machine needed stuff to become useful? Yes. She said she was listing the reasons to come back to herself, and one of them was me? So, go me?

Then back home again.

Oddly, for all that, I got no calls today so I have nothing scheduled for tomorrow. I got the DVD drive in, so I'll head over there. Weird how that works. Of course visiting my parents shall be done.

No news for game Fri/Sat so who knows.

Weather is still yucky, so no chance there, but the snow is mostly gone, hurray.

I guess that's about it. Hope everyone is enjoying their spring, such as it is.

And now, the above passage as seen by http://thinkzone.wlonk.com/Gibber/GibGen.htm at level 6. I hope you enjoy:

I had to snow as there, year. No lie! I didn't seemed… appropriate, some time. I picked by.
Nasty snow and waited. I actually done? But it wasn't in there I went to reset think will working on the hand one fake anticipation at least 14, all melted by the PC more hopefully the machine suggested he reversed the more carpet guy. I had been the road, meaning to bring on it from Vista with it. Hope every short job infected. I didn't go through stuff to become