2014-09-18:

Fri:
A trying day, to be sure. Got the car in around 7:30 and said I would wait. Brought my laptop along and actually banged out the entire next chapter. Go me!

As I was just writing the finishing lines, the guy said there was a problem, they ordered the wrong parts for my vehicle, so it was in pieces and immobile.

They were kind enough to loan me a 2014 Forester, a boat of a vehicle with heated seats, camera in back for when you back up… and no USB port to the radio? Ugh. I remember now why I don't listen to the commercials, I mean radio, anymore.

Anyway, that was about 10:00 so I called my first person, no answer. I called the second and he said he had forgotten to bring the laptop, but he could have someone bring it. Despite this, I waited there 25 minutes for it to be delivered. I cleaned it out and that was that.

Stopped at my parent's house because I had no idea what the rest of my day would look like. They were not there. Came home for lunch, got ahold of the first guy and went over there. Went over the machine, explained a few things, found out he was only paying for "lite" internet service so that's why he was only getting 1 Mb/s. Yuck.

Called the guy in Hilton, he was going to be there at 4:00, and it was 3:30 and going to take me a half hour to get there. So I went.

He had restored it, so basically it turned from a cleanout to putting things back so the machine was usable again. At the end it was doing non-skippable updates (thanks, I just wanted to reboot, not reboot and wait a half hour) and for maybe 15-20 minutes it was stuck at 15% done. What can it possibly be doing for that long? AARG. So I just left. "Call me if you have trouble putting the printer in. Etc." Stupid thing.

Came and ate dinner, now am waiting for laptop guy to call and drop his stupid laptop off so I can re-do it. Again.

And he never called, so fine. I did some writing instead.

Sat:
And even more writing.

Went out for my 1:00, answered more iMac questions for him. He's getting the hang of it, so that's fine.

Went over to Sean's, did some board games. We did one called Eclipse, but we didn't get through it. I tied with Sean, but we were not in first place. In the full game I might have done better. I just couldn't get into it, for some reason. Other Sean liked it. We also watched the latest Dr Who.

Sun:
And more writing. Got through chapter 31, almost to the climb up to the Northern Crater. Of course Susan will just use magic.

No calls today, but some over the weekend resulted in three jobs for tomorrow. What a wonder and delight they no doubt shall be.

Mon:
Got the shopping done. Overlooked that I was in the loaner. Brought bags, but forgot the quarter. Oh well.

New packaging for the sandwich rounds I buy, they're just getting new packaging for everything over there. Also the tiny bottle of hand soap was cheaper than the larger bottle of body soap per ounce. Weird, usually it's the other way around.

First appointment was unneeded. Hooking up a new DSL modem because he was told he couldn't get better speed without it. But then it didn't work. The Frontier guy came right away, we did stuff, he put the old one back and said he wouldn't get any faster than he already was. Sigh.

Next up was a website problem, turned out to be cookies. Removed them and the site started working okay again. Cleaned the machine out, though digitally it was fine, physically it was a bit dusty. It had been almost a year, it was time.

Then to get a printer back on wireless. Odd, the HP software was never installed. Must have been on the wireless already and windows just picked it up.

Good news/Bad news on the tire. The leak can be plugged! (That was the good news)
I need two new front tires, as they are worn to nearly nothing! (This is not good news)
That will be around $400 total, for two tires and the rotation! (This is the bad news)

They didn't finish it today, but I should have Nee-San back back tomorrow.

Couple of calls today, so I have three places to go tomorrow. Bringing the laptop back because I got the power supply. Someone with questions,

And of course some more writing. Just finished chapter 33 in time to go to bed, and I'm up to 117,182 words.

Are there mice in the walls? Squeaker is going nuts…

Tues:
Rather unexciting day today. Got the first one done, it was just answering some questions for the guy who had me update his laptop from XP to 7 some time ago. He had a few junk programs already, of course, but I took care of those as well.

Next up, getting the car back, to the tune of $450. I hate that tune!
But she does seem to handle a little better, so how about that?

Then writing.

And delivering the laptop. Got it set up to the printer as well. At no extra charge, even.

Came home, did a bit more writing, then made my phone calls. Actually got two real phone calls and like four, count them four, junk calls today. Sheesh.

Wed:
Not much work today, not much at all. Found a few jobs though.

Did some writing in the morning.
Then cleaned up the porch, and got that one decent PC finished. Took pictures of it, selling it as a complete system, with monitor and printer. Amazed the printer worked after one cleaning, but it's an older model, so the holes are probably bigger.

Did one job from someone I couldn't reach this week, a cleanout, and that went well. She post dated the check to Oct 3 though, arrg.

Also went down the street, a few issues settled for the guy there.

Couple of calls today, but mostly just questions. One person said she was referred to me, something about her AOL (did she mean dial up?) and then called two minutes later to say disregard this. Uh, kay?

Oh well, at least tomorrow should make up for today, I have four places to go.

Finished chapter 37, about to go find Cloud and see if Susan's magic can heal him up. Not decided on that, yet.

Decided I could work the Huge Materia into the story in a great way, so it'll take some doing, and a new spell, but she'll manage it. Got 1/3 the way through chapter 38.

Thurs:
First two were pretty short. Did a bit of writing before I left, and the first one was just making sure everything had copied off her old (work) machine so she could put it back on her new (personal) machine. It had, except for the outlook files.

The second one could not articulate "i'm not on the internet" leading me to believe his mouse or something was at fault because "he couldn't get anything." Whatever. Unplugging his router solved it. It was one of the old, good, linksys ones that can have the open source firmware. Of course he didn't have the login information so I couldn't see what it was running or update it. Oh well.

Came back for an hour and wrote, then went back out to #3. (By the way, #4 had canceled because she said her display was working this morning, and she did what she needed to do and she was going out of town, so she was going to call when she got back.)

Saw two deer, just calmly eating stuff in someone's front yard.

The third guy had a dead HD. The seagate tools from CD just gave me a bunch of garbage characters, that was no help. The built in diagnostic said it was dead, but forums said it could be the motherboard. Plugged it into his wife's machine, downloaded (tediously, the .NET 4 framework ugh) the sea tools for windows and ran that, it also said it was dead.

So I'll be ordering him a new drive. Man, I made no money this week.

Must be getting colder out. What to know how I know? The fact it's cloudy and windy outside? Perhaps mercury tubes? The Internet telling me so? NOPE. I have a kitty friend again! Snuggle time!

One whole job for tomorrow? Can I be so lucky? Yeah, that's it. Sigh. And seeing my parents.

No game plans thus far this week, so probably just more writing.

Put that system up on craigslist, maybe work on those guns some more, get them painted up.

I'll probably finish chapter 40 tonight as well.

What a crummy week. See you all next time, same blog channel, same blog complaining.