2014-10-02:

Fri:
So I got through the day!

The morning one was kind of pointless. It was the backlight, and as I got it from ebay and it only had a 120 day warranty, she would have had to buy another. So she's thinking of getting a new laptop rather than replace this again. It could be the inverter board, I suppose? I did get snacks.

The afternoon ones were pretty quick.

The first one was the old "can't log in" problem. Had to do the registry business, rename the .bak file and change some values. Stupid registry.

Then for the guy who couldn't tell me his problem- was infected by a bunch of stuff. Cleaned that up and answered his questions.

The long one that was a half hour away was also a cleanout, which I hope solves her hanging problem. It was pretty far gone so I'm hopeful.

Got a system dropped off, he was messing around and put it back to the factory defaults. So I get to do work I did 6 months ago again! Yay!

Finished the three previous wizard books, their magic doesn't do a lot of direct attacking, mainly shielding and hoping stuff works out. I mean yes, they can't attack death itself I suppose, but still. Only giving them enemies of that power level doesn't give them much to really do I guess. Ah well, we'll see how my battle with Biddy works out.

Sat:
Worked on the PC that had been dropped off. Got all his stuff from the old machine put back.

Made more changes to the model for Sean's gift.

Ate lunch!

Finished chapter 48.

Went to Sean's for board games. Played three, a very close first one, Neil won the second and I found Eclipse much better this second time through. It helped I was in the running for first place, but really, understanding what was going on helped a bunch.

Sun:
Did some reading in the morning.

Then I had a hankering to play Civ which sometimes happens. Mostly because Eclipse is sort of like that. So I did. Won it, not on hard difficulty of course. But I did better than I usually do. Got the science victory, and launched my rocket. Crushed one person sharing the continent with me, as he felt he would like my land. He soon regretted his decision. As I rolled my artillery across his cities he was like "maybe we should have peace now?" and I was like, nope, you started something you couldn't finish. I will.

That was really the only military campaign.

My mother and father got home safely, about 6:00.

Good amount of work for tomorrow, despite not getting any calls today. Three, and one I didn't reach who wanted Tues-Wed anyway. So that should hopefully go okay.

Mon:
Which it did.

Went shopping a few minutes early so I could get to the 11:00. What was I worried about? Pretty normal, then came back here.

The first one was the same problem she had the last time, when she left her office open and I didn't see her there. (at her office) The machine was sort of stuck on. She said she had unplugged it. No, what she had unplugged was her printer and speakers. *shakes head* She tried, I guess? So points for that.

Came back for lunch.

Then back out. Some general questions answered at 1:03, and getting rid of a windows timed event that was bringing up an error message every so often. He said it had something to do with Pogo, which it didn't.

Then to a lady with a laptop. SMART reporting said the HD was dying, so we backed her stuff up and I ordered her a new one.

Brought it back here, so we'll have that to do shortly.

The changes I made to Sean's gift passed inspection! It's one step closer to being a reality, which might actually work out!

Seems the next Korra starts in October, and so close to when the last one ended. Plus Borderlands 1.5 comes out, which I might get. Though it means paying for gold again, sigh. (Not the metal, I mean the service). Also there's another show, Constantine that I want to see. It's about a demon hunter. Man, everything's happening next month. 

Got a bunch of calls today, so I have three jobs for tomorrow as well. Will this be a good week?

Worked on chapter 49.

Tues:
Good amount of work today. The first one was, as I suspected, a bad power supply. At least once I changed it, the machine ran for more then a half hour. Of course, it's one of those miniature machines so I need to order a custom power supply for it.

Came back to eat lunch.

My 1:30 was short, somehow her printer switched "ports" and she had two of them and was using the wrong one. Funny how Macs don't need this "ports" crap. When is MS going to give that up? Maybe with the new Windows 10 next year? Yup, they're skipping 9 apparently.

And then to the spice guy. He had… 8 machines that needed looking at. I just quickly ran CCleaner and Malwarebytes on all of them. For $50 I'm not giving each one personal attention. Also set up his new camera system. That guys goes through camera systems… the last time I was there we were doing camera stuff too.

Played some Borderlands 2 at night. Just to get back into it in case I pick up 1.5. I have only played two of the four characters in that game.

Wed:
Happy Oct everyone.

Sigh, no jobs? For serious?

Tinker has been obsessed with meowing at the door and trying to get out, can't figure out why.

Spent all day designing a 3d object. A simple one, too. Very simple. But I did it wrong the before lunch, and messed up the texturing. I was going to give up, but then inspiration struck and I decided to do it a different way. That way worked better, and the texturing even worked, once I figured it all out. I tried to make it into a necklace, but they said the colored sandstone stuff shouldn't be handled that much. Plus my buddy "thin walls" made an appearance. Tried and tried to get the lowest cost, but still printable model (blender does weird stuff when you use boolean operations) and finally just made it solid. Aarg. It's only about $40.

So what is this mystery item, you ask? It's the shield from the new Borderlands game!

[[image file="2014-10/shieldrender.png" alt="render of the shield" ]]

Looking at the difference between the official model in the game and mine, I have mad props to give the art team.

[[image file="2014-10/shield-head-on.png" alt="in game shield" ]]

I mean I took this long for one object that doesn't even look as good as the real thing. HOW IS THIS POSSIBLE? Oh right, they have actual skill.

Got two calls, one that pressed the star key to skip the message, then didn't speak.
The other I actually reached and so I have two for tomorrow.

Did not reach the two from… before, I forget when they called me. I even tried her at 9:30 this morning, thinking maybe if I don't reach her in the evening, I'll reach her in the morning. Nope!

Thurs:

I've have Tinker for 4 years already!? Yipes.

Couple of jobs today.

The first was at 10:30, moving files I had backed up from a work machine to her new machine. Where did her outlook file go? AARRRGG.

So that went fine otherwise.

10 minutes late to my 1:30, he had a new router he was having trouble connecting to. Mainly because windows is stupid, and doesn't ask, upon seeing the password rejected, to put in a new password. It just kinda fails. Nice one.

Of course I also found 1004 things with malwarebytes, which I decided to run after trying to view a website and getting an impossible to kill web ad. Thanks for keeping me in business, MS.

Got the power supply for the guy, shoved in an envelope that was flat rate. The post office didn't like that. They gave me a nasty note and charged me $5.00! Huh, I wasn't the one that sent it!! Called the guy when I was out, no answer. Came back here.

Also got the SSD for the laptop, so I sat and installed that. Going through the 170 updates now, hope it might be done in another hour or two.

Did paperwork. Down only slightly from November of last year.

Got a bunch of calls today! Where were all you people when I had nothing to do Wednesday?

Looking forward to tomorrow, get to call in about my Jury Duty!!!!! Gonna be such a fun week next week.

Probably no game this week, haven't heard anything.

Fund is down $250, but up $3.00 today, so that's good news I guess?

Did not reach everyone, but I've got three for the morning. The power supply guy, a mail sending problem with OS X (which I spent an hour on, it's probably a two minute job) and a possible HD failure.

Then returning the laptop in the afternoon. Seeing my parents if they are there in the afternoon.

Making Aerith's Princess Guard, for reasons.

That's about it. Let's hope October is kinder.