2015-05-21:

Fri:
Started the day poorly. Brought the HD back to the lady.

No cables.

Turns out Seagate wants the cables back, Samsung doesn't. I misread it because it's a Samsung enclosure but a Seagate drive.
So I got to lose $15 ordering new cables, and make her wait another week. Thanks for the excellent customer service there, Samsung, sending me back a drive you knew I couldn't use, because you had my cables. U the Bestie!

I'm awesome too.

At least I got the switch in for the bath place without too much hassle.

Got the HD back from the recovery place, so I set about getting stuff off of it.

That, at least, went well. Dropped it off, got her stuff back so she was pleased.

Came back here.

Did work on chapter 132, but got stuck on the second mini-pony adventure.

Went out at 3:15, the guy's router said wireless enabled on one screen, but disabled on another. I hate those RR things, they are terrible.

And saw my parents, got caught up on my Aunt's condition. Remembered the pie this week.

On the way home I figured out the rest of 132, so I came home and got it on paper. Virtual paper. Now to meet Discord, that should be a fun interaction to write.

Got a lot of words done. Too many words. Not sure if I'll break the chapter up or not. I just have the fight to pen, so we'll see how long it takes Susan to realize things aren't working.

Sat:
Finished the fight. Turned out to be 5,000 words, so not enough for two chapters.

Started chapter 134 and then ate lunch.

My pan was dry enough again- oh yeah, my dehumidifier started leaking again. The stuff I put in there to seal it up? It just washed all away. So much for being waterproof, eh? Well last night I had a rather brilliant idea. I get them sometimes late at night during my pre-sleep meditations. Really. I keep a pencil, flashlight, and pad on my nightstand to jot things down. Anyway, I thought 'why not pour some of that hardening stuff into the bottom." You know, that stuff I made the guns with that I never finished painting because the paint wouldn't stick to them and this oily stuff kept coming out of them? Yeah, that stuff. It should seal any holes up, right? So I mixed up a bit, poured it in, and we'll see how it goes.

Then I went back to writing.

Finished 134, 137 and 138. I know, that's a slight break. I wanted fifteen chapters here (for basically no reason other than that's the least amount for any world so far) so I need two more chapters between that and the end, which I know will be three chapters. So I have to figure out what to do for those two chapters before the end begins.

Sun:
Before writing (gasp, shock) I went out and put the patch stuff into the driveway crack. Found a few other spots that could use a bit, so I put some in those too.

Then I did writing. Got all the way through 139, and out of Equestia. Slinking out. In disgrace. Town destroyed, one of their goddesses dead. I cried writing it, I honestly did.

And got into Sailor Moon world!

Some calls over the weekend, mostly today oddly enough. So I have three jobs for tomorrow, and of course the shopping. Should be pretty busy.

Patch on the bucket is holding. Did a whole thing of water, not a drop got out. Something went right?

Finished 140, and Susan has powers now. 487,000 words.

Mon:
Decent day, warm, with one brief rain shower.

Three jobs, all that went pretty well. Of course I went shopping in the morning, nothing special there.

First job was at noon, that was a tuneup. Hadn't been there in about two years, didn't feel like that long but there it was when I ran mbam. Also adjusted the gamma on the monitor, she said the blacks weren't black enough for her.

Quite early to my 2:00, which didn't want to boot for him. I got it up in safe mode with no problems, ran the usual scans. Got his iPhone printing, no trouble there.

And finally very early to my 4:00 that was in spencerport, another machine that wouldn't finish booting. Again, safe mode did the trick and it uninstalled a bunch of updates. Didn't find anything with the scans so I just rebooted it normally, it was fine, and ran the 22 updates it wanted to do. They went through and it rebooted okay twice, so that was that.

Came back here, did some writing.

NO calls, ugh. Really? Got the cables for the iPhoto drive lady, no answer so… yeah. Reached her by email, going over there at 2:00. Of course dropping off her drive (again) really isn't a paying job so it doesn't count.

I haz jobs?

Tues:
Mostly stressed out about not having work. I go through this all the time, you would think I'd have learned by now. But I had this dream last night about being at Grandma's old house and my father following me around trying to give me money making ideas. I kept teleporting away from him. Seriously, we were in the garage, and the door was down. So I just teleported to the other side of it. But he's still in the garage, talking away. Bizarre.

Looked at odesk, now 'upwork' but nothing really appealed to me. Their jobs are either 'write my ebook for a nickel' or more long term stuff or eight hours of work for $10-20 or they had 100+ applicants already.

Like this one: I am looking for a fast and reliable unique article writer. All articles must be unique.
Budget: $5.00.

Really?

So I don't know.

Posted an updated craigslist ad. My last one was from 2007! I charged $25 an hour. Didn't get any hits on it at that time, that's why I never posted there again.
Seeing as I never got any hits on the print ad I was actually paying for, let's see if eight years later I get a little more action.

Went out at 3:00 to see the bath place, he had a question I had previously answered, and was trying to open PDF files in office. Sigh.

Then to set up the replacement HD.

Guess what? It's busted.

Wouldn't stay running for more than a minute or so. (Now it won't even mount before dying.) Super!
Oh, and I can't call them about it because "They are currently experiencing system problems. Please try again later."

MY LIFE IS A JOY.

And you can't tell me otherwise. So there.

Got two calls today. So I have two jobs for Thursday. One was from the actual craigslist ad, which surprised me.
What didn't surprise me- it's for repairing the hinge on a laptop. Ugh. I don't even know if I can do that. Which is par for the course. I guess I did it once. Depends on how it's broken I guess. Le sigh.

One piece of good news, my fund is up $400 this year. Let's keep it going up!

So my only 'job' for tomorrow is to go in the morning and try again to transfer the iPhoto library. She bought another drive she's just going to return, or have me sell, because she doesn't like her 300+ GB of photos only in one place. Which I can see. Ordered her the firewire drive I wanted to get before and she's saying to scrap the seagate drive. In that case I'll probably just try and get a working one I can sell and maybe recoup a little money on this whole disaster.

Don't feel like writing, oddly.

Did some around the house stuff. Brought my last CRT monitor up to bring to staples. Cleaned up the cat box area which had been a little too long between cleanings. Checked those guns I made ages ago, they, well, two of three seem to have stopped extruding that shiny stuff. I'll see if paint sticks a little better to them now. Tomorrow, I mean. And I'll put that old laptop I've had hanging around up. Probably $20 each. Get rid of them. None is doing me any good and $60 would be nice. And I still have more hardening stuff, if they can sell for $20 I'll make more. Just hope that they don't do the shiny thing they did this time. That was weird.

Put all my old zip stuff in one box. Got a whole bag of cables I'll see if my father wants to take to the scrapper. There's a tiny bit of copper in them, after all. You just have to melt the plastic off.

Also straightened up my downstairs shelves.

I really need jobs.

Wed:
So the transfer job went much better this time, with an actual working drive. How about that.

Got hold of Samsung, they'll pay the shipping this time! And I think they're sending me a new one, too. All I have to do is drop it at staples. Needed to go there anyway to get a flash drive, but I wasn't going until next week. Guess I'll go now. (I got my free $20 and I had sold mine to that guy, and I use them occasionally.

Thought of other things I know I can make around here. Roses, made a bunch of them before so I still have some materials for them.
That paper bear holding a heart, I don't think that took me too long to make.

Tried to get my inkjet printer to print it. Nope. There are like two or three units of the heads clogged, so it streaks up a storm. I think I'm giving up on that thing. I must have cleaned it five times. Didn't get any better. It's not worth it, the brother laser looks fine, and actually works, so I'll probably just use up the (new) cartridges with the occasional black job I do and then recycle it. WHY can't the make the heads easier to clean? WHY?

Saw the CUTEST pony shadowboxes, just cut paper and a bit of sticky foam, according to them. Now the cuts are really good, do they maybe have a paper cutting machine? Maybe. Wonder if I could cut out some shapes, it is art so my ineptitude applies, but it's not too bad. Frames are 50% off at jo annes right now, I can get a good size one for $10.00. They're selling them for $50, wonder how much the foam and paper would be? Have to go check it out.

The paper cutters are quite expensive, $300. They would have to really sell to invest that amount in one.

And that was the morning!

Ate lunch, went to staples. Stopped at the guy down the street from there, his wireless was again "active" in one place and "deactivated" in another, after a power outage I guess. I changed the name as that seems to be a sore point for that crappy RR routers.

Made another gun, figured I would list an unpainted one as well as a painted one. If it doesn't do that shiny thing it was doing. Crosses fingers.
It was 2:00!! Ugh, feels like I haven't accomplished anything thus far today.

Listed the laptop, found a box for it and everything. Of course, once packed in the box I needed to take it out again to see what the screen size was, because apparently there were two screen sizes for this machine.

Packed it back up again.

Did some painting on the guns, that's working much better. It's sticking now, and only one has that weird shininess so I'm doing the two.
Interspersed with that, letting it dry, I made some roses. I had the stems and tape from YEARS ago, the question is how to price them. I can make about 4 an hour, and at a quarter apiece, that's only a dollar an hour.

"Now Robert," you might say, "isn't that better than zero dollars an hour writing?"
"Maybe," I would probably reply. But it still seems rather pointless.

However, something that is not pointless; I got a decent amount of calls today. Very decent indeed. Like, five by 5:00. Nice. Actual jobs too, not just helping people over the phone type stuff. So I have five calls tomorrow, not… making up for anything. Or anything. It'll be tricky, but I think I can manage it.

Don't scare me like that. Nothing for two days then five calls. I mean come on.

I got the gray and the black done on the two guns. Now for the detail work. Made 6 roses, and printed out the bear. Got calls. And did two minor jobs.

I actually did… a lot today. And as I write this it's only 8:30.

Time for a snack.

Got up to an even dozen roses.

Thurs:
So did this morning go well or not? I guess I'll let you decide.

Went in to the Radisson, as I suspected it was a profile issue that caused the guy to loose his stuff. Made him a new profile, moved everything. That only took about a half hour.
Should have brought my old invoices. Turns out I haven't been paid for a job in January, and another in February. They now owe me $130.

Ugh.

Then to my 11:30 an hour early. Where I petted a soft kitty! His machine was somewhat odd, it could see the router. The router did a firmware update so I know it was online. But the machine wouldn't talk to the internet. I messed around with a few things, reboot it. Boom. Done. Ran the standard stuff, no real problems, and updated everything.
Problem there was, he wasn't around to pay me, so I just left it.

Two jobs done, no money in hand.

So basically how well this morning went depends on getting something in the future. Huh.

Went home for lunch, my 2:00, the hinge guy from two days ago called, he needed to go into work, and "he'll call me tonight" with a new time for Friday. People that say this 80% of the time don't call back. Plus, classy, calling me two hours before your appointment time. Good thing I was here eating lunch.

So I had until 4:00 for my next job.

Called her, but no answer.

Started the teddy bear. Got his back head and ears done, just have to attach the face and then I can start on the body.

Cleaned up the gun I'm going to sell as a blank. Looks good!

Left at 3:45 for the 4:00.

Both of these jobs went fine. The first had a couple of problems and some kitties. One kitty was scared but one kitty came to see me. Though she hissed at me at first. As for her problems, her laptop was blue screening. I restarted it and it went through some "uninstalling upgrades" and came back. I also did some other minor things for a desktop, nothing major.

The one at 6:00, half an hour away, went very well. Basically setting up windows live mail, resetting IE settings, and answering a few questions. I was out of there in about twenty minutes.

Came back, had one additional phone call, and didn't reach the guy. What a shock.

Whoops, had a 7 instead of a 9 written. Good thing I check that, too.

Anyway, with other calls and such I got a job from the person I called, so I have one for tomorrow, one for Saturday, someone bringing me a MacPro (early, like the first model) to look at and I'm ordering a screen for a lady. Let's keep this up, shall we?

Let's keep that up.

Worked a little on the bear, but I don't think I'll have it ready for tomorrow.

Hinge guy called at 9:20. Tomorrow at 3:00 I guess. So it looks like I'll have the morning. We'll see how far I get, 4 more pages to go.

Got the body done! So that's the head and the body in about 3 and a half hours.

Not much else exciting going on over the weekend. Seeing my parents tomorrow after the two jobs.

Then saturday is just the one job, probably cut my back lawn Sunday.

Here's hoping next week turns out a little better. See you all then.