2015-10-23:

Fri:
I'm more concerned with what didn't happen today. I mailed the guy at the contract place about noon and he said he hadn't gotten the drug test results yet. Somewhat concerning.

Otherwise, did one job for the dentist guy. Explained a few things about windows 10 and looked at trying to do powerpoint on his android. He always has the most bizarre requests.

He wants some kind of mail merge in three weeks when he gets back from India. Not that I'll have time for that sort of thing in three weeks.

Totally forgot to pick up the tape for the lady who wants it converted. Went out right after lunch to do that and pick up an air filter as my heat is starting to come on now. I got two packs of 2, so I'll be set until 2019. How's that for planning ahead?

Otherwise just working through all the disks Sean gave me to watch. There's a lot of them.

Sat:
More watching stuff, and I played a little War for Cybertron as watching all this transformers stuff put me in the mood.

Got two calls, tried to get right out there, but they couldn't do it today. So I have some week slots filled, if I get the drug test stuff in like it should have been.

Sun:
Freaking cold. As I write this it's 40 out.

Finished the Deception storyline, didn't think I would go further. Got caught up on my current shows, and made a pie in the evening as I figured I wouldn't have much time after this. Again, if someone gets their act together.

Got one call today, the lady who canceled last week. Nothing better to do tomorrow, I guess. Shopping as normal, of course, and two weeks worth of banking.

Mon:
What do you know, I got the staples offer. Only a week later. So much for 24 hours, sorry fellows.

Though of course still no news about the drug test. Why do I get the feeling that "24 hours" is some kind of code for "when we get around to it?"

Anyway, somewhat busy today as I tried to get everything everyone wanted done so I could help my parents tomorrow. Didn't happen.

Did the shopping as normal. They were out of regular waffles, had to get the surprisingly less healthy alternative, whole grain waffles.

Or… not? That's weird. I'm certain I looked at these before and rejected them for some reason. But now looking at them again to see why I am baffled. They have less calories, fat, and sodium. What the heck did I reject them for before? I remember looking at them and being astonished before, did I just misread the package somehow? *baffled*

Anyway, then went out to see a slow system. Turned out his RAM was acting really weird. Like sometimes when you booted the system it didn't show up at all, but sometimes it did. It didn't beep like it should have and refuse to boot to let you know one was bad. Nor did it give the "RAM has changed" message as some machines do. It took me far too long to figure this out, considering.

Stopped by a place that called me a week or so ago because the guy trying to load the software they want to use called me. But they weren't there. He, of course, was leaving again tomorrow, so that job won't get done.

Went to see the other car guy, where I got my iPad stolen years ago. Looking into a java issue and such. Hey, did you know Java won't even run in chrome anymore because of dropped support for certain types of plugins made popular by netscape? Remember them? Of course you don't, they were killed by Microsoft. Java and Flash both need to be wiped out, honestly.

Tried to deliver the office package I got in the mail, she was not going to be home. Hopefully she'll call when she gets home late tonight and I can just install it over the phone. I have to download it anyway, may as well save myself the trip.

Car guy wants me to check his home machines, and I got a late call about updating to win10 *shudder* but wait, didn't I buy his machine online? Wait, now that I think about it I did! It has an SSD, because I refuse to give people spinning rust drives. Happy Dance, it won't take for freaking ever after all!

So I have at least two tomorrow, sorry mom.

Tues:
Did the morning one. Just looking some machines over, they didn't have any real issues. Except for the dead laptop someone had spilled water on and fried.

Came back, called the testing company. The results were put in Friday? What? Why haven't I heard anything then?

Guess I'll write the guy tomorrow, as it'll have been a whole week at that point.

Afternoon worked out differently than I intended. Wanted to call and drop off the stuff I had gotten in the mail thinking it would be the short job. Then go to the nearby person to upgrade him to win10. Well, I got stuck talking to someone so that didn't happen. Knew when it rang I shouldn't pick the phone up.

So instead I went to do the upgrade first. And it was already done? He had been called by one of those scammers, who apparently did the upgrade. huh? And apparently wanted not his credit card number but his bank account number. Uh, no?

I swear, that guy is getting worse. He started going on about how 9-1-1 (I finally realized he was talking about 9/11 not the emergency number service) was an "inside job" and "where's the other plane" and crap like that. Dude, whatever, just let me leave.

So then I called the drop off guy, and of course his ancient equipment didn't want to cooperate. So that one took me far longer than I expected.

Bunch of calls today. What the heck. But then one canceled, which is fine. One guy is dropping his machine off (he wanted me to come at 7:15. Uh, no?)

Wed:
Getting closer! I emailed the contractor and he was waiting on the background check of all things. How long does that take? Honestly, just hire me for two weeks or something. Can I do what you ask? Do I do it diligently and well? Then who cares about my "background?" Then I'm hired for the full time. I don't know. He said he talked to the background check person and they should have had it done today, let's hope so.

Now that I think about it, he sort of lied to me. When I asked the first time how things were going his response was "All set, just waiting on the results" implying that was the only thing left. Turns out it wasn't the only thing left. The proper response would have been "just waiting on those results and the background check."

If it does take that long, I would have started at Staples a full month after I applied for the position. 2 weeks to get back to me. 1 week to send the offer. 1 week for the background check. Sheesh. Even this is a bit much, they wanted to get started right away. It's starting as just a 2 month contract position anyway, isn't all this a bit of overkill in any case?

Pretty busy today, morning one was just a tuneup, he didn't really have anything wrong. More pressed for time I would have just left after a half hour as mbam was still running (it took about 40 minutes, ugh) and it was the only thing left to go. But I sat and "patiently" waited.

Back here, ate lunch, out at 1:00. The original thing I was there for was just getting some app dependent on an external database to let them log in. They said they were having all kinds of problems with it, but naturally I installed it and it opened right up. So… yeah.

The second machine was a bit more troublesome, I mean they have to log in anyway, why does each workstation need a separate install link? Bizarre. But I got sent one and that was fine.
What I ended up doing was working on a laptop they brought from home, one similar to the one Mizzy gave me- YEARS AGO. 1.66 Ghz single processor. XP. That she uses to view a couple of websites. Honestly, get a used tablet and be done with it. But I cleaned it out, made it work as best I could.

Sold them a monitor, I'll need to drop it off course. He had a pretty small one, the program I was loading barely fit! Weird.

Then went over to the spice place. Our original agreement was I might be working with Xerox by that time so I would be there at 5:30. But if I wasn't, I would call and came early. So I called, and came early.

When I got there he had the gall to say "since you're running behind, yada yada." Uh, dude, I'm TWO HOURS earlier than you would have gotten me in under other circumstances. And it turned out he had to leave at 5:30 for something. So why did he even agree to that time?
Had I been working full time I would have come to an empty store, so I'm glad I wasn't.

Have to go back there, his 3rd or 4th camera system I've set up for him didn't arrive. Seriously, I don't know what it is with him and cameras but he's had me set up at least 2-3 before this. And not that long ago either.

Not many calls today, some I got I talked through things. So I just have the one evening one tomorrow, who I'll probably call and go early (or "running behind" whatever.)

Thurs:
Very busy today, but that was intentional. I wanted to leave the next two days as free as I could so I could help my parents with the house sale. Not really sure what my contribution can be, but they requested me, so I'll go there.

So I talked a lady through some stuff in the morning, then went to the lawyers office to see about his laptop. Won't be able to do that kind of thing, he was leaving for Florida (must be nice) and wanted his cell modem connected because his wife (so he claimed) lost the old one. Well, apparently they had spent hours on the phone and couldn't get it to work. I noticed the software was out of date, updated it, and oh look at that, it works just fine. Verizon tech support fail I guess.

Talked a guy through a strange printer issue. USB would work and it would find it on the network but would still say "offline" and not print. Despite the printer itself saying it was online. Weird. I just shared it and saved myself 50 minutes of driving.

Then over to the original 5:30 one. Nothing really wrong, she just wanted to be sure the scammer she had talked hadn't done anything. Man, those cold call scammers are really stepping up their attacks it seems like. Maybe I should have become one of them? But like, legit?

Most recent numbers I've seen lost to those scum is $4 million dollars. I believe it.

Then to another very short one, basically just changing her google password, which it seemed was being used all over the world from the login report. Nice of google to make that available.

Watched the last of Ushiro and Tora that I had to watch.

Just some question calls to answer at night, so I'll be going to bed super early to get up at 6:00 to get over to the sale. It's stupid far away so it takes some time to get there. Because despite it being past October 15, 2015 I still don't have a flying car! In other words, where I'm going, I still need roads.

So tomorrow and Saturday will be the sale, Sunday… ??? And we'll see if maybe next week I finally get a start date from these people.

See you all next week, hopefully with some kind of announcement.