2016-06-10:

Fri:
As expected, quite a boring day at work. Didn't really test much, no one from my team was around.

So pointless. Need new software to test.

Went to the store, then over to my parent's house. Gave stuff, got stuff, came back here.

Put video card in, why do I have 5 phone calls? Led two people through things, one person was just calling because I had only changed them for a part (yeah, I wrote it up, you think I don't know that?) and I didn't reach one guy.

So just one more job for tomorrow, setting up a new machine and a tuneup on another they have.

Letting Skyrim run now, came down and it was back to the desktop, but it hadn't done the usual hang/BSOD. Does it quit itself if it's not used in a few minutes? I'll go down and wiggle it every so often.

Good news, played Skyrim for an hour. No crash. *Hopeful*

Sat:
Ups and downs today. Started out with the downs. Well, okay, started the day with a neutral cutting of the grass and checking websites. At 9:40 left for my appointment and that was the down. Spent two hours there, and it's basically her crappy DSL connection. I can't even ping, but it'll tell me the IP address it's trying to ping, so I know it's alive. The router will ping, by the way. Huh?

It's the stupidest thing. You turn it on and immediately Windows Updates starts using all the bandwidth it can (all .7 Mb/s of it) which locks everything else on the network out of doing anything. At all.

The first Frontier person (not a US person) was trying to convince me changing the wireless channel would do something, uh, no? This machine is wired, and I can see the speed you're reporting RIGHT THERE on the status page. 800kb/s is not acceptable. She hung up on me.

The second person (a US person) fiddled with it and they're sending a tech out.

Sigh.

Came home, had all of 5 minutes to grab some lunch and went back out. Odd one, he had documents in the queue to print while doing the 10 upgrade, and then it didn't work. So he tried deleting it, and with the documents in the queue of course it wouldn't. But then it wouldn't show the queue anymore to delete them!

Anyway, managed to get it by unplugging the thing and messing about, and got it to work.

Over to Victor (a half hour trip) and he wasn't there, but I was early. He came swiftly and I set up the new machine and checked over his wife's. He didn't have one, so no copying files over (the longest part.)

So I got out of there in a reasonable time.

Came back here, played more Skyrim and still no crash. Neato.

Very hungry, ate dinner.

More playing FF7.

Sun:
Which continued today! Didn't do much else. Got up to the part where I started the Susan adventure. Yay!

Had one crash, sadly, but just the one. Grr. Tomorrow I'll do more Skyrim, see if it holds up.

Somewhat wet today. Had a few calls, ordered an SSD for a Mac, and the lady with the machine that has capacitors that keep going bad called again. I'm just going to give her a new machine, honestly.

Mon:
Biggest news of the day, I don't think it's the video card anymore. Started Skyrim this morning, get about an hour and a half in, froze with the "last note repeated" syndrome.

So I decided to narrow my search. I took the sound card out and what do you know? Not another crash or hang the whole day. And I played Skyrim most of the rest of the day.

I'll put my old video card back in tomorrow and play more, but it looks like the sound card was the culprit the whole time. Sigh.

Delivered the system to the lady, but her capacitors are fine. Machine BSOD on boot though. Took much longer than I thought, because apparently I had never gone through this one before? Huh? It was under the table, all systems under the table are ready to sell. Right? Grr. Oh well.

Couple of calls, made an appointment for Wednesday, didn't want anytime tomorrow? Okay?

Tues:
I am now 90% convinced it's the sound card, not the video card. With the sound card removed I played all day and nary a peep. There was a bit of slowdown I didn't notice with the better card, but that's to be expected I think.

I've put the sound card back in, a different slot, and updated the drivers. Also turned off GX mode, whatever that is. Apparently that has given some people problems? We'll see how it goes. I do have the better card in as well. The old one is boxed up, it can be sold as I'm certain it's not the problem, or it would have given me an issue in five hours of playing Skyrim today. It would be nice to solve this once and for all.

Not much else exciting today. Little rain, cool.

Back to work tomorrow, wonder if we'll have a new build to play around with?

Wed:
All kinds of goodies to talk about today, to make up for monday and tuesday.

Seems my hire buddy went to talk to the boss yesterday and found out prospects are not good for us being retained further. This means with the staples program being pushed back a month because they haven't actually signed the "you will give us $X for this additional work" there may be only two testers on it soon. Super. The one guy is losing his current boss, and doesn't actually know who he's reporting to at the moment. Senpai is taking an additional two weeks off to go to Florida and do Disney with his kids. Then his contract is up at the end of next month, so it'll be only one tester on the whole program!

Why does this all seem so familiar? Guess the more things change, especially around Xerox.

So I have 13 days more of work and that will probably be that. Oh, there's the possibility of us coming back… next year, for some other program. Yeah, sure, that'll work out just fine. I'll just not make any money for six months, sure.

But he also said he was looking into other projects to get us into, so we'll see. You know what that means just as well as I do, though.

Got the new build, very late in the day, but at least I'll have plenty to do tomorrow. Alone. In the lab. Yup, work, work, work, that's what I'll be doing. For the company that's getting rid of me in 13 days. Oh yeah, maximum effort, that's what I'll be putting in.

Ah well, it worked out well while it lasted, and it lasted longer than I was first expecting, so there's that.

After work I drove for 26 minutes or so, and no one answered the door.

Turned out the "kids are there with the baby sitter." And "I called you earlier" as if that made everything all right. Lady, I come from work. You know, work? Because I do this on the side now, like it says in my message? So that I can come and check your stupid laptop over because your husband was an idiot and not only called some random number that popped up from some random website he was looking at, but also that you let the stranger on the other end onto your computer to do who knows what! Of course I called you, three times, but you didn't answer.
And I waited a half hour outside your home, thinking I should have worn a heavier jacket because it was really chilly out.
And then drove a half hour home again. (To be fair I stopped for gas.)

So I left work at 4:30 and got home at 6:45. You do the math. And for what? Nothing. Less than, actually, because I could have been actually helping someone else, and wouldn't have wasted so much gas driving there and back. So I only lost money. Or you know, writing, or something else I enjoy instead of sitting in traffic, which is obviously my favorite thing. I mean it must be I do it so much!

Found a dead chipmunk in front of my driveway, had to bury that. Poor thing.

One job for tomorrow, something about iCloud? Who knows, you think she could articulate her issue? Why no, why would she be able to do that?

And I got the replacement SSD for the Macbook, so that's going in this Saturday. That at least should be quick. Installing OS X from one flash media to another? Piece of cake.

Hmmmmm Pizza Cake…

Got ready for tomorrow, checked my websites, and oh look it's time for bed.

Thurs:
And so begins probably the last days of Staples testing. I got through all of copy today, apart from the very long reduce and enlarge stuff. Wrote up like two new bugs I think? It wasn't many. One wasn't even in copy, it was the new memory check stuff showing up in screens it shouldn't. Weird.

Wasn't too lonely, the lab had all kinds of people jabbering away about possible hard drive failure in a certain machine, and it took them a bit to come to that conclusion. The woman was saying how she didn't believe it was hardware because a bunch of them have been failing lately. Uh, yeah, they were all made the exact same way, at the exact same time. Of course they're going to fail at around the same time. That's why you don't build a RAID array using disks from one manufacturer!

And besides that, two of the three coworkers I have were around, so they stopped in from time to time. Tomorrow will be more alone time. I'll probably do either reduce and enlarge or complete the print from google test. Maybe a little copying in the morning and google in the afternoon? Who knows.

The after job work was odd. Mac mail just didn't want to save what preferences I changed. It was quite odd. I finally had to tear the account out and put it back, and that solved it. And of course we didn't have passwords written down, and we didn't know what spelling our mother's maiden name was? *shakes head*

So I got home a little after 7. And I had 7 phone calls? Really just three, the rest were hangups and someone saying Frontier solved their issue.

So I booked two more people, and the woman with the "hung computer" I told to call Time Warner as under careful questioning it was revealed her problem was her internet connection, not her computer. And she only has off Thursday and Friday? That's an odd schedule.

So that's today. Checked my sites, not going to have time to write or play anything.

Tomorrow of course we do the shopping. Need to buy cat crunchy bits and possibly go to the bank. Seeing my parents of course.

Nothing from Sean so just working Saturday, is it two or three jobs now? I forget. Cut the grass Sunday?

The guy last Friday calling me because I had only changed him for a part? Haven't gotten his money yet. And the lady I left a power supply with to see if it solved her problem? And she called and was going to get a check right out? Nothing from her either. Honstely don't know why I bother.

Did not hear from DSL lady, so I guess her problem is solved? I have no idea.

I'll leave you with some pictures.

First is the entire printout of the first Susan story, Harry Potter and the Magic of Paragon. Hefty, no? You can download a light as a feather digital copy from the stories page, in pdf form, if you don't want to read the posted version on fanfiction.net. Hopefully not too many mistakes are left, but I make no promises.

[[image file="2016-06/p1016543.jpg" alt="Lots of paper" ]]

The second is a little game I like to call "spot the tiny deer." Enjoy.

[[image file="2016-06/p1016520.jpg" alt="deer" ]]

See you all next week.