2016-11-03:

Fri:
Mostly boring at work today. Our new daily build continues to fail to produce a positive experience, so we're left testing one that's a week old. Not much fun in that. Apparently they've identified the problem? Heard that one before.

Went shopping, then over to my parent's house. Dad figured out the sudoku game I gave him, and we had a yummy meal and outdoor deer show.

Back here I figured Oliver was recovered enough to do the initial meet and greet, and there was some hissing. But nobody flew into a rage and started tearing the other apart so I call that a win for now.

Took my calls. One person canceled, hurray, but I made a second appointment for Sunday. Booooo. So just the two tomorrow, will probably head over to York in the morning and do some leaves in the afternoon.

Worked on darkbolt because I had an idea for "secondary skill" for some powers that are taken, and wrote them up. At least, that's what I had planned to do.

Instead, talked my mother through some odd printer issue.
It keeps insisting that it use legal paper for some reason.
But we got printed what she wanted for now, so I can take a look next week.
Sorry the envelope thing didn't work out!

Sat:
Had another meet and greet session, oddly the existing two cats are the more cautious and acting like death could come at any second, while Oliver hisses and tells them to back off. Even while not outnumbered. Better get used to it buddy!

Ordered some xmas gifts stuff. Then left for my wonderful AOL buddy/internet router/bad back fellow.

It was in fact his modem acting up, and it needed to be replaced. Guess who had one to replace it… at home? This guy!

Went home, grabbed it, came back. Called time warner and they got it up and running, problem solved. Sigh. Only a half hour of driving.

Then over to York. Got their printer back printing and looked at the one they said was slow. Was it? No, no it was not.

As I was out near some places I usually go to get game gifts I stopped in. Didn't get that much, but a few things.

Back here I let Oliver down for a bit and he explored while I ate my lunch. Put him back up because I was going to do the leaves. The tree is still actually green outside, but there were a few back there. Two carts worth! The electric mower did fine bagging them.

Then back to check my sites and put the stuff I had bought away.

Then got to that skill stuff I had wanted to do yesterday.

Tried to do some more Warcraft III. After it once again hung and wiped out my save WHILE SAVING I got disgusted and decided I was done with it. At least for now. I mean you spend 30 minutes building up a huge army, you save in case it goes wrong and you need to try a different strategy, and now suddenly you're back at the beginning again due to a programming error. No thanks.

Sun:
Today was… a day.

Got up, Oliver came rushing down the stairs and passed me, but I did a scoop and gave him his pill. After he ate I let him down to see how he would do with the others.

He disappeared shortly afterwords, found him in the ceiling hole. How did he find that so fast? Couldn't exactly get him down so I had to leave, hoped he didn't cause any trouble with the others while I was gone.

Checked my sites, watched a bit of MLP Season 6 now that's over.

Then out to the setup.

Here's a question- why do people not listen when I tell them things? The guy's major complaint was the speed of the machine. So I tell him, get an SSD or it's not going to be any faster. Does he do this? Why no, he does not.

So I get there, and tell his time machine to start a backup so I can do it that way. It's going in 1 KB increments so either the drive is messed up, or something. So I figure I'll just string them together and do it that way. He watches it boot up and remarks "that's not any faster than mine." DUH! You didn't get the SSD like I told you, did you? No, no, you did not.

So we packed it all back up and he's exchanging it for the one I told him to get in the first place. Well done, sir. Way to waste an hour of my time, gas, etc.

So I drove to Hilton and luckily he was there so that wonderful time began. He had two machines, one desktop with a laptop motherboard, and one laptop (with a laptop motherboard.) Both were a whopping 1.3Ghz and my goodness did it show. Oh yes, it did. They were S.L.O.W. Simply Lagging Or Waiting. How can you put up with it?

Oh, and when he opened Windows Live Mail it complained about needing .net 3.5. Fine, I'll download the installer for it. Open that. It complained about… needing .net? WHA? How can… but the… it's… AAARRGG.

So I figured out a way to extract and install it from… the windows 10 boot disk? Wait, if it had it all along on the install media, why wasn't it just installed? You know what I don't even care anymore.

Got back about 4:00, house still standing. No bloody ears. Neat. Looks like Oliver gets to join the family down here.

He still sings the song of his people when he passes Tinker. At least, that's what I hear. He's probably saying "Cut you tonight, cat. Oh yeah, better sleep with one eye open. Better yet don't sleep at all. Gonna be a one cat house once I'm done with you and the black one. Which of you will squeal loudest I wonder?"

And I'm just standing there saying "oh, isn't that cute he's singing to you!"

I don't even know.

Made my calls, made an appointment for tuesday, and ordered a print head for a kodak printer in hopes it'll solve her non-printing problem. Will it? Good question.

Watched more pony!

Episode 9 seems to have a very out of sync sound track.

Mon:
Oliver and the others survived the night. He figured out how to get out to the breezeway, probably by watching the others. He was out there until I let him in to give him his last pill.

Got a working build and loaded it onto most of our printers. The one for the demo we moved across the hall. Doesn't look like they fixed much, honestly. Reproduced a few things and wrote two more bugs up.

Not much else to tell, really. Kinda boring. Tomorrow will be consumed by the demo, so wish us… oh wait from your perspective it already happened. Ah well.

Drove the 45 minutes to see the attachment lady. Went over it again and installed VNC so I can see her screen the next time. (If she can manage that.)

Finally home at 6:00. Bridge is open tomorrow, or it would have been earlier. Grr. At least I noted it down finally, in the car even, so I won't have to wonder anymore.

Checked my sites, two calls today so took care of the first. Avast? How old is your system?

Talked to three people tonight, each for half an hour. I so love my job. At least one of them was completed to my satisfaction. After typing a bunch of stuff into a command line prompt. Goooooo WINDOWS!

Had the CUTEST trio of trick or treaters! A tiny Cheshire cat traveling with a very well done (older) Alice and Mad Hatter. Very well done all around. This of course balances out the first two that had no costumes at all. Ah, balance in the universe.

Tues:
Demo day!

Nothing caught fire! The worst that happened was I put my username in wrong once. What a silly, messed up guy I am!

Seriously though, that was basically the day. He canceled the AT&T meeting for the morning but we got ready for it, I ate lunch because it was at the stupid time of noon, then we did the demo for about two hours, and that was that. We were supposed to do a follow up but the person we were supposed to be doing it with was at an airport so he put it off until tomorrow.

I loaded the newest software on the machine we used in the demo, and took a look at the latest CWW build. The major stuff I found was all fixed up.

Now to finally finish the stupid requirements so the developers can actually finish the software and then get the bugs out.

Came back, no after job today.

Still an uneasy truce between Squeaker and Oliver. They'll get in each other face but then back off so hopefully they'll at least tolerate the other eventually.

Watched more pony. Some good episodes, some so-so episodes. Can't all be gems.

Made a few calls, have the rest of the week booked and going back to iMac guy Sunday. Yay. One for saturday after the vets.

Wed:
Back to testing today. Went over the test cases in the morning, I knew we were having a meeting later so I wanted to make sure I had my questions and such labeled.

Then went over the cloning portion. That took most of the afternoon, then I went to the meeting, went over what was important to fix for the December release, and Sue looked over my blocked tests to see what she could find out for me.

Then a half hour journey to set up a printer. Wish he had told me his monitor was busted, I would have brought him one for his desktop upstairs. Ah well, when I'm in that area again. It's by the shops, so I don't get there too often, but I do go.

Back here around 6:00, ate dinner, more ponies, then phone calls. So many…

My saturday one, the Mac, said it had started up fine so not going there. Replaced it with another. And set up another for Sunday. Yay. Talked to one lady about getting a new machine and turned off Windows Update to stop it using 100% of her CPU.

That all took until 9:00.

Finished the last pony episode. Bye pony episodes for another year! Goodbye!

Looked into what system to get the lady and went to bed.

Thurs:
She then called me about 7:15. Oh, whine whine, complain, hedge, more whining.

Honestly, I know what I'm doing lady!

Basically went through more test cases today, the "older" ones. Yeah, doesn't mean much but there they are. Not much more to say about that, there are a couple of buttons that actually work now, and more stuff is in the right place. So that's progress.

Went and set up the PC for the lady that moved. Figured out her email and hooked up her DVD player.

She has a win10 laptop she doesn't know the password to. Looks like a local account too, sigh. Have to look into a new version of the password reset tool, see if it works with 10 yet.

Then home, checked my sites, ate dinner. Made one call, but didn't reach him.
Called the lady about the kodak printer head that I forgot to call yesterday, she wants Sunday afternoon, so I have three for Sunday. Yay.

Figured out what to get Mizzy, ordered it! Christmas shopping is almost done and it's only the first week of November. Go me.

Looking ahead, work and bank and shopping tomorrow. Seeing my parents.
Taking Oliver to get his shots (though he probably already has them given what we learned of his background) and take Tinker in to be looked over. Oliver is doing good, but he still hisses at the others. Silly kitty. Make some new friends!

One job after that.
Then the three for Sunday. Who knows how many calls I get tomorrow and Saturday, of course.

No Sean news, apparently my game was so bad he just never wants to even see me again.

Rainy and nasty today, looks like 50's for the forceable future, but no rain.

So that's it. That's the week. Going to put in some more Darkbolt corrections now, then who knows. At some point I need to finish that combat I started with Susan…

See you next week. (When there's only 6 weeks till Christmas! Leaves are still mostly green!)