2016-12-23:

We were unsuccessful. So we reloaded our machines (twice in John's case, whoops) and moved on. They have fixed some bugs! But they still want us to work the weekend.

Didn't really find anything new, but then I looked at some of the fixed stuff because Senpai wasn't in today. (wisdom teeth extraction) But not to worry, I'll be in Sunday! Got Senpai's machine ready for him, he'll be in tomorrow, sucker.
And apparently the signatures are being gathered to keep me around, so that's good news.

Went to the bank, shopping, and down to get cat food. Almost forgot to get mouse food, but I did remember. Got a small thing of gerbil food and some straight up bird seed, I'll just mix them. The gerbil stuff is way more expensive.

Had dinner with the folks, and then came back here. Made my calls, put stuff away, checked my sites, and it's 9:30. Sigh.

Tons of jobs tomorrow and then Sean's house, so it's going to be a day of running around for sure. At least it might be in the 40s?

Sat/Sun:
Sort of combining these two days, I'm writing this Sunday night. After a very busy weekend, which I of course knew was coming.

Started saturday learning about online library rentals, as she was downloading a supposed "mp3" and getting some odt file I think it was. Turned out that was a text file that another program opened (as well as liberoffice, go figure) to do the actual downloading. Sigh.

Figured that out, as they didn't put any sort of instructions on the download page, and went to return the PC. I did so, and went down the street. That guy wasn't having his update issue anymore, so I came home to eat lunch.

Did something around the house for a little while, then left again. This guy needs a new PC. His is dead. So I took his HD and we'll see what we can find him.

Then went to Sean's, where after almost exactly 2 years we finished Stan's game. I didn't even get to shoot anybody. What a gyp. I kid, I kid Stan's game!

Then up very early (an hour after I normally get up) to go to work! It was pointless, as I expected. The weblet looks pretty good, but I sat and checked things over as was my duty.

It was 32 when I got up, and the driveway was water and slush. You can guess what happened as the temperature plummeted!

Had a tasty sub for lunch, so it wasn't a total loss.

Now back here I checked my sites, got ready for tomorrow, and talked people through some stuff over the phone.

Mon:
Back to work again? Wasn't I just there? We're all getting a bit annoyed with OD, no one is finding any bugs and John was threatening the machine with a screwdriver (or so I heard) and banging the plattan cover up and down really fast. But we have only tomorrow and at least something will go out to them.

I didn't find anything myself, and may have worked a lot on the new paragon program? But maybe not, who can say?

Did the setup after work. Not the usual setup, but we figured out his mail password and such, so he was happy with the way it ended up.

Back here I had four calls. The guy I had just done the transfer for said his old desktop was acting up. I didn't even power it up, I took the SSD out and then put it back. Whatever issues it had, it had before I got it. He's bringing it back.

Another person who scammed themselves calling "amazon" while trying to print something, printer worked fine with me on the phone, amazing. One person I didn't reach, and one person needing help download a new version of ccleaner. So I didn't add to my workload yet.

Tues:
Counting down the days, and I'm not the only one. We're all looking forward to a bit of a break.

A few odd things found, like the name of the file influencing what the machine does, like you can make it reboot by naming the file in a certain way. Bizarre.

We all built on each other for that bug, Senpai mentioned something so I wrote up something so Chris noticed further somethings.

Got more progress made on the paragon app, just magic left to do.

Went out to see about the slow macs. He had every bit of mac malware I think exists! (all three of them) I trashed them and ran mbam. Man, takes forever, like a whole minute. Wait, I was thinking about PCs there.

Added RAM to the desktop, the laptop I couldn't get 3 screws out. The screws looked the same, I think as they were pretty small, but they wouldn't turn. And the next size up didn't fit. I had to go get the other set and even they didn't help. Grrrrr.

Back here I ate dinner, checked my sites, made some calls to book tomorrow, and almost got magic done. Apparently if you put in / in a field it messes it up. Odd.

Think I'm going to Sean's Tuesday after Christmas to start the Pyre game. We'll see.

Welcome to winter, it's tomorrow. Already has a great start, good effort winter. Good effort.

Wed:
Not much excitement at work. I guess the loading of the new version went well at the store. At least we didn't hear of any panicked phone calls. They are working on a newer new version in like… a week? I don't know.

Went over to the after work place, replaced the "good" HD and started the second rebuild of the RAID array. He was saying he was trying to get into the machine from Florida though a remote app but it wasn't online? It was. His son had apparently been there (I spoke to someone else, he was still in Florida) so maybe he did something? Who knows.

At least I finally left the bill and can be paid.

Not many calls. Got ahold of the frontier/RR lady (you remember, the lady who thought she still had RR despite now living with her sister and having frontier?). I simply wanted her to turn off her PC because I had no clue what she was looking at. Twenty minutes of struggle later she claims I "don't have patience with her." I said "I've been on the phone with you for twenty minutes. That's the definition of patience."

And then she just sort of went away. I waited and she never said anything again. She didn't hang up, I heard stuff from the room. She just didn't say anything.

After about 5 minutes (see, there's that patience again) I hung up. Don't worry, I got another call moments later. Another person "in trouble" claiming chrome wasn't opening. But after I remoted into her machine it "magically" opened. How about that?

Don't have patience? All I have is patience with people! Who else would sit around as they try and find the start button (unmoved since Windows95 apart from a brief stint during the Win8 era)? How can you not know how to turn your computer off? It's like not knowing how to turn your car off. And then claim I'M the one at fault here?

I am trying to help you! But you seem determined to not let me. Well, have fun dealing with someone else, or whatever. Or not being online, though I'm fairly sure that's a frontier issue, again. (You'll also recall the lady who owns the connection thought she was connected, but it turned out she was just on her data plan the last time I spoke with them.)

I don't know. I really don't. You've read my blog, you know I've complained about being on the phone for hours with people (I didn't charge a dime) to get them set. Is that not patience? I'm pretty sure it is, actually. Perhaps you believe I sound exasperated? Yes, painfully struggling to not slam the phone into the desk repeatedly as you flail around NOT turning your machine off as I requested will do that. It's two clicks of the mouse, not rocket surgery. And I don't have patience. Unbelievable.

In somewhat happier news my contract seems to be renewed for another year! It was funny, John was wondering about it and checked. Literally a minute later he got a call from his contract house congratulating him. My contract house cares not for me and has not said a word. But I did check, and it says Dec. 2017 so there's that.

Thurs:
Got the paper signed and the new badge. To get the access changed from limited to… uh, the opposite, I had to get a new employee number. I'm sure that won't be a total hassle tomorrow.

Got a new weblet. They want to ship another new version on the 28th? Why not just wait for that version from the start? It's like 6 days, and one of them is christmas. Weird.

It seems fine though, verified some bugs are fixed. Worked on the paragon program too, made some minor improvements, but it's basically finished I think. I still need to look into the / problem, forgot about that.

After work went to a get together with the team, was the only one that didn't have (at least one) alcoholic beverage. Bizarre. Out of the number of people there, you would think there would be at least one other person not killing their liver. Strange how otherwise intelligent people can think "I'll have the cup of poison, it's not that poisonous after all." 

Came back to a ton of calls, yay. So I've booked more of Saturday (a dream come true) and another for Monday. The guy who rushed out to buy a new laptop despite not letting me have it a single day to see what was wrong with his old one (and it was fine) said he installed silverlight and now his machine doesn't recognize him? He says everything is gone, I suggested perhaps he was logged in with another user somehow? He was not at home.

So Monday I get to go there, then Ethan Allan, (the iMac they put windows??? on is hanging at boot. I would too, trying to run that crap.) Then another right after that, a setup which takes at least an hour and a half usually. Hopefully laptop guy is quick and I can get home to eat lunch before #3, otherwise it'll be 2:00-3:00 by the time I get back. To just go out again, I'm sure.

Got the desktop for the guy with the dead machine, but didn't reach him. Watched it tediously copy a zillion tiny files (emails, of course). Less than 6Gb and it's going very, very slow. Thanks MS. Well done. You are copying to an SSD you know, the fastest type of storge on the planet? And you're not getting 2MB/sec? I can download from the internet faster than that.

Took 15 minutes to talk a guy through updating CCleaner. Why is windows 10 suddenly obsessed with saying the "old" version isn't going to work anymore? Weird.

So plan for the next few days:

Friday. "work" and then bank, shopping, pick up my father, go to my sister's house for mommy presents day.

Sat: Drop this pc off? And I just got a call at 9:45 about a printer. So maybe that? I do have a noon setup of the replacement iMac because he did manage to get the right one this time. Why noon though? There are other times you know? He always picks noon. Why?

Then over to my parent's for the eve.

Then Christmas day.

Then a ton of work on Monday. Doing the Mac laptop swap on Tuesday and then hopefully over to Sean's for Pyre.

Then back to the grind. That gives me, what, a day and a half total "off" time over the four days I get off? Luxury!

Have a good holiday everyone. See you next week, same whiny time, same whiny station.

(Oh you love it, don't lie)

Sorry it was whinier then usual. Must be the christmas spirit or something? Who can say.