2017-01-13:

Fri:
Actually spent the day testing. And boy does our software need it. I found a bunch of stuff that differers from the old version and wrote it up. Sadly, even some stuff that was fixed in the old version hasn't yet made it to this code? So I'll probably get to write up some stuff I already wrote up, but for this product.

John and Senpai are moving to a new project, so they were at meetings part of the day and then were getting the machines ready.

Went to the bank. The lady I see usually to do the deposits into my IRA took a picture of her screen. It's a BSOD with the typical "helpful" information of a stupid smily face graphic and a single word explanation. Thanks MS, so helpful.

So we'll see if she calls.

Went to the store, then over to my parent's house. So cold today!

A nice meal with them, saw the new and improved selling room, and came back here.

No calls? But one person called, I cleaned his machine out remotely for a half hour and that was that. I'll call book guy tomorrow after my last one, as no Sean and no other work. Maybe I can take Sunday off!

Watched more JoJo's Bizarre adventure.

Sat:
Many adventures today!

My first one was the longest and most annoying. At first I thought it was a router problem as her laptop would connect to the wireless, but not get an IP address. So I changed it, but was that the issue? No, no it was not. So for the next two hours I banged my head against it in frustration because microsoft programmers are crap.

I took it with me to simply reload, the universal windows "solution."

I just made it to my next one, about a half hour away. That was just setting up a new laptop, and her internet speed was terrible. Sold her a new modem so she doesn't have to keep paying the lease fee, have to remember to order another sometime. Anyway, got her stuff moved over, mail installed, etc.

Home to eat lunch, then immediately out to the third one. Close by, and was quite a stumper for a bit. She was connected via cable, and said right after her modem was changed she was having issues. Well, here's me thinking it's ipv6 or something because it works sometimes, drops packets sometimes, and doesn't work at all other times. On a hunch (or basically flailing at random, take your pick) I forced the ethernet adapter down to 100mb/s speed from gigabit. Boom, problem instantly solved. Go me.

Again, big thanks to MS for the necessity of doing such a crazy thing.

Came back here, reloaded the laptop, which for a wonder went fairly smoothly once I figured out the "secret" button that would start it and let me get to the boot menu which would in turn allow me to boot from USB. Love ya Lenovo, you made it so easy for me! And another shout out to MS for that cray-cray method because I'm sure they're at least partly responsible.

Didn't reach the lady thus far, so not sure if I'm taking it back or not. Have one call and an email, should probably just book the day now and get it over with.

After all, I'm booked until Wednesday of next week so if I don't get all this crap done tomorrow it'll just mean more pain later. I won't have next Saturday because of the pyre game (if still on) so I have so much to look forward to!

Three places to go! And I spent 45 minutes fighting the windows spooler on an ancient XP system that kept crashing so at least I don't have to drive there.

So tomorrow is book guy, a BSOD, and returning the laptop. I suppose I need the money, right?

Sun:
Very.
Very.
Very.
Very.
Snowy in the morning. Visibility was crap. Probably shouldn't even have gone out. But I did! Oddly, it was like a curtain opening as I drove on and suddenly I could see again. Nice. Rebuilt their BCD and that made the machine boot again. Ran the usual stuff. And the lady's daughter hid behind her mother. Must have botched my LOOks check? She's got to be 8-9 now? Wouldn't think she would be that shy, but she may have a weakness or two, or a low RES? Who can say.

Came back, it was calmed down a bit. Finished the latest series of JoJo, it was pretty good.

Left again and it wasn't even snowing anymore. Roads were much better.

Saw book guy, straightened out (what else) the book. Again. Set up his printer. Have fun printing your own stupid copies.

Then returned the laptop. Her router does indeed work so took mine back. Had a wireless adapter for their other laptop that seemed to have lost totally the wireless adapter? Odd. I think it was one that came with something else, who knows what I have kicking around that car anymore? Not me.

Very polite kids! She gave me two of her older laptops. A 17" (remember those?) Powerbook G4 that will fit nicely into my collection. (The screen is busted and there are two keys missing/loose) and a PC also with a busted screen that I'll set in the stack I suppose. Vista, so it's pretty old.

She was happy to get hers back, and I got to come home. Got ready for tomorrow, did laundry, and then ate dinner.

Oh goody, book guy has managed to not print two copies of his stupid book, which I left printing when I left. All he had to do was add paper and leave the thing alone. He couldn't manage it.

Watched a short anime series that was very similar to one I had watched before (boo!!!) and went to bed.

Mon:
Pretty boring at work, the newer software build must have failed as there wasn't one. Loaded the other product but it still isn't fixed. So I didn't have much to do.

Left at the normal time, drove over to see dentist guy. Did not see him. Left the power cord for him. Usually I wait at least 15 minutes, but it was 25 degrees out and quite frankly I have better things to be doing.

So now I get to go back Sunday! Yay! He probably has a huge list, as always.

No calls? Printed one copy of the book for book guy.

Watched a bit of the next anime.

Bought a PC for a guy. Knew I should have done that earlier. Ah well. And ordered a router for someone that said their TV drops their connection all the time.

Tues:
Couple of things happened at work today. We all got called into the next room and here's me thinking "is it over? Are we all being fired? What's going on?" They started talking about an opportunity to go over to building 207 and work on the 3D inkjet printer John was doing stuff with a few months ago. "Oh, are we fighting to the death for this opportunity?" I now thought.

No. They just handed it over to Ian. Who looked really, really excited about it.

Wait, no, what's the opposite of that?

So we've lost another team member because Xerox is too cheep to hire a person to fill that position. So now we all have to do what work he would have done. Thanks!

And the reason my timesheet didn't show up was because apparently I've just been lost out of the system? Like I didn't even exist. Fantastic. So my manager is working that one.

Wrote a bunch of bugs up, because I tried putting some clone files in, knowing that it would take 20 minutes or so between tests because of the "update" bug. Well… long story short none of the methods work but LPR. So weird.

Then went to put in the replacement HD for the replacement HD of the replace- you get the idea. Nasty freezing rain, but the drive was okay. That didn't take long, so I came home and ate dinner. Checked my sites, and made phone calls.

Apparently the guy I saw Sunday in the snowstorm is still having issues with his crappy, custom made PC. So I get to go back there! Yay! So that's tomorrow.

Finished that half a chapter I had left hanging. One step closer to the final battle in this reality.

Wed:
Most exciting thing that happened at work today was getting our picture taken for the Staples Award thing. Too bad so many of us were already laid off so there really isn't a true sense of how many people worked on the project.

Met with the SE and manager of AT&T to go over the new test cases. Got some of my questions answered with promises of more answers later.

Daily build for the new product was absent so no real new testing.

And went back to the Sunday guy, ran more tests. The HD test failed, whoops, so I've taken it back here to replace and reload. Yay.

Remembered I had a laptop so did more stuff trying to make a new linux flash drive. I got it installed but of the 16gb drive it only used a couple of gb and trying to update it (the reason I got a larger one) still failed. GURRR.

And of course trying to repartition it failed.

Tried another tool instead of the actual Linux CD tool and it will boot, but then hang when asking "try" or "install." Super.

Wait, I just left it a bunch of time (longer than I thought would work, it's a flash drive!) and it came up. Huh.

Thurs:
I then allowed it to update overnight, and now it won't boot anymore. Sigh. Guess I'll just give up on updating it, put the newer version on the old flash drive, and use the bigger one for… something?

More of the same at work, sadly. The software still won't load. Tomorrow I'll try the update one more time, then do the boot method to see if maybe it's this software that's at fault, somehow expecting something it's not going to see?

Rained pretty hard part of the day, we could hear it in the lab.

Installed the backup drive for the guy, took longer to drive there.

Back here I found both my packages half in the rain, but they survived. One was the PC I ordered for a guy, and the other was the SSD for it. Love it when a plan comes together.
Put them together and started the Win10 install.

Had a few calls, booked Saturday morning for the most part. The afternoon still may be Pyre, but haven't had a confirmation on that front.

Still only the one for Sunday, but I'll probably call PC guy so I can drop this off there and get paid for it. I'm getting a package Saturday so that should be the replacement HD for the machine I brought back yesterday, so maybe I'll even get a chance to return that? We'll see.

Wonder if I shouldn't put in a HD, get it set up, then just clone it to the SSD when it comes. That could be a bit quicker?

Tomorrow will do the shopping and bank as usual. Then see my parents (what do you want for your birthday, dad?) and come make the daily calls. Saturday two in the morning, a machine I sold a lady two months ago is apparently having trouble so I do love working and not getting paid anything so that's a bonus to look forward to.

Then Sean?

Then Sunday at least dentist guy, if he bothers to show up on time, this time. Then ???. Probably not writing or anything else enjoyable, I can tell you that much.

Hope you all are enjoying your January, we're two weeks in so you've got a good sense of it now. Go out there and Kermit it up.

"Don't take no for an answer."