2018-07-26:

Fri:
Totally and completely resisted the urge to finish Chapter 23 and write chapter 24. Didn't do a word of it. Them. Either of them. Because I had so much important work to do.

Like proving a bug I reopened existed.

And

Other

Things. Yeah.

Then I went to the bank, went shopping, and then over to my parent's house. Saw my sister, gave her squishies, and came back here.

Picked berries, really could have used more rain this year.
Checked my sites.
Made my calls, I now have three for tomorrow. Ugh. 11:00, 1:00 and 2:00. Sheesh. The 11:00 one is just an iPad and a printer? It should just work, what am I even doing over there? The 1:00 is monitor lady, then literally a minute away by car is the 2:00, a printer on a router being used as an access point and updating from win 8 to 8.1. Yay. Hopefully that all goes well, and I get to Sean's by 4:00.

Back here watched episode 3 and went to bed.

Sat:
Fairly long day, given I got up about the normal time. Puttered around, made my lunch to take in case my 11:00 ran long. (spoiler, it did)

Then left for the bay, basically.

The first one was "oh, get my printer working again with the iPad" which I thought was going to be "yeah, whatever, it's fine." Nope. Turned out she had switched from frontier to Spectrum internet, (good choice) but left the frontier equipment there. So I was trying to connect it to that and was confused why the globe wasn't lit up and other oddities and finally realized "what actual service do you use?"

Well, had to bring the modem and router and her phone and some weird phone attachment from another room to that room, find space for it all, and then I could get everything talking. Sheesh.

Sat and ate my lunch, then went to monitor lady. Who I guess had no issues at all? I was there like 10 minutes, whatever.

Then sat on the steps of my next one, 1 minute down the street. They finally got there, let me in, and I got to work. Updated the 8 to 8.1 via CD because I don't actually have that on flash, it went fine. Got his printer on the network just by plugging it in, checked to make sure his extender was working, talking about blockchain and such, and that was that.

Got to Sean's just on time, it was a strange mix. Alisa without her wife, Adam without his, Dave, Neil, and myself. Some of those people had never even met. Very strange, but we had some fun.

Sun:
Got up fairly late, I deserve it. Got to work.

Ordered the rest of the 1990s silver coins I was missing. My father for a time got my sister an I silver coins for christmas, and I had all but 4 of the 90s. Found an ebay store that had them all, so I can have the full set.

Ordered Sean's birthday stuff. They came from "Squeaker's Game Emporium." Squeak, I didn't know you did ebay! Wait, now I know how he gets the money for all those catnip mice…

Looked into his christmas present, as he mentioned something "I can use that! Done!"

Reduced a bird from the road.

[[image file="2018-07/blackbird.jpg" alt="bird" ]]

Yeah, I heard a car honk an looked over, there was just this black bird sitting in the road. Other cars passed it, didn't even move. So I went out there and it let me approach, and a car was coming. I was like "Well, you're getting moved out the road little guy." and picked him up. He seemed fine with it, so I moved him into the lawn. I was going to put him in back but he wouldn't let me carry him far before squirming away, despite letting me pet him. "Is this a tame bird or something?"
I went to get a towel to throw over him so I could get him in the back, just a place I could keep an eye on him and he wouldn't wander into the road again, and got my camera. Took some photos and he perked up and flew away.
Stay safe out there bird friend!

Ate lunch, then took a walk down the street to take a photo of this house

[[image file="2018-07/antennahouse.jpg" alt="why so many" ]]

and see if some milkweed pods I had seen earlier were ready. They were not. I saw many, many though. Anyone want any milkweed seeds? I'll keep checking back, hopefully they'll be ready soon.

Back to the house though, why does it need four different antennas? Very weird. What are they doing in there?

I saw many things! Two deer, obviously one mommy and one baby. Then another on the other side of the street.

[[image file="2018-07/mommyandbabydeer.png" alt="two deer" ]]

[[image file="2018-07/otherdeer7-22.jpg" alt="other deer" ]]

And a bag full of trash. Of course it wasn't bagged up like this, it was strewn all over the entire route. I actually saw so much I went home, got a back, and did half the walk again to pick it all up.

[[image file="2018-07/garbage7-22.jpg" alt="trash bag" ]]

It's really too much effort to take your can or bottle home and drop it into a blue bucket you already own? Really? Is that really what you're telling me?

Watched a few episodes after that, nothing really too exciting.

Mon:
Ah rain, badly needed, and we're getting it.

[[image file="2018-07/solid-rain.png" alt="much rain" ]]

Anyway, work went fine. Did the thinprint stuff again, such a thrill. Naturally my certificate expired a few weeks ago, so I had to struggle though making another. And replacing the old one with the new one, because of course that's a pain as well. Thanks, MS!

But I managed it, and reloaded my tablet machine so we could do a test there. It actually worked, so it's the printer software not the tablet. Who would have guessed?

Then not too far to the Jamaican lady. She had airplane mode turned on, a totally useful feature for a laptop. Or no, wait, what's the opposite of that?

Went over a few things, came back.

No calls, at least none that needed answering, so I watched another episode, ate dinner, sites, the usual.

Tomorrow at work: UH…

Tues:
Nope, wasn't too exciting. Don't have any new exxon mobile, and everything is tested tablet side. It's pointless. I can't do writing, not that I would at work, who do you think I am, because it's a combat again. Valentine shows up, gonna get that guy out of the way right quick. If "right quick" is 23 chapters.

Came back here, still wet, picked a few berries. Checked my sites, the usual.

Got 7 calls today. Yeah, you read that right. Ugh. Didn't reach a few, but the ones I did took until 8:00.

Wed:
Another stellar day, let me tell you about it.

Figured I would do the payment stuff despite knowing nothing about it had changed and it was useless to do so. Hey I was right. Amazing.

Spent some time in the afternoon trying not to fall asleep and certainly not working on the pre-combat parts of the next chapter.

Went to the after work job. Thought the ancient crappy XP Dell was over. Not so, there are still some out there. Yay. An hour and a half to just get a few things installed. Not actually run, just installed. How can you stand it?

mbam complained it couldn't be run, but there was a separate version that supported XP which I guess is nice of them? But then why not just make that the main version? Why support two products? So weird.

Anyway, that sucked, doing ten minutes of work for 90 minutes, but the fun didn't end there.

Had 6 calls when I got home, still didn't reach everyone, but did waste 30 minutes trying to get a guy to plug a USB drive into an iMac. I still don't know if he even OWNS one, honestly. Turns out the "iMac" in question is an original, bondi blue, CRT, 1998 model. I mean it has USB ports but he's going on about "connecting" two machines and making no sense at all. By that time I could have driven there, done whatever he's trying to do, and gotten back here! So stupid. Why are people so stupid!?

Walked down to the seed pods, no action there so walked back.

Ate dinner, checked my sites, made the other phone calls, and now it's time to get ready for bed.

Huh, that went fast!

Oh, and happy birthday Grandma.

Thurs:
Got some work to do today. Loaded the latest printer software version on my machine to do a test or two. It looks like the problem will be fixed, but when will this software ever be loaded into the device? A good question.

Did another test of download speeds, which are sort of all over the map. Odd. Especially for such small files.

Had two meetings today as well, so that's the usual.

Went to the after work job, crappy 5400RPM hard drive in a laptop, so while it moved somewhat slowly, it was still faster than the crappy Xp machine from yesterday. No problems there.

Back here I checked my sites, took delivery of the coins so I have the whole set now, time to make a display of some kind.

Looking to the future no Sean news this week so probably not going over there. Also my parents are going to the shops tomorrow so that's out. So tomorrow is work, shopping, then home.

Didn't reach the two people from yesterday so I still only have one for Saturday. Guy from yesterday with the wireless issue said it worked at a coffee shop, then worked fine still when he got it home. Weird.

Going to work on Sean's gift, and the display, and hopefully write this next combat over the weekend.

See you all next week.