2019-06-21:

Can you reach right up? And touch the sky? 

Do you have women? On your mind?

Fri:

Up early, went over to Wegmans to get breakfast for my crew. Settled on muffins and bagels, and a jug of OJ even though no one else does anything like that. I like to exceed expectations. Now normally I exceed them in a negative way but sometimes it goes the opposite direction. Just to keep them guessing. 

More messing around, some FAX tests, the pattern isn’t the same but 2 of every 6 jobs failed. Well, I mean I only did one group of six and then another to another fax number but that’s pattern enough for this guy!

No new bugs written today, what a waste. Just poking at it really, need some new work. 

After work I went to the bank. Bought food. Then saw my parents as usual. Back from the watch event with many stories about Amish people.

Got the gift in, so good! Didn’t expect it until tomorrow, but it came out just exactly as I wished. Maybe the mounting posts could have been a little bit thicker but eh. Now for step two. The back.

Then went over to Sean's at the last second, as he had texted me earlier today if we were still on for today. More spells used, but not many more. Slow and steady, that’s us.

Sat:

Made the salad first thing.

Got busy painting before the rain came. It was nice and sunny, then suddenly a few drops fell and it was nothing but clouds! Sheesh. Used up the paint though, got the rack painted and put a new coat on the table. It needed it. 

Checked sites, did a test run on the gift to see how the molding would go. I have this putty stuff left over which is still good, and some resin stuff. It’s not clear, it hardens white (which is weird as it starts clear!) so I’ll use some of that up for the testing. Did I spill part of it? You mix equal amounts but my B part is clearly lower than my A part in the bottle. Did it evaporate?

Read a bit, and left. 

I was there about an hour before anyone else arrived but that was okay. We had plenty of food, games, and being all social like. Won a few things, lost a few things, wrote a few decent poems, you know, the usual.

Sun:

Checked sites. The molding stuff is either "tired" or it's too thin, the final product squishes a bit. I mean it's only to see what would happen so it's fine, but making the mold the way I did isn't going to work. I tried it a different way.

I think maybe a combination way, doing it the first way, but crushing it all the way through and smoothing the top off with a tool before it hardens. The second way worked but it seemed bigger for some reason. Very odd. Though honestly the first mold would work, the resin is going to be clear so it won't matter if it's not perfect. Right? I guess we can try it.

Anyway, worked on the basement a bit. Moved some things around now that my newly painted shelf was down there. Finally cleaned up some stuff that had just been dumped on the floor a year or more ago. Probably more. Also looked around for stuff to get rid of, like CD cases and boxes and such. Found my leftover A and B part from making the guns. Probably no good anymore, they say to use it up fast. I guess I could just pour it together, see what happens, and chuck the resulting block. I don’t know that I’ll make any more guns, not without making a new mold given how wonky the last one turned out. I mean it isn’t bad, but it would need a lot of work.

Happy Father's day to all you dads out there, by the way. Wrapped up dad’s gift, did more cleaning. More reading. More than halfway though this one.

Went over to my sister’s house for dinner. Still have to have dad over here for games and movie watching. Stan is I guess available next week so probably not then, then he’s gone, so maybe in three weeks?

Came back here. Got ready for tomorrow. One call, Hilton. Yay. Your machine is running slow? You don’t say? Could it be a crappy old PC with a spinning rust drive? There’s your problem!

Mon:

Very little that was interesting to talk about at work today. I did a little fax work, talked to Kathy about it, and that was the highlight of the day. Seriously. No bugs written. 

I had already done what she wanted me to, getting test cases ready. So I didn't have to do the work I had already done. Oh, but I did look for various sized papers in the lab. We don't have any. I guess we're supporting more paper sizes so we'll need to order them. All of them. There's a lot.

Went after work to get gas, then clear resin, then went out to Hilton. Her problem wasn't that her machine was slow, her outlook for some reason had 30 invisible messages in her outbox. Took me a bit to figure out what to do, I followed the directions but it didn't work. Turns out I needed to run the program I was using as an administrator. Thanks for giving me a clear error message or something about it, fellows.

Back here I checked sites, watched my daily videos, and stirred up some clear resin. It apparently takes longer to harden. Like, a lot longer. Like, days maybe instead of 20 minutes? Huh? Oh well. I poured 1/2 ounce of each which is enough for both molds, we'll see how they do. I want to make one for myself anyway so if one isn't as "good" as the other I can just use it on mine. Done?

No calls, thank goodness, so just did reading.

Tues:

My "clear" and "hard" resin is neither of those things. Maybe it'll harden up with more time, but it's no really all that clear. Maybe it's too cold around here, given it's three days until the solstice and it'll hardly get warmer than 70 degrees this week.

Anyway, work time! I investigated some more fax stuff, but the major effort today was the new spec and putting together a new set of test cases for it. How are we going to support kiosk printing from another device when the kiosk is locked down? *confused* I forgot to ask that.

Not much else exciting. New software tomorrow though, and I have a few bugs to verify. Very few.

Came home, checked sites, ate dinner, oh and I did the driveway too. And found a pile of rocks in my back yard. Anyone want any rocks?

[[image file="2019-06/rocks.jpg" alt="hard stones" ]]

Where did they come from? Why are they here? Rocks are sort of valuable aren't they? They are used in landscaping so I must assume so. Why just dump (on someone else's lawn) something you can get money for? Doesn't make sense to me.

Made up another mold, just to see what would happen with a new idea. I'll mix up some more stuff a bit later when it's hard. 

No calls, well, three hang up calls but that hardly counts.

It got hard. I mean the clay stuff I use for the mold. I followed the directions more closely this time, figuring, you know what, they probably know what they're talking about. So I warmed the bottles up after I cleaned up some dishes. Maybe it's made a difference, it's staying clear but it's only been a half hour or so. Let's hope it works out, I'm not sure what other ideas I might get to make the back. 

Did more reading, it's the last Dresden book.

Wed:

New software time! There was a demo today, for what it was worth, as there wasn't much to really demonstrate. Only a few bugs were fixed but I went through them. Wrote two more after looking over at the MyFiles software over on office depot. Surprise, surprise, I can't launch an app without finding bugs. (I don't test OD, no one does seriously at the moment and you see what happens?)

Wrote those up.

Also went over some bugs with Gina. She said she was going to be back in the afternoon.

She wasn't.

So that was that.

Came home, did a bit more planting of the remaining seeds for the pod. Grow little ones, grow!

Popped my resin out. It's far more clear and harder than the first attempt. Neat. I think they might do it. They need a little work, some sanding maybe? I'm giving them another day before I do anything just to make sure they are completely cured. Looks like step 2 is done, now for step three, the center. Should be a bit easier.

More reading.

One call, had to reload foxit as it wasn't his printer that was the issue, but that it grayed out his print menu. Weird. So nothing for tomorrow. Nothing… but *adventure*.

Thurs:

It was, sort of. Got to mess about with the latest, and this is true, Staples release. They went from R16 to- brace yourself- R17. I know! Totally unexpected.

Anyway messed with that, loading it on various machines, and then trying to work out why one service didn't work. So I reloaded R16 and it still didn't work, and then we figured maybe it was the payment app and strangely enough, it was. So loading a newer version of that that fixed everything. Why just that one service though? Weird.

Had more pizza from yesterday.

Went to meetings. No Gina for two weeks, she's taking time off. Not tomorrow.

Certainly did not work on Neil's gift after the second meeting when I had nothing better to do.

For all I accomplished, which didn't seem like much, the day passed quite quickly.

Now to the future! No bank, but of course shopping. No idea what work stuff I'll do, maybe I'll find something? Seeing my parents, going to Sean's and that's it.

Saturday I'm going back there for whatever we're doing with Stan, or when, but hopefully that information will be forthcoming at some point.

Have to cut the back lawn Sunday but otherwise hopefully get back to writing as I have finished the Dresden books. Whew. 

Then next week I take care of the parent's kitties, and they bring me yummy snacks in exchange. I demand yummy snacks! 

And then June is over. Oh, happy summer everyone. It rained like the dickens today and tomorrow it won't break seventy. Nice.

Have a great summer everyone. Go do some summer stuff, if, you know, that's up your alley and stuff. See you next week.