2019-12-05:

Fri:

Spent the morning putting up the tree and other decorations. Cats are ignoring it, though they do like to sleep under it. So that's good.
Then I went out for my 2:00, no real issues that stumped me, he just had questions about things.
Then out to Sean's. Started a little late because Jon works in a place near a building called a "mall" which I thought was dying out? But he tells a tale of taking an hour just to leave the parking lot. Weird. So I guess many of you did some shopping all on one day for reasons?

But start we did. I was worried they would simply walk up to the gate, inquire about the ore, go back to their ship to await any extra promised them by the snake guy for their trouble, and the adventure would be over. I figured this wouldn't happen, because I know my players, but it was always a possibility. I shouldn't have been worried. They scouted the camp, broke up the party, and then started murdering everyone in sight. Spread out across the entire mining operation. Glorious.
We didn't actually get through the whole combat, and I think my saving of the combat record didn't actually record everything so that's a bummer. I realized on the way home I forgot the gate guard, he wasn't shooting at them. So silly. So I wanted to add him when I got home. I tried importing the file and it was totally messed up. Looking at the csv all the data but their turn order is still there, so it can be saved. I just don't know why it's not importing, I thought I had tested it.

Sat:
Watched Harry Potter and the goblet of fire in the morning. I had just finished my own story relating to those events and I admit to shouting a bit at the screen in various places. Like you know during the attack at the world cup, and everyone's running around? Take a look at their hands. Do you see a single wand? What's that? You don't? Strange that, you think during an attack by terrorists at least someone would have their wand close at hand. To do, you know, magic? The thing we watch Harry Potter to see? And then after the tasks he gets beat up. Harry has sutures on his face wound, but if you'll recall when Ron's father is bitten by the snake in later books those at the hospital try stitches as an absolute last resort. They are literally like "hey, we've tried everything else let's try this wacky muggle thing I've heard about. Clearly this is correct, they have magic, so clearly they have healing magic. But no, Harry just stays beat up with no explanation.
Also the twins "brew up" some "aging potion" to try and get past the age line. You're telling me there's potion easy enough to brew that a couple of goof off students can make it, but no potions master has come up with an "anti-aging potion?" Really? They can't go backwards? Why are there old wizards in the world?

Oh my goodness I could go on and on, so I'm not going to.
Cleaned up a bit, took care of paperwork related stuff that's been piling up in front of my computer.
Looked around for the little card the dentist place gave me. Lost it, apparently. As well as the old one, which makes sense I think I would have had them together but how? How did I lose it from the dentist place to the... car? I guess?

Checked the usual sites, basically nothing exciting. We were supposed to play Borderlands at 7:00 but it was ultimately pushed back to around 8:00. I was playing my character anyway, so there.

Sun:
Watched the latest Dark Materials and wrapped gifts for the game in the morning. Along with the usual sites for Sunday.
After lunch I wrapped everything else, so I guess you could call me ready for the day. Of course a few of the more, shall we say, perishable items must still arrive?

Watched the nasty snow falling. There was quite a bit of it again. And just when we had gotten rid of the last bunch, too.
Watched more She-ra.
Generally took it easy.

Mon:
Didn't take it easy today. Started the day with, uh, a meeting. Had to shovel the front of the driveway, I almost but didn't quite make it.
Still a bit nasty out, Bob didn't even come in.

I next moved a machine into our area that I'm going to use for the new project. Caused some angst but not directed at me, tee hee. Then I tried looking into a bug someone overseas wrote, with some very unclear directions. Oh, just "touch the paper" and it'll jam. Oh, no, it shoots out. It's not going to jam.

Went to lunch.

Then worked on cataloging our current PCs and figuring out where they could go to have the serial cable logs going all the time. I figure each PC can reach 2 machines so we almost have enough. I also wiped out the huge tower we can't actually access and then upgraded it to 10. At least I started it. Went to see a lady about getting an explanation about how things "work" in the new program. (So much of it is up in the air or has no money until next year so... yeah) Got the overview. Came back to the PC, it was waiting for me to hit "accept." Thanks MS. I think I already did that?

Then left.

Set up the new router. Came back here and did the driveway in the dark.
Then it was the usual sites, eating dinner, and getting ready for tomorrow.

Tues:
Finished up the win10 load, figured out the RAM situation on that machine. Somewhat messed up, actually. Installing just 4GB of RAM in any slot? Just peachy. Install 8GB of RAM using a second set of slots? Nope, not going to do it. Just beeps. I know the RAM is okay. I know the slots are okay. How can they not work together? It boggles the mind.

Sent the report to Bob. I figure we can use 1 pc per two devices by putting them in the middle. Sadly we have some devices in the far corners, so we would need more pcs. Will we get more pcs? Highly doubtful.

Then put together a document of steps for setting up the machine for the new kiosk stuff. Because that's what responsible people do.

Then did a bit of testing and noted some things down. There's not an awful lot to test, by the way. But I noted some things.

Then a half hour away to nearly Sean's house. Sold him my loaner laptop but it still took about the same time because of all the freaking temp files he had I had to get past to change the permissions to get into the folders. I hate windows.

Back here I quickly ate dinner, got ready for tomorrow, so I could play borderlands. We won it! Yay! Wait, that was the final boss? For real though? Huh. I mean sure we were 10 levels higher than we "should have" been (according to the gear in the machine outside) but still. Didn't really seem all that tough or satisfying in the end. I didn't even get the sniper rifle from the chest. :-(

Wed:
Not much excitement at work today. The morning meetings were canceled, but then I got meeting notes from one of them?? Odd.
Otherwise in the morning I kinda... waited until the software came out. Oh, there was a new version of the MFD software so I loaded that on two machines. That took a bit.
After lunch I set up a bunch of tablets on a rack so that they can be rebooted over and over, we're trying to track down a failure where the tablet hangs in a certain spot. We don't have the reboot software or at least we didn't. I cleaned up the lab a little bit too.
Then went to the Thursday meeting as we're having our holiday party tomorrow. Then worked on trying to attach the new front of the machines to the machines we have. It's like 26 pages of instructions and the first page is what screws I should have. 31 of them, I believe I calculated. I'm missing about 5 of them. Not sure how that's going to work.

Left work, went to Wegmans to get the macaroni stuff for tomorrow, and stopped in to get Battleborn for $5.00.
Then back here, made the tastiness, checked sites, the usual. No calls!

Loaded and checked out Battleborn.

Can't say I'm impressed. The "tutorial" went fine, though I'm picking up things that are not explained at all and having only one gun is really limiting.

Then they throw stage 1 at me and I have 30 seconds to pick from a huge roster of characters, none of which I know anything about. How do they fight? What are their powers? No clue! With 10 seconds left to go I settle on a lady with swords floating around her. With 5 seconds to go I questions my decision because wait this is a first person shooter and this is some kind of close range fighter? It's not going to work. Predictably, (I predicted it) it doesn't work and after failing to get through the halfway point of the mission several times I quit and go back in.

I find the robot guy who I saw in the opening animation using what appears to be a sniper rifle. Neat! Okay, it's a pistol that can have a scope grow out of it. Works for me. His special powers are... a stopwatch and an owl that pokes out of his hat? How is that useful in combat? Well, snipe away! I get past the point I was stuck on, and to the spider like mini-boss of the level. Suddenly I'm back at the title screen. "Connection lost" the game informs me. Uh, hello? I'm playing a single player game? Maybe there's a reason this game didn't do very well. It's a low budget Borderlands (really, the esthetic is the same) that is buggy to this day, three years later. Super.

Thurs:
The big push today was.... the party! And it was over much faster than usual because no trivia game. So there. Wine featured prominently in the gift exchange, big surprise.
Work wise I started putting the new front on the machine, then was told "oh, not that machine" and put it back together again. Super. Then the guy who does hardware stuff came so we walked through the (error filled) directions and got one of the machines done. I'll do the rest tomorrow.

Then was the party.

Back here I cleared the driveway because guy is coming at 6:30 to have his machine set up. Watched videos, checked sites, the usual.

Got him all done, no real issues but sitting there waiting for the permissions thing. Again.

He left, I got ready for bed and maybe, just maybe, I'll try that first mission in Battleborn again. No promises.

Looking to the future! Tomorrow I'll work on getting the other 3 kiosks converted so they have the right frontispieces. (that's today's word of the day) Then shopping, getting gas, seeing my parents, and it's off to Sean's for his game. We can wrap up what happened to the dead/not dead little Blunda and it's off to even greater adventures.

Had one guy cancel for Saturday but the Jennifer house called about their wi-fi so that's at 10:00 and then I'll do dentist guy and his typical laundry list of crap. A lot of it is going to be moving emails into folders. Ooooo so fun. I hate him so much.

Then ??? I do have 2 more Christmas things to order, so I'll do that. Paperwork from last month? I guess.
Otherwise not sure. Eating cookies? Oh, absolutely.

Three more Monday's until Christmas, hope everyone is catching the spirit and whatnot. See you all next week!