2021-09-09:

Fri:
About as I expected. I did load a new version of a single versalink software once I got it in the afternoon.Just to save Christina a little time when we get back. We had to find it, of course it was on some server I had never heard of. How about some kind of standard process for this sort of thing? Is that too much to ask?
Othrewise finished the first sealing chapter. 6 more to go! They'll all be different?
Did the shopping, forgot to get lunch for my parents for Friday and the driveway stuff, despite writing a note to remind myself. Neat. I'll have to go out before they get here and take care of that. Not a big deal, it's not that far away.
Saw my parents, the garage sale went well. Maybe more people are bargain hunting more nowadays?
Came back here, no game. Checked sites, videos.
Did some writing and went to bed.

Sat:
So here's a list of things I did today. Cut the back lawn.
Cleaned off the deck.
Cleaned up the house.
Paid my school taxes.
Got stuff for lunch because I forgot it like I said before. Dummy.
Sites, videos, lunch.
Washed part of the deck again, it looked like it needed it. Maybe I should wash it more often? But wait, no, the water is supposed to roll off it so putting soap in the water, wouldn't that wash the coating away? I don't know. Best not to chance it.
Took care of the cracks in the driveway. Of course it was nice and sunny but I guess that's good I did want them to dry.
People across the street are moving in, and the sign in gone. The question is, are they fixing it up to move in, or to try and resell? It needs a lot of work, if the outside is any indication.
Played some Outer Worlds.
Got one call. "Oh, can you come Sunday or Monday?" Uh, no, I can't. I have better things to do. She wants a "mesh" system installed. Here's a quick question for you lady: Where did you get stuck? Did you try at all? No? Then forgive me for not rushing over there over a holiday weekend. If you got stuck I would talk you through it (not that you would, it's pretty easy I mean they're made for consumers) but to not even try? That just gets my goat, and I want my goat back! Save us both some aggravation and you $50 and try it, you might be surprised and get it done without any issues at all.
Did some reading, and went to bed.

Sun:
Raining, but not with any heart in it. Hopefully it'll stop soon. Would be nice to do the berries for once without it being super hot and sunny.
Checked sites, vacuumed the floor again.
It stopped, so I cleaned the berries out. Took all morning, but it's done. Moved a few trees to the back as well. It was nice and cool, so I wore my jacket and actually got away with very few scratches this year. Nice.
That ground cover stuff is awful, have to get rid of it somehow. The roots it creates are so dense, it's like it's not even dirt anymore, it's just roots back there. Crazy.
After lunch I did some reading after looking things over again. I do want to move some berry bushes around but the sun came out so maybe on a cooler day. Digging really is hard work, just letting you know if you ever had something, say, five feet or more long you wanted to bury. Just looking out for you.
Did more reading, ate dinner.
Did the usual Sunday stuff, got ready for tomorrow though a different Monday than usual.

Mon:
We did all the things. A bit of drizzle in the morning but I moved a few things in the berry bushes around. Mostly some smaller plants at the edge that I moved to be back in the berry area which is now just that ground cover leaf stuff. Have to keep trimming it back next year, so it doesn't take over like it did.
My parents came, and we did the rest of it. Sun came out right after that so it was fine. Did the trimming, the carpet (while it was raining a bit) made a yummy lunch, and dad put sealer on the deck.
The branches all went into the truck. which I was surprised about. I thought it would take more than one trip. It did not.
They discovered I had poison ivy around the tree in the front. So I have to deal with that now I guess. Don't want it spreading everywhere.
I put the goop I had left on the troublesome spots on the driveway after they left. I had about 1/4 of a can, and it covered a fair amount. Now there's big dark patches out there but who cares. Next year we'll do the whole thing.
Watched a movie.
Sprayed the poison ivy with vinager in the yard. Will probably have to get a commercial mixture though. My spray bottle is terrible. The delivery tube bends backwards, not forward, so when I'm holding the bottle to spray something downwards, I get no liquid. Thanks! Can't really fix it, did the best I could.
I actually have a job tomorrow, set up last week, selling my refurb system, the one that was my mother's Hackintosh. Made sure it was up to date.
Made my call, so I'm setting up the router the day after, that would be Wednesday for those keeping track at home. Whoops, she called back and wants Thursday instead. Sure, whenever. Got ready for tomorrow, did some reading, and it's back to reality again.

Whatever that is.

Tues:
Typical Tuesday, not much going on, we did have the voice meeting. Wrote up two potential problems with the software. Someone just started randomly logging into my device and opening the app store, looked like the wanted to install that clean hands reminder thing, you know from like last year? I chonged the admin password and kicked them off by pulling the ethernet cable. No email or message "hey can I use your machine" so I guess they got the message. I mean it has the gabi login screen, that wasn't a clue it was being used for something? So bizarre.

Had the meeting, another bug is fixed but they haven't put it in yet. He said he would let me know. Still a few bugs to go.

Otherwise, not much else. No writing, I don't know exactly what I want to happen at the graveyard.

Delivered the system for the lady, moved her stuff (she didn't have much.) The printer took a bit of work to install, maybe because she still has DSL? Not many of those left from what I've seen. Got it done though.

Came back here, checked sites. Two calls, yay. A supposed printer issue, but that's only 3 minutes from work, that's tomorrow. And a guy asking if he should buy a new Mac Mini. Uh, yes, yes you should.
And then I got another call, so I have 10:00 saturday booked. He "loses wi-fi" okay what do you want me to do about that?

Thought about the graveyard scene. If a spirit possesses one of the others (Herman or Kelly) how do the remaining two deal with it?

Warframe.

Wed:
Figured out how to deal with it, wrote that up. Now they're faced with a new problem. The mall they need to get into is currently burning to the ground. Whoops.

Nothing exciting at work. I offered to help Christina with anything she was working on but she said it was fine, so okay. The thing they were supposed to put in I guess wasn't put in, so testing is stopped on that. Didn't hear anything from the voice people.

New lights got put in, a lot of them were off in the lab. Not sure it was needed, I think as the weather got cooler and dryer they would have come back. Oh well, not my call.

Looked at the guy's printer. It was a crappy inkjet, and what a shock the black was totally dried out and not printing. Wet it, cleaned it several times, it got better, but not perfect. Don't. Buy. Inkjet. Printers.

Came back here, checked sites, ate dinner. Sprayed the weeds. Oh yeah, let me tell you about that. I got the jug with the wand on it, because I'm a wizard, and carefully read the directions to figure out how to use the liquid to kill the poison ivy. I started to spray the ivy. Not a great sprayer, by the way. I lifted the jug off the ground. Why is the bottom of the jug wet? Turns out it was leaking. How? It wasn't leaking in the car. I set it on the step to read the directions and cut the wand free. I put the wand in the hole, I turned it on, I started to spray. How did I get a hole in the thing? I put it in a bucket so it didn't go everywhere, finished spraying (I hope) the ivy, and then poured the liquid into some milk jugs I had laying around to go to my parent's house friday. I just hope the stuff works. I mean, what the heck, why is it leaking?

Oh yeah, saw Halloween stuff in Lowes. This is Halloween! This is Halloween!

Got three calls today. Three. May I remind you that I only did 3 appointments all month last month. Where are all these calls coming from? It's madness. So I'm picking a laptop that had coffee spilled into it on the way to setting up the "mesh" system and I've booked 1:00 Saturday for a guy that come back from vacation and their machine doesn't boot anymore. 3:00 is Sean's so I hope it doesn't take too long. It's not far from here. I really, really, don't want to book Sunday. I haven't worked a Sunday in what two years? Did I work a Sunday this year? I don't think so.

The third guy I didn't reach yet. No idea, sounds like a new customer, yay.

Finished Neil's gift.

Thurs:
Typical meeting day, again with not much going on. Tomorrow though, we're supposed to get some new software so I'll have some stuff to do so Christina doesn't have to do it all. They're all quick tests, but I should be doing something, right? I mean she's the employee in this case and all, sooooo...

Finished the next chapter. Kelly gets to walk through fire. Still not sure if I should do a her chapter, or just skip to the next day when everything is fine? How do I write her journey through the burning mall? Poorly, I would guess.

Now I want to take you on a bit of a journey. And stay with me on this. One week ago I decided to stop looking for near retail Xbox units and focus on an auction with extras, figuring if I could sell the extras I could get the price back down. I looked and found an excellent candidate. He listed a bunch of stuff. A pro controller, 17 games, (or 14? Some number) batteries, the original controller, a headset (a good one by the loks of it) a 4TB SSD storage drive. He said it was $3000 worth of stuff. I put in a bid for $900 figuring I would never get it. Quickly it went over that. As expected. Then suddenly bidding stopped, and the person doing the last bid canceled their bid. I was once again high bidder. Now this was a seller with 0 feedback but lots of pictures of everything. So I figured it actually existed, unlike the last time I tried to do this.
Immediately I pay and a tracking number is generated. This is 9/2. This is important.
It is now 9/10, one week later. I have been checking the number and the USPS never got the package. I didn't want to bother the guy until now figuring, hey, it didn't get scanned, it's fine. Who generates a tracking number for a scam? Right? Right. But today would be the day I would "check in." He wrote me first. Supposedly, without telling me, he tried to refund my money (10 times, the definition of insanity) but couldn't. Maybe because he told ebay he shipped it? Who knows. The reason? On 9/1 his "shop" was broken into and they stole "car parts, a PS5, cash, and the Xbox." Here's where that 9/2 date becomes important. So your "shop" was broken into and the one item you had on Ebay, the Xbox, you had at least 12 hours to take the auction down but did not. You even generated a shipping label for a product you no longer had. Fishy, right?  So he says "We can send out a brand new set minus 2 games forza 7 and Cyberpunk everything else will be the same just new aswell as the series x console is white in color not black ."
I email back- uh, no. There is no such thing as a white Xbox Series X. A white unit is a Series S. Not what I paid for. Please figure the refund out.
But wait, I have read his second message not the first, and then I read the first message about the break in. Now I am confused, why is this unit at his place of business? His reason for selling it was "I had it for 6 months but my daughter was just born and I don't have time anymore." So you drove it from your house to your office (he took the pictures at the house) why? In any case I don't want to deal with getting a Series S when I want an X, I couldn't even load the games onto it, that unit has no drive! So I tell him "I will start the dispute process so I can get my money back."

But I can't.

The item has "shipped" so I have to wait until the 11th the "estimated date." This despite there being no package shipped. So I say fine, two days is no big deal.

He emails again. "At any rate it willbe shipped out tomorrow everything exactly the way its listed except the seris x console is brand new and you are correct it is indeed still black in color"
I am somewhat astonished that suddenly he found a "brand new" "seris x" console because they cannot be bought for love or money. But still, I see a different tracking number. Odd. I email back. "Thank you! This will solve everything nicely etc."

His account is closed.

So, what? If you're going to make good, why close the account? If you're not going to make good, why generate another tracking number? Nothing about this situation makes sense.
So will I get a unit? I still have no idea. I guess I'll wait and see if this package does show as being picked up, and if not, start the dispute process. He's off ebay so I'll get my money back right away, just like last time. It's just so odd. I mean if he does actually send it I don't want to take the money back, I would have no way to send it to him. I guess I could use his return address and send a check?

Anyway, figure all that out for me, will you?
I'll keep you updated. I know you care. I can see it.

Left work, picked up the trashed laptop with coffee in it.
Then went to set up the mesh system. Which took 5 minutes. HAHAHA I'm joking. First we had to reset her password because of course we didn't know it. Then we could get the app. But wait! We can't get the app because we are not in Turkey. So we fix her address, and why was her billing address some random name is Turkey? But wait! We can't get the app because it requires iOS 13.0 or later. (why?) But wait! We can't do the update because it's stuck doing an iCloud restore? For the last two years? So we shoot that, do the update, finally get the app installed, and the actual work takes 5 minutes. I leave an hour after I arrive. UGH.

Get back here, dinner, sites, the usual. No calls today. Yay.
I pry the laptop apart, take the drive out, back it up. It's fine. SSD. Keyboard is sticky as heck. But the unit does power on. He said it didn't. Maybe because of the keyboard, I still had it off, it could be shorted. Anyway, he was glad his drive didn't get wet, and I ordered him a new top.

Let's talk future!

Tomorrow, bank for sure, seeing my parents, oh that pesky work stuff of course. Versalink stuff, should be a blast and a half.
No game yet. But we're doing that game Saturday at Sean's, 3:00. So I have my 10:00, a 1:00, and then that. Nothing for Sunday, maybe I can recover from this week. Remembered at the last minute that guy I didn't reach yesterday. Reached him. Something about trying to use the unemployment website. It was too late so he said he would get back to me next week about it. Okay, I was willing...

So yeah, nothing for Sunday, and seeing my friends Saturday. Autumn starts in two weeks, hope you're prepared. Prepared... for the death of the king!

That wraps it up this week. Hope it went well for everyone out there, and I'll see you back here next week. Half the month will be gone. It'll be snowing before you know it, and you know what that means!

Bye!