2025-01-30:

Fri:
Did work stuff today, mostly loading the new build and checking bugs. Had to get it on the smaller screen device for a few.
And I shouldn't have had to reload the device I used yesterday. I had it signed out. But someone, probably from India, for some reason got on it and changed the admin password, locking me out. Thanks! Christina has complained about this and recently too. She has vowed to physically unplug any machine she wants to use overnight. So anyway I had to altboot it and reload everything.
Went out to lunch with Don, Christina, and Adnan. Had a very tasty what was on the menu as sandwich but was more like a sub. Huge.
Did the shopping, then saw my parents.
No game, Sean said he was trying to get some stuff done. I protested this in the strongest possible terms and oh wait no I didn't I played Rebirth. Got out of the first town, strange to see these town you could walk across in 10 seconds now alive with people and events and stupid card game players and whatnot. Wandered around just looking at stuff for probably far too long. Then Shinra showed up and chased me out of the place. It had been quite faithful to the original game up to that point, by the way. Much of the dialog was even the exact same. Loved to see it! Hear it. You know what I mean. So that came as a shock.

On my way to the farm- there's a crafting mechanic? Love me a good crafting mechanic. I think. So while you're wandering around the countryside slaughtering the innocent creatures you find there you can be on the lookout for materials too. Yeah, very different vibe from the old game, where you're suddenly jerked into a different "reality" to do battle with random animals that want to kill you. Here you just come upon stuff just living their best lives and think "oh boy I want to kill them they'll give me some XP!" Uh, no.

Oh and why was I level 40 in the flashback but here in the present I'm level 15. Why did I throw away all my equipment? Materia. Armor. Who am I, Samus? I get it, I do, but it's still jarring that I have nothing now.

Sat:
Got up and went to the guy with the network issues. Got him all straight. He gave me soup.
Cleaned out the driveway again, it wasn't too bad but best to keep up with it.
Then lunch.
Did the Sunday reading. Figured I would get some Sunday stuff done because playing Rebirth today means stop and start action, where if I get things done today I would usually do tomorrow I can just play through. *thinking ahead*

Got past the "forbidden" error for the site, so I can see it on the upstairs computer and the iPhone. Made a correction as the blog page was hard to scroll on mobile. It's still not exactly world class it's a little confusing where you have to have your finger to scroll it but how many people are reading my blog on mobile? I mean now. It would be a pretty bad exerience. So at least it will be "better" in the coming version.

Got a card in the mail from RG&E about my "smart" meter "coming soon." Apparently they're simply insisting on swapping my meter and they'll "knock when they arrive." Oh will you? Let me ask you something RG&E. How well do you think that's going to go? I'm serious, what percentage of homes will actually have someone there to answer? I'm pretty sure most people work, even most two parent households, especially in this (very strong by the way) economy.

Now granted, work from home is much more common now than ever before but still. I'm never home. Pretty sure there's a good percentage of people who would say the same. Not during the business hours they would be knocking on my door. Oh, but I could stay with the old meter "for a fee." ($144 a year) Wait what? You're going to charge me to do nothing? Okay sure. I guess if your people work on Saturdays they might catch me. Not that I answer knocks at the door randomly. So how many times are you going to try before I'm forced to pay this penalty you've come up with? There's on info on the card about scheduling this random thing. I can learn more "about smart meters" maybe that will have more options.

Ah! "if we can't gain access to your meter for any reason, we'll leave behind contact information so you can make an appointment" Or, and I'm just throwing stuff out there now, you could save both of us the trouble and let me schedule it right there on the site? Just a suggestion? Word to the wise? That sort of thing?

Worked on the valentine's gift, as I got part of it in the mail yesterday. I was able to take measurements and adjust the print. I hope it works out.

Then over to Sean's. It was looking very grim for awhile there, and it ended on a fairly sour note, with Malachite missing and our house almost burned down. Orchid is going to have some words with the guard and the Mage's guild when she gets her husband back safe and sound.

Sun:
Did a DPS check with Orchid. Trying to figure out the best way to use my one offensive spell. I think a called shot to the body after enhancing my magic then following it up with 4 simultaneous attacks with no enhancement (as they'll be at a penalty to dodge the next shot), and no called shot on my end is the best strategy. Basically hit them with a focused blast, then follow up with a quick multishot blast in hopes one of the four finishes them off, and even if not that's a lot of hits to take so they'll be pretty messed up.

Then FF7 Rebirth most of the day. I spent like an hour and a half wandering around seeing the sights, but then the game was like "here's chocobos, and go around and see the sights." Sigh. Back to all the places I went I guess, but now with 100% more plot approval. It's fine. I was wondering what some of those special looking rock formations and crystals and everything else was. Now I know. I never thought I would miss random encounters but I sort of do. There's a crafting mechanic so I'm picking stuff up, but there's far too few monsters. I'm broke! Guess I lost all my money on the way out of Midgar too. Frustrating, that I can hardly grind levels or gold. Miserably failed one of the Chadly Fights but changed my materia around a little bit and breezed through it. That's why I love this world. Materia is so great.

Meanwhile printed both parts of the Valentine's gift. Took all day, 10 hours. Now to figure out how to glue them together so the whole darn thing works the way I want it to.

Got ready for tomorrow. The usual Sunday stuff. Did a bit more FF7 after that, as no Sean request. Getting the map filled out!

Mon:
Windy today. Got the HD enclosure with the V.day stuff so I started a new backup.
Then worked on the latest chapter, which I finished. Yes, our whole night reduced to one chapter. To be fair, (and balanced) I didn't see a lot of the action because I was tending to Snarly. So I only wrote what Orchid experienced. And it went by quickly, even if it took a "long time" in "real life."
Also checked a few more bugs! Yay!

That was it work wise.

Got cat food on the way home, and went home.
Two calls, and then got a third after just hanging up with the second one. Neat!
Did some FF7 of course, then made the calls. The first one was just the guy from yesterday, he's using LaTex to format math graphs or something but can't figure out how to download an update to the program he's using? I mean just from a website, just physically downloading the installer. Like for real though? Thankfully he was able to follow my directions and we didn't need to screen share. (He's the one that his PC kept rejecting my connection)
The second one isn't too far away, says her printer can't be reached and her Mac is slow. Can't do much about that, but I can at least see what the printer is doing. I'll go there tomorrow.
Then the third one that called after that is a Mac setup. She got an Air. So that's Wednesday gone. Going to be a busy week I guess.
Did a tiny bit more FF7 and then Sean wanted to do Xbox.

Tues:
Half an hour of demo in the morning, then the Joe meeting.
Went back to the demo when that was done which was still going on! (This is a half hour later) Wasn't sure what they were discussing at the time of course. That finished up.

And of course the late OneDrive meeting I still don't need to go to, because it's not about anything test related.

Worked on Building Block Magic and tweaking my DPS generator for Orchid. I think it's going to be more situational than I first thought. If I have some time, balk then needle. I even put in a risk calculator to see how many needles I can cast and what the risk is of not getting it off. Then if I don't have the segments just do a minimum of needles so they have a penalty, and finish them off on the next turn. Of course the ideal situation would be to finish them off on the first action. It's possible.

Went to see the lady about her printer. It worked fine, from both her iPhone and Mac. Okay? And her 8 year old mac is fairly slow, but it doesn't seem like there's anything wrong with it.

Back here I checked sites, and ate dinner.

No calls, yay! But a storm is coming? We'll have to see about tomorrow.

Got ready for tomorrow so I could do some FF7 before xbox.

Wed:
Not much, work wise. Helped the developer guy reproduce a problem.
Looked into why the FTP site is acting so weird. Tried a few things, not sure if it helped.

Worked on building block magic. Simplified creation spells, hopefully Sean will be happier with them now. They're more in line with other spells so I'm happier with it too, I think. Not happy with having to go through the whole document again but that's what you get.

No meetings today for a change. The only day I don't have them, really.

Went to go see the lady with the new macbook. Got her all set up, and the PC ripped out of there. Good riddance.

Came back here, checked sites. Two calls. One person locked out of a laptop an employee changed the password on, and a lady wanting a new laptop. Reached both, the one guy didn't have the laptop, oh okay what do you expect me to do then? He's calling me back tomorrow. The other lady I told her some options. She's getting back to me too.

Didn't have much time after that, did a little FF7. Finished up the first area and am about to head into the second. Aerith survived the fight and finished off the big snake? Wow, you go, girl.

Thurs:
And back to meetings. Two of them, as usual. Not much else to report, though I did spend an hour in the morning reading over the requirements doc for the onedrive stuff and typing up "but what about this?" "And if we're so worried about this, isn't this also a concern?" Sort of thing.

We're meeting (yay) about it tomorrow to discuss. I wasn't the only one that had those thoughts, Joe and Don raised a few of the same points.

Otherwise worked on Building Block Magic. Added a few sections because I realized I had overlooked some things, that some might want to know. Made a table for approximate areas. Caught a few typos too. It's in a much better state now, I know, I've said I've been happy with it before but this I think is better. Yes.

Came back home. Checked sites, had dinner.

Then it was on to unicorn building again. Need to do more of that... Must resist urge to play FF7! Or... must I? Finished that bag in about an hour. Is it getting easier or am I getting better at it? Huh. Next to build the head.

I did play some, got through the cave and into the next area.

Also spent 45 minutes on the phone with the guy from yesterday, sadly the encryption was turned on so we couldn't do what I wanted. He had a flash drive ready to go though, so we were able to simply reload the machine totally. No problem.

Looking ahead, a pretty busy weekend all told.

I'll go to the bank tomorrow, do the shopping, and see my parents. I need to finally, after two weeks, figure out what a mine boss would want for some lithium in case they head over there in game. They said they wanted to last time. Oh, we should be doing game this week. We'll see how Sean feels he just got his "boot" on.

Then Saturday maybe having my father over if he's free. For lunch and Dr Who. We're doing the color game but that's usually late in the day, we would have time.

Then Sunday is The Big Game, and celebrating his birthday at my sister's house.

I want do to site work (graphics mostly, but I don't have my optional rules posted there? Odd. Time to remedy that), paint the Valentine's gift at least, if not put it together depending on how much time I have. Make a pie. Naturally I don't need to do all this, I have time for all of it next week. But it's all on the list.

Wow, January is done already. Just three more years, 11 months to go.

See you next time!