2025-02-20:

Fri:
Spent way too much time not testing, but I'll get to that.

Knocked off the first two tests easily enough. Shoot, I forgot to email the developer because bugs fixed in D8.0 seem not to be fixed in D8.5 and I need to make sure they are on the way.

Anyway, no problems there, other than that and some translation stuff. Always lags.

It's the third one I had the most issue with. One I had done before, the SIPRnet cards. I need to put the card in, do an email with signing and encryption, do a scan to home, boom card done. Should take 10 minutes.

No.

I couldn't do the address book lookup to send the email. I always got "internal device error" which was super helpful guys, thanks for that.

Comparing with other machine and doing clone files and whatnot I finally figured out that when I had LDAPS enabled I could do a scan to home but not an email lookup. Disabling this "feature" (that is supposedly required now?) reversed this. I could do the lookup, but not the scan. So I had to do the card insertion twice, once for the scan to home, change the feature, then for the email. What a treat. At least I did figure this out and the test colud be completed, but what a pain.

Went over the hardware installation with Joe, we made some notes. If you're not really, really accurate with the placement it no fits. Go figure. We made a note to mention this in the directions. A few other things too.

Got a call from the vet, Oliver's anemia got slightly worse. They want to do an xray and special test for Leukemia/F.I.V. Poor guy, more tests. Sorry buddy. Just another $300.

Got him some dry, his treat jar for when he takes his meds is getting pretty low.

Then my shopping.

Saw my parents. Gave my mother the gift,





Came back here, no game. Sean was eating late and wanted to stop early leaving us maybe 2.5 hours? With how slowly it goes in the best of times we canceled.

Played FF7 instead. Stopped on the parade minigame. Need some kind of strategy for this other than putting it on easy or whatever.

Sat:
Finished up the parade section I had stopped on last night. Decided to be 'creative' about it. I watched a video, had to translate the PS button press inputs to xbox style. I could have just ran it on the xbox, completely failed, and then restarted I guess. Then I could pause the game after a set of them, get ready for the next set, and put that in, then repeat.

Hey FF7 makers. You did this with the stupid dance thing in the last game. Please stop. When your focus is on the stupid button press prompts you can't see what all the characters are doing. You spent thousands of dollars on 3D artists, programmers, sound designers, riggers, lighting, and I couldn't tell you what the characters on the screen were doing during the entire sequence. Some kind of marching or something? No clue. Please stop.

Left for the megagame. Not snowing, but it started by the time I got there. Thankfully it only snowed a few hours. It may still get worse, we'll see.

Game went fine. Don't know if it was the room or what, but it didn't seem as loud as the previous game. One guy didn't bring a laptop, so he just told me his news stories. This went fine, as I then had a purpose. The council meetings happened twice, but never again. (that's what I was supposed to be covering) Saw a girl that could have been the younger sister of the girl I want to put in the goblin cosplay. Very similar features. Wild.

Went to bed.

Sun:
Did the daily reading.

Then got back to FF7. Did that most of the day. While it snowed very heavily. Neat.

Made it to Costa del Sol. Saw Yuffie, she was, according to the description, "getting herself a frozen treat." It was an ice cream cone. Can we not say "ice cream cone" for some reason? Is that trademarked "big ice cream?" Very weird. Actually managed a B on the piano stuff, surprising myself. Maybe it's actually an easier song than the first one. I know I said I would ignore those but it was Tifa and she clearly stated she hadn't played piano in a long time. So if she was terrible during the concert, they only had themselves to blame for putting her on the stage despite her protests. But I practied it once and it wasn't bad. The scoring is brutal though, I got mostly "great" some good, only missed like 2 and had 4 bad (or the other way around?) but it was still only a B? What do you want from me game? (There's A and * level about that) Sheesh! Got past the hojo part. Stupid Hojo. Was he always that creepy guy from Bleach? I guess... It's now nighttime so we'll see what everyone has to say about things I guess. We're all on the beach, I stopped there.

Got ready for tomorrow, made one call (spam, not really anything I can do lady, sorry) and went to bed.

Mon:
Had to dig my way out. We got a fair amount of snow these past two days. Probably should have done some of that yesterday but I just looking out and getting depressed and feeling lazy so I didn't. You know how it goes. The battery didn't last in my blower for the whole driveway. Sigh. 2 rows or so left. Did them manually. No problem. I'll charge up the battery and see about more cleanup when I get home. Have to stay at work till 4:30 not that I have anything to do...
Printed the estimate and signed it.
Worked on the notes for Joe, and took a better picture. That should finish up the D8.0 stuff.

Then wrote the next Library chapter.

Stayed late, it was sunny out when I left, but very cold and windy.

Dropped off the signature for Oliver's next thing. He goes in Wednesday. 8:00. Poor kid.

Got back here, did the driveway again as I planned. Just neatening it up, making it a bit wider, that's all. It wasn't snowing just blowing around.

Checked sites, had dinner.

No calls today.

Got ready for tomorrow.

Then more FF7.

Tues:
A sad day. One might say an historic day. But one that sees us bidding a fond farewell. Yes, I ate the last frozen meal from the hauls. Incredibly, given the amount of time since they stopped, I still had enough to carry me to today. But all is not lost. I still have enough mac and cheese for this week and next. Breakfasts at home I will still have for many weeks, as I only have one or two a week of those. But still, they can start throwing stuff away again now at any time.

Don't worry, I won't starve. I have a plan.

Wrote another 1.5 chapters today. Had the Joe meeting. Looked his customer notes over. Just waiting for the next thing now, really.

No snow.

Got a letter from the IRS today. And the verdict is..... *drum roll*

"We need additional time to complete our review of the information you provided."

Uh, what? It's not that much guys. It's clearly laid out. Forms sent. What more time- oh right everyone is getting fired over there. Right. Well, take your time or whatever, it's just my life being ruined you're sitting on. No big.

No calls.

Had dinner, checked sites.

Messed with my FF7 build a bit.

And Sean is not feeling well? Bummer! Back to FF7 I guess.

Wed:
Took Oliver in to get his x-rays.

Then went into work. Still nothing new, so I finished the half chapter before lunch.

Got the news. Nothing on the x-ray for Oliver. Of course. Oh we can do an ultra-sound? Yeah, we just did one of those when trying to explain the weight loss before. Remember????

So we're going ahead with lump removal and teeth cleaning.

Did another chapter after lunch.

Left early to get Oliver back. It had snowed.

Did the driveway when I got back. Sheesh, this winter is just making up for last winter, isn't it?

Checked sites, had dinner.

Then FF7. Got past the stupid situps mini-game by cheesing it a little. Used the keyboard and finally broke it up into 1-2 and a-s. Also turned off the distracting "commentary" and music, and that finally got me past the final stage. You have to be prefect, doing 51 situps to his 50. Jerk. I got 50 at one point, which of course was a "loss" but it wasn't his win either, though he claimed it was. Double Jerk.

Caught a mouse! My magnet trap finally worked. I wasn't checking it because it was empty and I wanted to see what else I could do with it. Whoops. He was in there awhile, chewed a big hole in the bottom, but still couldn't get out. He was alive though, seems fine. Anyone want to adopt a mouse? I can't put him/her outside now. There's still one to catch, I see on the camera. Sigh.

Thurs:
The noon ish meeting was canceled, apparently some things didn't get into the build so we're having it tomorrow.

Had the usual onedrive meeting, and the status meeting minus Don as he was out.

Wants to do more onedrive testing. I mean, do you remember how we hammered that thing three years ago? Do you? We wrote 280+ bugs (I counted them up from the report all those years ago) It's stupid. More testing will reveal nothing.

Wrote more chapters! We'll meet the ghost in the next chapter. We met the "demon" in this one and he got his book. More mysteries!

Did the plants.

Got cat food after work, it wasn't snowing too badly. The driveway needed to be done when I got home for sure.

Ate dinner, checked sites.

Worked on the Unicorn. Got the back legs done, about 3 hours? I had a call with some questions in there and stopped to feed the kitties. I know, that doesn't take too long. Only the front legs and the sparkly bits remain.

An hour left, humm, not really enough time for any FF7. Sean isn't feeling well so maybe no game tomorrow.

Looking ahead I'll do the shopping tomorrow, and maybe onedrive testing. Alyx gave me the comments back on the story, I'll see what corrections to move over in the main document. See my parents. Maybe run game. I'll pick up another wheel for mouse #2 and a house, his current one is all chewed up. What a great mouse dad I am.

The weekend plan is to do the Pyre game, but again Sean may not be feeling it this week.

Otherwise a few things on the list. Nothing major. Paperwork. Gotta do the paperwork.

And that's about it, really. Next week is Oliver's surgery and the end of Feb. Please stop snowing. The piles are getting large. We get it. You didn't snow enough last year and are trying to make up for it. We get it. We get the picture.