2010-02-22:

No problem! NOT. Another fourteen calls today. Thought we talked about this yesterday, universe. Don't need 30 calls in four days! So, did the shopping as usual. Bought cat food and saw some cat grass walking out, so I thought, hey, maybe that'll keep Squeaker from eating the plant! So I grab it and go to the checkout. Well, it's not in the system so another lady goes off and gets lost so I'm standing there waiting for her to come back and finally I say, just ring the cat food up so I'm not holding everyone else in line up. (because I'm a nice guy like that). Just as she finishes ringing it up, lady comes back. I say to the person behind me "yeah, that's the way the universe works." which I think she appreciated. The first one went super quick, which happened due to a combination of my being lied to over the phone, my own google skills, and a bit of luck. He wanted to run Classic programs, yes, the classic that steve jobs carried out in a coffin how many years ago, classic programs on a dual processor mac. Nevermind that OS 9 can only see one processor, but still. He said it was running 10.5, which didn't support classic. Also to boot the machine I needed 9.2.2 which I didn't have. I have 9.0, 9.1 and 9.2 CDs, but no 9.2.2. Well, I found on the Apple website this remote boot package thingy that included 9.2.2 so I managed to download and extract it with some jiggery-pokery. When I got there, this system was actually running 10.4, so I just copied the system folder onto the empty hard drive and away classic went. OS 9. Man, that brings back some memories. So I came back here. Called my customer from last night with mouse issues, yes, what I had suggested was still working so I didn't need to go over there. Did paperwork at last! Yay! Called my mortgage company. I got this offer to refinance and according to my back-of-the-envelope calculations, if I did, I would be able to pay my mortgage off in three years rather then late 2018. Sadly, I did not take into account the "closing costs", nor were they specified in the offer letter, so it would actually work out to the within a year of what I'm doing now! That surprised me. But when I added 10% to my current mortgage and ran the numbers he gave me, there it was. Strange. So I said forget it. I'll put what extra I can into it now and again and maybe by the time I'm 40 I'll have it gone. Still better then the 30 year initial timeframe. Got a HD in the mail for a laptop, so I put that in and at least got XP reloaded on it. Still need to get RAM and a wireless card for it, so I've got time to finish hardening it. Left for my 3:00 and was slowed by an odd accident. There was car on the wrong side of the guardrail. Not flipped over or anything, it was just there. Like, what? So she couldn't find the wireless button, you know, that was prominently displayed, and glowing orange, right by her power button. I pressed it and solved her wireless issue. Ten minutes on the phone last night for a single press of a button. I love* my job. But at least I stayed there and showed her, again, simple things like clicking the mouse and right clicking on something. Heady stuff. Left. Snowing now, fantastic. Took the check over to the Dell Mini seller guy. Came home. Dinner. Did a record. Started typing this up. Then made phone calls for two solid hours straight. Oh well, at least talking someone through connecting to their own freaking wireless network saves me a trip over there. Fourteen calls, I mean, come ON. Still left to do tonight: Start the reload of a dell desktop so I can take it back. Got ready for tomorrow, five places to go, one at 6:00, should be a super fun day. Oh, and I have to get up early too (I know, woe, woe, woe) but at least he's just down the street. No comic this week by the looks, I was too busy Sunday to get it done, and with all I have to do in the next few days, doesn't look good for progress on that front. Oh well.