2020-12-10:

Fri:
Started the day with an internet outage. Tried other labs, well, one other lab and the new cube area behind my lab that Xerox is so glad they spent all that money on as it sits empty now, but I digress. Couldn't get out at all. Outside people claimed connecting to the VPN in Europe would work. Yeah, that's really helpful thanks.
Tried the latest daily build as internal stuff still worked. Still no luck, so I drafted the email to the people suggested yesterday to see what's going on with it.
Got internet back. That was about 9:30.
Had Joe meeting about test results. He was concerned about my inability to activate FIPS-2 mode on the device, I had said it was complaning about certs and it never had before. (It's always certs. I hate certs) We deleted the certs and looked at 4.0 that has the same certs but doesn't ccomplain about the certs. So figure that out. So something odd is going on.
Wrote bug about the cert thing and had lunch.
I don't want to say I did writing but...
Helped Gina out with her machine over there, and found her a similar machine over here to do her copy timing tests. Hers wouldn't copy. Just give an error "unable to start job." No reason given as to why, naturally, and scan to email worked so I know it wasn't a hardware issue. So weird.
Saw parents, did the usual shopping, came back here.
Did game, found information that verified the bad guy was in fact the bad guy and had to be stopped. But we knew that.
We still have no idea how, where he is exactly, or what means he wishes to do The Bad Thing. But you know, when did that ever stop anyone? Murder hobos- forward!

Sat:
Morning appointment. Why only 25mb/sec connecting to the 802.11g network? The internet, source of all things true and good, said it should be much higher than that, but even right next to the thing my phone wasn't having it. Weird. Tried 5G bandwidth channel instead, it's getting 100. I guess it is what it is. Here's a tip- don't do high bandwidth, low latency tasks over wireless!
Yucky weather while driving. Snow, rain, hail all in the same trip. Nice. This pattern continued at home, but at least it's not piling up yet.
Came back. Lunch.
Cleaning.
Shopping for gifts, think I'm done getting christmas gifts I just need to get them here now.
Bit of writing.
Game at 4:00. Felt it took a little while to get going but I think we got there in the end. As usual sort of in the middle of the adventure when we left off.

Sun:
Kitty on lap day. Oliver just would not leave me alone.
Sites.
Watched a movie.
Did my paperwork for last month. Ten jobs, though I only put 9 in I missed one. I'll have to put it in next month. Looks like my IRA contribution is going to exceed my income for that job, which is weird because I only put the cash I get from the job into it. Logically it doesn't add up, but the numbers in the spreadsheet suggest that. There are checks put in as well, that do not go into the IRA so logically, that should help the one exceed the other. But in the spreadsheet I have taken each raw "profit" number from every month, added them up, and subtracted the amount I put into the IRA. The number is negative. What does that suggest to you?
Writing. Most of the way through chapter 3, we're getting Mihoshi ready to survive in a place with powers, though I'm giving her a "power" of like a 20 luck so she would probably be fine anyway? Of course giving everyone Lysanias' combat skills because Meld is nice like that and they don't have to worry about "XP" because they're not from that kind of universe. I mean technically they are, but Darkbolt was started before HDL/Paragon so while they have been fit into that style of play (unofficially, by me) as there's no "PC" from that universe only Pyre I'll say that's fine.
Another movie while eating dinner.
And then back to the real world and trying not to slam my head into the wall again and again. Calls. So yucky. 45 minutes to reload a printer driver. "oh, she tried and it failed or whatever." Uh huh. So the guy is "legaly blind" and Win10 told him the version of AreoAdmin he had couldn't be used, so I had to lead him through downloading a newer version (a couple of clicks of the mouse but you know how that goes) so it was 35 minutes of rage inducing tediousness, 5 minutes of looking at his system and saying "guess I'll reload the driver" and 5 minutes of downloading and installing the driver, which worked perfectly. Why did windows "lose" the driver? How can a "blind" man use a computer at all? These questions and more will never be answered. Then 30 minutes with dentist guy because they didn't get the order? So I had to connect to him, find the stupid model of laptop we ordered before, and by the way I hate HP's, Dell's, and Acer's websites for ordering. Here's a zillion product models, all just slightly different, I can't sort on the thing that is the main criterien (weight) nor can I see all models sold, just families of models so it's impossible to compare them. What's the difference between the 5 series and the 3 series? Hell if I know! But there's 10 clicks between them so good luck figuring it out. Ellen, 30 minutes changing her powweb password and putting in a new credit card expiration. She claimed she tried "but they want all this information" or whatever which was a total lie. She forwared me the link to change her password (which of course she did not know) so I used the link. It then asked for the new password. I then put in the new password. What was so hard about that? Then she logged in. She couldn't find the billing link under her username at the top right hand corner of the page. So I had to log in, get into the account and have her read me her credit card number and put it in myself. How does she dress in the morning? Or cook? Or pump gas? I'm honestly asking because it seems like she can't follow simply directions such as "click you username in the upper right comer and go to "billing"" She even looked at the help page that told her, and showed her pictures of the process, and still couldn't do it. Please, stop the stupid.
After that I went to bed. Because the alternative, after all that, wasn't pretty.

Two weeks until a week off of work. Of course I'll still have those people to deal with, but maybe less of them? Please?

Mon:
Did some of what you might call work today. Had a meeting about a test that's coming up, that I thought would provide insights to the test. Wrong. What were you thinking? So that was a waste, I won't say of time because I had nothing better to do, but a waste of self perhaps?

And I had a meeting with the voice guy, he got my system back up and working but had no idea what happened so no chance to maybe fix it. They're working on cert stuff, it's always cert stuff.

Otherwise, yeah, not very much.

And no calls today? What is it, my birthday?

I finished the next chapter though, they're off to free some Miruku.

Sites, videos, got ready for bed as it seems we might do something tonight with the crew, unlike last week. Watched the movie we were supposed to watch two weeks ago.

Tues:
Got a chance to write more test cases today, as we got specs for another upcoming project. Still not clear on exactly what we're testing though, the whole thing? The new piece? Is the new piece the new piece? I have no idea.

That was it, work wise. Nothing else has come in.

Came back, no calls today either, let's keep that up. Ha, don't worry it'll be ringing off the hook Christmas week when I want to take time off.
Videos, sites, got ready for tomorrow.

Finished the next chapter. Lysanias finds out all may not be what it seems with the Tenma, but what can he do about it?

Wed:
Some work related stuff to talk about but stay tuned for a story about stupidity! It's a doosy, stay tuned.

Worked on the test cases a little more today. Got more information about the project like where the settings would be so I added that in. Didn't take too long.
Don wants the gabi stuff done by the 18th, you know, my last day before vacation? Is that even possible? All the kofax stuff isn't in, unless that's all they're getting. And there's some security thing for the other version so I have to set that all up as well. Yay!
Finished the next chapter.

And that's all the work stuff.

Now for the promised tale. I went to the goodwill to see about more stuff for the game. I found this neat sort of pendulum clock, it had numbers on the glass, and this nice eagle landing it looked pretty cool. I figured I could finish the project (it had that sort of feel, like an unfinished project) with a quartz movement and knew the perfect place to sell it. So I took it home, and decided to clean it up because it was pretty dirty. I washed the glass.

And here comes the stupid part.

I washed the numbers and the eagle clean off the glass.



Great. Now what?

I've decided I can still save it. Follow me (on twitter, #cleanclock) on this now. I buy a dial, right? I buy a movement with the pendulum included. Now the pendulum sits inside the clock, so I have no idea how you're supposed to hook it up normally but I figure if I hang it on a nail on the back it'll look and swing just fine. Now to change the battery you have to remove the 4 screws, slide the wood out, and take the whole clock out, but how often do you have to do that? Right, not very often. I think it'll work. It's the best I can do to not have that giant panel there empty. Sorry eagle, you were too cool for this world apparently.

Picked up a $20.00 amp as well, hooked it up downstairs removing two pieces of equipment down there for my vintage game systems. No more buzzing! Thank goodness.

Got a few things for the game too, but I'm still kicking myself over the clock. I got the face and the movement order, we'll see how it all comes together. I'll update you when the time comes. I mean, did you think I wouldn't?

Several calls today, one was just the lady making sure I didn't forget her getting a new laptop. It's coming tomorrow, lady, have some patience.
One call with a system I put a power supply into, it's not behaving. She's bringing it tomorrow.
And down the street something about wireless. Or not, it was her homepage. Whatever.

Thurs:
Something good happened?

I know, it doesn't seem right, I too am wary. This is 2020, things getting "better" is not what this year is all about. I think it's trying to lure me into a false sense of security in these final weeks, then twist the knife at the very end while I'm distracted. But let me tell the story.

It begins 5 years ago, when I was hired do to tablet stuff. Remember tablet stuff? Kiosk? In the before times? You remember. I was hired sort of temporarily as evidenced by the fact 90% of the tablet people are gone now. But I stuck around because the project dragged on (and on) and I did other stuff like the AT&T stuff. (And I wrote like 3X the bugs anyone else did.) Remember the AT&T stuff? You do. Then I got shuffled around to the other team, and then a year ago (yes it's been that long) Chris left. Remember Chris? You do. Well he left and I, well, I didn't exactly take over his position because Christina had seniority but I don't think it works that way. But anyway I've been doing what Chris would have done all year. So finally they're "rehiring" me for the job I'm actually doing. What does this mean? A new title, and my salary is being adjusted (not retroactively, let's not go nuts here) to match the new position. Given my 2% increases these last five years this is fairly substantial in comparison. He doesn't have the numbers because the contract place takes a cut, of course, but even a conservative 20-30% is nothing to sneeze at. This would put me at, if we take the high end, $3.00....

*Looks at old pay sub, does calculations*

Less than I was making in 2003. Sweet.

Wait what?

I suppose it would more, if I actually could pocket all the money not not have some siphoned away in the Big Scam but still, we're inching closer to my old salary. This is great! Actually, this won't happen until 2021 so really it's just that year shoving 2020 aside for a bit and saying "could you move?"

So what happened today? The usual meetings, worked a little more on test cases but not much. Plants. Not much else.

Came back here, got the laptop and the drive so I changed the drive and loaded it up. Ah, there's 2020, lurking in the wings. The ; key is so sensitive just touching it, not pressing it mind you, touching it gives you a ; so anything you type has this line of ;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;; in it. Great! I've ordered her a new keyboard. It's only $20 but she's a half hour away. I don't want to have to drive there twice for this. Hopefully she's okay with waiting. We'll see soon. Or not because she didn't answer and her mailbox is full. Sigh.

The girl dropped off the tower. She says it just reboots. I plugged it in and turned it on. Came up perfectly. Odd.

Called her after a bit, she said she isn't plugging it into a battery (remember the whole fiasco with that accountant guy, and the server, and getting him a whole new server and his problem turned out to be the UPS. I do.) but maybe it's the power strip she's got it plugged into?

Well, we'll leave it running, see what happens.

Now, to the future! Not sure what sort of work I'll have tomorrow, but I will have shopping, getting gas, and not seeing my parents. Then game after, I think? Nothing has been said yet.

Nothing much planned for the weekend at this point either. As I'm not delivering the laptop with the stupid keyboard issue. Nor do I really need to go anywhere that I can think of. We did the monster game last week, maybe I'll have my parents over, finish the last christmas movie in the rotation currently. I won't do presents yet, I'm taking all of the week of the 21st off, I'll have plenty of time for that, and coming up with game questions.

So that's this week. There's three left in this year. Wow. It can't come fast enough. It's been pretty mild weather wise, can't complain too much. Hope it's the same where you are, see you all next week.