Tag: work

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Ugh, it’s been a long, excrutiatingly boring day. Fridays are always so slow and monotonous.

I don’t even really have anything to write about.

So I’ve been shopping for Christmas and Birthdays. As I said before, I’m concerned about going overboard like I always do. I’ve put some old 2nd and 3rd edition D&D books on ebay and I’ve already made $22 with a guaranteed additional $23. I’m padding my gift expenses by getting rid of nostalgia. I think watching Clean Sweep has helped me to realize that just because items have sentimental value, doesn’t mean you have to keep them. Find another way to stay connected to you memories and feelings (journals for example) and get rid of the bulk in your home. It can be worth money and make your home more lievable. I may start taking this further as I find other things that no longer serve any purpose in my home.

I also need to finally finish my case so that I can sell or trash the old one. That way I don’t have two computer cases lying around the house (though if I found parts enough to build a second… bah!).

Things have been really good between Heather and I. I love just having her in the same room with me. When she goes shopping or I stay home from work, I enjoy my time alone, but when it’s time for her to come home, I immediately start missing her. It’s freaky, but cool, very cool. I remember, before we had any problems, I would feel spontaneously “twitterpated” just sitting in the living room watching TV with her. That feeling is returning, and with gusto. I just love sitting with her in silence, chatting about mindless crap, going for car rides, watching movies…

…I just love being with her.

And I won’t even talk about the other stuff here, I’ll save that for a more private journal entry.

Tonight I have a lab meeting. If I didn’t, I’d probably be home already. I’ve got a lot of stuff to cover, but I hope it goes by quick. I like staying late as little as the lab attendants, so maybe we can buckle down and get this taken care of quickly. I’m going to drop a bombshell on them today. I’m going to tell them about a new time-clock system we’re going to be using rather than filling out time sheets all willy-nilly.

Oh, crap, I gotta go tell the students the lab is closing in 30 minutes. I feel sory for the lab attendant because they all just walk all over her. The students may mock me, but at least when I say to leave, they get the fuck out.

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Ack, stress. I need to go to the server room, but I can’t leave the lab. Crap. People can’t print as long as I’m here, but people can’t checkin, checkout, or get any other form of assistance if I leave.

Thank Heather for coming down and helping me.

We really need to find a way to be able to manage the pool from the checkin desk, or at least the lab.

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I really enjoy shopping for gifts and, unfortunately, tend to go overboard a lot. I love to give people things and as a result, spend more money than I usually want to on them. I was bidding on my dad’s gift on ebay and in the last 5 minutes, someone started upping my bid like crazy. I went about $11 over what I wanted to spend, but it is his birthday and christmas all at once, and I’ve been kind of lazy in the last few years so I hope he enjoys it.

Heather, this is about your gift, but there are no real spoilers, read at your own risk “”
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Well, no painting done today, but I got some shopping done and am eyeing something great for dad for Christmas/Birthday.

I watched Average Joe again tonight and I’ll be DAMNED if the big twist in this show is exactly what I predicted it to be from the first episode. I mean when Kathy Griffin announced the surprise, I was not shocked at all, only gloating with pride and glee that I was right on the money with this one. However, surprise or no, I’m actually more interested to see where it goes from here. I think that’s why I predicted it, it was the most interesting twist in my opinion.

RPGA activated the Master-Level GM test today. I failed it on the third question and can’t take the test again for 90 days. Bogus.

Aside from some problems late at night in the lab (thanks Steve), it’s been a nice evening. I’m going to bed.

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apparenlty today is the day of short updates. I’ve been sitting at my desk all day with very little to do other than wait anxiously for the phone to ring. When finally it did, it was at least good news, but it involved sitting here for 8 hours waiting. I was pressed for time to get this bid in as quickly as possible, so I didn’t want to miss the call, I wanted to hit the ground running, so to speak. Most of the day was spent trying to get other bids to see if someone could get them to me faster (of the four businesses I contacted, 2 contacted me back, sheesh), or helping a student with a media project. I probably wouldn’t have spent so much time helping him if he wasn’t a) a former lab attendant and b) I had other stuff to do than sit at my desk and wait for the phone or email.

Anyway, Heather’s here now and I’m going to go home and see if I have anything left in me paint. I’m pretty burned out right now and could probably just collapse on the couch.

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For the love of…

I’ve been waiting for bids on software all day, and there’s such a rush on getting this order in, I’ve been afraid to leave my desk for fear of missing a bid. As a result, I sat at my desk, in my chair, for 8 hours straight. I sat down at 8:00 and started calling for bids and didn’t get up until 4:00 when I finally got a bid in. I so need to not be here now.

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FUCK YOU!

“Don’t worry sir, we’ll be able to get you those quotes this morning, probably within the hour.”

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I keep waiting for this one faculty member to hypervetilate or explode. We’re doing things “as fast as possible,” but attempting to buy $5000 worth of software with government money doesn’t work as fast as going to the store and buying one copy with cash.

Hmm, maybe I should just buy one copy 55 times. That might be faster.

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I don’t think people realize how personally I take the events that happen in the lab. I spend close to the majority of my time, my life, doing things for the lab: buying equipment and supplies, fixing systems, working with the lab, testing software, trouble shooting issues. I dedicate a lot of myself to the lab and take the things that happen in there very personally. People don’t realize that a smart ass offhanded comment about the lab feels like a slap in the face to me. I just wish people could realize that.

This morning, when I walked in at 7:45 to get the lab ready to open at 8:00 (that’s right people, I get here eary to guarantee that the lab is open for you on time), I found that the night before someone had torn down all of our printing policy signs and replaced them with one sign stating that “Printing is Prohibited.” It was signed “the Staff” but I know it was a student that did it as a sort of political statement. I’m sorry, but if you have a problem with something in the lab, I am more than accessible for comments, concerns, questions, request, compliments, or what have you.

Grr. I just hate starting out my day like that. I’m going to sit at my desk and read my emails that actually compliment and thank me for all my hard work, make up some new signs for the lab, and file the entire issue away for posterity.

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Have I said before that I hate phone tech support? I just got off the phone with Belkin tech support, I was on the phone with them for almost an hour so that they could tell me one small little thing that should have been in the manual to begin with. I’m going to spell it out in infinite (read: excesive) detail here so that maybe someone will find the answer in a google search where I couldn’t. I don’t know how quick my journal will come up in a seach, but since my searches got me a total of 3 results in google, I think it may be helpful to someone.

I was trying to install a Belkin F1U401 4×1 USB Peripheral Switch. I had it connecting both a Mac and a PC to an HP LaserJet 1200. When I sat down at the PC, I could take control of the switch box, no matter what port I was plugged into, but when I sat down at the Mac, I couldn’t even figure out how to take control. The manual was written specifically for PC and had no information on how to actually use the application that it installed on the Mac. The PC was running Windows 2000 and the Mac was running OSX. When I got on the phone with Tech support, they asked me a lot of questions that just seemed to dance around the subject. My question being, how do I take control of the switchbox from my Mac. After an hour of waiting, he finally tells me to press Alt+F11 on the mac to take control. Why did it take him an hour to tell me just to press Alt + F11? Why didn’t they have that listed in the manual? Why didn’t they have an update online to tell me that? Why wasn’t it in their forum anywhere? Why doesn’t anyone anywhere tell you this? Why did I have to spend an hour of my life waiting to hear something that should have been in the manual?

Sorry about that, I just needed to make sure that all that was written down in a public forum somewhere. In fact, I’m tempted to make a web page dedicated to that one piece of information, just to save countless hours in the world. I don’t think anyone deserves to go through that.
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