FINALLY!!!

It nearly took a whole year but I finally bought the laptop I promised myself I could have after I paid my car off back in March 2014. I haven't had it long enough to see a difference in my productivity yet. But I have learned that my hands and trackpads don't mix. Takes too long to move the pointer, the pointer hovers over something and the computer guesses I want the program open or closed without my input or my too late input, and moving the cursor while I'm typing. Went back to a mouse happily, even if it's something else to pack. It's a Dell Inspiron 15, which I got a deal on because Dell was getting rid of Windows 7 merchandise and I'm still a state employee. It has a DVD burner, an USB 3.0 port, the rest are USB 2.0, and 500 GB. I'm saving the files to an external hard drive so to not bog the laptop down with anything that's not running the programs I need.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

Summary of What I Didn't Blog About

So it's been a while, huh? Thing is, I didn't really notice since I was posting at least two days a week at Discipline Under Fire. So I dug into those posts to figure what I've been doing in the meantime that wasn't writing.

• April 14: I accomplished it yesterday actually, but I finally sprayed down my house for termites and carpenter ants and bees.
• April 21: Saw Captain America 2 after watching the "spoiler" episode of Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. I thought the movie was excellent and Bucky needs so many hugs (as soon as you stop being a homicidal maniac, dear.) I am still adoring the Marvel Cinematic Universe tying everything together and I'm crossing everything I can cross that we will get a Black Widow and Captain Marvel (especially before Katee Sackhoff is too old to play Carol Danvers).
• May 5: I signed up for Reversing Diabetes World Summit 2014. It's an online free starting today and running for twelve days. Lots of info and luckily, it's been a quiet day to let me listen. This lasted for two weeks and gave me lots of things to consider about my health, but that's an upcoming post.
• May 12: Shopping for medicine and food. Found out my insurance company wants to go crazy over the copay for my glucose testing strips. Confused the deli counter lady because I needed a slab of turkey to cut into cubes.
• May 13: Last episode of Agents of SHIELD season one. *SNIFF*
• Saw Godzilla in May didn't take note of when. It opened May 16th. Can't wait to get in on BluRay. "Oh no, there goes Tokoyo. Go go Godzilla!"
• May 26: Since I had the day off thanks to Memorial Day, I cleaned house and got a lot done on other computer projects. Sadly, I have found a bug with XMarks that is eating links I need for this story. So there's a new computer project that I wasn't anticipating. What I'm looking forward to: Laptop purchase on the third paycheck this month. What I'm not looking forward to: Paying bills with third check that may not let me buy laptop. GRRRR. Once I get XMarks saved bookmarks correct I have to have a massive save page as party and completely change how I archive my research for everything now because I can't trust the paying job computer not to screw with it somehow.
• May 28: Bloodwork and thyroid ultrasound successfully completed. Made it to the paying job despite the weather. The rain finally stopped for a while.
• May 29: I bandaged Mustard. And he's grounded. A couple of weeks ago, he got some lacerations on his neck that didn't look like the results of a regular cat fight. I doctored them, and they scabbed over well. I let him go outside and thought the rain drove him back in. Hours later, one of the scabs is gone along with a chunk of skin. Luckily, my parents had some cohesive gauze because all I have is human-won't-scratch-off-the-bandage variety in my first aid kit. So now I have to leave orders that he doesn't get to go outside while I'm gone the whole weekend.
• May 30: Did not get to buy a laptop with my third paycheck like I had been hoping for since February. I also took Mom to IP for the weekend and we saw Joan Rivers show. I know I'm typing this up after she has died but I really didn't like her routine. Every F-bomb her television shows prevented her from saying, she saved for the stage show. I admired her energy considering her age. I hope I move that well when I reach my 80s
• June 1: I came home from the casino with just about the same amount of money that I brought.
  
• June 9: Bought some food, but didn't get the stuff to clean the moldy leather. And I didn't start my sewing project either. I forget when I found that the lack of AC in the back bedroom let mold grow all over my leather garb I had stored back there, but it took me a while to finally buy tack cleaning soap and conditioner and deal with it.
• June 10: Whelp, I thought I'd at least buying the corset busk online today, even if I didn't get to sew when I get home. What the back of the pattern envelope asks for: one corset busk. What the online shop offers: this simple type ranging from 7 inches to 14 inches long, spoon busks in two different sizes, heavy duty busks for curvy people 12 inches to 14 inches long.
  
  What I'm looking forward to: Laptop purchase that I don't know when I'll get to make now. :( The bills ate up the money I thought I would have for it. Maybe next month if I'm good with the money. A bonus to my paycheck this week! *Checks paystub* That's enough to buy my laptop—I'm ordering the laptop!
  
• June 17: Mom's cleaning out the shed project: my items in the shed are too cumbersome for her to deal with and I forgot about it last weekend. So I got my great-grandmother's bedframe and my extra door (I knocked out the wall it was in years ago) to the front porch. Next up the heaters that were replaced by a modern one and I don't want to get rid of them for sentimental reasons. Tugged the one on the shed floor towards the door and lots of paper debris (the rodents chewed up a whole Monopoly game that had been stored out there) came out as it moved. I tilted it to lift it up and the mice living in it ran for their lives, circling around the heater and me as they crossed my path to get back to the safety of the still covered with stuff wall. I know I saw at least two, heads were mousy not rat-like, but of the two one was as big as a rat so it may have been three or more all moving as one while shrieked and jumped out of the shed.
  
  Okay, I'm a country girl and I accept wildlife outnumbers me at my home. But what flashed in my head while I reenacted every cartoon mouse encounter I have ever watched was the episode of Medical Investigations with Hantavirus and OMG how fast those soldiers DIED! After my brain rebooted, I realized Mom would be dead from it last week if those rodents were carriers, but I was done for the night. What I'm looking forward to: Laptop purchase that I don't know when I'll get to make now. :( The bills ate up the money I thought I would have for it. Maybe next month if I'm good with the money. A bonus to my paycheck this week! *Checks paystub* That's enough to buy my laptop—I'm ordering the laptop! I'm not going to talk about how the laptop purchase didn't happen AGAIN. I've paid shit off, I'm not supposed to be broke every paycheck any more.
  
  Weekend plans still look good, and my baby sister is coming down next week. What I'm not looking forward to: New issue: I have to get those heaters out before I leave on Friday for the weekend. So I'm going to see if Mustard will actually hunt in there before I move anything. I'm hoping for something like this, I think.
  
• June 18: Got my stuff from the shed to my porches. I didn't have to throw Mustard in because Mom wrestled with the rodents while I was at the paying job. I got about 80% of stuff I needed to do before the weekend finished.
• June 23: Well, I tested our new time keeping system for the paying job, by taking Tuesday and Wednesday off and putting in while at home. My baby sister came home and I got roped into taking her and Mom to IP Biloxi for nice break for Krista, she hasn't had a vacation in years. Now I REALLY need the laptop.
• June 27: It's assessment season at the paying job, so I'm pleased I got as many words done as I did. Oh and I got the library errand out of the way. What I'm looking forward to: I am actually going to sew this weekend no matter what happens.
• June 28: Laundry, saved my leather bodice from the evil mildew, have the first pattern traced and nearly ready to pin to fabric, and found way more things I need to buy after I pay the bills. What I'm looking forward to: I am sewing and starting to inventory the material stash. That needs to happen because we found more fabric when we cleaned out the shed.
• June 30: Paying job assessments are done to be mailed out tomorrow. I meant to type yesterday, but got caught in alternating sewing with bill paying and other budget chores. I also need to sit down during my breaks so my feet don't ache so much I can't fall asleep.
• July 4: Sewing! I'm determined to finish my Victorian underwear this weekend. And catch up on my rough draft. And inventory the fabric stash. And clean house. I finally settled on 45/15s. Sew for 45 minutes, inventory fabric stash for 15. Write rough draft sitting down for 45 minutes, edit the One Rule which became type Chapter Twenty for 15 when I finished the first task.
• July 5: Patterns traced out. New chemise cut out. I have no idea if I have enough material for the drawers. Nothing is actually wearable yet.
• July 7: My chemise is up to the last stage of hand sewing and hemming, and I just could not face it today. So when I wasn't typing and writing on the rough draft, I worked on inventorying the fabric stash. I'm down to eleven fabric pieces to put into the notebook, but I'm running out of stuff to store the fabrics on (wooden hangers and cardboard pieces to wrap bolts around (I found out that cutting a cardboard presentation board is perfect for this and gives me four pieces)).
• July 9: I'm researching corsets. I think the pattern I have is pretty decent for my figure and I just need to get the sizing right and buy supplies. But my sewing friend may need a different style based on her shape.
• July 14: I'm a bit surprised I managed to get over the personal daily goal with the amount of mail we had to get through at the paying job. Assessment season has kicked into gear now. What I'm looking forward to: Getting the two books I want out of the State Library. I went Friday, but they are closed now. Today had to work overtime and they were closed by the time I left paying job. Hopefully tomorrow.
• July 15: Library and only came home with three books!
• July 16: I am done shopping for sewing supplies. But I didn't get a chance to clean the living room at all.
• July 21: Almost finished the hand sewing part on the chemise while in the waiting room with my uncle's appointment. Didn't get the cleaning done that I wanted to, but finished the worst area in the kitchen over the weekend. Everything that's left is more spot-checking cleaning. What I'm looking forward to: New mattress, July 30th I hope. I had to use my mother's credit to order it online after Sam's Club did not have the size my bed is. But this way they will deliver it to my house.
• July 22: My corset supplies came in today! I really wasn't expecting to see them until August. What I'm looking forward to: New mattress, July 30th I hope. What I'm not looking forward to: Rearranged the sewing disarrayed living room so the new mattress can get inside my house.
• August 3: My weekend writing time has been eaten up by sewing and I still haven't figured out how to accomplish both at the same time.
• August 6: Budgeted the paycheck before I got it! Really hate the numbers I came up with because they leave out the tires. I really need tires. What I'm looking forward to: Everybody getting off my back about how's the new mattress? It's new, I sleep on it, my Chiroflow pillow needs some adjustments so I'm not pinching the nerve that makes my hand go numb. Second thing: seeing Guardians of the Galaxy this week when I get paid.
• August 8: Bought my movie ticket and fretted over the sticker shock. But it was worth it. Guardians of the Galaxy was such a fun ride from "pelvic sorcery" to "We ARE Groot."
• August 11: Tires for Rizzo are on order. And I was typing up a storm when the news broke about Robin Williams. "O Captain! My Captain!"
• August 12: I had hoped to do more typing when I got home, but the computer decided to be petulant and update needy. So no typing, but I did get a book I'm not done with renewed from the library.
• August 13: I just realized I forgot to pack another pack on loose-leaf in my black bag. I'm in no danger of running out today, but I should have replaced it already.
• August 16: Finally bought new tires using Dad's credit card so I can have four at the same time instead of two.
• August 19: What I Accomplished in the Narrative Today: I'm still writing Chapter Twenty-Five's rough draft and now I've started typing it. Never again will I publish a WIP. NEVER. Fave line: That simple declaration brought Bruce onto his feet with the fewest repetitions of push-ups that Alfred had ever witnessed him perform. – It is sad how much I like the obsessive amount of push-ups. What Else I Accomplished Today: I didn't finish the rough draft so blah. What I'm looking forward to: Payday! What I'm not looking forward to: Take the bras back to the store that didn't fit. I'm not crazy about underwires. I have a petite torso and they constantly poke me in the arms. But I am of the boob size where the only bras you can get are underwire. These that I'm taking back gave me under-boob. I didn't think that was possible with underwire bras but hey, time to prove me wrong about that too.
• August 20: I lost thirty minutes coming into work (Stupid traffic made me 15 minutes late and we have to take time in 30-minute intervals). Then I ended up staying late for thirty minutes. But I got the bras returned! What I'm not looking forward to:
  
  Remember the whole XMarks situation I’ve been not dealing with waiting for the eventually I’ll do it? Yeah, more fun on the paying job computer and I synced to not lose my open tabs and discovered XMarks ate all the bookmarks saved on the server.
  
  I didn't lose my data; I've been backing up my bookmarks at home so I could do a flush and clean install. But since reading over reviews for this year and talking with a coworker, I'm leaning towards using Dropbox to keep things in sync instead. The only con I can see is it is not cross-platform like XMarks, but I never used that feature of XMarks. So yes, all that has to happen this week. Probably Friday or Saturday since I have a doctor's appointment Thursday after work.
  
• August 21: Doctor visit: I'm dehydrated and need to wean myself off aspartame like ASAP. Food-wise: shift the diet to gluten and dairy free for a while. I'll be covering this more in a future post. What I'm not looking forward to: First thing: Don't plan on going anywhere because I need to up my water intake to where it should be. BUT I have to finish grocery shopping on Saturday.
  
  Second thing: XMarks freaked out when I got home and freaked out again at work. Good news: everything matches up to the home computer's saved set now. Bad news: I don't trust XMarks to keep the safe, especially the stuff I reference for story writing.
  
  So my weekend plans, such as they are and scheduled to change everything permitting:
  • Drink more water and pee every five seconds (probably).
  • Grocery shopping.
  • Scour the computer for stuff I'm not using, delete what I don't need, archive what I want to save, and backup.
  • Clean out the mass of bookmarks.
  • Set up Dropbox account to sync bookmarks.
  • Sew my corset.
  • Write Chapter Twenty-Six.
  • Regularly schedule chores.
  Hopefully the weekend won't turn into this:
  
• August 22: Shopping, too much shopping, so I didn't have as much shopping on Saturday.
• August 25: Visited parents who made it in from their trip to Hot Springs, Arkansas. Over-scheduled the weekend as usual, so I've got to spread things out throughout the week. Decided to start cleaning my hard drive with the game demos from Big Fish Games since I have the bad habit of not deleting something I'm sure I won't buy. I reached the M's. XMarks did not go cuckoo today. What I'm looking forward to: Three-day weekend! What I'm not looking forward to: My weekend week plans:
  • Drink more water and pee every five seconds (probably). I think I've got this under control now and I am feeling better.
  • Add in new 15 minute yoga routine.
  • Scour the computer for stuff I'm not using, delete what I don't need, archive what I want to save, and backup.
  • Clean out the mass of bookmarks.
  • Set up Dropbox account to sync bookmarks.
  • Sew my corset.
  • Regularly schedule chores.
  Made it through Monday, bring on the rest of the week.
  
• August 26: Everyone decided to call me while I was trying to do the yoga routine, so the fifteen minute program took thirty. :p
• August 27: XMarks did not go cuckoo today. I shifted my chiropractic appointment to today instead of Thursday, so I have lots of spare time in Baton Rouge today. Unfortunately I need the time at home to get ready for weekend trip. :p
• September 8: XMarks did not go cuckoo today. At the paying job, I’ve been switched over to a virtual machine. So far the only difference I’ve noticed is how much room there is for my feet without the desktop tower under my desk. What I'm looking forward to: Finish copying the patterns so I can take the book back to the library.
• September 9: XMarks did not go cuckoo today. Paying job moved everyone in my office to the virtual desktops. It went as well as anything concerning technology does. I also finally finished all the scanning. I have no idea if I will ever make any of those outfits, but now I have source material if I move to a new time period. What I'm looking forward to: Finding a dairy-free eggplant recipe.
• September 10: Library book returned and no new ones checked out. Tried out a new recipe.
  
• September 11: The bitching from my coworkers over switching to a new system has commenced. Today has been a headphone with music playing day.
• September 12: Covered already.
• September 13: XMarks did not go cuckoo today. Mom asked me to test her old washing machine that has been sitting next to mine on my back porch for months. So I hooked it up only for my outlet to spark when I plugged it in. Turns out my outlet broke. By the time we got a new outlet inside the box, it was four hours after I had gone out to start laundry.
• September 14: I'm still working on laundry and cooking meals for the week, which got interrupted by eating out with the parents. At this point, I don't know if I'll get any sewing done at all. And I didn't, the whole weekend was a bust on the sewing front. But I did managed to working in twenty minutes on Tuesday night!

Up next, I probably over share on health news, but hey it's good news.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

New computer desk

I spent last week in Texas, visiting the family over there and leaving my mother behind to man that fort when my sister has to go back to Dallas for more training on her new job. But it reinforced something writers with kids have probably already learned: it's nigh impossible to write smut with pre-teens running around. So no writing it while they're up and about and needing a referee (really my nephew's sport balls collection has no idea how lucky it was that I left my sword at home). No writing after they went to bed because I was exhausted and went to bed thirty minutes later. No writing in the morning because Mom had a list of things to do that I had to drive her to get done. I was counting on writing two chapters and I barely managed two paragraphs.

Luckily, since I drove home alone, I was able to finish the smutty portions of the scene when I stopped for meal breaks. And that's all I want to talk about that twelve-hour drive. No, Austin isn't that far away from home and I don't know what happened to my progress between Houston and Lafayette. I do know what happened between Lafayette and Baton Rouge, and why can't we have a dedicated radio station for traffic like other states manage to have?

Really not talking about it now. On to good stuff. I paid my car off with last paycheck in February.

Alas, Rizzo is not Lola and I don't work for the un-secret spy organization. As a treat, I planned an Ikea shopping trip on my first paycheck in March and bought a new dresser and a new computer desk.

I don't have any pictures of it assembled in my house because I just finished putting it and the computer back together last night and I still don't know what to do with the rest of the office. I had two short bookcases making a wall and supporting the old desk and I'm liking how the room flows without the half-wall. But the shelves and the books have to go somewhere.

And because this is me and I can find a complaint about anything, why design the desk that you have to screw the shelves to brackets upside down? I decided against putting on the SIGNUM cable trunking attachment because it meant more screwing upside-down. And also because I discovered I still haven't bought a replacement battery for the computer and will have to rearrange all the wires again. Next issue is my computer system. To save money, I reused my monitor and discovered that the data cord gives the screen a lovely green tint. All I had to do to fix it was shift the cord on my old set-up. Now the cord is stretched so tight, no shifting is available. So buy a new backup battery and a new monitor cord to finish off the computer shuffle.

So far, all the computer equipment fits on the new desk including the LaserJet printer. That gives me full table space to use as my writing desk. I would have tried it out last night, but Mustard hurt his foot and claimed my office chair as his bed and I couldn't be mean to my sick cat.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

Have I Spent Any Weekends at Home This Month?

Out of town to see friends this weekend, and hopefully we can squeeze in Oz: the Great and Powerful. I survived last weekend's trip with my parents, and got more writing done than I feared I would, and picked up some smoke but managed to keep it off the papers for the most part, yeah! But as I passed the pile of cans to take to recycling that haven't left yet while I got in the car this morning, I couldn't remember when I was home last to deal with that stuff. I could look up my previous weekend plans, but more trouble than I want to go through for an answer. I'll just have to stay home next weekend.

I'm slowly catching up on reviews that I've been procrastinating on since the funeral. The "I'll do that later" procrastination has tipped over into "you’re worthless scum for not doing that!" guilt; and I'm slowly battling past that to actually leave the reviews on the merits of what I read. And I haven't even faced Facebook yet. Next week, I swear.

So Google Reader is shutting down. *Sigh* Add finding a new RSS reader to next week's to do list. I've hit my resigned point over the news, and just hope I won't run into any headaches trying to move my feeds over to a new reader.

And that's all I have for today. Time to post this and concentrate on Strix: Forget the Sun.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

Time Scheduled For Me

I mostly got out of the paying job on time, leaving a new problem to deal with in the morning. Good news: I believe it is just a problem for one company (Thursday morning: found a second company with the same issue, damn.) and isn't indicative of another system wide issue (Thursday: it doesn't affect every company but it may necessitate the IT contractors tweaking the program again). But I'm not putting any money on that either. (Thursday: smart, I still had functioning brain power when I composed this last night).

My chiropractor realigned my back and I scheduled an hour-long massage on next Monday, which means I'll have to take off early. Oh darn, I'm so broken up and guilty about that. Especially since I spent today in so much pain and took Aleve just after lunch to make it through the afternoon. I haven't been able to write, edit, or tweak websites in three days and that is so not helping my mental state. Exercising has been hit just as hard.

So the massage, early bedtimes for the rest of the week (hasn't happened yet damn Daylight Savings Time), and squeezing in some creative writing are on my agenda to pamper myself. The weekend day of rest will probably end up being two. I'd love to slather on some suntan oil and lay out on the lawn and bake a while, but I'm keeping my options open.

In other news, I'm wading out into active website administrating after having dropped it for years. I made a stab at it before and it didn't stick. This time I decided to put 15 minutes six days a week and an hour on Saturdays to what needs doing. Procrastination has a harder time building up if I stick with that schedule.

The test sites are still the bane of my existence on the web. I created a local server on my old computer and the motherboard fried. I created one on my current computer and found I couldn't import the databases because they were too big.

So my latest bright idea: set up the development sites as subdomains with a copy of the database. And all I can get are 500 Internal error pages. My hour ran out before I could figure out what I did wrong. What I have discovered: "copy database to" works to create a new database with the same information. You can't make the database and chose it to write over it, even if you left it blank to do that. I don't know if the old database tables are what is frakking with the sandbox sites, but I haven't crashed the live sites while I'm getting this straight. When it gets too hot or rainy to sunbath Saturday, I'll be working on them again.

I'm relieved I've left the Library as static pages. Currently, my fifteen minute days are spent on it. The project list has developed into a lengthy one while I was ignoring the sites.

That wraps up everything I had wrote at supper Wednesday night. Thursday, my supervisor returned from her trip and proceeded to go handle supervisory things with the Assessment snafu (like yell at other department heads why in the new system we can't amend our assessments when the company sends us the paperwork we have always asked for). The decision was made to accept the overpayments and use the new refund system that nobody told us was going live. I warned my contact in the Fiscal division; the rest of them are on their own. Tomorrow I should be able to actually mail back payments for the companies who owe us zero second thing in the morning that I never got a chance to do today. I'm also hoping beyond hope to get a chance to write something fictional. Don't hold your breaths on that one.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

Twelve-Hour Work Day

Started on July 9, 2012: It doesn't happen often, but when it happens it is killer. I'm typically the first one in at the paying job around 6:30am. My shift runs from 7am to 3:30pm with an hour-long lunch break. Today I didn't get to leave until nearly 6:30pm and I didn't get the full lunch break.

July 1st is the beginning of our assessment season. We mail the insurance companies invoices June 30th (or as near as the calendar allows, we fix the snafus as they appear, the payments trickle then gush in, and the Department gets its operating budget for the next fiscal year. But every year there is a snafu.

Last year was the Great Address Disaster, when we lost count of how many invoices the Post Office returned to us because another division decided keeping the addresses updated was too much work. This year is so much more worse. I didn't even want to blog about it over the weekend (Author's note: and I've been too busy to type this up for two days now).

All the assessments are based on a percentage of the written premiums minus some lines that are exempted by law. Life premiums aren't assessed but half of Health and Accident premiums count. Since we have moved to sending out invoices, we've never had to mistrust our totals. When I first started this job, we let the companies do their own math and then had to double check it. The companies never got the math right.

This year the IT contractors unveiled the new tax program they built, which included our assessments. We had trouble getting our invoices printed but we mailed them out right on time. Then we came back to work after Happy United States Day to find out that over half of the invoices totals were wrong. The computer program included Life premiums, and all the excluded lines from Property and Casualty, printed out invoices that we mailed for companies that are exempted and have never had to pay.

Monday, we finally had amended invoices to mail to the companies (Yes, it took the contractors two days to fix the program to calculate the totals right.), which we got out on time at the expense of not batching the incoming mail. So we stayed late to get that done. I also have the joy of answering the emails of the companies who noticed something was wrong and contacted us, but another coworker took the phone calls so I ain't complaining about that. Then we had to separate the payments that had already started coming in: the ones that are the correct amount and the ones that aren't. We don't want to cash any checks when the company doesn't owe us a payment (those are getting sent back with an apology letter). The payments in which they overpaid we still haven't figured out the best way to deal with them.

Tuesday, more of the same but without a mail-out I got to leave at 3:30pm. But it's always something new to make the IT contractors fix. We found a company that was missed completely. 83 Risk Retention companies (which are exempted) were still listed as owing the Department assessments until I got those taken out.

Wednesday, I hurt from the base of my skull to my tailbone because my back ties itself into a pretzel when I'm stressed. New things that IT contractors have to fix: just found a company who we changed contact information last year was mailed to the same wrong address this year, which we were promised wouldn't happen when we took over updating the addresses. Wrong payments outnumbered the right payments that have arrived so far. Hopefully by the end of the week, the mail-out will reach the companies and the wrong payments will stop. We still need to contact the companies who owe us less than what they sent, because we really don't want to refund over 700 companies if we don't have to and we're pretty sure they don't want to wait for their refund checks.

Lunch is over and the companies are emailing.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

One More Day in May

The everyday posting my writing progress takes the wind out of my sails for updating anything else. I need to work on that.

Back on May 10th, I finally got my hair cut. Thirteen inches off to Locks of Love, and I need to take a picture of it so I recreate the hairstyle in the future.

When we last met, I was going to my friends the new parents to host an amateur episode of Clean House and see the Avengers. That didn't happen on the Avenger's opening weekend. The long and hopefully funny version is on my LJ account. I got Mom a portable scanner for Mother's Day and my sisters will be getting collection letters this week for their unpaid portions. The weekend after that, Eric and Suzanne had more family visiting to see JIM. So the Memorial Day holiday was spent cleaning their house and FINALLY getting to see the Avengers.

I'm still processing the movie. Dad may not have a choice not to go see it for Father's Day, so I can see it again. *Grin* Though I think my favorite joke is when Steve Rogers pulls a ten dollar bill out of his wallet and hands it to Nick Fury without saying a word. Yeah, I like that even more than when Loki meets the Hulk for the first time.

But while I was paying or earning karma (or at least a big hair flower a la Nicey Nash) over this past weekend, I came home to an electrical dead computer and a dead bedroom AC unit. The electronics failure is thanks to my battery backup dying and not an inside the wall wiring problem. And the AC was something I ended up with when Chad and I broke up, and it was used when he got it. So I'm actually surprised how long it lasted, even though I'm annoyed that I have to rearrange the AC units. One would think that the living room's would blow enough cold air into my bedroom. It doesn't. :p Luckily, I have a unit to move around without having to go buy another one.

At the paying job, T'Lania came to work for us. It's half-days because we don't want to tax her too much, but all she is depending on is a cane to walk with and controlling hand tremors. This is a HUGE deal because four years ago, we didn't know if she would live or die much less walk again. She has come such a long way.

Plans: The weekend will be here before I know it. I have to pay bills, send out the collections letters, buy a new battery backup, and relocate the AC units. Beyond that, I'd love to have a front porch again (i.e. clean off the junk Mom left there while she's in Texas and tell her via phone she can't bitch about it), but heat is also a factor in that project.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

You Better Believe It's Monday

After months of being used to my paying job's computer being frozen and wiped a certain way, someone decided to "fix" it for me and changed how it wipes. Now all the tabs I had open in Firefox on Friday are gone; Outlook doesn't want to work right because a certain archive file must now be hand deleted; and between programs freezing up on me, trying to find that damn file, and etc. I'm still fucking 30 minutes late getting anything started!

Before I was thirty minutes late waiting for the computer to finish dealing with the other wiping program and saving changes. Aggravating, sure, but at least once it was done, it worked.

IT keeps going through contractors like Kleenex, which doesn't help. I got the new kid, explained what I knew had been done to my machine and what I thought was going wonky now. He did some remote fixes and they didn't stick. We tried it again, and I decided to test it the next time I shut down over the weekend since it took him over an hour to get through it the first time.

Needless to say, most of what little I got done on fiction was rough draft stuff.

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The BookWorm

Things to Share

Please stand by for a demonstration of relevancy.:
I can't make this shit up -- Why not researching who you are talking and then name calling is a BAD IDEA. But funny for us watch the Internet unleashed.
"Surprise! Meet the Internet. It’s kind of pissed." John Scalzi's take on the situation.
And now Wil Wheaton's.

OneLug recreates the Last March of the Ents from the movie Two Towers DUDE! I didn't know that many black Legos existed. Ssh! Don't spoil it for me if they could use paint, okay?

Why Steve Jobs Matters I don't own any Apple products and I don't use iTunes, but the world is better for having had him here and we should all be mournful of his loss.

Can't decide what to read? Use this flowchart to find something. ;)

Okay I think that cleans off this group of tabs.

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The BookWorm

Almost Doing It Again

I’m considering a weekly schedule, mostly for “hello, I’m breathing” sake. Posting daily at DUF takes out much of the oomph to post here too.

Lee ended up being much alarm about nothing really. But if I hadn’t prepared for no electricity, the power would have gone out. Only lost one tree on the border of the lawn and the woods and it didn’t hit anything. The enforced quiet time to work on Stellar was a boon I’ve missed in the weeks since—especially this week.

Last weekend I spent with Eric and Suzanne and the break was worth the havoc on my sleep schedule.

This week the home computer is being a pain in the butt. McAfee Security Center developed a tick that I had to contact tech support over (the program came free with the new computer). The fix last night doesn’t seem like it held and now the computer is freezing up the first program opened. Before leaving for work, when I should have been working on budget stuff, Quicken froze up so I told the computer okay, it could reboot and examine the RAM. An hour later it was still logging off. I have no idea what I’m going to find when I get home, but I’ll be running Malware Bytes or something else to see what I’m missing. Unless some of the RAM died, I should have issues with it this soon.

Paying job: 312 lawsuits to go before the backlog of paid for dismissals will be finished. I’ve promised myself the day after I finish them is a vacation day and now it’s easier to slough through them.

Project 333: There’s fifteen days before I switch my current closet for the October, November, December set. So I should probably analyze what isn’t worth saving in this set. I already killed one set of sadals. There’s a skirt I never wore once. Thinking about this reminds me of the formula developed by What Not to Wear for putting together an outfit: “love, like, plus bling squared.” I’ll have to use that as a fine tuner for the next set.

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The BookWorm

Love Affair with TV Monitor Over Already

I didn’t think I would be disillusioned over hardware before the sore feet. Well, I was wrong. The whole reason I used the TV is I didn’t want to deal with moving the monitor and its sensitive cord and I was hoping to transition to watching things on the computer more. I thought all the kinks were ironed out.

This morning was a whole new kink. The margins of the desktop moved off screen on all sides. I spent an hour tweaking everything and researching what could cause this. When I finally stopped to get dressed, I had managed to get the taskbar back (except for the Start Button) and the highest screen resolution, which is too high for the recommended setting.

So tonight’s project will be shifting the monitor and seeing how to kink the cord so it won’t put the images on the monitor in the green spectrum. It’s like viewing everything with Emerald City sunglasses when that happens.

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The BookWorm

I Haz Standing Desk!

It's nothing pretty, but it's a functional experiment. My uncle found out you don't clean that type of screen with Windex the hard way and gave the TV to me because I don't have a thinner TV yet. So I figured using it as a monitor was less hassle than trying to set it up in the living room and deal with my old TV. The milk crate and shelf brings the keyboard to the exact height it should be for me, but without being permanent. If the experiment works, I'll look into creating a permanent standing desk.

So far all I accomplished Sunday was making my feet sore. but the only sitting I did was thirty minutes story writing, putting the can crusher together, eating, and the thirty minutes soak I had in the tub to stop the feet from hurting. Adds up to roughly two hours, maybe?

Can Crusher: It's a cheap one Harbor Freight offers that is prone to breaking, but it works with gravity (crushed can falls into the container below it). I haven't killed it yet or tore it off the porch post--which seems what will happen first since mounting it was less than perfect. Anyways, I'm all about consolidating the storage of the cans since I sell them quarterly during the year.

Stellar Gift of Death: Saturday was a planned day off, but Sunday I got distracted by everything else that needed doing. I never got a chance to type anything and really test out the standing desk setup. So the plan shifted to finishing Chapter 7's edit. I got thirty minutes done on that. In theory, concentrating on the revision part on the weekends is not a bad plan, provided I don't have a gazillion chores to yet at my monkey brain and distract me.

Captain America: Finances improved enough to free up the tickets. Oh how awesome it is. It's on my to buy it list.

Dum Dum Dugan: I didn't know you spoke German." Gabe Jones: "Two semesters at Howards before I switched to French because the girls were cuter."

I'd be thrilled with a sequel on just the Howling Commandos, but Marvel thinks there's more money with Iron Man and friends.

Rich's Newest Project: The guy who brought us the Ten Doctors, Forever Janette, Stalker of Norfolk, Outrage of the Zygons, and Seeds of Destruction (Written by Landry Walker) has started a new story.



Have you got the theme music handy?

Why so silent? I haven't posted here since July 21st and August is almost over. What have I been doing? A lot of writing if you look at DUF, and other stuff that I can pinpoint since I'd write out a blog post but never type and post it. Which is a variation of "trying not to think about it." (Hatter in Alice). So don't be surprised if some out of date posts pop up filling in that missing time. I thought about adding it all to this one, but it's long enough already.

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The BookWorm

Relevant Knowledge was the culprit!

I don't know where I picked up the stupid data-mining program, but it was on my list to deal with later since it wasn't affecting anything, just giving me annoying pop-ups at odd times.

So I made a new profile and still couldn't see any websites with Firefox. I finally found the instructions on how to run it in safe mode and walla! websites again! Pulled up my old profile, ran in safe mode, and huzzah! websites again! So one of the add-ons is the culprit.

So I see my list and find an add-on for Relevant Knowledge!!! Okay this bitch must die now.

There are various instructions on how to do this by hand and be sure it is gone. While still operating under Windows XP, I had no problems running Revo Uninstaller, so to be sure it will run on Windows 7, I downloaded the 30-day free trial for the Pro version. Zap and Relevant Knowledge is all gone. Firefox works out of safe mode and I am a happy camper again. I have a spare profile should I need it, and now I'm updated to Firefox 4.0 and I have to get used to the new layout.

Next on the list: finish the Triangulation entry and start laundry.

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The BookWorm

One thing after another

I think March is going to go down as the month I'd rather forget as soon as possible.

Commuting fun, budget fun, updating programs at the paying job fun, trying to finish the story for a deadline fun; I get home and Firefox can only come up with 500 Internal Server Errors for EVERY website I try to go to. Move over the IE and the websites are fine.

So far the only consistant solution I have found is to create a new Firefox profile because the one I have been using has probably gotten corrupted. Guess who's ready to crawl into bed the minute she gets home and doesn't want to deal with it.

I'm heading to bed now. I think I can drop writing from my morning chores at home because I have an hour and a half before I'm on the clock at the paying job with the 5:15am leave time and it fit in there nicely this morning. However I am a zombie by the time I get home.

And if there is anything else that can cause the 500 Internal Server Error in Firefox besides a corrupted profile let me know so I can try it as well. This weekend, probably.

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The BookWorm

Where Did the Weekend Go?

Belated Happy Valentine’s Day! Or if you watched Bones last night: Happy St. Valentine's Day Massacre! and pass a tommy gun over here. :D

All the plans I had for last weekend vanished under graph paper. It was an avoidance tactic, but I figured I had earned it. Thursday the 10th, I drove past an Acadian-style house with four rooms across the front and tried to see how that would work with my house remodel—it didn’t.

[IMAGE OF NOTEBOOK SKETCH] Oops, forgot to scan that sketch once I finally got the scanner working last night. Trust me, it was making a rectangle out of my house that could only be navigated in a circle.

When I got home, I Googled “two-story Acadian house plans” and found Authentic Historical Designs LLC. Unlike a lot of house plans for sell which just look like the same house with different colors, there people based their designs on existing houses.

I was inspired. I will give credit to the two-story remodel to my ex, who first brought it up as a solution to add more square-footage to my house. But these house plans showed me how it could actually work. I spent most of Saturday and Sunday making outlines on graph paper. Why graph paper instead of house design software I’ll get to later.

Stairs gave me fits since I don’t want to cut the floor of the original house. Upstairs bathroom gave me more fits because I couldn’t use the sharing one design I liked with the stairs. At one point on Saturday, I was seriously wondering why I hadn’t gone to school to be an architect because straight lines on graph paper I can do and if I had I would know if these ideas would work. :p

Which as of right now, I don’t. IF I build/add on this addition, I would have to turn all this over to a licensed architect and have official blueprints made. DIY Diva: The Evolution of a House Plan details what they went through. But as far as giving me everything I need and lust after in a house, I don’t think I did too badly for an amateur. And the footprint fits in my yard!



Let’s start with the second-floor, which is part of the house I live in now. I open the closed-up door between my current bedroom and the front porch again and the current living room becomes a bedroom too. The current bathroom and current office are both removed to become sitting/dressing rooms/something for the bedrooms. The current kitchen and back bedroom (which are made out of a pine lean-to to the cypress house) are demolished completely for the up-to-code new bathroom, stairs, and library.

I didn’t want people walking through the bathrooms to get to their bedroom; feels like bad Feng Shui and even if it isn’t, it makes me uncomfortable. One of the house plans had this ingenious set up between two bedrooms, and the only changes I had to make is to move the doors and add a way out through the sink chambers.

The back room was built to house the staircase, and then I realized that all that wallspace could be floor-to-ceiling shelves that my books wouldn’t have to share with a TV and DVDs, beds, or computer desks. This is where a professional needs to put in the windows so they won’t hurt my books.

Stairs: I don’t do well visualizing 3D space, so I want a pro to go over the math on these especially.



Now for the totally new first floor! A matching porch is a feature in Acadian-style plantation homes, so I incorporated it. The front door opens into the Great Room, which will probably be where the TV ends up. To the south side of the house, there is the hall connecting the first floor bathroom with two more bedrooms. The bedroom facing the front will be my computer office. The one closer to the kitchen will become an exercise and craft room, but both should be able to accommodate extra guests.

The great room and hall lead to a larger kitchen with room enough for a dining table. From there to use up space created around the staircase, I put in a storage room for the house, a mudroom corridor to the garage, and a laundry room. The first floor ends with an attached garage and a store room accessible through it.

Making it prettier to look at: Last time I got on a plan the remodel kick, I tried using Google SketchUp but never could get the hang of it. Then I moved to another freeware program and couldn't put a roof on. On a whim, I bought HGTV’s Home Design & Remodeling Suite.

Oh where to start with how much I hate this program. HGTV should be ashamed to have their name on it. Impossibly hard to figure out how to use the tools, never could make it understand that the house sits on pilings (all I was trying to do was build a virtual model on the current house to plan a bathroom remodel), and never could get the roof to look right. Then printing out a plan with the measurements, what came out could only be read by microscope and I couldn’t change it!

NEVER BUY THIS PROGRAM!!!!!!!

So I’m looking for a new home design program, but this time I’m searching the reviews first before buying. The names that keep coming up with high ratings are Chief Architect Home Design Suite 10 and Punch! Home & Landscape Design. Chief Architect Home Design Suite 10 offers a 30-day free trial of their Pro version, so I’m leaning towards them. If I can learn the trial version easily, they may have my business.

Playing with Chief Architect Home Design Suite Pro: The tools are easy to figure out and they have tons of tutorial videos on their website. But the two issues I had off the bat I can't find the solution to.

1. The mouse pointer becomes target lines on the grid where you draw the floor plan. -- I'm sure this is a matter of turning something off, but I couldn't find it and coupled with issue two, it messed up my ability to draw a rectangle properly.
2. I couldn't read the temporary measurements. -- If I zoomed in close enough to read it so I could see if the wall was long enough, I no longer had enough room to draw the rest of the house.

Mostly, I think I was too tired to deal with it by turning features off and nobody else has claimed it as a problem in their Help sections (probably because it is so simple to turn it off :p).

But what I did find cruising through their Help section was instructions on how to import a scanned sketch and use it to trace the program's version with the bells and whistles. So that's probably what I'll try to do this weekend, though not to the exclusion of everything else.

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The BookWorm

Depressing Turn of Events

As some of the readers knows, I'm trying to find a second job that I can do from home. I was looking before my previous computer died back in November and had stumbled across virtual call center, i.e. answering the phone like a call center only from the comfort of your own home. Which beats the hell out of the alternative I did back in 2003, work at a call center full time because they didn't offer any part-time work plus my full-time job with the state with all my benefits.

I bought the new computer specifically to handle this, using specs that are in common for most companies.

Only to find I can't use it to finish the application process.

The first company kept screwing up when they wanted to test that the new PC would work. The web-based program would just fail. So I moved on and found a great one, all the wanted to hire was part-time. Got to the fifth section of the application process and it refused to run. After contact their customer support, that web-based program only runs in IE6 or IE7. Windows 7, which I upgraded to with the new computer, only runs IE8.

*HEADDESK*

You'd think it be as easy as uninstalling 8 and using 7 for a while, but nope. Windows 7 will not run IE7. You have to set up a dual boot on your computer to run XP or a Windows Virtual PC to run XP Mode. The second made more complicated because Microsoft doesn't think Windows 7 Home Premium users "deserve" Windows Virtual PC.

To avoid that mess because the clock was ticking on my unfinished application, I finally got my dad's XP laptop with his admin password so I could install IE7 on it (because he updated to IE8 when it became available). Only to find that the job has been filled and now they only have bilingual positions that I don't qualify for.

I cried. Like a baby. I also screamed a couple of times and kicked the wall (my walls are cypress beadboard otherwise I'd probably have to detail how I had to get myself out of sheet rock).

I know my situation isn't as dire as other people out there. I have my primary job and Mom is feeding me. But I can't keep up with my bills unless I increase my income, much less replace the washing machine that is breaking down, the roof that is leaking, put up new walls and sink in the bathroom, get out of debt, etc.

Yeah, so that's where I am right now. Trying not to burst into tears thinking about it. And original fiction isn't cutting it as a distraction. I keep looking at what I have done today before the job went away and can only think "if this doesn't sell...." Not a happy place to create from. So don't tell on me, but I'm taking the rest of the day off with fanfiction and computer games.

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The BookWorm

Blah week?

That time of the month and fatigue is hitting hard. I'm getting up on time, but find that I don't want to do anything but go back to bed. *headdesk*

Over the weekend, all I accomplished was figuring out that most of the careful instructions I had made in setting up virtual hosts for website work under XP doesn't work under Windows 7. I finally managed to get the Library's sandbox working before running out of weekend.

Part of the problem, I wanted to set the development area so it was portable originally. Very few people do this, and then it turned out I have no where else to really build. :p So in take two, I'm moving everything to the C drive, which is what most online directions tell you to do regardless. :p

Now to get through the day with my eyelids propped open.

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The BookWorm

Bad Habits Resurfacing

Commute was hell in the morning and by the time I got home, playing games won out over the stuff I need to do. Then I stayed up way too late playing those games thanks to the extra stress caffeine I ingested. :P Woke up late this morning.

It's fairly obvious to me that this won't do. Not for the goals I have for 2011. So the first thing I did was start looking for a program that I can use to block access to the games until I have finished my chores, and conversely turn everything off at bedtime.

First thing I found is Windows 7 has some robust parental controls How to Configure Parental Controls in Windows 7. No kids use my computer, so I tend to gloss over things like that in the control panel. I'm sure it's useless for web-savvy teenagers, but I just need something to make me stop and think NOT to do it. Or at least be a hassle to change it so I can play.

The next program to install is Bedtime Help Pushes You Towards an Earlier Bed Time. The only thing that may be an issue is I usually don't shut down at night, but put the computer to sleep so the programs should be running again in the morning. *Snort* That should show me to go research more thoroughly. There are different options like Hibernate on the Bedtime Help Home Page.

While I'm on an improve Windows 7 kick, Change the Windows 7 Shut Down Button. I accidentally shut down this morning when I meant to hit sleep and it's only the fifth time I've done that. :p

Technically, this stuff falls under the clean office weekly chore I have to do today. Chores to catch up on:

• Vacuum
• Dishes
• Budget
• Put out garbage
• Clean living room and bedroom
• Apply to Convergys. -- Yes, I have managed to procrastinate too long on this. *Shakes head* Time to woman up.

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The BookWorm

Lost USB drive

Well, now I'm glad I didn't get any writing done at work yesterday because the USB drive I would have put it on is officially missing. *Sigh*

I had it at work and I thought when I couldn't find it that I must have left it at work. Nope. So it's either in the car somewhere, Mustard knocked it off the desk at home, or it got kicked somewhere really hidden when I kicked my purse in a fit a pique last night. The pocket I kept it in was open when I did and lots of stuff went flying out. I searched the kitchen this morning but didn't find it, so I'm thinking home office now. Since it wasn't on my desk where I expected it to be this morning, Mustard probably knocked it off thinking it was a great game or something.

Not losing data is the most important thing, but I still feel out of sorts, even though I downloaded the home computer files to a spare USB drive. What do I work on now feeling, even though I know perfectly well what to do. :p

Oh well, time to shake it off.

P.M. Update: Found it in a box of old computer stuff in the kitchen where it must have bounced when I kicked the purse. Good thing too, because I was about to accuse Mustard of having eaten it.

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The BookWorm

Friday

My baby sister is coming in for a visit, my nephew will just die (his words) if he doesn't get to play Monopoly again, I still have a long list of computer-Internet stuff to do, and I've fallen behind on writing.

Busy weekend for me.

Add to that, Mom is getting twitchy that I haven't announced that I have a second work-from-home job yet. Given that I couldn't apply until Wednesday and then I needed to get the updates, back-ups, and missing programs squared away; I think she's jumping the gun a bit.

Computer plans in no particular order:

• Set up Thunderbird for all the email accounts I have all over the place. -- I haven't used it before, but I wasn't happy with how Outlook Express handled the email from the websites so much so that I quit checking them.
• Clean out bookmarks and Xmarks -- Simply I have put this off too long
• Make sure Quicken will talk to my bank again or at least accept downloaded files.
• Check that I have everything for Convergys and reapply
• Expanded the restored files from Mozy.com and archive
• Make sure home server works
• Plan out website updates.

Writing: I have a few paragraphs jotted down, but haven't been making my typing time a priority. I also haven't figured out what to write for the Triangulation submission. I should concentrate on that in between computer issues and lawsuits while at the paying job. :p

Yeah, that was a load od not fun earlier this week. For half of last year, we've been working on the lawsuit data entry thinking it would go away in January. Turns out the bill signed says we quit doing them January 1, 2012! So in turn we have to get bitchy with the program builders. Because if we have to use what they cobbled together to get us functional without some improvement, we're all going to go bald pulling our hair out.

That's pretty much it on my end. Later, gators.

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The BookWorm