MWNews 147

Ok, ok, I'll do it again. Another entry from work when I have nothing else to do. I have no idea why this is requested so often but I suppose it is the price of infamy. A lonely work is never done.


No idea what it is I have to tell. Mostly complaints and maybe some food talk, probably a lot of work and not a lot of play. It's all an adventure and we are just little players who act according to a hidden agenda determined by the lack of guidance and the need to be bigger than we are. Or I think that is how that saying goes. Might just be 'Here I Am'. I'll certainly never know.


I am going through this project way too fast. Since I have kind of taken over running it, although no one knows I have done that, it appears to be operating more efficiently. I did have a major setback in that I had all the orders sorted by the machine name they were going to replace. That way, when I am ready to do one, I just look it up by the old number. Someone, trying to be helpful, sorted all the sheets by department, under the impression that we will push them out by department and they wanted to keep them all together. That is how they have done the project in the past. When we did it that way this last round at the beginning of the year, I had machines stacked up along a wall for months at a time. Each time I had to go find one, I had to find the correct stack and then hunt through it to find the correct PC. It did not work well. But that is apparently how they have always done it.


My idea was to not prepare the PC until I have it scheduled to be rolled out. For example, I contact the users, tell them what it happening, give them a chance to schedule it when it is convenient for them, then prepare the PC once it is scheduled. That way, I have the PC ready when it needs to go, I do not have a bunch of PC's laying around waiting to be scheduled and, a side bonus, if I am preparing them just before they are ready to go out, there is more of a chance that they do not need patches installed once they get to the client. They should already have the latest patches since I have just prepared them. There is a whole lot of time wasted when I take them to a client and the first thing that happens when I plug it in is that a whole bunch of Microsoft patches are downloaded and installed. I have to wait until that finishes before I can install any local software they might require.


Anyway, it is going to fast now. Since I am in charge of when something happens, I am not waiting on someone else to schedule these things. I send out an email, wait for a reply, and then schedule it. It seems to be very efficient, although this is just the beginning of the project and as I schedule more and more of these, it might become difficult to find times to do them. I allocate 30 minutes for each install and I try to give a 30 minute gap between jobs. Ideally, I'd like to do about 4 a day but as my schedule fills up, I will be doing more and more of them so the project will end sooner than I would like it to. Because, once it ends, I have no promise of work after that.


Which leads into the family moving. They are scheduled to leave Dec. 26, or actually Dec 25 since they are going to go up to the boat the day before to be ready to board and leave. At this point, I am not sure how we are going to coordinate this but right now, I am not going. The project is supposed to go until January but if I finish early, then they will not keep me around until it was supposed to end. I will be let go. So that is the problem. If the project ends early, then there is no reason for me not to go with them. I can be unemployed in Queensland as well as I can be unemployed in Tasmania. Looking for a job will be the same. If the project does mot end, then I do not want to leave a job do go where I do not have a job. And, they might want me to cover during January as that is when more people take holidays and they will need me for that. They will not or cannot tell me when I will be out of a job, only promise that I am the first one they will call if they need someone. I can't count on that so I should go.


But if I wait too long, I will not be able to get a ticket on the boat. It is the holidays and they boats fill up pretty quick during that time. Plus, if I am going, I will need to bring the trailer so there will be even less chance I will be able to get the car and a trailer on the boat. And the cost gets more and more expensive the closer you get to the time you want to go. Right now, it is about $800 one way to take the trailer, car, and myself. As we get closer, it will just continue to go up. I do not want to book it and then find out I still have work. I might as you can change the reservation up until a couple of days before you leave but you have to pay and price increase that might have incurred to do that and there is the whole not enough room on the boat thing. It's a problem and not one that I can really solve. It would be nice if I knew my job situation, then I could make plans, but I can't really determine what is going to happen. Ideally, I would find a job on the mainland and then just move over there, but that doesn't seem very likely. I will just have to wait and see.


On to better things, if in fact there is anything. William wants to start spending the nights with me and going to school from my house. It is going to happen anyway as they are all going to stay with me starting sometime in October. I think it will be sooner rather than later as Juanita has everything for sale and as the furniture goes, they will have nothing to sleep on or sit on and they will have to come to my house. I think the kids should move now but I have not discussed it with anyone yet. I know William would like it, for a short time. Then he will realize that I am not going to just let him do what he wants and he will miss his mother so it probably will not last long. I think he just wants to stay because I have drinks and he thinks he can have them anytime he wants. But the only reason I have drinks is I get them for the kids and since they are hardly ever over anymore, they seem to last a long time and I always have some when he comes over.


Maeghan has her special hospital bed. It is very heavy and I am not sure how we will go about moving it. She almost has to have it. For short times, she can sleep in a regular bed but she wakes up tired most of the time because she does not get a good nights sleep without it. She needs to be raised up to be able to breath properly. The beds cost a lot of money and seeing as how she already has one, it cannot really be sold and then buy another one. The other big problem with moving is her wheelchair. She has that big electric wheelchair. Both the wheelchair and the bed will not fit in the van so it is either take them separately or somehow take one in the van and one in the trailer. It you put the bed in the trailer, you can't really put the chair in the trailer, then that doesn't leave room for anything else. I am going to assume it requires two trips. Very expensive and during that time, she doesn't have one or the other, which is not good. Yet another thing that has to be solved.


Juanita is going to put a lot of things in storage. I am not sure what and for how long but it might be things go into storage for a few months until we can arrange to come get them. An expensive proposition. I think, depending on what she takes this time, we can bring her van back over here when I am ready to go and load her van, my van, and the trailer and might possibly get everything in that load. There might be a few things left and we will not have any furniture when we get there but she somehow thinks that is not a problem. I have no idea why she doesn't think that is a problem. Maybe it is because she plans on living with her daughter or one of the grandkids or something? I do not plan on doing that, ever. So again, another issue with moving to the mainland without a plan.


Maeghan might finally be getting her pension money. I have no idea what it is for but she is supposed to get money when she turned sixteen. What complicated that was, she is supposed to be getting disability money as well. In the wisdom of the government agency that oversees this type of thing, they decided she did not need a pension, even though it had been payed to Juanita for all of Maeghan's life. They said she had to prove she needed it so they have given her the run around since February and have not paid her anything.


This week, she finally got in to see the specialist that will determine whether she gets it or not. The doctor took one look at her medical records and said she would get paid starting next month. He did not even do the exam he was supposed to do. He said there was no way he needed to do it as anyone could just look at her records and know that she was qualified for the pension. He said something about her needing 20 points to qualify and even without a medical exam, she was well over 40 points. Now I have no idea what these points are but I assume they are assigned to her like identification points in qualifying for a loan or something at a bank. You need so many points of identification to prove who you are before they will consider talking to you. But I really have no idea what he is talking about, just that he said she qualified and would get all her backpay from February. I have no idea how much money that will be but it should be a substantial sum and she is meant to be living on that payment.


I suppose I should go ahead and close this entry. I haven't talked about food yet but if I get started, we could be here all day. I am going to make tamale pie this weekend, or I hope to, but I don't have the ingredients yet so I might not be making it. And, I showed them a recipe of what it is supposed to be and they were not impressed. I will be making it differently than the recipe but it will essentially be the same. In the meantime, I will be making sausage and chicken gumbo tomorrow, so that should be good.


So I guess it is goodbye from me and goodbye from him.


Until next time

MWNews 146

Once again, I am going to start this but will probably not have time to finish. Not that it is late in the day at work but because I have to move some people from one desk to another in about 30 minutes I will either be too tired to finish this or I will not finish until it is time to leave.


Moving people from one desk to another is apparently something that I have been assigned to do. I am told to only work on the project but the other people in the team are on the phones and they don't like moving people. So, they ask me and then assign all those jobs to me. It's nothing that is complicated or anything but its just hard work. We only move the computer equipment from one desk to another, they are responsible for moving all their junk. And some of these people have a lot of junk.


One good thing about the desks here is that they are all height adjustable desks. That means you can raise and lower them when you want to. It makes it easy to work at them for long periods of time as if you get tired of sitting, you can raise the desk and work standing up for a while. Most people do that and when I am at a desk, I like to do that also. Not that I am at a desk very often. The little room I work in most of the time is just some benches all along the walls and I put my computers on them to do what I need to do. I have a chair but I don't usually use it all that often. Only if I am sitting down to write entries in this here blog.


They have started ordering new desks for this place. Same type of thing in that they are movable but they do not have a lot of features that the old desks have, like trays to mount the computers underneath the desks. You can order some caddies for this but I have found the new caddies are really hard to use. They are not adjustable at all, or actually, they are adjustable but the screw that you would use to adjust them sits flush with the bottom of the desk. So you have to completely remove them to do any adjustments, which kind of defeats the purpose as far as I am concerned. But who said governments are smart. I am sure it was a case of the lower bidder getting the contract for the new desks. They do have a smother and quieter motor to move them up and down and they seem to be a bit larger, probably because they do not have to accommodate a computer underneath them. But the monitor arms to mount the displays are different and hard to use, plus they require a completely different set of screws and mounting brackets so you have to completely remove the old brackets and put the new ones on. They are more user friendly since you can adjust them easily in height and location but I am sure this is because they are new. Once they have been used for a few years, I think they will go back to the hard to adjust and hard to maneuver arms we are used to.


But enough about work, for now. Seems I have spent the last few entries talking about work. I'll try to work in some kids news and maybe even some off color jokes. Can't give the sensors an easy time of it. They need to stay busy too.


As mentioned in earlier entries, or maybe not, who has the time to remember, the kids and Juanita are moving back to the mainland. That will occur the day after Christmas. I am not totally sure what that will mean or what the actual plan is for doing this but it is my understanding they will not be coming back. Now, there is no way they can take all their stuff with them so they will have to come back to get it at some point but right now, I don't know what the plan is for that. They will, however, be going without me. Apparently, there is nothing I can do or say to change this so you can probably guess how I am feeling about it. Not good. Until I know what the actual plans are, I will refrain from commenting but it's not a good idea and they are rushing into it without a plan. Always in the past, I have been able to bail them out of anything they get into but I cannot do that anymore with my job, my finances and my lack of trust in what Juanita plans to do. But we will move on.


They actually have to move out of their house at the end of October. The original plan was to camp until they leave in December. I will fight that the entire time. There is no reason they cannot stay with me and Juanita says she wants me to come live with them on the mainland so I don't see why they cannot live with me until they go. But that is another trust thing and I won't go into that either.


I am almost certain that neither of the kids want to go. William might, he gets to go see his nephews and nieces over there and he is all for that, although I am not sure I like the influence they might have on them. It will give him a chance to make new friends but his school is so bad I am afraid he will just drop out once he gets there.. He is not doing well and he hates it but I guess it could go either way. Either he has teachers and friends that will help him or he doesn't and he stops going. Since I will not be there to influence any of this, it will be up to the people around him and none of them actually finished school, so we know where that will be going.. Another depressing thought. I am full of them.


Maeghan, on the other hand, I am sure she does not want to go. She is still talking about what classes she is going to take next year and what her friends will be doing and she never mentions the fact that if she goes, she will have none of that and will have to start all over in a new school. I know it scares her. That is another thing I will need to talk about soon. Since they might read this, I am not sure if I should type it first but I am going to. I think she should stay here with me. She can go to school and be with her friends until they all graduate. It means another year here in Tasmania, something I don't want either. I am actively looking for work over there but if Maeghan wants to stay, that means a commitment for at least a year. I am not sure I can find work again if this job ends. But I need to discuss the option with everyone. Maeghan and I living over here and William and Juanita living over there is something that I know will not be good but what other choices are there. All of them are bad. If I had a good job, here or over there, then it would all be different. We could work something out. But right now, I don't, so some decisions will have to be made. And very soon.


Have to go do my work now. I never got around to saying anything funny so I will leave this open until I return. Maybe I will think of something. More likely, I will wear myself out and be too tired to do anything but publish this. But if you see more typing after this, then you know how that went.


It's the next day. I never made it back to this and I really only have a couple of minutes right now. So expect another delay. If it was me, I would read really slowly so you don't notice the lag so much. I suppose I should just end this and start a new one but with only about 10 minutes before I have to go again, I am not sure what I am going to do.


One thing I am going to do is complain about the formatting in here again. If I save an entry and come back to it later, the formatting has changed in what I am typing but not in the actual blog. So, once again, I am confused.


I was going to re-read what I have already written but I found a mistake almost immediately and I decided it was better to leave them in. Makes it more personal, I think.


And, I am out of time. Stopped to check on a deployment I have to go to and had to pre-deploy some software to it so that took my time for entering things in here. I hope I did enough to keep you interested but with all my complaining and whining, I am sure the entertainment part is subjective. But, that's the way it is.


Until next time

MWNews 145

Got about 20 minutes before I have to leave work. Thought I might try to get a few thoughts down. Not a lot happening here but I am on my own until 5. Probably get a call at 4:55 on a Friday afternoon about someone wanting me to fix something for them before they go home for the weekend. Maybe I will just turn the phone off.


Maeghan has another driving lesson today. She said she did good. They let her mother ride with her today and she said Maeghan drives really slow but otherwise does ok. I always tell Maeghan that I heard about her driving lesson on the news. She doesn't believe me. They usually come up for lunch after she has a lesson. Today, I brought them a bunch of boxes down from my work to help with their packing. We then had lunch, or they had lunch. I bought them a hotdog and something called loaded waffle fries. Weird things that had some kind of very thin gravy on them and a very small amount of cheese and some fake bacon, or what passes for bacon over here. It was also very salty as I had a couple of them to try.


Maeghan showed me her hotdog and that it was white in the middle. I told her that is because they do not know how to make hotdogs here in Austria. It was also covered in the same liquid cheese and fake bacon with some fake BBQ sauce on it. It looked ok but I didn't try it. I had coffee, which turned out to not be so bad even though it looked like it was going to be really, really strong. It wasn't, not that I mind strong coffee but Juanita hates it. It was ok.


Tonight, Juanita has friends coming over. Apparently, this is a regular thing now. Not so sure why. I usually stay over there on Friday and Saturday. With the new guests on Fridays, I have to cook for them. The first time, I was not told this and didn't have anything planned. Plus, I was really tired so I made something they ate and I went to bed. They left before I woke up so I didn't really get to talk to them. One of them is Joe, Juanita's cousin who used to read this blog at some point way in the past. I don't think she still does, nobody does, but she comes over on Fridays with one or more of her kids. She usually brings the boyfriend but this past time, he was on the outs with her so he did not come. I think today they will both be there but as they cancelled at the last minute last week, I am not sure who will be coming.


Apparently, I am making chicken parmesan. It's not really chicken parmesan but just something I threw together a few weeks ago and she wants me to make it again. It really just a chicken schnitzel with some ham, cheese, and spaghetti sauce on top. It's ok, but if I was really going to make it right, I'd do it differently that what I have been. Now, it's store bought schnitzel, cheddar cheese, and some jarred spaghetti sauce, with some thin sliced deli ham on it. Since I have to do this after working all day, that is about all I am ready to cook when I get there. It does have the advantage that William likes it and he doesn't like anything.


I wanted to do brussels sprouts with it but they are apparently out of season or the veggie-shop that is near my work does not have any. They actually have purple sprouts but I have never tried them. I assume they are the same but they were pretty small so I did not get any. I got zucchini instead. I'll fry that and have it with the other things. Juanita wants me to make mashed potatoes but that doesn't really got with it. I might make roasted potatoes but I will probably just end up with mashed since I am too tired to make a lot of things.


Well, it is almost time to go. A quick entry just to keep my hand in. Not a lot to talk about and I didn't say anything about anything so I guess it was a good entry. I should start heading out, it is 4:58 so I get off work by the time I close this out and post it. As I have not looked for a picture yet, I might have to leave it off. Of course, if you are reading this, you already know if there was a picture or not.


Gotta go


Until next time

MWNews 144

I am going to try to type a new entry today. Not sure if I will get through it as work might intervene. Started the new project today. Basically, the same project I was hired for last time and have managed to remain here until the new one has started.


Still on contract at StateGrowth. I am supposed to image, build and deploy about 160 new machines to replace old machines. I did the same thing back in the fall. Apparently, this is an on-going thing they do every two years. They break it up into three different projects, doing a third of the company each time. I am not really involved in the planning or decision making process of who gets what. They hire me to swap the machines once they are ready, and I am the one who gets them ready. The project is, I believe, is scheduled until January but I am not really sure about that. I am pretty fast at it so I can't see it taking that long to do, it didn't last time, but I am happy to have a job until then so I might slow down my efforts so it will last that long. We will have to see how it goes.


One issue is the guy who is supposed to run it this time is on maternity leave for the next six weeks. Basically, I am in charge of getting it done but they keep pulling me off to work on the phones so I am not sure what is expected while he is out. When I say I work on the phones, it means I am first level IT support for all of StateGrowth and several other government agencies. That was why I was originally brought in, to cover for some people who were on leave. After that, they decided to keep me and assign me to this project back in March. The project went from March to June last time so I can see why the think it will go until January this time.


Of course, none of this is what I really do and I could probably train William to do it, it is that simple to do. Just a lot of repetitive work doing the same thing over and over again. You have to pay attention and not get confused as to what step each machine is on, but once you get a rhythm to it, it can be done pretty quickly. Not very challenging, so anyone can do it with very little training. Guess that is why they do not pay me a whole lot of money to do it for them. I did manage, the last time, to write a couple of scripts that do a lot of the work for me. I had to write them in batch files as that was the only thing that was available. I would have like to write them in a real language or maybe even PowerShell but I found out that I am not allowed to run PowerShell scripts or any other type of language on the computers as it is an Active Directory environment and they have restricted what can and cannot be done on normal users machines. I could get around it but I got into trouble when I started doing that so I gave it up.


Now most of that probably won't mean anything to anyone but I am bored here and thought I would go through what I am currently up to work wise. I hate the job, or I hate that it is not something I would normally like to do, but it is all I can get in Tasmania that is even remotely related to what I can do. And, I relate that because it has a sever impact on my life, the kids and what the plans are for the future.


Not sure how much I will go into it or even if I should but I will try to relate some of it. It would seem that Juanita and the kids are moving to the mainland. While I am not against that, the plan seems to be to just go. No place to live, leave everything behind, take the kids out of school and just go. I'm not a big fan of that.


You know, this is just way too depressing to talk about. I am going to just post this entry and leave it at that. If I come back, I will try to relate more or hopefully, have better news. I am just tired of it.


Until next time

MWNews 143

See, I told you not to get used to me posting every day, or every week, or maybe ever. Can't say I am all that interested at the moment in posting to this. I just don't have the urge to do it. But that will change, I am sure. I am trying something different this time in that I am typing this without a picture. I plan on adding the picture later. I am wondering if it will be easier to do it as when I put the picture in first, it does not really let me start typing outside the picture. It only allows me to put a caption in on the picture. I have to keep clicking and moving around different areas until it finally decides to let me start typing. I have no idea what it is I do that makes it start working but I thought I would try this and add the picture later.


I think I was talking about cooking? drinking? BBQ? last time. I don't recall. I do know I mentioned that ribs were on sale the other week and I bought several packages. I cooked them but did not make my sauce or cook them on the BBQ. A big disappointment. They were ok, but they were just like having a pork roast. Good, but not my special ribs that I usually make. I was just too tired to do it and ran out of time. It was ok, but not what I had planned. I did manage to buy about double what I wanted so I have some in the freezer that I can cook later in the way I wanted to cook them. I will definitely smoke these next time. And make my sauce, which is the real treat. I probably won't make it as hot as I would like but it will be good I am sure.


Maeghan has been sick the past week. A cold or something. She has missed a lot of school and she will miss more this week as she has doctors appointments. Apparently, it manifests itself when I am not there as she seems to be ok when I am. Not really ok, but probably good enough to go to school. Maybe this won't effect her grades or anything. She did have to miss her work and her driving lesson but since Juanita cannot pay for the driving lessons, and I certainly cannot, she might not get to go to those anymore anyway. I am not sure how many lessons she needs to have before she can get a license that says she can start driving on her own, or with one of us in the car, but I think it was only five or six lessons to do that.


The driving instructor did upset her pretty badly last time. I wasn't there but I am told he yelled at her several times and they almost had three different accidents. He takes her out on the main roads and it was raining so most of the other drivers were not behaving very well anyway. A couple pulled out in front of her and scared her but then the instructor yelled at her and that didn't make it any better. I wasn't there and even if I was, we are not allowed to ride with them. She left the lesson crying and saying she didn't want to go back. Hopefully, it is only a temporary thing and she will change her mind.


The main problem is, we do not have a car for her to drive to practice for her license. She requires special controls on the steering wheel and special adjustments and padding for the seats. There has been an ongoing discussion about whether the government are going to pay for the modifications or not but that is not the biggest problem. The main problem is the car we would want modified is ten years old. It is my old Ford Focus. It is the right size for her and it still runs with no problems, it hardly has any mileage on it, but they say they will not modify it because it is too old. They told us this originally but then they said they could get special dispensation. Now they say they are not going to do it. I don't know if that is a final decision or not but if they do not, we do not have the money to buy a new car. I am not sure what we will do then. I might be able to get Craig to do the modifications but they will not be 'official'. The government will not certify it as 'properly' modified if Craig does it but they might allow her to get her driving hours in using that car. She has to have something like 200 hours driving with someone else in the car before she can drive on her own. Then another 150 hours driving on her own until she can take the driving test and get her real license. I am totally guessing about the number of hours needed but I know it is a lot. Not like when I learned to drive at school when we had to take a class for six weeks and then the instructor took us on a road trip and we got all our hours in. I got my license when I was 15 but they cannot do that here, or I don't think they can. I really have no idea.


I had to go to lunch so I am not sure where I was. That is the main reason I have not been posting. I can't really do it at work anymore as I have moved into the build room where people can walk in on me and I cannot see them to hide what I am doing. Only when I am at certain desks, and the desk I am at now is not really one I can use but the boss is not here so I am doing this anyway. And now I just heard him behind me so I have to go.


I just added the picture. It appears to have worked but we will see once I have finished, which should be soon as I am running out of time to finish this. I should get some time around 4:30 as I am working the late shift, until 5:00, so everyone else should have left by then. If not, I will just say publish and not finish it. Who knows, maybe it is better that way.


William is getting bored lately. Since they do not have internet anymore, a different story, he is relying on his phone data, which I pay for. It is only 60gig so he cannot watch or do all the things he used to. But he still tries. He runs out of data about halfway through the month. When that happens, his speed is slowed on his phone so he can no longer watch anything on his phone. So he goes to the Xbox and tries to do things there. That also is a problem without internet but there are a few games he can play so he does that. But he gets board with it and since no one will play with him, he complains about it. I don't play with them as they do not actually play the games I like and if they do, they do not play them, they just run around and do whatever the want. It's annoying. I did get them rocket league but neither one of the kids like that game for some reason. I thought we could all play it together but they don't want to. Plus there is the problem that all my stuff is online so I can never actually sign in as me. If I do, then when I get back to my machine nothing is synced or I lose a lot of downloaded stuff and it is just not worth it.


Both the kids play Minecraft. They can play that on the local machine although it does not save anything since that is also done in the cloud. They have to start new every time. I have no idea how to play Minecraft. I have tried a couple of times but it is beyond me as to the point of the game. I guess that is the point. There is no start or end to it, it is just played. Not my type of game I guess so I guess part of the problem is me. They can sit and play that for hours. Building things, tearing them down and building them again. I might like it but since I have no idea how to build anything I don't spend the time on figuring it out.


Speaking of my machine, I have an Xbox gold account. In case you don't know, that allows you to download three or four games for free each month. They are usually older games but I do it each time. I now have close to 200 games. I have played maybe 20 of them. I don't buy games anymore since I have so many to play. I miss out on most of the new games but since I play RPGs, I spend hundreds of hours on each one and never get to the ones I download each month. I have so many games, most of them are not even downloaded anymore. They are in the cloud ready for me to download when I get around to it. I won't go into the details of that as it doesn't really matter. I am hoping to share the internet with them at some point but that looks more and more unlikely. But that takes us into sad territory and I don't feel like it right now.


Since the kids do not come over anymore, they do not get to play the games I have. They spend all their time watching things on Netflix or Stan or YouTube because they can't do that at home. Since it is only a couple of hours each week, if that, they don't have time to play the games. Maybe someday, it will change.


I should probably be going now. This keyboard makes a lot of noise when I type and it is very quiet in here so I am sure everyone is wondering what it is I am typing. Before I get into trouble, I will be going. I keep saying I will do this from home, but I have an Xbox so it keeps me entertained and I never get bored enough to type on my computer at home. It just sits there being lonely. Like me.


Until next time