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
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